Actually, this is stuff that came in last week, but it’s been so busy around here I haven’t found time to write about them until now.
Ashtray Navigations “Monocycle American” LP - Super stupid tiny edition of 99 copies on multicolored vinyl with a paste-on cover as one might expect from the highly collectable Qbico label. I guess that is better than the original edition of only 50 copies on CDR, but not by much. For bettr or worse, the music on this single-sided LP is actually quite impressive heavy psychedelic electronics. Probably one of the best Ashtray Nav things I have heard in a long time.
Aidan Baker “Gathering Blue” 2 x LP - Limited edition of 444 copies in a heavy gatefold sleeve, out of which 294 are pressed on mottled peacock blue vinyl which we got one copy of. Featured among the original compositions is a cover of Joy Division’s “24 Hours”.
Laurie Scott Baker “Gracility” 2 x CD - Unreleased archival recordings from 1969-1975 of graphic scores and text pieces. Baker was an early friend of Cornelius Cardew’s and was in the Scratch Orchestra as well a performer in Hair and with Alex Harvey, Robert Wyatt and Manfred Mann. According to the liner note, he and John Paul Jones were the ones that got EMS to make their famous suitcase synthesizer. This collection documents his experimental work and it is quite impressive! The title track is a mass of sound like the early AMM recordings, and no wonder as joining Baker are Keith Rowe, Derek Bailey and Gavin Bryars. Following this is a lovely 6 minute piece for solo soprano sax performed in 1975 by none other than Evan Paker. Taking up the above referenced EMS Synthi VC3, along with bass guitar and plenty of tape echo, Baker is joined for the 51 minute “Bass Chants & Cues” by John Tilbury (AMM) on organ and Jamie Muir (King Crimson) on drums and vocals as captured in 1972. It’s a stunning work of minimalism with rock freak out energy. Closing the set is “Circle Piece” performed by the legendary and rarely recorded Scratch Orchestra (here featuring Andy McKay, Christopher Hobbs, John White, Michael Parsons and many other) back in 1970. Given who is performing here, it is no wonder that the music came out so great. Since this really doesn’t have any US distribution, I ordered these directly from the label in UK. We got three copies and they are all spoke for at the moment. So why even mention it? Well, if anyone else wants to pick up a copy of this, we will order more. So let us know if you’d like to get one of these.
Sir Richard Bishop “The Freak of Araby” LP or CD - Rick’s latest is truly fantastic. He’s gone electric and added a backing back and channels his Lebanese roots through a collection of originals and Arabic covers. This is one that will reach out even to those simple minded folks who think that “Torch of the Mystics” was Sun City Girls’ only decent record. He played last night at the Crocodile and it was stunning in person. We’ve got this one on both LP and CD.
Burning Star Core “Challenger” LP - Hailed by many as C. Spencer Yeh’s best work, this album was originally released on both LP and CD by Hospital Productions, and like everything that label puts out went out of print. Thankfully reissued by Plastic Records.
Cornelius Cardew “Treatise” LP - Pages from the masterwork of graphic scores performed by one of Cardew’s closest friends Keith Rowe (ex-AMM) and Oren Ambarchi (Sunn0))))).
Cobalt “Eater of Birds” CD - Blackened war metal from Colorado. This is their 2007 album which we got along with restock of their latest “Gin”. Like many Profound Lore releases, this one has a guest appearance by Jarboe of Swans. Driving with some nice acoustic tracks.
Current 93 “Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain” CD - Three years in the making, this album shows some of the influence of all the metal bands that David Tibet has been working with recently (Sigh, Skitliv, Aethenor). The sound is heavier and doomier matching Tibet’s apocalyptic lyrics. As usual there is a rather star studded cast with James Blackshaw, William Breeze, Ossian Brown, John Contreras, Baby Dee, Andria Degens, Sasha Grey, Andrew Liles, Alex Neilson, Steven Stapleton, Andrew W.K., and perhaps mostly strangely of all, Rickie Lee Jones. It’s a regular priced CD but includes a fat booklet of lyrics and photos, plus a poster of fans that put up money for the album in advance.
Aaron Dilloway “Chain Shot / Execution Dock” LP - The ex-Wolf Eyes guy who runs the Hanson label provides one of his strongest moments on this LP of noise loops. It will have you thinking it is stuck in a lock groove until it actually evolves into something else.
Eat Skull “Wild and Inside” CD - It’s lo-fi and rough, but oh so catchy and melodic. Pop music for people who require a slightly dirtier sound.
FM3 “Buddha Machine II” soundbox - They are back, everyone’s favorite self contained drone machine. They are really cool and the new one has pitch bend on it.
Guru Guru “UFO” CD - Restocked yet again, this an essential Krautrock recording. Originally released in 1970 by the wonderful Ohr label, this unreleased some heavy psychdelic sounds. Track titles like “Der LSD-Marsch” and “Next Time See You At The Dalai Lhama” should tell a lot. Sadly, original Guru Guru bass player Uli Trepte passed away earlier this year.
Hospitals “Hairdryer Peace” CD - Take some members of Eat Skull, and their sound, and totally blow it out with distortion and you have this.
Koenjihyakkei “Nivraym” CD - RIO [Rock in Opposition] is not dead! Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins and Acid Mothers Temple leads this group in some intense progressive rock that recalls Zeuhl, Henry Cow and the like.
Les Rallizes Denudes “Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go” CD - Legendary, but almost impossible to hear as they released so little in their time, some artifacts of Les Rallizes Denudes have been appearing in recent years. Unfortunately they tend to disappear just as fast often. This 70 minute CD (not a CDR like many others by this group) collects primal psych-rock from the groups activitity between 1967-1982.
Ghérasim Luca “Two Poems” LP - Like Tristan Tzara and Isidore Isou, Gherasim Luca came from Romania to create strange art. Mostly known as a poet, Luca recorded these two works in the early 1970’s and I don’t think they were released before. Made in the Swedish EMS studios, Luca layers his voice to create charming works of sound poetry. This is much more facinating that the double CD of work released by Editions José Corti some years back.
Malkuth “Sefirah Gevurah” LP - Second album from this NYC black metal trio which features members of No Neck Blues Band. Like their debut, this one is on Hospital Productions and of course instantly sold out from them.
Paul Metzger “Anamnestic Tincture” LP - Strings with a serious bent, as Metzger builds his own variations on the banjo and acoustic guitar, but he still plays them with finger picking skill. Rob Millis commented that Paul’s set was one of the most outstanding opening acts on the recent Sir Richard Bishop tour.
Nurse With Wound “Spiral Insana” CD - Out of print for some years, this is a brand new CD edition of NWW’s 1986 LP for Torso in Holland. Apparently it was one of their better selling records, a fact which Steve blammed on it being advertised along with Torso’s titles by The Residents. This one has lots of short tracks which contribute to the ongoing soundscape of the album and I always thought it was one of their better albums. Guests on this one include Robert Haigh (Sema) and David Jackman (Organum).
Omar Souleyman “Highway To Hassake: Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria” 2 x LP - Sublime Frequencies vinyl - blink and you will miss it. We did secure a few copies of this already out of print reissue of Omar’s wonderful first CD. The man and his band have the Arabic groove like no one else. They just completed a tour of Europe which apparently blew some minds. According to Alan Bishop, Omar declared himself to be better than 60 Jamacans at the Sonar Festival in Spain.
Spiral Joy Band “Little Sparrow” CD - From the ashes of Pelt has come Spiral Joy Band. While Jack Rose has head off into finger picking territory, Mike Gangloff and Pelt engineer Mikel Dimmick choose to explore the drone in more depth. It’s not a pleasant soft drone though, but one with a lot of scrape and harsh tones closer to early Organum or Tony Conrad. On this album, the quartet play fiddle, gong, singing bowls, harmonium, sruti, spiral cymbal, crash cymbal, crank whistle, flute, bells, and stickbanjo.
Starving Weirdos “Into An Energy” CD - Another impressive act on the American noise scene, Starving Weirdos have delivered a great album here. It’s noisy but pulled back and drony. It reminds me of some of the early Voice of Eye recordings, if anyone remembers them.
Sun Araw “Boat Trip” 12″ - Bloody hell, this is a 45 RPM 12″ single priced about the same as an LP. It is at least 9 minutes per side however, and the music is really stunning. Originally released as a 3″ CDR in an edition of 50 copies, it is nice the music is actually available to a wider public. I thought Cameron Stallones’ other Sun Araw records were good, but this one really stands out. It’s got a kind of intensionally murky sound which the label describes as “some hidden soundtrack to Donkey Kong warp-whistling straight into Ayahuasca Country.” Maybe the rhythms in here make for the Donkey Kong reference, but the beautiful guitar work remininscent of early Skullflower is what really pushes this combination of sounds into the strasosphere for me.
Tecumseh “Crossing Divides” LP - I wasn’t sure if we would get this one back in again, as they only made 384 copies, but here it is again. This Portland trio is one of the better doom / drone acts going right now and shares one member with Trees. I saw them live with Troum and Nadja last year and found their almost unmoving sound to be quiet pleasing.
Throbbing Gristle “The Third Mind Movements” CD - New CD made for their recent tour of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York in April of this year. I stunned Pete Swanson, Marcia Bassett and myself by playing this and discovering it actually sounds quite contemporary, like it could be Emeralds or some one like that. It’s more electronic and not so much of Gen’s vocals.
V:28 “NonAnthropogenic” and “SoulSavior” CDs - Pounding industrial metal from Norway which has been proving rather popular with our customers. Kind of neat to see some old names from the Cold Meat Industry label (Deutsch Nepal and raison d’être) make guest appearances on “SoulSavior”.
Whisper Room “Birch White” CD - Aidan Baker of Nadja features in this new rock trio exploring droney territory.
John Wiese & C. Spencer Yeh “Live in Nottingham” LP - I would guess by sales that people around here are familiar with noise man Wiese and certainly know C. Spencer Yeh’s Burning Star Core. This is a pretty solid noise set from England released in an edition of 330 copies in a lovely cover with concrete poetry inspired artwork. Released by Spencer’s ‘bootleg’ What The…? Records label.
YaHoWah 13 “Magnificence in the Memory” LP - The second of what could be 11 volumes of unreleased archival material by this religious / psych group that at one time ran a vegetarian restaurant in L.A. and featured Sky Saxon of The Seeds. Their privately pressed LPs were long the stuff of legend and were inspiration for Byron Coley’s choice of label and store name. YaHoWah 13 have been getting a lot of attention in recent years as a number of their original LPs have been reissued, there has been a book and movie about them, and they have reformed and toured, although without founder and leader Father Yod, who died in a hanggliding accident in Hawaii long ago. Drag City previously released a rather tepid album credited to Children of the Sixth Root Race, which was a Yahowa off shoot and in my opinion not very inspired Christian rock. “Magnificence in the Memory” however was assembled by Dave Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band and features some awesome psych jams with Father Yod leading. Recorded in the prime era of 1972-73, this material really takes off and is the kind of lost psych that people hope for with these kind of reissues.
Various “Open Strings” 2 x CD - Very cool collection of 78 sides from Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Turkey recorded in the 1920’s with a second disc of modern responses. The 78s are obviously very swell and have been restored wonderful. I had my reservations about the second disc, especially in this pairing, but discovered it to be very strong. I knew Sir Richard Bishop would be good, but there are also great tracks by Michael Flower, MV & EE, Six Organs of Admittance and Paul Metzger.
As should be obvious, this is only a fragment of recent arrivals, and there is plenty more I could write about, but there is more to do than blog here at the shop.
- Eric Lanzillotta
