In 1983, Dieter Moebius (Cluster) and legendary producer Conny Plank teamed up for the third time, resulting in the Zero Set project. On this occasion, they were backed up by one of the best drummers on the German rock scene: Mani Neumeier of Guru Guru. Moebius had got to know and admire him as the live drummer for Harmonia (Moebius, Roedelius, Rother) and during the recording sessions for their second album (De Luxe). Conny Plank, usually more of a background figure as producer, takes an equal share of the limelight alongside the musicians. His supermodern studio is brought into play like an instrument in its own right; Plank explores the full range of audio editing, pushing recording techniques to the limit to achieve maximum brilliance and plasticity. Neumeier uses all of his many years of experience as a drummer, demonstrating the precision and stamina of a drum machine, just infinitely livelier and more inventive. And finally, to Moebius. Always one of the patriarchs of German electronic music, a creator of the most bizarre sound happenings, yet never sounding forced or arbitrary. On the contrary, he consistently worked within the context of the tracks themselves and their relationship to each other. The music on Zero Set flows both smoothly and energetically. No single idea is overplayed, none of the tracks hits the ten-minute mark. Aural and musical structures are concentrated to the point of askesis, yet there is no mistaking just how much the musicians are relishing playing together -- these are the two very different, yet defining characteristics of the album. Moebius, Neumeier and Plank are unsentimental in their use of technology, exploiting it as an effective tool in pursuit of their musical vision. Three musicians at the top of their game and far too smart to allow their efforts to drift into psychedelic meanderings. Limited Anniversary Edition: hand numbered, limited edition white vinyl, 500 copies available.
MOEBIUS
Tonspuren (40th Anniversary Edition) LP
By 1969 at the latest, Dieter Moebius was synonymous with the avant-garde electronic music scene in Germany. He and Hans-Joachim Roedelius formed Cluster, a seminal electronic/ambient duo, whilst Moebius was also a member of the so-called Krautrock supergroup Harmonia (with Michael Rother and Roedelius), as well as collaborating on various other projects with the likes of Brian Eno and Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru. Somehow, it took Moebius until 1983 to release his own solo debut album, Tonspuren. Tonspuren is an album of minimalisms, miniatures and stringent form, ten consistently concise and precise pieces. Moebius develops tonal variations out of minimalistic, rhythmic, harmonic basic tracks, sometimes coming close to tangible melodies. Yet this is exactly the point at which he purposely steers clear of electronic pop criteria. Nevertheless, Tonspuren is a pop album, its radically stripped-down contents replenished with harmonious elements of prevalent popular music. Echoes of Cluster notwithstanding, the music of Tonspuren is a separate entity altogether. Moebius seems to be avoiding improvisation as the devil keeps his distance from holy water. Each piece is thoughtfully composed, as Moebius crafts his miniatures layer by layer. Spontaneous inaccuracies have no place here, noise escapades are nipped in the bud. Baroque, folklore and frivolity are not admitted into the studio when the red light is on. Thanks to Tonspuren, the keen listener now has the opportunity of direct comparison in his appraisal of the solo albums of Dieter Moebius, Hans Joachim Roedelius and Michael Rother. What role did each of the Harmonia triumvirate play in creating the style of the supergroup? Tonspuren thus represents a vital piece of the Harmonia puzzle. Limited Anniversary Edition: hand numbered, limited edition white vinyl, 500 copies available.
REV, MARTIN
The Sum of Our Wounds (Cassette Recordings 1973-85) (Red Vinyl) LP
LP version. Red color vinyl. "[Martin] Rev initially explored free jazz and similarly free forms of musical expression before discovering the magnetic attraction of electronic production and instrumentation, enabling him to create music in a wholly independent and autonomous environment. Using the most rudimentary equipment, he grafted the roots of rock n' roll into the process of combining effects and devices to generate electrified sounds, the likes of which had never been heard before. This music would map out the way forward not only for Suicide, but also for a fascinating solo career. Martin Rev's predilection for experimentation knew no bounds. At home, he played around with rough ideas, trying out all manner of variations and colorations. These tape recordings provide a captivating insight into his modus operandi, often representing the early stages of what would later become Suicide tracks or cuts on Rev's solo albums. Spanning the period 1973 to 1985, the recordings on The Sum of Our Wounds are much more than a collection of demos and outtakes. One has the sense of listening to a rounded album of familiar compositions, now portrayed in a completely new light. The brittle fragility of these cassette pieces reveals a deep-lying sensitivity, like a collection of wounds..." --Daniel Jahn, June 2023
LP version. With Ein Bündel Fäulnis in der Grube, Holger Hiller presented his solo debut having left Palais Schaumburg. Originally released in 1983 on the Düsseldorf scene label Ata Tak, an international release followed in 1984 via Cherry Red Records. Combining electronic sequencer sounds and sampling fragments with unconventional lyrics its multidisciplinary approach locates it somewhere between the pop and avant-garde. Bureau B is now making the work accessible again on its 40th anniversary.
"In 1983, during the completion of this album, some ideas and views of the future changed for me. While everyone's mind was still haunted by the admonishingly gloomy vision of George Orwell's 1984, the release of the motion picture Blade Runner had a lasting effect. It depicted a world that can no longer be saved: Acid rain is pouring down derelict buildings and humanity has to confront fugitive cyborgs as a result of artificial intelligence gone wrong. The future however was not quite so clear-cut as those pictures: dystopian imaginings were also being layered with mosaic pieces of a pop history that saw itself as a source of hope, a supposed counterculture. Could this promise be fulfilled or was it simply a 'productive misunderstanding?' With the onset of digitalization, the new musical tools -- first and foremost the techniques of 'sampling' and computerized sequencing -- were enthusiastically met by me and many others, a generation of William Burroughs readers whose sensibility had been nurtured by 'cut-up' and 'automatic writing.' And so everything flowed together on this album: the esoteric heritage of various hippie and alternative movements and their expressions in 'pop,' the underlying currents of 'Modernism' and the influences of European 'neue musik.' The resulting musical pieces on the album celebrate this moment in its simultaneity, its confusion and its new confidence." --Holger Hiller
"In the swirl of underground music emerging from Dunedin, New Zealand in the 1980s, Peter Gutteridge stands as one of the era's most intense and shadowy figures. Despite being a founding member of The Clean and The Chills, Gutteridge would eschew indie-rock fame for the hypnotic and driving sounds of his later bands such as Snapper. Fittingly, it is Pure -- Gutteridge's lone solo album of intimate home recordings -- that serves as the most revealing and celebrated release of his career. As Peter Jefferies writes in the liner notes, 'That's what's so good about Pure. Not only the songs, but the name, the name for the recording. It is as pure as you can get. That's the real deal, when it goes from nothing to something and he catches it on his machine.' Originally released on cassette in 1989 on Xpressway, Pure documents Gutteridge's stunning use of four-track as instrument. Featuring lo-fi pop gems and interstitial sketches, the LP combines densely layered keyboards and guitars, distorted drum machines and possessed-sounding vocals to create a truly singular work of undistilled artistic vision. While Gutteridge denied that he was the architect of the 'Dunedin Sound,' Pure sits comfortably next to the most revered Flying Nun releases of its time. Shifting exquisitely from churning rattle to an airy ease without losing momentum, these twenty-one songs hold a lasting place in the canon of DIY music. Recommended for fans of Syd Barrett, Jim Shepard, and early Fad Gadget. Includes drawing chosen by Peter's family."
LP version. The avant-garde Kraut ensemble Supersempfft laid the foundation for their techno-tropical pop music in 1979 with their debut album Roboterwerke. In 1981, they followed up with the album Metaluna, which is now being honored through a re-release on Bureau B. The group, consisting of Dieter Kolb, Franz Knüttel, and Franz Aumüller, fused global influences, experimental sonic landscapes, and surreal lyrics into a unique sonic cosmos. Metaluna stands out with its meandering sequences, unconventional rhythms, and psychedelic songwriting that remains groundbreaking even decades later. After their first album, Kolb and Aumüller's love of reggae and dub took them on a transatlantic trip to Trinidad and Tobago under the false assumption that all the islands stepped to the Jamaican style. Any momentary disappointment was soon dispelled by the liveliness and optimism of calypso and soca, and a life affirming experience at carnival left them awestruck and inspired. Back home, they began work on Metaluna, a wild combination of roving sequences, tropical rhythms, squashed brass and yearning vocals which sprints, skanks and soars through ten triumphant tracks. Amid the metallic beats and interplanetary idents lurk sublime melodies and soulful motifs, psychedelic songwriting reminiscent of Barrett, Beefheart, or Brian Wilson at their best. In their dubbier moments, Supersempfft sound like Lee Perry jamming on an alien console, with wild panning and delirious FX suggesting a sound clash on a distant planet. Meanwhile the arcade exuberance, vocoder gospel and space age ballads predate the sweltering synth-pop of The Knife, Hot Chip, and Ariel Pink by a full two decades, setting a bar that their successors still fail to meet. Innovative, experimental yet still heavy on the hooks, Metaluna is both a jubilant expression of its creators' tastes and a masterclass in mercurial pop -- a success of self-expression which proves once again that the best bands play for themselves.
"In January 1983, Minor Threat went into Inner Ear Studio for the first time as a five-piece (Brian Baker had moved from bass to second guitar and Steve Hansgen was now playing bass). They had six new songs that would end up being the center piece of what became the Out of Step 12" EP. The band had also decided to re-record the song 'Out of Step' with some extra language to try to clarify the lyrics, as well as 'Cashing In,' a tongue-in-cheek song about the DC punk scene which they had only played live once. After much debate, 'Cashing In' was added as a hidden track on the original vinyl release though not listed on the cover or label. There was still blank tape on the reel, so they decided to record an instrumental with the working title 'Addams Family' and then recorded new versions of 'In My Eyes' and 'Filler' to hear what they sounded like with two guitars. 'Addams Family' ended up being used as a coda to 'Cashing In,' but the other two songs were never mixed and largely forgotten for over 35 years until the multitrack tapes were taken into the studio to be digitized in 2021. Surprised by the discovery, Ian and Don Zientara mixed the two songs along with the complete take of 'Addams Family.' These outtakes are now being released on a 7" to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Out of Step."
LP version. RSE surprise album just in time before the migration to cooler waters. Grown in the shade of the glacier. Killer Whale Atmospheres is a future-memory affair of sub bass propulsive drones, rhythms, chords and dorsal scars building to a forbidding sense of cold echolocations yet to come through the violent procession of darkening rains. Black vinyl double LP in wide spine sleeve. Digital download code included.
Lucy Railton trusts in the nuance of her own creative instincts on an intensely modern, quietly radical new album, her second for Modern Love. Following her 2018 solo debut Paradise 94 (LOVE 108LP), and countless collaborations in the time since, Railton's diverse musical circles here bleed into each other, creating an insoluble testament to a lifelong pursuit of sound. The multi-instrumentalist further articulates her own tonal register, embracing her solo strengths and trusting the process to reveal vulnerable and compelling emotional facets through a fluid mix of composition, and pure expression. On the simplest level, Corner Dancer is a record that revels in the momentum of creation. Through a range of approaches, Railton gradually loosens her grip and allows her identities to expose themselves; cut to the bone, sinew and spirit of music making. Reaching outside tried and tested zones, she lands at a charged space characterized by unmetered pacing and an embrace of imperfection, using cello, viella (a medieval cello), Buchla, 808, a fan, synths, horse hair whips, a handheld harp and her own voice, across eight tracks that arc from an opening sequence of ruptured asymmetries, to something bordering the sublime on "Blush Study," the album's masterful closing flourish. In between, Railton invokes psychoacoustic, heady spins and repetitions, while also allowing space for live performance, a mode to which she feels most attuned, and here captured best on "Held in Paradise" (her violin debut) and "Rib Cage." Collapsing boundaries, Railton harnesses a lifetime of formal training in order to patiently trace more ambiguous, intimate and sometimes deviant shapes, operating to a fuzzed logic that loops back to themes with an ingenious underlying dramaturgy of energies, dismantling the form from the inside out, in a way that bends through feeling, rather than design.
"Before hitting the road together in 2022, Bill Nace and Emily Robb recorded a tour split -- a cassette, limited run of 50 -- only to be found at their merch table. Now on vinyl, the split captures a moment bursting with verdant, crisp anticipation. Both artists were then on the heels of significant artistic leaps. Robb was wrapping up the promotional cycle of her first full-length solo record, 2021's How To Moonwalk, and Nace had recently shifted his focus from prepared guitar to the taishogoto, a Japanese instrument rarely heard in the west. When Nace plays his taisho live, listeners generally respond in a couple of different ways. Some become slightly hypnotized by the constant motion required to maintain the instrument's frantic, electric flicker. Others, on the edge of their seats, whoop loudly, almost involuntarily, to release the mounting tension. As a performer, Nace says the experience is a bit like being watched while jogging in place. Where the guitar easily allows space, this particular model of taishogoto has no sustain. 'I have to keep playing it to keep making sound,' Nace says. 'I have to get whipped up into this state.' This presents new limitations, and Nace expands to the edges. Here it shudders and sparks, spiking and scribbling like an EKG. It emanates white light, white heat. Robb luminates in a balmier way, like sunshine through leaves. Her guitar arcs and billows. Fripp-y tones and textures establish a structure inside which it feels good to get lost. Robb describes her improvisational playing here as somewhat meditative. 'There's a constant running through it,' she says. It's like 'hearing a story of a person's mind and emotions as they let music flow through.' Nace notes that coincidentally, the two sides -- both recorded by Robb at her Suddenly Studio in Philadelphia -- mirror one another in structure: 'There's a stripped-down element that both things have. It's almost more about cutting things away than adding.' Having frequently worked together in the studio over the last few years, Robb says they've each developed an understanding of the other's processes. 'We often discuss quite a lot but conversely, sometimes we don't have to say anything.'" --Margaret Welsh, Queens, NY 2023
2023 repress! Saltern's latest offering marks the first-ever release of "lost minimalist" Terry Jennings' visionary 1960 composition, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, as arranged in just intonation by legendary composer La Monte Young for renowned cellist Charles Curtis. Born in Los Angeles in 1940, Jennings was a close associate of Young, Terry Riley, and Dennis Johnson, and an early adopter of minimalist tendencies, creating slow, sustained music, influenced by jazz, modalism, and late romantic classical music. Jennings died tragically in his early forties, most of his work lost to a chaotic life; however, his forward-looking music quietly exerted a lasting influence on composers including Young and Harold Budd. Composed over sixty years ago, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, foreshadows a number of movements in postwar avant-garde music. Despite the title, there is no saxophone on this album. At over eighty minutes, La Monte Young's justly tuned realization of Piece for Cello and Saxophone for cello alone unifies and extrapolates Terry Jennings' dense harmonies, creating an extended field of complex sonorities in motion, all brought to life by the immaculate playing of Charles Curtis. The recording captures Curtis in a performance from 2016 reflecting more than twenty-five years of dedication to the piece. Piece for Cello and Saxophone is released physically on double-LP. Mixed by Anthony Burr, mastered by Stephan Mathieu, and cut to vinyl via direct metal mastering by Hans Jörg Maucksch at Pauler Acoustics. Pressed at RTI and printed at Stoughton. Includes a four-page insert with liner notes by Young, Curtis, Burr, and Tashi Wada, and a download of the full recording.
Double LP version. Phonox Nights is the last album completed by Andrew Weatherall with Nina Walsh at her Facility 4 studio before the much-missed DJ producer passed away in February 2020. Introducing the set's exquisitely crafted electronic diamonds with a bubbling starburst of 21st century acid house, the title track's deep sweeping majesty is graced by ethereal synth lines from Weatherall himself, joining the percolating squelch of Walsh's Roland TB-303 in a heady blend of melancholic reflection and pulsing dancefloor wallop. Like a raft of other recordings the duo made through this time, Phonox Nights carries a spiritual and musical connection with Nina's late partner Erick Legrand, whose fathomless hard-drive archive she plundered with Andrew to the extent he can qualify as W.R.F.'s invisible third member. Legrand's presence shines brightest underpinning the translucent weightless flight of "Church Of Burnt Offerings", his rolling drums from the archive originally earmarked for a Barbican event that sadly never happened.
VA
Spiritual Jazz 15: A Tribute to 'Trane 2LP
LP version. Many artists achieve greatness but very few produce work that is so moving it's considered sacred. Whether you choose to call them hymns, psalms or spirituals, their songs are a healing force for troubled times. Jazzman's Spiritual Jazz series would not exist without the inspiration and leadership of the spiritual messiah that is John Coltrane. It can therefore only be right and proper that a whole album is dedicated to his legacy and lasting influence. Spiritual Jazz 15: A Tribute to 'Trane shines a spotlight on the reverence in which the saxophonist is held in so many ways. On one hand this selection displays cover versions of his songs performed by the musicians he inspired; disciples to Coltrane the messiah, who chose to give praise to the one who laid a foundation for them. The listener will also encounter original music written in honour of Coltrane that underlines the endless presence he has had among artists from different backgrounds and eras. The preacher may have ascended to a higher plane, but his congregation is still right down here on the ground. Ten songs to lift the spirits of everyone, everywhere. Gatefold LP with pics, liner notes and download code. Also includes 16-page booklet. Featuring Norman Connors, Clifford Jordan, Sonny Fortune, The Darwin Strickland Trio, Gilles Torrent Jazztet, Carsten Meinert, Malachi Thompson and Africa Brass, Hampton Hawes Trio, Carmelo Garcia, Brother Jack McDuff.
If there's one specific component that grounds Sky Flesh, it's focus. Italian musician and sound designer Marta De Pascalis flexed her technical muscle on 2020's Sonus Ruinae, layering various sounds and processes in an attempt to touch the sublime. In contrast, Sky Flesh is a single thought, composed using just one instrument: the Yamaha CS-60. A slimmed-down sibling to the gargantuan CS-80 -- the analog synthesizer used by Vangelis to create his iconic Blade Runner score -- the CS-60 was released in 1977, a few years before the MIDI protocol was introduced to help standardize production methods. MIDI would change the electronic music landscape completely, offering a level of control that De Pascalis consciously relinquishes, preferring to highlight expressiveness and timbre, elements more readily associated with acoustic instruments. The album arrives as much of the wider experimental scene busies itself with algorithmic composition and AI-assisted modeling; De Pascalis chooses to work instead like an organologist, harnessing the CS-60's mercurial magic to suggest deeper truths about our evolving relationship with machines. Using timbres that recall a time when electronic music still waved towards the future, De Pascalis' melodic content is rooted in early and Renaissance music, almost cleaving it from history entirely. Fittingly, Sky Flesh is released on acclaimed Italian composer Caterina Barbieri's burgeoning Light-Years label, the ideal platform for her labyrinthine, cosmic vignettes.
LP version. In the mid '80s, in the midst and direct aftermath of the era defining Miner's Strike, The Redskins, as political activists, delivered their electrifying and radical Socialist Workers Party missives and broadsides through the ministry of their music -- a unique post-punk rock/soul hybrid that gained their lead singer, Chris Dean, the sobriquet "Tamla Motormouth." The Redskins were taking a stand for the working man and by standing up, they stood out -- and never so forcefully as in the live arena! With their stellar musicianship and crack brass section honed through a never-ending whorl of "fighting fund" benefit gigs, they were the furious flames that kept the anti-Thatcher fires of dissent burning throughout those challenging years marked by her seeming unassailability. These Furious Flames! is a 25-track documentation of the energy, commitment and drive of the Redskins as that campaigning live act. Issued in 2CD capacity wallet, double vinyl and digital editions, each format couples together a recording of the full set of the finale concert of their 1985 "Kick Over Apartheid!" tour -- including guest appearances from Jerry Dammers and Billy Bragg - with the BBC broadcast tracks from their 1986 concert at the Town And Country Club. The double CD edition comes with a 40-page booklet that compiles new and period quotes by band members Martin Hewes, Chris Dean, Paul Hookham, and Kevin Robertson as well as thoughts by an array of associates and celebrity fans including poet Atilla The Stockbroker, Billy Bragg, Colin Revolting, their studio album producers Pat Foley & Chris Silagyi and DJ Gary Crowley. The booklet also contains gig reviews, photographs and a condensed digest of media quotes about the band. The double vinyl LP format has printed inner bags replete with evocative archive photographs and a written introduction by Redskins founding member Martin Hewes, with whose co-operation and input this celebratory release has been curated.
Nairobi-born Berlin-based sound artist Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, shares his new work Stupor on the new Helsinki-based label Other Power. Commissioned by the Helsinki curatorial and commissioning agency PUBLICS, Stupor is comprised of three original long form tracks; "CRP-12," "Even a Tear," and the title track "Stupor." The tracks on the album are speculative notes to social architectures and environments the artist has traversed. His signature emerges through electro-acoustic forms as he configures spatial and temporal imaginaries still tethered to the experiences of the places his ear encountered. The tracks on this album are speculative notes to social architectures and environments the artist has traversed. His orchestrated compositions and arrangements levitate us and turn our ears towards places and times beyond our reach, propelling us into a future anticipated but ungraspable. It is exactly the physical and psychological space that KMRU forges from his recordings and digital processes that stretch and transform them into prolific sound "events." For Joseph Kamaru, sound is a sensorial medium through which social, material and conceptual interpretations are manifested in his works. KMRU carries with him a repository of listening experiences from Nairobi and beyond expanding his sonic practices, bringing an awareness of surroundings through creative compositions, installations and performances. KMRU has carved out a serious and definitive space on the list of essential authors in ambient experimental music -- one of the most prolific and innovative artists in his field.
2023 repress! 75 Dollar Bill, a project by Che Chen and Rick Brown present Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock. "Che's interest in the Arabic modes of Mauritanian music has marked our sound quite a bit but I have brought some things, too. The plywood crate I play is a big factor, defining, by its positive qualities (a nice warm 'boom' sound) as well as by its simplicity, what we're likely to do in the percussion realm. Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rok, this new record, differs quite a bit from the previous one, notably in the rhythmic 'tone.' Wooden Bag (2015) was all forward momentum, stomping and shaking, but the new record explores a long-standing interest of mine: odd and 'compound' meters. In most of my previous musical activities, I've convinced my partners to delve into this, but in 75 Dollar Bill it has just felt natural and I believe Che's modal investigations and melodic/harmonic tendencies enhance (and are enhanced by) this combination. The current record differs from the last in another big way: reinforcements! Over our few years together, Che and I have frequently had friends play with us at some of our gigs. There have been all sorts of permutations of instruments and some great friends/players who don't all appear on this record but here we are lucky to have a bunch of them: Cheryl Kingan (of The Scene Is Now) on baritone and alto saxes, Andrew Lafkas (of Todd Capp's Mystery Train) on contrabass, Karen Waltuch
LP version. Berlin-based Swedish bassist and producer Petter Eldh returns with a new Koma Saxo album Post Koma, out on We Jazz Records. The title Post Koma aptly describes the vibe of this one: The Koma Saxo sound continues its evolution, morphing into a holistic vision of jazz now and soon, where live instrumentation and repurposed sampling lose their boundaries. Post Koma is a culmination of Eldh's sonic study, resulting in a music vision that never second-guesses throwing tasty hooks and everlasting melodies out the window after a mere bite of them. But fear not: there are even more new ideas just around the corner. Eldh's compositions and ideas merge together in a way that just flows. There are quality musicians in the mix, including Koma Saxo live band members Sofia Jernberg, Jonas Kullhammar, Otis Sandsjö, Mikko Innanen, Maciej Obara, and Christian Lillinger, but that's like saying that a cake includes flour and sugar. This music is not about playing, it's essentially about how the music is and how it takes its shape, so you quickly lose track of who did what, and that's all in the benefit of encountering this music as an entity that is constantly challenging itself while moving forward. The musicians are valued contributors, and an integral part of what's here, but this is far from traditional jazz playing where a band sits in a room playing takes after takes of compositions on sheet. That being said, this is jazz to the fullest. That is, music that understands its past but always moves forward, and is never afraid of taking risks. Petter Eldh uses jazz as a starting point, not the end goal. This gives his music edge and mobility beyond what can be contained on one album. In a way, an album, then, becomes a snapshot of a creative process in constant flux and evolution. It feels like an ending, and also like a new beginning. RIYL: Art Ensemble Of Chicago, J Dilla, Don Cherry, Madlib.
"The debut issue of Head Voice, created by James Toth, Donovan Quinn, and Ben Chasny. Featuring Matt Valentine, Peter Laughner, Naomi Yang, Cheval Sombre, Kristen Gallerneaux, and Jason Quever. Head Voice is an audio recording zine focused on creative musical pursuits and unorthodox sound production. Our work strives to be of interest to those intrigued by the imaginative ingenuity behind audio recordings, regardless of whether you record music yourself. This zine is tailored from the threads of a thousand conversations between recording musicians. Many of these conversations share a common theme: the creative, non-technical side of sound recording. While the world seems to be overflowing with tips and tricks about how-to-do-this and how-to-do-that, Head Voice is more interested in the joy of recording while keeping in mind the primacy of the music. Dogmatic opinions about the 'right' and 'wrong' ways to create and record music -- in both the analog and digital realm -- tend to obscure and even dismiss the intuitive approaches that have been utilized to create art since the dawn of recorded time. Such strategies are often as unique, idiosyncratic, and individual as the artists who implement them, and these are the corners Head Voice wishes to explore. It is dedicated to the spirit of inquiry and transparency; to asking, not telling, and dispelling many discouraging myths about the recording process. It seeks to answer questions about the creation of music and art, as well as questions about the artists who make it. Head Voice hopes that this shared knowledge provides both resources and inspiration. Its motto: You are doing nothing wrong."
WATT
Recorded in Miami 1989-1991 LP
"I was hanging out with Bill Orcutt at the 930 Club nearly 30 years ago, watching a famous post-rock band (who shall remain nameless, but whose moniker contained two-and-a-half times more articles and conjunctions than nouns) when he said: 'This band is like my band in college -- all major 7th and 9th chords.' I relate this to emphasize that in the case of Bill Orcutt and Harry Pussy, the seemingly untutored ooze of 'Please Don't Come Back From the Moon' and 'Girl With Frog' had its genesis in something far more Apollonian than is usually understood. It's debatable whether or not Watt, the duo of Orcutt and drummer Tim Koffley featured on Recorded in Miami, is the above referenced grad-school band. Watt is not resplendent with jazz chords, but it's certainly more tutored, offering a mannered link between the contemporaneous Thunders-esque punk of Orcutt's Trash Monkeys and Harry Pussy's mayhem. The continuity with Harry Pussy is more than temporal -- Recorded in Miami is Orcutt's first use of the four-string guitar, and Harry Pussy claimed the same amp and drum kit. The resemblance more or less ends there. To further put Recorded in Miami -- made on Orcutt's Walkman, Rat Bastard's North Miami studio, and South Miami's Natural Sound (total bill $289) -- into context, consider the fecundity of the underground music world as the '80s rolled into the '90s. It's hard to relate to those who missed it, but it was a time when post-hardcore hadn't quite given way to the bloat of grunge, when the Minutemen held sway (for the moment) over Led Zeppelin. The indie world was ruled by an ever-propagating compost heap of jagged guitar bands like TFUL282, Truman's Water, and (to crank it back a couple years) Phantom Tollbooth. And in some ways (although Orcutt swears Watt's prime influences were James Blood Ulmer and Fred Frith's Massacre), this record seems very much cut from that decade-ending cloth, seemingly only one vocal overdub away from a Homestead catalog number. Track after track (mostly titled after episodes of Art Clokey's slyly Buddhist TV masterwork, Gumby), Recorded in Miami's tracks spill over with right angles, rockist tropes, and verse/ chorus structures, from the Minutemen-oid funk of 'Band Contest' to the stroked Moore-Ranaldo-isms of 'The Young and the Decoding.' Yet Orcutt's fretboard-spanning angular melodic runs are right up front in the latter, and the final two tracks introduce a bit of the explosive chaos that would follow when Adris finally claimed the drum kit. Consider 'Wattstock,' where Koffley forms the bedrock for an extended Orcutt hotbox of instantly-composed harmolodics. Or 'God Are You There, It's Me, Watt,' where we can hear the spontaneous vocal bursts (the only vocals on the album) that would re-emerge on Orcutt's early solo records. Watt began to crumble when Koffley, as drummers will do, yearned for rhythmic grids of increasing complexity, while Orcutt instead wanted to 'smoke more pot and improvise.' For a few records with Harry Pussy, Orcutt would get his wish (though some of the structuralism of Watt would creep into later records). But we shouldn't regard Recorded in Miami as mere transitional scraps of juvenalia, or stunt-rock delivered for the mere thrill of pulling it off. Rather, it's an early, major piece of the unfolding and complex puzzle of Orcutt's music. A foundation. And without the earth beneath our feet, how can we ever reach the sky?" --Tom Carter
2023 repress. Lilith present a reissue of Caetano Veloso's Caetano Veloso (A Little More Blue), originally issued in 1971. Often referred to as "Brazil's unofficial poet laureate" and the "Bob Dylan of Brazil", this heavyweight of Brazilian music was also a young revolutionary who used his music to protest against Brazil's oppressive military regime. This protest music, which became known as tropicalia, first earned Veloso a stint in jail, but by the time this dour album was released in 1971, it had placed him in exile in the UK. Veloso's extreme bitterness and melancholy can be heard on every groove of this album, but don't let the album's gloomy atmosphere stop you from buying it; it is dripping with some of the best moments of saudade in the history of Brazilian music. Color vinyl.
2023 restock, last copies. LP version. Includes insert with liners notes; Includes download card. Continuing with their reissue campaign of the Toby Robinson's Pyramid label catalog, Mental Experience now present Temple's self-titled release. Probably the most "rock" sounding of all the Pyramid titles, Temple were an ad-hoc outfit born out of several late-night sessions at Dierks Studios (where Toby was working at that time), involving local friends of Toby and other musicians from adjoining studios, among them Zeus B. Held (Birth Control). Temple played a kind of heavy, dark psychedelic krautrock with ahead of its time proto-Goth vibe. Loud guitars, Hammond, Mini-Moog, Mellotron, distorted and echoing vocals, effects... RIYL: Amon Düül II, Hawkwind, Birth Control, Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel, Emtidi... 24-bit remaster from the original tapes; Insert with liner notes by Alan Freeman (The Crack In The Cosmic Egg); Includes download coupon.
VA
Redman International (We Run Things) LP
LP version. "The latest in VP's acclaimed Reggae Anthology series focuses on producer Hugh 'Redman' James. A reggae revolution powered by Steely & Clevie and Roots Radics at Channel One and Tuff Gong. 12" in-demand '80s classic from Gregory Isaacs, Conroy Smith, Carl Meeks, and Admiral Tibet. Includes inner sleeve with extensive liner notes and rare photos."
"This is Lee 'Scratch' Perry's final studio album recorded shortly before his passing in October 2021. Lee was one of 'the major cultural figures' of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. His contribution to the furtherance of Jamaican music as producer, arranger, writer and artist is beyond compare. He played a pivotal role in, and was the inspiration behind, many of the key movements in the development of reggae throughout the '60s and '70s. Released on 180m gram vinyl, including a booklet with extensive sleeve notes by Noel Hawks, plus photos."
First ever release of female French composer, musicologist and writer Nicole Lachartre (1934-1991). This ten-track triple LP set comprises most of her electronic and musique concrète compositions recorded in the 1960's and 1970's, all previously unreleased. It includes her first tape composition from 1968, recorded in Pierre Henry's Apsome studio, electronic and electro-acoustic compositions realized at the IPEM in Ghent, The Institute of Sonology in Utrecht and the Radio Belgrade Electronic Music Studio, and a première concert recording from 1978 with the legendary Jeanne Loriod playing the Ondes Martenot. Lachartre studied with Darius Milhaud, Iannis Xenakis and Michel Philippot. Her broad formation and interest as well as her profound commitment and singular vision created a solitary voice, even within the field of electronic and concrete music, strangely enough unheard till this day.
In addition to the unique musical proposals and the large body of work that they have developed separately, Amelia Cuni and Werner Durand have been performing together as a duo as well as in collaborations (Tonaliens, Born of Six) for more than 20 years. Fusing her Indian Raga singing in the Dhrupad style with his minimalist and experimental approach, they have expanded the reach of their soundworlds as well as proposed new paths for contemporary music. In this occasion, Uli Hohmann joins them in a range of hand drums from the Middle East and North Africa, plus a dulcimer-sounding hammered guitar. Durand's various self-made wind instruments, soprano sax, and blown kalimba shine along with Cuni's astounding vocals, which are sometimes sung through a mirliton (a medieval type of kazoo). Clearing is the trio's first published recording. With a condensing sound going from Buddhist morning chants down to Indian festive traditional music, the title track, which closes the album, is the most vibrant of all, permeating a bit of commotion through buzzing drones and galloping percussion. Without disorder, yet without measure. Clearing is therefore this shuttle into the distance, this space that weaves, unites, and tenses the different cords that we are made up of. When the clouds advance silently, gray, until they become dark in a few minutes, it means that the monsoon is coming. It reaches us without apparent noise, but then resounds in its images, leaving behind lightness, freshness, clarity, and a tremendous luminosity that comes from so far away: from the Himalayas, from so ancient, from Sanskrit, from a sound where the darkness and the divine, where the concrete and the landscape, where the rock and the humidity leave a mark that brings together and ties a sky loaded with new clouds.
2023 repress. "...and at the heart of Bitchin Bajas, there is pure peace. Bitchin Bajas have been around the world in five years; chasing sonics through space and time and coming up with a lot of conclusions along their discographical path. Always, they push forward, recklessly consuming processes in order to realize their own works -- but the sound and the music regularly emerges with tranquil essence, bringing them and their listeners into a shared experience. Bitchin Bajas' output has been remarkably diverse in search of this singular goal, which makes for great listening across multiple albums etc. -- and with the release of this new double-LP, they have mapped and traversed their own ecosystem as they journey in search of the aural epiphany, the true unknowing. With plenty of room stretched over four sides, Bitchin Bajas use their many methods to attain perfect flow throughout the 76 minutes of this self-titled record. Self-titled because this is who they are at their core; these are the flares and oscillations of their soul. They will be other things again, horizons will continue to rise and fade away in their path as they continue forward and upward -- but this self-titled record is a pure vision at the heart of Bitchin Bajas. Acoustic is the beginning. Eastern tonalities relocate Bitchin Bajas farther inside the source, finding the timeless time from long ago and slowly sliding via fader until then is now, until acoustic goes analog. Something pure and natural is happening -- within the sound, within the songs; in the album and in you. The shifts that come makes changes in your moods and your body temperature. Something delicate yet definite, gradually washing over your consciousness. Electricity just comes, it doesn't even begin. Bitchin Bajas is climate-controlled comprehension -- on one hand, an ultimate album, and on the other, barely even an album at all. What began in randomness, pitch-shifting and tape manipulation emerged in the cutting as a single direction, a journey in scales, divided by the format perfectly into four stages, eight discreet parts. Bitchin Bajas reach high and low in their consciousness as expressed through equalization to see (hear) what affect it will have on them -- and what it does to them, reaches through to you. The space found on Bitchin Bajas was located with organ, synthesizer, winds, xylophone and autoharp, employing a 1" 8-track tape machine to the fullest extent. Additional contributions from strings, keys, guitar and field recordings helped make Bitchin Bajas everything that it is."
2023 repress. "A year after the cassette-only release of Switched On Ra, another format has fallen from whatever kind of rare ether Bitchin Bajas occupy when they're at home. The LP edition of Switched On Ra bears all the same riches (only richer of course) in its grooves, adding a lovely screen-printed rendering of the graphics to its larger-than-cassette-cosmos dimensions. Switched On Ra is the outcome of a typical Bajas exercise: pouring some out for the pioneers that came before (as they've done with Bitchitronics and their participation in the annual Chicago performance of 'In C' over the years) . . . Before long, they're playing with the inspirations twined, as they can only come from within. For Switched On Ra, this meant a deep delve into the song-book of one of their soul-predecessors, Sun Ra, whose music is literally written in the Bajas DNA. Digging into this music sounded wild on paper: the drone synth group taking on the Arkestra harmonies and Ra's loose grooves? The trick was to get that sense of rhythm to translate across the spectrum from Ra to Bajas, in a way that worked for them both. Their rearrangements of the tunes went good -- up and down the EQ band, they were finding the round sounds and jagged edges that brought Ra's music into their own thing. Then at the last minute, there was another twist -- why not pay tribute to the Queen herself, and think of the arrangements with a Wendy Carlos vibe? A little side homage? After all, Switched on Bach was visionary, bringing analog synths from the outside all the way into the mainstream in the late '60s -- and this take on Ra is meant to take him to new ears everywhere . . . Bitchin Bajas have been content to dominate in a microtonal world, usually without a single chord to be found anywhere. But here, they step up righteously, their vibe triangulated as they bring Ra's music forward with some Wendy C style, making an unexpected space for all to thrive. There's a real feeling of joy as these collected signals bounce off the platter and through the speakers into your space. To get this unique colloid exactly right, Bitchin Bajas used nineteen different keyboards. They abstained from deploying their arsenal of reed and woodwind instruments: everything had to be on the keys. This meant Yamahas, Rolands, Korgs, Casios, a MicroMoog and of course their trusty Ace Tone organ. They even broke out the Crumar DS-2, to have some of Ra's chosen tone in the mix. Then Jayve Montgomery added an EWI as a solo voice on a few tunes, just to get some air-blown signal (and a natural shout out to EWI master Marshall Allen) in there, after all..."
2023 repress. "Classic 1971 Peter Fonda film soundtrack from Dylan side-man & folk scene impresario. Beautifully melancholy score performed with guitars, tonal effects, fiddle, banjo, sitar, and more that evokes high plains drifting, lonesome cowpokes. 'It's The West seen as Purgatory, its characters endlessly moving on, but Langhorne conjures beauty from the pain." -- The Wire.
LP version. Following the news that all three Lush albums are going to be reissued, Emma Anderson, the band's co-founder, has announced her debut solo album, Pearlies, which will be released by Sonic Cathedral on October 20, 2023. One of the most underrated British songwriters to emerge from the era that encompassed shoegaze and Britpop, she has teamed up with producer James Chapman (aka Maps) for this collection that combines effervescent electronic pop with psych and folk textures with lyrics covering themes such as confronting your fears, embracing independence and moving on in life. It arrives fully formed with a burnished beauty (aided by the mastering skills of Heba Kadry) that belies its somewhat protracted creation, which began with Emma feeling disillusioned after Lush's 2016 reunion came to an abrupt end. Left with songs and bits of music originally intended for the band, she began working with cellist and string arranger Audrey Riley and Robin Guthrie, formerly of the Cocteau Twins, both of whom encouraged her to sing her own songs. Covid put a temporary halt on proceedings, but the decision had been made. When Sonic Cathedral introduced her to James Chapman at the start of 2022, Pearlies quickly took shape and blossomed into a masterpiece, the perfect mix of Emma's incredible, idiosyncratic songwriting and James' electronic production nous. Plus, a little extra guitar magic on four tracks courtesy of Richard Oakes from Suede. The finished album has somehow written its own narrative. By her own admission, Emma tends to write words and "see what comes out", but Pearlies seems to tell the story of her decision to go it alone, with opener "I Was Miles Away" posing the question: "See if I make it on my own." The rest of the album provides the answer as it takes in everything from the unexpectedly funky first single "Bend The Round," to folky finger-picking and film theme references, via psych leaning electronic pop reminiscent of Goldfrapp or Melody's Echo Chamber. It concludes with "Clusters," a stunning, Stereolab-style groove which begins with the line "and now the party's over, the music's at the end". Thankfully, that is not the case. This incredible album is just the start of Emma's long-awaited solo journey.
Guillermo Gregorio has been exploring space and form and gesture in music for a very long time. In 1969, with composers Norberto Chavarri and Roque de Pedro, he cofounded the collective Movimiento Música Más, which for a while staged public interventions, performances, and happenings even as the political skies were darkening again. He finally left Argentina in 1985, living in Vienna, L.A., and Cologne through the end of that decade, before settling in Chicago for the next 25 years. Already in Vienna, he began his fertile relationship with the Hat Art label, which eventually put out half a dozen records under his name, plus other sessions playing the music of Anthony Braxton and Cornelius Cardew, as guest soloist with Ran Blake, and a piece he wrote commissioned by the Makrokosmos Quartet. The present record reflects a sort of pivot to his new home, New York, where Gregorio moved in 2015. For the trio that performed at Edgefest -- the festival's 22nd edition in 2018 focused on the Chicago connection -- he reached out to close associates from two decades earlier, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Carrie Biolo, neither of whom live there anymore either. That trio was the most productive and enduring group he ever played with, and their nuanced rapport, the fine weave of their sound, the mutual instincts, seem but a continuation without pause of their past work together. Chicago also proved highly receptive to the fruitful convergence of free jazz and twentieth-century European music that allowed him to flourish and become a recognized figure there in the nineties. Concurrently, by the time of the festival, Gregorio had been performing with Nicholas Jozwiak in different settings around Manhattan and Brooklyn, as they did at Downtown Music Gallery in 2020 just before the world locked down. DMG, Bruce Gallanter's friendly institution packed into a tiny space, has for decades seen fit not just to sell records but to host weekly concerts of improvised music and Gregorio has played there on many occasions since well before he left Chicago. On this late date, the trio was completed by one of his newest collaborators, Iván Barenboim, like Jozwiak a couple generations younger and like Gregorio a porteño (native of Buenos Aires).
Apolline and Thomas have been performing since 2022 under the KOU guise with 24 electronic harmoniums. Producing dense layers of tones and overtones. On their debut album, KOU steers in another direction. The harmonium appears occasionally, but more prominent are delicate guitar pluckings, distant vocal effects, synths, flutes, piano strokes, a touch of musical magic and Apolline's jazz-not-jazz vocals. Recommended for fans of: Nina Harker, Le Diable Degoutant, Fiesta En El Vacio. Played, written, recorded and glued at home and on the road by Apolline Schöser and Thomas Coquelet.
LP version. Dens concludes a trilogy of albums, aptly spelling out the last third of the group's name. And true to form, the band turns inwards rather than outwards, drawing on deep shades of ambient, slowcore, and the ghost of Mark Hollis. While maintaining their psychedelic edge, the trio weaves the lines between genres in a way that's becoming a signature of its own. Never in a hurry, but always moving somewhere. Causa Sui drummer Jakob Skøtt and Martin Rude's bass and baritone guitar lay out a robust yet fleeting foundation. Papir's Nicklas Sørensen's glistening guitar lines never felt more-free and explorative. While The Durutti Column tribute "Vini's Lament" is drenched in nostalgia, a cut like "Morgensol" (Morning Sun in Danish) explodes in Popol Vuh-esque gloomy euphoria. Engineered by Jonas Munk and produced by Jakob Skøtt, the album culls hours of free improvisation into a coherent size. Seamless edits and studio wizardry enhance the feeling of an almost narrative nature as the album progresses. Invoking anything from a crackling campfire, rattling bones, and the singing of sand dunes. The culmination lies in the 14-minute track "Sienita." A fully formed blistering improvisation, abandoning any studio trickery, besides a singly dubbed organ, rising and falling like the tide.
Tropic of Capricorn is the second album by Lawrence English and Werner Dafeldecker. Based on field recordings made by the prolific Room40 owner that were subtly but decisively altered with electroacoustic techniques through the German improv legend, these two long-form pieces blur the lines between acoustic ecology and aesthetic interventions, concrete local sound worlds and boundary-defying art. They put a focus on our relationship with nature as listeners as much as they call into question where nature ends and human perception begins. They are deeply confusing, disorienting perhaps, in the most beautiful ways. English recorded the material that form the basis of the duo's Hallow Ground debut on two different field trips. One led him from the Western coast to the Pilbara region in the North of the country called Australia, the other to the central desert into the lands of the Arrernte people. When recording the soundscapes, the artist put a focus on the residues of failed colonial aspirations. "The buildings and objects that remain from the failed cattle pastures and other endeavors create uneasy sound worlds of their own," English says of the regions that are also places of extraction, especially the heavily mined Pilbara. "There is a distant drone of industry in even the most remote of places; an unsettled sense of heavy breath on the land." He brought home a document of natural reclamation in time. The rich source material was then given to Dafeldecker. Spatializing the recordings with transducers applied to different surfaces such as wood, stretched animal skin, glass, or metal surfaces and also re-recording parts of the recordings, he created discrete events that were inserted into, or rather enmeshed with English's recordings. What Tropic of Capricorn invites its listeners to listen beyond the preconceived notions of how nature is supposed to be represented in sound and to instead embrace the immediacy of the sensation.
LP version. Reissue of Home Comfort by Mark Glynne and Bart Zwier, originally self-released in 1980. With this album, Glynne and Zwier, based in the Netherlands and connected to the Ultra scene, drew an insular blend of intimate post-punk and chamber (bedroom) songs with surreal scenic reflections. Probably its naked singularity defying categorization has left it so unnoticed, even 43 years after the making. It also features a reciting Marlène Dumas still quite unknown at the time. With biggest gratitude to Mark Glynne who instantly felt confident with my proposal to reissue this silent witness of lasting beauty.
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Zero Set (40th Anniversary Edition) LP
Tonspuren (40th Anniversary Edition) LP
The Sum of Our Wounds (Cassette Recordings 1973-85) CD
The Sum of Our Wounds (Cassette Recordings 1973-85) LP
The Sum of Our Wounds (Cassette Recordings 1973-85) (Red Vinyl) LP
Ein Bundel Faulnis in der Grube CD
Ein Bundel Faulnis in der Grube LP
In a Midnight Rock Dub Vol. 1 LP
Sylvie and Babs (Expanded Edition) 2CD
Killer Whale Atmospheres 2LP
Caetano Veloso (A Little More Blue) (Color Vinyl) LP
Caetano Veloso (Araçá Azul) (Clear Vinyl) LP
Caetano Veloso (Irene) (Clear Vinyl) LP
These Furious Flames! Redskins Live! (1985/86) 2CD
These Furious Flames! Redskins Live! (1985/86) 2LP
Bill Nace/Emily Robb Split LP
St Swithin's Day Storm LP
Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock LP
The Hanworth Are Coming LP
Redman International (We Run Things) CD
Redman International (We Run Things) LP
Post Koma (Gold Vinyl) LP
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