***Deep, hypnotic, trance-like music from BAHRU KEGNE, a legendary Azmari, who was even a private court player under Haile Selassie, then the "free newspaper" of Ethiopia in the communist days. He recorded some amazing "modern" cassettes in the last years of his life. CD comes with 44-page booklet with interviews, photos, lyrics, stories, histories, etc. No Export outside of North America.
CD $9.75
12/10/2013
MP3 $1.98
12/09/2013
FLAC $2.99
12/09/2013
Slim Volume is the debut single by New Bums, a duo consisting of Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards). Although the two began playing together during the summer of 2008 while neighbors in San Francisco, 2013 has seen them finally performing live (including touring with Bill Callahan) and recording. Slim Volume exemplifies the surreal storytelling, 4:00 A.M. acoustic guitars and urban paranoia that lie at the core of their music.
7" $6.00
12/03/2013
MP3 $3.96
12/03/2013
FLAC $4.99
12/03/2013
***River of Souls is the third enchantment from the hat of TIM COHEN (THE FRESH AND ONLYS) and his band, MAGIC TRICK. Picking up from where he left us with Ruler of the Night (Hardly Art), Cohen brings us ten new intimate tracks, polished as yet unseen. Recorded in The Tree House, his attic studio, River of Souls whirls with parables of change amidst emotional flotsam and jetsam. Insecurities, sarcasm, escapism, optimism, vanity, honesty, and bona fide love… it is all there, but in comforting form. Tim’s well-skewed pop songs remind us that things can always be better, but also that what we have is pretty amazing. River of Souls signals a new approach for Magic Trick. As in The Fresh and Onlys, Tim has begun to distinguish his muses from those of the foggy San Francisco lo-fi movement that he helped to shape. Mixed at Lucky Cat Studios with PHIL MANLEY and mastered by PAUL OLDHAM, this album exudes presence and confidence. Now, more than ever, the vocals break through the clouds, and the mix champions the artistry in each player’s performance. Tim’s baritone spars with angelic female chants (NOELLE CAHILL and ALICIA VANDEN HEUVEL) over the crisp unmistakable pulse of JAMES KIM’’s drums throughout. San Francisco’s gifted guitar workhorse, TOM HEYMAN, channels Mark Knopfler; one-man metal mystery, STEVE PEACOCK, brings the right kind of shred; and MARC CAPPELLE’s horns retort the melodies, as Tim jettisons his woes upriver. It is clear with each downbeat the band has honed...
LP $17.50
12/03/2013
MP3 $9.90
12/03/2013
FLAC $11.99
12/03/2013
Introducing one quarter of San Francisco’s Cool Ghouls, Pat Thomas! He’s the tall dude who plays the bass. He also writes one third of the Ghouls' songs. Coasters Riding in the Air is a collection of songs written, performed and recorded by Pat Thomas. The Cool Ghouls have made a name for themselves. Their soulful tunes and energetic live set have earned the band back-to-back slots with toast of the coast acts like Sonny and the Sunsets, Thee Oh Sees, The Fresh and Onlys, Mikal Cronin, Fuzz, Magic Trick and Shannon and the Clams etc., and they have no plans to slow their role. It has been less than a year since Cool Ghouls released their self-titled debut with Empty Cellar and Burger Records, and a new full-length album (recorded by Sonny Smith) is already in the can. The above in mind, one might guess that the Ghouls have their hands full; but like label-mate and fellow San Franciscan, Tim Cohen… Pat has more songs than any one band is prepared to handle. So as the Ghouls keep on truckin’, Thomas is offering this batch of solo material, Coasters Riding in the Air. He wants to keep the songs flowing; to convey another corner of the musical realm that he and Cool Ghouls inhabit; but mostly, because he recorded ‘em and he’d like to share ‘em. Pat laid these tracks at a leisurely pace, coming back to them whenever he could. He plays everything on the album, except...
MP3 $5.94
12/03/2013
FLAC $6.99
12/03/2013
Ablaze, Karren
City is Ablaze: The Story of a Post-punk Popzine 1984-1994
Happy Happy Birthday To Me / Ablaze
***Ablaze fanzine was published in Manchester and Leeds in the late eighties and early nineties by Karren Ablaze!. The best bits of this notorious and outspokenly passionately zine are now available in book format. Alongside hundreds of zine pages, The City is Ablaze features new writings by Karren and other members of the Ablaze! team, as well as interviews with other zine writers, essays by DIY cultural commentators, a re-examination of the Riot Grrrl movement, and an epilogue by Gary Jarman (the Cribs). The 320 page A4 book covers other zines that Karren produced in Manchester and Leeds between 1984 and 1994, capturing an era where DIY was de rigueur and indie actually meant something. You'll be able to read original interviews with the following bands (in chronological order). Eyeless in Gaza, the Membranes, the Stone Roses, the Inca Babies, Tools You Can Trust, the Bodines, Inspiral Carpets, the Pastels, the Janitors, Happy Mondays, King of the Slums, the Dust Devils, the Shamen, Cud, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, the Pixies, Throwing Muses, the Sundays, Thrilled Skinny, Rapeman, UT, Dog Faced Hermans, Edsel Auctioneer, Mudhoney, AC Temple, fIREHOSE, Band of Susans, Henry Rollins, Live Skull, Kilgore Trout, the Sun and the Moon, the Breeders, Happy Flowers, Silverfish, the Keatons, the Stretchheads, Pregnant Neck, Mayomberos Alive, Fluff, Archbishop Kebab, Nirvana, Pale Saints, Mercury Rev, The Heart Throbs, Babes in Toyland, American Music Club, Hole, Pavement, My Bloody Valentine, Shudder to Think, the Wedding Present, Leatherface, Nation of Ulysses, Tsunami, Poster Children, Sugar,...
BK $47.75
11/26/2013
An aural tempest brews as the history of a land steeped in epic struggle, passion and beauty spews forth—a history informed by the rhythm of the grasses, the waters, the animals and the nomad tribes—a history of armies, great battles, many deaths, iconic leaders and the followers loyal—to the cause of a land that tempts all men with the powers of conquest and trade—wars innumerable fought through winters of unspeakable loss—generations of warriors, soldiers, citizens noble—bred from this soil nourished by blood—the land is the body and soul. Tsaritsyn, Stalingrad, Volgograd—Russia. With their eighth full-length album, nomadic sludge death-drone duo Jucifer channels the soul / soil of a place called Volgograd into an hour and seventeen minutes of music as storied and powerful as the land and people to which they have dedicated this latest offering. Entitled за волгой для нас земли нет (“There Is No Land Beyond the Volga,” a quote from a Russian soldier in the battle of Stalingrad), Jucifer’s new concept album tells the history of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) from the perspective of its people, its soldiers, its children and the very land itself. And the music? Sonic S&M for the modern, corroded soul; untouchable epithets of beauty; grim odes to all that’s heavy—some of the best songwriting to emerge in modern extreme / heavy music today. There’s Sleep, there’s the Melvins, and there’s Jucifer. It’s that simple and strong. A hot oil bath of riff after vicious riff. Massive, distortion-soaked stoner sludge Sabbath worship—down-tuned, skin-curdling, infectious, headbanging riffs...
2XLP $16.00
11/26/2013
Though lesser-known than Young Marble Giants’ output, the sole LP from Stuart Moxham’s The Gist is an essential entry in the great canon of English post-punk. As the principle composer in Young Marble Giants, Moxham honed minimal songwriting to maximal effect with the help of early electronic experimentation. He formed The Gist shortly before Young Marble Giants’ dissolution to realize experiments in sound outside his primary group’s mold and feature friends from such bands as Essential Logic and Swell Maps. The Gist yielded several singles and Embrace the Herd, originally released in 1982 on Rough Trade and featuring fellow Giants Alison Statton and Phillip Moxham along with Epic Soundtracks. Recorded at home by Moxham, Embrace the Herd is a venerable instance of post-punk liberation to indulge every stylistic whim. With a four-track reel-to-reel, tape echo machine and menagerie of instruments, he veers from the beautifully understated and evocative “Love at First Sight” (with a timeless, quasi-R&B chorus) and the gleaming pop progression on “This Is Love” to instrumentals like “Far Concern” and “Fretting Away,” the latter evoking Young Marble Giants’ sparse but evocative work on Colossal Youth. Moxham sometimes dons a prominently mixed baritone, coos soulfully elsewhere and defers to Statton’s inimitable voice on “Clean Bridges.” The fragmented and disparate ideas of Embrace the Herd expose the anatomy of bedroom DIY song-craft for listeners to revel in. Moxham’s liner notes express humble amazement at fans’ continued interest in this body of work, but even a casual listen explains why...
LP $16.00
11/26/2013
If you’ve seen mammatus clouds in person, you probably noticed the way those massive formations hang heavy like wilting and bulbous gray-blue sacs, bubbling from heaven towards us. Curiously, as monstrous as they look, these gentle giants are not portents of a storm; they cradle the sky, high above where they belong. How can something so heavy float? If you’ve seen Mammatus the band in concert, you probably noticed how visual their sound is. Guitarist Nicholas Emmert sports a one-piece full-body flight-suit, bassist Chris Freels dons a space cape, and drummer Aaron Emmert steers the ship, staring straight ahead with flashing laser eyewear. The homespun wizard-cum-trippy-dad-at-a-campfire look that they’ve adopted softens the blow of the heavy aural trickery afoot. Heady Mental is the perfect title for the third Mammatus album, for it rests heavily in the moldy caverns of heavy metal history, but doesn’t get too comfortable before revealing its true colors. This is music for flight, music for the sky, and music for the things that lie beyond. These men are searching for the source through sound. Repetitions of themes with variants spread over four separate songs that act as a whole. Heady Mental functions as a soundtrack to the Mammatus Brain: Heavy / Airy, Earth / Sky, Man / Creator, Complete and Grok’d. For the obligatory band reference, one could start by imaging what The Fucking Champs’ IV would have sounded like if they had been more into the McLaughlin / Santana LP Love, Devotion, Surrender instead of Iron Maiden’s Piece...
LP $16.00
11/26/2013
MP3 $5.99
11/26/2013
FLAC $6.99
11/26/2013
Phill Niblock has pushed the boundaries of sound and visual art for over 40 years. While dutifully producing experimental films and curating multi-media loft performances in New York’s 1960s avant-garde circles, Niblock developed a composition technique informed by American minimalists such as Tony Conrad and La Monte Young. His music consists of long instrumental tones, closely pitched together to create beat patterns and multi-tracked into dense layers. Nothin to Look At Just a Record, originally released on esteemed 20th century / jazz label India Navigation in 1982, is Niblock’s recording debut and often cited as his masterpiece. “A Trombone Piece,” the first of two side-long tracks, was recorded by Richard Lainhart and Richard Kelly (both music innovators in their own right) at SUNY Albany in the mid-’70s. Breathing pauses from instrumentalist James Fulkerson’s trombone were spliced out to unravel the drones spatially, rather than according to metered rhythm. The overall effect is mesmerizing and beautifully envelops the listener with each tonal subtlety. To celebrate Niblock’s 80th birthday, Superior Viaduct is honored to present the first-time vinyl reissue of Nothin to Look At Just a Record, a high-water mark in 20th century music and listed as #5 on Alan Licht’s Minimal Top Ten.
LP $20.25
11/26/2013
***Received a 7.0 rating from Pitchfork. Title track featured in Volvo commercial. Harlem River marks the solo debut of songwriter Kevin Morby. Known for his work as the singer / guitarist for Brooklyn band The Babies and bassist for Woods, the Kansas City native and new Los Angeles resident calls the record “an homage to New York City,” his adopted home for the past five years. Harlem River features eight interweaving tales of tragedy and misfortune from a series of desperate characters playing out their dramas with the city as backdrop. A departure from some of the signature sounds of his better known projects, Morby’s solo material glistens with a haunting intimacy. He maintains that the songs are about other people, but it’s hard not to feel a piece of him in each one—a half-imagined, half-painfully personal world of lost love, addiction, violence and prayers for the departed. The album was recorded in Los Angeles in February and March of 2013 with producer Rob Barbato, who recorded The Babies’ second album Our House on the Hill and whose guitar and bass work figure prominently on Harlem River. It also features drummer Justin Sullivan (The Babies) as well as contributions from Will Canzoneri, Tim Presley (White Fence), Dan Iead and Cate Le Bon.
LP $19.00
11/26/2013
CD $12.00
11/26/2013
Nashville, Tennessee’s punk warlords Cheap Time soldier on, delivering their fourth studio album. Produced once again by band leader / singer / guitarist Jeffrey Novak at his home studio, Exit Smiles builds off the sound of 2012’s Wallpaper Music, employing sharper production and more expansive songwriting. Along with danceable art-rock stompers like “Kill the Light,” and “Slow Variety,” the album also includes more progressive material like “Modern Taste” and the abrasive title track that opens the album. Taking everything up a notch is new bassist Jessica McFarland (vocalist of Heavy Cream), whose voice is the perfect counterpoint to Novak’s Bailey / Devoto punk snarl. McFarland’s tight bass playing fits right in the pocket between Novak’s overblown guitar chords and drummer Ryan Sweeney’s endless, Moon-y drum fills. Sweeney is Cheap Time’s backbone, an integral part of the band since 2010’s Fantastic Explanations. His drumming is powerful and relentless, especially on songs like “Country and City.” Where most bands drag or burn out around their second album, Cheap Time are students of rock history. They tread in the footsteps of their ’70s heroes—like Sparks or Alice Cooper—learning from the shortcomings of previous works and continuing to develop their craft. They’ve worn out their John Cale and Peter Hammill LPs, and finally delivered the classic punk album for 2013!
LP $16.00
12/24/2013
CD $12.00
11/26/2013
MP3 $7.92
11/26/2013
FLAC $8.99
11/26/2013
The poisonous death metal duo known as Vasaeleth returned this year with the barbarous five-track statement All Uproarious Darkness, now issued on vinyl via 20 Buck Spin. Like the Bone Sickness 12-inch release earlier in 2013, Vasaeleth unleashes death with a less-is-more approach, summoning forth five songs in just under 19 minutes, warranting repeated beatings. Raw, noxious, swirling murk and punishing brutality announce Vasaeleth as possibly the most horrifying young death metal band in the US; methodical in their madness. “… the 19 minutes of All Uproarious Darkness contains equal parts unpurified hostility and unprocessed cold-bloodedness. It’s the perfect representation of the underbelly of the Earth vomiting the grotesque into the face of modernity…” —PopMatters.com “Vasaeleth are excellent at blasting through their manic paces, but they’re deadliest when they slow it down, ramp up the intensity, and just fucking punish.” —Pitchfork.com “Like a demon’s birth in the darkest depths of hell, the death metal of Vasaeleth is a wretched natal ritual giving life to a truly horrific beast.” —CvltNation.com “The sound here is deliberately ugly, lo-fi and old school, yet despite all this, the music never sounds dated or tired.” —GhostCultMag.com [9/10 Rating] “Your skull takes a serious pounding due to Antinom’s furious drumming, and the band sounds like a demon-spawned machine moving and slicing its way through anything standing in front of it, with mercy never even entering into the equation.” —MeatMeadMetal.com “Open your window, turn off the lights and breathe, but don’t...
LP $16.00
11/26/2013
In 2010, death metal duo Vasaeleth released their debut LP Cryptborn and Tethered to Ruin, a violent, domineering march of unholy blasphemy. Equal parts blasting chaos and slowed-down battery, Cryptborn was a monstrous album that instantly signaled Vasaeleth as a top contender to the US death metal throne. Released on vinyl by the resolutely underground Swedish label Blood Harvest in limited quantity, the scorching LP has been out of print for some time, demanding increasing sums on the secondhand market. 20 Buck Spin now makes Cryptborn available domestically on vinyl to the pleasure of all wrathful deities. “It’s the kind of primitive metal that will thrill those who’ve grown jaded with death’s current direction…” —PopMatters.com “Cryptborn and Tethered to Ruin makes you feel like you are locked in the confines of a prison for the damned, where the cries of the insane keep you awake at all hours.” —About.com “With its brutally low guttural vocals, thick old school guitar riffs, and wall of drum beats working in the background, this low-production album invokes a dense and hellish atmosphere and imagery.” —SputnikMusic.com [4.5/5 Rating] “It’s classic death metal to the marrow: dark, dingy, and dangerous, simultaneously bucking ‘core and retro trends, the kind of music that inspires adolescent animal sacrifices and ritual suicides.” —MetalPsalter.com
LP $17.50
11/26/2013
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received a 7.8 rating from Pitchfork. It's no secret that JOHN DWYER and THEE OH SEES put out a ton of stuff. Not just full-lengths—of which there are many—but singles, split releases, compilations and even books. The dude cooks in many kitchens, but the sauce is always tasty. Castle Face is proud to continue their tradition of occasionally corralling these rarer gems onto the convenient LP format. For even the most insane Oh Sees collectors, the inclusion of an unreleased, mutated live version of “Block of Ice” makes this a must-have. To sweeten the deal, the tunes have been gussied up ever-so-slightly to knock you nightly, and the incredible tritone artwork by SHALO P is printed on blinding silver-foil jackets. The CD version of Singles Collection Volume Three adds a bonus live jam that just wouldn’t fit on vinyl—a particularly bloodthirsty medley of “Destroyed Fortress” and “No Spell” recorded at Death By Audio.
LP $19.75
12/10/2013
CD $12.00
11/26/2013
MP3 $9.90
12/10/2013
FLAC $11.99
11/26/2013
***“BACK IN STOCK!!! Behold—when we introduced this live series, we spoke of lightning in a jar—this here’s a thunderstorm. TY SEGALL’s new stoner thrashers FUZZ not only totally murdered this set at San Francisco leather-daddy hangout The SF Eagle, but it was Ty’s birthday and he blew out his birthday cake candles mid-song, didn’t miss a beat, and that moment is forever etched into this record (we took a photo, too). “The place was insanely packed and they sound like the agile wolf-men they are up close and personal—Ty, mic wailing through a guitar amp and dominating drums like it’s the easiest thing in the world; CHARLIE, guitar set to Hendrix-meets-Hawkwind melter-mode; and ROLAND, keeping his bass firmly lodged in the groove—the jams are thick and wooly, we got some great photos of the night—man, this was one to remember and we’re super excited we captured such a freakishly good performance. As always, captured hot to tape, and mixed and massaged by our crack team of speaker-freakers (CHRIS WOODHOUSE, ERIC BAUER, BOB MARSHALL and JOHN DWYER) and shot to nicely grainy (real) film by BRIAN PRITCHARD.”—Castle Face Records
LP $19.00
11/26/2013
CD $12.00
12/10/2013
MP3 $3.96
11/26/2013
FLAC $4.99
12/10/2013
Crimes Against Totality is the final release in Sole’s Ruthless Criticism trilogy. Initiated last year, the series has since reaffirmed his place as “experimental rap pioneer,” breaking new ground among leftist zines, radical blogs and activist-minded people everywhere. Critics and fans heralded previous installments No Wising Up and Ruthless as some the artist’s greatest work to date; “a poetic blend of critical theory and experimental club beats.” Crimes Against Totality is a collection of songs from the Ruthless Criticism sessions that have been locked away deep in e-vaults and are now released to the world to fight the class war on their own. The dozen tracks feature production from Man Mantis, Thavius Beck, Egadz, Skyrider, Crushcon7, Fanesha Fabre and Hollagramz.
CD $13.00
11/26/2013
MP3 $9.90
11/26/2013
FLAC $11.99
11/26/2013
Anarchic trash-techno trios from Minneapolis aren't necessarily a plentiful commodity in our experience, especially ones as freewheeling and funked up as Beat Detectives. Comprised of visual artist Aaron Anderson, Chris Hontos (also of Food Pyramid and Dreamweapon), and the multi-talented Oakley Tapola, the group got their start playing a heavily smeared form of rudimentary dance music at "dirt raves in punker basements" around the Twin Cities before Anderson relocated to NYC. Music 2 is the perfect sophomore stepping stone slab, following their Casual Encounters Of The Third Kind debut collection on Moon Glyph earlier this year. Woozy house mutations and pitch-shifted party-acid experiments congeal and dissolve around Tapola's delirious, deadpan vocals (she manages to make lyrics like "American flag / with weed leaves / replacing the stars" sound strange and deranged instead of silly), interspersed with dizzy dub grooves and displaced electro-jack. Reminiscent in places of those weird deep cuts on certain late 80's Warrior Records acid comps, before the style got codified and normalized. Regenerative club mutagen for a world with a stick up its ass. Recorded in Minneapolis and Brooklyn, 2012-2013, and mastered by Cole Weiland.
MC $6.75
12/10/2013
MP3 $5.99
11/26/2013
FLAC $6.99
11/26/2013
Brooklynite Jorge Day's musical CV includes synth duties in Wierd Records mope-pop act Plastic Flowers as well as production for sultry neo-wavers Lingerie, but when left to his own devices he crafts gritty skeletal house sketches under the Fast Times flag. Bodytalk is his debut after a year of workshopping demos and touring Europe, and the results caress a spectrum of SILK sweet-spots: reverbed runway themes ("Mon Petit"), warehouse memory tapes ("Ephemera"), dirty drum machinery ("Eternity Is Past"), naked soul samples ("Toxic City"), luxe lo-fi hypnosis ("Male Polish," "Midnight Vamp"), etc. There's a starkness and crunch to these tracks that skews them more towards the proto-house vibe of various mid-80's analog sides, when productions were more about raw rhythms and melodic minimalism, instead of the prolonged tension-and-release model which dominates to this day. History aside, Fast Times makes background boombox gold, ripe for cranking loud and cutting loose. Expect more from this transporter in the near future. Mastered by Brian Pyle.
MC $6.75
12/10/2013
MP3 $5.99
11/26/2013
FLAC $6.99
11/26/2013
Second single from the upcoming album Blazing Gentlemen. Limited to 1000 worldwide.
7" $6.00
11/26/2013
MP3 $1.98
11/26/2013
***When the legendary KING LOUIE BANKSTON and his MISSING MONUMENTS stopped by the Slovenly USA office on a recent tour, they said they wanted to do a single for us. We replied with, “Sure! Just make sure it’s fuckin filthy.” And here ya have it, the Blast! EP, released to coincide with their new self-titled LP on Dirtnap Records. This exclusive three track monstrosity gives us the filth we were promised in the title track, and a corrosive jangle with complicated poetics on “Ghost HWY.” Doing what they do best, Missing Monuments lay down some serious power-pop skills on the B-side with “Covered In Ice”—a dirty, southern barroom swinger with all the infectiousness of the sweet, germy influences worn on their leather sleeves.
7" $8.50
11/26/2013
***SAM LANGHORN (1933-2007) was known among locals as the best blues guitarist to come out of Oxford, Mississippi, but he somehow eluded the blues mafia who scoured the state looking for talent. The recordings here are the first ever issued by Langhorn, who demonstrates his skills performing traditional gospel in a style remarkably similar to Mississippi John Hurt. Langhorn learned guitar from his mother Camilla, who played at sanctified church services, but he eventually chose the blues lifestyle. The recordings here were made around 1963 by two former Ole Miss football stars who befriended Langhorn and cut a session with him only to put aside the tapes for half a century. JIMMY HALL went on to pursue a career of acting in New York City and L.A., while ROBERT KHAYAT had a Pro Bowl career with the Washington Redskins before returning to the University of Mississippi, where he became a celebrated Chancellor.
10" $14.25
11/26/2013
***From the sun-bleached groves and terminal beaches of the Southland comes ERNEST GIBSON’s (NET SHAKER) debut LP—a weathered, mysteriously adorned block of sonic timber, soaked in watery reverb and awash in sinewy skeins of damaged tape. Island Records ventures ever deeper into dense primeval territory, only roughly intimated on his prior releases and further still from the scorched-earth urbanism of his group Net Shaker’s recent long-player. Trading those sputters of failing machinery and abstract paranoia for more hypnotic twilight vibrations, Gibson coaxes his own strain of mutant exotica from this suite of thirteen serpentine compositions. Trailing a procession of shadows across the dunes, Gibson moves at an oneiric pace worthy of Maya Deren—easing repeatedly at an enigmatic and sinister motif, whose full appearance never quite manifests beyond the glassy confines of the unconscious. Circular bass lines and loping rhythms crisscross the landscapes of these songs leaving wet footprints, while the album progresses with the indeterminate persistance of a febrile, paranormal pursuit. Occasional squalls of tremulous guitar burst forth, Poison Ivy-like, as on anti-anthemic opener “When You Get There,” while on tracks like “All Of Us Together,” incantatory verses hover just below an intelligible frequency—untold rites, issuing from an elusive cavern’s hidden entrance. For Gibson, each record acts as a field report from some newly imagined country—shorthand notes describing local rituals, glimpsed through the wary eyes of an itinerant stranger. Broadcast from this Delphic perspective, Island Records is a series of barely overheard conversations and half-remembered discoveries, staggering along the creeping...
LP $13.50
11/26/2013
***Two new songs from Vancouver's WHITE LUNG continue where Sorry left off. Honing on their unrelenting post punk formula, WL returns with a clear confidence that they can write great songs and plan on delivering on the goods. Featured as best new song on both Pitchfork and Stereogum, these songs are some of their best. The band has been busy in 2013 but expect them to be everywhere starting early next year.
7" $6.00
11/26/2013
***BACK IN PRINT!!! Dark Entries is proud to present the debut album by FIGURE STUDY, a contemporary band from New York. Figure Study is the Manhattan-based duo of NATHAN ANTOLIK and APRIL CHALPARA. They formed in 2009, after meeting through the Wierd Records weekly party, where they would play their first concert soon after. While their debut 7" contained two songs recorded in 2009, this full length contains all new material recorded throughout the past year. For their debut self-titled album, Figure Study utilizes a carefully tailored set up of vintage analog synthesizers and drum machines. Figure Study creates a lush sound where haunting vocals echo over dark melodies that reflect an isolated and disintegrating world. Songs flux between dissonant dance numbers and more sparse, somber compositions, each carrying a sense of urgency and modernism. Figure Study's sound includes influences from such early underground artists as Kirlian Camera, Nine Circles, and The Actor. The album was recorded in their small Chinatown studio using a sparse set-up of analog synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers. It was mixed at The Wave Lab in Brooklyn by AJ TISSIAN and mastered for vinyl at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley by GEORGE HORN. Each LP is packaged in a specially designed jacket and includes an insert with lyrics. Figure Study draw their own model using shapes and forms from the synthetic landscape.
LP $20.25
11/26/2013
***Dark Entires is excited to introduce the debut album Less Ness from contemporary Bay Area duo, MAX + MARA. Their collaboration began in 2012. Max is based in Oakland and has been a part of various projects most notably BROTMAN and SHORT and his current solo work as BUSINESS ETIQUETTE. Mara is based in San Francisco and is known for her solo work as GROUP RHODA. On Less Ness they worked with a hardware set up: 808 and Elektron drum machine, Moog, MAM, and Sequential Circuits synth with splashes of Mono/Poly and collage elements, vocoder lines and dubbed out vocals. They step away from the the computer as much as possible and prefer that their ideas can be traced back to the tools so that a sense of physicality remains. They find inspiration from all kinds of far out sounds, most notably dub, industrial, and various drug culture tangents. Lyrically the songs revolve around topics such as escapism, looking though cultural windows, and character role development. Some songs are a bit more surrealist in content with elements of hard realism and critical commentary. All songs have been mastered for vinyl by GEORGE HORN at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Each LP is housed in a jacket featuring a painting by SHANA WHY. Prepare to turn your gaze to the things in front of you and away from screen generated culture and its mimicry of social participation.
LP $17.50
11/26/2013
***DWIGHT TWILLEY is an American power pop icon from the pre-Ramones/Cheap Trick era that slipped though the cracks due to bad management decisions and the entanglements of the major label record business, that despite his debut single "I'm On Fire" hitting the top 20 on the Billboard charts in 1975, he's still unfortunately not a household name. Some called him the American T. Rex and others the missing link between Big Star and Tom Petty, but any way you cut it, Tulsa, OK's pop hero is back and ready to knock you back to high school. He's appeared on Dick Clark's American Bandstand several times as well as the esteemed Don Kirschner's Rock Concert TV series the SAME NIGHT as the infamous Sex Pistols episode, therefore it never aired. This single was shelved in the summer of 1975 due to close proximity to the super popular Jaws film, of which the management sadly decided it would be too cliche, so we have rescued the track along with a scorching B-side from the CD-only Great Lost Twilley Album, procuring two incredible hits never before available on vinyl. Pure pop perfection from the pre-Ramones era that will light up your life and cap off your summer in the best way possible. First Pressing of 600 copies Black vinyl.
7" $7.75
11/26/2013
It's been a busy couple of years for the producer behind the Shifted project. On top of an extremely well received album for the Mote Evolver label, the producer has edged further out into the fringes of electronic music under a number of aliases, taking in noise/ambient variants as Covered in Sand, as well as more distorted, technofied productions under the Alexander Lewis moniker, a sound described by the Blackest Ever Black label as "S-M Techno". His new album as Shifted, "Under a Single Banner" finds the producer converging these strands into a lucid reimagining of Techno, starting off from the toughened, purist templates honed down by the likes of Sandwell District and Marcel Dettmann, and stretching out into more textured, sometimes noisy, often introverted and melancholly signatures. It's a perfect fit for Bed of Nails, a label thats given a platform for the more direct dancefloor mutations of Dominick Fernow's own productions as Vatican Shadow, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement and Christian Cosmos, as well as familiar Hospital Productions affiliates such as Kris Lapke under the Bronze Age guise. There's a rich and earthy warmth to "Under a Single Banner" that's perhaps at odds with the purile fixation on all things noisey at the fringes of Techno these days, but for the most part, the tension and momentum keeps the album definitively aimed at the floor without ever resting on its laurels.
CD $18.60
12/03/2013
2XLP $28.25
12/03/2013
MP3 $7.99
11/25/2013
FLAC $9.99
11/25/2013
***When You Are Crawling is a 35-minute companion piece to VATICAN SHADOW’s recently released Remember Your Black Day album, the iconography and tracklisting concluding its narrative, with a musical focus more directly aimed at the club bolstered by additional production from JUAN MENDEZ aka SILENT SERVANT. The centerpiece of the EP is "Atta's Apartment Slated for Demolition (Bouthayna Engineering)," a previously-unreleased 15-minute production that builds from tempered percussion to a more driving denouement. The EP also includes the previously-unreleased "Al Qaeda," plus an alternate version of the album's title-track. Mastered and cut by MATT COLTON.
LP $18.60
12/10/2013
CD $14.00
12/10/2013
MP3 $5.99
11/25/2013
FLAC $6.99
11/25/2013
"Probably the best part of Youtube is the ease with which I can wormhole from an intentional search to an unexpected gem. This is especially satisfying when my new favorite video has only 26 views—it brings back that feeling of finding weird public access TV shows when I was young. That “What am I looking at? How will I ever learn what this is?” feeling. Well, a few months back, one such wormhole led me to the INSANE music of Kanda Mori, a self-proclaimed “bad taste horror cartoonist” from Tokyo. His sounds are all over the place yet somehow threaded together. They form an image of a culture I’ve never witnessed—almost like they should be categorized as “world” music, with country of origin listed as South Youtube. Kanda Mori throws everything into this tape and comes up with disorienting and wonderful songs, ranging from droney dirges to manic game show themes to psychy folk. All the twists make this one a SUPER engaging listen every time." Monofonus Press
MC $0.00
11/19/2013
MP3 $9.90
11/19/2013
FLAC $11.99
11/19/2013
***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...
CD $12.00
11/19/2013
MP3 $9.90
11/19/2013
FLAC $11.99
11/19/2013
Eastlink is a section of freeway in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Eastlink is also a band from Melbourne that delivers a blown-out, three-guitar assault, equal parts riff-fueled rock and noise-fucked psych. If it matters (and you know it does!), Eastlink features members of such notable Australian flag-bearers as Total Control, UV Race, Repairs, Lakes, Straightjacket Nation, Interzone, Teargas, etc. Really, they are just a f’n great band. Watch for their debut album in 2014 on In The Red!
7" $6.00
11/19/2013
MP3 $1.98
11/19/2013
FLAC $2.99
11/19/2013
Lance Barresi and Liz Tooley are the co-founders of Permanent Records, which means they’re responsible for releasing and reissuing a whole mess of awesome music. They also run some excellent record stores in L.A. and Chicago. Now, they’ve rechristened themselves Lance and Liz Bummer, and together with Greg Bummer (of The Spits and Merx), they’re the punk trio Endless Bummer. On their debut EP, the trio churns out four tracks of dark-hued rock ’n’ roll with frayed edges and plenty of intimidation. Ripper Current was recorded by Ty Segall —the first material made in his new backyard studio, The Sweat Lodge—and it’s an awesome slab of sludgy punk.
7" $6.00
11/19/2013
MP3 $3.96
11/19/2013
FLAC $4.99
11/19/2013
***Drag City presents the first domestic release of any kind from the Japanese singer-songwriter EIKO ISHIBASHI—and the first vinyl release of any kind on this already-accomplished performer. Eiko is a singer-songwriter, producer and session musician, focused on piano, but adept on drums, flute and vibraphone as well. Since 2006, she has released four pop albums and a solo piano album, all of which have been highly rated by the Japanese press. She plays at least a hundred gigs a year, including big rock festivals and European tours With an understanding of band dynamics developed through her many live shows and recordings, Eiko’s delicate, precise compositions are arranged with a dramatic-yet-humorous prog-pop sound. Eiko plays piano, vibraphone, and flute as well as nylon-string guitar, a first for her, on Imitation of Life. The flowing backgrounds she has conceived for her light, sweet melodies are captured by producer JIM O’ROURKE with a lively sense of play, which matches Eiko’s lyric concept. The lyrics in this album embody a science fiction story which brings the album to a challenging new level. Features backing from Jim O’Rourke, TOSHIAKI SUDO, TATSUHISA YAMAMOTO, and ATSUKO HATANO, as well as contributions from several guest musicians including jazz master AKIRA SAKATA. (STREET DATE - 11/19/2013)
LP $19.75
11/19/2013
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork. Back working as a trio MAGIK MARKERS return with their first new album since 2009’s Balf Quarry. Surrender To The Fantasy kicks off with that hoary old trope of punk records, the song about the Chesapeake Valley Runoff and the mating cycle of crabs. After that kind of in-your-face Attenborough- core, where could the record go? Nowhere but everywhere, all the creepy outposts of American detritus from other times, when hitchhiking and h-bombs were still hot, viable new ideas, and on beyond zed-bra. “Acts of Desperation” is Shaggs-meets-Stones color commentary on driveway laying, your mom’s Merit Ultra-Light 100’s and the lengths we’ll go to filch a feel of some arcane notion of greatness. Here PETE NOLAN has nixed his kit and Straps Field Handily into a galvanic psych lead. No lame attempt to smoke nutmeg for this jam; it scored real weed. (STREET DATE - 11/19/2013)
LP $19.75
11/19/2013
CD $13.75
11/19/2013
***REISSUED!!! Glimmer twins NEIL HAGGERTY & JENNIFER HERREMA keep on truckin' with their eighth album of the dwindling 1990s. Ten new songs showcasing their love for classic rock and an acute ability to fuck it up nicely. A "right on and rock on" to that. (STREET DATE - 11/19/2013)
LP $17.75
11/19/2013
CD $13.75
11/19/2013
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.8 rating from Pitchfork. Finally! After 15 years, MICK TURNER has turned in the big rock record we always knew he had in him! Don’t Tell the Driver is a different kind of record from all the Mick Turner records—not just his own, but the ones he’s done with DIRTY THREE, BONNY BILLY, CAT POWER, FUNGUS BRAINS and VENOM P. STINGER put together. Don’t Tell The Driver is a consolidation and development of everything he’s done up until now, streamlined and presented under the sophisticated umbrella known as the rock opera/concept album. Don’t Tell the Driver is inarguably the first post-rock rock opera of our times—by an artist running out of time. It wouldn’t be a rock opera without a vague/indecipherable theme of wonder and disenchantment, and indeed, Don’t Tell the Driver delivers in spades on that account. Like all the best masterpieces, Don’t Tell the Driver came together slowly, spurred by life experiences and aided by the meditation that only time brings. Over the last four years, Mick put together the pieces at Big Moth Studios in Melbourne, working his magic with aquatic guitar-and-drums chemistry, augmenting the tracks with melodica, piano and Fender Rhodes, and then bringing in the vocalists and other additional players when the tracks were ready for them. Replete with classic epics and timely reprises, Don’t Tell the Driver is an inspired and focused collection of Mick Turner music that reaches for new borders without sacrificing the dizzy wandering and painterly stillness...
CD $13.75
11/19/2013
2XLP $23.75
11/19/2013
***To say AIMEE ARGOTE is a prolific songwriter is a complete understatement. She's constantly creating and touring and you shouldn't miss an opportunity to see her perform live. Sometimes, those shows are loud—Aimée blowing up the room with a backing band and a wall full of amplifiers. Not always, though. Just as frequently, she plays acoustic, dialing the volume back to an intimate, living room-appropriate level. This is one of those performances. The 9 songs on this 12" were recorded live on WXDU 88.7 by ROSS GRADy in January of 2010 and were performed by a solo DES ARK—that means it's just Aimée with her guitar and voice, backed occasionally by guitarist JOHNNY WARD (PYGMY LUSH). The vinyl is a coke bottle clear color and the cover art features a two-color screen-print. This is a reissue of the Paramnesia Records version which is now out of print. (STREET DATE - 11/19/2013)
LP $17.75
11/19/2013
***ALARMS & CONTROLS formed in Washington, D.C. during the fall of 2010. The band’s roots go back further, though, to 2003, when guitarist CHRIS HAMLEY (ANTIMONY, CiRCUS LUPUS) and drummer VIN NOVARA (THE CROWNHATE RUIN, 1.6 BAND) were performing in an ensemble accompanying Nitrate Hymnal, a post-rock opera created by writer/composer Bob Massey. After the production closed, they decided to try writing some songs together, but the project dissolved after only a few practices. It wasn’t until eight years later—when Hamley finally returned to Novara’s house to retrieve his amplifier—that they decided to give it another go, eventually recruiting MICHAEL HONCH to play bass. In 2012, the trio released its first single, “Reanimus Cataract” b/w ”Kirtland’s Warbler,” as a split between Dischord and Mud Memory Records. Clovis Points is the band’s first full-length—11 songs recorded in 2012 at the Magpie Cage in Baltimore with J. ROBBINS.. Hamley and Novara have been active members of the D.C. music community since the ’90s and on Clovis Points, they make an effort to re-approach the sounds of that moment from a fresh perspective. Where their previous bands were guided by a dark, borderline industrial aesthetic, Alarms & Controls’ music favors organic and naturalistic imagery. They have also come to peace with the other music of their past: Prog. All three grew up loving—and then feeling self-conscious about loving – the complex, heavily composed mega-dome music of the ’70s. However, there are few, if any, overt nods to Tales From Topographic Oceans to be...
LP $17.75
11/19/2013
CD $11.00
11/19/2013
***The newest installment in the unofficial second series of two-song 7"s on ILR, the previous ones being PHT, Diat & Column Of Heaven. Australia's power duo, DEAD BOOMERS, are inspired by the social security draining, fully retired tumor of society commonly known as the baby boomer generation. Home-made instruments and a sage selection of power electronics are the basic tools used to deliver the destructive, calming crush heard within. Unnerving hard noise with punk attitude and approach that's eerily comforting like a visit from Jack Kevorkian on the last day. He has such a warm singing voice. Goodnight. Recorded by MORGAN MCMASTERS. 300 copies ever.
7" $8.05
11/19/2013