Format: cd

Orchid Spangiafora - Eel Asp Flaps Feet ()

CD Edition of 300. $12 Fifty years after I first encountered the music of Orchid Spangiafora, it is a pleasure to be listening to new work by this most bonny of modern sound manipulators. Like Flee Pasts Ape Elf (FTR 096), which we reissued in expanded form in 2013, Eel Asp Flaps Feet (the title of which is an anagram of the earlier set) is an assemblage of immaculate invention. It manages to produce a unique splotch of confusing analog surrealism in an increasingly digital world, and Robert Carey (aka Orchid himself) deigned to provide these notes on creating the music: “This album is a combination of some new material and ideas and some older stuff that had not found… Read more »

lloyd Thayer - Limitation Is Necessary ()

CD edition of 300 $10 Limitation Is Necessary is the third set of music by Massachusetts-based string genius lloyd Thayer we’ve had the honor of releasing. This follows the Duets LP (with percussionist Jerome Duepree) on which lloyd split his playing between a Weissenborn lap guitar and a 22 string  Chaturangui, and the Twenty20 CD which was all done on a double-necked Weissenborn. Both of these album deep and monumental explorations of mesmeric string textures filled with elements that ranged from Indian Classical to Blues to Psychedelic with hypnotic grace. The blend of elements so extraordinary and seamless, his slidework is almost incomparable. When I asked him about the germination and evolution of the new album, he wrote eloquently about… 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 »

Myriam Gendron - Not So Deep As A Well (Expanded Version) ( / )

Co-Release with Basin Rock (UK)  LP – $25 CD – $14 Myriam Gendron’s stunning Not So Deep As A Well LP became something of a sleeper hit upon its initial release back in 2014. Her debut album shone a warm lamp-light glow upon a curious and captivating new voice in the Quebecois folk world. Nearly ten years on from its release in her native Canada and America, Not So Deep As A Well gets a European release for the first time which also features two tracks not included on the original release – ‘Bric-à-brac’ and ‘The Small Hours’ – both written and recorded in the early days of 2014. Recorded alone in her apartment, with no knowledge of sound engineering,… Read more »

Village Of Spaces - That’s Understanding ( / )

LP edition of 500.  $21 CD edition of 400. $10 Having listened to this disk 20 or so times over the past week, I have been struck time and again by the gently naif quality of Dan Beckman-Moon’s songwriting. I keep thinking of Neil Young’s earliest solo tunes, particularly “Sugar Mountain,” as a sort of spiritual touchstone, although truthfully the music doesn’t really sound anything like that. Still, the emotional core of the material has a similar sweetness and simplicity, while managing to steer clear of mawkishness with a nimble delicacy that parallel’s Neil’s early work. I have come to think of Valley of Spaces as a collaborative effort between Dan and his partner, Amy Moon, but this album often… Read more »

Margarida Garcia - Good Night ()

CD Edition of 300. bandcamp  $12 Portuguese bassist Margarida Garcia has collaborated with some of our favorite artists — Marcia Bassett, Loren Connors and Chris Corsano among them. Loren even wrote the liner notes for Good Night, which is about as a solid an endorsement as anyone is ever likely to get. So we are proud and excited to present the first solo album she’s released through a US label. The three tracks on Good Night are all lovely slides into pools of quivering dream gel. Performed on an amplified upright bass, the arco flow of her playing (with what I assume to be light electronic effects in certain passages) moves like a field of lava sheets overlapping as they… Read more »

Eric Arn, Eyal Maoz - Kost Mix ()

CD Edition of 300. bandcamp $11 This is our fifth release with the Vienna-based guitarist Eric Arn, and as with each of his albums, Kost Nix (No Cost) is different from all that have preceded it.  Eric is a musician whose interests and techniques are constantly evolving, so it has been a pleasure to observe his evolution from a power raunch generator (with Crystalized Movements, then Primordial Undermind) into the wildly unpredictable improviser he has become. This is the third duo album we’ve done with him, following Paranza Corta (FTR384) with Margaret Unknown, and Hydromancy (FTR493) with Jasmine Pender, and it is another stone killer. Eric’s sparring partner this time is Eyal Maoz, the great Israel-born, NYC-based guitarist who has… Read more »

lloyd Thayer - Twenty20 ()

CD Edition of 300.   Bandcamp $14 It has been a couple of years (that felt like a lifetime) since we released lloyd Thayer’s last album, Duets (FTR406), which he recorded with the drummer Jerome Deupree. The intervening time has been weird as hell, but Thayer (master of every string that’s ever been strung) has made the decision to create a fantastic,  sprawling solo suite for himself. And now it is time to share the beauty with you. Unlike the music on Duets, the piece here was played entirely on double-necked Weissenborn guitar, although the sounds are altered and layered in a ways that are a far cry from the delicate slide work for which the Weissenborn is best known…. Read more »

Jean-Baptiste Favory - CIELS ()

CD Edition of 300. $12 YouTube CIELS It is our honor to present the seventh album by French composer Jean-Baptiste Favory, whose work we first encountered while reissuing a record with the Mexican art collective, Los Lichis. J-B made an annual trip to Mexico to participate in Los Lichis’s  musical and visual anarchy (Dog 2LP FTR229, Savage Lichis Religion : El Ultimo Grito LP FTR354), and was considered a full member of this estimable outfit. We soon discovered he was also the France’s long-running experimental radio show Epsilonia, as well as an exciting solo musician. This led to us releasing his wonderful 2017 LP, Things Under: Compositions for Guitars and Electronics (FTR333). Favory’s main interest remains in electronics composition, so… Read more »

Mako Sica / Hamid Drake featuring Tatsu Aoki & Thymme Jones - Formless ()

CD Edition of 400. Preorder available on bandcamp.  $10 Gorgeous quintet improv space explored at Chicago’s ProMusica studios. Long-time partners Przemyslaw Drazek (trumpet, strings, percussion) and Brent Fuscaldo (voice, guitar, percussion, harmonica) join up again with Hamid’s percussion, Tatsu’s bass & shamisen, and Thymme’s piano & various, just as they did on last year’s amazing Ourania (FTR513). The sounds now are spacious, comfortable explorations of unknown sonic turf. There may be a bit less of the aggressive edge that marked their earlier work, but the music generates an equal amount of head-shaking wonder. Thymme’s piano and the hails of percussive energy now sometimes set the stage in the way the band’s trumpet and guitar once did. There’s a magnificent moodiness… Read more »