***Long ago, in the year 1999, four bespectacled musicians posing as siblings released a homemade CD-R of surf-inspired instrumental guitar rock to friends and record stores in Columbus, Ohio. Over the next year, they traveled throughout Ohio, before half the band decided to move on. THE ORIGINAL ONIONS were dead. But thanks to the internet, their music lived on. It was uploaded to Archive.org and Bandcamp. Under the Creative Commons license, their songs were used as soundtracks to surf videos on YouTube. In 2015, their songs were showing up on the weekly Top 10 Charts of internet radio station Surf Rock Radio. It seemed the time was right to introduce The Original Onions to a new generation of listeners. Grill Skills features 15 tracks of dynamic guitar rock, including seven originals and eight re-imagined cover songs, from Henry Mancini soundtrack material like “A Shot In The Dark” to a Chantays-inspired version of A Flock of Seagull’s “I Ran (So Far Away).” Throughout, the twin guitar attack of LES and MOE ONIONS glides across the steady rhythm section of SEYMOUR ONIONS on drums and BOBBY ONIONS on bass (the latter picking up the sax for a handful of songs). Recorded to analog tape at their rehearsal space, the original album was mixed to a digital tape and mastered on a PC running Windows 98. This private press classic is now getting a vinyl reissue on Scioto Records. Lovingly remastered from the original DAT master, the album sounds natural, more alive and...
LP $16.35
06/19/2020
***When JOVAN KARCIC releases 2015, his third long-player and second for Scioto Records, he’s telling you about who he was, standing on top of the hill. The album began in the same vein as his previous home-recorded calendar-year song & sound diaries, 2010 and 2011. Karcic blends DIY vibes with studio contributions from his friends, family and outsiders. It was a response to where he was standing, what was behind him, and signs of things ahead. “I just had a zero-ending birthday and my Civil War reenactment weighed heavily on my soul.” The theatrical history lesson that left him cold was reunion performances of the mid-90s roots-Americana band, THE HAYNES BOYS, in which he played drums; the occasion was the album’s reissue. The zero-ending birthday… well, pick your decade. The birth of his daughter, a sign of things to come, kept him forward-focused. Karcic composed and recorded in his coffee shop, employing local talents/customers like COUNTERFEIT MADISON, LISA BELLA DONNA (EYE), and the ALWOOD SISTERS to overdub their parts. MARY LATTIMORE was invited to add harp to “Gambler’s Dream,” And if you hear a Prince influence, you’d be correct. Karcic approached BRENT FISCHER, who had worked with the late musician since 1985. Several months later, he received a recorded orchestration for 2015’s final song, “Shadow and Echo.” 2015 is the story of youth climbing up the hill to mid-age and everything that came between. Listen to what Jovan Karcic culled from 12 months of living and reflecting into a time...
LP $16.35
01/11/2019
***LYNN FISTER's ALOONALUNA project is well known in the cassette world. She has released full length albums on Hooker Vision and Digitalis Limited, plus split cassettes and 7” singles with the likes of Motion Sickness of Time Travel, Ant’lrd and Starry Crowns. She has been featured on Pitchfork’s The Out Door column, Tiny Mix Tapes, and NPR’s All Songs Considered. The Gilded Hegemony of Stars is her new full-length and first release on vinyl. Awash in ambient synths, Fister’s vocals are layered into a spacey murmur. It’s an appropriate aesthetic choice for a record that comments on the way many present their lives online. Says Fister, “Most of the songs were created as a way of coming to terms with millennial culture—with its fragmented morality, narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies, privilege, self-righteousness, definitions, individualistic viewpoint, solipsism etc. Sometimes, I feel alienated and overwhelmed in such a digitized, click-bait, ADD, hook-up cultured, hyper-stylized world. Sometimes art-making seems pointless, as I never felt so weary of interpersonal relationships—which I believe is systemic from current American cultural and socio-political norms. But yet I embrace it and kiss it anyway. I try to wrap my head around a world that I will never be able to understand. My idealized / romanticized pastoral fantasy has been broken again and again, as I try constantly to rebuild a myth.”
LP $16.35
12/09/2016
***The self-titled debut album by BLOODTHIRSTY VIRGINS is filled with beautifully tragic songs; a rock and roll record filtered through a cinematic lens. The band is the brainchild of NIKKI WONDER, a torch and jazz vocalist who developed her emotive style through years of theater training and fronting Columbus punk rock band JACK NEAT. In 2014, Wonder traveled to London to see one of Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn concerts, and returned to Columbus thoroughly inspired and determined. She picked up a guitar and began writing. As a latch-key child of a single working mother and absentee father, Wonder grew up escaping with classic books and old movies, which fed her penchant for drama. Her songwriting is based on the soundscapes and hooks of those old movies and books; the stuff that fed her childhood fantasies of love and revenge. Wonder’s lyrics contain an edge of danger and beauty. An innocent line can subtly imply illicit danger: “Would it be so wicked to love me?”, Wonder sings on “So Wicked,” and one can’t help but think the answer is “Yes.” The record is lushly arranged: lavish vocals and fuzz pedal leads are anchored by a bombastic rhythm section. Recorded in a cavernous organ factory, the sound is clear and spacious. The other members of Bloodthirsty Virgins are veterans in their own right: guitarist and luthier SCOTT GORSUCH (LOLLIPOP FACTORY, solo artist), drummer / engineer KEITH HANLON (THE BLACK SWANS, PARKER PAUL), and bassist JAMES WOOSER (KNOT BROTHERS, PERENNIAL RYE).
LP $16.35
12/09/2016
***New band from Brooklyn-based J.P. OLSEN (THE BEETKEEPERS, BURN BARREL and THE MALEFACTORS OF GREAT WEALTH), featuring TYLER EVANS (ED ASKEW, THE BLACK SWANS) & ROB HEATH (JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE). A record of alternately sunlit & seething originals, it evokes the homemade sonics of Flying Nun, the airiness of Loaded-era Velvet Underground, the menace of Suicide and the fearless experimentation of Sparks and early Eno; all the while supporting Olsen's signature lyrical wit and memorable, deadpan vocal delivery. Cover designed by MICHAEL JUNG (ALICE DONUT).
LP $14.50
06/03/2016
***First time ever on LP. In 1997, JOHN SCHMERSAL (CARIBOU, VERTICAL SCRATCHERS, ENON, BRAINIAC) found himself without a band. Brainiac had broken up following the tragic death of frontman Tim Taylor, so he recorded a solo album on a 4-track machine at an old Masonic Temple in Kentucky. Released in 1999 on CD by SeeThru Broadcasting under the pseudonym JOHN STUART MILL, the title, Forget Everything was an homage to Brainiac song of the same name. Shortly after its release, Schmersal went on to form Enon, releasing a series of acclaimed records that blend pop melody and electronic art rock. Largely ignored at the time, Forget Everything now stands as the missing link between Brainiac and Enon. Includes a download. (STREET DATE - 2/19/2016)
LP $16.35
02/19/2016
***PLVS VLTRA is the new project from TOKO YASUDA, best known for her work in the band ENON, and, more recently, a touring member of ST. VINCENT. Her first solo album, Parthenon was released from Spectrum Spools / Editions Mego in 2012, and featured experiemental electronic pop music. Expanding on her sound, she released the largely instrumental cassette, Yo-Yo Blue on Field Hymns earlier this year. For her new single, Yasuda drew inspiration from J Dilla and his use of an MPC sampler, Echo Park sunsets, cheese toast, and tea. “I had fun making this music in my own comfort zone, in my own room.” The result is an assault of electronic pop and sample laden hooks that is at times both light as a feather and staggering. Yasuda now resides in a Los Angeles hilltop, where the chameleon sunsets are the endless muse in her very own brand of California sound. Covers were screen printed and vinyl was cut by the great JOHN HULL on his 1944 Scully lathe at Musicol Recording Studio in Columbus, Ohio. Edition of 500 copies. “...Plvs Vltra’s sound is sugary synth pop, with some salty experimental coating for contrast. Obviously the more outright screwy parts are more interesting, but the whole project seems off-centre enough to merit attention and there are bits that inexplicably remind me of early 1970s Robert Wyatt.”—Byron Coley (The Wire)
7" $5.40
11/12/2013
***When BRIAN HARNETTY was commissioned to work with the Sun Ra/El Saturn archives in Chicago, his goal was to develop a series of conversations with SUN RA through the many recordings in the collection. On one level, the resulting pieces combine these diverse materials to create a sonic collage. On another level, Harnetty uses these elements to reveal multi-layered stories, drawing out the many connections and complexities of the Sun Ra archives. For this 7-inch single, entitled “The Sociophonic Key,” Harnetty has created a stand-alone work drawn from “The Star Faced One,” a 2010 sound installation at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. Despite the variety of samples used many subtle relationships are heard––both literal and fantastic––from Sun Ra rehearsing a group of children fading into an answering machine, to the intensity of a gospel preacher alongside the Arkestra’s invitation to join them in outer space. Edition of 500 copies.
7" $5.40
07/03/2012
***CHECK STOCK!!! The band’s Discontinued Perfume was named Best Indie Pop Album of 2011 by Popmatters. Washington DC's THE CARIBBEAN has been making experimental pop music since 1999. Their latest album for Hometapes, Discontinued Perfume, was praised by Pitchfork, Pop Matters, The Washington Post, Blurt and Magnet. Their music is often described as subtle, crafty, shadowy, cynical, beautiful, observational, oblique and surreal. For those who haven't heard them before, "The 65 Cent Dinner" is the perfect introduction to the world of The Caribbean. The sonic details are all here: the hushed vocals, spacey keyboards, deep bass, glitchy loops and catchy chord progressions. The song describes a person "caught at the intersection of euphoric good fortune and dark emptiness," according to singer MICHAEL KENTOFF. The lyrics are a cryptic storytale, and inspired in part by the writings of the poet Weldon Kees (who disappeared in 1955; his abandoned Plymouth Savoy was found with keys in the ignition on Golden Gate Bridge).
7" $5.40
11/01/2011
***Scioto’s first release, a split single featuring outsider folk from THE BLACK SWANS and ED ASKEW. Ed’s first album was released in 1967 on the legendary ESP-Disk label. Earlier this year, Drag City released his new album, Imperfection. The Black Swans released their fourth full-length album, Don’t Blame the Stars, in May of this year on Misra Records. The two artists are touring together for the first half of June 2011.
7" $5.40
06/21/2011
***2011 is the title of Jovan Karcic’s second solo album and it is his sonic shadow of that year. Recorded mostly alone, and originally released locally as an edition of 53 (!!!) hand-drawn oil/crayon/ink/chalk covers, Karcic sits nicely beside other DIY loners like Michael Yonkers, Bob Trimble, and Dave Cloud.
LP $14.50
01/08/2001
***A collaboration between drone artist MIKE SHIFLET and folk songwriter JERRY DECICCA. in 2002, DeCicca and Shiflet spent four hours together on first meeting in a Ford Taurus for a shared bill: The Black Swans, Mike Shiflet, and 26 other artists in a sandwich shop/sauna. The gig was so horrible not a note was played between them and DeCicca shuttled them away, the drive home infinitely more rewarding. (Footnote: the promoter was arrested years later for video taping women in bathrooms without their knowledge.) Bond forging is one thing. Record making another. It took another decade and some change, but the two finally managed to join forces and transform an empty gallery into a makeshift studio space. DeCicca crawled into Shiftlet's world with an electric guitar and a notebook. There were two microphones, a tiny bass amp, computers, electronics, and power strips.
LP $14.50
01/08/2001