MICHAEL BEACH - '2022 EP'

Formats

• 185GONE - LP

  733102726515

Details

Following the highly acclaimed album Dream Violence (2021) and the recent LP re-issue of his modern underground classic Gravity/ Repulsion, Michael Beach has announced a new self-titled 12-inch EP, to be released via Goner and Poison City Records. Recorded during the winter of 2021, the new record is made up of both 8-track tape and full studio recordings, interspersed with experimental, moody interludes, and features Beach’s Australian bandmates Bonnie Mercer (guitar), Peter Warden (drums) and Carla Oliver (bass) throughout. The EP’s stunning closer “Only A Memory” is a collaboration with Lloyd Swanton of renowned Australian minimalist trio The Necks, recorded in NSW’s Blue Mountains. “Out In A Burning Alley,” the EP’s lead single, combines Beach’s soulful abstracted lyrics over two minutes and fifty eight seconds of blazing garage-rock, where the sounds of the Melbourne and Oakland / Bay Area underground collide. In support of the upcoming EP and recent Dream Violence album, Beach will be returning to tour the US in September/ October, headlining dates on the East and West coast and performing at the iconic Gonerfest in Memphis, TN. The touring outfit will also feature Beach’s long time collaborator Utrillo Kushner (Comets On Fire / Personal and The Pizzas) on drums.

Tracks

1. Out In A Burning Alley
2. Pete?s Harmonicas
3. Societal Breakdown
4. Mick?s Dream
5. Bonnie?s Shadow
6. Have You Ever?
7. Carla?s Cicadas
8. Only A Memory

Press

Last track features Lloyd Swanton of
renowned Australian minimalist trio The
Necks

Audio & Video

ASTRID OSTER MORTENSEN - 'GRO MIG EN BLOMST'

Formats

• GY12-3 - LP

  600197612316

Details

** US IMPORT TITLE: PLEASE NOTE PRICE INCREASE DUE TO FLUCTUATING POUND**One first heard the Danish artist Astrid Øster Mortensen as a surprise guest vocalist on Gustaf Dicksson’s Blod album, Missväxt, which Grapefruit released in 2021. New in Gothenburg, the Denmark-born Mortensen had been frequenting the Discreet Music shop where various musicians of the underground scene communed and shared their latest projects. Learning that she was a musician too, Dicksson asked Mortensen to contribute vocals to Missväxt and it wasn’t long before she handed over a master of her own music which completely floored everyone in the scene who heard it. The recordings eventually materialized as Gro Mig En Blomst. An LP which was released in a very small edition on Dicksson’s Förlag För Fri Musik label in March of 2021, causing a sensation of wonder and well-earned praise and some panic due to its scarcity. Gro Mig En Blomst is at once wholly immersive and something quite rare—an infectious collection of essentially experimental music derived from familiar organic sounds stitched together with delicate, sometimes improvised music, poetry, and haunting folk melodies. Akin to the pastiches composed by the equally enchanting Gothenburg collective, Enhet For Fri Musik, Mortensen’s album is mysteriously irresistible despite offering what most would consider a challenging listen. It immediately became an essential release and sold through its 300 copies quickly before the ink was even dry on the superlative reviews. So, it was with great pride and pleasure that Grapefruit worked closely with her to offer this new reissue. Herein one will find songs which often begin with chatter and ambient sound, with Mortensen seemingly extracting beauty from the random and chaotic, splicing in snippets of birdsong and rainfall as well as electronic noises. It might be tempting to assume these songs are accidental, wholly improvised, or captured moments due to the ephemeral qualities of the music and the ease of execution which lure us into the world Mortensen has created. But, it is actually evidence of the skill and finesse of a confident artist in full command of her medium.

Tracks

1. Morgan 2. ?
3. Hvor Kommer M?kret Fra?
4. Can I Still Call?
5. Seydis 6. Guitarminut
7. Piano i
8. Solen Er Et Lille Hus
9. Brud i
10. Gro Mig En Blomst
11. Brud ii 12. Piano ii
13. Lavinia?s Small Song
14. Xylo

Press

Reissue of Danish experimental artist?s
album that sold out of its 300 copies
immediately

Audio & Video

EARL VALLIE - 'GHOST APPROACHES'

Formats

• PD043 - LP

Details

Perpetual Doom proudly presents the new album from Earl Vallie: Ghost Approaches. Brandishing a new moniker and a reenergized spirit, Vallie teams up with producer and drummer Greg Saunier of Deerhoof to deliver a collection of boldly weird and defiantly life-affirming songs. Earl Vallie cordially invites you on a journey into the depths of the working-class artist, the neon-sludge pit where workaday drudgery mixes with outsized desires and jumbotron dreams. Ghost Approaches is a cry of resilience, what opener “Ready to Die” calls a “blood-curdled promise to set things right.” That song kicks off the record with a Springsteen-esque howl, with charging guitars and an echoing wail. It’s an appropriate sentiment for a record that begun with Vallie’s move from Joshua Tree to LA and the pandemic-borne worry that music might be behind him. But just like the burst of synths that lifts the dancefloor love affair of “Hollow Skies,” Ghost Approaches ascends with a new, bolder sound. Together with Saunier, whose drumming gives the album a gritty pulse, Vallie adds new heft to his desert-lean tunes until even the album’s darkest moments (“Reap the Seeds of Love”) exhibit a bioluminescent glow. But behind it all is Vallie’s unmistakable voice. Ghost Approaches features a remarkable range of musical contributions, from the chilling sax at the end of “My Babys Broomstick” to background vocals of Val Glenn on “Hollow Skies” and Heidi Alexander on the doo-wop inflected “Prom.” “My only goal,” Earl says, “is to uplift people with sounds and melodies that are undeniably relatable and healing for all.” It may be a ghost approaching—but it’s a good one.

Tracks

Press

File under: Gothic folk/Americana

Audio & Video

RYAN SAMBOL - 'GESTALT'

Formats

• PD012 - LP

Details

Gestalt is the newest album from Texas-based musician and poet Ryan Sambol. Following his work with The Strange Boys, Living Grateful, and The Interstate Group, this record refines the country-folk sound of previous solo releases Now Ritual (2015) and Rail Sing (2020) in a stark work of personal and musical pruning. Although written for the road and full accompaniment, these nine tracks were recorded in relative isolation, often tracked live, and reflect the sometimes painful, often bemusing process of self-examination. The result is a singular document of a songwriter honing his craft—observing, thinking, and creating. True to its name, Gestalt is a work of unified parts. Sketches of life in Texas, reflections on fame and fortune, notes to self and everyone else, the songs collected here range in mood from biting and bitter to decidedly hopeful. But each track finds a place in a grander scheme, joined by the record’s uncrowded instrumentation and lonesome origins. On opener “You’re Still Loveable to Someone,” Sambol finds a bit of unsettling perspective in contrasting his own art against the vastness of geological time: “I hope I have something special when I was handed a four-hundred-million-year-old stone.” The album is full of such wry reflections about the possibility of authentic expression, the Sisyphean task of living up to your calling, and the challenge of making music for a living, from the lovelorn recollections of the shimmering “Just Like Golden Hours” to the harried inquiries of spacious tracks like “There Are Things To Be Doing” and “Different Sky.” These tunes, like the others, work from a careful palette, placing distant keys against a quiet electric hum or centering the chime of a lone guitar. They are songs made of moments, calling attention to the odd detail, to the fret-scratches and pauses between words. The sum of these songs is an image of an artist at work. Sambol captures the humdrum and boring moments of the poet’s life—the hours spent on the phone, days of staring at a wall—as thoroughly as he does the joy of performing and the pathos of self-expression. It is a complex, uncompromising view that seeks to temper blame with gratitude and regret with vision. Under a solitary arpeggio, he imprints closer “His Aim” with some wisdom of the wounded variety: “I’ve stopped guessing out loud.” That is good advice for these times, but a better comment on the paths of discovery taken on Gestalt. 

Tracks

Press

Former frontman of The Strange Boys. File under: Off kilter - baroque pop, jazz and songbook.

Audio & Video

LEE BAGGETT - 'ANYWAY'

Formats

• PD031 - LP

Details

Lee Baggett began a new chapter of his eclectic and varied songwriting career with the 2021 release of Just A Minute, and he’s continuing his experimental streak with his latest full length, Anyway. The seasoned musician is changing his stripes again with this 10-song collection by leaning into a more rollicking sound at times, as evidenced by the brisker feeling “Fruit Dog,” the album’s lead single, and the bustling and twangy penultimate track, “Highway Roll.” By embracing more country-tinged sonic elements like banjo, organ-sounding keys, and harmonica, Baggett is able to weave through winding narratives that poignantly parse through the challenging nature of change and evolution. On “Highway Roll,” he confronts how landscapes and settings he once knew are now unrecognizable, and takes that motif a step further on “Earlier Than The World” by achingly and vividly describing “concrete and rubble” amongst a sea of delicate, yet biting guitar riffs. Escape seems to be a viable option for Baggett with “Sink In My Dreams” and “Dust In The Wind” serving as the album’s soothing remedies, inviting the listener to sit back and get lost in Baggett’s mesmerizing guitar playing. His nimble guitar work is a prominent fixture on Anyway, acting as a crux at several key points. It resonates forcefully and feels emotionally charged. Just take the meandering bridge on “Earlier Than The World” as a prime example of how Baggett can aptly convey feeling through riffs. Delving deeper into Anyway finds some familiar sounds, with songs like “Oh Well” and “Anyway” evoking the seaside melancholy of Baggett’s prior works. But there’s decidedly more intimacy hidden in the crevices of his words and hooks. Throughout, Baggett uses his refined storytelling skills to share his relatable fears and coping mechanisms, his river-like path to unexpectedly finding love, and his musings on an ever-changing world, amongst other experiences. His conversational disposition, folk-styled lyricism, and emotive sonic backdrops make for an immersive listening experience. - Tom Gallo

Tracks

Press

RIYL: Little Wings, Phil Elverum, Neil Young ..

Audio & Video

LITTLE WINGS - 'ROSY'S OWN'

Formats

• PD01 - LP

Details

Little Wings' album "Rosy's Own" is a limited release in collaboration with Perpetual Doom & Moone Records filmed and recorded on an undisclosed ranch in the mountains of Southern California. Kyle Field's intimate performance shone a light through the gray haze shrouding the skyline, with the only accompaniment being the sound of nature.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

TOMMY AND THE OHS - 'MARIPOSA GOLD'

Formats

• PD029 - LP

Details

The long-awaited full-length from Tommy and The Ohs: Mariposa Gold. Ohs’ mastermind Thomas Oliverio has worked alongside some of the biggest names in music today—but with Mariposa Gold, he takes a sharp turn into the psychedelic reaches of American roots music and the avant-garde. The result is a wild trip through a lavish soundscape, a California of fantasy and heartbreak, where genres and traditions bleed together in “the big surreal.” Guided by Oliverio’s fine-tuned sense of production and melody, Mariposa Gold is lush with arrangements that strive toward new and surprising dimensions. These songs sway like hummable country weepers sent through the looking glass, joining sheer virtuosity, worthy of the best session players, to a distinct experimental sensibility shaped by bluegrass, country, and psychedelia.

Tracks

Press

Nashville based producer Thomas Oliverio has long lived at the confluence of American roots music & the avant-garde. Most notably known as founder of the influential group Bawn in the Mash

Audio & Video

MARC BARRECA - 'RECORDINGS OF FAILING LIGHT'

Formats

• POL052022 - CD

  700261490960

Details

Marc Barreca’s Recordings Of Failing Light explores the subatomic matter of ordinary instrument sounds. Pianos, glass percussion, guitars, and feedback are atomized through sampling and granular processing in search of the audio equivalent of a negative image. In the end, these granular elements became the beds and pads for elaborate extrapolations of deconstructed melodic, rhythmic, patterned, and forward-looking sound—and with the addition of analog sequencer and arpeggiator based textures, some tracks reach back to Barreca’s days with Young Scientist. Perhaps as an acknowledgment of the aesthetic guiding Jon Hassell’s Seeing Through Sound, Barreca’s work here finds its origin in images. The gradations and modulation of light and dark in radiographs, rayograms, negatives, old black and white and sepia-tone photos all impart and inform a shaping influence to the waveforms and amplitudes of sound found in these twenty pieces. Heavily layered, simultaneously dense and expansive, Recordings Of Failing Light is the result of experiments conducted in a sonic version of the Hadron Collider. Marc Barreca has been creating and performing electronic music since the mid-1970s. Recordings Of Failing Light is his eleventh solo album for PoL. His 1980 album, Twilight, reissued on vinyl in 2018, was one of the earliest releases on PoL. The Empty Bridge is his tenth solo album for the label. Recent releases include From The Gray And The Green (2019), Shadow Aesthetics (2018), and four collaborations with K. Leimer and two with Three Point Circle. Reissues include work on the acclaimed VOD box set American Cassette Culture, the Cherry Red compilation of seminal U.S. electronic music and the 1983 cassette, Music Works For Industry, now on vinyl. His work is also included in the Collection of The British Library.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video