Grapefruit

Jefferies, Peter

Closed Circuit

Grapefruit

Peter Jefferies, a living legend of New Zealand underground music, from his seminal bands Nocturnal Projections and This Kind Of Punishment, to his collaborative efforts in bands such as Plagal Grind and Two Foot Flame, is perhaps best known for his solo work on masterpieces such as The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World (1990) and Electricity (1994), as well as Elevator Madness (1996). All of these albums came out on vinyl but one of the best was the singular Closed Circuit (2001) which, unfortunately, only came out on compact disc and was somewhat lost to time until now. After Grapefruit released his collection of singles and unreleased songs called Last Ticket Home in 2019, Jefferies mentioned he’d always hoped one of his personal favorite solo albums could someday be heard on vinyl as it was intended. Grapefruit is proud to finally be able to highlight Jefferies’ last album of lyric-based songs by releasing Closed Circuit on vinyl, remastered and with new artwork and insert. This album features all of Jefferies’ signature tense and dark, piano-driven rock and moody balladry, along with themes of personal isolation and domestic ambivalence. It’s a tour-de-force that has remained in the dark too long.

Direen, Bill

100 Years Of Darkness

Grapefruit

Bill Direen is a legend of the New Zealand underground. He has given us poetry, novels and a catalog of important and challenging underground music. Weaned on a garage band youth in the late '60s, Direen started producing 7" records in the early '80s, all of them total stunners. These releases—Six Impossible Things, Die Bilder, Soloman's Ball and High Thirties Piano—were self-financed and distributed through Flying Nun. 100 Years Of Darkness, his latest book, is a homage to a century of films and film music. The front cover boxes represent film aspect ratios (1.17:1 up to 2.35:1) as used worldwide between 1888 and the present. The films are drawn from many countries, such as Japan, U.S.A., France, Germany, Russia/Ukraine, Vietnam, Sweden, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Lebanon. Since some of the films may not have been commercially distributed in all countries, the chosen films are carefully listed in a detailed index of sources at the close, which corresponds to the order of the poems as listed in the contents. This makes it easy for film and music lovers to find the films' directors and years of first appearance, and eventually see them for themselves. It is very limited in an edition of 200 and beautifully printed with textured jackets in the spirit of vintage Black Sparrow Press books.

Montgomery, Roy

Camera Melancholia

Grapefruit

Camera Melancholia is a double album of instrumental music inspired by and dedicated to Kerry McCarthy (1967-2021) who was Montgomery's partner for twenty years and the mother of two children they had together. She died from cancer in early 2021 after first being diagnosed in 2014. McCarthy was a professional curator in the area of pictorial collections, particularly around photographic material, and her PhD used the work of Roland Barthes to theorize about the legacies of images associated with Antarctic exploration in the early 20th Century. The cover art for Camera Melancholia was provided by Ronnie van Hout, an Aotearoa New Zealand artist associated with the earliest graphic design work for Flying Nun Records. Van Hout was also a very close and long standing friend of McCarthy. The gatefold album includes the text for ten poems written for and about McCarthy.

Mortensen, Astrid Øster

Gro Mig En Blomst

Grapefruit

One first heard the Danish artist Astrid Øster Mortensen as a surprise guest vocalist on Gustaf Dicksson’s Blod album, Missväxt, which Grapefruit released in 2021. New in Gothenburg, the Denmark-born Mortensen had been frequenting the Discreet Music shop where various musicians of the underground scene communed and shared their latest projects. Learning that she was a musician too, Dicksson asked Mortensen to contribute vocals to Missväxt and it wasn’t long before she handed over a master of her own music which completely floored everyone in the scene who heard it. The recordings eventually materialized as Gro Mig En Blomst. An LP which was released in a very small edition on Dicksson’s Förlag För Fri Musik label in March of 2021, causing a sensation of wonder and well-earned praise and some panic due to its scarcity. Gro Mig En Blomst is at once wholly immersive and something quite rare—an infectious collection of essentially experimental music derived from familiar organic sounds stitched together with delicate, sometimes improvised music, poetry, and haunting folk melodies. Akin to the pastiches composed by the equally enchanting Gothenburg collective, Enhet For Fri Musik, Mortensen’s album is mysteriously irresistible despite offering what most would consider a challenging listen. It immediately became an essential release and sold through its 300 copies quickly before the ink was even dry on the superlative reviews. So, it was with great pride and pleasure that Grapefruit worked closely with her to offer this new reissue. Herein one will find songs which often begin...

Neutral

När

Grapefruit

Neutral’s 2014 1st LP, Grå Våg Gamlestaden, is widely considered ground zero for the explosion of creativity that has transpired in the Swedish Underground ever since. It is the noisy experimental rock album that opened the door and welcomed in so many artists working behind the scenes. Gothenburgers Dan Johansson (Sewer Election) and Sofie Herner had previously made music together in the band Källarbarnen when they started discussing a new methodology and a fresh sound for recordings under a new name as a duo. Grapefruit was proud to reissue that first LP in 2021 and they are equally excited to follow up that sold-out release with two more important Neutral releases, the self-titled sophomore LP from 2016 in a gatefold sleeve and the När mini album EP from 2017 which was originally limited to 300 copies.Grapefruit’s reissue of the När mini album and the 2nd LP is the first time these have been reissued. Both are limited to 400 copies.

Neutral

s/t

Grapefruit

Neutral’s 2014 1st LP, Grå Våg Gamlestaden, is widely considered ground zero for the explosion of creativity that has transpired in the Swedish Underground ever since. It is the noisy experimental rock album that opened the door and welcomed in so many artists working behind the scenes. Gothenburgers Dan Johansson (Sewer Election) and Sofie Herner had previously made music together in the band Källarbarnen when they started discussing a new methodology and a fresh sound for recordings under a new name as a duo. Grapefruit was proud to reissue that first LP in 2021 and they are equally excited to follow up that sold-out release with two more important Neutral releases, the self-titled sophomore LP from 2016 in a gatefold sleeve and the När mini album EP from 2017 which was originally limited to 300 copies. Grapefruit’s reissue of the När mini album and the 2nd LP is the first time these have been reissued. Both are limited to 400 copies.

Joyner, Simon

Songs From A Stolen Guitar

Grapefruit

“Artists are not athletes. The career of the athlete is, by mortal necessity, compressed and brief. No one expects to see a professional slugger in their sixties out on the diamond, much less see them vying for a pennant. Artists, on the other hand, tend to age like wine—think Dylan, Cohen, and Cash—with the most rarefied among them capable of swinging for the fences with every at bat. Omaha singer-songwriter Simon Joyner, who recently turned fifty, is such an artist, and while I’d certainly enjoy seeing his face grinning at me from a box of Wheaties, I’d rather he continue making albums like Songs From A Stolen Guitar.  “Songs From A Stolen Guitar was recorded across several different cities. Joyner recorded his vocals and guitar live in Omaha; bassist Wil Hendrix added his parts at home in San Francisco, Michael Krassner recorded his guitar and piano overdubs at home in Phoenix, and drummer / percussionist Ryan Jewell recorded in Colorado. This musical chain letter then made its way back to Omaha where David Nance (guitars and backing vocals), Ben Brodin (organ and vibraphone), and Megan Siebe (viola and backing vocals) overdubbed—separately—their respective contributions “The remoteness of the individual players on Songs From A Stolen Guitar, while necessarily eliminating some of the ragged spontaneity of much of Joyner’s previous work, yields a sort of silver-lining effect: Joyner’s songs, produced more meticulously and perhaps more intentionally here than on any of his previous albums, cut through that much cleaner, foregrounding both his dazzling...

Caroline No

S/t

Grapefruit

“Caroline No’s third album was built around a set of songs I was writing in the summer of 2019. I built the songs around real events, but looped these narratives into stories from song histories. The result is like an intersection of Brill Building characters such as Carole King and Neil Sedaka with the bedroom fanaticism of historical music projects like Virgin Insanity.  After a year of playing the songs live in various formations, we aimed to record in the Australian summer. We knew Jim [White] (Dirty Three, Crime & The City Solution, Venom P. Stinger, etc) was going to be in Melbourne, and soon after he arrived in Australia, we met at Mick [Turner]’s (Dirty Three, Venom P. Stinger, etc) studio. Nick [Imfeld] and Mick engineered, with Ian [Wadley] (Small World Experience, Mad Nanna, etc) on bass, Jim on drums, Mick, Dee [Hannah] and me [Caroline Kennedy] on guitars, and Dee and me singing. The sense of intuitive knowledge and performance was exhilarating as we played. We spent two days in the studio, and when we listened back later, it seemed a compelling representation of what had happened, captured live. “The band on this album are artists I grew up with. We were friends first, and engaging with the material, there was no formal structure to follow. Our interpretive approach meant the songs grew from simple structural frames and narrative poetics into full sonic landscapes, engaging across pop, folk, psychedelia and improvisation. Caroline No became—for this iteration—a shifting...

Montgomery, Roy

Audiotherapy

Grapefruit

Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of the NZ underground, believes there is always new sonic terrain to investigate. His latest series of albums for Grapefruit marks forty years of rigorous exploration in which he has managed to navigate disparate genres, scenes, and atmospheres, always at the forefront of experimental independent music. To commemorate, Grapefruit will be releasing four new Montgomery albums in 2021, which can be purchased individually or via subscription.  For his fourth album, appropriately named Audiotherapy, Montgomery builds his compositions from the subconscious, breaking down form and inviting in new techniques. “Audioramble” features call-and-response singing between him, Emma Johnston and Arnie Van Bussel, both of whom act as a Greek chorus to Montgomery’s reflections. “Occlusione” sets a sturdy musical bed under Maria Eleanora C Mollard’s whispered spoken word, like a voice in one’s head that risks getting drowned out in the noise. For the sublime “Audiotransport,” guitars shimmer up the sides and weave through one another, reconciling the inner voices of doubt and worry into a meditation on the beauty of existence. The last track, “Imperfect Intense”, builds on disbalance as Johnston’s vocals meet Montgomery’s in broken harmony; both singers move at their own pace despite the other, embodying how uncertainty lies at the heart of how we live. Audiotherapy is the most intuitive and experimental entry of Roy Montgomery’s 2021 (and—cough—2022) releases, closing out the series with introspection and transcendence.

Montgomery, Roy

Rhymes Of Chance

Grapefruit

Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of the NZ underground, believes there is always new sonic terrain to investigate. His latest series of albums for Grapefruit marks forty years of rigorous exploration in which he’s managed to navigate disparate genres, scenes, and atmospheres, always at the forefront of experimental independent music. To commemorate, Grapefruit will be releasing four new Montgomery albums in 2021, which can be purchased individually or via subscription.  The third release of the series, Rhymes Of Chance, is the darkest entry of the four. Songs sound particularly spacious and minimal, with two tracks centering forlorn melodies around trusty collaborator Emma Johnston’s singing and two others sung by Montgomery himself. While Side A presents the six-part “Rhymes Of Chance” suite, Side B’s “Aspiratory” holds a clue to Montgomery’s approach on this record; a floating dirge stretches time, much in the manner Mark Hollis (to whom the song is dedicated) approached music.

Montgomery, Roy

That Best Forgotten Work

Grapefruit

Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of the NZ underground, believes there is always new sonic terrain to investigate. His latest series of albums for Grapefruit marks forty years of rigorous exploration in which he’s managed to navigate disparate genres, scenes, and atmospheres, always at the forefront of experimental independent music. To commemorate, Grapefruit will be releasing four new Montgomery albums in 2021. The first installment, Island Of Lost Souls, arrived to great acclaim in January. The second and latest album, His Best Forgotten Work, features Montgomery’s rare, brooding vocals across nine gorgeous tracks recorded from his home in Christchurch, New Zealand. His Best Forgotten Work follows the intense, all-instrumental Island Of Lost Souls. It departs in spirit with darkly buoyant variations on popular songs, including two highly anticipated covers of legendary songs by The Carpenters (“Superstar”) and Tim Buckley (“Song To The Siren”). Montgomery shows the listener that these influences aren’t such strange bedfellows after all; one need only listen closely. Where some might be inclined to relax and lean into their legacy at this stage in a sprawling career, Montgomery’s new music continues to seek and challenge. His compositions are beautiful as well as disconcerting, and often speak to precarity and dread. His Best Forgotten Work is a title with tongue planted firmly in cheek, alluding to the artist’s position of enjoying a peculiar bit of fame in relative obscurity. But listening to his dry wit and rich voice, one will find it isn’t easily forgotten.

Blod

Missväxt

Grapefruit

Blod is the solo project of Gustaf Dicksson (Enhet För Fri Musik, Oroskällan), a prolific and crucial figure in the Swedish Underground scene radiating out of Gothenburg and centered around a number of independent labels and including bands such as Enhet För Fri Musik, Monokultur, Oroskällan, Loopsel, and Neutral. Blod has released various home-recorded cassettes and a handful of albums since 2014, all mercurial in nature, exploring various facets of Dicksson’s preoccupations. The melodies borrow from tradition and possess a lonesome quality inspired by Swedish melancholy, close relations, and white trash culture. Combined with intentionally banal artwork, the experience can be beguiling and sometimes bleak but at the same time warm and humorous.  Missväxt is Dicksson’s greatest work yet, exploring the myth of ancient Swedish being and misery but with a sound that is uniquely ecstatic. Inspired by medieval folk music, it’s reminiscent of Fairport Convention’s marriage of traditional folk music and psychedelic rock.  Missväxt features guest appearances by Elin Engström (Loopsel, Monokultur) on drums, Astrid Øster Mortensen on vocals and flute, Joakim Karlsson (Facit) on production and synth, and Magnus Jäverling on flute.

75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band

Live At Tubby's

Grapefruit

NYC’s 75 Dollar Bill began its prolific career in 2012, after percussionist Rick Brown—a veteran of the indie underground (Fish & Roses, Run On, V-Effect)—and noise scene guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Che Chen—connected via MySpace. Since that initial jam session, when Brown began experimenting with his signature plywood crate drum rhythms, they have released three LPs and a clutch of self-released cassette and digital releases. Last year’s double album I Was Real received serious critical acclaim—The Wire calling it 2019’s Album of the Year.  On their first live album, Live At Tubby’s, 75 Dollar Bill assembled a unique “little big band” [Sue Garner on bass, Cheryl Kingan on sax, Steve Maing on guitar, Jim Pugliese on percussion and Karen Waltuch on viola] for the small Kingston, NY club show. Recorded on the last day of their spring tour, the record puts a new perspective on themes from their body of work: a little more intimacy, a little more freedom, a little more controlled chaos. Brown’s idiosyncratic rhythms are all the more hypnotizing in Tubby’s cozy setting, and Chen’s furious guitar work cuts and hums with sounds seemingly only attainable on stage. It’s an album both challenging and immediate. The expanded 75 Dollar Bill’s affinity for improvisation and the avant-garde even leads to a rousing take on the Ornette Coleman classic, “Friends And Neighbors” that feels right at home in their own repertoire. The listener can’t help but feel present and part of the communal joy and catharsis being shared here...

Montgomery, Roy

Island Of Lost Souls

Grapefruit

Island Of Lost Souls is the first of four new albums by Roy Montgomery coming out in 2021 to commemorate Montgomery’s forty years in music. His debut release was also Flying Nun’s first, the Pin Group 7-inch from 1981. Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of the NZ underground, believes there is always new sonic terrain to investigate. His latest album for Grapefruit marks forty years of rigorous exploration in which he’s managed to navigate disparate genres, scenes, and atmospheres, always at the forefront of experimental independent music.  Island Of Lost Souls follows his acclaimed 2018 LP Suffuse—a novel departure in which he consigned all vocal duties to ambient / experimental peers Liz Harris (of Grouper), Julianna Barwick, Purple Pilgrims, Haley Fohr (of Circuit des Yeux), Katie von Schleicher, and She Keeps Bees. But the veteran evolves again. On this release Montgomery creates resounding, aerial compositions for guitar. Where some might be inclined to relax and lean into their legacy at this stage in a sprawling career, Montgomery’s new music continues to seek and challenge, moving like the eye of a storm. This latest album cries out like a chorus, though there are no vocals on the record. Its tracklist instead builds upon the lonesome and polyphonic dimensions of guitar in order to express universal feelings of communion and isolation, resisting conclusion but never resorting to fatalism. Life is all about navigating these contradictions and everyone is with Montgomery on this island whether they’d like to admit it or not. Here,...

Dadamah

This Is Not A Dream

Grapefruit

This Is Not a Dream is a double album collection of every song released by the legendary Dunedin, New Zealand quartet Dadamah, including the This Is Not A Dream LP, and their three 7-inch singles and one unique compilation track. Grapefruit’s release is a thirteen song collection with the full album on one LP and all the 7-inch and compilation tracks on the other. Inspired by the Kranky label’s CD compilation of Dadamah’s existing catalog in 1994, this vinyl version includes two additional songs from a posthumously released 7-inch and it’s been sequenced and designed by the band. Before Dadamah, Peter Stapleton played in The Terminals, Vacuum and The Victor Dimisich Band as well as The Pin Group with guitarist Roy Montgomery. Singer Kim Pieters and organ / synth player Janine Stagg had never been in a band before Dadamah. Dadamah only played live three times, devoting their efforts to four-track recording. Nevertheless, word managed to get out about the band and they were asked to contribute to the 1991 Drag City single “I Hear the Devil Calling Me” which featured twelve songs hovering around one minute each by a who’s who of the then current New Zealand underground music scene. They released their only album in 1992. Jay Hinman (currently of Dynamite Hemorrhage) noted Dadamah’s solitary place in the NZ underground in his Superdope fanzine: “Dead C. might blare and scrape, the Terminals might twist and wind, but Dadamah positively shimmer with beautifully earthy lo-fi Velvets / Ubu sound.”

Enhet För Fri Musik

Det Finns Ett Hjärta Som För Dig

Grapefruit

Enhet För Fri Musik is a free-folk and experimental music collective formed in 2015 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The band features assorted members of the current Swedish underground from bands like Neutral, Makthaverskan, Arv & Miljö, and Blod. A local scene supergroup, the band also runs the labels Förlag För Fri Musik and the Omlott imprint to document their own releases as well as the fertile underground scene surrounding them (much like the Xpressway label founded by artists Bruce Russell, Peter Jefferies, and Alastair Galbraith showcased the early experimental music scene in Dunedin, New Zealand in the late ’80s and early ’90s). Enhet För Fri Musik is the natural extension of a rich lineage going back to legendary Swedish bands from the ’70s, such as Pärson Sound, Trad Gras Och Stenar, International Harvester, and Arbete Och Fritid, whose music pushed boundaries and chose artistic innovation over any commercial concerns. Det Finns Ett Hjärta Som För Dig is the band’s fifth release and it’s a unique masterpiece. The mysteriously hypnotic album, released in July of 2017 in an extremely limited pressing of 300, sold out quickly without receiving distribution to greater Europe or the United States. The atmospheric record features atonal guitar, organ, tape effects, saxophone, and field recordings, in experimental song constructions that defy genre, moving like a river might through different environments, taking and leaving things as it moves, and coalescing around Sofie Herner’s haunting vocals. Grapefruit is extremely proud to be reissuing this rare thing of beauty in a...

Joyner, Simon

Pocket Moon

Grapefruit

***BACK IN STOCK!!!  “‘Singer-songwriter’ is a frustratingly confining term; to truly understand exactly just how confining, look no further than the recorded works of Simon Joyner, an artist whose work consistently transcends the narrow parameters of genre classifications and record shop bin cards. Though his music has always honored, reckoned with—wrestled with—the tradition set forth by his songwriting forebears (Cohen, Van Zandt, Ochs, Dylan, Reed to name a few), Joyner can always be counted on to defy expectations; as a lyricist, melodicist, and arranger, Joyner likes to keep us on our toes.  “For his new album Pocket Moon, Joyner opted to engage in a risky artistic challenge. Instead of leaning on his fertile pool of Omaha musicians (the amorphous Ghosts band), he asked friend and frequent collaborator Michael Krassner to assemble unknown players on his behalf specifically for this recording. He then traveled from his home base to Krassner’s ‘7-Track Shack’ studio in Phoenix to record the album, abandoning the literal and figurative comfort zone of old habits and home field advantage. Simultaneously sparser and more immediate than 2017’s obliquely topical Step Into The Earthquake, Pocket Moon is instantly one of Joyner’s finest albums since his redoubtable 2012 double album masterpiece, Ghosts, or to some ears the excellent, sonic 180 he managed with his follow-up, Grass, Branch & Bone. Krassner’s wrecking crew is sturdy, versatile, and complementary. Utilizing a wide range of instruments and textures, the band contributes additional nuance to each of the ragged, sublime songs...

Jefferies, Peter

Last Ticket Home

Grapefruit

Peter Jefferies, a living legend of New Zealand underground music, from his seminal bands Nocturnal Projections and This Kind Of Punishment, to his collaborative efforts in bands such as Plagal Grind and Two Foot Flame, is perhaps best known for his solo work on masterpieces such as The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World (1990) and Electricity (1994), as well as numerous other albums of his singular songcraft. Grapefruit is proud to be releasing Jefferies’ latest, Last Ticket Home, which leaves the station early in his career when The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World left off and takes us on a guided tour of a fascinating side street via rare singles, both released and unreleased, radical live interpretations, and a wealth of never released material dating from 1991-2019. Last Ticket Home redefines Jefferies’ artistic journey, giving us a song cycle narrative which scorches, blisters and eventually heals on its relentless, ragged way home.

Montgomery, Roy

Suffuse

Grapefruit

***BACK IN STOCK!!!  Received a 7.6 rating from Pitchfork. Despite praise and acclaim throughout his career, Roy Montgomery hates his singing. From his point of view, it’s done out of necessity, when he doesn’t have anyone else around to substitute. Roughly one quarter of Montgomery’s epic multi-album 2016 release R M H Q had his singing, and those are his least favorite tracks.  Grapefruit has done the best they can to argue that his basso undertones are the center of his appeal throughout his entire body of work, from the first The Pin Group single on Flying Nun in 1981, through his work in Dadamah, Dissolve and on to his legendary ’90s solo releases. However, is it a surprise he jumped at the idea of composing an album for other vocalists? This began as a series of alternate takes of the material on Tropic Of Anodyne, the tracks with vocals off his last release. That concept morphed into assembling vocalists to sing on new songs, and he conceived instrumental material that would fit each singer. Half of the songs came together, resulting in Suffuse. The album charts a slow progression from those who share similarities with Montgomery’s rumbling vocal technique to those who come at singing differently, with minute contrasts throughout. Haley Fohr (Circuit des Yeux) and Jessica Larrabee (She Keeps Bees) bring the first two tracks, with Katie Von Schleicher following with a raw expression of emotional loss, and the sisters Clementine and Valentine Nixon (Purple Pilgrims)...

Ament, Pat

Songs

Grapefruit

In 1971, at the age of 25, Pat Ament self-released his debut album, Songs By Pat Ament, in a very limited run for friends and local shops. The album is sparse and moody, conjuring a space not unlike the one that Songs Of Leonard Cohen occupies, featuring Ament on Wurlitzer with a jazz drummer and a guitarist alternating between acoustic and electric. It’s dark and at times forlorn, with meditations on yearning and loss and love. It’s ideal long-night-of-the-soul music. The lyricism evokes Dylan, Cohen, Tim Hardin and Bill Fay. When he released Songs, Ament was already a world renowned mountain climber, and he became famous for pioneering ’60s and ’70s ascents in Colorado and Yosemite. He wrote poetic books and essays on climbing, including biographies of legendary climbers Royal Robbins and John Gill. Through the years he’s balanced multiple simultaneous careers as artist, photographer, filmmaker, chess master, karate black belt, lecturer, teacher, and, yes, singer-songwriter. Pat Ament’s musical mastery was clear right out of the gate but it was only one of his many interests. Perhaps if he hadn’t been moved to pursue life’s other tempting summits and focused solely on music, he’d be as well known for his songs as for his climbing. Grapefruit is extremely proud to reissue this rare and virtually unknown singer-songwriter masterpiece, sourced from original sources and under Ament’s supervision, with original artwork and deluxe Stoughton tip-on jacket. The record also comes with a bonus career retrospective CD entitled Time Moved On of additional...

Ament, Pat

Time Moved On

Grapefruit

Pat Ament is best known to record collectors for his 1971 debut Songs, a self-released masterpiece. This CD (which also comes free in the LP reissue of Songs) collects the best of his musical output since, all chosen by Ament himself.  In addition to music, Ament is a world renowned mountain climber. He became famous for pioneering ’60s and ’70s ascents in Colorado and Yosemite. Additionally, he wrote poetic books and essays on climbing, including biographies of legendary climbers Royal Robbins and John Gill. Through the years he’s balanced multiple simultaneous careers as artist, photographer, filmmaker, chess master, karate black belt, lecturer, teacher, and, yes, singer-songwriter. The beauty of his songwriting remains clear-eyed throughout Time Moved On, a worthy retrospective highlighting the breadth of his artistry.

Sterba, Noah

The 13-bar Blues

Grapefruit

Noah Sterba is one of Omaha’s underground music heroes, literally performing most of his songs and poetry into dented Radio Shack microphones in the subterranean basements of tornado alley for the last decade. Beside releasing several solo cassettes on Unread Records, he was a founding member of short-lived critical darlings Yuppies, lo-fi local legends The Prairies (which also featured David Nance), and The Subtropics (whose posthumous double cassette is seeing vinyl reissue in 2017), and has been an important member of Simon Joyner’s Ghosts since 2011. He is also involved in a multimedia art/publishing collaboration called Slowed Soul with fellow local Omaha artist and musician Jeff Sedrel. In a time when so much music is fueled by self-congratulatory irony, The 13-Bar Blues is refreshing for its unapologetic sincerity. The album distills folk, blues, punk rock and country influences and merges them with poetry, allowing Sterba to graciously tear up his hat in the face of those who have come before him as he claws through America’s gnarly 21st century landscape with his tongue, pen, busted guitar, and wide open eyes. “I think it is music that needs to be out there right now... Almost every sort of rock or folk music, musics born of protest and boiling blood and grit and energy, has lulled back into apathy. Over the last six years this album created itself and whether or not it means anything is up to other people to decide, I suppose. What I can say is I put every...

Joyner, Simon & David Nance

Goat's Head Soup

Grapefruit

Do Simon Joyner and David Nance love or hate the Rolling Stones’ Jamaican vacation themed 1973 follow-up to Exile On Main Street? You’ll have to listen and decide for yourself. It might depend on how sacrosanct you feel about classic rock “masterpieces”! One thing’s for certain, the Grimmer Twins version is a bit more raw and experimental than the original Glimmer Twins record. “Some of the songs had decent lyrics but terrible music, like Keith had just conceded the band to Mick at this point, so we wrote our own music. At least one song had to be totally re-written with new words and music because it was so awful that neither of us could think of how to save it. We kept the title. But the others just needed to be played by people who give a shit.”

Montgomery, Roy

R M H Q: Headquarters

Grapefruit

It’s been over a decade since Roy Montgomery’s last album, and R M H Q is a hell of a return. This release contains four distinct records of new material. Listening to any of his work is a visceral experience—repeating phrases swell and decay, immersing the listener in the cyclical narrative of his compositions.Montgomery was in his rock band period in the eighties, when the dark, minimalist post-punk of The Pin Group lead into the gloriously open-ended freedoms of Dadamah. After a quiet spell, he returned in the late nineties, producing towering spires of guitar lines that exposed fragility between the strums. With his solo releases and in collaboration with Flying Saucer Attack, Bardo Pond (Hash Jar Tempo), and Chris Heaphy (Dissolve), his focus shifted from the truth-mining of rock music to epic celestialism. His ambitious yet humble tracks outstrip their origins, and Montgomery toured the world sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing twenty-plus-minute compositions.A long period of silence followed, marked only with a split album with Grouper (who lists Montgomery as a primary influence), involvement in Torlesse Super Group, and a couple thematic variations serving as soundtracks for films. Instead, he focused on his personal and professional commitments. Unfortunately, two horrific events preceded his return: the Christchurch earthquakes of 2011 condemned Montgomery’s entire neighborhood save for his home, stripping his street of a community; and, as a volunteer firefighter, he saw first-hand the destruction and loss of life in the city center. Additionally, since 2014, illness in the family...

Montgomery, Roy

H: Bender

Grapefruit

It’s been over a decade since Roy Montgomery’s last album, and R M H Q is a hell of a return. H: Bender harkens back to his nineties work, where guitar riffs ensconced themselves in dynamism. Montgomery’s trademark reverb-laden guitar offers a fluidity like pulsing blood, coloring in each motif’s corners and rewarding every deeper listen with heightened profundity. Montgomery was in his rock band period in the eighties, when the dark, minimalist post-punk of The Pin Group lead into the gloriously open-ended freedoms of Dadamah. After a quiet spell, he returned in the late nineties, producing towering spires of guitar lines that exposed fragility between the strums. With his solo releases and in collaboration with Flying Saucer Attack, Bardo Pond (Hash Jar Tempo), and Chris Heaphy (Dissolve), his focus shifted from the truth-mining of rock music to epic celestialism. His ambitious yet humble tracks outstrip their origins, and Montgomery toured the world sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing twenty-plus-minute compositions. A long period of silence followed, marked only with a split album with Grouper (who lists Montgomery as a primary influence), involvement in Torlesse Super Group, and a couple thematic variations serving as soundtracks for films. Instead, he focused on his personal and professional commitments. Unfortunately, two horrific events preceded his return: the Christchurch earthquakes of 2011 condemned Montgomery’s entire neighborhood save for his home, stripping his street of a community; and, as a volunteer firefighter, he saw first-hand the destruction and loss of life in the city center....

Montgomery, Roy

M: Darkmotif Dancehall

Grapefruit

It’s been over a decade since Roy Montgomery’s last album, and R M H Q is a hell of a return. M: Darkmotif Dancehall is the most experimental of the four albums. Montgomery explores new guitar tones and song construction, allowing thick distorted murk and overdriven sharpness to guide the melodies’ paths. It’s a playful montage of differing masks with discovered sounds laying the groundwork for each track to develop a mind of its own. “Six Guitar Salute For Peter Gutteridge,” is a standout upbeat number providing a personalized roadmap to the beyond, honoring the innovative original member of The Clean who could cook up melodies from the most bizarre ingredients, and who passed away last year. Montgomery was in his rock band period in the eighties, when the dark, minimalist post-punk of The Pin Group lead into the gloriously open-ended freedoms of Dadamah. After a quiet spell, he returned in the late nineties, producing towering spires of guitar lines that exposed fragility between the strums. With his solo releases and in collaboration with Flying Saucer Attack, Bardo Pond (Hash Jar Tempo), and Chris Heaphy (Dissolve), his focus shifted from the truth-mining of rock music to epic celestialism. His ambitious yet humble tracks outstrip their origins, and Montgomery toured the world sitting crosslegged on the floor, playing twenty-plus-minute compositions. A long period of silence followed, marked only with a split album with Grouper (who lists Montgomery as a primary influence), involvement in Torlesse Super Group, and a couple thematic variations...

Montgomery, Roy

Q: Transient Global Amnesia

Grapefruit

It’s been over a decade since Roy Montgomery’s last album, and R M H Q is a hell of a return. Q: Transient Global Amnesia concentrates on hope and despair, sinking singular guitar lines into dark passages. It dissects the personal politics of sadness, reveling in the honesty of depression while seeking to fully explore its facets. Compositions trade between heartworn declines and spirited rises, collapsing upon themselves in unmoored confusion before achieving signs of relief. It culminates with the twenty-minute transfigurative finale “Weathering Mortality,” where all previous questions intersect toward an uneasy, churning acceptance. Montgomery was in his rock band period in the eighties, when the dark, minimalist post-punk of The Pin Group lead into the gloriously open-ended freedoms of Dadamah. After a quiet spell, he returned in the late nineties, producing towering spires of guitar lines that exposed fragility between the strums. With his solo releases and in collaboration with Flying Saucer Attack, Bardo Pond (Hash Jar Tempo), and Chris Heaphy (Dissolve), his focus shifted from the truth-mining of rock music to epic celestialism. His ambitious yet humble tracks outstrip their origins, and Montgomery toured the world sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing twenty-plus-minute compositions. A long period of silence followed, marked only with a split album with Grouper (who lists Montgomery as a primary influence), involvement in Torlesse Super Group, and a couple thematic variations serving as soundtracks for films. Instead, he focused on his personal and professional commitments. Unfortunately, two horrific events preceded his return: the...

Montgomery, Roy

R: Tropic Of Anodyne

Grapefruit

It’s been over a decade since Roy Montgomery’s last album, and R M H Q is a hell of a return. R: Tropic of Anodyne highlights Montgomery’s baritone lamentations on every track. It sets the blueprint for all of R M H Q while displaying Montgomery’s talent for brevity. His self-reflective lyrics remain personal, even answering the Rolling Stones’ classic “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” with the sobering “You Always Get What You Deserve.” Montgomery was in his rock band period in the eighties, when the dark, minimalist post-punk of The Pin Group lead into the gloriously open-ended freedoms of Dadamah. After a quiet spell, he returned in the late nineties, producing towering spires of guitar lines that exposed fragility between the strums. With his solo releases and in collaboration with Flying Saucer Attack, Bardo Pond (Hash Jar Tempo), and Chris Heaphy (Dissolve), his focus shifted from the truth-mining of rock music to epic celestialism. His ambitious yet humble tracks outstrip their origins, and Montgomery toured the world sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing twenty-plus-minute compositions. A long period of silence followed, marked only with a split album with Grouper (who lists Montgomery as a primary influence), involvement in Torlesse Super Group, and a couple thematic variations serving as soundtracks for films. Instead, he focused on his personal and professional commitments. Unfortunately, two horrific events preceded his return: the Christchurch earthquakes of 2011 condemned Montgomery’s entire neighborhood save for his home, stripping his street of a community; and,...

Buildermash

Measly

Grapefruit

Collaborative four song recording project featuring Simon Joyner, David Nance, Bill Direen, Steve Cournane, Chris Deden, Stu Page, Andy McCully, and Pete Scott. LIMITED!!!

Garbage & The Flowers

Blessed Are Thee Who Sail With Shnoolee

Grapefruit

*** Limited bonus cassette released in conjunction with The Deep Niche - contains live recordings of unreleased songs from the mid-nineties, the same time The Deep Niche was recorded.

Builders

Beatin Hearts

Grapefruit

Bill Direen is a legend of the New Zealand underground. He has written and produced poetry, novels and a slew of recorded material. Weaned on garage bands in the late ’60s, Direen started producing seven-inch records in the early ’80s, all of them stunners. These releases—Six Impossible Things, Die Bilder, Soloman’s Ball and High Thirties Piano—were self-financed and distributed though Flying Nun (and recently reissued by the benevolent Unwucht label).  Beatin Hearts is Direen’s ultimate, unforgettable debut album, not to mention Flying Nun’s first full-length album release. All seventeen tracks are brilliant short pieces of energy, harmony and spite. Anyone with an appreciation for Flying Nun’s early recordings can find its genesis here, the dawning of one of the greatest music scenes to ever exist.

Garbage & The Flowers

The Deep Niche

Grapefruit

If you were a certain type of music fan in the mid-’90s, you may have heard tell of an incredible, incredibly hard-to-find double-album by The Garbage & The Flowers, Eyes Rind As If Beggars. Each jacket was hand-painted, and all 300 copies sold out in a flash. Thankfully, the great Bo’Weavil label reissued it in 2013. If you haven’t heard it, please do listen…OK, you heard it now? You’re welcome! The group was Helen Johnstone, Yuri Frusin and Paul Yates—an inspired trio who emphasized lyrical collaboration and sound manipulation as part and parcel to their melodies. They didn’t last long as a group, but luckily, they got a lot of their songs recorded. The Deep Niche is music they made before Eyes Rind and it is every bit as revelatory. Johnstone sings over raucous and raw instrumentation. It’s real rock, the real real thing. Torben Tilly joined just in time to contribute some keyboard to the track “29 Years,” although he mostly was their guitarist. Just in time, too, because The Deep Niche presents a band fresh to playing with some massive tools—The Tools Of Rock, natch. These songs are every bit as powerful as what you hear on Eyes Rind As If Beggars. Believe it.

Chenaux, Eric & Radwan Ghazi Moumneh

Sentimental Moves

Grapefruit

Grapefruit is a subscription-based record club now in its third year, founded by musician Simon Joyner and Ba Da Bing Records head Ben Goldberg to release exclusive, limited-edition, vinyl-only albums as part of an annual series, sharing identical cover art but in different colors. Subscribers receive an LP every three months, by artists that are of some renown, or are just getting started. The only connection between each group is that Joyner and Goldberg are both fans. Only 300 copies of each release are pressed—and for a limited time, these LPs are now available outside a direct subscription in extremely low quantities. Eric Chenaux experiments with ballads, songs, tunes, improvisations, guitars, very small speakers, The Reveries, The Draperies, Drumheller, Nightjars, The Guayaveras, The Allison Cameron Band, Eloïse Decazes, John Oswald, Michelle McAdorey, Aimée Dawn Robinson, Marla Hlady and the curation of the Toronto-based recording label, Rat-Drifting, co-founded with Martin Arnold in 2002. In the 1980s and 1990s Chenaux played in the hoary post-punk band Phleg Camp. About Chenaux’s guitar playing, Carl Wilson writes, “Ornette Coleman might call it harmolodic. Chenaux might call it an amazing background. His strings chime with all those thoughts at once. I adore the way he teases out a melody.” Radwan Ghazi Moumneh is a Lebanese musician, audio engineer / producer and co-owner of the Hotel2Tango recording studio in Montréal, where he currently resides. He also is the founder of Jerusalem in My Heart, a contemporary Arabic music and multiple 16mm film projector performance project on...

Dump

Silent Treatment

Grapefruit

Grapefruit is a subscription-based record club now in its third year, founded by musician Simon Joyner and Ba Da Bing Records head Ben Goldberg to release exclusive, limited-edition, vinyl-only albums as part of an annual series, sharing identical cover art but in different colors. Subscribers receive an LP every three months, by artists that are of some renown, or are just getting started. The only connection between each group is that Joyner and Goldberg are both fans. Only 300 copies of each release are pressed—and for a limited time, these LPs are now available outside a direct subscription in extremely low quantities. Dump is James McNew, known primarily for his work as a member of Yo La Tengo. The Silent Treatment, collection of new recordings, comes on the heels of a series of Dump reissues and features a couple covers (“You Say You Don’t Love Me” by The Buzzcocks and “Yo Yo Bye Bye” by Why?) amidst the beautiful originals.

Methe, L Eugene

Calendar Work

Grapefruit

Grapefruit is a subscription-based record club now in its third year, founded by musician Simon Joyner and Ba Da Bing Records head Ben Goldberg to release exclusive, limited-edition, vinyl-only albums as part of an annual series, sharing identical cover art but in different colors. Subscribers receive an LP every three months, by artists that are of some renown, or are just getting started. The only connection between each group is that Joyner and Goldberg are both fans. Only 300 copies of each release are pressed—and for a limited time, these LPs are now available outside a direct subscription in extremely low quantities. L. Eugene Methe has performed and recorded in Omaha and Austin under a variety of aliases over the last sixteen years, experimenting with song-forms from noise / improvisational to modern composer to whispering folk pop in bands and solo projects like The Naturaliste, Arnoux, The Citizen, Mancini’s Angels, Diamondhead, Rake Kash and recently as one-third of Spiritual Rags (his band with Simon Joyner and Chris Deden). He is an unsung hero of the Omaha music scene, famous for cutting his teeth on cathartic denouement at the legendary Kilgore’s club. Unlike other contemporary singer-songwriters, Methe’s vision is neither jaded nor ironic, but sincere and confident in its poetic exploration of difficult universal themes. This sometimes lush, often stark autumnal record is a gorgeous addition to his impressive and largely out-of-print discography.

Nance, David Kenneth

Actor’s Diary

Grapefruit

Grapefruit is a subscription-based record club now in its third year, founded by musician Simon Joyner and Ba Da Bing Records head Ben Goldberg to release exclusive, limited-edition, vinyl-only albums as part of an annual series, sharing identical cover art but in different colors. Subscribers receive an LP every three months, by artists that are of some renown, or are just getting started. The only connection between each group is that Joyner and Goldberg are both fans. Only 300 copies of each release are pressed—and for a limited time, these LPs are now available outside a direct subscription in extremely low quantities. Goldilocked hero and Unread Records cassette veteran David Kenneth Nance recently stepped out of his burned-out basement in Omaha, Nebraska, and steeped himself in the city of angels, provoking collective grief and inciting small riots in the hearts of Omaha’s house show universe. Rocker and singer-songwriter from that catchy, shambolic mess called The Prairies, he also plays lead guitar and shouts in Simon Joyner’s band, the Ghosts. Here he is making his vinyl debut, paying debts and taking names. Recorded late at night alone in Joyner’s warehouse studio, Casa de los Fantasmas, over a two-month period leading up to his West Coast pilgrimage, Actor’s Diary confides anguish and expectation and meditations on what was, is, and might be in the artist’s life. A certain Omaha sacred monster recently called Nance “the best bad guitarist he’s ever heard.” Channeling Jim Shepard, heroin-era Stones and New Zealand’s notorious Jefferies brothers...

Renderizors

Vivid Cloud / Lucky Din

Grapefruit

Grapefruit is a subscription-based record club now in its third year, founded by musician Simon Joyner and Ba Da Bing Records head Ben Goldberg to release exclusive, limited-edition, vinyl-only albums as part of an annual series, sharing identical cover art but in different colors. Subscribers receive an LP every three months, by artists that are of some renown, or are just getting started. The only connection between each group is that Joyner and Goldberg are both fans. Only 300 copies of each release are pressed—and for a limited time, these LPs are now available outside a direct subscription in extremely low quantities. The Renderizors is an off-shoot project from The Renderers, a New Zealand alt-country / rock / psych noisy band that emerged in the early 1990s based around the husband / wife songwriting team of Brian and Maryrose Crook. Together they have released seven albums and numerous singles and compilation tracks over the 20-something years. The Renderizors first came into being to describe a project with Nathan Thompson and James (T) Kirk of Sandoz Lab Technicians, one of the best experimental free noise exponents New Zealand offered at the time. They recorded an album between 2000 and 2001 and played five or six shows, including the big Dunedin Sound festival recorded by KFJC and broadcast by KFJC and WFMU. A triple-CD was issued by KFJC which featured several songs by each band (Plagal Grind, The Dead C, Snapper, etc.). This album was recorded with Sha Nonn and iRory (Creche)...

Russell, Bruce & Roy Montgomery

Split

Grapefruit

Grapefruit is a subscription-based record club now in its third year, founded by musician Simon Joyner and Ba Da Bing Records head Ben Goldberg to release exclusive, limited-edition, vinyl-only albums as part of an annual series, sharing identical cover art but in different colors. Subscribers receive an LP every three months, by artists that are of some renown, or are just getting started. The only connection between each group is that Joyner and Goldberg are both fans. Only 300 copies of each release are pressed—and for a limited time, these LPs are now available outside a direct subscription in extremely low quantities. This split LP features side-length tracks by two free noise avant-garde pioneers, Bruce Russell and Roy Montgomery. Both artists hail from the fertile New Zealand music scene and have been making challenging, inspirational sounds since the early 1980s. Russell is known primarily as one of the driving forces in the seminal Dead C, as well as the founder of the important Xpressway and Corpus Hermeticum labels. His experimental guitar work can also be heard in his other band, A Handful of Dust, as well as on solo recordings. Roy Montgomery released his first single as part of The Pin Group in 1981 on Flying Nun Records. He went on to collaborate in the influential Dadamah as well as a number of other New Zealand bands in the ’80s and ’90s. In the mid-’90s he made a trip around the world, which resulted in a wealth of releases showcasing...

Direen, Bill And The Hat

Flavour Of The Meat

Grapefruit

Grapefruit is a subscription-based record club now in its third year, founded by musician Simon Joyner and Ba Da Bing Records head Ben Goldberg to release exclusive, limited-edition, vinyl-only albums as part of an annual series, sharing identical cover art but in different colors. Subscribers receive an LP every three months, by artists that are of some renown, or are just getting started. The only connection between each group is that Joyner and Goldberg are both fans. Only 300 copies of each release are pressed—and for a limited time, these LPs are now available outside a direct subscription in extremely low quantities. Bill Direen and Hamish Kilgour go back to the early days of NZ’s Flying Nun label and even earlier, when the members of bands like The Clean and Vacuum would skulk to each other’s shows in small bars or run-down church halls in the suburbs of Christchurch. In 1983, Direen and Kilgour were working within a cat’s call of each other, Kilgour at Flying Nun Records and Direen at his Blue Ladder Theatre. The Clean worked out in the Blue Ladder rehearsal rooms and Direen and Alec Bathgate laid down the eerie “Spell” there on reel-to-reel four-track. But it wasn’t until 1989 that Direen and Kilgour worked together on a recording project, when Direen visited NYC for the first time, staying downtown for a couple of months. Kilgour, Lower East Side resident, invited some musician friends to make up a band; Direen flew a former Bilder up from...