Birdman

Infinite River

Tabula Rasa

Birdman

While their first two releases (Prequel and Space Mirror) saw these veterans of post-punk, new psychedelic noise, and 1990s garage rock expertly navigate the murky waters of COVID isolation with yoga-worthy ambient excursions, on their third record the quartet slides into fifth gear and terraplanes toward a fresh take on instrumental prog-rock. It’s not entirely unexpected, but there’s rapid accelerated growth at play on Tabula Rasa. Infinite River is composed of Gretchen Gonzales (Universal Indians, Slumber Party, Terror at the Opera), Warren Defever (His Name is Alive, ESP Beetles, Ethan Daniel Davidson), Joey Mazzola (Detroit Cobras, Sponge, Sugarcoats), and special guest drummer Steve Nistor (Sparks, Ural Thomas, Seedsmen to the World). These instrumental recordings were tracked between the end of 2022 and the start of 2023 in Warren Defever’s new loft studio space in glorious Hamtramck, MI, where the sessions were supervised by Defever’s cat, Brother James. “My apartment is a big, echoey room; previously we were close together in a tight space,” Defever explains. “The other studio is cozy; this is an art gallery. So it’s a really different vibe.” Tabula Rasa is closer to what the band is like live now. It highlights the point at which new age type music can become biker rock—which at times approximates Hawkwind or much German music from 1976, while rarely sounding like anything but itself. Tracks like “Around the Sun” and “Sky Diamonds” definitely have evolved out of the group playing new age type music together. But here, the melodies...

Infinite River

Space Mirror

Birdman

“The band is comprised of four badasses of Michigan underground sound: Gretchen Gonzales (Universal Indians, Slumber Party, Terror At The Opera), Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive, ESP Beetles), Joey Mazzola (Detroit Cobras, Sponge, Sugarcoats), and special guest Steve Nistor (Sparks, Ural Thomas, Seedsmen To The World). The instrumental combo has already played in London, the Bay Area (where they accompanied some of Harry Smith’s “Early Abstraction” films), and to packed houses in Detroit. Their debut, Prequel (Birdman) released at the start of 2023, received many fine notices; this album was recorded at the same time and in the same home studio in Birmingham, Michigan. “Space Mirror is so good. Each unnamed track flows into the next. It’s subtle, often quiet, and beautiful, to be sure. But it’s expansive and hard to pin down. Part of the reason is that the Michigan way is all-out. You can’t get on the smallest stage here without fully committing. That’s why we not only gave you the single best album of the peak rock era (rhymes with “pun mouse”), but the mind-melding depths of Emeralds (to use two Ann Arbor reference points). This here is an Infinite River, after all: We have the perfectly crafted harmonic noise guitar stylings of Gretchen Gonzales. And the expert drone of Warren Defever on tambura and harmonium. Steve Nistor’s percussion veers from imperceptible to all-encompassing. And Mazzola is such an adept stylist that it’s easy to mistake his emotive slide guitar work here for a full-on...

Gate

The Numbers

Birdman

In the 1980s, Michael Morley helped to push the jangly New Zealand music scene towards rougher, more exploratory realms, as a member of Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos, The Weeds, and the almighty Dead C. His gnarled, distorted guitar tone and aggressively moan-based vocal style are both as distinctive as they are secretly beautiful. Morley has released dozens of solo recordings—starting in the late 1980s as Gate, then more recently under his own name, and as the Righteous Yeah. He’s also unafraid to tackle entirely new genres and sounds, and to move into interactive installation-based music as well. Birdman is beyond excited to present the first vinyl release of this archival Gate release. “...I think it is classic Gate material. The idea of the palette is fascinating as I think I did approach it with a set of limited instrumentation and the desire to make something again that could sound like rock music. There is certainly a direct line from Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos, through the Dead C, and to Gate. I think I was also inspired by listening to [infamous and tragically short-lived early 1980s band] the Double Happys, and remembering their performances as a duo with the drum machine. There was such utter chaos and anarchy during their sets, with a desire to represent punk rock at its nascent truth, I wanted to see if it was possible to re- imagine that feeling. I was possibly also listening to the Stooges and MC5. —Michael Morley

Infinite River

Prequel

Birdman

“Finally, we get some of the finest artistic results of the awful, forced hibernation zones we all were forced to bubble ourselves into during the COVID era. It [Infinite River’s Prequel] sounds like the soundtrack to a space desert film you can’t wait to watch. There are so many of the sounds you already like that might come from guitars and drone elements, but it’s subtly put together here in ways that remove all sense of ego. These are sort of slowed-down post-rock songs, but it’s not overly interested in math, and it is way too cosmic to be post-rock. Sorry we even said ‘post-rock.’ “These perfect, first instrumental recordings here were made in a home studio in Birmingham, Michigan by three longtime friends and compatriots who were slowly starting to go nuts as lockdown started. Later, another friend shuttering in place in the U.P. added percussion elements. ‘All our friends were doing yoga, so we made this yoga music for them,’ Gretchen Davidson explains half-seriously. But this music contains multitudes. It exists in a curious space between improvised music and subtle songs that fall apart the closer you get to them. There is a lot of space in between these notes. “No one will call this a ‘Detroit supergroup,’ and we implore you to follow suit. However, the group curiously brings together disparate yet friendly threads of the fertile Detroit underground: garage, weirdo indie, and the noise scene—from its very top practitioners, no less. Gretchen Davidson (Slumber Party, Terror...

Turner, Otha And The Rising Star Fife And Drum Band

Everybody Hollerin' Goat

Birdman

The trance blues stylings of Otha Turner and his Rising Star Fife And Drum Band should be a music classification unto itself, a whole new primitive take on drum and bass. This music is the oldest still-practiced post-colonial American music, and Turner was one of its greatest artists of the 20th century. Blowing the cane fife with a band of drummers as back up, The Rising Star Fife And Drum band was legendary in the hills of Tate County, Mississippi, where they would perform during the yearly goat picnics on Turner’s farm. These tracks were recorded by Luther Dickinson during such picnics and released when Turner was ninety years old. Everybody Hollerin’ Goat shows first hand the hypnotic and rhythmic style of fife and drum music at its best—raw and beautiful. It is every bit as essential a document of America’s folk-music heritage as anything Harry Smith or Alan Lomax ever offered up for posterity. Turner’s band included some of his children and grandchildren that have gone on to continue the fife and drum tradition since his death in 2003. This first ever vinyl release of Everybody Hollerin’ Goat contains a whole side of unreleased recordings from one night of the picnic and is intended to bring the experience of hollerin’ for goat in Senatobia, Mississippi to the living room. Dancing around the plants is recommended (but don’t eat the pickled eggs). The entire album is remastered by legend Gary Hobish.  “One of the top five blues LPs from...

Howlin Rain

Good Life

Birdman

After a year and a half of pre-production work with producer Rick Rubin, Howlin Rain found themselves with an overabundance of material and an increasing gap of time between the forecasted release of their forthcoming new album and their previous one, Magnificent Fiend. On the eve of hitting the studio to record number three, the band took ten days to complete this mini-album. It functions as both an introduction to the upcoming full album due in 2011 as well as a piece that stands on its own.  Coming off the extended period of writing and rehearsing, Howlin Rain knocked out a high-quality performance off the cuff and against the clock. All three songs were tracked in one evening live in the same room at Lucky Cat Studios by Phil Manley (Trans Am, The Fucking Champs) and then overdubbed and mixed by Tim Green at Louder Studios in a handful of days. The time that elapsed from when the band set up at Lucky Cat until The Good Life was completely finished and mastered was a week and a half. In the midst of a journey to complete an album that will have been years in the making, this 12-inch is a catharsis of immediacy blasted down from that long highway—a postcard from the outer regions the band has navigated for many moons.

Ashley, Greg

Requiem Mass And Other Experiments

Birdman

Requiem Mass and Other Experiments, the new album from Gris Gris founder and Creamery Studio owner Greg Ashley, opens with the side-long track "Requiem Mass"; the flip is a series of sound and music experiments. Ashley himself was kind enough to explain his methods of recording an experimental piece like this: "I begin 'Symmetric Juggling' with two competing tones panned away from one another between the two speakers. Then, a set of tribal-sounding drums fade up from the hum. Each individual drum was tracked / recorded separately, so they could be panned away from each other. During the song, the drums are constantly flipping back and forth through the speakers. This diverges into the symmetric part of the track in which all the music has been performed forward and backward identically over itself. You can hear the bass and drums suck into themselves in this fucked-up pulse. The end of this song is the beginning and the beginning is the end, and the center point explodes with a gong. 'Loop' is a mixing-board performance. It is a tape loop with eight tracks of different instruments and noises on it. Moving the faders up and down on the board and using the pans creates the music, if you want to call it that--more like a wall of shit--then I cut the tape to end it. "'Megalith' was written by Brad Dunn of Seattle, WA, who was partially the inspiration for this record. He performed it solo on a guitar in my...

Ferocious Few

Juices

Birdman

Two-man duo The Ferocious Few formed in 2006 when Francisco Fernandez (composer/guitar/vocals) and Daniel Aguilar (percussion) took their informal jam sessions in Oakland, CA, to the streets of San Francisco with a portable PA. The Few's stripped-down, lo-fi sound has been classified as rock, punk or rockabilly, and along with the bluesy elements in Fernandez's howling vocals, their raw sound may be best categorized by the increasingly ambiguous garage rock genre. Regardless of the venue--the streets of downtown SF or at Shoreline Amphitheater's Download Festival 2008--the duo delivers a tight, intimate performance, marked by Aguilar's heavy train beats and Fernandez's strained guitar and voice chiming in over the top. Juices, their debut LP on Birdman Records, is a visceral and viscous testament to their stunning, heartfelt brutality. In traditional rock angst fashion, Fernandez sings of heartbreak, pain and lost love, tying it all to the post-modern world around him and how it connects him to everyone else. "Our music is based on struggle, and that's what I think people can relate to," he says, "I want to create something that's relevant to our culture, not alienated by it." Put Juices on your stereo and it will drip down your walls. Listen to it alone and it will feel like you have been flattened by a train and reabsorbed into the earth. Play it at a party and a Bacchanalian orgy is likely to ensue.  "... this duo whips up a carnal excitement that simply electrifies every place they perform,...

Aliens

(Book Version) Luna

Birdman

The book version of Luna is a limited edition of the Aliens' latest masterpiece. This 60-page, full-color hardcover book includes the CD along with copious drawings, photos, poems and lyrics taken from the band's archives. Grab the future in your hands with this guide to the world of the Aliens. The Aliens recorded Luna in an isolated, ramshakle studio in a small Scottish village, embracing their freedom from the major record label machine and exploring each track with focus and willful experimentation. Luna is an ambitious, thrilling, and immensely rewarding album, the sound of the Aliens fully realizing their extra-terrestrial musical vision. Its songs unfold into rolling, expansive sonic panoramas. It's a mesmeric, psych-tinged, honeycomb folk-pop masterpiece that runs free, and has been drawing comparisons to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Formed in 2005, these Aliens have history. Between them, they have been behind some of the most enthralling British music of the last decade: John Maclean and Robin Jones were in the Beta Band, and Gordon Anderson was a founding Beta Band member who went on to record two albums under the Lone Pigeon moniker. "Luna is a psychedelic delight." --Observe Music Monthly "The Aliens boldly aim toward music for the 21st century." --The Word (UK) "An incredible psychedelic stew, a joyride round the galaxy." --NME "A bonafide gem." --Sunday Telegraph (UK) "The real deal, a 70-minute fantasy." --FT (UK)

Aliens

Luna

Birdman

Ladies and gentlemen, The Aliens have landed. Comprised of ex-Beta Band personnel and armed with a bottomless bag of psychedelically inclined rock and acid-dipped electronics, the Scottish band's freedom of spirit and certainty of intent set them apart from the current crop of guitar-slingers. Inspired by Sergio Leone and Serge Gainsbourg, Brian Eno and Brian Wilson, Larry David and Ol' Dirty Bastard, their songs in the key of Fife reference the past while belonging resolutely to the future. The Aliens recorded Luna in an isolated, ramshakle studio in a small Scottish village. Self-producing the album, the band embraces their freedom from the major record label machine and explores each track with focus and wilful experimentation. Luna is an ambitious, thrilling, and immensely rewarding album, the sound of The Aliens fully realizing their extra-terrestrial musical vision. Its songs unfold into rolling, expansive sonic panoramas. It's a mesmeric, psych-tinged, honeycomb folk-pop masterpiece that runs free, and has been drawing comparisons to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Formed in 2005, these Aliens have history. Between them, they have been behind some of the most enthralling British music of the last decade: John Maclean and Robin Jones were in the Beta Band, and Gordon Anderson was a founding Beta Band member who went on to record two albums under the Lone Pigeon moniker.  "Luna is a psychedelic delight." --Observe Music Monthly  "The Aliens boldly aim toward music for the 21st century." --The Word (UK) "An incredible psychedelic stew, a joyride round the galaxy." --NME "A bonafide gem." --Sunday Telegraph (UK) "The real...

Spider Bags

Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World

Birdman

On Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World, North Carolina natives Spider Bags work once again with legendary engineer Brian Paulson. Picking themselves up from the drunken wranglings of last year's A Celebration of Hunger, the band kicks off with the upbeat "It Always Loved to Happen," full of open-road energy and memories. "Quevivaelrocanroll" is the next step in their evolution: a drawn-back, anthemic barn-burner with sweat rolling through the speakers. The listener can picture frontman Dan McGee leading the way, with a guitar in one hand and drink in the other, marching through the old town square on an impromptu parade at midnight in the middle of July. "... Spider Bags are ostensibly Americana, but it's the kind of reeling-in-sickness music you'd expect from Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Meat Puppets.... Every song... finds beauty in pain and darkness, with lyrics ("She's got a crooked face when she smiles") that are as thoughtful as the music behind them. I'm gonna go so far as to call [A Celebration of Hunger] brilliant. That's right, brilliant. There's not a bad track on the entire record, and it's a goddamn shame I didn't hear about this album when it came out, because it easily would have made my top ten for the year." --Berkeley Place Blog  "... these scraggly Chapel Hill punks go face down in a glass of Wild Turkey and survive to testify." --SPIN "The Spider Bags locate their identity by running that particular current of electricity through country music's liquor-soaked...

Mahikari

S/t

Birdman

A chance meeting around an axe-wound-shaped microphone and Mahikari is born. On one side, world-famous Acid Mothers Temple guitar god Kamoto Kawabata. Showblazing on stage other is Seiichi Yamamoto, the guitarist ending The Boredoms' sound from the beginning to Vision Creation Newsun. Two of the greatest guitar players of all time cut mind-churning psychedelic meltdowns with ex-Thin White Rope bassist Stoo Odom, following the path paved by their respective bands as well as Fushitsusha, Solmania, CCCC, KK Null, and Highrise.   The first Mahikari record is a blistering colossal attack of legendary proportions, available on super-limited-edition vinyl.  "One listen to the project Mahikari and I'm reminded of precisely the Sonic Youth moments I adore. Each album from the seminal New York band contains a place--a track or a space--where discord is laid aside, revealing truly gritty rock and rhythm: it is in these moments that Mahikari plies its curious breed of guitar fury.... Kawabata and Yamamoto unite to layer an abundance of grit and substance into the mix of each moment. It's chaotic for sure, but carefully chaotic, and something that isn't digestible in one listen.... For fans of Thurston Moore's The Trees Outside the Academy, this will be a companion treat: something that captures the essence of full-blown psychedelic rock meltdowns while grasping the lovely catharsis that comes quickly after." --Erick Mertz

Walker, Peter

Spanish Guitar

Birdman

In 1966, Peter Walker's Rainy Day Raga translated the sound of Eastern ragas into the consciousness of America's LSD generation. The record is still considered a classic of its genre, cited as a primary influence on the new psych/folk sounds of today's generation. Like the great blues guitar pickers before him, Walker disappeared from public and recorded life for decades, yet continued to practice and study all along.  Spanish Guitar is the culmination of this past era, finding Walker continuing where he left off with Rainy Day Raga, tracing his beloved Indian sound to Spain, where the gypsies redefined Spanish music and created what is now known as flamenco. This record is to flamenco what Rainy Day Raga was to raga--an inspired sound that views all of Walker's studies with his Western lens, so unique and beautifully played that it seems like an entirely new genre.  This is a sound unlike anything elsewhere--a transcendental sound, one that until now only belonged to the heavens.

Gris Gris

Live At The Creamery

Birdman

The final record from Oakland, CA's psychedelic quartet, The Gris Gris, was recorded live at the warehouse where Greg Ashley resides.   The twilight had come and the fat lady sang. The final bell tolled for the brightest sons of the Oaklandish psychedelic revolution. Here is the final piece to that hazy, mysterious, yet strangely familiar sound this band created. With songs from both records played with ferocity and sonic mayhem, the story of the Gris Gris is here. Bright. Swirling. Gnarly. Electric.

Apache

Boomtown Gems

Birdman

Apache is just looking for a good time. With songs like "Sugar Glidin'" and "Russian Roulette," the boys are here to party!   Signed amidst broken limbs, before Birdman even heard one note, Apache now brings forth their first diamond--Boomtown Gems. Described as Kiss meets The Ramones meets The New York Dolls, the albums sways and moves to the groove of that '70s glam/punk thing. The songs are rock n' roll club hits with elements of '70s pop, glam, and rock, and feature some serious stadium drums. One after the next, they hit like a "White Hammer." Boomtown Gems was recorded and produced at Screaming Viking Studios with Matthew Johnson and Apache, and mixed at New And Improved Recordings with Eli Crews.   Featuring members of The Cuts, Parchman Farm, Ghenghis Khan, and others, Apache is simply a band of four dudes. One guitar. One bass. One drummer. One singer. The big guy sings falsetto, while the surfer bro behind the kit bangs out beats heavy enough to ride any wave. The guitar player is some sorta reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix meeting Kurt Cobain in a dark club in New York City. And the frontman, leading the charge...he is simply known as Apache.  "Just when it seems that no one can really effectively duplicate the early-'70s glam sound, along comes Apache from San Francisco with a ramrodding, yet slovenly swing that booms and crushes those notions into a fine powder." --Victim of Time   "If the...

Lou Lou & The Guitarfish

S/t

Birdman

This colorful, charismatic group of youth, featuring George and Lou Lou Rosenthall, the children of Hank Rank (Crime), has been blasting around San Francisco since elementary school, honing a diet of Blondie, New York Dolls, The Ramones, The Recauntours--you name it.   After two years of pre-production, Lou Lou and the Guitarfish's self-titled debut record was recorded in two days, and it cuts and scrapes through the speaker with the reckless abandon of Iggy Pop and a full jar of peanut butter. The band is wise beyond their years, showing the guitar swagger of a seasoned swinger and vocals that are as self-assured as the subject matter. These kids want to be heard, and they will get your attention any way they can. Raised in a museum of music and wonderments, home-schooled on the life of an artist/musician, they play their version of powerful rock with a style similar to pre-junk Thunders and with lyrics as biting as Patti Smith (check out "Hit Me").   Youth of today, unite. The revolution is in the hands of the young--Lou Lou and the Guitarfish.

Modey Lemon

Season Of Sweets

Birdman

The last two years have been very, very interesting for the Pittsburgh's most loved sons, Modey Lemon. After signing with Mute Records in the UK and opening for Dinosaur Jr. at San Francisco's granddaddy of all venues, The Fillmore, the band took some time off to regroup and work on new material. The result is Season of Sweets.  With one foot in the sci-fi darkness of their last record, Curious City, one foot in their past angst-ridden garage wreckage, and one foot in the kautrock brilliance of the German Frontier (what, three feet?), Season of Sweets is a fuzzed-out, driving masterpiece with catchy hooks beaten to death by guitar/synth mayhem. Driven by drummer extraordinaire Paul Quattrone, the songs twist and turn through the imagery and dark rock that has made Modey Lemon famous. Jason Kirker (engineer as well as band member) uses various keyboards, Moog synthesizers, and other instruments to flesh out the sound. At the heart of this album is the energy and mysticism of singer Phil Boyd. As primitive as they are futuristic, Modey Lemon recreates the present, molecule by molecule, every second of every breath.  "Modey Lemon [is] a perfectly capable band with obvious influences, attacking proto-punk and garage rock with aplomb, ability, and a glint of self-awareness." --Pitchfork   "A face-melting beast machinery soundtrack. Like Suicide, the band." --Arthur Magazine

Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis

Indian Giver

Birdman

A few years ago, Sonic Boom (Spaceman 3, Spectrum, EAR) traveled to Independence, Mississippi to work with legendary producer Jim Dickinson, a.k.a. Captain Memphis. The result is Indian Giver, a true collaboration where the two artists share both a stage and their musical visions. "The Lonesome Death Of Johnny Ace," an epic, southern-fried biographical groover, tells the tale of a famous singer's Christmas Day Russian Roulette tragedy. The rest of the album finds Boom revisiting his past: a new, fuzzier rendition of Mudhoney's "When Tomorrow Hits," a revamped version of ultra-rare Spectrum popper "Take Your Time," and Spaceman 3 staple "Hey Man (Amen)," where Dickinson throws down some back-ups. The Dickinson tunes are brand new and eerie, with his recitations backed by ecstatic symphonies. The record is book ended by new Spectrum number "Mary," which carries with it a decidedly Neu! theme.   This is a once-in-a-lifetime musical meeting, and the resultant album could only have come from these two musical icons.

Monkeywrench

Gabriel’s Horn

Birdman

Celebrating 17 years of a great idea, Monkeywrench returns with a new studio album, their first since 2000's Electric Children. Putting together the progenitors of the modern underground--Mark Arm and Steve Turner of Mudhoney fame, Tim Kerr (Poison 13, King Sound Quartet, The Big Boys), Gas Huffer's Tom Price, and Martin Bland (Lubricated Goat)--Monkeywrench is nothing less than a punk/grunge supergroup.  The band kicks out the same glorious, fuzz-laden mess that characterizes Mudhoney's work, but there are notable differences here: Monkeywrench has a twisted take on everything from country to psychedelic and offers impressive bluesy guitar playing. There is a Texas roots taste spread through the tracks and the rhythm section lays down a fast and furious groove (Turner's bass playing is outstanding) while dueling guitars engage in a race to the finish line. Then there's Arm's influential rasp--an unkempt, sneering yowl. It's comforting to know these gents haven't settled down.

Foetus

Vein

Birdman

The new Foetus album, Vein, dissects another Foetus album, 2005’s Love—but J.G. Thirlwell has turned the idea of the remix album on its head. To regard Vein as purely a remix album is to underestimate its intentions and ambitions. This is not Love remixed—it is Love fractured and reimagined by some of today’s most notable artists, including Fennesz, Mike Patton, Jason Forrest, Tom Recchion, Matmos, and more. It is an immersive, powerful, and sometimes harrowing journey through sound and emotion. Vein was two years in the making, strewn with tears, joy, and casualties.  Vein’s sleeve is once again designed by renaissance man Thirlwell in his signature palette of red, white, and black. It juxtaposes design homages from Op art, constructivism, and sportswear design via Thirlwell’s unique vision, and represents the 18th instance of naming a Foetus album with a four-letter one-syllable title. As a bonus, the album also features the award-winning animated video of “Time Marches On” by Swedish director Sam Sohlberg.

Brother Jt

Third Ear Music

Birdman

There is only one Brother JT. Any psychedelic/garage/underground rock ’n’ roll enthusiast knows this man from Bethlehem who bangs to his own lysergic drum—the one who came from ’80s Back From The Grave revivalists The Original Sins and entered the solo world through the ultra-limited edition records on the now legendary Twisted Village label. Over the last three decades he has defined the underground aesthetic, and his new record finds him still in peak songwriting and recording form.   Third Ear Candy, his latest release on Birdman Records, is danceable, trance-able, romance-able and oh-so-very hallucinatory (-able). This slab of digital wax has a little more moog than usual, a little more groove: “I am the blob and I’m here to save you from your problems, so give me a job,” JT suggests on the low-pulsing second track. And he means it. He can save you. He can plug electricity through an amplifier and fuzz your mind anytime. There is a reason why Arthur Magazine, Mojo, Ptolmeaic Terrescope, and hundreds of blogs call his name the defining voice of home-made psychedelia. He is that good and that consistent.  With wonderful drawings by the Brother himself, Third Ear Candy will light your mind on fire. Pure and simple. It is time to testify.  Give the guy a job.

Glaze, Brian

Rainsplitter

Birdman

In Oakland, California, Thanksgiving has been taking on a lysergic flair since Greg Ashley (Gris Gris) and Brian Glaze have made it a tradition of cutting tape in Greg’s home studio instead of turkey at the dinner table. And from the latest feast comes the sophomore effort on Birdman Records by this modern troubadour from the land that spawned The Brian Jonestown Massacre (of which he was a member), Badly Drawn Boy and Mayo Thompson (Red Krayola). Between the deep, rich and dark songwriting and the masterful Ashley arrangements, Rainsplitter widens Glaze’s scope and puts him prominently in within the New Weird America folk psych scene. Fresh from the Greg Ashley Medicine Fuck Dream Hootenanny, Brian Glaze is ready to open hearts as he splits the rain from the sky.

Midnite Snake

Shaving The Angel

Birdman

Goddamn the Midnite Snake! Like a bat out of hell, these heavy psych-metal stalwarts are back with a sophomore release that might just erupt Mount Olympus. This fresh slab of digital drudgery presents songs that are longer and deeper than anything the Snake has done before. It possesses the richness of a dark and deathly metal, but now adds layers of wandering prowess, like a lost soul in Young Goodman Brown’s devil-riding forest, looking for his Faith upon which to rest his head. But none is to be found. Midnite Snake’s instrumental intensity would make a late-era Coltrane and current-era Acid Mother’s Temple want to get back on the road again, just so they could check out the band night after night and steal all their secrets.   Shaving the Angel is bigger and more powerful than their debut—complex, sexually bombastic metallic rock and roll—with a hint of forest acoustic darkness breaking through the wall of whiteness. Evil like the naked, mask-covered ritual sacrifice on the cover. Modey Lemon drum king Paul Quattrone unleashes a beat that frees guitar god Alexei Plotnicov from the brimstone of Pittsburgh, riffing hard in heaven with Hendrix. This record plays loud at a soft volume, and is sure to cement their place in the hearts and souls of all the stoned rockers foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Spider Bags

A Celebration Of Hunger

Birdman

Please welcome The Spider Bags: hailing from North Carolina, out of nowhere but with the sound of a vintage anti-establishment America, fueled by whiskey and the treads of a long, harshly departed woman. The Spider Bags’ A Celebration of Hunger was recorded in a whirlwind, with the six-piece band huddling around a microphone and preaching the country / punk / garage gospel with Shane MacGowan toothlessly smiling, listening to the songs of drink and debauchery. Leader Dan McGee is the new great American songwriter-on-the-dole, whose multi-purposed voice sings of two things: girls and women, and does so with some of the most impressive lyrics to come out of an American since Nick Cave… no… hmmm… Shane… no, he is from Ireland… damn… well, in the tradition of all those greats who steal from the Americana ethos and make careers out of doing so. We bring to you The Spider Bags, the first great European-stealing Americana band from America. Let freedom reign.  “An appealing mix of rock and country/roots influences ... sounds like music to break beer bottles to.” —The Oak Room

Ashley, Greg

Painted Garden

Birdman

Greg Ashley, mastermind behind The Gris Gris and The Mirrors, is going solo for the first time since his 1993 masterpiece Medicine Fuck Dream. The result, Painted Garden, is Ashley's most ambitious, textured, beautiful and dark record to date. Warmer and more intimate than Gris Gris' 2005 garage-psych stunner For The Season, Painted Garden still reflects the same vision behind that band's greatness.   Written in the burnt-out ghettos of Oakland and in Ashley's remote East Texas cabin, the album's ten songs drip with the psychedelic flair that turned on cats such as Roky Erikson, Mayo Thompson and Skip Spence (and more recently Vetiver, Six Organs of Admittance, and Devendra Banhart).   Beautifully orchestrated, sometimes fragile and always fuzzy, the album features great tunes, proof that the young songwriter's star is still on the rise. Written, produced and performed almost entirely by the artist, Painted Garden is a true vision realized, and puts Ashley right up there with the great musical minds of the day. 

Frazer, Paula And Tarnation

Now It’s Time

Birdman

After nearly a decade, classic 4AD band Tarnation, led by the angelic Paula Frazer, returns with a brand new studio album. Inspired by events that happened during one summer in San Francisco, Now It’s Time is a heartbreaking, beautiful testament to love and loss, with a touch of redemption at the end. Like classic Tarnation, Frazer blends alternative country roots with dark, psychedelic tones and warm instrumental accompaniments that perfectly frame her ethereal voice. Now It’s Time is a return to form for those who miss Tarnation, and an incredible starter for beginners.

Time Flys

Rebels Of Babylon

Birdman

Oakland, California's enfant-terribles The Time Flys are back with another blast of rock'n'roll rebellion. Performing at the pinnacle of their powers, these guys (and gal) pick up right where their debut, Fly, left off. Together, Sir Eric "The Masher" Von Ravenson, Andy Freeze (aka Andy Jordan of The Cuts), Erin Error and Peter P. Juvenile seamlessly fuse mid '70s glam, late '70s proto-punk, and even later '70s Killed By Death-style punk to create music that, in these stale times, sounds remarkably fresh. The combination of guitar, bass, drums and attitude hasn't sounded this great since the heyday of Sire Records.  Time Flys don't simply rummage the back catalogs of the Velvets or the Voidoids; they dig deep, touching on groups like DMZ, The Real Kids, The Huns and AK-4. Unlike the kid who threw his watch out the window, the Time Flys don't dumb it down like so many balls-out punk retards -- the riffs on Rebels Of Babylon may be tough, but they're also fairly complex. In fact, The Time Flys might be the only group playing original recipe punk at this level in 2007. Doubting thomases who scoff at moderne punk groups might be surprised to discover how much they dig this. 

Mirrors

13 Patient Flowers

Birdman

Multi-instrumentalist Greg Ashley has gained acclaim and recognition as frontman of Oakland's incredible Gris Gris, a band who combine Syd-era Floyd psychedelia, VU drone and '60s garage rock. In an attempt to release all things Gris Gris, Birdman excavates Ashley's earlier works to showcase his talents in their formative stages while keeping these jewels in print.  Ashley started playing with The Mirrors as a nineteen-year-old in Texas. In 2001 the band released the vinyl-only A Green Dream (since re-issued by Birdman) which caught the interest of Fleece Records which in turn released the band's second full-length, 13 Patient Flowers, now proudly reissued by Birdman.  Released posthumously in 2003, the album combines hotheaded retro-rock with groovy ballads, tinny xylophone, feng shui recitations and occasionally a confusion that approaches the Sun City Girls. Pervading it all is an acid-drenched folky psychedelia that would make fellow Texan Roky Erickson proud. An early hint of the Gris Gris to come.

Nice Boys

S/t

Birdman

With ridiculously catchy songwriting, awesome backup vocals and remarkably clever hooks, The Nice Boys come on like the bastard offspring of Nick Lowe and four Faces groupies. A cool breeze of Great American powerpop in this world of garagey beer farts and patchooli. Features TERRY SIX of THE EXPLODING HEARTS.

Tillis, Bishop Perry

Too Close

Birdman

***STILL AVAILABLE!!! Perry Tillis was born July 29, 1919, in Elba, Alabama, and began playing his brand of rambling blues at a very early age. He continued playing the blues and singing gospel, despite going blind, up until his death on November 3, 2004. In the ’40s Tillis played the Chicago blues circuit alongside all-time greats likes Muddy Waters and Furry Lewis. However, when a revelation convinced him it was the devil’s music, he moved back home and began preaching the gospel.   In 1972 Swedish music archivist Begnt Olsson tracked down Tillis down at his church in Samson, Alabama, and recorded these tracks over three sessions. He was frail and old when Olsson found him, but he played the guitar, both electric and acoustic, with a mosquito-like fragility that is truly transcendent. In an age when major pre-war blues players were being rediscovered, unknown geniuses like Tillis were still playing a style of blues (gospel) that touched upon greatness and kept alive the traditions that were inspiring the likes of The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. This CD has a hallucinatory, Velvet Underground-like groove that meanders through each hymn. The slide guitar playing is beautiful and Tillis’ voice speaks of a knowledge all but lost in the 21st Century. A wonderful debut release from an unknown blues virtuoso who is missed.

Howlin Rain

S/t

Birdman

Howlin Rain came together with the intention of making a good, old-fashioned, free-wheeling rock album with a bared soul and a body that hangs joy, hysteria and darkness on the same rambling bones. They play unfiltered music in all its grit and all its glory; music to beat the steering wheel of your van to or sing along with while drinking whiskey in the bathtub with your dog on a Saturday night.  Formed in 2004 in San Francisco, the band features Ethan Miller (singer and guitarist for Comets on Fire), John Moloney (shaman leader and percussionist for Boston’s Sunburned Hand of the Man) and Ian Gradek (bassist, iron worker, banjo-picker and world traveler). For a group of musicians who spend most of their time playing napalm-wrecked avant-rock or underground improv, this is an opportunity to downshift and ease into some classic good-time jams — some yin to the more experimental yang of their better known projects. Howlin Rain makes music that’s not out to blow your mind but shit that’s ingrained in your heart.   They draw from the resonance of The Dead, The Allman Brothers, Richard Brautigan, Exuma, Terry Reid, Golden Earring, CSNY (as well as Neil Young and Crazy Horse), Bob Dylan, Blue Cheer, CCR, Simon and Garfunkel, Randy Holden, White Heaven, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Walsh and anyone who’s played piano on an album without actually knowing how to. They’re equal parts dust, groove, folk, rock, dirt, mercury, earth, beer, watermelon, the Eel River and the...

Dickinson, Jim

Fishing With Charlie (and Other Selected Readings)

Birdman

“There aren’t many shamans still in our world. Most have been ground down to dust, and those left are laying low, hoping to dodge the bullets surely headed their way by the pop culture police. But off the beaten path and down miles of quiet two-lanes in northern Mississippi, the trees overgrown with kudzu and the fields silent with tales too terrible to mention, lives Jim Dickinson. He is one of the last record producers who has seen all that the world of music has to offer, and continues to believe human beings playing instruments and singing songs hold the secrets of the universe.… Among those he’s worked with are names big and small, hugely successful and completely unheard of; The Rolling Stones, Alex Chilton, Spiritualized, Mudhoney, etc., etc.  “As a performer, Dickinson has notched plenty of prime-time hours on sessions and stages everywhere. He’s been in bands capable of setting listeners’ ears on fire, and recorded songs that have permanent positions on radio play lists across the planet. But underneath it all, like the true Southern gentleman, he is a storyteller. Because no matter what form of emotional reality Dickinson is working in, he is above all else telling a tale, with his hands on a keyboard, his voice at the microphone or his body behind a recording console. He will use whatever it takes to sell that story to the listener. In that way, he is almost like an auctioneer, spinning out music as he takes the...

Time Flys

Reality (is A Rock Band)

Birdman

The Time Flys return with another 7" single! Two new songs "Reality (Is A Rock Band)" and "Shark Song". Side B is a cover of The Jewels "Opportunity". Recorded in Oakland at Studio Bronzo in the fall/winter of 2005, this is a taste of the new full length album due out by the end of the year. The Village Voice described the Time Flys as : "Past Rock n' Roll heroes sped and weirded up and seen through an ancient-to-the-future drug haze"

Cuts

From Here On Out

Birdman

They say the third time’s the charm and on The Cuts latest, From Here On Out, the group delivers on the promise hinted at the first two times around. This album is the perfect distillation of garage pop, proto-punk, power pop, ‘70s glam and West coast jangle. Secluding themselves in a remote recording studio in Northern California for a lengthy stay with producer Matthew Smith (Outrageous Cherry), the quartet came up with an album that perfectly encapsulates everything the band is about. It’s a perfect rock n’ roll record, with sweeping, swirling guitar lines, a deep groove, great melodies and hooks aplenty. Andy Jordan yelps ‘n’ gulps like a less angst-ridden Richard Hell (or a less precious Tom Verlaine) while the band cranks out songs overflowing with lavender keyboards, Raspberries-esque harmonies, chiming guitars and shuffling, danceable up-beats. You know, that lovely stuff that smokes -n- boogies, too, just like they used to make. From Here On Out is a stunning collection showcasing the band’s delightful tunefulness on a range of fine tracks. But despite their obvious songwriting savvy and overt pop leanings, The Cuts pound away in such a non-wimpy manner that there’s no question what they’re making is genuine rock ‘n’ roll music. They might just be the best exemplar of this kind of tuneful dynamism since the ‘70s heyday of artists like Nick Lowe, The Talking Heads, Sparks and The Shoes. Indeed, The Cuts could easily be destined for the same kind of mass appeal.

Glaze, Brian

Let’s Go To The Sea

Birdman

Birdman Records is proud to present the debut release from psychedelic troubadour Brian Glaze, longtime alum of The Brian Jonestown Massacre (and yes, he does appear in Dig). Glaze is now paving his own course through the wicked lysergic jungle, with the Gris Gris’s Greg Ashley on board as spiritual counsel and psychic navigator. Let’s Go To The Sea uses the same ’60s syrup that sweetened The Thirteenth Floor Elevators’ Easter Everywhere, and invites the willing on a trip through the mind of this modern songwriter as he sings of love lost and found. Add the homemade sound of legendary Brother JT, and you get an idea of what Let’s Go To The Sea has to offer. Glaze’s band of sailors includes former members of Gris Gris, an actual hurdy gurdy man and a crew of other seasoned musical hands. All off to sea!

Gris Gris

For The Season

Birdman

Greg Ashley and his crew of Oakland, CA psychedelic troubadours have returned with their second full length of lysergic folk/garage/noise and it is truly sublime. “For The Season” delivers a twelve track sonic, acid-tinged web of sound that’s guaranteed to mesmerize, hypnotize and induce euphoria. Yep, it’s THAT good. For those not already hip Ashley’s music, he’s been playing disturbed, wild and extremely original rock music – with the Mirrors, as a solo artist and with his latest band, The Gris Gris – for years now. The band combines hushed, dreamlike, beautiful melodies, classic 60s garage rock and roll, droning noise, and out-of-control reverb to create some of the most intense, moody rock you're ever likely to hear. Equal parts 13th Floor Elevators, Velvet Underground, Skip Spence, Krautrock repetition and every volume of the Psychedelic Unknowns compilation series….it’s truly a haunting and otherworldly experience.

Frazer, Paula

Leave The Sad Things Behind

Birdman

Leave The Sad Things Behind is Paula Frazer’s third solo and second studio record since ending her legendary band Tarnation. Frazer’s angelic vocals and masterful songwriting are framed by an all-star band — Scott Hirsch, James Kim and Tom Heyman (Court And Spark); Oranger keyboardist Patrick Main; former Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud; and other San Francisco luminaries including members of Mother Hips and American Music Club. Old-tyme sounds, symphonic wonderment, and dark layers are all exposed on Leave The Sad Things Behind. And there is still a definite Ennio Morricone influence, as well as nods to Scott Walker.  Frazer sang in her preacher father’s choir as a young girl in Arkansas. She moved out to San Francisco where she played in many bands, the most famous being Tarnation which was signed by 4AD. She has played with the likes of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Tindersticks, both of whom share a penchant for rich soundtracks framing classic songs of warmth and sadness.

Modey Lemon

Curious City

Birdman

***These are dark times for rock 'n' roll, brothers and sisters. The chill wind of the zeitgeist has swept in and awarded savage riffs and sussed singers some temporary modicum of cool. In the interim, any number of shallow-hearted Xerox pretenders to some blues/garage/punk-rock throne have snuck through this back door to assail, insult and degrade our beloved noise, until it's little more than a catalog of pouts and poses that amount to zilch.   We need bands willing to claw back the magic and mythology of rock 'n' roll, to give us something we can really sink our teeth into, art that's hot-blooded and literate and impassioned, something deep and tangible that'll stir the spook in our souls. A band like Pittsburgh, PA's Modey Lemon. It would figure that a band like Modey Lemon would hail from the town that gave the world George Romero and Night of the Living Dead. Modey Lemon's songs conjure images of mechanical dinosaurs, cemetaries and the entire universe coming undone.   The Curious City, Modey's third full length, is their strongest and most adventurous release to date. Ten tracks of metal mayhem, psych sickness and all-out rock 'n' roll psychosis. Be afraid.

Time Flys

Fly

Birdman

Straight outta Oakland, California: Sir Eric “The Masher” Von Ravenson, Andy Freeze (aka Andy of The Cuts), Erin Error and Peter P. Juvenile summon the eternally nasty 16-year-old through the time-tested formula of guitar, drums, bass and sneering face. Dig the debut album, Fly, by The Time Flys. This is a rock ‘n’ roll album out of time. This baby sounds like an authentic lost nugget from the pre-punk midwest landscape that would’ve fit nicely along side Unnatural Axe, The Penetrators, Suicide Commandos and The Gizmos. Featuring razor-bite titles like “In My Skool (Cool’s the Rule),” “Dirt (My Best Friend),” and “The Teen-Age is the Stone-Age,” this is rock ‘n’roll realism at its realest. Punk’s final resurrection starts here; you better dig quick, Jack! Or get left on the stack! 

V/a

Malpractice - The Fflint Central Compilation

Birdman

*** Fflint Central, a fantastic CDR-only label, comes from the Manchester countryside where lay lines vibrate through the fates of the local inhabitants. Whether these vibrations triggered the creation of dark, groovy soundscapes by a group of like-minded sound distortionists is anyone’s guess. But the phenomena is real, and over the past few years these electronic warlords have partnered some of the most innovative, trance-enducing, psychedelic wave forms since Stockhausen’s electrified Jew’s Harp. All twenty-odd Fflint Central releases, which chronicle the exploits of bands such as Pendro and Berkowitz, Lake & Dahmer, have circulated underground in the form of CDRs, a medium that unfortunately protects all but fellow travelers from exposure. Yet the legendary late John Peel caught on and played them regularly. Electronic guru rags such as Wire and E/I fly the freak flag of Fflint with gusto. And with this Birdman Records release - Malpractice, a compilation of classic cuts from the Fflint Central archives - for the first time in history, the music is being made readily available to the public.