Kazerouni, Nima

s/t

Shrimper

Nima Kazerouni is a Los Angeles based multi-instrumental artist who established the dream punk band So Many Wizards. During the pandemic, Nima concentrated much of his time working on a collection of songs and doing what he knew best; recording layers of melodies and counter melodies with his arsenal of synths and analogue instruments he’s collected over the years. The result is a lush debut solo EP that touches on his life as a dad of three little ones amidst the precarious modern world that we all find ourselves navigating through. He’s teamed up with several seasonal artists to bring the EP to life. Numbered edition of 100 copies.

Goosewind

Grateful 4 the Times We Share

Shrimper

Grateful 4 the Times We Share is Goosewind’s first release on Shrimper in nearly thirty years. An emotional and fitting return that features players that have been associated in the orbit of Rick Goosewind over that time span including Melody Kriesel, Maddelleine Grae, Ruben Seahag, Thomas Spectre, Garrett Dunn and Allen Callaci of Refrigerator dueting on a Blind Willie Johnson cover. The cassette spans the folk and psych roots, dark and light and otherworldliness that the band has inhabited over all those decades with odes to all that is gone and praise for the hard fought for that remains. Rick Goosewind orchestrates a tour of time as he hears it from the far back of his past to the present. Hand numbered limited edition of 100 copies featuring cover art by Dennis Callaci.

Woods, Ben

Dispeller

Shrimper

On Dispeller, Ben Woods’s beguiling new album, his intimate experiments in rock paint a vivid portrait. Here, the New Zealand artist leans comfortably into intuition and abstraction. Expansive arrangements are anchored by heavy-lidded prose, while carrying the air of the portside shack it was made in. Dispeller was recorded throughout a year in Woods’s hometown, Lyttelton, with Ben Edwards (Aldous Harding, Marlon Williams, Julia Jacklin) at the helm of the mixing console and co-producing. Utterings, footsteps, and the rattles of the room linger beneath the album’s dense instrumentation, alluding to the familiar space the songs were captured in. Here, Woods’s songs breathe and flourish into their own worlds. “I found my voice in trying to make atonality croon,” he says. “With Dispeller it was less about harmony—the blend was capturing the songs very honestly in the room, and still making each of them to transport you somewhere different.” Even beside Woods’s acclaimed debut, PUT (2019), which saw him sharing stages with Aldous Harding, No Age, Julia Jacklin and Steve Gunn, Dispeller enchants. The songs here are stronger, the instrumentation stranger. With chopped and screwed vocal contributions from underground hero Alastair Galbraith, “Speaking Belt” snaps and pulses with the sordid clatter of a lost Xpressway single. Charlotte Forrester from Womb (Flying Nun) adds their diaphanous voice to “The Strip And Punishing Type”. On fragile duet “Wearing Divine”, Lucy Hunter (Opposite Sex / Wet Specimen) threatens to steal the limelight, before a full hive of Marlon Williams’s honeyed vibrato comes spluttering out...

The Secret Stars

s/t

Shrimper

The Secret Stars debut was a cassette-only release issued by Shrimper Records in 1995. Geoff Farina and Jodi Leo would record two more full length releases on Shrimper in the mid to late ’90s along with some seven-inch singles and scattered tracks. Geoff Farina would continue to write and record both solo and in the band Karate. Leo has recorded some solo records in the years since The Secret Stars disbanded. This reissue of the first cassette has never sounded so good. It has been painstakingly mastered from the original cassette by Carl Saff. The vinyl pressed at Smashed Plastic Pressing, the CD and digital taken from this mastering. Attention has been paid to detail, making the experience of listening analog or digitally reminiscent of the cassette experience. The tracks are banded as two tracks, side one and side two on the LP and as track one and two on the CD. The first press of the LP is on limited edition clear vinyl with a tour poster reproduction insert. The CD press is in a digipack. Both include new liner notes by Dennis Callaci.

Künst, Heimito

Post Exoticism

Shrimper

On his second release, Heimito Künst further explores his brand of minimalist, personal psych that is in league with two of Shrimper's favorite Youngs (Richard & La Monte, apologies to Angus, Loretta & Neil). He further expands his palette by adding tuba and voice (used as drone) to Post Exoticism. First edition is a hand dubbed, numbered edition of 100 featuring artwork & hand painted covers by Dennis Callaci.   On s/t (2021): "Synthesizers, field recordings, magnetic tapes together with percussion, various microphones and stringed instruments fill the listening of this musical elegy. In his debut album Heimito Künst takes us inside kaleidoscopic sound visions in which, between references to the darkest and most disturbing kraut sound and experimental sequence plans based on noise polyrhythms, he makes us glimpse wave structures that lead us directly to breathe the author’s panic dust." – It’s Psychedelic Magazine

Brayer, Patrick

Cabbage And Kings: An Inland Shrimpire Anthology

Shrimper

Patrick Brayer made a name for himself in 1979 with his debut record Cold Feelings. That record is a mix of idiosyncratic high and low desert howl, which would quietly serve as a cornerstone for the Americana sound, it’s fiddle and banjo marrying Brayer’s unique singing and literary songwriting skills. Twenty years after that release, his second album, Catholic And Western Fabuli, was issued on Ben Harper’s short lived record label, Inland Empire. Fast forward twenty years from there to get to here, his third record—that is a white lie of sorts, as there are sixty other records available digitally in his Secret Hits series, but strictly talking in the material world, this is his third release. Brayer might be little known to the general public but is well-known in songwriter circles, where his songs have been covered by a myriad of deep listeners including Alison Krauss, John Doe, Robert Plant, Dave Alvin, Alan Jackson, Chris Darrow, Michael Hedges, and a wealth of others. This latest release, a deeply personal and intimate album which has equal footing in the starkest of Shrimper releases and with latter great albums by Loretta Lynn, Charlie Louvin, Johnny Cash and Brayer’s peer Howe Gelb, seeks to rectify Brayer’s relative obscurity.  For Cabbage And Kings, Brayer presents seven songs, starting off with the near ten-minute lead off-track, recorded in a solitary room by him, and finishes the record simularily with an equally stark song for his recently departed friend, Kaleidoscope’s Chris Darrow. It captures...

Refrigerator

(deluxe) So Long To Farewell

Shrimper

The twelfth studio record by Refrigerator expands the line-up to five with the addition of Mark Givens from WCKR SPGT on second guitar.  Along for the ride are guest appearances by legendary singer Claudia Lennear (vocals on the first single “Broken Glass Shore”), Shrimper Records stalwart Franklin Bruno, and the additional hand of Scott Solter, who mixed the record, which rests in a gorgeous sleeve with artwork by Jean Smith. The lovely live bleed of a band playing together in one room—guitars spilling onto the drum tracks, cymbals biting into the feedback from the amps—captures the live sound of Refrigerator as never before on record as caught by engineer Steve Folta.     There are two physical versions of the record, one on black 160 gram vinyl, as well as a deluxe edition, available on green and white swirled vinyl that couples a bonus CD with six tracks to a fifty page Bamboo Dart Press chapbook that features drawings, short stories, photographs, lyrics and essays by the band, in an edition of 150 copies.   

Refrigerator

So Long To Farewell

Shrimper

The twelfth studio record by Refrigerator expands the line-up to five with the addition of Mark Givens from WCKR SPGT on second guitar.  Along for the ride are guest appearances by legendary singer Claudia Lennear (vocals on the first single “Broken Glass Shore”), Shrimper Records stalwart Franklin Bruno, and the additional hand of Scott Solter, who mixed the record, which rests in a gorgeous sleeve with artwork by Jean Smith. The lovely live bleed of a band playing together in one room—guitars spilling onto the drum tracks, cymbals biting into the feedback from the amps—captures the live sound of Refrigerator as never before on record as caught by engineer Steve Folta.     There are two physical versions of the record, one on black 160 gram vinyl, as well as a deluxe edition, available on green and white swirled vinyl that couples a bonus CD with six tracks to a fifty page Bamboo Dart Press chapbook that features drawings, short stories, photographs, lyrics and essays by the band, in an edition of 150 copies.   

Davis, John & Dennis Callaci

Arches & Pathways

Shrimper

In 1995, John Davis and Dennis Callaci improvised an album of songs together live to one track. Not an ambient, instrumental meander of a record, but songs complete with them / there lyrics, melodies and hiccups. In the time since that record was recorded Davis went on to record a follow up record with The Folk Implosion and a number of solo records. Callaci continued recording records with Refrigerator as well as solo records. Over three days in July of last year, the two songwriters improvised this record, Arches & Pathways, in the same manner, except that there was an engineer on hand and the thing was recorded in Hi-fi. Songs were recorded, layered, overdubbed, scratched in real time, with the two of them sharing vocal and guitar duties. Additionally, Davis’s drumming adds that left-bank swing to the stands, and the Callaci piano dust is shaken from the ivories. The result is an expansive record that is equal parts pop melody and avant-en-garde living inside one another, not side stepping for a bit of this or that between the dead wax grooves.

Fuccillo, Jeff & Allen Callaci

Beyond Thunderdome

Shrimper

Peyote buttons. Bread infused with chia seeds and wheat germ. Home jail tattoos of your annoying parrot. That is what has occupied so much of our Covid-19 lockdown time. In the curious case of Jeff Fuccillo and Allen Callaci, they spent those early halcyon days of the lockdown finding odd places in their homes to record and pass files to one another as they pieced together a set of covers from the 1980’s. The Shrimper/Union Pole co-release sees the fellas turn songs by Pavement, Quarterflash, Crowded House, Prince and others inside out. You may know Fuccillo as the head honcho of Union Pole, a member of The Irving Klaw Trio or for that collaborative record he did with John Fahey. Allen’s work outside of his band Refrigerator has included collaborations with Adam Lipman, Falcon Eddy and a forthcoming team up for a song with Shrimper stalwarts Goosewind. The cover art features a spectacular drawing of our two lads being led out of the wasteland by Tina Turner as drawn by Allen Callaci. A more fitting cover for these times, I can’t properly imagine.

Davis, John

Pure Night Plus

Shrimper

John Davis’s earliest recordings on Shrimper are being reissued in conjunction with Davis’s Inundation label (which issued his instrumental record Gnawing On The Bone last year). This double CD includes his debut cassette (Stars & Songs, 1993), 7-inch EP (R.I.P., D.I.Y., 1993) and LP (Pure Night, 1994), along with a four song EP that was originally tucked into a split single with Sandra Bell, (Instress Vol. 1, 1995) and seven bonus tracks, six of them unreleased. New extensive liner notes by John Davis and Adam Green of The Moldy Peaches explore Davis’s beginnings in The Palace Brothers and the bridge that would lead him to The Folk Implosion. The original recordings have been remastered from the master tapes by engineer and producer Matt Pence. The original artwork by Davis and his sister Theo has been tracked down and lovingly rendered here, merging with unreleased photographs in a six page eco-pack with a sixteen page booklet. These fifty stark and intimate home recordings are out of place and out of time, as unable to date with carbon as those of Moondog, Harry Partch, Annette Peacock and other one person bands of gold. These timeless melodies would go on to influence a generation of songwriters, and are presented here in all of their minimal glory.

Refrigerator

Lonesome Surprize

Shrimper

The earliest Refrigerator recordings surfaced in 1991 on the Shrimper cassette “Lonesome Surprize”. Lovingly remastered from the original sequenced tape by Steve Folta, this limited edition cassette reissue features brand new liner notes by Allen & Dennis Callaci recalling the origin of these songs. The hand painted covers offer an upgrade to the first edition, with the shell containing its sharpied “X” that also figured on the orignal issue. The cassette features the brothers along with Joel Connel ex of Pillsbury Hardcore and then a budding member of Man Is The Bastard.

Callaci, Dennis

The Dead Of The Day

Shrimper

***NOW AVAILABLE ON CASSETTE!!! The third in a triptych of solo albums by Dennis Callaci of the band Refrigerator began with Bed Of Light featuring Simon Joyner, David Nance and the Ghost band as well as Kevin Morby and Jarvis Taveniere as a full throated five piece / orchestrated record which gave way to the thirty minute piece The End Of Night two years later. The last piece in this series is the new record The Dead Of The Day, a stripped down acoustic record minus drums. Guitar and piano ballads, funereal fugues, a fifteen minute instrumental opener and other rough strays sit together with lyrics that play off of one another. Franklin Bruno plays the piano and organ, long-time collaborator Aaron Alcala is on a few songs and Allen Callaci’s vocals appear as a ghostly refrain on the track “Scoreless”.  The record’s release falls the same day as the Callaci’s novel 100 Cassettes published by Pelekinesis whose narrative ties into the songs on The Dead Of The Day. The book is made of 100 chapters with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem.  “Scraping strings are as likely to clash in dissonance as soothe with melody; a lush and lonely slide guitar eases the tension, though in a melancholy way. Plenty of space in these songs allows for rumination, which is a good thing because Dennis Callaci, whom you might recognize from Refrigerator or his 2013 collaboration with Simon Joyner or his stewardship of Shrimper Records, gets off an...

Lipman, Adam

The Slouch

Shrimper

***CASSETTE STORE DAY 2019 RELEASE!!! Adam Lipman has released a plethora of release on Shrimper & other labels, including a CD collaboration with Allen Callaci of Refrigerator. His latest release is a meditative work with musical flourishes running the gamut from strings and guitars, to banjos and choral back up vocals. A beautiful thing. Color cover, limited edition of 150 only for Cassette Store Day 2019

Post Life

Nothing/all Is Said

Shrimper

***CASSETTE STORE DAY 2019 RELEASE!!! Punk rock EP from Los Angeles built from the tendrils of the Pehrspace scene with members of So Many Wizards, Peter Pants & Palm Reader.  I am nineteen forever until my ninety fourth birthday.  Limited hand numbered edition of 150.

Refrigerator

High Desert Lows

Shrimper

Refrigerator’s eleventh full length record High Desert Lows was recorded over a week in Omaha, Nebraska. Produced by Simon Joyner (who plays and sings on a number of songs on the record, along with members of his Ghosts band), the new record calls out to the more pastoral sounds of their Comedy Minus One album, with viola, cello, vibes, slide guitar and wurlitzer dotting the edges of nearly every song, a stark contrast to the loud squall of preceding record Temple City.  The album begins with a song penned by drummer Chris Jones, bending to Barstow, and then bleeds into songs that skirt a number of counties from Apple Valley to Victorville before closing with a minor chamber orchestra and a vocalist shutting down the town. Twenty-seven years on, with all the original members (plus Daniel Brodo who joined in 1995), the band is still improvising and communicating without bowing to commerce.

Trés Oui

Poised To Flourish

Shrimper

After the band Literature put out 2014’s Chorus on Slumberland Records, lead singer/guitarist Nate Cardaci began to write songs that had similar energy, but required a fresh approach. To complete the songs, he teamed up with long time friend and original Literature member, Steven Garcia. After taking time to focus on their respective projects for a while, the two recruited Literature bassist Seth Whaland, and synth player / Waterloo Records employee Ian Jensen to complete the lineup for Trés Oui, and began playing shows around Austin in early 2016. The addition of drummer Doran Rawlinson on a 12-inch released on Square Of Opposition and Austin Town Hall Records garnered rave reviews and saw the band touring all of the USA, including stops at SXSW and Athens Popfest.  On their debut record, Poised To Flourish, the band further defines their brand of stately pop music that wouldn’t be out of place on Postcard or Factory Records—that doesn’t make them a backward-looking nostalgia act. Check out the envelopes of noise that peer out from the corners of “Song 4 U,” the King Tubby-dub underlining “Alex To The Right,” and the horns that accentuate the ennui of “One Track” to hear the band pushing the boundaries of dream pop. This is the rare debut record by a band fully in control of their faculties without losing any of the fire and passion of discovery of being in a new band.

Bruno, Franklin

Works From Home 1995-2015

Shrimper

***CASSETTE STORE DAY RELEASE 2017!!! Thirteen songs collected from demos and previously unreleased songs over the last twenty years. Buyer beware, some of these are radio recordings or maybe engineered by David Schramm. Edition of 150 with heavy weight cardstock.

Davis, John & Cicadas

El Pulpo

Shrimper

***CASSETTE STORE DAY RELEASE 2017!!! Cassette edition of latest by John Davis (formerly half of Folk Implosion), limited to 125 world wide. A collection of tracks about the politics of agribusiness in the context of the US empire, inspired by the book Stuffed & Starved by Raj Patel and the album In What Language? by Mike Ladd and Vijay Iyer. Executed in close collaboration with co-producer Scott Solter in the tradition of political satire, it’s uniquely funny, catchy, and informative at the same time.

Llennoc, Leo J.

S/t

Shrimper

***CASSETTE STORE DAY RELEASE 2017!!! Joel Connell (Man Is The Bastard, Refrigerator, Pilsbury Hardcore) has recorded his debut full length solo record consisting of eastern flights, outsider goth, archaic folk funk and more. Connell sings and plays all the instruments on this true DIY release. Limited edition of 125, cover art Dennis Callaci.

Joyner, Simon

Step Into The Earthquake

Shrimper

***Available again on deluxe double-vinyl gatefold action!!!  Simon Joyner is among America’s best songwriters, so says Gillian Welch, Conor Oberst, Kevin Morby, and others. With his new double album, Step Into The Earthquake, he strikes for the personal while acknowledging that the times they are a-changin’ around us again. Things are leaning shitty right now, and the characters in Joyner’s songs experience the dissolution of comfort amid anxious concerns regarding our turbulent times. To record, Joyner’s band, The Ghosts, holed up with longtime collaborator, Michael Krassner (Boxhead Ensemble), in Omaha’s ARC Studio, developing songs from skeletal foundations to full-on group efforts. Joyner’s vision may be dark but it stops short of nihilism. Where do we go from here? The best move toward answering that question is knowing where we stand right now. This expansive album offers a poet’s truthful view, however disconcerting, that to survive whatever is coming for us, we have to confront and understand it first. So, go ahead and step into the earthquake. “Omaha has given us the reigning heir to Henry Miller’s dark emotional mirror, Townes Van Zandt’s three-chord moan, and Lou Reed’s warehouse minimalism: his name is Simon Joyner.” —Gillian Welch “Pound for pound Simon Joyner is my favorite lyricist of all time.” —Conor Oberst “Simon’s always been a secret handshake amongst me and my peers. He’s a pioneer.” —Kevin Morby

Callaci, Dennis

The End Of Night

Shrimper

Dennis Callaci’s (Refrigerator, Shrimper Records) second solo album is a knee play, a low budget opera, a tone poem with broken keys. It follows up last year’s Bed of Light, about which Tiny Mix Tapes wrote: “Poetry from a lofi pulpit, really, though Callaci seems to technically be singing hymns of non-redemption that’s too fleeting yet perfect because it’ll keep you coming back.” This album reunites him with Joel Connell, who played drums on the earliest of Refrigerator records just after Pilsbury Hardcore broke up and during the formative years of Man Is The Bastard. The two have not recorded together for over twenty five years! Along with Connell on drums, Franklin Bruno plays the piano, Daniel McDonough is on the harp, Rael Callaci programs 808s and Korg synthesizers and Henry Callaci mans the saxophone. Engineered by Steve Folta (who also lent some back up vocals to the proceedings), the record / song was recorded to be heard only on CD for a number of reason. It clocks in at over thirty minutes. No rich man’s 8-track mid-song fade for side two vinyl version available. No streaming candy corn flavor cancer aftertaste availability. No iTunes cruddy MP3 version made available for some distracted fool’s slave labor Chinese phone. No Pandora, no big box bankruptcies in wait. This little tiny compact disc is a small press. In near solo record fashion, Callaci supplied the artwork, liner notes, hidden poem that reads on the window of the CD player as the song...

Wckr Spgt (with Don Bolles)

Dense Pack

Shrimper

Captured in one take with no overdubs, this record recalls Reagan-era sentiments that seem as prescient as they are punk. Music made up on the spot and improvised with an inspired vigor that lets the humor and insight shine through. Wckr Spgt, which is comprised of Dave Carpenter (bass), Joel Huschle (vocals), Mark Givens (guitar), and are joined here by punk rock revolutionary Don Bolles (The Germs) on drums, poke fun at politics, social / sexual systems, and the military-industrial complex. Recorded in the Los Angeles studio of the legendary Paul Roessler and produced by LA icon Geza X, Dense Pack delivers twenty tracks that are concise, chaotic, and full of energy — useful as either the source of retrospective contemplation or the soundtrack to the next revolution.

Sloppy Heads

Useless Smile

Shrimper

Questions answered frequently about Sloppy Heads’ new album Useless Smile on Shrimper Records by #1 Rocking Band Chief Publicity Officer Vlada Fengenev:Who are these Sloppy Heads? Your Sloppy Heads are notable because they are being the only band ever from Brooklyn! They are Bill the Drummer (aka V. Stiles) and Ariella Stok (aka Starmaiden) and Jimmy Jumpjump (aka Frow #1). The instruments in the Sloppy Heads are singing, guitar, bass, the organ, the drums, and the noise, and they are all done by everybody. They have their own instruments, and are writers of songs together. And for this album they are also having of the recording and guitaring of James McNew (aka J. McNew) of Yo La Tengo and Dump. They are giving birth to this band in 2009.Why is there no Sloppy Heads album before? Your Sloppy Heads stay very under the ground! Before, they are making of a seven-inch EP (First Gasp) and cassette tapes (Custy Blaster and Do Or Dangle) and CD-Rs and also been on compilation by Brah Records that is benefitting Japanese earthquake victims name of Koozies, Woodies And Beers, and compilation recording for magazine of Yeti.Tell me about this Useless Smile then. Album was made almost all in band’s first Headsquarters, next to Shea Stadium. Music place not baseball place. Shea Stadium is still there and also the men who smoke hookah across the street, but that Headsquarters is not. Except for the song that was made in Ocropolis, which is now hole. But...

Callaci, Dennis

A Bed Of Light

Shrimper

Over the course of 25+ years, Dennis Callaci has written and performed in the band Refrigerator, while also recording solo under such aliases as Paste, Puffy and other even poorer name choices. Callaci has also collaborated on records with John Davis, Simon Joyner, and others, but A Bed of Light is his first true solo album. Six of these nine tracks were recorded by Jarvis Taveniere (Woods and producer of Woods, Sunflower Bean, Martin Courtney), who also plays drums, bass and guitar. A Bed Of Light also features Simon Joyner and his current band, with recordings and overdubs done in Omaha by Mike Friedman and Joyner. Many of these tracks were recorded months after Callaci’s brother Allen, lead singer of Refrigerator, had a sudden harrowing sickness followed by a successful heart transplant. The record is equal parts pastoral and primitive stomp. Autoharp, lap steel, cello and violin are complemented by cranky electric guitars pinned to ten in the mix, primitive drum machines and phantom saxophones. This is not a solo auteur album, though Callaci did pull a half-Prince by writing, singing and playing on every song as well as doing the cover art and writing a piss take essay on the insert!

Sebadoh

KCRtroubleyou

Shrimper

Classic 1999 live recording of Sebadoh on air getting into it with the DJ & hitting the seldom seen highs & lows of live music on the air. Liner notes by & artwork by Lou Barlow. Edition of 300

V/a

Shrimper 25th Anniversary Cassette

Shrimper

Celebrating 25 years of Shrimper whose first cassette came out way back then. Features exclusive, brand new recordings by Calexico, The Babies, Simon Joyner, John Davis, Woods, Refrigerator, Franklin Bruno, WCKR SPGT, Liz Gilbert, Dump & Paste. Hand numbered/colored edition. Folded in the Callaci home by some of yer fave Shrimper recording artists. Edition of 300. Proceeds donated to EarthBagNepal for victims of Nepal earthquake.

Joy

Shallows

Shrimper

Joy is Dan Madri and Matt Savage, who have played music off and on together since 7th grade or so. Their 2002 self-titled Shrimper debut put a subtly eccentric spin on the bedroom folk template. Subsequent recordings Hatred & Grief, Devil’s Blues and Sailing Days saw the band expanding its lineup (Ariel Rabinovic on electric guitar, Matt Dodge on drums) and refining its production value—but never at the expense of the simplicity or off-kilter pop sensibility of its songwriting. On Shallows, Joy’s third release for Shrimper, the spotlight returns to the core duo. The record is a patchwork of new recordings and older, unreleased material dating as far back as the turn of the millennium. Each of the fourteen tracks brings its own character and fidelity to the table—though at roughly 30 minutes long, Shallows never feels disjointed.  Though ten years separate the record from the band’s last output, it feels like a logical extension of the catalog. Joy will be playing a small run of shows—its first in nearly a decade—to coincide with the Shallows release.  “Not since Thanksgiving’s Welcome/Nowhere—I haven’t heard the calling to lock myself in a motionless & darkened room to absorb an album. Along comes Devil’s Blues from Joy…” —pissyeller.org  “Joy’s eponymous debut on the legendary Shrimper Records harks back to the homemade shamble and jangle of the label’s cassette-heavy heyday a decade ago.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

Refrigerator

Temple City

Shrimper

Refrigerator and Shrimper celebrate 25 years together with the band’s first album in four years. Temple City is also the first record of theirs to feature electric guitar, feedback squalls and electric bass in over a decade, after the all-acoustic Bottles of Make Up and their last album, Dangerous, a stillborn recording of demos. More recently, vocalist Allen Callaci recorded with Adam Lipman (2013’s Glacial), Dennis Callaci with Simon Joyner (2013’s New Secrets, helmed by Jarvis Taveniere of Woods) and the band released a couple extremely limited and now out-of-print cassette-only releases.  Temple City was recorded in full just prior to harrowing health issues for Allen that ultimately led to a heart transplant. The band went back into the studio with longtime engineer Steve Folta after Callaci’s full recovery and rerecorded a number of songs as well as a few new ones to complete the 17 tracks which comprise Temple City. The band will play select shows around the country to coincide with the album’s release, and Allen will embark on a tour to promote his book Heart Like a Starfish, due out in February on the Pelekinesis imprint.

Uncalled For, The

Gimme Trouble

Shrimper

***Garage rock from long inland Empire Shrimper super group featuring former members of bands SHOEFACE, JUNKET, BIG BREAKFAST and FALCON EDDY. Edition of 100 copies, already out of print.

Amps For Christ

Canyons Cars And Crows

Shrimper

Coming seven years after the release of the previous full-length record, Every Eleven Seconds (5 Rue Christine), and two since the their split LP with Woods (Shrimper), Canyons Cars and Crows is a proper resurrection for Amps for Christ. Recorded at Equation Road in the beautiful Pomona Valley, the record upholds the band’s traditions of mixing folk with hardcore and noise with music—known as folkcore and musnik, respectively—and covers familiar sonic territories from ragas and Basho folk to dirges and jigs. The songs, dire but hopeful, examine man’s relationship to nature. Henry Barnes, the force behind Amps for Christ, was a founding member of Man Is the Bastard. The group’s first release was the cassette-only album The Plains of Alluvial, released by Shrimper in 1997; since then there have been many full-length and split albums on a number of labels. Outside of Amps for Christ, Barnes has collaborated recently with Man Is the Bastard’s Eric Wood on a Bastard Noise / Brutal Truth split LP on Relapse Records, a split with Bizarre Uproar, and a pair of splits with Japanese artists Outermost and Government Alpha. Look for live shows across one or two oceans following the release of Canyons Cars and Crows.

Lipman, Adam

Prove The Beast

Shrimper

Adam Lipman has moved into the modern era with his new album Prove the Beast, his third release on the legendary Shrimper label. While From Your Mouth to God’s Ears (2009) was a record of words, and Glacial (2013) was a record of a voice singing those words in perfect pitch, Prove the Beast is a record of worlds: basketball legends, misogynistic feminist fables, love through the prism of drink, slow counterpoint piano, hip-hop beats, off-key / off-kilter hand-claps and drums, Peruvian pop goddesses, income inequality, Jesus as unrealistic sex god role model, dating as ritual death dance, and love as catalyst for death-inducing high-speed country driving. Helping this project along was Michael Sherk (Mandarin Dynasty), who took the helm as producer and engineer. Cooped up together in an oceanside cabin in Big Lagoon, Trinidad, CA, the pair recorded mostly live for four days. Completing the recordings with overdubs over several months was Allen Callaci (Refrigerator, singer on Glacial) adding vocal touches, Tommy Seven (also known as Controller 7, hip hop instrumentalist and Anticon label alum) with drum programming, Taryn Popplewell on vocals, Kevin Ferguson on drums, Matt Longwell on saxophone and Aaron Alcala on piano. The cover is drawn by Bay Area artist Gonzalo Perez Acosta.

Davis, John

Spare Parts

Shrimper

Spare Parts is the first solo album from singer / songwriter / multi-instrumentalist John Davis since the release of Blue Mountains in 1997. In contrast to his collaborative work with The Folk Implosion, Davis’s solo work in the ’90s was about as solo as solo gets. He played all the instruments and did all of the cover art for records like Pure Night and Leave Home, as well as for assorted singles and compilation tracks. Having been there and done that, Davis charts a new course with Spare Parts, right down to the cover art, which was done by Boston-area painter and photographer Walter Crump. No less than eight musicians and three engineers lend their talents to the ten tracks and 65+ minutes of this double-LP. (Be warned: the songs are long.) Appearing most frequently are drummer and percussionist Jose Medeles (Breeders, 1939 Ensemble, Portland Ore’s Revival Drum Shop) and cellist and violin player Megan Siebe (Anniversaire, Simon Joyner and The Ghosts). Siebe also appears as a member of a trio of backing vocalists that includes Laura Burhenn (Mynabirds, Bright Eyes, The Postal Service) and Sarah Gleason. Simon Joyner produced the strings and backing vocals, and contributes backing vocals himself to the track “Blood Feud.” Mike Friedman plays lap steel on “You Won’t Cry” and “Southwest,” and Chris Deden plays drums on “Upon a Train.” The record was mixed by Brandon Eggleston (Mountain Goats, Swans, Scout Niblet, tUnE-yArDs, Modest Mouse). Spare Parts mines an acoustic singer-songwriter vein while avoiding a...

Refrigerator

Live At The American Legion Hall Pomona

Shrimper

** CasseteStoreDay Special Release!!!! Hometown performance by Refrigerator in March of this year, their first live performance following lead singer Allen Callaci’s successful heart transplant the preceding Spring. In the spirit and the ridiculous fetishized nature of the day, each cassette has been lovingly hand dubbed over an existing prerecorded release, hand folded and hand jobbed by Dennis Callaci, just like in the old days. Who’s music will tail out at the end of each side on your version? Triumph? Martin Briley? The Headpins? No two are alike. Limited edition hand numbered/colored edition of 150.  

Callaci, Allen & Adam Lipman

Glacial

Shrimper

Glacial is a stunning record written by Adam Lipman and sung by Allen Callaci (lead singer Refrigerator), recorded over the course of two days in Claremont by Steve Folta, mostly as a trio made up of Callaci, Lipman on guitar (and some vocals) and Jason Martin on keyboard and piano. The album is a cohesive work by two artists whose sole prior collaboration consists of vocal overdubs Callaci had done for the forthcoming Lipman full-length record (due out in early 2014 on Shrimper). Lipman, upon hearing the finished back-up vocals, had joked that he was going to force Callaci to record his entire songbook. Those sessions, which comprise the follow-up to Lipman’s From Your Mouth to God’s Ears, were the last in which Callaci took part before suffering from serious health issues that ultimately led to a successful heart transplant. After recovering, it made sense that Glacial is Callaci’s first new recording. The record was cut live with Lipman serving as both a producer of sorts as well as player on these versions of his songs with minor overdubs. Augmenting the trio is Aaron Alcala, who contributes guitar on a number of tracks, as well as Callaci’s brother on backup vocals, whose subtle and stately readings offer variances to Lipman’s original versions. A quiet, slow-paced record, Glacial rewards the attuned ear with each listen.

Thill, John

Greatest Hits Of John Thill Volume II

Shrimper

John Thill has released a number of solo records, as well as albums with his former band Aum Rifle, on Shrimper, Folktale and a plethora of other labels. Some of these have been limited to as few as 50 copies, and a good number of them are long out of print. To rectify this, the two aforementioned labels pooled their resources to cover hospital bills after slicing and shivving each other to bits over the track list for this collection of in-the-red folk fuckitude that runs from red to blue in a flash.  Available on vinyl only, The Greatest Hits of John Thill Volume II comes in a numbered edition of 500 copies.

Joyner, Simon & Callaci, Dennis

New Secrets

Shrimper

Simon Joyner, who over the course of thirteen albums has released a unique and influential body of work on a myriad of independent labels, and Dennis Callaci, who has recorded nearly as many records with his band Refrigerator and runs one of those said labels, present their second record together.  Their first collaborative release was a one-sided vinyl-only release on Catsup Plate Records a decade back entitled Stranger Blues, a direct-to-one-track live recording of the two playing together and sharing one mic. Though recorded in the same spot (i.e. the living room of the Callaci home), New Secrets is a different record altogether—a call and response exercise of sorts, with a Joyner song answering the plea to the preceding Callaci dirge. Recorded and mixed live by Jarvis Taveniere (noted for his Rearhouse recordings and as a member of Woods) over the course of three days, the duo was backed up by Joyner’s band from the Ghosts record of last year. Augmenting the album’s eleven tracks are guest appearances by Franklin Bruno (Human Hearts, Nothing Painted Blue) and Kevin Morby (The Babies).  Reuniting the original cast from the first release, noted artist Rob Carmichael designed the cover art around Callaci’s drawings.

Wckr Spgt

Shitty Lou

Shrimper

***Shitty Lou is a brand new cassette tape on Shrimper featuring over ten LOU REED songs faithfully reperformed by WCKR SPGT. From the opening refrain of "Egg Cream" to the chaotic closing of "Hooky Wooky," these songs are sure to bring a smile to your face and a worm to your ear.

Bugskull

Hidden Mountain

Shrimper

***“BUGSKULL, the solo project and sometimes band of Austin, Texas' SEAN BYRNE, returns with this stark and airy album of deeply personal songs born during the recent collapse of his marriage. It is a subdued and powerful album that I will not cheapen with anymore one sheet speak. It's honest music. We are honored to work with Sean again with his first new music in years, and happy to partner with our friends at Shrimper (who are releasing the cassette) and Almost Halloween Time (who are doing the limited vinyl). What else? There's a fantastic cover of Beck's ‘Lost Cause.’ Hey, we're all still alive!”—Scratch. CD version available on Scratch.

Human Hearts, The

Another

Shrimper

Franklin Bruno, songwriter / bandleader of The Human Hearts, has been a stalwart of the independent music scene for two decades. Since his first solo cassettes on Shrimper in the early 1990s, Bruno—and his previous band, Nothing Painted Blue—have recorded for a who’s-who of significant indie labels, including Scat / Matador, Shimmy-Disc / Kokopop and Absolutely Kosher. His songs have been covered by the likes of Lou Barlow, Jennifer O’Connor, and The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle (with whom Bruno occasionally collaborates in the duo The Extra Lens). In 2009, Pitchfork called Local Currency, a reissue of early solo material, a collection “most songwriters would love to call their own.” He’s also become a noted music writer, penning a book on Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces for the 33 1/3 series, and contributing to The Nation, The Believer and other publications. The Human Hearts is Bruno’s new, NYC-based band; Another is their first proper album release (following a mail-order-only CD in 2006 and some 7-inch and compilation appearances). Recorded at Brooklyn’s Seaside Lounge (New Pornographers, St. Vincent), Another finds Bruno and drummer Matt Houser joined by old and new friends, including Nothing Painted Blue / Mountain Goats bassist Peter Hughes, guest vocalists Laura Cantrell and Jenny Toomey, guitarist Pete Galub, and accordionist / composer Ted Reichman. Ranging from horn-driven power-pop (“Love-Starved”) to bossa nova (“Times Mirror Square”) and classic, Tin-Pan-Alley-inspired songcraft (“California Baby”), Another is one of the most consistent and fully realized records of a 20-year career.