***Centripetal Force (North America), in conjunction with Cardinal Fuzz (UK/Europe), is excited to announce the vinyl release of Pure Land Stars' Trembling Under The Spectral Bodies. Pure Land Stars began as an exercise in improvisation involving David Johnson, Anthony Taibi, and Michael Dieter, all of whom are quite familiar with one another from their years together in White Manna. Their familiarity allowed these improvisations to quickly take on a life of their own and soon enough, with the help of Russ Thallheimer and Valerio Cosi on saxophone, an album took form. There are nods to krautrock on this album, not only in sound but also in tone, a distinct kind of ominous feeling reminiscent of the Cold War vibes often emanated by German groups in the 1970s. Considering the recent state of the world, this makes sense. It seems hard not to have an ominous feeling in one's periphery these days. Whereas White Manna's sound is primarily based in guitar, Pure Land Stars prioritizes synthesizers and drum machines, so much so that the members felt a new identity was warranted. With that said, those familiar with White Manna won't be too surprised with Pure Land Stars' direction, as there has been an increasing presence of synthesizers and electronic sounds over the past few years. And now it all exists in complete fruition.Recommended for those who enjoy Harmonia, Tangerine Dream, and Ash Ra Tempel. The album is being presented in a 150 copy vinyl pressing.
LP $23.50
06/30/2023
***The first sound you hear on prolific duo Elkhorn’s latest album, On The Whole Universe In All Directions, is Jesse Sheppard’s 12-string guitar. This is followed almost immediately by a single reverberating note on the vibraphone courtesy of Elkhorn co-founder Drew Gardner, before the piece unfurls to include skittering cymbals and tumbling percussion, overdubbed by Gardner, who in Elkhorn previously provided much of the Fender Telecaster yin to Sheppard’s big and beguiling 12-string yang. The absence of Gardner’s electric guitar is the first of many surprises on this, the first album of Elkhorn material since 2018’s Lionfish to feature only the group’s two founding members, and the first to introduce both the vibraphone and Elkhorn as a single-guitar unit. The nominally back-to-basics duo approach is anything but a backward step, and one hopes, listening to the marvelous On The Whole Universe In All Directions, it is no outlier. While the band’s recent records thrillingly augmented the core duo with various players from the first- call directory of underground music A-listers, On The Whole Universe In All Directions, recorded at Gardner’s Harlem home studio of sixteen years, distills the Elkhorn sound into something as revelatory as it is unexpected. Despite the minimal set-up, the expansive album proves to be as enchanting as anything in the group’s discography. The album sleeve features a striking and eye-catching painting, by artist Yosuh Jones, of a Red-tailed hawk. The image of this, one of the largest North American birds, seems significant: Gardner’s studio, which overlooks...
LP $24.45
04/07/2023
***By the time Rhyton unveiled Krater’s Call on Bandcamp in June of 2020, against the backdrop of a worldwide pandemic and the George Floyd demonstrations, four years had gone by since their last album, Redshift, had been released. These Krater’s Call sessions were tracked in November of 2017 as mere improvisations. It was simply three guys getting together in the studio and doing what they loved to do—jam. This collection of songs, while clearly recognizable as Rhyton’s ever evolving brand of psychedelic meanderings mixed with European, Middle Eastern, and other worldly folk leanings, is a version of Rhyton we hadn’t quite heard before. The playing is quite loose and playful. Some of their past dissonance has been exchanged for warmth. Years of experimentation has led to a familiarity that allows each musician to open spaces in their playing and fall into comfortable grooves. They easily and effortlessly feed off each other’s exploratory wanderings in ways that recall Can or even the Grateful Dead. All of this plays out in a very entrancing fashion, and sees the band flirting within the space between blissful heady daydreaming and the desire to, gulp, dance—something they continue to develop and carry over to 2021’s Pharaonic Crosstalk. Edition of 300 copies.
LP $24.45
03/10/2023
***Upupayāma is the musical persona of Alessio Ferrari, an Italian multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who lives in a small mountain village above the city of Parma. Upupayāma’s music is rooted strongly in Easternand Western folk traditions, an approach that Ferrari blends with his own modern sensibilities and style. In addition to playing guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums on the album, Ferrari himself also incorporates a number of other instruments into his sound, including sitar, erhu, transverse and wooden flutes, and avariety of percussion instruments. He is also responsible for all of the recording that went into the project. Ferrari is currently in the process of putting together a group of musicians that will help deliver his vision of Upupayāma to a live setting. Informed by the wonders of nature that surround him high in the Northern Apennine mountains, Ferrari’s songwriting possesses a mystical quality, one that reflects the fantastical and surreal, yet simple, elements of the natural world. His use of imagery is strong and is communicated vividly through his music. This isespecially clear in “The Blue Magician’s Fantasy” and “Hello Green Man, I am a Tiger,” both of which aresongs in which he sings with his own invented language. True to the sense of magical realism his songsevoke, Ferrari is quick to point out that even the concept of Upupayāma, which means mountain hoopoe, “is surreal because the hoopoe is not a mountain bird.” As he puts it, “I like the fact that a mountain hoopoe and an invented language...
LP $23.50
12/02/2022
***Upupayāma is the musical persona of Alessio Ferrari, an Italian multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who lives in a small mountain village above the city of Parma. Upupayāma’s music is rooted strongly in Eastern and Western folk traditions, an approach that Ferrari blends with his own modern sensibilities and style. In addition to playing guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums, Ferrari himself also incorporates a number of other instruments into his sound, including sitar, erhu, flute, and a variety of percussion instruments. For Ferrari, Upupayāma's 2020 debut was all about the journey. The album served a series of musical vignettes that visited and weaved its way through a succession magical settings. The Golden Pond, conversely, is all about location. Inspired by his frequent visits to a small lake near his mountain home, Ferrari intentionally focused on the details of the place he inhabited, a practice he decided would translate well with his approach to writing music. This is something Ferrari feels is best exemplified with the album's opening companion pieces, "Cuckoos from the House of Golden Tin" and "Entering the Time of Wilderness." The Golden Pond also continues Ferrari's practice of using "invented language" in his lyrics. Ferrari wants his voice to be heard as if it were an additional instrument, a tool that does not convey specific messages. His goal is to allow the listener to assign personal meaning to the music. He says, "I want my incorporating invented language is a way of breaking down the barriers that are sometimes created...
LP $23.50
12/02/2022
***Slow Dawn is from Ottawa, Canada and have spent the past few years honing their craft with a series of self released titles, including 2020’s Experimental Farm, a rather angst-ridden and raw display of sonic power. They are led by guitarist Dan Druff, formerly of Holy Cobras, and are rounded out by Chris DiLauro on drums and Jesse Winchester (Masss) on bass and synthesizer. The band draws influence from the darker edges of the musical spectrum and places a majority of their energy on filling empty voids with as much sound as possible. Slow Dawn is a cacophony of reverberating distortion, swirls of echoing vocals, droning horns, and a steady din of plodding drums. Whether it’s Ottawa’s grim and cold winters or simply a sign of the times, the band’s sound is quite dystopian and is marked by a sense of solemn minimalism. It would be safe to say that with Slow Dawn, the glass is rarely half full. With six songs clocking in at about 22 minutes, Into the Machine Haus moves quickly and efficiently through a range of territories that include post-punk, psych, krautrock, noise, and even a little bit of goth. It’s a unique amalgamation of sound that demands attention. The band’s influences are easily read but integrated in a way that they escape the dreaded “sounds like” tag. And, to their credit, there are no wasted moments or frivolous meanderings. Their approach is straightforward, primal, and succinct. In the case of this album, less is definitely...
LP $23.75
06/03/2022
***Centripetal Force (North America) and Cardinal Fuzz (UK/Europe) are excited to release the vinyl edition of Mirage’s Telepathic Radio. Mirage is a project manifested from the mind of Rocco Freedman, who, before moving to the desert of the Morongo Basin, was a member of Boston psychpunkers, Banshee. Drawn to the desert by dreams of exotic lands since childhood, Freedman, also known as Cozmik, found himself in Twentynine Palms, just outside of Joshua Tree, and immediately felt a kinship with the land and set forth to bring Telepathic Radio to fruition. Inspired by the desert’s mysteries - the datura flower in particular—and driven by voices that existed in his head since his youth, Freedman single-handedly laid down hours of guitar, drum, and keyboard tracks and spent days recording excerpts from nature documentaries and canceled sitcoms. The end result, of course, being the album that sits before you now. Presented in mixtape fashion, or perhaps more accurately, a psychotropic sound collage lifted straight from Freedman’s psyche, Telepathic Radio is a wild sonic excursion that daringly teeters between torrents of fuzz addled angst, flourishes of kosmische-induced drones, and incredibly captivating melodies. It is certainly not a stretch to say that the listening experience is as schizophrenic as desert life itself, which can deliver pummeling burning furnaces by day and pastel streaked sunsets by night. Previously available digitally, as well as limited runs on cassette and CD, this edition of the album is being presented in a 250 copy vinyl pressing.
LP $20.95
03/11/2022
***Centripetal Force and Cardinal Fuzz release the eighth full-length album from the ever evolving, veteran psychonauts White Manna. White Manna's longevity as one of the leaders of the modern psychedelic movement isattributed to their willingness to introduce new elements to their sonic , these moves were subtle, but as the band has moved on through the years,these moves have become much more pronounced, always leaving listeners wonderingwhat is in store for them as new releases are announced. So, here we are with FirstWelcome, an album that features warbled country leanings, airy blooms of ambience,and occasional hints of a German yesteryear, all implemented into the band's signaturehazy and spacey mosaic of sound. None of these developments are unexpected, as theydo build off of their previous album ARC, but here we see the band expand theseelements and really make them their own. It should be noted that First Welcome is a product of the COVID era, with much of therecording happening in quarantine or while socially distanced. The band's process reliedon communicating via email and sending music files back and forth. For White Manna this made the world of COVID both more fun and challenging, and they used theopportunity to get friends in different places to overdub tracks. Backing vocals and slideguitar were recorded while camping in the Mojave Desert. The saxophone was recordedin Liverpool. England. The trumpet sounds and some of the passages on the Rhodeswere laid down in Northern California, and much of the vocals, piano, and synthesizertracks were recorded...
LP $20.95
12/10/2021
***Elixor of Life is the second album of 2021 for Jeffrey Alexander + The Heavy Lidders . The first, a self-titled affair, was released on Arrowhawk Records this past August and is well noted for its craftful songwriting and tight musicianship. For Alexander, someone known for his psychedelic meanderings in Dire Wolves and the experimental folk sounds of both The Iditarod and Black Forest / Black Sea, this was a departure from the norm. It is with the release of Elixor of Life that we see a different side of this Heavy Lidders project, one that isa bit more unbuttoned and relaxed. All of this isn’t to say that the sound and stylings of the group’s debut have been deserted, for the references to Neil Young’s Crazy Horse days remain omnipresent, as do the nods to Dinosaur Jr. and the Meat Puppets. This second album is a return to the wild abandon so to speak, albeit with a more mystical twist. Edition of 300 on colored vinyl.
LP $20.95
12/03/2021
***Wasted Cathedral is the solo project of Saskatoon-based musician Christopher Laramee (Shooting Guns, The Switching Yard, and The Radiation Flowers). This new album is the latest in an impressive line of releases that have explored a variety of sounds, from ambient drone and electronic disco to experimental chaos and downtempo electronica. I'm Gonna Love You 'Til The End Of Time is made up of seven songs and is undoubtedly influenced by the starkness of the Canadian Prairie and long Saskatchewanian nights. It serves well as a soundtrack to the setting of any number oflistening experiences, particularly when experienced with headphones. No matter the direction Laramee has chosen to guide Wasted Cathedral, the result has always been intriguing and captivating. Edition of 250.
LP $20.95
12/03/2021
***Centripetal Force (North America) and Cardinal Fuzz (UK/Europe) are excited to announce the upcoming release of Tambourinen’s Wooden Flower, a vinyl edition of the much lauded and sought after cassette released earlier this year through Avant-Unity Music. Tambourinen is the project of Grant Beyschau, a multiinstrumentalist and part of the braintrust behind The Myrrors. Beyschau recorded, performed, and mixed the entire album himself. The album is dominated by deep grooves, trancing rhythms, and a massive swirl of sound that recalls the Kosmische era of German music and takes on an almost spiritual tone. Tambourinen’s beginnings are quite inauspicious. Unable to secure The Myrrors for some dates with Weeed in late 2019, Beyschau offered up his new band as a replacement. Only, he didn't actually have a new band. He did, however, have fragments of ideas and song structures that he had been collecting in his head for much of the year and was able to put together a lineup to make the shows happen. As Wooden Flower’s jacket suggests, Tambourinen's sound is informed by the drama and beauty found in nature, a captivating element for both eye and ear. Beyschau describes Tambourinen as a sort of a musical meditation, a process of giving one’s self and ego over to something greater, a sense of togetherness. And in the context of a year like 2020, perhaps even a shared social consciousness, one brought together through Tambourinen’s communal spirit. Wooden Flower has been pressed on 500 copies of heavyweight black vinyl, and...
LP $19.85
11/13/2020
***Centripetal Force (North America) and Cardinal Fuzz (UK/Europe) are excited to release Mugstar’s GRAFT, the follow up album to their much-lauded live collaboration with Can’s Damo Suzuki released earlier this year. UK space rockers Mugstar have been hurtling through the sonic multiverse since 2003 and have left an extensive discography in their wake. Early on, the band caught the attention of the late John Peel, taking part in one of the last editions of his famed Peel Sessions. From there, the band has compiled an impressive run of releases and solidified their reputation for powerfully hypnotic live performances. After experimenting with longer form compositions on 2016’s Magnetic Seasons (Rock Action Records), GRAFT’s six song journey sees Mugstar return to a more focused work ethic, a move resulting in a sound that is fraught with tension and caters to one of their biggest strengths, the ability to consistently create, sustain, and, ultimately, diffuse drama. This is an effect well-executed on tracks like “Zeta Potential” and “Star Cage.” And even on an album where a tighter approach was a priority, Mugstar still finds plenty of room to improvise and allow for creative exploration, as illustrated on “Ghost of a Ghost” and “Low, Slow Horizon.” Looking back at Mugstar’s catalog, it is remarkable.
LP $19.85
10/30/2020
***Centripetal Force (North America), in conjunction with Cardinal Fuzz (UK/Europe), is excited to announce the upcoming release of Elkhorn’s The Acoustic Storm Sessions, the sister album to the much-lauded The Storm Sessions released earlier this year on Beyond Beyond Is Beyond. Elkhorn is known for their unique blend of psych/folk guitar music, with Jesse Sheppard on fingerstyle twelve-string acoustic and Drew Gardner on six-string electric. The Acoustic Storm Sessions, recorded the evening before The Storm Sessions, also features Turner Williams (Ramble Tamble, Guardian Alien) on guitar and marks the first time Elkhorn has created an entirely acoustic album. The Acoustic Storm Sessions is comprised of two side-long tracks drawing on the trio’s intimate knowledge of each others’ playing as they immerse themselves in the spirit of improvisation and allow it to guide the music’s course. As a result, there are raga-like qualities to these pieces, a revolving array of melodies, rhythmic flourishes and subtle embellishments that not only entrance the performers but the listener as well. There is no doubt that the group’s meditative intensity on The Acoustic Storm Sessions is at an unprecedented level. Edition of 500 copies.
LP $19.85
10/02/2020