OLAFUR ARNALDS & NILS FRAHM - 'STARE'

Formats

• ERATP042LP - 12"

  4050486110478

Details

Originally released as a strictly limited 10-inch vinyl record exclusive on Record Store Day 2012, this long sold-out must-have for fans of these two artists will finally be re-issued – this time in 12-inch format! Erased Tapes label mates Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm recorded and mixed their first collaborative record between Reyjkjavík and Berlin as a surprise release for label founder Robert Raths. The ambient/electronic work ‘Stare’ is a true family effort with long-time collaborator Anne Müller joining in on cello and all graphics created by close label-friend and designer Torsten Posselt of FELD Studios. Words by Nils Frahm: “I heard ‘Eulogy For Evolution’ for the first time six years ago and I was totally captivated. Impossible to know back then that I was supposed to meet Ólafur many years later as my label mate. Later when he took me along a tour of his we also noted that we kind of like hanging out together, doing important things like cover versions of long forgotten songs or eating veggie pizza. Also he would join my live set for a jam and I would return the favour by playing along with his set. All in all, I fell for Óli and after one memorable jam session we had in Berlin at Roter Salon in 2011, he finally proposed the idea to visit me in my studio in Berlin to work on 'some music'. I was happy and delighted about that idea, so we got together in April 2011 and after having a big pizza, I plugged in some old analogue synths and we played for four days until late in the night. Also queen Anne Müller stopped by after a show with Agnes Obel to record some cello at 5 am in the morning for ‘b1’. Making music together with people is lovely! The time I spent with Óli in Berlin made me very happy and the music wasn't like anything I have heard before. It was all very reduced and minimal and I felt like I couldn't have done this alone. So we decided to do another 4-day jam at Óli´s E7 studio in Reykjavik. So I flew there in the end of October 2011 to repeat the trick and record some out of this world ambient music. It didn't take us too long to write ‘a1’ and ‘a2’. I can’t wait for the follow up!”

Tracks

01. a1
02. a2
03. b1

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VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA - 'REC BLAST MOTORBIKE'

Formats

• VHF139 - LP

  783881013917

Details

The mighty “classic” lineup of the Vibracathedral Orchestra returns with their first new music in many years. Here the quintet of Michael Flower, Neil Campbell, Bridget Hayden, Adam Davenport and Julian Bradley (joined by raconteur John Godbert) feature in a set of upbeat tracks that put the group’s radical instrumental strategies into a package of full-on rock action. Recorded live using a binaural head system, the sound is nicely ragged in a you-are-there way, with scouring guitars and bleeping electronics riding atop the band’s signature grooves. As with some of the band’s other records, there’s more than a hint of the early Velvet Underground spirit in these ten tracks. If you wish that Cale and Reed would have been more of an instrumental band, here it is.

Tracks

1. Suave
2. Hough
3. Breenge
4. Sleep
5. Newt
6. Gupton
7. Otto
8. South
9. Twin
10. Precinct

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KAWABATA, MAKOTO - 'ASTRO LOVE AND INFINITE KISSES'

Formats

• VHF133 - 2xLPs

  783881013313

Details

Kawabata Makoto emerges from a period of relative quiet with his first widely available solo release in several years, the blockbuster Krautrock-flavored Astro Love & Infinite Kisses. This lovely and impressionistic record showcases the other side of Makoto’s outrageous works with Acid Mothers Temple. Taking cues from classics of the genre like Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra and Steve Hillage’s Rainbow Dome Musick, “Dos Nurages” is the album’s centerpiece, a 41-minute hypnotic epic, with echoplex’d guitar anchoring a stream of expertly done glissando. The title track is a darker drone in the tradition of Kawabata’s Inui series of releases for VHF. “Woman From Dream Island” closes the record with a thick buzz of tamboura overlaid with trippy backwards guitar, before giving way to a gentle, fingerpicked acoustic coda.

Tracks

1. Dos Nurages, Pt. 1
2. Dos Nurages, Pt. 2
3. Astro Love & Infinite Kisses
4. Woman From Dream Island

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CREEPING PINK - 'MIRROR WOODS'

Formats

• CF053 - LP

  819162019412

• CF053CD - CD

  819162019429

Details

“A fog of memories caught in the sun-flakes settling in the forest, a beautiful album indeed... [M]any glittering gems [are] woven into these tunes but one listen is not enough to see them all. Like trying to appreciate the silver strobing of ocean waves, they are different every time you glance at them. Better to watch their reflections on the ceiling and just soak it up. “It seems kind of rare that an album can create and sustain a mood, not to mention such an odd and unique vibe as this. A sing-song tale of a long, surreal journey through canopied pathways, tunnels and spiraling downwards through the earth’s maw…falling, falling, falling and suddenly you wake in your bed. Home-grown in aesthetic, Mirror Woods is a quilt of hues... The colors, albeit gorgeous, are cross-processed, like a polaroid of a cathedral’s most glorious stained glass window: off, slightly sour but just dripping with pop sentiment. This is not an experimental album for young chin-scratchers only, this is a pop record for anyone with a heart; this is a homage to love, to friends and family, to droll existence. Hold up a torch to the dark, make a spark. “Think United States of America meets Vangelis meets July meets Silver Apples in Arthur Russell’s New York apartment (what a family band portrait that would be).” —John Dwyer

Tracks

1. Mirror Woods Morning
2. Come Into My World
3. Sour Fruit 4. Peaches
5. (Feel Through a Hole in
the Trail to Sound Creek)
6. Bacavan Blues 7. By the River Again
8. Mirror Woods 9. The Town
10. Shadow People Don?t Care
11. Mirror Wood?s Constant
Dream Of Childhood
12. (Float Like a Soul As It
Drifts From This Realm)
13. A Well Placed Mirror
14. Mirror Wood?s Abduction

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JIM O'ROURKE - 'HAPPY DAYS'

Formats

• RVN101 - CD

  630814010126

Details

Picked up some Older Revenant titles through their Third Man set up (you’ve seen the Paramount Box sets??) Happy Days, like its spiritual companion, the majestic Bad Timing, was originally released in 1997 and found O'Rourke making a new record for Revenant, which in no small part acknowledged the debt owed to that label's founder, John Fahey. In the liner notes O'Rourke cites both Fahey and minimalist icon Tony Conrad as direct influences on this single three-quarter-hour composition and you can certainly hear where he's coming from. For the opening few minutes O'Rourke plucks a single note over two octaves via his steel-strung guitar, before gradually beginning to embellish and form a fully fledged melodic narrative. Simultaneously, rasping drones rise up from the background, eventually taking over the recording altogether, acquiring a scathing line in overtones that propel the piece into brutal, tranced-out oblivion by the time it ascends to an increasingly cacophonous crescendo. The sustained intensity of it all drops away around four minutes prior to the end revealing O'Rourke' guitar once more, ushering in a steady, rhythmic finale that rounds off the recording much as it began. If you missed this the first time around and you're a follower of Jim O'Rourke's work, now is the time to get this album; there are only a handful of copies back in circulation and the Revenant label has now wrapped up its releasing/repressing schedule indefinitely, so snag yourself one while you can.

Tracks

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STANLEY BROTHERS - 'EARLIEST RECORDINGS: THE COMPLETE RICH-R-TONE 78S (1947 - 1952)'

Formats

• RVN203 - CD

  630814020323

Details

For a truly despairing, spectral high-lonesome sound, Ralph (Keening Tenor, Banjo) and Carter (Earthy Baritone, Guitar) Stanley, aka the stanley brothers, quite simply stand alone in Bluegrass. This collection features their earliest recordings, beginning in 1947 for the rich-r-tone label, and presents the duo at their rawest and most unbridled. Another amazingly assembled, produced and packaged release from Revenant - another gorgeous collectors item. Highly Recommended

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VARIOUS - 'HARRY SMITH'S ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC: VOLUME FOUR'

Formats

• RVN211 - 2xCDs

  630814021122

Details

Finally available again, now at a much cheaper price. Harry Smith was by all accounts the most eccentric of characters, a polymath who would count avant-garde filmmaker, alchemist, occultist, folklorist, painter, magician, archivist and expert on string figures, paper airplanes, and Ukrainian painted eggs among his many, many vocations. However in recent years he has become best known for a short series of folk music collections. In three volumes, Smith collected up some of the finest American Primitive music the world had ever heard and this anthology went down in history as an essential part of the development of American music. However there was a fourth part which had remained unissued until 2000, when the ever-reliable Revenant label finally gave the collection the lavish treatment it deserved and allowed the world to hear Smith's final gift to music. Now after huge demand Revenant have pressed the double-disc package once more, giving those of us who missed it the first time around another chance to sink into a world of crackling folk music, proto-blues and rock 'n roll, early country and vintage bluegrass. For a child of the 1980s this is like an alien landscape to me, but it's such an important part of musical development that I can hear even now how these early ideas have impacted on music being made in 2007. It's only in the last few years that folk music has made a real comeback in the eyes of the contemporary music scene, and since the folk music we're hearing now is a reaction to folk music of the 60s, which itself was a reaction to the folk music of the 20s and 30s it's almost crucial to discover the origins. Across two discs we are introduced to fabulous selections from The Carter Family, Leadbelly, Jesse James, Robert Johnson, Minnie Wallace, Uncle Dave Macon and many more artists but it's fruitless for me to go into this track by track, as each track is essential and important in its own way. This anthology needs to be bought, enjoyed and discovered by anyone who claims to have an interest in music, that's all there is to it.

Tracks

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SONS OF HUNS - 'WHILE SLEEPING STAY AWAKE'

Formats

• EZRDR053CD - CD

  603111999326

• EZRDR053LP - LP

  603111999319

Details

While Sleeping Stay Awake, the sophomore album by Sons of Huns was recorded in Los Angeles by engineer Toshi Kasai (Tool, Melvins) and will be released July 21st via RidingEasy Records. The quest for truth can lead to many different places. One door shuts, another door opens. One path dead ends, while another path widens. Life can often be akin to that proverbial rabbit hole, spiraling through options only to be left asking, “Why?” Sons of Huns explore some of the universe’s biggest questions on their second full-length album for RidingEasy Records. This journey commenced for singer and guitarist Pete Hughes under the most unpleasant of circumstances-to say the least. “I got bit by a damned bacteria-ridden tick in the Virginia woods when I was a teen,” he sighs. “I got Lyme Disease, among other things, leaving me now 16 years later with chronic pain and illness and searching for answers to questions that no one seems to have answers for. That’s at the heart of While Sleeping Stay Awake. Its themes include Raja Yoga, meditation, Egyptian magic, occult and Hermetic philosophy, our connection with the stars and cycles of life, death, and rebirth.” The trio rounded out by Ryan Northrop [drums] and Aaron Powell [bass, vocals] retreated to Kasai's Sound of Sirens Studio for a week in January 2015. During that time, the group honed its robust rock sound with the right flourishes of spacey elegance and artful bombast. "We’re a heavy rock band, no frills, we turn up and let it rip,” he adds. “Playing this music is cathartic, and we hope this album captured that.” In 2013, Banishment Ritual announced the arrival of Sons of Huns. They shared the stage with everybody from Kadavar and Pentagram to the mighty St. Vitus, while earning acclaim from tastemakers like CVLT Nation, The Sludgelord, and Decibel Magazine who described them as, “Rampaging garage rock with plenty of stoner/psychedelic inclinations.” Noisey recently launched the song "An Evil Unseen" which features special guest Scott 'Wino" Weinrich (St. Vitus) singing duet with Sons of Huns vocalist/guitarist Pete Hughes (also of Danava). Hear and share "An Evil Unseen" HERE. (Direct Soundcloud.)

Tracks

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SHOOTING GUNS - 'BARNBURNER'

Formats

• EZRDR052 - 7"

Details

Hailing from Saskatoon, SK, in the heart of the Canadian prairies, JUNO and Polaris Prize award nominees Shooting Guns are hard at work fortifying the heavy end of the psychedelic spectrum, haunting the foggy moor between Sabbath-styled doom riffery and heavy pulse-riding kraut-rock. Shooting Guns scored the soundtrack to Canadian horror-comedy WolfCop and released the official soundtrack in 2014 in partnership with One Way Static, RidingEasy Records, and Cinecoup. Their second LP, Brotherhood of the Ram, released in 2013 through RidingEasy Records was nominated for the 2015 JUNO Metal/Hard Album of the Year as well as the Polaris Music Prize. Their debut LP, Born To Deal in Magic: 1952-1976, was also nominated for the Polaris Music Prize in 2012.

Tracks

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