Browse: Misc

Dirty Three

Love Changes Everything

Drag City

***Dirty Three Ahoy! Appropriately disheveled, the Three—Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White—emerge from the unending waves of time to pick up their guitar drum and viola / violin / piano / synthesizer / loops / percussion for their first album in a decade. Their playing encompasses ALL—from the original fury of their unlikely power trio to an impressionist cinema later on; mercurial, tumultuous to ambient to adagio, mood and emotion drawn up to dazzling heights from the humble human scale.

Uboa

Impossible Light

Flenser

Uboa’s fifth album Impossible Light almost never made it out of the dark. From its initial conception in 2018, this record went to hell and back, dragging its immensity and too-big-to-hold emotion through the torturous process of translation to sound and returned triumphantly as a full-bodied record in a distinct new style. Impossible Light begins where Uboa’s 2019 breakout album The Origin Of My Depression left off—and ends somewhere entirely different. The Origin stunned with its methodical use of doom, harsh noise, and ambient soundscapes while documenting a raw, unhindered account of Xandra Metcalfe’s experiences with her transition and her struggles with mental health. Over time The Origin steadily grew a cult-like following which developed into a full-fledged internet community focused around noise, neurodiversity and transness. While Uboa’s signature style of highly polished, cinematic “hypernoise” is front and center in Impossible Light, there is also a daring departure into the genres of industrial metal / rock, setting it apart from any other Uboa release thus far and distinguishing it from other contemporary noise records. Metcalfe kept the lyrical content of this record as a time capsule of the catastrophic ups and downs and rapidly changing environments within herself and in the world from 2018-2023. Key collaborators include Blood Of A Pomegranate, Otay:onii, Charlie Looker and Haela Hunt-Hendrix of Liturgy. Impossible Light dives fearlessly into queer sexuality, trans embodiment, grief for those who couldn’t make it, solidarity for those facing unimaginable discrimination, the toxic spread of transphobic hatred and...

2Muchachos

Natura: 2009-2012

Not Not Fun

When Russian musicians Vladimir Karpov (X.Y.R.) and Dmitriy Borodin began making hushed, liminal, ASMRbient dream pop together in the late 2000’s, the underground landscape was thick with artists using mystical monikers, so they chose to troll in the opposite direction: 2muchachos. Although the original intent was to filter out listeners “who judge by name or cover,” they were soon joined by Aleksandra Evseeva (aka Andra Ljos), rendering their banner even more incongruous and comical. Titles aside, the collaboration was fruitful, spanning nearly half a decade of steadily refined activity. Natura 2009-2012 collects 76 minutes of the trio’s most cloaked and bewitched recordings, evolving from the “northern environmental folktronica” of their early years through to the whispered fairytale ambient voyaging of 2012’s haunted swansong, Forest Is Not What It Seems. The tracks are sourced from an array of digital singles, compilations, and self-released CD-Rs, mapping a non-chronological odyssey of the group’s skeletal, subliminal songcraft. Karpov’s signature Soviet Formanta synth weaves within windswept guitar, fragile percussion, and field recordings of forest birds and endless steppes, occasionally accented with Andra’s glimmering, ghostly voice. It’s music of isolation and introspection, poetic and remote, murmuring through mists and long winters, flickering with the color of springs yet to bloom.

Chunked

Inhaling The Infestation

Gore House Productions

***Prepare to dive into the depths of primordial aggression with Chunked's debut offering, Inhaling the Infestation. This EP is a relentless onslaught of primitive, knuckle-dragging death metal, stripped down to its most visceral essence. With no frills or unnecessary embellishments, Chunked delivers a sonic barrage that is as heavy as it is unapologetic. Inhaling the Infestation is a testament to the band's dedication to the purest form of death metal. From the thunderous drumming to the haunting vocals, each track is an assault on the senses, leaving listeners gasping for air amidst the suffocating atmosphere of relentless aggression.

Sepsism

To Prevail In Disgust

Gore House Productions

***No introduction is required when speaking of this Southern California's brutal death pioneer. This is the reissue of Sepsism's sophomore album, To Prevail In Disgust. To Prevail in Disgust is a relentless onslaught of catchy, heavy, and sinister riffing. In this psychotic whirlwind of death metal, Sepsism keeps it stripped down, percussive, sadistic, and primal. There are no solos to interrupt the lurching grind; instead, the album is a relentless onslaught that captivates with its raw intensity. This album is a visceral journey through the savage realms of brutal death metal, delivering everything you'd expect and more.

Fisher, Randal & Dexter Story

Wenge

Constellation Tatsu

***Wenge, pronounced /wen-gee/, is a legume tree native to the forests of Congo, Zaire, Gabon, Cameroon, and the southern regions of Tanzania and Mozambique. Some of its indigenous names are dikela, mibotu, bokonge, and awong. It is a hard and heavy dark-colored wood used for musical instruments, like guitars, flutes, drums and balaphones, which we play on the recordings. The name struck us as an apt metaphor for resiliency, stability, durability, and the sonic resonance we bring you on this release. Wenge is a collaborative recording inspired by music score created for the Raphael Sbarge-directed PBS series 10 Days in Watts.

Glo Phase

Blink

Constellation Tatsu

***Glo Phase is the solo project of professional composer and multi-instrumentalist, Joseph Rusnak. Glo Phase’s new album “Blink” invites listeners into a world of live, vibrant, and captivating electronic music where spontaneity shines. His live performances imbue the music with a vibrant interplay of spontaneity and unpredictability, as he wields a rich assortment of hardware and software tools, orchestrating immersive live sets that transcend creative boundaries.

Iksre

abundance

Constellation Tatsu

***"abundance" is the new album by IKSRE (Phoebe Dubar) composed of eight tracks, each offering positive, elevating, shimmering, and textural sonic experiences. The songs incorporate layered vocals, viola, analog and software synths, binaural beats, and unique sound healing instruments. IKSRE (I Keep Seeing Rainbows Everywhere), creates ambient music that teeters on the edge of danceability, inviting listeners to connect themselves to the abundance that surrounds them.

High Noon Kahuna

This Place Is Haunted

Crucial Blast

One of the coolest quotes that I've come across on High Noon Kahuna's debut album Killing Spree came from Philly deathsludge entity / underground commentator Rot Coven, who described the music on "Spree" as an "utterly baffling blend of 70’s proto-metal, Black Flag / Bl’ast-ish hardcore punk, kaleidoscopic psychedelia, and what sounds like some kind of heavily amplified surf music (which kept making me think of the weird “surfy” parts of Agent Orange for whatever that’s worth to anyone).... like some acid-damaged mid-80’s Arizona band that would have played shows with JFA, Mighty Sphincter, and the Sun City Girls."Man, I could not have put it better myself. That comment was probably the most astute assessment of the band's 2023 disc I've read. The band and that album were (and are) most definitely weird, totally ignoring any semblance of genre guardrails for an explosive riot of melody and heaviness, chaos and musical proficiency, and most importantly, hammering riffage and serious earworm material. High Noon Kahuna traverse those hinterlands between noise rock, hardcore punk, sludgy metallic crunch, surf guitar flourishes and Morricone-esque atmosphere, and wild-eyed, spaced-out psychedelic adventure, where it all bleeds and blurs together into something that is just as unique as their name demands. It's the result of a shared background in the DMV underground that goes back decades; between guitarist Tim Otis (Admiral Browning), drummer Brian Goad (Internal Void / The Larrys / Nagato), and bassist / singer Paul Cogle (Black Blizzard / Vox Populi / Nagato / Slagstorm),...

Chaos OK

Demo Cassette

Sorry State

***Sorry State presents the first release from Chaos OK, a new band featuring Nick Goode (from Logic Problem, Brain Flannel, and Joint D≠) on guitar and vocals, another Sorry State alumnus in Corey Long (drummer of the almighty Bukkake Boys,) and Eric from Atlanta's mysterious and elusive Loverman project. Nick’s expressionistic guitar style, informed equally by Hendrix, Kawakami, and the guy from Tampax, warmly returns to the label throughout these five tracks. The torrent of feedback and treble on the opener, “a rithm,” instantly recalls Joint D≠ at their most explosive; now fused with Corey & Eric's crushing rhythms, we're gifted an acutely weaponized bombast. While the tape starts with a hailstorm of chaotic energy, the latter three tracks brood, swerve, surge, and seethe, the cycles of tension and release as powerful and inevitable as the weather (the leather). Songs about seeing the trees for the forest—the brutally xeroxed repetition of the dissolving future, templated expression, grotesque oversaturation, when what used to excite you does not. Lamentations of the modern dance, the sounds of smuggling punk with you into your late 30s. As in their past projects, these guys continue to machete their way through the thickets, hungrily stumbling onto weird and new directions in raging, articulate hardcore.

Highland, Krazee Ken

Krazee Ken Highland 1973/1975

Gulcher

***"I met drummer Gary Torok in June ’74. We got together and jammed on Uriah Heep and Santana. Me, him, and his younger brother Peter on bass played my high school in January ’75. 'Ready Eddie' is truly about Stenson Eddie Flowers coz he 'loves that Southern bop.' The chords are 'Brown Sugar' (’71) and Ten Years After’s 'Choo Choo Mama' (’72). Let’s say 'Ready Eddie' is Nixon-era rock. I met fanzine writer Scott Duhamel August ’74, so I musta said, 'Have your poems set to my music.' Wrote 'Juvenile Delinquent' fall ’74 maybe. This version is the exact arrangement as on the Afrika Korps’ Music To Kill By, only substituting the Gruberger brothers for the Torok brothers. 'Jammin’ At The Harvester' is about a buncha stoners in ’73 partying at Harvester Park in Brockport. Bloody Night was a one-off jam thing I forgot about. I was a senior at Brockport High, and in my radio class was fanzine drifter Bill Rowe and a guy named Chuck Barney. I guess Bloody Night was just a bedroom jam. I got Mark Shipper’s Flash fanzine in maybe June ’72 and then bought his Explosives comp LP by the Sonics. Wrote 'Kiss Of The Rat' August ’73 since I’d already mastered 'He’s Waitin’' with the wrong chords. And ’66 or so, having just moved from Virginia, I heard 'the kids are alright' as 'with the kiss of a rat.'"—Krazee Ken (as told to Ready Eddie)

Fog Lamp

Anxious Stargazing

The Bucket Records

***"FOG LAMP out of Oakland, California is awesome! Cacophonous synth punk for mutants. Heavy riffs combined with SCREAMERS-style song structures makes for delectable tunes. Somewhere between the bashing drums and beleaguered vocal delivery, an almost hardcore aesthetic emerges and puts to bed any thought that this is egg-punk. The title track 'Anxious Stargazing' opens with a dirge-like tone and quickly progresses into a tense but clamorous rock, and is then followed by 'People are Sponges,' which opens with one of the best bass sounds I’ve ever heard. In all, I highly recommend this one!”—Seth McBurney, Maximum Rocknroll

Agriculture

Living Is Easy / The Circle Chant

Flenser

The Flenser is pleased to announce the release of Living Is Easy, the latest EP from ecstatic black metal band Agriculture. This new EP will be paired with the band’s debut EP, The Circle Chant. For the first time, both EPs will be pressed together on a single 12-inch vinyl record as well as a cassette format Living Is Easy represents a significant new statement from the band. With their debut self-titled, Agriculture embarked on a journey to explore how heavy music can provide insights into the joys of life, both everyday and divine. Their extensive touring with this material led to a profound experience of ecstasy, surpassing expectations as they shared the intensity and joy of these songs with audiences worldwide. This experience was a catalyst for the band, inspiring them to delve even deeper into the realm of “ecstatic black metal” music. They believes that with this release they have pushed this concept to its limit, resulting in a transformative explosion of sound and meaning. The record delves into themes of community connection, holiness, violence, and the cycles of life. The title track is especially notable, featuring a retelling of a story from one of the Buddha’s past lives. In this narrative, the Buddha encounters a starving family of tigers and sacrifices himself to save them, a tale of serenity and selflessness. This story resonates deeply with the band, reflecting the humility and inspiration they find in their collaboration and echoing the generosity and interconnection they strive to...

Rosnet, Jean-Emmanuel

Les Alentours

Not Not Fun

French constructionist Jean-Emmanuel Rosnet describes his latest suite of sound collages as “improvised landscapes and odes to everyday moments,” woven from a patchwork of modular synthesis, tape techniques, resampling, and digital processing. Les Alentours evokes overlapping dimensions of its creator’s ‘surroundings’ – physical, metaphysical, sonic, psychic. Flickering electronics and hymnal hazes murmur within a web of restless ASMRbient dissociatives: crackling, pitter patter, plucked strings, smeared horns. Recorded both before and during a relocation from Lyon to the rolling hills and glacial valleys of the Livradois-Forez natural park two hours west, the album’s nine pieces capture a mood of whispered transience and unfamiliar thresholds, crafted from vignettes of “poetic intimacy in which to become lost and disappear.

Shakali

Rihmastossa

Not Not Fun

Based in the South Moravian city of Brno, Finnish multi-instrumentalist Simo Hakalisto aka Shakali crafts surreal terrariums of strings, synthetics, wood, and wind, teeming with bio-electronic synchronicities. Rihmastossa further finesses the project’s eclectic lexicon of electro-acoustic world-building, utilizing a gallery of instruments both ancient and advanced: solar-powered sine wave generators, singing bowls, metallophones, microtonal synths wired into tree slabs, lap harps, amplified found objects, percussion filters, flutes. This is world music in the most naturalistic sense – subtle spatial ecosystems of climate, vibration, landscape, and species, as alluded to in the track titles about fungal colonies, extinct birds, rare worms, and pine forests. Hakalisto’s work in various exploratory duos (Gnäw, Lunar Horns, Thistle) has honed his instincts for atmospheric improvisation, but when alone he embeds even deeper into the terrain, acting as conduit as much as creator. Across seven free-flowing fugue states of texture and resonance, his touch simmers beneath the surface, guided by shifting light and hidden hands.

Yayoba

A Maze Of Glass

Not Not Fun

4th-world fusion trio Yayoba triangulate warped constellations of electronics, woodwinds, hand percussion, and field recordings via their respective bases in Brighton (UK), Turku (FIN), and Wiesbaden (DE), coaxing a sound they describe as “like a beam of light passing through translucent glass walls in a labyrinth.” Comprised of legacy experimentalists Paul Wilson (F. Ampism), Jani Hirvonen (Uton), and Johannes Schebler (Baldruin) – the latter two of whom also moonlight in “crypto-botanical” electro-acoustic unit Grykë Pyje – the group operate spontaneously and post-geographically, file-sharing sketches, textures, and FX until an alien synergy takes hold. A Maze Of Glass collects 16 of the project’s headiest and most hyper-sensory improvisations into a 47-minute microcosmic odyssey of fractal, radiophonic exotica. Circuit-bent devotionals dovetail into pixelated mists; diaphanous lifeforms lurch through psychoactive caverns; cybernetic miasmas dance and dissipate. It’s music both placeless and perplexing, undulating and uncanny, hieroglyphic transmissions echoing from the depths.

G Version III

Scenery From Double Glazing

Digital Sting

***G Version III from Kyoto Japan arrives on Digital Sting via a correspondence going back a few years that grew out of mutual musical connections and a deep appreciation for the Jamaican sound system diaspora. G Version grew up with a love of Hip Hop, R&B, and Reggae and had a musical revelation at a Lake Biwako sound clash event as a teenager that was formative in spurring a deeper dive into Dancehall and soundsystem culture. After some time spent studying in the UK and returning to Japan, working at Jet Set records along with meeting heavyweight producer Element the beginnings of her future musical output began to take shape. Downtime during the pandemic provided the time to concentrate on production. G Version's sound has a retro futuristic feel, equal parts Dancehall history and esoteric dub leanings, particularly in tune with the more experimental branches of 80's-90's UK Dub and Steppers. Influences being stated G Versions sound is thoroughly distinct and imaginative, not content to conform to any obvious genre tropes. Also included in this release are two dubs of G Version tracks by Digital Sting mainstays Feel Free Hi Fi.

V/a

Time Splitters

Digital Sting

***Time Splitters is a various artist compilation created and produced by Richmond VA based Deskulling in collaboration with veteran Spanish Town JA artist I Jahbar between 2021 and 2023. This 21 track 50 plus minute Dancehall epic also includes other veteran vocalists such as G Sudden, RDL Shellah, Buddydon, and Darkchild plus newer talents such as Fearless, Longdon, Latty, King Kush and 1 Solar Boss. Alexander West who passed away in 2023 contributes an ethereal and heartfelt album closing performance on “Granny Grenade”. Time Splitters is a sprawling creation that captures a multiplicity of emotions, life complexities, spiritual evocations, and musical dimensions. Deskulling's eclectic productions are rendered to the perfect minimalism and provide a rich and varied platform for vocal performances that move between dark and light, sad and joyful, heavy and soft. A lot of work went into this release over a few years from many people during times of inner and outer complexities, turmoils, and tribulations. This release musically, lyrically, emotionally, represents life's spectrum fully. Thanks for listening.

Vacation

Rare Earth

Feel It

"Vacation’s new album Rare Earth comes at a time when the powder keg of civilization as we know it is particularly vulnerable to the spark that swallows our very existence. Rare Earth is an album that exists on account of this fact; lyrically and sonically in meditation of it. It’s an album that evokes at once the ominous churning of the Bizarros, the drone & dirge of Screaming Urge, and the melodic cushion of the Replacements’ tender years. Nine albums into their discography, Vacation remain true to shrill atmospheric ambience in tribute to Pere Ubu while retaining the hard-edged accessibility that was signed, sealed, and delivered to sensitive degenerates by the likes of the Ramones and Guided By Voices. Rare Earth delivers all of this in a uniquely sparkling package; almost tactile in relation to their live experience. It’s this Cincinnati power-quartet’s most explosive album yet, out Spring 2024 on Feel It Records."—Amos Pitsch (Dusk, Tenement)

Buchanan, Raeghan

The Secret History of Black Punk: Record Zero

Silver Sprocket

***Delve into the largely overlooked footprint that Black punks have on the underground music scene in a new archival publication brought to you by Raeghan Buchanan and Silver Sprocket. The Secret History of Black Punk: Record Zero by Buchanan is an illustrated roll-call for punk, post-punk, hardcore, no-wave, and experimental bands from ground zero ‘til now. A starting point for anyone curious, another reference for those who devour all genre-related things, or a cool artifact for anyone in the know. This book is part of an ongoing series that covers musicians like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Poly Styrene, Don Letts, Minority Threat, and many others. From LA to London, from the early 1900s till today, Buchanan examines and presents narratives to show how Black musicians shape (and are shaped by) the world we live in. 64 full-color pages. 6.625" x 10.187" with spine.

Sassenberger, Bill

Toxic Shock Records - Assassin Of Mediocrity

Fluke Publishing

***Toxic Shock is a full-color, 200-page book that chronicles the history of the punk record store/mail order enterprise and groundbreaking record label Toxic Shock from its origins in 1980 in the grimy suburbs of Pomona, CA to its demise in Tucson, AZ in 2014. Loaded with many rare photos and gig flyers, and through a combination of a very personal biography, oral history and extensive imagery, the book covers the many twists and turns that made Toxic Shock an often misunderstood punk rock institution. It also covers how the death rock band Christian Death inspired the co-owners to create the record label. Graphic artists such as Pushead, Vince Rancid and Jim Blanchard lent their work to its earliest label releases and mail order catalogs. It documents Toxic Shock's involvement with the bands Decry, Zero Boys, Corrosion of Conformity, Dayglo Abortions, Skinner box, the Hickoids, th’Inbred, Skin Yard, Sloppy Seconds, Treepeople plus tour diaries with Italy's Raw Power. Toxic Shock features cover art and several illustrations from graphic artist Brian Walsby, plus several never published before photos from the iconic Ed Colver. The book covers the trials and tribulations of running a totally independent record store for 34 years and an in-depth oral history from former employees and musicians from the Toxic Shock roster—such as Decry, Modern Industry, Manson Youth, Massacre Guys, Human Therapy, Raw Power, Peace Corpse, Pillsbury Hardcore, Hullabaloo, House of Large Sizes and more!

Funeral Leech

The Illusion of Time

Carbonized

***New York City's Funeral Leech return with soul crushing death doom on their second album, The Illusion of Time. Their sophomore release is a more mature, more focused, and more realized manifestation of their depressive, vitriolic vision. Expanding their necromantic sound to incorporate elements of melancholic synths and expansive, sorrowful passages influenced by their Funeral Doom forebears (Mournful Congregation, Evoken, Asunder) and the powerful guitar harmonies and solos of traditional doom (Solstice, Candlemass, Cathedral, Scald), Funeral Leech show they are an ever-growing, slowly encroaching death machine that none can escape. The Illusion of Time is a deeply personal journey through five writings of time, guilt, grief, and loss, clocking in at 43 grueling minutes. Funeral Leech remind you that time means nothing, but… TIME’S TIDE WILL SMOTHER YOU! The Illusion of Time was Recorded by Sasha Stroud at Artifact Audio. Mixed and Mastered by Dan Lowndes at Resonance Sound Studio. Cover Artwork by Karmazid.

New Mexican Stargazers

CASINO 2223

Not Not Fun

New 90-minute brainbath by rogue cosmic bookie New Mexican Stargazers takes as its muse a surreal, smoke-soaked gambler’s paradise two centuries in the future: Casino 2223. Part soundtrack and part summoning, the collection sprawls and stumbles through sparkling caverns of slots, neon, video portals, and tape hiss, alternately devotional and desolate. Cracked astral keys slipstream over cheap metronomes, zoned voids, and decayed haze, disappearing into outer reaches, backrooms, and nights that never end. NNF’S expanded edition also includes five outtakes from the C2223 sessions (originally digitally self-released in 2023), capturing NMS at their most sublime and subliminal, away from the noise, tracing ancient dunes lit by spheres and pyramids beaming columns of light straight into the stars.

Swanox

Rhodyrunner

Not Not Fun

West coast riddler Anthony Boruch-Comstock aka Swanox has laid low in recent years but his cracked, contemplative vision of Golden State malaise has only refined in the interim. Rhodyrunner unspools a five-song cycle of heavenly dirge, outer sunset guitar, skeletal slow-core, Pacific lullaby, and glacial roadhouse psych. Assisted by Texan riffer Joe Knight aka Rangers on bass, synth, and extra guitar, plus Sam Rezendes on “Wrong Jury,” the tracks trace a twilit road trip through Bay Area badlands and gentrified future ruins. It’s music of reflective private depths, swirling beneath rusted bridges spanning old worlds and new truths.

Torn Hawk

Through Force Of Will [2024 Edition]

Not Not Fun

New York musician Luke Wyatt describes his instrumental hypnagogic guitar guise Torn Hawk as “music of a noble fabric whose weave is flawed and frayed.” With a decade of hindsight, the looping beats, smeared synths, and grainy hooks of 2014’s Through Force Of Will have taken on a richer cast, like closing credits anthems to heroic 80’s films long since forgotten. From widescreen new wave (“I Am Returning”) and baggy psychedelia (“Palace Racket”) to shredded New Romanticism (“Streets On Fire”) and glassy shoegaze (“Blindsided”), the songs fuse victory and vulnerability, soaring solos and tape hiss. Wyatt characterizes the songs’ low fidelities and “distressed edges” as “intentional lace,” smudging outlines and degrading surfaces to carve out “more room to dream.” This 2024 memorial edition adds 25 minutes of unreleased vintage bonus material, expanding Torn Hawk's vision of “error and compression” across echo-soaked riffs, smoky synth fugues, and blazing technoid rock. Throughout, the music surges, yearns, and burns, unrestrained and undefeated, forever in pursuit of Wyatt’s mission to lift the listener from “the cave of loneliness to the amphitheater of self-love.”

Sea Urchin

Destroy!

Ba Da Bing!

Sea Urchin announces its debut album. Created straight from leader Matt Strickland’s painful, awful break up, and co-produced by Katie Von Schleicher, Destroy! embodies the agony, rage, love and tragedy of love gone sour. “I got really really sad. Like so sad. Like so so so sad,” Strickland says. It took rock and roll’s toolbox for him to work out his feelings. Sea Urchin makes operatic rock drama that incorporates ‘50s style garage punk, hardcore punk, pop punk, Frogwave and maybe even sad punk, as the original goal was to have “sad” in every song title. Strickland, known for his videos for Katie Von Schleicher and Market, assembled an all-star team to back him up. Among the players are Katie Von Schleicher adding vocals and piano, Nick Jost (Baroness) on bass, Julian Fader (Ava Luna) on drums, and Nate Mendelsohn (Market) on saxophone.

Record Time

Issue # 1 - 2024

Record Time

***Record Time is a new print-only music magazine that focuses on obscure, unusual, forgotten and neglected records, not collectibles or rarities, but great records that can be had without shelling out max cash. The debut arrives right when interest in records is at a 30-year high and is growing across generations. Record Time is about the wonderful world of records, specifically unusual, obscure, forgotten and neglected slabs of plastic that all of us can afford. Rather than focus on holy grails of the most expensive kind or $$$ reissues, Record Time scours bargain bins, garage sales, and those corners of record stores that only the most diehard music freaks dig through – and what we find are wonderful records that are too often passed by even though they are usual cheap (or at least much less than your average $30 reissue). In that spirit, Record Time #1 does a deep dive into the crazy history of Plastic Bertrand’s “Ca Plane Pour Moi”, the biggest international hit single in punk history, its roots in novelty music, Elton Motello’s contribution to the song, and the dozens of cover versions, answer songs, rip-offs and exploitations the song inspired. Also in issue one: A cruise through the music and career of Hansadutta Swami, the Hari Krishna “machine gun guru” and failed rock star; a dip into controversial politico/musician Harvey Matusow and his Jew’s Harp Band; the Surfsiders, a fake surf band that included a young Lou Reed; Alquin and the Dutch prog rock scene...

White, Jim

All Hits: Memories

Drag City

***"This is long overdue. I mean, looooooonnnnnng overdue. A solo album by Jim. The trap kit—so straightforward, so mysterious. What’s inside those things? Air and light—from which century? Which continent? Which planet? Depending on how and when you hit them it can be a vibration sent through a prehistoric breath, particles of Saturn’s atmosphere, the dead, wet leaves you walked through on the way to the first day of school. These are the memories of the drums on this record. Infinite and personal. Editing each other as they muscle to the front or soft shoe to the shadow. Cymbals can override/cancel everything out—wipe your memory clear or make the memory clearer. Drums are the instrument where you can feel the presence of the player the most—the full body—and sense the thoughts of the player the most. The instrument with the most choices to be made sends out the most brainwaves. A bouquet of brainwaves is on this LP. Jim oversees it all, surveys from the lost place we’re in, the void—the drumless song. We trust. We trust, Jim. His big green eyes search for the right tool (mallet, brush, etc), eyes that search you like you’re a song he wants to join, wants to see if he can add to or understand. Before humans, drums were playing—these drums. Genesis was a solo drum piece. After humans, these drums, this album. Someone — the last man — is out in a spaceship at the edge of space. He plays a single...

Patois Counselors

Enough: One Night at the Daisy Chain

Ever / Never

***Coming up on a decade as one of the country’s premier post-punk units, Patois Counselors show no sign of slowing down. In advance of its third album Limited Sphere, Patois Counselors drop One Night at the Daisy Chain to whet the appetites of those who crave only the finest in tense tunesmithery. Led by Bo White, the Counselors have swelled to a sextet; but for a band of this size, the music remains stripped of excess and White’s songs are given ample room to shine. As this session demonstrates, Bo writes some absolute gems. Recorded and mixed by Ian Rose at the Daisy Chain in Brooklyn, One Night captures the band in the midst of a short tour, firing on all cylinders, taking no prisoners and laughing all the way to the (blood) bank. One Night at the Daisy Chain functions as both a career retrospective and a teaser for the forthcoming LP. Highlights from PC’s previous albums (Proper Release / The Optimal Seat) get another lease on life as the band breathes fresh air into tracks like “Modern Station,” “Repeat Offender” and “The Galvanizer.” If new cuts like “Ranking Set,” “What’s The News” and “Fountain of UHF” are any indication, Limited Sphere will complete Patois Counselors’ hat trick of stellar full-lengths.

Unattached

Live At The Rat 1983

Gulcher

***"Unattached was together from 1981 until 1991. Sloppy, yet somehow tight and always about to go off the rails. We broke up a lot, we got back together a lot. We played out a lot and we played at the Rat a lot. I'd guess we played the Rat more times than any other venue. The shows were wild, the parties afterwards legendary. This version of Unattached was made up of Mark Frazier on guitar and vocals, Daryl Frazier (a/k/a Billy Nightshade) on bass and vocals, Mike Zadroga on drums, and me, Jamie Sever, on vocals. Over the years, Mark and I were the only two constants in the band, changing lineups too many times for our own good. Along the way, we were privileged to play with Rick Ochsenrider (a/k/a Spliff), Jack Johnson, Simon Ritt, Rob Jeffries and Murphy Occhino. If I forgot to mention you...you weren't in the band long enough. Also privileged to have Tom Dorenkamp as our sound engineer for probably 95% of our live shows. Thanks also to Granny at the Rat. Thank you to Bob Richert at Gulcher Records for bringing me full circle and returning me to the Gulcher fold. We were a pretty decent live advertisement for Gulcher, this night in particular, doing five Gizmos songs and a Jetsons song. Are they covers when there's a Gizmo and a Jetson in the band?"

Maggot Brain

Issue # 16

Maggot Brain

***This is a really packed, special issue of Maggot Brain, with the feature cover story a comprehensive interview by celebrated writer Sasha Frere-Jones with essayist Lucy Sante (who's written for every issue of MB since the start), on the occasion of her awesome memoir about transitioning, I Heard Her Call My Name. Inside: Phill Niblock: A tribute to the genius musician, filmmaker, label head, and generous promoter of ecstatic sound, by Steve Silverstein. Tresa Leigh: An in-depth feature on the star of Efficient Space's beloved Ghost Riders compilation! Really a beautiful, untold story. Dredd Foole: As his legacy is revealed through Corbett vs Dempsey's archival series, Foole talks to Six Organs of Admittance's Ben Chasny about the role of his band the Din in the Boston underground. Plus, sidebars from Christina Carter, Kris Price, and Phil Milstein. Loopsel: Mike McGonigal on some of the most elusive, beautiful contemporary music, straight out of Gothenburg. Sleater-Kinney: 30 vital years of uncompromising music, by none other than Audrey Golden. All that and tons more.

Corum

Beguiling Isles Trilogy

Psychic Sounds

***"A gradual arc from low key tropical travelogue into full blown fantasy exotica. Born Of Earth's Torments is the most varied of the three, registering somewhere between Martin Denny and Jules Verne. Tracks such as 'Body Core' bubble and fizz roots and stems of various traditional styles, as though a transistor radio is simultaneously receiving Japanese percussion and music from the inside of a bazaar. Effigy Mounds was created as 'an imagined field recording in a hallucinatory cave, where collaged snippets of tape reveal the gradual opening of a deep portal'. Meanwhile, other tracks such as 'Flight Of The Westward Star' are fuggy and intense, as though early indigenous psychedelics are permeating back through cave rock—a kind of stoned ape theory, conjuring images of eerie Neolithic ritual. Magic Mirror mixes in 1960s sci-fi TV vibes, with tracks like 'Tower Of Preserved Magus In Egg' suggesting unidentified artifacts glistening at the edge of your vison. Corum's work avoids the mere emulation of exotica and its tropes through the sense of adventure that his landscapes present."—Spenser Thompson, Wire Magazine

Corum

(LIve) Never Use The Same Door Twice

Psychic Sounds

***A newly unvaulted Fake Hospital Group Operators band performing Never Use the Same Door Twice in a live transmission celebrating the 10th anniversary release of album by the same. Recorded live & transmitted on radio in Los Altos, California by KFJC 89.7.

Corum

Never Use The Same Door Twice

Psychic Sounds

***"Corum's work avoids the mere emulation of exotica and it's tropes through the sense of adventure that his landscapes present. This is most evident on Never Use The Same Door Twice, originally released prior to the Beguiling Isles trilogy in 2011. Comprised of six parts, these pieces are heavy with slow-moving tension and fuzzy as though scathed by repeated replication. A compelling listen and an engaging early piece of the Psychic Sounds puzzle."—Spenser Thompson, Wire Magazine

Psychic Sounds

Blazing Worlds

Psychic Sounds

***Recorded during a week long Midwest summer scorcher, Blazing Worlds expands & contracts with six heavily hallucinatory movements that only hellaciously humid nights could induce and seasoned sonic psychonauts Justin Wright & Grant Corum could venture to manifest. Wright, whom is known for experimental takes on drone & rock in the long running Expo 70 project, and Corum, as a supernatural sonic forager in Million Brazilians, Timelash, and Psychic Sounds orbits, manifest a deep phantasmagoric excursion through brilliant atmospheres in a seamless performance. The material on Blazing Worlds harkens back to Wright’s synth-driven ’Sorcerer of Sound’ full of cosmic tones and other worldliness aura, blended with with Corum’s bent woodwind work & extraterrestrial sounding samples. Where this is certainly a departure from some of their previous work, the two seem to find equal navigation through their evolving compositions morphing into a singular melting chthonic mass, giving the listener an open ended impression of mesmerizingly vast sonic topographies all gleaming with moments of both glimpses of gorgeousness and the grotesque.

Universal Cell Unlock

Innocence Of Logic

Psychic Sounds

***As children we are disturbed from inner grace and mused, bored or threatened into awareness of the outside world in these recordings patterns emerge and are interrupted like a conversation in a garden, logic gates, and my directives mingle in importance. Responsibility or force is avoided. Primitive homemade analog computers were used to make electronic sounds and manipulate acoustic instruments in free running chaotically generative programs that are written by patching logic gate clusters with wires. Theres is no machine "memory" aside from the patches themselves, and the equations the circuits reliable math but audio-rate accidents spilling out of hashed streams of data. The same primal state of polarized data pulses build into the complex horrors of culture, finance, and communication we think we recognize on our devices. Yet electricity itself retains it's mystique, animated not by our will but by still poorly understood natural laws that transcend human concerns.

Blazar

Fatal Cosmic Wound

Carbonized

***The Debut Full-Length from Blazar, Fatal Cosmic Wound, features four transmissions of Extra-Dimensional Doom expelled from the Void. Recorded and Mixed by M.S. (Cruz, Phobonoid) and Mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, Earth, Thou). Cover Artwork by Harrison Morrall and additional Artwork created by CVSPE. Vinyl housed in a Single LP Jacket with Polybag. Double-Sided Insert, Stickers, and Download Card Included. Shrink-wrapped Jewel Case CD comes with Eight Page Booklet. Shrink-Wrapped Black Cassette Shell housed in a Clear Cassette Case with Five Panel J-Card and Download Card Included.

Kevlar Upper

s/t

Iron Lung

***These short minutes of hardcore music are violent, dismal and intensely angry. In a statement of intent, Kevlar Upper had this to say: “The goal for this band is to be as primitive as possible, this really reflects in the lyrics. No elevation. No frills. Just a seething, spitting stream of consciousness.” Fighting music indeed. 200 copies on green shells housed in a standard J-card sleeve and a black norelco box. Recorded by Mike Kriebel. Mastered by Will Killingsworth.

Rita, The

Correlations

Amaya Productions

***Credited as one of the pioneers of ‘harsh noise wall’; influential artist Sam McKinlay (b. 1974, CA) has been operating under the alias The Rita for over 25 years. Having performed extensively and credited with over 200 releases, the project has grown into a laser focused multidisciplinary venture and is celebrated for pushing the boundaries of ‘harsh noise’. Accompanying The Rita’s singular and often unpredictable sonic output is an inseparable and distinct visual language. By combining McKinlay’s fine arts education, research, experimentation, and collaboration; the project visually and texturally unites the artist’s interests in minimalist design, noise, ballet, sharks, choreography, and film. Correlations presents some of the images and documents McKinlay finds most definitive in his practice The monograph is designed to provide a cohesive understanding of the artist’s creative trajectory, as well as illuminate The Rita’s uncanny process that visually, conceptually, and historically ‘connects’ seemingly unrelated subjects. Published by Amaya Productions; the monograph includes essays by the author and Centre Pompidou art historian Nicolas Ballet (Shock Factory: The Visual Culture of Industrial Music), associate Professor and harsh noise artist Lexi Turner (Cornell University), and author, writer, producer Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women).

Little Kid

A Million Easy Payments

Orindal

***A camera zooms in without crowding its subject. A song about someone else's damage helps you understand your own, and puts you on to new mysteries. Stars look like grains of sand. On Little Kid's new album and Orindal Records debut, A Million Easy Payments, the urgency in Kenny Boothby's voice matches the stakes of his lyrics, epic ballads and reveries that come at life from all angles and exposures, driving at and a little over the limits of self-reflection. The band's lilting folk rock arrangements carry Boothby's stories, occasionally lifting them skyward with flurries of cello samples, pedal steel, flute, and electric piano. It's a record of depression and frustration that doesn't stew in piety or aestheticize pain, that also explodes with life. Fragile and abundant. It's a record with blood in its veins. Little Kid is a Toronto-based collaborative project that has existed in some form since 2009, and is currently comprised of Brodie Germain (drums, guitar), Paul Vroom (bass), Megan Lunn (vocals, banjo, keyboard), Liam Cole (drums, percussion), and Kenny Boothby (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards). A Million Easy Payments, like the three Little Kid releases before it, was tracked, engineered, and mastered by Vroom. Vroom's work renders a portrait of Little Kid's twin musical strengths—as a live act, a straight-ahead folk rock outfit, and as a group of creative, independent producers who want to mess things up. To that end, the record features several guest instruments: Eliza Niemi's cello, Anh Phung's flute, Seth Engel's percussion, Peter Gill's...