THE MODERN INSTITUTE - 'THE MODERN INSTITUTE'

Formats

• LSSN049 - LP

Details

For The Modern Institute’s self-titled first vinyl document, the practices of audio technicians Richard McMaster, Laurie Pitt and James Stephen Wright are brought into sharp focus, the initial analyses of a project which examines the rituals of performance, the signifiers of bourgeois culture and the absurdities inherent in the middle class art gaze. While undoubtedly disturbing in execution, it’s a succinct reminder of the tension between lazy, electronic music tropes and the essential, quizzical attitude frequently lacking in the technoid culture, yet abundant in Glasgow’s agent provocateurs. Seen through the frame of primary music generators McMaster and Pitt’s previous music projects – Golden Teacher, General Ludd – The Modern Institute’s recorded output is an oblique, strategic examination of rhythm and the spaces between. Rhythm is often re-defined and re-formed through out The Modern Institute, with the easy 4/4, communally cohesive beats of the Teacher and the Ludd some way off. Opener Black Blood is a case in point, with a elusive pattern providing a warped, skeletal framework for Wright to smother. The atmosphere is austere, aggressive, clinical as a gallery wall after the exhibition has failed. The yawning, sub-bass of False Beards and Diamond Hooves hacks at the exhibition floor opening up punishingly alien chasms. The narrator’s deadpan poesy, battling against the brutalist backdrop, reminds the listener of early industrial pioneers Cabaret Voltaire, not least in the unmistakably northern accent. Side A closes out on the first attempt by The Modern Institute to break into a recognizable pattern, though rendered on Destroy Logic as a dry destruction of a Bashment rhythm. Arabic Eight is nightmarish, a Normal deconstruction of art music. A nonsensical, Dadaist mutation of electronic dance music, Intelligent Dance Music with no intelligence, dance or Music. Wright intones “when I was younger you used to say you weren’t in it for the money,” taking down conceptions of artistic integrity, inspiration and muse. On Springloaded, we’re still deep in an alien lifeform’s insides, viewing the tropes the art industry uses to sell itself, splashes of digital distortion and burps crossfiring across the stereo field. Shiver And Quiver ends The Modern Institute, sounding like all the cities’ alarms simultaneously set off to the beat of the LPs only 4/4 beat, here juddering and unnaturally fast. Ask questions, just don’t ask for answers.

Tracks

1. Black Blood
2. False Beards And Diamond Hooves
3. Destroy Logic
4. Arabic Eight

Press

New project from Golden Teacher / General Ludd members

Audio & Video

MALE GAZE - 'MISS TAKEN'

Formats

• CF091 - LP

  814867023870

• CF091CD - CD

  814867023887

Details

“Matt, Mark and Adam, aka Male Gaze, return quickly from the brainy roar of their previous album King Leer with their six heels hanging even further over the edge of the abyss. Good bands often pull punches but the great ones don’t and these charismatically scarred veterans of romance, gear singed from all too real firefights in the dark world of adulthood, lodge ten new slugs into your vest. Your life was spared but you’ll feel every second of the thirtyfive-plus minutes, grateful that all you got was a bruising. Imagine what it did to them! Have you ever flung yourself out there to such a degree that you risked total humiliation if it all went south, to where the next step would be self deportation to some distant island of annihilation in your mind? How did that work out for you? Don’t worry, Male Gaze knows and they wrote some songs about it. Look out your window, down at the glittering metropolis below and listen to this album.” —Henry Rollins

Tracks

1. Keep Yr Kools 2. Wha Do Wha Do 3. All Yours 4. Didn?t 5. Tell Me How It Is 6. Pale Gaze 7. If U Were My Girl 8. African Ripoff 9. Pyramids 10. Miss Taken

Press

Ten new slugs in the chest from melodic skuzz-pop trio

Audio & Video

ROBERT POLLARD - '100'

Formats

• ROCK011 - BOOK

  9780692833704

Details

On April 7th 2017, Guided by Voices released August By Cake, a double album. For anyone who knows the band this isn’t necessarily a newsworthy event. The band and its leader are extremely prolific and release multiple albums every year. What made this one special, what made it historic, was that it marked the 100th studio album release for Robert Pollard. It is arguable as to whether any other artist has released that much music. What we know for sure is that no other artist has released 100 studio albums with every one of them on vinyl. This book contains the front and back covers for all 100 albums. Less a testament to Pollard’s extensive career and more a study in album art, the book is a large format (12” x 12”) hard cover document containing over 200 pages printed to the edge.

Tracks

Press

200 page full color 12? by 12? hardcover coffee-table book ? Includes front and back cover artwork for all 100 Robert Pollard releases ? Limited to 1000 copies worldwide ? The Omniverse Bob Pollard!

Audio & Video

BEN LUKAS BOYSEN - 'GOLDEN TIMES 1'

Formats

• ERATP098LP - 12"

  4050486113301

Details

Electronic producer Max Cooper and ambient master Tim Hecker rework Ben Lukas Boysen on his new EP Golden Times 1 – out on Erased Tapes, June 30th 2017. Championed by many including BBC Radio DJ Mary Anne Hobbs as the standout track from his most recent album Spells, Boysen’s Golden Times 1 forms the very heart of his new EP with the same name. Boysen entrusted none other than Max Cooper and Tim Hecker to meticulously shape and lure the title track plus second single Nocturne 4 into two entirely separate territories, yet never drifting too far away from their original soundscapes. With Evensong the composer himself contributes a previously unreleased piece. It is yet another example that Boysen is still opening new and unexplored doors in a bid to challenge the existing realm of contemporary music he is very much a part of.

Tracks

1. Golden Times 1
2. Evensong
3. Golden Times 1 (Max Cooper Remix)
4. Nocturne 4 (Tim Hecker Remix)

Press

"Dexterous melding of the orchestral and electronic worlds" ?Mojo
?Strangely upbeat nocturnes? ? The Wire

Audio & Video

BLACKOUT - 'THE HORSE'

Formats

• EZRDR076 - LP

  603111719412

• EZRDR076CD - CD

  603111719429

Details

Ask any New Yorker what makes them special and they’ll all tell you something different. But there’s something very particular about a city so condensed with a vast range of humanity all facing myriad daily challenges that gives its rock music a brash, direct aggression unlike other places. Case in point, NYC trio Blackout’s take on doom and stoner rock is filled with a gritty, mechanistic heft unlike bands of their ilk from anywhere else. Subsumed within the greasy grooves of The Horse there are echoes of NYC heavy legends like Helmet, Cro-Mags, Judge, Prong and others — not as intentional homage, but rather a vibe that permeates and inadvertently gives its bands a unique power that few can match. After a brief hiatus between the March 2015 release of their self-titled sophomore album on RidingEasy Records, Blackout has regrouped and (ahem) gotten back on The Horse for an 8-song blast of riffs that does not fuck around. On one fateful day in July 2016, with a handful of mushrooms and a bottle of tequila, vocalist/guitarist Christian Gordy set out to write an entire new Blackout record. Following the departure of original drummer Taryn Waldman earlier that year, the band’s fate was uncertain. But, Gordy’s writing forray resulted in a wellspring of inspiration and by happenstance he contacted drummer Adam Taylor who had just parted with his band Ghost Punch. Within two months of banging out riffs with bassist Justin Sherrell, Blackout was back in action. The Horse was recorded over 4 days in September 2016 at Spaceman Sound in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood, which the band describes as “a whirlwind session laced with loads of buds, Petey’s burgers and lipstick.” Or, described by blackout themselves: “What you have before you now is a messy plate of meat, slathered in weird sauces. A haunted steak from from Centaurus A to sink your tingling fangs into. Sit back, crack a semi cold one, maybe get some snacks… and turn this motherfucker up to 8.”

Tracks

1. Graves
2. Let Em Ride
3. Roach Bites
4. Rat Spirit
5. Amnesia
6. Mean Pads
7. Holy Wood
8. The Horse

Press

Audio & Video