Twiceremoved

Indefinate Hiatus

2011-11-25T22:57:00.001-08:00

Time has come to take a step back from this blog. Both this and the matching facebook page are taking up a large chunk of my life, which I need to reclaim. While I am saying indefinite it could be for good. I am way behind in writing posts and reviews and it is becoming a bit of a chore - I've never been that much of a writer/reviewer anyway.

Don't get me wrong I love the music I receive I'm just not able to articulate it better. My apologies go to the good folks behind the Hidden Shoal (check out free downloads for Kramies here and City of Satelites here), Feedback Loop, Room40 labels plus artists that have sent me stuff to review. I will be concentrating on the label with occasional forays into social media when required. Thanks to all who have sent stuff or commented, it's been fun.

A selection of Mixes/Podcasts

2011-11-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

If you, like me have to use public transport to get to work an mp3 player is a necessity. If you can't be bothered changing tracks/artists nothing is better than a mix or a podcast. The following are some of my favourites that are either mixes or label podcast. All can be downloaded at their links.

*Irish musician Donnacha Costello aka Modul has a great Ambient based mix for the Bodytonic series that includes artists like Burial, Shuttle 358, Aphex Twin, Rachels, etc.. a really great mix which can be picked up here.

*Rachel Evans of Motion Sickness of Time Travel, Quiet Evenings (duo with her husband Grant aka Nova Scotian Arms) and the Hooker Vision label has a mic on the mnml ssgs page that covers the underground experimental drone scene with tracks from Emeralds, Expo 70, Lee Noble and others and can be got here.

*Pontone have a bunch of great mixes/podcasts up, such as the uber groovy Not Not Fun, Strategy, GAS, Raster Noton, Kranky and others.

*Big American Night (formerly Kinosport) has some great mixes. I recommend Kylma Musiikki a winter/ambient mix that in it's almost 2 hours in length features Brian Eno, Oval, GAS, Stars of the Lid, Spiritualized and others.

*Low Light Mixes, well there is no mix to recommend, I recommend them all. Great minimal, haunting, droning ambient mixes which can be found here.

*Typecasts are radio style mixes from artists affiliated with the Type label. You can get podcasts/mixes from such diverse artists such as Svarte Greiner, Xela, Pete Swanson, Shaula, Yellow Swans, Jeffre Cantu-Ledesma, Simon Scott and others here.

*Headphone Commute, other than posting a bucket load of posts have a mean line in podcasts from the likes of artists/labels such as Field Rotation, Time Released Sound, Hibernate, Home Normal, Hidden Shoal, Raster Noton and tons more. Check them out here.

*Local promoters Life is Noise have a series of mixes called "Eat a Bag of Mix" where they get some local creative types to do a mix. Such creatives have included Craig McElhinney, Camryn Rothenbury, Traianos Pakioufakus, Andrew Sinclair, Adam Trainer, Predrag Delibasich and others ans can be found here.

Twice Removed Records

2011-11-07T03:03:00.001-08:00

Just a quick plug to get you to check out the blog for my micro label which will have it's first release in stores next week. please check out Twice Removed Records. Thanks.

N-qia "Qia songs"

2011-10-31T14:55:00.000-07:00

There are times where I get links in my inbox from artists and labels that I haven't heard about or can't remember signing up for newsletters,etc... N-Qia and their "Qia songs" release is one such release where I can vaguely remember signing up to the net label that released it, Italian net label La bèl records. N-qia are a Tokyo based duo of Nozomi (vocals) and Takma (programming) and their short 4 track 18 minute Ep "Qia Songs" is a nice little treat. Starting off with "Frosty" which mixes Jazz percussion classical/flamenco guitar with cute Japanese vocals before the glitches and loops start kicking in (reminding me of Nobukazu Takemura) and ends quite far removed from the beginning. "Dust" has some sax, vocals, piano, clicks and cuts and glitches. "Wander" would sit well on the Raster Noton catalogue again with a jazz element mixed with synth glitch and some almost break beat like minimal percussion. "Fullmoon" is the more frantic of the tracks on the EP with chimes, various layers of sound - percussion, loops, vocals, ambiance and comes across as the most IDM like of the tracks on this EP. As I said before it's a nice treat of an ep and you should also check out their "Sweet Sequence" ep on Portuguese net label MIMI. You can pick this up from La bèl

Talvihorros "Descend..."

2011-10-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

Talvihorros is UK artist Ben Chatwin and his most recent release id the CD/LP "Descent into Delta" which came out on August 26 on the great Hibernate label (I've been sitting on my digital promo since the 24th of September, while I did the Home Normal,etc... posts). A guitarist by trade, his albums aren't just "guitar based drone, etc..." he is more of a sound artist that utilises the guitar in crafting his pieces.

According to the label: "During the mixing process the concept to Descent Into Delta was born and it slowly developed through many hours of editing and arrangement. Chatwin became interested in different states of mind, realising it actually produces frequencies or waves - much like sound, itself. When the mind is alert, awake or anxious, these waves are Gamma, at the other extreme, during deep sleep, Delta waves are produced. It was in turn Chatwin's intention that the sounds of Descent Into Delta would loosely depict a journey from Gamma through to Delta, as a kind of experiment to see whether the listener could be subconsciously encouraged to trace this path through sound."

This is first evident when the track "Gamma" morphs into "Beta", a track so impressive that I've thought the album should be named "Descent into Beta". "Beta" has wafts of guitar, background drones, voices buried deep in the mix, crunchy textures and for some reason the central melody makes me think of Brian Eno, though I can't put my finger on why. "Alpha" is a slow building track where over time the background becomes the foreground and the drones, guitar loops come to the for around the 5 minute mark and become the central part of the piece, before ending in a vapour trail of guitar.

If the album is a concept on frequencies/waves and the patterns of the mind, the track "Theta" starts to signal the coming of sleep cycle with the restless activity coming to an end at the track. The track is a logical progression for "Beta" and "Alpha" in that the music is getting more active, lots of guitar loops cutting in and out, left and right, building up until around the 7 and a half minute mark where the music becomes more subdued and almost ambient, but with restrained elements of what has gone before it signalling the oncoming deep sleep waves of "Delta". "Delta" is a soothing drone piece of guitar and violin that while embracing the the idea of deep sleep has elements of it that link around to "Gamma" and "Beta" and bring the album full circle. Totally recommended.

You can buy this and other Talvihorros releases from his band camp here. Also check out and get your hands on anything you can by Hibernate Records.

Perth Discography - Update 1

2011-10-24T05:03:00.000-07:00

Perth Discography 2000 - Onwards
Edit: This is the first update of the discography. Initially I wasn't going to bother as I had received zero feedback, but the blog's statistics showed that this was one of the more popular post. I also got in contact with some people (Scott Bishop - Heartless Robot Productions, Adam Trainer and Dan Griffin - Future Past records) who filled in some gaps. As always, feedback is appreciated for this to be an ongoing post.

The idea behind this was to get some sort of concrete view of what had been released in the independent scene in Perth. Originally I wanted to do once post Meupe (ie around 2004 - onwards) as getting into that label brought me back to getting into Perth music. I decided to then focus on releases since 2000, but of course there are several releases included that are pre 2000 and they belong to The Tigers and Gata Negra. I decided to include them as their influence and continued involvement is still visible (see the recent "Human Xerox" compilation). The list was drawn from my collection, myspace, facebook, blogs, record stores, etc... and of course there are going to be some omissions. The main rule for the discography was that the release had to be available for purchase (either physically or via download) or free download. If it was a digital single that was taken from another release or just a soundcloud track then it wasn't included. It was obvious that the music fit into the the style that is covered in this blog, so therefore there is a bit of a bias.

I would like to make it as complete as possible so help with the missing parts (Catalogue #'s, copies made, year of release, etc...) is greatly appreciated. You can contact me at twicerememberedtwiceremoved@gmail.com

A
Abe Sada "Subzilla" (Bloodstar, cd-r, BS32) 2009
Abe Sada "The Lost Chord" (Kubitsuri Tapes, cd, S;E;X59-030CD) 2008
Abe Sada "Tatare Steppe" (VLZ Produkt, cd) 2009
Abe Sada / Sub Ordnance split 12" (Heartless Robot Productions, 12", HRP007) 2011
Acapulco Boatmen "Water Dwellers in a Desert World" (Emerald Cabal, cd-r, MEC005) 2011
Airport City Shuffle 3"
Airport City Shuffle "Death of Robot"
Airport City Shuffle "Iceberg"
Airport City Shuffle "Kitty Clean"
Airport City Shuffle "Set this Record Straight"
Airport City Shuffle "Something is at the Window Scratching
Airport City Shuffle "Summer 06/07 Tour cd"
Airport City Shuffle "When Simians attack"
Apricot Rail "S/T" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR053) 2009
Apricot Rail "Surry Hills" (Hidden Shoal, download, HSR0 ) 2011 Astral Travel (Fifth Column, 7", Ze4004, 150 copies) 2009. Absolutely no idea what the songs are called.
At Waugh With Gieles "May Echoes from Ballard" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF01) 2005

B
Bamodi "S/T" (Love is My Velocity, cd, LIMV ) 2009
Bamodi/Bariken "Split" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP HRP004) 2009

C
Canyons (At Waugh With Gieles) "Scraped clean by the Wind" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF02) 2006
Cat Hope/High Impedence "Split" (8" polycarbonate)
Cat Hope "Fetish" (cd)
Cat Hope "Live Regret"
Chris Cobilis "Courtesy of the Young Lad’s Parents" (cass) 1997
Chris Cobilis "I Get So Mad" (cass) 1998
Chris Cobilis "Running to Rhythm" (cass) 1998
Chris Cobilis "I Am Quit" (cass) 1999
Chris Cobilis "St. Catherine" (CDr) 2000
Chris Cobilis "Black Leotard & Purple Leotard" (FFace Records, cd-r) 2004 Business card cd-r.
Chris Cobilis "Great Days, Blocked" (Wilting Flower Recordings, cd-r) 2006
Chris Cobilis "Two Hams In a Can" (Brothers Eerie Stratum Records, cd-r) 2006
Chris Cobilis "Have you seen her?" (Meupe, cd-r, Meupe 07, 100 copies) 2006, 3" cd-r in printed jewel case and hand sewn bag.
Chris Cobilis "Double Satan" (Meupe, cd-r, Meupe 14, 30 copies) 2009
Chris Cobilis "Triple Satan" (Disc Snap, cd-r) 2010
Chris Cobilis/Psychedelic Desert "Split" (Heartless Robot Productions, cass, HRPM001) 2010
Chris Cobilis "Some Sounds"(Disc Snap, cd-r) 2010
Clustering Illusion "Creatic Secretions" (Friends in the World, FITW001, download) 2011
Cobilis/Hudson "Hello Satan" (cd-r)
Cycle ~440 "The Geography of Collapsing Structures" (Download) 2011

D
Pablo Dali "California Grey" (Meupe, cd-r. Meupe 2, 100 copies) 2005. 3" cd-r in printed jewel case.
Predrag Delibasich "Serpent Bites the Young Man + This season's Colourful Tones" (Heartless Robot Productions, 7" + cd-r, HRP003/HRP003.5, 150 copies) 2009. Both 7" tracks appear on cd-r.
Predrag Delibasich "Dance to my gentle music, monster" (Download) 2011
Dobson and Fitch "S/T" (cd)

E
Enargeia "Gulag! 25/09/98" (Hidden Shoal, download, HSR009) 2007
Enargeia "UFO: Stryker Force" (Hidden Shoal, download, HSR006) 2006
Erasers "S/T" ep (Owls, cd-r, 40 copies) 2010
Erasers "Summer" (Solid Melts, Cass/download, Solid Melts 011, 50 copies) 2010. Comes with Download code.
Erasers "Autumn" (Metal Postcard, 7", MP22, 500 copies) 2010. Comes with download code.
Ermine Coat " Lp" (cd-r/download) 2010

F
Fall Electric "...three A.M." (cd-r) 2005
Fall Electric "...these asteroids make rings from afar" (cd-r) 2005
Fall Electric "Measure and Step" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR041) 2008
Fall Electric "Cold Bahama" (cd)
Fall Electric "Burning Flag" (cd-r) 2010
Gilbert Fawn "Dead Rhythm" (Grave New World, cd-r, GNWCD02) 2010
Gilbert Fawn "Tangkuban Perahu" (Friends in the World, FITW004, download) 2011
Field of Sound "Monochrome Sky" (cd)
Field of Sound "Solar" (cd)

Paul Fiocco "Torsions and Drifts" (Meupe, cd-r, Meupe 15, 150 copies) 2009
Andrew Forster "Accept and forgive human flaws" (Owls, cd-r,) 2010
Found: Quantity of Sheep "S/T" (cd)
Found: Quantity of Sheep "Monkey + Valve" (cd & dvd)
Frank & The Can I Speaklys/Soul of a Condemned Ape "Split" (Farmer Frontier/Ros, 7" FF010/Ros01, 150 copies) 2008
Javier Frisco "Opiate Southern Gardens of Orchids" (Emerald Cabal, cass, MEC007)
Javier Frisco "Graveyard Summer Blues / Songs from Cedar Chalice" (Emerald Cabal, cass, MEC008)
Frozen Ocean "Initial Mission" (cd)
Frozen Ocean "Filthy Fuckin Ruckus" (cd-r) 2011, in hand spray painted card board sleeve.
Frozen Ocean/Clean Living "Split" (Future Past, cass,/download, 35 copies) 2011

Fur Chick "Rabbits in Space" (cd-r, 75 Copies) 2010 Hand made sewn covers.

G
Gata Negra "Cage of Stars" (Telescopic, cd) 1999
Gata Negra " Saint Dymphnae" (Bloodstar, cd) 2002
Gata Negra "Once Upon a Star" (Bloodstar, cd) 2002
Gata Negra "Ruby" (Bloodstar, lp/download, BS31) 2006
Glassacre "Slow Attack" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR05) 2006
Ghost Drums "S/T" (Love is My Velocity, Usb/Download/cd-r, LIMV11) 2009/2011. Initially a USB/download release, but copies where pressed as a cd-r following the "Human Xerox" launch.
The Ghost of 29 Megacycles "Neil Diamond is not the God of Thunder and Rock and Roll" (cd-r)
The Ghost of 29 Megacycles "10, 000 Flying Girls" (cd-r)
The Ghost of 29 Megacycles "Love Via Paper Planes" (Sound & Fury, cd, S&f025, 500 copies) 2009
The Ghost of 29 Megacycles "The Hummingbird Dream" (Hellosquare, cd, Cube043) 2010
The Gulls "California Christmas/Yam Yam" (Gull Slug, cd-r/download, 100 copies) 2010
Gutter Guitar & Bassta! Pex "Split" (Heartless Robot Productions, Lp, HRP001, 100 copies) 2009. Each copies cover was hand designed drawn by an individual artist.
Gutter Guitar & Bassta! Pex "Split" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd-r, HRP1.5) 2009. Cd-r edition mainly for those artists that designed covers of the Lp with some going into stores.

Harmony Joy Ride

Happy Familys "Demo" (Emerald Cabal, cass, MEC002)
Harmony Joy Ride "Calypso Rag Pronto" (cd-r) 2005 Each cover seems to be unique.
Harry Smith "Scooter" (cd)
Harry Smith "Preleigh" (cd-r) 2005
Hooper's Store "When was the Plasticine Era?" (cd)

I
Injured Ninja "Circuitboard" (cd) 2007
Injured Ninja/French Rockets "Split" (Heartless Robot Productions, 12" & dvd, HRP005) 2010
Injured Ninja "Golden mountain Top" (Heartless Robot Productions, 7"/download, HRP009) 2010
Injured Ninja "Vs Skylazer" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd/download, HRP011) 2011
Injured Ninja / Fangs of... Split 7" (Aniseed Records, 7", 200 copies) 2011
Injured Ninja "Redeemer/Skylazer Remixed" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP014) 2011

J
Jasmine Loop Control "On the Last Days of Christmas" (Wilting Flower, cd-r) 2005
Jasmine Loop Control "Eeterin Kutsumus" (cd)

L
Lux Mammoth "Hertz Circus" (cd)
Lux Mammoth "New Gauge Sinner" (cd)

M
Matzal "At the Instant" (cd)
Craig McElhinney "You and Me are Young and Brutal" (Meupe, cd, Meupe 12) 2009
Craig McElhinney "Loser Orientation" (Meupe, cd-r, Meupe 16, 66 copies) 2009
Craig McElhinney "Be Water My Friend" (Grave New World, cd-r, GNWCD04) 2010
Craig McElhinney "Temple Pathworkings" (Grave New World. cd-r, GNWCD08) 2011
Craig McElhinney "I Wish you had believed me" (Friends in the World, FITW003 download) 2011
Mental Powers/Free Choice "Split" (Fifth Column, 7", FC02) 2009
Mental Powers "Untitled" (Badminton Bandit, cd, BB04, 500 copies) 2010 in hand painted kraft mailer sleeve.
Mental Powers "Stuffed Alive" (Badminton Bandit, cd/Download, BB08, 500 copies) 2010 comes in clam shell.
Mental Powers "Homoh" (Badminton Bandit, Lp/Digital, BB013, 150 copies) 2011
Dave Miller "Mitchelss Raccolta" (Background Records, cd, BG045) 2005
Dave Miller "Regional Raccolta Remakes" (Meupe, cd-r, Meupe 05, 100 copies) 2006 3" cd-r in printed jewel case and hand sewn bag. Remixes from Victor Berman, Stina, Pablo Dali and Chris Cobilis.
Milkless Fridge "S/T" (Unit5 Records, cd, Unit6001) 2005
Mukaizake "Mapping the Static" (Quietly Suburban, cd, QSR015) 2003
Mukaizake "Unknown Knows" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR060) 2009
Mundaring Weird "S/T" (Grave New World, 3" cd-r/download, 30 copies) 2010
Mundaring Weird "Southern Crosshair" (download) 2011
Mundaring Weird "Isolation" (Friends in the World, FITW005, download) 2011
My Majestic Star "Ideas are the Answer" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR02) 2006
My Majestic Star "Fining" (Hidden Shoal, download, HSR014) 2006
My Majestic Star "Too Late the Day" (Hidden Shoal,cd/download, HSR037) 2008
My Majestic Star "I Haven't Got it in Me" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR063) 2009

O
Obscotch "Counterconsumate" (Obscotch, cd-r, Oscotch 03, 20 copies) 2006. Comes in Dvd case.
Obscotch "Samael Makaw" (cd-r/download) 2010
Obscotch "Miasma Eden" (cd-r/download) 2011
Ourobonic Plague "Gaap" (cd-r/download, 25 copies) 2011

Penetrating Stairs/Magic Window "Live at 208" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF04) 2007

R
Rabbit Island/Gilbert Fawn "Split" (Badminton Bandit, 7" BB012, 150 copies) 2011
Rabbit Island "O God, Come Quick" (Badminton Bandit, cd, BB014, 500 copies) 2011
Radarmaker "Aristocracy and the Horse" (cd, 500 copies) 2005
Radarmaker "Drawn Like Spires" (cd, 500 copies) 2006

M. Rosner "Post" (12X50, cd-r, Carbon Series 3, 200 copies) 2004

M. Rosner "Alluvial" (Room40, cd, RM408) 2005

M. Rosner "Morning Tones" (Apestaartje, cd, staartje 020) 2006

M. Rosner/Gareth Hardwick "Silhouettes 1" (Hellosquare, cd-r, Cube10) 2007

M. Rosner/Seaworthy Split 3" (Hellosquare, 3" cd-r, Cube17) 2008

M. Rosner "Repeat" (Miatera, LP, Miatera02, 500 copies) 2009, came in deluxe, black and white vinyl editions.

M. Rosner "Tape Series, Volume 1" (Meupe, cass, Meupe 17, 50 copies) 2010

M. Rosner and Seaworthy "Two Lakes" (12k, cd, 12K1062) 2010
Camryn Rothenbury "Patina" (Grave New World, download, GNWDIG01) 2011
Camryn Rothenbury "Schrödinger's Pet Hate" (Grave New World, download, GNWDIG02) 2011
Royal Vomit "Graveyard Summer Blues" (Emerald CabalCass/cd-r, MEC001)
Royal Vomit/ Union Sacred Ibis "Split" (Emerald Cabal, cass/download, MEC003)
Royal Vomit "Gross Coven" (Emerald Cabal, cass/download, MEC004)
Royal Vomit / Cock Safari "Split" (Badminton Bandit, Cass/doownload, BB010) 2010

S
Sacred Flower Union "Wave" (Future Past,cass)
Sacred Flower Union "Bali Wedding" (Future Past, cass)
Sacred Flower Union "The Babbling Brook" (Future Past, cass)
Sacred Flower Union "Ocean Friend" (Future Past, cass)
Sacred Flower Union "Bright Tree Villiage" (Future Past, cass)
Sacred Flower Union "Live @ Eden" (Future Past, cass)
Sacred Flower Union "Miley Cyrus vrs the Ross river Virus" (Future Past, cass)
Sacred Flower Union "High Tea" (Future Past, cd-r) Hand painted sleeve.
Sacred Flower Union "The Reptile Age" (Future Past, download)
Salamander "Overslugs" (Ep, download) 2010
Salamander "Jaws of theVise" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd/download, HRP012) 2011
Salamander/Ourobonic Plague "Burnt Vessels" (Ep, download) 2011

Schvendes "The Scoundrel Is made an Outcast" (cd)
Schvendes "Turn Out Your Lights" (Schvendes, cd, SCH001) 2005
Schvendes "Twice The Man" (Schvendes, cd, SCH002) 20s05
Schvendes "Small Mercies, Sweet Graves" (Schvendes, cd, SCH003) 2005
Schvendes "Sweet Talk Your Enemies" (Good Cop Bad Cop, cd, GCGC003) 2008
Schvendes "Lay the Noose" (cd-r, 200 copies) 2010
Schuster "Breaking Down into His Own Oblivian" (Adeptsound, cd-r, ADSPC03, 50 copies) 2009. Packaged in screen printed mailer type sleeve which is sealed and requires to be teared open to get to cd-r.
Schuster "1-5 Microns" (Adeptsound, cd-r, ADSCDR02, 50 copies) 2010
Sexy Band "Sexy Band" (cd-r) 2002
Sexy Band "Sexy Band 2" (cd-r) 2002
Sexy Band "Sexy Band 3" (cd-r) 2002
Andrew Sinclair "Evil Summer" (Owls, cd-r/download, Owls 10, 100 copies) 2011
Andrew Sinclair "Extra Summer" (Owls, cd-r/download, Owls 11, 50 copies) 2011. Available at launch only.
Soviet Valves "S/T" (cd-r) 2004
The Silent World "Eye for an Ear" (cd) 2010
Silver Bulletin "Four Elephants/ O'er" (Farmer frontier, cd-r FF05, Business card cd-r) 2009
Silver Bulletin "Diamond Vibrations" (Grave New World, cd-r/download, GNWCD01) 2010
Silver Bulletin "Obsessive Mantras" (Grave New World, cd-r/download, GNWCD05) 2010
Silver Bulletin "Magnetic Dimensions" (Grave New World, cd-r/download, GNWCD07) 2010
Silver Bulletin "Opposing Forces" (Grave New World, download, GNWDIG03) 2011
Silver Bulletin "Futureless Future" (Grave New World, download, GNWDIG04) 2011
Silver Bulletin "Ox of the seven Combats" (Friends in the World, FITW002, download) 2011
smRts "Sun Sets on a new Tomorrow" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP008)2010
Soviet Valves/Whitechapel "Split" (7" polycarbonate, 50 copies) 2005 SV track from "S/T Whitechapel track is "Self Taught Anaesthetist".
Soviet Valves "Fun, Safe & Anonymous" (cd) 2005
Soviet Valves "Sight that harms/Gaze that Harms" (SmartGuy Records, 7" smart 024) 2005. 4 tracks from "Fun..." 100 copies on green vinyl.
Splendid Friends "Prognosis Negative!" (Farmer Frontier,cd-r, FF08) 2009
Splendid Friends "Summer Moon Illusion" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF09) 2009
Splendid Friends "Denpasar Love Triangle" (Grave New World, cd-r, GNWCD03) 2010
Splendid Friends "Winter Sun Reality" (Grave New World, cass, GNWCASS01) 2010
Splendid Friends "Black Drugs" (Grave New World, cass, GNWCASS02) 2011
Stina "Pocket Songs" (Meupe, cd, Meupe 1) 2004. First press with Tracer paper sleeve and badge, second press a Digipak.
Stina "Summer in Mariana" (Someone Good, cd, RSMG011) 2011

T
Taco Leg "Spider in the mouth" (Taco Leg, Cass) 2008.CS20
Taco Leg "Freemason's Hall" (Fan Death Records, 7" FDR04) 2009
Taco Leg/Constant Mongrel "Split" (Wuss Records, cass, 80 copies) 2010
Taco Leg "Live at Tanya's" (Badminton Bandit, cd-r, BB09, 150 copies) 2010 in riso printed cover.
Tangled Star "It's now or later" (Hidden Shoal, download, HSR012) 2006
Tangled Star "Our Man on Eden Hill (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR031) 2008
Tangled Star "That Time" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR052) 2009
These Shipwrecks "Leda" (Frosty You Haunt Me, cd-r) 2009
These Shipwrecks "Salt, Sulphur, Mercury" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP010) 2010
The Tigers - "Death From Above" (cd) 1998
The Tigers - "Space Coyote" (cd, DEB001A) 1999
The Tigers - "Remixes" (Sensory projects. 2cd) 2000
The Tigers - "Christmas Album" (Sensory Projects, cd) 2002
The Tigers - "It Hath Been… "(cd) 2002. Came in DVD case.
The Tigers - "Beautiful Forest" (CD, Sensory Projects 2007)
The Tigers / Stina "Now That I’m Old…" (Love Is My Velocity, 7"/Download, LIMV09, 500 copies) 2008
Adam Trainer "Happy 3" (Wilting Flower Records, 3" cd-r, No #, 50 copies) 2007
Adam Trainer/Shoeb Ahmad "Split" (Frosty You Haunt Me, Frosty You Haunt Me 5, cd-r, 50 copies) 2008
Adam Trainer "Twice Worn" (Hellosquare, cd-r, Cube 030, 100 copies) 2009
Adam Trainer "Tour Ep 2010" (cd-r, 60 copies) 2010
Trash Band 1987 "At Midnight I will Take Your Soul" (Wilting Flower Records, 3" cd-r) 2005

U
Usurper of Modern Medicine "Acid Chess" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP013) 2011
V
Various Artists "A Million Square Miles" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR057, Mukaizake, Tangled Star, Apricot Rail, Fall Electric, My Majestic Star, The Slow Beings, Toby Richardson, Glassacre) 2009
Various Artists "Ambassador from Everywhere" (Meupe, download, Meupe 13, Contributions from: M. Rosner, Craig McElhinney, Chris Cobilis, Wooshie, At Waugh with Gieles, Paul Fiocco, Traianos Pakiofakis) 2009
Various Artists "Christmas" (Meupe/Wilting Flower Records, cd-r, Meupe 08/WFXMAS, 90 copies, Stina, At Waugh with Gieles, Oakover,M. Rosner, Traianos Pakiofakis, Chris Cobilis, Jasmine Loop Control with Emily Williams) 2006, Given away at December 20th gig at Rosemount Hotel.
Various Artists "Farmer Frontier Two Dollar Series Cd #1" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, At Waugh
with Gieles, Chris Cobilis, Wooshie, Marc Kaminiski, Gargamel Gibson) Covers made from pages of a book. 2009
Various Artists "First Past the Pawns" (First Past the Post, cd-r, Contributions from: Chr15m and Fenris, Louis Inglis, Miteyko, Jeff Strong, Superengine) 2005. Came with Issue #7 of "First Past the Post" 'zine.
Various Artists "First Past the Pole" (First Past the Post, cd-r, Contributions from: Paul Fiocco and Kane Ikin, Airport City Shuffle, Matt Rosner and Snowman) 2004. Came with issue #6 of "First Past The Post 'zine" and also came with Radarmaker "Arm vs Fiery Antenna" dvd
Various Artists "First Past the Pose" (First Past the Post,cd-r, Contributions from: Found: Quantity of
Sheep, Jasmine Loop Control, Milkless Fridge, Dave Miller) 2005 . Came with issue #8 of First Past the Post 'zine.
Various Artists "Heartless Robot Label Sampler 2010" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd-r, Wind Waker, Quick, smRts, Steve Matzkov, French Rockets, Craig McElhinney, Injured Ninja, Mauna Loa, Ravens and Crows) 2010 Gig Giveaway 16 April 2010.
Various Artists "Human Xerox Project Beautiful Florist" (Emerald Cabal, cd-r, 100 copies, Silver Bulletin, Ghost Drums, Riddles, Javier Frisco, Lil' Leonie Lionheart, Tristan + the heat death of the universe, Gilbert Fawn + Ambrose Rock, Lines, Predrag Delibasich, Rabbit Island, Tin Man, Omar Olajuwon) 2011
Various Artists "Mixed Season" (Owls, Cass, Owls 009, 75 copies. Contributions from: Erasers, The Ghost of 29 Megacycles) 2011
Various Artists "Owls Sampler 2010" (Owls, cd-r, Owls 007, 25 copies, Andrew Forster, Erasers) 2010, Comes rapped in brown paper and tied up with string.
Various Artists "Smell You Later" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP002, 3 way split from Stina, Chris Cobilis and Gutter Guitar) 2008
Various Artists "Snapshot 1" (Feral Media, cd-r No #, features Adam Trainer, The Ghost of 29 Megacycles) 2008
Various Artists "Tea for Two" (Meupe, cd, Meupe 04, features contributions form local artis: Stina, The Break-ups, Pablo Dali, Dave Miller, Victor Berman, Fiam and Chris Cobilis) 2005
Various Artists "The Dada Tapes" (Dada Records, cd/download, 200 copies. Features contributions from Royal Vomit, Kabouter's Forest, Seams, Salamander, Bamodi, Astral Travel, SmRts, Frozen Ocean, Theintensoband, The Tigers, Mental Powers, Masonik, Mayor Dadi, Kynan Tan, Jane Harris, The Ghost of 29 Megacycles, Gilbert Fawn, The Wednesday Society, The Good Boys, Electric Gooch, Sonpsilo Circus,These Shipwrecks) 2011 Given away at gigs at the store.

W
Water Temple "Leg Session Demo" (Download) 2011
Whalehammer "Subterranean" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF05) 2006
Whalehammer "Dream Tape" (Badminton Bandit, cd-r, BB07, 40 copies)
Wigwam "Sweat Lodge" (Badminton Bandit, cd-r, BB05, 40 copies) 2009
Wind Waker "S/T" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP006) 2009
Wooshie "Natural is in it" (Farmer Frontier/Meupe FF 07/Meupe 11, 7", 150 copies) 2009

Z
Zilverhill "+Eotvos+" (Adeptsound, cd, ADSBSCD01, 500 copies) 2008
Zilverhill "Latent-Active-Descent" (Adeptsound, cd, ADSPC02, 500 copies) 2009. Comes with #'d postcard.

Tokyo Droning

2011-10-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

Here is the second installment of the recent Home Normal/Nomadic Kids Republic/Tokyo Droning releases. This time focusing on the Tokyo Droning imprint which has recently been reactivated. The first release came out in August of 2009 and they where two releases by Offthesky and Segue before the label was put on ice. Now that the label has been reactivated, the first two releases and been re-released, with a selection of other known artists. The renewed focus has also seen a change in the packaging from a card #'d sleeve to a more intricate and home made look which can be best seen at the Tokyo Droning site.

Offthesky's "Fluorescence" (TD001) is a 30 minute drone composition based on a two minute recording of fluorescent light. It is a piece that is steady building with an ominous drone that veers into noise territory around the 8 minute mark before shifting into a slow glacial drone around the 16 minute mark. Offthesky aka Jason Corder is a prolific artist, most recently having "The Beautiful Nowhere" release on Hibernate, "Subtle Trees" on Nomadic Kids Republic and "Endless Yonder" on SEM with a new one due soon on Rural Colours. His work covers alot of the musical spectrum such as the minimal house release under his own name, but this release is probably Jason at his most experimental. Interestingly enough he still has copies for sale of the original sold out first press available here.

Segue is Jordan Sauer from Canada who ran the now defunct Duckbay label and his work has appeared on labels such as Autoplate, Slow Flow Recs and Under The Spire to name a few."Grey" (TD002) originally came out in September 2009. Described by the label as an "Organic folk drone record" it is a release of subtle beauty. The drones contained within are very soothing without getting anywhere near that annoying grating style that some drone records can be.Each track has the element of time in the sense that they are able to unfold at their own accord, not be rushed or have too many elements cluttering them. Highlights are "Turn" and "The Holiday".

Tobias Hellkvist's name would be familiar to Home Normal fans/collectors as Ian has already released his "Evolutions" album on that label. This time round it's "Kaskelot" (TD003) with a future release planned on Nomadic Kids Republic. When you read that recordings like this are improvised it's hard to believe as the compositions seem so formed like the musician has been working for a long time and perfected just what they are doing. "Kaskelot" was recorded one night in April using piano, vibraphone, pump organ.guitar, pedal steel loops and percussion. Divided up to 4 "Kaskelot" tracks, the tracks have a building post rock sound with chiming guitars that are complimented by the piano and vibraphone, kept in time with the subtle steady

percussion. "Kaskelot 3" sees the piano coming to the fore, while "Kaskelot 4" is dominated by the droning guitar. Easily a favourite release of mine from this year.

Tanner Menard's "Dark Pianos" (TD004) is composed using 30 foot long piano. As the label states: "There were absolutely no effects used, with all the "reverberation coming from the fact that the damper pedal is held down through the entirety of each track". To label this as a solo piano record would be only hinting at it's contents. It's more of a minimal sound record using the piano as the sound source not as a conventional instrument. For example the piano is more obvious in the track "I Don't remember her name" than it is in "In (CC) and Decay". This is the kind of album you need to listen to in complete silence as it is very minimal and requires deep attention. You should also check out his works (and those of others) on his Archaic Horizon label.

David Newlyn "Social Claustrophobia" (TD005) is an artist and label owner himself (October Man Recordings) whose releases have appeared on labels like Mobeer, Time Released Sound and Cotton Goods. His release for Tokyo Droning is a release that like in it's title seems a little claustrophobic in the sense that it has so many things going on in it's 38 minutes and 15 tracks. It shifts from haunting ambiance/drone (see "Bright Dusty Things") to orchestral (see "In January") to processed field recordings (see "Unmapped") and for me if

it focused on one or two of these elements it would be a better all round release. Highlights are "Bright Dusty Things" and "Sinking".

Jeremy Bible and Jason Henry's "Spc" (TD006) is the latest release from these two colllaborators, musicians in their own right and label boss and artists. Together they have worked on releases on labels like Greunkorder, Infraction, Mystery Sea and Resting Bell, while Jeremy Bible runs Experimedia and is influential in the look of those first 30 Home Normal releases. "Spc" is a 5 track, 49 minute release that can best described as Sound Art and encompasses Drones, Minimal Ambiance, Glitches, Sharp Tones, Electroacoustic elements and a whole lot of melody, something that tends to be missing in some music of this kind. The highlights for me are the tracks "Spc 1" and "Spc 3" which fuse the above elements the best creating great hauntingly melodic pieces.

All Tokyo Droning releases show attention to detail and are mostly handmade and need to be seen to be appreciated. As always they are available via Home Normal.

Latest tracks by Tokyo Droning

Home Normal/Nomadic Kids Republic latest releases

2011-10-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

I received a stack of the forthcoming Home Normal/Tokyo Droning/Nomadic Kids Republic releases from label boss Ian Hawgood a little while back and have been attempting to absorb them which has been difficult as you can easily get stuck on one release and neglect the rest, such is the high quality of the output of his labels.Ian's labels have been extremely prolific and popular this year which has resulted in some amazing albums, but has also meant that his personal output has taken a back seat, which hopefully will be remedied in the new year (I'm sure I'm not the only one trying to release something by him).

Gareth Davis / Jan Kleefstra/ Romke Kleefstra's "Tongerswel" (Home n 27) is a collaboration that came about when Jan Kleefstra accidentally order a Gareth Davis album and liked the results that they got in contact to do some recordings. The result has been the "Sieleslyk" ep on Rural Colours, the above album and a forthcoming release on Hibernate. As the label states: "In the studio the bass clarinet of Gareth and the guitar of Romke whirled carefully around each other. It resulted in sparse sounds by both instruments; minimal music with an experimental whiff, acoustic, patiently moving, melancholic and dreamy. The quiet moments give space for the modest spoken words by Jan, in the old native language of Frisian. Translations of his words are found in the booklet which comes with the release." The release has nice minimal sound (without going into the Richard Chartier/Asmus Tietchins area of minimalism), but the kind that lets the individual instruments have space and not dominate each other. The two main instruments, Bass Clarinet and Guitar compliment each other well while the spoken words from Jan gives the impression that the music is accompanying a narrative being told (having the digital version I'm left in the dark as to the translations and just what it is he is saying, but as with all Home Normal release I will pick it up on cd). This was released on September 9.

Félicia Atkinson's "OR-E-GON" (Home n 028) is a completely improvised album by this artist who has appeared on Hibernate records and has collaborated with Antony Harrison (Paco Sala). She was travelling through the US for two months and just had Lyme disease when she reached Portland, Oregon and entered the studio of Adam Seluzer who introduced her to a bunch of instruments she was unfamiliar with including fender rhodes, marimba and harmonium. The resulting 2 track album was recorded in one day with "Green and Grey" in the morning and "Grey and Green" in the afternoon. For an album to be improvised, recorded in a short period of time and on unfamiliar instruments to sound this good is amazing. Repetitive piano, spiralling drones, lush instrumentation, delectable softly spoken French and English, the tracks are separate entities even though they share similar names. "Green and Grey is dominated presumably by the Harmonium, while "Grey and Green" the Fender Rhodes takes centre stage. For me "Green and Grey" is the better of the two tracks as it's seems to me to be more realised, while "Grey and Green" seems like a sketch. The Album was released on September 16.

Autistici's "Amplified Precense" (Home n 29) is the latest from David Newman clinical psychologist and Audiobulb label boss. Described by Ian as: "one of the most expansive and deeply imaginative works we’ve heard in a long time. Throughout the ten pieces, David highlights an incredibly intense awareness and placement of a variety of sounds, which is perhaps one of his great trademarks or signatures. Where the album really caught me personally was in its sheer playfulness and the wonderful, almost child-like, melodies that spring forth throughout the entire record. It is a very rare talent indeed to at once be so intense, detailed and intelligent, whilst having something so dripping in melody that it takes a good few listens to really take on board just how rich in detail and development this record is." Definitely not an album that can be pigeonholed into a particular sound, but calling it electroacoustic would not be out of the question. Elements of field recording, glitch, organic instruments abound and create an eclectic sound. This is an album which is been getting good reviews and one I probably need to delve into more as I am just scraping the surface.

David Wenngren and Christopher Bissonnette's "The Meridians of Longitude and Parallels of Lattitude" (Home n30) is the last release with the original Home Normal artwork, which is being revamped by Ian and Christian Roth (Resting Bell/Humming Conch) for release 31 onwards. It is an exceptionally dense lush ambient album which utilises field recordings, orchestral drones, glitches and organic instruments in it's production to craft an album that is encapsulated by it's artwork - that sort of blurred look outwards into the winter. As soon as I heard it I new it was a contender for album of the year. It contains 5 long tracks with the "Their Hunted Expression" being a personal highlight, a track that covers so much territory and has great depth. You know you are onto a winning combination when the artists come from backgrounds like Library Tapes (David) and Kranky records (Christopher). The album see release on October 28.

Naoto Taguchi's "Nostalgia" (NKR006) is an album that is in the experimental electronica field for me and in ways reminds me of the Microstoria project of Jan St Werner and Markus Popp. Layers of glitches, pop, tones slide over one another, loops come in and out creating beatless soundscapes. While residing in the experimental camp it is never in your face and is quite soothing at times. 16 tracks run over 1 hour and there is a lot to process. Due to be released on October 12.

Polar M is the alias of Japanese musician Masumi Maranaka and his album "Northern Birds" (NKR007) is his first major work to be released outside of Japan. His soundscapes are mainly produced by electric guitar, but it's not that overly dominating. The tracks have a light playful summery character about them. What sound likes Piano mixed with Guitar, washes of Ambiance, occasional forays into IDM/glitch. The track "YSW" ventures into Boards of Canada territory. Due to be released on October 19.

He Can Jog is Wisconsin native Eric Schoster who has had releases on Audiobulb, Distance Recordings and Wolf Interval. His album "Norwwod, Wisconsin" (NKR008) is rumoured to be jis last in the foresable future (tho he has added a free live Ep to coincide with this release which you can get here) The album is made up of 3 long tracks "Company", "Gather/Burn/Echo" and "Pippi". Described as "noisy drone", "acousmatic", "computer music" he really stretches out and covers a lot of territory on the track "Gather/Burn/Echo" which goes from ambient to sort of glitchy electronica to acoustic pop to drone and back to hazy ambience sometimes all at the same time. Due for release on October 26.

Maps and Diagrams is the project of Tim Martin (also one half of Hessien) and he has had a busy year with at least 4 full length releases on imprints like Handstitched and Time Released Sound. His 2 releases on Nomadic Kids Republic are "Lights will call you" (NKR009) and "The Town Beneath the Sea" (NKR010). Both are different beasts. "Lights.." as indicated by the name has a lighter, airier more ambient feel with shimmery, shifting, distant drones, environmental hum, at times going close to the glacial end of ambiance (see "Hide yourself in Silence"), with the crackle and hiss that I am particularly fond of in recordings (see "Images, Distant thoughts"). "...Town" for me has a slightly darker edge to it as witnessed in the tracks "Darker Reflections", "High Reaches" "Jaxom (Spina)" and others. The tracks are more haunting than the shimmering tones produced on the compendium album and tend to be a bit more experimental with backwards phrasing, scattergun wasps of sound, etc... As Ian Hawgood states in the promo notes : "Lights Will Call On You and The Town Beneath The Sea, whilst quite different records, come as a natural pair as one follows the other so perfectly." They are to be released consecutively on the 2nd and 9th of November.

You can find more info here and purchase the releases through Home Normal here. Note: Post on Tokyo Droning release will published later.

Hibernate Sampler Volume 4.

2011-10-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hibernate records, that great British label have released their latest free compilation "Hibernate Sampler 4". All you need to do to get it is to Tweet about it. I didn't have a Twitter account, but now I do and this plus starting up the Twiceremoved microlabel was the reason behind it. Artists include: Offthesky, Field Rotation, Talvihorros, Part Timer, Yann Novak and others. You can also make a donation at the Hibernate bandcamp page to get a higher bit rate version and as usual with Hibernate there is a short run (25 copies) cd-r version. You can get it here and here.

Pascal Savy "Liminal"

2011-10-18T05:07:00.000-07:00

Pascal Savy's "Liminal" is the second cd-r release from Leonardo Rosado's Feedback Loop label. The first being Rosado's own "Opaque Glitter" which I reviewed here. This time around the artist is UK based self taught musician Pascal Savy who has previous releases on the Field Noises and Audiomoves labels.

The press release states that the music is composed using FM and Analogue synths, Piano, Oboe and Field Recordings to create the minimal/ambient/glitchy/electroacoustic music that spans the 4 tracks ("Falling Inward", "Reflective Shadow", "Transference" and "Lying Drifting") and ~21 minutes of this Ep. The tracks flow together smoothly, the reason being is that the tracks were created by cross pollinating elements of one into another until each track contained elements of the others. The influence of the tracks was Autumn nights were the nights get shorter.

The label states that "Liminal explores themes of solitude, loss of self and journey towards recovery - an inbetween where the sense of identity slowly dissolves into new forms". Elements of the themes can be sense in the tracks like "Reflective Shadow" which is the darkest sounding track on the Ep or "Lying Drifting" which as a name perfectly describes the music of the track.

As with the Leonardo Rosado release reviewed before this is recommended. You can order it here

Antonymes meets Slow Dancing Society

2011-10-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

"We Don't Look Back for Very Long" is the remix/reworking project of Ian M Hazeldine (aka Antonymes) using pieces of Drew Sullivan's (aka Slow Dancing Society) back catalogue by taking a track from each of the 4 Slow Dancing Society albums and giving them a new outlook over the space of 30 minutes. It's the perfect marriage of Sullivan's 80's era Ambient meet Hazeldine neo classical minimal ambient. To top it off it's mastered by Wil Bolton (Hibernate records artists and the owner of the fine "Time Lapse" album) and comes in a limited edition of 100 copies that are letter pressed on 700gm GF Smith board designed by Ian himself. The release is/was a pre-order available from the Hidden Shoal store with 60 copies being there and the remaining 40 going to Norman Records and Stashed Goods. I can't imagine they will last long. The digital release will be available on October 20.

2011 has been a very productive year for Antonymes, this being the third release on Hidden Shoal (the others being "The Licence to Interpret Dreams" album and the companion piece "Lost in waves of Light") as well as the release on Time Released Sound and the quality has been there through all the releases. Quite an achievement.
Antonymes meets Slow Dancing Society - "The Grey Sea And The Long Black Land" by Hidden Shoal

Cycle ~440

2011-10-10T04:37:00.000-07:00

Cycle ~440 are the duo of Sam Gillies and Kevin Penkin, both are/were students at WAAPA (WA Academy of Performing Arts) combining, as their Bio states "acoustic piano with extensive laptop sampling and processing to create alternating soundscapes of extreme fragility and overwhelming density". WAAPA is probably best known for dramatic arts (it's most famous graduate is Hugh Jackman), but it's been getting more known for it's experimental output, probably influence by composer, performer and teacher Cat Hope.

Their first release is the 50+ minute 8 track album "The Geography of Collapsing Structures" which is available via their Bandcamp page as a pay as much as you like download.

Latest tracks by Cycle~ 440

The album starts off with the track "In Memorium the Demiurge" which has ominous glitchy sounds with plaintive piano and what sounds like a manipulated/prepared piano with background glacial ambiance. This is in direct contrast to the Pateras like piano dominance of track two "Inoon". After a Reprise of the opening track, the duo fully embrace their experimental side with "Master/Slave" which involves what sounds like prepared piano and processing and has a filmic quality about it with a touch of retro "Liquid Sky isms" about it. "Rainbow Electronics" has a modern classical feel about it mixed with soundwave decay that wash in and out and compliment the almost percussive piano. It is probably the standout track on the ep as it merges the two styles perfectly to form one style. "Underneath" comes across a track based on decay. Minimal piano meets sinister Thomas Koner like atmospherics. "Eraserhead" takes the release in the Extreme Noise/Avaunt Garde field with bashings of piano meets washes of noise and a percussive battering of sounds. Correct me if I'm wrong, but "In the Twilight" sounds like reprise/versioning of "Rainbow Electronics".

Sam is also involved with RTRFM and presents the Difficult Listening show on Sunday nights. He is also part of the Noizemaschin!! group who put on experimental nights, recordings of which can be downloaded for free from their bandcamp page. He also has his own music available to stream/download at his Soundcloud page:
Latest tracks by samgillies

And you can check out some visuals here:

You can download the Cycle~440 album here.

Drowning Horse

2011-10-08T05:50:00.000-07:00

Most of the time I listen to or blog about music that's in the Ambient/Drone/Electroacoustic/Glitch/Experimental/Etc... style. But years ago, probably from '89 to '98 Hardcore and various extreme loud/fast/heavy music was what I predominantly listened to. So, I have a soft spot for some of this music still. Drowning Horse are a slow heavy as fuck Doom band from Perth who I 've gotten into recently. Call me a Johnny come lately, but other than the name I wasn't really aware of their sound till I started checking them out after everyone seem to split from the Craig McElhinney/Chris Cobilis/Carbuncle gig @ Dada's to see them support Russian Circles. Anyway here is a link to a live recording of the band which is pretty mind blowing. Think Sunn O))), (Early) Swans, Harvey Milk, etc... and your in the right ballpark. Check it out here.

Dreamland Recordings "Around" compilation

2011-10-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

So, you have around 527 Mb of free space and want to download a 37 track/artist compilation? You could do no better than Dreamland Recordings compilation "Around". This is a great compilation that features a bunch of known artists and lesser/unknown (to me) artists. The known include: Yellow6, The Ghost of 29 Megacycles, Tim Catlin, Absent Without Leave, Panoptique Electrical and Keith Levene! Anyway you can pick it up here

Leaving/Clean Living/Sacred Flower Union/Frozen Ocean

2011-10-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

The Owls label out of Perth is a label I am a fan of. Some 13 releases have been put out and I've managed to get my hands on physical copies of all but two. The latest releases on the label are from Leaving and Clean Living. Both are cd-r's and are limited to 50 copies.

Leaving "Leaving" (Owls 013) is the solo guise for Rupert Thomas one of the people who are behind the label and one part of local band Erasers. While Erasers are a post punk band with vocals, Leaving is an almost ambient project with other elements such as minimal percussion, retro synths, drones and a slight post punk feel. The tracks go by in their own time, not hemmed in by rhythms which enable them to unfold and give a different feel to Erasers. The Ep is bookmarked by two tracks "New Beginning" and "Infinite" which are more in the Ambient/Drone style while the 2nd and 3rd tracks "Time Wanders" and "False Starts" are more noisier synth drone driven with still minimal but more driving percussion than the other two tracks.

Clean Living "Are you Clean Living" (Owls 012) is the duo of Dan and Pat Griffin who instantly reminded me of Godhead Silo. Dan also records as Sacred Flower Union (formerly NONO) and runs the Future Past cassette label. The band has a very fuzz bass sound with great frantic drumming and vocals buried deep in the sound. "Squashed Witch" reminds me of an extended track from legendary Sydney Post Punk band Seems Twice. "Hornet" has an almost hardcore like intensity. "Girls/Polaris" turns all the previous tracks on their head, by going very experimental after starting off in traditional fashion. The status quo is returned on the final track of the ep "Flats" which is once more percussion dominated with dirty sub bass rhythms. Recommended for fans of dirty music.

Frozen Ocean Latest tracks by Clean Living

Sacred Flower Union is the solo project of Dan Griffin and it's in the more experimental vein. The tracks on the "High Tea" release are in the Industrial/Dark Ambient vein with light hints of Noise/Power Electronics. His releases have included cassettes and cd-r's such as "Wave", "Ocean Friend", "Bright Tree Village" and others. These usually come out on the Future Past label which specialises in recycled cassettes.
Latest tracks by sacred flower union

Frozen Ocean/Clean Living is the split cassette release from these two 2 piece avant rock units. Released on recycled painted cassettes on Future Past in a numbered edition of 35 copies (which includes a download code) it is a short sharp shock of an Ep. Frozen Ocean have 4 tracks beginning with instrumental "Noob Saibot", before going onto "Win Some Lose Some" which reminds me of Ricaine in places. "Follow the Plane" is a spazzy hyper hardcore track with trademark Frozen Ocean guitar riffs, while combines their thrashier style with bluesy rock meets hardcore. Clean Living weigh in with 2 tracks "Cut Head" and "Ahab". When downloaded it comes up with genre Space Punk, so who am I to argue with that. "Cut Head" has the better recording, but then with is ep fidelity isn't an issue as a cleaner recording could possibly ruin the edge both groups have (That said I am looking forward to hearing Frozen Ocean's Adam Burges recorded album). You can pick this up locally at Planet, Dada's and Coffin Cut records have some stock in their Big Cartel store.
You can check out info here for Owls and Future Past recordings.

Twicerememberedtwiceremoved is 1.

2011-10-01T04:33:00.000-07:00

On October of 2010 I started this blog, so a year on and 170+ posts I thought I'd introduce myself, explain the reasoning behind the blog and thanks some people for the last year.

My name is Gavin and I'm a late 30's guy from the heart of bogan suburbia who is passionate about local and overseas music that is far removed from my physical surroundings. The purpose of the blog is to promote the music I like (both International and Local) and where it is possible give links to free downloads , or at least links to artists Soundcloud pages so you, the reader can get to hear this stuff. After all, a blog without links to music doesn't interest me. The most important part is that the links are to free recordings, not commercial recordings. Depriving labels and artists of income is not my intention. There are enough blogs out there if that's what you are looking for.

The past year has made me focus more on the music being made than just as a regular listener and it has been eye opening. There is some great artists out there and labels that are releasing some amazing stuff, be they net labels or physical labels. It's very inspiring. Thankfully I have got to hear some great releases from artists and labels that have sent me stuff, and for that I say thanks. It's inspired me to start of my own micro label which should hopefully have it's first release out soonish.

I'd like to thank a bunch of people for either feedback, friendship or freebies from the past year. In no particular order, my thanks go to: Ian Hawgood (Home Normal/Tokyo Droning/Nomadic Kids Republic), Cam Merton (Hidden Shoal), Lawrence English (Room40), Camryn Rothenbury (Grave New World/Friends in the World), Craig McElhinney, Jeff Stonehouse (Listening Mirror), Andrew Tuttle (Anonymeye), Furchick, Antony Harrison (Konntinent/Arev Konn/Paco Sala), Leonardo Rossado (Feedback Loop), Michael Ramsey (The Silent World ), Sam Gillies (Cycle ~440), Anthony Williams (RTRFM Posted), Ben Chatwin (Talvihorros), Frozen Ocean, Ben Stewart (Dada Records), Javier Frisco (Emerald Cabal), Ermine Coat, Christopher Willits (Overlap), Colin Herrick (Time Released Sound), Tim Bayes (Schuster/Adeptsound), Daniel Gregory (Dead Pilots Records), Amber Fresh (Rabbit Island/Gulls), Matt Aitken, Mitch Jones (Scattered Order), Colony, Cheldon (Slowpitch).

My apologies if I have left anyone out, I'll do a post on you if you contact me! So for the future - more great music and a label of my won. Thanks again.

Scattered Order "A solar rush towards treble heaven"/ "Mucky ducks"

2011-09-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

Scattered Order are the opposite of the "Heritage" act. You know the type that reform to play the hits and relive their youth. Initially getting back as Scattered Order MK1 which was Mitch Jones and Michael Tee, they've since dropped the MK1 from their name and added Shane Fahey who was instrumental in the early M Squared band The Makers of the Dead Travel Fast (or just The Dead Travel Fast) and who also runs the Endgame label which put out Michael Tee's A Cloakroom Assembly release "Territory + Population".

This new release as always was given away free to their newsletter members (aka Hugo's) and is available from their bandcamp page for either $3 for the digital files or $5 for the limited to 100 copies cd-r. Putting your finger on the sound of Scattered Order is pretty difficult, which I'm sure they are happy about. It's a mixture of electronic, experimental and rock elements. Tracks on this release such as the opener "Babble Fridge" are hypnotic/psychedelic and possibly in some dimension could be called dance music, while "April Which" has a definite groove to it while including samples and reminding me of 90's era Scattered Order (Professional Dead Ball), but giving it a modern touch.

The band are also in the process of making long lost releases and those previously unavailable made available for either free or a small amount of money from their bandcamp page. You can pick up releases such as "Mucky Ducks" which is a live set from '98, "Asleep in the knife drawer" and the previously mentioned "Professional Dead Ball". My hope is that one day "Selling the Axe to buy the Wood" becomes available, but when I mentioned this to Mitch he kindly sent me an mp3 for the track I was after "Loose in the House" further showing why Scattered Order are the (elder) gentlemen of Australian Post punk

You should check out their bandcamp page here

Hidden Shoal Recent Releases: [The] Caseworker, Scott Solter, Apricot Rail

2011-09-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I wrote about Hidden Shoal Recordings, probably the last time was the Umpire album. Well, all been active in the HSR world and this post covers what has been going down in the last few months.

One of their latest signings is [The] Caseworker. The band is made up of Conor and Eimer Devlin (Vocals and guitar and bass respectively) as well as Will Waghorn (Drums) and Monte Vallier (Guitar). Their fourth album “Letters from the Coast” was released by Hidden Shoal on September 22. Described by the label as “shoegazing Velvet Underground reared by the Flying Nun label - the perfect balance of drone and chime”. The album has that sort of classic indie pop feel, that if you like the Umpire album you will appreciate [The] Caseworker. It has that balance of Dissonance and Melody which is shown best on tracks such as “Dormer”, “Boats”, “Little Good it did for you”. Without being too obvious with their influences (I detect a little Sonic Youth and the label hint at Yo La Tengo), the album has that degree of familiarity that makes it an easy and enjoyable listen. The first single “National Runner” has a bit of a more lo-fi feel than the rest of the album and has already been picked up by RTRFM. As per usual you can get this for free download from the label here

To describe local band Apricot Rail as a post rock band would be doing them an injustice. While sharing the ethos of post rock, their sound is more than just restricted to post rock (which is inevitable with a scene or a sound as becoming a restrictive genre). Described by Rave Magazine as “Imagine the ethereal pop of early Múm, the whimsy of Sigur Rós’ more optimistic moments, and (occasionally) the emotional edge of The Twilight Sad. This is consummate indie post-rock laced with Australiana, and well worth checking out.” They are a multi instrumental sextet and use this to their advantage. “Surry Hills” features both chiming and almost surf like guitars structures, minimal almost hand percussion, flute, shimmering electronics that ebbs and flows with the song changing from being driven by the multiple guitars back to the haunting flute melody. This track is a taster for their future Hidden Shoal album release which is probably going to come out early next year and as always it is available as a free download which you can pick up here.

Scott Solter’s “One River” is a digital and cd re-release of this US Ambient musician/producers album that was originally released on Tell-All records in 2005. Scott Solter wears many hats also being a remixer (such as Hidden Shoal artists Salli Lunn, The Caribbean and other artists such as Division day and Neon Indian), while working as a producer, mixer, recorder with the likes of Spoon, Superchunk, Mountain Goats, Okkervil River as well as being a member of the Balustrade Ensemble and Boxharp. He also had a release on the Manifold label in 2003 called “The Brief Light”. The label has described this release as “exploring the space between Brian Eno’s seminal Music For Airports and William Basinski’s contemporary classic The Disintegration Loops. The music sighs and aches beautifully, gradually transforming with subtlety and grace, lulling the listener into blissful reverie” and I couldn’t describe it better. If you love the Basinski “Disintegration Loops” series then this will be right up your alley. While Basinski’s loops have a tendency to become repetitive Solter’s music has enough ebbs and flows to not fall into this trap. Although the album is made up of 7 tracks and a running time of a little over 33 minutes, it works as whole piece to be taken at once. One word sums it up best and that is “Haunting”. You can pick up the free single the “Great Cold” here. The album is available on September 29.

You can check out the most recent HSR release here: Latest tracks by Hidden Shoal and don't forget to check out more things from the label here.

Obscotch

2011-09-21T04:39:00.000-07:00

Obscotch is local guy Jake Moore. The only mention I have done of him was using his "Counter Consumate" release in a whinge post as an example of a really small pressing. We became Facebook friends, but when I mentioned the post I noticed his name missing on my friends list. Oh well. His last two releases were "Samael Makaw" and "Miasma Eden". These are now available as cd-r's @ Dada and Fat Shan's and possibly others. You can download them and others here.

Anonymeye/Chihei Hatakayama/Steinbruchel

2011-09-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

I received a trio of digital promo's from Lawrence English and his labels Room40 and Someone Good (co-run with his wife Rebecca) and have been trying to find the time to give them a listen and write some reviews. It's taken time due to having a new born, but here we go.

Anonymeye is the name used by Brisbane artist Andrew Tuttle and his latest "Anontendre" is his third full length after "Anonymeye Hotel (Half Theory) and "The Disambugation of Anonymeye" (Sound & Fury). The album for me is a little bit more experimental than the other releases he has put out and does require more time for it to sink in. But, this is a good thing as the longer you listen, the more that is revealed.

This is what the label said of the release: "Loosely, Anonymeye's music could be described as an Anonymocracy - where tensions previously held between assumed rival factions such as acoustics and electronics, improvisation and composition, dissonance and melody are recognised and explored, but eventually heading towards a resolution that is part utopian and part redemption."

The album starts with "Federation" which starts with sharp shimmering drones, passages of what sounds like ambient synth before entering the territory that Anonymeye has mapped successfully - the acoustic, almost folky guitar. "Federation" and the final track "Exilarchy" are almost book ends to the album in more ways than just being the first in last tracks, they are almost cut from the same cloth. The tracks that come after "Federation" and before "Exilarchy" map various territory such as Drone, Glitch, Field Recording, etc... the most experimental pieces that have heard from Anonymeye are on the tracks "Plutocracy" and "Plutarchy". Both sound his most electronic and sound like a system of machines braking down. "Demarchy" is a track that is bright and shimmery with waves of ambience and minimal percussion (something that you don't really associate with Anonymeye). "Meritocracy" is the most glitchy of the tracks before going into the folky finger picking territory. This is what makes Anonymeye stand out in the field of guitar and lap top artists - it gives him his signature sound and shows that he is proficient with the instrument rather than just using as a drone/shoe gaze style accompaniment. The highlight track for me is "Exilarchy" and it's no surprise that it has been on RTRFM's "Out to Lunch" playlist. It's a great guitar work out, lots of picking which then has a great deep bass drone undercutting it before venturing into electric territory and it sounds fantastic, A great way to end an impressive album.

Steinbruchel's "Narrows" is a release that is about an original piece, in this case "Narrows and the variations that allow other textures and sound to evolve with each piece. It's not an easy album to describe as the tonal qualities are changed with each variation and are removed from the original piece. The label describe the process as: "The following variations, seek to redefine the qualities of the title work. Like a time-lapse of sunlight passing across a space, at any one point certain objects are highlighted, whilst others are muted and reduced - n-variations are audio time-lapse miniatures. Small segments of a greater moment, refocused, analysed and recomposed. Rather than repeating themes and characteristics, each variation digs deeper into the original composition, unearthing unfamiliar elements and minimal layers lost in the dense flows of Narrow."

"Narrow" is an almost 21 minute piece of drifting, droning, plusing sounds that come in and out revealing drone, glitch, static noise, shimmering sounds that undualte and slowly grow over the piece before receeding at the end.

"N-variations-01" is are drone piece that is the brightest and most shimmering of the variations with a constant shimmer that lasts the whole piece. This changes when "N-variations -02" comes in which sounds like the degradation of the original piece. The tone changes through out the piece but the theme of degradation is strong throughout. "N-variations -03" is a pure static piece which is the closest that the album comes to an ambient moment with lush tones. "N-variations-04" takes the piece in the most glitchy territory with an underlying almost rolling sound of tonal loops with scattergun noise that enters the piece towards the end before domineering the sound. This scattergun sound continues at the start of "N-variations-05" before revealing a strong glitchy tonal drone before descending into wisps of noise.

To fully get this release you have to listen to it's entirety rather than just cherry pick various tracks.

Chihei Hatakeyama is the Japanese artist who has been building quite a body of works through labels such as Room40, Hibernate, Home Normal, Kranky and Under the Spire to name a few. With these sort of labels you know the quality you are getting. His discography covers some territory and his new album fits in with his previous release like "A Long Journey" or "Minima Moralia". The label describes the release as: "
Taking layers of composed instrumental passages and then re-recording them in a variety of reverberant spaces, Hatakeyama sought to accentuate and amplify the harmonic qualities of the sounds. Overtones were shaped by these spaces and rich fluctuations emerged from the original recorded elements. This process of re-recording leading to the rich tonal qualities heard in Mirror."

The album starts with "Alchemy" a long layered ambient piece constructed of chiming drones that build up and then are expanded further in the epic track "Ferrum". After "Ferrum" are 3 tracks of field recordings, "July 4, 2008", "May 15, 2010" and "October 3, 2009" (It would be interesting if Kenneth Kirschner has tracks with these names). Whether or not these recordings are used in the others pieces on the album I don't know, but they seem out of place with the rest of the album as they appear as straight feild recordings and not processed ones."Renitency" follows the lead of "Alchemy" and "Ferrum", but for me the highlight is "Splith" which is a haunting droning ambient piece that is almost glacial in it's slow build up and gives the album a nice finish. If you are a fan of Chihei's previous work, then you are going to enjoy this.

You can buy all 3 releases from the Room40 store here and check out tracks on the label's Soundcloud page below.

Latest tracks by ROOM40

Backlog

2011-09-16T05:26:00.000-07:00

Slowly working my way through promo's that I have recieved. I didn't think having a small child would affect my blogging time so much. Posts to come, but not the usual rate (3 or 4 a week) like they used to. Thanks to all that have seent stuff, looking forward to the blogs first birthday in about 3 weeks.

Distance Recordings "Only Light to Clear Away"

2011-09-16T05:22:00.000-07:00

Here are links to two great free compilations. The first is from the Distance Recordings netlabel called "Only Light to Clear Away" and features artists like: Aless, Loscil, Simon Scott, He Can Jog, Talkingmakesnosense, Benjamin Dauer and others. Great Ambient/Electronica. You can download here

"Sequence 1" is the mammoth 42 track/artist release from the people behind the Future Sequence site and features the artists the calibre of: Maps + Diagrams, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Talvihorros, Antonymes, Robert Curgenven, Ekca Liena, Gurun Gurun, Gimu and others. An essential compilation for those into Ambient/Modern Classical, Drone, etc... and an excellent way to expose yourself to alot of (new) artists. You can pick it up here.

Furchick

2011-09-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

Furchick is local artist Claire Panell and artist that I've been meaning to do a blog post for quite some time. She's very active in both touring over east and New Zealand and in promotion of events locally like Analogue to Digital.

Here is a bio from her Soundcloud Page: "Furchick is Claire Pannell. Her most recent adventure was performing solo and as a guest artist with the Laundry Room Squelchers (USA) at the International Noise Conference in Sydney and Melbourne. Claire is currently producing the Analogue to Digital sound series at Scitech and performing solo with her music project as Furchick. She is a multi-instrumentalist with a rich and diverse musical history. She has numerous releases as detailed below. Born and raised in Perth, she ran away overseas for a few years. Way back in New Zealand she used to used to run The Stomach music centre, Valve zine and Yellow Bike Records with Dave White. She also funded a PhD at this time by working as a sound engineer. She played in many bands with wacky names there including Katerpillar Tractor Concept, K Tel Dancers, Froit Head, Claire's UnNatural Twin and one gig as Grandma's Death Gurgle. She then moved to NYC because its on the other side of the world and joined up with Gerard Cosloy and played drums in the improv noise project Air Traffic Controllers. She also played with numerous jam bands including The Armaround (with Tom Greenwood's Jackie O Motherfucker), Crawley Creeps with Josh Diamond of Gang Gang Dance and guest spots with Actress (with those nutty girls from IUD/Gang Gang Dance) and Spencer Sweeney. Back in Perth Claire met the two Chris’s (Chris Cobilis and Chris Hudson) and Sexy Band was born. Following that Furchick completed a few collaborative performance art projects with people such as Malcolm Riddoch, and the rest is happening now."

She released the "Rabbits in Space" cd which came in an edition of 75 copies that come in hand stitched covers with 3D glasses (A selection can be viewed above). You can download this release from her soundcloud page.
Rabbits in Space by Furchick

You can also check out recordings from the Analogue to digital series she does at Scitech on the soundcloud page: Analogue to digital

You can check out her blog and view her in action:

The Dada Tapes

2011-09-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

For those not from Perth Dada records is a shop that has existed since 1971. I've had many an epiphany through records bought from there and have been shopping there since '89 when it was 3 levels (as opposed to the current 2 levels that it is now). Many musicians and staff members have passed through their doors, but the current staff have been there for a few years. The last one on Ben Stewart has been making his own niche in the store by having gigs, usually on Saturdays between 5 and 8 pm in the car park out the back. He's also been recording them and "The Dada Tapes" is the documentation of a years worth of shows. Originally a giveaway # cd in an edition of 200, it now can be downloaded for free. As local musician/blogger William Hooper (Wind Waker, Bamodi, Water Temple, Reel Muzak) says "It's a fairly accurate summary of most of the "key players" running about in different circles around town".
Bands include: The Ghost of 29 Megacycles, Bamodi, SmRts, Frozen Ocean, These Shipwrecks, Gilbert Fawn, The Tigers and a bunch of others. Recomended for those who either missed out on the cd or want a taste of local music. After listening to it you can read this review and say WTF?You can get it here

Frozen Ocean "Fuckin Filthy Rukus"

2011-08-26T03:46:00.000-07:00

Local Avant-Rock Pigs Frozen Ocean have put out a cd-r of stuff they recorded live at Dada's by Ben Stewart while their new album is in process of being recorded/completed. The new one is being recorded by Adam Burges of Brown/MF and his Truckload of Hope fame and he is an ex- Dada employee and sells guitar's through Maurice Flavel's "Noise Pollution Records" in Northbridge. The cd-r comes in spray painted cardboard packaging gate fold style, with info glued and cd-r glued into it. It's $10 from Dada or at their shows. They also have t-shirts for sale. You can preview the tracks below:

Fuckin Filthy Rukus by Frozen Ocean

Celer "Menggayakan" cd-r

2011-08-23T05:07:00.000-07:00

The latest limited release from the most prolific and critically prasied Ambient/Drone outfit Celer is available through new Japanese label Analog Path. It appears to be one long 55 minute track called "Hatta / Gliding in the Absolute / Circular Square, Exhaust, Anti-American Protest / A Less Representation Of Myself / Masjid Istiqlal / Breathing Effects, and A Lack Of / Mosquito / Feigned Ignorance and Dissimulation / Ultraclimax / The Romance Of Travel / As Ever" Released in a limited edition cd-r run of 150 copies get it before it disappears. You can buy it here.

Celer / Menggayakan sample by analogpath

Listening Mirror "The Heart of the Sky" Bathetic

2011-08-21T04:55:00.000-07:00

Listening Mirror is the work of British artist Jeff Stonehouse and his latest release is "The Heart of the Sky" which is being dropped on the Bathetic label sometime in September. Listening Mirror releases have been on labels such as Hibernate, Rural Colours, Somehow Recordings, Audio Gourmet and Heat Death Records to name a few. So, with this sort of patronage you know straight off you are dealing with quality music.

"The Heart of the Sky" was influenced by a trip to his sons house in Mexico City. As he states in an interview with Headphone Commute "I tried to capture the heat and space of Mexico by using deep, dry, airy drones, made by treating the sounds of the resonant harmonics of a semi acoustic guitar, but treated the sound in a way that also gives an impression of the density of the atmosphere of the beautiful country". His music is made using instruments such as guitar, laptop and sounds are processed and mixed suing the program Abelton live. Saying that, it's definitely not obvious to the listener where these sounds are coming from which allows the listener to enjoy the sounds with that mystery as opposed to going that's guitar, that's...

"Midnight at Teques, Storm Approaching" couples Field Recordings, looping drones and spidery guitar work that doesn't rise and ebb. It just has a nice natural drone flow throughout with the Field Recordings being more dominant in the ending of the track. "The words just wont come" has plucked string, chiming ambient with hazy drones that cut a swathe through the music. At times the music reminds you of a pebbling effect where the initial sounds travels out like a ripple from the source. "Ah Pukuh is Here" instantly reminded me of the film "Ghosts...of the Civil Dead" which I haven't seen in around 15 years. It has a real ominous desolate feel like all hope is gone and makes for a piece that would fit well in a soundtrack. Also, it reminds me of a a type of film where people would be isolated in the ocean only to come across a ghost ship. It's not dark ambient by any stretch of the imagination, but just a few shades away from that genre."Mixtli Sleeps (featuring Birds of Passage)" is a type of track that I normally don't get into - that is one with vocals. I just have this love/hate relationship with singers and tend to avoid music with vocals. However, this collaboration with New Zealand artist Alicia Merz aka Birds of Passage is different as the vocals compliment the music and not dominate it. They sound multi tracked and both haunting and whispering at the same time. The music would be classified as Glacial Ambient and to use that word again, is haunting. There is a constant drone and then another loop of what appears horn like drone that comes in and out with the vocals. Jeff came across Alicia via Soundcloud and has plans for a further collaboration which would be a welcome addition to both artists catalogue.

While only 4 tracks and a little over 32 minutes this release neither drags on rushes by. It's perfectly formed with each track bringing something different to the table. A recommended release if you've had the chance to hear is other works or a fan of the labels he's been released by. You can buy digital releases of his catalogue from his bandcamp site here and presumably get it from Bathetic here You can also check out his released and draft works at his soundcloud page below.

EDIT: You can get it now from Bathetic here.

Latest tracks by Listening Mirror

Andrew Sinclair "Evil Summer"/"Extra Summer"

2011-08-20T00:54:00.000-07:00

I wrote briefly about Andrew Sinclair's "Evil Summer" before when I first picked it up. Since then I've given it a great amounts of listens and recommended it on Facebook to everyone. For those who haven't heard it it is a great combination of Drones, Synth Noises, Retro Percussion, Samples, Tribal Drums and Muddied vocals.Well, for those who haven't picked it up you can now download it for free from his bandcamp page and he's also uploaded the limited edition bonus cd-r that had an edition of 50 copies and was only available at the launch. "Extra Summer" contains material not included on "Evil Summer" plus remakes and Remixes. If you want to hear what is possibly the local album of the year you need to download these now! Download "Extra Summer" here and "Evil Summer" here.

Oval

2011-08-09T16:46:00.000-07:00

I had one of my major musical epiphanies with Oval and their "94 Diskont" lp + 12" on Thrill Jockey. During the 90's I predominantly listened to hardcore, but to quote Lou Barlow in Sebadoh's "Gimme Indie Rock" "Hardcore wasn't doing it for me no more". In probably '96/'97 I stumbled on a pile of secondhand copies of The Wire magazine and at the time of these mag's they were in their whole love affair with Tortoise, Thrill Jockey and Chicago in general. So interested in hearing this music I made tentative steps in picking it up. My knowledge of contemporary Electronic music was largely negligible. I listened to Industrial Electronic stuff like TG, SPK, Cabaret Voltaire, etc... and the newest Electronic stuff that I was listening to was David Thrussel's Industrial/Noise/Techno act Black Lung and Steve Law's trance/techno outfit Zen Paradox. Needless to say I was primed to have my mind exploded.

I got the "94 Diskont" lp with the bonus 12" remixes for Christmas of '97, but the Epiphany wouldn't happen until the following year when I had my last 2 wisdom teeth removed and was on heavy medication for the pain. I put the record on and holy shit it started to make some serious sense! It wasn't just some random sounds mixed together, it was completely hypnotic music that had a lots of depth, colour and texture and sounded nothing like what I had heard before. It was one of those moments when you are searching out for new music and you are rewarded with something completely alien to you, but so influential to your tastes after that point. Needless to say I picked up "Dok" the album utilising Christophe Charles' bell sounds, but it didn't have the same affect on me as "94 Diskont" did.

After "Dok" he put out "Ovalcommers" and "Ovalprocess" and some others before effectively vanishing for almost 10 years. In 2010 he put out the "O" double lp and "Oh" 12" plus the "Ringtone" eps which you could download from sites like Fact and Thrill Jockey. He now has a Soundcloud page which has those free downloads, plus others and tracks to stream. You can check it below.

Latest tracks by Oval (Official)

Flaming Pines

2011-08-07T00:48:00.000-07:00

Flaming Pines is a label run by Sydney artists Kate Carr and has just put out their third release the "Burning Palms". This time it's a net label release but you can also buy a cd-r version of it. The artists include Kate Carr, Darren McClure, Sublamp, Manrico Montero, Broken Chip and others. The press release states: "This is a compilation about a small beach in Sydney , Australia called Burning Palms.
Accessible only on foot, It is the home of black cockatoos, many palm trees and a natural figure eight rock pool. Most contributors haven't been there. For them this compilation has been a process of imagination and fantasy, for others it has been one of nostalgia, remembering and forgetting.
This compilation is about the process of imbuing a place with meaning, a common theme in ambient music. But rather than aiming to uncover some inner essence of the landscape this compilation looks at how this act can be just as much a work of fiction as one of fact."
You can pick it up here along with the 2 previous releases Kate Carr's "Summer Floods" cd-r and the "Listen to the Weather" lp.

SEM label

2011-08-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

I can't remember how I came across the French label SEM, but I discovered this link which contains all these freely downloadable releases from labels like Standard klik Music, EKO net label and IOD from the years 2005-2010 which are precursors to the SEM label as SEM releases physical products in limited quantities and downloads via their Bandcamp page. But, looking at the quality of artists and releases on these 3 previous labels such as Offthesky, Segue, Entia Non, Sublamp, The Green Kingdom, Kenneth Kirschner, Letna, Darren McClure, Kate Carr, Billy Gomberg, Alexande Navarro, etc... it's clear that you nedd to go to this page and get downloading some of this fantastic music.

SEM's webpage also has links to mixes of SEM artists and SEM catalogue that you can download and of course their shop with images of the stunning looking releases (I have an Offthesky release that I ordered and are looking forward to getting my hands on it).Lastly don't forget to pick up their 2 compilations "One Minute for the Stars" and One Minute for the Sun" great short form large compilations of great Ambient/Drone/Electroacoustic/Glitchieness.

New Weird Australia - Bleak Metal

2011-08-01T18:31:00.000-07:00

Stu Buchanan (with help from Ian Rogers) has out together the latest New Weird Australia compilation called "Bleak Metal" focused on the more avant side of Metal (Avant Metal/Black Metal and other experimental forms). Of the 13 artists only Axxonn and Undecisive God where the ones I am aware of, so lot's more to discover. You can download it here.

Frankly! A Room40 Avant Pop Festival (Free Compilation)

2011-07-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

Frankly! is Room40's annual Avant Pop festival and they have just offered a free compilation from the acts that are appearing at the festival. All you have to do is subscribe to their mailing list and the compilation is yours. Tracks/Artists on the compilation are:
Streetwise by LA Vampires Goes Ital
Loosing Grip by Angel Eyes
Yoake by Miko
Hallway Master by Pikelet
Alice by Ytamo
Full Moon Door by Blank Realm
She Didn't Know by Twerps
Echo Lady by Wet Hair
Futurelina by Oorutaichi
You can pick it up here.

The people behind new promoters "Good Company" (which includes Andrew Sinclair owner of this years finest local release "Evil Summer") are putting on a LA Vampires show at The Bakery on Tues 6th September with support from Rites Wild (SA), Stina, Healing Chrystal Meth and Sons of the Father.

Pillowdiver - Free Ep

2011-07-27T07:02:00.000-07:00

Pillowdiver aka Rene Margraff (also one half of Two People in the Room) has uploaded an out of print Ep of his "Tony on a Bike" for free on his Bandcamp page. His music has been released on great labels like 12k, Under the Spire and Home Normal. Originally released on Under the Spire records in a cd-r edition of 150 copies, you can pick it up here.

A short break...

2011-07-14T05:59:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a break from the blog for probably a couple of weeks. Just became a father for the second time, so have other responsibilities. Have received promo's of Sighup (Feedback Loop) and Wooshie/Mike Kay split (This Thing) so will have some tunes to listen to.

Predrag Delibasich

2011-07-10T04:58:00.000-07:00

I vaguely know Predrag Delibasich, but then again who in Perth doesn't. I think I first came into contact with him in the early 90's selling records to him via a little mailorder I did, but haven't caught up with him since 2003 when a group I was working with at Curtin did a video for his pre Soviet Valves band Sokkol and their track "Thesis".

Anyway I have been following most of his post Sokkol output in the form of Soviet Valves, Gutter Guitar, Bassta! Pex, Abe Sada, Bamodi, SmRts, etc... "Dance to my gentle music, monster!" is a self release which comes as digital and cd (only available on line or at his shows) and is probably his most diverse release so far. Coupling guitar, electronics, percussion, free jazz sax, reggae-ish rhythms each track is it's own separate entity.

It's already getting airplay on RTR-FM but you can pick up this release through his bandcamp page here or at the launch on September 11 at The Bird.

Visual Stuff - Big American Night + Yelpar

2011-07-08T06:26:00.000-07:00

I'm a sucker for blogs (tho' Facebook and the many links from it are taking up my time). Mostly I got to blogs for music and some times for images and other links. Big American Night and YeLPar are two that I frequent. I came across Big American Night a few years ago when it was called Kinosport and downloaded a bunch of mixes that the man behind the site James A Reeves did. James is the kind of guy you would possibly want to hate - Young, effortlessly cool, does design work, Dj's, ran a label, etc... and to top that off he's a published author/photographer and lawyer. despite all these overwhelming positives I still can't fault him and enjoy his site and photos. Now you can too.

YeLPar is a newbie of this year to me and Stu when he's not coming up with photos of cool street art, being a foodie or sharing entertaining stuff he's found he's posting photos of Old Perth and I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. Like the photo below? Then here is the link to his site.

Paco Sala "Radial Sundown"

2011-07-08T05:40:00.000-07:00

Paco Sala is the latest pseudonym for Antony Harrison aka Konntinent and Arev Konn. He has just released the C38 cassette "Radial Sundown" on the Digitalis label in an edition of 80 copies. Antony mentioned in his email to me: "The project is called Paco Sala and the maiden release is Radial Sundown released as a C38 cassette on Digitalis Limited. Musically speaking its a blend of synth drone, vhs samples, some crude hip hop elements and there's a touch of italo disco in there. Vocals come courtesy of Felicia Atkinson." while the label in it's press release states: "radial sundown" is an after hours vapor trail through italo mazes and darkened alleys. swirling electronics are matched by smooth beats and pop-infused hymns. Harrison bounces to the underbelly, always keeping something sinister just off-screen. add in delectable vocals by Felicia Atkinson (in french, no less) and you're in for the best fucking ride."

I wasn't sure what to think in reference to crude hip hop elements, but thankfully for me they if present, are very subtle. This release is the type of release you wish some one so highly (and possible over) rated as Oneohtrix Point Never would produce. Great retro sounding synth constructions, old school drum machine rhythms and cymbals and sci fi sounding effects that come with throbbing keyboard lines and depth within the tracks that make them anything but superficial. "Entry Level" epitomises everything I've written above, while "Orlando" could be a sound track to some '80s sci fi/horror movie hybrid. The final track "Tous Les Irages" features Felicia Atkinson (Hibernate Recording artist) on dreamy french vocals with hypnagogic dubsteppy keyboards, drum machine claps and synth noodling. This release is totally recommended and doesn't sound like it's desperately trying for that old 80's sound - it comes across effortly. You can pick this up at Experimedia, Mimaroglu Music Sales and Discriminate.

The future promises to bring more Paco Sala (with some live shows as a duo) and Konntinent releases on Home Normal and Hibernate. I Can't wait!

Paco Sala - Radial Sundown (Digitalis Ltd C38) by konntinent

The Archipelago Rises

2011-07-04T05:11:00.000-07:00

A New Australian distro with releases from labells such as Debacle, Dead Pilots, Denovali, Mylene Sheath and others. Check it out here.

Midori Hirano "Magnetic Variations"

2011-06-29T05:35:00.000-07:00

I had never heard of Midori Hirano before the good folk at Overlap.org posted up on Facebook for people interested in reviewing their latest release. Overlap is an organisation formed by Christopher Willits who has been written about on this blog before. I jumped at the chance to get a copy sent and I am very glad I did. This release shows the difference between a good release which you enjoy and a release which clearly out shines others and it's evident early on. Glitch is a genre that has been around since quite possibly the mid 80's with Yasunao Tone or early 90's with Oval (whatever your take on musical history may be) and it has over time probably done to death. However, Midori Hirano has resurrected it, in my eyes with this release. The tracks on this 4 track , 23 minute release contain elements of other genres tied into a glitch framework.

The opener "Saiboh" has reverberating thumping percussion, cracks and skips with looping piano and vocal touches that create a hypnotic feel. "FFFound" sounds like a lost out take from any great Raster Noton release with scattered beats, classic glitch sounds and pulsing synths and is possibly the highlight of the EP. "Flux" reminds me of classic "94 Diskont" era Oval while "Aros" has synth sounds that remind me of quality German Dub Techno mixed with delicate glitches and lush synth ambience.

Overlap describe her releases are "based around traditional instrumentation - piano, strings, voice - augmented with subtle electronic processing and samples. The result is a rich, warm and melodic, rolling sound.". She also records as MimiCof recently releasing the "Rundskipper" release on Progressive Form, while her previous releases include "LushRush"and "klo:yuri" on Noble/Midi Creative. You can check out the tracks below and pick up the release for $5 US from here.

Latest tracks by midori hirano / MimiCof

Set Tv

2011-06-28T05:34:00.000-07:00

Set was a shortlived (9 episodes) TV show from 2006 that ran prime time on ABC focusing on Australian Experimental artists like The Necks, Anthony Pateras, Robin Fox, Lucas Abela (Justice Yeldham), Oren Ambarchi and others. The great thing is you can download recordings from the shows here.

Konntinent - Soundcloud Tracks

2011-06-24T05:43:00.000-07:00

Antony Harrison aka Konntinent sent me the digital version of his latest release as Paco Sala "Radial Sundown" cassette (limited to 80 copies) on Digitalis. So while I'm listening away to the tunes here are some from the release on his Soundcloud page plus some as his other alter egos Arev Konn and Konntinent.

Latest tracks by konntinent

Andrew Sinclair "Evil Summer"

2011-06-24T05:14:00.000-07:00

The Owls label have just recently dropped their latest release. This time it is by Andrew Sinclair who has been in bands such as Shock! Horror! and Erasers . It is a cd-r in what looks like a home made digipak and has been getting flogged on RTRFM a bit recently. I've just picked it up, but haven't had a chance to dig into it, but what I've heard is great Tribal Psych Drone Noise. You can check out and download some tracks from his soundcloud page below or buy the album from his bandcamp page here. Triple J also did something about him here and he's done a mix for Life is Noise here. If only he would put out those remixes/covers that came with the first 50 copies on launch night up on the net?!

Latest tracks by Andrew Sinclair

Robert Curgenven - an overview

2011-06-18T06:07:00.000-07:00

Robert Curgenven is an Australian sound artist who came to alot of peoples attention with the "Oltre" album on Line and was many a critic/bloggers favourite of last year. I had originally planned to a blog post on 4 Australian sound artists (Alonefold, Philip Sulidae, Entia Non and Robert), but decided to do separate posts on each artist. I have my mobile phone number at the end of emails in case people what to get in contact. Little did I expect to receive a phone call late one Thursday night from Cornwall, England with Robert Curgenven on the other end. So while not an interview this is more of an overview of his work. Got to admit he's a very friendly and intelligent guy, it's clear to me that there is a lot of thought that goes into his work and his knowledge about the mechanisms about how best to perform and record his music. Looking at my quickly scribbled notes written while we talked hopefully I can make some sense of them and shed some light on his history.

Robert Curgenven, born 1974, is an Australian sound artist currently living in Cornwall, UK after stints living in Italy and Germany. His family originally came from the area. Robert originally moved to Europe after the Liberal government's Northern Territory Intervention. He had moved to Europe in 2007/2008 after moving to the Northern Territory in 1999. He had been living in Sydney but didn't feel home so when some friends were doing a trip to NT so they jumped into a Valiant and headed to the Red Centre. He had been involved with Sydney radio station 2SER and worked in Community Cultural Development organising festivals in the north and also working in health and working with the community. He describes it as an intense time due to experiences and weather. He has performed in over 150 events throughout the world and has collaborated with artists such as Jason Kahn, Derek Hozer, KK Null, Z'ev and others.

Classically trained as an Organist, Robert has been experimenting with turntables and low frequencies recently. His "Oltre" release consists of live performances from March to May 2009 with some additional guitar work from friend and collaborator Jörg Maria Zeger from 2001. The material constructing on "Oltre" uses his "Transparence" dubplate (originally pressed in an edition of 3, which you can buy here) which was developed at O’A.I.R. Artist in Residence program at O’Artoteca, Milan, Italy. The recording also uses Field Recordings and Ventilator/Fan. The idea is that "Oltre" is a documentation of the degradation of the dubplate and the use of it, plus the turntables and other instruments and how the sound can vary over time and in different locations. As the press notes mention "the action of the stylus gently abraids the soft vinyl surface, causing the dubplate’s sound to gradually disappear and evolve, successively losing higher frequencies whilst acquiring new artefacts and crackle".

Below you can download a live set of Robert's at the Hungarian UH Fest. When I remarked to Robert about performing live and the audience having to be quite, due to the low volume sound of the mp3 he mentioned that while the volume of the mp3 would appear low it was quite audible and the audience was feeling the sounds. Due to low frequencies the sounds that were being manipulated on stage with Robert's set up the set were physical ones where the audience would feel the vibrations. Robert had conversations with the audio engineers/sound mixers and was able to find that if the audience moved about in the room ( a space for about 400 people, while about 100 were there for his set) they would have different experiences of the set. During our conversation he mentioned he was doing some R&D. This covers not only the work that he performs live - working with the sound guys, the degradation of the dubplate, 3 turntables (including a backward playing turntable), but also the mastering of recordings. He has taken an approach of working on his art full time and studying and working out techniques. Clearly, it's not just a case of wondering 'what does this button do'. It's a much more scientific approach.

Robert's got a few releases coming out with a split 12" with Will Montgomery on Winds Measure Recordings which he describes as "the last part of a trilogy of works (of which Oltre was the second part, so in some ways is a follow up to Oltre)" and a collaboration with LINE records boss Richard Chartier a relationship that goes back some six years when he found himself at a German festival and started talking talking to the two guys next to him which happened to be Richard Chartier and John Hegre (Jazzkamer, Dekorder records). He recently has been touring with Stephan Mathieu with friend Jörg Maria Zeger as the duo TSU (see the May edition of Fluid Radio's mag for a photo and review).

You can pick up some of his earlier works on his now defunct (?) Recorded Fields label which highlights his (and others) Field Recording work here.

http://soundcloud.com/uh_fest/robert-curgenven-live-uh-2010 by UH Fest

You can also download some collaborative work with Derek Holzer here. Also check out my other posts with him in them for other downloads here.

Robert Curgenven Live

2011-06-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Umpire "Now We're Active"

2011-06-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

UMPIRE

Perth has had a strong history of Pop bands especially from the 80's onwards with bands like The Stems, Peppermint Drops, The Marigolds, The Stolen Picassos, The Palisades, The Summer Suns, etc... These bands were followed in the 90's and 00's by groups like The Chevelles, Wash, The Rachels, Joe Algeri, Superscope, etc... The latest in the pop lineage is Umpire whose members have history in bands such as Adam said Galore, O, Mukaizake and they've just released their debut album "Now We're Active" on Hidden Shoal.

The album contains all the trademarks of a good pop release with a major factor in it's sound is the crystal clear production of bassist Simon Struthers work at Forensic Audio.Strong melodies, darting in guitars, strong hooks and enough grit to provide an enjoyable listen.

My knowledge of contemporary Indie-rock is non existent so I wont even try to compare them to other bands. The label press release that comes with the promo I received mentions that the band "formed in 2006 as a studio songwriting and recording project where ... opportunity to utilise the studio as an instrument, developing their songs without the pressures of playing as a live band". Normally you see such references of the studio as an instrument in electronic/experimental music, but it suits Umpire as you can see they have put a lot of thought into the music and how it sounds.

The highlight track for me (pretty much liking it the first time I heard it on RTR) is "The Canyon". It's opening line could be the mantra of this blog especially when it comes to me reviewing: "I can't articulate all these thoughts zigzagging through my head, there's no exit" covers all the ground I mentioned above and is a mini epic clocking in at 5:19 and being the longest track on the album. "Streamers" is another highlight, but I'm not sure if this is the same version that came out on their self titled ep in 2009 that got the band attention with JJJ and won the band the WAM (West Australian Music) award for song of the year in 2009. "Green Light District", the lead out single which can be picked up for free here has a very summery and fresh sound reminding me of The Go-betweens, not musically but in that care free feel that they had on songs like "Spring Rain".

Hidden Shoal states "the album's ten tracks bring progressive rock influences, indie-pop sensibilities and shades of math-rock into explosive collision, then shape them into songs that are at once epic and intimate". If this description and the free track above tweak your fancy then you should check them out (especially for "The Canyon"). The Australian release was June 2, while Internationally it sees release on July 14. You can pick it here and here and check out the video below.

"Now We're Active"

Craig Injured Ghost Rabbit

2011-06-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

A Selection of videos from some great local artists. Support them.

Leonardo Rosado "Opaque Glitter"

2011-06-14T05:20:00.000-07:00

The first time I came across the Feedback Loop label was after I did the netlabel post and received a comment from Alex from the blog Whatever Takes Your Fancy who recommended I check out the label. The next link in the chain was the Leonardo Rosado "Dream On" release on Audio Gourmet.

Leonardo Rosado's "Opaque Glitter" is the first release on cd-r for the now hybrid label. Apparently the the cd-r came together with listeners voting on the tracks that would become the album. Supposedly there were 90 minutes of music in total with around 40 minutes making it onto the disc. The disc is also bespoke in a way. A selection of photos are available for your copy plus a poem to select from.

Onto the music. Being that the music was in a way selected by committee it shows by the variation contained on this disc. On some releases the opening track can map out the territory that the artist is going to traverse. This can't be said of "Opaque Glitter". The opener "Leaving and Staying" contains some field recordings of what sounds like doors shutting, percussion and orchestral drones. While "Scratching the Surface" is a slice of glacial ambient. "Amidst the crowd a love story" (great title) has a mixture of field recordings (the sounds of the people possibly indicated in the title), aquatic sounds and distant metal clashing sounding percussion. The highlight for me is "Dancing and Falling" a great Thomas Köner-ish ominous drone mixed with slight glitchy sounds. Other tracks cover the orchestral drone/field recording/modern classical with tracks like "It ends here" containing a haunting ambiance with a wind squall sort of sound.The album is a great mix of musical techniques and sounds and is a lush well executed release that i completely recommend.

Released in an edition of 100 copies you can order it here. For a taster check out the following material from his Soundcloud page:
Latest tracks by l|r

Fluid Radio Digital Editions

2011-06-12T06:22:00.000-07:00

The good folks at Fluid Radio/Fluid Audio/Stashed Goods have been putting out Digital Editions or PDF booklets. Basically, other than The Wire, Cyclic Defrost and the local street press I've been looking for something that covers the music/artists I like. This has filled the void. The latest edition (May) is 104 pages long and features: Kanshin comp, Taylor Deupree, Myrmyr, Nomadic Kids Republic, Field Rotation, Loscil and others. An essential addition to your music reading. The link to get these are here.

Asleep on Red Earth, Under Bright Stars

2011-06-11T03:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a great free compilation for download from a group/label called Kaldor Art Projects. Artists featured include: Robert Curgenven, Simon Scott, Kate Carr, Panoptique Electrical, Alessio Ballerini and others. It is an essential compilation and can be picked up here. It's curated by Lawrence English and Stephen Vitiello.

LINE June Sale

2011-06-09T04:58:00.000-07:00

Richard Chartier's Line label has a sale on right now that is running all the month of June with a selection of release going for $12US post paid worldwide (and with the Australian $ going so well you shouldn't miss out, I didn't). Releases are available from artists such as Robert Curgenven (A post will eventually be done on Robert), Yann Novak, Chessmachine, Asmus Tietchens, William Basinski, Richard Chartier and others.

You should check out their shop here.

Severed Heads.

2011-06-06T17:02:00.000-07:00

You simply can't be an Australian electronic music fan without having come in contact with Severed Heads at some time. The band evolved from a duo called Mr and Mrs No Smoking Sign to The Severed Heads when Tom Ellard joined in the late 70's. They've since gone on to have several lineups, been on a variety of labels (Terse, INK, Network, Volition, Sevcom and LTM) and covered such musical ground as experimental/synth pop/industrial/ebm/techno, etc...

Anyway, after their chart success in '94 with the remix of "Dead Eyes Opened" (It went to #16 on the Aria charts), their label (Volition) collapsed and the band started releasing their music privately on cd-r. This gave fans the opportunity to purchase direct from Tom and pick up works that were in process (see the variety of "Op" releases). Recently, they stopped doing cd-r's and joined up on bandcamp putting their releases up ridiculously cheap. You can pick them up here. You can also pick up rare Sev's material here and a recent "Live to Air" for New Weird Australia.

Great Free Ambient/Post Rock: Alonefold, The Silent World, Milhaven

2011-06-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some great free Ambient/Post rock releases for download. I've covered The Silent World and Alonefold before. Milhaven are a great German post rock band that are/were linked to 12rec and if you like Explosions in the Sky you'll love them.

The Silent World

Alonefold

Milhaven

The Gulls "California Christmas/Yam Yam"

2011-05-31T06:12:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I've been sitting on this one for a while. I got it sent to me by Matt Aitken, one half of The Gulls and who's better known as Gilbert Fawn, shortly after Amber Fresh (the other Gull and better known as Rabbit Island) had sent me stuff. I didn't want to come over all fanboy dipshit so I thought I'd hold on to it for awhile.

I've got to admit, I didn't know what to expect especially after the 'wacky' press release and the knowledge that this was 2 albums in one, one being covers of System of a Down, The Violent Femmes, Blink 182 and others with 7 originals after an Intermission. The band state that it was : "Recorded irregularly in various locations, inspired by the banana palms of Hobart St, the concrete of Spectrum gallery in its hey-day, the whimsical musings of the man who mastered our Rabbit Island/Gilbert Fawn 7", and a show someone put on with a California theme, this "double album" disc represents a 51.6 minute assemblage from our loosely assembled "band", with an intermission, of course, to break the covers from the others."

The covers show that they are happy to put their own touch and warp a song and a band that you may have preconceived opinions on and give it a completely new take. "Blister in the Sun" has never sounded better and maybe more Indian/Droney, "Dammit" has that dreamy distant Amber Fresh vocals with chiming guitars and psychedelia. Of the originals "Siomay Incheon" reminds me of primitive Velvet Underground material, "Flight of the Crystal Dingo" goes all Casio on you, while "Just a Boy" has that Leyland Kirby-esque sound of something that was recorded a long and far time ago.

Initilally there where 100 cd-r's and I'm not sure if they are still left, but you can buy the 2 albums (covers and originals) seperatley at their bandcamp site here.

Ripples on bandcamp

2011-05-30T05:02:00.000-07:00

Ripples Recordings is a label I became aware of a while back as they released a cd by Philip Sulidae (which was sold out). I came across a bandcamp page of theirs and it looks like their catalogue has been released digitally including the Sulidae cd "The Cause of Others". All releases are really cheap with two compilations "In the rhetoric of rupture and re-appropriation" and "Ripples 2009-2011" being buy it at any price. The compilations feature the likes of Philip Sulidae, James Macdougall, Terje Paulsen, Ryonkt, David Velez and others. If you are a fan of these artists or net labels like Mandorla you should check the site out. Great Ambient/Drone/Field Recording/Electroacoustic.

Home Normal / Nomadic Kids Republic - New Releases

2011-05-28T05:10:00.000-07:00

If you've either followed this blog or seen some of my entries you would know I'm a bit of a fan of Home Normal and their artists. I just recieved a package of their older releases as they have a sale on now and thought it was a good time to do an undate on their newest releases and cover Ian Hawgood's sublabel Nomadic Kids Republic.

There was a bit of a gap in their catalogue early this year and that is due to Ian and his wife living in Japan and going through the Earthquake and Tsunami. Both Ian and Leonie have been helping out in the recovery process. He also had damage to his musical equipment.

Recently the latest batch of Home Normal releases have come out and they are as follows:

Two people in the Room (Home n026) is a duo made up of Rene Margrarf (also known as Pillowdiver) and Michelle Hughes and described as "Guitar/stomp Box Laden Music" and "its perhaps the first record which has ignited this sense of hidden self, of memory and spirit since My Bloody Valentine ‘Loveless’ or maybe Boards of Canada ‘Music Has The Right To Children'". Pillowdiver's music has been released on labels like 12k and Under the Spire, with a recent collaboration with Offthesky coming out on Audio Gourmet. This release, in a black digipack comes in an edition of 500 copies and is released June 23.

"The Beauty of Doubting Yourself" (Home n025) is a recording by Daniel Thomas Freeman who is a founding member of the UK act Ramses III who have had releases on labels such as Type, Digitalis and Under The Spire.The album, written over a period of 6 years and split into three movements covering such musical territory as field recordings, Thomas Köner-style ominous ambient to orchestral drones. This edition is 500 copies in digipack as is due on June 16.

Marihiko Hara's "Credo" (Home n024) follows on from Marihiko's releases on labels such as Cotton Goods, Tench and Zymogen. This release is described as a beat driven release with Marihiko asking Ian if they here interested in such a release. According to Ian : "My only prerequisite was that the beats were made organically, not just some obvious drum machine or sample. Marihiko’s request came at a time when both Ben and myself really wanted Home Normal to push on from its comfortable surroundings that so many labels, artists and possibly listeners for that matter, wish to reside – and keep things evolving, changing and as such more meaningful for us". This is a digipack releases in 500 copies due on June 9.

Nomadic Kids Republic is Ian's second sublabel (after Tokyo Droning) and has been in gestation for several years. The floodgates have appeared to been opened with 5 releases due shortly. The first available release is the mouthwatering collaboration of Ian Hawgood and Brock Van Way (aka BVDub) called "The Truth Hurts" (NKR001) which came out on 26 May. Mike Smallfish introduced the two with thoughts that they would work together. The first collaboration was the release of the BVDub "Tribes at the Temple of Silence" release on Home Normal. This collaboration contains music of Ian's from 1999-2011 which was mixed in with Brock's "forming his own oceans of drones, walls of emotional abstractions, field recordings, and even live recordings that would see the initial sketches become complete narratives,each with a very different story to tell." It is a 4 track release with previews on the site and all profits go to work helping out in Japan.

Lefolk is an artist I haven't heard of before. He is Leif Folkvord from Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. His release, "Intermitter" (NKR002) is a "

very minimal work of melodic synth structures and crisp 4/4 beats with very subtle variations in between, both beautiful and ass-kicking in one fell swoop." The release is due on June 2.

Offthesky's "Subtle Trees" (NKR003) is the latest release by Jason Corder who is a favourite artists of this blog. The release is described as "classical music collage as much as it is an homage to classical music". It is released on June 9.

Haruki "Falling" (NKR004) is Boris Snauwaert form Belgium "who creates
sonic environments through the precise, meditated amalgamation of a diverse variety of sounds, both musical and non-musical. In any given track Haruki combines any or all sound sources; field recordings, acoustic instruments, acoustic noises, found samples, sampled instruments and so on". It's also described as the deepest record on the catalogue with NKR lots of bass in the recording. Released on June 16.

Ten and Tracer is Jonnathon Cannup and he is a prolific artist with releases on labels like U-cover, Rope Swing Cities, Archaic Horizon, Escala, Rural Colours and others. His music falls in the Ambient/Electronica/Glitch zones with great quality. Ian asked him for a meaty beaty release for release and "along he comes with the very cheek of making some sublimely evolved, subtly woven record using violin, tape machines, guitars, maybe some keyboards and other stuff too." The release is called "Friendless Now" (NKR005). This release is out on June 23.

You can check out these releases at Home Normal and Nomadic Kids Republic.

Scattered Order "It's Behind You"

2011-05-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

I've said before about the importance of being on labels and artists mailing lists and the Scattered Order "Hugo" list is one of the best. Recently they had the live at Red Rattler free download and now the mailing list got a free copy of their latest cd-r "It's Behind You" which features Shane Fahey of The Makers of the Dead Fast in the line up. Limited to 100 numbered copies you can get it digitally for $3 or the cd-r for $10 pdd Australia or $13 ppd Overseas from their bandcamp page here. Ascension Records have put out a new M Squared compilation called "41 Pardons - M Squared Rare Recordings 1979-1983 Vol 1" which you can pick up here.

Maps and Diagrams "Get Lost" New Time Released Sound

2011-05-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

A while back I did on the, then new label Time Released Sound who were as much as an art project as they were a record label. Their first three releases were strictly limited editions, but with the latest release Maps and Diagrams "Get Lost" it came in a (long gone) limited release and a digipack release of 300 copies. This is what they will be doing with the future releases, like Paper Relics "Over Exposure" although the the next Antonymes release will be a limited 60 copy edition.

In the previous post I mentioned a sign of a good label is a Maps and Diagrams release. Maps and Diagrams is the alias of Tim Martin (aka Tim Diagram) a UK based Ambient/Electroacoustic/Modern Classical artist who is also one half of Hessien and runs the Handstitched* label which released the "The Voices of Time" album 10 days after "Get Lost". Other 2011 releases include "A Pulsating History.." and "Red Moon Rising".

Previous Maps and Diagrams (or Maps + Diagrams) releases have ventured in Ambient/Glitch and Ambient/Drone, but "Get Lost" is more in the Ambient/Electroacoustic/Modern Classical vein with some Field Recordings and a Drifting/Travel vibe with the song titles as well as the artwork having a nautical theme. The track title of "Searching Faraway Places" gives credence to the idea that along with the album title of "Get Lost" that it's a themed album of a different unexplored territory. There is alot of depth and variety to the album with a personal favourite being "Unordinary People" which has a very minimal distant vibe like the music is coming to you from the horizon, while another standout " The Strait of Malacca" being a lush haunting Piano and String sounding drone."These Blank Pages" also has the sound of water burbling through a wind swept drone and sounds that could be interpreted at a stretch as distant birds. As the album clocks in at almost 1 hour in length there is a lot of variety over the 14 tracks and will please any fan of quality haunting Ambient and Drone. Be on the lookout for Maps and Diagrams as he'll more than likely have a bunch of new releases before years end for people to put on their best of lists. you can pick this up through usual sources of go straight to the Time Released Sound site here. My thanks go out to Colin Herrick for both the Digital and Physical version of this album. You can also check ou the Handstitched* site here.

The video below is not from the album (there are ones on You Tube, but they are just music with the album cover), but the following Soundcloud tracks are:
maps and diagrams - Angle of Acceptance by Time Released Sound

maps and diagrams - The Strait of Malacca by Time Released Sound

Friends in the World ... is alive!

2011-05-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

Quickly following on from the demise of Grave New World is the birth of Friends in the World. So far 2 free releases have been put out. These are Clustering Illusion "Creatic Secretions" and Silver Bulletin "Ox of the Seven Combats" which is a compilation of the previous SB releases. Both acts were from the Grave New World roster. They can be downloaded for free from here.

Grave New World....is Dead!

2011-05-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

Camryn Rothenbury's empire has ended. Firstly it was the demise of his mail order Etheric Hymns, then he moved to Melbourne (lucky bugger!) and now his cd-r/cassette/download label Grave New World has shut down.. It's a real shame, but was approx 16-17 of great releases. Artists such as Craig McElhinney, Silver Bulletin, Camryn Rothenbury, Mundaring Weird and others are now looking for new homes. You can still pick up Silver Bulletin's releases for free from his bandcamp page here. To celebrate I have one pack with the following releases: Silver Bulletin "Magnetic Dimensions" cd-r and Splendid Friends "Black Drugs" cassette. First email to twicerememberedtwiceremoved@gmail.com gets the pack.

Slow Dancing Society Re-issues on Hidden Shoal

2011-05-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

Hidden Shoal on the 19th of May are re-issuing the trilogy of albums by Drew Sullivan aka Slow Dancing Society on cd. The trilogy of albums are "The Sound of lights when Dim', "The Slow and Steady Winter " and "Priest Lake Circa '88" were released from 2006 to 2008. To label them as Ambient is both correct, but also limiting as each album covers a different spectrum of the umbrella of Ambient. From retro sounding Tangerine Dream-isms to Shoegaze to Hypnogogic Pop to Glitch to the almost Post Rock sounds, the one constant feature to the three albums is on overall 'Lushness'. The instrumentation is many consisting of guitars and synths that roll over in waves of sound and the fact that there is the stylistic territory mentioned above does not limit them to be totally themed albums.

From the label: "Slow Dancing Society is Washington-based musician/producer and nostalgist extraordinaire, Drew Sullivan. With influences ranging from classic artists such as Brian Eno, Def Leppard, Tears For Fears, The Cure, Pink Floyd and Prince to contemporary artists like Manual, Explosions In The Sky, Sigur Rós and Hammock, Sullivan has developed a formidable reputation for producing emotional and immersive ambient music across four Slow Dancing Society releases." The fourth album "Under the Sodium Lights" was released by Hidden Shoal in 2010 and is still in print.

You can check out some Slow Dancing Society music via the tracks "The Delicate Sound of Silence", "...and to the dust we shall return" and you can check out tracks that are included on the free Hidden Shoal samplers "East-West Section" and "Limit of Maps".

Here is a video of the track "...and to the dust we return" :

The pre-orders started on April 29 while the official release date for all three is May 19 and you can buy by going here.

Bernhard Günter - Free Downloads

2011-05-14T02:30:00.000-07:00

When you think of the genre Microsound names like Richard Chartier, Thomas Köner, Asmus Tietchens, Heribert Friedl, Ryoji Ikeda, Philip Samartzis, Francisco Lopez come to mind. One of the important people in this genre is Bernhard Günter and his now defunct label Trente Oiseaux who put out releases by himself, Simon Whetham, Jeph Jerman, Heribert Friedl, Pierre Gerard and others. Well, he is a generous soul with the releases that are still in print going for 5 Euro's each (plus postage) which can be picked up here and the out of print releases being available for free download which you can pick up here.

Perth Discography - An Ongoing Beast

2011-05-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

Perth Discography 2000 - Onwards

The idea behind this was to get some sort of concrete view of what had been released in the independent scene in Perth. Originally I wanted to do once post Meupe (ie around 2004 - onwards) as getting into that label brought me back to getting into Perth music. I decided to then focus on releases since 2000, but of course there are several releases included that are pre 2000 and they belong to The Tigers and Gata Negra. I decided to include them as their influence and continued involvement is still visible (see the recent "Human Xerox" compilation). The list was drawn from my collection, myspace, facebook, blogs, record stores, etc... and of course there are going to be some omissions. The main rule for the discography was that the release had to be available for purchase (either physically or via download) or free download. If it was a digital single that was taken from another release then it wasn't included. It was obvious that the music fit into the the style that is covered in this blog, so therefore there is a bit of a bias.

I would like to make it as complete as possible so help with the missing parts (Catalogue #'s, copies made, year of release, etc...) is greatly appreciated. You can contact me at twicerememberedtwiceremoved@gmail.com

A
Abe Sada "Subzilla" (Bloodstar, cd-r, BS32) 2009
Abe Sada "The Lost Chord" (Kubitsuri Tapes, cd, S;E;X59-030CD) 2008
Abe Sada "Tatare Steppe" (VLZ Produkt, cd) 2009
Airport City Shuffle 3"
Airport City Shuffle "Death of Robot"
Airport City Shuffle "Iceberg"
Airport City Shuffle "Kitty Clean"
Airport City Shuffle "Set this Record Straight"
Airport City Shuffle "Something is at the Window Scratching
Airport City Shuffle "Summer 06/07 Tour cd"
Airport City Shuffle "When Simians attack"
Apricot Rail "S/T" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR053) 2009
Astral Travel (Fifth Column, 7", Ze4004, 150 copies) 2009. Absolutely no idea what the songs are called.
At Waugh With Gieles "May Echoes from Ballard" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF01) 2005

B
Bamodi "S/T" (Love is My Velocity, cd, LIMV ) 2009
Bamodi/Bariken "Split" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP ) 2009

C
Camryn Rothenbury "Patina" (Grave New World, download, GNWDIG01) 2011
Camryn Rothenbury "Schrödinger's Pet Hate" (Grave New World, download, GNWDIG02) 2011
Canyons (At Waugh With Gieles) "Scraped clean by the Wind" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF02) 2006
Cat Hope/High Impedence "Split" (8" polycarbonate)
Cat Hope "Fetish" (cd)
Cat Hope "Live Regret"
Chris Cobilis "Courtesy of the Young Lad’s Parents" (cass) 1997
Chris Cobilis "I Get So Mad" (cass) 1998
Chris Cobilis "Running to Rhythm" (cass) 1998
Chris Cobilis "I Am Quit" (cass) 1999
Chris Cobilis "St. Catherine" (CDr) 2000
Chris Cobilis "Black Leotard & Purple Leotard" (FFace Records, cd-r) 2004 Business card cd-r.
Chris Cobilis "Great Days, Blocked" (Wilting Flower Recordings, cd-r) 2006
Chris Cobilis "Two Hams In a Can" (Brothers Eerie Stratum Records, cd-r) 2006
Chris Cobilis "Have you seen her?" (Meupe, cd-r, Meupe 07, 100 copies) 2006, 3" cd-r in printed jewel case and hand sewn bag.
Chris Cobilis "Double Satan" (Meupe, cd-r, Meupe 14, 30 copies) 2009
Chris Cobilis "Triple Satan" (Disc Snap, cd-r) 2010
Chris Cobilis/Psychedelic Desert "Split" (Heartless Robot Productions, cass) 2010
Chris Cobilis "Some Sounds"(Disc Snap, cd-r) 2010
Cobilis/Hudson "Hello Satan" (cd-r)

E
Enargeia "Gulag! 25/09/98" (Hidden Shoal, download, HSR009) 2007
Enargeia "UFO: Stryker Force" (Hidden Shoal, download, HSR006) 2006
Erasers "Summer" (Solid Melts, Cass/download, Solid Melts 011, 50 copies) 2010. Comes with Download code.
Erasers "Autumn" (Metal Postcard, 7", MP22, 500 copies) 2010. Comes with download code.
Ermine Coat " Lp" (download) 2010

F
Fall Electric "...three A.M." (cd-r) 2005
Fall Electric "...these asteroids make rings from afar" (cd-r) 2005
Fall Electric "Measure and Step" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR041) 2008
Fall Electric "Cold Bahama" (cd)
Fall Electric "Burning Flag" (cd-r) 2010
Gilbert Fawn "Dead Rhythm" (Grave New World, cd-r, GNWCD02) 2010
Field of Sound "Monochrome Sky" (cd)
Field of Sound "Solar" (cd)

Fur Chick "Rabbits in Space" (cd-r, 75 Copies) 2010 Hand made sewn covers.

Harmony Joy Ride

Harmony Joy Ride "Calypso Rag Pronto" (cd-r) 2005 Each cover seems to be unique.
Harry Smith "Scooter" (cd)
Harry Smith "Preleigh" (cd-r) 2005
Hooper's Store "When was the Plasticine Era?" (cd)

I
Injured Ninja "Circuitboard" (cd) 2007
Injured Ninja/French Rockets "Split" (Heartless Robot Productions, 12" & dvd, HRP ) 2010
Injured Ninja "Golden mountain Top" (Heartless Robot Productions, 7"/download, HRP009) 2010
Injured Ninja "Vs Skylazer" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd/download, HRP ) 2011

J
Jasmine Loop Control "On the Last Days of Christmas" (Wilting Flower, cd-r) 2005
Jasmine Loop Control "Eeterin Kutsumus" (cd)

L
Lux Mammoth "Hertz Circus" (cd)
Lux Mammoth "New Gauge Sinner" (cd)

M
Matzal "At the Instant" (cd)
Craig McElhinney "You and Me are Young and Brutal" (Meupe, cd, Meupe 12) 2009
Craig McElhinney "Loser Orientation" (Meupe, cd-r, Meupe 16, 66 copies) 2009
Craig McElhinney "Be Water My Friend" (Grave New World, cd-r, GNWCD04) 2010
Craig McElhinney "Temple Pathworkings" (Grave New World. cd-r, GNWCD08) 2011
Mental Powers/Free Choice "Split" (Fifth Column, 7", FC02) 2009
Mental Powers "Untitled" (Badminton Bandit, cd, BB04, 500 copies) 2010 in hand painted kraft mailer sleeve.
Mental Powers "Stuffed Alive" (Badminton Bandit, cd/Download, BB08, 500 copies) 2010 comes in clam shell.
Mental Powers "Homoh" (Badminton Bandit, Lp/Digital, BB013, 150 copies) 2011
Dave Miller "Mitchelss Raccolta" (Background Records, cd, BG045) 2005
Dave Miller "Regional Raccolta Remakes" (Meupe, cd-r, Meupe 05, 100 copies) 2006 3" cd-r in printed jewel case and hand sewn bag. Remixes from Victor Berman, Stina, Pablo Dali and Chris Cobilis.
Milkless Fridge "S/T" (Unit5 Records, cd, Unit6001) 2005
Mukaizake "Mapping the Static" (Quietly Suburban, cd, QSR015) 2003
Mukaizake "Unknown Knows" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR060) 2009
Mundaring Weird "S/T" (Grave New World, 3" cd-r/download, 30 copies) 2010
Mundaring Weird "Southern Crosshair" (download) 2011
My Majestic Star "Ideas are the Answer" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR02) 2006
My Majestic Star "Fining" (Hidden Shoal, download, HSR014) 2006
My Majestic Star "Too Late the Day" (Hidden Shoal,cd/download, HSR037) 2008
My Majestic Star "I Haven't Got it in Me" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR063) 2009

O
Obscotch "Counterconsumate" (Obscotch, cd-r, Oscotch 03, 20 copies) 2006. Comes in Dvd case.
Obscotch "Samael Makaw" (download) 2010

Penetrating Stairs/Magic Window "Live at 208" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF04) 2007

M. Rosner "Post" (12X50, cd-r, Carbon Series 3, 200 copies) 2004

M. Rosner "Alluvial" (Room40, cd, RM408) 2005

M. Rosner "Morning Tones" (Apestaartje, cd, staartje 020) 2006

M. Rosner/Gareth Hardwick "Silhouettes 1" (Hellosquare, cd-r, Cube10) 2007

M. Rosner/Seaworthy Split 3" (Hellosquare, 3" cd-r, Cube17) 2008

M. Rosner "Repeat" (Miatera, LP, Miatera02, 500 copies) 2009, came in deluxe, black and white vinyl editions.

M. Rosner "Tape Series, Volume 1" (Meupe, cass, Meupe 17, 50 copies) 2010

M. Rosner and Seaworthy "Two Lakes" (12k, cd, 12K1062) 2010

Schvendes "The Scoundrel Is made an Outcast" (cd)
Schvendes "Turn Out Your Lights" (Schvendes, cd, SCH001) 2005
Schvendes "Twice The Man" (Schvendes, cd, SCH002) 20s05
Schvendes "Small Mercies, Sweet Graves" (Schvendes, cd, SCH003) 2005
Schvendes "Sweet Talk Your Enemies" (Good Cop Bad Cop, cd, GCGC003) 2008
Schvendes "Lay the Noose" (cd-r, 200 copies) 2010
Schuster "Breaking Down into His Own Oblivian" (Adeptsound, cd-r, ADSPC03, 50 copies) 2009. Packaged in screen printed mailer type sleeve which is sealed and requires to be teared open to get to cd-r.
Schuster "1-5 Microns" (Adeptsound, cd-r, ADSCDR02, 50 copies) 2010
Sexy Band "Sexy Band" (cd-r) 2002
Sexy Band "Sexy Band 2" (cd-r) 2002
Sexy Band "Sexy Band 3" (cd-r) 2002
Soviet Valves "S/T" (cd-r) 2004
The Silent World "Eye for an Ear" (cd) 2010
Silver Bulletin "Four Elephants/ O'er" (Farmer frontier, cd-r FF05, Business card cd-r) 2009
Silver Bulletin "Diamond Vibrations" (Grave New World, cd-r/download, GNWCD01) 2010
Silver Bulletin "Obsessive Mantras" (Grave New World, cd-r/download, GNWCD05) 2010
Silver Bulletin "Magnetic Dimensions" (Grave New World, cd-r/download, GNWCD07) 2010
Silver Bulletin "Opposing Forces" (Grave New World, download, GNWDIG03) 2011
Silver Bulletin "Futureless Future" (Grave New World, download, GNWDIG04) 2011
smRts "Sun Sets on a new Tomorrow" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HSR ) 2010
Soviet Valves/Whitechapel "Split" (7" polycarbonate, 50 copies) 2005 SV track from "S/T Whitechapel track is "Self Taught Anaesthetist".
Soviet Valves "Fun, Safe & Anonymous" (cd) 2005
Soviet Valves "Sight that harms/Gaze that Harms" (SmartGuy Records, 7" smart 024) 2005. 4 tracks from "Fun..." 100 copies on green vinyl.
Splendid Friends "Prognosis Negative!" (Farmer Frontier,cd-r, FF08) 2009
Splendid Friends "Summer Moon Illusion" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF09) 2009
Splendid Friends "Denpasar Love Triangle" (Grave New World, cd-r, GNWCD03) 2010
Splendid Friends "Winter Sun Reality" (Grave New World, cass, GNWCASS01) 2010
Splendid Friends "Black Drugs" (Grave New World, cass, GNWCASS02) 2011
Stina "Pocket Songs" (Meupe, cd, Meupe 1) 2004. First press with Tracer paper sleeve and badge, second press a Digipak.
Stina "Summer in Mariana" (Someone Good, cd, RSMG011) 2011

T
Taco Leg "Spider in the mouth" (Taco Leg, Cass) 2008.CS20
Taco Leg "Freemason's Hall" (Fan Death Records, 7" FDR04) 2009
Taco Leg/Constant Mongrel "Split" (Wuss Records, cass, 80 copies) 2010
Taco Leg "Live at Tanya's" (Badminton Bandit, cd-r, BB09, 150 copies) 2010 in riso printed cover.
Tangled Star "It's now or later" (Hidden Shoal, download, HSR012) 2006
Tangled Star "Our Man on Eden Hill (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR031) 2008
Tangled Star "That Time" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR052) 2009
These Shipwrecks "Leda" (Frosty You Haunt Me, cd-r) 2009
These Shipwrecks "Salt, Sulphur, Mercury" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP010) 2010
The Tigers - "Death From Above" (cd) 1998
The Tigers - "Space Coyote" (cd, DEB001A) 1999
The Tigers - "Remixes" (Sensory projects. 2cd) 2000
The Tigers - "Christmas Album" (Sensory Projects, cd) 2002
The Tigers - "It Hath Been… "(cd) 2002. Came in DVD case.
The Tigers - "Beautiful Forest" (CD, Sensory Projects 2007)
The Tigers / Stina "Now That I’m Old…" (Love Is My Velocity, 7"/Download, LIMV09, 500 copies) 2008
Adam Trainer "Happy 3" (Wilting Flower Records, 3" cd-r) 2007
Adam Trainer/Shoab Ahmad "Split" (Frosty You Haunt Me, cd-r) 2008
Adam Trainer "Twice Worn" (Hellosquare, cd-r, Cube 030) 2009
Trash Band 1987 "At Midnight I will Take Your Soul" (Wilting Flower Records, 3" cd-r) 2005

V
Various Artists "A Million Square Miles" (Hidden Shoal, cd/download, HSR057, Mukaizake, Tangled Star, Apricot Rail, Fall Electric, My Majestic Star, The Slow Beings, Toby Richardson, Glassacre) 2009
Various Artists "Ambassador from Everywhere" (Meupe, download, Meupe 13, Contributions from: M. Rosner, Craig McElhinney, Chris Cobilis, Wooshie, At Waugh with Gieles, Paul Fiocco, Traianos Pakiofakis) 2009
Various Artists "Christmas" (Meupe/Wilting Flower Records, cd-r, Meupe 08/WFXMAS, 90 copies, Stina, At Waugh with Gieles, Oakover,M. Rosner, Traianos Pakiofakis, Chris Cobilis, Jasmine Loop Control with Emily Williams) 2006, Given away at December 20th gig at Rosemount Hotel.
Various Artists "Farmer Frontier Two Dollar Series Cd #1" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, At Waugh
with Gieles, Chris Cobilis, Wooshie, Marc Kaminiski, Gargamel Gibson) Covers made from pages of a book. 2009
Various Artists "First Past the Pawns" (First Past the Post, cd-r, Contributions from: Chr15m and Fenris, Louis Inglis, Miteyko, Jeff Strong, Superengine) 2005. Came with Issue #7 of "First Past the Post" 'zine.
Various Artists "First Past the Pole" (First Past the Post, cd-r, Contributions from: Paul Fiocco and Kane Ikin, Airport City Shuffle, Matt Rosner and Snowman) 2004. Came with issue #6 of "First Past The Post 'zine" and also came with Radarmaker "Arm vs Fiery Antenna" dvd
Various Artists "First Past the Pose" (First Past the Post,cd-r, Contributions from: Found: Quantity of
Sheep, Jasmine Loop Control, Milkless Fridge, Dave Miller) 2005 . Came with issue #8 of First Past the Post 'zine.
Various Artists "Heartless Robot Label Sampler 2010" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd-r, Wind Waker, Quick, smRts, Steve Matzkov, French Rockets, Craig McElhinney, Injured Ninja, Mauna Loa, Ravens and Crows) 2010 Gig Giveaway 16 April 2010.
Various Artists "Human Xerox Project Beautiful Florist" (Emerald Cabal, cd-r, 100 copies, Silver Bulletin, Ghost Drums, Riddles, Javier Frisco, Lil' Leonie Lionheart, Tristan + the heat death of the universe, Gilbert Fawn + Ambrose Rock, Lines, Predrag Delibasich, Rabbit Island, Tin Man, Omar Olajuwon) 2011
Various Artists "Mixed Season" (Owls, Cass, Owls 009, 75 copies. Contributions from: Erasers, The Ghost of 29 Megacycles) 2011
Various Artists "Owls Sampler 2010" (Owls, cd-r, Owls 007, 25 copies, Andrew Forster, Erasers) 2010, Comes rapped in brown paper and tied up with string.
Various Artists "Smell You Later" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP002, 3 way split from Stina, Chris Cobilis and Gutter Guitar) 2008
Various Artists "Tea for Two" (Meupe, cd, Meupe 04, features contributions form local artis: Stina, The Break-ups, Pablo Dali, Dave Miller, Victor Berman, Fiam and Chris Cobilis) 2005

W
Whalehammer "Subterranean" (Farmer Frontier, cd-r, FF05) 2006
Whalehammer "Dream Tape" (Badminton Bandit, cd-r, BB07, 40 copies)
Wigwam "Sweat Lodge" (Badminton Bandit, cd-r, BB05, 40 copies) 2009
Wind Waker "S/T" (Heartless Robot Productions, cd, HRP006) 2009
Wooshie "Natural is in it" (Farmer Frontier/Meupe FF 07/Meupe 11, 7", 150 copies) 2009

Z
Zilverhill "+Eotvos+" (Adeptsound, cd, ADSBSCD01, 500 copies) 2008
Zilverhill "Latent-Active-Descent" (Adeptsound, cd, ADSPC02, 500 copies) 2009. Comes with #'d postcard.

The Black Dog - A bunch of Mixes

2011-05-08T03:37:00.000-07:00

As a person who takes public transport to and from work I always have a book thrust in my face and an ipod on to drown out the boredom of the transit. Nothing better is a good long mix and The Black Dog feature on my ipod as they have a bunch of great ones for free download on their website. Their mixes cover themes such as Ambient, Live DJ sets of either their own or other artists materials, Classic Sheffield music and others. I've pretty much downloaded most of them but recommend you try ones like: "DJ Headkick", "Dark Days, Grey Nights", "Fact Mix". You can check them all out here.

Hidden Shoal Recordings - An Interview with Cam Merton

2011-05-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

Hidden Shoal is a label I've written about in previous posts (you can view them here). Cam mentioned to me in preparation for the Antonymes release about doing an interview with Ian Hazeldine (aka Antonymes), which I plan to do some time. I was interested in Hidden Shoal and wanted to find out more, so I fired off some questions and Cam was generous enough to fire back some answers.

1. Who, What, When and Why - Who are behind the moniker Hidden Shoal, What made you decide to release music, When was the first release and did it take time from the decision to start the label to putting it out, and lastly Why start a label in these supposedly hard times for music?

Hidden Shoal started back in May 2006 with the original intent being to release the amazing music being made by our friends, people around us, as well as our own material. We had no money and while we’d all been involved in lots of other contemporary art, experimental music and media projects, we’d never done anything like running a label before. So to make things work we decided the label would have to be digital only. That way we could release what we wanted and access a much larger audience. We wanted to remove the traditional hurdles. We learned as we went along and started to attract international artists almost straight away. It all grew from there really.
In terms of who we are, Hidden Shoal comprises myself, Stuart Medley, Malcolm Riddoch, Tim Clarke and Jamie Barrett. We work as a team in terms of the larger label decisions and then we all take on specific tasks as needed in the running of the label. Myself, Stuart and Malcolm are based here in Perth, Western Australia, and Tim and Jamie are based over the other side of Australia in Melbourne.
We actually released two albums to coincide with the album launch, Wayne Harriss’s Aerospace and My Majestic Star’s Ideas Are The Answer. Now that I look back, we couldn’t have had two better albums to birth the label, really, as they epitomize a lot of what we intended to do with Hidden Shoal in terms of scope in sound and form. We had both these albums in our sights when we first had the idea of starting the label, and Wayne and Chris Mason (My Majestic Star) were (and still are!) good friends.
Why a label in such a musical climate? Well, I actually think labels are even more relevant today than ever. With so much music out there, I think a curated and collective approach to music for both listener and artist is rewarding in all the right ways.

2. Your roster is quite varies in scope and sound. Do you do traditional A&R -ing or do you contact artists specifically?

If we ever did any traditional A&R work then it would have only been by accident! I think the word ‘osmosis’ would describe our A&R process. Most of our artists have approached us or we’ve been pointed to them by trusted colleagues. I’ve never gone out and searched for a band or an artist to release. Having said that, we are highly selective about who we sign and what we release; we’ve just been incredibly lucky to attract such amazing artists.

3. Have you signed artists through receiving unsolicited demo's?
Yep! See above. Although this has probably happened less and less as time has gone on.

4. How important is it for the label to have a local presence in your catalogue?
Well, that’s a hard one to answer. We’d never sign a band just because they’re from Perth, nor would that influence our decision in any way. All the Perth bands we have on our roster have made us tremble with joy, just like all the international artists on the label. The bonus is that we can touch our Perth folk!

5. In these times when the 'kids' are buying digital only releases how important is it to maintain making physical product? Do you have releases (IE I guess not singles) that have only been released digitally? Would you consider just doing digital releases?
Well, we actually started off as a digital-only label, but funnily enough back when we started it was difficult to be seen as a serious label without some kind of physical release and for most promo uses you had to send CDs to really get any traction (this is still the same to a large degree). Nowadays we do a few digital-only releases (usually EPs), but most releases are CD and digital.

6. Your promo and press announcements of signing artists are unique in the sense alot of labels these days it seem to mutual agreements or I guess verbal commitments with artists. Are you contracts for a number of releases or for one off releases?
We sign up releases and the contracts cover a specific release, but when we decide to release a new artist’s work it is with the unwritten idea that we have started a long-term relationship with that artist and any future work by that artist will be released by the label. I’m not so interested in setting up one-offs unless it really makes sense. We like the longer trajectory of working with an artist over time and through multiple releases.

7. What was the first release by the label and what was special about it?

As mentioned, Wayne Harriss’s Aerospace and My Majestic Star’s Ideas Are The Answer were released on the same day. Wayne’s album scoops the prize for the first Hidden Shoal release with a HSR001 catalogue number to its name! Here we had two Perth artists producing expansive music that embraced the notion of song, while also knowing how and when to deconstruct it. I love both of these albums dearly.

8. Your releases have the Hidden Shoal logo on various parts of the covers of your releases. How important is having artist look that a release will be identifiable as a Hidden Shoal release?
If you’re going to set up a label it’s integral to build something that is much larger than the sum of its parts or else it’s never going to benefit the artists on any more than a service-based level. It’s about people making connections to other artists on the label via an artist they already know. And of course, as more quality releases come out on the label, more and more people realise that if it’s on Hidden Shoal it’s going to be worth investigating and taking note of. The only way to do that is to make the label connection obvious and talk it up where possible.

9. Where you inspired by any other labels? If so who? In terms of early inspirations (I’m talking 20 years ago), 4AD had to top the pile, not only in the way it curated its catalogue, but also in the way it presented itself as an entity. We took a lot of cues from the way they did things.

10. Time to pick a favourite child - which HSR release is your favourite or means something important to you?
Ha – no, I can’t do it. And in all honesty I can’t see it like that. I literally love everything we put out. We wouldn’t release them otherwise. And when I say love I mean fall madly in love with to the point of obsession. Every release cycle starts with a torrid love affair after I hear the album for the first time and then it becomes the pinnacle of my music listening sessions over that period. All my children have been well loved up J

11. What are the future plans for the label? What future releases are in the pipeline?
In terms of future plans, apart from releasing more awesome music, we will continue to grow the licensing (film and TV) arm of the label, which has come along really well over the last few years. We’ve just turned five, so we’re doing a bunch of things this month (May) to celebrate, including the release of a free 18-track sampler album. In terms of future releases, Umpire’s sublime debut album is out next month in Australia and July internationally. We’re also releasing four Antonymes remixes of Slow Dancing Society tracks to coincide with the reissue of the first three Slow Dancing Society albums on CD. We’re also re-releasing Scott Solter’s (Boxharp) amazing ambient work One River. A Salli Lunn remix album, new releases by Wes Willenbring, Elisa Luu and releases by two new artists we haven’t announced yet. Then 2 months of sleeping.

12. Your personal three desert Island discs are?

Cocteau Twins – Victorialands
Arvo Pärt – Miserere
The White Birch – Come Up For Air

The label has just turned 5 years old and to celebrate they have put out a free download compilation of 18 tracks and like their other free compilations it's well worth checking out. Here is the blurb from the label : "To coincide with the label's 5th birthday celebrations, Hidden Shoal is proud to announce the release of the latest installment in its free downloadable sampler album series. Hydrozoa which compiles 18 singles released over the last 18 months and lovingly sequences them into an epic journey. The album is divided into two sides, each a distinct listening experience in its own right - or, if you choose to digest the album in its entirety, it's a graduated ride from the ambient and minimal all the way through to the widescreen and guitar-fuelled. Whichever way you slice it, Hydrozoa is a compelling creature.

Featuring Antonymes, Boxharp, City of Satellites, Elisa Luu, Hotels, Iretsu, Jumpel, Liam Singer, Markus Mehr, Mukaizake, My Majestic Star, Rich Bennett, Salli Lunn, Slow Dancing Society, Stray Ghost, Toby Richardson, Umpire and Wes Willenbring, Hydrozoa touches all the bases that make the Hidden Shoal roster unique, and massages them into a broad-ranging and utterly engaging whole. The release is accompanied by a pdf booklet containing stunning artwork by Hidden Shoal’s Stuart Medley." You can pick it up here.

Antonymes "Lost in Waves of Light"

2011-05-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

Antonymes and Hidden Shoal have followed up the serious contender for album of the year ("The Licence to Interpret Dreams") with this second helping "Lost in Waves of Light" which has been constructed from elements of said album. "Lost In Waves Of Light’ is a deftly crafted sonic and melodic patchwork. The track sits as a wonderful companion piece to the album, as recognised melodies unfurl, cloaked in new guises. As a work unto itself it once again places Antonymes at the height of his game, producing some of the most emotionally and sonically engaging work being released today". The release comes with a 12 page photographic pdf booklet and can be downloaded for free from the Hidden Shoal site here.

Philip Sulidae

2011-05-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

Philip Sulidae

Philip Sulidae is a Sydney based Ambient/Field Recording/Electroacoustic musician who has been steadily releasing music on net and physical labels such as Mystery Sea, Ripples,

Audiotalaia, Impulsive Habitat, Audio Gourmet and his own don'tcaresuidae. The 3" cd-r seems to be his proffered format where he is able to concentrate on a themed composition.

His first 4 releases came out as cd-r's on his don'tcaresulide from '06 to '08 before releasing on net labels. I got in contact with him to find out more and he was gracious to answer my questions.

*What do you do for a living and does this influence the music that you make?
I'm a technical officer and teacher at an art school in TAFE. It definitely affects the music I make . . not in terms of the actual sounds and composition etc, but more in terms of being a creative person and being inspired to actually make something. Being around art students, as well as working along side other artists is pretty conducive to working on your own art.

*Your first four releases came out on your own imprint. Did you do this to establish your music by yourself rather than through other labels?
To a certain extent . . I didn't really know anybody here in Australia doing similar stuff and I figured labels overseas were probably a little hesitant to work with someone so far away. I think it was also being quite keen to get something out there and not have to wait around for labels . . I'd been writing music for nearly ten years at that point and I was pretty happy with what I was doing so I just released it myself.

*Do you think their is a community in Australia of Sound Art/Ambient/Electroacoustic musicians or rather is it a series of musicians doing their own thing?
That probably depends on your own perspectives and experience. For me, I'd have to say it's more a series of musicians doing their own thing.

*Do you think their is a community in Australia of Sound Art/Ambient/Electroacoustic musicians or rather is it a series of musicians doing their own thing?
That probably depends on your own perspectives and experience. For me, I'd have to say it's more a series of musicians doing their own thing.

*Your releases on your own label have been 3" cd-rs. What attracts you to this format?
I like the format a lot . . I think it's a good length of time - not to long, not short. When I did those 3" cd's, the length constraints really suited the music I was writing. It's also the physical size of 3'' cd's - it makes it easier to do interesting packaging. It's also cheaper to post! However, I think I'll probably move away from that format though, as It’s starting to become quite obsolete. I had one customer email me, to ask "How do I play these things?".

*When you record do you do it with a theme or texture in mind?
Absolutely, whilst I generally only have a vague idea of how I want things to sound, I always an idea or concept that underpins everything. I like pieces of music to work together, to make up one larger picture so to speak. So when I'm writing music I tend to work on quite a few pieces at the same time that fit together.

*How important to the releases is the artwork?
Very important . . Often I use images as a starting point for my work, as a sort of "trigger", so to speak. It's only natural then that those images continue to have a presence in the end package. However, a lot of the time the images gradually change as the music changes. I like the music to be a sort of storyboard to the images, but eventually the music starts to have a life of it's own. Interestingly, the changes usually end up being closer and more representative of the intial ideas that I had.

*How much of a response have you had from Australian audiences vs Overseas?
I've had very good responses from both . . Although in terms of actual sales, label interest, downloads etc it's more from overseas by a long shot

*Your music has come out on some of the best overseas netlabels (Audiotalaia, Audio Gourmet, Impulsive Habitat). Is their any labels that you would like to work with?
For sure . . But it's a bit out of my hands though! There are some really nice labels out there, but it also depends a lot on the connection that I make with a label and whether they really understand what I'm trying to do . . I'm a bit of a control freak unfortunately.

*Your working on a collaboration with James McDougall (Entia Non). Can you shed any light on what this sounds/will sound like and when it may see the light of day?
Well, I hope it sees the light of day at some point. I'm sure it will, but I can't say where. We have had some interest from a few labels but nothing too concrete. As far as how it sounds . . mmmh, bit hard to explain!
It was an interesting project . . we both sent each other some files and sounds, but we both have a different "palette", I guess you would call it. So the sounds that James sent me were a little bit different to what I would usually want to work with. It's a little bit more field recording based, so it's probably a bit similar to what I did for my Impulsive Habitat release.

*What future plans do you have?
I'm finishing up some work now . . It's a little bit different to what I've done before, in that it uses a lot more instrumentation. It takes me a while to finish things though, so I'm not sure when it will be released.

*Your 3 desert island discs are...?
Ah . . that's the hardest question! I think at the moment it would be;

Giacinto Scelsi: Trilogia, I Tre Stadi Dell’uomo
Bohren & Der Club Of Gore: Black Earth
Gareth Davis & Machinefabriek: Drape

That would probably last me a few days . .

Table of the Elements "The Copernicum Festival"

2011-05-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

Table of the Elements, the label that has the catalog numbers that are from the periodic table has finally reached the end of the table (release #118). To celebrate this the label has put on a 3 night festival send off which features of have been uploaded on the Free Music Archive site for download. The artists include Tony Conrad, Sunn O))), Zeena Parkins and Jon Rose and others and can be downloaded here.

Grouper - 10 tracks

2011-05-01T03:08:00.000-07:00

Grouper aka Liz Harris is one of the great guitar/drone/laptop artists and recent visitor to these parts. Recently she has put out 2 blink and you will miss them records in "Alien Observer" and "Dream Loss" on Yellowelectric records both in editions of 1000 copies. You can find more information here. To get a taste of her music check out 10 downloadable tracks including 4 live tracks. You can pick them up here

Robert Curgenven Forecast "Leaving Solaris (Manufacturing Nostalgia)" Mix

2011-04-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

Robert Curgenven, the sound artist known for the great "Oltre" release has done a great Podcast for Serein called "Leaving Solaris (Manufacturing Nostalgia)" and it is eclectic to say the least. Here are notes he contributed to the site:

"Imagine an epic, cast in an old and these-days disused mould: a kind of cinema which recalls Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkowsky, Sergio Leone, David Lynch, Baz Luhrman, Godrey Reggio and Francis Ford Coppola. Within this epic, more than the scale of the production, the grandeur of the narrative and the story which is told, could it not be that the recalling of such iconoclasts and their work serves to create a kind of nostalgia - one draped in the sensory cloak of cinema such that the nostalgia itself produces nostalgia? This nostalgia for nostalgia - not for the new but a kind of harking back to great moments of sensory immersion and creation, moments which at the time were at the forefront of innovation but now lie in the halls of cultural fame far beyond the daily trappings of our lives and even the aspirations of today’s big budget Hollywood epics - a nostalgia for nostalgia where we retreat to this old world charm. Though could this be an ebb to a time in isolation, a segue of frozen moments when life was better and the colours were richer compared to the burden of living in this infernal Now? Within this near-Otherness lies a nostalgia for the grand, for places known and unseen, perilous journeys amid turgid seas, struggles across great landscapes, tragic tales of love lost and once again found, a propulsion into a post-terrestrial dimension populated by mysterious and surreal apparitions...
This epic presents the surreal, the absurd, seemingly contradictory narratives and bizarre segues to bind its characters much as in the Russian literary works which are not afraid to bend or morph the rules of time and space to manifest the imaginary. Shifting fluidly through the many “Golden Eras” of cinema, refusing conventional narratives or styles, a series of interconnected vignettes unfurl: the Stars of the Lid’s crackly beginnings belie the echoey layers submerged within a sea of tranquillity; Scriabin’s “Divine Poem” played in reverse becomes a heaving ocean, beset by alien transmissions and shortwave crackles; Ennio Morricone’s Western overtures of pleading fatalism transform the desolate Arctic tundra of Thomas Köner’s “Permafrost” into a bleak, Greek chorus singing out against the tragedy of the struggle toward triumph. Like a solitary figure within the lost narrative of this traversing of Otherness, buried within a nostalgia for nostalgia, the character of Hari from Tarkowsky’s 1972 production of Solaris pronounces, “I have forgotten something , but I do not know what it is”, as her presence encompasses a past long since gone and a man’s quest to recreate it. Elsewhere, Satroius’ macabre, imaginary midget sashays backward through the rumbling red room of mysterious voices in a Lynchian twist bringing to life further quotes from Solaris’ screenplay: Gilbarian doubts his sanity much as Kris’ mind doesn’t just manifest a call to say ‘I love you’ but also forms the brainwaves that Snaut recommends be used to blast this ocean world with radiation. Far above the planet’s surface in a post-Soviet disco-twinkled sky, Belong’s “Same Places” signals a departure which bends time, hurling us further into space on a “Space Oddesy/Oddity” –fueled mission into a new narrative universe where the ship can only break apart as it eventually returns us to the beginning, from the nostalgia-drenched past to the Present.
As suggested by the title, “Leaving Solaris” is not just the physical journey across the cinematic planet, away from its nostalgic mirages of the past and back into Space - which is at once from where we came and also the new way forward - it is also the psychological passage which marks the release which is both to leave and to create the departure. In this process, much as with the manufacturing of nostalgia, we have the beginnings of not just an escape from ourselves, but a modern era epic which trawls the cinematic histories of the 20th century; where through rose-tinged lenses, the crackle, the wash of decay and the textured fading of its print can present us with a new Present encased in the old and incapable of harming us for fear of dispelling its own apparition."

You can check it out here.

Hibernate Recordings 3 Sampler

2011-04-26T06:23:00.000-07:00

Just while I prepare the first draft of the Perth Discography I thought I'd whip out some quick posts in the meantime. The first is the latest sampler from the ever great Hibernate label and features a track each from 11 of their artists from some of their releases. The artists include: Hakobune, Listening Mirror, Ithaca Trio, Sublamp, Felicia Atkinson and others.

You can pick it up here.

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks "Live" and UT - No Wave

2011-04-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks

I've been interested in the New York No Wave scene probably since my late teens (almost 20 years ago). I first picked up the Lydia Lunch "Hysterie" double album which turned me onto her early outfits like Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Beirut Slump and Eight Eyed Spy. Getting into these bands turned me onto the "No New York" lp, plus searching out The Contortions, James Chance and The Blacks, Liquid Liquid, Konk, ESG, etc.. The thing I like about the New York scene is the freedom of styles included in the music. It could have the punk energy without the narrowness of that style of music and adding the artiness of experimental music. It wouldn't be out of place to have Funk, Disco, Jazz, Big Band sounds mixed in with discordant guitars. Here are some live tracks from the reformed Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and some from one of the longest running No Wave band UT. Enjoy. You can also download them here and here.

Quinn Walker

2011-04-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to the Label/Release update post, I stumbled upon Quinn Walker's bandcamp page. So, not only can you pick up the "Kwichon" release that is coming out/is out in an edition of 75 copies on Heat Death Recordings for free. You can also pick up "The Weight of Care" which was part of Rural Colour's Subscription pack #9 and "The City Rides the Sea Parts 1 and 2" for free. All in all great Modern Classical/Drone/Electronica/Glitch. Pick them up here.

Antonymes / Umpire Release - Hidden Shoal

2011-04-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

Cam Merton of Hidden Shoal has been busy recently. He had the pre-orders of Antonymes "The Licence to Interpret Dreams" from April 1, which saw it's official release on cd and digital on April 21 and has been universally acclaimed on various blogs, websites and facebook. You can pick it up here digitally from the Hidden Shoal bandcamp page here and don't forget the promo single for "Endlessly" which I described as being one of the albums centre pieces, which you can download for free here.

The latest of the label's signings is Perth Indie Rock band Umpire and is their first release since their self titled ep from 2009. The single is a preview of their forthcoming debut album "No We're Active" which sees it's launch on June 2nd with an International release on July 14th. The band features members of bands like O!, Adamsaidgalore, Mukaizake and was recorded in bassist Simon Struthers' Forensic Audio studio. You can pick up their free single "Green Light District" here.

The great Headphone Commute site has done an overview of the labels more Ambient/Electronic acts which you can view here.

And lastly, there will be an interview on this blog with Cam as soon as he has some time.

Room40 - 10 year Celebration Massive Compilation

2011-04-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to the Lawrence English download, here is a mammoth free compilation to celebrate the 10 years of Room40. First they had the "10" mix cd that came with subscribers copies of The Wire magazine. They also released a set of 5 cassettes featuring the likes of John Chantler and Lawrence English, Taylor Deupree and Pimmon and others. This compilation is 40 tracks from 40 artists such as: Chris Abrahams, Pimmon, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Ben Frost, Richard Chartier, Steve Roden and many more. If you only download 1 400+ Mb compilation make it this. Grab it here

Label Release Updates Pt 4

2011-04-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd do a post just of some news in bullet form.

Ghost Drums

*Ghost Drums - fresh out of appearing at the Human Xerrox Project launch @ Dada's, Pete has , thanks to encouragement from Ben at Dada's run off some cd-r copies of his USB release. Goes for $7. Pete has also got some remixes coming out. He's playing at Stina's "Summer in Mariana" cd launch on Monday April 25 at the Bird with Chris Cobilis, Pex and His Last Bow.

*Heat Death Recordings have 2 new releases from Quinn Walker and Gimu both 3" cd-rs with printed inserts and envelopes (400gsm silk finish card and 300gsm hammered card). The "Quinn Walker will appeal to anyone who enjoys classically influenced drones - think violins and record crackles with field recordings in the background ", while the Gimu release is for fans of "of Jannick Schou and Saito Koji". You can check out the releases here.

Quinn Walker

Line - Richard Chartier's label has two new releases available from Seth Cluett and Richard himself. Seth's release is called "Objects of Memory" while Richard's is "Transparence". Seth's record is described as: "The content of the works presented on this disc produce a slow series of gestures that give the illusion of stillness amidst a texture of continually developing material. The central concern in all of these pieces (the three fully scored works, the installation documentation, and the live-performance) is the construction of a sound world that is able to be environmental rather than temporal, proceeding slowly enough that it might be explored without the anxiety that it will movscre away too quickly". Richard's is described as: "A master of extreme digital minimalism, Richard Chartier wields silence like a sledgehammer; in his patiently wrought compositions the weight of what’s not there is alone enough to pulverise you" Both are available from LINE in editions of 500 copies.

Seth Cluett

Hibernate - the label who is selling out releases it would appear in record time, have put out their first vinyl release from Felicia Atkinson called "The Driver" in an edition of 200 copies. "Her work is a result of her interest in chance and improvisation. Whether it be sound or in her drawings, everything is recorded in one shot and occasionally edited slightly after the improvised session has finished". As Hibernate releases out you should join their mailing list/facebook. You can go to their site here.

Felicia Atkinson

Adeptsound - The latest release from this label is by Schuster called "Blac Flies Resplendant on the Blak Moon" (ADSCDR3) and was released today April 18 on cd-r in an edition of 70 copies. It was previously released on Licht Und Stahl in a metal case in an edition of 20 copies. Described as psychadelic ambient post industrial. You can check out the excerpt below to get an idea of what it sounds like and order it from here.

Schuster - Blac Flies Resplendent On The Blak Moon - Compendium Of Excerpts by Adeptsound

Schuster

Lawrence English live at Cafe OTO

2011-04-15T00:34:00.000-07:00

Most people should be aware of Lawrence English. He's the man behind the Room40 and Something Good labels and a well known solo artist. He started in the Goth/Industrial band Dogmachine (who I have an original black and white photo of sent to me years ago by the other member), but got his head turned by Boredoms when they toured in the mid-late '90's. You can download his set at well known UK venue Cafe OTO below.

Frozen Ocean and Ermine Coat

2011-04-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

I don't claim to know most of the Perth bands around now. In fact it's probably been years since I went to a gig. Why? Probably because I've been starting a family and also because I don't know that many people socially and there is nothing sadder than the lone guy with no mates slowly nursing a beer, role I've done a fair bit of. If you were at Autechre, Dirty Three or The Necks you may have seen me perform that role last year. So it's good when local bands get in touch that I wasn't aware of.

Frozen Ocean

The first band is Frozen Ocean. They are a 2 piece with Pete (Guitar and Vocals) and Macka (Drums) though both members swap instruments. They put out a cd/cd-r called "Initial Mission" which may or not be still available. Their music varies from down tuned Harvey Milk like Heaviness to thrashed out punk mixed with some free form skronk. You can download the following track OJMO to get a good idea of their sound and you can check them out at the next gig at Dada records which I believe is either on the 30th or 31st of April (best see the Dada Records Facebook page). You can also visit the bands myspace here.

Ermine Coat is an 18 year old guy named Alex who describes his music as: "kinda outsider moron not-anything-wave experimental bedroom pop". He has an album called "LP" which you can pick up for free from his Tumblr page here. You'll need to get a program to open the 7zip file which you can also get from his site. Apparently he's also released a bunch of ep's and a 7" (according to this blog). I recommend you check it out

Ermine Coat "LP"

Antonymes "The Licence to Interpret Dreams"

2011-04-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

"The Licence to Interpret Dreams" is the latest and second full length album from Ian Hazeldine aka Antonymes. This comes out on local label Hidden Shoal Recordings on April 21, though you can pre order now. Ian is a designer, photographer and film maker and it's not only in the artwork that his design skills come to the fore. You could say that the album covers the Drone/Modern Classical/Ambient sphere, but has the feel of being in a way a film soundtrack. His attention to detail in his art shines through in the music where if it's suited to have periods of near silence following piano notes to create a mood, well then the periods are used to make the mood fully whole.

"Oradour-Sur-Glane" features a narration or announcer that sounds like he is coming to you from the grave ("Nobody lives here now" is that start of the dialogue and bizarrely reminds me of one of those old Frankie Goes to Hollywood remixes of "Two Tribes" which is interesting when you think of Paul Morley - author, journalist and former ZTT records co-owner and his relationship with Antonymes). The tracks also has long drones, glitchy static and piano that comes in intermittently. "Womb of the great mother" has haunting strings, building up drones, Field recordings, while "The Gospel Pass" sounds like something from last century. The two tracks "Endlessly" and "Doubt" are probably the centrepiece to the album. The first was released back in mid March as a single which at the time I described as "A Teaser" simply for the reason that it made you want to check out the music further. "Doubt" has spoken word that crosses from left to right in your speakers/headphones and is quite hypnotic.

Cellist James Banbury comes to the fore on tracks like "Wave upon Wave" and "A light from the heavens". "On Approaching The Strange Museum" the final and longest track has some distant thumping percussion, field recordings, haunting drones, some silence before finishing off with cello and piano and leaving you with a memory with what you have just listened to. The track covers a lot of the ground contained in the album. Admittedly, it's hard to break down the album to it's particular parts and tracks as it's more than the sum it's parts.

A perfect description of Antonymes art is contained in the press release from the label : "The music of Antonymes emerges from the adjustments and erasures of ambient and the pace and persistence of minimalism; from the serenity and austerity of Morton Feldman and the profound prettiness of Harold Budd; from the relationship between continuity and repetition; from secrecy, quietness and pause; from thought, from emptiness; from where it is set and where it is setting off to. At the same time definite and a ghostly impression, Antonymes floats free of fixed points while anxiously staying in sight of genres, movements, scenes, connections, contexts and innovations that have piled up and broken down around it."

A worthwhile release that joins all those great modern classical releases by artists such as Clem Leek, Svarte Greiner, Nils Fram, etc...
Don't forget the free download for "Endlessly" which you can get here and you can go to the pre-order page here.

House of Wax Records - Centreway's Arcade late 80's/ early 90's

2011-04-06T04:38:00.000-07:00

Inspired by YeLPar and their old Perth photo's I asked Kim Williams if he had any old photo's of the various House of Wax record stores. He sent me this, the only one he has. It's from the first location in Centreways Arcade (I mistakenly called it Treasureway Arcade in the previous post). The shop was a small square shop with vinyl lp's along one wall, a small bookcase of cassettes on the opposite wall. The counter was divided with indie singles on one side, a small gap, the cash register and golden oldies single on the other. I think there was some lp racks in the middle and a hand full of cd's. At the front window were two (I think) crates of second hand and a bunch of flyers on the floor. I remember a copy of the not so long ago released "69" Mlp by The Kryptonics which I didn't pick up and some 20+ years later I'm still looking for it. Bought the Massappeal "Nobody Likes a Thinker" mlp and a bunch of other great records there. Ah, memories...

Kim's mobile record store has been brought forward a day to Sat April 16 in honour of Record Store Day.His shop is at Tiger Tiger Coffee Bar on Murray Street from 11 am to 3pm.

Rabbit Island/ Human Xerox Project

2011-04-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

2011 has already been a busy year for Amber Fresh aka Rabbit Island. So far she has had the collaborative/split 7" with Gilbert Fawn (Badminton Bandit Bb 012), a track on the "Human Xerox Project: Beautiful Florist" (Emerald Cabal) and now the full length debut album "O God, Come Quick" (Badminton Bandit Bb 014) which was launched on Friday 25 of March. (Not to forget the Gulls double cd-r "California Christmas/Yam Yam" which can now be downloaded from their bandcamp page here.)

"O God, Come Quick" was recorded in January of this year at SAE features musicians such as Matt Maguire, Tristen Parr (Scvendes, Fall Electric), Matt Aitken (Aka Gilbert Fawn, Ghost of the 29 Megacycles, These Shipwrecks), Greg Taw (Jasmine Loop Control, Ghost of the 29 Megacycles). The album contains tracks that are just guitar and voice ("Adam's Song", "Safety Suit"), tracks with percussion ("Once I Was", "This Town"), and other tracks have a variety of effects either on the voice or on the instruments that give it a warped/psych sound. "Creeper of Ages" reminds me of the classic Cat Power Dirty Three influenced "Moon Pix" album and would sit well on that album. The album is bookended with solo acoustic/vocal tracks (without the effects on the vocals) in "Adam's Song" and "Safety Suit" and these as well as "My Own Private" and "Creepers of Ages" are the highlights for me. The album has a lo-fi sound that gives warmth to the songs, but it would be interesting to see how the songs would come out if they were cleaner in the recording (please don't think that's an insult to Jay Brandner who recorded and mixed this album, it would be interesting to hear another dimension).

Human Xerox Project (Emerald Cabal) is a compilation put together by Matt Aitken. It's a release that contains 12 version of the song "Beautiful Florist" originally done by Perth band The Tigers. The album art and the title give a hint to the music contained on the album. The art has an almost Venn diagram like picture linking all the artists together much in the way that they are linked by covering/versioning the same song. Also with Xerox in the title and listening to cd gives the impression that the original by The Tigers is the master copy and if you were to xerox or photocopy it and then use the copy as the master and so on and so on you would get a different version by the time you get to 12 (IE the number of tracks/artists). Highlights for me are Silver Bulletin (Psych w/ layered vocals), Ghost Drums (Electronica w/ old school synth), Riddles (Drum Machine and Surf Guitar), Javier Frisco (Noise), Lil' Leonie Lionheart (so lo-fi it's almost a field recording with musical accompaniment), Gilbert Fawn and Ambrose Knock (Psych chiming guitars, thumping bass and post punk sound), Predrag Delibasich (Instrumental with almost Lil' Leonie melodies and trumpet) and Tin Man (Glitch/Broken Beat). A very diverse collection with few covering the song while others are versioning it or using elements of it to create something new. I don't have the original (it's not on any of The Tigers cd's i have), but it would be nice to hear the original alongside the versions. This release also has artists that I'm not entirely familiar with, so maybe Cobilis and co turn up on one of the versions? It's a cd-r of 100 copies and I presume you can get it at Dada's or other usual outlets and is recommended.

Grave New World Big Cartel

2011-04-04T06:32:00.000-07:00

Following on from Camryn's mega closing down sale for his distro Etheric Hymns (which lasted around a week, not the month as planned) he has unveiled a new Big Cartel store for his Grave New World releases which you can visit here. The most recent release is the self titled release from Rat Columns which is available on Cassette and cd and is a co-release with Ros Records. Rat Columns is David West former Perth person with assistance of James Vinciguerra (Soviet Valves, Total Control, Fifth Column records). Described as "Eight songs of dark, ill-fitting pop wanderings and mangled noises". Camryn also has a new look website which lists all the available releases and the links to their various bandcamp pages (Mundaring Weird, Silver Bulletin etc...). You can check it out here.

Latest tracks by Grave New World Records

Kim Williams' Mobile Record Store

2011-04-02T21:38:00.000-07:00

Kim Williams is getting back into the record store business, well sort of. For most of the past 30 or so years Kim has been behind a counter at some of the best record stores in Perth such as White Rider, Dada (where he and Rob ran the Easter Records label from), his own House of Wax and most recently 78's. His new venture is a mobile record store where he lists where he will be the following Saturday on his myspace page. He'll be mainly concentrating on vinyl and will have his Dj decks with him so there will be tunes while you browse.

I first came across Kim probably late '89 or thereabouts just after he started his own House of Wax shop in the Treasureway Arcade (which is now the Paragon CBD), he then moved into the vacant basement that used to be Bedlam Books/Back Plague on King Street (years before King Street became the street of multinational cosmetics and jewelry shops). His last port of call was the large basement on Hay street (near Boffins) which was then taken over by the defunct Wildilocks. Kim's history also includes being in Louie Louie, the band that sits between The Scientists (Power Pop/Punk) and Scientists (Swamp) and co- wrote "Swampland". He's also appeared in bands like The Tarantulas, The Holy Rollers, The Summer Suns, Love Letters, Bashful and The White Swallows.

His first shop destination is the Rock and Roll Collectors Society Record Fair on April 17 at the Leisurelife Centre cnr of Kent and Gloucester Streets East Vic Park.

Dead Pilot Records - Message to Bears / Ekca Liena

2011-04-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

Dead Pilot Records is a label from the UK that I first came across via a postcard/flyer in a package from Norman's Records. They have released music by great artists such as Stray Ghost (They have a great cd/t-shirt pack in their store), Jasper Tx, Expo 70, Clem Leek + Jannick Schou, Brian Grainger and a bunch of other artists that I have yet to discover. 2 of their latest releases are by Ekca Liena and Message to Bears. and Dan kindly sent me digital promos of them.

Ekca Liena's release is "Slow Music for Rapid Eye Movement" 2cd (although the first 50 pre-orders also received a 3" cd-r called "November in Flight" which is now sold out). "Slow Music..." is a deluxe reissue of the 2008 cd-r this time it has been re-edited, remixed and expanded. The original issue was a press of 100 copies and came in a tin can and sold out quickly. Ekca Liena aka Daniel Mackenzie has since gone on to release music on labels such as Under the Spire and Phantom Channel (who put out the stunning "Orb Night" release which has been re-released by Blindsight Records) and put out releases himself. The disc includes remixes by Aidan Baker, Clem Leek and others.

The music is great drifting/droning ambient that isn't groundless. It's definitely not glacial and slow, but has enough rhythm without having standard beats to flow. It's multi layered with synths gliding, acoustic guitar plucking and bubbling Orb like sounds. "Reverse Ending" is a track that does have a percussive element and it's tribal if anything and it compliments and builds up the track with the strings and electronics and has a modern classical meets ambient meets drone meets Asia (no, not the super group, the region) sound. The thing about the record is while all the tracks flow together well (there is no big massive change like a quiet track then a wall of ambient drone), they all have their own individual sound. "Missing Weeks" starts off with what sounds like field recordings of rain and ambient drones and heads into Asian sounding chimes and then a build up in the middle of the track and gradually subsides to the end which returns to almost how the track began and has a very filmic and soundtrackesque quality to it. The following track "We are dying flames" is a great slow building drone that descends into washes of ambient noise. The cd comes with a bonus disc of remixes and cover versions. I was only aware of the works of Aidan Baker and Clem Leek, so names like Duncan Harrison, Pupilar, Nick Hudson and Kixotek are new to me. Clem Leek's piece goes all ambient/chimey before surprising the listener who are aware of his work by going all Oneohtrix Point Never in the second half. Aidan Baker's remix starts of reminding me of Thomas Koner before going all Nadja/Godflesh like with sub metal/industrial down tuning mixed with ambient noise. You can check out his remix here:

Ekca Liena - Fire Emerging From Mist (Remix by Aidan Baker) by Dead Pilot records

The album is one of those that are best taken as a whole as it's a great collection of material and stands up as an album as opposed to a collection of tracks that comprise an album. The first edition was 100 copies, this time the run is 300 copies and you can be guaranteed it will sell out fast.

One of the reasons that this post has taken me so long to do is that I have pretty much obsessively listening to this album. Previously I had only heard a track on the "Onda Drops Volume 2" compilation so I didn't have a lot of existing references for the music of Message to Bears. Like all good music that is getting released these days Message to Bears is largely a solo project (though it looks like it has blossomed into a full band for live outings). The man behind the name is Jerome Alexander and he's created a stunning album that has seen it's re-release on vinyl as a co-release between Dead Pilot Records and Ritual Echo Records. Jerome started out in 2007 with a set of self released recordings called "Ep 1" in a handmade cases and limited to 100 copies which quickly sold out. He then linked up with the recently formed Dead Pilot Records and they were re-released. They followed this up with a split release with The Souls Release and then this release "Departures". The original release was a 500 copy cd and the new vinyl edition is 250 copies.

Descriptions of Message to Bears have ranged from Folktronica, Prog Folk, Neo Folk, Ambient, etc... I'd probably link it within a modern classical/post rock framework with strong folk influence which also incorporates field recordings. The instruments include Acoustic Guitars, Pianos, Glockenspiel, Drums and others.Voice is used but not as traditional singing, more as melody or rhythm. Percussion is also more lo-key with it being a simple bass drum beat or like thigh slapping. Breaking down the tracks is pointless as the whole album works so well although a personal highlight is "Autumn" with the typewriter percussion, acoustic guitar, strings and haunting vocal melodies while "Hope" has a great mournful drone. This is an album again like Ekca Liena that should be listened to as a whole and has shown that Dead Pilots Records have a great knack of finding artists that produce works that are a whole. You can pick up both these release from Dead Pilots here.

3. Message to Bears - Pretend to Forget by Dead Pilot records

Kate Carr - Listen to the Weather

2011-03-29T19:52:00.000-07:00

Kate Carr is a Sydney electronic artist who does glitchy ambient electroacoustic. I came across her a few months ago via the 5th volume of New Weird Australia's compilation series and the podcast that they also did with her, you can get both here and here. The podcast prompted me to search out the project that is mentioned in the podcast "Listen to the Weather" and releases that she has done. "Listen to the Weather" is a project based on environments that the artists live in. "Armed with daily weather statistics from the area they live in and their favourite song about water, each participating artist has produced an aural portrait of their city's weather for a day.

By mapping data as well as referencing existing musicial works this project aims to explore how water has contributed to our understanding of being human and suggest that these understandings will shift as our climate changes."
The artists included are: Billy Gomberg, The Green Kingdom, Michael Trommer, Darren McClure, My Fun and more. You can download some of the artists tracks here or buy one of the limited edition 12" lps (100 copies) here.

You can check out Kate's "Testing" release on Standard Klik Music here (just go to the bottom left release on the page). You can get her "Automatic Crossing" ep on Pertin-nce here and the 4-4-2 net label release "I got the Beecroft Blues" here (about half way down the page).

Videos - Endlessly Rich Rabbit

2011-03-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

I originally was going to do a post on the recent releases from Hibernates Postcard series and the Hummingbird Remixes cd on Fluid Audio/Fracture as well as recent releases on Hidden Shoal, but both the Hibernate and Fluid Audio releases have sold out in such a short period of time. You literally have to be on their mailing lists or Facebook friends to get the information and act on it quickly as once they are selling out they are appearing on Discogs at wildly inflated prices (much to the frustration of the labels). So lets get on with those that are actually available:

Hidden Shoal - Following on from my previous Hidden Shoal and Antonymes post here are the videos for the Antonymes "Endlessly" track and Rich Bennett "Misty Valley" plus a download link for the Rich Bennett track.

You can download the Rich Bennett track here.

Rabbit Island - To celebrate the release of of Rabbit Island's "O God, Come Quick" cd here is the video for JuliaSarahTaraSam.

The Silent World "An Eye for an Ear" Ep

2011-03-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Silent World are a local band who I hadn't heard about until their guitarist Michael Ramsey got in contact with me and passed on a cd-r of their debut ep "An Eye for an Ear" which was released late last year. Described as being influenced by Do Make Say Think and Slint, the band play what could best be described as Post Rock, but not limited to that particular genres sound.

Post Rock has largely been around since the early to mid 90's, although it does have earlier roots in bands like Talk Talk and Bark Psychosis. The problem with the genre is that bands can be limited to the Loud/Soft (Pioneered by Mogwai), Soundtrackesque (ala Explosions in the Sky) or Symphonic (Mono). It's hard to create/add something new, but The Silent World escape the conventions by having variety in the tracks on their debut release.

The Ep starts with "Interior Semiotics" which has a Do Make say Think feel before rocking out in an almost Comets on Fire style. This is followed by "Average Looking Girlfriend" which has a strong Post Punk feel with a synth being the dominant feature of the track. "Dick Dawkins" has a building Explosions in the Sky sound with shimmering guitars and at 6 minutes it's probably the stand out track on the Ep. "Oklahoma" is an atmospheric track that slowly reaches a crescendo before fading into the "Secret Track" which comes across as a close relative to "Dick Dawkins". There is, or was another bonus track on the promo I received called "Punishment" which suits the title as it's some music with a loop of them saying "This cd is over" (or something like that - I deleted it from my ipod pretty quickly). Not sure if it's on the Ep proper, but it can be ignored and doesn't detract from the fact that this band has been around for a short period of time and a relatively young, yet they have come up with a very mature and engrossing release. You can see why they are playing RTRFM's "In the Pines" festival and supporting Melbourne band Heirs soon. You can pick up the Ep from here.