Bis Aufs Messer Weekly News 03 July 2024
Hi, welcome to another newsletter for July - a bunch of great stuff arrived like the new ALVA NOTO - HYbr:ID III DLP, BLOD & SHADOW PATTERN - Midnite Blues LP, EDDIE MARCON - Yahho no Potori LP, NIGEL AYERS - Electronic Resistance BOOK, SAM MCKINLAY - Correlations BOOK, OLD SAW - Dissection Maps LP restock, BANETORIKO - Kata No Wadachi LP, HARUTAKA MOCHIZUKI - Doppëlganger Ga Boku Wo LP, ALESSANDRA NOVAGA - The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle LP, CONRAD SCHNITZLER - Manchmal Artet Es In Musik Aus BOOK, SLOWDIVE restocks, SLEATER KINNEY restock, BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY / NATHAN SALSBURG / TYLER TROTTER - Hear The Children Sing The Evidence LP restock, RAFAEL TORAL - Spectral Evolution LP restock, ROY MONTGOMERY - Temple IV DLP, KEVIN MARTIN RICHARD & KMRU - Disconnect DLP, a couple CAN restock and more
We are also down to our last copies of the BASTA NOW Book and the RA PUNK Book
we have a new event coming up on July 27th. Freddy Alava of Wardance records will sign his new book and also gives a talk. Don't miss out!!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1110766643317625
We also repressed the SPORT - colors LP and the SPORT - bon voyage LP in case u are interested.
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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ALESSANDRA NOVAGA - The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle LP (die Schachtel - Furthering the passionate exploration of cinema that has guided her two previous LPs - 2017’s ‘Fassbinder Wunderkammer’ and 2020’s ‘I Should Have Been a Gardener’ - the Milanese guitarist/composer, Alessandra Novaga, returns to Die Schachtel with ‘The Artistic Image Is Always a Miracle’, two sides off shimmering, tense compositions – culminating as one of her most creatively ambitious and conceptually rich outings to date – freely inspired by the life and work of the Russian director Andrej Tarkovsky and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Classically trained at the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland, over the last decade Alessandra Novaga has emerged as one of the leading figures within northern Italy’s thriving new, experimental, and improvised music scene, rendering striking solo efforts, in addition to collaborations with Loren Connors, Stefano Pilia, Elliott Sharp, Nicola Ratti, Paula Matthusen, Sandro Mussida, Kid Millions, Travis Just, Francesco Gagliardi, and others. Remarkably ambitious and forward thinking, her approach to the guitar embarks upon a relentless deconstruction and rethinking of her instrument’s unique properties through distinct applications of structure, resonance, space, and tone, creating in a deeply personal and emotive music, seeking narrative and meaning within the abstractions of sound.) 30.00
ALVA NOTO - HYbr:ID III DLP (Noton - For an aesthetic of (dis)obedience. The impressions Richard Siegal and his company Ballet of Difference gathered on a trip to Japan in September 2022 now find their way into a full-length dance evening. Siegal and his team had set off for Tokyo to learn the practice of Shuudan Koudou, also known as "Japanese Precision Walking". The strictly synchronised group choreographies are astonishing in their radical stringency and have become a secret YouTube hit, not least because of their peculiar subtle humour. Siegal recognises in the extreme disciplining of the bodies an analogy to the training practice of classical ballet. In the mutual exchange of these movement cultures, questions are raised about individual and collective thinking, about personal decision-making power and social responsibility. For this extraordinary project, Richard Siegal has invited a special guest: Nazareth Panadero, long-time companion of Pina Bausch, who has long since become an icon of Wuppertal dance theatre and will be on stage with the BoD ensemble.) 30.00
BANETORIKO - Kata No Wadachi LP (An’archives - Kata No Wadachi is the latest album by Banetoriko, the solo noise project of Tamaki Ueda. Her first release both on An’archives and on vinyl, it follows several albums for the Neurec imprint – 2017’s Beside the Sluice and 2022’s Yorioto Hogiokuri – and several other cassettes and CD-Rs. With Kata No Wadachi, the Banetoriko world, inspired by the Yokai (“strange apparitions” – supernatural figures, ghosts, spirits) of Japanese folklore, is at its most resonant yet. Recorded across 2022 and 2023, the three tracks on Kata No Wadachi have Ueda performing in a particularly elevated manner. Her sound is highly tactile and grittily sensuous, the better to capture the ritualistic repetitions, and hypnotic methodologies, core to Banetoriko. The scrape and scratch of Ueda’s self-made metal instrument, the Banetek, gives these improvisations a unique throb, even as their mood, of introverted focus and elaboration of minutiae, gestures towards broader histories of noise and abstract art. Kata No Wadachi evokes, to some degree, the urban ritual noise of the likes of The New Blockaders, Organum, or Ferial Confine; elsewhere, the abraded, rough-housing textures bring to mind the eighties tape works of Hands To and John Hudak.) 34.00
BLOD & SHADOW PATTERN - Midnite Blues LP (förlag for fri musik - Another transatlantic collaborative project on Förlag För Fri Musik, this time Blod teams up with Shadow Pattern from Canada. A seemingly impossible match that somehow works like a charm, the lo-fi folk of Gustaf Dicksson beautifully tangled up with the brutish concrete music of Nathan Ivanco. Recorded in the the winter of 2024 in Gothenburg, Sweden and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Mixed and arranged by Nathan Ivanco, mastered by Aaron Hutchison. Edition of 300 copies. Screenprinted artwork on old re-used cover jackets + insert. ) 28.00
EDDIE MARCON - Yahho no Potori LP (a colorful storm - A Colourful Storm presents the first vinyl edition of Yahho no Potori, a treasured recording by one of the most cherished contemporary Japanese folk outfits, Eddie Marcon. Comprised of the core duo of Eddie Corman and Jules Marcon, Eddie Marcon was formed in Himeji in 2001, following Corman's involvement in noise-rock duo Coa and Shinsuke Michishita's fabled psychedelic outfit, LSD March. Marking a stylistic shift into delicate, acoustic territories, the duo would release dozens of albums and singles, mostly self-released through their Pong-Kong imprint, that have seen little distribution outside of Japan. Recorded over a particularly humid summer and autumn, Yahho no Potori sees Eddie Marcon drifting from the delicate psychedelia of their debut EP into traditional song-based structures. A touching document of joy, tenderness and wistfulness, Marcon's deft yet effortless strum sets a stylish backdrop for Corman's voice to ascend. Desirous yet self-assured, Corman breathes life into an intimate space adorned by the elegant instrumentation of Yashuhisa Mizatani, Yoriro Tatekawa, Ran Mizutani and Saya Ueno, whose ingenuous collaborative instinct has been gifted to listeners through collectives such as Tenniscoats, Maher Shalal Hash Baz and Spirit Fest. Here, she also lends her engineering prowess, having produced the album. Devotees of ambitious yet beautifully understated songwriting, as well as followers of Reiko and Tori Kudo, Nagisa Ni Te and Ai Aso, will find much to adore in the songs of Eddie Marcon. An intense and devastating recording, A Colourful Storm is proud to give new life to a shimmering, underappreciated gem.) 26.00
ELEVEN POND - Bas Relief LP (dark entries - Dark Entries celebrates its 15th anniversary by returning to where it all started, our initial darkest entry: Eleven Pond’s masterpiece Bas Relief, an ultra-obscure album from 1986 that would become a definitive dark pop holy grail. Eleven Pond was James Tabbi (vocals, acoustic guitar), Jeff Gallea (drum machine, synthesizer, vocals), Jack Schaeffer (guitar) and Dan Brumley (synthesizer, samples, vocoder, melodica). They met in Rochester, NY, while attending art school, brought together by their shared love of 4AD and Factory Records. Taking cues from acts like Joy Division, Fad Gadget, and For Against, Eleven Pond’s infectious basslines, churning guitar riffs, and atmospheric synths will charm all fans of moody music. But what really makes Bas Relief shine is the timeless songwriting on classics like “Tear and Cinnamon”, “Portugal”, and the anthemic “Watching Trees.” With only 500 copies in it’s initial release, Bas Relief resurfaces with a fresh remaster that corrects a pitch shift from previous reissues. Each copy is housed in a screen printed jacket, like the 1986 edition, and includes a lyric sheet, two postcards and a bookmark. Bas Relief is a true lost relic of the cold 80’s and an essential piece Dark Entries history.) 30.00
GAS - Der Lange Marsch DLP (Repress! At the latest with the release of the albums "Zauberberg" and "Königsforst", in the mid-1990s, one associates GAS, Wolfgang Voigt's very own artistic cross-linking of the spirit of Romanticism and the forest as an artistic fantasy projection surface, with intoxicatingly blurred boundaries of post-ambient infatuation and the impenetrable thicket of abstract atonality. The distant, iconic straight bass drum marching through highly condensed, abstract sounds taken from classical music by the sampler or modulated accordingly, and the enraptured gaze through pop art glasses into the hypnotic thicket of an imaginary forest, manifested over the years this unique connection of audio and visual, which to understand fully, then as now, would be neither possible nor desirable.) 36.00
HARUTAKA MOCHIZUKI - Doppëlganger Ga Boku Wo LP (An’archives is proud to present the latest album by Japanese free saxophonist and vocalist Harutaka Mochizuki, Doppelgänger ga boku wo. Since the early 2000s, Harutaka has quietly, yet steadily, released a string of solo and collaborative releases that have allowed multiple perspectives on one of the most singular voices in modern music. In collaboration, he seems to prefer the duo format, and digging through his discography, you’ll find releases where he pairs with Tomoyuki Aoki (of Up-Tight), Michel Henritzi, and Hideaki Kondo. But Harutaka’s solo performances, with their lyricism and physicality, are where the magic truly happens. If earlier albums, like Solo Document 2004 (Bishop, 2005) and Pas (no label, 2014), were raw documentations of solo alto saxophone performances, in recent years, Harutaka’s solo albums have become more complex, more mystifying. Most significantly, they’ve become more personal; there are few musicians extant whose albums feel quite so much like diaristic interventions, and Harutaka’s music now is deeply moving in its intimacy. Developing that thread of revelation, Doppelgänger ga boku wo offers a still richer exploration of many facets of Harutaka’s artistry. The two double-tracked alto saxophone performances here feel consummate, with Harutaka shadowing himself, exploring the possibilities of the multiple self: Doppelgänger is me, indeed. The playing here is rich with affect, but still exploratory, voiced with rigour and intent. Two short pieces for keyboard and voice (about Giacometti and Genêt, respectively) are fragile miniatures, with clusters of chords, and passing phrases, wrapping around Harutaka’s untutored but lovely singing. The ‘karaoke’ performance that closes the album, of “Woman ‘W no higeki’ yori”, speaks to the iterative aspects of Harutaka’s music. A cover of the Hiroki Yakushimaru song, the theme to Shinichirō Sawai’s 1984 film W’s Tragedy, he’s returned to this song several times, and here, his delivery perfectly captures the spirit of what Michel Henritzi, in his typically beautiful liner notes, evocatively details as “one of those sad love songs that accompany lonely sake drinkers in smoky night bars, sharing their spleen.” Gorgeous, human, heartrending - Doppelgänger ga boku wo is Harutaka Mochizuki in element and in spirit. ) 34.00
KEVIN MARTIN RICHARD & KMRU - Disconnect DLP (phantom limb - Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug, KRM) and Joseph Kamaru (KMRU) join forces for "Disconnect," a powerful study of fear, hope, and profound sounds that combines profound dub with Kamaru's voice, ambient sensibilities, and negative space. Martin became aware of Kenyan ambient musician KMRU through the music for the short documentary "Under The Bridge" (2020). The result is a creative dialogue in which the captivating vocals - somewhere between intonation and spoken word - tell evocative stories and their poetry is woven into the two producers' grandiose grayscale musical architecture.) 40.00
MINHWI LEE - Hometown to Come LP (alien transistor - 'Hometown to Come' is the second full-length album by Minhwi Lee from Seoul, South Korea. The eight tracks were written over a period of seven years after Lee's first album and loosely form a single story, contemplating how people who have lost their hometown can return. “What I had imagined from the title, Hometown to Come, was something forever delayed yet constantly approaching; however, upon repeated listens, it takes on a different meaning—a promise of hospitality being realized every day. Even if our places to meet disappear, ‘the song we sing today’ will remain. We will continue to grow, cross paths again, venture far away, and encounter more faces. And when time has passed and you, having forgotten me, ask about my smile or sadness, I will hum ‘the same song,’ cherishing it as a keepsake.” (morceau j. woo, sound designer) 30.00
OLD SAW - Dissection Maps LP (worried songs - Old Saw, the enigmatic New England collective led by Henry Birdsey (Tongue Depressor), return with their third long-playing record, Dissection Maps. “The band captures the American stretch, the spaces in-between and the hollowness that haunts us along those routes…fades the radio to static to let the nothingness linger among the soul.” (Raven Sings the Blues) “…evokes an ambience of prayer-like solemnity that celebrates something decidedly terrestrial, what the label describesas “a rusted and granular shadow world where the dive bar meets the divine.” It recalls one of those junkyard shrines built by some sincere eccentric, improbably wonderful forms of weathered stone and scrap metal standing like totems to an unrecognised religion rooted in the earth around us.” (Various Small Flames) ) 28.00
RAFAEL TORAL - Spectral Evolution LP (After a two-decade interlude, Jim O"Rourke"s Moikai returns with Spectral Evolution, a major new work by Rafael Toral. Making his name in the mid-1990s with influential guitar drone platters like Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field (both reissued by Drag City in recent years), Toral has never been one to rest on his laurels repeating his past glories. In the early years of the 21st century, Toral laid the guitar aside, along with the focus on extended tones that had defined much of his music until that point. He began his "Space Program", a thirteen-year investigation of the performance possibilities of an ever-expanding set of custom electronic instruments, played with a fluid phrasing and rhythmic flexibility inspired by jazz. Dedicated to honing his skills on these idiosyncratic instruments, Toral has performed with them extensively both solo and in many collaborations, including in his Space Quartet, where his mini-amplifier feedback integrates seamlessly into the frontline of a classic post-free jazz quartet rounded out with saxophone, double bass, and drums. Since 2017, Toral"s work has been entering a new phase, often still centered around the arsenal of self-built instruments developed in the Space Program, but with a renewed interest in the long tones and almost static textures of his earlier work; he has also, after more than a decade, returned to the electric guitar. Spectral Evolution is undoubtedly Toral"s most sophisticated work to date, bringing together seemingly incompatible threads from his entire career into a powerful new synthesis, both wildly experimental and emotionally affecting. The record begins with a brief "Intro" that sets the stage for the unique sound world explored throughout the remainder of its duration: over sparkling clean guitar figures, Toral stages a duet between two streams of modulated feedback, seeming less electronic than like mutant takes on a muted trumpet and an ocarina. This segues seamlessly into the stunning "Changes", where a dense array of Space instruments solo with wild abandon over a thick carpet of slowly moving chords, growing increasingly chaotic over the course of eight minutes yet always fastened to the lush harmonic foundation. On these and many other moments on the record, Toral manages the almost miraculous feat of having his self-built electronic instruments (which in the past he had seen as "inadequate to play any music based on the Western system") play in tune. In an unexpected sidestep away from any of his previous work, the chord changes that underpin many of the episodes on Spectral Evolution are derived from classic jazz harmony, including takes on the archetypal Gershwin "Rhythm changes" and Ellington-Strayhorn"s "Take the "A" Train", albeit slowed to such an extent that each chord becomes a kind of environment in its own right. Threading together twelve distinct episodes into a flowing whole, Spectral Evolution alternates moments of airy instrumental interplay with dense sonic mass, breaking up the pieces based on chord changes with ambient "Spaces". At points reduced to almost a whisper, at other moments Toral"s electronics wail, squelch, and squeak like David Tudor"s live-electronic rainforest. Similarly, his use of the guitar encompasses an enormous dynamic and textural range, from chiming chords to expansive drones, from crystal clarity to fuzzy grit: on the beautiful "Your Goodbye", his filtered, distorted soloing recalls Loren Connors in its emotive depth and wandering melodic sensibility. The product of three years of experimentation and recording, and synthesizing the insights of more than thirty years of musical research, Spectral Evolution is the quintessential album of guitar music from Rafael Toral.) 32.00
BOOKS
CONRAD SCHNITZLER - Manchmal Artet Es In Musik Aus BOOK (Walther König - The first comprehensive publication on his work focuses on his "intermedia" work between Düsseldorf, West Berlin and New York in the late 1960s to 1980s. During this period, the Beuys student and sculptor Konrad Schnitzler developed into the Zodiak founder and electronic musician of Kluster and Tangerine Dream, into the busy video and performance artist "Konrad von Berlin" and finally into the internationally connected sound artist and musician Conrad Schnitzler. Contributions by Alexia Ciosses, Geeta Dayal, Gregor Jansen, David Keenan, Florian Meier, Stefan Schneider and Linnea Semmerling bear witness to Schnitzler's importance at the intersection of visual art and electronic music, cassette culture and mail art, video and performance, action and installation, which transcends borders in every respect.) 30.00
NIGEL AYERS - Electronic Resistance BOOK (Amaya Productions- Since the late 1970s, Nigel Ayers (b. 1957, UK) has cut a bracing, subversive path through the contemporary underground, bridging DIY industrial enthusiasms with multimedia experimentation to form a singular body of work. Co-founder of the groups The Pump and Nocturnal Emissions (along with brother Daniel Ayers and then-partner Caroline Kaye), Ayers has been a contributor to and proponent of industrial music’s high-water marks, his Sterile Records imprint disseminating not only NE sides but also defining work from Lustmord, SPK, Maurizio Bianchi, and others between 1979 and 1986. In 1987, Ayers inaugurated the Earthly Delights label with the now-canonical Caroline K recording Now Wait For Last Year, and the imprint has since served as Ayers’s primary outlet for releasing new work, whether as Magnetizdat, Spanner Thru Ma Beatbox, or Nocturnal Emissions, a going concern to this day. Published, designed, and produced by Ross Waitman and Amaya Productions in collaboration with the artist, ELECTRONIC RESISTANCE compiles mail-art, collages, assemblages, flyers, slides, video stills, ephemera, record and tape covers to present an arresting cross-section of the genre-sundering art Nigel Ayers created between 1980 and 1992. It features an introductory reflection from Ayers, as well as an essay entitled “Bleeding Images: Antipsychiatry, Death, and Mind Control” by art historian and critic Nicolas Ballet (Université Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), contextualizing Ayers’s work and extensive career. ELECTRONIC RESISTANCE is 9.25" x 12.25", 160 pages, full color offset, quarterbound wrap hardcover. Printed by Edition One (Oakland, CA). Limited edition of 750 copies - 160 pgs, 31 × 23.5 cm, Hardcover) 70.00
SAM MCKINLAY - Correlations / THE RITA BOOK (amaya - Credited as one of the pioneers of ‘harsh noise wall’; influential artist Sam McKinlay (b. 1974, CA) has been operating under the alias The Rita for over 25 years. Having performed extensively and credited with over 200 releases, the project has grown into a laser focused multidisciplinary venture and is celebrated for pushing the boundaries of ‘harsh noise’. Accompanying The Rita’s singular and often unpredictable sonic output is an inseparable and distinct visual language. By combining McKinlay’s fine arts education, research, experimentation, and collaboration; the project visually and texturally unites the artist’s interests in minimalist design, noise, ballet, sharks, choreography, and film. ‘Correlations’ presents some of the images and documents McKinlay finds most definitive in his practice. The monograph is designed to provide a cohesive understanding of the artist’s creative trajectory, as well as illuminate The Rita’s uncanny process that visually, conceptually, and historically ‘connects’ seemingly unrelated subjects. Published by Amaya Productions and curated by Andrea Stillacci; the monograph includes essays by the art historian and Centre Pompidou curator Nicolas Ballet (‘Shock Factory: The Visual Culture of Industrial Music’), associate Professor and harsh noise artist Lexi Turner (Cornell University), and author, writer, producer Kier-La Janisse (‘House of Psychotic Women’). ‘Correlations’ is 9.5” x 12.25”, 200 pages, full color offset, edge painted ‘ballerina pink’, hardcover wrap with debossed cover text. Printed by Graphius (Gent, BELG). 200 pgs, 31 × 24 cm, Hardcover) 70.00
