Releases

Big Blood - Deep Maine ( / )

12″ Stereo Lathe. Edition of 52. Numbered. Silkscreened cover art by Big Blood. (Limit One per customer) OUT OF PRINT 2023 has been a bonus year for Big Blood completists. Fans of this amazing unit from South Portland ME have been presented with vinylizations of 2008’s Big Blood & the Bleedin’ Hearts (FTR672) and The Grove (FTR671) as well as two versions of their newest album, First Aid Kit (FTR722). Now, because too much of a good thing is still never enough, here is a lathe LP of a digital-only session from 2019 entitled Deep Maine. The band here is credited as a quartet, with Colleen Kinsella and Caleb Mulkerin being joined by A. Mae and R. Philistine (who may… Read more »

Michael Zerang / Tashi Dorji - Sciamachy ()

 LP Edition of 500. $22 At last, the trade edition of Schiamachy has appeared, following the test-press/tour version by more than a couple of months.  The album’s title is a term used to describe mock battles between warriors. It’s a fair description of the music on this record, although it’s safe to say the battle was a friendly one. Michael Zerang is a very well known percussionist, composer & improviser from Chicago, with an amazing jazz-based discography. He previously appeared on the Illinois Glossolalia LP (FTR 285) playing with Spires That in the Sunset Rise. Asheville-based guitarist Tashi Dorji is a generation younger than Zerang, but has been an unstoppable force since he hit the scene in 2009, playing in… Read more »

Joseph of Kirezi - The Only Way Out Is Through (Bleeding Jam Vol.1) ()

LP Co-Release with Cardinal Fuzz and We, Here & Now.  $23 Joseph of Kirezi were formed in Ikebukuro (Tokyo) in 2012 wherever since they have been roaming the outermost corners of the black clad psychedelic underground. So please get ready to treat your ears to ‘The Only Way Out Is Through’ – a pounding tour de force of amp destroying killer Fuzz Wah Sike Rock. If there was ever music to be played in that killer sixties exploitation movie – in that biker club scene where every one has been spiked with the brown acid and the bad trip is coming on strong – then this is the music that would be playing – a pounding and ferocious white noise… Read more »

Manas with N.R. Safi - Alone We Are Alone As Far Down As The Sediment ()

LP Co-Release with Cardinal Fuzz, Radio Khiyaban, Ramble Records  $23 MANAS – otherwise known as the duo of iconoclastic guitarist Tashi Dorji and drummer extraordinaire Thom Nguyen – have made tsunami-sized waves in the free jazz and improv scene with their numerous tape and LP releases (drawing praise and support from such luminaries and fellow-travelers as Bill Nace and Ben Chasny) and their face-melting live shows, including high profile touring with Godspeed! You Black Emperor. Back in the summer of 2019 they invited Naujawanan Baidar‘s N.R. Safi to sit in with them at a show organized at Fleetwoods, a self-proclaimed “rock and roll wedding chapel” in Dorji and Nguyen’s current home of Asheville, North Carolina. Captured on tape was roughly… Read more »

Spiral Joy Band - Elvehjem ()

LP Edition of 300. Download code included in jacket. BANDCAMP $23 Recorded in Madison Wisconsin a year after In The River (FTR 654), the latest record from this amazing trio (Troy Schafer, Patrick Best, Mikel Dimmick) breaks a bit with Spiral Joy’s drone-dominant tradition. There is a crackling, noise energy curtain surrounding much of the playing here that makes me remember the sound of the Richmond VA trio, Pelt, from whom Spiral Joy Band draw specific inspiration (as well as two members.)  The listed instruments are bowed gong, gong, bowed bowls, electric guitar, bowed materials amplified & acoustic, mouthpiece and effects, modified zither. So yeah, there is still a patchwork of drones at the heart of Elvehjem, but there is… Read more »

Warren Byrom - Dreaming the Sun ()

LP Drowned Lands Series No.06 $23 Newest entry in the Jason Meagher’s great Drowned Land series is the long playing vinyl debut by Lexington, KY’s Warren Byrom. Recorded back before the Plague, the idea for Dreaming the Sun emerged when Jason caught a show by Warren and Philly-based pianist Hans Chew, who’d already been involved in lots of bands and recordings with Meagher. The sweet depth of Warren’s songs and guitar playing resonated with Jason, and Warren soon found himself in Black Dirt Studios with Nashville bassist Steve Poulton (whose work stretches back to Louisville’s legendary Paul K & the Weathermen) and drummer Ryan Jewell (who has played with half the musicians you can name). Other lovely bits were added… Read more »

ZOMES - Love’s Lesson ()

LP a co-release between Feedingtube Records and Near Unison.  OUT OF PRINT Fifth vinyl album (there have been four cassettes as well) by this Baltimore-based duo with international roots. Zomes began as a solo project by Asa Osbourne (ex-Lungfish, The Pupils), and recorded mostly solo drone-based instrumentals for several years. While performing at a festival in Stockholm, Asa met vocalist Hanna Olivegren, who shared his musical conceptions. Zomes’s first record as a duo was 2013’s Time Was (Thrill Jockey), and they have remained a two-piece ever since. The music on Love’s Lesson is largely built around Asa’s simple keyboard washes and drum box, atop which Hanna’s vocals stroll like Little Red Riding Hood walking through the Black Forest. The overall effect… Read more »

Food People - Many Glorious Petals ( / )

LP Edition of 360.  $23 After a handful of whacked-out cassettes & CDRs, for labels as discerning as Chocolate Monk and Beartown, this Nottingham trio has final made their debut LP, and it is a beautiful, swirling cone of sounds. Unlike some of their more savage kith, Food People‘s basic template is based less on explosive dynamics than it is on twisted invention. Their music is rarely overtly aggressive or ornery. Its power is drawn from quietly disorienting musical details that are assembled and fiddled-with at a patient pace. Sometimes the sounds they use are taped, at others they come from various strings (both plucked and bowed), maybe some simple reeds and possibly even a key or percussion or two…. Read more »

Bong Wish - Hazy Road ()

LP Edition of 400.  $23 Hazy Road is the debut album from Bong Wish, the solo project of Palestinian-American artist Mariam Saleh. Former bassist for beloved garage rock band Fat Creeps, Saleh got her start in the Boston music scene of the early 2010s. While living above a music venue, where she was also employed, she was exposed to a myriad of jazz, psych, and experimental music. In turn, Bong Wish incorporates both the high-energy and distortion of garage alongside kaleidoscopic soundscapes, and folds them into its folk rock sensibility.  Hazy Road is a coming-of-age album, documenting Saleh’s self-exploration, as fueled by her interest in psychedelia, spirituality and the desire to know oneself. “Love is in season, love is in… Read more »

Living Window - Astralturfing ()

LP Edition of 250. $22 Fantastic debut LP by this severely talented instrumental duo, currently based around Hampshire College unless I am much mistaken.  Living Window is comprised of drummer Cameron Mitchell and guitarist Mila Dorji, who have create an album of pile-driving avant garde hunch reminiscent of pre-Mahavishnu McLaughlin’s slow-hand recordings with Tony Williams or Billy Cox.  Mitchell drumming mixes rock and jazz attacks in equal measure, either drawing out rhythms or pounding them straight into pumice. And Dorji collects his amped notes into a huge mass before he releases them, displaying far more taste and patience than most of his contemporaries.  This kind of jazz/rock guitar/drum dueling can be traced back (more or less) to Doug Snyder &… Read more »