| DateAdded | Artist | Title | Format | Price | Label | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7/14/2010 | Gurrs, Anthony & Mark Sadgrove | Hakisou Fanzine | zine | $5.99 | Black Petal | "Anthony Guerra and Mark Sadgrove have co-produced a fanzine. The first issue has a little interview with Tetuzi Akiyama, some drawings by Joshua Burkett, some art by Matt Earle (xNoBBQx), plus more art, writing, photos. each copy comes with an A4 lithograph print by Joshua Burkett too." |
| 11/17/2007 | H.E.R. | Songs About the Mysteries of Housework and Nature | CD | $12.99 | Persian Cardinal Recordings | "Songstress Yvette Perez (songwriter/vocalist for the NYC avant-garde quintet Birdbrain) plays keyboards and sings about the conflicts of domestic habits with the outer world while trombonist Peter Zummo (who's worked with Arthur Russell, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Teo Macero) rambles through a thicket of electronic ambience in an experiment of memory and obsession. Vibraphonist / percussionist Danny Tunick (who has recorded for Ecstatic Peace, Tzadik and Bang On a Can All Stars) adds delicate vibes and sensuous beats. The beautiful and haunting songs of H.E.R. blend pop and minimalism while blurring the line between improv and song; between prismatic recollection and blighted reality." |
| 7/1/2004 | H.P. Lovecraft | H.P. Lovecraft II | LP | $25.99 | Radioactive Records | "Having relocated to Marin County in Northern California in the spring of 1968, H.P. Lovecraft's second, and it must be said, superior album, appeared later that same year. Moving south to LA later that year, the band recorded their 2nd eponymous album that contained some fine moments of sheer artistry. The sleepiness of tracks like 'Spin, Spin, Spin,' 'Mobius Trip' and 'Electrallentando' was reminiscent of It's A Beautiful Day's first album, and there was a fine version of 'High Flying Bird', a song which had become a favourite amongst West Coast groups and At The Mountains Of Madness captured the band's outstanding vocal style, very much the hallmark of their first album, to perfection. H.P. Lovecraft II was reputedly the first major label album (both records were originally released on the Philips label) where all those involved in the recording were actually high on acid!" Nice full color gatefold sleeve houses this record. |
| 3/24/2008 | Habitat Sound System | Zebras in the Dubhall | 7" | $4.99 | Gematria Records | "'Zebras in the Dancehall' is Habitat Sound's take on the classic 'Diseases' rhythm complete with carnaval whistles, hand percussion, and ecstatic dubbed out vocals. HSS takes this dancehall anthem and turns it on its head with a fresh twist. 'Zebras in the Dubhall' is Dub Traffik Control's fresh and grimy B-side re-fix of the tune with a hard-edged dancefloor beat and irresistible flavor turned out by General Poeta and Captain Turbo. Prince Zohar gives it 2 big spliffs up! The whole package is designed in a popping old-skool style with deluxe artwork on thick jackets by RE:UP magazine creative director Joshua Lynne; check the big hole 45rpm vinyl with the largest sound!" |
| 10/25/2008 | Haemorrhaging Fetus | Procreation: A Disease / Tangled Desires | LP | $14.99 | SNSE | "There are just a handful of newer, contemporary harsh noise artists in this day and age that have a firm grasp of the structures within the genre and how that can be manipulated to exert force upon the listener.... Anthony Shaw has a firm grasp of the harsh noise canvas and knows how to manipulate the listener with different bombardments and heavily timed lines of crashing, crunching, feed backing, and crumbling. All classic staples of the harsh noise entity, but not always executed today with such power and force; ultimately defining thunderous 'harsh noise' for the avid listener." - Sam McKinlay (excerpt from liner notes). Haemorrhaging Fetus' first LP is a fresh working on the rough stylings of classic acts such as Incapacitants and OVMN and compares favorably to contemporary peers The Cherry Point and The Rita. Transcending the staid boundaries of contemporary "wall" noise, this record offers a deftly layered construction of harsh, considered composition. An edition of 250 copies reissuing two now out-of-print Gaping Hole cassettes." |
| Hagstrom, Emil | cs wks 87-97 vol. I | CD | $10.99 | Freedom From | "Reworkings and old cassette material by the guy who does Cock E.S.P. Droning, fluttering guitar and ambiguous computer effects spindled with non-time collaborations. Features Erik Wivinus (Salamander/Skye Klad), Jeremy Day (Energy Park) Paul Hammerlinck (Cock E.S.P.) Matt St-Germain (late, New Port) and more." | |
| 3/25/2008 | Haino Keiji & Yoshida Tatsuya | Houenfiomiume | CD | $17.99 | Magaibutsu Limited | "The controversial work which stepped into the forbidden territory of editing of the performance of Haino Keiji. Yoshida breaks up their studio session boldly, and restructures it from The unacceptable tune reproduced by extreme editing to The pop song thing that it is surprised. From the Irregular hard core to Heavy tune. From the modern music short piece, to the lyricism acoustic number.This album shows new possibility with union/condensing the music of Haino & Yoshida. this time they made 2 different (but similar) albums and another one will be released on TZADIK in May." 16 tracks 50 min. |
| 1/27/2004 | Haino, Keiji | Hikari yami uchitokeaishi kono hibiki | CD | $15.99 | PSF | "First album of solo guitar by Keiji Haino in quite some time, but very much a departure from the mountain-levelling, continent-sundering, weather-system huge electric guitar releases of years past. Hikari yami... is played just on acoustic, gut-strung guitar, entirely forsaking the effects and extreme amplification characteristic of his electric work. Over three lengthy improvised pieces, recorded in clothes-rustling close-up, Haino explores the full dynamic range of the instrument, working abyss deep into his eternal preoccupations of duration, decay, sustain and resonance. Vast spectrums of reference, from Bailey and Fahey to flamenco, oud music and bluegrass are invoked in single notes and brief phrases, only to be dismissed with confident authority. Another masterful piece of work from Haino, as replete with mystery and the sadness of existence as ever. The title roughly translates as 'Light darkness melting into one this vibration'. Haino advises the listener to play as loud as possible - surely a first on an album of acoustic guitar." - Alan Cummings. |
| 5/20/2009 | Haino, Keiji | Koitsukara Usetaitameno Hakarigoto | CD | $15.99 | PSF | "With its crank handle mechanism and drone strings out-numbering melody strings, the hurdy-gurdy is the Ur-industrial instrument par excellence, a connection Keiji Haino makes abundantly clear on the opening track of Koitsukara Usetaitameno Hakarigoto, the third album he has made under the tortuously punning banner of the 21st Century Hard-y Guide-y Man. The terrifying density and textures of his bone-shearing noise immediately bring to mind the arresting closing sequence of Halber Mensch, Japanese director Sogo Ishii's document of Berlin group Einstuerzende Neubauten's mid-1980s visit to Japan, when he filmed them in all their destructive glory at a busy intersection bringing the city to a standstill with their armoury of scraped metal and heavy machinery. The major difference is Haino achieves his pandemonium totally alone on an electrically amplified medieval instrument, and the chaos he invokes is of a wholly other kind to that of the displaced Berliners. Rather than creating chaos, he accepts it, even as he taps it for the tremendous energies needed to generate the overarching schemes that shape and contain his monumental works. Haino is not the only person using the hurdy-gurdy as something more than folksy color. There's Stevie Wishart working at the interface of contemporary composition and improvisation; and hurdy-gurdy player Cliff Stapleton featured strongly in the late output of Coil (the UK outfit of John Balance and Peter Christopherson, not to be confused with the Japanese unit of the same name with whom Haino has performed blues sets live). And though the hurdy-gurdy is but one of the hundreds of instruments he has gathered during his frequent working trips around the world, next to guitar, voice, percussion and electronics, it's the one on which Haino continues to evolve a distinctive body of work that is at once of a piece with and different from the main thrust of his music. Not that any one style holds true, mind, in a discography that is approaching 200 entries. As with his other instruments, Haino has developed methods of playing the hurdy-gurdy that both exploit and defy its particular character. Asked what compelled him to acquire one on a trip to France in the mid-1990s, he replied by mimicking the turning of a handle, saying it was the only instrument he knew of that you played that way, as opposed to striking, blowing, bowing or plucking it. His long-held interest in medieval European troubadour music might well have been another contributing factor. However, the hurdy-gurdy is more than the purely mechanical cranked instrument such as the barrel organ which it is sometimes confused with. The handle turns a rosined wooden wheel that bows a melody string, whose pitches are determined by pressing the tangents, or keys, with the other hand. The instrument usually contains two more sympathetic drone strings. How the player jerks or cranks the handle creates the fluttering beats and rhythms characteristic to its traditional use as a folk instrument at carnival or festival dances. Knowing as much is only so helpful to understanding the way Haino plays it. He hadn't had the instrument long when he released his first hurdy-gurdy album, Twenty-first Century Hard-y- Guide-y Man, on PSF in 1995. It was followed in 1998 by Even Now, Still I Think, released by the Japanese major label Tokuma as part of an extraordinary deal that saw the release of eight Haino/Fushitsusha projects in two stages (and if you think signing to a major in any way compromised the artist, you only have to check the number of CD length tracks of unrelieved intensity produced during the deal). First impressions from both is that Haino's instrument of choice is immaterial, that Haino plays Haino regardless, and on these two occasions the hurdy-gurdy just happened to be the tool selected to do so. To be sure, they both set out an extreme position from which they rarely retreat, with Haino sounding like he's pushing the instrument to the very limits of endurance. This is especially the case on the barely wavering 72-minute assault of the Tokuma disc. But as with much of Haino's music, it rewards the listener's perseverance through its most extenuated passages, which often come right at the front of his work, with moments of otherworldly, overwhelming beauty amid the swarming overtone activity generated at this volume. Before returning to his 21st Century Hard-y Guide-y Man persona on Koitsukara Usetaitameno Hakarigoto here, Haino dedicated a hurdy-gurdy disc apiece to the two double sets, Abandon all words at a stroke, so that prayer can come spilling out (released in 2001 by the Canadian label Alien8) and Reveal'd to none as yet -- an expedience to utterly vanish consciousness while still alive (recorded live at Tokyo Super Deluxe in 2005 and jointly released in December that year by the U.S. labels Archive/Important). Through them, all it's possible to discern id an increasing awareness and appreciation of the hurdy-gurdy's character. It's very much evident in this disc's opening track, alluded to earlier, in the way the turning crank handle sinks its drone deeper to the core, even as it sends up the baleful clouds of overtone dust that hover above the churning chaos. Tracks two and three make play with the bowing mechanism of the hurdy-gurdy wheel, its sorely tested violin tone transformed into an electric buzzsaw over rasping tones that simultaneously betray and exploit the hurdy-gurdy's fundamentally primitive construct. The third track, incidentally, is the album's magnificent centerpiece, evolving from a manic hoedown into a frenzied dance warding off the onset of melancholia represented by a buzzing secondary drone. Elsewhere the sounds Haino draws from the instrument range from delicate music box prettiness to something altogether darker, conjuring an image of a creaking ghost ship whose fate it was to be sealed at the point of breaking up in a storm for all eternity." - Biba Kopf |
| 2/16/2005 | Haino, Keiji | Next, Let's Try Changing the Shape | DBL LP | $49.99 | Swordfish | "2 LP set limited to 500 copies in beautiful hand crafted cover. Featuring 6 pieces, featuring Haino's voice, guitar and sampled guitar. It sees him developing themes on from his last PSF release." |
| 6/19/2002 | Haino, Keiji | Percussion Solo Video | Video | $37.99 | PSF | "Solo performances for percussion have always been at the centre of Keiji Haino's art. In them, Haino deploys a huge variety of handheld percussion, from tiny cymbals, bells and gongs, to tambourines, jagged pieces of metal and Harry Bertoia-esque specially-made resonating sculptures. These performances, legendarily intense present the crystallization of the physicality of Haino’s music, his attitude to rhythm, to the persistence of sound itself. Though relatively rare now, these solo percussion concerts always have a special hushed atmosphere of concentration, silent communion, and mystery. Although several releases in Haino's extensive discography have already showcased elements from these percussion performances, the intensely visual nature of what occurs has rendered them little more than shadowy traces of the actual event. Haino has long talked about releasing one of these performances on video, and now that wish has become reality. Coming a week after Haino's 50th birthday, this is a unique and new chapter in the continuing documentation of one of the most compelling and unique performers of our, or any other, age." Only 1 copy available. |
| Haino, Keiji | The 21st Century Hard-y-Guide-y Man | CD | $15.99 | PSF | “The dark magus of flaming noise guitar trio Fushitsusha and Vajra not to mention any number of free-improvisation sessions in the Tokyo experimental music underground sets the world aflame again with this release. An incredibly diverse artist who approaches his recordings with frightening dedication, it was only a matter of time before the concept of a solo hurdy-gurdy recording would be committed to disk. His music has always sat somewhere in the inter-zone between ancient and modern, sounding as if it grew out of the earth and the Tokyo subway system in equal measures. The album is an intense and electrified drone that sounds like a swarm of electric guitars and/or the orchestral intensity of heavy microtonal minimalist music - Tony Conrad and Phill Niblock come to mind. This album is an awesome standout in the Keiji Haino cannon that exhibits literally hundreds of recordings and nearly as many diversions in terms of his approach. Solo hurdy-gurdy is a forte for such a cerebral and abrasive aesthetic as Keiji Haino's." - Skip Jansen, All Music Guide | |
| Haino, Keiji / Barre Phillips | Etchings In The Air | CD | $15.99 | PSF | Haino (vocals) and Phillips (bass and vocals). "Haino's vocal work, as opposed to his actual singing of identifiable 'words' hasn't had that much recorded exposure of late, but here given the space and a collaborator of Barre's canniness he shows just how wild a field of sound he can summon up and control. Phillips is always a joy to hear in the relatively unconfined solo and duo space, where his technique can be given full room to flourish. This is just a beautiful release, lots of room for both performers to move, nonstop inventiveness, emotional communication beyond works (even some humour!). Oh yeah, and the recorded debut of Barre's vocal technique." - Alan Cummings | |
| Haino, Keiji / Kan Mikami / Moto Yoshizawa | Live In The First Year of Heisei Vol II | CD | $15.99 | PSF | Kan Mikami (guitar, vocal), Moto Yoshizawa (bass), & Keiji Haino (guitar). | |
| 12/20/2008 | Haino, Keiji / Kawabata Makoto / Yoshida Tatsuya | Ichi to Ichi ga Kasanatte Shimaumade | DVD | $17.99 | Magaibutsu | Live recording from August 18, 2008 at After Beat, in Tokyo. Features Haino (guitar), Kawabata (guitar), & Yoshida (drums). NTSC, region free. Also includes two mp3's. 76 minutes in length (video & audio combined). Highly recommended! |
| Haino, Keiji with Gerry Miles and Alan Licht | Gerry Miles | CD | $14.99 | Atavistic | Live improv performance featuring Haino's vocals and Licht on pipe organ. | |
| 6/19/2007 | Hair Police | Blind Kingdom | one sided LP | $24.99 | Ultra Eczema | "Odd coloured carpet of bizar 3d fields dominate the bright and lurid psychedelic forests u'll have to run thrue to grib a mug a brew at the end of the trip! hop on the back of a giant pink elephant and let go, eventually follow his tiny dick- like tail if u are to small to climb up this pink turt in space! but do give it a try and check out whats left, thats right; nothing! just a puddle of restless throbbing poop in different colours. the elephant turns out to be a puddle as well and the sounds you're hearing are all on the most psychedelic hiar police lp so far! this is definitely way different then any of their other recordings, way more high bliss, blown out delayed voice and hardly any harshness. originally recorded as a hair police radio special for radio centraal in antwerp! thick black and neon blue eye destructive cover design and a psychic laser etch on the b side of this 180 grams wax! 600 copies made." |
| 12/12/2009 | Hair Police | Certainty of Swarms | LP | $14.99 | No Fun | "The fusion of metal, noise rock, free jazz, industrial, and harsh electronics that makes up The Certainty of Swarms is the rare kind of heterogeneous concoction that is carefully matured, but never lost in pedestrian calculation. A blistering onslaught of metallic-fused noise-murk, Swarms is considered by the band to be one of their most complete statements to date, an aptly blindsiding and developed work drawing from all quarters of their craft. Lp Version of this classic is finally here! limited to 500 copies." |
| 6/5/2005 | Hair Police | Constantly Terrified | CD | $11.99 | Troubleman Unlimited | "The latest from Kentucky overpower trio Hair Police. Four tracks of all-consuming sensory attack that can run from absolute crushing destruction to subtle beauty at the drop of an axe. For fans of Black Dice, Wolf Eyes, Animal Collective, Lightening Bolt, etc." Recommended! |
| 6/5/2005 | Hair Police | Constantly Terrified | LP | $11.99 | Troubleman Unlimited | "The latest from Kentucky overpower trio Hair Police. Four tracks of all-consuming sensory attack that can run from absolute crushing destruction to subtle beauty at the drop of an axe. For fans of Black Dice, Wolf Eyes, Animal Collective, Lightening Bolt, etc." Recommended! |
| 5/8/2005 | Hair Police | Drawn Dead | CD | $12.99 | Hanson | "Drawn Dead is the sound of a burning human body. The sound of a boiling kneecap microwave marshmallow popping and then sliding down the leg like jellied pulp. This record is so dark, you can smell the burning flesh and will have to shake the human ash from your clothes after each listen. From the second this record starts, you're in for total oppressive heaviness, a slow suffocation of sick tones and blunt shrapnel. Hair Police have taken sound to the sickest realms possible, with guitar, drums, and electronics. With serious overwhelming grit, and shadowy fuzz, the four untitled pieces on this downer disc never reach a rock pace, instead choosing to lumber through some of the meanest tones ever laid down. Industrial in the truest sense - factory ambience and disembodied moans in absolute darkness. This is the time for America to burn its face, and Hair Police know it. They are handing you the torch." |
| 6/19/2007 | Hair Police | Empty Quarter | CD | $13.99 | Harbinger Sound | "Recorded in Ypsilanti, MI, Jan/March 2007 by MIKE CONNELLY (WOLF EYES), TREVOR TREMAINE (DEATH UNIT) AND ROBERT BEATTY (BURNING STAR CORE). No drums. All electronics. Gristle-esque walls of sound and normality-disrupting electronic oscillations for fans of Wolf Eyes, and early Black Dice. Limited edition of 1,000 copies." |
| 5/8/2005 | Hair Police | Hair Police | CD | $10.99 | Hospital Productions | "Newest release collecting the s/t cassette on Hospital Productions, the oop Morturary Servants 7" EP on Freedom From, and unreleased noise/dirge from the Drawn Dead sessions." Killer! |
| 11/17/2007 | Hair Police | Live at the Asylum Inn | one-sided 7" & CDR | $13.99 | American Tapes | "Yeah man...that Lex/Ypsi killer crew, Midwest locals. Them mugs came up for the killer Lansing Noise fest this winter and tried a new Rad style, apartment electronic lurk, late night style, no drums. They stayed up all night and jammed, sounded completely weird and ace. I joined 'em on some sessions with downtown reeds and flute. This release contains completely grim moments from those sessions and the live gig that night. A new horrible dawn of sound from the Police. Look out when they bust this drumm-less style live....will be flipping it like a dolphin trapped in pudding and barbwire. This is downer-sound big time. Could have been recorded 78 at the Air Gallery. Stoked. Same deal, Edition of 200, color vinyl/art, and speed homey." |
| 10/27/2003 | Hair Police | Mortuary Servants | 7" | $9.99 | Gods of Tundra / Freedom From | "Very sick single ripe with the blasting concept and the searing death tone. B side says ‘fuck you’. These are almost totally gone..grab now!" |
| 2/4/2007 | Hair Police | Prescribed Burning | LP | $15.99 | Hospital Productions | "Arising from the smoldering ashes of early morning fallout settles six reverberated blackened altars settled in the embers of industrial noise. slow motion feedback dissolve and dance macabre with raped guitar entanglement and roving percussive loops. scathing hard noise eruptions like drool through the hounds teeth that hold tight and lets loose the bizarre ordeal that is hair police. prescribed burning worships wet atmosphere and tape cut obsessive noise with raw chaos! always away from the pack yet defines the cult. limited to 600 copies with the traditional silk screened 2 sided fold out cover." |
| 4/29/2004 | Hair Police | Rattlers Echo | 3" CDR | $19.99 | Chondritic | "One new 10-minute doom and gloom jam from this gnarly michigan/kentucky trio. Filled oppressive tones and clattering, destroyed rhythm echo. When the vocals kick in you'll want to find a place to hide! second track is a re-working of the unplayable B-side of their classic Mortuary Servants 7". On black 3" CDR's." Edition of 176 copies. |
| 5/14/2007 | Hair Police | Strict | 7" | $5.99 | Troubleman Unlimited | "A limited edition teaser single from the upcoming full-length, due in the spring. Contains two exclusive songs that won't be on the full-length. Hair Police's music has been called "soundtrack to a nightmare" and "the sound of an elongated car crash." It's progressed over the years, taking on hardcore punk aggression and black metal ambience. Vocalist Mike Connelly also plays in Wolf Eyes." |
| 7/10/2008 | Hair Police | The Empty Quarter | LP | $12.99 | Troubleman Unlimited | "2007 recordings from this fearsome/fearless trio: mike connelly (wolf eyes), trevor tremaine (death unit) and robert beatty (burning star core, amongst others..) 750 copies only. 'the empty quarter' is a maelstrom of gristle-esque walls of sound electronic oscillation to disrupt normality and shredded shards of rock to dislodge mountains.... for fans of wolf eyes, early black dice, etc" |
| 2/21/2009 | Hair Police | Totaled and Stranded | one-sided LP | $18.99 | Hundebiss | "Recorded in a hotel room after we totaled out tour vehicle and became stranded in the worst snowstorm in Ohio history." Features Beatty, Connelly, Tremaine. Limited edition of 500 copies - no repress. Beautiful artwork: hand cut black cardboard, Xeroxed recycled paper, raw paper inner sleeve. |
| 7/23/2004 | Hair Police / Crystal Fantasy | split | 10" | $11.99 | Liquid Death / Hello Pussy Records | "Lexington, Kentucky's Hair Police are one of the most progressive and productive noisy thrash bands out there. If you've experienced them live, then you know that already! With their constant releasing of head banging noise rawk on tons of various labels (Gods of Tundra, Animal Disguise, Load, Freedom From, etc), Hair Police have been secretly carving a niche into your brain! Being the witness to one Chicago ride, we watched in absolute amusement as Hair Police took the stage and one by one destroyed everyone in the room, as well as themselves...being torn limb from limb after walking on the hands of the crowd like clouds then dropping the doom storm from above. Totally out of control and totally rad! On their split 10" with Crystal Fantasy, Hair Police contribute one nasty track on their side of the of this big ten inch fucker titled 'Straps and Straps'! Mike Connelly had this to say about it: 'It's gnarly fucked up. No drums. Just a really sick searing drip of the inside of a carcass.' We agree! This sick pile will whip and beat your skull upon each repeated listen. Do yourself a favor and get abused! Let the gnarly times roll...The members of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Crystal Fantasy are not new players to the game, just a new project with a new name. When asked what kind of description should accompany the news about this split 10", this is what we were told: 'Crystal Fantasy is another glimmering aspect of Neon Hunk, illuminated by and sparkling under one thousand iridescent suns.' Oh yes, take it back to the days when you were just too high to reach, the sky was filled with watercolored waves of cloudy blues and the sun shined like a billion crystals reflecting off of the watery sky. 'Crystal Fantasy are crystal, and they are fantasy' Instant cult classic." |
| 2/4/2007 | Hair Police / Pengo | Virus Thoughts | one sided LP | $11.99 | Gods of Tundra | "The most rotten collaboration. A murderous endeavor that took place a few years ago, the tapes were burned, raped, spit on, mocked and ridiculed. What we have now is the tattered results. And they are not pretty....at all. Full color front and back." |
| 2/11/2006 | Hair Police / Viki | split | CD | $9.99 | Load | "Number Three in the Load Split Series. A standoff match up between Dearborn, Michigan's pride Viki and Lexington, Kentucky's offspring, Hair Police. Viki brings a free range roving donkey ride with squeaky beats, microphones up mouths and zooming crunch. Prepare to be astounded with sounds that make the goose loose. Viki's dates with Adult., are proof that she brings the cars with boom. Think Viki in the same fresh breath as lo-fi speaker technicians like Suicide and Wolf Eyes' minimal electronic splurt. For those not afraid to get their sneakers dirty. Hair Police are another side of this silver coin that channel classic crunch climbers like Throbbing Gristle. Hair Police have been known to expend thousands of calories during their live sets, amounts not seen since Black Flag's heydey." |
| 10/28/2003 | Hair Police / Viki | split | LP | $11.99 | SNSE | "On this split, Viki continues to forge new sonic ground by battering her clattering buzzboxes of noize into submission, resulting in her most hott and raw trax to date. Hair Police are embarking down a darker, though no less harshly compelling, path than their previous releases. Beats are chopped and fragmented, pulverized to dust under the raw, scraping, undefineable vocals and squeal-sqwuall electronics - most definitely a journey for the sonically adventurous." |
| 4/20/2008 | Hala Strana | Heave the Gambrel Roof | CD | $12.99 | Music Fellowship | "Steven R. Smith began recording music under the Hala Strana moniker in 2002 as a way to further explore his interest in traditional Eastern European folk music, apart from his solo releases under his own name and collaborative work in Thuja, Mirza, and other Jewelled Antler creations. Heave the Gambrel Roof is Smith's fourth full length album under the Hala Strana name. The album is a return to the shorter, more song-based form of Fielding and Hala Strana and includes reworks of four traditional Albanian tunes as well as seven original tracks. As with all Hala Strana releases, Heave the Gambrel Roof contains a wide variety of instruments (many built by Smith himself) such as the hurdy gurdy, spike fiddle, gourd guitar, bowed baritone psaltery, bouzouki, xaphoon, and the more common electric guitar, organ, cello, and harmonium. The album includes musical contributions from Loren Chasse (Blithe Sons, Franciscan Hobbies, Of) on one track." |
| 4/20/2008 | Hala Strana | Heave the Gambrel Roof | LP | $16.99 | Music Fellowship | "Steven R. Smith began recording music under the Hala Strana moniker in 2002 as a way to further explore his interest in traditional Eastern European folk music, apart from his solo releases under his own name and collaborative work in Thuja, Mirza, and other Jewelled Antler creations. Heave the Gambrel Roof is Smith's fourth full length album under the Hala Strana name. The album is a return to the shorter, more song-based form of Fielding and Hala Strana and includes reworks of four traditional Albanian tunes as well as seven original tracks. As with all Hala Strana releases, Heave the Gambrel Roof contains a wide variety of instruments (many built by Smith himself) such as the hurdy gurdy, spike fiddle, gourd guitar, bowed baritone psaltery, bouzouki, xaphoon, and the more common electric guitar, organ, cello, and harmonium. The album includes musical contributions from Loren Chasse (Blithe Sons, Franciscan Hobbies, Of) on one track. This second, and last pressing of the LP is limited to 250 copies. The cover is 12x24 natural fiberboard cardstock hand silkscreened with the same cover art - screen printing on both sides." |
| 11/16/2004 | Hala Strana | These Villages | CD | $11.99 | Soft Abuse | “Steven R. Smith's third album as Hala Strana presents the culmination of his musical interests throughout his rather prolific career. These Villages is clearly Smith's grandest effort yet; a seamless whole built on layers of sustained drone & delicately plucked and bowed strings. It's a dark record, a definite work of beauty, and a perfect soundtrack for Autumn's changing leaves and howling winds.” Recommended! |
| 5/14/2007 | Halibet Tin Metal Sewage Band | Halibet Tin Metal Sewage Band | cassette | $7.99 | Fag Tapes | "man! amazing all male/female vocal group. jamie easter [of the parahnas] a.k.a. germaine shepard pulled together a bunch of wierdos along with his main shorty to create this.....recorded in a huge, freazing dark hall by warren defever yo. amazing sounds!" |
| 6/5/2005 | Hall of Fame | Cannibal / Superstring Theory | 7" | $6.99 | Lal Lal Lal | "Two gems by the amazing and magical Hall of Fame (Samara Lubelski, Dan Brown and Theo Angell), both recorded as early as 1997. 'Cannibal' presents a fluent storm of electric aces and aural snakes. It offers a short moment in the galaxy of fantastic rainbows of sound. 'Superstring Theory' is definitely among the most danceable free folk pieces ever. It's a marriage of repetitive acoustic groove and a fan of colorful strong noises. Edition of 525." |
| 6/1/2002 | Hall of Fame | Hall of Fame | CD | $12.99 | Amish Records | This is their first CD not to be confused with the self-titled third CD on Siltbreeze. “New York City’s Hall of Fame tread similar aesthetic waters as the psyche folk of Tower Recordings and the improvised partially composed music of the Dead C. Their debut is filled with primitive rhythms, droning violin, skipping records, unplugged electric guitars, bowed cymbals, violin, drums, bass and a wealth of found sounds. Especially beautiful is the Dada inspired sound collage of ’78 Expansion’ which randomly juxtaposes live and recorded sounds. This record also documents improvised songs, which were later covered as part of their live set (‘Sunset Spiral’ and ‘I Woke Up Today’). Hall of Fame consists of multi-instrumentalist Dan Brown (ex-Salmon Skin, God is my Co-pilot), Samara Lubelski (ex-Salmon Skin, and current Sonora Pine) and artist Theo Angel.” |
| 11/3/2004 | Hall Of Fame | Paradise Now | CD | $12.99 | The Social Registry | “Hall Of Fame is a trio out of NYC comprised of Samara Lubelski, Dan Brown & Theo Angel. Paradise Now is their fourth full length album since their inception in 1995. Carefully sculpting not only the inherent energies of the compositions but also drawing every audible element into the fold whether it be a slow drawn violin scrap, fluttering percussion or the slow echo of a vintage Ampeg Amplifier. This record exemplifies the kind of precision and subtle craftsmanship that exemplifies the honing of their abilities and the furthering of their artistic vision. Members of Hall Of Fame have collaborated with the likes of, The Sonora Pine, Jackie O-Motherfucker, Tower Recordings, Tara Jane O'Neil, Thalia Zedek, David Grubbs, Tony Conrad, Metabolismus,…the list goes on and on.” Recommended! |
| 11/3/2004 | Hall Of Fame | Paradise Now | LP | $12.99 | The Social Registry | “Hall Of Fame is a trio out of NYC comprised of Samara Lubelski, Dan Brown & Theo Angel. Paradise Now is their fourth full length album since their inception in 1995. Carefully sculpting not only the inherent energies of the compositions but also drawing every audible element into the fold whether it be a slow drawn violin scrap, fluttering percussion or the slow echo of a vintage Ampeg Amplifier. This record exemplifies the kind of precision and subtle craftsmanship that exemplifies the honing of their abilities and the furthering of their artistic vision. Members of Hall Of Fame have collaborated with the likes of, The Sonora Pine, Jackie O-Motherfucker, Tower Recordings, Tara Jane O'Neil, Thalia Zedek, David Grubbs, Tony Conrad, Metabolismus,…the list goes on and on.” Recommended! |
| 1/15/2005 | Halliwell, Graham / Matt Davis | untitled | CDR | $10.99 | Absurd | “Utilizing amplified sax, sax feedback, trumpet and field recordings Matt Davis and Graham Halliwell create a unique atmosphere, utilising stuctures which give you the feeling that you are inside a silent universe wherebizzare worlds of activity are woven around you.” Edition of 111 copies. |
| 8/1/2006 | Hamilton Yarns | The Show-Boat, Over | LP | $19.99 | Hark! | "This sixth release from Hamilton Yarns is a musical story set somewhere between town and countryside, told through the sounds of piano, cornet, balophone, violin, triangle, accordion, metronome and narrator, this cycle of parlour folk fables takes the listener through scenes of windy hillsides, unlit footpaths and sheer drops to traffic jams, bus rumbles and the hypnotic chatter of the pavement. Carried along by an array of clunking, clattering percussion, minimal melodic lines, field recordings, dead pan vocals and campfire choirs, Hamilton Yarns create a two-sided journey that is spooky, comic and hypnotically compelling." - Strange Attractor. "Distressed parlour music" - The Wire |
| 9/17/2006 | Hamilton, Sam | The Borders of the Garden Paths Are Overgrown | CDR | $9.99 | Transient Recordings | "The unofficial Mayor of Auckland City has created a real pleasure garden of the mind with this new work (co-released with the artist's own Tumbling Strain label). Sam is one of the most gifted sound artists working in New Zealand today and this is yet another fascinating example of the eclectic, restless approach and extraordinary sense of structure that made the "Low Hill" 3" such a stunner. At once highly personal and earth-bound, yet totally out of its skull in the most magical way, at times this sounds as if the guitar, piano and electronics are gently playing themselves while the composer is off sleeping under a tree somewhere. Dreamy and joyous!" |
| 1/1/2008 | Hamilton, Sam | Tropics | lathe cut 7" | $13.99 | CMR | "two lovely looping tracks made from electric guitar, sampler pedal, spring reverb, computer and lathe. Music that's perfectly suited to the format, loops that shift and change over the 4 mins or so per side. When the records came back I wasn't sure if my old Garrard was sticking on a groove or playing the piece. It was playing, nice..." Edition of 45 copies. |
| 11/21/2009 | Hammer of Hathor | False Teef | c40 cassette | $7.99 | Stunned | "Mark E. Kaylor & Heather Vergotis are active members of the burgeoning Portland free music community, having busted their chops around town for years prior to forming the multi-instrumental beast Hammer of Hathor. Some duos in PDX can pull off jazz or punk, and some can pull off scuzz or folk, but HOH venture to ask “why not take it all on?” Their ‘False Teef’ begins at any number of disparate points to launch into super inspired jam mode, as we can testify after 40 such minutes of feedback meditation, string twang trance, surging tape loop, smoked out riffs, and a pair of rattling false teeth perched upon the amplifier. It’s also immediately apparent these partners are synched for optimal 4D pattern-weaving and burnt basement reach-out to the tangential points between the weird and weirder energies. Breathe in a whole new scenery, take on a whole new time — a soundtrack is here to assist the switch. Limited edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c40 tapes with double-sided color jcard and insert." |
| 5/16/2010 | Hammer, Joseph | I Love You, Please Love Me Too | LP | $29.99 | Pan | "With "I love you please love me too", Joseph Hammer continues his journey into playful yet heavily focused idiot-savant infinite psychedelic inertia. Utilising consumer audio technology and 20th century detritus, Hammer lovingly decodes his passion for mid century sci fi and AM radio station beyond all point of recognition like a snakecharmer. Multi-dimensional audio collage techniques to a free form and completely unorthodox plunderphonic hypnosis. Baked devotionals for tape loop minds. Joseph Hammer, a sound artist from Los Angeles, has actively created experimental works since 1980 as a member of the LAFMS collective. His practice draws on the complexities of the process of listening and playing, reflecting on the role of the audience versus the performer, and uses music as it influences our notion of time, memory and intimacy as the basis for improvisation and abstraction. In various collaborations, solo, and as a founding member of the trio Solid Eye along with several other projects (Joe & Joe, Dinosaurs With Horns, Dimmer, Points of Friction), Hammer has performed widely and is an influential contributor to the Los Angeles underground scene. The Lp is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 330 hand-numbered copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press jacket which itself is housed in a two-tone silk screened pvc sleeve with interweaving geometric designs. All artwork by Kathryn Politis and Bill Kouligas." |
| 1/1/2008 | Hanage Youchien | The Children of Ganja | CDR | $9.99 | Om Ha Sva Ha Ksha Ma La Va Ra Yam Recordings | "Uton meets the young couple from Osaka, Japan in Laxman Jhula, Rishikesh, next to the holy river Ganga, playing together in the roof of the hotel, in the room and in the rocks next to the river (and one confused young saddhu watching this rattle). Childish psychedelic folk improv using violin, ravanhattha (trad Rajasthani instrument), frame drum, maracas, mouth-organ, flutes and voices." First edition of 40 copies on Jani's/Uton label. |
| 11/10/2003 | Hancock, Herbie | Blow Up (Original Sound Track) | LP | $14.99 | 4 Men With Beards | "In late 1966, Herbie Hancock with Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette entered a New York studio to capture the vibe of 'swinging London' in a jazz mode - with grooves that create effective bluesy moods on the slow pieces and funky ones on the up-tempo tracks. Meanwhile in London, the Yardbirds (with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page) were recording additional material for use in the Blow-Up movie soundtrack. Liner notes by maverick journalist Steve Dollar. Superb audiophile remastering. 180 gram HQ vinyl. Gatefold sleeve." |
| 5/14/2007 | Handicapper Horns | Handicapper Horns | cassette | $6.99 | Hanson | "Weird as shit older Olson project resurrected. Handicap - Retard - Slow - Horns..... Slow Bassy Horns... Rules. Alien music made on Saxophone." |
| 1/24/2009 | Hans Grüsel's Kränkenkabinet | Blaue Blooded Türen | CDR | $10.99 | Resipiscent | "Stare too long at Moog-master candymaker Hans Grüsel (his moustache a pair of clockhands!) and your seconds could be up. Return a smile from Gretel, you'll end up in a grin that never fades! Safer to listen from here as the Kränkenkabinet chugs away, spawning a trap door here, slamming a finger there, daring consciousness to believe the clarity of a thousand simultaneous sound crevices. Here appears an unnatural "Blue Blooded Door" to the infernal heart of the contraption, handcarved with all new compositions including "Sturm and Drang [at sea] plus Grüsel's live accompaniment to Dallas Bower's film Alice in Wonderland. Artwork by Loachfillet in his hall of all wood mirrors!" |
| 3/20/2010 | Hanson, J. | Boolean Blues | CD | $12.99 | Digitalis | "Josh Hanson is another of Portland, Oregon's underappreciated sons. Having come up through the ranks of long-time, long-forgotten faves Hochenkeit, he also spent time as a member of The Davis Redford Trio. But Hanson's path diverges into a totally different sphere nowadays, spinning solo modular synth exploits to the stars. Influenced not just by the likes of Subotnick and Cluster but also various types of Eastern sounds, Hanson is looking forward, trying to find new pathways in electronic music. Using a homebuilt synth, Hanson is like a magician that keeps you looking one direction while he's cooking up something special from out of left-field. "Boolean Blues" is psychedelic and mathematical all once Starting with the pulsing and surprisingly catchy "Shut Your Fucking Krout," you are instantly sucked in as a listener. The revolving synth melodies are in your face, never trying to hide behind a veil of reverb of fuzz. "Catshit and Sandalwood" works as two separate tracks, conjoined at birth and held together through piercing synthetic bleeps. Again, there's a softness and melody here that hook you straight off, but the heavy doses of electronic mayhem that go along with it are what keep things uneasy. It's like a warning bell going off so often you have no idea if there's hell on the way. That feeling comes to a head on the centerpiece, "Swat Valley Driver." This is where the psychedelia really kicks in. After a methodic exercise in control backed by a minimal, analog beat, you are greeted with heavy Indian influences. No, of course there's no sitars or tanpuras, but Hanson twists his synth into spitting out racing analog ragas. It's fucking exquisite, all the while backed by black bass lines. "Peace in Sumeria" continues the theme but moves a little bit West, getting lost in translation all the way. What is perhaps most amazing about "Boolean Blues" is that even though at its heart it's a synth album, wholly electronic, it feels like so much more. It's full of warm tones and rich visions. It's a trip in every sense of the word. Edition of 500 in gatefold jackets printed by Stumptown, designed by Brad Rose." |
| 2/20/2010 | Hanson, Sten | The Sonosopher Retrospective | CDR + heavy cardboard book | $69.99 | Alga Margen | "This edition is the digital version of the LP issued some years ago in the VocSon series and is only available with the alga marghen copies of Sten Hanson's heavy carboard luxury book titled "Works / Oeuvres / Werke /Arbeten". The cd contains works from more than three decades, thus covering almost the entire career of Sten Hanson as a sound artist. All these works were previously released on record by alga marghen on the now sold out LP with the same title, as well as in various "Text Sound Composition" rare LP anthologies issued in Sweden between 1968 and 1970. The oldest work on the record is "Danse figure (for EP)" which was first performed at the Pistol Theatre, Stockholm in 1965. The work is inspired by a poem by Ezra Pound with the same title and is made out of recording of the first two lines in that poem. This work is followed by three examples of Hanson's "shamanistic" poems: "Hermetic Back Piece", "The New York Lament" and "Skärp dig, för fan!". "Lettre d'un etranger" deals with the problems of communication between people close to one other and was first performed in the framwork of Polyphonix 13, Paris in 1988. "Am strengsten verboten" is the contribution to an intermedia event by Charlie Morrow, Carles Santos and Sten Hanson himself performed in two boxing rings at Bobby Gleasons Gym, in the shadow of Madison Square Garden, New York in 1981. "Les Martyrs" was a part of the intermedia opera "Robespierre's Last Night", first performed in Hudiksvall, Sweden in 1975. "Les sabots de bouc" is a poem without words telling a story like a medieval morality from the times when the cathedrals were built and the devil was a force to be reckoned with. "Che" is a pamphlet based on a speech by Ernesto Che Guevara, while "Coucher et soufler" is a play on the problems of human communication. "Western Europe 1969" is a satire on superficiality. "The Destruction of Your Genetical Code by Drugs, Poisons and Radiation" is based on a visual poem already conceived in 1960, when the idea that genetic damage could affect man's offspring for coming generations was a fairly new and shocking one. "Au 197.0" was composed at the request of choreographer Susanne Valentin, who wanted a piece for a work on rites; as rite demands religion and it seemed clear to the composer that materialism is the only real living religion of our time. "Finale", a piece to end with, was first performed in Annecy, France in 1995. Edition limited to 90 copies, including a 12 page booklet with liner notes, photos as well as concrete and visual poems." |
| 8/7/2003 | Happy Hour Band, The | Happy Now | CD | $17.99 | Splash 2 Records | 2003 release from the band fronted by Sky Sunlight Saxon (Seeds) and featuring Djin Aquarian (YaHoWha). Featuring the sixteen minute ‘In The Cradle Of Love/Freeway’ as well as the hypnotic Seeds-y ‘Dogs Cruisin/Wild Child’. Long spacey jams with guitars and psychedelic keyboard sounds battling it out over hypnotic rhythms/chants. Strictly limited to 500 copies. "If you are down with the Sky/Djin vibe, these songs are great! Nice long jams...in fact the last song reminded me a lot of Djin and Sky (and band) covering a lost song from the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat album." – Andy Perseponko |
| 11/15/2008 | Hardwick, Gareth / Eyeballs | split | cassette | $9.99 | Blackest Rainbow | "Gareth Hardwick's steady stream of quality releases is gathering to be one of the UK's best current minimal drone catalogues around... here he gives us a 3 part trip of pure slow motions... Flip the tape and you have Richard Dawson's Eyeballs project, whose debut on Blackest Rainbow caused a stir with the few people who managed to lay their hands on it. Here Dawson's side is bleaker and darker than expected, gives me the full on feel of the Twin Peaks woods... feels like the vast emptiness of that claustrophobic wooded area. Low and lulling. Pro dubbed cassettes, limited to 150 copies." |
| 11/4/2006 | Harmonia | Musik von Harmonia | LP | $17.99 | Lilith | "The first album by this very influential but short-lived Krautrock supergroup consisting of Michael Rother of NEU! and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of CLUSTER. This 1974 release was known for a minimalism somewhere between ambience and noise, as the styles of the 3 instrumentalists melded into one coherent sound. LP in gatefold sleeve. Russian import." |
| 8/1/2006 | Harper, T. | The Hitcher | cassette | $8.99 | AA Records | "Twig Harper's house burns down so he decides to hitchhike across the US. He gets as far as Michigan, records a little, and then heads to the Badlands to star in a western as a shaman - no shit. Field recordings from Baltimore thru Michigan to the Badlands and back." - label |
| 5/31/2009 | Harps Of Fuchsia Kalmia | Fractal Psych-Obsessions for Rural Chaos | CDR | $7.99 | 267 Lattajjaa | "Subversive psychedelic strumming" Harps of Fuchsia kalmia is Salvatore Borrelli who plays Max/Msp processing, Balalaika, Banjo, Ogororo, Cymbals, Electric & Acoustic Guitar, Egyptian Harp, Tampura Swarmanthal, Drums, Violin, Esraj, Sansula. On the last track also Valerio Cosi (sax), Francesco Gregoretti (second drums), Siddhi (drone) and Federica R. (voice). This work is recorded in four "private live sessions" without editing and mixing. |
| Harry Pussy | untitled | 7" | $19.99 | Planet Records | 6 song EP. | |
| 4/10/2009 | Harvestman | In A Dark Tongue | CD | $13.99 | Neurot | "Harvestman is the brainchild of NEUROSIS vocalist/guitarist STEVE VON TILL, who considers In a Dark Tongue a venture into an imagined past. The album is inspired by Hawkwind, Fairport Convention, Tangerine Dream, Pentangle, Steeleye Span, Skullflower, Caspar Brotzman, and Loop, among others. It is a massive meeting point of styles and influences, all of which boil down to a surreal and inspired sound. Long known for blazing guitar trails in the heavy music realm, Von Till once again turns his attention to a world of pure yet abstract psychedelic rock guitar. This second record as Harvestman is even more loosely hung upon the framework of traditional music-these pieces are distilled and distorted into something else entirely. Traditional melodies and tunes lie lovingly wrecked and ruined in the wake of rediscovery. It may be blasphemous to folk purists, but this odd brew is sonic heaven for heads that dream to the drone of fuzz guitar. While these recordings contain a heavy dose of the subtle sounds and textures that are distinctly "Neurot" in tenor, they are window on the inner working of Von Till's psyche-or at least some of what goes on in his private studio late at night. Features guest performances by AL CISNEROS (OM) and ALEX HALL (GRAILS)." |
| 8/4/2007 | Hasegawa Shizuo | Songs of an Umbilical Cord | LP | $29.99 | Tiliqua | "ltd edition lp of their 2nd release following their debute on psf. killer release if i say so myself. imagine la monte young crossbreeding with takayanagi masayuki. the disc is made up out of 2 sidelong tracks that entwine around a minimal music aesthetic junked up with an improvisational free jazz like exploratory approach. the panoramic sonic outcome floats somewhere between the controlled burn of a detuned jet engine and the boundless fury of nomadic hordes on a rampage through the open mongolian plains. sucking in influences as wide ranging as takayanagi, la monte young, esoteric buddhist ritualistic mantras, gagaku and a free-form psychedelic aesthetic, hasegawa shizuo succeeds brilliantly in resonating out a dionysian vibration of harmonical tones pregnant with a pulsating intensity. without a doubt one of the most interesting and intuitive sounds graced with a shamanistic sense of poetry to emerge out of deep subteranean belly of tokyo. still undetected but sure to blow headz worldwide. one time only edition of 400 copies housed in thicker than life jacket and high quality japan pressed vinyl. lp only. ltd edition of 400 copies only. comes with obi!" |
| 7/14/2007 | Hassara | Backyard I-III | CD | $12.99 | Three Lobed Recordings | "Originally issued as a series of three micro-edition CDRs by Wooden Wand Hassara, "Backyard I-III" presents the majority of this scarce material in one easily handled package. Since no more than 100 copies exist of any of the individual original issue CDRs, there are a lot of folks who have not yet been blown away by Hassara's largely instrumental electric guitar blues drone. Spin this disc, grab a cold one and let the good times flow. This CD is from a one-time pressing of 500 copies and features some super-intense new artwork by Robert Beatty (Hair Police)." |
| 5/16/2010 | Haswell, Russell | VALUE + BONUS | double CD | $13.99 | No Fun | "Combining CD player demonstration test signals, 24 bit digitally recorded improvised freeform analog pedal/electronic nO!se, direct to HD computer generated and recorded nO!se, flashbacks from the 1980s of 303 and 909 nO!se assaults including free-style repeat and reverse editing, a frog call editing experiment, finishing off the second disc is a unedited long-form radio de-tuning session! VALUE + BONUS is the sixth solo album release by Russell Haswell. It comes in deluxe no fun gatefold jacket and is limited to 1000." |
| 4/10/2010 | Hat City Intuitive | A Ticket For Decay | LP | $14.99 | Ecstatic Peace | "Hat City Intuitive have long been the mainstays of the Danbury, Connecticut free improvisation scene and, as such, are regal. Yet this crown of creative impulse and desire does not cloud their intention of celebrating the NEW. When they gather, and whoever they may invite into their high flying midst, the vibrations are a fresh fire and are wholly positive, forsaking the droll techniques of free jazz blather, and licking the under shine of night stars howling light into the black. This session has most recent member Gene Moore (guitar/reeds) showing up with his kid bro Thurston, who plugs into the nearest amp and is only too happy to just GO, as TM is a long-time fascinant of the Hat City Intuitive, having grown up in the same Nutmeg State environs just 30 some years prior. Compiled from hours and hours and hours of basement mind/spirit autumnal wine-soaked pot-smoked camaraderie, this recording is where the dirt meets the concrete and winks up to the forever sky." |
| Hat City Intuitive | They Must Be Clapping For...Me! | CD | $10.99 | Crank Automotive | "Sifted from a phalanx of searing live performances, They Must Be Clapping For...Me! is the band's second album, a cell-rearranging collection of free-form sun-chasing. Exploding the walls between rhythm and chaos, texture and blare, and repetition and invention, the HCI mix horn-shaped fire-breathing, blurry-handed guitar-strangling, rubber-wristed drum-shining, and continent-sized noise-scapes into a mind-stirring stew that, while not without some worthy referents, really has no current equivalent. At times sounding like the Sun City Girls covering the ESP-Disk catalogue, at others like the Dead C. auditioning for a role in Space Is The Place, They Must Be Clapping For...Me! is a pulse-enhancing experience - a place where sliding beats, ambient waves, religious honks, and electric burps are simply different ways of saying one amazing Truth." | |
| 10/17/2009 | Haters, The | In The Shade of Fire | CD | $9.99 | Hanson | "HANSON RECORDS is proud to present the first LP from THE HATERS, 'IN THE SHADE OF FIRE' reissued for the first time on the CD format AND for the first time in it's original ENTIRETY. Originally released on LP by SILENT RECORDS in 1986, this digipak CD edition has been remastered by Warn Defever from the original master reels, and includes the full COMPLETE ALBUM as two of the tracks had to be shortened to fit on the original LP issue." |
| Haugan, Dag-Are | s/t | 7" | $4.99 | Myke Droner | "Side one is a long mysterious ambient-drone-outer limit work with layers of guitars and tapes(?), that reminds of a very deep sound from the icy north, but still warm inside. Side 2 is collaboration with Espen Sommer Eide (who also form the duo ALOG with Dag-Are). Fit well in the new Norwegian improv scene, and also familiar to the New Zealand scene we like so well. Nice full-colour sleeve picture from the Northern Sea." | |
| 2/4/2007 | Haunted Castle | Dust Tombs | cassette | $7.99 | American Grizzly | "Filthy feedback-drenched Michigan dust scrape." |
| 5/16/2010 | Haunting, The | Chamber Maid | cassette | $5.99 | Gods of Tundra | "First utterance of 2010 from the coffin lid couple. New worn sounds completely opposed to the modern world. The dread continues..." |
| 4/10/2009 | Hauschildt, Steve | Resplendent | cassette | $11.99 | Dreamtime Taped Sounds | "One of the new lights in synthesizer music which i'm very excited about. giving romance / beauty a place in music again, Steve brings a short contemplation of prose poems. a collection of beautiful incantations and scetches that could be directly channeled from a digitalised, fully updated mind of the Sona Gaia emporium of pretty meditations. Steve also plays in Emeralds." |
| 9/29/2003 | Havergal | Trash | 10" | $7.99 | Elevator Bath | "The five instrumental compositions, which comprise this EP from 1999, are contemplative and melodic sound experiments. Traditional instrumentation (guitar, percussion, etc.) mixes with found sounds and samples to create wisely restrained, yet emotional music. The material occasionally approaches ‘post rock,’ but, instead, opts for something far more relevant. On transparent vinyl with clear plastic sleeves, in an edition of 550 copies." |
| 10/19/2003 | Hawk, Gerald | King of River Canoe | CD | $11.99 | Abduction | "Debut release by this obscure filmmaker (?). The last non-member of the Sun City Girls to release something on their Abduction label (Hal Russell) didn't live long to tell about it, but Gerald evidently thinks he's made of tougher stuff. This recording features acoustic muddle and the whispered rants of somebody with no fear of waking up in a bunker. A certain amount of Jandekian idolation/emulation/ass-ination raises the intrigue and as for the wind, it continues to blow. Don't be afraid to jump, straight down."- FE |
| 2/10/2004 | Hawk, Gerald | The Honey Guide Bird | CD | $12.99 | Abduction | "The second CD from obscure artist Gerald Hawk, The Honey Guide, is the music of opposites: laughter and misery, crazy and the grim, toytown and the city of fear. This curious recording is filled with hypnotic sound-fields and a queer feeling of humility. Stories of giants and witches are embedded in an outerworldly atmosphere. The music betrays an ability to enter into the supernatural space of abstract hoverings. Is he communicating with the dead, performing underwater rituals, or sketching a lush photographic awareness of the world?" |
| 1/1/2008 | Hawkwind | Hawkwind | LP | $20.99 | "A reissue of their 1970 classic first album, this is where the long interplanetary journey began. Sometimes compared to early PINK FLOYD, it's bluesy spacerock defined by a unique, sci-fi approach to guitar, sax and electronics. Original artwork, Euro import." | |
| 4/24/2006 | Hay, Emily / Marcos Fernandes | We Are | CD | $10.99 | Public Eyesore | "Folks, I couldn't begin to know how to properly express what I think is going on with this album. Marcos Fernandes is the percussion, field recordings, and electronic noise man. Emily Hay is the voice artist, flute, piccolo, piano, and electronic noise lady. Now that information came by easy with help from the album booklet. What is a bit more difficult is knowing how to explain what you will hear on We Are. There are quiet moments, the noisy moments, and then there are the what exactly am I listening to moments. Ok, ... I am aware that this review isn't shedding too much light on the album. You know that funny sound when you twiddle your lips with your fingers and go bbbvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv? Well, nobody does it better than Emily Hay." - Cameron Deyhle |
| 10/21/2009 | Hayden, Bridget | Bridget Hayden | CDR | $8.99 | Golden Lab Records | "Recorded at The Bowling Green pub in Manchester on 17th November 2008, when Bridget was on tour with Marcia Bassett, this is a maximal 25-minute set of epic guitar brutalising and deep, moaned vocal incantations. Employing a bow and 'metal' effects pedals, the resulting cacophony is orchestral in scope, rendering almost unreliable the memory of one woman and her instrument. Somewhat akin to Bassett's duo with Matthew Bower, Hototogisu, the deeply layered tones created by Hayden offer, upon first exposure, a somewhat icy auditory experience, but as the recording settles in, the richness and sheer breadth of sound wraps around you like a feather quilt and shifts your perception almost 180 degrees. A truly magnificent set from this former Vibracathedral Orchestra member that cements her reputation as far more than that alone. Limited to 80 copies with sleeves printed on recycled paper using soya based ink." |
| 7/16/2009 | Haymarket Square | Magic Lantern | LP | $15.99 | Void | "The legendary, one and only Chicago psychedelic garage sounds of Haymarket Square come to the Void. Just a 700 press on black vinyl, glossy pink cover and insert, unseen in any other reissue before this. 'Elevator,' 'Train Kept a Rollin' and many more, this LP has become a scarce collector's item today. Originally released in 1968, the Void issue will become the standard for listeners of Haymarket Square." |
| 1/24/2009 | Head Boggle Dia | Rhodes Demo and Carillon Reprise | cassette | $7.99 | Archivo De Sangre De Dios | "Follow up to the recent 905 tape, 7 tracks of brain bending synth and bells, akin to listening to 3 radios simultaneously while slowly changing channels on all of them......derek said ".....It's not too bass heavy (I really noticed as I tried to drown out my Techno neighbor. I REALLY had to blare it to pull that off..." Edition of 50 copies. |
| 7/14/2010 | Head Of Wantastiquet | 18.02.2010 | CDR | $16.99 | Unsound | "Edition of 120 copies CD-R documenting a live performance from Paul Labrecque (Sunburned Hand Of The Man/Trees Chants And Hollers/The Other Method et al). Labrecque's string work makes reference to the lonesome sound of Sandy Bull and John Fahey while connecting with the experiments in contemporary American Primitive drone of Paul Metzger and Matthew Valentine. Quietly psychedelic and spellbindingly intimate. In full colour gatefold card sleeve." - Volcanic Tongue |
| 10/25/2008 | Head of Wantastiquet | Mortagne | LP | $14.99 | Ecstatic Yod | "Head of Wantastiquet is the solo project of Sunburned Hand of the Man's Paul Labrecque. This is the long awaited follow-up to Paul's debut cassette release on Open Mouth. This LP is luscious and layered with psych banjo based pieces spread over 12 tracks. I'd compare it to a cross between Daniel Higgs and Doc Boggs sans vocals. A truly beautiful record which comes in a VG Kids screenprinted double sided sleeve sleeve in a one time edition of 500." Highly recommended!! |
| 8/30/2009 | Headboggle | Clavioline and Living Stereo Demo | CDR | $8.99 | Wagon | "What was supposed to be a c-60 and now a high quality cd. FILLED TO THE BRIM with vaporized, psychedelic portals! derek is one of the worlds most under rated synth freakers and this cd is a testament to underground electronics at its very finest.. standard headboggle reality warp zones where a field recording may or may not appear and then disappear ?? how can nothing disappear?? huh?? also more private and buiried subtle zones you may have not heard before! it must take a certain amount of orders for coffee to drive a man to these insane synth patches.. thats the headboggle style...these sounds have a way of sticking in your head, but the fantastic details surrounding them all keep you listening to his work again and again!! edition of 99 with vapo-bubble art by irina! b&w hand numbered insert." |
| 4/10/2009 | HeadBoggleD | rchive # 3 | cassette | $4.99 | Anathema Sound | "In a universe of incredible synth jammers that grows more crowded by the second, Bay Area's Derek Gedalecia is truly a standout. Eschewing pleasant melodies and anything even remotely new age, Gedalecia uses his analog gear to disorient, discombobulate, and deteriorate. The third part in Head Boggle's ongoing rchive series buzzes through your cranium in so many different ways: sharp beams of sound, rumbling oscillations, and plenty of bizarro, brain-bending field recordings from who-knows-where. Side B is an entire live set that throws a hand-cranked music box in the middle of the synth storm. To say "it works" would be an understatement. Draw the wildcard and unleash the madness. With full color art, inserts, and labels by Matt Yacoub." Edition of 50 copies. |
| 6/27/2009 | Headdress | Lunes | CD | $13.99 | No Quarter | "Lunes is the second album by the Texas psychedelic duo Headdress. Written in the desert but recorded during an endless New York City winter, the album is a dark meditation on Americana. Guitarist Caleb Coy and organist Ethan Cook sculpt a cold, expansive sound made ripe for these turbulent times. It's the blues shaped by the avant-compositions of La Monte Young and Dylan Carlson. It's drone rooted deep in the American tradition." |
| 6/27/2009 | Headdress | Lunes | LP | $13.99 | No Quarter | "Lunes is the second album by the Texas psychedelic duo Headdress. Written in the desert but recorded during an endless New York City winter, the album is a dark meditation on Americana. Guitarist Caleb Coy and organist Ethan Cook sculpt a cold, expansive sound made ripe for these turbulent times. It's the blues shaped by the avant-compositions of La Monte Young and Dylan Carlson. It's drone rooted deep in the American tradition." Includes MP3 download code. |
| 10/17/2009 | Heads | Tilburg | double LP | $26.99 | Rooster | "Limited edition double vinyl bootleg of the Live In Tilburg mail order only CD issued by the band via their website, and rightly given album of the month status on Julian Cope's Head Heritage site. In 2008 THE HEADS were convinced to undertake their first tour of more than three dates in over 7 years, by going on a seven-date jaunt in the UK and Europe with fellow travelers the Wooden Shjips. As ever the Heads taped most of the performances, and in Tilburg, they got an audience tape, desk tape, and stage tape, so, with the aid of the mighty Latch they put together this here "Bootleg". A perfect snapshot of the Heads in full flight, as heavy and as dense as they can get, yet soaring far off into the vapors with their inimitable psych noise blastings. Much ignored in the UK for the past decade or so, the Heads might well be getting a wave of recognition right now, and this is a very good way to immerse oneself into the world of the Heads. Limited edition of 500 copies. UK import." - Revolver |
| 3/5/2009 | Heatsick | Dubbed Sunshine | cassette | $9.99 | Searching Records | "2008's most beautiful egotriptic colorful dervish from Steven Warwick (from Birds of Delay). All-pro recorded and printed chrome tape with beautiful art and insert by Steven." Pro Tape in hand sprayed case - limited edition of 100 copies. |
| 11/17/2007 | Heatsick | Muddy Paw | CDR | $12.99 | Trans-Dimensional Sushi | "New solo jams from Steve Warwick of Birds Of Delay, with eternally singing reeds and alien breath tones combined in forests of wonked tape and DIY bedroom hypnosis. Three tracks. Edition of 100 copies." - Volcanic Tongue. "This, the first in a trilogy of dewy perfume sunrise, waking up naked in wet grass and the smile of a deer. consciously pop, day after memory distortion. overloading the senses in drunk ecstasy tracks progress to casual blur into cruise down the river densities. Dedicated to Oliver Reed and Tess..." |
| 5/14/2007 | Heatsick | Pre-Cum Fog Ballet | cassette | $14.99 | Alcoholic Narcolepsy | "Although this Heatsick release starts out nice and normal, it doesn't take that long before it gets taken over by the warped half of sole member Steven Warwick's brain; melodic acoustic guitar work gets layered and then drowned. This c30 release (in vampiric black and red) layers acoustic details on top of each other, all the while preparing the listener for the inevitable absorption into Heatsick world. These simply layered parts keep their backbone for a while, refusing to urn to liquid, landing in clockwork patterns of strums. The magic of this single piece is the way the mechanical mouse organ styled build of notes begins to take on a sort of halo. The chimes set in motion droney moving rings which in turn heralds circling whistles appear along with freer pitches around the song. This other world begins to try and steal the song's focus creating an intentionally glorious coming together of two teased-out worlds. When the second side picks up the hard to hold thread of "Pre-Cum Fog Ballet," the guitar parts have been lost. The mazes of drones have guzzled this instrument down in murmuring hums, a disintegrating swarm of Möbius Strips. Listening to the second side of this cassette is like arriving at the fairground on expensive glue and having to choose which half-broken fairground attraction to ride on. The sounds spin just below the point of overwhelming, like a séance that only attracts pissed-up drunken spirits that all want to talking at the same time. The gap between side one and two feels like a part of this buckled metamorphosis has been lost, but that's probably partially my fault for having equipment that requires me to get up to flip the tape. Despite the sometime insanity of the music, Heatsick's explorations are never mentally wearing; god only knows what it's doing to my ears though." - Scott McKeating, Brainwashed |
| 5/14/2007 | Heatsick | Searing Light Of Glue Prisms | cassette | $14.99 | Alcoholic Narcolepsy | "New jams recorded over the last few months. Yellow tar visions... more trickly... cavernous. Honey comb like fly visions slow motion ascent flying into a candle..." Heatsick is Steven Warwick of Birds of Delay. Edition of 100 copies. |
| 5/14/2007 | Heatsick | Total Afternoon Sundae | cassette | $14.99 | Alcoholic Narcolepsy | "Steven Warwick, half of the up-and-coming sound abusers Birds of Delay, has been using his own Alcoholic Narcolepsy label to spread his solo Heatsick project. Any more releases like this one and it's only a matter of time before the bigger underground indies come calling. This cassette might look like the label's most professional looking release yet, but the project's roots still sound resolutely lo-fidelity. But where in the past Heatsick required some effort on the listeners behalf, meeting the music halfway, Total Afternoon Sundae comes running with open arms and a doped-up grin. As good as those previous efforts have been, this one feels like it's cleared out some blockage between the music and listener, the hurdle of formlessness, hurtling it up to the next level. The opening piece, which takes up the whole first side, is thick and sweetly queasy, like too much lukewarm ice cream. Its tides of short-wave radio rise and fall on top of other sounds, melting into each other like a gelatinous mass of sugar. There's a dash of arresting Spacemen 3 style drone laid in there too, swirling like tangible energy at the piece's edges. The pulpy mash of organ and synth guts seems to be rotting and blossoming at the same time within the magnetic tape. There are touches of beauty on the rest of the tape, too, a little less thick perhaps, but no less explicit. Even the bent pitches of "Later Mirror" and its broken game show vibe can't hide the song's silvery splendour. "Exactly, Exactly" takes this idea further again, creating a ever-moving rush of gorgeous sounds, the constantly rolling and peripatetic blooming tones reproducing without assistance. The closing "Unspent Realisation of Dawning Release" sees Warwick performing the same kind of magic that Richard D. James did with soldering irons on Selected Ambient Works II. The cut-price ambience of the keyboard's melody is easy to get lost in; the sound quality and tape hiss just adds to the charm. The cassette format is endearing, but when you run into a great release like, the inadequacies become more inconvenience than charm. It's very probable that each listen to Total Afternoon Sundae is minutely degrading this recording; its brilliance, and the need for repeated listens, gradually destroying the music. This is a release already in dire need of a CD reissue." - Scott McKeating, Dusted Magazine |
| 2/7/2009 | Heaven People | Sewn Eyes | cassette | $5.99 | 905 Tapes | "Heaven People is like finding pastel puke on the floor. like a multi-color mess that you can't look away from cause it's so mesmerizing, but you know you gotta clean it up cause it's gonna be sewage sooner or later. maybe a week goes by and you start seeing different images in the stain it left. like a cloud eating a reindeer. i don't know, something fucked up. heaven people are kinda like anti-psych psych. the liquid bricks of a water city. bells and whistles with no bells and whistles. hands floating away from your arms. eyes on the cover are punched out with yarn keeping em sewn." |
| 11/17/2007 | Heavy Winged | Feel Inside | CD | $13.99 | Archive | "Brand new three trax release from Portland/ Brooklyn based unit which comes on the heels of the bands recently re-issue disc, and highly excellent three lobed release "blacc lust", comes three long playing journeys into psych noise dronedom. I'm not a huge fan of the press release description game where the label goes on to babble and make absurd quotes like "sounds like every band that has sold a shit load of records this past month if you combine sunno))) with your mamma then you know exactly how great this record is". I'd just like to humbly state to me it comes off like the Bardo Pond brothers recording in the lo-fi high fuzz induced kitchen of the Goslings. All label claims aside listen to the clip!! PACKAGE comes packed in a double cover center opening sleeves with the outer shell being a vellum overlay wonderfully executed graphically by Chase Middaugh. Single pressing of 600 copies." |
| 6/30/2010 | Heavy Winged | Fields Within Fields | LP (w/ download) + CD | $20.99 | Three Lobed Recordings | "They're back. Heavy Winged has continued to stretch their leathery, scarred, er, wings and grow since their last release for Three Lobed Recordings, 2008's Alive In My Mouth. The band was determined to make Fields Within Fields into a significant part of their discography from the very outset. In October 2009, the band decided to enter the 5D Studios in Brooklyn to engage in what would be a first-time experiment - recording in a multi-track studio with overdubs planned from the session's start. Prior to this experience the band's entire catalog was centered on displaying their ferocious live spirit. Having already proven themselves to be adept at creating grand and heavy statements in an improvised, one-take-only setting, they felt that were ready for the challenge of being both improvisational and composition-minded. The band hunkered down for the session and even brought in some friends to help augment the Heavy Winged vibe. Their time in 5D yielded the two dark fruits which combine to form Fields Within Fields. Brutal and hard, 'Among The Maori' leads the album off and encompasses the entire first side of vinyl. The track opens with a slow, deliberate fade into Jed Bindeman's (Eternal Tapestry, Jackie-O Motherfucker) tribal drumbeat. This beat may start controlled but the track's velocity and volume continue to accelerate, eventually turning 'Among The Maori' into a highly tuned jet engine. Ryan Hebert's guitar playing is exceptional throughout, beginning with an initial prolonged banshee-like wailing and slowly building and fully giving way to a fantastically cranking and grinding post-metallic din by the track's conclusion. 'Among The Maori' stands out among the band's entire catalog as perhaps their truest moment. The album's second side is fully dedicated to the drone doom opus 'The Hum Of The Universe.'" Bonus CD is a limited edition glass-mastered CD titled "Infinite In Every Direction" (TLR-079) presenting an additional thirty-plus minutes of studio material (including a long studio droner featuring a guest appearance from White Hills' Dave W. |
| 10/17/2009 | Heavy Winged | Heavy Winged | cassette | $9.99 | Blackest Rainbow | "Very pleased to announce that after much ongoing talk between me and the band, Blackest Rainbow will be issuing the very first Heavy Winged cassette. A total beast from this cross country American trio of Ryan, Jed and Brady recorded just after a 4 day east coast tour in November 2007 at Ryan's house in Vermont. The music switches between pure heavy repetitive riffing, drum kit massacre and shredding bass to more melancholy weird minimal bits, which actually co-inside with the last jam the band did before parting ways across the map. Nevertheless, this is another totally amazing and essential release from one of my favourite bands around right now. Limited to 200. Pro-dubbed cassettes." |
| 6/27/2009 | Heavy Winged | Shaking, Waking | LP | $16.99 | Aurora Borealis | "Aurora Borealis is proud to present long-time faves HEAVY WINGED on limited vinyl with the 'Shaking, waking' LP. The band have been consistently impressing us since we first heard them back in 2006 and we are very happy to have snagged them for this release before tagging them and releasing them back into the wild. The 'Shaking, waking' LP consists of two lengthy tracks: 'Tidal Blackness' is a 23 minute cloud of improvised guitar and bass drone, underpinned with sparse percussive elements and dappled with the rays of ethereal melodies. This track, recorded live in Oakland in 2008, represents the more gentle side of HEAVY WINGED in some ways and is largely soothing. The second side harbours 'Morning Flesh', 18 minutes that veer towards the caveman Krautrock of the recent 'Alive in my mouth' LP, drums pounding, Neanderthal guitar chugging, though with a melodic haze drifting across the musical landscape like a lysergic mistral, leading the listener ever further into the shifting sands of the forbidden zone. HEAVY WINGED have set the controls for the heart of the unknown. Two track LP - a VINYL ONLY release, on 180g transparent pale grey vinyl, limited to 500 pieces in a heavyweight matte sleeve." |
| 4/22/2009 | Heavy Winged | Spreading Center | CD | $13.99 | Release The Bats | "Two new long tracks from Heavy Winged, following up releases on Three Lobed, Archive, Not Not Fun etc. Massive and big-sounding stuff, but with more subtle and quiet openings and endings, and without ever loosing the abrasive feeling of being dragged in grit and dirt forever and ever. Driving and powerful proto-psych-metal that manages to sound very much improvised and extremely focused and precise at the same time. Both tracks recorded live, Loudun recorded in Davis, California on 6/30/08. Strigoi recorded in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York on 11/2/07. Limited one-time pressing of 500 copies. Dual Plover gatefold sleeve with black felt and artwork by Twin Vixen. Play it loud." |
| 5/31/2009 | Heavy Winged & Inca Ore | Ring Mining | LP | $15.99 | Not Not Fun | "Wild collaborative LP by these 2 deep psych visionaries. One side is a studio collab merging HW's pummeling psych-frenzy with cascading waves of IO-keyboard bliss. The other side is a rare, unhinged live recording of the single time these outfits ever performing together...imagine HW with a freaked out lead singer. Strange and great." "A stunning, crazy, radical joining-of-forces between our favorite instrumental psych-light power trio and our favorite west coast private voice dreamer, a full 3 years in the making. one side is a wild live collab from a 2006 brooklyn performance, the other is a 2008 studio creation. the best of both worlds. mastered by james plotkin." |
| Heazlewood | Introducing the Ron Asheton Club | 7" | $5.99 | Crawlspace | "Chris Heazlewood (Sferic Experiment, Olla, King Loser) is one of New Zealand's best & most innovative guitarists & this is his personal tribute to the Stooges' best guitarist. Four tracks of layered riffs, samples, bass & backwards guitar." | |
| 7/16/2009 | Heidsieck, Bernard | Poème-Partition X | Book + CD | $59.99 | Alga Marghen | *"Poème-Partition X" was created by Bernard Heidsieck during 1960 and recorded in October the same year. A few excerpts of the 1st and 4th movements were performed on November 22nd, 1960 at the Quatre Saisons Gallery in Paris, during the Festival of Avant-Garde Art. "Poème-Partition X" might be considered Heidsieck's first major work, whose duration (more than 40 minutes long) never allowed the author to give a public reading of it. Its destination was a record (released by alga marghen in 1996, starting the VocSon LP series, 36 years after its creation)! Alga Marghen is proud to now present this new edition of "Poème-Partition X", extended to the CD format and included in a luxury 96 pages hardbound book, limited to 350 numbered copies. The book reproduces for the first time the complete score, a visual wonder and a major experimental printed work. Bernard Heidsieck memories of an historic lecture at the Jean Tinguely atelier is included as an introduction, as well as his testimony on Ian Sommerville and Brion Gysin's "Dream Machine". Also on the CD is a lecture of extracts of "Poème-Partition X" accompanied by the saxophone of the American painter Larry Rivers. This recording from 1962 was not included in the LP edition and is here presented for the first time. In August 1962, Bernard Heidsieck went with John Ashberry, the American poet, to dinner at the studio of Jean Tinguely and Niky de Saint Phalle. Larry Rivers had a studio in the same place and was also there. Tinguely prepared grilled meat, akewered on one of his rotating sculptures. After dinner Rivers returned to his studio and began to play, alone and for himself. He earned his living, at the time, by playing sax at an after-hours jazz club. So, while he was playing Bernard Heidsieck joined him in his studio and suggested that they do an improvisation together. Something that Heidsieck had never done before, and have never done since! Larry Rivers immediately accepted, and an appointment was set up at Heidsieck home, for a few days later. August 6th, 1962. A dinner party was organised for the same guests who had been at Tinguely's place and this unique 17 minutes improvisation was recorded, but untill now never released. It was, however, presented at the first Fylkingen Text-Sound Composition Festival in Stockholm in 1968. Luxury hardbound edition limited to 350 numbered copies." |
| 4/10/2010 | Heitkotter, David | Heitkotter | LP | $29.99 | Time-Lag Records | Reissue of this legendary super-rare private press. A three-piece band plays sprawling, inept baked blues led by a mysterious mental patient. Housed in an ultra heavy cardboard sleeve on 180 gram vinyl, with an insert of insightful and speculative liner notes -- the most information you'll ever find about this mythic record. Truly one of the great outsider creations ever spawned under a full moon. "The circumstances behind Heitkotter are obscure and confusing: all that is known for certain is that Steve Heitkotter recorded the LP sometime before 1971, when he and his reluctant brother Bill took unsolicited promotional copies to eight local FM station in California's San Joaquin Valley. Whoever else may have participated is a mystery: Steven had spent the mid '60s drumming for Fresno garage mainstays the Road Runners, so he had some connections left, but the time after the Runners had reportedly brought him to psychotropic drugs and mental instability, and his family doubts that he was on good terms with enough musicians even to organize a drag jam of 'messed up desert loner westcoast churning and meandering, like a Magic Band gig falling apart' (Paul Major). The LP's murky sound and symbiotically disintegrating musicianship do seem to suggest that the session was cut live to four track, but Bill Heikotter swears that Steve was a loner at the time, alienated from his former bandmates, and that he recorded the album entirely by himself. That makes the amnesia of the musicians, who intermittently forget how to play their instruments, all the more curious, as Steve himself was a good guitarist and quasi-professional drummer, though the influence of drugs, fatigue, or apathy seems plausible enough." |
| 8/8/2009 | Helhesten | A Day Moth Cling | CDR | $9.99 | Chironex | "The microphone was poised, held in hands and rested on the tops of tables in Antwerp, Paris and Clermont Ferrand to collect these webs of clarinet, voice, autoharp, and field recordings. Two pieces balanced between spaced-out and tightly-stretched interjections which culminate in swamped-out tonal structures, which close listening builds as well as unpicking, mutating or smashing to pieces. This is a trio recording made on tour with Chora and Lanterns, both of whom might have held the microphone too." |
| 4/16/2007 | Hell & Bunny | Better Eulogies Are On Their Way | cassette | $9.99 | Tape Tektoniks | "30 minutes of creepy and jazzy improvisations by ben (percussion) and hans (cello) of graveyards and melee fame." |
| Hell Mach Four | Hell Mach Four | 12" EP | $8.99 | Mood Swing Records | Chaotic guitar driven psych | |
| 4/21/2008 | Hell Raiders, The | The Hell Raiders | cassette | $5.99 | Bread and Animals | "Spaced out synth tunes. electronic grooves. gunshots. mood setting ambience. and random conversations about freedom and beyond. THE HELL RAIDERS is a tribute to nature, freedom, sweet synth sounds, vhs messages and photoshop thinkers. this is part of our ongoing CULTURAL SERIES." |
| 5/29/2008 | Hello, Blue Roses | The Portrait Is Finished and I Have Failed To Capture Your Beauty | LP | $16.99 | Locust | "The sweetheart duo of Dan Bejar (Destroyer, Swan Lake, New Pornographers) & Sydney Vermont (visual artist, former Toronto Children's Choir kid singer) have tied the knot around an infectious readymade classic with their 14-track self-titled debut. The Portrait Is Finished folds the last few decades of pop music together, drawing on everything from an unabashed love of '80s AOR (Prefab Sprout & Kate Bush) to the cheery mysticism of young Scotland (Orange Juice & Felt) to prime Aquarian age femme folk of the '60s & '70s." Pressed on blue vinyl. |
| 1/1/2009 | Helloween Holocausts | Helloween Holocausts | double CDR & double cassette Box Set | $59.99 | American Tapes | "AM 490 2 CDs, C60, C5. Man... Halloween rules, touring around Halloween, even better. This set consists of various scary audio scaretracks gripped from stores around the US, some big names, some screaming garbage never to be seen again, all raw and intense. Set consists of some straight-up booted material and some remixed, can't tell which is which cause its all totally hell -- frightening!!! -- how you gonna make it even scarier? Just in time for the holiday! Shiver while screaming, chains, horrors, ghosts, metal, steps, ghouls, rain, thunder, knives, torture and general nightmare soundtracks close in on you. Contains material so close to Wolf Guys action that you will completely confused / stoked. Killer stolen graphics as well packaged in a helloween box. Get ready for sudden death!!! Numbered Edition of 25." 2005 release. |
| 3/6/2010 | Hellvete | De Gek | LP | $16.99 | Kraak | "Hellvete is one of the three members who founded the Flemish Funeral Folk collective and a key figure of the satanadelic combo Sylvester Anfang II. Similar to the mothership, his solo work spans from folk-inspired guitar drones to minimalist keyboard esoterica. The significant difference is that his solo songs are more composed and less improvised. "De Gek" (meaning "The Fool") is an epic trip through the different zones of the Hellvete Empire: layered guitar eruptions mix in with modern classical orchestration and dark folk tales. Influences such as Stephen R. Smith and Manuel Göttsching result in abstract sound narrations, that might just as well make one think of medieval folk or Rock In Opposition. On this debut LP all the aspects of what has been baptized the "Belgian dronevolkscene" culminate in an extraordinary exploration of the Self: a sonic exorcization of old demons and a return to the nostalgic peace of the country side. "De Gek" is a new interpretation of the modern psychedelic idylle. The Rochefort 10 of the new Belgian guitar folk tradition." |
| 8/22/2008 | Helm | Chrysalis | cassette | $5.99 | 905 Tapes | "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." |
| Henderson, Jeff / Nick Hodgson / Richard Neave | Live At The Shirley Community Centre | CD | $12.99 | CMP | Jeff Henderson (alto sax), Nick Hodgson (drums), and Richard Neave (guitars) recorded live on August 21, 1998. | |
| 2/23/2007 | Hetero Skeleton | En La Sombra Del Pajaro Velludo | CD | $14.99 | Load | "Five unholy speaker cone movers from Finland choke up a hairball of churning sax-driven mayhem. In between the notes, crinkle-cut sax spuzz links rude-itude of the highest order. Fans of Avarus will find the same disconnected fuckery pulsing through this disc. For fans of Flying Luttenbachers, Fat Worm Of Error, Butthole Surfers, and Blue Humans." |
| 11/17/2007 | Hetero Skeleton | Kryptos Orchis | cassette | $5.99 | American Grizzly | "noisy free jazz punk wankery, load records...members of avarus." |
| 9/23/2004 | Heule, Jacob Felix | Dog Days | CDR | $9.99 | 23 Productions | “Stuttering lo fi noise madness from Jacob Felix Huele on his cdr debut. Plenty of shredding noise sections with fucked up tape edits, looped rhythms, and mangled song parts in between. Highly recommended!” |
| 4/22/2009 | Hexlove | Es Nunar Covencha | 3" CDR | $4.99 | Majmua Music | "Majmua Music presents our first ever CD-R EP release, a curious little 3" disc by Hexlove. The full title of this release is "Music From the Film Es Noonar Covencha (Music for Unmade Films)". Eleven songs in just under 21 minutes, this is the new punk! Hexlove (previous releases on Holy Mountain, Weird Forest, and Dreamsheep Records) is the project of Zac Nelson, who also played in Who's Your Favorite Son, God? and Prints. A few years ago there was a soundtrack that needed making, for a film that needed imagining. Well, at long last you can hear the results - the film will have to be of your own creation. These songs are short sonic sunbursts of collage pop experimentalism. Don't believe me? Then find out for yourself..." |
| 2/7/2009 | Hexlove | Pijà Z Bogiem | double CD | $14.99 | Dreamsheep Records | "Beefheart or Eno? Magnetic Fields or Tricky? - Zac Nelson (see his releases on Holy Mountain and Temporary Residence...) comes from Illinois and his way to create music is pretty unique. Divived between impressive instrumental sections, gorgeous almost-feminine vocal parts, explosive drum skills and beautiful melodic inventions, Nelson shows the widest musical range and the best inspiration we ever tasted recently in the underground/indie scene. This is the second CD release from him - a wonderful collection of songs, drum-obsessed jams and crazy pop sketches. Here is an absolutely brilliant manifesto of his art. 2xCD wrapped in clear jewel case - 4-panel booklet - SIAE stickers - some copies come with "Hexlove" sticker on shrinkwrap." Edition of 500. |
| 9/30/2005 | Hey Colossus | II | LP | $15.99 | Wakuserie Records | "While hardcore rock can be restricted by the taut, angry insularity of it's own logic, and stoner rock can often be too out of it to understand the meaning of the term, London five piece Hey Colossus synthesize the best of both genres. 'Hey Colossus II', the follow up to their mini-album debut 'Hey Colossus Hates You And You And You', doesn't summon up the obliterating void of the blackest Metal (the cover is grey with delicate chalk sketching). Instead, they craft space around their monolithic assault, aiming for the precise balance of mass and space of Shellac or Fugazi. It's paradoxical that while the heaviest blackest rock relies on the primal immediacy of the riff, many of it's strongest moments emerge in the most epic symphonic works - notably Sleep's 60 minute 'Jerusalem', more or less constructed from several distinct movements. Similarly, each headlong assault on 'Hey Colossus II' is followed by an intermission of sensuous feedback. The ten minute assault of 'Take It' is a carefully calibrated exercise in electrical overload, where the warm riffage slowly begins to arc and crackle like a pylon in a storm. 'Hey Colossus II's' egalitarian interchanges between three guitarists finally resolve into the long-anticipated Sabbath hammer blows of 'Raise The Flag (This Planet's Ours)'. Hey Colossus's brand of metal attempts a restrained aggression that, over the length of an album, attains a satisfying architectural symmetry. At their zenith, in the midst of the longform workouts, they come close to touching simultaneous blisspoints of Neu!'s motorik momentum and Bardo Pond's fathomless well of distortion." - The Wire, April 2005 |
| 5/29/2008 | Hi-God People / Zond | split | LP | $21.99 | Spanish Magic | "Melbourne, Australia's experimental rock underbelly gives birth to a baby that stumbles and screams. The Hi-God People side was recorded around the same time as their recent split 12' with New Zealanders the Dead C. It has live snippets from their show at the Palace whilst supporting Sonic Youth and recordings from a radio 3CR session. Their live shows vary from cosmic rock jams to evolution performance art epics. Pop stars doing the tango with some psychedelic monk. On the flip side is Zond! Zond are a rock group from Melbourne, Australia. They are named after a satellite of the USSR. But Zond are broadcasting dark ecstasy, not from space but from a place far below. They are a Rorschach blot, or a Freudian analysis gone wrong. Their live shows vary from a screaming psychedelic car crash to ambient metal: all that can be known in advance is the intensity of the performance. Zond include members of past and present groups: On, Fong, Library Punks, Mum Smokes, Ned & the Meds, The Stabs. This is Zond's first release." Limited edition of 300 copies - the covers and labels are completely handmade utilizing multiple screenprints, stencils, and hand carved stamps. |
| 2/20/2010 | Higgins, Dick | The Thousand Symphonies | CD | $19.99 | Alga Marghen | "Alga Marghen presents the first edition ever issued of Dick Higgins' music. Fluxus founding member, in 1958 Dick Higgins studied Composition and Experimental Music with John Cage in his class at the New School for Social Research in New York together with, among others, La Monte Young, Richard Maxfield, Toshi Ichiyanaghi, George Brecht, Allan Kaprow, Al Hansen, Jackson Mac Low. In the Spring of 1968 Geoffrey Hendricks and Robert Watts told Dick Higgins of a project that was afoot at Douglass College, where both were teaching at the time, to organize a show around guns. At that time the USA police seemed to have nothing better to do than to chase down teenagers for possessing miniscule amounts of marijuana and throwing them in jail, thus ruining their lives. Dick Higgins decided it would be more worthy if one could set all the policemen in the USA to composing symphonies themselves. So he proposed that the beautiful music paper be machine gunned and that symphonies be derived from the result. Geoffrey Hendricks arranged for Captain Toby of the South Brunswick Police to do this, which duly happened with a 9mm MP40 Schmeisser submachine gun, filmed by Alison Knowles. A volunteer orchestra, conducted by Philip Corner and including Charlotte Moorman, performed nine of the resulting symphonies at Douglass College on December 9th. The Douglass concert was taped, but the only copy disappeared when the Ars Viva! Gallery in Berlin, Germany, went bankrupt in 1984. The whole situation was documented with photographs in Source Magazine in 1970. As Philip Corner, conductor of the recordings presented here, said: "Leave it to Dick Higgins to come up with the most spectacular way to generate a page of patternless notes. Once over this dramatic gesture with machine-gun bullets leaves a stack of paper full of holes. I had not thought of this before but there must have been a conscious connection to the social turmoil of the 60's - all too unfortunately, come back around to high relevance these days". First press limited to 500 copies with digipack sleeve, also including a 16 page booklet with full documentation presenting 2 texts by Dick Higgins from the 1960s as well as a Philip Corner testimony, original photos and original scores. |
| 9/30/2005 | Higgins, Gary | Red Hash | CD | $13.99 | Drag City | "Red Hash features eleven haunting tracks of folk-pop played on acoustic and electric guitar and arranged with percussion, cello, flute, piano, organ, bass and mandolin. This plus Gary's transcendent vocals bring to mind the perfectly-damaged vibes found in David Crosby's masterpiece of peace, love and paranoia, If I Could Only Remember My Name and the recently re-discovered and acclaimed Parallelograms by Linda Perhacs. This is the first-ever authorized reissue of Red Hash - direct from the original master tapes. The Red Hash CD includes two unheard bonus cuts and never before seen artwork/photos. Red Hash is held in very high regard by current torch-bearers/taste-makers: Animal Collective, Joanna Newsom, WFMU, Devendra Banhart, Ben Chasny, Sunburned Hand of the Man, White Magic, and Espers." First reissue of this underground folk-psych classic, originally released in 1973 as a self-released LP. Highly recommended! |
| 9/29/2009 | Higgins, Gary | Seconds | CD | $14.99 | Drag City | "A beautiful acoustic-based record featuring careful, melancholy arrangements in the tradition set by Gary's famous 1974 masterpiece 'Red Hash', but with a few unpredictable musical touches. Gary Higgins is a monumental figure in the folk-psych cult. 'Seconds.' strings together moments of life, working through regrets and reflections on fallibility, the odd flashback, and a few hopes for the future over the course of seven deep songs. 'Seconds.' weaves black threads of lyrical reflection into its sleeve in the shortlived Higgins tradition. Gary is accompanied on 'Seconds.' by The Random Concept, comprised of his musical companions through the years, several of whom played on 'Red Hash', including Dave Beaujon, Terry Fenton, Graham Higgins and Dave VandeBogart." |
| 4/3/2010 | Higgs, Daniel | Magic Alphabet | CD | $12.99 | Northern Liberties | Packaged in hand letter-pressed 4 panel miniLP style package. "On "Magic Alphabet" Daniel presents 17 instrumental Jews harp improvisations recorded in 2003 by Chad Clark at Silver Sonya. These improvisations are spare and hypnotic, some with sparse beats, most naked and self apparent. This is not pop music by any stretch of the imagination, rather it's an invitation to explore and meditate on the purity, simplicity and range of a singular organic instrument." |
| 11/17/2007 | Higgs, Daniel | Metempsychotic Melodies | CD | $14.99 | Holy Mountain | "Daniel Higgs returns with his second full length recording for Holy Mountain after last year's critically acclaimed Ancestral Songs and his contribution. Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot, to Thrill Jockey's series of books collecting art and music. Metempsychotic Melodies continues to document Higgs' rise as a solo performer. Raw picked acoustic guitar drones dominate Metempsychic Melodies as the instrumental "Universal Salutation" fades into the waking dream soliloquy of observation "Love Abides." "Leontocephaline Rhapsody" is a long waltzy drone with enough spooky atmosphere for one to think that it could have been recorded at Sunshine studios as there is a heavy Vogel vibe to the whole thing. Rumor has it engineer Tim Green told Higgs that he had to fade the track otherwise they were going to be arrested. Vocals return for the closing track "All Cherished Things" an epic about change, sound and transformation." |
| 6/4/2010 | Higgs, Daniel | Say God | double CD | $14.99 | Thrill Jockey | "In recent years, Higgs has released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the ultimate in isolation, worlds away from the hypnotic, communal rock of his band, Lungfish. Higgs follows up the 2007 album/book release Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot with his new double album Say God. Say God is an album of gospel songs and poems as presently received by this Daniel Higgs. Recorded with the help and enthusiasm of David Andrew Sitek, who graciously provided this Daniel Higgs with an environment in which to prosper and enjoy the adventure of recording, or, if you will, the ensnaring of songs as they migrate through time and mind, that they might be heard many places at once, with the singer absent. Song seeds cast abroad, that their message, The Advent Of The Songway, the Way Across, might take root, twist and fruit, light for all. It is the simple hope of this Daniel Higgs that the album Say God may be of any use to the listener, may serve the listener, may accompany the listener in clairaudient fellowship." 4-panel gatefold mini-LP style package with 8"x10" insert. |
| 6/4/2010 | Higgs, Daniel | Say God | double LP | $17.99 | Thrill Jockey | Gatefold 2LP version with insert. "In recent years, Higgs has released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the ultimate in isolation, worlds away from the hypnotic, communal rock of his band, Lungfish. Higgs follows up the 2007 album/book release Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot with his new double album Say God. Say God is an album of gospel songs and poems as presently received by this Daniel Higgs. Recorded with the help and enthusiasm of David Andrew Sitek, who graciously provided this Daniel Higgs with an environment in which to prosper and enjoy the adventure of recording, or, if you will, the ensnaring of songs as they migrate through time and mind, that they might be heard many places at once, with the singer absent. Song seeds cast abroad, that their message, The Advent Of The Songway, the Way Across, might take root, twist and fruit, light for all. It is the simple hope of this Daniel Higgs that the album Say God may be of any use to the listener, may serve the listener, may accompany the listener in clairaudient fellowship." |
| 7/14/2010 | Higgs, Daniel | Unrock Instore Gig Series Vol. 18 | CDR | $16.99 | Unsound | "The fascinating artwork is made by Daniel Higgs himself, a silkscreened print in a edition of 150 handnumbered copies. "Hoofprints On The Ceiling Of Your Mind" from his new album "Hey God" released on Thrill Jockey Records recently, was taken from his live performance at Unrock. More than 70 minutes of pure magic in a perfect recording quality. |
| 12/29/2001 | High Rise | Desperado | CD | $15.99 | PSF | "Long awaited sixth album from 1998 for PSF (following the epics II, Dispersion, Live, and Disallow) by this time-honored post-motor-city rave up clan, featuring Nanjo Asahito on bass/vox, Munehiro Narita on 'motor-cycle-guitar' and Shoji Hano on drums. Phrases like 'in the red' or 'amped-up' don't even begin to relate present levels of near-fatal voltage abuse. Contains some off-kilter exploratory cuts that don't veer to far from paths cut by sister ensemble Musica Transonic, which I suppose could be determined as a 'new direction'. Still, a ridiculous display of caffeine/sugar energy converted into audible wavelengths by Tokyo's premiere baff-rock scuzz-manics." |
| 6/19/2002 | High Rise | Destination (Best of) | CD | $15.99 | PSF | "Unbelievably, High Rise are celebrating their twentieth anniversary this year. Strictly speaking, they started out as Psychedelic Speed Freaks, only taking the High Rise name in 1983. But, whatever - the will to a state where uber-heaviness and uber-speed merge into one all-enveloping bliss haze has been their one shining goal for a full two decades now. Acceleration, motor-burn, and blinding forward motion encapsulated through guitar, bass and drums. What you get is twelve remastered tracks of totally thrilling, full on, heads down, speed-psych-metal mayhem taken from their classic PSF releases. The album also includes two previously unreleased tracks: a studio version of live favourite 'Ikon', and a new piece called 'Heavenly Power'. For once the superlatives are fully deserved. High Rise are the band that kick-started a label and a scene. They're the power-trio to end all power-trios." - Alan Cummings |
| High Rise | Disallow | CD | $12.99 | Squealer | CD version. | |
| 6/5/2009 | High Rise | Disallow | CD | $15.99 | PSF | "This High Rise album [Disallow] will need no recommending to anyone who has already heard and liked the band. For what it's worth, though, this is as impressive as any other (despite the super stupid Ninja-chrome writing and Carcass-style 'art' on the cover). So for the most part (for four five-minute parts) a selection of change-our-minds-as-we-go punk rock riffs (check out, for instance, the better part of the Electric Prunes' mighty 'You Never Had it Better' as it's driven so fast it shakes itself nearly to pieces under the name 'Ikon') get blown up large through a thick and thunderous magnifying lens of loud fuzz and wah and the real-as-you-like feel of live jamming. What's different (from II and Dispersion, anyway), is that you can hear the drums a little better than usual, and that they sound a little worse than usual (less Stoogely, more hardcore), played this time by one PILL; and there's a longer piece of doodle-to-climax free form stuff at the end which seems a bit of a distraction from what they do best, especially when the CD is only half full. It's generally intenser, though, and closer to the punch of II than anything. They've been boiling down Vincebus Eruptum and No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith with Live Dead and a few Buffalo LP's for over a decade now, and that the tarry goo at the bottom of the pan tastes this good might just make them the heaviest power trio of all time". -Jon Bywater, Opprobrium #3, 1996 |
| 6/5/2009 | High Rise | Dispersion | CD | $15.99 | PSF | "Their 3rd release. Killer-Fuzz-Wah-Wah psychedelic heaven! Excellent stuff-must for every speed-fuzz-freak!" |
| 6/5/2009 | High Rise | II | CD | $15.99 | PSF | "Monumental performance by Japanese psychedelic garage masters. Incredibly wild and tough guitar sound." "Reissue of the 2nd High Rise LP, with 2 bonus tracks. Ultimate all-in-the-red distortion-psych monster. Blew away the few who heard it on first release in the mid '80s and continues to convert people along the way." - FE |
| 6/5/2009 | High Rise | Live | CD | $15.99 | PSF | "Their 1st live CD. Naked madness of Japanese psychedelic. Great performance!" "Trio heavy fuzz blasts of near speaker blowing proportions. Their third CD (fourth album overall) and possibly their most flat out insane." - FE |
| 5/20/2009 | High Rise | Psychedelic Speed Freaks Live 1986 | DVD | $19.99 | PSF | "First DVD by the kings of speed garage psychedelia, High Rise! Recorded live in Osaka in 1986, around the time of their second album by the all-time classic line-up of Nanjo (bass, vocals), Narita (guitar) and Ujiie (drums). Suitably grainy and colour-saturated visuals capture the group laying down their staggering brand of intense garage-psych with Narita's guitar ripping weird, devastating solo holes in the songs, and Ujiie and Nanjo laying down that exhilarating sense of reckless acceleration. Still some of the most effective rock qua rock ever recorded. Just unbelievable. Six tracks, 25 minutes." - Alan Cummings. |
| High Rise | Psychobomb - US Tour 2000 | CD | $15.99 | PSF | "First live High Rise album on PSF since the still astounding peak of 'Live' (PSFD-48). Seven tracks, fifty-two minutes. If there's anyone that doesn't already know, High Rise were where it all started. A group that boiled down improv, the hardest psych, the fastest punk into an injectable shot of accelerated adrenaline. The group were source of the first psych-ic rumbles to reach the West, indicating that something quite remarkable was happening in the Tokyo underground. Without High Rise there would have been no PSF (the acronym stands for Psychedelic Speed Freaks - the group's early moniker and the title of their debut album), no Musica Transonic, no Mainliner... This latest release features the group live in New York and Seattle on their most recent US tour, before an adoring audience of speedfreak boneheads (maybe you'll even hear yourself hollering 'louder' or 'faster'). Surprisingly, the trademark Nanjo production aesthetic has been toned down a notch, leaving the splattered acid genius and tonal control (!) of Narita's solos the most evident they've ever been. Nanjo and ex-White Heaven drummer Koji Shimura are as poundingly heavy a rhythm section as you could wish for. But it's the guitar where it is at: there's still nothing quite like Narita kicking open the throttle and tearing into a manic solo, leaving shit-eating grins to eat dust in his wake..." | |
| 3/2/2008 | High Speed Recording Complex, The | Featuring Michael Yonkers & GR | CDR | $13.99 | Lesdisques Blasphematoires Du Palatin | "The complex handmade cdr edition / including psycho cover-case--ltd collectors run of 100 copies." - label. "5 tracks are the result of this distant collaboration process. GR playing drums & drumming feedback from France and Michael Yonkers adding guitar wall of noise & vocals from Minneapolis." - liner notes. Out of print. |
| 7/8/2010 | High Wolf | Ascension | LP | $12.99 | Not Not Fun | "Pyramidal meditationist High Wolf has been highly active since last summer's Animal Totem tape dropped on NNF: he's released three full-length CDRs, started his own record label (Winged Sun), begun a mail-collab with Astral Social Club (as Iibiis Rooge), embarked on two UK/Euro tours (one with heavyweights Gnod), plus trekked out on a month-long solo journey through India to collect field recordings and get deep. Whoa! Makes you feel lazy right? Well actually that's not all, as he also spent a few months somewhere in there recording, mixing, and re-recording the five multifaceted ethno-flux odysseys that comprise Ascension, his debut vinyl full-length. Utilizing his usual toolbag of looped tablas, fuzz guitar leads, chiming white light guitar, synth swells, and cloud-climbing electronics, the album safaris through a host of ecstatic ritual landscapes with more focus and magic than any other High Wolf hunt to date. A beautiful album for dissolving, dreaming, dancing (in a certain way). Been spinning this one weekly, share the flight. Black vinyl LPs mastered by Pete Swanson and housed in jackets with artwork by Kaugummi Magazine captain Bartolome Sanson. Edition of 400." |
| 9/24/2009 | High Wolf | Incapulco | CDR | $9.99 | Winged Sun | 2nd edition. "New Cdr only release. Random jams recorded after those releases you enjoyed (animal totem on Not Not Fun / gabon on Winged Sun / digital heaven on Stunned) . Expect some fuzzy wah guitars, trancey keyboards, delayed vocals, groovy percussions and jungle spirit! Artwork by Skyler Hitchcox." Edition of 99 copies. |
| 11/4/2006 | Higuchi, Hisato | Dialogue | CD | $12.99 | Family Vineyard | "Dialogue is the first American release by Tokyo's new rising power Hisato Higuchi. Originally a puppeteer, Higuchi has transformed his glacial, shadow-box inspired hand movements to the twilight theater of electric guitar. His six-string tones and hushed vocals fan out from these haunted torch songs and burning embers of Patty Waters and Keiji Haino's quieter, introspective work. Overall, a beautiful meditation and entirely new vision of celestial blues. His seemingly wordless Japanese croon is a smoky, after-hours call of loss or spectral introspection. "Higuchi's music manifests a unique and singular conception. It breathes slowly, almost to the point of stillness, an eerie voice and flinty guitar searching for quiet revelation." -- Jon Dale, The Wire |
| 4/24/2006 | Hirvileuka | I | CDR | $9.99 | Outa | "Improvised music with nice melodies and rhythms. Nicely done - it does not slip into chaos." |
| 11/17/2007 | Hisato Higuchi | Butterfly Horse Street | CD | $12.99 | Family Vineyard | "Tokyo-based guitarist/singer Hisato Higuchi has shaped an inimitable sound sphere of solitary electric notes that drape across his unearthly moan during the course of two full-lengths and an EP. Channeling loneliness and desire as elegant six-string tone poems, Higuchi has reached the heights of fellow travelers from Meredith Monk to Charalambides. Though Butterfly Horse Street adds an unexpected snarl as Higuchi erupts into a free/noise, wall of sound guitar style that echoes the most ecstatic string manipulation of Masayuki Takayanagi or Donald Miller (Borbetomagus). Ferocious and howling, Higuchi still paints desolation whether bleeding into the red or as hushed beauty." |
| 1/1/2008 | Hive Mind | Cast Through Shallow Earth | LP | $15.99 | No Fun | "Synth music for the exploration of desolated lands, slow and detailed side long movements of pure tonal sound. After millions of years when everything has withered away and nothing survives what will remain in this earth? Minerals, boiling lava, smoke, and corrosion in a shallow earth.Limited to 400 copies." Great record - highly recommended! |
| 2/1/2005 | Hive Mind | Death Tone | CD | $12.99 | Hanson | “’I'll trade my Cinnamon Twists for a third of that Nuclear Bombast. Weird dudes jamming synths. Alone. Social Problems. Problems. Recorded late into the night. Fucking A. That is the business, right there. Check ‘Ze Wormnest’ or Matthew Young for bleary eyed-no-fan sound destruction. Shit is just creepy-gets under your skin. While most noise youth get their chocolate fingers lost in gadgetry and posturing-something about a synth jam that's just.... Human ... humanly wrong. But fucking right. Right on Hive Mind. Out of some strange comic miasma emerged this hulking thing known for playing in corners or under black sheets with short fingers churning out cosmic tales of bass heavy sheets of molten alien sound cut with xray pirate eyes. Dude is some serious Michigan shit. This sound-injecting terrorist is crew to all the like minded and total jag-off MI underground weirdo brethren's. I think he soaked his pyramid genitals in ice cold antifreeze to get where ‘Death Tone’ lives in underwater-cave life. Jamz are just lurking around your chest buzzing like a Mike Tyson bee until a nuclear war-spear goes directly into your chest leaving your breath exchanged for Korean X-Files future creature Autopsy scenes. I've been to Roswell, shit is creepy, even at Pizza Hut, mid day. None of my crew jamz synths, some dabble but don't have the slomo overbite terror vision of my man Hive Mind. Isn't your jellied brain a fucking hive? Mine has a really big queen in the center telling me to keep watching ‘The Thing’ (remake) with the sound off in a super warm birth room while listening to ‘Death Tone’ on a dying Walkman. I don't listen to the queen, or take advice. Me and my man the Kid thought all Hive Mind needed to hone in his awesome social synth prowess was to be locked in a room with Richard Pinhas for a year on a diet of nothing but snake burritos-but again-no one listens to advice, especially a homeboy. Psychotic drugs, cheap beer, shorties, the Roach, assholes, hung over at work... yesss, heroes to the High Life.” - John Olson, Wolf Eyes / American Tapes |
| 2/7/2009 | Hive Mind | Eidolic & Opaque | cassette | $8.99 | Tone Filth | "Densely layered pulsing synth static and loops evolving over the course of 20 minutes. If I were to compare this to any Hive Mind release you may I have heard I would mention Writhing Flesh, but if every sound became a part of the whole. Edition of 100 with screen printed insert/case and professional printed chrome cassettes." |
| 2/26/2006 | Hive Mind | untitled | 7" | $25.99 | AA | One-sided square lathe cut 7" from Nate Young's (Wolf Eyes) AA label. Nice Hive Mind artwork on the record. |
| 11/21/2009 | Hive Mind | Untitled | 8" lathe | $20.99 | Alt.Vinyl | "Classsic Hive Mind action from Chondritic Sounds main man Greh Holger. Side A could be igneous recordings of granite mantle motors powering lichen-slow tectonic shifts within the crust of some ancient moon. The flip side has a slightly more organic feel... the heartbeat of a dying whale as heard by the ocean floor..." |
| 3/21/2007 | Hive Mind & Aaron Dilloway | Forgotten Thrist | one-sided LP | $14.99 | Chondritic Sound / Hanson | "Reissue of the 3" of the same name, minimal tape terror and groan frenzy mangling of a hive mind piece originally released on gods of tundra. The sounds from inside a fish gasping in open air for 3 minutes straight, but then slowed down to a 15 minute creepy-crawl. One sided clear blue slab with circle of fish screenprinted on the b-side. watch 'em swim while it plays! Screenprinted 12x12 insert in picture LP sleeve." Edition of 500 copies. |
| 9/29/2005 | Hive Mind & Luasa Raelon | Night Maintenance | CD | $12.99 | Chondritic Sound | "one 20 minute track from Hive Mind, 35 mniutes across 4 tracks from Luasa Raelon (including a cover version of Sand Beasts) and one 20 minute collaborative piece! all packaged nicely in a jewelcase with silkscreened artwork, comes packaged in a jewelcase. co-released with snip-snip!" Recommended! |
| 3/21/2007 | Hive Mind + John Wiese | It's Exactly What You Think it is / Trick Satanism | 10" | $13.99 | Chondritic Sound | "Spooked space collab recorded in LA at Terror House in late Summer 2004 used as source sounds reprocessed by Wiese to merge this mutant. Full-color pro-printed 10" sleeve with cover art by John Olson (American Tapes / Wolf Eyes / Dead Machines / etc)." Edition of 500 copies, color covers. |
| 2/26/2006 | Hive Mind / Workbench | Permanence | LP | $15.99 | Chondritic Sound / Heavy Tapes | "All new double-downer split between me and my man bernstein. My side is a slow motion throwdown of pure symmetry, neither starting nor stopping and leaving you confused. Workbench transcends time and space with a synth/chant piece hot on the heels of synapse transit. comes in silkscreened chipboard jacket with artwork by Maya Miller." Edition of 300 copies. |
| 3/21/2007 | Hive Mind, Cadaver in Drag, Charle Draheim, Moth Drakula | Tour | CDR | $10.99 | Chondritic Sound | "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." Edition of 200 copies. |
| 9/30/2005 | HL | Broken | 3" CDR | $7.99 | Firstperson | "Film maker, Curator, Site Specific artist, musician. Dan Hopkins tells tales of regret, loss and hopelessness between finely crafted, shifting electronic landscapes. The cold digital hand is thawed by the heart of one who has loved and lost..." |
| 3/6/2010 | Hoffman, Nick | Silent Island | CDR | $8.99 | House of Alchemy | "Loner electronic compositions. Heavy and claustrophobic. Is/was Katchmare. Here we cut down to the surface. A modern voice in composing, bare and challenging. Get engulfed. 60 copies." |
| 12/25/2005 | Holcomb, Roscoe | The High Lonesome Sound | LP | $29.99 | Bo' Weavil Recordings | "The third release from London based label Bo' Weavil Recordings, goes further into the depth of traditional American folk music with the legendary Roscoe Holcomb performing 17 powerful songs shaped by the hard times and conflict between old and new that marked his life in the rural Appalachian mountains. The sounds on this record were collected 40 odd years ago. Sometimes when you listen to Roscoe Holcomb sing it might've been 400 years ago. Sometimes it could be happening to you right now. These songs and instrumental pieces go back to the 20s and 30s and beyond, into the mists of pre-recorded time. They are the traditional songs of the Kentucky mountains before the advent of radio and record player when itinerant musicians, market places, church and country fair were the conduit of tradition. But these songs, recorded in the unique high and lonesome style of Roscoe Holcomb, were the last folk songs. Already, 40 years ago, Holcomb's music was not appreciated in his own community. He was a throwback, a dinosaur in the age of the Twist. A singer with a truly 'high lonesome sound' that sends shivers down the spine, and a hard-hitting wonderful banjo-player/guitarist. This LP also contains Roscoe performing unaccompanied ballads, banjo and harmonica solos. These recordings were previously released by Folkways in 1968 that had a powerful influence on the folk music revival, and has been crying out for a new vinyl release. Accompanied by some of the original notes on the lyrics and history of each song and some new comments on Roscoe in 2005." |
| 5/9/2009 | Hole Class | Hole Class | LP | $11.99 | Meds | "Mostly recorded on a farm in Ohio in 2006 by Beth Murphy (Times New Viking) & Rob Enbom (Eat Skull). Great pop songs from this duo with a "gothic country" vibe that vaguely calls to mind an interpretation of Nancy & Lee by Neil & Jennifer. There is a stripped down feel and intimacy to everything here. From roadtrip singalongs to true heartbreakers, a perfect album." |
| 5/14/2007 | Holger, Greh | Paralysis | cassette | $6.99 | Hanson | "Breaking my recent c-30 rule to release this intense c-60 of Hive Mind's main man Greh Holger. Two 30 minute sides of motionless, uneffected modular synth. Slow as hell modulations, which take a full side to change and I think the tape runs out before that even happens.. For fans of SUPER EIGHT LOOP." |
| 2/11/2006 | Holiday Stabbings | Buried in Edmund | CDR | $10.99 | "Buried in Edmunds" live bootleg June 2005. This bootleg was recorded whilst on tour in summer '05 in Bury St. Edmunds, England. It was captured on dictaphone by our dear friend and spiritual leader, Joey Chainsaw. All credit goes to him for remembering to press record. Order of tracks: 1. Untitled improv. 2. Bellyache 3. Arteries & Veins 4. I am the trainwreck "Now THIS is fucking killer. The best band you've never heard of (yet) rips your brain out, get totally mad-scientist on that shit, then slop it back in all fucked with some staples or something. Another review done while pleasantly shrooming and paying extra-close attention while the music blares from my stereo... this release literally SOUNDS like it is trying to bury you. The band gets into some real rocking moments at points, but knows how to control their chaos and revel in the feedback and madness. I would've been freaking out if I was in the crowd at this show... some parts sound like they're walking on their instruments and howling or something. Truly rad shit." - Dillon Tulk, www.monotremata.com | |
| 2/11/2006 | Holiday Stabbings | Run Your Fingers Through the Grooves in My Skull | CDR | $10.99 | Umbilical | Part of a week's august heat summer recording under the gaze of the sun gods at City Farm, middle of the fields and middle of space. Totally improvised, 42-minute departure into the void, recorded on cassette 4-track at the culmination of tape-loop brain-spill and morning mist inflorescence. Regular contributors joined by our good friend Robbie Dawson. All hand-made packaging w/photo cover, insert. "Oh how sweet. A new Holiday Stabbings release! This is a fucking stoned-out feeling jam featuring traditional instruments, electronics, bells, TV, etc... some improvised trippiness that ends a bit too soon for me. You have to play it ultra loud to hear everything, and then when you do other parts become overbearing and it really shakes things up! Solid release in my opinion, except I personally could listen to this for an hour and it kinda halts after some killer parts leave you salivating, wanting more Holiday Stabbings. I guess thats the point? You bastards!" - Dillon Tulk, www.monotremata.com |
| 9/17/2006 | Hollow Bush | Negative Line | cassette | $6.99 | Hansom | "TOTAL SHIT-FI BRUTALITY from the new project of RODGER STELLA of MACRONYMPHA ...Sickening walls of full blown scummy psychedelic HARSH NOISE! This shit is some live SCUM recorded by STELLA and BUSH partner BRYAN MARTIN." |
| 10/25/2008 | Hollow Bush + Sick Llama | Wavering Uncertainty | cassette | $6.99 | Fag Tapes | "This collab. took place earlier this summer in the Bama. so hot in the South that yer brain is boiling and melting. top that with road trippin' and partying. WEIRD recordings! we played a house gig (watch out for Super Street 22) and the second we ended the set Roger Stella's pants fell down and the multiple beer cans dropped all somehow landed up-right not spilling a drop. then a cookoo clock went off, a car crashed into a tree out front and my phone rang. i answered and it was some guy asking if i knew anything about theremin, clarinet and tape bounce? edition 50." |
| 1/16/2003 | Hollydrift | This Way to Escape | CD | $8.99 | Public Eyesore | "New works by Middleton Wisconin's Mathias Anderson. Subtle and secluded compositions incorporating gently flowing mechanical noises, drifting whines & drones, slowly evolving loops, and highly processed found and incidental recordings." |
| 7/16/2004 | Hollydrift | Waiting For The Tiller | CD | $11.99 | Parasomnic Records | "Hollydrift is me, Mathias Anderson, working from a studio in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin with a battery of captured sounds, tape recorders, signal receivers, and effects. This music comes from an old world. I use captured sound as main source material and amalgamate these sounds with other divergent forms of aural matter. My creations depart for lands unknown and arrive on the other side. I offer my music for your own interpretation. I cannot explain it. Many people call Hollydrift difficult listening. If you don't like where you are, let the sounds take you somewhere else. The music of Hollydrift is non-confrontational in sound or philosophy. I'm not here to convince you of anything or eradicate any barricades you may have built. You will not be challenged to endure walls of noise or some arcane sonic agenda while listening to Hollydrift. Art is for everyone. That is, after all, the whole point. From Parasomnic Records: Hollydrift's sound art appeals to fans of dark ambient, space music, noise, musique concrete, field recording and even more traditional styles of electronic music. Anderson manages to do this without the predictable pounding, screaming or screeching that has become much too common within the currently expanding ocean of 'experimental' and 'noise' artists. The result is a Janusian portrait: a fleeting glance at days gone by alongside a glimpse into an uncertain future. It is the soundtrack to a journey both beautiful and terrifying." |
| 9/30/2005 | Holm, Øyvind | The Vanishing Act | CD | $13.99 | Camera Obscura | "The somewhat ironically titled "The Vanishing Act" finds the leader of Norwegian psychedelic pop band Dipsomaniacs stepping out from underneath the band's symbiotic umbrella. It's an act Øyvind Holm has nearly performed before (only not as visibly), having masterminded and executed the debut Dipsomaniacs release "Bumble-Bee Eyes" solo in 1997. Holm then recruited three gifted musicians to fill out the band's sound and five true Dipsomaniacs band efforts followed, each achieving more international critical acclaim than its predecessor, most recently with "Praying Winter" (Camera Obscura 2003). Whether with his band or as a solo artist, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Holm makes no effort to hide his passion for the clever lyric, melodic beauty and sonic innovation that characterized the music of the mid to late '60s, as well the artists since who have followed in those hazy, flowery paths. With "The Vanishing Act", Holm layers his Lennonesque vocals over sweet melodies that often conceal a bitterness buried within the poetic lyrics. Like those classic albums from psychedelic pop's Golden Age, The Vanishing Act celebrates psychedelia, pure folk, buoyant pop, melodic surf rock and blues forms simultaneously as if they were never meant to be parsed into distinct genres. The Eastern nuances of the title track (one of two co-written with fellow Norwegian Bent Sæther of Motorpsycho) mingle seamlessly with chiming 12-string. Lap steel and piano lend ethereal and jazzy overtones respectively to "Cut Me Loose". Surf rocker "Seven Years" pulses furiously over gentle backing vocal waves. Given Holm's well-known affinity for those most notable'60s mop tops, it's not surprising that his solo debut carries a few nods to the fabs as they split off into their own directions - The effortless bounce and handmade percussion of "Neighborhood Watch Parole", the acrimony of "(A Good Taste of) Everything," and the Harrison-worthy spirituality which saturates both "The Skeleton Key Pt. 2" and the title track. Throw in a reverence for the mad genius of Syd Barrett, the social commentary of Ray Davies and the innovative West Coast fusions concocted by Love and the Byrds and you have an inkling of Holm's muse. With melody and poetry the primary characters and inspired arrangements the supporting cast, Øyvind Holm's The Vanishing Act more than merits a the attention of both fans of vintage psychedelia and the best in modern pop song-craft." |
| 3/20/2010 | Holy Family | Anoint | c25 cassette | $7.99 | Digitalis Limited | "This one is for the gold, all the way and all the time. holy family is the modular synth duo of lawrence english and john chantler (room40 extraordinaires). and you know what's coming. it opens onto a putrid, rotting corpse hanging from the bedchamber. chantler & english aren't fuckign around. their synths sound like they're dying, every note stretched to the point of breaking oscillating into the ground. this is not child's play. before you know it your blood stops flowing, turned into a molasses. faint echoes try to scratch their way to the surface, totally buried alive. every so often you think you hear a melody whirring from behind, but everything gets swallowed back down into this deep, dark pit. intense. incredible. edition of 125." Sold out at label. |
| 2/10/2004 | Holy Ghost Reception Committee No. 9 | Collected Works | CD | $18.99 | Void | “Both albums by Holy Ghost Reception Committee – now on 1 CD. Originally they are from 1968 and 1969. Ultra rare albums containing some amazing acid garage / psychedelia loaded with mystic messages from the Lord. Taken from the original masters.” |
| 2/10/2004 | Holy Ghost Reception Committee No. 9 | Songs For Liturgical Worship | LP | $21.99 | Void | "Very limited reissue of only 500 copies. Originally this, their debut album, was released in 1968. Ultra rare album containing some amazing acid garage / psychedelia loaded with mystic messages from the Lord. Taken from the original masters." |
| 12/24/2005 | Holy McGrail | Collective Earthquakes | CD | $15.99 | Head Heritage | "Here at last, COLLECTING EARTHQUAKES is Holy McGrail's heavy-breathing and Yggdrasil-riding debut album. Clad in a faux-Armenian sleeve to die for, this is Doomsday's year zero for all you trudge metal outlaws. McGrail here presents us with 3 outrageously strung-out underworld rides into the dying embers of the West with the pride of Woden's Wild Hunt as his homeboys. Massive contributions by Brain Donor's Doggen, plus an all-inspiring collaboration with Sunn 0)))'s Stephen O'Malley." |
| 12/21/2004 | Holy Modal Rounders | Indian War Whoop | LP | $10.99 | Get Back | "The Rounders first electric outing from '67, and the only one to feature their most cosmos-expanding lineup (including playwright Sam Shephard). This is the sound of speed-shooting hillbillies discovering the secrets of life in the sewers below the Peace Eye Bookstore. Loose, psych-out, folkish stumble, a perfect period piece. Peter Stampfel (electric fiddle, vocals), Steve Weber (gtr, vocals), Lee Crabtree (p, org), Shephard (d), Antonia, Barbara & Wendy (vocals)." - FE. 140 gram red vinyl version. |
| Holy Modal Rounders, The | Indian War Whoop | LP | $15.99 | Get Back | Reissue of ESP-Disk LP from 1967. Acid folk from Peter Stampfel (electric fiddle, vocals), Steve Weber (guitar, vocals), Lee Crabtree (piano, organ), Sam Shepard (drums), Antonia, Barbara, and Wendy (vocals). | |
| 12/5/2002 | Holy River Family Band | Trio | CD | $19.99 | 3 track cd (Bear Mountain, Dream Passage, & The Force Comes From the Strength of a Horse) - limited edition of 200 copies. | |
| Holy River Family Band | Welcome To Riverhouse an abbreviated journey | LP | $29.99 | Gates of Dawn | "Single LP with the finest tracks from the double CD. Holy River Family Band is an offshoot of The Spacious Mind, Colonel Blimp and Kundalini. Stunning exotic psychedelia! Limited to 400 copies!!!!" | |
| 8/4/2007 | Holy Sons | Decline of the West | LP | $10.99 | ABC Group Documentation | "Emil Amos walks alone down the streets of a disconnected world that's crumbling to pieces at every turn. Decline of the West, Amos' fifth outing as Holy Sons is a stirring document of 4 A.M. desolation where fragments of morphine-damaged soul and noir indie rock plunge headlong into the extrasensory void. Social, spiritual and political bankruptcy all tower overhead like burned-out skyscrapers cutting into the heavens. Rather than lose himself in a swirl of brooding inner torment, Amos is at home in this city of wrecked humanity where he passes as a pedestrian -- a coincidental witness to the end times. The miasma that stains his words is a shadowy reflection of his surroundings, and a signifier that Amos is just as accountable for his wicked ways as the world in which he lives. Throughout Decline, hiss-stained samples of God-fearing preachers, high- minded politicos and rattling chains add a ghostly texture to Amos' lo-fi excursions into the murky depths of modern entropy. It's this balance of disquieting samples and overt lyrical symbolism that makes Decline his most stylistic offering to date. Since 1992 the Portland, OR-based Chapel Hill, NC transplant has focused his voice and guitar on dreary tonal intricacies; Breaking free of a background steeped in the ethos of punk and hardcore's naive ideologies. Amos is also a founding member of dynamic, post-hardcore outfit Grails, who has released two full-lengths on Neurot Recordings. Decline is the follow-up to his 2003 release, I Want to Live a Peaceful Life on Portland's Film Guerrero label. The 12 songs on Decline took shape over three years of recording sessions in Amos' home studio, where he played each and every instrument and mixed the album into a complete and impeccable whole. Carl Saff who has mastered recordings for such esteemed labels as Merge, Touch & Go and Secretly Canadian (Coco Rosie, Early Day Miners, Loren Mazzacane Connors, 90 Day Men, Oxes) added punch to the tracks. As the dialogue unfolds, any arching conceptual themes are as defined as the listener wants them to be. Covers of Eric Gaffney's "Level Everything" and Daniel Johnston / Jad Fair's "Nothing Left" bring even more variety to Amos' already mixed palette. This Spring Amos was invited to play drums - alongside Sam Coomes of Quasi on bass - for Jandek's only Northwestern US performance in Portland, OR on April 20. Amos is also touring Europe with Holy Sons this Spring, opening for Grails, in support of Decline of the West." |
| 11/25/2007 | Home Blitz | Home Blitz | CD | $10.99 | Gulcher Records | "Home Blitz is 21-year-old Daniel DiMaggio from Princeton, New Jersey. He recorded and released his first two singles on his own. When the first one showed up in my mailbox in '05, it was just what I was waiting to hear. The underground had drifted so far into abstract space that I was longing for something direct and simple. That first record was a magic whirl of early Modern Lovers, Big Star, and Flamin' Groovies circa '72 . . . but with a casual no-fi vibe that sounded closer to the first couple Harry Pussy singles. Huh?! Yeah. Just about (non-)perfect!On this new Home Blitz CD release, Gulcher Records has collected those first two singles (way out of print), material from a cassette release, a new HB 12" EP, and two otherwise unavailable tracks. From the first single, "Apocalyptic Grades 2005" is a powerpop/postpunk hybrid with guitars that sound like the Fall circa '78 covering the Flamin' Groovies. On the very bratty "AC S.S.," it sounds to me like early Screamin' Mee-Mees crossed with early Modern Lovers. But my favorite from that first 7" is "Hey!" It comes on as if Big Star's Radio City had been recorded under the more addled conditions of Alex Chilton's Like Flies On Sherbert. It starts like a great noise-drenched powerpop anthem . . . "I got the gift that keeps on givin'/It's called electric guitar!" . . . but soon stops midstream. "I gotta get some gum," the singer complains. It picks up again after the song's imaginary bridge. A second guitar comes in . . . melodic and overloaded like a perfect 1969 Lou Reed guitar fill. The second HB 7" was Live Outside, released in '06. On this one, Daniel dragged his instruments and battery-powered amps onto the street in front of his house and "performed live w/o audience on the corner of Mercer and Hibben Streets, Princeton, NJ." Is it the first powerpop field recording?! "Stupid Street" has Daniel narrating his own song, describing his surroundings, before he suddenly spits out the first line of the song, "Hey girl, I'm gonna cut your spine!" So sweetly vicious. "Feeling Cold" again documents the Home Blitz street scene, this time purely in song. Like, it's November in Jersey, and yer freezin' yer ass off recording on the sidewalk! It's a perfect Modern Lovers/Half Japanese-style pop tune, with maybe one of the all-time great fallen-apart guitar solos. "I feel like ridin' bikes tonight/But mine's been in the shop all day." The next Home Blitz release was a 2006 split cassette (with Friends & Family), which shows Daniel's interest in more overt "experimental" sounds: de-tuned guitars, ambient rumbles, electronic squiggles, free clatter, instrumental introspection. But even in this setting, he comes up with a tune like "Benches" . . . just acoustic guitar and vocals, with a bit of overdubbed electric leads . . . which reminds me of Big Star's version of Loudon Wainwright's "Motel Blues." There's also a cover of Public Disturbance's "Bored" (don't know the original), which sounds nothing like the punk-rock I expected. Instead, it comes across like a darkly shimmering psychedelic ballad. And "GT Performers" is a frantic punkrocker (no noise) about "takin' chances and makin' friends." From the upcoming 12" EP on Parts Unknown come five more winners. "Right Cut Even" (Rick Derringer having a powerpop breakdown), "Little League" (autobiographical angst hammered home by verses of Beefheartian power blues and a couple choruses of powerpop explosion), "Flying" (with cool bursts of mid-70s double-lead unison guitars), "Something 2 Do" (more Beefheartian angles + L.A. hardcore circa '81 + Pistols-influenced UK powerpop), and a cover of Slade's "My Town" (whacky!). Rounding out this CD collection is a much wilder 4-track version of "Little League" and the otherwise unreleased "A.F.F.," one of the best tracks here. Again defying logic, Daniel turns a very personal tale into an excellent blast of powerpop/punkrock with stuttering freejazz sax and several odd time changes. The story itself seems like a mystical revelation from younger years or maybe just an imaginary childhood friend: "Well, there's an actual physical feeling living in the air/And I'd like to make it feel at home but you know I'm scared" . . .Eddie Flowers, Slippy Town, August 2007 |
| 4/19/2004 | Hooker, William | Complexity #2 | CD | $12.99 | KOS Recordings | "Having led groups with a wide variety of players such as David Murray, David S. Ware, Thurston Moore, Zeena Parkins just to name a few it is no wonder the playing on this recording has enough aggression to by pass any gap while at the same time remains fluid and conscious. Complexity #2 elaborates on Hooker's past works of free improvisation of a hybrid nature. Solidifying himself as a driving drumming force to a continues shape shifting electronic wall. Recorded at the NYC Knitting factory on 9/20/03 featuring a line up of Electric violinist Eyvind Kang (who has multiple recordings available on Tzadik and has played with the likes of Bill Frissel), D.J. Olive (who has worked with Kim Gordon) and Ikue Mori arms the turntables with Doug Walker taking up synthesizer duties." |
| 2/7/2009 | Hoor-paar-Kraat | Graduating from Clocks to Watches (Eureka Tapes Vol. II) | cassette | $5.99 | Peasant Magik | "The sound world that Anthony Mangicapra inhabits is totally unlike any other. Each listen reveals hidden elements and previously unheard sounds. Singular drones conceal a fragile universe of manipulated field recordings and mangled reverb. Meticulously constructed and skillfully executed, Hoor-paar-kraat displays a serious mastery of craft, frequently unheard of in an over saturated scene." Edition of 200 |
| 5/16/2010 | Hoorebke, Ada Van & L.R.J. Martens | De Eeuwige Jachtvelden | c40 cassette | $7.99 | Taped Sounds | "Ada asked me to compose music by one of her great batik works. that composition was used as an "eternal loop tape" that supplied the sound environment during the exposition of Ada's "eternal hunting grounds" at the Croxhapox Gallery in Ghent, Belgium. this cassette release is the remembrance artifact. a 40 minutes cassette of eternal sound, housed in a beautiful cover (being a small reproduction of the original artpiece) by Ada. http://adavanhoorebeke.blogspot.com." |
| Hopewell / Planetarium | One-sided Split | 12" | $7.99 | Priapus | "Here is Hopewell's re-mix of Anthema (Coincidental Gospel version) in which the band and recording engineer find a used reel of tape to record the song onto. After Anthema had been completed, an unused track was lifted and the gospel singer you hear on this version was found. Amazingly, the Hopewell tracks and the gospel singer's track fit together almost perfectly without any such intention or manipulation of the songs. Because of the nature of such a phenomenon, this record is dedicated to Carl Jung. Hopewell's longtime mates, Planetarium contribute a blurry eyed cover of The Church's ‘Lullaby’, drifting and pulling you out to sea. Only 500 made." | |
| 9/17/2006 | Horton, Robert | First Light | CDR | $8.99 | Onomato | "Robert founded the Appliances, part of SF's first wave of punk bands in 1979. Then later formed the Plateau Ensemble in 1983, a tribal noise drone group who played in the Bay Area until 1987. From the early 90's until 2004 Horton continued to compose and record, but didn't release any of it publicly until 2005, when he put together First Light. Originally released on the Finish label Outta (now defunct), in a tiny edition of 50 copies. Anyways we're all glad Robert has opened up the floodgates, and I'm pretty excited to get to re-issue this thing in a slightly larger edition. Edition of 100, photo/screen-print cover, inserts, black cds, heavy vinyl sleeves." |
| 3/21/2009 | Horton, Robert | Interdigitate | CDR | $13.99 | Anti-Guru Recordings | "Robert Horton has released an impressive body of work with releases on foxglove, digitalis recordings, important, JYRK, 267-lattajjaa, New American Folk Hero, three lobed and many others. Robert founded the appliances, part of sf's first wave of punk bands in 1979, and formed the tribal noise drone group plateau ensemble in 1983. 'interdigitate' is the latest addition the the horton canon and features special guest tom carter as well as robert's home-made guitar, the boot, and the usual and slightly less usual horton artillery which includes: bells, xylophone, tambura, 78's, piano, cds, gongs, trumpet, field recordings, guitar, music box, computer and casio keyboards. Hand-made gatefold sprayed sleeves with cloth seams limited to 50 copies." Features Tom Carter on one track. |
| 12/24/2005 | Horton, Robert | Just Before Setting The Sky On Fire | CDR | $12.99 | Barl Fire | "Hot on the heels of Robert Horton's recent album of Free Jazz Haunted Drone, 'Washed Out Headspace' on 267 Lattajjaa, comes 'Just Before Setting The Sky On Fire'. Clocking in at just over 70 minutes, 'Just Before Setting The Sky On Fire' is a free-folk close encounter of an entheogenic kind. Tangles of bowed and shimmering strings, theremin, doctored bagpipes, tape cut-ups and malfunctioning electronics offer up ragas and droning devotionals to non-earthbound deities. This is the sound of the space between stars in the garden of celestial delights that teems with comet-borne spores and seeds. New American Folk Hero's Mike Tamburo once said of Horton "is he an alien? i have a sneeking suspicion that no human could make this music". So is it really just coincidence that sightings of lights in the sky above New Mexico, peak just before each new Horton release, who knows?, although the answer may lie here... 'Just Before Setting The Sky On Fire' comes dressed in Horton's stunning psychedelic cover art housed in vinyl sleeves and is limited to 120 copies." |
| 5/14/2007 | Horton, Robert | Sleep, Wake, Hope, and Then | CD | $12.99 | Music Fellowship | "Sleep, Wake, Hope, and Then are the most recent pieces by Robert Horton, striving to create an album full of recordings that shimmer and change the light. Horton has performed and recorded for almost 30 years in a variety of outlets. He founded the Appliances, part of SF's first wave of punk bands in 1979, and formed the tribal noise drone group Plateau Ensemble in 1983. Since then, he has been a prominent contributor to the last two revolutions in home recording, both the cassette culture of the 80s and 90s and the CDR zeitgeist of the 00s. Robert records under his own name, Egghatcher, and Future Ears. He is currently a member of Kyrgyz, Beautiful Friend, Infinite Article, Broken Mask, and a duo with Tom Carter. Co-released with New American Folk Hero." |
| 11/4/2006 | Horton, Robert | Warmth 1987 | CDR | $7.99 | Foxglove | "Warmth is the fourth volume in robert horton's archives series of releases (previous volumes on 23 productions, sloow tapes, & jyrk). this single, monolithic piece unfolds at snailspeed, but succeeds in wrapping itself around you like an old, familiar blanket. "warmth" is the most appropriate title, as these drones emit sonic beams of silver light. using only two reel-to-reel tape recordings and a loop, horton's artistry is on full display. the fact he was doing this 20 years ago is a testament to his immeasurable talent. 100 copies." |
| 9/30/2005 | Horton, Robert | Washed Out Headspace | CDR | $8.99 | 267 Lattajjaa | "I got off the sight seeing bus near the ruins to the church of anthrax. I thought I heard a pounding piano and a repeating organ riff but it was only the wind. I listened to it blow for a while. Hannu asked me for some kind of description of the music on this cdr. Shit, I don't know. I woke up one night recently and scribbled "free jazz haunted drone" on the cover of the latest Wire. When I woke that morning, it seemed like a good description. The collection got its name from Brad Rose, who seems to be quite poetic. I also took him literally and threw some broken binaural microphones into the bathtub to record some feedback from underwater, thus washed out headspace. Misty Leader was the name of a horse running at the track in Tacoma, Washington. Wes McIntosh, who is into the horses, found me the name in the paper. He's my nephew and is 16 years old and open minded enough to join me with his sax in the backyard for a drone-a drone with his weird uncle playing guitar with a vibrator with a bobby pin duck-taped to it." |
| 6/27/2009 | Horton, Robert & Sindre Bjerga | Can't Go Fast Enough To Get There Early | CD | $14.99 | Blackest Rainbow | "Wild and eclectic mail collaborations from one of America's most recently on fire jammers Robert Horton, and Norway's drone master Sindre Bjerga. Both have incredibly solid resumes of collaborations and releases, what with Sindre's ongoing collaboration with Jan Iversen, and Robert's collaborations with Tom Carter and the Mudsuckers crew of Pete and Gabe (of Yellow Swans), which also includes Carter. Can't Go Faster Enough to Get There Early features a massive range of instruments and sounds, from multiple instrument based layered drone to down right weirdness, and total outsider vibes. Also features Hal Hughes, Lisa Graves and Jan Iversen. Glass mastered CDs, limited to 500 in white digipaks with stickered covers and a small 4 page insert of liner notes." |
| 2/4/2007 | Horton, Robert / Michael Shannon | Broken Mask | CDR | $12.99 | musicyourmindwillloveyou | "The wildly prolific Mr Horton is joined here by multi instrumentalist , Michael Shannon. . the result is a journey into a sonic world both beautiful and dark . dronescapes and formless clouds of enveloping sound , time altering and sacred , drift apart to reveal a minute world of incremental sonic gestures , distant krautrock echoes , and broken landscape crackle , falling away again to lay bare an ocean of seamless , organic shimmer." |
| 5/9/2009 | Hospitals, The | Hairdryer Peace | CD | $9.99 | Meds | "Finally available on cd. Ranked 3rd best album of 2008 in The Wire magazine. Intensely psychedelic and mixed for maximum hallucinations, this marks a pretty heavy departure from the Hospitals of old. Heavy tranced out riffs, weird pop, cracked folk, disorienting noise, paranoid vibes...Main Hospital Adam Stonehouse with Rob Enbom & Rod Meyer from Eat Skull and Chris Gunn from The Hunches. The most forward thinking album of 2008 but also an album of songs with actual emotional intensity. Not a party record and definitely not background music. Best listened to loud, alone and with herbal assistance." |
| 12/24/2005 | Hotguitars | Confessions | CD | $10.99 | BV Produktions | "The dynamic duo of Jyrki Laiho & T-mu Korpipää of Circle background manages to convince even BV that noise guitar improvisation can produce some severely hard-hitting (instead of 'noodling', y'know) results. 4 tracks, 18+ mins that'll make you wonder what it would be like if Raoul Björkenheim went Jap-noise..." |
| 12/24/2005 | Hotguitars with Santtu Puukka | Hierarkia | CD | $13.99 | Karkia Mistika | "Experimental guitar/electronics with lunatic ranting (in Finnish) on top of that. Keuhkot goes free improv?" |
| 11/4/2006 | Hototogisu | Chimarendammerung | CD | $13.99 | DeStijl | Hototogisu are Marcia Bassett and Matthew Bower, and they dwell upon two continents (Marcia in brooklyn NY and matthew in leeds UK). Bothshare rich discographical heritage. Marcia has recorded with numerous labels (siltbreeze, time-lag, eclipse, troubleman unlimited, etc.) with UN, GHQ and the Double Leopards, and Matthew with Total, Skullflower, Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra and more. A Wikipedia entry in his name clearly (sic) illustrates his cultural heft: "Bower's huge discography of visceral, free drone-rock is probably the most formidable of its kind and he was rightly considered in 2005 by The Wire to be one of the map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the 80s and 90s" (issue 259). Chimarendammerung is the 3rd Hototogisu release on Destijl and the 5 untitled walls of vertical viola drone / overtone, lapped by shifting electronic waves of feedback, blackened guitars, rhinegold cast deep into dying rivers, an instrumental cycle of conflict, of the birth of a supreme aristocratic beauty into a fallen world, and its inevitable conflagration, then a glimmer of hope of escape from the cycle, in tune w/ the breath of the cosmos, like a glacial reimagining of van der graafs 'a plague of lighthouse keepers', and it represents a current plateau for the duo." |
| 12/24/2005 | Hototogisu | Ghosts of the Sun | DBL CD | $15.99 | Important Records | "The Hototogisu masterfully create a dense sediment of tetonic drone with the thickest layers of guitar, vocals and electronics. The Hototogisu are obviously seasoned sonic travelers, featuring the seminal legend Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards). Ghosts Of The Sun is one enormous composition, nearing two hours in length, unfolded and nailed together in seven movements. Starting with a slow drone electronic crawl and climaxing with crackling bone percussion buried howls of haunted minds, Ghosts Of The Sun cries out from beneath an earthquake of guitar feedback and distortion. Ghosts Of The Sun compresses eternity, from the creation of humanity to its own destruction, into seven parts on one double album. This is epic and total sonic overload, by way of The Hototogisu." |
| 4/10/2005 | Hototogisu | Green | CD | $12.99 | Heavy Blossom | “'Green' metal music, decanted collage of fuzzy scream vocal loops and mangled buried riffing, bursting w/ vivid colour power electronics and chilly black metal soundscaping. Studio prototyping of the hg signature sound, shorter pieces than the usual jams, even denser than the live version, with blatant referencing of the black metal/ tibetan devotional strands that run like veins of lightning through the dense mesh of noise.” Edition of 1000 copies with 8 page booklet – swank! Recommended! |
| 10/25/2008 | Hototogisu | Pale Fatal Sister | Double LP | $27.99 | Important Records | "Limited edition of 700 copies. Double LP pressing housed in a gatefold jacket. Being a Nabokovian and visceral garden of delights, a musical evocation of memory and desire spread over four sides of vinyl. The sound is conjured forth from dark wells to be birthed, twisting and screaming in silver winds. Recorded at Black Dirt Studios, over an intensive three-day period of hermetic isolation, while snow blanketed the surrounding fields, this work is both more detailed and conjures a heavier, more brooding occult atmosphere and sound, than any previous Hototogisu release." |
| 12/25/2005 | Hototogisu | Prayer Rug Exorcism | CD | $12.99 | Heavy Blossom | "Most barbaric installment yet in the blood n' groan saga initiated with 'Ghost From The Sun'; Prayer Rug Exorcism is a monolithic single disc in four parts. Opening with a brooding nocturnal labyrinth, and ascending through a dark power-drone into sky-high ribbons of blasphemous feedback traceries, and the annihilating ghostly machine clank of part 4, like TG's old analog set up, running freeform and haunted in a hermetically sealed bunker. Recorded: The Black Chapel, Leeds; CCA, Glasgow; Holy Trinity Church, Leeds, and Brudenell Social Club, Leeds in 2005. Full color deluxe artwork delineates the unusual arcana, and some new clues for the pictorially fetishistic. Edition of 1000 copies." |
| 10/6/2007 | Hototogisu | Robed in Verdigris | LP | $19.99 | Nashazphone | "Hototogisu is the duo of Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, GHQ, UN) and Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Sunroof!, Total). For the past few years, they have been delivering intense guitar / electronics based drones of gargantuesque scales. Robed in Verdigris is their 16th release and only the third on vinyl. 3 tracks spread over both sides of extreme sunshine and ecstasy. A total assault of metaphysical vibrations. Limited to 500. Sold out at source." Highly recommended! |
| 3/5/2009 | Hototogisu | Some Blood Will Stick | CD | $12.99 | Important | "Hototogisu is Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards). Theyve been laying down billowing sheets of Teutonic guitar drone-noise since 2003 with the thickest possible helpings of vocals and electronics. Some Blood Will Stick is a collection of tracks from their ultra-limited self produced label Heavy Blossom. Songs were taken from Swoon Scream (2004) and Awful Symmetry (2005) with one additional track." |
| 4/16/2007 | Hototogisu | Spooked Summer | CDR | $11.99 | Heavy Blossom | "Four pieces of spooked/skewed piebald beauty, singing the praises of the hot season, trails of bubbles, fireworks fizzing, strange meat on the barbecue. the hototogisu captured in an intimate, quieter setting, beauty and brightness comingling. includes a very spooked 16 minute live track from 06s smegma support spots, live in nottamun town, where the vocalese ribbons unwind in rococo and baroque finery and odd percussive concussions percolate thru the brew. a sweet forty three minutes, packed in some radiant colours and a very spooked flyingfox." |
| 2/14/2008 | Hototogisu | Under the Rose | LP | $22.99 | Heavy Blossom | "Hototogisu's first LP release on their own imprint Heavy Blossom! Under the Rose is a pair of incantations for the dark and vengeful animal spirits. Sung in two parts Malignant Coronation and Origami Skulls are blackened arias, dizzying vortexes and canyons of screams, guitars and chaotic rhythms. Arising from this richly recorded and mastered vinyl slab come black tarpits of malevolence and savage beauty, harking back to a pre-Christian universe of animating spirits and tutelary daemons . Comes in black jacket with a full color photograph attached to the front cover and thickly inked silk-screened backs. Edition of 600." Recommended! |
| 11/4/2006 | Hototogisu & Prurient | Snail on a Razor | CD | $12.99 | Hospital Productions | "live in person collaboration of mid ranged feedback hell laden with raw human drones of cosmic existential turbulence from from matthew bower (legend of total, skullflower, ramleh etc) marcia bassett (double leopards, zaimph, ghq etc.) and dominick fernow (vegas martyrs, nihilist assault group, ash pool, etc)." |
| 11/15/2008 | Hototogisu + Burning Star Core | Hototogisu + Burning Star Core | LP | $14.99 | Yik Yak | "Hototogisu -- the duo of UK experimentalist Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Sunroof et al) and New York-based-guitarist Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards/Zaimph/GHQ) -- are all about impact, about taking the physical aspect of sound and hallucinating it to the point of abstraction, so much so that for all of the complexity of their music it often sounds like it's standing still, simply hanging in the air and vibrating without anything approaching a 'plot' to bring it to a point. By contrast, Burning Star Core, the trio of drummer Trevor Tremaine, Robert Beatty on electronics (both of whom also play in Hair Police alongside Mike Connelly of Wolf Eyes) and C.Spencer Yeh on violin and electronics, are more overtly propulsive, usurping 'classic' rock form via electronics and drums but still focused on momentum, on the jam as a form of structural gravity, on the unfolding of action via development over time. This all-improvised studio meeting is the perfect reconciliation of both tendencies, of Hototogisu's obsessive layering of strata after strata of violently conceived noise and of Burning Star Core's epic, post-Kraut thunder-punk style. Bower has long been on record about his opposition to anything approaching 'dialogue' in improvised music, favouring a senses-devouring simultaneity over anything that might pass for actual exchange, so it's no surprise that there is little on this new record that sounds even close to conventionally improvised music. Instead, it feels more focused towards the zone where energy begins to spontaneously birth form, where the monomaniacal pursuit of the nowhere zone bears fruit in the shape of a music that transcends its constituent parts while being totally based around ? and rooted in - the individual response to the moment. BXC play it ginchy and garage-pop right from the start, simultaneously inverting and amplifying Bower and Bassett's vertical constructs with drums that sound like they might have been lifted straight from the most flower-power parts of the Silver Apples' back catalogue patterns that are as tactile and rock-anchored as Can's Holger Czukay. To hear Hototogisu's music given this kind of injection of dynamic energy makes them seem more obviously sourced in 'classic' rock music than you might otherwise have guessed, with a dense, implosive sound that feels like a hyper-distilled take on all of rock's most outlaw aspects, the feedback that makes you feel like you could explode in a ball of electricity, the anti-gravity effect of heavy fuzz, the seductive, alien tongues. It's certainly the most 'garage band' side that either of the groups have cut to date, albeit in the form of a Gnostic, post-acid re-think where the vibration is more important than the outer forms, where energized enthusiasm makes for a more fundamental guiding principle than verse/chorus/verse and where the only direction left is out. Which is another way of saying it feels genuinely bad-ass. In an era where even the best groups seem polite, pro, participatory, democratic, this is music that is disregarding in its overwhelming power, exhilarating in it irresponsible spontaneity. And in an underground scene where self-conscious notions of avant-garde and 'free improvisation' have long displaced any concept of an intuitive rocks off-style, well, it feels like a re-connection to the source. So file this one closer to Kill City or Sticky Fingers than Persian Surgery Dervishes or The Black Album and feel the gravity of your whole record collection shift." --David Keenan, Glasgow, November 2008. Recommended! |
| 11/4/2006 | Hototogisu + Burning Star Core | Volume 1 | CD | $11.99 | Dronedisco | "Live in-person" collaborations between Hototogisu and the BxC. Hototogisu, as you know, are the time-defying duo of Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Ramleh, Sunroof!, Total, etc.) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, GHQ, Zaimph, etc.). For these sessions, Burning Star Core was C. Spencer Yeh, Robert Beatty, and Trevor Tremaine (the latter two being of Hair Police, Eyes and Arms of Smoke, Sick Hour, etc.). Note that the music on this disc is different material from the Heavy Blossom companion volume "HG/BxC II" released earlier this year. Five tracks, totalling approximately fifty minutes. Packed into the small Horrible Room (RIP) inside the Cedar House (RIP) down in Lexington KY (still alive), individuals huddled in every corner, painting the room in colored cables, glossy wood and metal boxes. Deafness and disorientation was administered through the afternoon on into the night. Summoning over two hours of recorded tape, it was decided to cut the baby in half for adoption between two imprints. Heavy Blossom ferried away the long thick sides of torso, and Dronedisco seized the hooves, antlers, and jaw. The disc starts off with an appropriate invocation; from there punches blindly through one stone cloud after another, coughs and gasps from exhaustion, stumbles and lies motionless. The ritual concludes with a moment of naked acoustic/instinctual spasm, then a cut-off. Originally released in a very small quantity on CD-R as merchandise during various US and UK spring tours, the Dronedisco half of these sessions has been edited and resequenced for this release in the autumn. The pro-pressed disc comes in a black polycase with black and white inserts and a special randomly-selected 1" button (there are five button variations in all). |
| 7/14/2007 | Hototogisu / Hive Mind | split | 7" | $6.99 | Not Not Fun | "Legendary Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards/GHQ) duo unleash a brain-scouring blast of white light/heat. Hive Mind head Greh Holger creeps out a negative graveyard of tonal droning." Limited edition 7" (500 copies) from the Not Not Fun Bored Fortress series. |
| 9/16/2007 | Howard, Noah | The Black Ark | LP | $24.99 | Bo' Weavil | Numbered edition of 1000 copies. "It's no understatement that The Black Arc is one of the most sought-after underground free jazz releases of all time. This record simply is THE BOMB - a perfect combination of Noah's soulful compositions and playing, infused with plenty of sweet/sour/in/out forms and shapes from the incredible line-up assembled for this release." - Oren Ambarchi |
| 1/24/2009 | Howlin Rain | Wild Life | LP | $20.99 | Three Lobed Recordings | "Howlin Rain's "Wild Life" consists of two fifteen minute plus monster jams. The first is an amazingly inspired and completely improvised wailing twin guitar, rock meditation on Paul McCartney's "Wild Life." "Black Sangria" rounds out the disc with a completely improvised piece covered in heavy jazz fusion and free, latin jazz rock overtones. The band featured a slightly different lineup for these session (as compared to the band's current touring setup), a lineup that in part feels like a Comets on Fire mini-reunion (above and beyond Ethan Miller on guitar/vocals is Ben Chasny [Six Organs of Admittance] on guitar, Utrillo Kushner on drums, Ian Gradek on bass and Joel Robinow on Wurlitzer electric piano/Nord keyboard). Wrapped delicately in two paintings by Raeni Miller (Ethan's wife). This was previously available only in CD form (available directly from the band at live performances as well as a part of our Oscillation III CD series). The release has made the jump to vinyl and looks shockingly similar to the CD issue (albeit larger). The vinyl pressing of "Wild Life" will be from an edition of just under 1000 copies pressed on 180g RTI vinyl. It will be housed in a heavy, "old style" LP sleeve." - label. |
| 11/4/2006 | Howlin' Ghost Proletarians | The Singer | CDR | $10.99 | Phase / Absurd | "summer melancholy... nearly 35C outside, both panagiotis and me have freaked working... we meet late @ night at his place to work on some stuff and after it we relax listening to 'the singer' enjoying our drinks... 'it's a more conceptual bluesey work' panagiotis says... 'more somber compared to 'dead roads' i add... ' the johny cash design on the black cover gives it a more gloomy touch'... 'man thanks to 'dead roads' i found myself listening again after a decade to rowland s.howard&lydia lunch, lee hazelwood... even tracked down peggy lee's 'johny guitar' and purchased nicolas ray's classic 'johny guitar' film needles to refer to 'the night of the hunter' one of robert mitchum's spookiest roles i think... what the fuck will the future bring with this one?'.. 'who knows perhaps live sets of howlin' ghost proletarians & old fashioned donkeys sets in prisons, sanatoriums, etc..." - label. "Sadly I missed the Howlin' Ghost Proletarians when they played my neighborhood, but upon hearing this, I know I would have enjoyed it. Just as with Bruce Russell's recent CDR release, this deals with blues music. Despite the title there is no singer on it, but just a duo of utter black blues music, played by Fabrice Eglin on guitars, slide guitar and amp and Michel Henritzi on guitars, slide guitar, amp and harmonica. Feedback, slow picked notes, noise from the amps, and an utter feel of desolation breaths throughout these nine tracks. Certainly not pleasant music at all, but essential for any darker mind indeed. Music that perhaps fits the mood of a hot summer day, when one is sweating even doing nothing than sitting back in front of the ventilator. That kind of music." - (FdW), Vital Weekly |
| 4/29/2008 | Howlin' Magic | A New Reality Now | cassette | $7.99 | Yodtapes | "A new reality now! was created during the period of the autumn of 2007 and primarily in the beginning months of 2008. some of the instruments used in the recording were, the mind, the guitar, fuzz, drums, gongs, mushrooms, marijuana, native american rattles, the br-1200, belief (as an interface to communicate with the mind that is all). the title is inspired by the ability of the mind to awaken to the reality that all is one. connected. mind. that time is an illusion, and that only the moment is... it also is meant as a call for a revolution of thought, a change in the perception of the concensus reality, a new paradigm of being" - Howlin' Magic. Edition of 100 copies. |
| 2/12/2008 | Howlin' Magic | The Dreaming | CD | $16.99 | Lal Lal Lal | "Fascinating psychedelic noisy blues by Jesse Rakusin from Santa Cruz, USA. This is what you have been waiting for if you have been waiting for the sound of shit being beaten out of a drumkit. Also in the mix: delicate keyboard studies about freedom, warped guitar melodies, solar-powered chord slamming and fuzzed out blues solo-madness. Comparable to Blue Cheer. Includes the hit 'Mac and Bloo'" |
| 12/24/2005 | Hrvatski / Sightings | split | 7" | $6.99 | Ache | The third installment in Ache's Divorce series features the sounds of ear-challengers HRVATSKI and SIGHTINGS. Features the intricacies of the Sightings' repetitive, rumbling drone on the song "Back To Back," followed with a tapestry of skittery elastic percussion woven by HRVATSKI on "Une Drôle De Journée." |
| 9/17/2006 | HsDOM | VOMC | CD | $12.99 | Phaserprone | "12 tracks about excursions to lakes, the apartment at the canal, owls, branches on the shore and other subjects. 125 copies, packaged in a self assembled dye-cut and letterpressed CD Gatefold." - label. "HsDOM's VOMC CD is UW Owl's Jochen Hartmann. I expected more dark, throbbing mutant techno like the "Rotlicht" track on UUAR's They Keep Me Smiling compilation, but it ends up that these tracks are earlier jams that are a little less 'reined-in,' with more variety, and the also have a bit more 'rabies'. Think of a one-man Black Dice boiling and troubling in a huge, cast iron cauldron ("Wohnung am Kanal"), or at times an analog, exploratory, sci-fi IDM sound probing through a dark cave ("Finnen Siedlung")." - Scott Mou / Other Music |
| 1/30/2010 | Huh | Huh | c90 cassette | $7.99 | Bumtapes | "Hailing from Japan Huh are a duo consisting of Takuma Mori and Kyosuke Terada. Their glacially textured improv jams swirl in and out of dub, pop, punk, freeform jazz, psychedelia and noise. The first side is a continuous 45 minute jam that takes in all manner of explorations driven by some of the most awesome Improvised drumming and weird space alien vocalised mantras. Laser beams swirling amidst kaleidoscopic guitar, moments of sweet beautiful jewels build up into cacophonous mountains collapsing upon themselves and as the remnants settle, another biker lullaby is born riffing into oblivionŠ The flip side is broken down into five improvised pieces which bring us more ferociously pounding loose rhythms and synthesized skoozing vocals, like a playful dub roots petting zoo, reminiscent at times of the Slits, Cotton Casino, and NNCK. These guys are breaking through with these immense freeform jams and an emphasis on freeform! Huh receive and transmit something so accurately and pure that it emits liberation upon the listener. These guys sound like a present day Boredoms covering themselves from 15 years ago!" |
| 7/10/2008 | Hum of the Druid | Raising the New Wing / Braided Industry | LP | $13.99 | SNSE | "Eric Stonefelt returns with another meticulously crafted album of crunching, crumbling, crackling modern industrial music. The sounds of metal and machinery and vocal vomit. HOTD constructs audio works of intricacy with such careful attention paid to timbre and texture, each repeat listen revealing a heretofore unnoticed detail or ten. For fans of Daniel Menche, Small Cruel Party, The New Blockaders, Einleitungzeit, Linija Mass...Additional Information: Edition of 400; black vinyl w/ printed label; pro-printed cover on cardstock, pasted-on matte white LP jackets; pro-printed cardstock insert; pro-printed 11x17 glossy poster." |
| 6/27/2009 | Human Adult Band | Mugwort And Sage | one-sided LP | $12.99 | Scumbag Relations | "Human Adult Band is from New Jersey. Since 2003, they've released numerous handmade tapes and cd-rs on their own DIHD label, as well as Phase! Records and Bone Tooth Horn....and they have played countless shows alongside tons of amazing bands like... The Usaisamonster, Lazy Magnet, Byron House, King Darves (who has also contributed drums for HAB), Blues Control, Ducktails, Mouthus, Panopticon Eyelids, Drums Like Machine Guns, Car Commercials, Blastocyst, Earth Crown, Slasher Risk ....just to name a few...This is a 4 song one-sided vinyl EP limited to 250 copies." "Sludgy goodness abounds, festers really, with a lo-fi hangover ala Melvins or what Godflesh might have sounded like if they were American." - music emissions |
| 10/23/2003 | Human Beast | Volume One | CD | $17.99 | Polydor Japan | "Rare, sought after, and absolutely excellent heavy UK psychedelic album from 1970 (Decca); alternately hypnotic and hard-driving, with intense guitar workouts in a classic psych mould; much high-caliber Eastern-influenced guitar work and cracking drums - highly recommended, although those of you who know this album will need no encouragement, I am certain; historical buffs note that David McNiven from Bread, Love and Dreams contributed the few lyrics (strange as they are) on this mostly instrumental album." |
| 3/26/2006 | Human Bell | Human Bell | CDR | $12.99 | U-Sound Records | "Deep ellum. morning dooo. dead on clawhammer banjo treatments from guitar duo... from the hills of baltimore- down in the holler...." |
| 5/16/2010 | Human Liberation Technology | Fair Game | one sided LP | $13.99 | Gods of Tundra | "Penalties for lower conditions. Any suppressive person is Fair Game. A dirty grey rag on the left arm. Black mark on left cheek. Minimal electronic noise for both organizations. Hand painted and torn covers. Edition of 100." |
| 3/6/2010 | Human Liberation Technology | Sea Organization | cassette | $5.99 | Gods Of Tundra | "The elite of Scientology's workers, at least 3,000 of them, belong to a zealous faction known as the Sea Organization and are given room, board and a small weekly allowance. They sign contracts to serve Scientology in this and future lifetimes--for a billion years. Their motto is: 'We come back.' Dressed in mock navy uniforms adorned with ribbons, they bark orders with a clipped, military cadence. They hold ranks such as captain, lieutenant and ensign. Officers, including women, are addressed as 'Sir.'" |
| 8/23/2009 | Human Liberation Technology | Success Thru Communication | cassette | $5.99 | Gods of Tundra | "Debut release. Minimal electronics for this battlefield earth." |
| 1/27/2004 | Human Neutron Missile Squad, The | Knut - Rip-off Edition | CDR | $8.99 | Musically Incorrect Records | "Knut was originally self-released by the band back in 2000. This re-release features the original recording minus some useless tracks plus some unreleased masterpieces from the group's archives. The music? Well, it's totally tasteless no-wave experimental trash'n'splash, some tracks have been compared for example to Dead C. and the Ex! Limited edition of 50 copies." |
| 2/20/2010 | Human Skab | Thunder Hips & Saddle Bags | CD | $12.99 | Family Vineyard | "Human Skab was a 10-year old boy from Elma, Washington who played African music with buckets and spoons. Thunder Hips and Saddle Bags is a 1986 cassette recorded by young Travis Roberts with his neighborhood pals and siblings. It was injected into the underground network of tape traders, zine scribes, college DJs, and freak seekers who were universally bowled over by its bewildering and utterly poignant snapshot of the mid-1980s. Skab's music -- an orchestration of pots n' pans, three string guitar, poorly-tuned upright piano, broken bottles, toy guns, a garden rake, and a "Snake Mountain" microphone -- is a response to fear of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, He-Man cartoons, Twisted Sister, the coolness of dinosaurs, the uncoolness of John Wayne, and Ronald Reagan. Roberts captures the fervor of do-it yourself ethos, punk energy and the rawness of early American folk by acting on his wild child imagination and enigmatic sense of song. These rare recordings have never been made widely available until now. This reissue includes the complete 1986 cassette. The CD and MP3 version contain a bonus 1987 radio interview. The 16-page booklet in the 500 edition LP and CD contains liner notes by Roberts and Cousin Franky along with many full-color photographs and news clippings. As Bruce Pavitt wrote in the 1986 Sub Pop zine: the Skab zips around the living room shooting toy guns. He hits the family piano with his fists. He tries real hard to play guitar. He makes up songs about terrorism and radiation and throwing rocks at windows. Cool! This reissue "restores a really obscure real people/disobedient kid/nascent punk rocker cassette that was issued as part of a prodigious run of weirdo documents recorded by an out-of-control 10 year old in Elma, Washington in the mid to late 80s. This is the first full release of his best known cassette, Thunder Hips And Saddle Bags, the release that put him on the weirdo radar after it made it through to tastemakers like Bruce Pavitt of Sub Pop. The Skab recordings are much more interesting than just some maniac kid goofing off. His lyrics are funny, sharp and often inspired and there's a precocious confidence and energy to the tracks, with inventive non-musical settings and primitive interventions on various instruments and household appliances." - David Kennan, Volcanic Tongue |
| 3/6/2010 | Hunted Creatures / D/S/Miller | split | cassette | $5.99 | Dynamo Sound Collective | "Hunted Creatures is Ryan Emmett from Pittsburgh, PA. d/s/miller is also from Pittsburgh. They both make extended layering sound, music compositions." |
| 11/15/2008 | Hunter Gracchus, The | Sacred Object of the Yiye People | LP | $22.99 | Chironex | "Landing out of nowhere and traversing historical sonic planes with freeform light-speed, The Hunter Gracchus arrived at my desk. Continuing the recent leaking tap, (so obscure and secretive no one seems to have really cottoned on yet), of European free-music, folk and psych that has been seeping into the underground, Hunter Gracchus sound both fresh and devastatingly contorted. Listening to the fragile and intoxicating sounds generated by The Hunter Gracchus, your surroundings are skewed into displacement. When describing the output and production of sound experienced on the record, HG used the foundation of non-studio based recordings, stating "where the microphone's presence seems inconsequential to the performance you hear and its placement is determined more by remaining inconspicuous than maximising fidelity." This is a keen observation and sits well with the overall experience that the collective creates. Spatial awareness is delivered through raga styled drones, but also, more inventively, through anarchic freeform playing. HG also site the Bedouin music by Deben Bhattacharya and the Vibracathedral Orchestra as having influenced their sound; this alludes to what you will hear, but be prepared for a unique sound-world, all of its own (and straight out of Sheffield!) An abundance of acoustic instruments are blown, strummed and plucked alongside inventive percussion that clangs both traditional and (seemingly) found objects. The improvised nature has a difficult narrative that paddles murky water through perilous terrain. This is imagined through the music, but also signified through lengthy and descriptive song titles, e.g. "Elkadia Priests' Ransacking of the Pnac Offices". A mythology is an adequate accompaniment to a challenging and overwrought listen. There are moments where the peaceful rolling of hypnotic free folk is suddenly disrupted by chaotic, (close to a nervous breakdown), improvised attack. The de-tuned gypsy-shanty of the final track on Side A, twists and turns like a serpent of rust and soiled canvas. The tort strings scrape and roll in unwavering tones that arch beyond the inevitable outcome one might assume, (then again this is the point of freeform music). Side B has pastoral marches with Balkan overtones that allude to foreign tradesmen and portside harlots. This has a similar disjointed glow that fans of Lauhkeat Lampaat will immediately warm to. This has a similar, yet rawer, feel to the recent Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides record. The record displays a combination of deep folk understanding, along with a distinctly western European ability to juxtapose misery and hope. The closing track hits a fantastic high with a mix of subtlety, drone, vocal wavering and distortion. The sounds implode in glorious sonic hollers that over lap and consume themselves in the form of an Ouroboros. 8/10 -- Peter Taylor, Foxy Digitalis (22 October, 2008) |
| 11/21/2009 | Hunting Rituals / Rambutan | Spirit Wok | CDR | $7.99 | Tape Drift | "Canada meets the US in this split pairing from Ontario's Scott Cloud (Hunting Rituals) and upstate New York's Eric Hardiman (Rambutan). Hunting Rituals have demonstrated over the last few years a creative and aesthetic consistency near unmatched in the underground noise/psych/diy scene. Each release Cloud drops into the aether is a gift from some warped and beautiful planet outside of our solar system, and the HR track here is a prime example. Rambutan follows up on recent releases on Digitalis and Stunned with 3 tracks inspired by Cloud's example. Taken together as one dose of aural medicine, the two sides of this split add up to a massive, spacious, and blurry juggernaut of sound that will both heal and transport." |
| 5/16/2010 | Hurley, Michael | Armchair Boogie | LP | $13.99 | Mississippi Records | Repressed. "Hurley is a much respected singer songwriter (former member of the Holy Modal Rounders), & it is an honor for us to put this out. Features the following songs: 'Werewolf' (a beautiful haunting song later covered by Cat Power), 'Grand Canyon Line,' 'English Nobleman,' 'Be Kind To Me,' 'Troubled Waters,' 'Red Ravager's Reel,' 'Sweedeedee' (also covered by Cat Power), 'Open Up,' 'Jocko's Lament,' 'Light Green Fellow,' 'Get The Best Of Me,' 'Biscuit Roller,' 'When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano,' & 'Penguins' (a beautiful dirge played by trumpets & guitars). New back cover & label designed by Michael himself." |
| 3/20/2010 | Hurley, Michael | Hi Fi Snock Uptown | LP | $13.99 | Mississippi Records | "Reissue of Hurley's 3rd lp. Originally recorded in 1972, this record finds Hurley exploring the full range of his stylistic canon and features some of his most loved songs such as "Water Train", "The Twilight Zone", "Eyes,eyes" and "Blue Driver". Michael Hurley is one of our favourite songwriters of all time and we are very proud to present this first ever vinyl reissue of "Hi-Fi Snock". Remastered from the original tapes." |
| 11/21/2009 | Hurley, Michael | Ida Con Snock | LP | $13.99 | Gnomonsong | "Michael Hurley is one of the last remaining ramblin' American folk troubadours. Hobo-ing around the country, making music since the days Bob Dylan first set foot in New York City's Gaslight club, Hurley recorded his first album for Moses Ash's legendary Folkways label in 1964 and continued to release albums for both Warner Brothers and Rounder. His mid-'70s Have Moicy album was among the top ten for the decade selected by Rolling Stone magazine. While many of his contemporaries are long past their prime (or deceased), Hurley's muse is still intact. Hurley's songwriting talent hasn't gone unnoticed by a new generation of musicians. In recent years, he was invited to tour with alt-country heroes Son Volt and Lucinda Williams. He's also shared bills with Smog and Palace Brothers, played with the Giant Sand rhythm section, and has of course appeared with (and been covered by) Vetiver and appeared on their records. His songs have also been covered by indie stars Cat Power and Yo La Tengo, among others. So, the matter at hand, a new album of recordings sung and played by Hurley, backed by Ida, appropriately titled Ida Con Snock: Snock himself marvels at this 21st studio album, recorded at Levon Helms' studio in Woodstock, NY. Ida's less-is-more finesse shines on these rich recordings, melding perfectly with Hurley's playing and singing. Many of these songs are already well familiar to Hurley's devotees. There are seven originals and five loving covers of '50s rock 'n' roll, C&W, and vintage folk, each tune capturing Hurley and band at peak performance levels." |
| 10/31/2009 | Hurley, Michael | Parsnip Snips | LP | $15.99 | Mississippi Records | "Originally released in 1997 in Germany in a press size of 500. These original copies were seized by the government shortly after the record's release. Only 150 or so were sold before the seizing, but since then copies have leaked out of whatever dank German bureaucratic basement they were relegated to. Still, a very hard record to find for years, now back in print. Our current reissue was re-mastered from the original tapes and has superior sound quality to the original. Culled from Michael's unreleased output between his First songs LP from 1964 and Armchair Boogie in 1972. All tracks feature just Michael and guitar. Absolutely beautiful folk music by the singular Snock - in our opinion, one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time." |
| 2/28/2006 | Hurray | Dreams, Not Soft Illusion | LP | $17.99 | Fusetron | "Hurray is Zak Prekop, Josh Brand, Pete Mandradjieff & Rich Aldrich. They hail from the hidden sectors of New York City. This is their first full length recording and is a must for fans of ambiguous, anomalous, and unobtrusive sound creation whose mystery is not invoked by hyperbole, pseudo-mythology or fake histories, but by giving full allowance to otherness and seeking beauty by allowing it to happen, which often means allowing it not to happen. Mishandled guitars, unknown electronics, amplified percussives and various layers of buzz coagulate and dissipate in measured restraint. I hesitate to use blighted terms like 'lowercase' music, as Hurray shies not from some harsher territories and melodic (if emaciated and ghostly) material sometimes drifts into consciousness; two things I think of as contrasting w/ the more didactic, 'European' music associated w/ said term. So, I'll avoid terminology and just say I'm very glad to know this record." - Greg Kelley |
| 6/11/2006 | Hurray | Treasure Chest | LP | $12.99 | galerie paolo bonzano | Recorded between 2002 and 2005, if "hurray hands" is the jazz album, and "dreams not soft illusion" the minimal concrete album, then this would be the noisey folk album. released in italy by galerie paolo bonzano & produced by cecilia canziani. "I think both possible cover images have good internal puzzles. The stick drawing looks like a person trying to imagine or remember or depict nature from their desk -- some model of nature that uses bits of stuff from actual nature to make a map of some second faulty nature, or the thought of it. So you could say this is a parallel to when we have these things (instruments, amps, band) to make music and instead make silence, or models of nature, or imitations of sparse conversation. And the microphone stand looks like a modest flag or attempt at formal communication, but in a domestic setting instead of public, so it won't quite come across, and who can see what it was supposed to stand for. . . Like making records for any public out of these things that are essentially private, obscure documents." - hurray |
| 6/27/2009 | Husband & Knife | More of Them (Than Us) | c30 cassette | $6.99 | Divorce | "Husband & Knife recently became a duo with the addition of multi-instrumentalist Evan Cardwell. Evan's electronic dreamscapes and backwards guitars have helped KC realize his ambitions for tripped-out space in which to lay his songs. To celebrate the new marriage, Evan and KC decided to release this cassette only EP. The album is a deep listen, utilising a wild mix of sound and classic song writing. Limited to 140 copies." |
| 5/16/2010 | Husere Grav | Husere Grav | c37 cassette | $6.99 | Stunned | "Following up recent stunning releases on Anathema Sound and a killer split tape with Robedoor, Texas black metal/drone lord Husere Grav now burns another 37 minutes on his electrified altar and the thick, humid vapor releases ancient memories of equinox rituals. Entreaties are made into nine realms of the unknown, each a masterfully shaped atmosphere pregnant with expectation; none dare breathe in a place so still. Austere tectonic frequencies permeate like dense clouds of incense until all fades in ash-raining guitar haze, and catharsis reigns. Limited edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c37 tapes with double-sided color jcard and insert." |
| 9/17/2006 | Hush Arbors | Cleaning the Bone | 3" CDR | $7.99 | 267 Lattajjaa | "One-man folk/psych/drone ensemble Hush Arbors AKA Keith Wood was unquestionably my favorite sonic discovery of 2004, so it's with great pleasure that I announce the arrival of Cleaning the Bone, a brand new 3" CD-R on the Finnish 267 Lattajjaa imprint. It's quite different from his two most recent Digitalis releases since this highly organic, folk-tinged drone affair is allowed to spread out over a little more than twenty minutes. But despite the fact that we get music rather than songs this time out, it's still very much gentle free folk bristling with rare invention and spirit. The beautiful improvisations hold the regenerative powers of the Appalachians; somehow hosting the energy that has been hiding under logs and rocks for decades just waiting for the right man to come along and pick it up." "This strangely beautiful document takes as much from the rich history of American folk as it does from ancient drones and psychedelic primitivism. But most of all it's an unhurried and slowly unfolding wave of folk/drone bliss that evoke a pastoral atmosphere so strong that it's perfectly suited for inner mind expansion or as the cheapest way to transport you to the most beautiful parts of the Appalachians." - Mats Gustafsson |
| 2/28/2006 | Hush Arbors | Hush Arbors | CD | $12.99 | Digitalis | "Hush Arbors is the brainchild of Keith Wood. After years of self-released and small-run CDRs, Wood's debut release is finally available in a wider format. This CD sees the nine tracks of his first CDR remastered and reborn. These 43 minutes of blissed out forest folk also finds itself knee-deep in organic drones. Wood's high-pitched voice is the focal point which the music swirls around, and these songs emanate from the cosmos like a cathartic release from the sky. But don't be fooled, despite these cosmic aspirations this is music straight from the earth, covered in bark and soaked in soil. Hush Arbors is a relic. Or perhaps you should just take it from Ben Chasny from Six Organs of Admittance who wrote the liner notes for this reissue: 'The difference between "a scientist" and "scientists" is the difference between speaking to one lonely dude collecting his records from the mail and speaking to humanity. That is a little funny thing. This music is for you who love your perfect clothes caked in mud. This music is for you who could have been scientists but realized that most scientists are thrown into the back of an anonymous van and sold into slavery for their government. And at that point, you said, "Fuck it. I love the stars and germs and shit, but I'd rather not have a gun to my head.'" |
| 10/31/2009 | Hush Arbors | Yankee Reality | CD | $10.99 | Ecstatic Peace | "Yankee Reality. What does it mean? Does it portend that there is some unique, other plain of existence for northerners and/or city folk? Something perhaps alien to, well, everybody else? Virginia cum citizen of London/rambling man Keith Wood knows all about it. Several years ago, he relocated to the city of crumpets and tea, where he, among other things, secured a gig playing guitar for notoriously intense death folk legends Current 93. In the midst of all this excitement, he has managed to write and record a brand new Hush Arbors album, his second for Ecstatic Peace!, and it's his finest to date. With a full band in tow -- multi instrumentalist Leon Dufficy, bassist Jason Ajemian, and drummer Ryan Sawyer -- and none other than J Mascis in the producer's chair, Yankee Reality continues Wood's winning streak while introducing an embarrassment of riches in the way of surprises and curveballs along the way. Yankee Reality is a credit to Keith Wood's vast talents as a songwriter and performer, but also, stands as a shining example of his breadth of focus and versatility. How many fools out there love Merle Haggard, The Dead and Dinosaur, Jr equally? I know one." - James Jackson Toth, Nashville, TN, August 2009. |
| 1/1/2008 | Hutchinson, Ian-John | An Utterbook | lathe cut 7" | $13.99 | CMR | "'An Utterbook' is fantastic and features one track made from combinations of various field recordings of birds, train stations, hums and noises, beautifully combined. The other piece is a recording of that described below ("integrating utterances into various sound environments") as Ian-John wanders around the streets of Taipei, check it out....top stuff. CMRs first primarily field recording based release for quite some time (since K Mizutani and R Meelkop CDs)." Edition of 45 copies. |
| 5/16/2010 | Huur Is Duur | Huur Is Duur | c40 cassette | $8.99 | Taped Sounds | "All acoustic minimal soundwaves and tickles by actor / musician Christophe Piette (of R.O.T., Ysengrinus, etc) and cook / musician Wietske Van Gils (of Zim Zim Zim, Pulsating In The Eye Of Vision, etc). strange nostalgic sound stories, created by two singular beings of the Belgian jam-out scene. side a is a liveshow recorded during the "Los Van Woorden" series in The Hague, the monthly gatherings into sound poetry and similar modes. side b are three short radiosessions, recorded live on our inhouse "De Oceaan Der Geluid" radioshow. the album reminds me a bit of a weird lost episode of the Slowscan catalogue." |
| 6/4/2010 | Hype Williams | Han Dynasty | 7" | $4.99 | DeStijl | "Hype Williams is an eighteen year 'relay project' conceived in 2005 by husband and wife motivational speakers Father Ronnie Krayola and Denna Frances Glass. Every three years it's been passed on to someone else to 'look after'. Recordings from the first three years were stuffed into a pinata and will be put out at the end of the project. In May 2008 it was passed on to a heckler called Roy Bundy who, along with Karen Glass and a string of collaborators, have released numerous CDRs and VHS tapes. On the rare occasion of them showing up as themselves for shows (in the past, children, chickens and foil statues have been seen on stage in their place), they have a large rotating cast of deviants they play with under the moniker 'Bo Khat Eternal Troof Family Band'." |
| 9/23/2003 | Hyun & Donkies, Shin Joong | In-A-Kadda-Da-Vida | LP | $24.99 | Beatball | "Reissue of this Korean underground album, originally issued in 1970. Packaged in heavy duty LP jacket, with giant poster & insert. Limited-numbered edition 1000 copies. Yes, it includes a ‘side-long’ version of a convienently re-named ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’. Plus a bonus track." |
| 12/29/2004 | Hyun, Shin Joong & Donkies | In-A-Kadda-Da-Vida | CD | $20.99 | MVD | Reissue of this Korean underground album, originally issued in 1970. Packaged in a psychedelic heavy duty mini-LP jacket and includes about an 18 minute version of a conveniently re-named ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’. Features some killer guitar from Shin Joong Hyun – the so-called Jimi Hendrix of Korea. |
| 12/29/2004 | Hyun, Shin Joong & The Men | It's A Lie! | CD | $20.99 | MVD | 1974 release from Shin Joong Hyun - the guitar god from Korea who formed this legendary psychedelic band! “Musical performance by The Men. This record reissued on LP in 2003. From this record only one SideB song was reissued by The Men on the compilation CD album in 2002. Side A contains popular short songs with guest singer Yoon Young Kyun. Side B has long tracks, psychedelic songs by The Men. So you must pay attention to the psychedelic Side B songS!! This song reminded me of the Doors and Hawkwind. Very progressive and really psychedelic. You can hear nice oboe, keyboards, guitar, drum solo's. Their best psychedelic Gem!” - Folkie Jin |
| 12/29/2004 | Hyun, Shin Joong and Yeop Jeon Deul | Vol. 1 | CD | $18.99 | Jigu Records | "This record was reissued only CD format in 2003. A Korean psychedelic rock masterpiece!! Only this album released about 500 copies (this was the cd issued by MVD which is now out of print - Jigu has reissued this)!! It is a great eastern pyschedelia!! Only I just can say that 'He almost completed his hope (to combine Western music with Korean traditional rhythm) at this album.' Just you must feel it!!" - Folkie Jin |
| 12/29/2004 | Hyun, Shin Joong and Yeop Jeon Deul | Vol. 2 | CD | $18.99 | Jigu Records | "This record reissued on CD format in 1994. Shin Joong Hyun wrote very wholesome lyrics on this album. The government restricted the songs at the first album as being immoral song lyrics. This album is a great Korean hard rock styled music." - Folkie Jin |
| 4/10/2005 | Hyun, Shin Jung and The Men | Shin Jung Hyun and The Men | CD | $17.99 | World Psychedelia | "It’s difficult to unravel the deep historical mystery of these recordings (Korean-only text not helpful), so I don’t know exactly when these tracks were recorded, although the date 1972 appears at the start of the booklet; having said that, there’s no mystery about the greatness of the three long tracks on this disc! minimal moody vocals don’t interfere in the slightest with the incredible fuzz and wah-wah guitar solos, the groovy and weird keyboards, the monster drum solos, or the oboe (yep, the oboe); truly psychedelic songs with all the strangeness that a non-Anglo approach to trippy music seems to engender, with touches of the Doors and early Hawkwind, if you need non-Asian reference points; I now fully comprehend why Koreans call this Shin Jung Hyun’s best record, and 'a psychedelic gem'. Colossal." - Lion Productions. Appears to to the same release as one I have listed as 'It's A Lie' on Korea's MVD label - recommended! |