***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.2 rating from Pitchfork. Northern California electronic producer Fred Welton Warmsley III’s solo work as Dedekind Cut (pronounced “dead-da-ken cut”) has evolved from fractured industrial design into increasingly subdued and sublime ambient meditations across two years of dedicated activity. His second full-length collection, Tahoe—so named after the mountain lake town he now calls home—swells with widescreen grandeur, evoking vistas both inner and outer. There are echoes of his earlier, more tempestuous mode in tracks like “MMXIX” and “Spiral” but overall the album skews panoramic and pensive, muted synthetic mists contoured with choral melody, field recordings, and radiant drone. His compositional instincts feel alternately classical, contemporary, and conflicted, befitting an artist whose discography spans labels as divergent as Hospital Productions, Ninja Tune, and NON. Warmsley characterizes Tahoe as a “time peace,” sifting through “the past, the present, future, and fantasy.” Recorded primarily in New York, with additional sessions sourced from Berlin, Cambridge, and Placer County, California.
CD $14.00
02/23/2018
2XLP $24.00
02/23/2018
A few years ago Kranky received an anonymous email with a link to three tracks and a simple message: “Hi, maybe you would be interested in this music.” The songs were instantly striking: extraordinarily slow, somber, and spacious, each vaulted cathedral chord reverberating poetically into the distance, the melodies rolling out like fog across a cemetery. Captivated, Kranky requested more, receiving a single word in response: “Yes.” Then, nothing. Eventually, three months later, another email with slightly more information was received: a name (Irma Orm), a location (Stockholm), and a bit of context (she worked alone, and progress on music was slow but steady ). Fast-forward to mid-2016: the album is complete: Nektyr, by Demen, and it is breathtaking. Hermetic gothicswan songs conjured from funereal piano, twilit ambience, minimalist percussion, and spellbinding vocals. The mood is lulling and lush but lost in sorrow, stark grey structures looming in the night. Majestic open spaces between notes heighten the melancholic grandeur of Orm’s arrangements, blurring the line between lament and lullaby. The songs don’t end so much as ebb away, succumbing to their own downcast beauty.
LP $19.00
06/09/2017
CD $14.00
05/19/2017
Michigan trumpeter Justin Walter’s solo work centers on evocative, intuitive explorations of the EVI (Electronic Valve Instrument), a rare wind-controlled analog synthesizer from the 1970s. Its unique, smeared tonality allows for an expressive range of glassy, jazz-like textures, which Walter loops and layers with hushed electronics and twilit trumpet, painting opaque landscapes of resonant beauty. Walter’s 2013 debut, Lullabies & Nightmares, included a handful of collaborations with percussionist Quin Kirchner, but Unseen Forces finds him fully solo, refining the project to its essence: shape-shifting watercolors of pastel haze, lit by the soft synthetic glow of electric breath. It’s a sound both modern and timeless, fusing emotion and technology, gauze and melody, force and fragility.
LP $19.00
04/21/2017
CD $14.00
04/21/2017
Ambient power duo Anjou’s sophomore statement continues in the vein of their 2014 debut, unfurling a full hour of mesmeric synthetic drift and veiled melodic undertow. Comprised of Mark Nelson (of pioneering post-rock experimentalists Labradford and Pan·American) and Robert Donne (of Labradford, Aix Em Klemm, Cristal), the group works largely in long-form suites of sound, alternately spacious and dense. Epithymia’s six pieces embrace flux and ambiguity: drones swell and shudder, hushed currents of noise glitch and dissolve, atmospheres congeal and liquify. As with the participants’ prior projects, Anjou evokes a shadowed, mysterious mood, variously melancholy and transcendent. The album is an accumulation of craftsmanship and experience, blurred forms traced in light and fog.
CD $14.00
03/24/2017
2XLP $24.00
04/07/2017
High Plains is the duo of Scott Morgan and Mark Bridges. Morgan, based in the Canadian Pacific Northwest, is predominantly known for his drifting, textured soundscapes released under the pseudonym Loscil. Bridges is an accomplished, classically-trained cellist residing in Madison, Wisconsin. The two met in Banff, Alberta, while they were there on residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2014. In early 2016, the duo embarked on a collaborative set of compositions in the oxygen thin air of Wyoming, spending two weeks holed up in a refurbished school house in the town of Saratoga, where this album was recorded. Inspired by Schubert’s Die Winterreise and the rolling landscapes of their surroundings, the recordings evoke a shadowy, introspective and dizzying winter journey. Cinderland takes cues from classical, electronic and cinematic musical traditions but is mostly a product of the rugged, mythic landscape: vast and sprawling with a wild, uncertain edge. The recording was made with a portable studio and all sounds were sourced on site, most notably from Bridges’ cello, the resident Steinway D piano, and field recordings collected from the local soundscape. The results are a site-specific, wide-scope view of the high valley terrain — a mix of analog and digital, neoclassical and modern electronic sounds, a complementary series of tracks to become absorbed in, a truly deep listening experience.
LP $19.00
03/10/2017
CD $14.00
03/10/2017
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received an 8.1 rating from Pitchfork. Jacob Long’s newest recordings under the Earthen Sea moniker deepen his compelling synthesis of shadowy rhythms and opaque atmospherics, drawing on the most potent qualities of melancholic ambient and dub techno. An Act Of Love follows 2015’s Ink, released via Ital’s Lovers Rock imprint, and was inspired by internal tribulations and the experience of exploring an empty nocturnal metropolis. Careful waves of tones drift and decay; beats materialize and pulse across twilit landscapes; a noir mood reigns. Given Long’s background as bassist for revelatory tribalpunk trio MI AMI, this album showcases a musician in the midst of transcendent redefinition, crafting an immersive language of texture and motion.
LP $19.00
02/17/2017
CD $14.00
02/17/2017
***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Recieved a 7.4 rating from Pitchfork. Monument Builders is the new album from loscil, the ambient/electronic project of prolific composer Scott Morgan. It was primarily created on sample-based instruments in Morgan’s century old Vancouver home. Like that aged space, this music is also rough-hewn, with rickety samples of boiling kettles and resonant moving air. Recordings from a vintage micro-cassette recorder contribute distortion, rattles and textures that serve as both percussion and abstract aural color. According to Morgan, the genesis for the album may have begun as he viewed an old VHS copy of the American experimental film Koyaanisqatsi. “Something about the time-tarnished visuals and the pitch warble on Philip Glass’s epic score added a new layer of intrigue for me,” says Morgan. “Glass has always been an influence but lo-fi Glass felt like a minor revelation, as if the decay was actually enhancing the impact of the film’s message.” The investigations on Monument Builders also took inspiration from the anti-humanist writings of influential philosopher John Gray, as well as photographer Edward Burtynsky’s iconic aerial photographs of pollution and environmental destruction. “Gray’s writing, particularly his book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, reinforced a bleak notion I had that we humans don’t have much say in how it all turns out,” says Morgan. “With Burtynsky, I was struck by the fact that something so strikingly beautiful could be the result of large-scale waste and exploitation.” Monument Builders was composed during a period in which the...
LP $19.00
12/30/2016
CD $14.00
11/11/2016
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.6 rating from Pitchfork. "Strands is a song cycle that is about cosmogony and creation/destruction myths. The title alludes to the structural constitution of ropes as I wanted to approach the compositions so that they consisted of strands and fibers which form a unified whole. This was so the songs could have the appearance of being either taut or slack without being fundamentally locked to a grid. So the sounds/tones have a certain malleability to them and sound like they're bending through time. It's also grittier and more distorted than my previous albums. I wanted to try and capture that moment in nature and society where life slowly reemerges through desolation, so it has a layer of optimism looming underneath. The music represents this by seemingly decaying at times but then reforms and morphs in a fluid way back to its original state. I was also inspired by the movement of rivers, particularly their transformative aspect and how they're in a state of flux and change, in particular the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland where I live, which notoriously caught on fire thirteen times because of industrial pollution in the 1960s and before. I was very interested in the dichotomy of oil and water and the resulting, unnatural symptoms of human industry. It's a very personal record for me as it is a reflection of my hometown where I grew up and where it was mostly recorded."—Steve Hauschildt. (STREET DATE - 10/28/2016)
LP $19.00
10/28/2016
CD $14.00
10/28/2016
***The Benoît Pioulard Listening Matter is the sixth kranky album from THOMAS MELUCH under the nom de plume BENOIT PIOULARD. It arrives on the 10th anniversary of his first LP Précis, and offers a rekindled focus on self-examination, as well as a return to vocal-based pop structures following the mostly instrumental Sonnet (2015). Recording for the Listening Matter began during a period of grief, turmoil and self-medication, and continued throughout two years of growth and healing. Reflections on vice (“Layette,” “Anchor as the Muse”), virtue (“Narcologue”) and death (“A mantle for Charon”) feature equally in this concise treatise aimed at the flawed-but-resilient core in us all. By coincidence this album was completed on the very day Meluch’s only brother died; accordingly, it’s dedicated to him and anyone seeking paths away from their demons. No Export to the EU / UK.
LP $19.00
10/14/2016
CD $14.00
10/14/2016
***Physicalist is the third album from New York City synthesis trio FORMA. Since their acclaimed sel-ftitled debut in 2011, Forma have been perfecting a distinctive style of improvised kosmische and minimalism that blends swirling arpeggios, ambient soundscapes, and driving motorik beats. Physicalist is a sprawling, double LP journey featuring new member and multi-instrumentalist JOHN ALSO BENNETT, who replaced Sophie Lam in 2014. The first Forma album to include acoustic instrumentation, Physicalist owes more to American composers like Harold Budd or Terry Riley than Klaus Schulze and other Krautrock visionaries. The album was recorded during marathon sessions at Brooklyn’s Gary’s Electric studio, and is packaged in a gatefold jacket with original artwork by ROBERT BEATTY and a liner notes essay by writer and critic MICHAEL BARRON. Physicalist was mastered by BOB WESTON.
CD $14.00
09/23/2016
2XLP $24.00
09/23/2016
***BACK IN STOCK!!! MELISSA GUION is MJ GUIDER. She lives and works in New Orleans and previously released the Green Plastic extended play cassette in early 2014 on the Constellation Tatsu label. Employing heavy washes of bass and a deft touch in mixing, she uses stark contrasts to construct a semi-surreal aural space. What results are songs that exist in a wholly contained sound environment, minimal yet lush, spare yet saturated, and most importantly, entirely compelling. Having recently expanded to a trio, the group will be making select live appearances following Precious Systems release.
LP $19.00
07/15/2016
CD $14.00
07/15/2016
***Continuing the explorations of the analog synthesizer first revealed on his last album, CHRISTOPHER BISSONNETTE's deft touch in recording and mixing is a joy to experience. While most contemporary analog synth slingers find themselves unable to not overload the sound-field with the endless array of possibilities the instrument provides, Bissonnette provides a master class in economy and control. "This new series of works reflects an evolution of my adeptness with modular synthesis. As with my previous release Essays in Idleness, Pitch, Paper & Foil was constructed from a range of synthesis and compositional techniques. The goal with this album was to form a collection that exhibits more restraint than previous works. Modular synthesis can be an unruly medium and taming it in order to produce delicate or subtle tones can be challenging. As with Essays..., I have allowed the artifacts of the process to find their way into the finished product. Tape noise, distortion and by-products of the random sequencing method all contribute to the character of the final recordings."—Christopher Bissonnette
LP $19.00
11/06/2015
CD $14.00
11/06/2015
***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Album Nº3 from CHRISTINA VANTZOU is the result of a two-year process of composing, arranging, rearranging, experimenting, and melding classical instruments with synths and electronics. Recorded in Belgium with a 15-piece ensemble of strings, horns, woodwinds and micro-choir, the tracks vacillate between orchestral, ambient soundscapes and more structured works that the composer refers to as "pillars." The internal core of the record, however, is unwavering. All tracks head in the direction of otherworldly drones surrounded by soft, subtle and sometimes intense veils or points. The structured tracks mark a new direction for Vantzou. Whereas 100% of the music on Nº1 and Nº2 was composed without time structure or steady click, the pillars on Nº3 adhere to a solid mathematical scheme. Perhaps Vantzou's day job as a math teacher is starting to have an influence. Nº3's virtual instruments and voice samples hearken back to Vantzou's time with The Dead Texan, specifically tracks like "Aegina AIrlines" and "When I see scissors I cannot help but think of you". The synths on Nº3 were given special attention and were recorded over a 2 week period using a DX7, Yamaha CS20, Roland Juno-6, and a selection of eurorack modular synths, making Nº3 very much a hybrid record, both symphonic and synth-based. To complete the album, Vantzou made 2 slow motion videos using a phantom high-speed camera and a 16mm short film.
CD $14.00
10/16/2015
2XLP $24.00
11/27/2015
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.5 rating from Pitchfork. Steve Hauschildt's new album is his first since the late 2012 release of "Sequitur." Although Where All Is Fled sonically harkens back to his earlier albums such as Rapt for Liquid Minister and Tragedy & Geometry, it slowly becomes apparent that it is also a divergence from those recordings. Both the artwork and the music on this new work were heavily inspired by surrealist landscape paintings, early alchemical emblems, and recurring visions Steve had from dreams. The result is a pristine series of cascading melodies, fantastical terrains of layered lattices, and overlapping patterns of synthesizers superimposed with orchestral instrumentation. Hidden in the crevices of the album are processed crowd sounds, re-sampled text-to-speech synthesis, piano, and animal noises which reveal themselves after repeated listens and blur together notions of artificial and natural sound. While slowly unfurling, each sound is given it's own place and space, never hurried, never cluttered. The album is a modern kosmische milepost, and the most accomplished statement of Steve Hauschildt's vision yet.
CD $14.00
09/25/2015
2XLP $24.00
10/06/2015
***BACK IN STOCK!!! HELEN is a pop group from Oregon. LIZ HARRIS (vocals/lead guitar), JED BINDEMAN (drums/tambourine), SCOTT SIMMONS (bass/guitar), and HELEN (back up vocals). Originally started with the intention of being a thrash band, it turned into something else entirely. The Original Faces was recorded over a period of several years in Portland by the band members, their friends NICK, CHRIS and, largely, JUSTIN HIGGINS. Written together, some songs based on Liz and Scottʼs demos.
LP $20.25
09/08/2015
CD $14.00
09/04/2015
***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Guitarist KEN CAMDEN returns for his third solo album, continuing his explorations to seek out new techniques and sounds from the electric guitar. By utilizing both a steel slide and e-bow technique, Camden has moved into micro-tonal territory to bridge the textural gap between guitar and synthesizer while examining their inherent differences. The palette is further broadened by introducing an organic vocal sampling machine described as a Vocaltron. Much like a Mellotron, vocal samples (contributed by EMILY ELHAJ and ANGEL OLSEN) are chromatically organized in half steps from the lowest note to the highest possible. Each set is specific to the contributor's range and each note is unedited to keep all original characteristics of that particular individual's voice. This organized organic information adds a contrast to the electric guitar and synthesizer arrangements on the album. The development of all of these systems gives Dream Memory a diversity throughout it's tracks while maintaining an atmospheric bond that weaves the ideas into a thematic whole.
LP $19.00
06/16/2015
CD $14.00
06/16/2015
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.1 rating from Pitchfork. For the last seven years fans of HONEY OWENS’ VALET have been patiently wondering if they would ever hear another record of her trademark ephemeral, fractured blues. Owens herself had been unsure she'd revive the Valet name after six busy years exploring psychedelic house music in the MIRACLES CLUB with her partner RAFAEL FAURIA. But the arrival of Owens and Fauria's first child would soon inaugurate a time of change and reflection that would lead to the surprising arrival of Valet's third LP, Nature. Recorded at home over the course of a year, Nature evolved as a collaboration between Owens, Fauria, and drummer/bassist/keyboardist MARK BURDEN. The album finds the trio crafting enveloping layers of guitars, synthesizers, and reverb to create a shimmering, wide open sound. It's a restrained, direct style, but tying it all together is a lulling, dreamy melodic sense that is distinctively Valet. At the center stands Owens' ethereal voice, which has transitioned from evoking trippy fantasies to creating space for honest contemplation. Informed by Owens' early musical life in the ‘90s Bay Area underground music scene, Nature slyly synthesizes the DIY spirit of punk, the expansive guitar whorl of shoegaze, and the propulsive rhythmic drive of dub. For Valet, Nature's sound is a change in style, but not substance. From the haunted blues of 2006's Blood is Clean to the Fourth World free fusion of 2008's Naked Acid, Owens and company have always demonstrated a mastery of bringing together...
LP $19.00
05/26/2015
CD $14.00
05/26/2015
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.2 rating from Pitchfork. The sound of the fifth BENOIT PIOLARD full length is lush and verdant, a temperate rain forest of ear ecstasy that reflects the environment surrounding the artist. A mostly instrumental work, it is an adept melding of song and sound, melody and texture, the intangible and the palpable, that in an abstract sense recalls the more fractured and loose end of the ‘70s krautrock movement. (STREET DATE - 3/31/2015) "The basis of the album was a series of field recordings of tones and unintentional harmonies that I made in the summer & fall of 2013—whistling industrial air conditioners, bird songs, locust drones, washing machines—that I mimicked or interpreted on the guitar, making loops that developed into fuller compositions. Several of the pieces are recreations of harmony loops that I heard in a series of extraordinarily vivid dreams, and then woke up and recorded. A few pieces had lyrics and vocal parts that I ultimately removed; at a certain point the album became an exercise in restraint, so I strove to leave only what I felt absolutely essential. Unlike most of my previous recordings, there are no digital / software after-effects on the album; all sounds are from analog tape and / or my few guitar pedals."—Thomas Meluch (Benoit Pioulard)
LP $19.00
03/31/2015
CD $14.00
03/31/2015
***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Received a 7.0 rating from Pitchfork. Irreal, the fifth long player from Chicago's DISAPPEARS, is another trip down the rabbit hole. The album plays out as a dream sequence—hazed dub landscapes give way to the groupʼs most experimental and open music yet. If their last album Era confirmed the fact that Disappears are on their own trip, then Irreal is where it kicks in. Eternalism, roboethics, identity—it's a Ballardian mix of imperfect melodies, half thoughts and good ol' dystopian modernity. Itʼs a master class in texture, pace and control. Produced by JOHN CONGLETON at famed Chicago recording institution Electrical Audio, Irreal sits in the negative space where art rock and post punk collapse onto each other. It's the sound of Disappears reporting back from The Void.
LP $19.00
01/27/2015
CD $14.00
01/20/2015
BACK IN STOCK!!***Sea Island is a collection of new material composed and recorded over the past two years. While many of these compositions were performed live extensively prior to recording, others were constructed in the studio and are being heard for the first time here. Musically, the album represents a range of compositional approaches. Murky, densely textured depths of sound are explored with subtle pulses and pings woven within, contrasted with composed or improvised moments of acoustic instrumentation making a move into the foreground. Certain tracks on Sea Island such as album opener “Ahul”l make rhythm their focus by exploring subtle polyrhythms and investigating colliding moments of repetition and variation. Though staunchly electronic at its core, instruments such as vibraphone and piano make appearances, and layers of live musicality, improvisation and detail appear in the looped and layered beds of manipulated sound recordings. A varied cast of players appear in the loscil “ensemble”, some familiar collaborators from the past such as JASON ZUMPANO on Rhodes and JOSH LINDSTROM on vibraphone, and others new to the mix such as FILEDHEAD’s ELAINE REYNOLDS, who provides layered violin on “Catalina 1943,” and ASHLEY PITRE contributing vocals on “Bleeding Ink.” Seattle pianist KELLY WYSE, who collaborated with LOSCIL on his 2013 edition of piano-centric reworks Intervalo, performs on the tracks “Sea Island Murders” and “En Masse.” (STREET DATE - 11/18/2014)
CD $14.00
11/18/2014
2XLP $24.00
11/18/2014
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received an 8.8 Best New Music rating from Pitchfork. “Ruins was made in Aljezur, Portugal in 2011 on a residency set up by Galeria Zé dos Bois. I recorded everything there except the last song, which I did at mother's house in 2004. Iʼm still surprised by what I wound up with. It was the first time Iʼd sat still for a few years; processed a lot of political anger and emotional garbage. Recorded pretty simply, with a portable 4-track, Sony stereo mic and an upright piano. When I wasnʼt recording songs I was hiking several miles to the beach. The path wound through the ruins of several old estates and a small village. The album is a document. A nod to that daily walk. Failed structures. Living in the remains of love. I left the songs the way they came (microwave beep from when power went out after a storm); I hope that the album bears some resemblance to the place that I was in.”—Liz Harris (STREET DATE - 10/31/2014)
LP $20.25
10/31/2014
CD $14.00
10/31/2014
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received a 7.3 rating from Pitchfork. After releasing a first glimpse in the form of the Atomos VII EP earlier this year, A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN reveal their second full-length album entitled Atomos which sees the duo introduce flurries of electronics, harp and modular synthesizers to their sound in the follow-up to the 2011 self- titled album. In 2013 AWVFTS caught the ear of WAYNE MCGREGOR, founder of Random Dance Company and resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet, who is perhaps best known for his choreography work on the Radiohead video 'Lotus Flower' as well as 'Ingenueʼ by Atoms For Peace. McGregor used the debut album as the warm-up music during practice sessions for Random, and after noticing the group's reaction with the music, he contacted ADAM and DUSTIN to see if they would write the score for his new work. Given complete artistic freedom, the duo treated the score with the same care and attention as their debut full-length by recording more than sixty minutes of music over a four-month period across studios in Brussels, Berlin and Reykjavik with the help of their long time collaborative sound engineer FRANCESCO DONADELLO. During the process they came to the realization that this would become their official second studio album. McGregor provided them with the inspiration to expand their sound palette into more electronic territory, whilst keeping their signature chamber sound, resulting in a very unique release.
CD $14.00
10/07/2014
2XLP $24.00
10/14/2014
***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! The culmination of four years writing and editing, ANJOU marks the first collaboration between LABRADFORD’s ROBERT DONNE and MARK NELSON since the release of that groupʼs fixed:context LP. Combining modular synthesis, Max/MSP programming and live instrumentation, Anjou deftly weaves noise with gentle ambience and melody with texture. Guitar, bass and Steven Hessʼ (Locrian, Fennesz, Pan American) live percussion give the eight pieces an immediacy and create a framework for the more abstract sounds of digital and analog synth programming. The product of twenty plus years of friendship, Anjou is refined and challenging. An extension of the Labradford sound-world but no mere victory lap, Anjou represents Donne and Nelson stepping out and forward, their eyes firmly focusing on the future.
LP $19.00
09/23/2014
CD $14.00
09/16/2014
***BACK IN STOCK!!! This new EP from A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN heralds the arrival of a new full length album later this year, a score for choreographer WAYNE MCGREGOR’s long form dance piece of the same name. McGregor, mastermind behind "Random Dance Company", and resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet since 2006, is known in popular culture circles for serving as movement director for the film, Harry Potter' and the 'Goblet of Fire. He has also choreographed the Radiohead video 'Lotus Flower' and 'Ingenue' by Atoms for Peace. McGregor was influenced by the duo's 2011 self-titled debut, playing it repeatedly during practices with his core group of dancers. After noticing the group's reaction with the music, he contacted AWVftS to see if they *would write the score for his new oeuvre and the collaboration was begun. As a final note of symbiosis, the EP also sees the involvement of BEN FROST, who composed McGregors previous work 'Far'. The title track is taken from the upcoming full length album Atomos, track 2 is an outtake from AWVftSʼs debut album, and the final track is a remix of the title track by Ben Frost. No Export to Europe, The UK or Japan.
12" $13.00
05/20/2014
***The third album from Canadian composer CHRISTOPHER BISSONETTE sees him expanding his palette by narrowing his sound sources to a self built analog synthesizer. Eschewing the whiplash and/or everything including the kitchen sink style of assembly so common among current analog aficionados, Bissonnette instead applies his signature compositional style of using long held tones and sweeping drones that alternate between, and fuse, pure tonal transcendence and patient, sparkling melodies that slowly reveal themselves. (STREET DATE - 4/08/2014)
LP $19.00
04/08/2014
CD $14.00
04/08/2014
***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Developed over a four year period, and entirely funded by a part time job working as a SAT university entrance exam mathematics tutor, Nº2 was composed using synthesizers and a variety of unidentified samples that were manipulated beyond recognition. CHRISTINA VANTZOU then collaborated with MINNA CHOI of the San Francisco based MAGIK*MAGIK ORCHESTRA. Vantzou and Choi worked on the notation and arrangements and recorded the compositions with a 15-piece ensemble at Tiny Telephone studios in San Francisco. The chamber layer on Nº2 follows a similar pattern as her first record with the addition of bassoon, oboe, and an enhanced string section. Vantzou spent four months premixing the album before ADAM BRYANBAUM WILTZIE (Stars of the Lid / A Winged Victory for the Sullen) engineered the final mixes, as well as added some of his signature sound texture, at his studio in Brussels, Belgium. Perhaps a better title for the album would be “Symphony Nº2” as it was composed as a cohesive whole, much like her first album “Nº1”. Dense layers of strings are augmented by angelic voices, piano, woodwinds, & various synthesizers. Instrumental music, especially that which is scored with strings & horns, is invariably described as “filmic”. This is even more likely when the composer is a filmmaker such as Christina Vantzou. Welcome to the future, which luckily for us is filled by a womanʼs voice with a beautiful narrative. A recording that is a meeting of personalities is like the contact of chemical substances:...
LP $19.00
03/04/2014
CD $14.00
02/25/2014
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork. TARA JANE O’NEIL’s music is integrated and contextual, idiosyncratic and deeply psychedelic, akin to a lucid dream journal caught on magnetic tape. She appears to be interested in all sounds equally. In her tireless search for a music that mirrors and reflects her alchemical, deeply syncretic approach to sound, color, language, surface and texture, she has found herself in a somewhat singular category. Her concerns are free from fussing about form. Her albums posit some free space that owes more to improvisors and painters than singer-songwriters or new age synthesizer baths. She is still interested in songs, and she has always been a wordsmith, but her songs don't need to have words to signify. When words are utilized, she doesn't waste them. They are beautifully mystical outbursts of visionary poesis, but their narrative power is located within and informed by, the space, the harmonic color, the context in which they are sung. Choral voicings spread out across the stereo field like muted cloud formations split by sudden outbursts of vibrant color, verdant mosses on ancient stones, opal sized windows of clear blue set against a vast horizon. Pump organ drones swell and respirate, patient and slow, with softly resonant gongs from the roof of the world. This is music about healing, about listening, about surviving and transmuting the strange inheritance of language. Moving towards a direct perception of apparent reality through collaboration, breath, sound and song. TJO has always been a shapeshifter....
LP $16.00
01/28/2014
CD $14.00
01/28/2014
TIM HECKER’s latest work approaches a form of secular musical transcendentalism from within the battered temple of spirituality. Recorded in a church in Reykjavik, Iceland and using a pipe organ as the primary sound source, this new piece is essentially a live recording. In reality, it exists in a nether world between captured live performance and meticulous studio work, melding the two approaches to sonic artifice as a unity. It is in parts a document of air circulating within a wooden room, and also a pagan work of physical resonance within a space once reserved for the hallowed breath of the divine. While the title of the piece “Hatred of Music” might be a clue, the album is also partly an attempt to confront a pervasive negativity surrounding music. Historical rituals of destroying pianos, mountains of pirated CDRs pushed by bulldozers in Eastern Europe, or the melancholy of the digital music era began as sideline motifs which quickly informed the work on this record. They also really didn't at all. Despite that the context is wide open in such a form of musical abstraction, the substance of these immersive compositions showcases Heckerʼs continued mastery of organizing sound into a visceral near entity. It is an almost physical presence that the listener feels as much as hears. This work is a significant contribution to Hecker's oeuvre, one which spans over ten years of musical production. Ravedeath is an enigmatic document of beauty and force. The album was recorded mostly over the...
CD $14.00
11/11/2013
2XLP $30.00
02/23/2024
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received an 8.3 Best New Music rating from Pitchfork. Virgins was recorded during three periods in 2012, mostly in Reykjavik, Montreal and Seattle, using ensembles in live performance. The sound palette of this work is wider, almost 'percussive' and tighter sounding than previous works. While this album remains committed to a painterly form of musical abstraction, it is also a record of restrained composition recorded live primarily in intimate studio rooms. This record employs woodwinds, piano and synthesizers towards an effort at doing what digital music does not do naturally—making music that is out of time, out of tune and out of phase. This follow-up to his Juno-awarded Ravedeath, 1972 album exchanges gristled distortion and cavernous sound in favour of a close, airy, more defined palette. At times it points to the theological aspirations of early minimalist music. But it is not 'fake church music' for a secular age, rather something like an attempt at the sound of frankincense in slow-motion, or of a pulsing, flickering fluorescence in the grotto. Some pieces go off the rails before forming into anything, others eschew crescendo compositional structures or bombastic density while going sideways instead. It points to the ongoing development of TIM HECKER’s work. It suggests illusory memories of drughazed jams or communal music performance that may have never been performed or been heard. These are mp3s that give confusing accounts either of sound's glowing physicality or of its prismatic evasiveness. It is an offering of...
CD $14.00
10/15/2013
2XLP $24.00
10/15/2013
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.3 rating from Pitchfork. Era is the fourth annual report from Chicago powerhouse quartet DISAPPEARS. It was formed during the gloom of the Chicago winter at Electrical Audio by now regular foil JOHN CONGLETON. Insular and dark, the album sees the band further refining their love of dub, minimalism and repetition into their most original and stark set yet. It harks back to the early ‘80s post punk period, when almost anything seemed possible with the classic two guitar, bass and drums lineup, and exploration and expansion of what could be done with these elements was at the fore. Dueling wiry and squalling guitars lead the way while a lockdown rhythm section provides the perpetual forward motion. Era is Disappears at their most abrasive, contemplative, and paranoid—itʼs the sound of the void looking back.
LP $19.00
08/27/2013
CD $14.00
08/27/2013
***Space travel is the dream of many and the reality of few. Since Yuri Gagarin first shed the bonds of earth gravity in 1961, only about 500 humans have made the trip beyond the atmosphere. KEN CAMDEN travels to space while still grounded on terra firma. His vessel of choice is a guitar and some effects with which he journeys on fantastical expeditions and surveys the biggest territory of all, the one between your ears. The glimmering sound fields he forms could be a soundtrack to an epic ‘60s science-fiction film, or a long forgotten grade school educational film strip explaining how humans would be living on Mars early in the 21st century. Camdenʼs narrative rejects the dominant dystopian view of the future and posits that there are great voyages yet to be made in inner and outer space. The album forms a gravity-free environment in which the listener is suspended, enhancing an aural excursion to the outer reaches of the musical Kosmos. (STREET DATE - 7/30/2013)
LP $19.00
07/30/2013
CD $14.00
07/30/2013
***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! The follow up to the Antithesis album from sound explorer KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN. Consisting of material with a decidedly dark mood overall, Schöner Flußengel embodies Whitman's considerable musical scope, with six tracks that veer from multi-fi drone to computer-guitar-piano trio. Performed with vocals, computer, clarinet, synthesizer, record player, microphone, bell, and guitar.
LP $16.00
05/28/2013
***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! The debut album from longtime NOMO member JUSTIN WALTER. If this was a vintage Nonesuch label release, it would come with some dry title such as Music for Electronics, Trumpet, EVI and Percussion. The recordings here are anything but dry, instead being an exhilarating interface of the human and machine. “I set out to record an album of completely improvised music that fused my experiments with the Electronic Valve Instrument and my love of held sounds on the trumpet. In recent years I've come to see the trumpet as an instrument that speaks in slow and long sounds, with meaning coming from the shape and inflection of each note. The process for this was fairly straight forward, record lots of improvisations. Of the songs on the album, 6 are one take improvisations with the only overdubs being drums. The remaining 5 are multi tracked improvisation, meaning all elements of the song were first take improvisations. Nothing was programed in a computer, everything was sampled live. This was the key part in the process of recording this music, providing the necessary structure needed to follow an idea to its end in real time.”—Justin Walter (STREET DATE - 5/28/2013)
LP $19.00
05/28/2013
CD $14.00
05/28/2013
***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! Antithesis is an LP-only release of material from KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN's archives that doesn't fit aesthetically with his upcoming Multiples studio album. The theme for the album is "ensemble works," that is, a combination of instruments played by Whitman himself with no computer interaction. Each piece was recorded in one of the different apartments Whitman has rented since he lived in Boston. Four tracks performed with Fender Rhodes piano, viola, guitar, and percussion.
LP $16.00
05/28/2013
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.1 rating from Pitchfork. With percussionist extraordinaire STEVEN HESS now a full fledged member, MARK NELSON and PAN AMERICAN deliver their first new album since White Bird Release from 2009. This collection of new sounds began with the duo rehearsing for a series of shows in southern Europe in late 2011 and early 2012, the songs written together as a group to be played live. BOBBY DONNE (LABRADFORD, CRISTAL) plays bass on multiple tracks, further emphasizing the live band feel. Mark Nelsonʼs deft production touches abound, subtly mixing disparate elements into a fully integrated whole, while Hess prominently displays a myriad of percussion techniques showing a mastery of understated rhythms. The resulting album is a resonant listen that ranks with the best of Pan•Americanʼs catalog.
CD $14.00
04/30/2013
2XLP $24.00
04/30/2013
***There are some musical traditions—ancient ones—that are grounded in the natural soundscape; the everyday sounds of life arranged into patterns, attempts at mimicking the whoosh of wind, the howls of an animal, the crack of thunder, the thump and scrape of a rice mortar. We emerge into the world having been exposed to these sounds, along with the vicissitudes of our mothersʼ heartbeats, and we connect to them as we grow. To the extent that we can train ourselves to remove subjective notions about music, we can find musical potential in virtually every sound. Some prehistoric ancestor slithered out of the ocean and its perceptions of reality were changed forever. Murky ribbons of light were replaced by the warm glow of the sun, rhythms dampened by seawater became sharp and brazen in the air. These sounds and images from eons ago stamped themselves indelibly into our consciousness and have remained there as we have evolved. The band Implodes has, on their previous albums, tapped into the deep psychic recesses where our sonic memories first took shape. They have played the part of the ancient ancestor, lying submerged in the shallows, waiting to make its gambit onto dry land and into a new world. With their new album, Recurring Dream, IMPLODES breathes fresh air. Melodies that were once distant echoes are now suffused with energy and clarity of purpose, submerged rhythms now walk in the light of day. Implodes does not, however, eschew its heritage. Heaviness abounds. The band has not...
LP $19.00
04/02/2013
CD $14.00
04/02/2013
***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Hymnal is the fourth kranky album by THOMAS MELUCH under his musical alias BENOIT PIOULARD, following Précis (2006), Temper (2008) and Lasted (2010). It was written and recorded throughout a year spent in southeastern England and on the European mainland, during which the ubiquity of religious iconography and grandiose cathedrals became an unexpected muse. Raised as a Catholic but never especially pious, Meluch drew on this aspect of social history as the basis for Hymnalʼs 12 chapters. He notes a particular preoccupation with the ways that faith offers a sense of solace and belonging in an existence that inherently provides none, framed in a context of tradition, ritual and the notion of the eternal. Themes aside, Hymnal contains some of Meluchʼs most expansive instrumental works (“Knell,” “Gospel”) and fully realized pop compositions (“Hawkeye,” “Reliquary,” “Margin”), making for a rich and dynamic long-playing arc. Also featured are string arrangements by kranky label mate FELIX and guitar work from ambient maestro KYLE BOBBY DUNN. NB: The albumʼs cover depicts the dessicated interior of a centuries-old tree on the estate of surrealist Edward James. (STREET DATE - 3/05/2013)
LP $19.00
03/05/2013
CD $14.00
03/05/2013
***BACK IN STOCK!!! The third full-length release for Portland, Oregon-based LIZ HARRIS. Harris might have achieved a significant fan base thanks to the whispering, near-ambient vocal crusades of her debut album Way Their Crept and its follow-up Wide, but those with a careful ear would have heard slightly more trapped beneath her fuzzy chain of effects. Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill marks a departure of sorts for Liz, which sees her turn down the fuzz boxes which caged (and to some degree defined) her sound and allows her voice to ring out above everything else. It is an album steeped in the world of dream-pop and far from shying away from the reference, Liz has instead grabbed on with both hands, creating an album's worth of perfect, left-field pop songs. Using delicate song structures which are at once both familiar and somehow alien, her vocals cry out hauntingly over stripped-down guitar lines and looped environmental recordings. These are the future soundtracks to love, despair and ultimately, hope. “This remarkable album is actually what I personally always wanted 4AD records to sound like, only they never quite delivered the hazy pleasures their beautiful sleeve art promised.”—Pitchfork (8.2)
LP $20.25
02/05/2013
CD $14.00
02/05/2013
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received an 8.3 Best New Music from Pitchfork. What could be better than a reissue of GROUPER’s Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill? How about an entire album of unreleased material recorded at the same time that is equal in quality?
LP $20.25
02/05/2013
CD $14.00
02/05/2013
***Developing on the trance-induction and brainwave entrainment techniques explored on the first ETHERNET album 144 Pulsations Of Light, Opus 2 moves into deeper, more introspective and emotive territory. A stronger focus on melody and harmonic structure results in pieces that almost approach, but never quite arrive at, traditional song forms, while still leaving much to the imagination of the listener, evading mental categorization and revealing new sonic experiences with each listen. The bulk of recording took place during the darkest months of winter in the Pacific Northwest, between late-night shifts providing technical support for hospital operating rooms. The pieces on the album each formed gradually and spontaneously during extended improvised sonic meditations as part of the composer's own trancework (or self-hypnosis) practice, this in an effort to remove specific compositional intention from the process, instead just allowing them to "happen". If 144 Pulsations... was about expansion of awareness and opening to the light that surrounds us, Opus 2 is intended to induce inner contemplation and internalized focus on the light within us. It is also a statement on the gradual darkening and inexorable decay of our modern world, and the need to look within to find true support and sustenance from one's own energetic source. Patience and perseverance. (STREET DATE - 1/8/2013)
CD $14.00
01/08/2013