I suppose I could have gone to the Dim website or one of the other three cyberplaces listed on the oversized sleeve of this self-titled collaboration to find out, for my records, just who exactly are Thelmo Cristovam & Fernando S. Torres, but then that would resemble work and I’m on summer vacation. Vacation. Instead, I will tell you about the marvelous excursions of Cristovam & Torres, a mysterious duo no doubt about it. The compact disc split into two suggestively titled tracks “A:23’50”” and “B: 26’36”” (suggesting, or rather screaming from this single-sided, extended-play format that a vinyl rerelease would be oh-so apropos), with an additional album’s worth of material embedded in the disc’s “enhanced” genetics – an additional pair of tracks similar in duration and content to the purely-audio portions (which will not be covered here). And how might I describe this content?

A “Real-time” composition (i.e. improvised?), both tracks were set live to tape, made with primary elements of trumpet, saxophone, and flute, and transmogrified through piezo crystal, processing, and an “air-duster”. Hardly minimal, these compositions come richly illustrated in depth and gesture, yet for their duration, appear at first threadbare, with a procession of mostly soloistic entries resonating in a shrouded region of creative space – making this a likely candidate for Extreme’s current roster of post-ECM avant-garde experimentalists, most notably the Antripodean series of Aussie locals like Robert Vincs and Marc Hannaford. The waking reality of these live tracks is dizzied, as the processing of the instrumental sounds ranges wildly from total disfiguration to entire abstinence. When left to present its own nude body in the first movement, the saxophone stretches and skronks against the air as if it were the skin of a balloon, appearing counter moments of subtle dread as a groundfault of bass churn quietly underneath. In the second, this tremor becomes a thick chord of slithering reverb ala Hive Mind’s ‘Sand Beasts’, and swelling form which absorbs the entropic sounds around it as it fills both channels; in this predacious state, the drone hints at rough contours of the shapes within - though almost imperceptibly so – maintaining its domination through increasing volume. In DVD clamshells with cardstock inserts, hand-numbered to paltry 33 copies. (Dim Records CDr HERE)

TLMP04 - Continental Fruit - 'Gently Carved Into Sound'
"10 tracks of dark and droning layers of organ, voice and electronics calling you from a mysterious place." Free MP3-album.

TLMP05 - Gróhvrascht - 'Zimrenooord'
"Glitchy. Cutting. Moving. Delicate sounds pop through the shifting noise. Hidden tunes appear. An album that grows steadily more fascinating with every listen." Free MP3-album.

TLMP06 - Lupus Golem - 'Minotaure EP'
"The Minotaure EP is a 20 minute exercise in raw, dark noiserock from the dungeons of the Bergen netherworld." Free MP3-album.

TLCD04 - Horacio Pollard - 'Gas Giant' CDr €15(world)
"Gas Giant" captures you from the second the first sounds slip through. Distant and unfamiliar voices blend with mechanical breathing, and float into your head. It all evolves into wonderful strangeness as you find yourself surrounded by heavy machinery, Euler language, deep sea monsters, and almost melodies." Available on CD-R in a DVD-cover. Limited edition of 100 copies.

WEBSITE

THE SKULL DEFEKTS - 'THE DRONE DRUG' CD
"First there was Skkull then there was The Drone Drug... Continuing on the same path, the sound of The Drone Drug is of a similar relentless minimalistic nature as its predesessor. This could be seen as the electronic backbone to last years amazing Blood Spirits & Drums Are Singing (Conspiracy Records), creating a heavy beast with the most basic and stripped-down use of variations in drones and frequencies instead of guitars and percussion. Monotonous motor humming via drugged-out machinery and assaults of feedback attacking with a strong feel of claustrophobia. Compared to Skkull, The Drone Drug evolves more around a grim and abrasive sound, constantly toying with lo-fi aesthetics and a rough industrial edge. The atmosphere created is thick and black, bringing up visions of a dystopian society trembling on the edge of the world. Spreading the disease in a world slowly dying, The Drone Drug is poison and affect you it will. On this recording, The Skull Defekts is Joachim Nordwall and Henrik Rylander. 4 tracks cut by an unsharpened razor. Total playtime of 52 minutes. 4-panel digipack with artwork by Daniel Fagerström." HERE

Two fine new solo meditations from Abandon Ship’s new pro-CDr jones (and both apparently sold out at the source). First it’s David Suss as Millions, a percussionless Kid Millions with the same feel for duration and understated transcendence. Three tracks hovering right around twenty minutes, we open ‘The Notebook Behind Your Eyes’ on the hissing flicker of “Kaleidoscopic Filmstrip Blues”, a speckled fugue of growing intensity somewhere between Tim Hecker’s sense of grain and Peter Wright’s swelling ovations. Heavy plumes of bass strokes the bowels of “One Hundred Years”, a fly-blown scanner moving methodically across the channels, back and forth, emphasizing the stillness of the track; a similar swell emerges of both new drone material and the original sources multiplied in volume, finding a rather solemn rut cut apart by the early intrusion of “Afterimages”, an abstract diagram of bouncing guitar notes like the broken streaks of light which grace the album’s cover, resounding in a slow, warm, and loose harmony soon masked by several flavors of droning mass – both bright and dark, bold and sharp – though eventually merged into a single maximal whole of virtuous magnitude and direction. The material is nothing novel, just exceptionally well done and impactful, and befitting the crisply tailored suit that AS has fitted it with. On solid color CDr with professional glossy sleeves. Limited to a suspiciously-scant 50 copies.

Second is ‘Astral Collage’ by Nicholas Bindeman’s Tunnels project. Drinking the same Portland agua as Adam Forkner (White Rainbow), Bindeman has gone the way of, well, Adam Forkner, tie-dying his drones with a cellular fractal of hand percussion, chants, and strings, and espousing inspiration in big brother’s esoterica which he found among the greening posters of castles and so many half-dead lighters. The wet bobbing of “Ceremonial Magick” attests to this, as a woozy melody scales up and down a clatter of free-form (VxPxC) with more immediacy in the ear. Indeed, he is also a digital boy, and the haziness of the forms comes by design and not by virtue of production – each track is overly lit, revealing the unmistakable intentions of each weaving strum on the dueling “Golden Twigs”, or the dense yet enumerable layers of “The Vision & The Voice”, a warm daydream of organ and non-instrumental sounds faded over the dry-acidity of electric guitar which understates many of the tracks. Largely directionless, the tracks pool and briefly sustain various configurations of unmentionable shape and feel, with the possible exception of “Genesis Hall”, a storied track with some shading of movement through dark vibes provided by off-notes, dark, resonant groans, and a restlessness set to boil by a clattering percussion. Again, a solid screened disc in a richly colored sleeve. Limited to 100 copies. (Abandon Ship CDr, sold out HERE)

905.12: HELM - 'CHRYSALIS' C30 $6
"three solo offerings from half of the birds of delay unit, luke younger. everything comes together in a sort of calming yet virulent way, like rivers of red and black filled with dead birds falling from the sky. chrysalis is sort of like a anodynic end to all things. one quick bite of the apocolypse that makes everything feel good." black on black covers.

905.17: CALDERA LAKES S/T C30 $6
"new born duo of eva aguila (kevin shields / gang wizard) and britnay gould (married in berdichev) lay down some of the most beautiful / hideous / beautiful again experimental music around. the two create juxtopositions of gently sung vocals with scrapyard convulsions layered overtop of each other with results that are next level hypnotic." covers printed on vellum paper.

905.18: ARABIAN BLADE S/T C20 $6
"the stay-blazed team up of conneticut's chris donofrio and donovan fazzino get up in them guts with some comatose low blows spread out over twenty minutes. tones get deep in the earth, take a nap in the crust, and are discovered years later when they forget to wake up. bring a blanket and maybe a few coffin nails."

905.19: MIKE SHIFLET - 'OPENING ACT' C20 $6
"two more doses of shiflet drone, blazing here in the live variety, recorded earlier this year in st louis and cleveland. for those not in attendance, you can acquire mike's sleeperhold synth styleings here and get a second chance to wipe your brain off of your shoulders."

905.21: WETHER + A SNAKE IN THE GARDEN SPLIT C20 $6
"head to head harshness from two solo east coasters. this split is kind of like a replay of a show in hartford, ct many moons ago. snake killed the dining room, then wether immediatly brawled the living quarters. if i could remember anything from that night, i would share it here, but it's all pretty much a brain musher. one burner a piece, both 10 minutes of steady pedal pummeling." three different covers.

All 5 for $25

WEBSITE

DNT020 - 'Mash Mansum' $6(US/Canada)/$12(International)
"The time is now! It's summer and here's the year-in-the-making (delays) now-wave tape compilation "Mash Mansum". Some of these bands have broken up since giving their songs, but believe me, all the bands on this tape are ALIVE. While Hunting Lodge wait patiently for the bus, Neck Hold attack each other with their drums. Shearing Pinx stay put in the forest. The Sticks try to work it out. Gay Beast approach middle-age. Deaf! Deaf! aren't so hungry anymore, and Twin Crystals umm..well they've been eaten alive." Pro manufactured tapes in green shell with the DNT logo on the tape. Artwork and screen printed covers by Danimal (of Gay Beast). Edition of 100. HERE

WHITMAN - 'TOY GUNS AND TOMAHAWKS' CDr $5
"This is a re-release of an EP that was released in 2003 as part of the quilt series on Nightpass Handmade Records, but this a gem, and we've decided to give in one more chance to shine. This is a conceptual record that touches on fear, longing, and the search for "home". It's four songs, three of which are collaborations (with Gulliver, Brother Mitya, and John Thill), that are bridged together by instrumentals. This entire record was recorded to a hand-held tape recorder that was layered digitally and mixed by John Thill, giving it a very eerie analog feel. Comes on white, stamped cd-r's, in plastic sleeves with hand-printed covers from a linoleum cut done by Ian Trout." HERE

TBT 005 Glory Fckn Sun - 'Spectra' LP
"The sky done clouded over after Glory Fckn Sun's debut album, yielding this brooding and corrosive follow-up. The New Zealand sorta-super group of Antony Milton , Ben Spiers, and Simon O'Rorke concoct a slow-burning behemoth of metallic shivers and distortion churn, dark enough to invoke the dread name Haino. Spectra is an unsettling mind-meld: Spiers desolate soundscapes bleed into Milton's heavy drones, which are complemented perfectly by O'Rorke's restless percussion. Group improvisation is the natural language of these three; even listing their solo and collaborative albums over the past decade would take way more effort than I can muster. Suffice to say this is a stellar and unique record to add to their massive discographies." In an edition of 300 red 160 gm. vinyl records, housed in silk-screened, heavy-gauge recycled stock jackets.

TBT 006 Pumice - 'Quo' LP
"180 gm. vinyl version of Stefan Neville' latest opus. Covers are two-color silkscreens by VG Kids on heavy-gauge recycled stock. Edition of 300. Here's what Soft Abuse had to say about Quo: As the title self-effacingly implies, Quo proffers a triumphant, primo slice of past Pumiceisms: uncertain progressions, anomalous structure, inimitable guitar buzz, sublime melancholy, and distorted vocals (crooned, spoken & moaned). Quo once more finds Pumice cruising the convergence of pop, folk and noise strains with bona fide inner mystique. Sputtering sub-underground skiffle aims for outer zones, diamond cuts of nervous guitar with pesky hooks that sting and tickle tread rough hewn punk turf, pop tangents charm with echoes of Kilgour or Knox, and woozy synth blurts & drones thread the patchwork patterns with Hulk-like grace. With Quo, Neville's palette has shifted to include traces of useless hardcore, doo wop, and modern loner/lunar blues. Stefan Neville, shamblin' on unhinged like a modern day Hasil Adkins, has been making music as Pumice now for most of his life. Through a steadily spewed stream of unique DIY thud & ooze, mostly created on his insular own, Neville has burrowed an incomparable place in the post-everything New Zealand landscape, all the while making music that's his."

WEBSITE

LOCRIAN/CONTINENT split C35 (Self Released) $5
"Chicago's LOCRIAN present one approximately 13 minute live track titled "Burying the Carnival" full of forest haunting vocals, crushing analog synth and mass-grave searing guitar - black and bleak. While Arizona's CONTINENT combine the extreme riffage to four tracks of late-CARCASS laced MELVINS sans-bass thrash." Limited edition of 100 - Yellow Cassettes w/ Handstamped labels.

post-paid to: T. Hannum / PO Box 220651 / Chicago, IL 60622

Przewalski's Horses - 'Bulbs' CDr 8€/$12
"5th full-length CD-r in the improvising duo discography. We're showing a more drowned-drone side on this one, with 45 minutes from a one-shot night session, catched last winter at home. A5 format artwork with black & white photographies, cd printed with a charcoal drawing, and burned-out flashbulbs... Limited to 30 copies. Preorders have shipped ! (thank you for your patience !) Thanks to Laszlo who took good care of the mastering process." HERE

A self-conscious collage/experimentalist from the field of John Wiese and ID M Theftable, multi-media artist Cristopher Cichocki offers his buzzing debut “video composition” titled ‘Elemental Shift’. With the same painstaking attention to painsgiving detail, each brief segment of the disc comes densely packed with split-second editing, integrating dozens of vivid images (culled from photography, digital graphics, paint, and on) into patterns of breathless acceleration. Fitted with a soundtrack of similar dromology and wild variation, the precise ratio and correspondence of eye to ear does not suggest which inspires which; though if I may suggest, the sonic component’s raison d’etre is first an ancillary perception to the richer, super-visual elements of the video, offering a far greater dynamic of volume and timbre than the flattened soundtrack (admittedly compromised by the demands of the intermediation). The soup of imagery includes stylistic bursts of color and contour, a much-appreciated minimum of natural recordings – or rather I should say, a minimum of “natural” recordings of sky, sea, and landscapes, as the clear fetish object of the camera lens is urbanized ecology of street lamps, tract houses, manhole covers, and stoplights: in contrast to the fragmented composition of the sound and image as a whole, on “Soft Infrastructure” the lines of civilization are traced with a manic interest through curbs, plumbing, and breathers – all affixed to a concrete floor or ceiling. This obsession is best illustrated in the telephone/electric/light-pole serenade “Transmission”, the baud-y blips and croaks of telephony forming a rude frog-chorus to the camera’s dance around several of these edifices, always at an admiring incline, suggesting the traveling spurt of information in a mad, yet somehow linear circuit along the suburban grid. With similar interest, “Waste Basket” recaptures the shopping experience of a big box store (specifically Wal-Mart, or perhaps the more vicious Wal-Mart Supercenter variant) from the imprisoned perspective of a plastic shopping cart, cleverly positioned first and last against a wall of captive goldfish; in this world, shoppers crawl about with unreal speed in an insectine logic, fixed to the store’s grid of bright objects and artificial diversity. With an almost disturbing stillness, moments and whole tracks seem to stand still despite the momentum of the sound, though ultimately, the erratic cuts and recurring visual elements of the remaining work nicely form a linear progression as "video" or "song" from so much entropy.

The combination of sonic and visual elements elaborates without explanation the fantastic mystery of noise music, as it illustrates alternative approaches to the questions our weak sense of aurality leaves us subject to: do we see (hear) image fragments, or are we just assembling information in illusion? Are these impressions uniform? Repeating? Objective? As suggested earlier, by multiplication the integration of sensual dimensions often counter-intuitively taxes the limits of experiment. Cichocki maneuvers this dilemma nicely without overtly favoring either element, and presents a collection which is consistently engaging and imaginative. Handsome labels and way-professional DVD menu production confirm the legitimacy and quality of the product, calming concerns about the label’s conspicuous branding and its novel first release – a very successful come-out for both artist and label. Limited to 250 copies, and very recommended. (Table of Contents DVDr, $14 HERE)

Bearly Queen – 'Hairy Palm Adventures' CDr 4€(EU)/$6(elsewhere)
"The fourth album by the sample sculptor of Finland's Oulu features only one long piece of sound. Slowly and ponderously developing sound mass moves between minimalist ambient and melodic sequences, both beautiful and mentally jarring. It is both organic and spacy, almost at the same time.” Limited edition of 50 copies.

Luovaja also has a special summer offer this month: two CDrs for 6€(EU)/$10(elsewhere)

WEBSITE

Content002 Cristopher Cichocki/Kevin Shields/Rale split DVDr $8
"First in a series of 3" DVD-r singles by Cristopher Cichocki, this split boasts 2 tracks with sonic eruptions courtesy of Los Angeles' Kevin Shields and Rale. With imagery as methodically arranged as the audio it's accompanied by, this single further exemplifies Cichocki's video compositions as a cornerstone in the evolution of avant-garde media." The hand-constructed package, courtesy of graphic artist Alaska!, comes with the 3" DVD-r held on an aluminum sheet, wrapped in printed vellum and contained within a clear resealable polybag. Inside the DVD you'll find the chapters: "Motorhands" (cichocki + shields) and "Tattered Syntax" (cichocki + rale)." Edition of 75.

Content001 Cristopher Cichocki - 'Elemental Shift' DVDr $14
"Over 2 years of intensive labor went into the making of Elemental Shift, the debut DVD Album from Cristopher Cichocki. After spending the last decade plus, honing mediums as diverse as sound, painting, photography, sculpture, and video, Cichocki has successfully integrated all these characteristics into his most defining statement to date – an entirely new genre of work which he’s defined as “video composition.” Taking cues from the backyard and far beyond, Cichocki’s work captures a sublime oneness with nature (à la Andy Goldsworthy) but can hardly be called still and meditative. Sharing an affinity with noise artists such as John Wiese, Cichocki’s material is meticulously edited together, creating an incredibly intense visceral experience which, at points, should probably require a legal disclaimer for epileptics. (Not to worry if you’re pregnant – your baby will likely pop out that much smarter.) With his visual and aural field recordings working synonymously, Elemental Shift is a tour de force, lunging viewers thru hyper-speed intensities not to be reckoned with. While Cichocki’s work welcomes cerebral intellect, it’s equally easy to sit back and let Elemental Shift overwhelm the senses, going on whatever trip it’s destined to go down. Exquisitely designed by Alaska!, all DVDs come housed in a tin canister with found fish bones from the Salton Sea sculpturally placed inside. Simply put, Cichocki amplifies the subtle shifts of the world around us to infinite degrees, shedding a new light onto the seemingly familiar. Get it before it’s reissued in a boring cardboard sleeve." Edition of 250.

COME

DBA082 - CALDERA LAKES C15
"eva of kevin shields/gang wizard and britnay of married in berdichev! explore the relationship of love songs and harsh noise. beautiful singing, lost harmonies, and bonebreaking thrash."

DBA042 - WARBLER/BROMP TREB split 7"
"steve of xbxrx/kit and kristy of kit/lil pocketknife turn their spazzpunk m.o. towards the dancefloor and drive every beat straight to heck. bromp treb is neil/drummer of fat worm of error, doing his best to explain what hiphop was like before it left dimension x."

DBA061 - CARZ WILL BURN CDr
"from the phili brotherhood of feedback loopers that mincemeat or tenspeed comes the next chapter in mobius noise. also a master silkscreener, this comes with hi-art zine of numerous pages."

DBA089 - EZRA BUCHLA C80
"male intimacy and technological understatements from this member of gowns/ex-mae shi."

DBA092 - JASON FORREST C80
"epic dj mix from head of cock rock disco aka dj donna summer. his taste in music is the same as his taste in watching you loose your shit on the dancefloor. oh, and did we mention he is horny?"

DBA068 - CRISTOPHER CICHOCKI/RALE/KEVIN SHIELDS 3" DVDr
"maximum frame rate animator directs 2 music videos for los angeles noise composers rale and kevin shields."

DBA093 - TRASH DOG C15
"the carcass of rock n roll long after the hounds have had their fill. jeff/deep jew, daren/racoo-oo-oon, and ryan/ia producer king bring the shit gaze to defile your jewel encrusted ears."

WEBSITE

From Lieven Marten's "label franchise" which will not take a name:

MATHS BALANCES VOLUMES s/t C20 5€
"okay, i saw these guys live on the nice Color Out Of Space festival last year, and what they presented was one of the best shows i saw in 2007. a truly weird blend of smoked out psychedelic rumble played by a guitar player and a tapeplayer. people were crying for help during their set due to the high level of insight and knowledge that was being transmitted. because after all, i guess one cannot understand everything and it hurts to be "in the unknown". but anyways, my mind tripped out so heavily on their live / life information that i couldn't resist to hassle them into a tape release asap. and this is it. this is misissipi blues played in the local arcade. this is a collage of synchronicity. these are the workings of Babalon... and when i was playing the mastertape for J C Scanner, his individual scannercells collectively popped out as well, so this album is co-released with the Zeikzak (http://www.jellecrama.com). all the tapecases come with individually unique painted / colored / stickered / ??? artwork by our little brothers. information is pain."

DIAMOND LEMONADE - 'Ghost Light Blankets' C30 5€
"solo outing by the head behind the Tape Tektoniks imprint. DL offers strange readings straight from across the German borders. this cassette contains rebirthed tapeloops and other analog environments of the past (and probably future, but this i cannot decipher), resonating between 420 to 450 MHz. Ghost Light Blankets is a certified valid ticket that will give you access to enter the porthole that man calls "the hangover". by the way, i think this guy might have been secretly reading EXCALIBUR, the deadly and locked away L R Hubbard book about the facts, secrets & reason of life. so think twice before you listen...."

NONHORSE - 'The Rare Tape Zero' C60 5€
"g lucas crane. the breakdancer. g lucas crane. the tapemanipulator. g lucas crane. the new york city guide. g lucas crane brings us a 60 minutes roundtrip of weird fidelities and strange sounds. i enclose what the mind of lucas communicated me through resonating electric wires. i wrote down this given information using the technique of automatic writing: "its tape one in the goblin universe series. the rare zero tape is the only tape to survive the arson of rozwell labs 2029. it was one of 6, the rare one through rare 6 were all holding sound patterns corresponding to analysis levels, the audio detritus left over from mental examinations. the exposure to these tapes responds to latent interdimentional experiances, womb style, aeomeba style. the silver disk is the symbol of the gobiln universe and altered opened mind in general. its yer "classic" unidentified flying object. a smooth, silver disk that turns pink red orange hues when its about to punch through off into the multiverse. apparently, it also turns blueish purpleish when landing. awesome mode! anyway. the rare zero tape survived and was taken to the quarentine site in los alamos NV, approching the rare zero tape causes an audiable "swarm of bees" sound to increase in anger and intensity the closer one gets. touching the rare zero tape with skin causes negative aura proxisms and results in instant death. listening to the rare zero tape does not kill, just touching the original. a military robot was charged with dubing the master and sending it to you. it is the sound of perliminary examination. the further 6 levels have been lost. good god."

WEBSITE

KAWABATA MAKOTO - 'We Don't Know Where We Came From' LP $14
Limited edition of 500 copies. Packaged in letterpressed jackets from 43rd Parallel Press in Portland, ME. Live recordings.

ASTRO/HIROSHI HASEGAWA - 'Live At Muryoku Muzen Temple' LP $14
Limited edition of 500. The first 100 mailorder copies will be on purple vinyl. Great new recordings from C.C.C.C. founder Hiroshi Hasegawa.

ASTRO/HIROSHI HASEGAWA - 'The Echo From The Purple Dawn' CD $11
Companion release to Live At Muryoku Muzen Temple. New studio work from C.C.C.C. founder Hiroshi Hasegawa. Packaged in a deluxe Important Records jacket with printed catalog inner jacket.

BASS COMMUNION - 'Molotov & Haze' CD $12
Bass Communion is a project dedicated to Steven Wilson’s recordings in an ambient, drone, and/or electronic vein. Molotov And Haze is packaged in a deluxe tip-on style heavy duty gatefold jacket with the cd slipped into a Japanese inner bag.

HERE

Arbor returns with some big kid friends:

Arbor28 Zaimph 7" $6
"In the past Marcia Bassett(of Double Leopards, GHQ) has proved her versaitility under the Zaimph name; from the depraved feedback and tone fury of her "Sexual Infinity" CD on Hospital Productions to her delicate electric guitar and vocals waves on the "Mirage of The Other" LP on Gypsy Sphinx. This untitled 7" release further proves this fact by recalling her earliest roots in the Siltbreeze band UN: vocal mantras and delicate strumming are placed over a hypnotically evolving base of looped piano, feedback, and strings. The end result is something beautiful that twists the lines of classification, picking up little points of reference from her past bands and laying out a path towards the future. In an edition of 500 7"s in proprinted full color foldover sleeves with art by Marcia. Mastered by Josh Stevenson.

Arbor70 Steve Hauschildt - 'Rapt For Liquid Minister' C20 $6
"Still-moving loops repeat and build themselves in deep washes of aural hallucination. Steve is known for his work in Ohio synth-drone unit Emeralds. Like the other output from the Emeralds crew, it is hard to believe that today's best synth music is being made by twenty year old dudes from the Cleveland suburbs, but they seriously just have it figured out. Steve's smooth and densely layered drones, heavy in Kraut influence, are as huge as any of his contemporaries and as rich as his predecessors. Vocal incantations reminiscent of "Way Their Crept" era Grouper place Steve's compositions on another level. Deeply thoughtful and knowledgeable zones floating in and out of reality." In an edition of 150 labeled tapes with full color cardstock J-cards.

Arbor72 Acre - 'Monolith' LP $12
"Portland's tone wrangler Aaron Davis (aka Acre) has been blasting the world with his massive-but-barely-there feedback swells for quite some time with releases on Black Horizons, JK, and more. His first LP offering brings about the Acre essence quite well. Massive walls of shoe-gazed feedback are some how tamed into smooth, quintessential drones. This is not the sound of synthesizers or keyboards, but a single tone being modified and replicated into a monolithic piece. Stasis so strong it is hard to realize the power of these two side long tracks until they end, forcing silence back upon the listener: direct hypnosis and transcendental zoning." In an edition of 200 records in pro-printed fold over sleeves.

Arbor100 Treetops - 'Permission/When I Was Younger' LP $11
"Spirited youth and the intense magnification of focused energies chart the recent zones for Treetops. Utilizing tapes, casio keyboards, vocals and a variety of other sources, the path to earth bound nature drone is firmly rooted in electricity. Like the combination of the glacial drifts of massive rocks and the movements of air, the sources meld into blissed out meditative drones: ceremonial music rising into the future to get out of the past. Infinite ancients; constantly progressing, constantly evolving. Mastered by Pete Swanson (D. Yellow Swans); in an edition of 300 copies in proprinted foldover sleeves featuring photography by Kyle Parker (Infinite Body). The B-Side features a remastered and extended version of the "When I Was Younger" 2xc10 (arbor69) from last winter."

Arbor101 Treetops- 'If, Only' C18 $7
"Acting as the companion piece to the "Permission/ When I Was Younger" LP; this tape created for the Summer 2008 Midwest Tour with Uneven Universe represents some of the most recent work from Treetops: placing perspective on the present. Lofi drones combining Sk1s, tapes, vocals, and guitar into delicate emotional music: building slowly, but consciously to the point of catharsis. Ambient nature blasting into harsher, focused zones." In an edition of 50 tapes with printed labels in oversized vinyl cases with full color art and an insert.

Treetops Tour T-shirt $10
Two color silkscreened t-shirt on light blue American Apparel Shirts available in sizes SMALL, MEDIUM, and LARGE. Leftovers from the summer 2008 midwest tour with Uneven Universe.

HERE

CALDERA LAKES untitled cassette £5
"Slick new project featuring Eva of Kevin Sheilds and Brittany of Married In Berdichev!... swamp and hive noise laced with lulling vocal drones.. bleeding to full obliteration. Almost two insane opposites making one very cool new vibe... Totally wild!" Edition of 80 in full colour sleeves.

BEACH FUZZ - 'Hole Of Hellos' one-sided cassette £5
"Manchester has some crazy scene going on, so many bands/artists keep coming out of there its insane... so here's a nearly 20 minute document from one of these bands, Beach Fuzz. This trio features members of Stuckometer, Axis Mundi, EYEHAI, and Manccc's Golden Lab Records head honcho himself, Nick Mitchell. Wild shit goes on here, kinda space drone rock or something. Double sided artwork, for a one sided tape... first time we jammed that, looks real sweet though." Limited to 64 copies.

SPOONO - 'The Divers Private Revelations Of' CDr £5
"Solo guitar tunes from Jack of Towering Breaker, which sound has really developed vastly since I heard material back in 2006. Smooth, and very well produced indeed, blew me away when I first sat and listened to it... some serious fast finger picking goes on here. People who dug last months Cam Deas 'Silver Waters' CDR will probably dig this..." Black and white sleeves with artwork by Paul Sammut. Limited to 130 copies.

"V" - 'The Chanting Path' CDr £5
"Whilst chilling on a train I got an email from this guy Vincent who is "V" about maybe doing a release for him and I checked it out and damn it sounded good... folk-spectral-ether drone... A real nice blur of field recordings, various instruments and far out vocal... after many disasters with masters and file downloads, and months on this is finally coming out... its one helluva hazy starry summer night trip." Limited to 50 copies in envelopes with pasted on paisley embossed paper, and insert.

WEBSITE

Since time is precious in these final moments of pre-programming, it was a toss-up between two by Thor’s Rubber Hammer, the newest long-player by Totally Dad – another accomplished work likening the band to upstarts HEALTH and deserving of attention which won’t be paid here – and the work of nicolasTone, a percussion-centered trio by virtue of competing “war drummer” majority Romain Dowska and Stan Grimbert. Entitled ‘I’m Tone Deaf (musicpourlessourds)’, the 3” disc’s ten tracks request a Table of the Elements re-release moving from “0” to “1” with eight tracks called “MONO” in between; the material here is equally oblique, turning the ambiguity and frustration of tone-deafness into a bombastic tantrum of rattling percussion ala Ettrick with extra limbs, point-man Nicolas Laferrerie providing the pathos via flute and sax, as well as electronics and post-production chop-up (of which there is much). Colored by plundered audio snippets encrusted in the mix, the front-loaded disc rushes out the gate in the three-piece formation, drums blazing with almost total-coverage, the infants terribles exhausting themselves by the fourth track; it is here that Laferrerie lays his hands in more delicate ways, including basic drones made rich by ambient layers of feedback, improv by-product, and larger chunks of audio-text. Given the format, the album need be brief, yet given the concise execution, I suspect the 3” medium did nothing to alter the master-plan. Disc comes with liner notes in a double-widem string-bound dossier with stickers. Limited to 99 copies. (Thor’s Rubber Hammer 3” CDr, $5 HERE)

As one installment among seven in a series of dedications by Italian soloist (and commendable MySpace abuser) Claudio Parodi, perhaps it is improper to critique this disc alone, removed from its predecessors and yet-to-be realized descendants. I wonder this because, given the bare elements of Parodi’s composition ‘A Ritual Which is Incomprehensible’ – two Turkish clarinets and tapes, played in three movements (plus coda) - and dedicated ‘to the smile of Pauline Oliveros’ – an artist herself known for conservation and an almost ecstatic holism – there is perhaps more important reflections made between albums than within them, such as the compositional nods to Parodi’s previous album, an homage to tonal fetishist Alvin Lucier. Of course, we would only know this by his telling us (and fuck you to claim otherwise), and any lineage drawn through the artists is arguably arbitrary and thus moot, returning us with little lost to the piece at hand. The secret to Parodi’s performance (as well as a well-tempered smile such as Oliveros’) is in the breath: as the musician explains, the two clarinets (more or less respecting each other’s channel) are arranged in a spectrum, with each entry playing the same melody but in different meter and duration, thereby exposing the fissures of air-as-silence which escape between the contact points of kinesis and pitch. To extend this metaphor, the liquid noise of tapes are slackly reeled to drip in and through these pockets, both taking place within and around the central melody of the clarinets, rolled as it were into narrow passages and back around to forming the very boundaries within which the extra-musical sounds are resonating. From the first appearance of these noises some three minutes in, the melancholy of the clarinet melody grows increasingly estranged from the instrument’s antiquated association with atonality to take on the biology of an aging body – we could pretend it’s Minimalism or the soundscape, doesn’t really matter – breathing and palpitating through the cycle, hushing in moments to listen to the listener listen to these irregularities and foreign textures appearing ambiguously malicious until the volume exceeds the third movement into the coda, the breath of the instrument now gone (or at least removed from our perspective), and the cavernous boom echoes with a faint (peaceful) death rattle. (Extreme CD, $17 HERE)

Thurston Moore continues to move the spiral of guitar at a healthy clip, moving through able pop composition to the asymptotes of noise-rock to his clear pleasure in pure experiment; and this, despite claiming himself and noise irrelevant in the poetic liner notes (1987’s Banned split between Merzbow and the Haters being all one needs). The three tracks of ‘Sensitive/Lethal’ – both titles surpassing twenty minutes, with a brief interlude secretly-titled “Lonesome”, sounding like sheet metal in a taffy-puller – assert the same confidence and ear for difference as his recent ‘Flipped Out Bride’ 7”, though benefiting from the extended format, all bets are off that he couldn’t keep it interesting: over a chiming loop of guitar jangle, mechanized feedback swells and sputters on “Sensitive”, pummeling at times with the punch of a drum kit, burning out and rekindling with an ever shifting texture. An old hand at threading tolerance, Moore keeps “Lethal” right on the razor’s edge of high-pitched irritant, goading the listener to turn it down while hinting, of course, that this is no option. The leading tone turn from cicada’s chirp to piccolo wail and in between, stretched over a sheet of coarse feedback - a duet of most conventional means, yet impossibly valuable. And relevant. CD available for $12 from No Fun HERE.

One may always evade the question of relevance by first demanding the answer “relevant to what?” The project Better People (Doug Patterson) succeeds foremost by brevity, where the “EP” ‘Salvia Inside the Broken Home’ lasts just three tracks in 13 minutes (to remain technical, I could also cite the summer-warped CDr which adds an additional whrring from my player – so very Cage). What’s truly to Patterson’s credit, however, is his youthful yet well-executed constructions between the borders of noise and drone, oscillations which mesmerize with layers of crisp, chirping texture while ultimately retaining an inconsistent lead on “Honesty”, or deeper rhythmic changes made apparent on “Courage”. The digital format is definitely appreciated in this case, as a rough-shod cassette would likely overkill the delicate home-spun creation and the greatness of its flaws. A tedious line between genres no doubt, but one well negotiated by this brief workday. Limited to 100 copies nestled snug in paper sleeves, available for $4 from Thor’s Rubber Hammer HERE.

Emerging from the now defunct Collective Jyrk and Defunctifying Yellow Swans, Freedom To Spend is the new monkey on Pete Swanson’s back and ‘Light Ships’ by San Francisco duo Bulbs is its first expression of longing: longing for the digital warmth of a Type Records laptopper, the asymmetrics of a ‘Beaches and Canyons’ Black Dice, and vital, yet not to be taken too restrictively, the cyb-org swirl of ‘Oranur’ and such early works of Axolotl from which Bulbs’ William Sabiston once reclined. To Sabiston’s percussion is added the liberally-labeled “guitar” work of Jon Almaraz, as the two sojourn through seemingly different looking-glasses on the ten and one-half minute “Gold Ropes”, a top-heavy opener when compared to the subsequent tracks of two and four minutes: refracted through ample post-production, the traditional tools the men have selected resemble a mad, ecstatic collage of bulbous bass plumes and jittery treble distortion, high-in-the-ear clicks and deft tom-patter like wings drying in the staticky ether. And as one may hope, this apparent formlessness proves merely too intricate and deliberately laced with missteps to enthrall the listener for the duration, quite certain there is a sturdy rhythm to be found, yet not confident enough to step off the wall. The crunchy sheen of “Wind Conditions” and “The Green Flash” suggest a suite rather than two disparate tracks, and in spite of the explicitly warring beat patterns, an Excepter-style nihilism which moves itself in a rigid mechanism with always-fading flourishes. Title-track “Light Ships” gives the critic its first “oh shit” moment when one realizes it should have been looking for impressionism all along, as the track documents an inflation and ascension through deep, grounded strokes of feedback and vivid cymbal strikes, lifting into a buoyant sky of choppy, crystal-rim condensation and crunchy airwave chatter. In its final moments, the album offers “Uamanas”, a Luc Ferrari experiment of chopped recordings in a faux-exotica tribalism of increasingly acoustic rhythm, a study of textures more than the album’s previous hybrids of sound and movement. A fine (official) beginning for both band and label. (Freedom to Spend CD, $12 HERE)

Another of Caleb and Colleen’s weird Mainer pals TW Emmert slips this one under the door as Inspector 22, a note titled ‘Irni’ as a little heretical goof reinforced by the irreverence of the disc’s 18 tracks (in itself a gentle F.U. to the proper album format). Like the Garm disc before it, ‘Irni’ pastes together a number of late 20th century pop styles in a “slacker” lineage moving back through Need New Body and Rob Crow projects like Heavy Vegetable, to Beefheart and Zappa at the base of the tree: his songs are more “songs” than not - almost entirely so – rock verging on folksy without ever dropping the –sy. Opening instrumental “Arbadacarba” is like one of those old punk covers of the Hawaii Five-O theme or something, though without all the technical garbage which multiple musicians necessarily bring to the toke. Not to dismiss his voice or lyricism before it even appears, but the Inspector is certainly most adept at compsotion, as “X-mas in July” captures nicely the plucky skepticism of the Violent Femmes without uttering a word – a hefty feat considering the band’s literacy; likewise, “Evening Seaside” is a jubilant guitar track speaking more than prose ever could in its intricate layers. When his vocal presence is made, it is often as a formality to get them words out there – which is not too far from the frank musicality of the whole presentation - it is almost a place-marker on his pleasing, piano-strolling cover of Samhain’s “Archangel”, a casual retelling which undermines the costume evil of the original to offer a more mundane apparition of the beast, perhaps in a fist-fight or a hangover. Showing a bit more influential stock than his labelmate, Emmert includes a number of covers by the appropriately disparate collection including Joy Division, Sonic Youth, Suckdog, and PJ Harvey, as well as a clattering rendition of “Joy to the World” with toy pianos and guitar loops and kitchen cabinet percussion. Given the berth of songs, Emmert also allows room for livelier displays, as “No Child of Mine” moves with the enthusiasm of a live room, not unlike the tracks of neighbor Chriss Sutherland’s recent ‘Me in a “Field”. It should be mentioned in closing that there is ample use of simple, rousing piano throughout the album, and that’s never a bad thing. On custom-labeled CDrs with hand-painted and screened covers, and vellum notes. (Don’t Trust the Ruin CDr, $8 HERE)

Mymwly0109 The soulighters – 'combo’s en strategieen met bepaalde charcters' CDr $10
"Transmitting from france , the soulighters guitars, woodwinds, keys and percussion offer a stumbling , drunken clatter and drone that settles itself upon the listener like a blanket of warm confusion and guides the ear deep into a thick forest of drawn out pulses and reverberations , ultimately manifesting itself in a ritualistic ambience with serpentine flashing and circular hum. Like church music if god were not only real but serious about his head."

Mymwly0107 book of shadows – 'isadora shadow' CDr $10
"Austin texas produces yet another glorious batch of sublime freaks growing a glooping , pulsating garden of acid fried driftetables and deconstructed space blooms. vast open vistas of echoed out cosmic tones all given depth and dimension by the wandering lonely wails of human women folk , blending all within a dream teetering on the edge of nightmare."

Mymwly0106 mixers by the river/born with this s/t CDr $10
"Another beautiful dose of sonic abstraction from some of finlands finest. sami virtanen and keijo virtanen lay down 6 tracks of gentle spacefolk tinged improv and dense cosmic drones to create an ever-changing image of comfortable loss…minds adrift without fear…blissed."

Mymwly0099 brothers of the occult sisterhood – 'bill burrowing under the moons aerial high above' CDr $10
"drawn from a monster three day session in 2007 , improvised alive amidst green surrounds featuring the expanded lineup of Jaime Fennelly , Eon , Helen Southall , Sarah Spencer , Joel Stern and Michael Donnelly. This outing sees botos in an organic open context , a field recording of time made to halt in application to a retrievable data stream."

Mymwly0098 gyanism – 'an interstate pugilist' CDr $10
"From Brisbane’s fertile underground flows a million glistening particles as the soundtrack to the dirge of our lives unravels our minds into a cathedral of crystal shards and wails our prayers into the void A sprawling wash of guitars, harsh electronics, percussion and processed acoustics forged into a mutant march towards oblivion made real by joel stern , yusuke akai , daiji igasashi , scott sinclair…sweet head fuck for the children of the infinite dissolution."

Mymwly0097 evening fires – 'the wood beyond the world' CDr $10
"Weirded out space rock with a slight postrock weave butts sublime tribal soundscapes bounded within the rural warmth of north American folk music , with shimmering krautrock gleamings and an overall meditative beaming…lush and glorious…the great thing is that this is only half of the story , the other half is ‘figures of earth’ , released simultaneously on digitalis."

WEBSITE

Rale - 'Nightside/Shadeup'
"C26 Edition of 100. Dark tunnels of sound and cracked drones hiding under a bed of mircotonal details. Black, green, and gold at a glacial pace. Total
focus and totally alone. Photos by Jon Borges. Black, high bias chrome tapes."

Diaphragm + Migrations In Rust - 'Framed Of Remission'
"CDR Edition of 100. The first time I saw these two play I was sitting, totally sober, in the back of a warehouse in Purchase, NY. Maybe it was the hours of Simpson's arcade game I had just finished, but it was one of the most focused and engaging shows I had seen in ages. Later that night I approached MIR about working together, and 9 month later this finally sees the light of day. Both Diaphragm and Migrations In Rust contribute one slow burner each, with a collaborative track to finish things off. Somewhere between the space of Andrew Chalk, layers of Birchville Cat Motel, and the sinister atmosphere of Abruptum."

Helm - 'The Illuminated Factory'
"C40 Edition of 100. I first got this master while watering plants at a local mall. Every week I would go in at night, strap on a full body harness, lock myself to the railing, jump over the side, and go to work on hundreds of plants, while continuously flipping this tape over and over. The perfect soundtrack to floating three stories up while breathing in harsh chemical fertilizers and watching the leaves fall on the janitors below. The title track is one of the best Helm tracks to date. Forward moving phase shifts buried under blankets of high end pulses, only subsiding to make room for some of the most inviting tones this side of Tangerine Dream. Side B's Hearts Like Broken Motors is a full 19 minutes of new age synth onslaught. Covers designed and printed by James Livingston of Black Horizons. 12 were printed on tan paper, the remaining on black (Please don't ask for a specific color cover). Black, high bias chrome tapes."

Josh Lay - 'Hater of Life'
"C24 edition of 50. One half of the sludge duo Cadaver In Drag, Josh Lay steps it up with what might be the harshest, and my personal favorite, Peasant Magik release to date. Underwater cave drones buried beneath blasting percussion and feedback. Overwhelmingly depressive, yet you still walk away with a sense of family. Black, high bias chrome tapes. (If anyone wants to send me a copy of the first edition of the JL, I will send you these four releases)"

$6 each, or all 4 for $20.

HERE