Releases

ZEBU! - Owsley ()

LP Edition of 100. Includes Insert / Download Slip. BANDCAMP! Out of Print! Fifth vinyl LP by this bi-coastal duo whose last record (2012’s Chill Wave FTR082) was a goddamn SURF album. And indeed, there are still grains of sand audible in the tones Steve D’Ag wrenches out of his guitar, but the main influence/what-have-ya this time is mind-expanding drugs, and their influence on music. As all good heads know there was a direct connection between surf rock and acid rock. Rick Griffin did the early fliers for his high school buddies, The Challengers, long before he became the king of underground comix/poster art. And listening to an album like Beat of the Earth’s eponymous debut, you can almost hear… Read more »

Trimdon Grange Explosion - S/T ()

LP Edition of 500 Comes with Download Code. Co-Released with Cardinal Fuzz BLACK VINYL – OUT OF PRINT COLOR VINYL – OUT OF PRINT Back in the early Oughts, there was a great UK folk rock combo called The Eighteenth of May. They did one album and cut out. Trimdon Grange Explosion is that band, minus two members, and their debut LP kicks up one of the finest blends of UK folk and West Coast psych since the glory days of Fairport. Alison Cotton and Mark Nicholas (also of Left Outsides) comprise half the band, alongside guitarist Ben Phillipson and drummer Karl Sabino. And their vibe is akin to a classic Witchseason production. Ringing layers of psychedelic guitars, backed by throbbing… Read more »

Creative Healing - Low Effort Social Events ()

LP Edition of 200 OUT OF PRINT New Massachusetts combo mixing the folks from Hollow Deck (Andy Allen & Mia Friedman) with three old pals who also passed through the Ran Blake Paddle Tunnel at NE Conservatory (Katie McShane, Jesse Heasly and Nick Neuberg). The results are, as the old men say, a real gas. Although it’s not a constant, there are moments throughout this album where the swonky collision of sax, guitar and drums puts me in mind of several classic versions of Beefheart’s Magic Band. Nothing along those lines in the vocal department (which are often delivered as casually as they might be by MX-80’s Rich Stim), but some of the harmonic threads are definitely of a Vlietian… Read more »

State Champion - Send Flowers ()

LP Edition of 1000. Co-Release W/ Sophomore Lounge FADER LEO WEEKLY OUT OF PRINT Although I have lately taken to associating Louisville’s Ryan Davis with the maniacal blurt of Tropical Trash, I am reminded by the release of the fourth State Champion LP, that this is his original mothership. Send Flowers is State Champion’s most fully realized Beard Rock expression to date. The surrealist underpinning of Ryan’s lyrics are heavier than ever, but that is balanced by the band’s most epiphanically tasty licking. The pieces fit together with such easy organic grace, it’s tempting to suspect they’re simple. But the closer you listen to the parts the more complex they appear. This begins with Ryan’s words, which are sung so… Read more »

Jim Shepard - The Letter Tapes ()

CS82 Edition of 99. Numbered. Comes with Download Code. THRENODY  BOOKLET LETTERS / TRACK LISTING  CS-82 FIRST PRESSING OUT OF PRINT. CS-82 SECOND PRESSING OUT OF PRINT. It has been two decades since Jim Shepard died. In the intervening time, large parts of his crazy DIY ethic (shared by such fellow travelers as Mike Rep, Tommy Jay, Ron House and Don Howland) has wormed its way close to the surface of the sub-underground slag heap, at least now and then. But really, it’s an outsider stance. Not hewing to any actual tradition apart from a strange form of rugged individualism, practiced in the name of art. The Letter Tapes is a compilation of material Jim sent to his buddy, Nudge… Read more »

Weeping Bong Band - Weeping Bong Band ()

LP Edition of 500   Cover Art by Anthony Pasquarosa Vulcher Review by Eddie Flowers FIRST PRESSING – OUT OF PRINT SECOND PRESSING – PSYCHEDELIC SPLATTER / CLEAR VINYL – OUT OF PRINT Sub-underground super-groups are not common. This is less a function of the concept’s oxymoronic nature than of the fiercely independent stance of musicians toiling in this area. By definition, they are doing what they do simply because they love it. It can be quite difficult to distract them from their main focus long enough to get them to do anything else. Weeping Bong Band is a lovely exception that proves this rule. Three members — Clark Griffin, Wednesday Knudsen and PG Six — are in the current… Read more »

Donkey No No - Love Is Sweet Poison ( / )

CS30 / VHS Edition of 10. Numbered. No Download Included. Mystery Green VHS Included. Recorded Feb.11th, 2019 in Greenfield, MA by a KORG CR-4 with one mic. OUT OF PRINT.  EXCERPT

Joshua Abrams - Excavations ()

LP Edition of 500. Includes DL. FIRST PRESSING – OUT OF PRINT! SECOND PRESSING – WHITE / BLACK SPLATTER VINYL The Chicago-based string genius Joshua Abrams first talked to us about the idea of this album a while back. It took a couple of years to get together, but in a way, it’s cool that it’s being released in 2018 — the 50th anniversary of the recording of the first free bass solo LP, Barre Phillips’ Journal Violone. Issued by Opus One in the U.S., Music Man in the UK (as Unaccompanied Barre), and Futura in France (as Basse Barre), Phillips’ groundbreaking album was a gorgeous and gritty exploration of textures that are usually bound deep inside the creative flow… Read more »

Video Nasties - Video Nasties ()

LP Edition of 500 in various colors. with download code. SECOND PRESSING – random color vinyl variants…   The debut LP by Maine’s Video Nasties is actually a compilation of the first four cassette singles/EPs they’ve released over the past three years. The band exists as a part-time project involving several key members of the Strange Maine scene. And when you listen to it, you’ll be less-than-surprised to learn that some of the Nasties are also involved with Portland’s totally whacked Suicide tribute band, AM Frank. The music on the album, however, is a generation removed from Suicide’s protean aggro synth grunge. For much of this set, the models from which the Nasties seem to draw are devolved from the… Read more »

Big Blood - Operate Spaceship Earth Properly ( / )

LP Edition of 250 Comes with Download Slip. FIRST PRESSING OUT OF PRINT! SECOND PRESSING OUT OF PRINT! CD Edition of 300 CASSETTE Edition of 100 Silk Screened Cover by Colleen! OUT OF PRINT Our last Big Blood release was the idiosyncratic Ant Farm (FTR 241), Colleen and Caleb’s collaboration with the late composer Elliott Schwartz, which presented music designed for a museum installation. With Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, Big Blood return to the vast universe of strangeness they explore inside their own skin. Now fully incorporating the vocals and guitar of their daughter Quinnisa (previously a “secret weapon” unveiled mostly at live shows, as the Dictators once did with Handsome Dick Manitoba), Big Blood sound nutsier and wilder than… Read more »