Format: cassette

Wren Kitz - The Thinker ()

CS Edition of 100. $11 Our last album with Burlington VT’s Wren Kitz, Early Worm (FTR558), came out in late 2020 at the height of the pandemic’s buzz-kill. It was a splendid full band expansion of Wren’s earlier recordings, but kept a bit under the radar as did so many other fine records released during the plague years. Now we are chuffed tom present, The Thinker, which is a wonderfully massive form-move for Kitz’s sound, embracing a full-blown studio sound hearkening back to song-based sophisto-psych-pop classics. There are touches that recall everything from Saucerful of Secrets Floyd to Ned Collette’s Old Chestnut to Fraser & DeBolt’s With Ian Guenther. But while there are a lot of odd and varied examples… Read more »

Myriam Gendron - Mayday ( / / )

LP Co-Release with Thrill Jockey Black Vinyl – $21 Green Vinyl – $22 CD – $11 CS – $12 Mayday is the third LP by Montreal-based artist, Myriam Gendron. It follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma délire – Songs of love, lost & found (2021). Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), with Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/ Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound. Most of the songs are original,… Read more »

Tekla Peterson - Mine To Give ()

CS Edition of 150.  $12 Tekla Peterson is the new pop-oriented solo project helmed by Wisconsin’s Taralie Peterson. Peterson has been a member of Spires That In the Sunset Rise since their founding in 2001. Most recently a duo with Ka Baird, Spires has a sound that began deeply rooted in underground folk music, but evolved into a much more overtly jazzoid space. We released their 2017 collaboration LP with Chicago percussionist Michael Zerang, Illinois Glossolalia (FTR 285). But Peterson has always had solo projects going. First she had Tar Pet, an exceedingly fine exploration of so-called wyrd folk. Later there was more avant/jazz-oriented, Louise Bock, with whom we did a 2017 solo LP, Repetitives in Illocality (FTR374) and 2021’s… Read more »

Drazek Fuscaldo / Thymme Jones - Wings Dipped in Fire ()

CS Edition of 200.  $12  Domestic issue of a Polish LP released in 2022 by Przymyslaw Drazek, Brent Fuscaldo and Thymme Jones. In Poland the record was credited to Mako Sica and Thymme Jones, but that Chicago unit has now decided to work under the Drazek Fuscaldo banner. And that is that. Recorded at Electrical Audio in the Windy City, with Corey Bengston playing keyboards on the first side, this is music with all the dreamy jazzoid mystery you expect from Drazek Fuscaldo. I have always felt these guys operate in the same post-punk universe as the Sun City Girls, blending free psych, free jazz, free world, and avant garde impulses into something that probably could have existed in a… Read more »

Abronia - The High Desert Sessions ()

CS Edition  of 150. $11 After recording three studio albums (two of which — 2019’s The Whole of Each Eye FTR498 and 2022’s Map of Dawn FTR669 — we were honored to co-release with Cardinal Fuzz), this amazing Portland OR sextet decided to try something different. An experiment. They packed a vanload of gear and headed out to a rural house in Central Oregon with an 8 track recorder. Besides their standard array of axes, they also brought various “little instruments” as well as acoustic strings and percussives of various stripes, then spent three full days jamming from very early to very late.  There was a lot improvisation, instrument swapping and musical hijinkery quite different from their standard approach. This… Read more »

CVS - Ad Hoc ()

CS Edition of 100. bandcamp link $10 Ad Hoc is this Spanish trio’s first release with which they’ve disguised themselves as a popular American drug store chain. There was an earlier cassette issued under the Cunningham/Volt/Serra banner, which is probably a more elucidating name, but brevity being the soul of wit (and all that), it’s surely more modern a choice to go with the acronym they occasionally employ. Acronyms, after all, suggest a kind of sleekness. And the music created by CVS is as sleek as a goddamn otter. The line-up is unusual. Our great friend, Mark Cunningham (of Mars, Blood Quartet, etc.), plays trumpet. Trumpet is also the chosen “axe” of fellow Barcelonan underground musician, Pablo Volt. The third… Read more »

Marcia Bassett & Samara Lubelski - West Coast Live ()

CS Edition of 100. Out of print Digital Available on Bandcamp. Recorded at three dates on a 2019 tour of Western North America, this new release by the reboutable duo of Marcia Bassett (guitar) and Samara Lubelski (violin) is the first trade release of a tape originally done in an edition of 23 to be sold on tour.  The music is as brilliant as it always is when these two stars collide. Marcia’s control of feedback drones is exquisite and pairs perfectly with Samara’s long-tone string work. The three pieces here are uniformly awesome assemblages of harmonic frequencies and textures that flow into each other as though they were poured from a single head. The two shorter pieces on the… Read more »

Niko Karlsson - Its Own Phantom ()

CS Edition of 100. available on bandcamp. Five years after the magnificent Valosta Valoon LP (FTR331), Finnish multi-instrumentalist, Niko Karlsson is back with a new swab of sound that is even more organic than its predecessor. This time out the focus is more on acoustic strings and percussion, with a minimum of machine driven sounds, even when things get cinematically tense (especially on the b-side). But the bulk of Niko’s new tape (which he had first suggested be released sans any artist info) is a mesmeric assemblage of small gestures that feel something like a meditation exercise taking place in the great outdoors. Acoustic strings swirl around your head like a flock of soft ravens, then expand spectral fingers to… Read more »

rootless - What The Truth Leaves Out ()

CS Edition of 100. Bandcamp. $10 Rootless (or, more properly, rootless) is a solo project that’s been going for better than five years now, helmed by Brooklyn’s Jeremy Hurewitz. Two types of sounds are created under this banner — low key electronics is one, and fingerpicked acoustic guitar is the other. what the truth leaves out focuses on the latter. The shared thread between these styles is a highly personal and intimate feel. When listening to rootless, you often get the sense this is music created solely for the pleasure of the artist himself. The aura of introspection is as deep as the night, so it’s possible to almost feel like a voyeur while listening in. But hey, Jeremy sent… Read more »

Donkey No No - BLOOM ()

Edition of 100. pro-dubbed. Mastered by Caleb Mulkerin at Tank 28. Riso-graph cover printed at LOOKYHERE.   BANDCAMP.  $10 Deep new Quarantine Vibes from this hard lovin’ Western Mass trio. Two of the tracks were recorded during Donkey No No’s superb appearance on the QuaranTunes Zoom concert series (Friday May 14, 2021), the third was done three months later at an undisclosed location. The building blocks, as usual, are Omeed’s alternately chipper and fragmentary guitar lines, Jen Gelineau’s fluid viola / violin runs, and the weep & sizzle dynamism of Ted Lee’s Bowed cymbals. If their namesake metal donkey was harmed at any point during these sessions, you won’t prove it by me.  There is a bit less of rural… Read more »