Bis Aufs Messer weekly news 05 August 2021
Hi. Welcome to another newsletter for August. A couple new titles and restocks arrived. We got a couple more of the latest Lingua Ignota, HIROSHI SUZUKI - Cat LP (on GOLD), PHAROAH SANDERS & FLOATING POINTS & THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA - Promises LP restock, a few more of the GRAUZONE - Eisbär HOODIE, a few more JAZZ Sweater, SOLID SPACE restock and more …
Also the killer CHAIN WHIP - Demo 2020 LP, the new MEGA BOG - Life, and Another LP, the new STEVE GUNN DLP, RICK DEITRICK - Coyote Canyon LP, the new killer SPACE AFRIKA - Honest Labour LP, DEATH VALLEY GIRLS - Glow In The Dark LP re issue, the fantastic KLAS TROLLIUS - Sånger Till En Människa LP on Discreet, GOTHENBURG SOUND WORKSHOP - II LP, LANDOWNER – Impressive Almanac LP,
Also the YOU COULD BE A COP / AMID THE OLD WOUNDS - split LP is out now and we just have around 10 left. And we are down to our last copies of the PIEGON LP.
And BIS AUFS MESSER turns 15 and so we do a little celebration at the shop with GHOST BAG & JULIA BLAIR (of DUSK)
https://www.facebook.com/events/362836738636308
Also the FLETCHER TUCKER unlit trail TAPE version arrived and turned out beautiful.
Thank you for your support in those difficult times
We are also back on the store MONDAY TIL SATURDAY from 11°° - 19°°
Norman & Robert
mailorder@bisaufmesser.com
www.adagio830-records.bandcamp.com
7“
WILD BILLY CHILDISH + CTMF - bob dylan's got a lot to answer for 7“ (damaged goods - WILD BILLY CHILDISH + CTMF - bob dylan's got a lot to answer for 7“ (damaged good - New limited edition split 7" from CTMF and The Chatham Singers! 500 copies on black vinyl! Both tracks exclusive to this release! "Even an idiot must admit that Bob Dylan made some great tunes - what a guy! But despite his many achievements it must also be said that Bob has got a lot to answer for. We wrote him a complementary tune - for free! A cheap shot? An easy target? No, Bob is an elusive one, only to be brought to heel with expert chords and lyrics. Here we achieve this with effortless wit, skill and good humour. God save Bob Dylan!" "Chatham MTB refers to the motor torpedo boat that was moored on the River Medway, behind the old Empire Theatre. The MTB was once accommodation for the tiller girls. Though the theatre was knocked down in the early '60s sthe MTB was still moored there when I was a kid and we used to go and view it sitting there in the ogin when visiting The Young Man's Shop to get our school uniforms. By the mid '80s, The Young Man's Shop was long gone and the MTB was rotting into the mud." "What sadness the passing of time brings. It seamed important to me to commemorate the MTB, The Royal Navy and long-legged tiller girls with a thumping blues instrumental. Enjoy" Billy Childish - June 2021= 10.00
LP
AMELIA CUNI - Parampara festival 13.3.1992 LP (black truffle - Black Truffle is pleased to announce Parampara Festival 13.3.1992, a stunning performance by Amelia Cuni captured live in Berlin almost thirty years ago. Milanese by birth and resident in Berlin for many years, Cuni lived in India for over a decade, studying the classical vocal style of dhrupad under masters of the form. Though perhaps known to many listeners primarily through her performances of the vocal music of John Cage and collaborations with Werner Durand and Terry Riley, she is recognised internationally as one of the great contemporary proponents of traditional dhrupad singing. These recordings document her performance at the 1992 Parampara Festival at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, a landmark event celebrating the global spread of Indian classical music, bringing together Indian teachers with their international students. Accompanied by Gianni Ricchizzi on vichitra vina (a plucked zither played with a glass ball slide) and her own tanpura, Cuni stretches out for a languorous side-long performance of the late night Raag Bageshri, the limpid tones of her vocal improvisations illuminating the droning strings like flashes of the moon revealed by rushing clouds. Initially working patiently through a series of subtle dialogues between Cuni’s melodic extemporisations and phrases in response from Richizzi’s vichitra vina, the performance builds to a series of strikingly beautiful, virtuosic held notes from Cuni at the beginning of its second half, before picking up some brisker rhythmic articulation on the way to its conclusion.) 26.00
CHAIN WHIP - Demo 2020 LP (no spirit - CHAIN WHIP from Vancouver, Canada released this demo recordings in July 2020 via Bandcamp as well as on a limited tape run. These recordings weren´t originally intended to be released on vinyl as some of the songs have been re-recorded to be released on CHAIN WHIP’s upcoming LP “Two Step To Hell”. Now, No Spirit is doing a one-time pressing of the “Demo 2020” on vinyl with a limited run of 500 pieces.) 16.00
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS - Glow In The Dark LP (suicide squeeze - REISSUE OF LONG OUT OF PRINT SOPHOMORE ALBUM + LP PACKAGE COMES WITH A DOUBLE-SIDED INSERT + DL COUPON + FIRST PRESSING LIMITED TO 1500 COPIES WORLDWIDE ON UNITE, MULTIPLY, & CONQUER SPLATTER VINYL // You often hear people talking about how a certain artist saved their life. You also frequently hear people talk about how certain shows can be borderline spiritual experiences. Sure, it might be hyperbole, but any music head knows those experiences are very real. And for Death Valley Girls, the mortal stakes and transcendental power of music was at the core of their mission. The band quite literally began as a haven for vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Bonnie Bloomgarden and guitarist Larry Schemel as they navigated getting clean from hard drugs. It was a kind of rebirth, an outlet for a new way of living. And with that newfound appreciation for life came a thirst for communal celebration. Their shows took on a mystical fervor. They were a pure manifestation of all the great moments of rock n' roll_the adrenalized swagger of the electric pioneers, the razor edge of those early metal masters, the rough-hewn heft of rst-generation punk_with any hint of nihilism swapped out for an afrmation of life. Death Valley Girls' sophomore album Glow in the Dark (2016) is a white-hot distillation of their sound and spirit_a jittery and jubilant joyride of barnburner guitar riffage, goosebump-inducing choral hooks, pounding rhythms provided by drummer Laura "The Kid" Kelsey and bassist Alana Amram, and an overarching aura of some secret and subversive power. The band wastes no time detailing their strategies as they crash out of the gate with the title track. Bloomgarden and auxiliary vocalist Jessie Jones issue the song's call to arms_"unite, multiply, and conquer"_as a rallying cry to likeminded souls. "Once you realize that money, government, and this whole system is a shitty construct that doesn't work and stands in the way of our true magical innite potential, we start to glow," says Bloomgarden about Glow in the Dark. "And we can see everyone that believes `cause they glow too!" It's hard to not feel that magical tingle during the riotous stomp of "Disco," the old school rattle-and-raze of "Death Valley Boogie," or the re-and-brimstone proselytizing of "Seis Seis Seis." While the initial line-up of Death Valley Girls _ featuring the core duo of Bloomeld andSchemel with bassist Rachel Orosco and drummer Patty Schemel _ ruminated on the hellish realities of the modern world on their debut album Street Venom, the Glow in the Dark-era Death Valley Girls reveled in the secret bond between the mists and outcasts who refused to bow to crushing weight of "capitalism, classism, and elitism.“) 25.00
GOTHENBURG SOUND WORKSHOP - II LP (förlag for - Förlag För Fri Musik’s mysterious Gothenburg Sound Workshop return with their second transmission following their initial, brutally short-run debut that landed towards the end of last year. As with the first, it’s two full sides of unwavering, stripped-bare, dead-behind-the-eyes synth minimalism served COLD. It’s repeating, overlapping, delay-drenched tones offer very little other than a feeling of slight discomfort, melancholy or even paranoia.. what trouble lies ahead? Essentially not for everyone but certainly of interest for anyone who seeks private solace in the icy, anxiety-stricken tones of Civilistjävel! or the vast, bottomless drone works of Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann’s seminal Mirror project.) 28.00
HIROSHI SUZUKI - Cat LP (we release jazz - back in stock - We Release Jazz is ecstatic (purrrr!) to announce the official reissue of Hiroshi Suzuki’s glorious jazz-fusion-funk Holy Grail Cat (originally released in 1976), sourced from the original masters and available on limited edition 180 gram vinyl mastered at half speed for full audiophile sound, as well as on digipack CD. Both versions come with liner notes by Teruo Isono. Cat was recorded in October 1975 at at Nippon Columbia Studio, while Hiroshi Suzuki was visiting his home country of Japan after moving to Las Vegas in 1971 to play with Buddy Rich and perfect his craft. Back on his old stomping grounds, the man known as Neko (Cat) immediately reunited with his dear friends for an epic two day session of groove magic. The chemistry was still intact. The skills and style had grown. The result, Cat, is a smooth masterpiece, a deep and soulful affair where stunning trombone solos by Hiroshi Suzuki flirt with Takeru Muraoka’s heavenly saxophone and the sensual rhythm section of Hiromasa Suzuki (keyboards), Kunimitsu Inaba (bass), and Akira Ishikawa (drums). Celebrated in jazz collectors circles, in the lofi beat scene, and among music diggers around the world, Cat has become one of the most sought-after Japanese jazz albums of all time and, much like Ryo Fukui’s Scenery, has fascinated old and young generations alike) 27.00
KLAS TROLLIUS - Sånger Till En Människa LP (discreet - The fourth release from Discreet Music is another seemingly out-of-nowhere debut album from an Gothenburg artist. To people in Gothenburg, Klas Trollius is probably best known as a DJ and a visual artist, but the origins of this collection of songs goes back to as far as 2010 when the very first version of the exceptional opening track 'Över Ett Fält' was recorded. On Sånger Till En Människa, Klas Trollius explores the connection between music and place, letting specific location recordings become an important part of each track. The reworked 'Över Ett Fält, a loose interpretation of John Martyns' 'Over The Hill', is a 8 minute+ epic that immediately sets the tone and mood for the rest of the album with it's acoustic guitar, hushed vocals and heavy use of field recordings. The shorter 'Koltrast' is the closest we come to a fully realized acoustic pop song, Klas himself citing Razorcuts' fantastic 'Sorry To Embarass You' and several shoegaze songs as an influence. More improvised tracks like 'Gitarr, Klockspel Och Isdemoner' and 'Isdemoner För Flöjt, Trumma Och Vind' fully lets the nature become one with the instrumentaion in the spirit of Schwarzwaldfahrt or something from the Jewelled Antler Collective. Truly bewildering organic music. The record is dedicated to the memory of his Father, King Tubby and Elsa Grave. Full colour reverse board sleeves with three inserts. Including artist printed insert made with several runs through laser printer on slightly textured 120g colored paper. Mastered by Joakim Karlsson. Edition of 400 copies.) 26.00
LANDOWNER – Impressive Almanac LP (born yesterday - Originally released on cassette by Good Person Recordings in 2016, Impressive Almanac is the culmination of Dan Shaw's bedroom experiments making minimalist post-punk. The entire album was tracked by himself at home shortly after moving from Seattle to his hometown of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Dan did not yet have any backing band at the time. The album shines with his raw and unfettered creativity, repetitive DI'ed guitars, and disaffected yet deeply personal lyrics about the banality of modern life. Shaw says of the record: "Sharing this tape with friends in the Western Mass DIY scene soon led to the formation of Landowner as a full band. Even though we're a real band now with a real drummer and everything, the drum machines and repetitive riffs of these songs still serve as an important reference point for the vibe we strive to attain in our music today.“ The album was quite formative for Born Yesterday Records. Co-owner and now Deeper bass player Kevin Fairbairn met Dan at a show in Western Massachusetts. Dan gave him a cassette of Impressive Almanac. When Kevin returned from tour, he was eager to show it to me and I quickly became obsessed with it. A year or so later when we were discussing starting a record label, we both knew that Landowner had to be one of the bands we talked to first. This release will roughly mark the three year anniversary of Born Yesterday's first release, Landowner's Blatant.) 25.00
MEGA BOG - Life, and Another LP (paradise of bachelors - On Life, and Another, Mega Bog (the world-inhabiting moniker of song-animator Erin Birgy) tends a succulent garden full of plants that the unwitting passerby might mistakenly perceive as extraterrestrial, but which are in fact very much of this Earth. Departing from the humid Holodeck spider plant nursery of previous record Dolphine (2019), Mega Bog’s new album brings us back to our home planet, into the rarefied air pressure of a dried-up desert valley where its fourteen songs were written and scattered like stones in the landscape. But true to Birgy’s alchemical writing practice, these bright stones simply refuse to blend into their arid environment, each one a precious gem chiseled by the anti-capitalist geologist’s hammer to reveal the impossible, dazzling life that inheres under the dusty exteriors of both the northern Nevada of her youth and the rural New Mexico of the album’s birth. ) 25.00
NAILED IN - Shovel LP (no spirit - NAILED IN is a four piece from Zagreb that formed in 2014. They play fast and pissed off hardcore punk with strong DIY ethics and a firm political message. Their s/t EP was released through the Vienna-based label Hardcore for the Losers. After a couple of European tours and numerous shows around the region the band went back into the studio in 2020 to record their debut LP ‚Shovel’. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Ivan Jakić, ‘Shovel’ brings 10 songs of short and angry hardcore that delve into subjects like self-criticism, local hardcore scene, religion, homophobia, corporate and social hypocrisy.) 14.00
O YUKI CONJUGATE - Equator 2xLP (Aguirre - British post-industrial / ambient group O Yuki Conjugate arrives on Aguire with a vinyl run of their previously CD only 1995 release Equator. Coming four years after their lauded Peyote release, the group split and reformed into their Mk II phase with the two original members Roger Horberry and Andrew Hulme, along with Malcolm McGeorge, Dan Mudford & Pete Woodhead (who later went on to form Sons Of Silence on Leaf Label). Making use of the emergent technology of the early 90’s, Equator was one of the first albums to be mixed with digital equipment, weaving together a blend of studio, live and location recordings to create their own deeply immersive, enveloping soundscapes. Brooding atmospheres unfold underneath a wide range of ethnic percussion and deep, meditative basslines - existing in a unique cross-section of Hassell inspired 4th world mystery, Industrial landscapes and the rich middle-eastern projections pioneered by Muslimgauze.) 28.00
PHAROAH SANDERS & FLOATING POINTS & THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA - Promises LP (Luaka - back in stock - Promises is an extraordinary, collaborative album by the electronic giant Floating Points and saxophone titan Pharoah Sanders. The album features the London Symphony Orchestra and cover art by the acclaimed American artist, Julie Mehretu. Five years in the making, it will be released on Luaka Bop, March 26, 2021. The album is composed and engineered by Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points, who's second album Crush earned Best New Music from Pitchfork and a major feature in the New York Times, and placed him on several 2019 critics lists. His debut album Elaenia, released by Luaka Bop, was another Best New Music pick and hailed as one of the best debuts of the decade. It is also the release that made Pharoah Sanders want to work with him in the first place. A restless, ever- evolving producer and composer, Shepherd has toured with the xx, and also holds a doctorate in neuroscience. For Pharoah Sanders, who recently turned 80, this is a rare outing and his first album in fifteen years. One of the last icons of his generation, Pharoah performed with John Coltrane on his late-career free jazz masterpieces, and released a string of expansive recordings under his own name for the Impulse! label which have been cited as a pivotal influence by everyone from The Stooges to Marvin Gaye. Most recently, he was featured in a 2020 Supreme campaign. The music unfurls, patiently, over nine movements, and 46 ever-undulating minutes. It's a work of pure feeling, like no other record you'll hear this or any other year.) 26.00
RICK DEITRICK - Coyote Canyon LP (tompkins square - Coyote Canyon is a wilderness area behind my daughter's house where coyotes gather and howl before taking off for their nightly foraging. Little Tujunga (pronounced "Tuhunga") is a river running through the Angeles Forest near a house I lived in five decades ago. Half my ideas for this piece came from onshore guitar ruminating. The rest was improvised in studio. Emma was my close and sweet companion during this period, a lifelong deep friend. I composed her song one evening at the kitchen table of our place while she was cooking. Tumbleweedin' describes a desert tumbleweed storm. I menaced every inch of the Yamaha, recreating the effect of these windblown monsters screeching along boulders, smacking into cactus and anything else in their way at often impossible speeds, following the whims of the heavy winds. This song was completely improvised at the moment in studio and forgotten. Roy's Rain is a tribute to my great good friend and musician killed in a car accident in 1973. I found For Marsha Version2 on a well-worn studio tape. It's a variant of the same composition on the Gentle Wilderness album. I like this loose and flowy version. Movin' On has one thing on its mind -- getting away fast and now. Going Home is my improvised take on an American root song. The above seven were recorded between 1972-1975. Three Sisters was recorded on a 20-minute studio break in 1999 describing three barren red hills somewhere in the Arizona desert, a cherished location. ) 27.00
SOLID SPACE - Space Museum LP (dark entries - back in stock - Dark Entries is honored to finally present the first ever official vinyl reissue of Space Museum by SOLID SPACE. Solid Space was the British duo of DAN GOLDSTEIN (keyboards, vocals) and MATTHEW "MAF" VOSBURGH (guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals) formed in 1980. Dan and Matthew met at the age of 11 while attending school in north London. In late 1978 at at the age of 14, they formed EXHIBIT 'A' with Paul “Platypus” and Andrew “Lunchbox” Bynghall. They recorded two EPs in 1979 and 1980, self-released on Irrelevant Wombat Records and appeared on The Thing From The Crypt compilation. After the dissolution of the group, Mathew started taking his guitar over to Dan’s house where he’d play his Casio MT-30 and they would record songs. Eventually a second hand drum machine and Wasp synthesizer were acquired from classified ads in Melody Maker and the Solid Space sound was born. By this time they were just turning 18 and finally found the freedom to make the music they’d had in their heads. Over the course of the next two years the band assembled eleven bedroom recordings that would become one of the most cherished DIY obscurities of its kind. Their debut album Space Museum was released in 1982 on cassette by In Phaze Records. The band's music and lyrics were heavily indebted to science fiction, in particular the 1960s television series Doctor Who. Space Museum is an unveiling of atmospheric, minimalist post punk supported by bright melodies. The music combines drum machines and synths with acoustic guitar and toy drums whilst also experimenting with samples between tracks. Representing a bubbling spirit within the underground, they foreshadowed an entire world of independent music which would emerge across the '80s and well into the '90s. For this reissue we’ve included two bonus tracks from the band’s archive, “Platform 6” originally released on the B-side of the second single by Exhibit ‘A’, this song features only Dan and Matthew and is the first Solid Space track ever recorded. “Tutti Lo Sanno” is a cover of In Phaze label mates Marine Girls, though the lyrics have been changed to suit the gender of the new singer.) 23.00
SPACE AFRIKA - Honest Labour LP (Dias - Manchester UK’s Space Afrika make music of what they term “overlapping moments” – oblique mosaics of dialogue, rhythm, texture, and shadow, half-heard through a bus window on a rainy night. Honest Labour, the group's first full-length since 2020's landmark hybtwibt? (have you been through what i’ve been through?) mixtape, expands the project's palette with classical strings, shimmering guitar, and visionary vocal cameos, leaning further into their enigmatic fusion of ambient unrest and cosmic downtempo. It's a sound both fogged and fragmented, at the axis of song craft and sound design, born from and for the yearning solitudes of life under lockdown. The album title is tiered, alluding to a legendary patriarch from co-founder Joshua Inyang's Nigerian family tree (who was lovingly called “Honest Labour” for his loyalty and resilience) as well as the nature of self-designated work, such as Space Afrika's music – a “labor of love” in its truest sense. With fellow co-founder Joshua Reid recently relocated to Berlin, the pair began sharing files last fall, piecing together poetic vignettes of looping haze and found sound, inspired by the notion of “records that leave an impression, and help the listener deal with their life.” As the isolation of Covid compounded with the worsening winter, the songs skewed increasingly introspective and emotive, reflecting a mood of dissipating futures and the infinite nocturnal unknown. ) 25.00
STEVE GUNN - other you DLP (matador - ‘Other You’ is the 10th solo LP by guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn. Due to his wide ranging influences, from John Fahey to La Monte Young to Michael Chapman, Gunn’s work takes an Americana template and adds elements of jazz, contemporary classical and prog. ‘Other You’ was produced by Elliott Smith producer Rob Schnapf and includes guest performances from Mary Lattimore, Juliana Barwick, Bridget St. John and more.) 30.00
STEVE GUNN - other you DLP + Flexi (‘Other You’ is the 10th solo LP by guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn. Due to his wide ranging influences, from John Fahey to La Monte Young to Michael Chapman, Gunn’s work takes an Americana template and adds elements of jazz, contemporary classical and prog. ‘Other You’ was produced by Elliott Smith producer Rob Schnapf and includes guest performances from Mary Lattimore, Juliana Barwick, Bridget St. John and more.)=
YOU COULD BE A COP / AMID THE OLD WOUNDS - split LP (adagio830 - New split LP by Norwegian YOU COULD BE A COP and AMID THE OLD WOUNDS from Germany. Classic beautiful emo. 20 minutes of dreamy, nostalgic indie-emopop on one side, 12 minutes of living room atmosphere, acoustic emo/folk on the other, packaged in a beautiful collage-style gatefold sleeve. Artwork by Chaz Hewitt. This is a split release between Adagio830, Friend Club Records, Motorpool Records, Slow Down, Strictly No Capital Letters, Time As A Color.) 14.00
MERCHANDISE
GRAUZONE - Eisbär HOODIE (Legion Blue) (WRWTFW - Limited Embroidered Eisbär Hoodie!
On Gildan heavy. - LARGE only) 40.00