“Jovantaes are Lexington, KY. They emerge from (and possibly define) my town’s peculiar skate / kraut / nihil / garage axis, evoking the smell of stale Miller High Life and burning couches: stumbling match-grip surf rolls; howling, chorused-out guitar; droning Adderall haze; and a singer who makes Will Shatter sound like Scott Walker. Imagine Moolah playing at a beach party on the edge of the Kentucky River, big gray globs of unidentifiable garbage drifting silently past and the dense wet air becomes gridlocked with mosquitoes.” —Trevor Tremaine (Hair Police) The current (and longest-running) lineup consists of Mark Murray on guitar and electronics, Reid Small on drums and vocals, and Josh Blaine on bass and home modified electronics. Recorded mostly at Small’s Void Skateshop in Lexington, Things Are Different Here is a fresh look at the future of underground improvised music.
LP $17.50
10/11/2011
MP3 $5.94
10/11/2011
Raf Spielman was born and raised on the West Coast. He is active in the fringe music community through his Eggy Records label, and has released music on the Night-People, Digitalis and Not Not Fun labels, among others. A book of Spielman’s drawings was recently published by Container Corps Arts Press. Following a handful of cassettes and a 7-inch under the Polyps moniker, this debut LP was assembled from a year and half’s worth of sound and field recordings and is his most realized statement to date. “It’s never right, because it doesn’t have everything in it” (de Kooning). “[The Polyps’ Peixe is a] worthwhile little bedroom pop single.... A-side is some bouncy Elephant 6 type pop with the distortion cranked up; B-side shows a more sensitive, late-night brooding feel to it, with a prominent Xpressway bent—strongly reminiscent of the Jefferies Bros or Pumice. A solid effort from one Raf Spielman and guests, aiming to keep it pure.” —Dusted
LP $17.50
10/11/2011
MP3 $5.99
10/11/2011
“One of the most gifted abstract sonic pilots from the Vacationland stable, Portland, Maine, artist Matt Lajoie enjoys a larger-than-Sasquatch reputation for his free folk personality and unpredictable takes on Spectrasound techniques. Although he and his merry band are one of the most charismatic tribes of the New England underground—you gotta see them live—they blossom from psychedelic occurrences that lead to bursts of pacifist oblivion which can only be redeemed inside their studio output. The momentum Lajoie deploys in his polar expressions indicates a supply of time-manipulated balance. An accretion of bucket brigades warping wildly at first breath, generally considered a condition of primitivism, this is searchlight abandonment with purely spirited jams more akin to the tapers pit than slam continuance. In fact, the only thing slammed here (other than the muted poetry echoing like buoys in Golowin’s harbor) are the ‘in the red’ meters on fire signs from fire music providing ease with earth, wind and air. Long may we inhale. “This is a heady atmosphere, an atmosphere for heads, and it not only delivers the contempo dreamlike aspect at the apex of its form, but transcends it to those revolving with them. Take this fucker for a spin.” —Matt Valentine, Vermont, 2011 “... stunning navigation of druggy Matthew Valentine / Spectrasound-styled psychedelic folk, with a thick smoke of F/X masking some fantastic rural rock that at points sounds like a ’90s underground take on Skip Spence’s Oar or a Dead bootleg on Majora. Either way this...
LP $17.50
06/14/2011
MP3 $9.90
06/14/2011
Sweet Hassle is the debut LP from Ryan Garbes (Wet Hair, Raccoo-oo-oon), fresh from his 7-inch on Arbor and his cassette on NNA. A man in a small college town hours away from the influences that foul a musician’s mind, Garbes has a lot of time to hang, especially in the recording studio. On Sweet Hassle, he incorporates heavy Velvets live bootleg vibes straight from the bedroom soundboard, with a touch of melodic electronic drone and a Byrds dusting. “... as if Lou Reed had done a record for Creation...” —Raven Sings the Blues “Garbes conjures boggling galactic plinking and trippy interlocking organ tones that make the sound of some sort of benevolent universal energy at work. When the vocals emerge, it becomes an alien hymn, used for space travel through the astral plane, of course.” —Foxy Digitalis “… garage rock that confuses the Velvets “Ocean” and The Doors “When the Music’s Over” with early Sonic Boom and second-album Suicide.” —David Keenan (Volcanic Tongue)
LP $17.50
05/17/2011
MP3 $9.90
05/17/2011
***December 2009: Days after returning to Maine following three heavy months on the road, Blows Against the Empire in one hand, Admiral Richard Byrd's secret diary in the other, Matthew Lajoie (Cursillistas) awoke one morning having dreamt the existence of a lost 1973 concept record about the exploration of inner Earth and the advanced civilization thriving at its center--Agartha, the domain of the Arianni. Using Byrd's account as the thematic framework for the album, he feverishly poured forth a representation of the imagined record, writing and recording the entire LP in a single 24-hour period--guided by sonic Ouija. The result is a cosmic antenna with dials tuned to the Planet Earth Rock 'n' Roll Orchestra, obscure psych-prog spacecasts, and classic rock radio, all refracted through the dusty, cracked and scratched Cursillistas prism. Performed entirely on a borrowed thrift store electric guitar and broken microphone, Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha was birthed in the Now to scatter the seeds of Agartha's message in our Aquarian Dark Age. Limited to 500 copies.
LP $17.50
06/08/2010
MP3 $9.90
06/08/2010