CUCINA POVERA - 'HILJA'

Formats

• LSSN055 - LP

Details

An ethereal, unresolved presence fading into the stereo field, Hilja breathes into life with a haunted synth line and self-sampling vocal hook that instantly creates an enchanted space. Hilja is the debut album by Glasgow-based musician Maria Rossi aka Cucina Povera. Named after a style of southern Italian traditional cooking associated with precarity and making-do, a philosophy of simplicity and stoicism that applies perfectly to the spare but beautiful music Rossi experiments with. Hilja’s marriage of minimal synth, field recordings and the hymnal dexterity of Rossi’s vocal performances creates a new language, sometimes literally, to be spoken in some mythological Fourth World we’ve yet to create. Originally from Finland, Rossi brings an acute sense of space, surroundings, and practicality to her working practice, with each composition often relying on a limited sound palette to create deeply affecting messages which transcend language. Cucina Povera’s power is to communicate purely, often down to the solo-choir nature of Rossi’s multi-layered voice, an achingly beautiful instrument which has seems to have an innate spirituality in its grain. The tension between the means and the end is at the heart of Cucina Povera, the invocation of a kind of secular spirituality at times using nothing but Rossi’s voice. Indeed there’s almost a Dogme-like purity to the arrangements: Elektra is a soothing song based around the lapping waves of Rossi’s wordless backing vocals and a simple field recording of stones knocked together. Kehoitus is completely a cappella, a haunted fairytale told in glossolalia, evoking a quasi-religious experience with very little. For music often minimal and simple there’s a boldness that belies Hilja’s status as a debut. Rossi allows each word, each sound and rhythm to exist in its own space, finding its own relationship with its surroundings. Mesikämmenen Veisu is perhaps the most ecclesiastical sounding composition here; burbling water trickles below a virtuoso vocal, with incredible arrangements in several registers undulating above. A meditation to relieve hunger and restriction, it’s a perfect summing up of Hilja, a music ambient but completely earthed, finding enchantment in what you have to hand, the realism of magic, the magic of realism. First Press limited to 300 with hand-screened sleeves.

Tracks

1. Demetra 2. Kuparirumpu 3. Avainsana 4. Elektra 5. Mesik?mmenen Veisu 6. Kehoitus 7. Huhuilu 8. Totean

Press

Audio & Video

THE MOONDOGGIES - 'A LOVE SLEEPS DEEP'

Formats

• HAR106 - LP

  098787310610

• HAR106CD - CD

  098787310627

• HARCS106 - MC

  098787310641

Details

A Love Sleeps Deep’s bones rattle with all the seismic changes of the last five years since the release of The Moondoggies’ Adios I’m a Ghost. While the Washington band got lumped in early on with the woodsy folk-rock/Americana movement that sprung up in the Pacific Northwest in the 2000s, the core Moondoggies sound has always been rock in the more classical sense—more Pink Floyd than Woody Guthrie. A Love Sleeps Deep crystalizes that. Perhaps more importantly, A Love Sleeps Deep finds singer/guitarist Kevin Murphy at his most pointed as a songwriter. There’s no lyrical pussyfooting this time around. Lacking the need to prove himself, he opens up and lays bare his feelings. “Generally, I feel frustrated because there’s a lot of this escapist stuff going on in rock and roll,” says Murphy. “I just didn’t want to not talk about my frustrations with what I was seeing around me. I have two little girls now, and I’m just thinking about where things are going. Love in my life has changed everything.” Recorded in Seattle in the spring of 2017 with production wizard Erik Blood (Shabazz Places, Tacocat, THEESatisfaciton), A Love Sleeps Deep is also an album of collaboration. The band seemingly threw each tune up in the air to see how it bounced around the room, making sure everyone got their hands on it. From around 30 initial demos, Blood helped select the most jam-heavy numbers. “They had that vibe that made me love the band in the first place, but with a weathered distinction and confidence that moved me,” says Blood

Tracks

01. Easy Coming 6:16
02. Cinders 5:13
03. Match 4:05
04. Sick in Bed 5:43
05. Soviet Barn Fire 4:41
06. My Mother 4:16
07. Promises 5:19
08. Underground (A Love Sleeps Deep) 8:35

Press

Audio & Video

A HAWK AND A HACKSAW - 'FOREST BATHING'

Formats

• LM19 - LP

  647603400310

• LM19CD - CD

  647603400327

Details

Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku, is a term that means “taking in the forest atmosphere.” It was developed in Japan during the 1980s and has become a cornerstone of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine. “Taking in the forest atmosphere” became the inspiration for A Hawk and A Hacksaw’s newest album. Their forest bath of choice is the Valle De Oro National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. This new album features ten original compositions by Heather Trost and Jeremy Barnes. The opening track “Alexandria” features Barnes on the Persian Santur, an ancient hammer struck dulcimer, and Trost’s string and woodwind melodies. The composition evokes the long trader’s route between what is now Bulgaria and the wealthy cities of Istanbul and Alexandria. The band has always had a bird’s eye view of this part the world— looking for the connections between places and even eras: a belief in the power of music to reach across borders and unite. The band is based on the idea of collecting music and inspiration through travel. They are not of a place, but their music evokes places along a route. This is not urban music. It’s rural: songs of the woods and roads where there are no sidewalks or street lamps to light your way. While the bulk of the music heard on this record is played by Barnes and Trost, they do have some incredible guest performances, namely the clarinet virtouso Cüneyt Sepetçi, from Istanbul, Hungarian cimbalom master Unger Balász, and closer to home, Chicago trumpeter Sam Johnson, Deerhoof’s John Dieterich and Noah Martinez, of the band Lone Piñon.

Tracks

1. Alexandria
2. A Broken Road Lined With
Poplar Trees
3. A Song For Old People / A Song for
Young People
4. The Shepherd Dogs Are Calling
5. Night Sneaker
6. The Magic Spring
7. The Sky Is Blue, The Desert Is Yellow
8. Babayaga 9. The Washing Bear
10. Bayati Maqam

Press

Audio & Video

JOEL SILBERSHER & CHARLIE OWEN - 'TENDRILS'

Formats

• SORC1005LP - LP

  0742832924337

Details

Sorcerer Records is proud to announce the first ever vinyl edition of this long-out-ofprint classic from 1995, originally released on CD by the Dog Meat label. Tendrils sees Joel (Hoss, GOD, Melonman, Dark Horses, etc.) and Charlie (New Christs, Beasts Of Bourbon, Tex, Don & Charlie) engaging in a series of intimate, loose and downbeat folky duets. With sonic similarities to the likes of Richard Thompson (there’s a mind-melting cover of his “Night Comes In” track here, too) and John Martyn, as well as more contemporary troubadours such as Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance) and Steve Gunn, Tendrils often feels like it’s on the verge of musical collapse, but pulls itself together with delicate and intricate guitar work, gentle vocals and occasional percussion lending it a steady pulse. The duo released one more CD, this one under the Tendrils moniker, in 1998 on the Half A Cow label, before parting ways. We think this is a very special release which deserves a new appreciation and a 21st-century audience. Both Joel and Charlie are still very active in music (Joel’s other band, Hoss, will be releasing their first album in 20 years on Sorcerer in 2018), but with Tendrils you get to hear the magic they made together circa 1995. This edition comes newly remastered by Mikey Young with fresh artwork design from Luke Fraser and is limited to 500 copies worldwide.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

COSMIC PSYCHOS - 'LOUDMOUTH SOUP'

Formats

• SBWCD73 - CD

  4059251229230

• SBWLP73 - LP

  4059251229216

• SBWCLP73 - LP (COLOURED)

  4059251229223

Details

The Psychos are back, mate! Australia’s most legit export since Crocodile Dundee have announced the release of their eleventh studio album, 'Loudmouth Soup' out APRIL 2018 on GO THE HACK Records for Australia and SUBWAY Records for the rest of the World!!! WATCH OUT!!! Australia’s most legit export since Crocodile Dundee have announced the release of their eleventh studio album, 'Loudmouth Soup' . They’ve also got a ripper new vid for your eyes to devour in the form of‘Feeling Average’. And frankly, after singing about beers for more than solid three decades, it’s no surprise that the Psychos have finally delivered a song about the hangover from hell. You can get a glimpse of this tribute to the big spit below.

Tracks

01. 100 CANS OF BEER 02. FEELING AVERAGE 03. DOGSHIT 04. MOON OVER VICTORIA 05. BETTER IN THE SHED 06. MEAN
07. TOO DUMB TO DIE 08. RAT ON THE MAT 09. MOONSHINE SHUFFLE 10. LAST STAND

Press

File under: Farm Rock

Audio & Video

RIVAL CONSOLES - 'PERSONA'

Formats

• ERATP109CD - CD

  4050486114483

• ERATP109LP - LP

  4050486114469

Details

Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles presents his expressive new album ‘Persona’, set for release on 13th April 2018 via Erased Tapes. The title ‘Persona’ was inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s film of the same name, specifically a shot in the opening credits of a child reaching out to touch a woman’s face on a screen, which is shifting between one face and another. This powerful image struck Ryan and it inspired the album’s main theme — an exploration of the persona, the difference between how we see ourselves and how others see us, the spaces in between; between states, people, light and dark, the inner persona and the outer persona. “My music is generally inward looking. I like finding something about the self within music, that doesn't have to be specific but maybe asks something or reveals something. This record is a continuation on the self through electronic sounds. Like Legowelt once said ‘a synthesiser is like a translator for unknown emotions’, which I think sums up what I am trying to do. I think all these emotions we have make up our persona. So in a way by finding new ones you alter or expand your persona. And that is what I want my music to try to do. I deliberately aimed to be more sonically diverse with this record. I wanted to experiment more. I wanted to create new sounds and new emotions.” — Rival Consoles Recorded at his studio in south-east London, ‘Persona’ benefits from Ryan’s exploration of a dynamic production process that combines analogue-heavy synthesisers, acoustic and electric instruments with a shoegaze-level obsession with effect pedals. A greater depth of emotion and confidence can be heard across the album. From the deconstructed movements on ‘Unfolding’ that starts the album with a snap of delayed snares, the apocalyptic drones of the title track and thundering drums in ‘Phantom Grip’ to more restrained ambient feels of ‘Dreamer’s Wake’, ‘Rest’ and ‘Untravel’. The latter transverses six beatless minutes of undulating melodies representing “a limbo space, a feeling of ennui, of not really ever being known to others and others not ever really being known to you”. ‘Be Kind’ reveals a musical connection with fellow Erased Tapes artist Nils Frahm, with its minimal approach and improvisational nature. On the more complex sounding ‘I Think So’ Ryan aims to replicate a colour collage with sound. Like a musical kaleidoscope, a flashing and convoluted mass. Written after he saw Slowdive perform live last year, ‘Hidden’ builds from whispers to landscapes of controlled noise. In an interview with XLR8R magazine, Ryan explains: “once you start trying to make a sound loud, then you turn your back on thousands and thousands of sonic possibilities. One of the best things to do is to start a track with a really quiet, weak sound.” Taking this idea to its ultimate conclusion, ‘Fragment’ closes the album as an innocent sounding ambient piece, almost nursery rhyme like, yielding time for reflection on how the persona has changed. ‘Persona’ follows the success of a series of releases — the ‘Odyssey’ and ‘Sonne’ EPs, long player ‘Howl’, and 2016’s mini album ‘Night Melody’ — that saw Ryan mature into what Pitchfork has called a “forward-thinking electronic musician with his own ideas about sound”. Atypical of instrumental-electronic music, Ryan has achieved a signature sound that’s unmistakably identifiable as Rival Consoles. Going beyond typical electronic music production, Ryan defines it as “songwriting with an electronic palette of sounds”. The increasingly dynamic live audio-visual show, born from bespoke performances at the Tate and for Boiler Room at the V&A Museum featuring self-programmed visuals in Max/MSP, has propelled him to play around the world. Ryan launches ‘Persona’ at London’s XOYO on 12th April with further dates to be announced.

Tracks

1. Unfolding
2. Persona
3. Memory Arc
4. Phantom Grip
5. Be Kind
6. I Think So
7. Sun?s Abandon
8. Dreamer?s Wake
9. Untravel
10. Rest
11. Hidden
12. Fragment

Press

One of the best electronic albums of 2018

Audio & Video

URANIUM CLUB - 'LIVE AT ACRI TAUN'

Formats

• CF101 - LP

  814867026536

• CF101CD - CD

  814867026543

Details

“Nothing like a carb-load Italian pre-show feast and table wine to grease the gears of some live action in Fidenza, Italy . A land-locked classico right where you would pinch to hike up the boot. A club packed tight with handsome men and women abused by sonic marauders. “Have you seen Uranium Club live? No? Drop everything. They are complete-package slayers. Watch- works drummer power, shred-haired bass magic (glasses flying), ripped twin guitar flexing on nerd beach, vocals poured through the skylight into your e-holes and over your thought center, sunglasses all around: fucking hypno- wheel. “Tough, smart, and wiry, midwest exploded all over the globe. Minneapolis, a city known for producing the best, has taken no nap on these young men: the driest tone, the snappiest hooks. They are simply great and this recording captures a particularly good night. They Shred ‘til everyone’s dead, including a nine-minute jam , god help us. “Here’s something to make you feel good about the world, to know that we have extended a strong art-handshake to our brothers and sisters in Italy. Vivia l’italia! Ciao, bella.” —John Dwyer 

Tracks

1. That Clown?s Got A Gun
2. Vanishing Point
3. Prissy Chrissy
4. Who Made The Man?
5. The Lottery
6. Black Semen
7. Operations Pt 1&2
8. Sunbelt

Press

Audio & Video

DUSK - 'THE PAIN OF LONELINESS (GOES ON & ON)'

Formats

• ZZZ153 - 7"

  881970015375

Details

Dusk was formed in 2014 by Amos Pitsch (bass guitar, vocals) and Colin Wilde (drums) as an informal recording project—mostly of obscure soul covers and country-rock indulgences—and later gained traction as members Julia Blair (described by Pitchfork Media as a “smooth country-soul alto”), Ryley Crowe (electric guitar, vocals) and Tyler Ditter (electric guitar, vocals) joined the fold at the onset of serious songwriting and recording. They recorded a series of demo recordings and later a two song single for Forward Records. They’ve toured America twice thus far: once doubling as the backing band for Tim Buchanan in Oklahoma City-based cosmic-cowboy punk band Cherry Death, and the other time doubling as an extended lineup of Pitsch’s other group, Wisconsin punk band Tenement. 

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

ANNEA LOCKWOOD - 'GLASS WORLD'

Formats

• ETAT10 - LP

  855985006703

Details

New Zealand-born sound artist and composer Annea Lockwood received formal training at various institutions before exploring the sonorous potential of glass in a series of performances in the late 1960s. With plates of wired glass, glass discs, chunks of green cullet glass, glass tubing, sheets of micro-glass, glass jars and other incarnations of the material, Lockwood elicited a staggering array of sounds, some subtly uncanny and others as outlandish and alien as anything emitted from the era’s early synthesizers . Lockwood’s glass concerts yielded a text-score published in Northern California new-music journal Source: Music of the Avant-Garde and attracted the attention of South African producer Michael Steyn , who encouraged her to record the glass pieces for his label Tangent . They worked for two years in a small, resonant church in London to document a veritable catalogue of the materials’ tone and timbre; Lockwood wished to present each sound as if it were a piece of music in and of itself. Glass World originally appeared on Tangent in 1970. “I wanted to entice people into really listening intensively,” Lockwood once reflected. “Into really listening. I wanted a deep immersion in the sounds of themselves, for the audience.” First-time vinyl reissue. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies on clear vinyl. 

Tracks

Micro Glass Shaken
Glass Rod Vibrating
Turning Gong
Mini Mobile
Wine Glass
Water Gong
Two Ribbed Discs
Rod Across Edge Of Pane
Glass Bulb
Glissandi
Spinning Discs
Dialogue: Bottles And Jars
Vibrating Pane
Bubbling
Breathing Machine
Water Jars
Rod Roll
Micro Glass On Goblet
Micro Glass Along Pane
Cullet: Two Glass Rocks
Medium Mobile
Bottle Tree Showered With Fragments
Deep Water Gong

Press

Audio & Video

JOHN DUNCAN - 'ORGANIC'

Formats

• ETAT09 - LP

  855985006697

Details

The inter-disciplinary maverick John Duncan emerged in 1970s Los Angeles as a confrontational performance artist and, as the decade progressed, aligned himself with the experimental-music collective Los Angeles Free Music Society . His sound art appeared on various self-released cassettes and alongside artists such as Jim Pomeroy and Yoshi Wada on the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art’s influential compilation Sound . Duncan’s debut album, Organic , released in a tiny edition on the artist’s own AQM imprint in 1979 and distributed through LAFMS, collects some of his earliest and most absorbing noise experiments . Recorded live, Organic is composed of two sidelong pieces: “Broken Promise,” a patient, murky dirge featuring Duncan on tape and percussion, plus Michael Le Donne-Bhennet on bassoon; and “Gala,” a kinetic, durational percussion piece featuring Duncan alone. The meditations on texture and unpredictability, realized with unconventional and found sounds , anticipate his later work with shortwave radio. First-time standalone reissue. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies on clear vinyl. 

Tracks

1. Broken Promise
2. Gala

Press

? Debut album by LAFMS-related
performance artist
? Originally self-released in 1979
? Recommended for fans of Jim O?Rourke,
Gh?dalia Tazart?s and Zoviet France
? Limited edition of 500 numbered copies
? Clear vinyl

Audio & Video

REMKO SCHA - 'MACHINE GUITARS'

Formats

• ETAT08 - LP

  855985006680

Details

Gnashing, thrashing and teeming with enchanting microtones — Machine Guitars is the definitive recorded work of Remko Scha , although the late Dutch artist didn’t play a single note himself. Rather, Scha arranged a motorized, rotating wire brush and saber saw in front of suspended electric guitars and let these metallic torrents flow. Scha was a linguist and generative artist, enamored of computers’ capacity for algorithmic creativity. A leading researcher at the University of Amsterdam, he also cofounded the famed arts-space Het Apollohuis in a former cigar-factory in 1980. This haven for intellectuals and underground autodidacts served as the recording studio for most of Machine Guitars (as well as Ellen Fullman’s brilliant The Long String Instrument ), which originally appeared in 1982 on the small Dutch label Kremlin. Machine Guitars , as the critic Byron Coley has noted, ranks among the best of the era’s minimalist-inspired, avant-garde guitar statements by Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham. The semiautonomous sound-making sculptures also evoke contemporaneous work by Christian Marclay. Scha’s work falls somewhere between conceptual art and avant-garde music—a total revelation for minimalists and No Wave fans alike. First-time vinyl reissue. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies on clear vinyl.

Tracks

1. Shake
2. Throb
3. Thrash
4. Switch
5. Stroke
6. Sweep
7. Slam
8. Brush

Press

? Sole LP release by Dutch sound
sculptor / conceptual artist
? Originally released in 1982 on the
Kremlin label
? Recommended for fans of Glenn Branca,
Dome and Z?EV
? Limited edition of 500 numbered copies

Audio & Video

WARNER JEPSON - 'TOTENTANZ'

Formats

• ETAT07 - LP

  855985006673

Details

Considered as the first piece of electronic music to accompany a ballet, Totentanz is the arrestingly abstract and mightily expressive result of Warner Jepson’s experiments with tape and Don Buchla’s groundbreaking synthesizer, the Buchla 100. Totentanz , originally self-released in 1972, reveals a composer relieved of convention. In the 1950s and 1960s, Jepson was part of an informal circle of Bay Area artists that included Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Morton Subotnick and Steve Reich. A fixture of the legendary San Francisco Tape Music Center, Jepson was among the performers who realized the world-premiere of Riley’s seminal minimalist composition In C and worked closely with postmodern dance figure Anna Halprin as well as the Welland Lathrop Dance Company. Jepson’s affection for the performing arts meant that he was thrilled to be commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company to compose a piece to accompany Carlos Carvajal’s beguiling, danse macabre-inspired Totentanz. Jepson, who passed away in 2011, incorporated concrete sounds from his collection as well as creations on the Buchla 100, which had recently migrated to Mills College. As the composer once wrote, “Don Buchla’s box ... offered numerous sound possibilities without a map .” First-time vinyl reissue. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies on clear vinyl.

Tracks

Press

? Sole LP release by this San Francisco Tape
Music Center affiliated composer
? Originally self-released in 1972
? Recommended for fans of Roland Kayn,
Nurse With Wound and Pierre Henry
? Limited edition of 500 numbered copies
? Clear vinyl

Audio & Video