Releases

Dimples’ - Soul Chateau ()

LP Edition of 250 Co-Released with Laughable Recordings $22 No shortage of dune buggy up the canyon honey slide action here. The first tinges of sonic solvent action provide a loosened effect, but just as the tongue gets lazy, the swagger is spat gently from the tip as clarity bursts into the room with the urgency a hungry baby. Delicate without feeling soft. Brash without feeling harsh and at times Dimples’ swing fucking hard, like JJ and Leon without forcing it one bit. But if you don’t like “new music” this might not be your cuppa. ‘Soul Chateau,’ isn’t an updated prettied up throwback, it’s all here and now, in the present time’s glory, gore, majestic beauty, and glimmering perpetual… Read more »

Double Wig - Double Wig ()

LP Edition of 300. 180 Gram Vinyl. Co-Release with Carbon Records.      Bandcamp $25 Double Wig’s debut s/t LP opening with excellent, and aptly titled Harmonium, which then leads right into the propulsive jammer Broken Cup, completed with total-Neu vibes. When Your Mask, a total curveball, is creepy and disturbing in the best possible way. Is this a Lord of the Rings thing? I saw the cartoon version in like 1981 or something. I’m more of a Watership Down person but whatever… Gone Circling closes out the A side, sounding like KARP slowly sinking in quicksand. The B side opens with Tarantula Hill (named after the venue it was recorded at), a secret C.B. radio broadcast of earth moving… Read more »

Dan Melchior - CB Odyssey ()

LP Edition of 400 Co-Released with Sophomore Lounge. $20 One of the great joys of the ever-evolving catalog of Dan Melchior is hearing where in the spectrum of styles that he has mastered each record falls. From studio recordings to lo-fidelity home experiments, full band rockers or plaintive solo excursions, fans never know what they are going to get until the needle drops. Those of us who have followed Dan on his prolific pathways are ready for anything but always assured that the spirit of the artist himself, one unique enough to be its own in any form, will deliver and somehow deal with the ramifications of an increasingly maddening world. Dan’s first full length of 2021, CB Odyssey, (co-released by… Read more »

The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol - Biker Smell ()

CS Edition of 100. Pro-dubbed. Included DL with CS. Risograph covers printed at LOOKY HERE. $10 New cassette issue of the third LP by TBWNIS. This was the final album recorded by the original quartet iteration of the band during the Fall and Winter of 2009 in Ottowa. 100 copies were released by Birdman Sound in 2010, then Cardinal Fuzz did another edition of 100 in 2018, apart from the 100 to be included in the anthology box, II.  The band at this time was Mark McIntyre, John Westhaver, Bill Guerrero and Nathaniel Hurlow, and they were throwing down brain-thunderous instrumental thug-psych juice like maniacs. You can pick up small glimmers of lifted riffs in spots, but playing this album… Read more »

Reynols - Tolin Asumer ()

LP 180 Gram Vinyl. Edition of 300. Co-Release with Carbon Records. Bandcamp $24 Recent cover artists on The Wire magazine, Argentinian free-noise / psych / experimental group Reynols have been exploring the weirdo/underground landscape since 1993! Led by vocalist, drummer, and spiritual advisor Miguel Tomasin, this (now) 4-piece group are legends in underground music communities all over the world. The group is rounded out by Anla Courtis, Roberto Conlazo, and more recently, Pacu Conlazo.    Throughout their career, Reynols have collaborated with a wide range of internationally known artists, including US-based minimal composer Pauline Oliveros, Canadian outsider-rock outfit The Nihilist Spasm Band, New Zealand artist/label-honcho Birchville Cat Motel (Campbell Kneale), Japanese psych heavy-weights Acid Mothers Temple (known as Acid Mothers… Read more »

chik white - QuaranTunes Series No.56 ( / )

12″ Lathe Edition of 25. Numbered. Loose leaf cover + back art printed at LOOKYHERE. OUT OF PRINT On the evening of Friday May 27, 2021, Chik White performed one of the gnarliest sets of music heard during the entire QuaranTunes series. In the comfort of his Nova Scotia living room, Mr. White performed a sequence of sonic explorations of mouth-sounds that was as beautiful as it was staggeringly weird. Anyone familiar with either Chik’s album, Stranger Calls to Land (FTR363), or his many cassettes, has a basic idea of what he’s up to. His work with various jaw harps, toy trumpets and other breath-controlled devices has made people aware of the avant garde potential of a whole new panoply… Read more »

Matthew J. Rolin - The Dreaming Bridge ( / )

2LP 2nd Pressing – Clear Vinyl edition of 369.     Bandcamp $33 We are living in something of a golden age of fingerstyle guitarists. This glut can be both a blessing and a curse, as it becomes increasingly difficult for even the most discerning of fans to distinguish one player from the next, however capable these players might be. It is always a pleasure, then, to hear the ways in which the braver and brighter guitarists re-think the tradition from the ground up and recast it in their own image. Enter guitarist Matthew J. Rolin, who plays as if he was born with a dreadnought in his hands. The Ohio-based guitarist’s artistic leaps in recent years are rivaled only… Read more »

The Lentils - Budget Alchemy ( / )

12″ Lathe edition of 27. Numbered.  Original one of a kind cover art by Luke Csehak. OUT OF PRINT – Also available on cassette / digital from Flower Sounds  There’s a type of vanity that masquerades as ‘good taste’ in the world of recorded music. It suggests a musical teleology of a band’s recorded output which progresses from the lofi salad days to the hifi times of ‘clear intentions’ and ‘marked improvements’. Over time we come to expect these refinements as a type of courtesy to the industry at large. These progressions are often blandly linear, smoothly executed by so called ‘competent actors’ and showcase the holistic capture of our productive forces, pushing us to desire the refinement of affects…. Read more »

Powers / Rolin Duo - S/T ()

LP edition of 400. Repressed in Pink Vinyl. $21 Hot on the heels of last year’s Matthew J. Rolin LP (FTR 502), here is a new duo recording featuring Rolin’s acoustic twelve-string and the hammered-dulcimer of Jen Powers. They’ve had a couple previous cassettes, but I’ve never seen ’em! If you have, I can offer you something fine in trade. As with his first LP, Rolin’s command of his guitar is quite wonderful to hear. He uses the whole breadth of the twelve-string’s harmonic potential, which creates a wide surging stream of sound. Powers’ work with the hammered dulcimer (an instrument we hear far too rarely these days!) utilizes a similar approach, which means we are afforded access to wide… Read more »

Pelican Movement - Fistful Of Ivy ()

LP Black Vinyl / Gatefold. Edition of 269. Includes a digital download and an 11″ x 17″ color poster made in collaboration with poet, D.S. Jenkins. BLACK VINYL – $25 Fistful of Ivy is the debut LP by a loosely floating aggregation of individuals, brought together by musician/producer Kevin S. McMahon, at whose New Paltz NY studio it was recorded. The concept for Pelican Movement arose a quarter century ago, but the only previous graspable evidence of its existence is half of an obscure 7” from 2015. Fistful of Ivy will be most listeners’ introduction to Pelican Movement’s sound/image, and the LP is as fine an intro to anything as could be imagined. The album began as an instrumental suite… Read more »