EARTH TONGUE - 'FLOATING BEING'

Formats

• SBR062 - LP

Details

**INSTOCK NOW 3RD REPRESS!! ALERT - SPLATTER VINYL**Sometimes music is supposed to feel weird and indescribable. It’s the moments of clarity within the dense, sonic mess that often feels the most satisfying. That’s the space that Earth Tongue occupy. At times, their songs are shrill and disorientating, other times their reverb-washed textures and instantly- familiar hooks can wrap you in a warm, loving embrace. The one consistent thread through their music, however, is the thick and all encompassing fuzz. Guitarist Gussie Larkin has become a master of the fuzz-smothered riff, and along with Ezra Simons’ off-kilter drumming, they’ve been sending punters into transcendental states since they began gigging in their home town of Wellington, New Zealand in 2016. Floating Being will be released this June 21st. The album was pieced together throughout their travels of Australia and Europe, with the finishing touches being added in their hometown. The album contains songs they’ve been playing live for the past year, and it captures the raw, primitive energy that exists within their live performance. Earth Tongue embrace the imperfections in their playing and recording - drawing influence from early 70s psych and prog rock. The last thing they wanted was to create a shiny, over-produced record - with that in mind, they recorded the drums to an old 8-track Tascam reel-to-reel in a friend’s garage in Melbourne. The result is a punchy, raw and fuzzy journey into psych-rock with songs that weave between melodic and jarring. Unexpected twists and turns leave the listener in a disorientated yet satisfying haze. 

Tracks

Press

Having just spent last week shredding SXSW they tour America and then in May hit Europe/UK, playing DESERT FEST in London on 18th May!! Amongst a huge EU tour..

Audio & Video

THE FALL - 'LIVE AT ST. HELENS TECHNICAL COLLEGE '81'

Formats

• CF133X - LP+7"

  767870664854

Details

*CLEAR VINYL, LAST REMAINING INSTOCK NOW* "I’ve had the pleasure of being a Fall fan since I was a teen. I was lucky enough to have some guidance from my local record shop stoner-lords. They turned me on to many of my heroes, but once I heard my first slanted and barky Fall song, I was part of the army for life. The word prolific gets tossed around a lot. It almost seems like a slag-off in the press, as if they wish the artist would produce less so they wouldn’t have to do their self imposed job of judging releases for the rabble. The Fall is subjected to this lazy word often. Yet I can honestly say that I am SO thankful for any nugget of Fall that lands at my feet and in my brain. Live Fall performances are always a pleasure because they seem to take what already made the Fall great and push it even a bit more into the rough and bloody uncharted wasteland that is drug scorched proto-punk and heady political poetry. So, it is with great pleasure that we introduce this Fall bootleg soundboard recording to you. Recorded during one of the many strong points in the bands vast and mighty history. They really burn bright here and bring every ounce of what you expect from this formidable force. We have reached out to every surviving member of the band, the sound person, the bootlegger who recorded it and the photographer and received their blessings & help piecing it all together. Castle Face will be donating 50% of our profits to Centrepoint which helps the homeless in the Manchester area get back on their feet, so the local and deserving Fall fans get a little, and give a little back, too. Nothing but the hits here folks and as raw as you dig it. This one really is exceptional in terms of live sound for The Fall. All the stars were aligned over St. Helens that eve. And it wouldn’t be complete with a bit of Fall fan saltiness so, fuck you too, Jason.” - John Dwyer It’s out on Castle Face Records exclusively on vinyl (12” and a 7” in a gatefold jacket, including a digital download) on February 19th

Tracks

1. Blob ?59
2. Prole Art Threat
3. Jawbone and the Air Rifle
4. Middle Mass
5. Rowche Rumble
6. An Older Lover
7. City Hobgoblins
8. Leave the Capitol
9. The NWRA
10. Gramme Friday
11. Fit and Working Again
12. Muzorewi?s Daughter
13. Slates, Slags, Etc

Press

Last copies...

Audio & Video

THE HEADS - 'RELAXING WITH...(BLACK VINYL JUBILEE EDITION)'

Formats

• ROOSTER15BLACK - 2xLPs

  5060446129388

Details

REPRESSED 200 COPIES ONLY + INSTOCK NOW ITS 25 YEARS  Since the first Heads album was released.. .so.. for 2021..Rooster has decided to get the album back in print on vinyl.. but changing the artwork. With some silver foiling and bordering, the single sleeve has been boosted to a sweet gatefold, Rooster also got the Radio 1 sessions from the time remastered, and re-cut along with the huge b-side to their Television 7” “Jellystoned Park”. So there you have it, a double vinyl silver jubilee reissue of a fantastic debut album! From the original reissue sales notes: “The Heads had self-released a couple of 7"', and then Cargo Uk's inhouse label Headhunter UK got to release a further 7", and then the Debut album in 1996. Amidst a world suffocating in Britpop smarm, the Heads cut a timely swathe with their unkempt rock psychedelique. The album contained 10 tracks of guitar driven, amp destroying rock, with cues taken straight from the US underground, Stooges, MC5, Mudhoney, Pussy Galore, early Monster Magnet too but with a disitinctly British stamp, some of the drone and fuzz from Loop / Spacemen 3, some of the attitude of the Fall, Pink Fairies and Walking Seeds and overlaid with the spaced rock of early Hawkwind. It was obvious that the four members of the Heads were music obsessives. The debut album was recorded at Foel studios (owned by Dave Anderson from Hawkwind) and engineered by Corin Dingley, it was mastered by John Dent at LOUD.” We’ve asked for some new appraisal of the Heads for the Silver Jubilee edition from good friends.... Stewart Lee February 2021 “The Halley's Comet victory orbits of historic heavy artefacts from Detroit, like The Stooges or The MC5, leave grateful onlookers aghast. But, hidden away in Bristol, The Heads are still with us now, our homegrown acid-garage godfathers, an ongoing thirty-two year old concern with a back catalogue arguably more consistent than the super-dense psyche-rock groups that inspired them. The Heads arrived fully formed and have spent three decades becoming more like themselves, a musical black hole that sucks in all surrounding matter. I love The Heads “ Phil Alexander February 2021 “The Heads make music for freaks in the know. If you were there in 1996, you’ll know just what that means… Back then, they were gloriously out of step with the pop-cheese of the time and geezerly lumpiness of Britpop. Theirs was an altogether different take on music – a take inspired by the glorious burn-out of the ‘60s, the sonic overdrive of the ‘70s and the axis of joy created by the combination of excess volume and repetition. We could name-check some inspirations and kindred spirits: The Stooges, Hawkwind, Floyd, Loop, Sabbath, Amon Düül II, Spacemen 3, Walking Seeds, Mudhoney, Monster Magnet among them... But in all honesty, The Heads have always existed in a world of their own, surfacing as and when the mood takes them, before returning to their subterranean rehearsal room to jam their way through yet more mind-altering riffs and mood-altering rhythms. Relaxing With The Heads is their first defining statement. It is also possibly their most straight-forward release, the sound of a band attempting to find structure in their playing rather than abandoning themselves to their wildest impulses. That would come later… And yet, 25 years on, this album blasts forth like few records from that time, its slacker charm welded to super-fuzzed riffs that propel its 10 tracks ever onwards. Righteous is probably the only word for it…”

Tracks

LP 1 Original Album: Silver Vinyl Pressing
Side A:
1. Quad
2. Don't Know Yet
3. Chipped
4. Slow Down
5. U33
Side B:
1. Television
2. Woke Up
3. Widowmaker
4. Taken Too Much
5. Coogan's Bluff

LP 2 Radio Sessions & 7" B-side
Side C: First John Peel Sessions:
1. Chipped (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)
2. Widowmaker (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)
3. Theme (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)
4. Woke Up (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)
5. Spliff Riff (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)

Side D: More Radio 1 Sessions / B-side:
1. Quad (Live BBC Radio 1 Rock Show, Glasgow 31/03/96)
2. U33 (Live Mark Radcliffe BBC Radio 1, Manchester 02/05/96)
3. Television (Live Mark Radcliffe BBC Radio 1, Manchester 02/05/96)
4. Jellystoned Park ( b-side of Television 7")

Press

'..well if that's not a freakout, then I am a dutch man' - John Peel 1995, on airing the first session

Audio & Video

SARAH BELLE REID - 'MASS'

Formats

• AC-062G - LP (COLOURED)

  9780732023010

• AC-062 - LP

  9780732023010

• AC-062CS - MC

Details

Canadian performer and composer Sarah Belle Reid’s 2021 acclaimed album, first time on vinyl, expanded with two new incredible songs, remastered featuring new artwork. From distant ocean song to the clang and howl of a murky forgotten memory, MASS is a dreamlike collage of shrill shrieks, gasps, corroded brass choirs, and melting modular synth soundscapes, all heard through a mist of hiss and noise. Fused with equal parts spastic improvisation, shrouded ritual, and meticulous arrangement, it presents a sonic topography at once tongue-in-cheek, sensitive, and nightmarish. With discordant chorales and angular trumpet improvisations churning in an ever-evolving wash of whispers and howls, MASS is a collection of three hazy, harsh, and frightful sound worlds. With tracks meandering between aggressive rhythms, eerie ambiances, and abrasive cut-up electronic textures, MASS draws inspiration from early tape music, horror film soundtracks, and grindcore. It was assembled between listening to extended doses of Else Marie Pade, Daphne Oram, Eliane Radigue, the Locust, Edgard Varèse, Maryanne Amacher, Dick Raaijmakers, Naked City, Mr. Bungle, and Thomas Ankersmit, bringing a little bit of all of them along with it. MASS was recorded and mixed over the course of three weeks in January–February 2021 while in the midst of a cross-country move. Recorded entirely in short-term housing away from her studio (and most of her instruments), Reid relied exclusively on her voice, trumpet, flugelhorn, household objects, and Make Noise's Strega semi-modular synthesizer for all sound materials. Original sound materials were recorded loosely and independently with little to no overdubbing, instead relying on meticulous editing and processing in the manner of classic tape music.

Tracks

Side A: 1. Vessel / 2. Passage / 3. Collide
Side B: 1. Sublimate / 2. Mass

Press

Audio & Video

FRAN & FLORA - 'PRECIOUS COLLECTION'

Formats

• HDNTS0007LPC - LP (COLOURED)

  0793072985725

• HDNTS0007LP - LP

  0793072985718

• HDNTS0007CD - CD

  0793072985701

Details

*BLACK AND PEACH COLOURED VINYL AVAILABLE* Following their critically acclaimed 2019 debut album Unfurl, Hidden Notes Records are happy to announce the release of the multi-award-nominated experimental/contemporary folk string duo Fran & Flora’s sophomore full-length album, Precious Collection. Released on Friday 12th April 2024, this album, produced by the duo themselves, explodes in myriad directions expressing the richness of the long-standing collaboration between Francesca Ter-Berg (cello/vocals/electronics) and Flora Curzon (violin/vocals/electronics). With Klezmer and Yiddish song as the predominant inspiration for the record, Precious Collection defies convention, featuring self-penned tunes and unique arrangements pushing their ground-breaking project beyond their virtuosic string playing. Drummers Ursula Russell (Snapped Ankles, Alabaster DePlume) and Simon Roth (Chris Potter, Alice Zawadzki, Adrian Dunbar) feature on the record on full kit and Ukrainian Poik (marching drum) respectively, and Francesca and Flora experiment with bowed cymbals, extended piano techniques, and samples of found sounds.The album was recorded in three different locations - Total Refreshment Centre (London), Big Jelly Studios (Ramsgate) and Great North Sound Society (Maine, USA). The music of Fran & Flora sits in two camps, both steeped in tradition, with material drawn directly from archival recordings, recovered manuscripts and years of study with traditional music masters, whilst simultaneously garnering a contemporary and avant-garde aesthetic, speaking to the more classical and experimental listener. Fran & Flora inject their source material with drones, loops, free improvisation and electronics to create a ‘border-defying’ (Mojo) sound. Their influences range across a wide spectrum of artists and composers from Silver Mt.Zion to Rhiannon Giddens, Lankum, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Colin Stetson, Adrienne Lenker, Shabaka Hutchings and Mica Levi. As string players Fran & Flora’s collaborations together and separately includes performing with the likes of Tom Skinner, Portico Quartet, Imogen Heap, Riz Ahmed, Sam Lee, Talvin Singh, Jocelyn Pook, Hannah Peel and The Vernon Spring. Within the global Klezmer community they have worked with Zoe Aqua, London Klezmer Quartet, Sashe Lurje, Craig Judelman, Merlin & Polina Shepherd and Frank London, and have taught at Klezmer music camps including at Klezfest London, contributing to ongoing research and revival work.

Tracks

1. Nudity / 2. Romanian Fantasies II / 3. New Beginnings / 4. Fishelekh Gefinen - To Catch A Fish / 5. Nign / 6. Dobriden-Hamanul / 7. Kick Up In 9 / 8. Feygele - Little Bird / 9. Flowers For Innocence / 10. Yikhes - Lineage (Donia IV) / 11. Hold Me Close / 12. Sholem Aleichem

Press

They have appeared live in session on Gilles Peterson?s WorldWide FM, BBC 6 Music with Cerys Matthews, BBC Radio 4 Woman?s Hour, Soho Radio and were nominated for ?Best Live Act? by the AIM Independent Music Awards and Songlines Music Awards.

Audio & Video

FULL EARTH - 'CLOUD SCULPTORS'

Formats

• PSYCHOBABBLE133 - 2xLPs

  4046661782714

• PSYCHOBABBLE133CD - CD

  4046661782622

Details

Full Earth is the latest psychedelic wunderkind from the far north featuring members of Kanaan and Motorpsycho. Cloud Sculptors is a lengthy instrumental work that combines Ingvald Vassbø's signature drumming, which is both brutally heavy and technically This new quintet, based in Oslo, Norway, is centered around drummer and composer Ingvald Vassbø - best known as the rhythm section of Kanaan and, as of recently, Motorpsycho. Joining Vassbø are the two other members of Kanaan, Ask Vatn Strøm and Simen Wie, as well as two new colleagues. With a deep connection to minimalist music, especially that of Terry Riley’s organ works, and heavy stoner rock such as Sleep, High on Fire and Elder, Full Earth centers on fuzzed out riffs, sonic experimentalism and noise music. Full Earth creates entrancing organ and synth-laden soundscapes anchored by tight rhythmic grooves. As arpeggiated keys pass and interlock with one another, a compelling and hypnotic picture reveals itself to the listener gradually. Cloud Sculptors features six songs, four of which are long-form, fuzz-heavy and sludgy numbers with interesting and unpredictable keyboard elements. The remaining two are shorter organ compositions inspired by James Ferraro, Onehotrix Point Nevers and Györgi Ligeti’s genius contributions to musical history. In short: Full Earth promises to be a refreshing and truly innovative voice in the heavy rock underground and their debut is not to be missed. First pressing is available on clear vinyl! immaculate, with interlocking organs and chugging guitars.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

ADULT JAZZ - 'SO SORRY SO SLOW'

Formats

• SPTH003LP - 2xLPs

  5061041820090

• SPTH003CD - CD

  5061041820106

• SPTH003LPCOL1 - 2xLP (COLOURED)

  5061041820090

Details

London-based four-piece Adult Jazz announce their first full-length album in a decade, So Sorry So Slow, out 26 April 2024 via Spare Thought. Alongside the announcement comes lovesick new single ‘Suffer One’ featuring Owen Pallett, a cautious excavation of self and sexuality, clambering across a gorgeously shapeshifting, filmic five-minutes. Containing some of the band’s most abrasive but gentle, beautiful and melismatic work to date, So Sorry So Slow has many defining characteristics: romance, panic, devotion and remorse, threaded together by an intentionally laser-focused love. It’s deeply personal, bruised and candid in its expressions of tenderness, and deeply pained in its concurrent reflections of ecological regret. Across its hour-long runtime, a delicate, frenetic energy and glacial heaviness coexist, the band pitting those paces against one another. In their richly experimental timbre, dancing strings and fluttering falsettos prang against a bed of brass drones like a wounded bird. “We started writing in 2017 and began recording in 2018,” says vocalist Harry Burgess. “We genuinely thought it might be finished in 2018! But things kept developing and, having resolutely not struck while the iron was hot, there was no real external push to rush things after that, so we just kept letting things shift and unfold until it felt right. Listening back to my voice notes it’s nice to notice that there are fragments of ideas from the whole period 2017-2023 which have shaped the record.” Recorded in bursts at studios across London and in the band members’ flats, at Konk, on the Isle of Wight and in Sussex, So Sorry is unambiguous in its evolution. Sonically, there are sparks of the arrhythmic brightness that afforded the band’s critically acclaimed debut album Gist Is its cult adoration, for fans of Arthur Russell and Meredith Monk, but with a blossoming, melancholic darkness often overhead. Piano sprees and luscious string sections appear like low-hanging stars on a night-time drive, whilst plunging vocal distortions and humming brass loops resurrect heavy limbs in a bad dream. “I usually have objects as kind of totems for ideas,” explains Burgess. “The album initially started out to do with performance… [the totem] was a head mic, one of the subtle skin-tone ones, discreet on the forehead of a West End star. A number of the first songs in their original forms were almost musical theatre piano ballads. I think that was really a device to write about my life as the ‘main character’ (pre internet-speak reframing): regrets about romance, relationships - unsustainable relationships with the self and others.” “However, once we started writing, the ideas about unsustainable personal relationships, loving unevenly and heartbreak conflated with a more expressly ecological regret. Like contending with big feelings of loss, endings, beauty, desolation, and with how much joy the earth contains in it. Feeling so much gratitude bound up in waves of sadness. Maybe witnessing a slow-motion goodbye to all that, or its last gasps. I love the earth and the life it supports so much. I love how ecosystems fit together - even the brutal stuff. It may be basic to say, but now is the time to be laser focused on that love. I was thinking about human centrality on earth, us as the ‘main character’, the way that is served by faith and romanticism, and the subsequent disingenuous understandings of our position in the ecosystem, as only stewards somehow, rather than subjects. The totems at this point: a herald’s horn, lorry inner tubes, archaeological tools. I guess from doom, industry, history respectively.” “Now I would say the record is about gripping. Totems being: crampons, rope, drips, desalination equipment, accruing various survival tech. I think gripping sums up both of the threads. There’s the emotionally correct clinging to the earth that is the substrate of everything we value, or the delusional clinging to our imagined dominant position. But also the practical, technological aspects of creating a sustainable relationship, of remaining here. Then I think of romance again.” So Sorry So Slow comes out 26th April 2024 on Spare Thought, mixed by Fabian Prynn at 4AD Studios and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road. Adult Jazz is Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, Steven Wells and Tom Howe.

Tracks

1. Bleat Melisma / 2. Suffer One / 3. Y-rod / 4. No Relief / 5. Plenary / 6. Marquee / 7. Dusk Song / 8. Earth of Worms / 9. No Sentry / 10. Bend / 11. I Was Surprised / 12. Windfarm

Press

21 October ? The Hug & Pint, Glasgow
22 October ? The Brudenell, Leeds
24 October ? The ICA, London

Audio & Video

KID CONGO & THE PINK MONKEY BIRDS - 'THAT DELICIOUS VICE'

Formats

• ITR389G - LP (COLOURED)

  657628443513

• ITR389 - LP

  657628443513

• ITR389CD - CD

  657628443520

Details

**Available on Limited UK Only Gold Vinyl x300 copies**“It's a new lineup,” landlord of the avant-garage Kid Congo Powers exclaims of the Pink Monkey Birds edition responsible for the fifth studio full-length of their 19 year recording career, That Delicious Vice. “We've gone from a four piece to a three piece,” continues Kid, whose unique guitar style has been at the center of some of the most forward-thinking bands in punk and garage: The Gun Club, The Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Knoxville Girls, to name a handful. “I'm not sure if living in the desert is making me want more space in music or not,” laughs Kid, a Tucson resident for a few years now. “Maybe I’m turning into a desert stoner rocker. But I'm not a stoner, so that's not happening.”

Tracks

1. East Of East / 2. Wicked World / 3. A Beast, A Priest / 4. The Boy Had It All / 5. Silver For My Sister / 6. Ese Vicio Delicioso / 7. The Smoke Is The Ghost / 8. Las Vegas Interlude / 9. Never Said

Press

First studio full-length since 2016!

Audio & Video

CIRCUS LUPUS - 'CIRCUS LUPUS'

Formats

• LG-1 - LP

  711574956210

Details

Before Circus Lupus landed on DC’s venerable Dischord Records, the group’s original Midwest lineup recorded a full album’s worth of songs less than a year after forming. With the demise of DC’s Ignition in the late ’80s, bass player Chris Thomson headed to Madison, WI for college. Before leaving DC, he dove headfirst into being a vocalist fronting the short-lived throwback punk / hardcore project Fury. Thomson served up pointed and profound Tony Cadena-inspired screeds about betrayal, disappointment and poseurs all set to a soundtrack of furiously primitive and chaotic music supplied by members of the DC punk band Swiz. Brief yet influential, this band marked Thomson’s switch to vocals, putting him on course to front Circus Lupus and claim a notable spot in the DC punk timeline of the late 20th century. Soon after arriving in Madison, Thomson was invited to join a new project started by friends Chris Hamley, Arika Casebolt, and Reg Shrader. Circus Lupus marked a change in direction from the familiar sounds of DC punk that Thomson had been associated with for years. The newly formed group looked to noisier Touch & Go and Homestead bands for inspiration, aligning themselves with bands from Chicago, Louisville and Milwaukee. One early supporter of the band described the new group as “profoundly familiar yet uncategorizable. Like if the Germs had gone to college and never got pulled into hard drugs and suicidal behaviors.” The original Circus Lupus lineup played a dozen shows and recorded these songs with Eli Janney at Inner Ear studios in August of 1990 while on a brief tour. Within a year, the band would decide to permanently relocate to Washington DC, where they felt they had more opportunities. Shrader opted to move to Chicago and would ultimately join the Touch and Go band Seam. Old friend Seth Lorinczi (Vile Cherubs) would become their new bass player, forming the version of the band that most listeners are familiar with. While a few of these ended up on their first single, the rest were shelved, some later to be rerecorded with Lorinczi and released on Dischord. L.G. Records is proud to have helped this notable recording see the light of day. The original tapes were recovered by Ian MacKaye and transferred by Darren Edwards. Tim Green remixed and remastered the original recordings at Louder Studios in California.

Tracks

1. Mean, Hot & Blessed / 2. Tightrope Walker / 3. Cat Kicking Jerk / 4. Thermo King / 5. Chinese Nitro / 6. Deviant Gesture Catalog / 7. Marbles / 8. Kansas City Bomber / 9. Pulp

Press

Unearthed early recordings of classic DC punk band
Contains much unreleased material
Recovered by Ian MacKaye and remixed and remastered by Tim Green

Audio & Video

YUCHING HUANG - 'THE CRYSTAL HUM'

Formats

• LSSN095 - LP

  5061041820403

Details

The Crystal Hum is the debut vinyl release by Taiwan-based artist Yuching Huang and her first release for Night School. A beguiling dreamscape of crackles, spluttering, love-struck Casios presided over by the the spectral vocal and guitar work of Huang, Yuching sings love songs at the end of this world and the beginning of the next. Recorded during a hiatus from her group Aemong (a duo with artist Henrique Uba) in Berlin, these songs elevate Huang’s unique vocal style and grasp of atmospherics. The Crystal Hum deconstructs balladry, Garage, guitar music and reforms it into a unified ghostly otherworld version of these languages.  The Crystal Hum thrums with buried desire, trails of nocturnal reverb seeping out of apartment windows, diaristic vocal performances and deeply emotive, evocative Western-style strings. Formulated by Yuching Huang after periods of frustration and experimentation, the album is an exercise in minimalism and paring back, with some tracks like JohnJohn featuring little else than an elastic bass, spring reverb trails, an interjecting vocal and swelling, dislocated synths. The effect is spellbinding, the soundtrack to getting lost in the labyrinthine, closed streets of Venice, Taipei, Hong Kong, or mirror versions of them in the imagination. On opener Fly! Little Black Thing, a subterranean funk bassline roots Huang’s singing, a rudimentary, unreliable beat floundering in whimsy underneath. Demure, dream Dance music, Huang references classic lo fi experimenters Suicide and Arthur Russell as well as Night School label mates The Space Lady and Ela Orleans. In fact, after the release of Aemong’s third album Crimson, Huang credits the direction of The Crystal Hum to being enchanted by The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits, the landmark lo-fi recording made by Susan Dietrich Schneider in 1990. The new, minimalist approach to her sound world reveals and shrouds in equal measure. On the heart-melter Love, a sultry mid-tempo Casio + bass backing drops into the ether with Huang’s vocal swimming in preternatural void before emerging anew, in awe at the world. Every chord change heralds new perspectives, every guitar flurry swells and drips emotion, nothing is wasted and space billows out from between the grooves. Huang never reveals more than necessary, making this an in-between love album: the right amount of mystery and darkened mirror shines wanely on The Crystal Hum while remaining fragile and vulnerable in the sweet spots. Turning over in pillowing smoke and night in the dark corners, Huang sings in both Mandarin and English. The songs speak of earthly matters seemingly at the edge of dissipating into nothing. Distorted, beguiling Sambas warble like sweating dancehalls in an imagined Lynchian 60s, as on Thoughts. Closer You, An Illusion warps a classic 60s Girlgroup bassline beloved of the likes of Les Rallizes Denudes into a slight ballad on the edge of the void, held back by the teary-eyed, wistful and enveloping vocal cooed by Huang. Each song feels like a love song dedicated to the bits between worlds, between beats, the negative space between people where desires, feelings and loss hangs in the air, resolute and unresolved.

Tracks

1. Fly! Little Black Thing / 2. Love / 3. Confessions From A Soul / 4. Thoughts / 5. Thunder In Heaven / 6. In My Room / 7. The Song Of Summer / 8. JohnJohn / 9. Alright / 10. You, An Illusion

Press

Audio & Video

VILE CHERUBS - 'LYSERGIC LAMENTATIONS'

Formats

• LG-8 - LP

  711574956111

Details

Falling somewhere between Soulside, Ignition, and The Chocolate Watchband, Vile Cherubs were a short-lived and puzzling band that for a brief window in 1986-88 managed to captivate, confuse, and annoy the D.C. punk scene. Consisting of high school classmates Tim Green, Jesse Quitlsund, and Ben Wides—along with Green’s childhood friend Seth Lorinczi—the Vile Cherubs were more focused on the then-forgotten sounds of ‘60s garage rock and psychedelia than on Minor Threat. Being minors themselves, they likely would’ve remained trapped in the school-dance circuit were it not for Geoff Turner (Gray Matter / 3), who took an interest in the band and recorded their two demos. That first tape caught the ear of d.c. space booker Cynthia Connolly, who despite her initial skepticism paired them with Didjits, Cynics, and other noteworthy bands. Rumors of a potential Dischord album built all through 1987, ending with mysterious suddenness after label co-owner Jeff Nelson dropped in on a rehearsal to find a miasma of LSD, alcohol, feedback, and vomit. Though the band released a posthumous LP in 1988, the original Geoff Turner demos explain why the D.C. scene briefly lost its shit over these teen ne’er-do-wells. Lovingly and exhaustively resuscitated by audio maestro Tim Green from the original multitrack tapes, “Lysergic Lamentations” is the Vile Cherubs at the height of their brief existence.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

STEVEN R. SMITH - 'OLIVE'

Formats

• SAB110 - LP

  795154146031

Details

Steven R. Smith is a wildly consistent and self-sufficient auteur making epic music far beyond his monk-like solo recording practices. On Olive, one gets more of Steven R. Smith’s singular vision and musicianship, this time filtered through ensemble arrangement largely performed by others—an approach he’s explored in recent years. A micro-orchestra of horn and woodwind players was enlisted, as well as other collaborators including Kate Wright (Movietone, 1000 Dawns) and Yvonne Sone. The stunning results call to mind Mark Hollis’ eponymous solo LP and Gerald Busby’s masterful 3 Women score, not only in terms of sonics or tone, but also in the use of space. Smith has explored many angles to soundtrack-like mood music, but there is a satisfying dark rock element to even his more refined chamber pieces. Smith’s dusky post-punk signature, borrowed from Australian artists such as Rowland S. Howard and Crime & the City Solution, synthesizes with the mannered arrangements to push his familiar, evocative sound into new spaces.

Tracks

1. Marshland Study
2. The Magpie
3. On The Trellis
4. With Cypresses
5. Passing Winter
6. Across The Boulevard
7. Olive
8. Parlor Fields
9. Trees At North Branch
10. Roadmenders

Press

Auteur?s latest employs a micro-orchestra
to summon shades of Mark Hollis and
Gerald Busby?s 3 Women score
Also has a dusty post-punk element that
recalls Rowland S. Howard and Crime &
the City Solution

Audio & Video

GREEN MILK FROM THE PLANET ORANGE & FUCKWOLF - 'LET'S SPLIT'

Formats

• SC58X - LP (COLOURED)

• SC58 - LP

Details

*BLACK VINYL* A limited edition, full-length split album celebrating a 2024 co-tour of Japan by underground cracked-psych purveyors Fuckwolf from San Francisco and legendary prog-benders Green Milk From The Planet Orange from Tokyo. Green Milk stretch a live performance of one of their extended signature jaw-droppers “Concrete City Breakdown” relentlessly across an entire side of LET’S SPLIT (裂けても) while Fuckwolf delve into a 6-part abstract song cycle, ranging from stoned incense burners to blown out fuzz rippers, echoes of Faust Tapes, Les Rallizes and 70’s mid-west outsider proto-punk abound. Green Milk From The Planet Orange formed in Tokyo in 2001 and continue to tour, record and perform some of neo-psychedelia’s most ambitious and masterfully performed rock music. Fuckwolf formed in San Francisco in 2002 and most recently released the criticallylauded underground scuzzy art-rock gem of 2022 ‘Goodbye, Asshole’ on Silver Current Records.

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