Web Of Mimicry

Cleric

Retrocausal

Web Of Mimicry

Retrocausal is Cleric's stunning and long, long-awaited follow-up to their groundbreaking 2010 album Regressions. Now with well-earned respect from both the extreme metal underground and Zorn-associated avant garde jazz scene, Cleric more than makes good on their promise. Listen to them rewrite the book on what the combination of the terms "metal" and "avant garde" can (and should) mean. With Retrocausal this tireless Philadeliphia-based unit has burst forth with a true masterpiece in the field of extreme experimental music.

Free Salamander Exhibit

Undestroyed

Web Of Mimicry

Now available on ultra-limited double LP with download card! "Undestroyed is the long-awaited debut from the genre-damning Free Salamander Exhibit of Norcal, comprised of four fifths of the legendary Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, with the appropriate confusion of tottering riffage, clarity of intent, and apocalyptic joy. Lyrics include “utopian cyber-hippie, this is your world now,” and the word “catachresis,” which has been defined as a “harsh, unfamiliar musical dissonance.” Hey, if the shoe fits. But for those weary of the headlong stumble “into the night, into the dark, into black silence,” there is the respite of homemade instruments, winds, bells and hooves, and the comforting pulse of afro-dodecacaphony."

Atomic Ape

Rampage

Web Of Mimicry

Following the release of their debut full-length album, "Swarm," Atomic Ape is back on the warpath, unleashing a new pair of singles via the Rampage seven-inch. Featuring another all-star cast of players—including Tim Young, Devin Hoff, Joe Doria, Mike Stone, Steve Moore, Danny Frankel, and many more—the two new tracks showcase different skillsets of a dynamic troop. “Rampage” is a jumping number that immediately hooks with bombast, surf overtones, and spy-movie motifs, filtered through the lens of a modern jazz-rock group. Howling horns, swinging bass lines, and swanky organ solos steal the show, leading an infectious assault of the eardrums. On side B, “Shadow Valse” reveals a softer side—a harmonically rich, densely layered mix of instrumentation and percussion. It soothes before building an undeniable energy, full of unforced improvisations and a deft sense of melody, rhythm, and groove.

Secret Chiefs 3 / Ishraqiyun

Perichoresis

Web Of Mimicry

***Now available - remastered for vinyl **** Ishraqiyun has been characterized as the “neo-Pythagorean electro-folk” side of Secret Chiefs 3, and followers of the band’s live shows in the last decade will recognize it as the most familiar and dominant aspect of the band. For many years, the Ishraqiyun repertoire of mysterious, catchy, original tunes—composed in ratio-based rhythms for non-Western tunings and instruments (saz, sarangi, esraj, etc.)—has been blasted out at inordinately high volume to many adventurous ears. Now, after persistently touring and playing this music in more than 40 countries during the last few years, Secret Chiefs 3 unveil the first proper set of studio recordings of Ishraqiyun material. As a bonus, they have included a healthy dose of new, previously unheard tunes (actually half the album). The diverse musicians on Perichoresis are drawn from several configurations of the band over the years and include Eyvind Kang (viola), Ches Smith (drums, percussion), Rich Doucette (sarangi, esraj), Peijman Kouretchian (drums), Mike Dillon (tabla), Shahzad Ismaily (bass), Timba Harris (violin), Jai Young Kim (keyboards) and many more, all led by composer / producer / bandleader / multi-intrumentalist Trey Spruance.  Though concert-goers will welcome definitive editions of some of their favorite live songs, none of what is presented on Perichoresis has ever appeared on any previous Secret Chiefs 3 album. Never content to rest on the familiar, SC3 pushes Ishraqiyun into uncharted terrain, stretching the envelope most particularly on the mega-opus title track “Perichoresis.” This is the first...

Probosci

Time To Feed

Web Of Mimicry

Probosci is a collaboration between violinist Timba Harris (Secret Chiefs 3, Estradasphere) and guitarist Gyan Riley (Eviyan, Terry Riley). Both composers, whose work is featured in John Zorn’s Tzadik Records Composers’ Series, contribute to the interplay between composition and improvisation, steeped with intricacy and shape-shifting energy.  On this duo’s debut album, Time to Feed, they adventurously explore sonic landscapes with quicksilver virtuosity. From purely acoustic music to unfamiliar electroacoustic textures, Time to Feed darts seamlessly between focused subtlety and disorienting aggression.  Having mesmerized listeners at many of the world’s most renown symphony halls, theaters, rock clubs, and festivals in over 40 countries, Probosci is the next evolution of these two musicians’ years-long musical partnership.

Forms

Danse Macabre

Web Of Mimicry

“Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ -plus- SC3 rhythm section renditions of Saint Saens’ “Danse Macabre” (heard live lately) and Spruance’s “Apocryphon of Jupiter” (never heard). Features the Golden State Theater Mighty Wurlitzer in Monterey, CA, augmented by the band’s live magic organ rig, all played by the just-mentioned cast of «Mausolée Mécanique» mannequins. Photo collage artwork all from shots at House on the Rock taken/assembled by Spruance.”

Ur / Forms

Split

Web Of Mimicry

“The UR piece, “Medium Aevum” is the original of a song Ishraqiyun has been covering for many years, familiar from SC3 live gigs (but never recorded). Here it is heard in its radically different *original* fuzzed-out format. The flipside is FORMS' energetic and comprehensive piano-roll band organ rendition of the Sousa masterpiece, “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Faithful in all details to the original composition, the tune gets a temperamental update according to the mood of the times. It's all done on the decaying early 20th Century devices of the FORMS Mausolée Mécanique, which here are manipulated by Matt Lebofsky's decrepit fingers, William Winant and Kenny Grohowski's dusty beaters, Timba Harris' rat-chewed piccolo bowings, and Spruance's endlessly cobwebbed weavings.

Atomic Ape

Swarm

Web Of Mimicry

Here’s some good news for fans of meticulously crafted instrumental music and records with major production efforts behind them: The Mimicry recordings artists formerly known as Orange Tulip Conspiracy have returned with a new lineup, a new sound, a new name, and most exciting of all, a new album called Swarm.  The now-LA-based Atomic Ape is still led by Jason Schimmel (Estradasphere), who has been honing this work at studios in Seattle, San Francisco and his formidable commercial space in LA, The Bunker. It took over four years to complete the album—possibly the result of contracting some time-dilating virus when playing bass in Secret Chiefs 3 (rumors of him working on some of these tunes as far back as 2008 have been circulated). Also there’s the cast of 25 musicians involved beyond the core live band, among them Mimicry-familiar names like Trey Spruance, Eyvind Kang, Tim Young, Devin Hoff, Jessika Kenney, Dave Abramson, Timb Harris, Steve Moore and other heavy luminaries like Joe Doria, Danny Frankel and Mike Stone.  With an eye toward doing things the hard-but-right way, Swarm was mixed to 1/2-inch tape using only analog outboard equipment (this last step manned by the eminently capable Justin Phelps). It’s details like this—above and beyond the usual high levels of care and consideration—that make the record’s surf-drenched alternate universe of lost TV-land cop show soundtracks with 80 billion styles of music actually work—brilliantly.  Mimicry is proud to offer records like this one—self-produced obsessions that go beyond the...

Secret Chiefs 3

Book Of Souls: Folio A

Web Of Mimicry

***BACK IN STOCK!!!  Listeners have come to expect a lot from Secret Chiefs 3. For Book of Souls, second in the band’s mega-trilogy (first being Book of Horizons, 2004), they demand nothing less than a vertigo-inducing follow-up. True to expectation, Book of Souls: Folio A is a full-length album densely packed with musical skyscrapers. Over a decade in the making, it’s Secret Chiefs 3’s most elaborate work yet.  Following the seven-band schemata laid out in Book of Horizons, Book of Souls thoroughly establishes the depth of Secret Chiefs 3’s journey into lost musical possibilities. With productions based in studios in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, the UK and France over the last eleven years, the band’s leader Trey Spruance enlisted a small army of musicians—or actually not so small, since the orchestral tasks demanded by the music seem to be so unlimited. But familiar names in the Secret Chiefs 3 canon form the backbone of the recording band: Timb Harris, Ches Smith, Shahzad Ismaily, Anonymous 13, Danny Heifetz, William Winant, with live-band initiates Matt Lebofsky, Kenny Grohowski and Toby Driver adding extra life. This album is the kind of titanic, almost Faustian undertaking that is uniquely appropriate to Secret Chiefs 3, and for all that pomp it’s easy to forget that everything is DIY to the core. Book of Souls: Folio A is a fully organic production. Everything is honed with love in one of the last hermetically sealed laboratories, a...

Fat32

S/t

Web Of Mimicry

Live-action, musique concrète, bit-crushed French punk duo FAT32 are longtime touring-partners with Secret Chiefs 3. If one claimed FAT32 stands upon foundations erected by bands like Lightning Bolt and Hella, they would be partially right. But the essence of their music sparkles into regions occupied by the likes of Spike Jones, Edgar Varese, Naked City and Squarepusher.  It’s hard to believe FAT32’s sound is the work of simply drums and keyboards. Their live show so flabbergasted the members of Secret Chiefs 3 that the San Francisco band dragged them all around the world for over 100 shows and stood watching every night, never tiring of admiring their ever-shifting set. It was then decided that a recorded document had to be made. The production talents of Randall Dunn (SUNN0))), Master Musicians of Bukkake, Earth, Kinski) were brought to bear, and the result is an astonishingly crushing and lucid representation of this band’s irreducible formula.  With their self-titled debut album, FAT32 proves that the best future-music in the digital age is still made 100% organically.

Ishraqiyun / Forms (Secret Chiefs 3)

Saptarshi / Radar

Web Of Mimicry

In order to face East, one must know how to locate North. On this song, Ishraqiyun nails a facet of their septenary logic to the celestial pole, throwing diatonic sparks into the Cosmos.  An unassuming but brilliant piece by Bernard Herrmann was hidden in the background during the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still. Originally just piano, vibes and timpani, "Radar" now gets exploded into an uncalled-for over-exposure, via the world's only fully organic, wood & spirit mechanized orchestra, FORMS.

Traditionalists (secret Chiefs 3)

La Chanson De Jacky / Western Exile

Web Of Mimicry

In 1965 Jacques Brel wrote and recorded a fiery three verse chanson exploding with the anxiety, bravado and panic faced by someone stretched to a midpoint across the abyss -- to find oneself suspended between mediocrity and genius, villainy and heroism, doom and eternity, etc. In 1967 the nearly equally inimitable Scott Walker brilliantly re-interpreted Brel's Chanson in English, to equal parts controversy and acclaim in the Anglosphere. In 2012, both versions of the tune have collided in an Anglo-Franco alliance, revealing perhaps an ever-implicit third dimension. It's a stunt simultaneously ill-advised and absolutely necessary for a band like Secret Chiefs 3: Traditionalists to undertake -- and one that could only be pulled off with someone uniquely qualified to take command of the vocals. Who other than the maestro Mike Patton, in this day and age, to do justice (and then some) without insult to such a preposterously Spartan legacy? One of the main themes from Secret Chiefs 3's 2004 album "Book of Horizons" receives a more spaghetti-seasoned marination in the crimson blood-soaked cemeteries of occidental exile. Not a chump re-mix, this is an entirely new thunderhead-evoking arrangement and recording, back-dated with a few more horsemen of the Apocalypse casting shadows over the Cowboys and Indians for cinematic effect. Already a well-proportioned auditory and philosophical compliment to its flipside, this recording is also one of the precious few Secret Chiefs 3 recordings graced with the voice and viola of Anonymous 13.

Secret Chiefs 3

Satellite Supersonic Vol. 1

Web Of Mimicry

With their long-awaited album Book of Souls due to hit the shelves this fall, Secret Chiefs 3 have chosen this moment to bring the digital world up to date on some of the clandestine (i.e. vinyl-only) activities of the SC3 "satellite bands." In 2007, a string of 7-inch records by these groups were all snatched up by fans within just over a month, leaving many potential listeners feeling a bit left out. Web of Mimicry is pleased to announce that eight tracks from UR, Ishraqiyun and Electromagnetic Azoth have made it on to Satellite Supersonic Vol. 1, and five of them are from those coveted 7-inch records!  In true Secret Chiefs 3 fashion, these tracks were not just rehashed "as is" from their 2007 vinyl masters and hastily transferred to bits and bytes. Rather, for this CD release each song was given a full studio work-over in early 2010. The band, which is about to tour Eastern Europe, Turkey and Israel, originally intended this as a low-key tour release, but such new life was breathed into the tunes in the process of remixing them (some of them even having new and expanded arrangements) that the whole project deserved to be presented as something more substantial.  To that end, Satellite Supersonic Vol. 1 really takes off when Secret Chiefs 3 adds a brand new, previously unreleased track to the Ishraqiyun repertoire. Yep, a new one. A killer. Also, an old UR favorite from Book of Horizons (2004) abandons the...

Cleric

Regressions

Web Of Mimicry

Cleric is a four-piece band from Philadelphia that mixes elements of grindcore, avant-garde composition, doom and something else entirely. Their debut full-length Regressions delivers harsh, focused, and eerily psychedelic experimental compositions that are attention-grabbing from start to finish. Influenced by metal pioneers such as Meshuggah, Converge, Fantomas and Neurosis, the band approaches a level of brutality and experimentation that few others have achieved.  In the six years since their inception, Cleric has released a number of EPs and a 12-inch picture-disc through the UK's Sound Devastation Records, all of which have garnered praise for their unique sound and intricate artwork. Band members have also performed a live score at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, received a nomination for Best Music at the 2008 AVN Awards, and collaborate regularly on film scores.

Good For Cows

Audumla

Web Of Mimicry

Good for Cows' fourth full-length, Audumla, finds the formerly acoustic, instrumental "crust jazz" bass and drums duo starting afresh. The constraints of flying with an upright bass, increasing volumes, and a steady listening diet of black metal and harsh noise music have lead Ches Smith (Xiu Xiu, Secret Chiefs 3, Traditionalists, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog) and Devin Hoff (Nels Cline Singers, Xiu Xiu) to reinvent their sound with electric bass, large drums, and electronics. The pair's extensive background in improved music and sonic experimentation serves the songs well, resulting in a compact record with no filler. The Ornette Coleman influence remains, but is now filtered through a lens of early Mayhem, Prurient, Abruptum, and Darkthrone. Nine noisy instrumental jams, from dirgey to blasting--but all heavy.

Secret Chiefs 3 / Traditionalists

Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini

Web Of Mimicry

From out of nowhere, Secret Chiefs 3 (operating here as Traditionalists, one of the seven satellite bands introduced on their Book of Horizons album) present an elaborate colonna sonora paranoica: original compositions that were dreamt up in the harmonic language of the Giallo Horror Film Soundtrack--a particular subgenre of B-movie with remarkable scores by Italian masters such as Bruna Nicolai, Stelvio Cipriani, Ennio Morricone, Goblin, Pierro Piccioni, etc. Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini employs a full orchestral score that capitalizes on the Chiefs' stock manpower (Trey Spruance, Ches Smith, Timb Harris, Shahzad Ismaily, William Winant, etc.) and adds to it a broad cast of A-list hired musicians (among them Laurie Goldstein, Hans Teuber, et al.). Dissonant, violent strings recede into beautiful textures with flute and female vocals through echoplex; analog synthesizers, harpsichords, and celestas hover above a tight, '70s-style rock band rhythm section; crazed psychedelic freakouts payoff majorly; church organs grant repose, until tape treatments and a shrieking chorus of possessed voices force the listener to reconsider his or her position on the existence of Evil. The entire project, as one might expect from this band, is a spiralling allegory that extends itself well-beyond its cliched starting-point as a "soundtrack for a non-existent film." The film is imagined, but the horror is real.

Faxed Head

From Coalinga To Osaka: Live In Japan 1995

Web Of Mimicry

From Coalinga To Osaka documents the pride of Coalinga, CA in all their self-handicapped, brain-damaged glory. Beautifully shot on three cameras during Faxed Head's improbable 1995 tour of Japan, the live footage of this self-proclaimed "desk metal" quartet is interspersed with baffling but authentic footage of a Japanese junior high school class where the students are instructed on the subject of... Faxed Head! In addition to the electronics- and mayhem-heavy 1995 Osaka set, the DVD includes bonus live footage of a reconstituted (and much more metal-sounding) Faxed Head on tour in Canada in 2001. And, for the true fan, a 45-minute long hidden "Easter egg" showcases an entire concert by Faxed Head's long-time nemesis, pitiful Coalinga-area boogie-blues idiots The Bon Larvis Band.  This strange and wonderful DVD is a surefire seller to fans of Mr. Bungle, Neil Hamburger, and Caroliner--all acts with which Faxed Head has long been associated, for reasons that are not clear. Faxed Head's devoted fan-base remains hungry for product, as health problems have prevented the band from any activity since 2001's Chiropractic CD.  "From between the smiling, spilling oil derricks of Coalinga hobbles a severely damaged new extreme of metal. While most bands only play at looking to death for answers, the five 'desk metallers' in Faxed Head have already tasted the end, and have returned looking uncomfortably hideous and pathetic. Crippled, isolated and uneducated, these dedicated misfits have everything working against them.... His head a mottled morass of tangled hair and misshapen features, McPatrick Head roars like...

Girth

Sleeper, Awaken

Web Of Mimicry

"We toured with this line-up for six months or so, September 2005 through February 2006. The shows were our most brutal and experimental to date, often going off on long improvisational rampages. We recorded a through-composed 19-minute movie-like piece in four movements, entitled "Sleeper Awaken." With Randall Dunn at the board, our intentions for this piece were to create a mind-fuck journey of psychedelic metal to supply a soundtrack for the listener during his/her most "indulgent" moments. WARNING: Not for the weak at heart... bum trips guaranteed for the unexperienced, depending on his/her state of mind." --Girth

Orange Tulip Conspiracy

S/t

Web Of Mimicry

***"Written and arranged by Estradasphere guitarist Jason Schimmel, Orange Tulip Conspiracy is an audio thrill ride into an expanding universe of drama, action, beauty, and horror. Entirely instrumental, cinematic in scope, and backed by a monster cast of players (including Seattle's Bill Horist and Dave Abramson, Secret Chief 3's Trey Spruance, and the members of Estradasphere) Schimmel has composed and arranged twelve unique and highly stylized tracks featuring countless areas of exploration with an array of sharp solos and clever tempo changes. It swings, it sways, it grooves, and it rocks--these guys can play anything with frighteningly epic precision: eccentric lounge, Italian Giallo, futuristic metal, cafe Romany, near eastern jazz. Vague points of reference such as these don't do the music justice. These tracks are lean and tasty without a speck of fat on the plate, blending classic retro styles with new ideas that cannot be properly articulated. Although Schimmel is an amazing guitarist and proves it on this record, there is a balance of spotlight and the list of insanely diverse instrumental elements all put to well-crafted use is staggering: pianos, Fender Rhodes, cello, bazooki, various brass, violin, organs, clavinet, vibes, accordian, banjo, exotic percussion, and much more, drifting over powerful rhythm sections that morph from one mood to the next with seemingly no effort whatsoever. This should be a highly sought-after document for those interested in the frontier of modern popular instrumental ensemble music, and an absolute must for any Estradasphere fan." --Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls, Sublime...

Secret Chiefs 3

Path Of Most Resistance

Web Of Mimicry

Secret Chiefs 3 have been running covert operations for twelve years now. For a band that tosses their releases out into the mirage of human civilization with little or no fanfare, it’s no wonder that Secret Chiefs 3 have remained off the music media’s radar, and have weathered innumerable musical fads without so much as a flinch. History has shown that the bulldozers will eventually come to break up cults like this, destroying their compound and seizing their weapons cache. Secret Chiefs 3 have therefore recognized the need to publicly gather some of their most universally recognizable doctrines into one affirming document. Path of Most Resistance is just such an offering to the public. Unbeknownst to too many, this music is lush, gigantic, heartfelt, and organic, and can’t be written off as mere musical gymnastics. People who may not be so geeked-out on the sophisticated hologram of ancient Pythago-quasi-Dastgah or modern western poly-tonal temperaments going on in this music, who judge things more on just whether it’s good listening or not, now have a clean welcome mat rolled out, and bodyguards to usher them past the scowling elites, past the annoying zealots, and straight to the garden where the heart of this music beats. Culled from SC3’s four main studio recordings, plus some enhanced CD bonus material (out-of-print live tracks, obscure cover versions, and two live videos), Path of Most Resistance will delight new and seasoned SC3 listeners alike.

Chamberlain, Matt

S/t

Web Of Mimicry

Prompted to creation, in a way, by the legendary session drummer Hal Blaine’s under-appreciated record Psychedelic Percussion, Matt Chamberlain’s debut solo record conjures up the forgotten possibilities of the good old ‘drummer and studio’ paradigm. The record ends up functioning like a sordid dream intertwined with some haunting movie memories (think Telly Savalas... think Enter the Dragon). It’s easy to picture zombie karate fights taking place in lush overflowing gardens, and out-of-place Italian furniture being cracked over heads. You almost hear the appropriately thrown-together orchestra being directed by a genetically altered Georgio Moroder right there on the set... and that creeps you out during the few genuinely romantic sex scenes. Kind of like Goldfrapp, Chamberlain has ignored the rules of passe and boldly crafted a sleek and palpable form of post-trendy, modern exotica. Utilizing the all-pro string arrangement skills of Eyvind Kang, percussion instruments from far off places and planets, archaic electronics, analog sythesizers, outer space spaghetti western guitar, and sonically mutilated drum-kits of every size and make, Chamberlain’s debut album is a full-bodied record that will sit proudly next to Lalo Shiffrin, Autechre, Martin Denny, Amon Tobin, David Axelrod, Hal Blaine and Critters Buggin records.

Stares

Spine To Sea

Web Of Mimicry

*** Eight months in the making, The Stares’ Spine to Sea is nothing less than a devastating, harmonically rich and uncompromising work of somber realism. No one who hears this CD will walk away from it untouched. The Stares are an easy obsession to acquire. The voices of songwriters Angie Benintendi and Drew Whittemore fixate on some distant invisible expanse, treading so slowly, so beautifully, through landscapes familiar, but sprinkled with some kind of heavy magical realism that just can’t be described. “Americana” maybe, but with roots so deep in the earth that there’s no geography that could ever really contain them. These songs simply rise up out of themselves. Wherever they come from, you cannot help but be drawn into their shadowy landscape. There’s no question: your first encounter with this music will be one you’ll remember. Forever. From Seattle, the Stares are a four-piece with aforementioned vocalists/songwriters Whittemore and Benintendi on guitar and electric piano/keyboards respectively, and Don McGreevy on bass and Jason Merculief on drums. This ensemble is filled out with string and woodwind arrangements by Eyvind Kang, who authored along similar lines for the latest Blonde Redhead CD. As great as that was, he absolutely outdid himself on Spine To Sea. The album is supported further by an auxiliary team of various Seattle music legends herded under the Stares roof by Randall Dunn, the record’s production wizard. The end result is so rewarding we’re having a hard time containing ourselves. “To say their sound is a...

Miasma & The Carousel Of Headless Horses

Perils

Web Of Mimicry

* Miasma & The Carousel of Headless Horses are a British instrumental quintet whose dark, antiquated-sounding music encompasses elements of Eastern European folk, avant-rock, broken-down calliope music, and neo-classical film composition. In keeping with Mimicry tradition, their music can only be compared to many artists at once: in this case Angelo Badalamenti, Astor Piazzolla, Goblin, Art Bears, Burzum, Tom Waits, Antioch Arrow, King Crimson, Bach and Univers Zero. More a trip to an anachronistic world of neo-baroque psychedelia than a simple study in diced-up eclecticism, the music on Perils sways between lush chamber-oriented melancholia, apocalyptic bombast, and epic ghost train high-drama. With their harmoniums, autoharps, violins, violas, pianos, organs and glockenspiels added to a top of the line rhythm section, Miasma & the Carousel of Headless Horses very deliberately adhere to a Faustian melodrama of the angelic. Their dark, harrowing visions of some dense hellish musico-psychological dystopia shapeshift frequently and become a very capable and Elizabethan sounding prog-baroque meteorite at the drop of a hat. This instrumental music would find a happy home in a Jan Svankmajer or Fritz Lang film, and will find a prominent place on the shelf of any connoisseur of occultist highbrow, right next to his/her John Dee volumes. The group consists of Daniel O’Sullivan and Dave Smith from the trio Guapo (a recent offspring from the hereditary line of Magma and The Ruins (Cuneiform/Ipecac); Orlando Harrison from the pop band Alabama 3 and Amal Gamal Ensemble (members of Coil, Cyclobe, and Shockheaded Peters); David Ledden...

Tuna Helpers

I’ll Have What She’s Having

Web Of Mimicry

***"Cruella Deville meets Mary Poppins meets Kate Bush" is how Austin, Texas-based band The Tuna Helpers have been described, and it's pretty darned accurate. Adrienne the Anemone and Bethany the Baracuda are the "odd yet delightful" sisters who form the basis of a trio, rounded out by their similarly odd and delightful long lost sister Khattie the Katfish. At times I'll Have What She's Having is like a doll come to life, singing with an operatic voice, and teaching the waltz to sparse drum beats on broken toys, backed up by an orchestra, harpsichords, clavinets and choirs. With the production duties handled by Trey Spruance of the Secret Chiefs 3, all private mythologies come across vividly from the Tuna Helpers' dream world and right into your speakers. The Tuna Helpers visually dazzle audiences with puppet shows and American Sign Language. In a tapestry of gothic styling, they weave the doctrines of girly power, gross-out contests and sophisticated musical achievement into what they hope will become your favorite doll.   

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Of Natural History

Web Of Mimicry

*** Appearing on the one hand to be a post-modern apocalyptic cult, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum delight in setting folksy allegorical tales of auto-genocide and the species-wide doom we all face to breathtakingly strange and compelling music. With this release, their musical method evolves, as natural things do, and delivers what can only be described as a complete and thoroughly devastating musical expression. With their dense, harmonic compositions and jagged, intricate rhythms (by far the best in the business on both counts) servicing the artistic equivalent of a Unabomber tract set to music, the music collected in Of Natural History sets a serious high water mark for future generations to look back on in awe-- assuming future generations ever exist, that is. SGM's impressive instrumental array includes many homemade devices suggestive of the avant-garde. Having little in common with those who have marred the field, whether mere arty obscurists, jock-like musical gymnasts, or high-brow snoots, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are thoroughgoing populists, warmly regarding their varied audience and skillfully embracing their role as entertainers. Even though the band boasts heavy-hitters like Carla Kihlstedt (Tin Hat Trio, Carla Bozulich) and Nils Frykdahl of Faun Fables, this is a band that survives and thrives supremely through heavy touring, and in the process has amassed a devoted following. For a band that owes as much to Meshuggah as they do to the Art Bears, Messiaen, and Einsturzende Neubauten, their skewed exhumation of Futurism in reverse strikes a broad nerve and fills a big void. This...

Youngs

S/t

Web Of Mimicry

If the Captain and Tennille were into dark progressive space rock, they might have really lit the world on fire. Thirty years later The Youngs emerged to fill the void. Their catchy, well-crafted songs make you shed a tear for love and death, Seattle-sadcore style. This is a dynamic duo (a married couple in real life) who fearlessly chart the astral regions, and tell tales of living and dying on a fucked-up planet like this one, with love as the backseat driver. Owing more to Grandaddy than the White Stripes, this band knows how to sound good. Their songs conjure the melancholic beauty of a couple witnessing the end of the world. With lyrical topics ranging from futile space migrations to the power of love in the face of being psychically vampirized by modern cities, to the Skull and Bones Society, to a beautiful and sincere suicide pact between lifelong partners, The Youngs' music quite literally sparkles and shines with bountiful appeal.Especially if that stuff called emo only pisses you off. Live, the golden voiced Eryn Young sings and plays drums and samples simultaneously, with significant other Tim Young, an accomplished Seattle musician, at her side playing guitar and bass pedals and singing simultaneously. It's like two one-man bands in one. After hearing this great-sounding and well-produced record no one won't believe they can pull it off.  

Secret Chiefs 3

Book Of Horizons

Web Of Mimicry

*** Book of Horizons is the first release in an elaborate trilogy and meta-composition by Secret Chiefs 3. It’s huger than anything the band has ever done: beyond psychedelia, beyond experimentalism, and beyond classification. The Secret Chiefs 3 enhance their usual multiple personalities and divide into seven individual and distinct bands, enabling the overall musical content to be distilled into pure vessels. One band incorporates multi-ethnic instrumentation and seasoned, soulful playing (by Eyvind Kang and Shahzad Ismaily), while the rocking, suprasensory surf band (with full orchestra) bloodies up the waters. John Merriman (Cephalic Carnage) and Unhuman keep the ultra-death metal grind band well within the pummel zone of utter mayhem. This CD includes hordes of musicians and instrumentation — real, not sampled — including saz, rabab, mridangam, dhol, esraj, sarangi, orchestral percussion, male and female choir, violin, viola, cello and contrabass, harp, bowed saw, santur, ghatam, clavinet, organs, electroacoustic treatments, guitar, bass, drums, and tons and tons more.  

V/a

Mimicry Records Sampler

Web Of Mimicry

*** An excellent introduction as well as recap Mimicry Records past, present and future roster. Tracks from past releases and upcoming albums from Secret Chiefs 3, Dengue Fever, Estradasphere, Faxed Head, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, I.S.S., Danubius, Farmers Market, Brazzaville, and Fishtank. Card folio packaging. Priced to move.

Estradasphere

Passion For Life

Web Of Mimicry

The insatiable minions who make up the always growing Estradasphere peanut gallery ought to be delighted by this live DVD-and-CD package, released on the heels of their Quadropus album and tour. Fans of this powerhouse unit of ultra-eclecticism will be treated to an inside look at how their favorite proponents of the “aural collage” can just make it happen without the usual smoke and mirrors… Whaaaaat? No laptops? No samplers? To those enamored with the recent, ahem, “progress” made in those areas, good old-fashioned musicianship might seem a bit odd. But “odd” hasn’t ever been seen as a bad thing in Estradasphere-land. Consult the DVD for proof; it was shot from a diehard fan’s perspective (and beautifully, we might add). You’ll see all the weird personality quirks as band euphoria trades off with the turbulent demands of excessive musicianship. Various band psychodramas are completely real, but seem more and more like a big joke as they get played out — sometimes making it all the way to the stage! And going on tour just amplifies that kind of thing to the point of no return, which somehow ends up enhancing the music in unique and indescribable ways. The theory at Mimicry is that the key to Estradasphere’s continuing success is that they are a live band first and foremost. Plop in this well-made DVD and see the proof, or throw in the CD and reminisce until their next tour. So you’ll know.

Estradasphere

Quadropus

Web Of Mimicry

***Every band contracts Departure Album Syndrome at some point in their career. With Estradsphere, one has to ask what "departure" could mean for a group who never bothered to establish much of anything about themselves, other than capable and graceful navigation of any musical landscape, and the daily performance of feats unimaginable to most musicians. On Quadropus, the band navigates terrain usually reserved for people who take themselves quite seriously. Who's kidding whom? These guys could eat most of the Downtown pros for breakfast. It's finally evident that the shameless flaunting of the inner-dork that has banished Estradasphere to the annoying joke bin is not by any means the end of the story. Not because the band is ever going to be considered cool or anything pathetic like that, but because how they craft their music has changed into something a lot more listenable. For instance, the ultra-electronic-sounding dub / drum'n'bass of "Dubway" is done entirely a capella. Their version of an old Greek Rembetica song stays pretty true to the original, even through the wall of guitars and double kick drum at the end. "Speck" is a nice and creepy ballad, like Mazzy Star doing a Nino Rota cover. Their ridiculous, Godzilla-sized, demented "funk" song "KKB" sounds like well over a thousand people playing at once. Sheer primal madness. The Bulgarian-influenced, crowd-pleasing "Hardball" is a tight-as-fuck trip down Estradasphere lane, only better than before. Also includes a video for "Body Slam."   Estradasphere Buck Fever (Mimicry - WoMØ8)...

Danubius

S/t

Web Of Mimicry

***Danubius specialize in Hungarian, Romanian, Transylvanian, Moldavian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and many other types of Balkan folk and gypsy music. Based around the San Francisco Bay Area, they enjoys access to a great deal of difficult musical terrain. Fans of Taraf de Haidouks, Muzsikas or Fanfare Ciocarlia and other Balkan musics already know that an aspiring musician couldn't merely dabble on the weekends and expect to produce anything (other than his own shame and embarassment). Danubius soars way above the hurdle. Their collective passion for doing things right yields a special intensity and remarkable musical payoffs. Whether bringing the house down and dropping jaws with their marvels or bickering over arrangement details, Danubius is destined to emerge from obscurity.  Biographical Details:  Budapest-born Jutka Mándoki grew up mostly in Oakland, has played keyboard and accordian instruments since childhood, and recently took up koboz (a lute, played in Romania, also known as cobza), viola, bass, tekerölant (hurdy-gurdy or wheel fiddle, played in Hungary), and ütögardon ("beaten cello" played by Hungarians in Romania).  Since stumbling upon Hungarian / Romanian / Gypsy fiddle, Danubius director David Skuse has not wanted to do anything else. Skuse co-founded The Klezmorim, and has played with The Silver String Macedonian Band, The Balkanizers, and groups in Hungary.  Roman Titcu is a virtuoso player of the cymbalom, or "tsambal" - Born in Moldova, he founded and directed Doina Besarabia. As a student at Chisinau's Music Conservatory, he majored in tsambal, conducting, and composition, performed on many...

ISS

Forget About The Girl

Web Of Mimicry

***The debut album from ISS, Forget About the Girl, is an absolute breakthrough in the sadly decomposing genre of the "novelty" record. A self described "Time Warping Boy Band", ISS is shamelessly derivative, and very, VERY convincing. Now before you start to puke, stop to consider the fact that ISS have managed to re-inject the genre of the nefarious "Boy Band" with the magic and marvel it once knew with the Beach Boys and the Four Freshmen—this is definately NOT an exaggeration. Don't be expecting another half-assed imitation of Pet Sounds by some smug, irony-obsessed art-farts—ISS is the REAL DEAL!   Tim Smolens (Estradasphere) is the main songwriter and producer behind ISS. His obsessive study of the harmonic elements of Brian Wilson compositions (and, shamefully, New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys) meet up with his increasing skill in the studio environment to bear absolutely remarkable fruit. The psychedelic madness at the core of this "band" ends up drowned in such rich, full-bodied, fully-orchestral clarity & perfectly sung 5-part harmony that casual listeners would never suspect the psychotic subtext. The strict and crass realism in the rendering department only heightens the jarring transitions from 1968 to 1986 to 2002. To be sure, the historical persistence of the Boy Band and it's attendant cache of gooey love songs is given a ethnomusicologically exact tribute in ISS. But it's more than that. "Forget About The Girl" is an inspired and sincere labor of love.  

Estradasphere

Buck Fever

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***ESTRADASPHERE's Buck Fever is an album without boundaries. Their music is a fusion of Balkan, Gypsy, black/death metal, throat singing, Latin, surf, rock, jazz, and more. Styles blend, exist in juxtaposition, or undergo penetrating simultaneous exploration. Imagine going to the dentist on the Discovery channel naked. Comprised primarily of saxophone, guitar, violin, bass, drums, and a home studio that gives them opportunity to expand their sound capabilities, Buck Fever incorporates 40 to 80 tracks of instruments on each song. Overkill? Most assuredly, all the better to reach the outer limits of home recording capability. No corner-cutting or loop/sample collage lameness here—the work this five-piece puts in is an unbelievably intensive labor of love, on par with the deep studio obsessiveness of Olivia Tremor Control and Mr. Bungle. Buck Fever makes use of advanced dada-compasition and thick orchestration and improvisation both traditional and forward-reaching, so it's not surprising to find TREY SPRUANCE of MR. BUNGLE making several engineering/production appearances throughout the album.

Secret Chiefs 3

Book M

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***Descriptions of SECRET CHIEFS 3 habitually begin with the main selling point—the MR. BUNGLE tie-in—since four members from that band are involved, and who are we to flaunt convention? Though it's true that thrown-together side projects and uninspired avant-garde supergroups can attract respectable business, the SC3 is anything but one of those. An instrumental odyssey, Book M features full string sections, and assortment of Persian, Turkish and Arabic stringed instruments (played by people who actually know how!), microtonally altered synthesizers, organs, and guitars, innovative compositions and truly off-the-map production techniques. The album is deceptively focused and deliberate, making the out-of-control aspects seem perfectly natural. Even moments of violent aggression are merged with the tenderness and subtlety of the band's blatant otherworldly passions. It is a drama of dizzying complexity played out even more explicitly in the glowing artwork and textural rants of the impressive 16-page booklet.  Present still are the unmistakable genius of violinist/SUN CITY GIRLS collaborator/Tzadik recording artist EYVIND KANG, percussionist WILLIAM WINANT, and MR. BUNGLE's DANNY HEIFETZ, TREVOR DUNN, BAR McKINNON, and TREY SPRUANCE. The addition of Persion/Arabic instrumental expertise of SHAMOU on darbuka, zarb, riq, and zils, and FATIMA on santur, take the SC3 to new heights far more impressive than earlier "ethnographic forgeries."

Faxed Head

Chiropractic

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***After a four-year hiatus from rehearsing, recording and performing, during which the members Faxed Head continued mental therapy at the Coalinga Youth Hospice and fought to overcome the ongoing physical and emotional exhaustion wrought by their failed 1991 suicide pact (and a continuing addiction to glue), they reunited to complete this new nine-song album. Their most ambitious recording to date, it is a particularly impressive document, since their advancing mental and physical deterioration leaves them with little ability to play or record. In addition to Chiropractic's startling use of sounds that don't exist in the arsenal of any other death metal outfit on Earth, it also provides perhaps the most intimate glimpse yet of what life is like for these unhappy residents of California's rural Central Valley. Lacking not just physical mobility, but also the quaint mythologies and cultural wellsprings that sustain their Nordic and Austrian counterparts, the Faxed Head are literal prisoners in a wilderness of fast food franchises and corrupt auto mechanics. Accordingly, Chiropractic is an all-grey kaleidoscope of depression, exploitation, sickness, isolation, intolerance, food poisoning, medical malpractice, and agricultural ruin.  Early incarnations of the band appeared on limited pressing seven-inch records and compilations, material that was later compiled onto the full-length Uncomfortable But Free CD. After personnel changes, the band recorded the Exhumed at Birth CD (which Metal Maniacs magazine described as "a severely damaged new extreme of metal … a sick level of horror and mayhem"). Naturally, a brief tour of Australia followed.  

Secret Chiefs 3

Eyes Of Flesh - Eyes Of Flame

Web Of Mimicry

***BACK IN PRINT - NOW WITH BARCODE! Taking their cue from medieval esoteric Shi'ism and the Ismaili gnostics, the SC3 weave sound tapestries strangely consistent with their unorthodox worldview. The music so passionately pits itself against the banal shit-world of the Apparent, refusing to be pinned down, gentrified or co-opted into any consistent format it can't help but exude that other, more controversial side of mysticism: holy war. No mere ignorant blunder into militant experimental darkness, Secret Chiefs' music is a heroic and Herculean effort that brings real excitement into the world of sound. Go into the light! Fourteen songs recorded live at Slim's in San Francisco, 1998. Previously available as a mailorder-only item.   * Recorded live at Slim's in San Francisco, 1998, this CD, previously available as a limited edition mailorder-only item, features the touring incarnation of Secret Chiefs 3: Trey Spruance, Danny Heifetz, Eyvind Kang, Bär McKinnon, Phil Franklin, and John Wayne Law. Packaged in a slim cardboard envelope

Secret Chiefs 3

First Grand Constitution

Web Of Mimicry

***A reissue of the wonder-grooving debut album from light-bringing crusaders TREVOR DUNN, DANNY HEIFITZ and TREY SPRUANCE (of MR. BUNGLE fame). Taking their cue from medieval esoteric Shi'ism and the Ismaili gnostics, THE SECRET CHIEFS 3 weave sound tapestries strangely consistent with their unorthodox worldview. The music so passionately pits itself against the banal shit-world of the Apparent, refusing to be pinned down, gentrified or co-opted into any consistent format it can't help but exude that other, more controversial side of mysticism: holy war. No mere ignorant blunder into militant experimental darkness, Secret Chiefs' music is a heroic and Herculean effort that brings real excitement into the world of sound. Go into the light! All of the awe-inducing tracks from the original released on Amarillo, now remastered and with bonus tracks.

Secret Chiefs 3

Hurqalya: Second Grand Constitution

Web Of Mimicry

***A glorious reissue of the second exquisite album from the Patton-less members of MR. BUNGLE seamlessly blends genres and themes into masterful new ideas. Elements of Islamic and Hindi "low art" film music from the '70s, modern extreme drum'n'bass, atonal surf, and ancient Western esoteric wisdom traditions are just the foundation for this dreamy and provocative music. With guests Eyvind Kang, Laura Allen, William Winant, and Paul Dal Porto. Includes all the tracks from the original release on Amarillo, now remastered with bonus tracks.

Estradasphere

It's Understood

Web Of Mimicry

***Applying a philosophy similar to Mr. Bungle or the Secret Chiefs 3, Estradasphere emphasize musical composition and how easy it is to play circles around most of the big name musicians out there. But Tim Harris (violin and trumpet ), drummer Dave Murray, Jason Schimmel (guitar and banjo), bassist Tim Smolens, and John Wooley (saxophone and pennywhistle) are no mere show-offs: with all this extra psychic freedom at their beck and call, Estradasphere explore radical morphings of musical castes, and then explode the bastards with inspired ferocity - a barrage that doesn't degenerate into wank-a-thon territory. Much. When it does it's mysteriously excusable. It's Understood is alive and enchanting - dada and world influences are in abundance, as are beaucoups odd obsessions (with Winger, boy bands, outdated video game themes, black metal and The Days of Our Lives). In fact, the whole situation is deeply menacing, hilarious and absurdist.