PORTRON PORTRON LOPEZ - 'ICE CREAM SOUFI'

Formats

• PPL7UK - LP

  5060446128336

Details

**Royal Blue Coloured Vinyl** Finally the latest album from Portron Portron Lopez gets a timely repress, new sleeve, new cut, new barcode.. and still the same fantastic “nomadic out rock desert blues drone rag stomp” , definitely one of the albums of 2023, and now pressed at a cheaper price..  Coming on like a mutation of all the wild and tempered instrumentation of the Dirty Three in full flow, the ambling and meandering yet intense desert rock of Scenic via a long and delightful trawl around the mountain tops of the Mediterranean coastline… evocative and exhilarating music that pulls you along for the ride!! Although an instrumental record, this album is as joyous as some of the most rambunctious and rowdy pop albums you’re ever likely to hear. Brand new album from this incredible French trio… “One of us once came in with a guitar riff he’d made alone at home and asked the band to play it the way he composed it. The result was a disaster!” Portron Portron Lopez don’t do concepts. There are no great discussions about where they should pull their influences from, or pre-planning about how to structure studio work. The Parisian-formed trio exist in spontaneity, a creative co-habitancy that relies on feel and groove – as evidenced on their three studio albums to-date. Exploratory odysseys that bely the potential pitfalls an improvisational-minded group might fall into during the recording process, they’ve moved between shades of psychedelia and Middle Eastern-inflected drones as well as more electronic and club-based touchstones, doing so in a way that feels effortlessly free. That sense of adventure is furthered still on forthcoming album Ice Cream Soufi. “We need exploding ideas that allow us to build tracks that we can emotionally convey onstage” they say. “It's not about being a concept band, but about striking ideas that make sense. It’s not ‘our music’ we’re making - it’s transposing who we are into music.” Portron Portron Lopez were formed in 2011 in Paris by guitarists and brothers Marceau and Valentin Portron. High school friend and drummer Lucas Lopez joined after a two-day long improvisation session in a Parisian wine bar. He left after two records – 2012’s beguilingly Beefheart-meets-Afrobeat set of tracks on Uh!, and 2015’s similarly acid-fried Moi Aussi J'ai Des Amis Qui Font Du Bruit – but his position was taken by Olivier Kelchtermans. The Belgian artist had contributed to PPL’s previous studio recordings as a saxophonist but switched to behind the kit in time for the 2016 tour dates and then the 2018 release De Colère et d'Envie’s mix of lo-fi hypnagogia and proto-punk recalling mayhem. Ice Cream Soufi certainly doesn’t eschew all the chaos of that record, but the seven tracks that make up the group’s fourth LP lean further into their penchant for cross-pollination across globally inspired styles. Opener Comment Vas-Tu Rossignol’s roots are in western Iran and a recording Valentin made there of local musicians playing in the ethnographic museum of Sanadaj. The material served as inspiration for the resulting track, which leans on Kurdish folk style and structure while the trio whip themselves into a sense of frenzy around it. Elsewhere, third track A Stranger I May Be came out of several improvisations based around the group’s goal of “getting to a country-techno song” – an on-paper incongruous mix that makes a hell of a lot of sense when listened to. It’s unwavering kick drum drives through the group’s duelling guitars and unburdened vocal shrieks, supplemented by musician and comedian Charly Fournier who adds a touch of knowing absurdity to proceedings. Those two tracks bookend Pensée Sans Tête, which was improvised and demoed in April 2019 during a rehearsal, before being taken to an old barn in Normandie the following year to flesh out. The track’s repeato-riffs gradually spin quicker and quicker as the group underpin it vocally and with rolling percussion. Arguably the centre piece of the record, though, is Aubes – an 11-minute-long opus of cacophonic drones that gather and bustle for space amidst each other, a line of tension pulled tight through them. It’s a stirring midpoint that encourages the listener’s mind to pick its own sonic adventure within the different shades of sound. “At first, the original concept of the album was to put three straight rock songs in and a 23-minute drone” the band comment. “But the result was not satisfying”. Instead, they cut half the drone and added a few overdubs. Valentin added some recordings he’d made during a trip to Iranian Kurdistan where he’d seen Farzad Memar - the uncle of ambient composer Porya Hatami - playing duduk. He also mixed in some Târ playing by his beloved Persian friend Mostafa Heydarian. “The initial idea of three songs and one drone was boring because it was a rational concept” they say. “All of a sudden, a new album started to take shape in front of us, as a rosebud growing under our very touched eyes. It was a beautiful surprise.” Aubes’ peak allows the two following tracks to giddily scramble down the other side of the record, with Fin De Partie perhaps the most garage rock-inspired track on the album, its rawness the result of a direct lift from the outro of a live set that took place in a small basement in Bordeaux. Tayau rounds things out, a short two-minute finale recorded at home on Marceau’s phone in his bedroom. Recorded across six different locations over a period of 20 months, sessions saw the trio set up everywhere, from various rehearsal studios to band members respective homes, a large church in Sète and an old barn in Normandie. The three group members are now spread out across Paris, Corrèze in the central west of France and Sète on its south coast. All that meant, though, was that the sessions for the album took on even more of an improvisatory vibe as they sought to make the most of their increasingly limited time together. “One of the greatest achievements of these sessions was being able to put up an album that is like a house with lots of different rooms” they say. “You never want to stick in the main hall when you're visiting someone, and that's the feeling you may have when listening to a record fully recorded and mixed in the same place and time. For us, the live nature of the tracks and the different moods they take on make it feel more like a journey through us.” And beyond the feeling of it, nothing else matters.

Tracks

Side A:
01 Comment Vas-Tu Rossignol
02 Pens?es Sans T?te
03 A Stranger I May Be
04 Trois-Cent-Dix-Huit Poussettes

Side B:
01 Aubes
02 Fin de Partie
03 Tayau

Press

For fans of Mdou Moctar, Dirty Three, Scenic, Captain Beefheart, Music Ehtiopiques etc// good times! ON TOUR UK OCT 22!

Audio & Video

HOWLIN RAIN - 'UNDER THE WHEELS VOL: 5 LIVE FROM PIONEER TOWN,CA'

Formats

• SC51 - LP

  795154136513

• SC51CD - CD

  795154136520

Details

Coming in hot for the final show of the crazy year of 2021 and with an impressive new line up, Howlin Rain hit Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown California full of adrenalized confidence, deep grooves and their signature, expansive guitarmony-laden jams. Captured on multi-track, Live From Pioneertown is Howlin Rain’s highest fidelity live album since 2014’s Live Rain. This latest entry to the Under The Wheels live series showcases songs from The Dharma Wheel as well as two fan favorites from 2008’s Magnificent Fiend. Available in a vinyl one-time “handmade” edition of 500, all jackets screen-printed by Monolith Press and signed and numbered by Howlin Rain bandleader Ethan Miller, also available on CD and digital.

Tracks

1. Dharma Wheel
2. Don't Let The Tears
3. Under The Wheels
4. Annabelle
5. Dancers At The End Of Time
6. Calling Lightning Pt2

Press

High fidelity live album from California
psychedelic space rock band
Fronted by Ethan Miller (Comets On Fire,
Heron Oblivian)

Audio & Video

VARIOUS - 'ERASED TAPES 15TH ANNIVERSARY COMPILATION'

Formats

• ERATP150LP - 3xLP

  3700551784769

Details

*BLACK VINYL*A new compilation titled Erased Tapes 十五, encompassing a two hour cross-section of the label's 15-year history including hidden gems and previously unreleased material, will be available on November 4 to coincide with specially curated festivals in London and Berlin. The first offering comes from UK producer Kevin Richard Martin aka The Bug and Japanese voice artist Hatis Noit who share their paranormal first collaborative cut After the Storm amongst other unique pairings such as The Art Ensemble of Chicago featuring Moor Mother, Bell Orchestre interpreted by Colin Stetson, Douglas Dare joined by The London Contemporary Orchestra and Ben Lukas Boysen remixed by Kiasmos. Premiered exclusively via The Wire magazine in form of a free download ahead of their debut live performance at Le Guess Who? Festival 2019 in Utrecht, the track is now finally made available on vinyl and streaming platforms alongside other previously unreleased pieces from electronic producer Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles and Icelandic composer Högni. “As a solo vocalist and voice artist, I’d always dreamed of floating and being drowned in a beautiful sonic storm. And then I met Kevin Martin” — Hatis Noit The artwork was created with calligraphy by label founder Robert Raths and designed by Munich-based graphic designer Bernd Kuchenbeiser.

Tracks

Rival Consoles Them Is Us
The Art Ensemble of Chicago Mama Koko (feat. Moor Mother)
Bell Orchestre The Stars in His Head / Bernard 33 - Dark Lights (Colin Stetson Remix)
Masayoshi Fujita Book of Life
Hatis Noit Aura
Anne M?ller Nummer 20
Lubomyr Melnyk Son of Parasol
Daniel Brandt Flamingo
Ben Lukas Boysen Clarion (Kiasmos Remix)
Crayon Ithinkso (feat. Bastien Brison)
Penguin Cafe Harry Piers 2021
Peter Broderick Sonata for the Sirius
Qasim Naqvi Aftertouched
Kevin Richard Martin & Hatis Noit After The Storm
Rival Consoles I Love This, I Love You
Douglas Dare Heavenly Bodies (feat. London Contemporary Orchestra)
Roedelius & Story Spirit Clock
H?gni Anda ?inn Gu? (feat. Hatis Noit)
Daniel Thorne From the Other Side of the World
Michael Price Sandham (feat. Shards)
Shards Inner Counterpoint
David Allred The Garden
Nils Frahm O I End

Press

Feat. collaborations and remixes with Kevin Richard Martin, Kiasmos, Moor Mother, Colin Stetson and more.

Audio & Video

ART OF PRIMITIVE SOUND - 'STRUMENTI MUSICALI DELLA PREISTORIA: II PALEOLITICO'

Formats

• BS073LP - LP

  769791982512

• BS073CD - CD

  769791982505

Details

Art Of Primitive Sound is a sensational journey to the origin of Music. In his crucial research chapter on the Paleolithic, Walter Maioli between 1986 and 1991 investigates the soundscape of different geographical, climatic and botanical environments, in which the mystery of the ancient human-nature relationship resides. What emerges is an expanded and unprecedented Paleorganology, with a range of acoustic and natural instruments from all over the World. Rubbing of fossils, animal artefacts, plant elements of all sorts, everything becomes sound and each object opens up forms of imaginary communication, psychic effect and unexplored languages. Whistles, flutes, leaf and shell rattles, rhombuses, horns, bone pipes, slate slabs, bamboo arches, stones, vertebrae, seeds, stalagtites etc...how great can be the Natural Orchestra inherent in the spirit of forests, rivers, caves, seas, swamps or Amazon jungles? Thanks to an interdisciplinary partnership (Anthropology, Archaeology, Botany, Ethnomusicology) of collaborating friends, Maioli directs an Opera of universal character inspired by the archaic essence of sound and infrasonic dimension.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

WALTER MAIOLI, FRED GALES, PIT PICCINELLI - 'AMAZONIA 6891'

Formats

• BS026 - 2xLPs

  769791964433

Details

Released for the first time on vinyl in 2016 and immediately sold out, this is one of the best long-lost treasure from the 80s – and it's one long composition filled with raw sounds from the jungle, natural objects and electronic treatment. The idea to evoke a deep journey in the Amazon rainforest has affected various musicians in the history of popular and experimental music, but comparing to other works this rare Amazonia 6891, released only on cassette in 1986, appears as totally original and extreme in his conception. Here, the interest in ethnomusicology of the expert Walter Maioli (mind of Aktuala and Futuro Antico projects) is linked to a precise and comprehensive ecological, botanical, ethological and ethnographic perspective. In fact, starting from the sound recording of the ethnographer Pit Piccinelli's collection of natural objects, the collected material for this work is re-elaborate in different times by the anthropologist and electronic pioneer Fred Gales and by Maioli him-self. The result of this multi-disciplinary approach its 'a long concrete poem of plant organisms, fields recordings of verses and calls of tropical animals futuristically mixed with electronic sounds, as already happened for the great experimental trials of Futuro Antico and Ariel Kalma's Osmose. Listen this imaginative collage look like to entering in a precious cabinet of antiquities and curiosity whose wonders of multi-coloured cellular fragments are shaped in the synthesis of a single universal sound matter. The merger between the wild jungle, the mysterious voices of the Indians and the oscillation of the electronic waves creates a spasmodic tension between amazing and heavenly moments that leaked also obscure paths and alien sequences. So, Amazonia 6891 it's a magic trip into the unknown wild, into abyss of creation of kaleidoscopic floras and faunas, simply a proposal for a synesthetic experience and multi-sensory.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

PIOTR KUREK - 'EDENA'

Formats

• BS008 - LP

  769791952881

Details

2022 REPRINT 10 years anniversary reprint of the amazing record of Piotr Kurek! As a composer and multi-instrumentalist with a penchant for vintage sound equipment, as well as the practical sense to know where their limitations are, his musical compositions –part melodic narrative, part sound collage –distil a sense of nostalgia into a romance for the present. Using a Moebius comic he had never seen (Le Monde d’Edena) and an instrument he would never have (a Mellotron) as a conceptual starting point, the Warsaw-based, Polish artist presents Edena.a hypnotic, circular motion pervades all of Edena; a cyclic life force that gives the impression of forward motion, while really folding back on itself, reflected by the infinity symbol of the cassette cover.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video