Bis Aufs Messer Weekly News 04 Nov 2024
Hi, welcome to another newsletter for November - a bunch of cool stuff arrived like the MINOR THREAT - 1st 7“ re issue along with some Dischord restocks, BRUCE RUSSELL - Demonstration Record LP, LAST LIGHT - A Bridge Over The Lagoon LP, JEFF PARKER ETA IVTET - The Way Out of Easy DLP re issue, DEAD C restocks, FRED MOTEN / BRANDON LOPEZ / GERALD CLEAVER - the blacksmiths, the flowers DLP, HANA STRETTON - Soon LP, BIG BLOOD - First Aid Kit LP, OBSEQUIAE re issues, MOUNT EERIE - Night Palace DLP and some restocks, SHIRESE - Hardly Cricket LP, YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS - Colossal Youth LP and more …
And tonight we have an instore with Jonathan Bockelmann playing Sakamoto - a record release party for the upcoming album on SQUAMA records
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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7“
MINOR THREAT - 1st 7“ (dischord - This is a reissue of the original 7", newly pressed in 2024. The cut was initially created for the Dischord 7" box set. Most influential American hardcore punk band from Washington, D.C. formed in 1980 and disbanded in 1983. ) 12.00
LP
ARIANNE CHURCHMAN & BENEDICT DREW - May DLP (loves devotee - MAY is a double-LP collection of recordings made between 2020–2023 by Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew (AC&BD), whose ongoing series channels, inhabits and transmogrifies the vast corpus of traditional English folksong celebrating the most fertile of months. An auditory tapestry, MAY employs at its base a flank of analog synthesizers, field recordings and Churchman’s layered vocals, each combining to form a beautifully dizzy sonic collage that often spirals out across long durations into hypnotic rhythms and jubilant melodies. Both multi-disciplinary artists with roots in the English countryside and a fascination with folklore, AC&BD tap into the multifarious manifestations of folk music across eras throughout the British isles, pushing it towards a new, noisy din with their experimental approach. This might represent a further dimension of “British visionary music” as described by Rob Young in his pivotal Electric Eden book. Perhaps an Electronic Eden? Opening track “The Cuckoo” begins with an atmosphere reminiscent of the more pastoral moments of Broadcast before devolving into a trance-like wall of noise, binaural beats and whispered incantations. “The Green Bushes” sets Churchman’s multi-tracked vocal harmonies atop a pulsing, single-chord foundation. MAY’s varied reference points include Anne Briggs, The Copper Family, Cyril Poacher, Steeleye Span and Shirley Collins, to name just a few.) 40.00
BEDSORE - Dreaming The Strife For Love LP (20 buck spint - With their new, second album, “Dreaming The Strife For Love”, Italians Bedsore plunge headlong into the progressive warmth and obscure atmospheres of the 70s. Inspired by the mysterious Renaissance book “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili”, the album musically weaves together the concepts of love as a battlefield where desire and devotion are tested through trials and spiritual awakenings - with visions of pagan temples, mystical gardens and arcane symbols.) 28.00
BIG BLOOD - First Aid Kit LP (ba da bing - “She can be a real pain in the ass,” is how Big Blood’s Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella describe having their daughter as a member of the band they formed in the wake of Cerberus Shoal’s dissolution. A band made up of family seems like an ideal situation. You get to play with those you love, and practicing/recording is always just a matter of going into the next room. “If you don’t have kids, I can imagine that is an obvious assumption,” Caleb says. “However, if you do have children, I don’t need to explain how much of an emotional mess this can be.” Parents don’t stop being parents, nor do kids stop being kids for band practice. “There are endless amounts of broader ‘life’ examples brought up at any given time while playing with Quinnisa, and I can’t help stopping to discuss them as they come up,” he says. He understands Quinnisa’s position. “She’s rightly annoyed at being parented in a ‘judgment free’ zone. Lots of practices end with her being tossed from the band.”) 32.00
BRUCE RUSSELL - Demonstration Record LP (carbon - What you see before you, “iffy” cover and all is a solo project from noise-rock pioneer and The Dead C veteran Bruce Russell. Recorded on a mobile phone in the southern summer of 2023-24. This collection of live performances, sound collages, and solo improvisations have been pressed into a black slab with an “unfinished” cover. Bruce Russell, “Mr.Noisy”, the man that’s been “giving rock'n'roll a prison haircut since 1984” is letting us in, providing an “open-house” into the sonic alchemy of one of the most interesting minds of the NZ noise-rock scene. With an Android mobile, slight “linear editing”, and a strict dismissal of any stereo-imaged, mastered sound, much of the listening here is quite revealing, and provides expansive sonic palettes despite its minimal setup. ) 30.00
COVEN - Après l'orage LP (shove - Post-Hardcore / Screamo 5-piece from France. FFO: early Celeste, Daitro,...) 16.00
DEAD C - Operation of the Sonne LP (ba da bing - The Dead C's trio of LPs in the middle of their harsh 90's reality served for many as entry points to the band. Operation of the Sonne, The White House and Tusk received wider distribution than the band had ever seen before, and this was the first rays of them being considered amongst the most important rock bands of the 20th century. This trio of vinyl reissues capture their intensity and presence in a way that may even blow out the candle of the original pressings. Newly remastered by Lasse Marhaug, and with bonus tracks, these 2023 reissues have been cut carefully and loud, with the sonic wars heard on these now-classic tracks for blaring than ever. Operation of the Sonne Coming after the monster that was Harsh 70s Reality, and its evil twin, Clyma Est Mort, this album has always confounded even soi disant Dead C fans. Side 1 documents the discovery of the analogue synthesiser coupled with field recordings from the basement of Willowbank, Koputai's 'most stately' home. Side 2 emerged spontaneously to cassette on stage at the 'fabled' Empire Tavern - and it still sounds like stripping the breathable atmosphere from an already-depleted biosphere.
DEAD C - Tusk DLP (ba da bing - The Dead C's trio of LPs in the middle of their harsh 90's reality served for many as entry points to the band. Operation of the Sonne, The White House and Tusk received wider distribution than the band had ever seen before, and this was the first rays of them being considered amongst the most important rock bands of the 20th century. This trio of vinyl reissues capture their intensity and presence in a way that may even blow out the candle of the original pressings. Newly remastered by Lasse Marhaug, and with bonus tracks, these 2023 reissues have been cut carefully and loud, with the sonic wars heard on these now-classic tracks for blaring than ever.) 37.00
DENNIS CALLACI & HEIMITO KÜNST - First Light LP (grapefruit - Heimito Kunst has issued two slabs of outre music utilizing synthesizers, church organs, bells, contact mics and found sound to create sheets of incredibly listenable and addictive works of instrumental music. The odd alto vocal here or guitar there are used to punctuate the dramatics for his 2021 debut on Dissipatio and his 2022 Shrimper release, both of which are now out of print. Kunst is part of a new collective of music makers in Italy that are forward looking, untethered to laptops to generate sound. This collaborative record by Kunst and Dennis Callaci features music written and performed by Heimito with Callaci’s lyrics and vocals punctuating the dynamics. Dennis Callaci is in the band Refrigerator and has issued a number of solo recordings as well as collaborative records with Simon Joyner and John Davis among others over the last thirty five years. This record features music written and performed by Kunst with Callaci's lyrics and vocals. These songs might be spotted wafting in the ether of Camberwell Now, Xpressway cassettes, E. Lonnie Methe viola or maybe Romy Scheider's perfume in the 1980 film Death Watch. The vocals, vulnerable and emotive lare ayered over in-the-red synths, pulsating rhythms and ghostly piano lines. Callaci and Kunst will be doing European dates in the fall in the fall followed by a short west coast tour in the new year.) 30.00
FRED MOTEN / BRANDON LOPEZ / GERALD CLEAVER - the blacksmiths, the flowers DLP (reading group - Reading Group is thrilled to announce a new album from the celebrated trio of Fred Moten (voice), Brandon López (double bass), and Gerald Cleaver (drums). Following the release of their 2022 self-titled debut album, also on Reading Group (RG23), the trio has been developing their improvisatory language in concerts across North America and the UK. While growing from their first album’s perpetually restrained simmer, their infamous live shows explore a propulsive, relentless, and massively energetic large-scale developing form. López and Cleaver’s rhythm section maintains a pulsating, animating, and evolving groove, Moten’s improvised lyricism weaves together threads from his radical poetics, critical theory, snatches of song, and more familiar but floating signifiers, all while carrying and/or being carried by the self-perpetuating energy of the trio that is more than the sum of its parts. Their dynamic is summed up best by a phrase of Moten’s in the maelstrom towards the music’s climax: “quantum-mechanical reproduction.” the blacksmiths, the flowers is a double-LP containing two live performances by the trio at 411 Kent in Brooklyn in the summer of 2023. Incendiary music for a burning world.) 40.00
HANA STRETTON - Soon LP (pw elvrum - I am extremely honored to present this record to you. It’s a reissue of the now out of print short first run, remastered and redesigned, with words and booklets and etc. Yes, the object is beautiful, but more significantly, it carries a recording that does something very rare: a breathtaking internal world held in sound, crackling with life and free from intervention. Artists try to quiet the chatter for moments long enough to collect ideas and bring them back to show the rest of us, polished off, decorated, built up. With these recordings it seems Hana Stretton was able to move completely in to that quiet place and just stay. Instead of picking the fruit, she gives us the whole orchard. From what I can gather, Hana lived for many months, a year?, alone on a remote farm in deep rural New South Wales (Australia), Captain’s Flat. She spent her generous days tending to cows and eyeing down brush fires and floods. During this time these recordings were made. She says she set up the recording gear outside and that “the world was thick with sound, and so the music mimicked.” Yes. But more than that. I hear an artist who has entered completely into the stream where creation originates. Beyond mimicking a world, these recordings are made of it, no inside and no out.) 28.00
LAST LIGHT - A Bridge Over The Lagoon LP (Carbon .- Last Light is the glorious confluence of the UK-based and Aotearoa/NZ born Dean Brown and Ben Spiers - names that might be familiar to anyone who has followed the post-Corpus Hermeticum school of hiss and klang as it's spread out across the world to coalesce in little pools here and there. Their album A Bridge Over The Lagoon is the latest stop on a trajectory set flowing out of small town Aotearoa, hastened by the fire lit by Le Jazz Non. Dean Brown is best known as Little Skull. A basement Florian Fricke, creating grainy chamber miniatures with the same latticework intricacy as the delicate handmade dioramas that serve as the covers of his records. He was (is?) also a member of Nova Scotia, purveyors of reed-heavy skree clouds - a band whose existence feels more like a rumor than a fact and one of the final acts on Peter Stapleton's Metonymic label) 32.00
LINGUASERPENTE - Fast Radio Burst LP (shove - LinguaSerpente was born to play noisy and fast music in odd time. Tommy, Roberto, Nicola and Paolo play and have played in a bunch of bands, including Captain Mantell, Teatro degli Orrori, With Love, Bluid, Serpe in Seno and Sick Tamburo, treading not only italian, but also european, american and japanese stages. Fast Radio Burst is LinguaSerpente’s first LP and will be co-released by four labels: Overdrive Records, Go Down Records, Shove Records and The Fucking Clinica.) 20.00
MOUNT EERIE - Night Palace DLP (pw elvrum - Night Palace appears as a culmination of eras, arrived at after tumbling through decades of a tumultuous life and building from scratch in the settled dust. The 26 track album is a palace of many rooms, all welcoming, all varied. The songs stand vivid in their diamond sharp eloquence and distorted feedback, but only after traveling the album as a whole do we find the door. The palace is dilapidated with moss dripping through, airy, bright and open. This is a return to the beloved deep analog fuzz world of the Microphones' the Glow pt. 2 (2001) and the many thickly embroidered Mount Eerie universes that have followed. Smashed tape, breathing air organs, crackling tube amps and a welcome living reality just outside the open window all entwine to push the definition of what's "home" and what's "studio", of what's a "song" and what's at the heart of the unmediated idea itself. Phil Elverum has slowly acquired an underground cult status since the late 1990's for exactly this kind of work; building recorded atmospheric worlds that are distinctly bottomless with a fuzzed out mystery, while the songs themselves speak with a raw intimacy that can be shocking to hear. These are recordings of an individual mind and heart going deeper within while turning over each stone along the way.) 37.00
NORMAN McLAREN - Rythmetic: The Compositions Of Norman McLaren DLP (The Scottish-Canadian animator Norman McLaren (1914-1987), creator of groundbreaking short films such as Dots, Neighbours and Synchromy, is honoured with the first publication of his compositions that foreshadowed the half century of electronic music that followed. The electronic soundtracks he created for his own films are characterised by astonishing foresight and precise methodology. McLaren was described by Milton Babbitt (composer, music theorist, mathematician) as "the first electronic musician". John Cale and George Lucas were ardent fans, and his work is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. With "Rythmetic: The Compositions of Norman McLaren", his soundtracks are appearing on record for the first time, carefully compiled from the most important film works, hours of archive recordings and multiple versions of the same key compositions) 42.00
OBSEQUIAE - The Palms of Sorrowed Kings LP ( 20 buck soon - sBLUE / OLIVE GREEN MERGE VINYL. For the third time in a decade, a new dawn rises over the castle ruins. OBSEQUIAE once more lower the gates and emerge from the keep, to regale the townsfolk with tales of another age via heroic hymns of majesty and high adventure on The Palms Of Sorrowed Kings. The most immersive and hyper-focused album from OBSEQUIAE to date, The Palms Of Sorrowed Kings features a heightened sense of rhythmic definition, greater care in the depth of layers and a shimmering clarity that elevates the uniquely realized character of a band unlike any other. Sweeping and vast, the otherworldly scope of the guitars, the anachronistic harp interludes, the percussive precision and the range of ancient melodic beauty open portals to the immemorial. An album singularly concerned with creating a captivating world to become willfully lost in, The Palms Of Sorrowed Kings sets itself on a path that few now trod but a realm that OBSEQUIAE tower over like the noblest kings.) 30.00
OBSEQUIAE - Aria of Vernal Tombs LP (20 buck spin - Perhaps the only band that might fit as well on a label like Harmonia Mundi as on 20 Buck Spin, OBSEQUIAE reemerges with Aria of Vernal Tombs, having painstakingly shaped their second opus over four years in the way an expert woodworker plies her trade to craft singular works of exquisite beauty. As before, traditional Medieval source material, this time interpreted via Vicente La Camero Marino’s sparse, sorrowful harp pieces, appears throughout Aria, providing a foundation upon which to build the longer, metal-based sagas forming the album’s core. Black metal, death metal, traditional heavy metal and Medieval music are all weaved seamlessly together in baroque yet abrasive reverence on Aria, resulting in a remarkably original long-player. With a wet clarity to the incandescent production that cites underrated obscurities like SACRAMENTUM’s Far Away from the Sun and EUCHARIST’s A Velvet Creation along with the early works of VARATHRON, SAMAEL and ROTTING CHRIST, the atmosphere on Aria of Vernal Tombs brings to 2015 what such bands strangely but sincerely captured years ago.) 30.00
OBSEQUIAE - Suspended In The Brume Of Eos LP (20 buck spin - SILVER GREEN VINYL. - Storming out of the frozen North, Minnesota’s OBSEQUIAE released their debut album Suspended In The Brume Of Eos in 2011. Conjuring images of a medieval Europe where modern life has yet to infringe, OBSEQUIAE craft meticulous beautifully harmonic dark odes to times now passed into legend. The album harkens back to the pre-wimp out melodic Scandinavian Death Metal of the 1990s; dark, aggressive, conscious of songcraft foremost and unintimidated by complexity. The bands deep knowledge of European traditional music and instrumentation is evident throughout, particularly in the ornate, colorful interludes that tie the album together like tapestries in a ruined castle. Had John Renbourn started a project with Quorthon something like OBSEQUIAE might be the result.) 30.00
POTENCE - Cinq Années De Nuit LP (Neocrust / screamo band from Besançon-Strasbourg, France, formed in December 2014. Members of Géraniüm, Human Compost, Black Code and Daïtro. ) 15.00
SHIRESE - Hardly Cricket LP (grapefruit - Shirese return! Hot off of 2023’s Rose Of Smiling Faces album the East Haven crew have assembled a fresh batch of hook-laden rock anthems. Hardly Cricket sees the band truly lean into their rock tendencies. Those who have enjoyed their past forays into 70s style dual guitar leads will find much to latch onto here. Explosive, high energy tunes like “New Music” and “Sacred Heart” are instantly infectious and truly set the tone with high flying guitar action from all the players. However, as always, Shirese keeps it varied. With songwriting duties being more evenly spread throughout the group this time around, listeners will find 60s garage, country, and even doo-wop inflected songs as well. Matt Paolilo’s ever present vocals and tongue-and-cheek lyrics keep listeners on their toes. While the occasional descent into tape spliced experimental madness still finds its place in the grooves.) 32.00
YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS - Colossal Youth LP (domino - Taking the unprecedented step of making Young Marble Giants' first ever release a long player certainly paid off. Released in 1980 "Colossal Youth" became a parallel soundtrack to the unsteady stabs of the post punk early eighties, and quickly became one of (the then nascent) Rough Trade Records best sellers. Becalmed, resigned and a little tense, it created a new vocabulary for song. "Colossal Youth" was followed by a couple of EPs, and then the group split up, to everyone's surprise and dismay. Combining sparse, home made drum machine rhythms, electric organ lines, funky bass and taut guitar chords, along with Alison Statton's clear, true vocal makes for one of the most evocative and atmospheric albums of the post-punk era. ) 26.00
TAPE
D. SPAULDING - Jilt Matrimonial Turkey Heartland Desert Classic Jubilee TAPE (“No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now.” Ray Bradbury wrote these words in Dandelion Wine, the novel in which a young boy named Douglas Spaulding floats through the summer of 1928. In 2024, D. Spaulding is the solo project of Eric Shuster, a musician based on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, USA. Jilt Matrimonial Turkey Heartland Desert Classic Jubileeis his debut, an album of softly poetic, lo-fi bedroom folk crafted with quiet concentration and presented as a cassette release by Love’s Devotee, the fledgling label based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA. The D. Spaulding project began in earnest after the loss of a friend. Intended as a music for coping, the songs of Jilt Matrimonial Turkey Heartland Desert Classic Jubilee bear themes of love and loss, one’s life’s work, family and the ephemeral. Presented with minimal arrangements and questioning lyrics, the songs have a haikulike quality which feels enigmatic but also intuitively relatable. For instance, “Bulldozer” is elegiac and wistful, depicting a drive through a forlorn landscape. But there are subtle joys as well, from monumental events like recognizing one’s family lineage while traveling in unfamiliar lands to something small like feeling the warm spot on the couch after the cat moves.) 12.00
HEIMITO KUNST - Post Exoticism TAPE (shrimper - On his second release, Heimito Kunst further explores his brand of minimalist, personal psych that is in league with two of my faviroite Youngs (Richard & La Monte, apologies to Angus, Loretta & Neil). He further expands his palette by adding tuba and voice (used as drone) to Post Exoticism. First edition is a hand dubbed, numbered edition of 100 featuring artwork & hand painted covers by Dennis Callaci.Synthesizers, field recordings, magnetic tapes together with percussion, various microphones and stringed instruments fill the listening of this musical elegy. In his debut album Heimito Künst takes us inside kaleidoscopic sound visions in which, between references to the darkest and most disturbing kraut sound and experimental sequence plans based on noise polyrhythms, he makes us glimpse wave structures that lead us directly to breathe the author’s panic dust. – It’s Psychedelic Magazine) 15.00
V/A - SHRIMPER: A PSST COMPILATION TAPE (shrimper - The first Shrimper cassette was not on Shrimper, it was on a label called PSST. The name of the only proper release on PSST was a compilation entitled Shrimper. The cassette, “Shrimper” was, for the most part, an amalgamation of various bands related to The Bux (the pre-Refrigerator band of Allen & Dennis Callaci) & KSPC DJ’s. The Jim Bishop Guitar Army, Punk Rock, The Sunday Supper Club & Welfare all featured DJ’s from KSPC; Girlhole, Pigsnuff, Mark, Asshole Mouth & The Satnam Puppets were offshoots of The Bux. Also featured on the tape is a live cut by The Deli Creeps (Featuring gtr maven Buckethead and the unique voicings of Barnum in their bizarro horror/comedy begins), Oskar Meyer (A bridge from the nascent LA punk scene of the late 70’s to the Inland Empire. He was in circles that featured Geza X. This limited edition reissue includes original cover art as well as the original PSST catalog from 1990.) 15.00
CD
CARMAN MOORE - Soul Musings CD (reading group - Reading Group is thrilled to present our second collaboration with the magisterial composer Carman Moore. Following the 2020 release of his gorgeous chamber soundtrack to the film "Personal Problems" (1980), "Soul Musings" is a double-CD representing Carman's innerly composerly life of the last several decades. Consisting mostly of sketched ideas, meditations, and improvisations on synthesizer or piano, this record is both an intimate portrait of the artist at home as well as spiritual gift. Disc 1, "Soul Musings," spans a broad range of sonic palettes and moods from the celebratory to the mournful, with a deep inquisitive presence of mind at work throughout. Disc 2, "Afro-Latin Meditations," builds from the New York-inspired musical environments Moore developed in "Personal Problems," a heartfelt dedication to the city where he has been composing and listening for more than 50 years.) 22.00
X-RAY HEX TET - X-Ray Hex Tet CD (reading group - Reading Group is proud to present the debut album of a new ensemble of some of the most adventurous artists in and around London’s contemporary music scene. X-Ray Hex Tet is the confluence of Seymour Wright (alto saxophone), Crystabel Riley (drums), Edward George (words and recordings), Pat Thomas (piano and electronics), Paul Abbott (real and imaginary drums), and Billy Steiger (celeste and violin). Wright and Abbott, elsewhere as XT, have developed a private language in their uncompromising explorations of the “histories and logics of the saxophone and drum kit.” Wright and Thomas make up half of the extraordinary research ensemble [Ahmed], named after legendary oudist and bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik. ([Ahmed]’s Giant Beauty is undoubtedly one of the best releases of 2024). Here, the music is transformed through the quasi-narrative presence of Edward George, the seminal scholar of dub and founding member of the great Black Audio Film Collective (1982-1998). Artist and multi-instrumentalist Billy Steiger provides subtle textural sway beneath the chaos on the violin, as well as eerily unaffected punctuation on celeste, shimmering in the corners as if in the postapocalyptic final moments of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony. The percussive core of the group is carried by Crystabel Riley, frequent collaborator with Wright and formerly of the power noise trio Maria and the Mirrors. Her drums move through the storm with geological heft, rolling like a small avalanche.) 15.00
