Bis Aufs Messer Weekly News Nov 04 / 2023
Hi. Welcome to another newsletter with a few new nice things that arrived in the last couple days. Thank you again for ordering from us and supporting small independent recordstores - This means a lot to us!!
KHANATE - Khanate DLP re issue, MIKE REED - The Separatist Party LP, ACETONE re issues, CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE - DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz ferrrr SSSOFTTT DIVINI TIESSSSS!!!!!!!!! LP, CATHERINE CHRISTER HENNIX - Solo For Tamburium DLP restock, KAUFMANN / GRATKOWSKI / DE JOODE - Canberra LP, PURUSAM - The Way Of The Dying Race LP, SHOTMAKER - a moment in time: 1993-1996 3xLP BOXSET restock, TASHI DORJI - s/t LP, THE REPLACEMENTS - Songs For Slim LP re issue, The NATURAL INFORMATION SOCIETY restocks … a few more MILFORD GRAVES re issues and MYRIAM GENDRON restocks
The MINOR THREAT 7“s should ship next week - we still have a few of the pre order left in case you are interested. Also a handful ZORN DLPS are left and we are down to the last three copies of the NEIGHBOURING SOUNDS LP on black (col. Is sold out) and one copy of the NADJA TAPE.
And 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
mailorder@bisaufmesser.com
www.adagio830-records.bandcamp.com
LP
ACETONE - Acetone DLP (New West - Acetone's self-titled album is quite a lovely set of laid-back indie tunes inflected with country and slacker rock flavors. The sound on display here is just extremely tasteful, wonderfully recorded smooth guitar tones and vocals grounded by great rhythm work, all working to create a delightfully relaxed and melancholic vibe. This is a side of slowcore that I wish more artists would lean into; surely there are depressive elements here, but it's a comforting melancholy for the most part, slacker in the truest sense of recognizing that it's alright to accept one's laziness on occasion. You may have regrets, but you're not going to let them get you down...for now, at least. The perfect soundtrack for a lazy summer afternoon when you know you probably should get outside and do something but really would rather simply lay back in the air conditioning.) 45.00
ACETONE - Cindy DLP (new west - Originally released on vinyl in 1993 via Hut Recordings (UK), Acetone's debut album is now available in an expanded 2LP format and packaged in a gatefold - this the first pressing in over 30 years. Defunct rock trio from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1987 by bassist/guitarist Richie Lee together with guitarist Mark Lightcap and drummer Steve Hadley. Throughout their career they released a number of records, including "Cindy" (1993), "I Guess I Would" (1995) and "York Blvd." (2001). Tragedy struck, however, when bassist/lead singer Richie Lee killed himself on July 23, 2001, shortly after the release of "York Blvd." and thus the band was no more.) 45.00
ACETONE - If You Only Knew DLP (new west - It’s petty plain that there needs to be an Acetone revival… and soon. The band has long been a bit of an band’s band — influence to many, but largely left out of conversations that don’t drill down into ‘90s niche genres. Now, it feels like their sound might be more relevant than ever. Straddling slowcore, narcotic indie, and the brooding edges of country, the band excelled at standing on shifting sands. Far removed from their grungier, more pop-eaten debut, Cindy, and eschewing the country lilt that entered the fray on their ’94 EP, I Guess I Would, the band’s ’96 album If You Only Knew is a masterpiece of pacing and aesthetics.) 45.00
ACETONE - York Blvd. DLP (new west - York Blvd., Acetone's fourth album, is its most fully realized effort yet, attaching guitarist Mark Lightcap's drowsily effervescent solos to a set of shaggy but economical tunes worthy of Neil Young's stamp of approval. Like a comfortable old Pink Floyd album, this is the kind of thing to listen to while floating in space.) 45.00
ATOMÇK - Every Room In Britain LP (super fi - Atomçk are a trio from the UK's wet and wild south-west. They have been plugging away for over a decade, evolving their primitive noise roots into a uniquely eccentric and offbeat brand of grindcore for thee end-tymes. "Every Room In Britain" is a 17-minute head crusher of cacophonous chaos, all furiously catchy riffs and inhumanly shrill, stuck-ape vocals with pinpoint drums that border on the chaotic.) 12.00
ATOMÇK - Towering Failures LP (super fi - Atomçk are UK grindcore veterans, enmeshed in the scene, abrasive and obtuse. Their stubborn persistence in this most unnerving of styles is founded on snare hit hard, guitars played too loud and vocal cords thoroughly abused.
They hail from the olde wyldes of the West, with an eye firmly fixed on the menace of (the) Capital.
Now with The Afternoon Gentlemen's Barthur on bass. "Newly expanded to a quartet... Towering Failures is undoubtedly the band’s heaviest and most sonically flattening release to date, boasting a gigantic tone that sounds downright apocalyptic on slower numbers... For the most part though, this album races past at lightspeed, but manages to convey a host of different moods and textures in amongst its frantic delivery... Atomçk have been getting better and better with each subsequent album, but this is surely their most powerful and definitive record to date, and one of the most inventive and memorable grindcore records of the year thus far." -The Quietus) 16.00
BIRUSHANAH - 魔境 -Makyo- DLP (super fi - "Hailing from Japan, BIRUSHANAH work somewhere between doom and post-hardcore, using a guitar / voice / drums framework augmented by trash percussion sounds. They spin song lengths out to a dizzying extent and somehow intermingle a recognisably traditional, tribal bent to the melodies and progressions without sounding like complete and utter novelty prog nonsense. A unique, special band.“18.00
CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE - DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz ferrrr SSSOFTTT DIVINI TIESSSSS!!!!!!!!! LP (blank forms - DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz!!!!!!! In the newest record by the iconoclastic Brooklyn-born composer Charlemagne Palestine (b. 1947), find two mesmerizing works for carillon, the keyboard-controlled bell tower derived in the 16th century. On side A, a new piece recorded at the artist’s studio in Belgium—a high-ceiling, stuffed-animal-packed paradise he calls Charleworld—among friends and “divinities,” his name for the thousands of plush toys he’s amassed since the ’60s. On the flip side, Blank Forms Editions’ very first and long-out-of-print release appears on vinyl for the first time: a cathartic street recording of the maximalist composer’s 2018 musical eulogy for his late friend Tony Conrad, performed on the bells of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, where the two first met. Two mesmerizing “klanggdedangggebannggg” sessions in the Quasimodo of 53rd Street’s inimitable, trance-induced style.) 30.00
CATHERINE CHRISTER HENNIX - Solo For Tamburium DLP (blank forms - The fourth release in Blank Forms Editions's initiative to chart the ever-expanding musical practice of Catherine Christer Hennix, Solo for Tamburium captures the composer's most recent major work. Hennix plays an instrument of her own creation, a keyboard interface controlling a suite of eighty-eight recordings of precision-tuned tambura, creating a sweeping and continuous flow of rich harmonic interplay. This piece, documented in Berlin at MaerzMusik 2017, carefully draws upon the fundamental perceptual effects of sound, forming an exacting and cathartic electronic drone. Densely-layered timbral textures and continuous overtone collisions create a maze-like sonic landscape, thrusting the listener into what Hennix calls divine equilibrium or a distinctionless state of being. Since the late 1960s, Hennix has created a massive and innovative body of work spanning minimal music, computer programming, poetry, sculpture, and light art - pushing the technical and conceptual boundaries of these media toward singular ends. She was part of the downtown music school in New York and has worked extensively with some of its key figures, including Henry Flynt and La Monte Young. In the '70s, Hennix studied the nature and use of harmonic sound as a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath, a master of the Kirana tradition of classical Hindustani music. The exceptionally designed tamburas of Pran Nath were central to her intensive investigations, as was the devotional practice of carefully tuning and sounding the instruments in a continuous and even flow_both have guided her work with sound ever since. In 1976, at Stockholm's Moderna Museet, Hennix presented a pair of groundbreaking works that came to define her ensuing practice. With the Deontic Miracle_a group composed of Hennix, her brother Peter, and the Swedish percussionist Hans Isgren_she performed a series of modal compositions for Renaissance oboes, sheng, and harmonic feedback distortion. On this same occasion she premiered an equally significant body of solo work for keyboard, including the only public presentation of The Electric Harpsichord (1976), a piece that marks the beginning of Hennix's characteristic style of playing, where dense sonic textures gradually emerge from the multilayered interplay of harmonic construction and dissolution. Solo for Tamburium represents a pointed revisitation of her endeavor to map the non-gravitational harmonics of modal musics - among them raga, maqam, and the blues - onto a tuned keyboard. Since the debut of this piece in 2017 she has continued to develop the work, reshaping and presenting it in a variety of contexts, including at Blank Forms in New York and the Bourse de Commerce _ Pinault Collection in Paris in 2022. For Hennix, to approach modality as a dynamic process is ultimately a contemplative practice. Through it, embodied attunement to harmonic vibration gives rise to epistemically transformative states, opening new ways of knowing and being.) 38.00
INNER CONFLICT - At Any Time LP (Santa diablo - PURPLE VINYL - First new album since forever by Cologne-based Hardcore / Punk -band formed in 1992. A year after the cleverly ignored 30th band anniversary, Inner Conflict are back with their first release since 2018. As usual, you can hear punk rock that is both melodic and melancholic, carried by Jenny's characteristic voice. Belongs in the record cabinet somewhere between Duesenjaeger and Pascow.) 18.00
KAUFMANN / GRATKOWSKI / DE JOODE - Canberra LP (Frank Gratkowski - alto saxophone, clarinet, alto flute - Achim Kaufmann - piano . Wilbert de Joode - bass - A live recording from the SoundOut festival in Canberra, at the end of our Australian tour in early 2020, this is the trio's first vinyl release.) 30.00
KHANATE - things Viral DLP (sacred bones - Sensing that defenses to their contagion were down, Things Viral (2003) withdrew from any familiar or friendly shapes. On their second offering, the band decelerated to its own tempo, freezing the decay of the debut in a shocking and powerful stasis. Pitchfork lauds, "Khanate have that skill for unfolding an action in such excruciating detail that you're slowly edged off your seat_ Things Viral is extreme enough to appeal to people who don't have any interest in metal; the members cross metal pedigrees with noise-drone-art-damage bands-- from Burning Witch and Old, to Sunn 0))), to Blind Idiot God's Tim Wyskida on drums. It's committed but not overbearing, too resolute and unyielding to resist; it'll grab your skull and hold you achingly still as it thrashes through the depths, then totally, quietly wears itself out.“) 33.00
KHANATE - Khanate DLP (sacred bones - Khanate's self titled debut (2001) has all the pleasant ambiance of a plane crash site, a bleak urban waste of mangled and torn metal beams and hissed alarms. When Khanate first issued instructions to the void in 2001, the band was embraced as the next iteration of guitarist Stephen O'Malley's tube-cracking forays into amplifier variance; a fascinating further step of vocalist Alan Dubin and low-frequency shifter James Plotkin's space charts; and a warning for the crawling-pace hammers of Tim Wyskida's drums. But Khanate was not preaching of coming doom or offering emotional catharsis. The band was totally post-dread. The worst had already happened, and would continue to happen, over and over. The 5 songs on Khanate sound like an "orchestrated root canal" (Julian Cope).) 33.00
LAUREL HALO - Atlas LP (restock - Atlas, the latest album from renowned electronic artist Laurel Halo, is a suite of sensual ambient jazz collages, designed to take the listener on a roadtrip through the subconscious. Blending both synthetic ambient textures and acoustic instrumentation, the album is a series of endlessly listenable maps, rife with hidden detail. “Belleville” - the first single on Atlas - is a disarming piano ballad, recorded in one take during the spring of 2021. It's embellished with undertows of processed vibraphone, as well as a sudden, gorgeous stack of vocal harmonies featuring Coby Sey.) 28.00
MIKE REED - The Separatist Party LP (we jazz - DARK GREEN VINYL - Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, Chicago drummer, bandleader and composer Mike Reed had been thinking about isolation. "The Separatist Party" is the first installment of a three-album cycle involving a varied cast of musicians, dealing with themes of inner and outer human isolation.) 30.00
PURUSAM - The Way Of The Dying Race LP (svensk hardcore - CLEAR VINYL. For the first time on vinyl! First released on CD on Desperate Fight records in 1995. Swedish hardcore band from Skellefteå that existed 1994-1999. Towards the end they relocated to Umeå.) 24.00
THE REPLACEMENTS - Songs For Slim LP (Limited 12" vinyl pressing of this 2013 EP including download code. Constructed in order to raise money for former Replacements guitarist Slim Dunlap's medical costs. Replacements members Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson reunited and recorded an original Slim Dunlap song plus three additional covers. Original Replacements drummer Chris Mars also recorded a Slim cover and all five tracks were combined on this limited vinyl-only release.) 25.00
SHOTMAKER - a moment in time: 1993-1996 3xLP BOXSET (back in stock - During their relatively short time together SHOTMAKER harnessed the collective creativity of the Canadian DIY community to make something special happen. The band is widely recognized for influencing the direction of emo and post-hardcore music. They wrote and recorded two 7”s, two LPs, a split LP (with Washington, D.C., based Maximillian Colby) and numerous songs for compilations and other split records. The band thrived on playing live shows and completed three coast-to-coast North American tours in addition to many smaller tours. They regularly shared the stage with bands like Policy of 3, Los Crudos, Unwound, Rorschach, Cap’n Jazz, Indian Summer, Rye Coalition, Modest Mouse, Propagandhi, Hoover, Clikatat Ikatowi, Blonde Redhead, and Fugazi. "a moment in time: 1993-1996" is a band-curated, 33 track, 3xLP box set on transparent blue, green, and purple vinyl in a black, debossed, anti-scratch slipcase. It includes a 12 page booklet with never before seen images from Canadian photographer Shawn Scallen who chronicled much of the band's history. All material mastered for vinyl by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege in Portland, OR.) 70.00
TASHI DORJI - s/t LP (drag city - The initial cassette-only releases of Tashi Dorji turned lots of heads, including Six Organs of Admittance and Hermit Hut - now over a decade later, this release makes its full-album debut on vinyl. "It really was a formative time for me because it felt like everything opened, as far as the possibilities of what music-making meant. Like improvisation walked in and then there was a volcanic eruption" - Tashi Dorji "The self-titled session was recorded at a nice studio at the local university here in Asheville. I had some friends that were studying music there and had access to studio time. This session focused more on extended/prepared guitar ideas. My interest in percussive elements of sounds, timbre, harmonics, and dynamics plays a lot in this recording." - Tashi Dorji) 35.00
TRUTH CULT - Walk the Wheel LP (pop wig - Recorded live by producer/engineer J. Robbins at the Magpie Cage, "Walk The Wheel" strikes an impressive balance between ferocity and tunefulness. The album manages to capture the spark of Truth Cult's live performances while also allowing them to expand their sonic palette into exciting, new dimensions. The band's agile sound matches the multitudes contained in their lyrics, with Ferrara and Roberts exploring loss, drugs, anger, and existential complications as deftly as the music shifting around their words. ) 26.00
WASTED YEARS - Restless LP (It might just be a coincidence, but WASTED YEARS, despite being a brand new band, remind me of nerdy bands from the heydays of indie-emo in the mid-90ties – HANKSHAW, SAMUEL, maybe even BABY GOPAL – kind of a sound long gone and forgotten and seldomly reviewed by bands these days. And i’ll gladly dive right into ex-band-name dropping here, because what a list do we have got here: This band is (among others) ex-SHORT FUSE, VADERS, FORCE OF CHANGE, PUNCH…sounds mouth-watering right? Grab their debut album and join the joyride.) 23.00
