Tower Recordings

Galaxies Incredible Sensual Transmission Field Of The...

Communion Label

The Galaxies Incredibly Sensual Transmission Field of the Tower Recordings comprises a full band expedition to an upstate New York church session around the time that songs used for the Folk Scene album were recorded. After reviewing the tapes with fellow tapenaut and TTR member Tim Barnes, Matt Valentine (MV) said The music is some of the finest TTR has ever produced, encompassing all our nodes and distilled toward a universal sound like no other that the band ever touched on. We believe you will agree. These recordings find TTR in their penultimate moment, as a full ensemble breathing alternately spicy and sweet and hazy and then twinkling. There are a lot of reference points, but we'll leave those up to you to discern. You're an adult now. We trust you.  Line-Up: MV / PG Six / Helen Rush / Tim Barnes / Samara Lubelski / S. Freyer, Esq. / Andre Vida / Dean Roberts TRACK LISTING 1. Harvester 2. Giggy Garbage Gods (777) 3. Ibiza Within You 4. Empress of I-91 5. Forum 6. Other Kinds Run  • Deserves consideration as TTR’s best work • Growing reverence for TTR as more people tune in • Various band members doing other great things: MV’s solo and duo recordings with Erika Elder; PG Six’s two solo albums; Samara Lubelski’s solo efforts and work with Hall of Fame; and Devadip Tim Barnes’s playing (solo and with Neil Haggerty), producing and curating (his Quakebasket imprint); Dean Roberts’ solo and collaborative work

Palmer, Clive

All Roads Lead To Land

Communion Label

***A founding member of The Incredible String Band, Clive Palmer is a virtuoso banjo player and distinguished folk musician who has recorded at least three (still sort of 'lost') classic albums with ensembles C.O.B. (Clive's Original Band) and The Famous Jug Band. Palmer has been in several other mythical bands, and has released a selection of awe-inspiring solo albums all the way up to the present time. Ten of the songs constituting All Roads Lead To Land were recorded during a 1999 session with two additional tracks culled from previous UK-only releases. The songs were picked by Steve Fellows, assigned songselector for an overview retrospective of Palmer's long and varied career. However, upon hearing the 1999 sessions, it was decided that these magical tracks, previously unreleased, stood up with the best of his previously released material and deserved to be heard. Considering the high quality of Palmer's previous work, his cannot be considered faint praise.  • Solo recordings with notable exceptions: Famous Jug Band colleagues Jill Johnson, Pete Berryman and Henry Bartlett on the album opener, and ISB’s Robin Williamson plays fiddle on “Paris” • Résumé includes co-founding the Incredible String Band, and founding C.O.B. and Famous Jug Band • Thirty years of excellence continuing on unabated • Distinctive mix of folk traditions (Eastern, Celtic, Edwardian and Appalachian), bluegrass guile, and old-timey aplomb • Press and publicity via Howling Wuelf (www.howlinwuelf.com) • Working on new material in the autumn

Kunin, Ben

Acoustic Adventures

Communion Label

***Ben Kunin patiently mentors students of sarod and Hindustani music theory 20 miles north of San Francisco in San Rafael, at the school founded by one of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century, sarodist Ali Akbar Khan. In addition to being a master student of Hindustani music theory and sarod-playing, Kunin is also an incredible classical guitarist who can stand the hairs on your arms and neck on end and slip time out of its more linear patterns. With an acoustic nylon-stringed guitar, he can blow you away with some of the most inspired guitar-playing since John Fahey, Terry Riley or Rick Bishop. Anyone who has felt the joy in the playing of Fahey, Robbie Basho or other noted folkische fingerpickers will need to rush to their CD player and pop this jewel in. The nine tracks on Acoustic Adventures beautifully demonstrate the disciplines one learns in both Indian and Western classical theory, while also displaying the transcendant freedom that all great musicians channel in their own unique ways. The music is closest to the Takoma-era players, but with its own special approach to the "great tradition." Ben Kunin's debut CD is simply a beautiful collection of classical-folk guitar sure to please anyone who will listen.

Tower Recordings

Folk Scene

Communion Label

***The Communion Label is pleased to present another special chapter from the ever-changing ensemble known as THE TOWER RECORDINGS. Folk Scene presents the crew (for this recording inclusive of MATT VALENTINE, P.G. SIX, HELEN RUSH, ERIKA ELDER, TIM BARNES, S. FREYER ESQ., STEVE GUBLER, ROBERT HENRY JONES III, SAMARA LUBELSKI, DEAN ROBERTS, ANDRE VIDA, and BARRY WEISBLAT) in a rarified state, a folksiche mood and sound hinted at in previous recordings (especially Siltbreeze's wondrous Furniture Music) but now developed in full blossom. Beauty and inspiration rain down like manna in these sessions, recordings both wonderfully focused and distilled, yet free. Those of us enamored of the English pagan folk rock of decades past (both electric and acoustic) will no dooubt be pleased with this enhanced collection, previous released as a limited vinyl pressing of 300 copies. An extra fourteen tracks are added to this CD version, along with completely new art and information.

Tful 282 / Thinking Fellers

Bob Dinners & Larry Noodles Present Tubby Turdner's Celebrity Avalanche

Communion Label

***Musicians reaching a point in their careers when it is imperative that they release an album with the most ridiculous title imaginable - it is a revered tradition with a long, colorful history. Honestly, now, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, what the hell's that about? And Their Satanic Majesty's Request? As if! And then there's Works, Volume 2. Where do they get this stuff! It should be perfectly obvious that Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 have been poised to gussy up the canon of Ridiculous Album Titles since, oh, about their third day as a band. Of course, there is a story behind Bob Dinners and Larry Noodles present Tubby Turdner's Celebrity Avalanche, a long, ridiculous story about a talkshow that's probably detailed in excruciating detail on a website somewhere. Their latest Communion album, literally years in the making, went through numerous nomenclatural changes because of, you know, certain negative associative baggage that each working moniker brought to the mind of the beholder. Savor the sigh of relief you can now freely breathe because we are not asking you to buy an album called Boobfeeler or Eickelberg of Nine or Adolf Hitler - the Nazi. TFUL282's biggest strength - arrangements that allow the ugly beauty of avant rock to meld organically with peppy little melodies that kick you in the nards - is finally flourishing not despite the recording quality, but because of it. Faux operettas suddenly transform into ground-to-a-halt shanties at the wrong speed; whale songs spontaneously corrupt...

Floored

Bittersweet

Communion Label

***Don't be pissing off Libra women, especially if you're not sure they erase all their answering machine messages. Members of Ford serve it cold. You will smile.

Jps Experience

Elemental

Communion Label

Manning, Barbara

In New Zealand

Communion Label

Timco

Birds, Bees, Cherries

Communion Label

C C Nova

Milk Cult Dispatch

Communion Label

***Member(s?) of Steel Pole Bathtub play all the right records at the wrong speeds. If your TV is left on all night and no one's there to nod off, does it make a sound? Mmmm.

Davis, John

Leave Home

Communion Label

***Homemade fragile sunlight shafting into the window when you least suspect it. . .constructed out of in-between lines of forgotten conversations and notebooks lost somewhere along the trip. You found them, though, and preserved them in a little glass case. The spot on your mantle will be a little warmer, thanks to Mr. Davis.--Sweet Portable You 

Double U

Absurd Fjord

Communion Label

***Heft high your Nordic umbrella drinks and don't bogart that Aeolian wind harp, chief-- San Francisco's most gutteral neo-prog trio will wow you with tales of inner journeys and outer limits. Includes ex-Dumbhead member Alex Behr. 

Folk Implosion

Dare To Be Surprised

Communion Label

***BACK IN PRINT and now 10.98 list price!! A 16-track recording (make no mistake) from 1997. This Lou Barlow / John Davis mind-meld alchemedicates the finest in tweaked beats, snakey guitars, prowling neo-Moogs and harmonies to be making thee swoon. Sigh. Includes the singles "Pole Position" and "Insinuation."    

Folk Implosion

Insinuation

Communion Label

Take a bath with the folk implosion have both singles via mailorder for $8.00

Folk Implosion

Pole Position

Communion Label

Take a bath with the folk implosion have both singles via mailorder for $8.00

Folk Implosion

Take A Look Inside...

Communion Label

***14 songs in 22 minutes-- recorded on 4-track in John Davis' apartment on Mondays and Tuesdays in 1994. Charmingly premature new wave/"mod" tribute still turns ears (red) to this day. Timeless.

Refrigerator

Anchors Of Bleed

Communion Label

***Final (?) effort for the Communion label (the band would soon return to the nurturing confines of the Shrimper Corporation) finds these Princes of the Inland Empire in a reflective mood. Essential, as always.  

Refrigerator

How You Continue Dreaming

Communion Label

***Absolutely masterful album from the best San Dimas, California has to offer.  

Tful 282 / Thinking Fellers

I Hope It Lands

Communion Label

***The most-mentioned band in the Communion label FAQ released this full-length album in 1995. 

Village Of Savoonga

Philipp Schatz

Communion Label

***Second album from German superArtRockGroup consisting of members of Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio, Fred Is Dead, A Million Mercies, Rayon and Alles Wie Gross. 

Village Of Savoonga

Score

Communion Label

The third album from Germany's Weilheim foundation shows a continuation of the mood ridden and mysterious soundscape/art rock of their previous efforts, created through the use of "natural sounds alienated by electronics". Self-proclaimed to be their "krautrock" record, you can be assured that it's a damn good one at that.

Idyll Swords

Ii

Communion Label

***The Communion Label is pleased to release the second album by North Carolina trio Idyll Swords, titled II - almost an hour of natural and fluid American folk and blues, along with the buzzy and sublime sounds of India, Persia and Turkey, all baked by three hot-shit guitarists: Dave Brylawski played guitar in Polvo and has recently completed his masters in social work at Columbia. Chuck Johnson played in Spatula and continues to work with innumerable other projects, including the Micro-East Collective, modelled after the Mills College-based Micro-Collective. Chuck is also studying Hindustani classical music with noted sarod-player K. Sridhar and a Hindustani vocal teacher. Grant Tennille is the quiet genius type, responsible for some of the most epic 'Swords work, and likes to collect bootlegs on the Internet. For those who have to put the peg in the hole, well, he does session work for Trans Am, all right? The Swords' music is stunning, influenced by many worlds while retaining the flavor of its own place. Those who'd like to take Pocahantas back to the city will be thrilled to introduce this charming entity to their friends. References: the Takoma Records triumvirate (Fahey, Basho, Kottke), Vishwan Mohan Bhatt, Davey Graham, the kudzu plant, a train ride in Rajhastan, the smell of wood powder and spice, Ankara International Airport.

Alles Wie Gross

Vertonung

Communion Label

***The debut album from this Munich chamber rock quartet led by MICHAEL HEILRATH (of COUCH and BLOND) will enrapture fans of the rock–classical hybrid. On this recording, Heilrath is joined by MARKUS ACHER (of NOTWIST and TIED & TICKLED TRIO), MATHIS MAYR, MATHIAS LÖHLEIN and STEPHAN RICHTER, who employ violin, clarinet, cello, and piano, along with electric guitar, bass and drums in Heilrath's original compositions, originally written as a soundtrack to SVEN GADE's silent film Hamlet (1920). Vertonung displays in no small measure Heilrath's passion for fractured beats and tragic melodies. It's the rhythm section versus the strings, generating eternal loops, getting together and then splitting up again. Minimal breaks in the continuity of the music appear after several times listening. The tracks follow a very long melodic arch with martial, ever-grooving beats. Godspeed.

Village Of Savoonga

S/t

Communion Label

Village of Savoonga's delightfully mysterious music has consistently bewildered listeners with its beautiful, 3 am-texture drapery, subdued pacing, somber piano, scratchy looped sounds, and spooky organ drenched segments. Mood pieces, electronic manipulations and semi-structured rock segments frequently originate as soundtracks for films - Sparta's Philipp Schatz and F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu in the case of tracks on their acclaimed second album, Philipp Schatz. The band's third full-length album, Score, found itself on the "Best of the Year" lists of numerous critics. The soundtracks here originated with rhythmic, noisy or "natural" sounds, further "alienated" by electronics with loops and musical tracks layered on top, and completed over a two-year period as the band added more layers and melded everything into a pair of suites. o Long awaited CD issue of the legendary first album by Bavarian collective Village of Savoonga; spans 1991- '94 and still stands as the group's favorite material. o Includes five non-LP bonus tracks

Idyll Swords

S/t

Communion Label

***Dave, the funny guitarist from POLVO, gets together with Chuck Johnson of SPATULA and Grant Tenille ("dude, he's actually the good one in the band") to transcend the boundaries created by their other ensembles. What's that mean? Well, it means you get to draw deep from the hookah, and merge into the topography of a land where Eastern modal structures dominate, and beautiful melodies are created by a wide range of acoustic instruments like oud, sarod, saz, dulcimer (that's biblical for "stringed instrument"), & banjo along with some fine guitar picking. Were Gastr' Del Sol to involve itself with Middle Eastern sounds, it would be almost as good as this. Fans of this trio's other bands will hear the linkage, but get happy....something new & wonderful is in the air. The Tazo Tea Shaman has already mailordered a box lot.