***The High Llamas’ classic '90s output comes back to life on vinyl for the first time in over twenty years. The vibrant and colorful sweep of this remarkable six-album arc shines in new pressings of the original masters, which include the first-ever vinyl pressing for their debut album, Santa Barbara. In 1990, Sean O’Hagan was emerging from a high-flying eight year run with Microdisney. The Clock Comes Down the Stairs was a UK Indie #1 in 1985—and today, it is considered by many to be the greatest album in the annals of Irish rock and roll. But they disbanded in ’89, and for Sean, this meant finding a voice—no longer writing with “one of the great lyricists and vocalists,” as he recalls his late Microdisney partner Cathal Coughlan, he was challenged to see a path forward as singer and lyricist as well as composer and arranger. This challenge led to the emergence of one of the most unique new sounds of the 1990s. The High Llamas were founded by Sean, Jon Fell, Marcus Holdaway and Rob Allum. After debuting as a tart and sweet guitar-pop act with a reasonably definable bent on Santa Barbara, Sean fell in with Stereolab. His adventures in their art-band collective, playing space-age batchelor pad music, profoundly influenced the delightful extremities that were to come. Gideon Gaye was written and recorded on a small budget with almost military resolve. Shifting to a piano-based sound and obsessively chasing retro aspects of '60s and '70s production to dizzying...
2XLP $37.50
11/29/2024
***The “Great Escape Artist” is back—no, not THAT one, dude’s dead! We’re talking about Papa M (aka David Pajo), and HE’s talking ’bout Harry Houdini. At least in the title of this record, anyway: Ballads of Harry Houdini. Six years since his last LP, the all-acoustic A Broke Moon Rises, Papa M rolls into the shred zone with a fresh, fine and fat-assed set of songs—and just SIX of ‘em, so you know they’re some groovers. After Slint’s disbandment, David Pajo whiled away the 90s playing with literally everybody who asked—Will Oldham, Stereolab, Tortoise, you name it—but he paused long enough here and there to start his own band, called M. Following the path of M records from Aerial M to Papa M, David recorded Ballads of Harry Houdini on his own, receding deep inside himself and taking the time for ideas new and old: setting down some tracks, getting lit, grabbing a guitar, getting a sound going, and soloing over ’em! With a bit of singing here and there too. Frankly, the amount of hip-shaking sleaze oozing out of these pieces blows the idea that these are simple ad-hoc assemblies right the FUNK out of the water. Sure, when David does blues scaling, he sounds a little like Billy “I’m Just a Fool for Your Stockings” Gibbons. But then there’s the insistent torn-n-fucked delirium that’s accompanied EVERY Papa M expression into the marketplace (with pride) since 1999. For “Ode to Mark White”, David opted to jam in waltz-time—not unheard...
LP $28.50
11/22/2024
***Four years separate the release of Stateless and we will be wherever the fires are lit. In the interim, Tashi Dorji has seldom stood still, playing and touring almost constantly, continuing to record both as a solo and in collaboration with artists including Susie Ibarra, Alex Zhang Hungtai, Bill Orcutt, Michael Zerang, Elliott Sharp, Audrey Chen, Sally Gates, Marshall Trammell, Efrim Manuel Menuck, Aaron Turner, Dave Rempis and Joe McPhee. For Tashi, the playing of this music is always political even in its most abstract iterations. In and of itself, music can’t solve political problems—but since no moment of life is without its political context, “strumming in opposition to the towers” is therefore a universal state, a freedom of expression made while doing all the other things involved with playing, maintaining a sense of lineage and documenting forward movement. we will be wherever the fires are lit was recorded over a period of a month on a Zoom recorder in a cabin behind Tashi’s home. His music, as ever, is all improvised, using different guitar preparations—tape for muting, and metal for buzz. Different tunings and techniques; inspirations from all over. Tashi’s sound is his own, but we can’t help but feel the sound of many nations, in all hemispheres, storming through these acoustic expressions. Who else would it be for, if not for everyone?
LP $20.95
11/22/2024
***The High Llamas’ classic '90s output comes back to life on vinyl for the first time in over twenty years. The vibrant and colorful sweep of this remarkable six-album arc shines in new pressings of the original masters, which include the first-ever vinyl pressing for their debut album, Santa Barbara. In 1990, Sean O’Hagan was emerging from a high-flying eight year run with Microdisney. The Clock Comes Down the Stairs was a UK Indie #1 in 1985—and today, it is considered by many to be the greatest album in the annals of Irish rock and roll. But they disbanded in ’89, and for Sean, this meant finding a voice—no longer writing with “one of the great lyricists and vocalists,” as he recalls his late Microdisney partner Cathal Coughlan, he was challenged to see a path forward as singer and lyricist as well as composer and arranger. This challenge led to the emergence of one of the most unique new sounds of the 1990s. The High Llamas were founded by Sean, Jon Fell, Marcus Holdaway and Rob Allum. After debuting as a tart and sweet guitar-pop act with a reasonably definable bent on Santa Barbara, Sean fell in with Stereolab. His adventures in their art-band collective, playing space-age batchelor pad music, profoundly influenced the delightful extremities that were to come. Gideon Gaye was written and recorded on a small budget with almost military resolve. Shifting to a piano-based sound and obsessively chasing retro aspects of '60s and '70s production to dizzying...
LP $24.95
11/22/2024
***The High Llamas’ classic '90s output comes back to life on vinyl for the first time in over twenty years. The vibrant and colorful sweep of this remarkable six-album arc shines in new pressings of the original masters, which include the first-ever vinyl pressing for their debut album, Santa Barbara. In 1990, Sean O’Hagan was emerging from a high-flying eight year run with Microdisney. The Clock Comes Down the Stairs was a UK Indie #1 in 1985—and today, it is considered by many to be the greatest album in the annals of Irish rock and roll. But they disbanded in ’89, and for Sean, this meant finding a voice—no longer writing with “one of the great lyricists and vocalists,” as he recalls his late Microdisney partner Cathal Coughlan, he was challenged to see a path forward as singer and lyricist as well as composer and arranger. This challenge led to the emergence of one of the most unique new sounds of the 1990s. The High Llamas were founded by Sean, Jon Fell, Marcus Holdaway and Rob Allum. After debuting as a tart and sweet guitar-pop act with a reasonably definable bent on Santa Barbara, Sean fell in with Stereolab. His adventures in their art-band collective, playing space-age batchelor pad music, profoundly influenced the delightful extremities that were to come. Gideon Gaye was written and recorded on a small budget with almost military resolve. Shifting to a piano-based sound and obsessively chasing retro aspects of '60s and '70s production to dizzying...
LP $24.95
11/22/2024
***“This one to me is a time capsule more than most any of my recordings. All music is a time trapped in time that preaches timelessness—preaching either convincingly or not. But with a radio session such as this, there is a different aspect. It’s all live, all first take, no overdubs. Also I think having the BBC engineers at the controls, with their own aesthetic, not one I am bringing to the studio, that makes it more encapsulated—'remember that day we did that?' The circumstances and the memory of the smell of the studio makes it stand out. So it’s more of a performance maybe than a usual recording, because the audience (engineer and producer) were foreign to us. British, milk in tea. So we gave them something to show them who WE were—Dale Coopers with our black coffees. Somebody said this EP is very Twin Peaksy. Not in a Badalamenti, torch-song way—a deeper connection. I can see that. 'Beautiful Child' has been turned into a minor key song because, well, it really should have been one in the first place! 'Cold Discovery' was a live staple then and some nights it could really catch fire. We got a pretty good one for BBC. 'Dirty Pants' here is probably better than the LP version. And then there’s 'Jesus'. Sweet, sweet 'Jesus'. Here sounding like a deathbed plea shot through with visitations from the angel of mercy.”—Bill, 2024 Features Jessica Billy on fiddle, Mike Saenz (Howling Hex) and Jim White (Dirty...
12" $22.35
11/22/2024
***An excursion in electronic sound instrumentally unpacking Dean Spunt’s (No Age) fascination with language—in this instance, the syntax of the systems and processes of various 64-voice E-mu modules distilled through his non-aesthetic aesthetic. Wacked digital soundscapes bounce colorfully across the stereo azimuth, by turns meditative, compulsive and consumptive; post-ambient neo-exotica that hinges upon giddy conflations of cosmic and comic.
LP $26.50
10/25/2024
***Anthony Moore's post-Slapp Happy output, for years an underrated-to-outright unknown quantity, achieves a new dimensional plane with this third archival release from his personal tape library. Home of the Demo triangulates upon the art-pop qualities found in his previously unreleased 1976 LP OUT, and ‘79’s new wave-adjacent Flying Doesn’t Help, finding Anthony’s early/mid-80s home recordings drifting whimsically in and out of the actual mainstream.
LP $25.85
10/25/2024
***Picking up the pieces of the picked-up pieces, Wand ride on, baby. It’s only three months since they dropped the incredible mass of Vertigo upon the world—but WHAT!!! Here is more, plating the pre-release single “Help Desk” alongside “Goldfish,” an additional cog from Vertigo’s assembly, and then, in the name of the ever-expanding viewpoint (and the much required dream-extension app!), adding three remixes for good measure. “Help Desk” and “Goldfish” are brethren of the eight epochal vibrations that make up Vertigo—boiled down from a tremendous volume of jams, then squeezed through the pin- prick called automatic writing. Or ‘riding’...as in, the groove / as far as they can see / past the horizon line/Jupiter space/the infinity room/whatever you choose to call it. The remixes delve back into the material, integrating another set of concentric thought-spirals into the radiant action. The unique perspectives of Beat Detectives, Dead Rider and Dean Spunt become one with the Wand material, igniting inevitable further expansions. This EP’s like a handshake promise that’s fulfilled after the action has gone down—the thanks you get for staying open and hanging in there. The present you get for being present! But everything has a price in time. This one might be worth more than $26.98! Forty years from now, write back and tell us. Then all will at last become known...
12" $25.85
10/25/2024
***Demos and unreleased songs from Wand’s salad days, the time of the immortal Ganglion Reef. Available for download since 2017, In a Capsule Underground is at last firmly sunk into vinyl grooves that realize its fullest potential in a listener’s ears. These light, fizzy versions have distinctive, gleaming magic energies all of their own and they fly thrillingly through the air. Catch a wave through beautifully-abandoned space on your turntable eternal!
LP $24.45
10/25/2024
***BACK IN PRINT ON VINYL!!! In this wake of BONNIE PRINCE BILLY’s soul-affirming (shattering?) Master and Everyone, the ‘Prince’ took a year or so to gather himself before The Letting Go. Stock was taken and a bunch of “greatest” Palace songs were rerecorded in best classic style, with a crew of Nashville studio wreckers smoothing down the edges. The result: another 15-song journey through the past, this time squeezing through the present as well. Four songs from the Lost Blues lineup confirms them as all-time greats. Also M.I.A. on vinyl since 2005 or so.
CD $13.75
10/11/2024
2XLP $33.45
10/14/2024
***Whitney Johnson, alter-ego of pyschoacoustic voyager Matchess, presents a new composition for sine waves, marimba, viola, Arp Odyssey and Halldorophone. Meditating on the duality of the human body (it collects/collates all the sensory info, allowing us the gift of hearing music; it is a fallible structure, wearing down often on the long path to final breakdown), Whitney compassionately radiates healing frequencies to inspire inspired response.
LP $28.50
09/27/2024
***Following Sonescent, Matchess’ 2022 album documenting “the final moments in the life of music,” Stena goes further, reanimating dying waves with a collage of found sounds, frequency experiments and new music compositions. Poring over notebooks rife with polarities and doppelgangers, considerations of biological and symbolic ancestry and the spirits that infuse places we leave behind, Matchess crafts an encompassing work of psychoacoustic music.
MC $15.50
09/27/2024
***Active since the 1970s, Jill Fraser is a composer and electronic music pioneer with a staggering list of credits across music, film, television and performance. Yet her new album, Earthly Pleasures sits uniquely against her groundbreaking body of work. Her Drag City debut is a modular resetting of American revival-style hymns that speculates on death, what comes after it, and how the spirit of our songs might be interpreted after we’re gone—taking Jill’s ever-evolving curiosity about music as both a science and a spiritual force to be reckoned with to otherworldly heights. For Earthly Pleasures’ composition, Jill researched revival hymns from the late 19th-early 20th century composed by women. From there, hymns were slowed, dissected, and “fragmented into tiny grains,” as Jill puts it: “Some are slow and meditative, some are dots of sound twinkling like stars in the sky… I wanted to make them unrecognizable yet still retain the inspiration and emotion.” Some of these creations, like “Amen 2”, are short and sweet—like the backing to a dreamy pop song, albeit one with a church congregation sample glitching percussively. Other tracks, like the leave-taking “When We All Get To Heaven”, stretch past the ten-minute mark to elaborate on the final abandonment of consciousness. It’s a breathtakingly transcendent album that suggests inclusion within a diversity of genres: Ambient, Electronic, New Age, Modern Classical, Gospel, Healing, and more.
2XLP $34.85
09/27/2024
*****Six Organs Of Admittance's 2020 opus is reunmanaged by sound composer Twig Harper, whose unlimited brief takes this REMIX places no other remix record could dare to go. In the process, it affords the wizard of Six Organs, Ben Chasny, the chance to re-present the record in a form as insane as the world into which the record was — and is — headed. A soundtrack to California chaos, done two ways, sometimes at the same time! RIYL: Electronic, New Age, Modern Classical.
LP $28.50
09/27/2024
***The first official reissue of Dorothy Carter’s folk-music exegesis comes 46 years after its original release, 20 years after Dorothy passed, and 11 years before the centennial of her birth. Yet it seems right on time for a new celebration of her music. Appalachian folk tunes, old and ancient psalms and hymns, Scottish, Irish, French and Israeli melodies, and original tunes flow together effortlessly in a hypnotic garden of eternal world musics.
LP $28.50
08/30/2024
***A meditation from Ty Segall on love, played on his first love: the drums. Delving deep into the melodic and orchestral possibilities of a full array of percussion instruments, from the trap kit to timpani, vibraphone, xylophone, percussion and e-drums, Ty charts the waxing and waning of a love affair, to explore some of the most delicate space we know of—the private emotional location where only two can meet.
LP $28.50
08/30/2024
MC $13.25
08/30/2024
***Unearthed from the neolithic tar that eventually swathes all history, Aerial M’s early-1998 Peel Session is once again among us. Compared to the studio takes, played strictly and singly by Aerial / Papa M-astermind David Pajo, these versions swing from the necks of road-burned players, breathing more bestially than their canonical cousins, glinting ‘pon the dark metallic roots that fed all of Pajo’s best guitar lines, winding thru time immemorial. First pressing on coke bottle clear vinyl.
LP $25.95
08/30/2024
***Are Possible is a spark-throwing, undulating fusion of styles played (mainly) on banjo, upright bass and drums, made possible by the individual perspectives of Nathan Bowles, double-bassist Casey Toll (Jake Xerxes Fussell, Mt. Moriah) and drummer Rex McMurry (CAVE) work together in an easy-rolling manner, but one that contains an expansive, ass-shaking confabulation of ideas.
LP $26.50
08/09/2024
***First new Wand in five years—we almost forgot how it feels! Like sliding between the bodies in the street, cutting across the contrails that bisect our sky, Wand find melody and the anxiety beats as they hum the soundtrack for a new gravitational center. Seeking connections against the plan of niche interest and anonymity, Vertigo is the sound of slippage, rocks of contradiction (in soft focus); feet lost, regained, lost again, a multi-chromatic swaying, more automatic, associative, directed, in time.
LP $28.50
07/26/2024
***Callahan comes alive in Chicago, with Jim White, Matt Kinsey and special guests Nick Mazzarella, Pascal Kerong'A, Nathaniel Ballinger and Natural Information Society’s Joshua Abrams & Lisa Alvarado. Why, Bill? “Songs tend to mutate after they've been recorded. These songs were mutating faster than usual. Like whatever happened to Bruce Banner in the lab—I knew these songs were about to get superpowers…this change needed to be documented.” Recorded March 6, 2023 at Thalia Hall in Chicago during the YTILAER tour.
CD $13.85
07/26/2024
2XLP $32.85
07/26/2024
***In full aural/metaphysical alignment, Shackleton’s bass heavy cosmic dread and Six Organs’ ritual folksong revel and delight in their massed collage as they become Jinxed By Being. Unfolding small details into a massive space, and then into further lines of dimensional space, they transit at will through our hemispheres with enervating motility, rearranging the definitions of our psychedelic/ritual/transcendental music libraries.
LP $34.65
07/05/2024
***Dirty Three Ahoy! Appropriately disheveled, the Three—Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White—emerge from the unending waves of time to pick up their guitar drum and viola / violin / piano / synthesizer / loops / percussion for their first album in a decade. Their playing encompasses ALL—from the original fury of their unlikely power trio to an impressionist cinema later on; mercurial, tumultuous to ambient to adagio, mood and emotion drawn up to dazzling heights from the humble human scale.
CD $13.75
06/28/2024
LP $24.95
06/28/2024
MC $12.75
06/28/2024
***Evil Does Not Exist is an expansive new soundtrack undertaking from Eiko Ishibashi, a stellar further display of her ability to explicate the depths of the unspoken in her music. That it is also the soundtrack to the new Ryusuke Hamaguchi feature is marvelous news for all who loved her score for his Oscar-winning 2021 film, Drive My Car. That her music harmonizes effortlessly with the state of nature as depicted in his film, a nuanced tale of humans’ uneasy efforts to maintain co-existence with the delicate state of the planet, is a further profound achievement. At play here, though, is much more than fantastic new music from a powerful new film—it is evidence of a vital recomposition of the relationship of sound to narrative, and composer to filmmaker.
LP $24.95
06/28/2024
![The Key (Became the Imporant Thing [and The Just Faded Away]) by Corsano, Chris](https://midheaven-dot-com.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/t/147368/images/147368_main.jpg)
***A feverish essay of transcendent drumming: Chris Corsano's solo approach, rooted in the exploration of elements of extended technique, sought another level, via possibilities facilitated by a self-made string drum! The Key (Became The Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]) brings his encompassing focus on free improvisation and noise into a granular fusion with acoustic experiments and hot-wired ideations of hard rock riffing and the post-punk sound.
LP $26.50
06/28/2024
***Guitarist Lee Underwood’s syncretic blend of jazz, folk, and blues was a tremendous force behind Tim Buckley’s genre-stretching late 60s/early 70s music—but his 1988 acoustic guitar opus California Sigh has remained a unsung footnote to his story. Until now! This first time vinyl-edition reveals Lee’s free-floating acoustic moods, with synths and co-production from ambient avatar Steve Roach, as a soulful work of tranquility and transcendence.
2XLP $32.95
06/28/2024
***BACK IN PRINT!!! Breaking through the dirt and shooting upward into our atmosphere is a new variety of exotic BONNIE PRINCE BILLY plant. Stronger. Stinkier. It blooms in low light and cold but thrives in the sun as well, showing enticing spots and eating small creatures as they wander into its jaws. Though Beware shares spit with its immediate predecessor, Lie Down in the Light, its reach is longer, its arches more grandiose. Where fiddle and steel contribute their rustic timbre alongside guitars and voices, a thickening thud of low tone rolls beneath, giving the record a bottom that’s fun to watch bounce in new clothes. This intensifies the air and heralds Beware as Bonnie most ambidextrous record to date—even more so than The Letting Go. A listen or two through and you too may conclude that this could also be the great Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy contempo-country record—though, as always, the ‘Prince’ goes his own special way, even when climbing the charts with brawny arms and classic titles like “I Don’t Belong to Anyone,” “You Can’t Hurt Me Now,” and “I Am Goodbye.”
LP $25.85
06/07/2024
***At last! It's been about five years since Bill's last solo album, Fountain Fire, one might guess that the new material was informed by his constant collaborations since last year's BCMC release Foriegn Smokes; 2021's duo album with Nathan Bowles, Keys and 2019's duo album with Katinka Kleijn, STIR, and that's invariably so, but mostly, Bill solo is resolutely his own beast; Locust Land continues down the path of eclectically augmented guitar exploration fruitfully evidenced on Fountain Fire and Esker previously.
LP $24.45
05/24/2024
***This is the album version of the 2023 Netflix special—a wide-ranging conversation between John Mulaney, a kid in the balcony named Henry, and the rest of the sold-out crowd at Boston’s Symphony Hall. John dominates the chat, of course—nobody would want it otherwise—but damn, his cautionary tales might be a little TOO hilarious….and the album concludes with a song from David Byrne's score for the special.
CD $15.50
05/24/2024
2XLP $29.45
05/24/2024
***Nearly twenty-five years after disbanding, Gastr del Sol have unpacked their archive, stringing together an alternative view to their genre-melting 1993-1998 run. This assembly of previously uncollected studio recordings and beautifully captured unreleased live performances forms a spacious ode to the flux that was their métier; a further set of reinventions that continue to alter the manner in which we hear music, and literally everything else!
2XCD $27.45
05/24/2024
3XLP $65.50
05/24/2024
***Attention, aficionados of sublime pop music! Jim is, in fact, the older brother of pop singer Gerry Rafferty. Following two albums of sophisticated, melodic material with strong emphasis on vocal harmonies (not dissimilar to his brother’s work), Jim entered the 80s with no record deal, but good new tunes to shop. His original demos provided chart fodder for Frida (late of Abba), Clannad and Ian Matthews, but Jim’s versions outshine them all!
7" $15.50
05/24/2024
***Once again, Six Organs of Admittance showcases the intricate tangle of fingers on the fretboard and flash of lens flare slicing the air, as the future arcs 360 degrees around to become a part of the past as well. Oscillations in this glass bowl ripple outward eternally, but are rooted on the ground where all the creatures are moving and communing; humans too. An intimate cosmic expression, file under: rural-industrial psych, ecosystem goth.
CD $13.75
04/26/2024
LP $21.95
04/26/2024
***An utterly unique guitar/bass/drums triad: the guitar sounds like anything but a guitar; bass and drums simultaneously insistent and relaxed. Telephathic group-think opens a window to fresh fields of fusion: funk-jazz…
LP $21.95
04/26/2024
***REISSUED ON VINYL FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! Mother Twilight is the second Faun Fables album. It has since been noted by Scottish author R.J. Stewart as a work containing true artifacts of the oral underworld tradition. Dawn and Nils made a hand-assembled first pressing and peddled it to nearly every bar and rural hall across North America from 2001–2003. Drag City reissued the CD in 2004. Edition of 500 copies.
2XLP $32.85
04/26/2024
***High Llamas present Hey Panda—a modern pop music/deep listening experience that could only issue forth from their personal quadrant of the galaxy. Hey Panda projects soulfully through an enervating abstract of today’s popular music; the sound of the Llamas’ stately melodies and expressive ditties laid open—blissfully shattered—with drums and vocals hitting different, burning sounds and contemporary production twists pulling the ear at every turn. For the past few decades, High Llamas have trafficked in contemporary pop sounds directed toward the avant end of the spectrum as much as not. But here the message was clear. Llamas’ composer-in-residence Sean O’Hagan was determined to let go. Hey Panda does just that, with a set of tunes reflecting on multiple levels how definitions change over the course of a lifetime, radiating an optimism derived from the diverse conundrums of today.
CD $13.75
03/29/2024
LP $24.95
03/29/2024
***"This is long overdue. I mean, looooooonnnnnng overdue. A solo album by Jim. The trap kit—so straightforward, so mysterious. What’s inside those things? Air and light—from which century? Which continent? Which planet? Depending on how and when you hit them it can be a vibration sent through a prehistoric breath, particles of Saturn’s atmosphere, the dead, wet leaves you walked through on the way to the first day of school. These are the memories of the drums on this record. Infinite and personal. Editing each other as they muscle to the front or soft shoe to the shadow. Cymbals can override/cancel everything out—wipe your memory clear or make the memory clearer. Drums are the instrument where you can feel the presence of the player the most—the full body—and sense the thoughts of the player the most. The instrument with the most choices to be made sends out the most brainwaves. A bouquet of brainwaves is on this LP. Jim oversees it all, surveys from the lost place we’re in, the void—the drumless song. We trust. We trust, Jim. His big green eyes search for the right tool (mallet, brush, etc), eyes that search you like you’re a song he wants to join, wants to see if he can add to or understand. Before humans, drums were playing—these drums. Genesis was a solo drum piece. After humans, these drums, this album. Someone — the last man — is out in a spaceship at the edge of space. He plays a single...
CD $13.75
03/29/2024
LP $24.45
03/29/2024
MC $12.75
03/29/2024
***BACK IN PRINT!!! In 2014, Drag City invites you to celebrate Dismay Day with America’s hardest working funnyman in show business, NEIL HAMBURGER! A somber work from a seasoned entertainer clearly carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, First of Dismay is being issued in answer to many who have applauded for “more!” “more!” Specially-chosen stand-up comedy recordings from Neil’s recent appearances at coveted nightclubs in London, Savannah, and Los Angeles are interspersed with musical cries for help, as Neil emotes with the purely professional panache of the “Too Good For Neil Hamburger Band” in support. Song highlights include “Endless Roll,” a disco complaint letter aimed at Kirkland Signature trash bags (featuring guest spots from members of The Germs and Jefferson Starship!!), and “Nickel Candy”: societal decline set to music. Although Neil was strongly advised against the risk of merging side-splitting comedy segments with melancholy musical numbers, the exciting potpourri that resulted has enhanced his sparkle into a veritable milky way of entertainment.
LP $19.95
03/26/2024
***Who says there are no second-acts in show-biz? The same person who claimed there’s no crying in comedy, probably—and NEIL HAMBURGER has proven him wrong once again. Left for dead more than once in a career that has spanned literal decades, Neil is back on top and waiting for that next wave that will supposedly pull him under again. In 2007, Neil Hamburger experienced what some would call the high point of his career to date, playing Madison Square Garden and other big arenas of performance infamy all around the United States. This was no miracle; after all, people weren’t coming to see Neil; he was opening for popular rock act Tenacious D. Once the crowds heard some of his classic routines, however, Neil gained a great deal of exposure—exposed once again as America’s Funnyman in front of roaring crowds of Americans. Naturally, there were a few bad apples in the barrel, and Neil did what any professional would do—slaying the hecklers with their own sword of crass, unmannered profanity. Now it’s your turn—fire up the hi-fi and place this special phonograph LP on the platter. Then mix a couple drinks and listen to America’s Funnyman, Neil Hamburger, as he lives and dies the comedy life that all the greats have lived, too. Hot February Night is truly a brush with greatness. What will Neil do for an encore? No Export to Europe.
LP $21.95
03/01/2024
***Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier issues a call to the traumatized civilizations of Earth: we’re urged to finally evolve past our countless millennia of suffering and alienation. Her songs score the complexities and harmonies within this directive: organ, guitar, bass, synth, trombone, vibraphone, live and programmed drums, and a vocal assembly of men and women billed as The Choir, working intricate chord/tempo/and dynamic changes, as Laetitia’s empathic presence leads the way.
CD $13.85
02/23/2024
LP $24.95
02/23/2024
***REISSUED!!! Returned to us from early '90s Japan are the holy holy sounds of Ghost. Their collective, clearly inspired by various forms of transcendental music throughout history, created a new syncretic psychedelia with these albums, mixing the texture and vibe of multinational forms of traditional music, with strummed antique stringed instruments and the haunting wail of a recorder on top of their heavy beats and guitars. The considerable depth of this approach was explored through 2014 over another five Ghost LPs, as well as the further explorations to the present day of leader Masaki Batoh, as a solo artist and with The Silence, Damon & Naomi, Helena Espvall and most recently, nehan. These first three Ghost titles were originally released by P.S.F. on CD in 1990, 1992 and 1994, respectively, radiating enigma and energy in palpable waves with their original sound. After the acclaim that greeted Drag City’s 1996 US release of Lama Rabi Rabi, we quickly reissued all three on vinyl—and they quickly went out of print! At which point, Ghost had Snuffbox Immanence and Free Tibet ready to go. And then, Hypnotic Underworld. And then, and then.... Now, it’s been 25 years since they were last offered on vinyl. In the twenty-year sweep of Ghost history, these first three releases qualify as primitive early Ghost—sort of like a German Os Mutantes (or perhaps a Brazilian Amon Düül). The subterranean presence of a diversity of progressive/avant classic rock influences (Pink Floyd, Incredible String Band, Captain Beefheart, Scott Walker, Led...
LP $25.85
02/23/2024