Releases

The Believers - Memo From Otter ()

LP Edition of 400 The Believers were, in many way, the flagship band of the Apostasy Recordings empire. Their roots were in the Hampshire College-based experimental outfit, Son of Earth – Flesh in Bone Trio (generally shortened to Son of Earth), via Matt Krefting and John Shaw. Also on board were Anna Klein (player with many woefully under-documented ensembles) and Jessi Swenson, Esq. (who was associated with various Scott Foust projects, and would go on to 50 Foot Women). But much of this other work was abstract weirdo-ism. The Believers were, more or less, a rock band, and they kinda fucking ruled. They recorded an album for Ben Chasny’s planned label almost a decade ago, but the release never ended… Read more »

Phil X. Milstein / Thurston Moore - Songs We Taught The Lord Vol.2 ()

LP Edition 400 – Black Vinyl   Out of Print! LP Edition of 100 – Grey Vinyl – Out Of Print! TINYMIXTAPES This album reissues the final recording (thus far) of the Milstein/Moore Duo. It was originally released in 1997 by Chris Corsano’s Hot Cars Warp Records label. Chris had a choice of this tape — recorded December 4, 1996 at the Middle East in Cambridge MA — or the one from the previous night at the Iron Horse in Northampton. He chose this one, and the first volume was scheduled to appear on the Ecstatic Yod label. Why it never happened, who knows? Not me! The set was recorded opening for guitarist John Fahey, shortly after a horrible accident in Harvard… Read more »

Phil X. Milstein / Thurston Moore - Songs We Taught The Lord Vol.1 ()

LP Edition 400 – Black Vinyl.  Out of Print! Black Vinyl / Little Spots of Colors through out TINYMIXTAPES As I recall, the idea seemed pretty reasonable at the time. It was late 1996. I’d met Fahey a couple of years earlier, and partly as an outgrowth of that meeting he had decided he wanted to meet and play with “noise musicians.” This resulted in a lot of music that made his olden fans weep, but who was I to argue with The Great Koonaklaster? Anyway, it was late ’96 and Fahey wanted to play some gigs on the East Coast. He also wanted Thurston to be on the bill with him, and so Mr. Moore asked me for suggestions… Read more »

Michael Zerang & Spires That In The Sunset Rise - Illinois Glossolalia ()

LP Edition of 400 $20 Beginning in January of 2011, composer, percussionist and improvisor Michael Zerang joined Spires That in the Sunset Rise for a year-long collaboration to explore a broad range of sonic and textural improvisations, in a series of live concerts throughout the year. The collaboration culminated in residency at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, as a part of their Artist Residence Program, where the trio was able to perform and record a massive amount of material. The partial result of this effort is the Illinois Glossolalia LP. Since 2001, Spires That in the Sunset Rise have been unsettling and thrilling audiences with their brand of sonic alchemy. Described by Jack Rose as a “female Sun City… Read more »

Victor Herrero - Astrolabio ()

LP Edition of 400 DUSTED The Portuguese guitar is a kind of weird instrument. It has a teardrop shaped body, twelve strings, an odd tuning scheme, and is generally associated with the mournful Portuguese musical style called fado. It’s not often used as an improv instrument, especially in avant garde settings, but that was before Victor Herrero got his hands on one. Probably best known for his work with Josephine Foster, Victor is a Spanish guitarist and composer, whose work ranges from very traditional to beyond contemporary. On a trip to Lisbon a decade or so ago, he and Ms. Foster became enthralled by the glittering tone qualities of the Portuguese guitar, and decided to go halves on one. A… Read more »

Eric Arn - Orphic Resonance ()

LP Edition of 300.  Live Video. 200 Words     Dusted     MXWDN Near the end of his days, John Fahey told me he was sick and tired of solo guitar records. This statement was partly designed to take me aback (as was often his tact), but it was also true. He seemed genuinely bored by most guitar players, especially those who were traveling in the shoes he’d first worn on his own early records. That said, I’m pretty sure he woulda loved Eric Arn’s Orphic Resonance. First time I ever saw Eric play was as part of the classic second line-up of Crystalized Movements. He was a monster of raunch-stun binary-functionalism, and this continued as he moved out of New… Read more »

Gregg Turner - Chartbusters! ( / )

LP – Edition of 450 OUT OF STOCK CD – Edition of 300 OUT OF STOCK WIRE REVIEW We were first introduced to the music of Gregg Turner when he was with VOM, the explicitly post-musical punk-tongue-monster he inhabited along with Richard Meltzer, Metal Mike Saunders and others. From there, he and Mike formed the Angry Samoans, who spewed an insane blend of garage/bubblepunk/hardcore noise to well-deserved acclaim. But the Samoans began including folk rock moves inside their spectrum with 1986’s Yesterday Started Tomorrow EP, and most of the work Turner’s done since then has contained this element to one degree or another. People who haven’t heard Gregg’s recordings from the post-Samoans era may be surprised by how straightforward and… Read more »

Angela Sawyer - On the Pedestrian Side ()

LP Edition of 400. Co-Release with WeirdEar I remember back when Herbert Khaury kicked the bucket, 20 years ago this month. Everyone was wondering who would be the next Tiny Tim? Who would save the ukulele from itself? Some said it would be Jim Beloff, but that guy’s too square to do anything. Some said it would be Keiji Haino, but he wouldn’t sing words. And so, here, two decades out, we have finally decided to toss the crown to Angela Sawyer. This new album, On the Pedestrian Side, has been compared to a more stripped down version of the work Ms. Sawyer does with Exusamwa, and there is a certain sense to that. But a canny listener will be… Read more »

Urochromes - Anthology ()

LP with Download. Edition of 413. $20 An overview of the vector, thus far anyway, of this bracing post-core duo/trio/whatever who were once based in Western Mass, and are now scattered between Mass, L.A. and Montreal. The hub of the band is vocalist, Jackieboy, and guitarist, Dick Riddick. According to Jackie, the initial idea was to do “a knuckle dragging hardcore chrome kinda mash up with drum machine. My concept as vocalist was to front the band as a Jewish New Yorker stand-up comedian who’s found himself fronting a punk band and is trying to roll with the punches. Originally I wanted the live performances to be half stand-up and half music but dropped this and just put occasional Zingers in… Read more »

Angela Sawyer - Croaks ()

LP Edition of 300 One of the highlights of early DEVO live shows was a song Booji Boy sang called, “The Words Get Stuck in My Throat.” It was kind of a sappy tune, about little hidden microphones and Viewmasters and shit, but it made a huge impression on Angela Sawyer when, still in swaddling clothes, she heard it on a bootleg tape recorded it at Max’s Kansas City. She would sit in front of the family Walkman all day and play that song over and over again. It became, what she calls, “the theme song of my youth.” In the years between that epiphany and this LP, Ms. Sawyer has worn many bonnets. She has been in “bands” like… Read more »