Expo ’70 – Blackout (Debacle Records, 2010 (2011 reissue))

1 Ithaca, NY 10.19.09 31:07
2 Manhattan, NY 10.25.09 31:27

Two live sets from the 2009 East Coast tour that spawned the Immune 2xLP, "Where Does Your Mind Go?", between the touring duo of Justin Wright and Matt Hill (Umberto). Track 1 consist of the stellar set from Ithaca, NY two days prior to the Immune Recording, headliners were Blues Control that night. Track 2 is the last set the duo played the last day of tour in the afternoon at WNYU in Manhattan, NY on less sleep than you can imagine. This set of live shows aptly named "Blackout" after a show at the now defunct New Market Hotel as part of an anti-CMJ show where the duo blacked out, probably scaring half the people responsible for the venue and show
Debacle Records

visit Expo ’70 & & Debacle Records (here or here)

stream and buy if you like!

Zack Kouns - Endless Fertile Valley (Clinical Archives, 2011)

01 Deathless ground of life - 5:09
02 He does not grieve over what is not - 4:45
03 Mara - 4:23
04 Hard to aim, hard to restrain - 4:28
05 Hiding from the freedom of a bird in flight - 6:36
06 Death sweeps them away while they are still gathering - 4:21
07 White bones cast away - 4:13
08 Burst into flames - 4:13
09 Alive and alone - 4:48

Endless Fertile Valley is very loosely based on the Dhammapada; all of the song titles are garnered from the ancient text of the book. The album title is the only exception and is intended to illustrate the true theme of the album that the Dhammapada can only hint at and words in general can barely brush against (music being the ideal medium for conveying our most esoteric and abstruse intimations.)
The theme came to me by accident (or mysterious design) during a 15 kilometer run during the summer. I passed a valley with tall grass that I stopped to admire. Suddenly, I saw the valley extend upward into the sky; it stretched behind me and became the road. I vomited in the prairie grass several times and lost consciousness. When I awoke, everything was back to "normal" and I ran home and wrote the entire album in under two hours. Here is that album, born from a bizarre vision of eternity and the impossibility of ending and certainly open to interpretation.
Zack Kouns

visit Zack Kouns & Clinical Archives

free download

Fabio Orsi - Glüh (self release, 2010)

1 Glüh 10:40

visit Fabio Orsi

stream & buy

Fabio Orsi - The New Year Is Over (self release, 2010)

1 Yep 11:12
2 Nope 10:32

visit Fabio Orsi

stream & buy here

Skully - Nóva Cárdinális (Self release, 2010) first release out now !

1 Nóva Cárdinális
2 Misztikus Légy
3 Márika

LIMITED TO 10 COPIES ONLY, self-released, handdrawn cover by myself, each is different, comes with a small insert, sprayed back case.
my latest psychedelic synth noise recordings as skull, pretty excited to release this officially !
be quick to catch a copy...
Skully

visit Skully & buy!

stream short excerpts here

Natural Snow Buildings - The Centauri Agent (Vulpiano Records, 2010)

VULP-0013 is Natural Snow Buildings’ first release of 2010, the free-for-download double LP The Centauri Agent! On part one, the 41 minute “Our man from Centauri” sets the stage, a cosmic, sprawling opener with themes that continue on into “The accidental remote viewer”, before fizzling out into static. Part two is comprised of nine beautiful and intense tracks (particular stand-outs including “The Psychic Circle/Uchronia”, “The storm of resurrection”, and “Solar flares”). Lovely and intricately woven as ever, while frequently heading off into new and challenging sonic territory, Mehdi and Solange have created yet another very special work of musical art with The Centauri Agent!

Download here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ntdmwuu2o5e

—-Tracklisting—-

Part One:
1-Our man from Centauri
2-The accidental remote viewer

Part Two:
1-The Psychic Circle/Uchronia
2-Black holes
3-The storm of resurrection
4-Moscow signal
5-Phantom twin
6-Stuttering probe
7-Solar flares
8-Emergency network farewell broadcast
9-Memories found in a bill from a small animal vet

visit Vulpiano Records

Praxinoscope - Praxinoscope (Opax, 2005)

01 Untitled 39:10

Oklahoma is full of open spaces and windswept plains. People often underestimate how much beauty there is in these simplistic landscapes. The majesty is derived from the serenity. My favorite moments driving from St. Louis back to Tulsa is the transition from the Ozark hills of Missouri to the endless open spaces, covered in green grass and wildflowers, that dominate Eastern Oklahoma. It's magical to me and ridiculously inspiring.
What does any of this have to do with Praxinoscope? Everything and nothing, really. First off, Praxinoscope is a new Italian duo featuring Roberto Opalio (1/2 of the the space-brother duo, My Cat is an Alien) and long-time MCIAA collaborator, Ramona Ponzini (the two also have a project with the other Opalio, Maurizio called Painting Planets on Petal Ghost). This project traverses a similar terrain as MCIAA, but is perhaps closer to Roberto's brilliant solo album, "Chants From Isolated Ghosts."
Opalio's vocals star here, taking the limelight and thriving inside it. Effects drench his voice making it something truly not of this world. These lunar oceans of sound are magnificent and totally enthralling. It's as though he's a cosmonaut trapped inside a glass box, unable to travel the reaches of space. Such confinement derails your mind and Opalio sounds like a person struggling against himself. At times, hearing this is almost too much - there's simultaneous discomfort and exorcism happening and you can't quite focus intently on either. You are a passive player in this exercise, lost in the crevices Opalio and Ponzini create.
I cannot discount Ponzini's contributions to this 40 minute piece, either. While it may seem minimal on the surface, her various "Japanese percussions" (mostly chromatics, cymbals, and the like) add a great deal of needed texture to counterbalance Opalio's haunted wails. It is reminiscent of the way Finnish master, Keijo, works in a lot of percussive elements to his tracks. And it has the same effect.
Praxinoscope is a great new project from the always wonderful My Cat is an Alien. This is one of Opax's finest releases. Bringing to mind the vocal transcendence of the Skaters, Praxinoscope are proof that you don't need any instruments to make amazing sounds. This is wonderful, wonderful music.
Foxy Digitalis

sold out visit Roberto Opalio

try

Pelt - Snake To Snake (Klang Industries, 1996)

A Sun Is Apart No. 2
B1 Gavanji I
B2 Gavanji II

Good God, where did this record come from? I've listened to the thing about ten times now and I'm still beside myself. I guess I should've paid a whole lot more attention to Brown Cyclopaedia so I would've had some inkling of the shape of things to come. Max Meadows finds Pelt exploring the inner- and outermost reaches of avant-flipped psych-noise like an evangelical preacher studies the four gospels. The band hops on somebody's magic carpet and takes the rug for a very heady ride across no fewer than three continents and at least a dozen time zones. I hear bits of Ash Ra Tempel, Charalambides, Agitation Free, Ya Ho Wha 13, and Skullflower, along with a heaping dose of cracked invention straight from the digits and crania of Pelt. Max Meadows features a wonderful blend of high-octane drones, quixotic eastern boodle, and freedom-grasp histrionics that combines to form one of the better listens I've had during the past six months. It's quite heartening to know this Virginia troupe is tending shop in the here and now (as opposed to across the drink and/or 25 years ago in time) and I might even have a chance to see 'em live if I play my cards right. And speaking of their "live" performance, Snake to Snake captures Pelt on two separate occasions during the '95-'96 basketball season that display the band in exceptional form. I'm thinking the resplendent stigmas of the desert Crocus must have been carried across land and sea on these particular nights because the music sounds as if it was bathed in a warm orange dye and hung out to dry beneath the starlight. Of note is side two's "Gavanji II," a Fricke-meets-Radeulescu eastern-fuelled power summit that'll have you floating above the shifting sands before you can exchange your nickels for rupees. Max Meadows and Snake to Snake make for perfect sonic companions while enjoying a casual read through the Koran -- and hey, even if you can't read Arabic, the music will make all that crazy writing look just that much cooler. I believe it's time to turn my answering machine back on and re-establish contact with the disjected minions of the drug-plugged hinterland -- cuz if I don't, Pelt are liable to release another three albums of prime cosmic huff right under my nose and I'll no doubt be the last poor bastard to smell 'em.
Opprobrium

sold out visit Jack Rose, Pelt & Klang Industries

try

Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice - Town On The Edge Of Darkness (Audiobot, 2006)

1 Red Night Red Night Red Night Red Night 4:45
2 Satya Sai Baba Conquers The River Rangers / Babylon The Great 11:34
3 Floating Pharmicist Encounters The Witches Of The Wood And Stunned, Heels Backward Into The Sea 3:49

sold out

try

(VxPxC) - I See A Fire In The Distance (Ruralfaune, 2007)

1 Burning Oil Fields Light My Way 11:42
2 Black Holy Smoke Pillar 2:44
3 Incursion Principle 12:48
4 Night Of The Honey Locusts 6:58
5 Shaherrazad 10:45
6 Three Unwise Men 3:12

sold out visit (VxPxC) & Ruralfaune

try

(VxPxC) - Reticent To Manifest (Abandon Ship Records, 2007)

A1 Swooning
A2 Down To Nothing
B1 Icy Spectral Fingers
B2 Hard To Stand

Reticent to Manifest was made on a cold summer's night in Los Angeles... High on salsa verde and the thick brown air, three men went in and one long string of sound came out. (VxPxC) has been known for pulling some legs and some hair in the past, but this tape is the start of a very long apology of sorts... a way to say "Hey, we like music too... maybe just not the same stuff
as you, but you know..." Not a particularly heart-felt apology, mind you, but a start...
(VxPxC)

I understand (VxPxC), the LA-based troupe of sound murderers behind this unburnished, deep buried, gem of a cassette, have been at this since 2005. It sounds to my ears like they've used the time wisely and located a pretty unique vibrational source.

The first cut on this 40 something minute tape is one of its strongest. Wheezing accordions (or maybe organs?) and guitars are cloaked in a tape haze that sounds to me like the real sound of Los Angeles, the endless dust to which the Hotel California and the Hollywood sign will one day return.

The lanquid, yet bent and wobbly, quitar/vocal lament that opens side B (Icy Spectral Fingers) sounds like the death of a penny arcade. The moans of once cherished amusements breathing their last with a quivering sense of resignation can be heard as keyboards begin to surface in the mix. Or maybe it was just really late at night when the fellas recorded it. Or maybe I left my copy in the sun too long. Whatever it is, it totally works and runs real deep.

The next cut, which I think is called Hard to Stand, sweeps away some of the muck for a phased-out mindscratcher. It is a rather glorious confusion of totally unintelligible vocals and tenuous fidelity. Just the way I like it.

I've not heard the length and breadth of (VxPxC)?s discography so I can't comment on where this sits within their rapidly increasing back catalogue. I can say that what we have here is a great document of a band that seems to have stumbled on a pretty thrilling collision of sounds.
Foxy Digitalis

sold out visit (VxPxC) & Abandon Ship Records

try

(VxPxC) - Acceptance Of The Existence Of The Unobserved (Burial Mound Tapes, 2007)

A1 Acceptance 1
A2 Acceptance 2
A3 Acceptance 3
A4 Acceptance 4
B1 Denial 1
B2 Denial 2
B3 Denial 3
B4 Denial 4
B5 Denial 5

sold out visit (VxPxC)

try

(VxPxC) - Noche de Rabanos (self release, 2008 reissue)

01. La flor inmortal y el totomoxtle - 18:16

02. Pero congrega practicamente - 13:22

03. A todos los habitantes de la ciudad en el area del zocalo, - 14:18

04. Quienes concurren con el objecto de admirar la creatividad de los participantes - 11:20

The second long-form tape. This one celebrating Noche de Rabanos, the Night of the Radishes
festival. Four long tracks to take you on a journey through the Zocalo in Oaxaca to observe the
spectacularly carved radishes of this celebration.
(VxPxC)

sold out visit (VxPxC)

try

(VxPxC) - First of December Day (self release, 2005)

01. Mono Filament Blues - 5:21

02. The Reverend P - 1:15

03. Fake Organ March - 7:12

04. Mad Hatter's Waltz - 6:15

05. Clouds & Sea, Winds & Sails - 7:28

06. Mother of Pearl - 11:06

07. On the Island - 7:32

08. One Minute Interlude - 1:02

09. Once More, With Feeling - 3:26

10. On The Boiling Sea - 8:25

11. Riding the Waves - 3:05

12. May All Yr. Dreams - 8:01

13. Sea Shanty Interlude - 1:01

14. Second To Last Thing I Do - 2:07

15. As Yu Descend - 2:38

16. The Last Thing - 3:08

sold out visit (VxPxC)

try

(VxPxC) - Election Day (self release, 2005)

01. Early Mornings Budding Sickness - 4:05

02. Dressing Down The Drapery - 5:01

03. Broken Record Interlude - 2:15

04. Song To Ward Off Evangelicals - 7:35

05. Foggy Landings - 0:53

06. Wavering March - 4:23

07. Drunken Rhythms - 2:49

08. Music To Read Voting Guides To - 6:12

09. Dry Ice - 6:26

Side B

10. Apologetic Interlude - 1:08

11. Political Playing Points - 5:46

12. Everything's Going To Be Alright - 9:04

13. Real Time Slow Motion - 4:57

14. The Sleepytime Collection - 4:03

15. How Our Grasps Seem Fleeting - 6:33

16. An Old Familiar Tune For Drifting Away - 8:06

17. All Done - 0:06

Obviously quite concerned with the evil state of the American government, but still morbidly fascinated with the celebration of it in holidays, these purveyors of moody ambience return with a solid collection of improvised pieces. Ranging from the bluesy but drugged “Song to Ward Off Evangelicals” to the never-ending sonic waves of “grain” found on “Music to Read Voting Guides By”, Election Day is one release worth voting for again and again.

sold out visit (VxPxC)

try

(VxPxC) - Arroyo Mountain Day (self release, 2005)

1. TB Blues 2005 - 1:12

02. A Mechanized Sunset... - 0:45

03. Brings a Mechanized Night - 2:47

04. And a Cold Wind Blows - 2:09

05. Insect Fiddlers - 4:49

06. Banshees with Laryngitis - 3:51

07. They Came on Silver Boats - 3:50

08. The Aliens Brought Maize - 5:29

09. Acoustic? - 3:59

10. They Left on Corn Husks and PBR Cans - 4:05

11. Blisters on My Fingers - 4:43

12. The Hills Are Alive with Ghosts - 4:55

13. Voices Without Mouths - 4:30

14. Dawn Breaks - 8:46

15. "Hill" the Musical - 0:39

High atop this haunted mountain in old Los Angeles comes a sound both frightening and inviting.
Moving further away from the holiday themed titles, this seems to dedicate itself to a place AND a time.
Recorded outside, but definitely manipulated inside, this acoustic/electric affair is a truly cybernetic synthesis of our modern world. Acoustic guitars and banjos collide and juxtapose nicely with looped keyboards and feedbacking Jew’s Harps and harmonicas.
(VxPxC)

sold out visit (VxPxC)

try

Endless Endless Endless - Black Talisman (self release, 2009)

1 I Remember
2 Distortions
3 A Way
4 Oscillate
5 Washes

Reçu un mail de James / Received a mail from James:

Black Talisman is the debut recording from the New York/Jersey duo of Brett Renfer (Brooklyn: guitar, vocals, and pedals) and James Tichenor (Jersey: Korg Gameboy DS). Splitting their time between triumphant post-noise and stretched out bummer-wave, Endless Endless Endless creates music from the sounds of shimmering guitars, squiggly synth lines, filter sweep synth washes, slow-mo 8-bit drums, and infinite layered vocal harmonies all mushed together into a psychedelic, blissed-out smoothie. With no overdubs and minimal editing, Black Talisman captures Endless Endless Endless riffing as songs and ideas build, blur, loop and die. This is music for (and from) pretzel rods and Miller highlife.
Hand-made, numbered edition of 100 (53 tapes) (47 cdrs) comes with large laser etched Talisman and (secret) mp3 download link. Wear the Talisman and it will bring you infinite power.

visit Endless Endless Endless

try

Ghosts Brames of the Cerf's Magickal - For Ever Hang thy Dreamy Spell, Round Mountain Star and Heather Bell (Ruralfaune, 2006)

01 For Ever Hang thy Dreamy Spell, Round Mountain Star and Heather Bell 21:33

for me, this record is the soundtrack to many wonderful evenings since i first got hold of it. sitting and being lulled into places of your own imagination by the beautiful chord organ drones, and these two repeating guitar notes just pinning you there throughout till the pieces chaotic end. i urge you all to keep an eye out for more Ghost Brames releases. their static aero cd-r on leaf trail was one of my favourite records last year, and you can still buy it now.

"Having lifted the title of this majestic 3” CD-R from Anne Brontë’s poem “Memory,” this newly formed French duo aim to recreate the innocence of childhood as filtered through the human mind’s imperfect memory. Florian Tositti (The Reggaee) and Jacob Garet (undisputed master of the ‘Magick Skull of Noise,’ whatever that may be) have created the perfect 21-minute prescription for losing touch with the present and rediscovering the purity of unsullied youth. Multiple looped guitar patterns are interwoven and laid upon a blanket of drone, while a flute dances carelessly overhead. Frequent crescendos are followed by the development of new musical ideas, proving that GBCM (a fitting acronym, no?) are adept at creating engaging long form soundscapes. This is indeed another stunning release for the Ruralfaune label, an imprint that continues to explore fresh terrain in the global psychedelic underground. Cheers to them for discovering the spellbinding sounds of GBCM.
Foxy Digitalis

sold out visit Ghost Brames & Ruralfaune

try

(VxPxC) - The Last Days Of (VxPxC) (Foxglove, 2006)

1 Retablo
2 Churning Of Angels
3 Massive Squallor
4 The Heart's Lament
5 Out, Out Damn Moon

after their monster 3xCDR set from earlier this year, we just knew that one day the los angeles-based (VxPxC) would steal our little hearts. on this, their final session of 2005, these boy wonders extricate spacious, intricate compositions from the spiral galaxy drones of yesteryear. a vast array of instrumentation provide the perfect canvas for these majestic spells. this is music that grows from the roots, falling head-first into the icy tendrils of the new dawn. their voices pierce the organ murk and guitar expanses like lonesome souls begging to be freed. this is magical toward oblivion.
Foxglove

sold out visit (VxPxC) & Digitalis

try

My Cat Is An Alien / Corsican Paintbrush - Split (Opax / Foxglove, 2006)

A My Cat Is An Alien Transmission From Planet KFJC
B1 Corsican Paintbrush Landfall
B2 Corsican Paintbrush The Temper Of Bastet

sold out visit My Cat Is An Alien & Digitalis

try