DNA - 'A TASTE OF DNA'

Formats

• SV099 - 12"

  855985006994

Details

New York’s DNA had a massive effect on alternative / indie rock around the world, despite the trio never releasing a full-length studio album during their four year tenure (1978-82). Various groups citing them as an influence have included Sonic Youth, Boredoms, Big Black and Blonde Redhead (the latter taking their name from DNA’s most-famous song). While the band’s explosive live performances captivated audiences, extant recordings capture DNA’s dynamic sound and savage economy in songwriting. Originally released in 1981, A Taste Of DNA remains a primary source for No Wave archaeologists. Singer/guitarist Arto Lindsay and drummer Ikue Mori are joined by bassist and Pere Ubu founding-member Tim Wright. Across the EP’s six anti-epic tracks, the band charges forward with jagged guitars and dislocated grooves, while Lindsay’s guttural screams create a thoroughly personal semantics. As Marc Masters writes in the liner notes, “A Taste Of DNA has a kind of sum-of-parts insanity, wherein every musical element sounds conventionally off, like puzzle pieces purposefully jammed together at the wrong ends.” This first-time vinyl reissue is recommended for fans of The Contortions’ Buy and Red Crayola’s The Parable Of Arable Land.

Tracks

1. New Fast
2. 5:30
3. Blonde Red Head
4. 32123
5. New New
6. Lying On The Sofa Of Life

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ÆTHENOR - 'HAZEL'

Formats

• VHF140 - LP

  783881014013

• VHF140CD - CD

  783881014020

Details

Hazel is the fifth record from Æthenor, the group of eclectic travelers that includes Stephen O’Malley (SunnO))), KTL), Daniel O’Sullivan (Ulver, This is Not This Heat, Grumbling Fur, etc), Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver), and Steve Noble (Brötzmann Trio, N.E.W.). Together they bring their considerable pedigrees into play with unexpected and original results. Contradicting expectations of a massive blow-out of sound, everyone plays with remarkable, effective restraint. Atmospheric and layered, this latest release features bits and pieces of identifiable rock-moves peeking out from under a thick blanket of hard-to-identify drift. Based on live recordings made on a lengthy tour of Italy in 2010, Hazel has been extensively edited and supplemented, but without losing the elemental sound of a group playing live together. Though there’s plenty of weird ambient sound to be heard, this isn’t a soundeffects / “pedalboard” record. Like the previous En Form for Bla, Noble’s drums anchor the music with spare and considered playing, sometimes lashing out with abstract punctuation, and other times laying out a Can-like groove. O’Malley’s guitar is also restrained, providing a bed for O’Sullivan’s constantly morphing Rhodes, synths and electronic effects. Kristoffer Rygg contributes a rousing vocal incantation to “Ermanna” and peppers the mix with ghostly modular details. Æthenor’s catalog continues to be not like anything else out there right now. Sleeve designed by Stephen O’Malley

Tracks

1. Silk To Breath
2. Leather Umbrella
3. Anais
4. Ermanna
5. Murmurum

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DETROIT COBRAS, THE - 'MINK, RAT OR RABBIT'

Formats

• TMR371 - LP

  813547022783

• TMR371CD - CD

  813547022790

Details

Continuing their commitment to celebrating and shining a light on classic and influential music from Detroit, Third Man Records is honored to be able to re-introduce the world to the undeniable importance of the Detroit Cobras. As one of the earliest salvos in the great Detroit garage explosion of the turn of the century, the Detroit Cobras Mink, Rat or Rabbit is a landmark album. Comprised solely of cover songs (as has always been the band’s MO) the Cobra’s spirited takes on Motown classics (“I’ll Keep Holding On” originally by the Marvellettes), garage punk laments (“Bad Girl” originally known as “Bad Man” by the Oblivians) girl group Tear-Jerkers (“Easier to Cry” originally by the Shangri-Las) and New Orleans soul standards (“Break-a-way” originally by Irma Thomas) and the end result is nothing short of a staple that any record collection is empty without.

Tracks

1. Cha-Cha Twist
2. I?ll Keep Holding On
3. Putty (In Your Hands)
4. It?s Easier to Cry
5. Bad Girl
6. The Slummer the Slum
7. Midnite Blues
8. You Knows What To Do
9. Can?t Do Without You
10. Hittin? On Nothing
11. Out of This World
12. Chumba
13. Break-a-way

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DETROIT COBRAS, THE - 'LIFE, LOVE AND LEAVING'

Formats

• TMR372 - LP

  813547022813

• TMR372CD - CD

  813547022820

Details

Originally released in 2001, the Detroit Cobras Life, Love and Leaving is the group’s best-known effort, coming at a time when bands like the White Stripes and Dirtbombs were also releasing seminal albums that started picking up recognition outside of their collective hometown of Detroit. Hitting hard with songs by soul heavyweights like Solomon Burke (“Stupidity”), Mary Wells (“Bye Bye Baby”), Otis Redding (“Shout Bamalama”), the inimitable vocals of Rachel Nagy would no-doubt be a template from which folks like Amy Winehouse would work from years later. A landmark collection of covers. • Hometown: Detroit • Features the previously unreleased “This Old Heart” (originally by James Brown) an outtake from the Life, Love and Leaving sessions, unheard for over 15 years. • “Hey Sah-Lo-Ney” (originally listed under the incorrect title “Hey Sailor”) was featuring on the seminal Rough Trade Shops Rock and Roll compilation in 2002. • Features Eddie Hawrsh (the Black Crowes) on bass.

Tracks

1. Hey Sah-Lo-Ney
2. He Did It
3. Home In Your Heart
4. Oh My Lover
5. Cry On
6. Stupidity
7. Bye Bye Baby
8. Boss With the Hot Sauce
9. I?m Laughing At You
10. You Can?t Miss Nothing That You Never Had
11. Right Around the Corner
12. Won?t You Dance With Me
13. Let?s Forget About the Past
14. Shout Bamalama
15. This Old Heart*

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MAGIC TRICK - 'OTHER MAN'S BLUES'

Formats

• EMP029 - LP

  647603395616

• EMP029CD - CD

  814519022121

Details

Empty Cellar is proud to release the newest album by Magic Trick, Other Man’s Blues—written and recorded while songwriter Tim Cohen split his time between two lives and two worlds, a horse ranch with his newborn daughter, and on tour or at Phil Manley’s Lucky Cat Studios in San Francisco. A book of songs Cohen had written while bouncing to and fro sufficed in lieu of rehearsal time with the thirteen other musicians who appear on the tracks: James Kim and James Barone (Beach House) on drums; Alicia Van Heuvel (Aislers Set) and Paul Garcia on bass; Joel Robinow (Once and Future Band / Danny James) on keys; Emmett Kelly (The Cairo Gang / The Muggers) on guitar; and omnipresent vocal harmonies from Alicia, Noelle Cahill and Anna Hillburg. The album is a loose, largely improvised affair, with many guest appearances and stop-ins. Allegedly tequila was centrally involved. It’s the principle that gave this project a name five years ago. Especially in this case, the players on the album define what shapes these songs take. A ghostly choir of female voices opens the album like a séance, with the spirit they conjure flitting about the ensuing ten tracks, from the baroque pop of “Forest of Kates” to the icy post-punk of “I Held the Ring.” There’s the air-tight R&B groove of “Startling Chimes,” the krauty “Purest Thing,” a jammy side-to-side trot that moves “First Thought” along, taking a detour into country before culminating in a glorious Grateful Dead-indebted coda. Throughout, it’s Cohen’s lyrics that are pushed to the front of the mix—collectively fleshed out, from his composition book.

Tracks

1. More
2. Forest of Kates
3. I Held The Ring
4. Scorpio
5. First Thought
6. Mockingbird
7. Eternal Summer
8. Purest Thing
9. Startling Chimes
10. Oysters

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