Releases

MX-80 Sound - So Funny ()

LP Edition of 500 Vulcher Eddie Flowers Review  Depending on how you count, So Funny is either the 9th or 10th album, MX-80 Sound has released. Regardless, it’s their first LP since the classic Crowd Control back in 1981, and it’s a pretty goddamn amazing spin. The core of the band — Bruce Anderson, Dale Sophiea and Rich Stim — has been more or less stable for the better part of the last four decades, despite the fact they’ve never had any real commercial success. They’ve all pursued various different paths during that time, but they’ve also continued the bizarre communal creation process that began back in Bloomington Indiana in 1974, and was codified once they relocated to the Bay… Read more »

Negative One - (-1) ()

7″ Edition of 500 Co-Release with %100 Breakfast BANDCAMP Thirteen tracks of skink-voiced post-core burl from the sloppiest pits of Boston’s Fuck-Curtis scene. Angela Sawyer handles vocals as though she’s imagining herself as a squirrel in the grips of a cartoon bear. Bugs & Rats’ brilliant guitarist, Shawnie Brando, pulls lightning repeat-o munge riffs out of his pocket as though he had an endless supply of spit-wet rags. Bassist Sam Potrykus and drummer Nick Neuburg (most recently paired in the excellent quartet, Aykroyd) so yet their dials to PUMMEL, and motor away like the mooks they almost surely are not. It’s kind of a dandy rip. The lyrics (as printed on an enclosed sheet) are like an insane parody of… Read more »

Alvaro - Mums Milk Not Powder ()

LP Edition of 400. First vinyl reissue of the second LP released by Alavaro Pena originally released in 1979 following the runaway success of his debut album, Drinkin My Own Sperm. Although recorded in Germany, Alvaro again employed his regular drummer, Antonio Narvaez, with a few assists on the second side from Hilde Schneider, Alvaro’s then-wife. The first side was recorded by a german engineer, Olaf Dung, who carried his rig around with him in his briefcase. How this exactly worked is unclear, but the music is great and includes some of Alvaro’s most classically catchy tunes. Lili Dwight is a long-time fan of “Honey,” which she often sings aloud at apiary gatherings. Ted Lee does the same when crashing… Read more »

Cloud Becomes Your Hand - Rocks or Cakes

Cloud Becomes Your Hand - Rocks or Cakes ()

Cloud Becomes Your Hand “Rock or Cakes” LP with download FIRST PRESSING – OUT OF PRINT! Edition of 300 FOUND LAST BOX OF FIRST PRESSING  SECOND PRESSING – MYSTERY COLOR SPLATTER Edition of 213 Doggy Paddle First vinyl (the CDs on New York’s Northern Spy) by this willfully eclectic Brooklyn quintet. It’s never clear if they’re aware of it or not, but much of CBYH’s sound swings with the same way-off-center lope that marks the most enjoyable (as opposed to brittle) work of the Canterbury/RIO continuum. There are even textural similarities to some of the post-Zeuhl French chamber-prog bands of the last century, especially when the violin and synthesizer combine to set the scene. But there’s a humorous (or loopily surreal)… Read more »

Vapor Gourds - Dagger Magic

Vapor Gourds - Dagger Magic ()

LP Edition of 300 Vinylization of a classic 2008 Yeay! Cassettes release, which has cast an odd thrall over local heads since it was first issued. Vapor Gourds is the solo project of local DJ, sound guy and man-about-town, Jake Meginksy, who’s is perhaps best known for his work in X.O.4 with Bill Nace and Johnny T. For this project, Jake has opted for a bizarre pile of machine sounds, none of them overly grating, with all sorts of near-subliminal pulse work raging around inside of ‘em. Very hard to put a finger on exactly what’s going down here. As soon as you decide to categorically shorthand the sound, Dagger Magic skitters off to another corner of the room. Parts… Read more »

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 $17 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… 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 $19 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… 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 »