Vhf   Page 3

Kawabata, Makoto

Inui 3

Vhf

***The third volume in an acclaimed series by the Acid Mothers Temple leader, INUI.3 focuses on Makoto Kawabata's highly personal brand of epic instrumental drone. Performing on bouzouki, sarangi, electric guitar, viola, and ECS-101, Kawabata emphasizes the gradual build of monumental sound structures. Running twelve minutes each, "Sui" and "Ken" are darkly spun tales, with wisps of sound keening over a distant backdrop. Recalling the Speed Guru's lovely 2001 collaboration with Richard Youngs, the 47-minute "Fuku" is based on a hypnotic arpeggio plucked out on the bouzouki over which Gong-style glissando guitar and other zonked sounds are carefully layered.  

L

Holy Letters

Vhf

Recorded in 1989 and 1990, Hiroyuki Usui's barely circulated masterpiece of deeply felt self-expression beautifully captures the spirit and substance of a half-dozen key sub-underground pillars of sound. Working with guitar, vocals, vibes, harmonium, bass, drums, cello, field recordings, digeridoo, and more, Usui blends delicate folk, psychedelia, and experimental sounds into a mostly subdued but undeniably glowing suite. The layered but careful instrumentation on the epic title track and "Troll" backs the alternately plain-spoken and crooning vocals perfectly. Odd touches like snatches of throat singing and bowed vibraphone leap out of the mix at just the right time. There are overt references to the blues (the first track is an oblique cover of "Cold Was The Ground", but other than the occasional slide guitar touch, the connection is overwhelmingly in the timeless feeling and atmosphere. For anyone who's into Richard Youngs, Popol Vuh, Six Organs of Admittance, Tim Buckley, acid-folk, or Japanese underground, this is an essential purchase.  Holy Letters was self-released by Usui in the early '90s and primarily given away to friends, while a handful made it into shops in Tokyo and the U.S. before it disappeared completely. VHF's reissue includes the entire CD and seven-inch from the original package, plus a ten-minute bonus track from the original sessions. The gatefold folio with 20-page booklet includes previously unpublished photos and new liner notes by Usui and Ben Chasny (in both Japanese and English). Usui's name pops up in several intriguing places in the apparently still under-documented Japanese...

Sunroof

Delicate Autobahn Under Construction

Vhf

***BACK IN PRINT!!! The debut album release from MATTHEW BOWER's new trio, following the retirement of SKULLFLOWER and TOTAL, mines territory similar to Total, but with a more group-oriented communal trance arrangement. Taking cues from minimalist composers, Indian music and assorted folk musics, Sunroof uses guitar, violin, hand percussion and reeds to build up layer upon layer of stratospheric bliss, creating the perfect cloud for Bower's sometimes gentle, sometimes excoriating electric guitar to float on.

Pelt

Empty Bell Ringing In The Sky

Vhf

***Containing much-anticipated new music from these brainiacs—basically obliterating their other records with their most all out ultra-sound radiata yet—Empty Bell Ringing In The Sky includes a 12-minute surprise collaboration with Drunken Fish recording artists the rhband, Pelt's complete 35-minute set at Terrastock II (nominated by many, including yours truly, as the highlight of the entire festival and nicknamed "The Hillbilly Theater of Eternal Music"), a magically resonating 17-minute slice from a typical East Coast warehouse hippie party, and finally, a new 18-minute home recording, heavy on the Tibetan Bowls. The live recordings are all of the digital variety and finally capture Pelt's forceful and multi-layered live sound accurately. A live sound which blows the brains out of just about any other bliss, psychedelic or drift musics out there.

Kang Tae Hwan Trio

Love Time

Vhf

Love Time is under-documented Korean alto player Kang Tae Hwan's debut release; his trio includes Makoto Kawabata and percussionist Ichiraku Yoshimitsu, the latter well-traveled in both improv and rock circles, having been a member of Omoide Hatoba and a frequent collaborator with heavyweights like Otomo Yoshide and Haco. The inescapable Makoto Kawabata is best known for his Deep Purple-style rock as a member of Acid Mothers Temple, but on his own has produced a string of subtle, elegiac solo CDs, performing on guitar, organ, electronics, etc.  More minimalist than free jazz, Love Time centers on Hwan's long circular tones, avoiding common free-alto styles in favor of a roughly hewn clarion approach. Kawabata and Yoshimitsu shadow Hwan subtly on sarangi and bowed percussion. The music gradually builds to a crescendo, with Kawabata switching to guitar and Yoshimitsu moving to the drum kit. An atmospheric and understated work. In letterpress gatefold. One track, fifty minutes. We'll see you when you get back.  Active since the '70s, Hwan has recorded for Japanese Victor and DIW labels, played at Moers, toured Japan a few times, and collaborated with Gerry Hemingway and Otomo Yoshihide, among others. His discography includes several CDs of solo alto improvisations and a duo CD with Tuvan vocalist Sainkho Namtchylak. More recently he has collaborated with Alfred Harth during Harth's residency in Seoul.  * The debut release by legendary Korean alto saxophonist * Backed by Acid Mothers temple and Omoide Hatoba members * Packaged in a nice chipboard...

Neilson, Alexander & Richard Youngs

Ourselves

Vhf

Ourselves was originally recorded in Glasgow 2003 as a one-hour special for broadcast on London's Resonance FM but turned out too good to leave to the ether. It is the first collaboration between VHF mainstay Richard Youngs and octopus-armed percussionist Alexander Neilson (currently working with the Glasgow big-band Scatter, whose debut is due soon on Cenotaph). The music here represents something of a return to the extended psychedelic mania of mid-'90-s R!!! outings such as Asthma and Diabetes and Enedkeg. "Beam" kicks off the CD with Youngs ripping it up on electric guitar over a thick blanket of hand percussion, plucked strings, and backwards scraping noises. The 36- minute "Mexico" follows with more string mangling, segueing into an atmospheric interlude for voices, bowed cymbals, and bells. The final track is an unusual rendering of the traditional "God Bless The Master," with Youngs's unmistakable voice carrying the original melody over the cloud of bric-a-brac and swells of electricity swirling in the background.  * Youngs knows the ins and outs of extended psychedelic whoosh better than most * Performed live on the air in Glasgow, 2003 

Rose, Jack

Two Originals Of...

Vhf

The debut solo CD by Jack Rose combines his much-lauded Eclipse LPs Red Horse, White Mule and Opium Musick. While the former is generally recognized as inspired by the Takoma tradition, Rose adds his own exotic influences and recognizable touch - whether abstracting on the modal epic "Red Horse" or the rough slide stylings of "The Colonel's Blues." The latter is an eclectic collection with pieces for 12-string (the percussive and dark "Black Pearls), 6-string, and lap guitar. The two tracks featuring the lap guitar are duets. The lovely raga-ish "Yaman Blues" features Pelt's Mike Gangloff on tanpura, and the near-ragtime of "Linden Ave Stomp" features Glenn Jones of Cul de Sac on his vintage Gibson. The 12-page booklet reproduces the liner notes from both LPs and adds a few snaps.  * Member of drone collective Pelt ventures out solo in full-on Fahey / Basho mode * Collects two sought-after vinyl-only releases  * No export to UK and Europe  

Flying Saucer Attack & Roy Montgomery

Goodbye

Vhf

The legend and the legendary. Drone on.

Sunroof

Cloudz

Vhf

***Bi-annual collection of pillow sound from Matthew Bower & Co. Fairly mellow and spacey, à la the "Embroidered Birdsong Nearly Meadows" disc from Sunroof's 2001 Bliss double-CD. Layers of twinkling keyboard, guitar, unidentified fuzz, short wave, etc. Very much in the style of Harmonia and Cluster in spots. There are a couple of amped-up moments here and there, including surprise lead guitar action on "Tornado Rose Canoe," and the excellent fuzz-grilled rock of "Primavera" (aka "AC/DC" - a staple of recent live sets). According to no less of an authority than Neil Campbell, Cloudz is "the best Sunroof ever."

Pelt

Pearls From The River

Vhf

VHF presents the first time on vinyl for Pearls From The River, the all acoustic epics album from the “classic” Pelt trio lineup of Jack Rose, Mike Gangloff, and Patrick Best. Recorded in a single March 2003 session in Virginia by Mikel Dimmick, this was a superb distillation of their interests at the time (both alone and together—Rose’s first solo records, the emergence of the Black Twigs as a busy working band, etc). “Up the North Fork” is a trio for banjo, baritone banjo, and cello—after the snakey bowed introduction, the fast thwacking of the banjos and forcefully strummed cello take over and whip up a storm. The other two tracks are lengthy ragas (one in C, one in D) with the virtuoso modal guitar of Rose front and center. The title track features Rose on twelve-string, dueling with Mike Gangloff on esraj. Best’s thick, sonorous double-bass bowing anchors the duet between the lightning thrumming / plucking of Rose’s guitar and Gangloff’s arcing, sharply bowed half-time melody. “Road To Catawba” has Rose on six-string, with Gangloff moving to tamboura. Best’s bass is again the foundation, with whistling overtones rising from his bow over the low drone. Liner notes by Byron Coley.  “Join Pelt in celebrating the ecstatic joy that results from refusing to accept the alleged primacy of shit-culture. It does not exist if we will not believe in it. And we must refuse it on all levels always. The proof of its surrender is at hand. Yr hand....

Vibracathedral Orchestra

Queen Of Guess

Vhf

***While certainly VCO's most upbeat and percussive music, the nine tracks on this immense, visceral slab of rackety action run through a wide range of styles. "Ramshackle Sunrise" has a gamelan-like, five-note melody overlaid with a hovering drone. "The Silent Socket" rocks with "Sister Ray"-style guitar careening along side actual drums. The two 20-minute epics that bookend the record are a study in contrasts: "Your Head Shone Like A Stone" has a heavy, excited buzz, while the closing "Goodnight Stars Goodnight Air" is a gentler acoustic epilogue, gliding into the rosy future.

Black Twig Pickers

Soon One Morning

Vhf

***The second CD by this SW Virginia area trio is firmly planted in Old-Time Appalachian tradition, but concentrates mostly on original material. Standing out in particular is "Floyd Allen," Ralph Berrier Jr.'s masterful retelling of an area tragedy with a sweet and unexpected major/minor chorus change-up. Mike Gangloff's lengthy and elegiac instrumental "This War Is Killing Me" glides along on a sad melody passed around between resonator guitar, cello and fiddle. Many tracks are anchored by Gangloff's unusual gut-string baritone banjo. Two solo instrumentals on the CD add balance between the vocal numbers - Isak Howell's "Have You Been To Alabama?" is a subtle fingerpicked workout, while Gangloff's "Ironto Special" is a considerably more exotic-sounding modal construction on the big banjo. Elsewhere, there's an upbeat essay of "Pallet On The Floor," a relation to "Poor Boy Long Ways From Home," which appeared on the group's debut North Fork Flyer CD. Among the traditional numbers, none is more striking than the group's charging and rough treatment of "Oh Death," with Gangloff and Berrier spitting out the call-and-response vocal which gives the album its title.  Personnel:  Isak Howell: Guitar, Vocal Ralph Berrier Jr: Fiddle, Vocal Mike Gangloff: Banjo, Resonator, Vocal  * Fiddle, cello, banjo, finger-picked guitar - VHF stays on the porch with the big dogs  * If we told you this group features one of the guys from Pelt, you'd be impressed, wouldn't you?

Rake

Ginsing Nights

Vhf

***"Recordings made on a portable DAT recorder in the Autumn of 1996. These tapes are from a period where the trio of V, SKB!, and C were renting a space in Barco Rebar, a practice facility in Farifax, VA. Housed in an industrial park in the shadow of giagntic satellite receivers, the space was equipped with the kind of amplifiers favored by metal groups and other grunge rockerz who practiced there—suffice to say that the availability of Ampeg SVTs and Mesa 4x12s inspired the group to throw out the saxes and moogs for a while and TURN IT UP. The music here is delivered mostly in full-on rock/smash mode, played with a bracing enthusiasm that gives an unusual "free-rock" vibe rather than the kind of hard-assed crud you might expect. The fully worked-out structures of "Black Crowes" and "Love Rock" give sharp relief to the long improvised sections in the middles, where the outré ambient drones kick back in before heading back to the heavy action. In a couple of spots, you can hear the vintage Emulator keyboard on loan from Dr. Malcolm Riviera crackling through the (un-mic'd) PA, its grainy 8-bit string and explosion samples blurred to the abstract by the whorl of sound.  Shortly after these tapes were made, I listened to them all while riding an exercise bike in my office. The band forgot about them, having moved on to studio based "cosmic" experimentation with water bottles and ethnic percussion. Revisiting them years later, I missed...

Rake

Omniverse...frequency

Vhf

***"Studio recordings made in 2000, I think. This is a quiet, intimate session which follows the arc begun during the sessions that yielded the band's touchstone Resume The Cosmos (released by Camera Obscura, 1998). There is a lot of close-mic rustling of various objects alongside the expected drones, and some of the tracks have been modified upon mixdown by V . One track, forty-one minutes.

From Quagmire

Caught In Unknowing

Vhf

***Working from Dorothy Geller's assured finger-picked and plucked nylon-string guitar, and James Wolf's elegant violin lines, From Quagmire explores a kind of hushed, terse chamber song that is so unlike anything else it's hard to draw comparisons. V2G2's unorthodox interruptions of sawing bowed guitar, free-"jazz" drumming, and other unlikely audio splatter is the wild card that keeps things from getting too austere. Usually it's totally beside the point, but it's worth mentioning that unlike most underground folk/outsider weirdness, the music here is superbly recorded in close-up detail.   The Tropic of Barren [presents] slowly unfolding songs that are full of mystery and suspense. "Suite of Windmill and Sycamore" open things with raw and bluesy guitar work played as if every note would be the last one ever played. In the distance a drone starts building up and unorthodox percussion jumps in and out of the speakers.... Dorothy Geller [known, along with From Quagmire violinist James Wolf, for work with chamber rock ensemble Laconic Chamber] plays the nylon string guitar throughout the whole record and it's truly spectacular in the sadly flowing "Suite of Atoms and Media." This drifts right into the aptly titled "Fragment of Watching," which veers off into a slightly more experimental neighborhood, but the nylon guitar just keeps on floating in profoundly sad sound structures as if nothing would have happened. On all six of The Tropic of Barren's tracks, there's space for every tone to breathe and every instrument to speak, resulting in a detailed...

Youngsbower

Relayer

Vhf

***The second collaboration between these two stalwart titans of the true UK underground comes eight years after their first pairing on the Site/Realm LP. The title no doubt a nod to the odd resemblance of seven-year-old Rosalie Bower's cover art to another LP of the same title, this Relayer throws out the live methodology of the earlier LP for a dense set of layered studio recordings. Like the music of Matthew Bower's Sunroof! group, the tracks are rainbows of colors and textures with string drone, percussion, bleeps, and the unidentifiable, competing in a mix devoid of the traditional "lead with backing" schema. Many tracks have the kind of welcoming electronic bed seldom heard since the demise of Harmonia, with ring-modulated fuzz bleeping away over a chugging, but non-oppressive beat. Elsewhere, there's Richard Youngs' Riley-style organ ping-pong, a little virtuoso Kalimba, thick wads of analog synth... you know where this is going. So tightly edited and accessible that this would be the perfect summer top-down CD, but what with it being released in November, you'll have to keep it safe until the thaw. Or cruise Australia for Thanksgiving.   Ten tracks, 48 minutes, the second collaboration full-length from two of VHF's most prolific Little more unidentifiable in the monitor, please? Crossfile in Sunroof, Youngs/Wickham-Smith, Total, and Skullflower sections-- go on we dare you   

Pelt

Ayahuasca

Vhf

Vibracathedral Orchestra

Dabbling With Gravity And Who You Are

Vhf

***The latest and current pinnacle from the quintet of Neil Campbell, Bridgit Riley, Julian Bradley, Michael Flower, and Adam Davenport was assembled from recordings of their weekly sessions in Flower's kitchen. The tracks here represent the joyous, celebratory side of VCR—all forward motion, massed strings, percussion, horns, and little instruments rocketing forward in a swirl of sound. Compared to the more austere sounds of recent CDs like Lino Hi and Versatile Arab Chord Chart, the tracks here take off from the spot where the loose hippie-chant-and-drum action of collectives like Amon Düül intersects with the polyglot instrumental approach of mid-'60s Sun Ra (ref. "Exotic Forest," "Shadow World," etc). "There is no chord formation that can be planned," says Neil Campbell, "which creates elation or sadness, or any art which is profound enough to change anything fundamental about a person. There is just a resonance around us which musicians and artists are using or not using." * Camp followers of Sunroof and the VHF stable will find this necessary * Amon Düül and Sun Ra freaks won't complain much, either

Wickham-smith, Simon

Extreme Bukake

Vhf

***In contrast to the live performance-based pieces on Simon Wickham-Smith's 1999 CD Butterfly Dust, the perversely titled follow-up Extreme Bukake is a dissection of religious music, realized on laptop computer. Traditional components like Catholic hymns and Wickham-Smith's vocal on a Hare Krsna prayer get fragmented, splintered, and reassembled into a rich blob of sound. According to his notes on the tracks, "The Self-Immolation of Thich Quang Duc" is a programmatic work based around the death of the titular Viêtnamese monk who set himself alight to protest about the activity of the Viêtnamese government in the early 1960s. He was a friend of Thich Nhat Hanh, whom Martin Luther King Jr. nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. The music sounds like the insanity of the situation, the external noise of cars and people and the internal noise of the heart and the soul of this man. "Sri Guru Vandana" is a song from the Hare Krsna (ISKCON) tradition of Krisna Vaisnavitism, a nod in the direction of Wickham-Smith's pre-Buddhist, teenager self, the young man who got into ISKCON and then freaked out at the evangelical nature of the organization. This track acknowledges the positive side of his experience. "Ave Regina Celorum" is based on a Catholic hymn to Mary, an attempt to create a piece which could perhaps be used for meditation, either formal or informal.  * Another inventive solo work from the laptop half of R!! & S!!  * Bob Ostertag would sell his sampler to...

Sunroof

Bliss

Vhf

The atmosphere of this somewhat delayed yet unstoppable annual collection from long-in-the-tooth UK vibe maestro Matthew Bower and friends (who include Neil Campbell, Rosalie Bower, and maybe some other people - honestly, who can tell?) is mostly spaced and buzzing instruments and voices hovering and floating in the dense mix, all running together like some sort of alien shortwave broadcast. Disc 1 takes off from where last year's Found Star Sound left us - a mix of fuzzy guitar and organ rhythms jousting with voice, bowed strings, and unidentifiable percussion in a compressed fog. Disc 2 is a headlong rush into newish territory, with analog synth vs. birdsong, child's voice vs. sawing violin, chug vs. fizz, etc. There are many tracks on both discs that have subtle (and overt) melodic and rhythmic undercurrents suggesting a fuzz/hiss-dominated alternate-universe version of say, Harmonia or Richter Band. Probably a coincidence, but very, very appealing.

Black Twig Pickers

North Fork Flyer

Vhf

***North Fork Flyer represents the continued persistence of a type of Appalachian folk music that has come and gone from the popular radar over the years, but has never completely disappeared from the Black Twig Pickers' Southwest Virginia home. The songs on North Fork Flyer are mostly traditional numbers (with a few originals sprinkled in) that form the backbone of a century-old tradition - the music of bonfires, front porches, coal miner's festivals, and informal gatherings. These "mountain ragas," as the group calls them, have been recorded, performed, and revised continually by a who's who of true American artistry - luminaries such as Bukka White, Mississippi John Hurt, John Fahey, Bob Wills, Holy Modal Rounders, New Lost City Ramblers, etc., etc.  Recorded live to DAT on front porches and in family rooms, North Fork Flyer blends the fiddle blues of Ralph Berrier Jr., Isak Howell's sinewy guitar and the drone and twitch of Pelt's Mike Gangloff's fretless clawhammer banjo with the trio's rough-around-the-edges but warm vocal harmonies. Played to the accompaniment of night insects, passing trains, and the noise of wandering children, the music retains the charm of tradition but is free of fake antiquarianism and nostalgia. Regardless of age, the music is just as relevant today as it was 100 years ago and the band plays it like they mean it.  The name of the band comes from the oldest, most crotchety apple variety in the orchard that fiddler Ralph Berrier's family maintains along the musically fertile...

From Quagmire

Tropic Of Barren

Vhf

***The Tropic of Barren is the debut release from Virginia's FROM QUAGMIRE. A trio of Dorothy Geller, James Wolf, and Rake guitarist Vincent Van Go-Gogh, FQ's beautiful, mysterious and just plain weird art-song drift is a look into a rather under-explored corner of the underground universe. The slowly unfolding songs are based on Dorothy's nylon-string guitar and hushed-but-pointed vocals, punctuated by Wolf's expertly sawed violin and Van Go-Gogh's unpredictable percussion, electronics and guitar interjections. The music is highly detailed and performed with significant individual personality, rather than the predictable loud-soft-repeat bombast of other contemporary post-whatever ensembles. Geller and Wolf have done time in Camera Obscura recording artists Laconic Chamber and the Library of Congress (the federal institution, not the band). Van Go-Gogh is straight out of DC's long-running freakazoid ensemble Rake (as we stated). The Quag plans to tour both coasts during 2001. 

Wickham-smith, Simon & Richard Youngs

Lammergeier

Vhf

***LAmmERGEIER is the first new recording by Simon Wickham-Smith and Richard Youngs since Metallic Sonatas, recorded way back in the spring of 1998. Following closely on the heels of the VHF reissue of the their classic 1990 debut LAKE, LAmmerGEIER finds the duo continuing to pursue the head-scratching assortment and range of outer sound in a somewhat more contemporary style. LAmmERGEIR makes use of all sorts of exotic instruments, but like Metallic Sonatas, many of the pieces have undergone electronic transformation, adding an extra layer of unsettling aural alchemedia to the tunes. Some of the sounds show the influence of Simon's laptop work over the last couple of years, as heard on his limited edition Adelaide Audio release and some forthcoming titles (which should establish him as a major laptop sound arrangement force, if there's any justice in the world). Laptops aside, the layers of microscopic detail on LAmmERGEIER should give listeners plenty of practice in differentiating sounds that are produced by complicated software and sounds that are produced by a guy whacking a baking tray with a stick.

Montgomery, Roy

Silver Wheel Of Prayer

Vhf

***With so much outward-bound free action these days, it's oddly comforting to hear someone's—well, Roy Montgomery's—version of the journey to the heart of the inner cosmos. A sister record to Montgomery's Drunken Fish CD The Allegory of Hearing, Silver Wheel has seven complementary instrumental tracks, played mostly on Tiesco six-string and recorded mostly on four-track. A couple of tracks are dominated by a new Farfisa organ, which provides a gliding drone and waver on which to hang titles like "for the disoriented" and "for the mortified." The longest track here is "for a small blue orb," a simple strum that builds into a hypnotic pattern over 16 minutes. "The album," says Roy, "is dedicated to Geoff Davies and Annie Leadbetter and their son Jess, who, without seeming to worry about what they were in for, welcomed me into their house and their lives at 12 Buckingham Ave, Liverpool in 1982. The longest track on this recording was first sketched out in their front room on a black Korean acoustic guitar which I christened "Rosebud." It has taken way too long to finish the sketch and to say thanks, but they really did feed my soul and I am grateful for it."    

Rake

Tell Tale Moog

Vhf

Rake

Tell Tale Moog / Art Ensemble Of

Vhf

Treiops Treyfid

Worry Machine

Vhf

Wingtip Sloat

Ardent

Vhf

Doldrums

Feng Shui

Vhf

The second full length (recorded at the same time as their Acupuncture release on Kranky) puts on the let-out, and delivers a more ambient and contemplative sound than before. Upper atmospheric higher-drones, modal looping, raga-esque caresses and microtonal evolving drift, dubbed and mixed from improvisational excursions. Includes the masterful "Ascending Copper Mountain" excerpted on Vhf's Stand Up For Art Rock sampler in its entirety. Perfect.

Doldrums

S/t (aka Secret Life Of Machines)

Vhf

***They spell Kluster with a K and Kraftwerk with a pylon, and F/i stands for fuehrers incognito.

Double U / Glands Of External Secretion

S/t

Vhf

A windswept musical frontier discovered, mapped, and carved for serving. "One of the year's best!"

Flying Saucer Attack

Distance

Vhf

First ever US vinyl of the second album by Bristol’s Flying Saucer Attack. This edition of the LP is produced in full collaboration with FSA / Dave Pearce. Originally released on VHF as a compact disc at the end of 1994, this was the second FSA album, compiling five tracks from impossible-to-get seven-inches with twenty minutes of previously unreleased (and good) material. Similar in blend to the band’s first LP (also newly issued in the USA on deluxe vinyl), the songs hang together as a collection that improves on the individual singles. The two proper singles that make up half of Distance — “Soaring High” / ”Standing Stone” and “Crystal Shade” / ”Distance” were instant collectables upon their release, so this album was compiled to make the songs permanently available. “Soaring High” and “Crystal Shade” are jagged bits of fuzzed-out pop genius; tracks like the mutant concrete “techno” of “Distance” and the two lengthy glissando workouts on “Oceans” and “Oceans II” offset the more conventional tunes, upping the overall impact as a whole album.

Flying Saucer Attack

S/t

Vhf

***BACK IN STOCK!!!  First-ever US vinyl of the debut album by Bristol’s Flying Saucer Attack, and first vinyl edition of any kind since 1993! This edition of the album is produced in full collaboration with FSA / Dave Pearce. Aka Rural Psychedelia, Flying Saucer Attack’s first album was released in 1993 after a couple of instantly sold-out singles. Released at the height of the shoegaze boom, the album is a blend of memorable fuzzed out songs and farout instrumental doodles, sidestepping the rock bombast of many contemporaries in favor of a home-made aesthetic. FSA’s blend of razor-edged static, softly sung melody, and echoing atmospherics builds a dour beauty that sustains itself over the course of the entire program. “My Dreaming Hill,” “Wish,” and “The Season Is Ours” are couched in fuzz and whispery reverb, but are beautiful and accessible tunes, able to stand on their own in any context. “Popol Vuh 1” and “Popol Vuh 2” are straight up tributes to the now much better known German masters, steeped in the hushed atmosphere of the best Vuh records (if not exactly the sound).

Pelt

Brown Cyclopaedia

Vhf

***1995 album (previously vinyl-only) from Virginia ensemble. "Blending improvisation with composisition, lo-fi detail, and the brute force of white noise with sullen beauty." --Bill "Me Later" Kellum  

Pelt

Max Meadows

Vhf

Third album from Virginia's leading explorers of gravitational let-go & multi-instrumental roar.From

Pelt

Techeod

Vhf

Pelt's mix of traditional (acoustic instruments, folk and ethnic music) and contemporary (about one million super-weird noise and avant garde records) reaches a new peak on their latest full-length CD pronounced "Teyhood." Using tamboura, guitar, violin, tabla, banjo, flute, lap steel, oscillator, voice, organ and a variety of other instruments both conventional and homemade, Pelt issue forth a massive and extraordinary gust of sound. Recorded both at home and live in Washington, D.C., it's a sound extravaganza complete with Indian inspired modal trance, wall-of-sound layered melodica, and tape-loop exotica in the vein of compositional explorers like Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

Wingtip Sloat

Chewy Foot

Vhf

***Michael Bull at Caroline Records New York wins the Too Much Time On His Hands Anagram Invitational with "pilot wasting." We're sure that's not a Pavement rip, or anything, nuh-uh, no way. "The voices and guitars. . .surge as if these self-conscious suburban Virginia eclecticists are actually worked up about something." --Mark Jenkins, DC City Paper

Wingtip Sloat

If Only For The Hatchery

Vhf

Their first new work in almost three years, and a continuation of their highly fragmented rock and cryptic experimentation mercifully unaltered by the comings and goings of recent trends. An over-intellectualized mixture of the familiar and strange in equal parts, with a unique and personal vocal and instrumental personality. Go Sloat.

Youngs, Richard & S. Todd

Georgians

Vhf

***Mmmmmm. . .lovely Calgon-time/killing floor compendium of bubbly moods and moderately intense interludes. Equally suitable for 1) being too shagged out to even lift the remote, or 2) drifting into oncoming traffic. No annoying vocals to spoil the moment, either.

Youngs, Richard & Simon Wickham- Smith

Red & Blue Bear

Vhf

***Another enigmatic release from the dashing Scottish duo-- includes an 18-page, full-color liner/booklet. Alluringly bizarre short instrumentals share space with some lovely, folky numbers. Stylistically diverse, sonically wondrous and aesthetically unmatched.