VARIOUS ERASED TAPES ARTISTS - 'COLLECTION VIII'

Formats

• ERATP080LP - 2xLPs

  4050486114032

Details

**LTD COPIES ON TRANSPARENT VINYL**Coinciding with the label’s 10th anniversary takeover of London’s Southbank Centre, September 8th sees the release of the latest annual compilation Erased Tapes Collection VIII as a highly limited transparent 2-LP set. On February 5th 2017 Erased Tapes opened the doors to their new East London home, marking the 10th anniversary by introducing their fans and the public to the new Erased Tapes Sound Gallery. The label will be celebrating with many festival showcases including End Of The Road and Sea Change Festival in the UK, Germany’s Haldern Pop, as well as curating 10th anniversary takeovers of Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, Colston Hall in Bristol, plus more to be announced. Commencing these celebrations with a new compilation entitled Erased Tapes Collection VIII, they also welcome the iconic Penguin Cafe to the roster amongst tracks from new signing Daniel Brandt (of Brandt Brauer Frick) and Peter Broderick’s duo project Allred & Broderick. It also includes recent compositions by Rival Consoles, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Ben Lukas Boysen, Douglas Dare and Immix Ensemble & Vessel, as well as a previously unreleased Ryan Davis remix of Erased Tapes stalwarts Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm which was recently favoured by Aphex Twin and an exclusive edit of Woodkid & Nils Frahm’s score for JR’s Ellis, with spoken words by Robert De Niro. “I simply want to tell a story, whether that’s by compiling this annual collection of songs that connects the dots between all these works of music we had the honour of releasing over the years, or curating a label in general. It helps me reminisce and revisit the moments that brought us all closer together, that make us human. With each year the picture becomes clearer and the message less reliant on words. I hope that this music helps the listener as much as it helps me to keep imagining, keep focusing, keep awake in a time when silence and peace is so hard to come by. May our new space provide a haven, reflecting these values we share and allowing people to find a moment to slow down in this fast-paced world we live in.” – Robert Raths As the first of many label-curated 10th anniversary celebrations, September sees a weekend takeover of Southbank’s Royal Festival Hall by artists including Kiasmos, Penguin Cafe, Lubomyr Melnyk, Dawn of Midi, Rival Consoles, Peter Broderick & friends. Raths continues, “I can’t think of a better place to stage our 10th anniversary celebrations than Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. It has unique acoustics and architecture and is one of London’s most prestigious live venues. We’re extremely excited that for the very first time we’re able to bring together almost every artist on the label to share this special experience with the people that have been a part of this 10-year journey.” Initially founded by German-born Robert Raths in 2007, the London-based label has grown and extended across the world with satellite offices in Los Angeles and Berlin. Spanning over ten years, Erased Tapes has nurtured avant-garde artists from all around the world whilst remaining genre-defying and truly independent.

Tracks

1. Allred & Broderick ? The Ways
2. Penguin Cafe ? Cantorum
3. Daniel Brandt ? Kale Me
4. Rival Consoles ? Slow Song
5. A Winged Victory For The Sullen ? Galerie
6. Ben Lukas Boysen ? Golden Times 1
7. Olafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm ? 00:26 (Ryan Davis Rethink)
8. Douglas Dare ? Rex
9. Immix Ensemble & Vessel ? Scope
10. Woodkid & Nils Frahm ? Winter Morning II (with Robert De Niro) [Excerpt]
11. Peter Broderick ? Eyes Closed And Traveling

Press

"Ten years of one of the most important record labels of the last few years" ? Gilles Peterson, BBC 6 Music


?The heart-string-tugging London label that floats gently between 20th century composition and ambient music? ? Rolling Stone

Audio & Video

THE BLOOD TUB ORCHESTRA - 'THE SEVEN CURSES OF THE MUSIC HALL'

Formats

• PHOER032 - CD

Details

Phono Erotic is proud to announce the debut album by the vehemently Outsiderist, Post-Music Hall, Post-Retro/Post-Modern/Post-Future ensemble that is The Blood Tub Orchestra. This album is an antiquated long-playing digital optical disc data storage unit format containing a collection of late 19th and early 20th Century popular and not so popular music. These lewd, crude and sometimes nude songs and ditties, hailing from the Free And Easies, Taverns, Music Halls, Blood Tubs and Singing Saloons of their era, have been dragged kicking and groaning from their coffins by a motley rabble of musicians from such bands as Transglobal Underground, Furniture, Echobelly, Headbutt, Pulkas and The London Dirthole Company. Long before the blandness of Music Hall’s slow televised death in the 60’s and 70’s, these songs came from an anarchic time of drunken satire, drug ravaged scandal, transvestites, gloriously bad puns, tight skirts, political lampooning, prostitution, punch-ups, patriotism and a pisspot of penny dreadfuls. The Blood Tub Orchestra have taken this stagnant seed and with all the zeal of a sentimental hangover have thrown it up into modern musical parlance. The starved and raging sweatshop is the twin drum and metal barrage of Mr Lewis and Ms Reynolds. The industrial engines are the machines and delightfully horrid bass of Mr Davies. The swaggering mod in the street is the guitar of Ms Smith and the part of the bailiff arranging the transportation of you and your children to the workhouse is sung by Mr Whelan, accompanying himself on the piano. The result is the 19th century’s revenge on our dishevelled 21st one. It seems the Victorian line in rebellious lyric stands as true as ever, from the upbeat post punk of ‘Things Are Worse In Russia’ to a rockabilly re-working of the Charles Dickens’ anachronistic tribute to Crass with the lyrical classic ‘Fine Old English Tory Times’. In contrast, dusting the cobwebs off the sentimental ballad ‘I Cannot Sing The Old Songs’ finds it loaded with stiff upper lip trauma and underlies once again that the psychology of a nation is essentially in the same uncertainty as now, along with a few of the same chord structures. ‘They Can Do Without Us’ and ‘It Aint All Honey And It Aint All Jam’ (the latter performed via full megaphone by Ms Valerie Gwyther) reveal layers of modern gender politics raised and tolerated by the marginal folks of a hundred years ago. Some things never change…likewise the subject the worlds oldest known football song (from sometime between 1880-1900), telling of a great on-field rivalry and carnage on the pitch ending up in further carnage down the pub. The jovially jingoistic ‘We’re Glad You Got A Gun’ a worthy contender for the Worst Song of 1915, is perhaps the cause for many a naïve young dapper ending up the subject of the albums epitaph, ‘Ain’t It Grand To Be Blooming Well Dead’, a song that puts the mockers on the smug and enlightened liberalism of the hypocritical vultures at your funeral rearing their ugly heads for your final farewell. This selection of songs range from some of the greatest hits of the day by some of the most famous artists such as Harry Champion, Sam Mayo, Vesta Victoria to some of the greatest obscurities. As examples of the former, guest vocalist Captain Standish adds his somewhat unique tonsular skills to ‘The Spaniard That Blighted My Life’, (a lampoon of opera), ‘The Daring Young Man On The Flying Machine’, hints at an early LGBT hue and cry, (rumoured once to have been covered by Bowie). ‘Percy From Pimlico’ meanwhile laughs in the face of a common misery with a bit of common thievery. The particularly obscure ‘As You Were Before’ and ‘The Bolshevik’, in which the word Bolshevik turns out to be as much use as the words ‘Trot’ or ‘Lefty’ in this day and age both revel in further anti-social behavior, and there is simply no sensible explanation for the existence of ‘I Dreamt That I Dwelt on the Roof of St Pauls’. The cautionary tale that is ‘Never Let Your Braces Dangle’ is, of course, self-explanatory. These ghostly resurrected sounds of music from the ‘kicking over the traces’ generations of yore offer an alternative vision of an over sentimentalized past and a cautionary thought or two to consider in these times of Brexit bolsh and bluster.

Tracks

Things Are Worse In Russia
I Cannot Sing The Old Songs
The Football Match
They Can Do Without Us
Percy From Pimlico
It Ain?t All Honey And It Ain?t All Jam
Never Let Your Braces Dangle
We?re Glad You?ve Got A Gun
The Bolshevik
The Spaniard That Blighted My Life
As You Were Before
The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze
I Dreamt That I Dwelt On The Roof Of St Pauls
Aint It Grand To Be Bloomin? Well Dead
The Fine Old English Tory Times

Press

Audio & Video

HERCULES II - 'TEMPLE OF POSEIDON'

Formats

• RWR20 - CD

Details

The saga of Hercules II continues…. Another sweat soaked journey through the dark murky waters of noisy, dirty rock music drifting through the langourous tensions of collapse, despair, melancholy and toil amid the grasp of Poseidon tightening his grip on all those aboard, sucking them deep down into his lair and following the valiant escape, the Temple Of Poseidon album was built in his honour and perhaps immortality achieved as a result. This journey is truly epic scale adventure in Outsider music. ‘Temple Of Poseidon’ is a collection of 10 Post-Instrumental songs of passive-aggresive doom laden malevolence spiked with just a hint of grinding punknoise, drifting around the battered edges of the assorted genres of Post-Armageddon Rock with all the tension of a dormant volcano about to erupt. No compromize. No mercy. No prisoners. Hercules II albums are an obscure beast, all to often the hard to find stuff of collectors dreams, multiple and differing editions of releases that hide in plain sight most of the time. Nobody is quite sure how many releases exist, some say four, some say twelve. This is most definitely the third album release on Radiowave Recordings after ‘Herculaneum’ (RWR11) and ‘Poseidon Avenged’ (RWR15). The attitude behind this hazy set of releases appears to create a greyness informed by the dis-illusion of freedom and choice made prevalent with todays e-commerce culture vultures shooting up in their tiny corner of the world. This release alone (so far) has 3 editions. CD, Cassette & Download. Hercules II is a willfully ambiguous project initially put together by the reclusive Dane, C. Poulsen, a paranoid and somewhat Joe Meek or Brian Wilson of a character. His very much off-grid existence is the ship which guides this project. The remainder of the musicians who perform are a loose collective of friends with a distinguished history of heavy noise making and all more than happy to rally for the flag. C. Poulsen himself plays guitar on these recordings (and very, very rarely perfroms live). Ashley Davies (Headbutt, London Dirthole Co etc) plays one of two earthshattering basses alongside Chris P. (Headbutt, Silverfish). Out front is the (non)-flying V guitar formation of Robert Lewis (Pulkas, LDC), Fuzz (Silverfish), GG (Midnight Mines, LDC), Sebastian Büttrich (18th Dye, Test) who pick at the scabs to bleed and blister the sonic shards of Poulsens compostions and last but not least, bringing up the rear on cascading drums is one Lewis Richardson (Headbutt, Headcleaner). The mighty Poseidon himself could not have wished for such an earthquake inducing band of warriors. File under: Passive Aggressive Rock

Tracks

1 Nemesis II 6 Kronos II
2 Asphalious 7 The Mask Of Anubis
3 The 4th Head Of Cerberus 8 Dionysus II
4 Enlig (Del 4) 9 Plagued
5 Typhoon 10 Yggdrasil Shivers

Press

Audio & Video

THE ODYSSEY CULT - 'VOL: 1'

Formats

• SC33 - LP

Details

*FIRST COPIES COLOURED VINYL*The Odyssey Cult is a sprawling two volume, solo electric guitar album some four years in the making by Ethan Miller (Heron Oblivion, Feral Ohms, Howlin Rain, Comets On Fire.) It is his first solo instrumental guitar-oriented release. The Odyssey Cult has its roots in Miller’s improvised solo electric guitar performances dating back to 2013. Though still almost entirely instrumental, the two volume debut expands his original concept of ‘solo electric guitar performance’ to something much broader in narrative scope and is as indebted to the great minimalists and loop pioneers as it is to guitar oriented Krautrock, cult film soundtrack music and the great feedback-riding, amp destroyers of the 60s to present day. In departure from the more structured song work of most of Miller’s bands over the last 16 years, The Odyssey Cult albums are based in improvisation. Loops, cut-ups, collages and tonal performances (rather than melodic ones,) often form the engine of movement and narrative. The Odyssey Cult is the sound of the collapse of a prehistoric age. Giant amplifiers and fuzz bass loops smash into one another until only crackling ANS transmissions are left floating above the fray. A prayer of poetry scrawled in feedback, a painting in sand of the dreams of imaginary birds, and raising the noise-rock quotient significantly, the rhythm section of Feral Ohms makes multiple appearances throughout the two albums as foil to Miller’s screaming amps, echoing extended guitar oriented power trio freak outs like White Heaven’s ‘Levitation’, a deconstructed mid 70s Crazy Horse and the heat-blistered primal workouts of High Rise. Vol.1 and Vol.2 are an artistic statement intended to be sat down and fully engaged with, a journey, an epic poem, a meditation, a long rich dream that loosens all sense of space and time- ultimately confusing history, moment and self. Those that take the time to enter and feel sound, creation and performance will surely be rewarded by the joy and beauty of The Odyssey Cult. The Odyssey Cult Vol.1 and Vol.2 will be released simultaneously as 2 unique albums on August 25th, 2017 on Silver Current Records on limited edition Vinyl and Digital formats. For fans of Ash Ra Temple, Popol Vuh, 70’s Soundtracks, Fripp & Eno, Guru Guru UFO, Faust, Hendrix Woodstock feedback meltdowns, The great PSF power trios, Flying Saucer Attack, This Heat and disorienting ambient music.

Tracks

1. Olympus EES-2
2. The Abbot?s Yard
3. Cyclops, Tell Them It Was I!
4. Lotus; Torraloom, Torraluum
5. Laestrygonians
6. The Tongue and Hoof Of Blazes Boylan
7. Thick With Woods Where The Wild Goats
8. In Black Poplar Grove, Calypso At Her Loom

Press

An epic primordial avalanche of electric guitar music. A sprawling, post-modern science-fiction odyssey in sound, equally in homage to the great minimalists and loop pioneers as to guitar-oriented Krautrock, cult film soundtrack music and the great feedback-riding, amp destroyers of the 60s to present day.

Audio & Video

THE ODYSSEY CULT - 'VOL: 2'

Formats

• SC34 - LP

Details

*FIRST COPIES COLOURED VINYL* The Odyssey Cult is a sprawling two volume, solo electric guitar album some four years in the making by Ethan Miller (Heron Oblivion, Feral Ohms, Howlin Rain, Comets On Fire.) It is his first solo instrumental guitar-oriented release. The Odyssey Cult has its roots in Miller’s improvised solo electric guitar performances dating back to 2013. Though still almost entirely instrumental, the two volume debut expands his original concept of ‘solo electric guitar performance’ to something much broader in narrative scope and is as indebted to the great minimalists and loop pioneers as it is to guitar oriented Krautrock, cult film soundtrack music and the great feedback-riding, amp destroyers of the 60s to present day. In departure from the more structured song work of most of Miller’s bands over the last 16 years, The Odyssey Cult albums are based in improvisation. Loops, cut-ups, collages and tonal performances (rather than melodic ones,) often form the engine of movement and narrative. The Odyssey Cult is the sound of the collapse of a prehistoric age. Giant amplifiers and fuzz bass loops smash into one another until only crackling ANS transmissions are left floating above the fray. A prayer of poetry scrawled in feedback, a painting in sand of the dreams of imaginary birds, and raising the noise-rock quotient significantly, the rhythm section of Feral Ohms makes multiple appearances throughout the two albums as foil to Miller’s screaming amps, echoing extended guitar oriented power trio freak outs like White Heaven’s ‘Levitation’, a deconstructed mid 70s Crazy Horse and the heat-blistered primal workouts of High Rise. Vol.1 and Vol.2 are an artistic statement intended to be sat down and fully engaged with, a journey, an epic poem, a meditation, a long rich dream that loosens all sense of space and time- ultimately confusing history, moment and self. Those that take the time to enter and feel sound, creation and performance will surely be rewarded by the joy and beauty of The Odyssey Cult. The Odyssey Cult Vol.1 and Vol.2 will be released simultaneously as 2 unique albums on August 25th, 2017 on Silver Current Records on limited edition Vinyl and Digital formats. For fans of Ash Ra Temple, Popol Vuh, 70’s Soundtracks, Fripp & Eno, Guru Guru UFO, Faust, Hendrix Woodstock feedback meltdowns, The great PSF power trios, Flying Saucer Attack, This Heat and disorienting ambient music.

Tracks

1. Nausicaa | Sandymount
2. Poseidon
3. The Heaven?s Black
4. Sirens
5. Far From The Others, Washed His Hands In The Foaming Surf
6. Ulysses

Press

An epic primordial avalanche of electric guitar music. A sprawling, post-modern science-fiction odyssey in sound, equally in homage to the great minimalists and loop pioneers as to guitar-oriented Krautrock, cult film soundtrack music and the great feedback-riding, amp destroyers of the 60s to present day.

Audio & Video

STACIAN - 'PERSON L'

Formats

• LSSN053 - LP

  5060446121627

Details

STACIAN is Person L is Oakland resident, solo artist and academic Dania Luck. Beginning in the American Mid West, Stacian has been an ongoing Bay Area concern since 2008, deeply involved in the minimal wave and underground electronic music scene. A dystopian vision of alienated humanity, broken communications and technoid mal-forms, Person L is her most fully developed full length and a leap forward from 2012’s Songs For Cadets. Moving away from the primitive Cold Wave of previous work, Person L manages to create a bleak dystopia without relying on Ballardian cliche, though still invoking concrete prisons and urban disassociation. Person L is a throbbing, murky underworld that revels in imperfections, a submersive, digital swamp bleeding through the club. Themes of humanoid alienation and identity confusion abound. Person L is the nominal (and sole) band member of STACIAN, a manifestation of Luck’s that re-creates a near-human face in the mirror. Album opener Volx is a massive stomper, 909 kicks bringing an almost electro-glam thump into the stereo field. Luck’s skill as Person L and as STACIAN is in maximilising minimalism. Volx is a simple composition, an arpeggiated analog synth and simple kick-snare but it creates the drama Luck’s vocal thrives on. Headstand is similarly huge sounding, though here the track unfolds gradually with synth strings eeking out a simple melody before the catastrophising kick ramps up the pressure. It’s a wonderful exercise in abstraction vs. body moving dynamics. Album single Telephonix is the closest thing to a conventional pop song on Person L, with murky electronics belying a thrilling Cold Wave dancer. We’re lost in the throes of miscommunication: in placing our trust in electronic communications we’ve divorced ourselves from human interaction. On Side 2, Dirgent heralds a darker portion of the album. A slow burner with a blown-out low end anchoring the doom, it marks a dark wave of distortion that swells up and consumes the listener. The narrative turns in on itself Remote Cntl, ironically marking the most human of the tracks here. Though the album is devoid of any overt feminist sentiments, here Stacian covertly samples a male voice man-splaining electronic music before burying him in electronic sludge. It’s absurdly thrilling. Spooky Action At A Glance takes John Carpenter-esque atmospherics into Stacian’s Maximalist approach, the horror blow up to kitch, day-glo proportions. Album closer gNoMoN takes a dub rhythm and blasts it into the Cold Wave outerverse, a menacing doom to close Person L.

Tracks

1. Volx
2. Headstand
3. Telephonix
4. So Cialo
5. Dirgent
6. Remote Cntl
7. Spooky Action At A Glance
8. gNoMoN

Press

Audio & Video

PAPIR - 'V'

Formats

• PSYCHOBABBLE092 - 2xLPs

  4046661493412

• PSYCHOBABBLE092CD - 2xCDs

  4046661493528

Details

**RESTOCKED ON CD ONLY**Papir is a young three-piece from Copenhagen, Denmark who has played together for years under various names while slowly, but surely, perfecting their unique brand of semi-improvisational psychedelic rock. Based around Christoffer Brøchmanns complex and powerful drumming Papir creates instrumental journeys – organic structures of sound that move forward with the hypnotic groove of Can or electric Miles Davis through euphoric peaks, thunderous riffs and beautiful cosmic dronescapes. Nicklas Sørensens guitar playing displays his love for fuzzed-out psychedelic rock from the 1960s and 1970s but also has a highly melodic aspect that reveals his admiration for German heroes Michael Rother and Manuel Göttsching. Similarly Christian Becher Clausen’s bass playing covers a wide palette of ideas and sounds – sometimes using the instrument as a solid groove-maker and other times as a tool for crea- ting spacy soundscapes and drones. As a unit the three members achieve what the great power trios of the 1960s did at their most fertile: the ability to combine each aspect of the band into a whole that surpas- ses the sum of its parts. Following their self-titled debut LP that came out on the Copenhagen label Red Tape, the band released their Stundum album. The music builds, swells and evolves almost like an organic natural process – building something which is almost beyond categorization, not really belonging to any specific musical era or scene. Had this album been released ten years ago one might have been tempted to describe it as psychedelic post-rock – but no genre tags, however inventive, does full justice to Papir’s music. Neither does more traditional tags such as krautrock, prog, space-rock or stoner-rock, although none of them are completely off the mark. Mixed by John McEntire (Tortoise) and released on double 180 gram format (with DL code) or double CD format, this ones for fans of all the above mentioned and other psyhonautical soundscapers such as Scenic / Mogwai / Kandodo / etc

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video