Bis Aufs Messer Weekly News
Hi, the year is almost over and we are fine tuning our end of the year list of 2022. A bunch of killer stuff arrived like the THE APOSTLES - Best Forgotten DLP, the BALDRUIN – Kleine Freuden LP, a bunch of DUSTER restocks and the repress of the DUSTER - s/t LP, the MORE EAZE & CLAIRE ROUSAY - If I Don't Let Myself Be Happy Now Then When? LP, HAUSCHKA & HILDUR GUÐNADÓTTIR – Pan Tone LP, PATRICK COWLEY - Malebox LP, also restocks of the Lack Of Knowledge und Sleeping Dogs 12“, the KARATE and CURRENT Boxsets … we also got more
Til then thank you for all your orders & support.
Robert & Norman
mailorder@bisaufmesser.com
www.adagio830-records.bandcamp.com
LP
THE APOSTLES - Best Forgotten DLP (horn of plenty - Horn of Plenty presents Best Forgotten, the first-ever survey of early tapes by avant-anarcho-punks The Apostles. Founded in London in 1979 by a rotating cast of characters who came and went around its eventual frontman, Andy Martin, The Apostles were a product of their moment; a group of friends grappling with the political, racial, and cultural tensions of the time. Embracing unfettered creative experimentation, while exploring the personal as poetic, themes of queer liberation, radical leftism, and anti-racism, Best Forgotten - drawn from tapes recorded within the limited means of bare necessity in Islington & Hackney squats between 1981-1983 - offers a rare window into this lost world. 40 years on, within an eerily similar political and economic climate, its message remains as relevant and urgent as it was then. Imbued with immediacy, the artefacts of lo-fi and DIY, and the spirit of chance, the material comprising Best Forgotten captures a fledgling band evolving through various line-ups, styles, and techniques with the means at hand: ramshackle instruments, rudimentary electronics, basic tape recorders and boom boxes, bookending a period of constant experimentation that defined their early years. While associated with other anarcho-punk bands of their moment like Crass, Poison Girls, Conflict and Flux of Pink Indians, this 86 minute collection of rare material - incorporating the early tape collages of fellow traveller Ian Rawes (later famed for his London Sound Survey project) and other avant-garde practices and approaches - sits more comfortably with the output of experimental post-punk bands like Lemon Kittens, Alternative TV or The Door & The Window. While interest in the Apostles’ activities has only grown over the years, particularly after being namechecked by Ty Segall in a 2014 interview, these early explorations have largely remained inaccessible until now. In a 2009 article charting the band’s history, Andy Martin gives these early tapes a mere footnote and stated that, in his opinion, they are ‘Best Forgotten’. With respect, we beg to differ. ) 40.00
BALDRUIN – Kleine Freuden LP (mappa. Johannes Schebler's musical output is all about establishing a dreamlike territory where sonic settlements can spread at ease. While Grykë Pyje (Johannes Schebler's duo with Jani Hirvonen) presents musical landscapes as open and clear spaces, Baldruin's miniature pieces tend to narrow them down, zooming into domestic sceneries that shift like malleable rooms inside a magic building. These are the quarters where the inhabitants of Schebler's musical world are configured. Rendered in a tender manner, the tunes in Kleine Freuden (in English: small joys) unfold like a collection of fairy tales and bedtime stories. Fables and lullabies performed in whispering tones seem to carry us through a child's dream where images blend into each other. Compact, yet gauzy and free flowing melodies gather up revealing an ensemble of households where fanciful entities play care freely, leading us along their musical maze. The music is placid, childlike and playful. It wanders around in unwavering estrangement, organizing an unprecedented and intimate space as seen from a bird's eye view. In the landscape of a bedroom where the night lamp is the sun, we take part in a lively journey, as wonder is warrant and keeper of a warm and pristine environment. Perspective shifts as we rise from bed sheet folds that turn into fragile mountain ranges. We crawl behind furniture and take shelter in secret hideouts while dust falls upon us like a blizzard. Transfiguring notions of scale and time, we are left wondering how long have we been here, wondering if music is the only true measurement of time.) 25.00
DUSTER - s/t LP (numero - After a 19-year hiatus, Duster came back with their S/T chef-d’oeuvre in 2019. Recorded in band member Clay Parton’s garage (aka Low Earth Orbit), the record bears all the hallmarks of the band’s early work: gaunt basslines, spindly guitars, and melancholy lyrics that lurk in the background.) 27.00
JOSHUA BONNETTA – Innse Gall LP + BOOK (shelter - Shelter Press extend a quietly cine-poetic invitation to visit the Outer Hebrides via immersive sounds - field recordings of psalm singing and local dialect - collected and arranged by interdisciplinary artist Joshua Bonnetta, going hand-in-hand with Shelter Press’ core interests in the fading light of its 10th year in operation. A beautiful artefact - complete with 60 page photobook. Accompanied by an evocative photo study and access to an accompanying film and essay, Bonetta’s second release for Shelter Press following 2016’s ‘Lago’ imparts a real feel for the archipelago, off the north west coast of Scotland, where he was stationed during an artist’s residency during 2017-2019. Stitched together from observant field recordings and interviews with residents on the islands of Barra, Berneray, Harris, Lewis & North Uist, the work elicits a sense of timelessness in its slow drift between shores, hills, standing stones and the intimacy of its voices, including Gaelic spoken word, folk song and whistling. Save for the appearance of a plane overhead, the sounds of car and boat motors, plus a little bit of electronic disturbance that pull you into the modern era; the results practically imagine what it would have been like to visit the islands with a recording device at any point since the last ice age.) 36.00
MORE EAZE & CLAIRE ROUSAY - If I Don't Let Myself Be Happy Now Then When? LP (Originally released in 2020 on cassette and digitally. more eaze is the nom de plume of Austin, TX mainstay m.maurice, a roving experimentalist who’s explored an astoundingly diverse range of sounds, from drone and computer music to avant-pop and beyond. claire rousay is a San Antonio, TX-based percussionist/composer/sound artist who uses physical objects and their potential sounds as a way to explore queerness, human physicality, and self perception. Together—through a suite of deeply personal aural collages—two of Texas’ most vital and vibrant sonic searchers beg the eternal question: If I Don't Let Myself Be Happy Now Then When? Although only their debut album together, If I Don’t Let Myself… reveals a profound and fruitful relationship between m and claire. But the symphonic symbiosis goes even deeper still. Outside of musical breakthroughs, the pair helped each other conquer intensely personal changes, with m and claire transitioning and coming out as non-binary and trans, respectively.) 25.00
HAUSCHKA & HILDUR GUÐNADÓTTIR – Pan Tone LP (sonic pieces - 2022 repress, full tone cover artwork, printed inner sleeve, 500 copies Volker Bertelmann and Hildur Guðnadóttir hardly need an introduction - their distinct styles have graced the speakers of pretty much anyone enamored with experimental music in the last decade, and between them the two have chalked up an enviable canon of successes. Bertelmann, under the Hauschka moniker has explored the extremities of prepared piano improvisation, and Guðnadóttir has taken cinematic, explorative cello music into a new era of depth and passion, so to hear them both together is a rare and unexpected treat. Rare is putting it lightly even - „Pan Tone“ is a recording of a single concert which the duo performed on the 26th of February 2010 as part of Arctic Circle - Bubbly Blue and Green festival at Kings Place in London, and documents an event that would truly never be repeated. Sure, they could attempt to re-create the event, but the spontaneity and glorious serendipity in this particular recording is a pleasure to behold. Bertelmann and Guðnadóttir decided to create a set of compositions which based on the idea of the ocean, and took a book of Pantones to extract exact references to the specific colors of the sea. These watery tones form the backbone of the performance and inform the direction of the collaboration, guiding us through rich blues, glassy greens and frothy whites. In listening to the music it seems incredibly appropriate that the artists should choose blue as the middle ground in their work; the ineffable lightness that Bertelmann brings to the table is a stark contrast to Guðnadóttir´s sinking darkness, and as the two styles collide we witness a plethora of tones, shades and hues. It sounds as if the two artists have been playing together for decades, and their sound is so perfectly matched you might wonder why it´s taken them this long to collaborate. All that´s left for us to do is to soak in the tidal beauty of this very exclusive body of music, to listen to it sing, bubble and crash through its duration before settling in total silence. When the record reaches its conclusion there is an unsettling calm, a sense that you have witnessed something very special indeed, and that is a feeling to prize amongst all else.) 26.00
IANNIS XENAKIS - Persepolis LP (Karl - "Persepolis" is the longest electroacoustic composition by IANNIS XENAKIS (1922-2001) who ranks among the most influential 20th century avant-garde composers. Commissioned by the Persian Shah, the piece was part of a multimedia performance – XENAKIS’ so-called “polytopes” – which premiered in 1971 in Shiraz-Persepolis (Iran) as a performance including light-tracks, laser beams, groups of children walking around with torches and 59 loudspeakers to project the music in an open-air situation. XENAKIS had realized “Persepolis” on 8-track analogue tape in the Studio Acusti in Paris and released a stereo reduction on vinyl in the famous Philips series “Prospective 21e Siècle” in 1972, adding the new subtitle “We bear the light of the earth”, his most hymnal title ever. Out of print for decades now, the LP became – especially the Japanese edition from 1974 – one of the most expensive collector’s item of electroacoustic music. There were some later CD versions with different durations – too long due to a wrong sample rate, others shortened by 3 minutes due to other reasons. The PERIHEL series now presents a new version: mixed from the original (!) master 8 track tapes by longtime zeitkratzer sound engineer MARTIN WURMNEST and mastered by RASHAD BECKER at D&M, Berlin – the same experts who had already taken care of the 2016 KARLRECORDS release of “La Légende d’Eer”, another milestone composition among the works of the Greek-French avant-garde composer.) 25.00
JORGE LOPEZ RUIZ - Bronca Buenos Aires LP (Alter Cat - Essential jazz from Argentina, originally released in 1971. Bronca Buenos Aires is one of the highlights in the career of Jorge López Ruiz, alongside El Grito and the much-acclaimed Viejas Raíces project. The album is jazz poem by López Ruiz to the city he loved, not just for its virtues but also its faults, and the recording was an ambitious project that gathered many of the prominent jazz musicians of Buenos Aires. However, due to the repressive political context of the time, Bronca Buenos Aires was not performed live upon its release. The text that accompanies the music, written and narrated by José Tcherkaski, was too daring despite not being directly outspoken against the dictatorship that ruled in Argentina, and broadcasters kept a distance under fear of retaliation by the military establishment. Inexplicably, several later re-releases of Bronca Buenos Aires omitted the spoken word overdubs, reducing the work to an instrumental album and stripping it of half of its beauty and significance.) 25.00
LUIS VECCHIO - Contactos LP (Alter Cat - COSMIC JAZZ FROM THE CANARY ISLANDS. After a few years in London, where he worked with Archie Shepp and recorded a sought-after album for the famed library music label De Wolfe, Argentinian pianist Luis Vecchio settled in the island of Gran Canaria following advice from a superior entity from outer space. Vecchio subsequently opened the first jazz school in the Canary Islands, effectively planting the seed of jazz in the archipelago. In Contactos, recorded in 1978, Vecchio gives a free jazz account of his contacts with Adionesis, who delivers his ominous message upon the human race on side B of the album. Fellow Argentinean Fernando Bermúdez on percussion and Japanese bass player Yoichi Yahiro complete the line-up of Contactos.) 25.00
MATIAS PIZARRO - Pelo de Rata LP (Alter Cat - "Hey, there's this new guy around that plays like Herbie Hancock!!". When Chilean pianist Matías Pizarro arrived in Argentina fleeing Pinochet's dictatorship, word spread like wildfire in the local jazz scene. In the two short years that Pizarro spent in Buenos Aires, he became one third of the Viejas Raíces project alongside local jazz heroes Jorge López Ruiz and Pocho Lapouble, recorded with famed Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava and released his own solo album, Pelo de Rata ("Rat's hair“). Pizarro was no beginner though. Whilst in Chile he had already participated in several music projects and worked as a producer and arranger for the IRT label, and was connected to influential bands such as Los Jaivas and Blops. He had also studied in the Berklee School of Music where he not only met and lived with the cream of an emerging new wave of musicians, but he also had the chance to attend live performances of giants such as Miles Davis or Thelonious Monk.) 25.00
MERZBOW - Hope LP (Previously unreleased material by Japanese noise master Masami Akita aka Merzbow. Recorded & mixed at Munemihouse. Final mix in April 2022.Mastering and lacquer cut by Noel Summerville Artwork and design by Zavoloka) 25.00
PATRICK COWLEY - Malebox LP (dark entries - Dark Entries has a surprise delivery! Malebox brings us six previously unreleased funk-fueled jams from the archives of the cybernetic disco titan himself, Patrick Cowley. Best known for his chart-topping disco anthems, Cowley left us with an incredible body of work before his tragic death in 1982 due to AIDS-related illness. Since 2009, Dark Entries has been working with Cowley’s friends and family to uncover the singular artist’s lesser-known sides, including his soundtracks for gay pornographic films on compilation albums School Daze, Muscle Up, and Afternooners.) 30.00
TAPES
ANDREW ODA – Back To The Body TAPE (Zappa - The journey from trauma to healing and understanding inspired Andrew Oda’s beautiful new album: »Back To The Body«. More delicate and plaintive than his previous work, but no less adventurous in its broad palette of synthetic and acoustic sounds, this music is the topography of a descent into the wisdom of the body, “as frightening and unsafe as it may feel” as the composer puts it. A sweet piano, a gently plucked guitar, and a mournful cello sit alongside garbled synth melodies, rustling field recordings, and sweeping cosmic backdrops throughout, a mimic of the counterintuitive harmony of sensations that meet the traumatised body) 15.00
KENSHO NAKAMURA - Electric Rust TAPE (Mappa - To decay is also to transform. Rusting metal is the visible traces of passing time, as the oxidation process accumulates dampness in our atmosphere and imprints it as unpredictable patterns onto hard iron and steel. Working in construction for a year now, Kensho Nakamura sees rust all the time, clambering up ageing chunks of material. Normally discarded as waste, Nakamura began discerning beauty in the phenomenon, organically spiralling around and consuming some of the very hardest of manufacturing stuffs into unique new forms.‘Electric Rust’ continues the conceptual electronic composition mode of Nakamura’s previous works with a series of fractured musical dioramas. These scurrying notes, sparse hums, and quivering bleeps explore the topics of rust and the accumulation of time. The music ticks like a clock, drips like a tap, and manifests unknowable inorganic shapes. Recognisable musical snippets of bells, pianos, or murmured voices are buried inside counterintuitive synthetic rhythms and tension) 15.00
BOOKS / MAGAZINES
ISIS AQUARIAN - Family: The Source Family Scrapbook BOOK (sacred bones - FAMILY: THE SOURCE FAMILY SCRAPBOOK provides an immersive view into the public and private world of the Southern California occult commune The Brotherhood of the Source. Edited by Isis Aquarian, Charlie Kitchings, and Jodi Wille, this lavishly illustrated book reproduces 200 original scrapbook pages assembled by family historian Isis Aquarian from 1972-1977, documenting the group’s dramatic rise and fall, from their time living together in the Hollywood Hills operating their wildly popular Source vegetarian restaurant on the Sunset Strip to their exodus to Hawaii and San Francisco as the group began to unravel. Copious unpublished photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, manifestos, album art and flyers, augmented by descriptive captions, reveal the Source Family’s astonishing trajectory, from controversial leader Father Yod’s spiritual awakening to the group’s wild musical and social experimentations, to the provocations that led to the group’s paradise lost. These pages provide a revelatory, firsthand view into the widely misunderstood phenomenon of new religious movements and cults of the 1960s and 70s. This book is a beautiful 200pg full color, cloth bound, and embossed 11"x12" hardcover coffee table book.) 55.00
