Dissonant Plane

Wednesday night that was a great show at the Josephine.  Local synth duo Brother Raven, and out of town solo acts Magneticring, Pete Swanson and Zaïmph.  Brother Raven used old analog tools to evoke the atmosphere of the Sky Records’ 1970’s output.  Magneticring’s LP is in a similar vein, but this performance he used the EMS Synthi to create some sounds reminenscent of early electronic pioneers.  Pete Swanson, one half of the now defunct Yellow Swans, used an old open reel tape deck to build up lovely noise loops on top of which he added heavily distorted and processed guitar and vocals to great effect.  Zaïmph played three pieces focusing more on vocals than her in store performance here at Dissonant Plane last week.  While each piece was distinctive, the whole set glowed with a slow motion noise bliss.
The following day, Pete and Marcia (a.k.a. Zaïmph) stopped in the shop on the way to Vancouver, B.C.  This gave us a chance to expand our selection of Yellow Swans in the shop, which was actually at nil since we had sold out of everything.  As I alluded to above, Yellow Swans are no longer a going concern, but apparently have only recently finished their last studio album and will have a few more recordings coming out.  As anyone who has looked into them should know, they discography is vast, but only a small number of titles are available at any given time as most are very limited.  We were able to get CDs released under the names Descension Yellow Swans, Doubled Yellow Swans, Drowner Yellow Swans, and just plain old Yellow Swans by themselves and in collaboration with The Cherry Point, Mouthus, and John Wiese.  The CD “Portable Dunes” with Wiese is the newest of the bunch.  So new that is not actually released yet. as it is on John’s Helicopter label and John is currently in Poland where he is playing the Musica Genera festival this weekend.  Of course that was the first thing I threw on and I found it opens with a serious roar of sound and through its five tracks becames progressive more calm and meditative.  Of course variety courses through the veins of the Yellow Swans catalog.  It is all more or less “noise music”, but one disc will be droning while another will add active element on top of this bed or push the sounds the further extremes.
In the past there have been a handful of Pete Swanson solo releases, and now he’s got two really limited tapes.  He says they are essentially for sale at shows only, so we were only able to get one copy each of “Denim Life” and “Unlimited Options”.  Meant to get around more at the two CDs releases on Pete’s new label Freedom To Spend.  The first is by Bulbs a guitar and drums duo that sounds nothing like their instrumentation would suggest.  Pete himself compares this group’s sound to the releases on the Kompakt label as their music is very glitchy and experimental with rhythms and sounds you might expect from a laptop artist, but obviously with more life in them.  The second release on the label  is by Dragging An Ox Through Water.  This one is a weird mix of folky guitar and vocals with homebuilt electronics.  It’s got songs, and you could sing along to it, but its plenty strange too and makes for a unique and enjoyable album.
Eric

That’s the name of Demian Johnston’s new tape.  He brought some by last week and they fresh, really fresh. The cassette shells are spray painted and it had been done recently enough that we were getting a little bit of head rush from them.  And that kind of soft focus matches the music on the tape as well.  Demian has pulled back even further from the previous releases making the sounds even quieter.  The five tracks here rumble along and make an excellent companion for the Crystal Hell Pool CDR.  I bring this up as it turns out both artists grew up together in Bothell and both releases make lovely sounds to sink into.  Demian’s latest is limited to 30 copies and dubbed onto a 90 minute cassette with same music on both sides (saves rewinding).

Wow!  Fantastic in store last night from Zaïmph.  Thank you very much Marcia.  If you didn’t come down, you really missed out, but we restocked a lot of Marcia’s wonderful recordings:

Bassett, Marcia & Giffoni,Carlos  “Organized Anatomy”  CD  (Blossoming Noise)  $10  - edition of 300, Basset is in Hototogisu, Double Leopards
Hototogisu  “Green”  CD  (Heavy Blossom)  $10
Hototogisu  “Pale Fatal Sister”  2 x LP  (Important Records)  $19  - M. Bower (Skullflower) & M. Bassett (Double Leopards)
Hototogisu  “Robed in Verdigris”  LP  (Nashazphone)  $19  - discounted due to bent corner (damn post office!!!)
Hototogisu  “Sculpture Built Upon The Graves”  CDR  (Heavy Blossom)  $9  - CDR, edition of 200 copies
Hototogisu + Burning Star Core LP  (Yik Yak)  $11  - discounted due to bent corner (damn post office!!!)
Zaïmph  “Bird of Prey”  7″  (Arbor)  $7  - beautiful dreamy sounds
Zaïmph  “Death Blooming Pleasure”  LP  (No Fun Productions)  $11  - limited to 300 copies, reduced price due to bend corners
Zaïmph  “La Nuit Electrique”  CD  (Utech)  $10  - limited edition of 500 copies
Zaïmph  “Serpent’s Bite”  CD  (Heavy Blossom)  $11  - member of UN, Double Leopards, Hototogisu, GHQ
Zaïmph  “Sexual Infinity”  CD  (Hospital Productions)  $10

“Death Blooming Pleasure” seems to the current as we already sold 3 of the 5 copies we got last night.

FREE IN STORE PERFORMANCE
ZAIMPH
THURSDAY, JUNE 18th, 2009
7:00 PM

Zaïmph is the solo project of Marcia Bassett, a New York City artist and musician. Flaubert, in his novel Salammbô, fabricated the Zaïmph. Bassett appropriated the name in 2003, releasing a handful of CD-rs on Heavy Blossom. Later CD and LP releases have appeared on numerous independent labels such as Hospital Productions, W.M.O.r, Utech Records, Gypsy Sphinx, Volcanic Tongue, and No Fun Productions.

A drop out from the music school elite, Zaïmph uses guitar and vocals to transform traditions of song writing and noise music. After spending years of ethonographical culture studies living within the decaying framework of the USA and Europe, she currently chooses to live in an ill-coded building perched above the streets of delicately arranged trash in New York City. Zaïmph conveys an environment of industrial grit and pleasure. The sound is both seductive and laden with the doom of the coming storm.

Marcia is also a member of Hototogisu (with Matthew Bower of Skullflower), GHQ, Double Leopards, Zaika (with Tom Carter of Charalambides) and defunct Siltbreeze band un.

http://www.zaimph.org/

One of the joys of this shop is getting to discover all the great local music coming out these days.  Yesterday we got a CDR by Crystal Hell Pool.  The b&w cover photo shows a snowy scene on a mountain side where the few trees disappear into mist - not unlikely taken somewhere near here.  The music inside fits it as the soft waves of sound seem not to have definite edges and merely wash over.  It’s soft, gentle and mysterious for most of these 10 untitled tracks.  The third track stands out as piano sounds come to the foreground, nonetheless with the same soft focus as the rest of the disc.  Here a fragment repeats and overlaps itself delicately.  Even this comes across very restrained making the rest of the album sound even more subdued.

• Acephale  “Mord und Totsclag”  CD  (Aurora Borealis)  USED  $10  - audio CD in DVD case
• Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.  “Electric Heavyland”  CD  (alien8 Recordings)  USED  $8  - zonked out Japanese psychedelia
• Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.  “Never Ending Space Ritual”  2 x DVD  (Swordfish)  USED  $24  - documentary and live footage
• Alatar, Mohammed  “Iron Wall, The”  DVD  (PalestineOnlineStore)  USED  $10  - documentary about Jewish settlements in West Bank
• AMK/GX  “Two Dead Guys”  CDR  (Banned Production)  USED  $3  - CDR, cut-up best of with GX (Haters)
• Andorkappen  “Assorted Live Shits - Vol. 1″  DVDR  (Bastardized)  USED  $3  - DVDR  of crazy vocal noise
• Angel Witch  “2000: Live at the LA2″  CD & DVD  (Zoom Club Records)  USED  $8
• Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra  “Muse”  CD  (Creative Nation Music)  USED  $8
• Bream, Julian  “plays Dowland and Bach”  2 x CD  (Deutsche Grammophon)  USED  $10  - 1950s recordings of master lute & guitar performer
• Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band  “Safe as Milk”  CD  (Buddha Records)  USED  $8  - amazing debut from 1968 with wonderful bonus tracks
• Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band  “The Best Of”  CD  (EMI Gold)  USED  $8
• Cavity  “Laid Insignificant”  CD  (Hydra Head Records)  USED  $8
• Chrystal Belle Scrodd  “Beastings”  CD  (United Dairies)  USED  $15  - out of print anthology of NWW side project
• Clouds  “We Are Above You”  CD  (Hydra Head Records)  USED  $8
• Courtney, Andrew & Perry, Emily  “The Israeli Wall in Palestinian Lands”  DVD  USED  $10  - documentary on the wall separating Jerusalem
• Deathprod  “Morals and Dogma”  CD  (Rune Grammofon)  USED  $8  - deep and solemn music from Norway
• Einstürzende Neubauten  “Drawings of Patient O.T.”  CD  (Thirsty Ear)  USED  $8  - 1983 album of metal percussion and German angst
• Fab Trio  “Live in Amsterdam”  CD  (Porter Records)  USED  $8
• Fennesz  “Endless Summer”  CD  (Editions Mego)  USED  $8
• Fewell, Garrison  “Variable Density Sound Orchestra”  CD  (Creative Nation Music)  USED  $8
• Foreman, Richard  “Sophia: The Cliffs / 35+ Year Retrospective Compilation”  DVD  (Tzadik)  USED  $18  - experimental theater from 1972
• Gas  “Nah und Fern”  4 x CD  (Kompakt)  USED  $22  - 4 CDs of minimal ambient techno
• Gorguts  “From Wisdom to Hate”  CD  (Olymipic)  USED  $8  - Tech avant garde Death
• Gotan Project  “Santa Maria”  CD EP  (XL Recordings)  USED  $4  - downtempo / future jazz
• Haddad, Bassam  “Arabs & Terrorism”  DVD  (Arab Film Distribution)  USED  $10  - neocons vs so-called Arab “terrorists”
• Hakmoun, Hassan  “Fire Within - Gnawa Music of Morocco”  CD  (Music Of The World)  USED  $8
• Health CD  (Lovepump United)  USED  $8  - LA noise rock
• Heavy Lids  “Things are Happening at the Same Time”  CDR  (Dragon’s Eye Recordings)  USED  $4  - audio CDR, 36 minutes of delicate & spacy guitars
• Holy Modal Rounders, The  “Bound to Lose”  DVD  (Carnivalesque)  USED  $14  - crazy psychedelic folk group with LPs on ESP
• International Nothing, The  “Mainstream”  CD  (Ftarri)  USED  $10  - very pure sounds
• irr.app.(ext.)  “An Uncertain Animal, Ruptured; Tissue Expanding In Conversation”  CD  (Errata In Excelsus / Fire Inc.)  USED  $8  - early release from this current NWW collaborator
• Isis  “In the Absence of Truth”  CD  (Ipecac)  USED  $8  - Atmospheric Sludge
• Krokodil  “Krokodil / Swamp”  CD  (Azir)  USED  $8  - Swiss bluesy psych/prog w/sitar from ‘69/’70
• Krokodil  “Sweat and Swim”  CD  (Azir)  USED  $8  - Swiss blue rock; reissue of 1973 Bacillus double LP
• Merzbow  “Space Metalizer”  CD  (alien8 recordings)  USED  $8  - more cosmic noise on this one
• Mitchell, Roscoe  “Solo Concert”  CD  (AECO Products / Katalyst Entertainment)  USED  $8  - Art Ensemble of Chicago member recorded 1973-74
• Möbius, Guido  “Gebirge”  CD  (Karaoke Kalk)  USED  $8  - funky electronic music with plenty of clang & clunk
• Moondog CD  (CBS)  USED  $10  - out of print CD which reissues LPs from 1969 and 1971
• NON  “God & Beast”  CD  (Mute Records)  USED  $8  - noisy album with Douglas P. & Rose McDowell
• Nurse With Wound  “Rock’n Roll Station”  CD  (United Dairies)  USED  $16  - UD edition, features Peat Bog & Chrystal Belle Scrodd
• Popol Vuh  “Aguirre”  CD  (SPV)  USED  $8  - reissue of 1976 LP; soundtrack for Herzog film
• Pyramids 2 x CD  (Hydra Head Records)  USED  $12  - remixes by Blut Aus Nord, Colin Marston, Plotkin, etc
• Quiet American  “Plumbing and Irrigation of South Asia”  CDR  (and/OAR)  USED  $6  - ,CDR field recordings, title really says it all
• Roedelius, Hans-Joachim  “Jardin Au Fou”  CD  (Bureau B)  USED  $8  - ‘79 album of light electronic music from half of Cluster
• Rollins, Sonny  “Saxophone Colossus”  DVD  (Acorn Media)  USED  $10  - legendary jazz improvisor
• Rollins, Sonny  “Silver City”  2 x CD box  (Milestone Records)  USED  $10  - anthology covering 1972 to 1995
• Shalabi Effect  “Pink Abyss”  CD  (alien8 Recordings)  USED  $8  - slow moving, psychedelic & experimental
• Shedding  “What God Doesn’t Bless, You Won’t Love; What You Don’t Love, The Child Won’t Know”  CD  (Hometapes)  USED  $8  - lonely ambient soundtracks
• Skinny Puppy  “Brap (Back & Forth Vol. 3 & 4)”  2 x CD  (Nettwerk)  USED  $10  - unreleased early tracks & “Too Dark Park” outtakes
• Sonic Youth & Yamatsuka Eye  “TV Shit”  CD EP  (Ecstatic Peace!)  USED  $8  - short EP of crazy noise, out of print
• Swans  “Body To Body, Job to Job”  CD  (Young God Records / Sky Records)  USED  $8  - early heavy material
• Theoretical Girls  “Theoterical Record”  CD  (Acute Records)  USED  $8  - unreleased 70’s NYC no wave w/Glenn Branca
• Throne of Katarsis  “An Eternal Dark Horizon”  CD  (Candlelight Cult)  USED  $8  - Norwegian BM
• Trial of the Bow  “Ornamentation”  CD EP  (Release)  USED  $5  - eastern inspired ambient with acoustic instruments
• Urdog  “Eyelid of Moon”  CD  (Secret Eye)  USED  $8  - low key trancey grooves
• Urdog  “Garden of Bones”  CD  (Secret Eye)  USED  $8  - contemporary psych rock from Rhode Island
• Various  “Audible Geography”  CD  (Room 40)  USED  $8  - w/La Casa, Vitiello, Jerman, Tsunoda, Berhens, López
• Various  “I Am The Resurrection: A Tribute to John Fahey”  CD  (Vanguard)  USED  $8  - covers of Fahey by Devandra Banhart, Pelt, Peter Case
• Various  “In Formation - A Tribute to Throbbing Gristle”  CD  (Attention Deficit Recordings)  USED  $8  - 2000 album of TG covers w/Non, Melvins, MSBR, etc.
• Windy & Carl  “Songs for the Broken Hearted”  CD  (Kranky)  USED  $8  - ethereal female voice, guitars & wash of sound
• Woman Year  “Aeon Centers Faded”  CD  (Porter Records)  USED  $8  - weird songs
• X, Malcolm  “In His Own Words…”  CD  (KRB Music Companies)  USED  $6  - black power straight from the source
• Zenlo  “Skelethal Antics”  CD  (Porter Records)  USED  $8  - archival 1983 minimal synth / experimental recordings
• Zivich, Alivia & Young, Nate  “Video Madness IV”  DVDR  (AA Records)  USED  $8  - DVDR, Nate is in Wolf Eyes & Demons, 19 minutes

Zaïmph is the awesome solo noise project of Marcia Bassett.  Heavy mysterious noise drones.  She is half of Hototogisu (with Matthew Bower), one-third of GHQ one-quarter of Double Leopards, half of Zaika (with Tom Carter) and was in Siltbreeze band un.  Marcia’s Zaimph has released some fantastic vinyl, CDs and tapes on her own Heavy Blossom label as well as great labels like No Fun, Utech, Arbor, Volcanic Tongue, and Heavy Tapes.

FREE IN STORE PERFORMANCE

SIMON WICKHAM-SMITH

JONATHAN WAY

THURSDAY, MAY 28th, 2009

7:00 PM

Simon Wickham-Smith is an English musician who has been pumping out great records for a good two decades now.  Ranging from noisy and droney to more delicate acoustic improvisations, his work has covered a wide range.  Mostly in collaboration with Richard Youngs, Simon has released a large number of classic CDs and LPs through labels such as No Fans, VHF, Majora, Forced Exposure, Fourth Dimension, Ignivomous, PseudoArcana, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Insignificant and Pogus.  They still record together, however less frequently now and more of Simon’s recent recordings have been solos.  On top of all this, Simon was a Buddhist monk in the Karma Kagyü tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and has lately been busy with translation Mongolian literature into English.  You can find out a lot more about him here:

http://www.wickhamsmith.net/

http://www.myspace.com/simonwickhamsmith

From what I gather, Simon will be providing a nice drone for his in store performance at Dissonant Plane.

Also playing a short set this night will be Jonathan Way.  Like Simon, Jonathan is also a translator of Asian texts as well as a sound artist.  So it should come as no surprise that the two became friends when Simon relocated to Seattle.  Jonathan is probably best known for playing with the Seattle Phonographers Union.  Nonetheless, he has also had a CDR released by Greg Davis’ Autumn Records and a track on the “phonography.org 7″ compilation.  For this solo performance he will be mixing recordings of snow, brush and trees and combining them with the sounds of small improvisations.

Latest batch of used goodies:

• 3/4 Had Been Eliminated  “A Year of the Aural Gauge Operation”  CD  (Häpna)  $10  - gentle filmic rock with nice little sounds
• Badalamenti, Angelo  “Soundtrack from Twin Peaks”  CD  (Warner Bros.)  $8  - Eric stopped watching TV when this went off the air
• Balmorhea  “Like Water in a Dream of Thaw”  CD  $7  - soft instrumental post rock with acoustic instruments
• Balmorhea  “Tour EP”  CDR EP  $3  - CDR EP, instrumental post rock, ltd. 175
• Circle  “Sunrise”  CD  (No Quarter)  $10  - like a psychedelic Motorhead
• Dif Juz  “Extractions”  CD  (4AD)  $8  - jazzy instrumental rock produced by Robin Guthrie
• Eckhart, Eric  “Lost and Found”  CD  $2  - slickly produced folk songs & indie rock
• Electronicat  “21st Century Toy”  CD  (Disko B)  $7  - ‘electric-glam-rock n roll’; promo w/no tray
• Galbraith, Alastair  “Cry”  CD  (Emperor Jones Records)  $10  - guitar, drones, loops, vocals in a dreamy combination
• Galbraith, Alastair / De Gennaro, Matt  “From the Dark (South Island)”  CD  (Xeric)  $9  - awesome acoustic long string drones
• Grouper  “Wide”  LP  (Weird Forest)  $8  - fragile lo-fi echos, clear & black vinyl mix, only 500 made
• House of Cosy Cushions  “Animal Dream”  CD  (Seadog Records)  $7
• Jeck, Philip  “Surf”  CD  (Touch)  $9  - subtle textures created from vinyl and loops
• Kemialliset Ystävät CD  (Fonal)  $10  - wild freak folk from Finland
• Mountain High  “Co-Op Shmo-Op”  7″  (Hot Dog City Record Co.)  $2  - garage / indie rock
• My Cat Is An Alien / Roden, Steve  “Cosmic Debris Volume II”  CD  (A Silent Place)  $10  - split of quiet sound, reissue of extremely ltd art LP
• No Land’s Band  “Percolating Joys”  CDR  (Ero)  $2  - CDR, ambient noise electronics
• Oracle  “Doomed to Reign Volume Two”  CDR  (Scatalogical Liberation Front)  $5  - CDR, ltd. 100, Seattle black metal
• Oval  “Ovalprocess”  CD  (Thrill Jockey)  $7  - glitchy ambient electronica
• Pink Floyd  “More”  CD  (Capitol)  $8  - originally releaed in 1969
• Popol Vuh  “In Den Gärten Pharaos”  CD  (SPV)  $8  - essential ‘71 album of Moog ambiance w/bonus tracks
• Pretty Things, The  “S.F. Sorrow”  CD  (Edsel Records)  $10  - very psychedelic pop from 1967
• Various  “KVRX Local Live, Vol. 13″  CD  $2  - w/Donkeys, Half Japanese, Akron/Family, Balmorhea
• Weirdlords  “The Book of Weird Vol. 1″  CDR  (Council of Serpentry Music)  $2  - experimental & lo-fi rock from Seattle
• Weirdlords  “Zizlore’s Mansion”  CD EP  (Council of Serpentry Music)  $2  - heavy rock from Seattle; 26 minutes
• Whitman, Keith Fullerton  “Playthroughs”  CD  (Kranky)  $8  - pretty drones
• Zorn, John  “Cartoon S&M”  2 x CD  (Tzadik)  $12

Dug a few interesting goodies out of the Anomalous Records archives (unsold new stock from mail order):

• Nurse With Wound  ”Automating Volume One”  CD  (United Dairies)  $30  - long out of print World Serpent edition
• Nurse With Wound  ”Automating Volume Two”  CD  (United Dairies)  $30  - long out of print World Serpent edition
• Nurse With Wound  ”Funeral Music For Perez Prado”  CD  (United Dairies)  $30  - long out of print World Serpent edition
• Nurse With Wound  ”Large Ladies With Cake In The Oven”  CD  (United Dairies)  $30  - long out of print World Serpent edition
• Nurse With Wound  ”Live at Bar Maldoror”  CD  (United Dairies)  $30  - long out of print World Serpent edition
• Nurse With Wound  ”Rat Tapes One”  CD  (United Dairies)  $18  - 18 tracks of unreleased outtakes, ltd. 1000
• Nzetwork Down  ”1/1996/1997″  CD  (Hasikamke)  $14  - underrated Japanse noise collages w/field recordings
• Off Ramp  ”Off Chance”  CD  (Ramp Records)  $10  - wild electronics from highly treated acoustic instruments
• One Ensemble of Daniel Padden CD  (Catsup Plate Records)  $11  - solo from Volcano The Bear member, ltd. 500
• Orange Head  ”Right Into the Sun”  CDR  (Cha-Bashira)  $15  - CDR, crazy vinyl abuse from Japan
• Organum  ”Ikon”  CD EP  (Robot Records / Siren Records)  $11  - only 16 min, but absolutely beautiful and recommended
• Organum & The New Blockaders  ”Pulp”  CD  (Robot Records)  $13  - early & essential U.K. noise from 1984
• Organum & The New Blockaders  ”Salute”  CD  (Robot Records)  $12  - intense noise collab from 1984; reissue of very rare tape
• Orhanyoj  ”1. Quartett”  CDR  (IRRAH-Verlag)  $17  - CDR, atonal horn quartet informed by modern classical
• Orhanyoj  ”2. Quartett”  CDR  (IRRAH-Verlag)  $15  - CDR, atonal horn quartet informed by modern classical
• O’Rourke, Jim  ”I’m Happy, and I’m Singing and a 1,2,3,4″  CD  (Mego)  $12  - loopy sound collages
• O’Rourke, Jim & Prime,Michael & Prevost, Eddie  ”Alpha Lemur Echo Two”  CD  (Mycophile Records)  $13  - members of Sonic Youth, Morphogenesis & AMM
• Osaka Bondage  ”Volume 2″  CD  (Shambala Records)  $15  - improvised experimental illbient textures
• Ostrowski, Matthew  ”Vertebra”  CD  (Pogus Productions)  $11  - wild sound collages
• Otomo Yoshihide & Voice Crack  ”Bits, Bots and Signs”  CD  (Erstwhile Records)  $12  - wonderful spacious quiet noise electronics
• Outer Sound Project, The CD  (Ecstatic Peace)  $12  - crazy lo-fi acoustic free for all & street recordings
• O Yuki Conjugate  ”Undercurrents (In Dark Water)”  CD  (Staalplaat)  $12  - flowing ambient with tribal rhythms; now out of print
• Prevost, Eddie / Organum  ”Flayed / Crux”  CD  (Matchless Recordings)  $17  - reissue of long out of print drone LP from 1987