Dissonant Plane

A year is a long time.  So I have probably forgotten a few things.  But here is what comes to mind as my favorite new releases and reissues that came out in 2009:

• AFCGT - AFCGT (Uzu Audio) LP
• Laurie Scott Baker - Gracility (Musicnow) 2xCD
• L. Berner - Blackout Nights (Zen Enthusia) 2xCass
• Sir Richard Bishop - The Freak Of Araby (Drag City) CD
• Crystal Hell Pool - Wind Blows Through Me (Crippled Symmetry Recordings) CDR
• Dropp Ensemble - Safety (and/OAR) CD
• Luc Ferrari - Labyrinthe De Violence / DANCE (Alga Marghen) 12″
• Ibliss - Supernova (Garden Of Delights) CD
• The Inner Space - Agilok & Blubbo (Wah-Wah Records Sound)
• Demian Johnston - Forever (Dead Accents) Cass
• Demian Johnston - Still (Dead Accents) Cass
• Dave Knott - Sweet Little Guitar Ditties (Not On Label) CD
• R Millis - 120 (Etude Records) CD
• Hiroaki Minami - Obscure Tape Music Of Japan Vol.10: Electronic Symphony No. 1 (Edition Omega Point) CD
• People Band - People Band 69/70 (Emanem) 2xCD
• Eliane Radigue - Triptych (Important Records) CD
• Eliane Radigue - Vice Versa, Etc.… (Important Records) 2xCD
• Matt Shoemaker - The Sunken Plethora Consumes All (Mystery Sea) CDR
• Omar Souleyman - Dabke 2020: Folk And Pop Sounds Of Syria (Sublime Frequenices) CD
• Sperm - Shh! Heinäsirkat (De Stijl) LP
• Sun City Girls - Napoleon & Josephine (Sun City Girls Singles Volume 2) (Abduction) CD
• Akio Suzuki - Ki-date (Ichinomiya City Memorial Art Museum of Setsuko Migishi) DVD
• Giancarlo Toniutti - The Early Tapes Period (Vinyl-On-Demand) 3xLP + 10″
• UnicaZürn - Temporal Bends (uZu Music) CD
• Simon Wickham-Smith - A Seventh Persimmon (Tape Drift Records) CDR
• Zaïmph - Serpent’s Bite (Heavy Blossom) CD
• Various - 1970’s Algerian Proto-Rai Underground (Sublime Frequencies) CD

• Ash Castles on the Ghost Coast CD  (Fleece Records / Wholly Other)  USED  $8  - Heather Murray (ex-Charalambides) & Shawn McMillen
• Bishop, Richard  ”God Damn Religion”  DVD + CD  (Locust Music)  USED  $12  - CD & DVD set, no guitar here, just dark experimental
• Cage, John  ”Variations IV”  CD  (Legacy International)  USED  $6  - fantastic sound collages, reissue of 2 LPs from 1965
• Cluster  ”71″  CD  (Water)  USED  $9  - early dark & cosmic electronics from Germany
• Cluster  ”II”  CD  (Spalax)  USED  $9  - really good!  like good spacey TG, but years earlier
• Crass  ”Christ the Album”  2 x CD  (Crass Records)  USED  $9  - 1982 album of anarcho-peace punk
• Culver C90  ((oTo))  USED  $2  - droney noises, 1 side only, C90,  ltd 50
• Doc Wör Mirran  ”Power of Positive Obscurity, The”  C60  (Old Europa Cafe)  USED  $2  - spacey lo-fi creations from Germany on Italian label C60
• Faust with Conrad, Tony  ”Live:  London - Queen Elisabeth Hall - February 1995″  C60  (Klangbad)  USED  $2  - live concert recording released by the band, C60
• Fennesz  ”Fennesz Plays”  CD EP  (Moikai)  USED  $4  - instrumental electronic glitch covers of Stones, 7 mins
• German Oak CD  (Radioactive)  USED  $9  - obscure Krautrock instrumentals from 1972
• Godz  ”Contact High”  CD  (ESP Disc / XYZ Music)  USED  $9  - drop out folk weirdness from 1966
• Harvester  ”Hemat”  CD  USED  $9  - great trance psychedelic rock w/folk touches from 1969
• Jackie-O Motherfucker  ”Europe 2002″  2 x CD  (Cast Exotic Archives)  USED  $12  - out of sight collective weirdness
• Kawabata Makoto  ”You Are The Moonshine”  CD  (Mar/Ino / Elsie & Jack Recordings)  USED  $15  - beautiful ambient sounds, ltd 150, long out of print
• Knaack, Donald  ”Dance Music”  CD  (RRRecords)  $8  - contemplative & creative experimental
• Kubli, Thom  ”Mondok Spots”  CD  (BMB Lab)  USED  $7  - very beautiful subtle drones like Rafael Toral, ltd 300
• L’infonie  ”Volume 333″  2 x CD  (Mucho Gusto)  USED  $12  - bizarre jazz, rock, experimental, classical mixture
• Lacy, Steve  ”Saxophone Special +”  CD  (Emanem)  USED  $9  - very free playing with some of the greats of the day
• Limbus 4  ”Mandalas”  CD  (Spalax)  USED  $9  - one of the greats of early free music w/ acoustic instrs.
• Lost in Translation  ”Wednesday Tapes, The”  C90  (Black Velvet Fuckere Recordings)  USED  $2  - old school cosmic electronics, C90
• Malanga, Gerard  ”Up From The Archives”  CD  (Sub Rosa)  USED  $8  - from the archives of this Warhol collaborator
• McLean Mix, The  ”Golden Age of Electronic Music, The”  CD  (CRI)  USED  $10  - great early analog electronics, out of print
• Miller, Donald  ”A Little Treatise on Morals”  CD  (Audible Hiss)  USED  $8  - solo pieces from Borbetomagus guitarist from 1982
• MNortham  ”Breathing Towers”  CD EP  (Dorobo)  USED  $8  - ltd 400, OOP, 22 minutes, lovely drone
• Moondog and his Friends CD  (Moondog’s Corner)  USED  $8  - reissue of 1953 material using tape overdubbing
• Möslang, Norbert / Guhl, Andy  ”Deep Voices”  CD  (Urthona)  USED  $9  - 1978 FMP debut of the duo that became Voice Crack
• Musica Elettronica Viva  ”The Sound Pool”  CD  (Spalax)  USED  $9  - 1969 large ensemble free for all, originally LP on BYG
• Nath, Pandit Pran  ”Raga Cycle”  CD  (Sri Moonshine)  USED  $9  - contemplative Indian classical w/La Monte Young
• Of  ”Rocks Will Open”  CD  (Digitalis)  USED  $8  - delicate acoustic sounds, Thuja member, ltd 500
• Oliveros, Pauline  ”Primordial Lift”  CD  (Table of the Elements)  USED  $9  - with guests Tony Conrad and David Grubbs
• Romero, Damion  ”Feedback in a Lover’s Telegraph”  CD  (Harbinger Sound)  USED  $7  - gentle and warm self-sustaining feedback drone
• Screamin’ Mee-Mees & Hot Scott Fischer  ”You’re Now In Our World: Warp Sessions ‘72″  CDR  (Slippy Town)  USED  $6  - lo-fi primitive “Godz meets Amon Düül”, CDR, ltd 125
• Smegma  ”Ism”  CD  (Tim/Kerr Records)  USED  $10  - long out of print 1993 album by these Portland weirdos
• Speare, Jed  ”Sound Works 1982-1987″  2 x CD  (Family Vineyard)  USED  $12  - great unreleased musique concrete from the 1980’s
• Throbbing Gristle  ”Live Volume 1, 1976-1978″  CD  (Mute Records / The Grey Area)  USED  $12  - out of print, early murky Industrial sounds, vellum cover
• Ya Ho Wha 13  ”Penetration, An Aquarian Symphony”  CD  (Cold Sweat)  USED  $9  - reissue of 1974 LP, acid-mantra psychedelic death trip

Unrock is an alternative record store in Krefeld, Germany.  Like us they put on some in store shows, and to document this the label Unsound Recordings was founded.  Normally this releases are only available directly from Unrock, but we got a few copies of the most recent batch for Dissonant Plane.  We are probably the only place in the States that has these.  The three titles we got are limited edition CDRs in lovely screen printed Digipaks.  The first is by ME & EE with the Golden Road.  Six tracks of psychedelic blues where Matt and Erika are joined by Doc Dunn and Samara Lubelski.  Matt Valentine often reminds me of a very laid back Neil Young.  Ramping up from this is Sunburned Hand of the Man whose disc is one 39 minute Krautrock inspired jam of craziness with a quartet line up.  Both this and the MV & EE are hand numbered editions of only 150 copies.  The third title in the batch is by Temple of Bon Matin and comes in a tinier edition of only 50 copies.  And it is the most out there of the batch.  Usually a very large group, the Temple was only a trio at this gig.  Made of Ed Wilcox (vocals), Eric Baylies (bass) and Jay Reeve (electronics), they let loose some crazy free music which bears a passing resemblance to rock, but goes further out and doesn’t have any drums to fall back on.

Two very special items from Japan:

Akio Suzuki “Ki-date” DVD & book
A beautiful retrospective of this very special Japanse sound artist.  The 210 minute all region NTSC DVD features live performances on Akio’s instruments such as the Analapos and Suzuki Type Glass Harmonica, as well as exhibition views and field recordings.  The performances are sublime as Suzuki lets loose delicate and magical sounds from his instruments and plays with small objects.  Also in the box is a 190 color catalog with texts in Japanese and English (translations by Alan Cummings) documenting 40 years of sound creation with many lovely photographs.  Also included in this set is a map of the location that Suzuki marked for ‘Oto-Date’.   This on going projects marks good listening spots in urban areas with Suzuki’s whimsical icon combining feet and ears.  This map shows the locations around the museum that Akio liked and the DVD documents these spots.  In a stroke of genius the video faces the opposite direction of any action so that sounds are heard, but the visuals are mostly stationary, yet impart the sense of the place.  The performance recordings on the DVD, these sounds are also recorded by Kuwayama Kijima of Lethe.  Documents of Suzuki’s work are always hard to find and therefore in demand, so don’t miss your chance to pick up this set!

Lethe “Catastrophe Point #6″ CD
Privately released limited edition CD from 2005 packaged on an A4 (about letter size) cardboard sleeve with beautiful artwork by Isao Mizutani.
Nagoya based Kiyoharu Kuwayama has an interest in reverberant spaces, recording under bridges and flyovers as well as in warehouse and Shinto temples at night. Although he occasionally employs cello, his works tends to explore space and perspective in utterly unconventional ways. Typically, he favours objects found in situ to sound the acoustic environment and is as likely to use a chair scraped along the floor as a standard musical instrument. But music this most definitely is. The first piece on offer here foregrounds what sounds like a handful of pebbles being clicked together against a distant backdrop of scraped sheet metal. The thickness of the room’s acoustics lends the whole an almost frightening clarity, and there’s an unreality to the way the two different reverberant layers combine that only adds to the sense of unease. We’re thrown into a subtly heightened acoustic realm, in which scale and perspective are altered, to disquieting psychological effect. The second piece heightens and complicates the acoustic picture even further, and increases the density of the sonic activity. The sound sources here seem to be bundles of sticks, bottles, tea trays and iron girders thrown down lift shafts. Once again the ear tries to make sense of the altered relationships Kuwayama set up between loud and soft, close and distant. Slowly, the piece starts to focus more and more strongly on a huge, dark vibration at the furthest end of the acoustic spectrum, which builds in intensity, racking up the tension and subtly disturbing the mind’s equilibrium. By this point, the music sounds like it’s taking piece in a vast, pitch black aircraft hangar of the soul. - Keith Moline (Wire No. 264)
Volcanic Tongue made comparisons with Christoph Heemann, Sean Meehan and AMM when describing this one.

John Olson started American Tapes before there was a Wolf Eyes.  Early on he already had a diversity of musical projects and these days seem to be no different.  This week we got a box of the latest releases from the label, all new things that they didn’t have on offer at the recent Josephine show.  None of them is by Wolf Eyes, but most of them seem to be related in some way, if not in actual membership than in aesthetics.  All these releases are packaged in handmade covers with very little info and come in limited editions of 40 to 100 copies.  The oldest title we were able to get was the special edition of Dead Machines “Plays Kwaidan”.  Dead Machine is John Olson (Wolf Eyes) and his wife Tovah Olson.  This one of several releases where they create soundtracks for old movies, in this case the brilliant Kobayashi film from 1964 which had brilliant music by Toru Takemitsu.  The Dead Machines version was released as a 7″ by the Swedish label Ideal, but American tapes made a special edition of only 30 copies with a bonus CDR featuring exclusive tracks by Dead Machines, plus the solo projects Spykes and Tovah D-Day.  Slightly more recent is the Paul Flathery & Jeff Hartford one-sided LP “8-01-08” named for the date on which it was recorded.  Flaherty is a free jazz alto sax player and dominates the recording, athlought Jeff Hartford’s electronic noises can be heard in the mix as well.  This one is limited to only 100 copies, as is the other single-sided LP we were able to get, “Learning for Insipid Zeal“.  Peopled by Pool Water, People Pollution (members of Raven Strain and Sick Llama), and Imaginary Unit In Electronics, this album is a great little selection of murky noise electronics and seems to be the only appearance on vinyl of these groups.  However, Pool Water does have a CDR titled “Live at Warm & Covering” which is quite nice.  Although it is not revealed on the release anywhere, this group is made up of John Olson, Mike Connelly (Wolf Eyes, Hair Police), and Mike Collino playing violin, cardboard percussion, flute, tapes.  From here we go into the region of total mystery acts about which I know nothing, except that they sound good, and that is all that really counts in the end.  The other two CDRs in this batch are About ‘Needs’ and ‘Crisis’ by Rain of Dissolved Sedatives and Paradox 11.  Rain of Dissolved Sedatives is a great name and stirs up some wild electronics.  Paradox 11 is a magazine with the sort of wild graphics you see displayed on all American Tapes releases.  No text anywhere, just images, so you don’t even know who exactly is behind the insane noise on the accompanying CDR.  Rounding things up in this batch are three cassette only releases: How People Speak “I Was Tempted To Tell Him That I Had I No Idea What I Really Wanted But Decided To Keep It To Myself“, Sad Policemen “Uninvolved, and We Are The…“, and Zero Days United “A Front As Well As Any Other“.  All three are editions of only 50 copies and feature zany electronic noise.  If you like Wolf Eyes, branch out and check these things out.  You’ll be kicking yourself later if you don’t grab them.  The label has done over 800 release and the entire back catalog is already out of print.

Did you know there is an experimental music scene in Malaysia?  It’s pretty small still, but there are two labels that are putting out things on CD fairly regularly.  The most active is Herbal International run by Goh Lee Kwang, but the Xing-Wu label has also put several titles as well.  Both labels seem really keen to release European artists at the moment, especially ones from France.  In the most recent batch from Herbal are a double CD by Jean-Luc Guionnet, a collaborative disc by Eric La Casa and Cédric Peyronnet, and a reissue of the second Beequeen album.  Beequeen are a Dutch duo and create really nice ambient textures with minimal organic rhythms and “Time Waits for No One” is one of their better early works.  Cédric Peyronnet is better known as toy.bizarre and like his collaborator Eric La Casa is known for working field recordings into lovely compositions.  Their duet together is entitled “La Creuse” and finds them mapping a particular area in central France.  Eric La Casa was previously in a trio called Afflux, and one of the other members of this group was Jean-Luc Guionnet.  On his double CD “Non-Organic Bias” he presents three long works.  They focus on the organ which he plays in a very experimental way exploiting lone tones and silences with great dynamic effect.  These works would have sounded at home in Deutsche Grammophon’s Avant-Garde series of LPs.  Quite a different facet of Jean-Luc’s work is heard on the CD “Le Bruit Du Toit” where he plays saxophone.  This album released by Xing-Wu is a duet with original Fushitsusha drummer Seijiro Murayama.  Recorded at a temple in Japan, the two improvisations reveal a delicate attention to timbre and close listening to each other.  The third member of Afflux. Eric Cordier, is represented on another Xing-Wu disc called “Dispositif: Canal Saint Martin“.  Recorded in collaboration with Emmanuel Mieville, this disc takes another approach to field recordings as it is a real time composition made by placing 30 microphones around the Paris city hall and manipulating them via laptop triggered ’sonic objects’.  Although not French, Michael Northam and Seijiro Murayama met in France and Switzerland and slowly developed the album “Moriendo Renascor“.  A meeting of acousmatic composter and free improviser has resulted in a finely detailed meditation on small sounds and drones.  But that is not all from Xing-Wu as we also got the one release they have done featuring only Malaysian musicians.  “Shàng” presents the three artists who I believe to be behind the label. Each presents a very different work.  Tham Kar Mun is very minimal with sudden outbursts of sound and Yandsen presents solo improvised acoustic guitar.  However for me, the best track here is the 26 minute “Funeral” by Yeoh Yin Pin.  Based on a recording of a Chinese Taoist funeral ceremony, the sounds here are just magical and reason enough to own this disc.

• 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

Nice set by Sunship at Resolution Audio last night.  They are Seattle jazz quintet made up of Michael Monhart (saxophones), Stuart Dempster (trombone, pvc pipe, conch shell and lots of other little things), David Revelli (percussion), Andrew Luthringer (bass) and Brian Heaney (guitar).  Their two sets were mostly fusion oriented, but also including didjeridu drones and Sonny Sharrock-like seering electric guitar.  They left behind a few copies of their almost sold out CDR.  Recorded in 2007 for Doug Haire’s Sonarchy program, the album is a blend of original compositions and improvisations.  This combination, ranging as it does from the tuneful to abstract, reminds me of Sun Ra, although other reviewers have brought up Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Carpet Floor has released 4 pressed CD (not CDRs) of crisply recorded free rock instrumentals.  Garry Davis (editor of Arcane Candy magazine) and Matt Crane (former Seattle resident) play guitar and drums respectively, but occasionally branch out on other instruments.  One of the variations are Garry’s steel rod and steel spring guitar which add said objects to the strings on the neck.  The music was all recorded over a period of several years and this is obviously a distillation of the best moments onto 4 CDs.  The works are all instrumental and have a kind of Southern California desert soundtrack vibe to them  It reminds me a little of early Sonic Youth or Savage Republic.  I say this not only for the grooves they freely move through, but also the variety to explore more abstract soundscapes once in a while.  They themselves describe the music as “heavy psychedelic rock and abstract improvisation with plenty of free-jazz-influenced drumming and fuzz guitar destruction.”  “Blow Out” does in fact have some free jazz moments with guest saxophone player Adam Diller on 5 tracks, but overall the music leans more heavily to the rock side and is easily accessible.  It seems like great music for a road trip.  Packaged simply in paper sleeves, the discs only sell for $7.00, inviting you to explore their wares.  That’s all the same price as the little 64-page book of full color photographs by Garry Davis called “Point and Shoot”.  With basically no text except the index at the back, this is a pocket sized collection of concert shots taken between 1999 and 2008.  It is a rock photo book for the weirdo set with Ya Ho Wa 13, Keiji Haino + Fushitsusha, James Cecil Davis, Tony Conrad, Stereolab, Don Bolles, James Chance and the Contortions, Rebekah Raff + Just Strings, Val Bertoia, Bardo Pond, Danielson Famile, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Stefano Scodanibbio and Terry Riley, Rod Poole, Sir Richard Bishop, The Wives, Dos, Thurston Moore + White Out, Slint, Carpet Floor, Custom Floor, Lavender Diamond, Pole, Merzbow, Brad Laner, Matt Crane and Tom Swafford, Sonic Youth, Partch, Lance Mountain, White Magic, The Brothers Unconnected and 88 Broadrum.  I think Garry said he made only 50 copies of this. - Eric

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.