Soft Abuse

Smith, Steven R.

Olive

Soft Abuse

Steven R. Smith is a wildly consistent and self-sufficient auteur making epic music far beyond his monk-like solo recording practices. On Olive, one gets more of Steven R. Smith’s singular vision and musicianship, this time filtered through ensemble arrangement largely performed by others—an approach he’s explored in recent years. A micro-orchestra of horn and woodwind players was enlisted, as well as other collaborators including Kate Wright (Movietone, 1000 Dawns) and Yvonne Sone. The stunning results call to mind Mark Hollis’ eponymous solo LP and Gerald Busby’s masterful 3 Women score, not only in terms of sonics or tone, but also in the use of space. Smith has explored many angles to soundtrack-like mood music, but there is a satisfying dark rock element to even his more refined chamber pieces. Smith’s dusky post-punk signature, borrowed from Australian artists such as Rowland S. Howard and Crime & the City Solution, synthesizes with the mannered arrangements to push his familiar, evocative sound into new spaces.

Marinetti, Fortunato Durutti

Eight Waves in Search of An Ocean

Soft Abuse

Born in Turin and based in Toronto, Daniel Colussi has been playing in underground bands within various subterranean communities for the last twenty years. Adopting the nom de guerre Fortunato Durutti Marinetti, he self-released the Desire cassette in 2020, which was quickly followed with Memory’s Fool (Soft Abuse/Bobo Integral) in 2022 and the Desire LP (Second Spring), also 2022. The third Fortunato Durutti Marinetti album is titled Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean and it arrives November 2023 via Quindi Records and Soft Abuse. Colussi draws inspiration from the restless, explorative spirit of 1970s songwriters such as Robert Wyatt, Annette Peacock and Lou Reed -- artists more committed to the spirit of their own individual expression than to genre tropes. Working with producer Sandro Perri, the intention with Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean was to pursue an organic-hybridity in which synthesizers, saxophones and violins coalesce into an unified whole. On first single “Clerk Of Oblivion,” fretless bass brings a smooth funkiness to the rigidity of a vintage drum machine rhythm. On the epic opening track “Lighting On A Sunny Day” oscillating synthesizer tones pulse and sweep alongside violins and treated saxophone. “I Need You More” closes out the record on a breaking wave of dubby, decaying grandeur and features a massive flute solo. Each of these eight songs is a world unto itself, a vista to explore. Always changing but always familiar, Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean continues Colussi’s exploration of what he calls “poetic...

Christopher Alan Durham & The Peacetime Consumers

Kicks Or Macabre

Soft Abuse

“Hark! DIY sleaze-rock henchpersons, ascend from your cellars and rejoice...Midwestern anti-folk hero Christopher Alan Durham (The Bibs, All Gone Recs) arrives on high horse in full-length mode with a band of merry menaces in tow. Following a string of cassette and 7-inch releases for labels like Spacecase and Soft Abuse (whom are also responsible for the gift in hand), Kicks Or Macabre is CAD’s first LP outing under his own name, and we’re all the better for it. “Recorded in and around modern-day Detroit, the record certainly has that street-walking cheetah energy that one might expect from a protagonist presumably raised on the teet-to-mouth diet of Destroy All Monsters youtube vids, vending machine snacks, trucker speed ’n’ malt liquor laced with the ever present back-and-fore ground pollins of our patron Jim Shepards, Pussy Galores, Gibson Bros and countless other unscrewed basement saints who shook, rattled and rolled before us...but wait, there’s so much more. “Durham and his trusty Peacetime Consumers (ex-Quilt Boy /Roachclip cohorts) conjure up a thicker-than-usual, borderline soulful junk sick blooze that slinks and swaggers like a lean-drunk Flamin’ Groovies or Gulcher / Richie-era KV if you traded his happy-go-lucky, confidently carefree dopiness for the frantic urgency of a paranoid loner whose slumlord is putting the screws to him, and look... there ain’t enough grass left in that bag to even pack a bat... “But the band plays on, and if Durham’s long-running development as a mainstay in the American sub-underground proves to hit its...

Kraus

Fire! Water! Air! Kraus!

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Longtime Aotearoa / New Zealand producer Kraus has been a fixture in various underground North and South Island circles for twenty years, and his solo music has covered a lot of ground in that time. In recent years he’s shifted focus from guitar-based recordings to synthesis-oriented electronic work, an approach that blooms in full color on Fire! Water! Air! Kraus!, his 19th full-length album and first all-electronic affair. Kraus obsessives will once more revel in the inventive use of melody and texture here, as well as the primitive futurist fusion of eastern / western psychedelia and tonal explorations of electronic pioneers like Suzanne Ciani and Laurie Spiegel, with a dash of exotica for good measure. Fire! Water! Air! Kraus! is a joyful, immersive listen, and Soft Abuse is thrilled to share it with the known universe.

Pumice

Phylis

Soft Abuse

Pumice returns with an exquisite experimental bathroom sink pop record in hand, dubbed Phylis. This time out the long-running Aotearoa band, currently a duo consisting of Stefan Neville and Jade Farley, fracture sore-thumbed folk songs into crumpled bricks with riffs written on the toilet. Wonky South Pacific skiffle careens into heady organ dirges followed by galloping blurts of afterlife feedback. As ever, texture and accidents rub up against melodies, rhythms are not strict and words are grubby. But with Phylis, the restless band tenders its most exuberant, straightforward and enjoyable pop record yet. Recorded at Neville’s Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland studio in 2021, Neville and Farley have returned to the simple and joyful instincts of the earliest Pumice recordings. Nylon strings, drums with the feet, the empty and the absurd. Impossible to think of something analogous to the cosmic comforts on offer here, Phylis once more presents songs that could only come from the world of Pumice.

Smith, Steven R.

Spring

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Long into his varied, restless recording life, Steven R. Smith continues to deliver moments of wonder. Spring, like much of his very best, explores small notions that shift and expand to reveal a private sort of grandeur.  Joining Smith on Spring is Gareth Davis, the Amsterdam-based bass clarinetist and occasional collaborator of Machinefabriek, Merzbow, Elliot Sharp and Smith himself, and his presence here is crucial. The restrained interplay between Smith (on guitar, piano, percussion etc.) and Davis create a warmth and intimacy akin to Mark Hollis' masterful eponymous solo LP. Steven R. Smith has been a quiet force in underground psych/post-punk circles since the mid-90s. In addtion to a handful of classic releases under his own name, Smith is perhaps better known for the material releases under various pseudonyms (e.g. Hala Strana, Ulaan Khol, Ulaan Markhor, etc.) or as a member of cult acts like Mirza and Thuja. Spring is the latest entry point into his own particular version of cinematic composition.

Marinetti, Fortunato Durutti

Memory's Fool

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Born in Turin and based in Toronto, Marinetti has been playing in bands of varying degrees of obscurity for the last twenty years, frequently touring North America in his Volvo station wagon and quietly self-releasing albums to an oblivious and oversaturated marketplace. Memory’s Fool is his second release under his own name (following 2020’s Desire) and his first time working with proper label support. Drawing inspiration from the restless, explorative spirit of 1970s songwriters like Lou Reed, Robert Wyatt and Joni Mitchell, Marinetti chose to first write all the lyrics before assembling a hybrid pickup band of jazz, folk and rock musicians to render the songs of Memory’s Fool into a form he calls “poetic jazz rock”. And indeed, Memory’s Fool is poetic jazz rock of the highest order. Across it’s seven patiently composed and meticulously recorded tracks, each song on Memory’s Fool unfolds like a small essay or miniature treatise that focuses on inescapable human themes such as: sex, death, relationships, discovering who you are, feeling hurt, feeling confused. We are all Memory’s Fool.

Courtis, Anla & Stefan Neville

Roots Of A Knob

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Longtime prolific underground voyagers Stefan Neville (Pumice, etc.) and Anla Courtis (Reynols, etc.) have crossed paths many times over the years, but hadn't collaborated until now. Roots of a Knob coalesces their zones, bringing forth a meditative, moaning, buzzing wallop. Across four extended tracks, the pair move through various iterations on a drone, some tethered, others free floating, all trance-inducing, vast & hallucinatory. Recordings took place in Buenos Aires and Auckland, and were assembled in Neville's studio in New Zealand.

Strange Girls, The

Threads

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Threads marks a first dip into the archives of unreleased recordings by The Strange Girls, the cult Dunedin duo of Kaaterama “Motty” Morehu and Clayton Noone that existed off and on from the early ‘00s up until Motty’s untimely passing in 2020. At their best, The Strange Girls made ruminative, repetitive and atmospheric bummer folk, similar to sounds by Flying Canyon or The Pupils combined with The Dead C squall. All of these elements are present on Threads, which rescues stray, unreleased tracks made around the time of their best album, Beset. Motty’s beautiful, fragile croon guides through a thicket of hiss, solemn strums and stirring feedback. Threads wasn’t intended to be the lone archival release, but with Motty’s passing it may be the final word from The Strange Girls. Time will tell. Rest in Peace, Motty.

Pumice

Table

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Pumice —now the duo of Stefan Neville and Jade Farley—stretch time further out, leaning heavily on drones and moans in making their modern day Aotearoa folk-rock masterpiece. The fruits of their time together as a pair has come to bear in the buzzing, swirling epic: Table.  Table! Table primarily finds Pumice deep in a pastoral expanse, with Farley’s violin lines and Neville’s organ drones serving collectively as guide. Elsewhere the dense fog of synth, guitar, F/X, chants and melodies create warm miniature zones to tuck into.  With each new recording, Pumice finds a way to achieve new levels of rugged grandeur. Table is the latest example.

Durham, Christopher Alan

Bread & Wine

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Another trip around the block with Christopher Alan Durham, a Detroit songwriter that manages to collapse the sensibilities of Jim McCarthy (Godz), Jim Shepard and Peter & Graeme Jefferies into his own particular songforms & Midwest worldview. Bread & Wine is the second album to appear under his good Christian name, but C.A.D. is no newcomer. His hand has been in some exceptional underground ensembles from the past decade, like The Bibs, Quilt Boy, and Roach Clip (and solo as Church Shuttle, among others), and his label All Gone has exposed the attentive among us to the genius racket of he and his cohorts. Revel in his communion.

Horrid Red

Radiant Life

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***BACK IN STOCK!!!  After years apart, Horrid Red returns with their fourth and best album yet. Core members Bunker Wolf and Edmund Xavier (both of Der Teenage Panzerkorps) revisit industrial post-punk textures and sinister dark jangle sounds on Radiant Life. As with past efforts, there’s plenty of pop moves in the mix, too. Edition of 150 copies.  “The creative fire that fuels Horrid Red still burns white hot even after a decade. Radiant Life is another glorious addition to a heady body of work which manages to excavate meditative soothe within violent discord.”   —Head On Sticks

De Gennaro, Matthew

Laughing Lost In The Underground

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Matthew De Gennaro goes to gothic country with his wry, intense soundtrack of temporary isolation in Kansas, Laughing Lost In The Underground. This new collection of songs find De Gennaro glinting at darkness, light, and the in-between. Laughing Lost leans less on De Gennaro’s plaintive Andean-indebted folk songs, and more on salient instrumentals that shift and dance, bridging the natural world with humanistic ruminations.  Laughing Lost In The Underground was created in the reclusive De Gennaro’s home studio, set on the edge of town, as close to wilderness as civilization. Though crafted with an array of arcane instruments and otherworldly sounds, the ardor and vitality of De Gennaro’s recordings resonate in the present moment.

Quinn, Donovan

Absalom

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Absalom is the fourth full length release from Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards / New Bums), and his first solo outing in seven years. Coming out of the psychedelic underground school of ’01, Quinn has slowly built an idiosyncratic catalogue that combines obsessive long-form metaphors and oblique arrangements with simple song structures.  As on previous albums, there is a consistent lyrical narrative that runs through shifting sonic spaces. Sparse singer-songwriter arrangements, outsider art piano ballads, loping numbers with a folk rock combo, and baroque pop string arrangements all find their way into the brew. Reuniting with frequent collaborators Ben Chasny, who mixed the record, Elisa Ambrogio, Jessica Roberts, Jason Quever, Michael Tapscott and Eric Amerman, Quinn recorded Absalom in several home and professional studios to achieve a veritable collage effect with instrumentation and musicians changing from song to song.  The idea for Absalom started with an abandoned project called “Fan Fiction,” intended to build songs based on the lore of other artists, as well as expanding on originals previously written by Quinn. Tucked away in the vaults are demos continuing the stories of characters from two Squeeze hits, Clarice Lispector’s Aqua Viva, Jozef Czapski’s lectures on Proust in a Soviet prison camp, Jackson C. Frank’s “Tumble In The Wind”, and the biblical story of Absalom. Bored by the limitations of the project, “Fan Fiction” was scraped, but the themes of familial dissolution and love in the Absalom story that provided a genesis for what became the Absalom album. Printed...

Youngs, Richard & Raül Refree

All Hands Around The Moment

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***BACK IN STOCK!!!  For their first meeting, Richard Youngs (Glasgow) and Raül Refree (Barcelona) have created a suite of stately, circular longform songs that manage to connect Tim Buckley’s Happy Sad to Federico García Lorca to plainsong liturgy. The largely acoustic and quietly urgent All Hands Around The Moment finds Youngs in an impassioned and emotional space he’s rarely inhabited since Sapphie, elevated by lush chamber folk / jazz compositions that incorporate piano, guitar and more, performed by both Youngs and Refree.  The four pieces that build the whole of All Hands Around The Moment harness transcendence in repetition, and feature gorgeous progressive minimalism in full spectrum. Dark existential themes flow into mystic uplifting expressions of humanity, without missing a beat. In its timelessness and prescience, the realities present in All Hands Around The Moment make for a powerfully engrossing listen from top to bottom.

De Gennaro, Matthew

What It Is?

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Wandering homebody Matthew De Gennaro has created a beautiful new opus titled What It Is ? The answer to the album's question: a moving set of deep and transcendental micro concertos, composed and performed almost entirely by the artist himself. De Gennaro summons sounds and styles from out-of-time frames of reference, a practice that separates him and his practice from most other known active performers. That said, a few active performers (friends) join him on What It Is ?, namely Scott Tuma and Stefan Neville, both adding new flavors to the pot.

Olumpus

Caucus

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Olumpus, née Olympus, have bubbled-up for another round nearly a decade after the release of their first LP. Bold Mould, their debut, brought two known quantity one-man-band racket makers--Pat Kraus and Stefan Neville--into fine duo-dom form, birthing a brilliant post-punk side in the tradition of Jane from Occupied Europe. Caucus is their second LP, and it operates on a whole other level entirely. Caucus finds Stefan Neville in full mad scientist producer mode, at the controls, morphing Olumpus into some sort of Flying Lizards operation with himself in the Cunningham role & a giant cast of collaborators from various corners of the fertile New Zealand underground and further points abroad. The results are dense, hallucinatory, warped and catchy, and analogous with hardly anything.  Caucus gathers together 22 collaborators for 14 tracks of blistering fourth wall brilliance and confusion, and features contributions from heavyweights like Steve Dean, Duckingmonster, Richard Youngs, Demarnia Lloyd, Clayton Noone, Matt Plunkett (The Trendees), Mr Sterile, Dan Melchior, and of course Neville and Kraus. Released collaboratively by Stabbies, Etc (NZ) and Soft Abuse (USA).

Smith, Steven R.

A Sketchbook Of Endings

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***BACK IN STOCK!!!  With nearly 25 years of solo recordings and releases to his credit, hermetic Californian Steven R. Smith goes back to the start with A Sketchbook Of Endings, the first solo release under his own name in eight years. Thids album continues Smith’s exploration of the intersection of moody post-punk and cinematic psychedelia, delivered in lysergic pop song-length spurts.  Brevity does nothing to sacrifice density or dynamics—Smith offers both in abundance across the album’s fifteen instrumentals. These songs are packed with all of the depth, intensity and nuance that have been trademarks of his music for so long. Despite appearing under his given name, A Sketchbook Of Endings includes traces of recent work, under guises such as Ulaan Khol, Ulaan Markhor and Ulaan Passerine, as well echoes of his forebearers Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard. This release is a highlight of Smith’s first quarter century of activities, a beacon of his rich and varied anti-career.

Thistle Group

S/t

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Thistle Group has been a going thing for a few years, and this eponymous EP is the first widely available document of Claire Mahoney's slowly scrambled solo endeavor. The songs are built from layered, rumbling analog tape loops that snake around multiple axes, augmented with occasional drums and voice, providing some sense of order. Each track exists as its own universe, guided by Claire's hand. It's as beautiful as it is primordial and as it is mysterious, but the beauty in these pieces really shines through after each encounter.  Like her work as part of the trio It Hurts, Thistle Group's zone is more in line with early industrial acts than much of anything since. Her songs clatter and throb in a reminiscent manner, but this is no homage. These dream-state pieces reflect the artist and her process, in full covert glory.

Skygreen Leopards, The

The Jingling World Of The Skygreen Leopards

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The Jingling World of The Skygreen Leopards is a collection of songs from the first two Skygreen Leopards CDRs on Jewelled Antler; two mini-albums written and recorded in the distant days of 2001, a year with a name that evokes a psychedelic future but which now seems very much part of the psychedelic past. Guided by Tall Dwarfs, The Monkees and The TVPs, the early SGLs concept was to mix automatic songwriting, two voices, California 12-string and put it on reverb smothered 1/4” tape. The restrictions were that no songs could break the three minute mark, no jamming allowed, and you never went back to fix mistakes. All songs were written and performed by Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn; both switching instruments and overdubbing until Donaldson’s Tascam 388 had run out of open tracks.  From the womb of fanzines, flea market record crates of the ’90s and San Francisco’s fading victorians, it’s The Jingling World Of The Skygreen Leopards.

Cadell, Adam

Bush Songs

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Radical traveling fiddler Adam Cadell is a teacher/student of the instrument, one-half of the duo The Scrapes, and is based in Brisbane. Cadell flirted with a life and practice in academia and modern composition, but shed all that in favor of researching and playing with fiddlers from around the globe, including heroes like Tony Conrad and Henry Flynt. The shift from highbrow to a player of the people comes to bear with Bush Songs, his rendering of Australian labor folk songs. Cadell works every bit of his violin on Bush Songs, giving new life to these songs of yore.

De Gennaro, Matthew

Conversation With A Roadside Skull

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Matthew De Gennaro is a deep listener & composer of unclassifiable esoterica that draws on folk music from around the globe. In recent years, his finger-picked, highlife imbued guitar playing has taken on more prominence in his pieces, and there’s been a proliferance of personal story songs as well. Ever present is his gorgeous, otherworldy viol, and melodies from an arcane organ or two. There’s no one out there quite like him, and Conversation with a Roadside Skull provides further proof of this. Joining Matthew on organ for one track is long-time friend and collaborator Scott Tuma. Enjoy the short ride.

Pumice

Platelets

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A diagnosis lament from Pumice, complete with a fatigued, wheezing (yet hopeful!) ode to his condition on the A side and artwork to match. Stefan Neville mostly returns to one-man-band mode on Platelets, save for some crucial violin and keyboard by Jade Farley on “Haemochromatosis…” augmenting Neville’s accordion and guitar moves. The flip is pure classic unadulterated Pumice bash & chug of the highest order. As beautiful and necessary as all of his recordings.

Ulaan Markhor

Helm

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Ulaan Markhor returns with Helm, a new batch of instrumentals that explore the dissonant, dark corners of post-punk and it’s many permutations. Steven R. Smith’s first recordings as Ulaan Markhor surfaced in 2012, and since that self-titled debut LP he’s continued to refine the sound and feel of the project. Once more the focus is the intersection of rhythmic groove and scorched guitar (“The Meters-meets-Amon Duul”), but on Helm the nuanced, meditative pieces built around spike fiddle or organ are as commanding. Just like the many great records he’s made before now, Helm is gorgeous, evocative, deep and above all, killer.

Church Shuttle

Natural Disaster

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Sly smirks mingle with deep mental (chemical?) fogs on each side of Natural Disaster, the first non-tape release for Church Shuttle, and a nice intro to what his whole thing is about. As Church Shuttle, Chris Durham explores the relationships between Fluxus and the Midwest urban folk tradition of scrambled confusion music. Active the last several years, Durham’s playful and nihilistic compositional approach has gelled over the course of here & gone releases for Vitrine, Alien Passengers, All Gone and others. Natural Disaster offers another opportunity to revel in buried realities revealed.

Kraus

Grip The Moon

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Kraus has been a going & growing concern for years now. Each new release from the hands and mind of Auckland’s Pat Kraus is an extension of the one before it, with blasted riffs piled high, explosive drumming and modified electronics teetering on collapse. Grip the Moon is his latest statement, and it’s got all of the Kraus trademarks aplenty with an added dose of Turkish scales bumping up against his Bolan-ish bombast, and primitive futurist take on psychedelic music. Layers and layers of sounds await. Limited.

Quinn, Donovan

Dad Was Buried In His Leather Jacket

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Donovan Quinn leaps back into solo activity with Dad Was Buried In His Leather Jacket, an EP of mostly uptempo story songs with character changes but consistent stories throughout. Quinn writes about those at the end of a long series of parties, in the penumbra around the fun, just before all the booze and drugs and casual conversation turn sour... A large cast of collaborators help create the atmosphere of trouble hiding behind fun. Quinn’s New Bums partner Ben Chasny adds devastating shredder guitar to “Game with No Rules,” while Glenn Donaldson, the other half of Quinn’s duo Skygreen Leopards, adds textural synth and sweet high vocals. Others on board include Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers), Jason Quever (Papercuts), David Novick, Michael Tapscott (Odawas) and Eric Amerman, all of whom push Quinn’s songs into surprising new places.

Exiles From Clowntown

Oh Well

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Three-headed dog Exiles From Clowntown return from a brief slumber, with a grip of killer new songs in hand. These two are among the first they’ve ever laid to tape in a so-called proper studio. The edges may be smoothed and instrumentation added, but the essence of the band (and affiliates) of yore is still very much present. And hey, no holepunches! Oh, well.

Bibs

From The Fish Houses

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***Mysterious, moody, basement trio The Bibs present their debut, a 12-string electric DIY Detroit basement folk-rock statement in the crude tradition of Index's own confusing reality music. Which is not to suggest the jangle/folk spice of From The Fish Houses comes only from the group's deep Michigan weirdo forbearers, nay. These cult sounds are links from a lineage of antipodean forward/free-thinking minds like Mad Nanna, The Cannanes and Tall Dwarfs. THE BIBS make use of wayward melodies, muffled percussion, delirium sounds & the occasional rock-ist bombast; these songs burrow in deep like earworms in reverse. Vinyl only release, includes a download.

De Gennaro, Matthew

Spark + Flame

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***A glorious state of the union delivered by MATTHEW DE GENNARO. Long a denizen of greater Ann Arbor, MI, De Gennaro rose to cult notoriety following a string (pun intended) of collaborative releases with Alastair Galbraith. With “Spark + Flame,” De Gennaro volleys an ode for his lovely bride; a love song sung by a changed & grateful man. On the flip is a cascading organ & keyboard driven piece, “La Chirapita,” that's downcast and hopeful all at once. The limited 45 is tied together with brilliant psychedelic art by JOSH BURKETT and assembled to resemble the 78s that fill De Gennaro's music room.

Pumice

Puddles

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First proper PUMICE full length since 2012, and the first to feature collaborators such as HERMIONE JOHNSON, CLAIR MAHONEY (IT HURTS), LEIGHTON CRAIG (PRIMITIVE MOTION), GLEN FRENZY and MATTHEW DE GENNARO. The fluidity of contributors both expands and (oddly) reinforces the notion of Pumice; wobbly rhythms, intercom screech, the small silver guitar and STEFAN NEVILLE's (Pumice himself!) lonesome croon all mingle with droning chord organ, synth blurts, and dense avant backdrops. LP includes a download.

Pigeons

Buoy / But For The Waves

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***Featuring two new songs not on the upcoming album The Bower due on Mie Records in 2015, this single finds PIGEONS after a point of regrouping. Since Sweetheartstammers, the band relocated from Bronx, NY to upstate NY, lost their rhythm section to Steve Gunn and regrouped as a trio with the addition of boss drummer ROB SMITH (RHYTON). The new single finds the band in a dissonant, yet pastoral rock mode, recalling Future Games-era Fleetwood Mac & Tommy Flanders’ The Moonstone. Limited edition vinyl-only release. Includes a download.

Bowles, Nathan

A Bottle, A Buckeye

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Hard to believe our planet had not yet been graced with NATHAN BOWLES solo recordings until now, but such is the case. After years of playing in celebrated ensembles, touring the world, and honing his skill on a host of instruments, Bowles unveils his first solo effort: A Bottle, A Buckeye. The spacious, rollicking, meditative, and above all powerful record bridges the methods and constructs of his two most notable groups—THE BLACK TWIG PICKERS (old-time) and PELT (outer limits)—while inhabiting a space all its own. LP version includes a download.

Pigeons

Liasons

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***Bronx duo PIGEONS wade closer to the edge of ambitious pop provocations with their third LP, Liasons. Here we find the band in the midst of an enormous creative leap; the psychedelic chanson moves of previous releases now cohabit with spacious westcoast art-blues and wistful cosmic folk tunes, invoking Catherine Ribeiro, Brigitte Fontaine, and Opal. Pigeons singular approach to structure, arrangements & production techniques—mirrored by the willful license in spelling Liasons—culminate with WEDNESDAY KNUDSEN & CLARK GRIFFIN lacing their songs with flute, saxophone, echo, drum machines and languid guitar lines. Includes two songs in French, one of which is a take on "Laisse Tomber les Filles" by Serge Gainsbourg. LP limited to 500 copies.

Olympus

Bold Mould

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***OLYMPUS is the banner under which STEFAN NEVILLE (PUMICE) and KRAUS (ex-FUTURIANS, THE AESTHETICS) clang, pound, and in general, collaborate. The obscure and legendary NZ duo surfs along a warbled, technicolor path lined with basement kraut grooves, blasted tape manipulation, fuzzed-out electro-bleats, explosive drumming, minimal synth dervishes and melancholy pop tunes. Includes a download.

Blackout Beach

Skin Of Evil

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BLACKOUT BEACH is the solo nom de guerre of CAREY MERCER (FROG EYES/SWAN LAKE). Skin of Evil is remarkable in the sense that A.) it contains a story, and B.) that it sticks to the story; a rare occurrence in these free times. "Donna" is the subject, and each of her lovers (past & present) say their peace in song (Donna gets her song, too). Composed, played and recorded entirely by Mercer alone, these songs revel in the proto-punk darkness of the heady Cleveland axis (e.g. Peter Laughner, David Thomas) with a minimal, textural and almost Suicide-ish sense of pop form and the experimental nature of contemporary Scott Walker works.

Old Bombs

Audios

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***The fifth release and first "official" CD from manipulative sound scientists OLD BOMBS—members of MONOTRACT, FUKKTRON, and GRASS JEANS. A genre-defying mix of mutilated, layered, and re-sampled sounds that has earned the group comparisons to John Cage, Merzbow, Organum, V/VM, Pita, Christian Marclay, and Keith Rowe's work with radio. Group member CARLOS GIFFONI is known to occasionally collaborate with Nels Cline, Chris Corsano, Thurston Moore, and Lee Ranaldo among others.

LXV

Asylum / Theophany

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LXV is the moniker of Philadelphia-based producer David Sutton (Current Amnesia, Car Commercials, etc). His latest, Asylum/Theophany, serves as a meditation on Chapel Perilous, an occult term that concerns confusion surrounding supernatural experiences in the physical world. Sutton deeply renders the concept, burying itinerant voices under spectral layers of noise, drones & sharply digital, cold, and harsh electronic tones. The results offer a highly illusory and immersive listening experience, and follow in line with his previous synthesized explorations of ethereal realms. Asylum/Theophany is the first work he's published since his collaboration with Kara-Lis Coverdale, Sirens.

Pumice

Land

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*** On Land, Pumice lurches and spits through a series of dense, deep dirges built from chord organ, tape & occasionally voice, recorded to two-inch reel-to-reel by Stefan Neville. These blown-out meditations mark the first batch of songs made by Pumice in years, and find Neville alternately pushing the boundaries of his music further out while also peering further inside. Heavy & thick & transformative, Land marks a new chapter in the always-evolving world of Pumice.

Thornton, Carter

Mapping The Ghost Volume Ii: The Dead Beach To The Church

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