***PLVS VLTRA is the new project from TOKO YASUDA, best known for her work in the band ENON, and, more recently, a touring member of ST. VINCENT. Her first solo album, Parthenon was released from Spectrum Spools / Editions Mego in 2012, and featured experiemental electronic pop music. Expanding on her sound, she released the largely instrumental cassette, Yo-Yo Blue on Field Hymns earlier this year. For her new single, Yasuda drew inspiration from J Dilla and his use of an MPC sampler, Echo Park sunsets, cheese toast, and tea. “I had fun making this music in my own comfort zone, in my own room.” The result is an assault of electronic pop and sample laden hooks that is at times both light as a feather and staggering. Yasuda now resides in a Los Angeles hilltop, where the chameleon sunsets are the endless muse in her very own brand of California sound. Covers were screen printed and vinyl was cut by the great JOHN HULL on his 1944 Scully lathe at Musicol Recording Studio in Columbus, Ohio. Edition of 500 copies. “...Plvs Vltra’s sound is sugary synth pop, with some salty experimental coating for contrast. Obviously the more outright screwy parts are more interesting, but the whole project seems off-centre enough to merit attention and there are bits that inexplicably remind me of early 1970s Robert Wyatt.”—Byron Coley (The Wire)
7" $5.40
11/12/2013
AVAILABLE AGAIN!!! LA's MERX is back with another platter of menacing post-punk, no-wave, cold-wave, industrial electronic thinking-man's creep terror. "LA's Merx is a pretty frightening proposition channeling brutal cold wave via influences like Chrome, Throbbing Gristle, and Suicide. Everyone writing about the band mentions their very tall, sometimes bespectacled ‘vocalist’ who sounds eerily like Ian Curtis. I thought it was one of those tired, rock journalist tropes until I put on the track ‘The Law’ off their s/t Permanent Records debut, and found myself sitting straight up in the chair like I'd just heard a ghost! For your extreme listening pleasure!!"—Live Eye TV Video Music Blog
LP $17.50
11/12/2013
MP3 $8.91
11/12/2013
FLAC $9.90
11/12/2013
***Portland, Oregon is the city with enough weird bands to fill its bridges and Portland has many bridges. MILLION BRAZILIANS sound like a corps not of this hemisphere, but one influenced by its discoveries via travel and/or scouring the deep web. Separated into nine untitled compositions, Wet Dry Jungala clings with a humidity mostly foreign to the North Americas. It’s not to be mistaken for the escapist brand of tropicalia—the sort that inspires relaxation and cabana service—but rather the hysteria of eight days in the desert, the spiritual exhaustion of following a shaman into a sweat lodge, and the endurance of trudging through a rainforest bog, swatting off mosquitos. Save for the ominous western Americana of “Untitled VI,” Million Brazilians transfix to the percussive drone of Eastern worship hymns, and an experimental flair for complicating their world music into claustrophobic depths of psychedelia.“Untitled V” mimics the bass groan of bullfrogs against rough transmissions of spoken word. Terrifying shrieks and yips like those of post-punk heroines past are pitted against free jazz skronk and tribal trance on “Untitled IV.” Once referred to as “dungeon jazz”, Million Brazilians’ Wet Dry Jungala denies pigeonholing with each untitled passage.
LP $14.00
11/12/2013
MP3 $8.91
11/12/2013
***In January 2010 Sweet Rot released our first LP which was the debut long player by NERVE CITY. Nearly four years later we are extremely pleased to be releasing the 2nd Nerve City LP, Asleep On The Tracks. In the years since the debut, front-man JASON BOYER has been busy traveling, touring, moving from Virginia to Florida, and writing an impressive amount of songs. The best of these were selected and recorded in late 2012 with a full band at Memphis' Electraphonic Recording. The earlier Nerve City releases (including records on Sacred Bones, Hozac, and Kill Shaman) garnered a lot of positive attention from the likes of Terminal Boredom and Negative Guest List for Boyer's knack to channel the classics like the Velvet Underground, JAMC, and The Troggs and to couple those influences with his distinctive and haunting blown-out home-recording techniques. And although no one will mistake Asleep On The Tracks of being anything other than a Nerve City record, the full band/studio production really adds a new element to the band's sound and highlights more than ever Boyer's ability to write a great fucking song. We couldn't be happier to continue our relationship with one of our favourite artists. 330 copies. Silk-screened sleeves.
LP $17.75
11/19/2013
MP3 $9.90
11/12/2013
***Uncommon solo work by a CLIMAX GOLDEN TWIN and noted globe-trotting, time-traveling curator of esoterica. MILLIS’s fever dream of blurred harmonics and ethnomusicological spelunking repeatedly returns to variations on a peculiar yet beautifully serpentine drone, whose twinkling acoustic properties meld the hallucinatory mouth-music of the Bangladeshi Murung people and the curved air hypnosis of Terry Riley. Millis bookends and interrupts his mysterious miasma with comedic interludes snatched from antique 78s, maudlin piano tone-clusters, and teleported crescendos of spectral ballroom waltzes. This polyglot raga-drone of daytime somnambulism and psychedelic slipperiness speaks to the uneasy borders at psychological, cultural, and geophysical states of being. Oh, to be a human on this planet. Includes digital download card.
LP $17.25
11/12/2013
MP3 $8.99
11/12/2013
FLAC $9.99
11/12/2013
San Francisco’s two most peculiar black metal bands have conspired to release a mind bending split LP via The Flenser. Botanist and Palace of Worms each contribute three tracks mixed and mastered by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven) at The Atomic Garden Studios; the album is available on vinyl in a limited edition. Botanist is an unconventional one-man post-black metal act featuring vocals, drums and hammered dulcimer instrumentation. Hanging Gardens of Hell is told from the perspective of a crazed man of science who lives in self-imposed exile, as far away as possible from humanity and its crimes against nature. The Botanist awaits the day when humans will either die or kill each other off, which will allow plants to reclaim the Earth. Formed in 2007, Palace of Worms is a one-man black metal band in the vein of Leviathan and Crebain. Frontman Balan plays all instruments: drums, guitar, bass. Palace of Worms has released a demo, two full-lengths (2009’s The Forgotten and 2010’s Lifting the Veil) and a 2012 split with Mastery. “Botanist could be the fullest realization of the post-black metal concept yet, and that makes the future awfully exciting.” —The Quietus “The brilliance of Botanist, then, is that he takes all these things that are not metal—gentle British folk, shoegaze, New Age—and shows you that they are, in fact, more metal than metal.” —The Atlantic “Palace of Worms comes highly recommended to anyone who has at some point found refuge in the recordings of other San...
LP $16.00
11/12/2013
MP3 $5.94
11/12/2013
FLAC $6.99
11/12/2013
The Flenser is proud to reissue No Youth, the debut album from California heavy experimental duo Wreck and Reference. Originally released in 2012, No Youth quickly went out of print and has become a sought-after collector’s item. Formed by drummer Ignat Frege and multi-instrumentalist Felix Skinner, Wreck and Reference augments the typical heavy-guitar-driven doom tradition with frenzied electronic samples. Usually filed under “Metal,” the duo defies genre classifications, presenting an existential threat to the tired and trite conformity found within the metal hegemony. Their melancholic, fierce and catchy sound is crafted with synths in place of guitar, along with live drums and vocals. Drawing on influences ranging from industrial to doom metal and noise rock, No Youth is a unique mix of seemingly contradictory elements that results in a devastatingly heavy, somber and addictive whole. “The uncategorizable Wreck and Reference has released two weirdly heavy and unnerving records thus far—Black Cassette and No Youth—by scribbling together doom metal, industrial, drone, noise and whatever else with drums, guitar and a Korg sampler. Riffs and sonic quirks are regularly abandoned as the songs move forward, making for unpredictable cliffhangers that leave listeners wanting more.” —NPR “... spare, haunted, and riveting.” —Stereogum “Youth is an unconventional composition. Wreck and Reference have no rules.” —Cvltnation
LP $16.00
11/12/2013
MP3 $9.90
11/12/2013
FLAC $11.99
11/12/2013
***Last ever recordings from CHALACHEW ASHENAFI (a tour mate of THE EX in recent years), backed by the ILITA BAND. Azmaris are the voice of free speech in Ethiopian society. These tremendous improvisors comment on politics, religion and everyday life in a particular style which is both provocative & very humorous. The double meaning in the language, "semenawork" (wax n' gold) is an essential part of Ethiopian culture. CD comes with 40-page booklet with interviews, photos, lyrics, stories, histories, etc. No Export outside of North America.
CD $9.75
11/12/2013
***There’s so much that could be said about RON MORELLI, his L.I.E.S. label, or the fact that his debut album comes to you via Hospital Productions, but instead, here are some words from the man himself. “I’m a regular guy, enjoy a good steak, drinking beer, and occasionally a game of pro basketball, Republican talk radio... you know...all the good stuff.....” “The music on this record is about immediacy, pressure, monotony and stress. A great deal of the feelings conveyed within come from the fear and repulsion of basic human interaction....like if someone sitting behind you on the plane sneezes on you or being forced to shake the clamy hand of a stranger and the intimate paranoias of the mind and dealing with it or not. Not to make some deep intellectual fuck show of this, as it is not...it’s just stress music...jammed out quick and recorded. Last year, I was staying in an area where all the hookers did their work...all they would do is smoke cigarettes, read the paper, talk on their cell phones, and spit. They would spit...A LOT. I would step in that hooker spit on the way home, often tracking it into the apartment building as I entered. This is where the title of the record comes from.”
LP $24.35
11/19/2013
CD $18.60
11/19/2013
MP3 $8.99
11/11/2013
FLAC $9.90
11/11/2013
Studio C.O.M.'s from MV & EE have been rare these days with recent rockets being in the form of the most righteous and mighty live excursions into unknown jam galaxies thru song form (dig the heroines, box sets and residencies!). However, time was when the Child Of Microtones sound worlds were exploding with the most unique and highly personalized solar systems of pre-war/post Takoma environs colliding like COMets with black ark pods from the tapers section. On "Shade Grown" sweet new MV & EE are back in that orbit fusing all that they can give and more to keep America beautiful. Go DIY army, this is greenspace…throw away yr armaments and trade the electric mower for headphones. This is perhaps the closest Spectra, Matt & Erika have come to dub, The ONE could get lost in these tunes/jams for many spins. Bring on hyperspace awareness, you could be in yr very own room beyond inside out and feel all they are right beside you, just like spectrasound wanted you to be. Special guests/skypilots from the good ol' Golden Road: Jeremy Earl (Woods), Michael Flower (Vibracathedral Orchestra), Matt Lajoie (Herbcraft), Doc Dunn, Muskox, Paulie G, Rafi Bookstaber, Carson "Smokehound" Arnold, Rongoose (Sunburned Hand Of The Man). MV & EE with The Golden Road - Cocola Parabola (Sugar On Snow) SINGLE VERSION by Revolver USA
MP3 $9.90
11/11/2013
FLAC $11.99
11/11/2013
Cold Beat is Hannah Lew, bassist and co-songwriter of the band Grass Widow. It’s the fully expressed voice and emotions of one person, versus the harmonic and lock-step declarations of three women. It’s the emergence of Lew as a singular voice, using dream logic and abstraction to describe the themes of death, internet surveillance, paranoia and science fiction that permeate her music. “Worms” is the lead single off “Worms/Year 5772,” the first EP from Cold Beat, out 11/5 on Lew’s new label, Crime On The Moon. Written not too long after Hannah Lew's father passed away in 2009, it’s largely about the horror of things one does and does not know about death. Lew uses the tools of pop music to access the inaccessible and honor her grief while discussing some of the most jarring aspects of her father's death. However, anyone who listens to “Worms” can hear that it transcends the overtly personal and manifests itself as melodious and universal. The A side of this 12" EP features "Worms" and "Year 5772". The recording features Kyle King on guitar, Lillian Maring ( Grass Widow, Ruby Pins) on drums and Cody Blanchard (Shannon and The Clams) on guitar/synth. The B side of the EP features a Worms remix by POW!, a local SF doom synth band, and also a remix of Year 5772 by Mikey Young of Total Control. The live band features Bianca Sparta (Errase Errata) on drums, and Greer Mcgettrick (The Mallard) on guitar as well...
12" $9.45
11/05/2013
MP3 $3.96
11/05/2013
***Everyone with any degree of hearing loss knows that the loose and shaggy beast of a band balancing on the crest of their capabilities is the ideal—the firefly that all records aspire to capture for the listener’s repetitive pleasures. The live record promises better, but still most fall flatter than the painstakingly refined and honed tones of a studio creation. Who better to right this wrong than a bunch of home-friers, 4-track freaks and DIY gear-cookers? The first in a series of live albums from the Castle Face stable presents TIM PRESLEY and company tearing it up over two nights in March 2013 at San Francisco’s Amnesia club, throwing a fork in the light socket with their blistering live set. Captured in all their ragged glory straight to Tascam 388 by engineers CHRIS WOODHOUSE, ERIC BAUER, BOB MARSHALL and JOHN DWYER, these thirteen songs show a different side of the band than their studio output. WHITE FENCE was screaming out of the speakers that night and Castle Face has it safe in a jar for you, undiluted and unsullied. LP includes a download.
LP $19.00
11/05/2013
CD $12.00
11/05/2013
MP3 $9.90
11/05/2013
FLAC $11.99
11/05/2013
***Contains every non-12" vinyl release by TAR, including all singles, compilation tracks, unreleased, a 1992 Peel Session, covers of songs by Pere Ubu ("Non-Alignment Pact"), The Wipers ("Doom Town"), Jawbox ("Static"), AC/DC ("Hell's Bells"), & Dobie Gray/Bryan Ferry ("The In Crowd"). Comes with download of over two hours of live Tar recordings from the band's archives, spanning every period of the band's development. Aluminum guitars are (still) the best. One time pressing of 300 copies.
2XLP $28.75
11/05/2013
MP3 $9.90
11/05/2013
FLAC $11.99
11/05/2013
***Featuring GARY WRONG from WIZZARD SLEEVE on drums, a HIBACHI STRANGLER on bass, and DEKE PURPLE on vocals. Scum Punk in the vein of early Dwarves and Meatmen. Limited to 400 copies.
7" $6.30
11/05/2013
***ANYWHERE have returned! The sonic collective experimentation started by CHRISTIAN ERIC BEAULIEU (TRICLOPS!, PEACE CREEP), Cedric Bixler Zavala (The Mars Volta / Zavalaz), and Mike Watt (The Stooges / Minutemen) has expanded it's identity, unveiling the much anticipated four-song Olompali EP. The lineup this time around features Beaulieu with DALE CROVER (MELVINS, ALTAMONT), KRIST NOVESELIC (NIRVANA, SWEET 75), JONATHAN HISCHKE (HELLA, EV KAIN), ETHAN MILLER (COMEST ON FIRE, FERAL OHMS), TOSHI KASAI (BIG BUSINESS, Altamont), BRET CONSTATINO & MATT HOLLIMAN (SLEEPY SUN), and CYRUS COMISKY (DRUNK HORSE, HOWLIN’ RAIN). Edition of 500 copies with artwork by ALAN FORBES.
PIC12" $33.60
11/05/2013
***Ottawa, Canada's CRUSADES began in late 2009. Comprised of current and ex-members of SEDATIVES, THE CREEPS, BURIED INSIDE, STEVE ADAMYK BAND, LAST COMMUNION, ZEBRASSIERES, THE VISITORS, PREGNANCY SCARES, BLACK TOWER and others, Crusades initial (and ongoing) goal was to provide the somewhat accessible vehicle that is melodic punk rock for decidedly less than accessible ideas—namely atheism, antichristianity, secular humanism, satanism, and a vehement disdain for the crippling disease that is organized religion. Thematically, Perhaps You Deliver this Judgment with Greater Fear than I Receive It. is a meditation on the life of philosopher, heretic and antichristian martyr Giordano Bruno as an archetype for the modern atheist, freethinker, artist, poet and lover. The album was recorded, mixed and mastered by MIKE BOND at Pebble Studios and his own compound The Bond Cave. Crusades will celebrate the album release with performances at The Fest 12 in Gainesville (as well as Pre Fest in Ybor) and a handful of Canadian dates. Colored vinyl; includes download code!
LP $16.00
11/05/2013
CD $13.00
11/05/2013
***The two titans of Toilet Rock, ANTiSEEN and the MEATMEN team on up this disgusting slab of wax to pay tribute to GG Allin and the Sex Pistols.
7" $9.25
11/05/2013
***San Diego’s PLATEAUS are back and following up their acclaimed debut LP on Art Fag with a limited one sided 10” coming from Mt.St.Mtn. Plateaus have a laid back minimalist sound doing more with less with a niche for catchy song writing and melody. Hazy guitar tones, pounding drums, fuzzed out bass, and blown out vocals they deliver a sonic sound scape your ears with be thrilled to hear. With a range of influences from The Clean to The Wipers to Guided By Voices to Harry Nilsson to The Country Teasers, their sound is hard to pigeon hole into one specific genre. Cover artwork by JAY HOWELL, design by MARK KAISER. Edition of 500 copies pressed on one-sided 10-inch splatter vinyl mastered at 45 rpm, and packaged in offset printed die cut jackets.
10" $14.50
11/05/2013
***If LORD DOG BIRD’s The Trinity Knot gives the impression of a remote, rustic, and earthen existence, it comes from COLIN MCCANN’s life as a carpenter and musician in the Trinity Mountains of Northern California. The second LP from the former guitarist of Baltimore’s WILDERNESS was written in the woods, off the grid, utilizing only the shimmering, droning tones of an old pump organ and the human voice. It is a powerful, dark, spiritual music; a mantric prayer sung in the face of the increasing, psychic warfare of our time; a refuge in an age of total surveillance. Honing themes from the Lord Dog Bird’s self titled debut on Jagjaguwar, McCann has made a record that is as succint and disciplined as it is urgent. The Trinity Knot of sounds like a sonic glyph harvested from deep within the rocks. A heralding of the ancient secrets that are found there.
LP $14.00
11/05/2013
MP3 $5.94
11/05/2013
The Swedish trio Salem's Pot have unleashed psychedelic forces of the occult for their latest LP from February 2013. There's reverb, noisy garage production, hypnotizing doom riffs, and a certain DIY irreverence that makes this release a fucking riot. Previous releases show a stronger funeral influence, but this latter incarnation is much more Electric Wizard. This makes it immediately familiar, with all the fuzz and heavy bass, but with an unmistakable energy and love for the form that makes it exciting. Two tracks recorded live in an old mental hospital by the damaged minds of a power-trio, high on very potent pot from Salem.
LP $19.75
11/05/2013
French electronic band DAT Politics returns to Tigerbeat6 with their brand new EP. The followup to 2012’s Blitz Gazer album, Powermoon sets itself up smoothly in the group’s evolving universe, launching incandescent shooting stars like “Fox Box Sound” and “Trance Mission” alongside gravity-free lullabies like “Boogie Mind” and “Ghost Town.” The final moonquake comes from the collaboration with Drew Daniel’s The Soft Pink Truth on a booty version of “Hold That Pose (My Mother Told Me).” DAT Politics has toured the world extensively since forming in 1999, displaying incredible energy on stage and generating a cult-like enthusiasm for their eminently danceable brand of electro-pop. Founding members Claude Pailliot and Gaëtan Collet are also known for their side projects Tone Rec and Skipp, and have influenced a generation of young electronic composers across the globe. The group has appeared at loads of festivals over the years—Warp label night in England, CTM in Berlin, Sonar in Barcelona, Dour Festival in Belgium, and Donau Festival in Austria—and remixed a bunch of great musicians like Jaga Jazzist, The Blow, Architecture in Helsinki and YACHT.
CD $9.25
11/26/2013
MP3 $3.99
11/04/2013
Richard Warren returns with the third offering of his very own Ditch Trilogy series of releases, his brand new album ’Rich Black Earth’, released through Decimal Records. Containing lead single track ‘Judgement Seat’, the sound is stripped down to a wrought iron core, revealing an intriguing collision of country soul and primitive apocalyptic blues, Southern Gothic and English romanticism. Over a 15 year career, Warren has amassed a sprawling and mercurial back catalogue, his live shows being described as “Deep blues, almost Lynchian in their haunting twang”. He plays London’s Plough & Harrow on 2nd November. “Channelling that strange post-Elvis, pre-Beatles world of rockabilly and echo - Sun and Joe Meek - and turning it into something different again” --Bucketfull of Brains
MP3 $7.92
11/04/2013
Borrowed Time is Far-Out Fangtooth’s second full-length LP for Siltbreeze and follows an excellent one-off seven-inch effort for the HoZac label. In the two years since the band’s debut, Pure & Disinterested, their sound has matured; their direction, finessed. While the first LP carried heavy Sonic Youth / Christian Death vibes, Borrowed Time segues in and out of the fuzz / feedback pop of The Jesus & Mary Chain, the smoldering post-punk darkness of Sort Sol and the crashing, echo-laden psychedelia of Five Day Week Straw People. Look for the band out on the road in late 2013.
LP $16.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $8.91
10/29/2013
FLAC $9.90
10/29/2013
Spare Parts is the first solo album from singer / songwriter / multi-instrumentalist John Davis since the release of Blue Mountains in 1997. In contrast to his collaborative work with The Folk Implosion, Davis’s solo work in the ’90s was about as solo as solo gets. He played all the instruments and did all of the cover art for records like Pure Night and Leave Home, as well as for assorted singles and compilation tracks. Having been there and done that, Davis charts a new course with Spare Parts, right down to the cover art, which was done by Boston-area painter and photographer Walter Crump. No less than eight musicians and three engineers lend their talents to the ten tracks and 65+ minutes of this double-LP. (Be warned: the songs are long.) Appearing most frequently are drummer and percussionist Jose Medeles (Breeders, 1939 Ensemble, Portland Ore’s Revival Drum Shop) and cellist and violin player Megan Siebe (Anniversaire, Simon Joyner and The Ghosts). Siebe also appears as a member of a trio of backing vocalists that includes Laura Burhenn (Mynabirds, Bright Eyes, The Postal Service) and Sarah Gleason. Simon Joyner produced the strings and backing vocals, and contributes backing vocals himself to the track “Blood Feud.” Mike Friedman plays lap steel on “You Won’t Cry” and “Southwest,” and Chris Deden plays drums on “Upon a Train.” The record was mixed by Brandon Eggleston (Mountain Goats, Swans, Scout Niblet, tUnE-yArDs, Modest Mouse). Spare Parts mines an acoustic singer-songwriter vein while avoiding a...
CD $13.00
10/29/2013
2XLP $19.50
11/12/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
Known by the alias Tretetam, Letha Rodman-Melchior has released singular sound constructs on CDR and cassette since 2008 on such labels as Ikuisuus and Robert & Leopold. For her first-ever vinyl release, she sheds the veneer of mystery and comes clean with this sweeping haboob of sound, as deft and defying as horns on a hen. From the vantage of time and deep insight, some (i.e. Tom Lax) say Tretetam / Rodman-Melchior’s unique audio gems find a middle ground between United Dairies (notably HNAS) and Vanity Records (ditto Mad Tea Party). But why not the let the artist herself fill you in on the Handbook for Mortals backstory? “From early on, I found that I liked listening to blended sounds of familiar things; TV, lawnmowers, children playing outside. I noticed that when I played records, I wouldn’t flip them over because I found comfort in hearing the needle stuck in its groove. “When I lived in Chinatown on Canal Street in New York, I loved to lay in bed and listen to the vendors shouting, blending with the heavy traffic and tiny wind chimes; I would pretend I was someplace else, somewhere I didn’t know. I love that feeling. “I became interested in field recording after hearing Salmon Run by Graham Lambkin, and had found a website called The Quiet American. I began piecing my tracks together under the name Tretetam, and was influenced by Lambkin, Marcel Türkowsky, Emiliano Maggi, Moondog, Maya Deren’s films and more recently Aaron Dilloway’s Modern...
LP $16.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
FLAC $11.99
10/29/2013
After two incredible 7-inch singles released on the band’s own excellent Jack Shack Records, Brooklyn’s Pampers are proud to announce their debut full-length on In The Red. Pampers are a four-piece—two guitars, bass and drums, plus echo-laden vocals—and there’s a postmodern art-punk angle afoot here, yet the band’s relentless, breakneck tempos and all-out aggression tilt more punk than art. Self-described as “thug pop,” the band’s sound is a brutal, psyched-out pummeling with hooks fighting to be heard beneath the din. It’s certainly more thug than pop. Produced by Ben Greenberg of The Men, Pampers’ twelve tracks explode with opener “Eruptions” and don’t let up until “Head Bag” fizzles out in a whirl of guitar noise and equipment buzz. Everything in between is a cavernous whomp of mongoloid vox, primitive drumming and a cloud of warped sonics swirling above the rock ’n’ roll thud. “I only caught the last song of Pampers’ set and mainly remember them being very, very loud.” —Brooklyn Vegan “They’re awesome and you all are missing out by not seeing them perform. Seriously, they’re great.” —Impose
LP $16.00
11/12/2013
CD $12.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
***BACK IN STOCK!!! It’s only appropriate that Solaris, Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s psychological sci-fi classic from 1972, contains an equally original and mind-bending score. Solaris explores the inadequacies of time and memory on an enigmatic planet below a derelict space station. To reinforce the film’s chilling setting, Tarkovsky commissioned composer Eduard Artemiev to construct an electronic soundscape reflecting planet Solaris’ amorphous and mysterious surface; Artemiev rose to the challenge with a prophetic work that defies the era’s technological limitations while evoking unparalleled emotional responses even today. Artemiev’s score—centered around variations on Bach’s “Chorale Prelude in F-Minor,” a somber piece for solo organ—sounds majestic alongside dissonant crescendos and formless, ambient tracks. Armed with the massive ANS synthesizer (aptly named after Russian occultist Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, who pioneered thought behind the synesthesiatic effects of music), Artemiev drafted sine waves on glass plates for the machine to interpret. The only prototype of the ANS was destroyed shortly after the Solaris soundtrack was recorded. Luckily this artifact of transcendent composition married with technological innovation endures as a masterpiece of early electronic music. Superior Viaduct is honored to present the first-time official release of Artemiev’s original soundtrack for the film (not to be confused with the previously available re-recording of the music). This deluxe package comes with three unique front-cover designs and is recommended for fans of Cluster, Iannis Xenakis, and Louis and Bebe Barron’s Forbidden Planet.
LP $20.25
10/29/2013
***A slight return to the red-hot, fried and twisted garage/psych/punk blasts we’ve come to expect from MIKE POLIZZE’s PURLING HISS. He’s way off the leash on this one, up Hiss creek with nobody to paddle home. Recorded in various Philadelphia-area basements and men’s rooms over the course of 2007-11, the sessions were stunted and aborted as each successive borrowed practice amp blew smoke and crapped out under the strain of Polizze’s fiery fret work. Originally a cassette-only release, but just about every tape was quickly scattered and smashed along the Schuykill Expressway after being left on the roof of the tour van. Edition of 500 copies.
LP $13.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $7.92
10/29/2013
FLAC $9.90
10/29/2013
Corrections House is the collective compulsions of Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod), Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Bruce Lamont (Yakuza), Sanford Parker (Minsk) and their minister of propaganda, Seward Fairbury. A mysterious cooperative of lost souls, forged unwittingly by the impetuous forces of nature and altered states of consciousness, Corrections House is without control of their destiny. Debut album Last City Zero conjures an impossible-to-pinpoint kaleidoscopic synthesis of mechanical decomposition, atmospheric abnormalities, and poetic putrefaction. Embracing the unkind, the diseased, the forgotten, the morose, the group’s lush anti-soundscrapes and shadowy verses—at once beautifully hideous, graceful and terrifying—are a direct manifestation of societal ruin and psychological decay. The transformation of time and space; death begetting life and veils being torn; an imposing dissonance too penetrating to dismiss—Corrections House systematically creates and destroys through audio disease and transcendent musical deconstruction. All things in all ways. There is nothing else. “[U]nique and devastating” —Invisible Oranges “It’s both heavy and definitely dirty” —Dig Boston
CD $13.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $7.92
10/29/2013
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Note price increase. The Shaggs’ Philosophy of the World quietly debuted 44 years ago and eventually became the crown jewel for outsider music fans for its charming and discordant pop songs. Frank Zappa said The Shaggs were “better than The Beatles” and Kurt Cobain regarded them as “so obviously the real thing.” Now, Shaggs’ singer and songwriter Dot Wiggin is back to break the silence and share her uncommonly cute, uncanny music on her first-ever solo album—a mix of never-recorded Shaggs songs and new classics written by Wiggin and her band! Ready! Get! Go! retains The Shaggs’ essential qualities without missing a beat or trying to recreate what once was. The material ranges from raw, punkish indie to pretty melodies, all with Wiggin’s trademark whimsy. Her lyrics are simple but haunting, without ever becoming formulaic or gimmicky, and her peculiar, sweet voice rolls along the different musical styles with surprising ease, tying Ready! Get Go! together. It is exactly what one wants to hear after a 44-year musical hiatus—something reminiscent of The Shaggs, but refreshingly matured. “Speed Limit” is a danceable track with a catchy chorus chant that showcases the innocent, fun-loving side of the band, whereas “Boo Hoo” shows their capacity for melancholy. “Speed Limit 2” offers rambunctious and berserk rock ’n’ roll noise that comes as a powerful surprise and delight. “Banana Bike” is an unrecorded Shaggs song given new life with Wiggin’s signature bashfulness. Upbeat and heavyhearted, “The Fella with a Happy Heart,” is another classic...
LP $22.00
10/29/2013
CD $13.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
Enbilulugugal’s debut album Noizemongers for Goatserpent was a putrid eruption of lo-fi black metal, harsh noise and experimental, anti-musical weirdness, infused with a Black Legions-style mix of invented mythology and garbled language, that arrived with a splat on the black / noise underground in 2004. Originally released as an extremely limited-edition CDR by the now-defunct Rusty Axe label, a home for some of the most demented experimental black metal of the past decade, it has been out of print for nearly a decade. This vicious, hideous mass of churning, blackened hatred and brain-warping chaos has been resurrected as a deluxe double-disc set that features more than an hour and a half of bonus filth, all re-mastered for maximum ear-hate by Enemata Productions, and presented in a new digipack design with artwork from acclaimed underground illustrator Jeff Zornow. The first disc features the original album, a twenty-nine “song” assault of hyper-distorted blasphemy blasted out in minute-long eruptions of noise and violence. Barbaric black metal riffs and monotonous, primitive blast-beats are bathed in corrosive static, while bursts of stomping, catchy punk rock, insane cut-up experiments and harsh electronic noise all surface in Enbilulugugal’s bubbling bouillabaisse of blackened filth. The album still sounds as extreme as it did back when it first came out, and while there’s a perverse, utterly profane sense of humor in the song titles and cranked-up, psychotic visuals, Enbilulugugal was dead serious in its drive toward depravity and extreme violence through black noise. The other half of the...
2XCD $13.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
Founded by Robert Pollard, completed by the Tobias brothers Todd and Tim, Ohio’s Circus Devils have been lurking under the radar since 2001. They’re back with two new albums for 2013, both released on the same day! The trio continues to stretch their musical muscles on My Mind Has Seen the White Trick, a set of thematically unrelated pieces that at times ventures into jazzier territory. The terrain remains darkly mysterious, as always, with multiple layers to explore and reward the listener on repeated plays. Unlike the trio’s albums of the past, the music was written to match the vocal melodies, instead of the other way around. It may be the birth of a new Circus Devils.
LP $16.00
11/12/2013
CD $12.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
Founded by Robert Pollard, completed by the Tobias brothers Todd and Tim, Ohio’s Circus Devils have been lurking under the radar since 2001. They’re back with two new albums for 2013, both released on the same day! On When Machines Attack, the trio delivers a collection of eighteen sonic postcards from a probable future forecasting civilization’s approaching doom and the opportunities to cash in. The cast of improbable characters on display includes the “Controller” who introduces the album, along with Johnny Dart, Bad Earthman, Doberman Wasp, The Brain of the Iron Fist, and more. A satisfyingly unsettling listen from top to bottom (or perhaps unsettlingly satisfying?), it’s perfect for late-night car trips—driving alone, of course. Keep watching the skies!
LP $16.00
11/12/2013
CD $12.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
A few artists have had studios built for themselves—Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios a notable example—but certainly few albums have had studios built for them. Circuit des Yeux’s Haley Fohr and Cave’s Cooper Crain erected USA Studios in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood over a few weeks in January 2013 for the two months of recording sessions that make up Overdue. Founded with the acquisition of a one-inch Otari MX-70 tape deck (modded to 8-track) and a vacancy in a friend’s apartment, the studio endured hundreds of hours over its brief flash of life. Fohr’s fifth LP under the name Circuit des Yeux (her fourth to see release) weaves a sonic Bildungsroman, documenting the transition from collegiate cloister in pastoral Bloomington, Indiana, to the noisy, haggard Chicago South Side. Even with the hand-constructed baffles and grandmother-sourced quilts thickly covering the walls (and, intermittently, a light crust of sloppy snow), the sounds of Little Village are literally embedded in the recording. The strains of nearby norteños pierce the floorboards and the elevated trains murmur just a few dozen feet from USA Studios’ flawed sanctuary. The songs rise above the din, however—full orchestrations (“Lithonia”) and damaged hallucinations (“Acarina”) alike. Fans of Fohr’s prior, more experimental work are not catered to with this immeasurably more sophisticated new effort—but nor will they, or any other listener, be disappointed.
LP $17.50
10/29/2013
CD $9.50
10/29/2013
Melbourne duo Super Wild Horses stitch together an intricate patchwork of guitar, drums and keys over dual harmonies and sparse arrangements. Forming the group in 2009, Amy Franz and Hayley McKee have carved a name for themselves locally and internationally as leaders among the lo-fi garage / DIY scene currently exploding out of Australia. In support of their critically lauded debut LP, Fifteen, the pair toured the USA, including a slot at the venerable Goner Fest in Memphis; back home, their on-stage energy put them on festival stages including Big Day Out, Golden Plains and Sydney Festival, and earned them invitations to tour with the likes of Best Coast, Foo Fighters, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, The Drones, Thee Oh Sees, Pond, Dum Dum Girls and Ty Segall. Following the 2010 release of Fifteen, the two-piece took some time to experiment with compositions and textures, adding layers to the more immediate garage sound of their debut. “This time around it was really important to us to allow space for us both to push our song ideas,” says the band. “Rather than just finish a song and whack it straight on the record, we worked more on the structure of each song until we were confident it was in the best shape it could be.” In 2012, Super Wild Horses bunkered down with producer Mikey Young (of Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Total Control) and engineer Jack Farley (Twerps, Beaches, St Helens) to complete work on their sophomore...
LP $19.50
10/29/2013
CD $13.00
10/29/2013
***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! With influences ranging from doom metal and classic rock all the way to progressive and chamber music, MORNE’s unique brand of post-sludge / crust is unrelentingly heavy and cinematic in scope. The Boston group attracted widespread attention in the underground metal and punk scenes with their 2009 debut album Untold Wait, most notably earning an endorsement from Darkthrone themselves; it helped that the group’s lineup featured guitarist JEFF HAYWARD of the legendary sludge band GRIEF. Their followup, 2011’s Asylum, was a sprawling exercise in monolithic heaviness, pushing their sound even further and garnering significant critical acclaim. Shadows is an even colder and bleaker outing marked by crawling tempos and colossal atmospherics. Melodic and morose, the album is infused with a new sense of doom, with moments reminiscent of Evoken, Mournful Congregation or the now-defunct Morgion. Shadows proves Morne’s distinctiveness in heavy music and is set to be one of the most memorable underground releases of 2013. Housed in heavyweight printed innersleeves and Stoughton tip on jackets. Includes a download.
LP $15.50
10/29/2013
***Starting as a two piece (drums & guitar), MATT HARVEY and NICK BOLTON added PHIL CONNOR on bass, rounding out the sound of EXWIFE’s New Colors. Dealing with the depressing reality of the present, as the cheerful nostalgia of youth has been pushed to the past, Exwife take influence from loud rock bands like Pissed Jeans and Bleach-era Nirvana as their cue to put together one heckuva solid LP. Limited edition of 500 copies.
LP $14.50
10/29/2013
***Taking nods from Sisters Of Mercy and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, SAFEWORDS burn the drum machines and chorus pedals on the altar and combine equal parts Wipers and Christian Death to bring you (post-mortem) 11 tracks of catchy death (rock)-(post) punk that will have you locked in your bedroom flipping this piece of wax over and over again ‘til the sky’s gone out.
LP $16.00
10/29/2013
“In 1992, Alternative Tentacles—the label co-founded by Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra—decided to celebrate its 100th release with the largely in-house DK tribute Virus 100. Solipsism aside, the disc succeeds: Everyone from Neurosis and Napalm Death to Mojo Nixon and L7 contribute renditions of DK’s manic, twangy, hardcore anthems. The approach ranges from faithful to hilariously skewed, though Virus 100’s most infamous track is Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy’s grinding, funk-industrial version of ‘California Über Alles,’ which first appeared weeks earlier on the band’s debut, Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury. Even Faith No More’s crooning piss-take of ‘Let’s Lynch The Landlord’ works, perhaps because Mike Patton reverse-engineered the treatment that Biafra previously gave Elvis’ ‘Viva Las Vegas.’” —The AV Club (10 Surprisingly Good Tribute Albums) “… a brilliant tribute album to one of hardcore punk’s all-time greatest bands.” —PunkNews.org
CD $13.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
***Well this is it. Another masterpiece from the master of the obvious PAUL CAPORINO. Pack Your Troubles in Dreams was M.O.T.O.´s first nation themed release and it is now available for the first time on vinyl. Recorded in Australia with members of COSMIC PSYCHOS and THE SPAZZYS. (many Cooper's Black & Tans were consumed during the making of this musical tome). Recorded mostly at Mogadon in Bendigo, and the rest at StaticAttack near Cockatoo. Later mastered by GARRET HAMMOND in Brill Basement studios (USA). Over one year in the making and finally available as a gatefold LP. Here´s what Jay Mazeffect from Blow Up That Radio had to say about this album: "Pack Your Troubles In Dreams is a more raw sounding effort, hearkening back to the many cassette and cd-r releases that M.O.T.O. had put out for so many years (’Ampeg Stud,’ ‘Terramoto,’ and ‘Rock, Roll, And Dismember’ to name a few). It's not quite lo-fi, but it's thrown the sheen applied to ‘No Way Street’ out the window and just tears through these 18 songs with a reckless abandon of a man more concerned with rocking then worrying about the needles going into the red. M.O.T.O. is proof positive that rock and roll doesn't need to be pondered over, forced, or even high brow. It just has to shake your metaphorical ass. This album does that in spades. Rating: 10. Been playing this nonstop since I got it.” Imported from Finland.
LP $17.75
10/29/2013