Bis Aufs Messer weekly News 03 October 2024
Hi, welcome to another newsletter for October. A bunch of cool restocks arrived like the latest Jesus Lizard, both Verlierer LPs, the TWO KINGS - s/t LP on Folklore Tapes, we also received the V/A - Ceremonial County Series Vol.VIII - Cambridgeshire | London TAPE and a few older titles, we also got a few of the fantastic ULLA & PERILA – Jazz Plates DLP, IMMORTAL BIRD - Sin Querencia LP, JACKSON C. FRANK - s/t LP restock, MALEEM MAHMOUD GHANIA W/ PHAROAH SANDERS - The Trance Of Seven Colors LP, MELOS KALPA - Melos Kalpa LP, TERRY RILEY – Descending Moonshine Dervishes LP re issue and also the ltd CASPAR BRÖTZMANN BASS TOTEM - The Lovers And Destroyers LP + CD, KARATE - Make It Fit LP, HIGH VIS - Guieded Tour LP, BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY - High and High and Mighty LP, PORRIDGE RADIO - Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me LP, SOLID SPACE - Space Museum LP restock, THE GHOSTWRITERS - Remote Dreaming DLP re issue, THE GHOSTWRITERS - Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear LP, BYARD LANCASTER - The Complete Palm Recordings 1973-1974 5LP+12”+7” Box Set, GALAXIE 500 - Uncollected Noise New York ’88-’90 DLP, ..
On October 24th we also will celebrate our 18th Anniversary. Brendan Eder Ensemble from LA will play LIVE from his latest Album on Worried Songs and then we have a new Artshow starting with beautiful photography of Suse Fischer - Strömungen
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
BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY - High and High and Mighty LP (no quarter - Lockdown was a period of constant music-making. I asked a farmer friend to send his crops, from which I hoped to backflip into some new song-structures. I partook of the crop, the songs began. I called the endeavor High and High and Mighty (abbreviated as HAHAM) and invited a brilliant pedal steel player to collaborate. It took us months of back-and-forthing, during which time my friend and colleague Emmett Kelly told me about his new Ha Ha Institute cassette label. It felt like absolutely the right place for HAHAM to begin its public existence. The pedal steel player began to express concerns about the lyrical content and requested that he appear on the recordings pseudonymically, hence “Bird Man”. He felt his life and the life of his family could be in danger. This was all while Bill Callahan and I were working on Blind Date Party, and where that was an exploration of home-bound extroversion, High and High and Mighty was all introversion, intended to sound like it could never exist in the physical world, only in a myriad mindscapes. We tried to master it, working with the demigod Helge Sten, but the pieces resisted such further person-handling; Emmett expressed a perverse fondness for unmastered recordings and in this case I had to agree that it can sometimes work out. Look for the Broadway live enactment of High and High and Mighty in your dreams and mine.) 28.00
BYARD LANCASTER - The Complete Palm Recordings 1973-1974 5LP+12”+7” Box Set (souffle - Edition of 700 copies, 20-page booklet, one-sided 12" w/ screen print on side B - Souffle Continu records presents Byard Lancaster – The Complete Palm Recordings 1973-1974, the definitive package of Philadelphia-born jazz wizard Byard Lancaster including his 4 legendary albums released on Jef Gilson’s Palm Records in the 1970s, Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib, along with the first ever standalone edition of Love Always, a fifteen minutemodal jazz beauty plus a 20 page booklet with rare photos and in-depth article about Byard Lancaster’s Parisian years by Pierre Crépon. At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler. In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of... Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again. On Palm Records (Gilson’s label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib.) 155.00
CASPAR BRÖTZMANN BASS TOTEM - The Lovers And Destroyers LP + CD (exile on mainstream - LTD TO 300 copies each one with a unique hand drawn cover by Caspar Brötzmann - 100% pitch black bass guitar beauty! Played and recorded in one live session at Tomatenplatten Studio in June 2024 this composition marks the first release by Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem. To honor the legacy of the groundbreaking A’larme Festival and its last installment it was made available in a strictly limited first edition of 50 units at the Bass Totem performance on 10 August 2024 at 20h. The total pressing of the record is 300 and we are happy to be able to make the full run available now. As much as the musical piece and the recording is a labour of love the packaging is as well: Each record is hand-lettered and manually ennobled by the artist himself containing liner notes, infos, and details. Each record is hand-numbered and is a unique piece of art visualizing the dedication and passion that went into the composition and recording. The record is pressed on 180gsm black vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve with a special litho art print and a CD containing the musical piece packed into a 3mm spined sleeve. The album is released on vinyl with the CD bundled, No seperate CD release) 38.00
GALAXIE 500 - Uncollected Noise New York ’88-’90 DLP (silver current - Uncollected Noise New York ’88-’90 is Galaxie 500’s first release of new archival material in nearly 30 years and is their most comprehensive collection of unreleased and rare archival material ever. Its 24 tracks make up the complete Noise New York studio recordings of the band’s outtakes and non-album tracks. Compiled by the band it traces their career from among their earliest recorded moments in the studio to their last. Including eight never-before-heard studio tracks culled from all the sessions throughout Galaxie’s career, chronologically sequenced along with previously released but rare and long out of print studio material. Uncollected Noise New York ’88-’90 plays like a secret history of the band following the arc of their growth and creative expansion from their career’s beginning to end. Produced and Engineered by Kramer at Noise New York 1988-1990. Packaging includes archival. images and historical liner notes by the band ) 33.00
GALAXIE 500 - On Fire LP (On Fire is widely recognized as the canonic pinnacle of Galaxie 500's career. The artwork conveys this, with a low-angle shot of the band, looking up towards an amber sky. This record marked the realization of their signature sound. Nowhere is it clearer than on the album opener, "Blue Thunder," the closest a song can come to waves crashing on a beach in song form. Lyrically inconsequential, with a chorus composed entirely of "la"s, the track's power lies in a systematic build and break of intensity that reaches a Spector-like climax. It is the quintessential Galaxie 500 song, encapsulating all that was great about the band. With the Boston trio once again utilizing the bizarre genius of producer Mark Kramer, On Fire sounds like anything but. The guitars are warm blankets enwrapping Dean Wareham's vocals, percolated by the open percussion of Damon Krukowski and anchored by the emotion-laden bass of Naomi Yang. Songs like "Snowstorm," "Strange," and "Decomposing Trees" have an endless quality, without beginnings or ends, but rather frozen somewhere on.) 30.00
GALAXIE 500 - Today LP ("When Galaxie 500's Today was released in 1988, it set off a chain reaction of quiet explosions still being felt. Never before had a record so emphasized the calming elements of rock music, transforming what at first seems like a collection of bridges into fully realized songs. And one can draw a straight line from here to the many groups they influenced, like Low, Belle & Sebastian, and Bon Iver. More than 20 years after its initial release, its title is still no misnomer. The music, recorded with what many thought at the time was too much reverb, sounds present, alive, and indeed a product of today. Songs like 'Flowers,' 'Temperature's Rising,' and of course 'Tugboat' (the band's debut single) stand the test of time and exist in an eternal now. For the first time since its original pressing, Today is available again on vinyl. Cut by vinyl ace Kevin Gray from a remaster by Kramer and Alan Douches, the album sounds more vibrant than ever, and Galaxie 500 exists again as one of the most enrapturing and glorious bands to emerge from the underground in the past 25 years.“) 30.00
THE GHOSTWRITERS - Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear LP (dark entries - Dark Entries calls on Philadelphia experimental duo The Ghostwriters to resurrect their 1981 LP of minimalist mayhem, Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear. The late Buchla maestro Charles Cohen and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Cain joined up in 1971 to craft electroacoustic chaos as Anomali, later renaming themselves The Ghostwriters. Their collaborations with choreographers and visual media artists led to their singular style, straddling improvisation and composition, the oneiric and the immediate. 1981 saw the release of their debut album, Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear, a whirling, messy, telepathic slipstream cascading across an imaginary landscape. Recorded in Don Buchla’s childhood home, Objects offers 8 cuts of minimalist electronic bliss, equal parts icy and quirky, with standout cuts including the grooving havoc of “Fix it in the Mix” and the otherworldly hymn “Moon Chant.” These angular pearls will be cherished by fans of John Bender, Ceramic Hello, and all strains of outsider 80s electronics. Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear has been freshly remastered and includes an insert with photos and liner notes. Proceeds from the album will be donated to SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse), a nonprofit that combats online child sex abuse and trafficking.)
THE GHOSTWRITERS - Remote Dreaming DLP (dark entries - Dark Entries summons Philadelphia synthesizer scribes The Ghostwriters to rouse their ambient masterwork Remote Dreaming. The late Buchla maestro Charles Cohen and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Cain joined up in 1971 to craft electroacoustic chaos as Anomali, later renaming themselves The Ghostwriters. Their collaborations with choreographers and visual media artists led to their singular style, straddling improvisation and composition, the oneiric and the immediate. Following their debut album, Objects in Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear, they were approached by ambient outlet Mu-Pysch. Remote Dreaming would take shape in various studios over nine months. Jeff Cain's instruments on this project included electric and acoustic pianos, the Juno 106 synthesizer, and a Mirage sampler, while Charles Cohen used his signature Buchla 200 Series Electronic Musical Instrument. A stark departure from the tightly wound first LP, Remote Dreaming shows the duo unfurling with soothing pianos and psychoacoustic textures, its somnambulant drones just skirting the edges of the uncanny. Although ignored in its time, Remote Dreaming is now heralded as a landmark in 80s experimental ambient music. It is here released for the first time on vinyl, spread across a double LP with five additional tracks, four of which were previously unreleased. Remote Dreaming has been freshly remastered and includes an insert with photos and liner notes. Proceeds will be donated to SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse), a nonprofit that combats online child sex abuse and trafficking) 35.00
HIGH VIS - Guieded Tour LP (dais - Since first forming in 2016, London’s High Vis have steadily polished their palette of progressive hardcore with shades of post-punk, Brit pop, neo-psychedelia, and even Madchester groove, mapping a middle ground between hooks and fury, melodies and mosh pits. Singer Graham Sayle describes their third album 'Guided Tour' as an axis of competing forces: “It’s trying to be a hopeful record, while also being incensed.” Rounded out by drummer Edward 'Ski' Harper, bassist Jack Muncaster, and guitarists Martin MacNamara and Rob Hammaren, the band’s deep roots in the UK and Irish DIY hardcore scenes have kept them grounded but growing, inspired equally by restlessness and righteous anger. As Sayle puts it, "Everyone’s scratching, everyone’s working all the time, and their idea of relaxing is just getting fucked and avoiding reality. This album is an escape from that." ) 28.00
IMMORTAL BIRD - Sin Querencia LP (20 buck spin - Chicago's uniquely harrowing and technically ferocious chaos unit Immortal Bird is back with their highly anticipated third album. On 2019's Thrive on Neglect, the band maneuvered through an amalgam of sounds that evolved into a distorted and edgy display of layered angst, and now serves as a springboard for further development on the new album Sin Querencia. Immortal Bird combine elements of death and black metal, hardcore tumult, a dose of their city's noise rock, and a compositional complexity reminiscent of boundary-pushing acts like Gorguts and Ulcerate.) 30.00
JACKSON C. FRANK - s/t LP (JACKSON C. FRANK is the highly regarded debut and the only official album he ever released, produced by friend and fellow musician PAUL SIMON in England and released on Columbia Records in 1965. Jackson has been called the most famous folk singer of 1960s that no one has ever heard of and his influence was felt more in England, where his album was a hit, rather than in the U.S., where his record was a commercial failure at the time of its release. His most famous song “Blues Run The Game” has been covered by scores of musicians including Simon and Garfunkel, Counting Crows, Colin Meloy, Bert Jansch, Laura Marling, and Robin Pecknold, while Nick Drake also recorded it privately.) 28.00
KARATE - Make It Fit LP (numero - 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.) 28.00
MALEEM MAHMOUD GHANIA W/ PHAROAH SANDERS - The Trance Of Seven Colors LP (Available on vinyl for the very first time: "The Trance Of Seven Colors" by master Gnawa musician Maleem Mahmoud Ghania and free jazz legend Pharoah Sanders. Produced by Bill Laswell and according to The Attic “one of the most important albums of Gnawa trance music released in the ‚90s.” Originally released in 1994 on Bill Laswell’s Axiom imprint, “The Trance Of Seven Colors” is the meeting of two true musical masters: Maleem Mahmoud Ghania (1951 – 2015), son of the master of Gnawa music Maleem Boubker Ghania and the famous clairvoyant and "moqaddema" A'isha Qabral, and a master of the traditional Gnawa style in his own right. Mahmoud learned this craft as a youth along with his brothers, walking from village to village, performing ceremonies with his father Boubker and was one of the few masters (Maleem) who continued to practice the Gnawa tradition strictly for healing (the central ritual of the Gnawa is the trance music ceremony – with the purpose of healing or purification of the participants). With 30 cassette releases of music from the Gnawa repertoire with his own ensemble and performances at every major festival in Morocco, including performing for the king in various contexts, Mahmoud Ghania was also one of Morocco's most prominent professional musicians. In 1994, Bill Laswell and Pharoah Sanders went to Morocco, equipped with just some mobile recording devices, to record Ghania and a large ensemble of musicians (to a good part family members) in a very intimate set-up at a private house with the legendary free jazz musician contributing his distinctive tenor saxophone sounds that gained him highest praise as a truly spiritual soul right from the days of playing with John Coltrane and his wife Alice and on seminal solo albums like "Karma.") 30.00
MELOS KALPA - Melos Kalpa LP (hands i the dark - Melos Kalpa formed in 2019 around the vision of Tom Relleen; a quintet of musicians employing unconventional instruments and strategies to make music that exists somewhere at the intersection of improvisation, minimalism and sublimated reverie. Musicians Agathe Max (Abstract Concrete, Papivores, These Towns), Jem Doulton (Thurston Moore Group, Too Many Things), David John Morris (Red River Dialect) and Tom Relleen (Tomaga) perform via the conduit of producer Marta Salogni’s intricate tape preparations, which create rich textures, delays and distortions of their unique instrumental palette (marimba, vibraphone, violin, guitar, mandolin, Buchla Music Easel and more). Using techniques of chance and (non)intention to determine the direction of composition, the group felt their way into new terrains in the autumn and winter of 2019/20; sauntering days of immersive play recorded at Studio Zona, London. From this undulating territory five distinct zones - with their own peculiar landmarks, weather and dialects – are now opening via the portal of this, the band’s first record. These realms have been awaiting visitors since taking form four years ago. Uninhabited and uninterpreted. Thriving, grieving and interrelating. The band now make them available for the listener’s own exploration, passing on the possibility of a not-knowing experience; where next, why not, so what, let’s go? The gift they all experienced in the joyful journey-without-goal from which these artifacts came.) 28.00
NEON NIGHTMARE - Faded Dream LP (20 buck spin - Born from the elemental primordial grounds of heavy metal's roots, from the war-torn industrial landscapes of Birmingham to the seedy bars and basements of Brooklyn, Neon Nightmare emerge like a ghost in the night to carry on the tradition. Unsettling music for unsettled people. And while there is nothing new under the sun, there may be opportunity in the shadows - it is from those very shadows that "Faded Dream" was formed from shimmering steel. The title says it all: "Faded Dream", Neon Nightmare's debut album, is a synthesis of emotional highs and lows and a dark, brooding atmosphere that awakens a longing for the past that was once marked by youthful urges and curiosity. With a foundation of big riffs, a crushing studio production steeped in fantasy and psychedelic ornamentation, and a dramatic vocalist capable of seamlessly switching between ghostly gothic baritone and classic heavy metal, Faded Dream is a mix where doom, psych, shoegaze, and alternative metal intersect in a way that hasn't been heard in years.) 30.00
PORRIDGE RADIO - Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me LP (When Porridge Radio formed in 2014 - a decade ago - being in a band was the very last thing that London-born Dana Margolin expected to do. Studying anthropology at the University of Sussex, Dana began performing her songs on her own at local open mic nights, before assembling a full band - taking in Georgie Stott on keyboards and backing vocals, Sam Yardley on drums and keyboards, and former bassist Maddie Ryall (who departed in 2023, replaced by Dan Hutchins). Their debut album - Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers (2016) was followed by Every Bad (2020), which was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize and acclaimed by The Guardian as “uncompromisingly brilliant.” Later, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky (2022) became their first UK Top 40 Album Chart success. ) 30.00
SAMUEL REINHARD - Movement DLP (hallow ground - Following a run of chamber recordings, Samuel Reinhard returns with a suite of electroacoustic collages. "Movement", the New York–based composer’s latest offering, is built from notes softly held. In his ongoing investigation of musical duration, perception, and attention, Reinhard deemphasizes progress through an embrace of repetition and negative space, inviting listeners to linger in time. Instrumental recordings are arranged according to a predetermined system, iterating fragments of sound in overlapping intervals of various sizes. Delicately layered snippets of decaying piano are joined by cello (Leila Bordreuil), bass flute (John Also Bennett), double bass (Vincent Yuen Ruiz), baritone sax (Michael Biel), and harp (Shelley Burgon). This breadth of instrumentation, arriving as individual notes stretched and overlapped, is treated not as an opportunity for immersive coalescence, but rather a gentle augmentation of texture, free-floating counterpoint. Notes are accompanied by the traces of the bodies and actions that produce them: a hand pressing a key or an arm keeping a bow aloft; breath filling an instrument’s body or glancing off its surface; a string vibrating and then softening to stillness. In sum, we hear resonance in the process of being sustained, as well as in the release that follows. ) 30.00
SEVERED HEADS - Dead Eyes Opened LP (dark entries - Severed Heads are one of the longest standing bands to have emerged from the Australian post-punk and experimental scene. They began in Sydney in 1979, and were an early outfit to incorporate elements of 'industrial' noise-generation, tape cutting & looping and electronic sound synthesis. As the project developed, song-structures and vocals were employed in a more-or-less recognizable mutant electro pop style. After many line-up changes featuring Gary Bradbury and psychedelic guitarist Simon Knuckey, Severed Heads became the solo vehicle for composer Tom Ellard.) 22.00
SO SNER - The Well LP (TAL - Edition of 400 copies, incl. printed inner sleeve - The Well is the second album by the duo So Sner, composed of Susanna Gartmayer (bass clarinet) and Stefan Schneider (electronics). Recorded over nearly two years in various studios and spaces, the album reflects So Sner's extensive touring across Europe. The final mixing took place in Vienna at the studio of Martin Siewert, who served as both co-producer and mastering engineer. Known for his meticulous attention to sonic detail, Siewert brings his unique techniques and distinctive sound enhancements to the album, resulting in a work that is both stylistically cohesive and daringly uncompromising. So Sner’s critically acclaimed debut album REIME (TAL26, 2021) was celebrated for its innovative fusion of bass clarinet and electronic sounds in unexpected and surprising ways. With The Well, the duo explores both fluid and dissonant sonic landscapes, embracing different structural and sonic challenges. The result is a quieter, more introspective set of compositions than many might have anticipated. The album is a statement of two confident collaborators crafting complex, spatial musical moments in their own distinct manner. The music on The Well generates a multiplicity of effects that transcend conventional oppositions such as hand-played versus programmed, composition versus improvisation, or analog versus digital. The album suggests a re-articulation of these categories, allowing the ten tracks to gradually blend one musical idea into another, and one musician into another, in a circular and complementary fashion. The polymetric permutations and exploratory reed components create a soundscape where all elements coexist harmoniously, without compromising or diminishing each other’s presence. With its sparse sound architecture, The Well invites listeners into a space of effective emptiness, offering room for the mind and body to explore—a sonic island where one can develop sensuality through patient movement.) 28.00
TERRY RILEY – Descending Moonshine Dervishes LP (beacon - A 2024 edition of Terry Riley's »Descending Moonshine Dervishes«, originally recorded live in Berlin in 1975 and released by Kuckuck in 1982. This will be the first time the remastered album has been available since 2016. Using just intonation and a modified organ, Riley conjures forth a rich and layered sound that challenges the Western ear, reflecting his associations with Indian classical singer Pandit Pran Nath and La Monte Young, whose Well Tuned Piano was well underway. »Descending Moonshine Dervishes« is a virtuosic and kaleidoscopic performance, standing as one of the finest works of a revolutionary composer and musician at the height of his powers. »Descending Moonshine Dervishes« dates from 1975 and it belongs to a larger Dervish series of compositions whose origins predate Riley’s two signature works of minimalism, »In C« (1968) and »A Rainbow In Curved Air« (1969)… the piece is structured around just intonation, which stretches the listening experience into new areas. Played on a Yamaha organ with a bit of tape delay that allows Riley to duet with himself, the music of »Descending Moonshine Dervishes« is an ear expansion that goes through skittering arpeggios and long, droning notes that indicate something of the many levels that it operates on. – Louise Gray, The Wire Magazine (March 2017) California composer Terry Riley launched what is now known as the Minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic 'In C' in 1964. This seminal work provided a new concept in musical form based on interlocking repetitive patterns. It's impact was to change the course of 20th century music and it's influence has been heard in the works of prominent composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams and in the music of rock groups such as The Who, The Soft Machine, Tangerine Dream, and many others. His hypnotic, multi-layered, polymetric, brightly orchestrated eastern flavored improvisations and compositions set the stage for the prevailing interest in a new tonality. Riley has worked with Kronos Quartet, La Monte Young, members of Fluxus, Chet Baker, Pandit Pran Nath, his son Gyan Riley, choreographer Anna Halperin, and many others over the years.) 28.00
TOLOUSE LOW TRAX - Kiosque Versions LP (bureau b - Parisian-by-choice Detlef Weinrich aka Tolouse Low Trax turns the page again. Always willing for a new episode, notion, impulse, idea, ideal. Searching for some light out there. Now Kiosque Versions, a compilation compiled by himself, featuring seven edits by friends and treasured artists. They renew some rare TLT tunes, as well as hits, that never took the charts by storm.) 28.00
TWO KINGS - s/t LP (folklore tapes - Somewhere, lost in another plane of existence, a banished king searches in vain for his kingdom. This is King Herla, a man stricken by the spells of an unruly dwarf king and destined to ride the stormy skies for all eternity. But on All Hallow’s Eve, when the boundaries that separate his world from our own are somewhat porous, our protagonist spies his opportunity to return to the realm of flesh and blood. Without warning, on a dingy stage somewhere in present day Edinburgh, a crack appears in the air itself and a regal figure steps out from the void. But he is not alone… So begins one of the stranger events in Auld Reekie’s musical calendar, as two figures – each clad in robes and crowns, with synthesisers tucked neatly underarm – enter stage left to present Two Kings to an unsuspecting, and often politely confused, audience. Taking their cues from a traditional mummer’s play, our two travellers soon reveal themselves to be none other than King Herla and his adversary. Unfazed by their miraculous materialisation on stage, the pair proceed to relate tales of their adventures through song, stage-smoke and amateur dramatics. The merry event – which is half pantomime, half synth-pop, and often half-cut – has become a mainstay of the Edinburgh DIY scene’s Halloween celebrations in recent years, and Folklore Tapes is delighted to present the project’s first official release.) 28.00
ULLA & PERILA – Jazz Plates DLP (parallax - Edition of 500 copies, gatefold sleeve - After many years drifting in and out of each-other’s orbit, ‘Jazz Plates’ finds Ulla and Perila making music in the same room for the first time, exhaling a double album’s worth of gorgeously evocative mood music, gently crackling with a dream-textured haze for the ages. It's remarkably intimate material, linking the duo's own hypnagogic portrait of jazz, in all its hushed permutations. ‘Jazz Plates’ catches the mutual spirits measuredly channelling their shared love of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, making use of voice, clarinet, guitar, piano, vocals and various non-musical objets - logs, leaves, an aquarium - until they hit their emotional core. Previously separated by an ocean, their first recording sessions in person find an intoxicating play of slow and atmospheric sounds porous to the shifting weather outside, with one plate subtly guided by the sun, and another by heavy rain. Unhurried, etheric, and wistful, the album’s 13 parts wash over the senses with a soothingly meditative resonance that emerges from their “mutual dialogue of our instruments and souls”, as Perila puts it. Distant voices swirl around the duo's dampened instrumentation on opener 'lasting like a grass leaf', as themes duck and dive over plangent ambience. It isn't a capital A Ambient record, by any means, but Perila and Ulla's approach is impressionistic rather than figurative. They form ghostly half-songs around hollow trace rhythms on 'a josh outside the window', coating the breathy romance of modern jazz in a layer of dust, and let the clarinet do most of the work on 'placing in shell parcels' as it slow dances around a reverberant vocal.) 38.00
DIE VERLIERER - s/t LP (mangel - New Postpunk band from Berlin with peeps of Chuckamuck & Die Maske. Bass-driven, raw and NDW influenced Postpunk that transfer you straight in the 1980s in Berlin.) 20.00
DIE VERLIERER - Notausgang LP (mangel - Die Verlierer’s second celebration of sound, their new album Notausgang (emergency exit), is an enrapturing manufactured approach to the nostalgic turns known to few as 70’s punk n roll, now released on Mangel Records. With shades of both American and German influence, Die Verlierer are lyrically exploring riotous and somber notions of both public concerns and private endeavours. The unified sonic realm does its job accordingly, with a thick determined timbre of bass, sharp guitars and rolling drums – Die Verlierer create a sound as clear as a broken glass. Through the course of 14 rich tracks, the band will take you on a journey between the busy cross roads of early- and post punk, mixing fast beats and slow&heavy melodies. ) 20.00
VON SPAR / EIKO ISHIBASHI / JOE TALIA / TATSUHISA YAMAMOTO - Album I LP (bureau b - The inspiration for 'Album l' and 'Album Il' began with a performance by Japanese musician Eiko Ishibashi at Cologne's Week-End Fest in 2019. For this appearance the renowned experimental musician and composer of the Oscar-winning film „Drive My Car" was joined on drums by Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and Joe Talia; both integral members of the top-level improvisational/ experimental scene in Tokyo. While in town for the festival, Ishibashi met up with the members of the Cologne-Berlin based group Von Spar who featured Ishibashi on their then new album "Under Pressure“) 28.00
VON SPAR / EIKO ISHIBASHI / JOE TALIA / TATSUHISA YAMAMOTO - Album II LP (bureau b - The inspiration for 'Album l' and 'Album Il' began with a performance by Japanese musician Eiko Ishibashi at Cologne's Week-End Fest in 2019. For this appearance the renowned experimental musician and composer of the Oscar-winning film „Drive My Car" was joined on drums by Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and Joe Talia; both integral members of the top-level improvisational/ experimental scene in Tokyo. While in town for the festival, Ishibashi met up with the members of the Cologne-Berlin based group Von Spar who featured Ishibashi on their then new album "Under Pressure“.) 28.00
V/A - Wayfaring Strangers: Motel California DLP (numero - NEON SKY VINYL. A companion to 2016's private country rock overview Cosmic American Music, this second volume goes way past Gram Parsons' “country-rock plastic dry-fuck” and explores the twangy falsettos and commercial curiosity that sent the Eagles soaring. Though rooted in the west coast folk rock of the late-’60s, these new kids in town rendered a safe-for-the-suburbs sound bleached of the hippie era's political strife. 20 tracks, two LPs, and gatefold tip-on sleeve for easy seed and stem separating are included.) 42.00
TAPE
EKLEMATA - The Neverending Quest TAPE (Limited to 65 copies. But time flows like a river... and history repeats... Dungeon Synth from South Of France) 10.00
KARATE - Make It Fit TAPE (numero - 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
OUTLAND HILL - Dodecahedron TAPE (A small town is tortured by an interdimensional being that controls the weak minds of children, sending them to absorb the memories of the adults and feed them to it. The more memories it consumes, the being grows stronger. A rogue scientist who has been following the being’s attempts to enter our reality arrives in town for a final confrontation. ) 10.00
V/A - Ceremonial County Series Vol.VIII - Cambridgeshire | London TAPE (Volume 8 in the 24 x volume set of ceremonial county cassettes. Cambridgeshire: The Goblin King of Wandlebury by I.H - London: Edward Mordake by Human Hand ) 13.00
CD
BYARD LANCASTER, KENO SPELLER - Exactement 2xCD (souffle - At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler. In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of... Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again. On Palm Records (Gilson’s label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib. The recording of “Exactement” required two sessions in the studio: February 1st and May 18th 1974 – in between the two dates, Lancaster recorded, alongside Clint Jackson, the excellent Mother Africa. Two names appear on the cover of “Exactement”: Lancaster (Byard) and Speller (Keno). Byard Lancaster wanted to be precise, moving regularly from one instrument to another: first on piano, which was the first instrument he learned. On “Sweet Evil Miss Kisianga”, his inspiration is first and foremost Coltrane (even if leaning more towards Alice than John), this announces the storm to follow. It is Lancaster’s horn-playing which really stands out: on alto (the sound of which is transformed by an octavoice on one track, "Dr. Oliver W. Lancaster") or soprano saxophones, as well as on flute or bass clarinet, the musician walks a tightrope making the most of all the risks he takes. Using the full register of his instruments, he has fun with the possibilities.) 20.00
BYARD LANCASTER, CLINT JACKSON III - Mother Africa CD (souffle - At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler. In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of... Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again. On Palm Records (Gilson’s label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib.) 14.00
BYARD LANCASTER - Funny Funky Rib Crib CD (souffle - At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler. In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of... Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again.) 14.00
BYARD LANCASTER, STEVE MCCALL, SYLVIN MARC - Us CD (souffle - At the beginning of the 1960s, at the Berklee College of Music, Byard Lancaster met some feisty friends: Sonny Sharrock, Dave Burrell and Ted Daniel. It is easy to see why he rapidly became involved in free jazz. Once he was settled in New York, he appeared on Sunny Murray Quintet, recorded under the leadership of the drum crazy colleague of Albert Ayler.In 1968, the saxophonist and flutist recorded his first album under his own name: It’s Not Up To Us. The following year he came to Paris in the wake of... Sunny Murray. He would come back to France in 1971 (again with Murray) and in 1973 (without Murray for a change). This is when he met Jef Gilson, the pianist and producer who encouraged him to record under his own name again. On Palm Records (Gilson’s label), he would release four albums: Us, Mother Africa, Exactement and Funny Funky Rib Crib. “Us”, the first of the four records was recorded on November 24th, 1973 with Sylvin Marc on electric bass (a Fender... Lancaster?) and the evergreen Steve McCall on drums. On the album, the trio works from the John Coltrane model; free jazz shook up by the timely contributions of the bassist, followed by a mesmerizing atmospheric music. Then, Lancaster delivers a sinuous solo path, which is a reminder of his unique tone. On the album’s companion single, the trio launches into great black music of a different genre which would lead the clairvoyant François Tusques to claim that Byard Lancaster is an “authentic representative of soul/free jazz”, to sum up this is great Black music.) 14.00
