Releases

Hermione Johnson & Stefan Neville - Scrum ()

LP with Download Code Edition of 300. Hermione Johnson’s name is one we first noticed when she popped up playing prepared piano on the newish Pumice LP, Puddle. But a quick check through her stats reveals a more extensive background in the NZ improvised music scene She’s got a few CDRs with other free jazz types that predates the Puddle session by years. So sue us! Due to the damped quality of prepared keyboards, there’s a distinctly percussive element to Hermione’s playing. At times the effect is fully gamelanic, but for the most part her work broadcasts a feel akin to certain modern pianists of the middle 20th Century, with a tone (if not attack) that mirrors Conlon Nancarrow’s work… Read more »

Dalthom - Frame Slip ()

LP with Inserts / Download Code Edition of 300 Thrilling  second album by the duo made up of Greg (Gary War) Dalton and Rob (Sunburned Hand of the Man) Thomas. The first album was recorded and pressed a while ago but has yet to be actually released. Perhaps because these guys are operating under Nigel Senada’s Theory of Obscurity (see The Residents’ Not Available). Or perhaps not. Only time will tell. Regardless, this sophomore effort is nothing but a goddamn corker. Knowing something about the work ethic of this pair, I had suspected this LP would be filled to the bong-lip with loosely unstructured jams and zingers. And while those elements are indeed part of the parcel, they are mere… Read more »

Guerilla Toss - Jeffrey Johnson - Out Of Print

Guerilla Toss - Jeffrey Johnson ( / )

LP REPRESS. Edition of 500 in five different colors: Transparent Purple, Transparent Red, Clear, Clear Beer, Transparent Blue Debut LP session by a young Boston-based quintet who hit with all the Dionysian power of a young Harry Pussy, squared and electronified. Kassie Carlson’s vocals have all the upper register urgency once manifested by the great Adris Hoyos, and her bandmates manage to create large stugs of post-punk-angularity, overlaid with truly dithersome electronics. The result is one of the first transcendent post-no-wave records of our era. Live, Guerilla Toss create an amazing and beautiful disruption of all known truth-fields. They function at a level of pure discordian creation so pure it is guaranteed to melt all but the stoniest witnesses to its… Read more »

Chris Weisman - Play Sharp To Me ()

LP with Download Code Edition of 500 Bandcamp Tired of being pegged as “the Beatle of Brat,” Chris Weisman has changed gears without shifting his focus, creating a masterpiece of multi-origin pop in the process. Lyrically, the tunes on Play Sharp to Me (title nicked from James Joyce), retain their New England underground tang, rolling localisms like barrels of sweet maple syrup between the trees of heavily forested hillocks. But the sonics utilize various swathes of strange sunshine to create a unique tapestry. We’ve encountered Chris using late ’60s Beach Boys textures before, but on Play Sharp he adds something that’s weirdly jazzy and lazy, as though that first Ben Sidran album on Capitol was an ode to surrealist parlor… Read more »

Donkey No No - Dream Away Lodge ()

LP Edition of 106. Numbered. OUT OF PRINT!  Unless I am very confused, this is the “trade” reissue of what was formerly a lacquer-only LP released in an edition of five, recorded live at the Dream Away Lodge. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Donkey No No is a trio with guitarist Omeed Goodarzi, violin/electronics goddess Jen Gelineau, and cymbal bower Edward “Ted” Lee. Some would also count the metal donkey they carry around with them as a “member,” but I will not stoop to such levels. The trio is bent on an improv-only approach to playing, and their previous cassettes have been about as cautiously wrought as junk pile. This new album, however, possesses a real sense of… Read more »

The Music Of Mel Croucher and Automata U.K. Ltd - Pimania Vol.2 Remasters ()

LP Edition of 400. Six years after the release of Mel Croucher’s Pimania LP, we convinced Mel to sift through the detritus left over from that magnum opus, and blast the leftovers to us. The first Pimania album collected a pantload of insane electronics related to an early ’80s video game. Synth burbles, lonesome guitar lines, and curiously off-color lyrics blended together in a way that was not quite like anything else on this planet. It was like reaching into the subconscious of gamers-turned-musicians and projecting the results onto a big screen. In Mel’s words, “This album is the companion piece to the 2010 vinyl extravaganza from Feeding Tube Records. It contains the remaining tracks released by the first British… Read more »

Jim Sauter / Kid Millions - Million Dollar Band / Bull Run ()

7″ Edition 0f 300. It’s been many a year since we handled a 7” featuring the extreme sonic textures of Borbetomagus’ Jim Sauter, but damn if he doesn;t sound bitchen in this kind of compressed environment. Playing in duo with the multi-directional thumping of Kid Millions, who has been playing with Jim for several years now, the sound is just a blaze of energy that expands in many known directions. Jim’s tone goes from pure saxophonic terror to something that sounds more like an over-amped guitar to synth-like shrieking, in the blink of some eyes. With this small amount of time afforded them, the pair throw down even harder than they have on previous (temporally lengthier) sessions, and the world… Read more »

Egg, Eggs -  Little Sickie : First Signs Of Infection ()

LP Edition of 200 Numbered. Hand Stamped. The a-side is a live recording of a very special Turners Falls performance, at which singer David Russell literally “called it in.” On Skype. Many audience members remarked how much more relaxing (not to mention relaxed) the band seemed without Mr. Russell in their midst. And that may or may not be, but this here is definite sonic evidence that the band played real well without David’s physical hectoring. Lauri McNamara also calls in her electronic rinkery, but the rest of ’em — Ted, Scott, Sophie, Jen and Brett — provide a wiggling backdrop of nudist/dada minimalism. Shorn of all clothes, the four played in semi-darkness on an array of gadgets that would… Read more »

Big Neck Police - Don’t Eat My Friends ()

LP with Download Code / Edition of 300 CASSETTE JOINT RELEASE by Ramp Local Big Neck Police is a Brooklyn/Philadelphia based rock band made up of Mac Kelly, Hugo Stanley, and Paco Cathcart. A loud, caustic “power-trio” with little going on in the way of effects (“texture”), Hugo (drums), Mac (bass), and Paco (gtr) find their peculiar dynamism instead in the subversion of the punk orthodoxies they appear to revel in- specifically, through improvisation. Song structure in general is often described as a series of “parts”. Big Neck Police music is, rather, a series of open-ended gestures. Bands sometimes will write in a “noise-improv” part to spice up a song — for Big Neck, every part of every song seems… Read more »

Ignatz - The Drain ()

LP Edition of 500 Co-Joined by Kraak For the last decade, Belgian guitarist Bram Devens has been releasing solo recordings under the name Ignatz. A couple of cassettes have come out in the States, but most of his releases have been elusive imports. Thus, we have taken it upon ourselves to do a public service and release a domestic version of an LP that will appear on the (K-RAAK-K) label in Belgium. This must be something like the sixth or seventh studio album Ignatz has cut, and it’s a remarkably solid slab of mysto-folk/blues invention. There are more vocals than noted on previous Ignatz slabs we’ve encountered, and they manage to remind us of everyone from early Townes Van Zandt… Read more »