***Previously known as G.S. Sultan, Imagine My Surprise is the first album released under his given name, Roy Werner. The moniker shift marks a methodological transition as well, bringing in collaborators to realize Roy’s hazy and offbeat electronic delirium. The sonic palette is as eclectic as ever; incorporating vibraphone, bells, flute, alto & tenor saxophone amongst his stretched and mutating electronics. There is a flurry of sonic exploration across the album’s two sides, embracing the surreal, the mellow and the peculiar. From Roy— “Based around the concept of a ‘trickster noir’ - an attempt to sonically render a handful of half-remembered dreamscapes—sunburnt tiki haze sequence. Imagine My Surprise is the first recorded work released under my own name and the first to heavily feature contributions from fellow artists working in contemporary electronic music. Months and years worth of iterations on some of these pieces, then in a frenzy of late night sessions they collectively come into focus, mutating into these “freaky little ditties”… Some incredibly choice performers were kind enough to add their touches on here, improvising over early drafts of their respective pieces, recordings eventually pulled to bits, rearranged and played back in duos & trios of themselves—it wasn’t so clear where these things were going until they had landed. Still in orbit of similar worlds as earlier G.S. Sultan work but slightly pared, braided more tightly around rhythmic center points, the putty’s form more clearly molded in the hand. At the fringe of consciousness, spin around to the...
LP $23.65
12/01/2023
***Honestly Same is an amplified acoustic and synthetic quintet from Chicago. They improvise patient, contemplative and distinctly contemporary music harnessing the sounds of cello, clarinet, electronics, piano, bass, recorder, percussion, synths and accordion. The group is Zachary Good, Lia Kohl, Mabel Kwan, Zach Moore and Sam Scranton. On their second album (and first LP), Hot Plate Only, the quintet finds a balance between airy and organic ambience alongside insistent rhythms and dynamic explorations. It’s a sound world that breathes, loops, iterates and layers. The skillful performances and inherent understanding among the players ensure that every voice finds its clear place, culminating in the creation of something entirely unique to Honestly Same.
LP $23.65
10/27/2023
***Moon Glyph Records head Steve Rosborough returns as Omni Gardens with a brand new album entitled Golden Pear. The fuzzy, warm and buoyant moog timbres of Moss King return but Golden Pear is a dreamier and more lush affair; incorporating a wider palette including mellotron flutes, vibraphones, marimbas and self-captured field recordings. A tranquil, pop atmosphere permeates the album as the songs flutter between bleary, unhurried tunes, warbly soundscapes and odes to lazy afternoons. Created for relaxed home listening, this is Golden Pear.
LP $23.65
10/27/2023
MC $12.75
12/01/2023
***Parayellowgram is a collaboration between M. Sage & Zander Raymond. Raymond is a visual artist & synthesist based out of Chicago and Sage is a musician & educator in Colorado. Their duo work is dewy and lush; trickling modular synths dance among piano, clarinet, field recordings, violin, percussion and baritone guitar. Exhibiting patience and measured thinking, 'Parayellowgram' adeptly crafts pastoral environments through intricate details and skillful variations, enhancing the repetition with a refined touch. The ideal soundtrack for slowing down and observing the natural world.
CD $11.25
10/20/2023
MC $14.25
10/20/2023
***Aliens Are Real is the debut album from experimental ambient artist UFOm. It was submitted as a demo by the artist, who wishes to remain anonymous due to their involvement with a low-profile religious organization. Sonically the album drifts between heady atmospheric meditations, spaced-out ambient processionals and ecstatic otherworldly vignettes. The artist utilizes a plethora of synthesizers alongside digital bells, harps, rhodes, lap steel, marimbas, flutes and their own captured field recordings. Inspired by their personal revelations and growth, Aliens Are Real is a surreal listen; traveling from the Earth’s soil to the far-reaching depths of the cosmos.
LP $20.25
08/25/2023
***ICEBLINK is a homespun, intimate project conjured by Oakland's LYNN AVERY. As a trans woman, everything she creates is about her experience and Lynn describes Carpet Cocoon as her comfort album, music to retreat to in the winter. Informed by her passion for mixtapes, oddities and crate digging blogs, the album is eclectic yet cohesively spun around the aesthetic of a bedroom new age album. Sonically, it has a fuzzy and rounded vibe incorporating nylon string guitars through vocoders, textural Prophet synthesizers, flutes and filtered saxophone. The effect of Carpet Cocoon is stunning and personal, melancholic yet idyllic, a spiritual ritual of baths for lying on your bedroom floor. "In Lynn Avery’s hands, the cosmos feels like it could fit in your pocket. The Oakland artist’s homespun style of ambient music delicately balances the tactile with the mystical, weaving freeform jazz and lo-fi collage together into playfully diffuse semblances of songs."—Pitchfork, 7.4
LP $23.65
11/18/2022
LP $26.95
06/24/2022
***For Alexander Sirenko’s third release under his Coral Club moniker, he ventures deep into the fog-laden ruins of “Lost Cities”. Inspired by deserted urban cores during lockdown 2020, it brought to mind disappearing epochs and cultures, lost to time and entropy, nearly without a trace. To evoke this feeling, Sirenko has created a sonic landscape of billowing atmospheres, smeared vibrations of living sounds, lumbering rhythms and looping melodic incantations. The result is as heavy as it is ecstatic; cultivated in non-linear parts like a living ecosystem crumbling under its own historic weight.
MC $12.75
06/17/2022
***Vic Bang is the artist, composer and sound designer Victoria Barca from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work captures the micro-sounds of the world, simultaneously crystalline and organic, carefully composed into unique and distinctive sound sculptures. On her latest album, “Burung”, the songs are increasingly airy and colorful, playfully bopping around one moment and releasing a digital exhale the next. Barca’s handling of percussion, texture and melody is sophisticated while always retaining the light-hearted exuberance of a fresh experimentalist. “Burung” is the sound of precise, beautiful computer music crafted with the fallible human touch.
MC $12.75
06/17/2022
***LYNN AVERY and COLE PULICE return with a new album of piano, synthesizers, tenor sax, wind synths and electronics. Following their excellent previous albums (ICEBLINK's Carpet Cocoon and Pulice’s Gloam) the duo moves into otherworldly ambience that straddles acoustic and digital spaces, evoking an uncanny world both strange and familiar. To Live & Die In Space & Time began with an improvised set at the 2020 Drone Not Drones festival in Minneapolis that unveiled new worlds of sonic possibilities the duo wanted to re-approach. Lynn and Cole continued exploring this palette of sounds and ideas in the months that followed, a practice that continued as they relocated across the country and settled in their now home of Oakland, California. Lynn and Cole were not initially intending to create an "album"—instead, they were just committed to a regular practice of improvising, recording, forgetting, re-approaching, alchemizing old & new ideas, and allowing material to shapeshift. Eventually, something like an album revealed itself, which Lynn and Cole honed into To Live & Die in Space & Time.
MC $12.75
02/18/2022
***Nicolas Gaunin is the moniker of Nicola Sanguin, a musician from Padua, Italy known for his fourth world electronics, rain-soaked tropical sounds and his woody, experimental polyrhythms. After two cassettes and a compilation LP, Hulahula Kāne is Gaunin’s first full length is a fully-realized trek into bizarre, uninhabited terrain. Gaunin’s palette ranges from kalimbas, hand drums, miniature gongs, flutes, bass, all manners of field recordings, distinctive synthesizers and natural sounds stretched and warped until they’re alien. The rhythmic compositions and sonic world-building is thrilling and peculiar. Gaunin’s approach to music making is all his own and sculpts a hallucinatory headspace; transporting the listener into his imaginary far-off land.
LP $26.95
02/18/2022
***Omni Gardens is the experimental ambient/new age project by Moon Glyph head Steve Rosborough. Recorded at home in Portland during the early days of covid, Moss King is relaxed home listening for difficult times. The first Omni Gardens release, West Coast Escapism, was expansive with a broad selection of soothing synth tones and morphing samples. In contrast, Moss King is a smaller, more intimate affair, full of fuzzy new age moog drifters and self-captured field recordings. The tracks bounce between minimalist twinkling synth plucks, ocean-backed synth pads and ambient pop forms. Playful, serene and healing sounds for watching your plants grow.
MC $12.75
02/18/2022
LP $23.65
06/17/2022
***If LORD DOG BIRD’s The Trinity Knot gives the impression of a remote, rustic, and earthen existence, it comes from COLIN MCCANN’s life as a carpenter and musician in the Trinity Mountains of Northern California. The second LP from the former guitarist of Baltimore’s WILDERNESS was written in the woods, off the grid, utilizing only the shimmering, droning tones of an old pump organ and the human voice. It is a powerful, dark, spiritual music; a mantric prayer sung in the face of the increasing, psychic warfare of our time; a refuge in an age of total surveillance. Honing themes from the Lord Dog Bird’s self titled debut on Jagjaguwar, McCann has made a record that is as succint and disciplined as it is urgent. The Trinity Knot of sounds like a sonic glyph harvested from deep within the rocks. A heralding of the ancient secrets that are found there.
LP $14.00
11/05/2013
MP3 $5.94
11/05/2013
***THE NEW LINES are never ones to take inspiration lightly. For the band’s second full length, Fall In Line, provenance stems from the oldest known extant Japanese folktale, “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter”. The New Lines’s sound is that of a psych band from a better, distant tomorrow. Equipped with vintage modular sequencers and synths, The New Lines wield the beloved Mattson through a fondness for Nuggets volumes. Fall In Line treats inclinations towards psychedelia or sci-fi with an evasive cool—too apprehended to be mistaken for revival. The multi-nodal pastiche of pristine guitars, tumbling and crashing percussion, and ever-hypnotic keys, unifies Fall In Line from the buzzing whirl of the eponymous opener to the kaleidoscopic blossom of “Where The Crow Flies.” Lead singer, HEWSON CHEN, with his stainless baritone, is the messenger hovering in the fold. Tucked inside the record’s succinct pop-construct is a Vonnegutian tale, better explained as a celestial muse than a narrative to be followed. At the mercy of The New Lines’ interpretation is the tale of a glowing and awe-inspiring alien Princess Kaguya, exiled from the Moon, and discovered in an East Asian bamboo thicket circa World War II. Throughout Fall In Line, the billowing synths are greeted by the ever-psych signifier Moog-ish keys, causing an oscillation between understanding the records as a galactic symphony or The Castaways channeling the Age of Aquarius. The Fall In Line LP alludes to the ancient tale with anarchic regard to the source. In their version of...
LP $14.00
11/05/2013
MP3 $9.90
11/05/2013
***The spiritual & synthetic omniverses of FOOD PYRAMID & ROY ORB D.MT. unite to form their majestic statement with Arp Navigators. The album calls to mind a great escapist wandering; one of rising mountains, luxuriant aquatic-life & surreal terrain all sought after in the name of inner-tranquility. Beginning side A is “Windsong” consisting of airy undulations & breathy new age atmospherics, staying true to its namesake. Within their wide-eyed vision is the ascending groove of “Visualizer,” the fuzzy astral traveling of “Summit Expedition” and the deep effervescence of “Corealis.” This LP of transportive tunes present a vibrant array of healing tones, bubbling motorik and celestial gazing.
LP $14.00
12/18/2012
MP3 $5.94
12/18/2012
***"From a heavenly body appears Globe Master, the second full-length from Minneapolis sci-fi garage quartet LEISURE BIRDS. Executed as a concept record Globe Master follows the journey of an unknown entity from the outermost dimensions of the galaxy to its eventual fall and transcendence to Earth. Enter the "Silver Runner," the namesake of the entity's mode of transport, which begins the pilgrimage with a propulsion of synthetic loops, skyward keys & slinking bass lines. Expansive in scope, we encounter the deep-distant desert jam of "Egyptian Ring," the sublime, harkening call of "Osiris" and the powerfully cosmic, heady whirl of the finale, "Globe Master." "Sonvs Universvm," the 7-inch epilogue, presents an array of planetary tones in remembrance of our being's journey. On our 45th release Moon Glyph is ecstatic to unveil Leisure Bird's grand evolution. ‘Ceres Fall. Saturn Shatter. Fall To Earth. Rise Globe Master.’"
LP+7" $14.00
08/28/2012
MP3 $8.91
08/28/2012
"Xander Harris and Dylan Ettinger carve up a killer 7" on this moonlight rogue mission for Minneapolis-based Moon Glyph Recordings. For his best outing since last year's acclaimed 'Urban Gothic' LP episode, Harris is evidently amped up for 'The Driver' with pedal-to-the-metal NRG disco rhythm outlined by frightfully effective synth stabs and cruising-at-100mph chords. Flipside Dylan Ettinger's 'Tipoff' is a more insidious minimal wave gem. Throbbing, distorted, stoic bass anchors intense synthline modulations while a tormented voice yelps like he means it, making for an ominous, uneasy piece of synthesized drama."--Boomkat
MP3 $1.98
04/10/2012
***Following a split 7" and a trilogy of defining cassettes, FOOD PYRAMID emerges with their debut full-length LP, Mango Sunrise. A tireless Minneapolis trio, the three members collaborate to materialize synthesized monoliths; ranging from percolating, ambient rivers to various weirdo strains of dancehall jams. Mango Sunrise is an eclectic and spanning look into their overall aesthetic headspace. It conjures movements of kosmische-propelled euphoria, deep-space house and even their style of affected future-dub. On tunes like "Orange Alert" and "Oh Mercy," we find the trio drifting into druggy long-form dance grooves alongside rippling psych guitar and a bewildering saxophone. As much of a refined culmination as it is a hard step forward for their ever-evolving sonics, Mango Sunrise has arrived with all the majestic grandeur its title evokes.
LP $14.00
03/13/2012
CD $10.50
03/13/2012
MP3 $7.99
03/06/2012
Bringing their trilogy to completion, Food Pyramid's latest cassette for Moon Glyph, "III" captures the trio at their most sweeping - inviting fourth and fifth members into the mix and adding an array of sensations to their palette of kosmische-inspired compositions. Having played out consistently for a year or so, "III" is a recorded portrait of the group performing at an invigorated level of adventurousness. Note the arpeggiated guitars on "Last Light" and "Last Shuttle to the Red Planet," "Cycloscope"'s synth-euphorics and the unbridled sax- and piano-playing in the album's final moments. On display is a duality that owes much to the group's improvisational core: this collection of tracks serves not only as a summation of the first two records, but also as a gaze into Food Pyramid's future.
MP3 $5.94
10/18/2011
***Amidst pilfering of collective bargaining rights, the storming of public buildings in union protests, and subsequent recalls of elected officials, a bubbling of proletariat discontent in Madison, WI has shed light on a region of the country often overlooked. Emerging from this unrest comes DEAD LUKE’s second full-length and first Moon Glyph release, Meanwhile… In The Midwest, which takes the portentously hazy half-songs contained within his debut LP and solidifies them into a raw, lysergic-crystalline acid cocoon. In the album’s final moments we are greeted to the triumphant drifting of “Endless High,” a fuzzed-out call to arms for the No Coast. On “God Of Nothing” Luke conjures a hymnal drone of weaving elements peaking into a self-contained nihilist jam. While harkening back to the nebulous "American Haircut," Luke now unleashes his vexed voice in parallel with a movement currently percolating to a once apathetic surface.
LP $17.50
10/11/2011
MP3 $7.92
10/11/2011
"Entitled simply “II”, Food Pyramid’s second release for Moon Glyph might be viewed as an extenuation of their debut cassette, which the release both is and isn’t. Having introduced the listener to their long-form template and insistent beat, Food Pyramid find themselves in a place to experiment. Jettisoning any “live” touches from their sound this time around (i.e. the saxophone and guitar), “II” is a pure expression of the band’s electronic angle. Preserving the propulsion they established on their previous record, Food Pyramid commingles its strength for drawn-out melody lines with a more spirited handling of the repeater and delay dials.” —Moon Glyph
MP3 $5.94
11/30/2010
***Warmy Girls, VELVET DAVENPORT’s third release with Moon Glyph, locates the band’s sonic architect and chief songwriter PARKER SPROUT displaying a rainbow of talents. Recorded in Sprout’s apartment studio last winter, the album is an effervescent brew of guitar and organ character sketches. Named after a feeling of affection and love, Warmy Girls is populated with men and women in a manner reminiscent of Ray Davies’ best Kink songs. Layered on a four-tracker, the sounds gambol and flit, trip and shimmer beneath a melange of bright-eyed vocal harmonies. Previous release on Shdwply. “The band has been creating some of the very best lo-fi 60s pop in the last year or so and from the first sound of Warmy Girls, this may be their best material yet.”—Reviler
LP $14.50
11/23/2010
MP3 $9.90
11/23/2010
“Regolith” is a term used by lunar scientists to describe the loose scree of stones covering the solid rock of the moon. From the scrappy fuzzabilly of the Leisure Birds’ “Burn the Beach” to Moonstone’s pontificate-n-jam, Moon Glyph have found an apt title for their first compilation of local bands. Regolith Vol.1 is a wide sampling of songs scattershot across a solid foundation of rock by artists committed to the exploration of new vibrations and frequencies. The listener will find all forms of psychedelia on this record: laid back odes to laid-back women from Magic Castles and Velvet Davenport (with a little help from Ariel Pink and Gary War), a rave-up from Vampire Hands, a spaced out war-drum workout from the Daughters of the Sun, and a pair of face-melters courtesy of The Blind Shake and Skoal Kodiak amongst others.
MP3 $9.90
11/23/2010
"Food Pyramid’s debut "I" is an operation of sublime dilation. Over an ostinato beat, the Minneapolis trio introduces motifs that expand, refine and clarify in the course of a song. Each composition is a practice of subtle initiation: the swells are foreshadowed by stray airs that repeat, a rarified saxophone dances around the jam’s heart, impressionist synth lines lead the listener deeper into the Food Pyramid experience, an album that is as cerebral as it is intuitive. Here, there are earphone moments and party moments and highway moments in a way that never panders. Taken as a whole, "I" is an insistently joyful and cohesive introduction to a band that would like to introduce the listener to an array of alluring concepts." —Moon Glyph
MP3 $5.94
09/15/2010
The man behind Camden is Cole Weiland of Daughters of the Sun notoriety, but knowing who created "Life of Devotion" makes it no less mysterious. Described by its creator as a meditation on betrayal, it is an album of shrouds: synths veiled in noise and echo; vocals cloaked in reverb. It is a record that requires devotion in its listener - a pulsing, simmering, crackling piece of work that reveals itself only in layers and only to those who listen with intent. Art by Suzanne Pfutzenreuter
MP3 $4.95
01/27/2010
“For Moon Glyph's eighth release, the label offers up Dante & the Lobster's "Wonders". Appropriately titled, this selection seems to bounce along on a sense of wonderment. Aurally, any of these songs would not sound out of place on a Nuggets compilation, each featuring boyish harmonies and the jangling guitars so prominent in the mid-Sixties. There are moments on this record that might remind listeners almost simultaneously of the Troggs, Comus, the Yardbirds, the 13th Floor Elevators and the Chocolate Watch Band - an impressive feat of psychedelic pop amalgamation.” —Moon Glyph
MP3 $8.91
01/14/2010
“The peaceful side of the word 'primordial' is not often mentioned when discussing music, but it does exist and if it didn't exist before, it will with the release of Daughters of the Sun's Ancient of the Ancients. Texturally, the two swathes of music splitting this album evoke an antediluvian pre-dawn, when wildness and stillness were on in the same. The Daughters begin and end Ancient with passages constructed with flutes, chimes and ostensible field recordings that tend to teem and effervesce around the throbbing tribal eruptions at the heart of the cassette.” —Moon Glyph
MP3 $5.98
11/01/2009
"Songs of the Forest, the Castles' first release on the Moon Glyph imprint, is a study in delicate psychedelia. Throughout the album, the group harnesses sounds that harken to the mid-Sixties experimentalism. From beginning to end, it is a collection that houses surprises, such as the killer organ riff buried deep in "The Mole People" and the unexpected trombone in "Songs of the Forest" to name only a few. Recorded between the witching hour and three a.m. over the course of several months, this autumnal record is a revivalist showcase that straddles audacity and restraint with aplomb. Play it and float along.” —Moon Glyph
MP3 $5.94
10/23/2009
“Moon Glyph's sonic template will expand with the release of Velvet Davenport's "Lemon Drop Square Box". Kaleidoscopically so. The Minneapolis group cherry picks elements from an idyll when psychedelia was beginning to burgeon mid-1960s. In fourteen paisley minutes, "Lemon Drop Square Box" tells the story of someone opening a box of candy to find baby venus inside and then this fortunate soul must take care of the goddess. The tale is enhanced by the baroque soundings of a group who've clearly mastered a blend of record collector homage and a sense of forward-looking fun. The record is in turns jaunty and ruminative, experimental and comforting. The band employs a palatable production showcasing its jangling guitars and cartwheeling organs. Wherever he is, Syd Barrett is smiling.” —Moon Glyph
MP3 $5.94
09/30/2009