Browse: Vinyl

Street Sects

End Position

Flenser

***Available again!!!  Utilizing frantic, uncompromising rhythms and a variety of nightmarish samples, Austin, Texas, duo Street Sects create a feverish marriage of industrial music and punk rock. Their debut album, End Position, is a meditation on suicide fantasy—both the means and the cause. In 2013, after emerging from the fog of a thirteen year battle with addiction and homelessness, Street Sects vocalist Leo Ashline began collaborating with friend and multi-instrumentalist Shaun Ringsmuth. Disgusted with life but eager for catharsis, the duo embraced the experimental attitude and disillusionment of early industrial music, eschewing traditional rock instrumentation and arrangement in favor of modern sampling technology and harsh electronics. Together they released a series of singles (Gentrification I and II) and honed their fierce and confrontational live performance, eventually writing and recording what would become End Position. Ashline’s pessimistic lyrics explore an array of intense, personal obsessions and the violence inherent in modern life. End Position is a provocative existential statement on the bleeding-edge of extreme music.

Planning For Burial

Quietly

Flenser

After the release of his debut album, Leaving (2010), Planning for Burial’s Thom Wasluck wrote and recorded a series of EPs that have become collectively known as Quietly. It was a tumultuous time in Wasluck’s life, and the songs he composed reflect the intense feelings of longing and jealousy that he was experiencing. As the title suggests, these tracks are more restrained in approach than the work which preceded them. They are also set apart from much of Wasluck’s other output by their recording process, which was largely done live with few or no overdubs in order to properly capture every emotion in its rawest state. For almost a decade, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania-based musician Thom Wasluck has been releasing his signature gloomy dirges under the name Planning for Burial at a nearly relentless pace. He now has three full-length albums (most notably 2017’s monumental Below the House) under his belt as well as countless EPs and splits. The Quietly sessions took place between 2011 and 2012 and will be available for the first time on vinyl from The Flenser. This new version includes a song that was previously only issued on a floppy disc as well as an unreleased track from the same era. This collection was remastered specifically for this vinyl release by Nicholas Wilbur (Mount Eerie) at The Unknown.

Bocal 5

Musique Electronique

Dark Entries

***Bocal 5 were a No Wave art group composed of Doc Pilot (synths, vocals), Zouka Dzaza (bass), Florian Guillou (synths), Mickey Lepron (electronic drums, bass) and Evy Tinguette (lead vocals). The project was born in November 1980 in Tours, France as the brain child of Doc Pilot. Between 1981 to 1986 Bocal 5 recorded one 7” single and a cassette-only album before taking a year off in 1984 to launch X-Ray Pop. Influenced by Erik Satie, Brigitte Bardot, Suicide and Young Marble Giants, they call their music "minimum naive new wave."   “Musique Électronique” is a 19-track compilation of songs recorded across 1983, most of which have never been released on vinyl before. 16 tracks appeared on the “From Bocal 5 To X-Ray Pop” album originally released on cassette by Sound of Pig in 1984. Both tracks from their debut 7” originally released in MB5 1984 are included and show a progression in sound as a result of newer recoding equipment and techniques. Also present is a song from the tape compilation “Andreas N°3 L'Animal" released by Fraction Studio in 1984. Armed with a Korg 770, MS-10, Prophet Pro-One, Roland TR-707 and TB-808 they crafted their own brand of quirky synthesized electronic pop. Songs are short, concise and well structured; richly textured, moving at a quick speed with hardly a pause. Evy’s pouting, tongue-in-cheek vocals (sung in French) come together for a catchy, sensuous, danceable, eccentric psychedelic ride. This collection shows the group’s sense of humor, vitality and carefree...

Die Form

Zoo

Dark Entries

***Die Form is a French post-industrial and electronic band formed in 1977-1978. The name 'Die Form' means '(the) form/shape' in German and is a play on the English homonym 'deformed' and on the French homonym 'difforme' (deformed). Die Form is the primary project of electronic musician and multimedia artist Philippe Fichot. He began by recording a number of experimental cassette releases in the late 1970s and formed the Bain Total label to release these early cassettes, as well as various side projects such as Krylon Hertz, Camera Obscura, Eva-Johanna Reichstag, Hurt and Fine Automatic.  In 1982 Die Form released their debut vinyl album, “Die Puppe” in a limited edition of 1,000 copies. “Zoo” is a compilation of 10 tracks recorded during the “Die Puppe” sessions from 1980-82. These were the first esoteric electronic experiments, often improvised. Underlying themes of eroticism, death, and other 'taboo' subjects become apparent in both the music and the album artwork, which Philippe also produced. The album was recorded with entirely analog equipment, including a Roland MC4 Micro-Composer, TR-808 Rhythm Composer, ARP 2600, and Kawai 60F recorded to a Revox B77 reel to reel tape machine. Songs range from hypnotic, minimalistic proto-IDM to daring experimental sound manipulation. 4 of these songs were featured as a bonus 7” to accompany the 1989 vinyl reissue of “Die Puppe” but remixed for the project. The remaining 6 songs were also remixed and released on CD in 2001. For this reissue we asked the band to transfer the analog...

Diseno Corbusier

Stadia

Dark Entries

***Diseño Corbusier is the avant-garde electronics duo of Javier G. Marín and Ani Zinc, formed in Granada, Spain 1981. Like Sheffield’s relation to London during the punk explosion in the UK, Granada developed an experimental music scene 400 kilometers south of Madrid. As a child, there were no records in Ani’s house, so she grew up listening to the radio and was hypnotized after hearing ‘Remember Love’, by Yoko Ono. While attending university in Granada she responded to an ad in a music magazine by Javier, “If you’re into bands like Cabaret Voltaire or Flying Lizards, call me”.  The duo recorded their debut album “Stadia” in 1982 and self-released as a limited edition cassette on their label Auxilio de Cientos. They drew influences from contemporaries like SPK, Throbbing Gristle, Esplendor Geométrico and DAF. They employed the ’cut-up' technique William Burroughs used to write his books to splicing their magnetic tape loops. Instruments used included a Korg Lambda, Boss DR-55 drum machine, Roland SH 101, and MFB 501 drum machine. The lack of money to buy more expensive instruments forced the duo to be more creative. Everything was recorded directly to a cassette player that was plugged into a Revox B77 reel to reel tape machine to add echo. Ani manipulated and treated her naive, menacing vocals to match Javier’s processed rhythms. These early sketches contain atonal, arhythmic, thick shifting curtains of synth, loops and radio samples. For this reissue we’ve added 7 bonus tracks taken from various cassette compilations,...

Jones, Paul "wine"

Stop Arguing Over Me

Fat Possum

***BACK IN STOCK!!! PAUL "WINE" JONES was born in Flora, Mississippi, and learned to play guitar by the age of four. In his teens he played at house parties, and later worked with James "Son" Thomas and harmonica player Little Willy Foster. However, Jones played music mainly as a pastime, He also worked with local musicians such as Bob and Sid Cobb, George Sheldon, Craig Collins, Tommy Hollis, Bill Abel, Tommy Warren, Zach Kiker, Goat Hill Productions, Pickle Byest and many others while working on farms up to 1971, when he became a welder in Belzoni, Mississippi. In 1995 and 1996, Jones performed outside of Mississippi, when he was a member of Fat Possum's "Mississippi Juke Joint Caravan.

Ex-cult

Negative Growth

In The Red

“In the year of the snitch, there are forces beyond your control that keep you up at night. Ghost notions that swirl around your room while you sleep. Your own pillow laughing right in your face while you fight for an hour of rest. Voices whisper from the corner, telling you everything you never wanted to hear. Negative Growth, our third album, is dedicated to fear and deception.“This collection of songs was conceived in Memphis and finalized in Los Angeles, with the help of our family doctor Ty Segall. It was created in February 2016, when we traded Memphis misery for a week of California sunshine. Negative Growth is a nine-track nightmare, a death trip in the crystal ship. The institution known as In The Red Records will do the honors. The Hollywood Heat Seeker takes ten years off your life.”—Chris Shaw of Ex-Cult

The Fall

Slates

Superior Viaduct

If The Fall truly is a cult band, then Slates both benefits from and reinforces such shrouded obsessions. In presenting these six particular songs as a 10" EP, the inherent and attractive difficulty of The Fall's sound is made physical, framing the urgency of their singles from this period (notably How I Wrote 'Elastic Man' and Lie Dream of a Casino Soul) alongside lengthy rumblings normally restricted to long players.  The tumbling and phased "Middle Mass" begins on an incredible high note, segueing into the snake-charm hypnotism of "An Older Lover Etc." "Slates, Slags, Etc." is built on stretched VU-inspired riffing, complete with ace feedback bleed that doubtlessly went on long after fade-out. Ultimately, it's the piercing chimes of guitar and marching drum grind of "Prole Art Threat" that elevates Slates beyond oddity. Truly one of Mark E. Smith's finest, busiest and most enigmatic performances, equally matched by a band at the peak of their powers.  Superior Viaduct's edition is the first time that Slates has been available on vinyl domestically since its initial release in 1981. Liner notes by Brian Turner.

Dysrhythmia

The Veil Of Control

Profound Lore

Having established themselves as one of the most notable progressive and unique instrumental metal bands since their inception more than 15 years ago, NY-based powertrio Dysrhythmia mirrors the definition of their moniker. Comprised of Kevin Hufnagel (guitars), Colin Marston (bass), and Jeff Eberon (drums), the band has, over six albums, shown the ultimate in musical fortitude with wondrous, jaw-dropping compositions that go beyond jazz-infused, avant-garde technical extreme metal. Hufnagel and the ever prolific Marston also now comprise one-half of the legendary Gorguts and were specifically recruited by Gorguts mastermind Luc Lemay when he resurrected the technical death metal wonder several years ago. With their new album The Veil Of Control, Dysrhythmia’s first since 2012’s Profound Lore debut Test Of Submission (previous albums on Relapse Records), they have once again created a new expression within their mind-blasting repertoire — Hufnagel solely using a 12-string guitar on this latest — that will go unparalleled in instrumental progressive metal, proving once again they are an untouchable entity.

Wife

Standard Nature

Profound Lore

Wife is the solo electronic music project of multi-instrumentalist producer James Kelly, also known as the mastermind behind forward-thinking acclaimed post-black metal band Altar Of Plagues. Starting with the Stoic EP in 2012 via Left_blank, Wife signed with respected electronic music label Tri-Angle Records (The Haxan Cloak, Forest Swords, Evian Christ, etc.) for his debut full length What’s Between in 2014 (co-produced by The Haxan Cloak). A more song-oriented, electronic-pop affair, that album quickly established Kelly as a producer of note alongside his aforementioned peers, while he subsequently became more active on the live circuit. With Standard Nature, Kelly has created a bridge between What’s Between and the more experimental aura of his first EP. The result is the best produced material yet—heavy, cacophonous, more intense and dynamic sounds layer through meticulously crafted electronics, samples and beats. 

Neurosis

Fires Within Fires

Neurot Recordings

Of all that humankind has inherited through our ancestry, no single language has transcended every age as powerfully as music. For those few who channel that inheritance of sound today, none wield its command and authority like Neurosis. Showing their discontent with convention from the very beginning, Neurosis revealed what would become an instinct for transformation in sound and scope. With each release, the sound became interchangeable with vision. A vision of the conscious and unconscious coexisting in an audial spectrum that challenged not only the constraints of what listeners expected but of the listeners themselves as beings. Over the collective’s past ten albums, Neurosis have invited listeners to join them on the path their music carved. Going beyond the remarkable, they became unforgettable. Throughout the last 30 years, the band has relished the unpredictable and embraced the unknown possibility of where the music was capable of taking them. Neurosis takes their most dominant step yet with their eleventh full-length, Fires Within Fires. Three decades in the making, striking their signature balance between light and dark, beauty and repulsion, this latest album gives due to its predecessors while progressing forward into the unfamiliar and formidable. Featuring exquisite album artwork from the renowned Thomas Hooper and the stellar recording work of the group’s longstanding engineer Steve Albini, Fires Within Fires is at once a beautiful and forbidding work of mastery. For members Scott Kelly, Steve Von Till, Jason Roeder, Noah Landis, and Dave Edwardson, the album is a welcome companion to...

Forma

Physicalist

Kranky

***Physicalist is the third album from New York City synthesis trio FORMA. Since their acclaimed sel-ftitled debut in 2011, Forma have been perfecting a distinctive style of improvised kosmische and minimalism that blends swirling arpeggios, ambient soundscapes, and driving motorik beats. Physicalist is a sprawling, double LP journey featuring new member and multi-instrumentalist JOHN ALSO BENNETT, who replaced Sophie Lam in 2014. The first Forma album to include acoustic instrumentation, Physicalist owes more to American composers like Harold Budd or Terry Riley than Klaus Schulze and other Krautrock visionaries. The album was recorded during marathon sessions at Brooklyn’s Gary’s Electric studio, and is packaged in a gatefold jacket with original artwork by ROBERT BEATTY and a liner notes essay by writer and critic MICHAEL BARRON. Physicalist was mastered by BOB WESTON.

Puff

Living In The Partyzone

Slovenly

***From the sadly sanitized bowels of Berlin, PUFF comes correct to the Slovenly / Mondo Mongo roster once again with the madcap Living In The Partyzone LP. These mysterious dumpster dwellers deliver 10 tracks of electro-analog chaos, heavy on the attack and decayed beyond recognition. Housed in despicable cover art that we fully endorse, Puff's beatification of German forefathers The Monks with a heavy nod to Devo creeps into your psyche with helium-headed punk goop. Puff has been known to cause erectile dysfunction and red eye with half broken organs and barely repaired synths, pairing with misappropriated guitars to create an animated racket that is intended to destroy the party (people). Absurdist lyrics pilfered from the journal of taxi driver turned comedian Travis Bickle weave around John Carpenter samples and itchy melodies to construct music that’s grown like mold from an over fermented pair of minds, transforming “garage music" into music from a dilapidated garage containing a broken dishwasher and a forgotten collection of Joe Meek records. Buzzing synth spars with surf guitar twang on "Psychological Survival," one of only a handful of tracks sung in English, with the rest mouthed in the mother tongue. Animatronic frivolity reigns supreme here, with sounds fit for a post-apocalyptic arcade game, and lyrical outrageousness that never wavers regardless of their chosen language. Featrues members of STEREO TOTAL.

Mary Lynn

My Animal

Anyway

Singer­Songwriter Mary Lynn's debut on Anyway Records finds her stepping into the sheen of a full rock band to bring powerful songs on love, growing pains, and relationships. Based out of Columbus, OH, and armed with her piano, voice, and emotions ­ she has the superpower ability to spin a phrase with the catchiest hooks imaginable. Her former band of nearly a decade, This Is My Suitcase, released three records of noise­inflected art pop before the band decided to move on, leaving Mary Lynn to pursue her own music. Following up from the quirky pop diary that was her first solo album, F​amiliar Things & Places, h​er upcoming release strikes a louder, braver pose. Drenched in beautiful melodies and confident vulnerability, "My Animal" dives into the same emotional territory as Aimee Mann and Regina Spektor while maintaining a unique pop­rock energy that consistently surprises. As she sings about the confusing states of being alive, Mary Lynn makes her songs sound effortless. Her strong melodies soar above the painful experiences that birthed them; all while sticking to listener's minds like glue ­ which means they may find themselves singing the choruses of "Two & Two" or "Funeral" when they wake up in the morning. Quite simply, "My Animal" is full of terrific pop songs. Mary Lynn partnered with Bill Moriarty (Man Man, Dr Dog) to help bring "My Animal" into the, well, true sonic animal that it is. And Mary Lynn says she wants her music to be...

Kandodo / McBain

Lost Chants / Last Chance

Rooster

A meeting of like minds surfing the sonic highways to tonal oblivion. These four castaways on Sonic Island (this may be too much) have delivered an album that evokes the long lost and revered genre “Drug-Rock” a true mind melt of acid abandonment! Tab-era Monster Magnet, Sessions Era-The Heads—purely visceral and pummelling workouts of a krautrock and pschedelische (surely the most overused term of now—but finally in its right place) from these masters of the art.  Lets not beat about the burning bush here, this is an original Monster Magnet member and three of the Heads—this is pedigree not to be overlooked. Tune in, Turn on, droned out! Mutually appreciated riffs, drones and tones floated across the oceans (via the internet). Conceived by Simon Price, Wayne Maskell, and Hugo Morgan and their US conspirator John McBain. They’ve created a modern masterpiece, straight from the off, the album feels like it has been hurled from riff valley, laden with trips aplenty.. catch a sonic wave here fellow psychonauts!!! (Liquid aural lava, it will encase your brain with a sike glazed crust.)   Mastered by John Mcbain for full sonic immersion, and cut at 45rpm to enable a further immersion into the molassess when sped down to 33rpm—this works so well, that the CD comes as a double with CD one a 45rpm (normal) master and CD 2 the treacle trap murk of it slowed to 33rpm. The come down stretched further—a psychedelic morass, all encased in a sike glazed...

Christensen, Stefan

American Pastoral Again

Ever / Never

***STEFAN CHRISTENSEN has been a staple in the New Haven, CT scene for the last decade, playing in, among many others, ESTROGEN HIGHS, EHRGEIZIG, PERMANENT FEELS and MEDICATION; recording Sex, Worn Leather, Pieces of Fruit; collaborating on the C/Site label and with the venue Popeye’s Garage. And while it would seem that Stefan has always lived a shark’s life—I’ll drown if I stop swimming—it is really only in the last year that he has entered his most prolific phase. All that other stuff has been… practice? In the prior twelve months, Stefan has released two full lengths and a pair of EPs on cassette via the esteemed labels Loki, Night People, and C/Site. American Pastoral Again is the debut vinyl outing from this eponymous artist issued by ever/never records. Channeling Gate, Jim Shepard, Crystalized Movements, and Shakey himself, the twelve minute title track consumes the entire A-side in a melancholic dirge. It is backed by four quick blasts that introduce elements of pop, noise, and more dirge. With varied approaches, Stefan’s songs are written from a unique and developed voice. A unifying thread through these works is the careful craftsmanship, each song tailored perfectly—knowing when to let it breathe, when to ramp up tension—for the most impact. Had Stefan cut his teeth in a more insular scene, in a more glamorous town, he’d have been a hitmaker, but we are thankful that was not the case. As American Pastoral Again demonstrates, he is onto something much more fulfilling and unforgettable.

Traversable Wormhole

Sublight Velocities

Hospital Productions

***NYC's ADAM X regains his 'floor traction' as TRAVERSABLE WORMHOLE with Sublight Velocities. His first Traversable Wormhole production since 2012, it's far more amped than his sewer-dwelling ADMX-71 album, Coherent Abstractions. "Sublight Velocities" aims for the jugular up top, squaring off a bruising tattoo of militant kicks packing elephantine recoil while plasmic black drones stoically deplete the spirit. The coldly hypnotic "Semiclassical Gravity" rolls off the bone accentuating the groove's elliptical, rolling chassis with acidic sub-bass rubs and stepping hi-hat patterns seemingly dispersing the other side's lactic build up.

Tomaga

The Shape Of The Dance

Hands In The Dark

***The instrumental, experimental tracks by this London-based duo are mainly improvised, evoking the freshness and diversity of the band’s impressive live performances. Spiralling polyrhythmic percussion performed with a range of materials, vibraphone, frenetic bass, organ and oscillators, all are complicit in a strange dervish-like swirl, striking a minimalist yet accessible tone. With RICK TOMLINSON and BLUTWURST.

Dance Asthmatics, The

Lifetime Of Secretion

Ever / Never

***Hailing from Christchurch, New Zealand, THE DANCE ASTHMATICS emerged from the womb a few years ago as a PiL-worshipping dub-punk aggregate unlike anything else on their native isle. In fact, New Zealand hasn’t seen this much menace and casual aggression in a band since The Gordons stalked the earth. Comparisons can also be drawn to such demented precursors as Killing Joke, Butthole Surfers, and Terminal Cheesecake. But ultimately, The Dance Asthmatics have carved a unique identity out of their country’s bedrock. And they’ve fashioned a fortress from which they can let loose volleys of devastating power. Their five-song debut, Lifetime Of Secretion is a bruiser.

All Your Sisters

Uncomfortable Skin

Flenser

A band with a name such as All Your Sisters, whose two sole members are men, is not surprisingly a little hard to nail down. Ambiguity extends to the bands genre as well. “I think All Your Sisters is a lot of things: post punk, industrial, noise, ambient,” says frontman Jordan Morrison. The duo, who hail from the deceivingly sunny city of San Francisco, have one foot planted firmly in darkwave and post-punk, leaving the other free to wade through a variety of unconventional influences. Their forthcoming album, Uncomfortable Skin is steeped in nostalgia, but entirely contemporary and album’s first single “Open Wide,” seamlessly shifts between genres, yielding a sound that is both brooding and catchy.  After the dissolution of his previous band, Morrison (guitar, synth, vocals) formed All Your Sisters as a solo project, then moved from Reno to San Francisco where he eventually brought like-minded musician Mario Armando Ruiz (bass, synth) into the fold. The duo connected immediately, bonding over their tumultuous upbringings and dark personal tragedies. Their first album, Modern Failures was released by Belaten in 2014 and then on vinyl by Weyrd Son Records. It was followed by a successful European tour in 2015. All Your Sisters performs with a palpable sense of urgency. “I get physically and mentally ill if I’m unable to play music for stretches. It’s perhaps the only way I know how to express myself,” says Morrison.  Morrison draws on his personal experiences for lyrical inspiration, especially his time spent...

Kayo Dot

Plastic House On Base Of Sky

Flenser

…dead satellites, trashed space stations, wasted old lady heroin addicts hanging…  The core of Kayo Dot might be that mood– one that lies at the crossroads of darkness and mystery. In film, music that accompanies mystery is often nocturnal, playing on a primal relation in our brains between the unknown and the night. It’s this intersection that is the essence of Kayo Dot. Kayo Dot has never made the same record twice. From chamber music to progressive black metal, from goth to jazz and avant-garde classical, Kayo Dot is experimental and often unclassifiable. Plastic House on Base of Sky is Kayo Dot’s 7th full-length since the bands inception in 2003  On Kayo Dot’s newest full length, Plastic House on Base of Sky, the band continues to embrace the electronic allusions found on their previous effort Coffins on Io. Plastic House on Base of Sky incorporates a variety of synthesizers (many of them vintage analog) to create another work of ambition and magnitude that fuses the explosive musical imagination of a band like Magma with the forward-thinking experimentalism of Conrad Schnitzler or Morton Subotnick. This latest effort, a 40 minute-long, 5-song LP replaces the future-noir theme of Coffins on Io with an innovative, complex, and biomechanical work of art. Think seemingly impossible architecture, dead satellites, trashed space stations, wasted old lady heroin addicts hanging out by cheap motel pools, broken people, and a hopeless dead and polluted world transitioning into artifice and mechanism and reacting by being self-destructive, either...

Muscle And Marrow

Love

Flenser

While writing their second album, Love, Muscle and Marrow’s Kira Clark lost a close family member. This set the thematic tone that pervades Love. Death and the gradual decline of the family, but also the nature of love in general—how to love better, how to love more or at all, what happens when someone else loves you, and the trap that love ultimately becomes, but also the freedom it affords.  Formed in 2013 by Kira Clark (voice, guitar) and Keith McGraw (drums, sounds), Muscle and Marrow quickly crafted a style that is their own. A sound that is delicate, operatic and extremely heavy, yet difficult to categorize. They have frequently played with heavier acts such as The Body, Author and Punisher, and True Widow, but Muscle and Marrow is not a traditional metal band, if a metal band at all. They are something unique and dark, yet undeniably heavy and familiar.  Muscle and Marrow’s debut album The Human Cry was released in June, 2014 by Belief Mower Records. Its songs were arresting and hysterical, but also distinctly feminine. Pitchfork called it “gorgeous,” with Clark’s voice alternating between plaintive wails and guttural moans that soared over waves of pulsing drums and stifling guitars. Muscle and Marrow toured across the United States and in October, 2015, the duo posted up at Machines with Magnets (The Body, Lightning Bolt, Marissa Nadler, Deer Tick) in Providence, RI to record what was to become their sophomore album, Love. The band took their time in the...

Wreck And Reference

Indifferent Rivers Romance End

Flenser

Titled Indifferent Rivers Romance End, the cover of Wreck and Reference’s newest album depicts a statue of pre-socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus tied to a brick and drowned in a river of liquor and dirt. Heraclitus, “the weeping philosopher,” found comfort in the uniformity of the world's chaos. Wreck and Reference is not at home in genre conventions; relying on computers, acoustic drums, and voice the band has found an audience with the heavier crowd and fans of the experimental.   Indifferent Rivers Romance End is a winding composition of ballads that interrogate the endurance of purpose, love, and change set against a backdrop of disillusionment draining into nihilism. The album sees Wreck and Reference employ the clarity of IDM and the rhythmic flood of trap as an experiment in pop, metal, and noise. Like all Wreck and Reference albums, Indifferent Rivers Romance End was self-recorded, but this time with increased use of digital synthesizers in lieu of samples, creating a greater sense of fluidity and movement. In contrast to past work, Indifferent Rivers Romance End is an album that allows the possibility of change, even the necessity of it, when the self comes to face the inevitability of continued life amidst the construction and destruction of relationships.   Originally formed in 2011 by multi-instrumentalists Ignat Frege and Felix Skinner, Wreck and Reference use computers, drums, and vocals to create a sound that is eccentric, captivating, and often unnerving. That same year, the band recorded their first EP, Black...

Rose, Jack

Opium Musick

Vhf

Part of a collaboration with Jack Rose’s estate and Three Lobed Records to restore all of his LPs to print, VHF presents new vinyl editions of the celebrated guitarist’s first three solo albums, newly cut by John Golden Mastering from the original source material. Originally issued on LP by Eclipse Records between 2002-04, these releases chart an eclectic, more experimental approach left behind as his technique and compositions became more refined and deliberate on later works like Kensington Blues. Recorded and originally released in 2003, Opium Musick is an eclectic collection with pieces for 12-string (the percussive and dark “Black Pearls”), 6-string, and lap guitar. The lovely raga-ish “Yaman Blues” features Mike Gangloff (Pelt, Black Twig Pickers) on tanpura, and echoes the extended modal work on Pelt’s contemporaneous Pearls From The River. The near-ragtime of “Linden Ave Stomp” showcases Glenn Jones on his vintage Gibson in a jumping duet with Rose’s lap steel. “Linden Ave” charted a path that Rose would determinedly pursue—short ragtime and old-time influenced pieces (originals and classics), with all phrasing worked out to a perfectionist standard. The lovely “Mountaintop Lamento” was memorably used in Catherine Pancake’s film about coal mining in Appalachia, Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice.  “In the year and half between Red Horse, White Mule and Opium Musick Mr. Rose spent the majority of his time honing his Ragtime and Jass skills. He met Dr. Chattanooga Red soon after recording his first LP and he revealed the secrets...

Rose, Jack

Red Horse, White Mule

Vhf

Part of a collaboration with Jack Rose’s estate and Three Lobed Records to restore all of his LPs to print, VHF presents new vinyl editions of the celebrated guitarist’s first three solo albums, newly cut by John Golden Mastering from the original source material. Originally issued on LP by Eclipse Records between 2002-04, these releases chart an eclectic, more experimental approach left behind as his technique and compositions became more refined and deliberate on later works like Kensington Blues. Rose’s 2002 solo debut Red Horse, White Mule was a bit of an outlier in the underground gestalt at the time, coming just before the wave of releases from the new generation of Takoma- / Fahey-inspired players. Strictly a solo affair, Red Horse balances the epic, side-long raga of “Red Horse” against a second side of shorter pieces, including the ragged slide style of “The Colonel’s Blues.” The compositions and performances incorporate the new and the classic with a rough-hewn charm.  “Rose’s personalized and disparate criteria awaken feelings of both rapture and tragedy on the scale of that which must have been felt by the newly-wed anthropologist who drove Kiowa Indian guests out of his Oklahoma residence with Victrola discs of Amelita Galli-Curci in order to go to bed with his bride or the child who, on hearing Bugs Bunny sing Queen Liluokalani’s dirge “Aloha Oe,” quarantined himself in the clothes hamper until such time that the United States withdraws from Hawai’i.” —Kisan Nagai, blues scholar, on Red Horse, White Mule

Sonic Youth

Confusion Is Sex

Goofin'

BACK IN STOCK ON VINYL! Note price increase.  Originally slated to be a seven-inch single to follow up their self-titled debut, Sonic Youth ’s Confusion Is Sex blossomed into the band’s first album:  a brain-bludgeoning, completely fried endeavor of dissonance and disarray, a perfect soundtrack for running from a chain-wielding gang near the SIN Club. This was the sound of 1983 New York City: nothing like London where punks were starting to scrub their faces and sounds to get on Top of the Pops , and nothing like the jangly roots of college radio rock starting to formulate in Athens, Georgia. It sounded like no one else on Earth, for that matter. The raw, Wharton Tiers  8-track production is dark, the Kim Gordon-scrawled cover figure art of Thurston Moore  is dark, Lee Ranaldo ’s back cover photo-collage and Catherine Ceresole ’s crumpled-xeroxed images that adorned the inside are dark. It’s an album that moves Sonic Youth forward from their first EP almost by devolving backwards into true ugly, lo-fi primitivity. The bareboned arsenal of junkpile guitars and implementation of alternate tunings was growing, and so were the songs that matched the individual attributes of each instrument: certain ones groan and growl a specific way that the band started to realize itself could become the compositional germ of a song. Herein is the threshold of a new explosion of the band’s creativity , replacing the comparatively cleaner buzz of the Sonic Youth EP with guitars that  spew fractured,...

Melchior, Dan

Born Under A Grey Sign

Monofonus Press

***"When this record showed up unsolicited let's just say it was a no brainer. Born Under a Grey Sign shows DAN MELCHIOR confident enough to do whatever he damn well pleases. He'll go from singing a Sea Shanty directly into drum machine chaos, all the while keeping things rooted somehow in his brand of folk/rock/garage whatever. We love this record, and it's an honor to release it."

V/a

Imaginational Anthem Viii - The Private Press

Tompkins Square

***Tompkins Square label presents the 8th volume of Imaginational Anthem, the acclaimed series focusing on acoustic guitar, particularly in the American Primitive vein. Volume 8, compiled by hardcore record collectors MICHAEL KLAUSMAN (former used LP buyer for NYC's recently shuttered Other Music) and BROOKS RICE, features some of the best and most obscure private press guitar records virtually no one has heard. In fact, so-called guitar soli expert, Tompkins Square owner JOSH ROSENTHAL, had never heard of a single artist on the comp (except for PERRY LEDERMAN, whose track was Josh's sole contribution to the collection). Amidst the obscure entries are bits of rock-star lore; JOE BETHANCOURT was supposedly given a sitar by an admiring Jimi Hendrix, and Perry Lederman was reportedly responsible for teaching Bob Dylan how to fingerpick. But the true joy of this collection is derived from discovering incredible acoustic guitar performances completely lost to time. Until now.

Presley, Tim

The Wink

Drag City

***Received a 7.8 rating from Pitchfork. TIM PRESLEY, the dark force behind WHITE FENCE steps into the solo light with The Wink. Lit up within the shades and the folding conflex of his many musical outfits are the musical sparks that make Tim Presley come alive —but The Wink lives beyond all previous incarnations found in DRINKS, HAIR, White Fence and DARKER MY LOVE. Here, there’s fewer filters than ever between you and Tim. Working with the creative team of producer CATE LE BON, drummer STELLA MOZGAWA, and engineer SAMUR KHOULA, Tim’s located the corners of a perfect square, with their creativity and truth crafting unique parts to function as songs within songs, giving the tunes double-jointed features that extend their original intentions.

Chivalrous Amoekons

Fanatic Voyage

Sea Note

***Sea Note and Palace Records join forces to welcome CHIVALROUS AMOEKONS—BEN BOYE, VAN CAMPBELL, DANNY KIELY, EMMETT KELLY (CAIRO GANG), ANGEL OLSEN and BONNIE PRINCE BILLY—to our rowdy collective stable! Here we have one of the hottest road-leathered bands in recent memory, laying it all on the line for a joyous Fanatic Voyage to the center of the never-ending enigma of THE MEKONS. Pouring out from the bars of the opening number, the soulful strut of “Curse” makes us realize that we are in the hands of a fiendish and indomitable force—but ain’t we always been? Fanatic Voyage was mixed in homage to Lou Reed’s Street Hassle, removing all aspects of the live event beyond the musical performance. BITCHIN' BAJAS' COOPER CRAIN was brought in to commit this execution; his deft edits allow the band their breathless frenzy while leaving no trace of what must surely have been an gobsmacked Swiss crowd. Fanatic Voyage is an exquisite tribute not just to The Mekons, but to the spirit and image of rock and roll, the rights of the righteous man and to time, that great elevator and annihilator, from which we will always have much to learn. In the spirit as well of The Mekons to pay forward to the next generation with all efforts, proceeds from the sale of these recordings will go to Roots of Music in New Orleans, Louisiana, whose work empowers local youth through music education, academic support and mentorship, while preserving and promoting the unique music...

Magill, Rob

The Owl And The Pussycat

Sun Ark

***The Owl and the Pussycat is an album of musical compositions by ROB MAGILL, it is his first vinyl LP release. Magill is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, poet, painter, and label-owner residing in Southern California. He began making solo recordings under his own name in 2010, and by the end of 2016 he will have finished more than 50 Rob Magill albums (released on his Weird Cry imprint). He has many more planned for future release. He has collaborated with musicians such as Eugene Chadbourne, Black Spiritual's Marshall Trammell, Fell to Low's Walker Daniels, and with Cameron Stallones and Alex Gray in the Sun Araw band.

Cold Cave

The Idea Of Love

Heartworm Press

***COLD CAVE (aka WESLEY EISOLD) returns with a new picture disc single. Features the track "The Idea Of Love," backed with "Rue The Day." With an already prolific number of releases, Cold Cave has become a name synonymous with the contemporary resurgence of Darkwave and Synth Pop sub-genres. Propelling Cold Cave to perform at world class museums The Getty and the Guggenheim, as well as performances with Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo & the Bunnymen and Gary Numan among others. Limited edition of 500 copies. Artwork features the Cold Cave classic nun with exposed breasts design. U.S. tour begins September 8th, 2016.

Gengras, M. Geddes

Interior Architecture

Intercoastal Artists

***"The work of prolific Los Angeles producer M. GEDDES GENGRAS is often discussed in terms of 'vibes.' This is fair enough, given the wandering modular synth experiments for which he’s known (not to mention his warmer forays into dub alongside SUN ARAW and his stated late-blooming appreciation for the Dead). Lest such language imply a relaxed sort of grooviness, however, his latest full-length—a double LP comprising four barely-discrete compositions, each around 18 minutes—extends into more anxious territory. Composed and recorded over the last six years, Interior Architecture is so expansive that it can be hard for the listener to find her footing. What’s rewarding, in addition to the lush and liquid sound of Gengras’ indulgent approach, is that very experience of instability. It’s more pronounced than in his previous releases, and here takes on a psychological dimension."—Pitchfork (7.0 rating)

Cheater Slicks

On Your Knees

Almost Ready

***"Long-awaited reissue of the first CHEATER SLICKS full length, recorded during their Boston tenure during the '80s. Originally released via the Gadawful label in 1989 and quickly disappearing, On Your Knees has sat atop many a Slicks fan's wantlist until now. Recorded as a four-piece with MERLE ALLIN on bass, the Slicks run through eleven numbers with the same intensity and weathered guitar-storm they would still be unleashing on the world over 25 years later. Contains tracks such as 'Bruno's Night Out,' 'I Won't Last Another Day,' 'Chaos' and 'I've Been Had' that remain among their best and begins their habit of recovering forgotten gems from the past, covering Mad Mike & The Maniacs ('The Hunch') and The Bell Tones ('A Sad Guitar'). An essential piece of the Slicks' discography, but aren't they all?"

Primal Scream

S/t

1972

Following the Byrds-indebted bliss of Primal Scream’s debut, Sonic Flower Groove, bandleader Bobby Gillespie reassembled a lineup and literally grew his hair long to prepare for the uninhibited riffs and leather-laden swagger of the group’s eponymous sophomore album in 1989. Fans were surprised—just like when Gillespie’s old group The Jesus & Mary Chain swapped noisy gauze for high-production sheen—but time has shown thrilling reinvention to be Gillespie’s greatest asset. The shift is told by the cover art: instead of Sonic Flower Groove’s nod to 1960s collegiate artist chic, Primal Scream’s cover depicts little more than wild manes in motion—the visual analog to both the blues-spew thump of “Ivy Ivy Ivy” and the incredible, Beggars Banquet-era Rolling Stones homage, “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” (which made history again as the basis for Primal Scream’s crossover hit, “Loaded”). But Primal Scream also slays with softness: “You’re Just Dead Skin to Me” features emotive keys from Felt’s Martin Duffy, and “You’re Just Too Dark to Care” movingly evokes Alex Chilton’s hushed despair on Big Star’s 3rd. Soon after, Screamadelica christened the band with a new identity, but Primal Scream established a mode to which Gillespie would return on 1994’s excellent Give Out But Don’t Give Up.

Primal Scream

Sonic Flower Groove

1972

Bobby Gillespie’s departure from The Jesus & Mary Chain enabled the pioneering Scots bandleader to focus on Primal Scream full-time. The rewards arrived quickly: the early B-side “Velocity Girl” ended up on NME’s legendary C86 compilation (and later inspired the American indie-pop band of the same name), and Primal Scream connected with the crucial English indie label Creation.  For the band’s debut, Primal Scream opted for producer Mayo Thompson—leader of left-field psych outfit Red Krayola and producer for Pere Ubu, Felt, and The Chills, among others—and completed Sonic Flower Groove for release on the newly set up Warner Bros. subsidiary Elevation Records in 1987. It’s the only album featuring Gillespie’s wistful, almost fey vocal style, which makes impeccably balanced pop compositions like “Aftermath” especially infectious. The influence of The Byrds is glaring. Glistening guitar melodies entwine and, yes, jangle, though the way they mingle with and complement Gillespie’s voice distinguishes the tribute. It’s also a prescient album, predicting the refined rock sensibility that would in a few years come to characterize Britpop, but by then Gillespie and Primal Scream would already be blazing new trails.

Callaci, Dennis

A Bed Of Light

Shrimper

Over the course of 25+ years, Dennis Callaci has written and performed in the band Refrigerator, while also recording solo under such aliases as Paste, Puffy and other even poorer name choices. Callaci has also collaborated on records with John Davis, Simon Joyner, and others, but A Bed of Light is his first true solo album. Six of these nine tracks were recorded by Jarvis Taveniere (Woods and producer of Woods, Sunflower Bean, Martin Courtney), who also plays drums, bass and guitar. A Bed Of Light also features Simon Joyner and his current band, with recordings and overdubs done in Omaha by Mike Friedman and Joyner. Many of these tracks were recorded months after Callaci’s brother Allen, lead singer of Refrigerator, had a sudden harrowing sickness followed by a successful heart transplant. The record is equal parts pastoral and primitive stomp. Autoharp, lap steel, cello and violin are complemented by cranky electric guitars pinned to ten in the mix, primitive drum machines and phantom saxophones. This is not a solo auteur album, though Callaci did pull a half-Prince by writing, singing and playing on every song as well as doing the cover art and writing a piss take essay on the insert!

Pansy Division

Quite Contrary

Alternative Tentacles

Note price change. Alternative Tentacles Records celebrates Pansy Division’s 25th anniversary with Quite Contrary, an unforgettable collection of hook- filled sing-a-longs. This latest album continues to mix clever lyrics with catchy melodies while giving a sober look at themselves and where they are now. Starting back in 1991 in San Francisco, singer/guitarist Jon Ginoli and bassist/vocalist Chris Freeman shared the experience of not only being outsiders for being gay, but also for being gay punk rockers. By turning their alienation into music that defied the stereotype that gay men preferred pop divas and show tunes, Pansy Division would go on to become beloved underground music legends.  Also featuring guitarist/vocalist Joel Reader (The Mr. T Experience, The Plus Ones, The Avengers) and drummer Luis Illades (The Plus Ones, The Avengers), Quite Contrary is the perfect follow up to 2009’s That’s So Gay. Tackling topics such as New Year’s reflections, phone addiction, aging barflies, dating apps, and flaky guys (an evergreen Pansy Division theme), this latest release provides a glimpse at the struggles of modern life both with Pansy Division’s trademark grin and a sense of determination. Quite Contrary sums up everything great about an astonishing 25-year career, including reuniting the original cover models of the classic 1996 album Wish I’d Taken Pictures, showing them 20 years later — quite contrary to the forever young imagery of mainstream gay iconography— a fantastic look into the social and personal frustrations we all face today. Pansy Division evolves with the times, gaining new depth while staying true...

Disaster Strikes

In The Age Of Corporate Personhood

Alternative Tentacles

Produced by underground legend Richard Marr, Disaster Strikes delivers Boston hardcore punk with impactful lyrics about social justice and workers’ rights.  These ten blistering tracks encapsulate the raw energy and intensity of Disaster Strike’s live sets. The opening track “The Fighting Path” is fermented with protest and resistance from its violent start to its incendiary final warning. The title track, “In the Age of Corporate Personhood,” features guest vocals by label czar and legendary punk provocateur Jello Biafra. Featuring epic cover art by Minneapolis-based artist Bill Hauser, In The Age of Corporate Personhood is a blue-collar, hard core juggernaut that captures an intensity rarely grasped by studio albums.

Low Culture

Places To Hide

Dirtnap

Second album from Portland-by-way-of-New-Mexico Dirtnap favorites! Low Culture features members of Shang-A-Lang and Marked Men, splitting the sonic difference between the two—scrappy, melodic, and sometimes jangly garage-punk that is fast, catchy, and high-energy-as-hell, but also thoughtful. Since releasing their debut LP Screens, which quickly sold out its initial pressing and was well-received, a lot has been going on in Low Culture’s world. Most of the band has relocated from Las Cruces, NM to Portland, OR, with the last member soon to follow. They’ve released 7-inches on Dirtnap, Dead Broke, and La-Ti-Da Records. They found a new bass player in Chicago transplant Jay Castaldi (MOTO, Lynyrd’s Innards, more). The band helped form killer local hardcore band Macho Boys. Singer/guitarist Chris Mason has released tons of essential records on his great Dirt Cult Records label. They’ve done some touring, including high-profile shows like the Dirtnap Records Anniversary, Awesome Fest, Ottawa Explosion, and others. On Places To Hide, Low Culture nails the delicate balance between the band’s existing strengths and branching out into new territory. Personal, somewhat depressive lyrics still set the mood, although many of the songs also tackle social/political issues more directly than in the past. The production, by Stan Wright at Portland’s Buzz Or Howl Studios (Red Dons, Criminal Code, Pierced Arrows, tons more) accentuates the band’s more “punk” (as opposed to garage) side. All in all, this second album is a perfect follow up to a nearly perfect debut.