howdy all…
yay fall! ugh. anyway… to make up for the weather, we’ve got lots of hot new wax to warm your ears!
also, this is your last chance to get a resume in to us. we are hiring one part time position, mainly weekends. drop off your resume with your top ten albums of all time and 2012… by friday close!
…..pick of the week…..
*natural snow buildings – night coercion into the company of witches – ba da bing – 4lp/3cd
– we’re big fans of these guys around here, in case you didn’t know, so needless to say we are stoked about this one coming in… “the original night coercion… cd from 2008 was an edition of only 22 copies, so finally, the intense music that mehdi ameziane and solange gularte create on these tracks can be widely heard and appreciated. fans of popol vuh raga drones, flying saucer attack distorted bliss, the dead c’s intuitive chaos, and islaja’s oblique folk, take note. natural snow buildings make melodic, orchestrated, droning compositions with layers of guitars, chants, woodwinds, percussive bells, distortion and delay. on night coercion into the company of witches, they push to extremes, producing layers of stereophonic sound both nuanced and grandiose. this record is the ideal introduction to the band’s sound, building harmonies upon noise upon harmonies, and providing a clear explanation as to why their albums (even the ones that aren’t so limited) sell out so immediately upon release. for the ba da bing release of night coercion…, there are two physical formats. like the original version, the album is available as a three-cd set, this time at the low price of a single cd release. additionally, the limited four-lp box set has a new mixing job, done by the band to fit the record’s new vinyldom. lp includes a download.” a few of their other releases are still in stock as well, so get on board before you miss out completely, again.
*various – bollywood steel guitar – sublime frequencies – 2lp
– in tomorrow… first time vinyl issue of the out-of-print cd. double lp gatefold with the bonus track “duniya mein,” (covered most famously by the sun city girls as “apna desh” on the crossdressers release). bollywood steel guitar is the most comprehensive collection to date of steel guitar pop instrumental music from india. all 21 tracks featured here were film hits from 1962-1986 and all the masters of the steel guitar sound from the period are represented: van shipley, kazi aniruddha, s. hazarasingh, sunil ganguly, and charanjit singh. an entirely different approach that rocks, swings, and grooves through some of india’s most beloved film tunes, the electric steel guitar as lead instrument transforms the already infectious melodies into a multitude of higher sound dimensions. this album was compiled and carefully selected from rare lps over several years by stuart ellis. here are some excerpts from his liner notes: “the term ‘bollywood’ originally referred to bombay’s (now known as mumbai) hindi language film industry. although there are a number of other studios that produce films in other languages, more recently the definition has been expanded in the west to describe pretty much all films produced on the sub-continent. but where in most countries a film’s soundtrack would merely be used as a promotional tool for the film, in india, film music has become an industry unto itself with playback singers and dance numbers. the music is just as important as the film and lives on long after the film has left the theaters. these songs are, for the most part, the pop music of india. as with most popular music, other artists sometimes recorded cover versions of these songs. of these musicians, a small number specialized in instrumental arrangements and created what could be called the elevator music of india. while there were a few who used the harmonium or ‘mouth organ,’ the most popular instrument used in these ‘instrumental favorites’ was the steel guitar.”
…..new arrivals…..
aphex twin – i care because you do – 1972 – lp
– reissued on vinyl! the crowning achievement in the aphex twin canon. veering from his previous acid house, ambient and general techno undertakings, james builds compositions out of lengthy and intricate drum machine loops, elaborately layered analog synths and intermittent string pieces. the final product comes off like a replicant dance-party. generally seen as one of the quintessential idm releases of all time, the album finds a middle ground between phillip glass and the wu-tang clan. fans of either will not be disappointed.
aphex twin – richard d james album – 1972 – lp
– also reissued! in a career full of brilliant, groundbreaking music, the richard d. james album remains aphex twin’s’s drill ‘n’ bass masterpiece. it was james’s fourth and most widely popular full-length to date upon its original 1996 release, and reinvented the artist as a commanding influence on like-minded groups such as radiohead who were tiring of the guitar / bass / drums format. moving even further away from his ambient and acid house beginnings, the album matches james’s trademark fragile, slow-moving melodies with harsh, quick breakbeats. a peculiar and personal work, a modern classic which offers the same thrill on the first listen as the hundredth.
bee mask – vaporware/scanops – room 40 – lp
– in tomorrow… bee mask is a vehicle for an intricate and deeply warped sensibility which remains coherent without being beholden to specific techniques or materials, drawing equally on the ecstatic human/machine couplings of 1970s west coast synthesis, the fractured gloss of sampler concrète, the iridescent thumbprint of high minimalism on the iq-decimating throb of trunk bass, and the barely-sublimated currents of vertigo and terror that course beneath the most unsettling moments in the canon of home-recorded psychedelia. like much of bee mask’s output to date, this is a world of controlled voltage and sequenced chaos. but there is a twist in the form of the unexpected and utterly welcome addition of voice.
dock boggs – volume 2 – folkways – lp
– recorded in 1964 at dock boggs’ sister’s house, with guitar accompaniment from mike seeger, vol. 2 is, not surprisingly, the second release from this legendary folk-blues banjo player on the folkways label. a mix of appalachian folk and african-american blues, boggs style is unique and inimitable. lovingly reissued on vinyl with an exact replica of the original folkways jacket and booklet.
nick cave & the bad seeds – live in germany – vinyl passion – lp
– recorded live: butzweilerhof, cologne, germany, august 17, 1996.
*the clean – oddities – 540 – 2lp
– finally in stock… “it’s interesting to note that by the time most folks in the northern hemisphere got their first taste of the clean (circa 1985), they all but packed it in. yep, tis true. ’85 was the year of the first great kiwi invasion (vinyl wise) with the flying nun roster leading the way. and there was nary a dud to be found. recorded between 1980-82 odditties is a thorough compendium of alternate takes, addled miscues, riffing zoners and back burner gems.”
elizabeth cotton – folksongs and instrumentals with guitar – folkways – lp
– this is the very first album from the late, legendary folk-blues guitarist and singer elizabeth cotten. featuring her oft-covered classic tune, the titular “freight train” and her idiosyncratic, self-taught upside-down left-handed guitar playing style, this is an absolutely essential collection from an american folk legend lovingly reissued here on vinyl in an exact replica of the original paste-on folkways jacket with booklet.
fieldhead – a correction – gizeh – lp
– in tomorrow… minimalistic on first listen, a correction is a record which slowly unfurls on multiple listens to reveal subtle melodies and details that don’t distract from the overall ambience, but in fact, set apart fieldhead’s music from many other, safer artists within the genre. the violin of elaine reynolds adds a warmth to the sometimes desolate atmospheres and the almost constant pulse that remains throughout the record invites you to be lost for the duration and even hints at a more minimal techno direction at times. previous comparisons of fieldhead’s work have been made to the likes of william basinski, the caretaker and grouper, which, in truth, are not far from the mark.
flying lotus – until the quiet comes – warp – lp/cd
– “composed, according to flylo, as ‘a collage of mystical states, dreams, sleep and lullabies’, until the quiet comes has the distinct feel of this nocturnal trip. from the twitching descent into a subconscious state and the out-of-focus time-ether of the journey that follows, the sound is an unhinged, yet elegant evolution of the melodic and rhythmic interplay that is woven into the dna of flying lotus’ aural personae. the album features many guests, including erykah badu, laura darlington, niki randa, thundercat, and thom yorke.”
fresh maggots – hatched! – sunbeam – 2lp
– in tomorrow… long established as a cult classic and collector’s grail, fresh maggots makes its vinyl reappearance with the duo’s full cooperation. recorded in 1971 when they were just 19 years old, and fresh to the studio, the album is one of the best distillations of folk and psychedelia ever recorded. issued as a double lp, with a lavish gatefold sleeve, its second disc boasts seven tracks previously unavailable on lp, including their rare non-album single and a live radio session from 1971.
ladyhawk – no can do – triple crown – lp/cd
– vinyl tomorrow?? the third studio full-length album from vancouver’s ladyhawk, and the band’s most assertive and soul-stirring yet. “as grizzled (but always lovable) veterans of the canadian music landscape, i can guarantee that this album will fuck you up something good.”-kevin “sipreano” howes
legendary wings – making paper roses – dirt nap – lp
– “it happens very rarely (like a couple of times over the course of 120 releases) that we here at dirtnap get a random cdr demo in the mail, pop it in, listen to it a couple of times, and then slap our fist down on the counter and say ‘fuck it, we’ll put that out!’ and that’s just what happened in the case of legendary wings. unsolicited demos are largely a lousy way to round up new bands for the label, but once in a blue moon you get one that’s just that good.”
los mockers – s/t – vinylisssimo – lp
– reissue of the classic lp from 1966 by one of the bands that led the “uruguayan Invasion.” los mockers were the rolling stones to los shakers’ beatles, and their only lp is a keystone of 1960s latin american rock. remastered from the original stereo recordings.
*mississippi fred mcdowell & johnny woods – mama says i’m crazy – fat possum – lp
– while commonly lumped together with delta blues singers, mcdowell actually may be considered the first of the bluesmen from the ‘north mississippi’ region—parallel to, but somewhat east of the delta region—to achieve widespread recognition for his work. a version of the state’s signature musical form somewhat closer in structure to its african roots (often eschewing the chord change for the hypnotic effect of the droning, single chord vamp), the north hill country blues style (or at least its aesthetic) may be heard to have been carried on in the music of such figures as junior kimbrough and r. l. burnside, while serving as the original impetus behind creation of the fat possum record label out of oxford, mississippi..
public nuisance – gotta survive – third man – lp
– unreleased for over 20 years, this masterpiece of american, late-sixties garage rock is now widely available on vinyl for the first time ever. produced by terry melcher, the sacramento-based public nuisance laid down gritty, baroque psychedlia that was too hard for the hippies and too poppy for the punks. the end result is the perfect amalgam of all that was great about the era. the album was shelved after the manson family murders took place at the home melcher had leased to roman polanski. in the aftermath, all of melcher’s projects at the time were shelved and “gotta survive” suffered that unfortunate fate.
royal trux – accelerator – drag city – lp
– confusing times, but timely times for the reissue of royal trux’s 1998 “masterpiece” (according to many, though we are inclined to believe that all of their releases were equally masterful), accelerator. this album split the difference and intersected both angles to create an ass-kicking music machine that still confronts today with its dialed-out production values rendering ten tunes of glittering platinum hooks and colored by numbers with hooligan-outfitted choruses.
*ty segall – twins – drag city – lp/cd
– if there be just one ty segall record to encapsulate this brave ol’ year, twins is that very one. in fact, twins just might be the blast that ends it all-or the explosion that launches a brave new evolution? the songs of twins are haunted by ghosts, shadowed by the other that we’ll never see, struggling to rise above. a fury of rock ensues: songs rigged to explode on a dime, fired from a cannon into the stratosphere. they fuse together into one multivarious projectile, a bullet from a gun marked yin and yan.
*sensation’s fix – time to decide – mirumir – lp+cd
– in tomorrow… a compilation of rare studio and live tracks from the band, circa 1978-1980, not on rvng intl.’s music is painting in the air… collection. “formed by florentine guitarist franco falsini (formerly of noi tre) and american drummer keith edwards, sensations’ fix was one of the most exciting acts to come out of the italian music scene of the 1970s. beginning in 1974, from their outpost in the florentine countryside, falsini and edwards (along with bassist richard ursillo) recorded a handful of excellent albums that were more closely aligned with the german krautrock scene of the era than italian prog.”
*shadow ring – remains unchanged – kye – 2lp
– in tomorrow… “remains unchanged is the long-time-coming archival overview of the shadow ring. spanning the full decade of their existence, remains unchanged offers an alternate account of the group’s labor, told through 20 never-before-heard tracks across two lps. remains unchanged grants the listener rare access to the secret history of cheriton’s greatest underground export.
*symmetry – themes for an imaginary film – italians do it better – 3lp
– three years in the making, symmetry—the project that began as a conceptual tangent between glass candy, chromatics, mirage and desire’s more abstract sides—finally sees its release. themes for an imaginary film is two hours of claustrophobic cinematic bliss compiled for painters, writers, photographers, designers, cruisers, night walkers, & dreamers. over the span of thirty-seven tracks, symmetry embraces the elegance of european noir, cut with a lean & violent american razor. directly in your face and breathing down your neck one minute, and escaping beyond the night sky the next. your life is the film & this is the soundtrack..
u.s. maple – wanderer/whoa – rococo – lp
– us maple was an american avant-garde rock band. the band consists of al johnson, mark shippy, pat samson, and todd rittmann, who banded together with the intent of becoming the deconstructionists of rock & roll. “it twists around an idea without warning and transforms into another then snaps back to the first. it rambles, seemingly aimlessly at first glance, but by the end, everything has taken its natural course, and nothing was truly out of place.”
*bukka white – big daddy – sutro park – lp
– this 1973 release features some of the last bukka white recordings featuring songs that span his career. at the time, white played on beale street in mississippi regularly, and his chops are are dead on and his feel simply grooves. his improvisational vocal style along with his driving playing make this record a final memphis party and show why he was one of the kings of the blues. originally on biograph, available for the first time since its original release.
yoga – skinwalker – holy mountain – lp
– “yoga takes the lo-fi practice-space recordings of the grimmest of the black metal outfits and combines it with the murky, muddy, noise-drenched blur of bands like wold. but then takes it even further, rendering their sound so muted and lo-fidelity that even when they’re blasting furiously, it still sounds like a busted music box or an old black metal 78. and then there’s the fact that yoga spends a good amount of their time not blasting blackly, but instead crafting synth-heavy goblin-style film music, all throbbing bass and buzzing synths, creepy minor-key melodies and tons of haunting ambience. if you can try to imagine some impossible mix of philip jeck, wold, goblin, the skaters and some of the super weird eee records unblack bands, all produced by john maus and ariel pink, then you will flip for this.” -aquarius.
*various – indonesia pop nostalgia – sham palace – lp
– in tomorrow… subtitled: pan-indonesian pop, folk, instrumentals & children’s songs, 1970s-1980s. indonesia pop nostalgia is an eclectic collection of inspired indonesian folk and pop music culled from cassettes and vinyl recorded and released during the 1970s and 1980s. the music on this collection spans several contemporary popular genres-each inherently unique and born from very different cultural and geographical origins within the archipelago. these tracks were never meant to stand next to each other. nevertheless, here they are-an unwitting union of nostalgic musical ephemera from the islands of java and sumatra, connected here to serve as one of many possible entry points into the gloriously diverse sounds of Indonesian folk-pop music.
various – wolfe city madness: twisted primitive hillbilly bop from wolf-tex records – norton – lp
– “first ever roundup on the legendary texas label that produced the immortal 1960 rocker ‘how much do you miss me’ by harold montgomery, presented here from the original master tape in super nortonic fidelity! wolf-tex served up hillbilly, country bop and rockers in pressings that never exceeded 300 copies! package includes rare 45s, ten unissued tracks (including a live 1960 radio broadcast) and detailed liner notes by mack stevens!”
…..restocks…..
*agitation free – malesch – made in germany – lp
arcade fire – the suburbs – merge – lp
black keys – chulahoma – fat possum – lp
black keys – rubber factory – fat possum – lp
black keys – thickfreakness – fat possum – lp
*brast burn – debon – phoenix – lp
calexico – algiers – anti – lp
grimes – visions – arbutus – lp/cd
let the right one in ost – death waltz – lp
liars – they threw us in a trench and stuck a monument on top – mute – lp
liars – they were wrong so we drowned – mute – lp
loscil – sketches from new brighton – kranky – lp
*marked men – fix my brain – dirt nap – lp
men – immaculada – deranged – lp
mumford & sons – babel – glassnote – lp
*jakob olausson – morning & sunrise – de stijl – lp
*om – variations on a theme – holy mountain – lp
beth orton – sugaring season – anti – lp
augustus pablo – dubbing in africa – abraham – lp
portishead – third – mercury – lp
rangda – false flag – drag city – lp
*rangda – formerly extinct – drag city – lp
*residents – eskimo – mvd – lp
scientist – scientific dub – clocktower – lp
suicide – ghost riders – roir – lp
*swans – seer – young god – 3lp
tortoise – tnt – thrill jockey – lp
*wipers – is this real? – jackpot – lp
*witch – havoc – now again – 6lp
*woods – bend beyond – woodsist – lp
thanks for listening….
listen records
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