Like rabid, metal-clad dolphins with cellular dementia, Pedestrian Deposit’s “Charisma” is a stark mix of minimal constructions over what sounds like a Buddha Machine, laced with harsh, Hospital-grade electronic conflict – serious feel-good feedback that could easily fill a monster tape thrice as long. Powdered Wigs’ “Stabot Mater” [sic] contends for my favorite side of the year: exhibiting a lovely, pilfered (Dvorak?) string arrangement, the track magnifies (or perhaps contracts) into a tasteful abstraction of the composition as an infected macro-organism, parsed into a white-noise rainbow of color-tones and animal erasures; this is fresh, well-conceived, and far, far too short – an excellent teaser for things to come. Tape comes with a handsome inlay in a brilliant crochet case that seals with a stick. Limited to 100 copies. Ultra recommended! (Hate State C-10, $6ppd(US)/$10ppd(World) HERE)

Excepter's stream 37:

"The Pros and Cons of Collage Music, Season Finale" Hiro Ballroom Vs. The Asterisk, NYC, Nov 3 + 4, 2006 [1:04:28 (88.5MB)]

plus some other odds and ends are now available HERE. (FREE)

I was out of town when the package from Fuck It arrived, and within the week I was gone, two of the tapes sold out at the label. Apparently no one needs convincing, but I’ll tell you anyway that this Shepherds is awesome - way better than the real kind. Approximately 35 minutes, this is two sides of untitled, sufficiently-psyched woodsist electric guitar jams. The first side includes some wavering woodwinds and scraping-branch accompaniment in WWVV fashion, plus an intense little segue of live drumming with electric guitar. Flipside: clean rhythm guitar plays through a moderate looping pace with tambourine percussion as acidic electric axes in the back flail and crash (Hint: jam peaks when rhythm gets uppity.) Green tapes, full color inlay, limited to 100 copies. (Fuck It Tapes cassette, sold-out at source)

*If it’s any consolation, Fuck It still has copies of the Shepherds/Quintana Roo split release with Not Not Fun HERE.

Woodsist is Fuck It Tapes' vinyl component. The first release was Raccoo-oo-oon's 'Mythos Folkways Vol.1' which was huge and thus quickly disappeared. This is number two:

NIGHT WOUNDS - 'Allergic to Heat' LP $12ppd (US)
"Recorded in early 2006 in a downtown LA practice space by the band. 8 songs just shy of 30 minutes, mostly recorded live. Everything from angular post punk to primitive no wave and free experimentation, rarely covering the same ground twice. Limited to 500 on black vinyl with silk screened covers." Don't be a STUPID!

Phaserprone is a young label run by two swell guys, Jochen and Jonas, who also made the label’s first release as UW OWL; Grasslung is just Jonas, while HsDOM is just Jochen. The label’s first outsider release comes as a very fine collaboration between Southern Man and Pykrete. Sticking it to everyone, you cannot ignore Phaserprone’s insane album couture: thick vinyl in die-cut jackets with letterpress art; cassette with printed labels, cardstock inserts and custom sleeves; and CDrs come in thick, thick paper digipaks with trays, letterpress and photo art. All this and in batches of little more than 100 copies; the prices may be a touch steep, but the product will certainly recompense.

A heavy, abandon-the-bunker throb pumping with industrial whips and accumulating layers of effects opens “Black Flag”, the first of ten tracks on UW OWL’s ‘Thorn Elemental’. The ‘ghost, but not really’ cover art reminds me of a couple different Sun City Girls LPs for obvious reasons, but the laser-tag battles inside bare no resemblance at all. There seems to be a disparity between sides, with A being a bit darker, sparser, and eightiesier. The next track, “Aero Birdhaus” bounces on springy percussion with light rhythmic themes, and is the first indication of the latter-day Black Dice comparisons to come; somewhere the track melts-down into a drip tempo with a variety of organic beats applied, some hints of acoustic guitar, and a momentary tape impression of guitar thrash. The tracks flow together like oil-swirls and in due time “All Have Hooves” appears with gunky, didgeridoo rhythm to close out the first side of this dark dancehall. “Thorn Face” on side B is a busier track, still mid-tempo but with fills and a waving guitar/feedback loop running behind it - reminding me of how Nine Inch Nails played that Joy Division song on the Crow soundtrack. The next track, “Hearth & Salamander” breaks the formula with a totally psychedelic jam of clean, electric strum and tap, and reverb vocals; half-way through they flip it, inducing that bouncy beat we love and heading into “Asylum”, another ‘Creature Comforts’-type creation which beats your head into a nod as you dodge hi-end lateral beams in time. “Forbidden Ones” is an exit of sorts, blending vocal samples into an almost beatless soundtrack of long horror shrieks and thick globs of bass. All told, this record is very nicely recorded and mastered, with bright blacks and rich tones; and again, sure to please fans of Black Dice and those who like a little casual gloom with their beats. On 140g vinyl, packaged in a self-assembled, die-cut and letter-pressed jacket by Jonas himself. Limited to 333 copies. $15ppd

Listening to each of the boys’ individual releases, it is evident who brings what to the UW OWL table: as HsDOM, Jochen uses ‘VOMC’ to reach beyond the collaborative limits of ‘Thorn Elemental’, pushing further the erotic circuitry the latter only hints at. The cover framing two portraits of micro-processed man and the inserts a digital melt-down of human obsolescence, the album opens on the sound of the last analog device destroying itself: its moving parts (ha!) melting from friction and a lifespan of limited potential. “Elevator Action 2” vibrates loose into “Ausflug ans Wasser”, sounding like a Terminator nightmare, with helicopter beats hovering just above your head and screaming sheet metal being torn from the streets. “Seewege” tests the threshold of the disc, shredding way-trashed bass and digital bubbles into a swelling dance beat. Things begin to dissipate at this point, with the Black Dice vibe entering as sounds come in little packets strategically placed over thick blasts of bass. “Eulen Flug” is almost sweet by comparison, with up-tempo beats and cheery synths skipping away like a Mouse on Mars allusion. “VOMC Track” and “Finnen Siedlung” combine for a wicked experiment with layers, pulsing like an alien EKG with light trails dissolving in all directions - the whole album has keyboards set to ‘Vangelis’. The center of the album is the most sparse and experimental, with later tracks like “Zweig am Ufer” and the manic highlight “ASCii” returning to techno-nightmare dance beats and invisible crowds of screaming fans; in fact, the back end of this album holds an unexpectedly diverse batch of gems like these, including the scary/fun/bouncy “MOT/9,596,700” and the space-madness reverie of outro “Mercadian Masques.” Jochen’s all-in-one production is tops, as the album bumps, grinds, and seers in all the right places. Very nice! Packaged in a self-assembled, razor-scored, photo-tipped, letter-pressed CD gatefold with sexy insert. Edition of 135. $13ppd – Get this!

If Jochen is UWO’s Timbaland, then Jonas is the band’s Eno: ‘Psychic Venom’ is two side-long tracks (maybe 40 minutes total) of pure atmosphere. Heavy synth foot-prints pace up and down this tape as swirls of electronics cloud the sky. Never abrasive, but definitely intense, this is no ambient recording. Long sold-out at home, the Grasslung ‘Psychic Venom’ cassette has been in scarce supply, with just the Troubleman distro coddling a few copies… However: of late, Phaserprone has taken mercy and unleashed a second batch of 45 (legal?), and the cassette is again available through the label. Packaged in an ink-jet slip case, with “scanned inner rendering of solvent and ink letterpress experiment on paper.” Second pressing limited to 45 copies. $7ppd


*The Phaserprone SITE crashed a while ago and is still in disrepair; for now contact them through EMAIL, and check out UW OWL’s new page HERE. Those guys are cool - get in touch!

Arbor is green tapestry:

Arbor14 Horse Head - 'Make It Something Else' CDr $5ppd
"I remember when the Zelda game came out for N64. I was all over that shit, but then forgot about it and never beat it. The thing I do remember is the sweet soundtrack it had. So-cal sunshine kids Horse Head have inadvertently recreated the sounds of the ocarina of time with guitars, drums, and voice. Past releases are hints of songs, these are "songs". Lyrics with all the joys and unjoys of being a human. Psych-pop for the kids. Down tempo tribal beats. Their most song based release yet(ever?). Upcoming album on Not Not Fun. In hand crafted/sewn cardstock pocket folders with conch shell stamped discs in an edition of 50."

Arbor23 Futurians - 'Jawhol Yoko!' C60 $5ppd
"I was first introduced to these New Zealand shredders through the 267 Finland dudes. NZs finest rock the boat, baby, with some of the dirtiest surf rock from either side of the equator. This tape compiles live tracks and other odds and ends from barnacle encrusted clubs. Rock and Roll with tsunami force breaks everything in its path except for the party. Recent shred out on Foxy Digitalis and Last Visible Dog. Cover art by Thomas Bernard on transparent paper with totally hand made tape labels. In an edition of 50."

Arbor26 Cja - 'Wedding Band' C20 $5ppd
"Dunedin captain of the Futurians has been busting music for years. Being a coconspirator of the Davenport Family(twice removed) everything is recorded. The A side is a soirée into guitar minimalism. Samples, delay, electricity. The B side brings it all back home. Folk songs for Dunedin porch singing, campfire or living room exhibition. Songs about life and living(but then again, what music isn't?). Comes in hand dyed bags garnished with an "I do" ring on red/gold passion/wealth tapes with an insert. Til death do us part(in an edition of 50 copies)."

*Arbor's SALE is on for a couple more days. For samples and more, WEBSITE; To reserve copies and get totals, EMAIL.

French duo Natural Snow Buildings shame the world with this huge endeavor. ‘The Dance of the Moon and the Sun’ is a sleepy giant of a third release: two CDrs, each filled to the 80-minute brim with a complete genre of sounds. NSB runs closely alongside the catalog of the Franco-friendly Constellation and its American lesser-half Kranky, threading simple melodies between rich, swollen instrumentals. Made of Solange and Mehdi, the band enjoys the highest qualities of small collaboration and total mind-meld. Sung in modest, perfect English, the band’s littler songs are straight-forward contractions of the bigger forms which fill the bulk of the discs; nevertheless, the band has a skill for both styles, cramming as much into the velocity of a two-minute track that they do in twenty.

From the top, songs like the unofficial 15-minute opener “Cut joint sinews & divided Reincarnation” spell out the bands thesis “what was ‘Post-Rock’?”; this track in particular playing out like latter Tarentel with persistent, grounded percussion and smothering space-atmosphere. There is an equal distribution of droning raga-sagas and near-traditional downbeat pop songs, with the more condensed tunes acting as segues between moments like the spacious Sigur Ros of “Wisconsin.” Despite the diversity of tone and timbre from track to track, songs of both form notch into a progressive harmony like in the groove of an LP - such as when the title-track emerges from the stellar-feedback of the mounting predecessors, breaking open into a ghost-ship chorus uncannily reminiscent of Constellation’s HRSTA. The epic “Felt presence, ghostly Humming” is a total release in itself, with 25-minutes of black & purple Labradford-like kaleidoscope and slithering chords of electric guitar. Incredibly, the track evolves beyond all precedent, as the glistening washes come into focus with angelic chants and blooms of plucked strings. A handful of voice/acoustic sketches follow like the band resurfacing: a smear of melancholy, rainy-day melodies leading into the second disc.

“Tupilak” is a short yet sinister transition into the graying center of this opus, with lupine howls and winds buzzing in the murk. Windy & Carl are felt in the ancient rite of “Wandering Souls”, and like a global conniption of tribal spirit, the opening Tarentelic dance is reprised in “A ten guardian-spirits motherfucker” with the sequined percussion of bodies stomping the earth, bleeding into golden tones and exotic strings. “The cursed Bell” comes midway this side and rings out with clarity so sharp and a voice so sincere it hurts, following the fantasy which precedes it. “My Bones are yours” alights like a jet-rocket with a wall of glittery guitar that lifts the back of this album up above whatever higher ground it had settled itself to; “Tunneling into the structure until it falls” and “Remains in the Ditch of the Dead” exit this collection on high - despite the titles - disintegrating into the air, ready to reform and recycle into the first disc’s “Carved Heart”.

It is advisable to play the discs back-to-back (to back-to-back), as any seam is likely unintended and would falsely partition these 25 pieces necessarily recorded to two discs. Perhaps the most valuable citation would be last year’s fantastic ‘We Lowered a Microphone into the Ground' by Reigns; still, the breadth of ‘The Dance of the Moon and the Sun’ is so great and the emotion so vast, references inevitably fail to describe the experience. Printed labels on the discs, hand-printed, hand-assembled, hand-drawn covers and bound booklet with lyrics - this is an incredibly crafted work of art holding an even greater body of music. Tremendously recommended. The one pictured is red and I believe all gone, I’ve got a blue one in an edition of 19 and is surely disappeared by this point… there be rumor of a Time-Lag release (re-release?) in the future, so stay awake until that moment. (self-released dbl-CDr, that’s it)

New label-friends, I Just Live Here:

IJLH016- The Sunken - 'Dead Pizza' CS
"A gluttonous offering to satisfy the simultaneous desire for pizza and noise. four tracks of both harsh and spacey blasts from the kings of kelso. cassette comes crudely taped to a homemade slice of gutter pizza. TRY IT OUTSIDE."

IJLH017- Zone Out CS
"Coming from the most dangerous city in the U.S., Zone Out is the true sound of pure filth. Like watching someone lick the floors of the Port Authority, their sounds make you turn away in complete disgust. The guitar has all it's strings in a knot and an elixir of peanut butter and vaseline smudged into the pickups. The drummer plays with uncooked breadsticks and a thick quilt over his kit. LIVE these guys manage to sound like the worst quality cassette recording, so it's no surprise that this release sounds like it was submerged in water before hitting the dubber. comes inconveniently packaged in a grotesque blob."

IJLH018- God Willing - 'Carbide Slurry' CS
"Seven tracks of tape loops undergoing live surgery. at times the repition gets under the skin and grates away on the nerves, and at times it provides a slight bit of reality to cling to for safety. both a good and bad listen."

Each cassette is $5ppd(US)/$7ppd(World) - WEBSITE

Thick update from Chondritic Sound:

Sick Llama - 'Being Viewed' 3" $7
ch-156, 152 copies - "this is starting to feel like an all-bass update! why? tape scum, rattle and crackle from michigan's finest mud-mangler, a dude not known for being so subtle on the jams. rotten stereo sound and decayed tapes for 15 minutes. think about it - do you really need this in your life? probably not."

Spine Scavenger - 'VA-T-EN' 3" $7
ch-157, 161 copies - "two uncharacteristically straight, clean laboratory music from the nimble fingers of this grubby, gritty bone collector. circular completion of science/space/ritual experiments gone awry, a nice mix of confusion and determination. unusual modulations and intense keyboard prowess? xerox on silver paper, painted cdr."

Dead Machines - 'The Night Terrors vol. 2' 3" $7
ch-158, 140 copies - "second installment in this not-so-nice series of explorations by this husband & wife duo. starts with cavernous howl and quickly moves into a series of sputtering and chirping tones mixed with split action reverberations. painted 24 minute cdr, color art & spraypaint on colored paper."

Dead Machines - 'The Night Terrors vol. 3' 3" $7
ch-159, 140 copies - "third split spunk and reverb junk disc from inzane studios. more churning, thumping tonal grit but mixed throughout with blown-out organ blasts and absolutely decayed ambience. nighttime interruptions. painted 24 minute cdr, color art & spraypaint on colored paper."

Cadaver in Drag, Charle Draheim, Hive Mind, Moth Drakula - 'Tour' CDr $10
ch-168, 200 copies - "4 band hellride prepared for our midwest tour. a track from each project and one nasty collaborative track pegged on the end. a sick, heavy mix of noise, drone and sludge. painted cdr in digipak with paste-on art."


For samples, ordering, and to glean shipping info, do it WEBSITE.

From Not Not Fun:
"The other night britt and i were just sitting around being like, lets make stuff for our friends and fans, we've got tons of supplies and only a harry potter movie to watch. here we've tie-dyed and silkscreened a handful of nnf tshirts (wait till we get our Hanes on you) and put together the most off-the-cuff mind journey of a label zine. the tees are mens small v-necks and in the picture below we're sort of america's-next-top-label modeling them

"The zine covers topics like insider secrets, rad shows and tapes, upcoming nnf releases, and the reason why marcia bassett won't drink yr shitty folgers coffee. we're totally into making more shirts in bigger sizes, just EMAIL us please with requests and we'll craft you up. as for the zines, they're limited now to an edition of 50. scary rare-y."


Shirts are $6 and zines are $2. EMAIL with your order and receive shipping info.

New bombasts from the (VxPxC):

'Strange on Hind Legs' CDr
"Self Release Recordings 10-2006: First of three limited CD-r sets to be released in the latter third of 2006, "Strange on Hind Legs" is a 45 minutes musical epic, told in eight parts. Beginning with the longest and most varied piece, "Pillow Mountain", the story of this secret Shangri-la is set first as an idyllic Native paradise, rich with flutes and buzzing gusts of wind. But two minutes into this lengthy track, a conflict arises, as the mechanized intruders come to the craggy spires. The drum and guitar-laden chaos slowly rises into an inferno of sound, only to fade just as slowly into the equally chaotic second track, aptly named "Fuck Friends". From there, the disc drifts slowly on the smoke from the ruined village, speaking in tonal spirit tongue, singing to the dead. Ending it all is the far-from-final "Under Pillow Mountain" which lets us join back up with the invaded and listen in on their new world below the ground.
(VxPxC) is channeling all of its influences and interests here, from the noise of Mouthus and the Skaters to the freak folk sounds of the Jeweled Antler collective. Taking a break from their holler and howl vocals, this album comes across with an expansive but focused sound, and is all about the many instruments that make up the (VxPxC) sound, from keyboards to violins to guitars to lord-knows-what." (self-released; edition of 50; $10(US)/$12(World) HERE)

'Random Sounds Vol. 2' CD
"Three tracks from three big hitters. All previously unrealeased jams. One track each from Everlovely Lightningheart, My Cat is An Alien, and (VxPxC). Clocking in at just under 50 minutes, it's sure to be your new bedtime treat. This one will be going fast, you can just smell it in the air."
1) Everlovely Lightningheart - Loom
2) My Cat is an Alien - Aliens in the Crowd
3) (VxPxC) - A Positive Aspect of Dimensional Collapse
(self-released/Indieworkshop.com; Limited to 250 copies; $11 HERE)

Neu from Ruralfaune:

rur011 Quetzolcoatl - 'Triumphant rock shards rise from the sea, awaken my giddy child heart' CDr $9 ppd/7€ ppd
"Welcome the dark side of Ireland with the arrival of this new talent. After cdr releases for his Haunted Trail label and Onomato, dive in this world of echoes, strangled voices and other hypnotizing noisy drones. A meditative journey through a new age noise... limited to 74 copies"

rur012 Ghosts Brames of the Cerf's Magickal - 'For ever hang thy dreamy spell, round mountain star and heather bell' 3"CDr $9 ppd/7€ ppd
"...is the duo of the Reggaee and Jacob the "magick skull of noise" master: intricated jams for the Sabbath; praise the beast... Future releases on the magnificient Foxglove and 267 Lattajjaa labels. Limited to 49 copies"

rur013 Robedoor - 'Hidden Ascension' CDr $9 ppd/7€ ppd
"The thirteenth stage is always special. Amazing trip into the tenebrous minds of these occult boys - incantative voices, apocalytic noises for a preach for the Unknown. No no fun. Limited to 78 copies"

rur014 Wolfskull- 'Tannasg' CDr $9 ppd/7€ ppd
"First full-length cdr from the nz drone-doom masters Wolfskull. After a split with Wolfmangler and releases on Battlecruiser and Root Done Lonie for Cash, "Tannasg" gives us the primitive sounds we need. Slowness and heaviness are the canines of this wolf, let it bite you... Limited to 79 copies"

You decide: WEBSITE, WEBSITE or EMAIL (trades welcome)

It's been a while:

Loosers - 'Bumba Meu Boi' cassette $6
"The great unraveling continues. We first heard Loosers’ fried/frayed spool of sound-sprawl last year, via the Ruby Red/Jelle Crama-splattered LP/CDR offering. Immediate Portuguese fever set in. They, however, are a busy crew, dropping albums for Qbico and Our Mouth, touring Europe with Mouthus, generally ruling, etc. So NNF release plans moved slow. Fast forward to today: the CS is HERE, the time is NOW. Named for a semi-metaphorical 18th century Brazilian tale/dance concerning the FUCKED hierarchical relations between slaves and lords at the time, Bumba Meu Boi boils/roils with post-rational uprise, alchemical percussion ritual, and pulse-of-the-people electronic sub-consciousness. Two beautiful sides of fluidly splayed labor-as-magick post-Sunburned collectivist psych action. REAL tapes (a first for NNF) in hand-color-dyed, hand-numbered cardstock J-cards with cult cave-art covers. Limited to 200."

Quintana Roo/Warmth - 'Runes Translucent' cassette $6
"Looking down, looking in, under the sand, under the skin. A tape/trip for star/shoe/dirt-gazing, soundtracks for shapeshifting glow-zones deep in the distance. QR cast “Black Dreaming Place,” a 25-minute soul séance of sparse ghost dust and moonlit rattlesnakes. Recorded in the middle of the Anza Borrego desert with the rumbling help of Josh Taylor’s legendary generator. Warmth is Steev (aka the late Roxanne Jean Polise) and Branden (of Quilts, etc)and their tone blanket B side, “Sharing Antique Mothers,” crawls on slow and soft like a morphine drip. A drugged electronic massage from amplified hands with wire fingers. Painted-label tapes in white vinyl cases with dual-layer dream-vellum covers, plus an origami insert with a piece of found film salvaged from a trashed Brussels fleamarket. Artwork by Roy Tatum of Changeling/Quintana Roo. Limited to 100."

PRESENTS!

From Greh over at Chondritic Sound:
"While cleaning the house and making room for the new batch (well, new to most of you) I found a few copies of these stashed.. lemme know if you want any of 'em and make an offer. best bet is to e-mail chondriticsound@gmail.com, those orders will be given preference vs. PMs or a reply here. LIST OFFERS INDIVIDUALLY PER ITEM in case one of your selections is gone. items will be sold to the highest offers in descending order."

--- CHONDRITIC SOUND ---
BLACK SAND DESERT / PCRV - split/collab 5" (3 copies)
BURNING STAR CORE - PHYSICAL CULTURE 3" (1 copy)
CARLOS GIFFONI - ASSASSIN'S FAITH 3" (7 copies)
CEYLON MANGE - SHOT GLASS OF BRONCHIAL DRAINAGE 3" (2 copies)
CHARLIE DRAHEIM - BREAKING LUCK (3 copies)
CONNELLY - DIM MOON 3" (1 copy)
CONNELLY - FAILING LIGHTS VOL. 1 3" (3 copies)
CONNELLY - WEREWOLF BREAK 3" (1 copy)
DEVILLOCK - ROTTEN CREATURES 3" (7 copies)
DOUBLE LEOPARDS - THE BLIND DESTROYER 3" (3 copies)
HIVE MIND & RELIGIOUS KNIVES - UNTITLED 3" (2 copies)
IOVAE - RADIO EXORCISMS 3" (4 copies)
LUASA RAELON - NECRONAUTICAL MARINER 3" (1 copy)
MAMMAL - MISERY 3" (2 copies)
PENGO - BEATEN BACK TO INFANCY 3" (2 copies)
REDROT - DRUNK ON CADAVERINE 3" (2 copies, FIRST EDITION)
ROBEDOOR - SLOTHS IN THRONES 3" (5 copies)
SLEEPING WITH THE EARTH - WAITING 3" (3 copies)
SWORD HEAVEN - SWORD HEAVEN 3" (2 copies)
VERTONEN - ONE TELESCOPING SPINE 3" (5 copies)
WORKBENCH - SYNAPSE TRANSIT 3" (6 copies)
XOMBIE - DEATHDRIP 3" (3 copies)

--- ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD ---
ENTRAILS - HIDDEN SKULL 3" (1 copy)
RAPERS - RAPERS 3" (2 copies)
WORD OF COMMAND - PESTILENCE & ROT 3" (1 copy)

LRRC - the Luddite Rural Recording Cooperative - is a label/distro/mailorder affiliation of the Elephant Micah band. These do-gooders stock jams built by the little guys and girls, plus much of their own works. Mira:

ELEPHANT MICAH – ‘EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES’ CDr $9
”This disc features brand new recordings of six songs written around 2004, just as work was finishing up on the Time-Lag cdr series. Beyond the usual personnel, Louisville songwriter Joe Manning contributes pedal steel to three tracks. The packaging is similar to “Futile Sessions,” only with a built-in lyric booklet. Kind of weird, individualized artwork. 30 minute running time. Plenty of jamming - file under ‘Free Country.’” (self-released / LRRC)

BEACH BLANKET VOLLMAR – ‘DON’T BE TOO OLD’ 12” $12
”The proprietors of Underwater Tea Party records offered to pay a month of Justin Vollmar’s rent if he’d make a record for their label. He then went on a family vacation, sat out on the beach late one night, and made some solo recordings straight to simultaneous tape and minidisk recorders. The results make for a kind of sonic portraiture that sets aside “objective” recording aesthetics in favor of a more personal, contextual representation of the songs.” (Underwater Tea Party)

‘LITTLE WINGS AND JUSTIN VOLLMAR SING ABOUT LOVE’ 7” $4
”This split release originated as a wedding favor. Vollmar covers “Leader of the Pack” and “Chanson D’Oh” on one side… well, he was supposedly lying on his back during most of the takes. On the other side Little Wings takes a crack at “Be My Baby.” He’s rumored to have shown up to the sessions with only drums. These guys keep it weird.” (Underwater Tea Party)

VOLLMAR/ MICROWAVE BACKGROUND – ‘AD PATHETIC’ b/w ‘WAVY OASIS’ 7” $4.50
“The bulk of Justin Vollmar’s work on his side was done in an open-windowed apartment in Bordeaux, France. Some of that ambience has carried over into the final mixes. On the reverse, Microwave Background serves up what is perhaps a more specifically American atmosphere of basement-adapted pop singing. In the end, it’s a great pairing of two of today’s eeriest home recordists.” (Third Uncle)

MICROWAVE BACKGROUND - ‘THE LARK’ CDr $8
”Picking up where the Lawless Nursery / Echo Lake compilation leaves off, The Lark sees multi-instrumentalist songwriter Will Ryerson achieve new mastery of an already distinctive style. Song and sound are here inseparable parallels, with Ryerson’s language as colorful as the sonic experimentalism in which he dresses it. Part “outsider,” part upside-downer, this resembles no other underground pop music.” (Passing Tone)

BRONZE FLOAT - ‘NO SUNG WORDS’ mini CDr $4
“Here’s an assemblage of seemingly disparate recordings, including one tale of selling clam chowder to a Russian Hoosier. It’s not instrumental per se, but, as the title suggests, contains “no sung words.” Think of it as the appetizer for what David Brant (you’ve seen him playing bass for Vollmar) has up his sleeve for this exciting new project.” (RC Legacy)

JASON HENN – ‘SUNBURST FARMS’ CDr $8
“Henn’s new release features pieces inspired by recent employment in the lower ranks of a flower factory. This is a cdr inside of a 12" record sleeve that comes with a baggie of collages. The music is largely improvised. See for example the three tracks of unaccompanied yelling.” (LRRC)

RED QUEEN HYPOTHESIS – ‘INTERNATIONAL COUCH HOUR’ mini CDr $4
“Winchester, Indiana’s Andrew Meyers and his rotating cast of alt rock eccentrics sing songs about camping, evolutionary biology, and the working class breakfast. Part “outsider,” part pep band. The novelty of Myers’ music is entirely uncontrived, and for that reason, far more interesting than the cute indie acts with whom his work is often compared (Polyphonic Spree, They Might Be Giants).” (Rowntree)

SOFT WOLF – ‘DUTY TRUE & THE BLUES’ CDr $5.50
“Soft Wolf sold these cdrs on last year’s tour with fellow Chicagoans Static Films. This music is the work of songwriter and electric guitarist Peter Chauncey, whose directness and wit betray roots in underground music’s more confrontational corners. ‘Let’s make litter out of the literati.’” (self-released)

Assault yr eyes with the LRRCs atrocious WEBSITE!

Promoting a list of twenty-plus band members, Houston’s Indian Jewelry is a far spunkier band than this hefty mob may imply. Purportedly in the real world, the band rolls through towns like a cartoon brawl, sucking up loose musicians for a rockin cloud of feet, fists, and guitar necks, only to spit them out a few states away; they also regularly shed their title, likely to cover dirty deeds in those faint-hearted bleu states. On record, the core membership of Indian Jewelry is three, and these three are at the core of ‘Invasive Exotics’, the band’s debut CD, the sound of which is somewhat familiar hybrid of psyched guitars, organs, and sheets of reverb mixed with slutty dance beats and electronic bass grooves.

Opening song “Lesser Snake” is a strong - if somewhat deceptive - starter, pushing its way in with deep synth bubbles, war drum, and jangle riff; the rocker voice of dude Tex Kerschen like a charmer calling the jam out of its pit to writhe in the dirt. Though the elements remain the same from track to track, the product moves in erratic directions, with the next track “Powwow” suggesting a slightly tampered-with indie rock, c. 1992 (maybe it’s the change to sassier vocals, but I’m feeling Poster Children or something in the vicinity). The plot thickens as the half and half of “Dirty Hands” gives way to the future-past synth of “Come Closer”, sounding like half-speed Fischerspooner. Ten-minute “Going South” returns to the grungy rock of the second and third tracks, with an arrhythmia beat, melting choruses, and substantial space for some wailing guitar improv. “Health and Wellbeing” shifts back to the dance floor with thick swells of synth and countless guitar-trails, and “Partying with Jandek” is more of a skit (in the Hip Hop sense) than a song, with a little over of a minute of concrète stereotype of/homage to the silent partner. More techno and psych collision sprawls across the last two tracks, capping off an album that is far more elusive than it first appears. These punks land nicely amongst the Social Registry roster (Gang Gang Dance, Psychic Ills, Telepathe, et al.), and will probably share a common audience once the dust clears. (Monitor CD, $12 (US)/$14 (N. America)/$16 (World) HERE // Vinyl from Lovepump United)

The crew of Raccoo-oo-oon have built a little label called Night People offering up some potentially excellent releases:

NP007 Flak Mask - untitled C30 $5
"A half hour of new music from this New Orleans based duo featuring members of Impractical Cockpit. Combining impoverished electronics and deconstructed analog instrumentation, grating rhythms meet soothing echos in these long-burning trance-inducers that always leave you wondering, what am I actually listening to here?"

NP006 Dan Friel - 'Obsoleter' C20 $5
"Obsoleter features the solo work of Dan Friel from Brooklyn's Parts and Labor. Fuzzy beats, distorted synth washes, and catchy keyboard riffs deconstructed into very active evolved compositions that will make you feel perfect about zoning out to these upbeat jams. Silkscreened artwork by Shawn Reed."

NP005 Youth of the Beast - 'White Cat' C30 $5
"Andy Spore of Raccoo-oo-oon sings, drums, and screeches, stacking sounds up to their breaking point, calling all youth to follow down the black magic trail."

NP003 Native Resolutions DVD-R $8
"A collection of short videos, films, and animated works by Andy Spore and Shawn Reed of Raccoo-oo-oon along with various Raccoo-oo-oon documentation." Taste.

NP002 'Holy Weave of the Cosmic Dream' - Drawings by Shawn Reed $6
"A 44-page self-assembled book of new illustrations by Shawn Reed. This was released in conjunction with his Holy Weave of the Cosmic Dream solo art exhibition at the HaNNa Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. View pages HERE and HERE. Images from the exhibition HERE. "

Night People also has a little distro for some under-represented types - Take it all in .

One among a wealth of releases spanning the last two decades, ‘White Man at the Door’ by Australia’s The Lost Domain compiles a handful of live, “incomplete” recordings from a brief period in 2002. Impressions: this is Sun City Girls at their jazziest – say, ‘Bullet through the Last Temple’ - with the spaciousness of Sunburned Hand of the Man and the majority of mid-era SCG; wide open rooms with assorted masks hanging from the walls and thatched rugs sagging from ceiling. Yet despite the shifting nature common to these groups, the tracks presented here feature a prevalent rhythm which stomps out a sturdy cadence that jerks your spine. With a brassy locked-groove, the opening track “In My Time of Dying” simmers up to 15 minutes as a small circle of madmen proselytize, spook, shout and clamp a white-man’s blues to clip-clop percussion, the ritual flickering like shadows outside a bonfire. Subsequent tracks are shorter, though the formula is not dispensed; the instruments may change, but the perverse, backwoods-mutant gospel is always on the front, bleating drunken sermon over rattles, guitar, and jug band one-two. The fourth, “Charmin’ Betsy”, is the closest thing to a reprieve; two brief minutes of metallic samples offset into a sparse, nearly-danceable beat akin Gang Gang Dance's loose contact high - though with an old redneck carrying on at the mic. Despite the negligible dip in production quality on the fifth track, the recordings are rich in color, vivid and spirited. (Digitalis CD, $12ppd (World) HERE)

RAD:

NNF051 Loopool - 'Courtesy Run Rampant' 1-sided LP w/CDr $9
"LA’s king discontent Loopool finally achieved such core-level burn-out at day-to-day California-cation that he uprooted his Sycophanticide mini-empire and bolted for greener/rainier pastures (the Pacific Northwest). That said, Courtesy Run Rampant is the perfect Not Not Fun-eral for our favorite post-noise avante cultural disintegrator. Three bizarrely orchestrated manifestoes ringing with bashed upright piano, harsh drum distortion, and elegiac clarinet lament, often complimented with Herr Loopool’s Leonard Cohen-like dead poeticizing. Recorded during a day-in-the-studio birthday present at The Distillery in Costa Mesa on thick reel-to-reel tape, and effused with focus/purpose. One-sided LPs – with an ornate conspiracy-theorizing art chart etched on the B side – housed in hand-stamped, stenciled, painted jackets, plus a full-page insert AND a bonus full-length CDR of additional music/musings. Limited to 200."

NNF062 Robedoor - 'Unsummoning' CDr $7
"Too much voodoo, too little light, the cords coil into an elliptical infinity helix, the prayer rug bleeds. Darkening signs o’ the times. LA’s blindest seers peer once again into the voice/void for this pentagrammic document of dim delay worship and retching distortion ritual. Five fully forsaken tracks of synth séance, cello reckoning, and unholy howl. Anti-invocations for four-dimensional forces. Painted CDRs in witch-stitched, silk-screened cases with full-color wrap-around covers, plus a hand-numbered, silk-screened cardstock insert. comes with a punk patch too. limited to 100."

Critical mass at Not Not Fun!

Hate State's back!

"All packaging hand crocheted or knitted. New items will be available on the Gang Wizard west coast tour. If you cannot go to the shows, please order now to make sure you have a copy set aside for you. First batch of orders ship thursday."

HS005 Pedestrian Deposit/Powdered Wigs split c-10
"Another in the Zen minimalism theme. Only the delicate parts protected. Music that walks the same dangerous edge. Precious monsters. Powdered Wigs features David of Extreme Animals/Paper Rad collective. limited to 100."

HS006 Torturing Nurse - 'Hate Human' c-10 -->
"Darkness apparently lives in China too? Then why is Hate Human so beautiful? This spell is seducing you toward an evil not yet revealed. Limited to 50."

HS007 God Willing - 'Deliberate Lamb Bags' c-15
"You cannot count on this one being neat. Dirty, sometimes raunchy. Crushed by sounds left and right. The oscillator is destroyed by the mess. Fuzzy bags of truth. The oscillator wins in the end. Member of Dynasty. Upcoming release on Troniks. Limited to 50."


All releases are $6 US/$10 World, or three for $15 US/$25 World HERE.

American Grizzly is a new label out in the wilderness. They shook a tree and came back with four clawfuls of albums from everyone's favorite bands - they even sent a little message to all the anipals:

"We release music by bands we like, housed in packages and art we like. We did live in Chicago via Austin & Los Angeles. Living in the city gets old. Caves don't. So we did ourselves a favor and got out. We live in the woods in southwest Missouri now, and are going to take American Grizzly to heights that would have never been attainable otherwise. Everyone's invited...join in." -Branden & Barbie Grizzly

NOW AVAILABLE:

SHEPHERDS - 'WE ARE EVERYWHERE' CS-41 $4
"Long brain massaging free jam trips curtousy of a Fuck It Tapes Snake Earl and Christian from the Woods & friends."

SLEEPING BABIES - 'WOVEN SPIRITS' 3" CD-R $4
"Co-ed vocal mantra's delayed over droning keyboard, flute, and bells. Features the two AG labelheads and one part Quilts and Grateful Dregs."

ETTRICK - 'SUDDEN ARRHYTHMIC DEATH' 3" CD-R $6
"Blasphemous free-jazz saxophone over the unholiest black metal drumming ever slayed."

RESIDUAL ECHOES - 'GET YER WAH-WAH'S OUT' CS-41 $4
"Feel-good psychedelic grunge rock from the left coast. Grab their record and everything else from Holy Mountain."

ROBEDOOR - 'FREE BURIED' CS-20 $4
"Primitive drum thumping and howling vocal desperation soaked in ancient cave haze."

BROTHERS OF THE OCCULT SISTERHOOD - 'MUTACT' CS-26 $4
"Free folk psych-spells played under New Zealand skies, causing snakes and things with tentacles to form and dwell in your skull aperture."

GRATEFUL DREGS - 'RED RIVER' CD-R $6
"New project from half of Quilts and Sleeping Babies. Tape-looped gutter-dub and psychedelic electronics."

HAUNTED CASTLE - 'DUST TOMBS' CS-39 $4
"Filthy feedback-drenched Michigan dust scrape."

HORSE HEAD - 'BLESSED WINGS' 3" CD-R $4
"Seventeen minutes of stoned sorrow invoked by acoustic pluckings and haunting adolescent whispers."

HEAVY LIDS - 'CLOUDS ARE A BLANKET' CD-R $6
"Beautiful droning shoegaze-power-psych."

METAL ISLANDS - 'GHOST ROAD' CD-R $6
"Canadian duo conjure lo-fi scum skronk and psychedelic guitar dirge reminiscent of Open City, The Dead C and Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music'."

CAVE TITANS - 's/t' CD-R $6
"Journey through a frenzy of energetic rock n' roll fuzz guitar and drum machine stoner-psych."

KNIFE CITY - 'BLACK CIRCLE' CS-10 $4
"Disembowling harsh crunch slicing through a thick musty ambient fog."




***For shipping info, samples, and more: EMAIL and WEBSITE***

The beast inside the Mattress costume is Rex Marshall. Marshall is from Portland (gasp!) and plays stanky garage-pop with drum machines, keyboards, and strategically-placed accents of guitar and harmonica. ‘Eldorado’ is a six-song freaky vision of the deserted west, where meth addicts roam the earth, picking things up. With the hollow depth of Ian Curtis and creepy delivery of Nick Cave, Marshall’s voice definitely reigns supreme over the SuicidecumLiars, No Wave sparseness of his musical space; spanning a range from disturbing to sexy, and always bizarre, the guy is a real weirdo. “Bad Times” is an impressive jive over Arab Strap beats (it sounds like my dad!), and “Got to come on” could easily pass as a lost Joy Division remix. The man’s got a good sensibility for composing songs, and though this is his third release as Mattress, I feel confident that future offerings will see him continue to refine the elements into a dark dagger of bleak soul. Get this and say you were into it when it still came with hand-crayoned inserts and painted discs, and there were only like 100 copies for real, son. (Below PDX CDr, $7ppd (US) – HERE)

From Middle James Co.:

MJC64 Terror Tapes Vol 13: Altar of Flies/The Un-men
"Catch a rising star in the form of Sweden's Altar of Flies. Following a tight fist of solid cdr releases on his own "hästen & korset" label, this side presents rhythmic and droned out electronic crunch and clatter. Side B: Another dip into the murky sound oozing out of Hamilton, Ontario. Duo of Cranius and Ophidian drag unsuspecting victims into their hypnotic chirp whirl buzz of warped tapes and slimy machine discharge. Limited to 23. $6ppd (North America)"

MJC65 David Payne - 'Feedback #37' cassette single
"Solo stuttering feedback tones on short tapes. Limited to 13. $6ppd (North America)"

Also:
3 titles for $10 (very limited supply remains - EMAIL before paypal)
mjc43 TERROR TAPES vol4: Realicide/Scott Johnson cassette
mjc46 TERROR TAPES vol7 : Women In Tragedy/Offensive Orange cassette
mjc48 David Payne "Feedback#32" cdr
mjc49 The Art & Skill of Conversation cdr
mjc50 FOSSILS "morbid chicken" cdr
mjc51 TERROR TAPES vol8 : HeadBoggleDomo/Fletcher Pratt cassette
mjc59 Offensive Orange "new whores" cassette

PAYPAL to: d_revisited<at>yahoo.ca; EMAIL for international inquiries; and see the WEBSITE.

Tirath Singh Nirmala is the man once known with modest notoriety as John Clyde-Evans. Upon returning from a seven year journey on the path of Sikhism, he released a number of painfully limited CDrs in a variety of diverse collaborations. ‘Bluster, Cragg, & Awe’ is a mashup of the best moments from those releases, and for this reason, plays as the disjointed yet brilliant pinnacle of the man’s oeuvre. The voices and instruments on this album are hard to characterize for their variety, and it is doubtful they represent a single tradition; they evoke rites from many disparate locations – the coasts of Ireland, North Africa, middle Asia, and America’s central plains. Highlights include: “nagg clef seatpoint”, a symphony of incantations afloat clouds of wind-fed bells; “the burning moon”, a clattering festival of light percussion and wind instruments flitting upward like sparks off a fire; “sehaj”, an electronic workout not unlike the organ loops of Riley’s ‘A Rainbow in Curved Air’; and possibly the most moving piece, “faleaflowstreem”, which weaves electronic chords and humming loops into a solid river of fresh tones. These six- and seven-minute pieces are relieved by longer drone passages of substantial grace, giving the album a regular pattern if not a cohesive theme. “RYTSN 7.14” concludes the disc, punctuating bamboo flute and wooded strings with powerful entries of silence. The album’s seven tracks could easily be a meditation on the man’s seven years, changing stages and states.

Despite the common forest imagery of Nirmala’s album and Seht’s, 'The Green Morning' exists in a very different place, sonically and thematically. Turning the New Zealander’s newest CD over, the photo of the dry-red Mars landscape refigures the sunrise of the Earthy cover not as the only other body, but one of many seeing us through the trees. Where Nirmala finds introspection in this world, Seht shows us a bigger picture. Each track on the disc focuses on a single repeating theme, with subtle variations throughout the cycles. Built upon huge, cresting drones, the tracks play out abstract patterns of simultaneously soothing yet menacing shape; like a Buddha machine built of a wind-tunnel, the sound fills the room and churns the air from the speakers. After thirty minutes, three tracks of this tension – “Valles Marineris”, “Olympus Mons”, and “Way in the Middle of the Air” - relax into the unexpectedly playful “Cydonia” – only to swell again in the immense “Chryse Planitia” for the final twenty. This is science fiction music of Clarke and Sagan vision; eclipsing Earth and a little scary for it. (Digitalis CDs, $12 ppd (World) HERE)

Spacelessjam has some heavy shit for you:

GX Jupitter-Larsen & IDX1274 - 'Sandpaper And Vinyl' 3" CDr $4
"Woah. This tiny CDr is packed to max. A collaboration between two noise behemoths. Not really much to say, it is far from description. Recorded live at the 2nd Annual Eugene Noise Fest in Eugene, Oregon. Limited #'d edition of 75, packed in sandpaper and vinyl and comes with a special sugary treat."

Torturing Nurse & Radiocore Blowjob - 'Killing Me Softly With Your Love Song' 3" CDr $4
"Another fine, fine collaboration 3". This time the offering are of that of two Chinese harsh noise maniacs. Radiocore Blowjob is another name for who you may already know as Ronez, and Torturing Nurse... well who doesn't know Torturing Nurse. I've been told this CDr is mastered real loud, not that I noticed but "even with the volume all the way down, its still up"."

*See it for yourself