Browse: Vinyl

Lowest Form

Personal Space

Iron Lung

***"The second album from UK hardcore engine THE LOWEST FORM, Personal Space sees the band cutting through a comedown fug of feedback, sharp butterflyknife guitars flashing deadly over a wasteground rubble of noise. Songs drawn up from discord, songs of marshalled cacophony, coils of scritching guitars break apart and reform, coalescing around insistent basslines and heavy drumbeats, before splintering again. It's hardcore constructed from textured noise as much as from breakdowns and riffs, rumbling infectious chants emerging from the wavering clamor, the vile keening of consciousness' half-known edges, noise in the grain of it all, noise as bedrock, an abrasive acid bath of fuzz, susurration and machinewhirr. 'SMASH MY FUCKIN' HEAD AGAINST THE WALL,' is the line that opens it up, rising out of Interplanetary Bad Boy's hissing swell. Driven through the album are anguished explorations of interior/exterior limits, whirling around viciously in the grubby borders of your skull, spinning hopelessly in the cosmic of the aether, untethered, higher than the sky but way down in the muck. From 'Gak Attack's' claustrophobic pogo or 'Last Smash's' drawling thump to 'Star Slammers' manic tumble and 'Dread Future's' rolling barrage, The Lowest Form have brought together another LP of murdered-out panicattack punk, lithe and unleashed, born of bad vibes and background radiation, an album at once uncomfortably close and fully heavy."—Joe Briggs. No export to the UK.

Jobim, Antonio Carlos

Wave

Lilith

***By the time this album was released, ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM was already an international superstar. Having recently won a Grammy (1965) for “The Girl From Ipanema,” by 1967 all the big name stars from up north were breaking down his door to work with the new “Gershwin of Brazil.” In fact, Jobim had just finished working on an album with Frank Sinatra when he went into the studio to record this album. Recorded in 1967, Wave is actually one of the lesser known masterpieces of Brazilian music, and undoubtedly one of Jobim’s greatest. Here Jobim and the great CLAUS OGERMAN lead a top-flight cast of players.

DNA

A Taste Of Dna

Superior Viaduct

New York's DNA have had a massive effect on alternative / indie rock around the world, despite the trio never releasing a full-length studio album during their four year tenure (1978-82). Various groups citing them as an influence have included Sonic Youth, Boredoms, Big Black and Blonde Redhead (the latter taking their name from DNA's most-famous song). While the band's explosive live performances captivated audiences, extant recordings captured DNA's dynamic sound and savage economy in songwriting.   Originally released in 1981, A Taste Of DNA remains a primary source for No Wave archaeologists. Singer/guitarist Arto Lindsay and drummer Ikue Mori are joined by bassist and Pere Ubu founding-member Tim Wright. Across the EP's six anti-epic tracks, the band charges forward with jagged guitars and dislocated grooves, while Lindsay's guttural screams create a thoroughly personal semantics.  As Marc Masters writes in the liner notes, "A Taste Of DNA has a kind of sum-of-parts insanity, wherein every musical element sounds conventionally off, like puzzle pieces purposefully jammed together at the wrong ends."  This first-time vinyl reissue is recommended for fans of The Contortions' Buy and Red Crayola's The Parable Of Arable Land.

Proletariat, The

Soma Holiday

S-s Records

In 1983, the release of The Proletariat’s debut Soma Holiday was a shocker—while American hardcore punk was becoming more generic, The Proletariat unleashed something strikingly original. The album’s opening is a call to arms: the primitive, militaristic bass guitar and drums are sliced with razor-sharp guitar dissidence and vocals full of spit and bite. Avant-garde while remaining tuneful, their debut is considered one of the most brilliant albums to come out the early 80’s American hardcore scene. The leafy suburbs of Southeastern Massachusetts, midway between Boston and Cape Cod, isn’t where you would expect to find one of America’s most revolutionary sounding and lyrically incendiary rock and roll bands, but that is where The Proletariat began. In 1980, straight from Apponequet High School, Richard Brown, Peter Bevilacqua, and Frank Michaels began pounding out noise, and soon they added high schooler Tommy McKnight. Inspired by The Buzzcocks, The Jam, PiL, and Wire, the young band tapped into the high energy hardcore punk swirling around and infused it with art-punk excitement. By the time that their classic debut hit, The Proletariat were being referred to as “America’s Gang of Four” and a more supercharged Pop Group. The intelligent anger of the band was a lifeline to many suburban American rejects, young people who knew that life under Reagan wasn’t right. The sound of Soma Holiday not only sounds as fresh as ever, the thoughtful politics of its lyrics are just as relevant today in a world of drone strikes and Donald Trump,...

Bad Bad

Bad Bad

S-s Records

bAd bAd started in 2012 when Christian Zamora and Eli Maness started making noise in the foggy outskirts of San Francisco’s Sunset District. Joined by Christian’s brother Michael and drummer Patrick Webb, the band obsessed on the faraway sounds of Peruvian ’60s legends Los Saicos and the Turkish guitar melodies of Erkin Koray, as well as Link Wray. After a year or so of playing hyperactive spaghetti western instrumentals and now based in Oakland, they incorporate other influences: the pop-infused punk of Jay Reatard, one-chord Hawkwind power jams, and the highbrow playfulness of the Suburban Lawns. Disparate sounds, yes, but bAd bAd turns them into exciting buzzsaw-pop with Barrett / Floyd interludes. With recording starting in 2015, they perfected this album until it became a seamless psychedelic pop piece of punk energy.

Ghostwriter

Ghostwriter

S-s Records

The small towns of California’s northern Central Valley have an eerie loneliness to them. Cinematically, take Two-Lane Blacktop and fuse it with Neil Young’s Human Highway. Fix that into music and you’d get something like Ghostwriter. Odd rock & roll from Orland, California, the home of the dearly departed Nothing People (and theater organ legend George Wright), Ghostwriter lurks in the dust-caked shadows of rusted old cars and “obsolete,” solidstate, electronic instruments. The Chrome-meets-psych sounds of the Nothing People is there, with some haunted rockabilly à la Alan Vega, Residents-like wooziness, and something that conjures the words “paranoid closet.” These outsider / loner rock sounds will be listened to for years to come.

Tirey, Wes

Black Wind

Scissor Tail Editions

On Black Wind, songwriter / guitarist Wes Tirey makes the case for quality over quantity. After a stream of well received cassettes, he assembled a reserved trio and laid down the soft law on a single night. Whereas his previous releases were turned inward, this album opens out like Terence Malick meditating on prairie grass. The arrangements are spacious, simple structures of voice and acoustic guitar, with sparse backing from a telecaster and a trap kit. In addition to this fine album on Scissor Tail Records is a thematically linked book to be released by Cabin Floor Esoterica. Titled Melodrama Blues: Selected Lyrics of Wes Tirey, it collects writings from Black Wind and three past albums, all related via Tirey’s feel for a mythological americana, the threads of surrealist biblical imagery that underlie our cultural cosmos. “Tirey rides the river like Mark Twain, turning his adventures into troubador stories with rich melodies and disorienting noise.” —KEXP

This Kind Of Punishment

Radio Silence

Superior Viaduct

Recorded in Auckland in 1984, these archival tracks capture seminal New Zealand band This Kind Of Punishment’s unique alchemy of poignant melody and four-track claustrophobia. The previously unreleased “Radio Silence” offers an astringent, phantasmagoric comment on—and perhaps retreat from—the contemporaneous NZ scene. “Reaching An End” (from legendary compilation Killing Capitalism With Kindness) is a classic in the mold later perfected on Peter Jefferies’ solo output: unadorned piano blanketed by rich, wistful vocals, plucked strings and muffled drum beat. Less, after all, can be so much more. Cover photography by Chris Knox. Translucent orange vinyl pressed in limited edition of 1,000 copies.

Allred, Joseph

Fire And Earth

Scissor Tail Editions

Joseph Allred fits the Guitar Soli realm perfectly, fully embodying the guitar loner typecast—he falls in line with Robbie Basho not only in his 12-string playing that has a leaning towards Eastern musical traditions and droning free form raga, but also in his educational background in philosophy and religious studies. Scissor Tail Editions decided to put out Fire An Earth after hearing only thirty seconds of the track “Leitmotif”—there’s a sincerity in Allred’s music and way of life that has been missing from the modern age for a long time. Allred has been quietly releasing records for years, painstakingly designing and hand-printing most of the packaging, never promoting any of them. He hand-painted the covers for Fire and Earth and letterpressed the back covers of Dylan Golden Aycock’s latest. Now inhabiting land that’s been in his family for two hundred years, he says he’s trying to find a place in the family legacy. In Fire An Earth, there is a searching and spiritual quality to the music, and also integrity.

Sparks

S/t

1972

Sparks’ eponymous 1971 debut presents the singular compositional, lyrical and singing voices of Ron and Russell Mael fully formed. Originally released under the moniker Halfnelson, Sparks’ prescient debut prefigures Queen, power pop, and especially Southern California’s late ’70s skinny-tie explosion. It’s a landmark of Todd Rungren’s early production career, and clearly the backing band of brothers Earle and Jim Mankey brought Sparks’ pop idiosyncrasies to their later work with The Dickies, The Quick and 20 / 20. Infectious, daring, and delightfully flaunting camp theatricality throughout, Sparks is the first installment in an unparalleled series of some of the decade’s most classic albums. Careening melodies soar through space-detritus electronics on the strikingly original “Roger,” which evokes the early solo work of Brian Eno, but the deranged art-rock closing track “(No More) Mr. Nice Guys” is the unequivocal classic of Sparks’ early career and a staple of the band’s live set ever since. Rundgren’s restrained production wisely sets the Mael brothers at the fore of Sparks. With just subtly treated cymbal flourishes keeping the pace, album opener “Wonder Girl” is pared down and mixed to showcase two things: Ron’s twinkling piano trill and Russell’s fluttering high-register. As Rundgren perceived, and a multi-decade career confirms since, their fraternal chemistry is a consummate force.

Theoreme

L'appel Du Midi A Midi Pile

Bruit Direct Disques

***Bruit Direct continues down the path of no-fucks-given with yet another ace from a deck already heaped with bewildering maa. In much the same way as Pasolini’s Theoreme (the film) once fizzled the corneas of the prim, THEOREME (the artist) is here to singe ears on this blistering debut. Laying down all the instrumentation and vocals herself, MAISSA D. posits that specters of the past continue to resonate. Deep inside the angular ingenuity of this chef d’oeuvre are subtle sonic vectors, analogous to Gutura, SIC and the corrosive side of Zick Zack.

V/a

Brown Acid - The Third Trip

Riding Easy

***"We continue down the wormhole of hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal here on The Third Trip with a set of tunes so obscure they can't be seen without a third eye. Most of these tracks were recorded in shack-sized studios, privately pressed for promotional purposes, and tossed out like last night's half empties only to later be discovered to be half-full, if not overflowing with greatness. The majority of these tracks are from the good ol' US of A with two exceptions, Ash-labelmate New Zealanders, Chook, and the mighty Limeys, Factory. As they say, first is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairy chest.

Dick Stusso

Nashville Dreams / Sings The Blues

Vacant Stare

***"Dick Stusso isn't his real name—he's 29-year-old Oakland singer-songwriter Nic Russo. And on his debut album Nashville Dreams (co-released with another collection called Sings the Blues), he performs as a struggling country/glam singer with a singular goal: to leave the big city, head to Tennessee, and try to make it. 'The Ballad of Dicky Stuss' is the album's emotional climax, telegraphing the stark contrast between the ease and optimism of his childhood and the harsh realities of the present. It's a familiar story: Dicky's parents set him up for success, but instead of pursuing a traditional career, he chose the life of an artist. He walks the streets in his cowboy boots, schizophrenic and presumably beaten down by the road. With a simple piano ballad and some doubled-tracked vocals, he cuts to the heart of things—that everything would've been just fine if he hadn't picked up a guitar and decided to hit the road. That's the risk when you stray from the path of financial security—you might be walking toward happiness or creative satisfaction, but you're way more likely to fall on your face. Life might be difficult for "poor little Dicky Stuss," but thank god Nic Russo pursued his own rock'n'roll dreams enough to deliver this album. The guy's voice is beautiful, he's got an effortless way with writing melodies, and his sentiments are knowable and familiar."—Pitchfork

Deerhoof

I Thought We Were Friends

Famous Class

***DEERHOOF returns just 4 months after their magnificent new LP The Magic with a brand new 45rpm heatseeker. “I thought We Were Friends” was born between tour dates, self-recorded, mixed, and mastered in the band's Brooklyn practice space and GREG's basement. On the A-side we have the mesmeric pop gem “Risk Free” featuring the vocal duet of SATOMI and Greg. The flip side gives us “Delight,” Deerhoof’s own victory march. Think the “Brass Bonanza” pumped through the nastiest, most shredded PA system you’ve ever heard. It all comes housed in a beautiful screen printed jacket featuring art from Satomi and a poly-lined inner sleeve. (STREET DATE – 11/18/2016)

Jansch, Bert

It Don't Bother Me

Superior Viaduct

Bert Jansch recorded his second album in 1965, just after his self-titled debut earlier that same year. The sessions were a step-up from the intimate, field-recording setting of his first album, although still not labored over too much in the studio.   "I figured that the faster I put down the tracks, the faster I could get out of the place," Jansch told NME, "so I just ordered about a dozen bottles of wine, put the microphone in front of me and off I went, for three hours."  The lyrics of It Don't Bother Me shift vividly between pure poetic imagery and the hollow resonance of pain. The LP's underrated title song stands as a manifesto for the way Jansch lived at the time. "My Lover," featuring guitarist John Renbourn, has almost sitar-like drones, while "Lucky Thirteen" is a captivating, melancholy instrumental that shimmers with brilliant fingerpicking.   This first-time domestic release is remastered from the original tapes and features liner notes by Richie Unterberger. Bert Jansch's It Don't Bother Me remains another essential British folk LP that belongs next to Nick Drake, Roy Harper and John Martyn in every record collection.

Esp Ohio

Starting Point Of The Royal Cyclopean

GBV Inc

Like a long-lost artifact from some golden age of rock that never existed, ESP Ohio’s debut album grabs the ear-holes and demands immediate and undivided attention. Robert Pollard says it’s a band, rather than a collaboration—a distinction which may seem like splitting hairs, but rather than putting melodies and lyrics on top of other people’s instrumentals, Pollard wrote these songs and sent them off to Brooklyn-based bandmates Doug Gillard, Mark Shue, and Travis Harrison to be fleshed out and then returned to him for vocal recording and mixing in the Buckeye State. Instead of fitting words and melodies around someone else’s musical structure, he created the musical structure to fit his words and melodies. Also, there’s a band photo. It makes a difference—Starting Point harkens back to Isolation Drills-era Guided By Voices, perhaps inevitably because Doug Gillard is playing guitar and contributing arrangements the way he did in that era of GBV, but this debut has its own unique characteristics as well. The result is some of the most joyful noise Pollard has made in recent memory: melodic, playful, upbeat, and … what’s the word… sparkly? Sure—call it sparkle rock—a mix of bold-faced rock with weirdo proggy-psych elements and textures. Pollard won’t say whether this is a one-off or the first of a series, but he’s keeping the door open. Maybe that’s a key to his “process”: always keep the door open. After countless songs, records, bands, line-ups, accolades, bottles of tequila… after everything, the door to the porches of...

Drakulas

Raw Wave

Dirtnap

Drakulas present Raw Wave, a collection of songs told from the different points of view of various characters in a fictional metropolis in the not-too-distant past. A bustling city center not unlike Times Square in the ’70s filled with sin and sex is the backdrop where gangs, street preachers, sex addicts, pimps, prostitutes and pornographers live and work. People of this world describe the time period of these songs as the Raw Wave—a wave of new analog technology that hit the city, wiping away many of the mores and pretense of the past. Drakulas are from Austin, TX, and feature members of Riverboat Gamblers and Rise Against, amongst others. This is their debut LP, following a 7-inch on Red Scare. They pretty much nail the sound for which the Texas branch of the extended Dirtnap family is infamous—vibrant, high energy, and dangerously catchy. Raw Wave is tailor-made for fans of The Marked Men, The Dickies, and vintage-era Riverboat Gamblers / High Tension Wires. And then there are the lyrics: high-concept / low-brow weirdness that could only have come from the twisted mind of Gamblers frontman Mike Wiebe. Call it a super-group if you must, but don’t call it a side-project.

Oh Sees, Thee

An Odd Entrances

Castle Face

***BACK IN STOCK!!! From the same misty mountaintop tape spool as August’s A Weird Exits, Thee Oh Sees bring the companion album An Odd Entrances. Delving more towards the contemplative than the face-skinning aspects of its predecessor, this sister album is a cosmic exercise en plein aire with John Dwyer and company double-drum shuffling, lounging with cellos, following a flute around the groove, and spooling a few Grimm-dark lullabies along the way. Lurking in the grass are a snake or two, like the celestial facing instrumental buzz of “Unwrap The Fiend Pt. 1.”… But for the most part this is a relatively hushed affair, a morning rather than evening listen. The band plans on donating half their profits from the first pressing to Elizabeth House, a local charity in Pasadena that specifically helps homeless women with children get back on their feet.

Title Tracks

Long Dream

Ernest Jenning Record Co.

***TITLE TRACKS is a trio from Washington, D.C. that features guitarist/singer and songwriter JOHN DAVIS (GEORGIE JAMES, Q AND NOT U, PAINT BRANCH), bassist MICHAEL COTTERMAN (THE LOVED ONES, KID DYNAMITE, DAVE HAUSE) and drummer ELMER SHARP (ROOFWALKERS). Title Tracks’ new album, Long Dream is its third, all of which have been released by The Ernest Jenning Record Co. Title Tracks’ first two albums, It Was Easy (2010) and In Blank (2011), came in quick succession and were followed with significant touring through the United States and Europe, including shows with the likes of Ted Leo, Pretty and Nice, Tommy Keene, The Paul Collins Beat, and many others. The five year gap between In Blank and Long Dream was due to a variety of life changes that emerged for different band members (babies, a new drummer, new careers, other bands), all of which find their way into the words and atmosphere of Long Dream. Finding time between parenting duties, graduate school classes, and a new career as a Performing Arts archivist at the University of Maryland, Davis wrote the 10 songs on Long Dream during late hours alone at the band’s practice space. Whether it’s the hurtling sprint of “I Don’t Need To Know,” the arpeggiated atmospherics of “Empty Heavens,” or the urgent power pop of “Low Cool,” nearly every song on the album refers to dreams in their many forms—lucid, feverish, aspirational, broken, or realized. Borne out of a brief period of major changes (and sleep deprivation), it became...

Flasher

Flasher

Sister Polygon

***Formed in 2015, FLASHER is TAYLOR MULITZ (guitar, vocals), DANIEL SAPERSTEIN (bass, vocals), and EMMA BAKER (drums, vocals). Longtime friends, they are also established members of Washington, D.C.’s recently re-emergent DIY music scene. However, while Flasher is a product of that crew, its music operates by different physics. Where their local peers favor direct and volatile gestures, Flasher’s music exists in the tension between conflicting feelings and sensibilities. In the sometimes gritty context of a DIY venue, Flasher manages to project a bit of sensuality. They explore the overlap between aggression and intimacy. Originally, released on cassette in April of 2016 and now reissued on vinyl, the band’s self-titled debut includes seven songs recorded at Lurch, a studio run by Saperstein and Owen Wuerker (fellow D.C. resident and member of Big Hush). The songs are born from a process of deconstruction and reassembly. Melodic motifs are transmuted into fodder for the rhythm section. Call and response vocals warp and skew established gender roles. Lyrically, the trio take on experiences of shame, guilt, and pleasure, and haul them away from abstraction toward a place of physical expression. The songs are intended as experiment in how far a body—whether composed of flesh and bone, or melody and rhythm—can be restructured and reinvented while remaining desirable or even functional. The results speak to the band’s transformation over the last year, both in personal matters and as artists.

Mandell, Harvey

Snake Pit

Tompkins Square

***Harvey Mandel is among the most innovative guitarists to emerge from the Chicago blues scene of the late 1960s. His career began at Twist City and other local hotspots, sharing stages with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Buddy Guy. He came up in that scene alongside Charlie Musselwhite, Mike Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg and Steve Miller, leading to an invitation from Bill Graham to open for Cream at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in August 1967.  Mandel was a member of Canned Heat, appearing with them at Woodstock. He played on numerous John Mayall albums, and on the Rolling Stones' 1975 LP Black and Blue ("Hot Stuff", "Memory Motel"), having auditioned for Mick Taylor's job, which ultimately went to Ron Wood.  Known for his "tapping" technique and sinewy, sustain-driven phrasing (thus his nickname, "The Snake"), Mandel's solo albums such as Cristo Redentor, Baby Batter and Righteous have been sampled and drooled over by guitar geeks, DJ's, and fans of funky, soulful, otherworldly composition.  Harvey's fifteenth studio LP and his first widely distributed album in 20 years, Snake Pit was recorded in two days at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA. Harvey teamed with fellow Chicago-based musicians Ben Boye (keys), Ryan Jewell (drums), Brian Sulpizio (guitar), and Anton Hatwich (bass), who have all played with singer/songwriter Ryley Walker, among their many other musical pursuits. Harvey and the band had not met previously, nor had they rehearsed. He played snippets of song ideas for the band on his iPhone, and then they...

Contrepoison

Discography 2010-2012

Hospital Productions

***Hospital Productions collect some of the strongest cold-wave pop dirges of a generation with CONTREPOISON's Discography 2010-2012 survey, wrapping up both his self-released tapes and releases for Dominick Fernow's cherished imprint. Since the late '90s, Québécois musician and noise artist PIERRE MARC-TREMBLAY has been recognized as a vital force in nether musical realms with a palette ranging from hermetic black metal (AKITSA) to the bitterest rhythmic noise (ÂMES SANGLANTES), and, more recently, the nerve-bitingly melodic pop of Contrepoison, whose I Keep On Searching 12" (2012)—included here—is a firm fixture. Arriving at the vanguard of a new slew of cold-wave revisionists and fetishists in 2010, his music stood, and still stands, head and shoulders above the rest thanks to an incessant drive and directness that can't be ignored by anyone into the original stuff, or who has arrived via the sound's prevailing, contemporary winds. Vacillating belting vocal pop arrangements with howling, stygian instrumentals of synth, guitar and enslaved drum machines, Discography 2010-2012 drags a perfectly malformed body of work. Edition of 500.

Poison Idea

Latest Will And Testament

Tko

***This month TKO is delighted to finally bring you Volume 4 of the POISON IDEA Kings Of Punk reissue series: the 10th Anniversary edition of Latest Will & Testament. This album was to be the final recordings of Poison Idea's legendary guitarist TOM "PIG CHAMPION" ROBERTS, and was originally released in Europe in early 2006, shortly after his death. This reissue is the first domestic release of this later period, lost P.I. classic. It's widely agreed among P.I. fans that the original 2006 version clearly suffered from the unfortunate circumstance under which it was released. For this edition, punk/metal crossover wunderkind JOELGRIND of Toxic Holocaust was slated with the task of remixing the album from the master tapes. The end result is the presentation that Latest Will... was always meant to have: an album that now without question earns its place among the rest of the band's powerful discography. First pressing of 1,000 copies on white vinyl.

Lay, Shannon

All This Life Goin' Down

Do Not Disturb

***SHANNON LAY is a songwriter from Southern California, best known for playing in FEELS (Castle Face); in 2015 she started playing solo shows and releasing voice memos online and was approached by BRIAN LEE HUGHES to record an album. Her first self-titled vinyl release is a collection of songs that mark the beginning of a never ending journey. Stay tuned. Edition of 500 copies. Includes a download.

Roses

Camera Trouble

Group Tightener

***Camera Trouble is the lush first full-length record from L.A. dream-pop trio ROSES. Across 10 brooding songs, the drum-machined trio makes something fresh using familiar pop sounds from decades past. The reference points—from The Cure and Cocteau Twins to Adore-era Smashing Pumpkins and what feels like a million other things in between—are never hidden or obscured. And the record is stronger because of it. Roses are JUAN VELASQUEZ (ABE VIGODA), VICTOR HERRERA and MARC STEINBERG. Produced by Zola Jesus cohort ALEX DEGROOT. Edition of 500 on white vinyl.

Men With Chips

Attention Spent

Homeless

***An agitated alliance of atonal string, wind and percussion. Thick and chunky with a Black Eye and Aberratn sauce.Adelaide’s insoluble MEN WITH CHIPS submit to scanners this battered platter. Sharp implements smothered in a dry-retch resonance, shoved into corrugated tubs. Like when Jim Barnes and Don Cherry went into the landscaping racket together but it didn’t work out. “Adelaide’s Men With Chips are part sunglasses-at-night scuzz rock smart arses, part no-wave art-punk de(con)structers.”—Repressed Records. Limited edition of 400 copies.

Cupol

Like This For Ages Ep

Dark Entries

***Cupol was an English post-punk band that formed during Wire's 1980-1984 hiatus. The duo consisted of Bruce Gilbert (guitar, vocals, synthesizer) and Graham Lewis (bass, vocals, synthesizer). Building on Wire’s more experimental work, their dark, minimal pieces were devoid of pop structure and filled with atmospheric twists. Having already established the side project Dome, the name Cupol came from "cupola”, following an architectural theme.  The "Like This For Ages” EP was an homage to the Master Musicians of Joujouka, released in 1980 on 4AD. The A-side, "Like This For Ages", is a concise four and a half minutes of crunchy synth sounds, pained vocals, and eerie atmospheres. The B-side, "Kluba Cupol" is an instrumental percussion-driven companion piece full of trance-inducing rhythms that stretches over 20 minutes. “What sounded oddly danceable on the A-side becomes bleak and cold, putting this more in line with Current 93, Sleep Chamber, and other purveyors of ritual industrial and dark ambient. "Kluba Cupol" can even be considered the first example of isolationist music.”, Richie Troughton describes. The title 'Kluba Cupol' was inspired by current affairs. "It was an anagram of Kabul,” says Graham Lewis. We’ve included three bonus tracks to the A-side for the first time on vinyl, Gilbert and Lewis’ sole John Peel session from 1980.  All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The record is housed in an exact replica of of the original jacket featuring a painting of Bruce Gilbert’s, inspired by...

Platonos, Lena

Sun Masks

Dark Entries

***Lena Platonos is a Greek musician, pianist and music composer. One of the pioneers of Greek electronic music, she remains active today. Lena was born in Heraklion, Crete, and grew up in Athens. She began learning how to play the piano at the age of two and became a professional pianist before turning eighteen. Soon afterwards, she received a scholarship to study in the the Berlin and Vienna Academies , where she was exposed to jazz, rock and Middle Eastern music. She returned to Greece in the late 70’s and began working with the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation.  Released in 1984, ‘Μάσκες Ηλίου’ (‘Sun Masks’) was Lena Platonos’ first record to feature her own words and vocals. All instruments were performed by Lena herself.. ‘Sun Masks’ was inspired by Argentine writer, Julio Cortázar as well as the film ‘The Wall’ by Pink Floyd. "I began to reverse my thought process, to let melodies fade out, to turn to minimalism, to experiment on my Yamaha C60 synthesizer and a variety of “boxes” which I used to change the sound of my voice as well as the sound of the synthesizer” says Lena. The album featured experiments with different sounds and a new batch of electronic equipment, such as the legendary Roland TR 808 drum machine. Lena narrates each song in deadpan fashion, skillfully reciting her surreal Greek poetry. Her lyrics deal with the futility of love, the gap of human relationships, consumerist alienation in the bourgeois lifestyle of the 1980s. 

Smersh

Selected Deep House Anthems

Dark Entries

***Dark Entries returns to the New Jersey basement studio of Smersh to unearth a 4-track selection from the ‘Deep House Anthems’ cassette. Smersh was the duo of Mike Mangino and Chris Shepard, who began making music together in 1978. They were uninterested in traditional notions of songwriting or live performance. Recording in a domestic setting necessitated the abandonment of live drums for rhythm machines, and the Smersh sound would gradually change with each new bit of gear they acquired. The Electro-Harmonic Rhythm 12 gave way to TR606, TB303, and SH-09. Most Monday nights, they would write a new song from scratch. A couple hours later, the song was recorded, never to be performed again.  By 1988, they had already put out at least 16 different tapes on their own Atlas King imprint. They would be followed by as many more. “Some of those [subsequent] tapes there were less than 10 copies that got made because nobody wanted them. They couldn’t get reviewed,” says Mike Mangino. As these tapes traded their way across continents, Smersh developed a devoted following in places far beyond Piscataway, leading to releases on dozens of other labels from around the globe. Smersh’s sound is a lush hybrid of techno, industrial, dance, and experimental. Most songs revolve around driving EBM style beats, intricate industrial noise manipulation and synth melodies. For ‘Selected Deep House Anthems’ we selected 4 tracks of pulsating acid techno, which were recorded live, direct to DAT. All songs were originally recorded and released...

Evaporators

Ogopogo Punk

Mint

From the depths of the uncharted wilderness (or is it “wildness”?) Nardwuar the Human Serviette, John Collins, Stephen Hamm, Nick Thomas and Shawn Mrazek, known hereafter as The Evaporators, have released eight new songs in the form of a digital download and colored vinyl, titled Ogopogo Punk! The Evaporators sing about a lot of things on this latest album including: shaving, mohawks and dreadlocks, eating to win, the mythical landlocked BC monster the Ogopogo, Skagit Valley’s Chuckanut Drive and a whole lot more! Over the past decade The Evaporators have graced stages / halls / living rooms with everyone from Anal Mucus to Sleater-Kinney to the Whack Attack Puppet Show.

Loscil

Monument Builders

Kranky

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Recieved a 7.4 rating from Pitchfork. Monument Builders is the new album from loscil, the ambient/electronic project of prolific composer Scott Morgan. It was primarily created on sample-based instruments in Morgan’s century old Vancouver home. Like that aged space, this music is also rough-hewn, with rickety samples of boiling kettles and resonant moving air. Recordings from a vintage micro-cassette recorder contribute distortion, rattles and textures that serve as both percussion and abstract aural color.According to Morgan, the genesis for the album may have begun as he viewed an old VHS copy of the American experimental film Koyaanisqatsi. “Something about the time-tarnished visuals and the pitch warble on Philip Glass’s epic score added a new layer of intrigue for me,” says Morgan.“Glass has always been an influence but lo-fi Glass felt like a minor revelation, as if the decay was actually enhancing the impact of the film’s message.” The investigations on Monument Builders also took inspiration from the anti-humanist writings of influential philosopher John Gray, as well as photographer Edward Burtynsky’s iconic aerial photographs of pollution and environmental destruction. “Gray’s writing, particularly his book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, reinforced a bleak notion I had that we humans don’t have much say in how it all turns out,” says Morgan. “With Burtynsky, I was struck by the fact that something so strikingly beautiful could be the result of large-scale waste and exploitation.”Monument Builders was composed during a period in which the life-and-death battles of closefriends...

Bowery Electric

Beat

Kranky

***BACK IN STOCK!!! The second album from New York City's Bowery Electric was released in late 1996, less than 15 months after their self-titled debut, but it found them having traveled light years musically in the interim, the group having seemingly decided to see how far they could take the guitar/ bass / drums / vocal setup into the atmosphere. Every aspect of their approach had been refined and focused: squalling, distorted guitars had been transformed into hazy, sensual sheets; the live drums transmuted to sampled rhythms more in debt to the blossoming downtempo sound of the day; bass lines reduced to their most basic diagrams; vocals submerged to become one with the narcotized fog of the instruments; even the lyrics were reduced to a few minimal lines used sparingly so as not to overshadow the dynamic. Beat is a lush and dense mantra of shadowy percussion, barely-there vocals and immersive drones that envelops the listener in an opiated blanket of sound. Includes the bonus track "Low Density," not featured on the original U.S. release.

Black Tar Prophet / Iron Gavel

Iron Gavel / Black Tar Prophet

Broken Limbs

***Tennessee's BLACK TAR PROPHET is coming off its successful full length, Deafen, and Pennsylvania's iRON GAVEL has been slowly fine-tuning its heavy, destructive noise. Perfect timing for a new split LP. Instrumental sludge duo Black Tar Prophet pushes low end frequencies to the limit, with heavy noise champions Iron Gavel maintaining the balance. Includes a poster.

Ramlord / Sea Of Bones

Sea Of Bones / Ramlord

Broken Limbs

***This new collaboration between New Haven's SEA OF BONES nd New Hampshire's RAMLORD guarantees genuine excitement for fans of all that is heavy. The all consuming darkness of Sea of Bones partners perfectly with Ramlord's continued exploration of metal and punk stripped down to its essence. Poised to devour all of existence. Includes an insert.

Hanson, Cory

The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo

Drag City

***Drag City, Inc. is pleased to announce the solo debut full length from WAND's CORY HANSON. The Unborn Capitalist from Limbo was recorded during May of 2016 in various locations across Los Angeles County, and features string arrangements by HEATHER LOCKIE. 

Major Stars

Motion Set

Drag City

***Motion Set is the 9th MAJOR STARS LP and their first on Drag City since 2010’s Return to Form, with Decibels of Gratitude appearing in 2012. This has left Starsheads around the world high and decidedly dry; for what reason a four-year gap, they’ve cried, instead of the rather more ideal two-to-three? The answer lies in the very core of the band as they’ve existed from the start: time and space are required to produce the necessary mass to tether their music in this flighty, over-oxygenated atmosphere of ours—and after eight records, it only gets harder to find a combination of possible elements requiring three guitars and a rhythm section in search of the ultimate release with every song they play. Fortunately, Major Stars don’t sell their process until it’s fully melded. C’mon, WAYNE ROGERS is no Johnny-come-lately to the scene of psychedelic guitar rock. He and KATE BIGGAR have been crossing axes to head-scrambling effect since the halcyon days of CRYSTALLIZED MOVEMENTS, in the galaxy far, far away we now call the '80s. In the 90s came collaboration with DAMON & NAOMI in MAGIC HOUR and Wayne Rogers solo records, before the debut of Major Stars at Terrastock ’97. As the years have passed, the band has evolved necessarily in their own expanding universe. (STREET DATE - 11/11/2016)

Papa M

Highway Songs

Drag City

***PAPA M? Are you serious? The last time we said “Papa M,” it was 2004 and we were talking about a retrospective compilation album! There were no expectations, and none given! Sure, Papa M was attached to some of the 80s–90s greatest no-core records, especially if you consider his imaginary alter ego, one DAVID PAJO. But that was a long time ago! So why then does Highway Songs spill into our ears with a newness, a vitality that only fresh blood can bring? Could it be because of all the blood? David Pajo’s been writing lines on the guitar since he was a bitty little kid. It sustained him through a lot of groups, like MAURICE, SLINT, AERIAL M, TORTOISE, THE FOR CARNATION, and DEAD CHILD. He’s played live too, and on records. And now that he’s grown up to be a bitty little man, what’s he gonna do, change? If you think so, you don’t know Pajo—or as he’s been known to sometimes go, Papa M. The instrumental sounds he’s made in the name of these names implied danger, violence and total alienation, alongside a peaceful, easy, good-willin’ and wide streak of broke-toothed black humor. So, after those classic albums followed by a long silent phase, broken only by a steady stream of sweet (and terrifying) pictures on Instagram, we’ve now got Highway Songs. Sounds pastoral. Bucolic, even. What’s become of the implication of mayhem in this title? Don’t worry. This album could be called “Wreck on the Highway...

Silence, The

Nine Suns, One Morning

Drag City

***Nine Suns, One Morning is the third album from THE SILENCE—led by MASAKI BATOH of GHOST—since their formation in Tokyo in July of 2014. This is an amazing outpouring of music in a very short time! The reason for this is that The Silence transpose ecstatic moments from the rock and roll dreamscape into all-new, living music. Not only is there a lot of music in the ether yet to be realized, but The Silence are very good at this process! Despite the speed with with these albums have been dispatched over the course of just 21 months, each collection is gathered with an expert ear turned to the listening experience. Nine Suns, One Morning is one of the most explosive, far-ranging albums you will hear in 2016. Nine Suns, One Morning is a fully developed album of modern rock and roll that moves fluidly between ALL styles of music. LP version includes a bonus 7-inch containing two cover versions. “Louie Louie,” the most elemental of rock songs, is shaken violently in best Silence fashion, while “No Expectations” is given a gossamer gospel treatment on the flipside.

Harris, Jimmy Lee

I Wanna Ramble

Big Legal Mess

***Originally included in the George Mitchell Collection (vol. 25), a much lauded series centered around George Mitchell's travels around the South, recording some of the best known and unknown bluesmen alive at the time. Released now as part of Fat Possum's 25th Anniversary blues series where Big Legal Mess and Fat Possum hand pick some of the most deserving of the George Mitchell collection to re-release on vinyl. Extremely limited.

Veloso, Caetano

Caetano Veloso (tropicalia) + Bonus Cd

Lilith

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Originally released in 1968, CAETANO VELOSO’s debut album did for Brazilian music what the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers did for rock & roll, giving birth to the soon-to-be Tropicalia movement, which fused Brazilian music with pop, psychedelia and social awareness (and Veloso's leftist politics actually earned him a stint in jail in 1968 for 'anti-government activity'). Veloso, nonetheless went on to become one of the most popular and influential Brazilian musicians of all time. Includes the genre-defining classics "Clarice," "Soy Loco Por Tì, América," "Superbacana," "Tropicalia" and "Alegria, Alegria." Includes a bonus CD of the album and OBI strip.