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LP
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FTR 435LP
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$18.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/10/2019
"First LP by this rather berserk Portland Oregon duo, made up of vocalist/electronics-scrambler Noa Ver and drummer/electronics-scamperer Zach D'Agostino. Our experience with Portland music had led us to believe it often has a mellow and/or gentle edge, but Sea Moss offer none of that. Their raucous, face-to-face approach to duo dynamism is as weirdly aggressive as anything that's ever come out the dag end of Brooklyn or Providence, and that's saying something. Using homemade electronic devices that generate vast heaps of splutter and careenage, employing a percussive technique that would make Fred Flintstone proud, and singing into a microphone that makes everything sound like someone howling curses through an elevator's intercom, Sea Moss have arrived at a modus operandi that will makes weaklings poop eggs. The wildness of their approach is most evident in live concert, where they spend all their energy hurling figurative rolling p[ins, frying pans and glottal pronouncements directly into each other's faces. But on vinyl, it's possible to ponder the structural and lyrical gambits they use to attack each other. The lyrics, at least what I think I can make out of them, explode like strings of haiku written during a particularly hectic game of Exquisite Corpse. And the instrumental portions of the tunes often sound as though they were written for a Chrome tribute concert to be performed by lighthouse foghorns. The other day, while I was playing this in the store, someone commented that the vocals reminded them of very early Guerilla Toss. I pointed out that while there might be some small surface similarities, the utter weirdness of the underlying music pretty much negated comparison. Then I threw them out. Sea Moss is doing some crazy shit. Don't beggar them with comparisons. Listen with all your holes open and pass the goddamn drool cup." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 250.
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Cassette
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FTR 354CS
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$8.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 4/26/2019
Cassette version. "It takes audacity to start a song with questions as big and unanswerable as 'Where did we come from? Who are we really?' But for Western Massachusetts duo Home Body, those kind of grand cosmic queries are totally natural, fitting snugly into music that digs deep and shoots for the stars. The soaring voice of Haley Morgan and the throbbing, hovering electronics of Eric Hnatow create songs that are always on the rise, grounded by cardiac beats but unafraid to fly into the sun. On their ambitious second full-length record, Spiritus, Home Body ruminates on darkness, the light, and all the tiny intangible shifts that add up to transformation and change. Three years in the making, the self-produced album is lush with character and detail, displaying moments of ecstatic high energy melting into soft expansion, coaxed along by ghostly textured synths, momentum mounting, spirit settling. Romantic partners for over a decade and collaborators for almost as long, Morgan and Hnatow have been creatively telepathic for a while, and on Spiritus their innate connections produce songs in which every joint and muscle works in consort. 'The pieces of the puzzle fit together like voices,' Morgan sings in 'Lightning,' succinctly describing the duo's tightly-knit music. Home Body aren't afraid to sprawl, though. Their live performances are often dizzying spectacles featuring a home-made light show and elements of modern dance. Spiritus may present only the audio portion of that two-person extravaganza, but in its wide arrangements, sharply-honed turns, and ever-ascending moods, Home Body's music is as three dimensional as real life." --Marc Masters, 2019
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FTR 377LP
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$18.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 4/26/2019
"Barring some miraculous discovery (never out of the question!), Mars Archives Volume Three: N.N. End is the final LP in our series of LPs documenting the music of New York's most amazing combo of the No Wave era, Mars. From their more-quotidian beginnings as China, whose sound was influenced by the Velvets and Television, Mars mutated and grew in a variety of nearly unchartable directions. N.N. End documents the latter, immaculate stages of the band's destruction of song forms once and for all. The A-side captures a live show at Max's Kansas City in July 1978. They were still playing some of the songs from the No NY compilation, which had not yet been released. Their sound had moved on since the recording session, however, and you can hear the songs dissolving structurally as they move along. Pretty amazing. The B-side is from a rehearsal tape recording while they prepped for their final show (at Max's in December 1978.) At this point, Mars was shredding the cocoon that had held their music. Then shredding the music itself. Vocals, guitars, rhythms all come apart in clumps, taking on lives of their own. Beyond good and evil, Mars stood alone. And then they were gone. Hope you've followed their contrail." --Byron Coley, 2019
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LP
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FTR 421LP
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$20.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 4/26/2019
"Brilliant new album from Village of Spaces, a combo once described as, 'Dan and his raggle taggle band of hippies' by Michael Hurley, a guy who knows about such things. The Dan in question is Dan Beckman-Moon who, along with his partner Amy Moon Offermann-Sims, is the central core of this constantly evolving, psychedelically-inclined, folk juggernaut. V.O.S. has had many name variations and members in the 17 years since Dan and Amy formed this more perfect union, but all of their recordings are possessed by a singular sense of rurality and otherness. They've been based everywhere from Santa Cruz to New Orleans to Belfast (Maine), and this album was recorded in expectedly nomadic fashion. Using various players and rooms from their network of collusionists, Shaped by Place offers a smoother ride than some of its predecessors. The two covers they do of songs by Gordon Bok (the legendary Maine folksinger/woodworker who was Dan's mentor when he was coming up) have a very sweet traditional swing. On 'Shoreline Birds,' the way Dan's voice interacts with the pedal steel puts me in mind of Mike Nesmith's classic collabs with Red Rhodes (like 'The Great Ennui' off Nevada Fighter (1971)). Other parts move like some unreleased Raccoon label album, with the same mix of straight and weird that whole crew managed to conjure up so effortlessly. Players on Shaped include members of Big Blood, Amps for Christ, Dire Wolves, and all manner of stylistic drifters. Sorta like what Hurley said, but better. A true feast of the mind, ears and soul. Dig in now or be forever hungry for something you can't quite put your finger on. Mystery is rarely served up so neat." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 300.
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CD
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FTR 440CD
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$7.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 4/26/2019
"It takes audacity to start a song with questions as big and unanswerable as 'Where did we come from? Who are we really?' But for Western Massachusetts duo Home Body, those kind of grand cosmic queries are totally natural, fitting snugly into music that digs deep and shoots for the stars. The soaring voice of Haley Morgan and the throbbing, hovering electronics of Eric Hnatow create songs that are always on the rise, grounded by cardiac beats but unafraid to fly into the sun. On their ambitious second full-length record, Spiritus, Home Body ruminates on darkness, the light, and all the tiny intangible shifts that add up to transformation and change. Three years in the making, the self-produced album is lush with character and detail, displaying moments of ecstatic high energy melting into soft expansion, coaxed along by ghostly textured synths, momentum mounting, spirit settling. Romantic partners for over a decade and collaborators for almost as long, Morgan and Hnatow have been creatively telepathic for a while, and on Spiritus their innate connections produce songs in which every joint and muscle works in consort. 'The pieces of the puzzle fit together like voices,' Morgan sings in 'Lightning,' succinctly describing the duo's tightly-knit music. Home Body aren't afraid to sprawl, though. Their live performances are often dizzying spectacles featuring a home-made light show and elements of modern dance. Spiritus may present only the audio portion of that two-person extravaganza, but in its wide arrangements, sharply-honed turns, and ever-ascending moods, Home Body's music is as three dimensional as real life." --Marc Masters, 2019
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LP
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FTR 425AB-LP
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$22.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 4/12/2019
"Two mind-bending slabs of acoustic and electric guitars, wandering into corners of acid-logic only accessible to bravest explorers. Elkhorn is a duo -- Jesse Sheppard and Drew Gardner -- from NYC. Their earlier records (Elkhorn on Beyond Is Beyond, The Black River on Debacle) would have blown us away, even if we didn't know Jesse from his work as a film-maker (he directed the Glenn Jones/Jack Rose doc, The Things That We Used to Do) and organizer (he put together the 1,000 Incarnations of the Rose festival). Elkhorn's music, which we had suspected might be in a fairly traditional American Primitive vein, was anything but. And these two LPs (released individually, but recorded more or less simultaneously) explore a whole warren of new style caverns. Sun Cycle was recorded at Jason Meagher's Black Dirt Studio and is closer to their pure duo sound (although guitarist Willie Lane and percussionist Ryan Jewell are along for the ride). There are elements of the American Primitive thread present, but these touch mostly on the outer reaches of the form, like Gene Estibou & Jean-Claude Pickens' Intensifications, or the crazy distentions of MV and PG Six. Layers of pluck and soar and light percussion mix at the upper edge of the cosmic barrier, and Sun Cycle is, to our ears, Elkhorn's most adventurous and fully realized album yet. On Elk Jam (FTR 425CD-LP), Willie Lane and Ryan Jewell function more as members of a psychedelic folk-rock quartet, and the troupe takes things even deeper in a Bay Area-styled trip zone. Recalling the classic ruminations of Mountain Bus, the full four man Elkhorn is exactly what the doctor prescribed for a generation of sack-butts who imagine John Mayer's pudgy phallus-riffs have shit to do with transcendental psych exploration. Elkhorn are the true sonic dealio. Instrumental music doesn't get much better than this. As Capt. Beefheart once said, 'If you got ears/You gotta listen!' We couldn't agree more." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 300; Black/clear vinyl pressing.
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FTR 425CD-LP
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$22.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 4/12/2019
"Two mind-bending slabs of acoustic and electric guitars, wandering into corners of acid-logic only accessible to bravest explorers. Elkhorn is a duo -- Jesse Sheppard and Drew Gardner -- from NYC. Their earlier records (Elkhorn on Beyond Is Beyond, The Black River on Debacle) would have blown us away, even if we didn't know Jesse from his work as a film-maker (he directed the Glenn Jones/Jack Rose doc, The Things That We Used to Do) and organizer (he put together the 1,000 Incarnations of the Rose festival). Elkhorn's music, which we had suspected might be in a fairly traditional American Primitive vein, was anything but. And these two LPs (released individually, but recorded more or less simultaneously) explore a whole warren of new style caverns. Sun Cycle (FTR 425AB-LP) was recorded at Jason Meagher's Black Dirt Studio and is closer to their pure duo sound (although guitarist Willie Lane and percussionist Ryan Jewell are along for the ride). There are elements of the American Primitive thread present, but these touch mostly on the outer reaches of the form, like Gene Estibou & Jean-Claude Pickens' Intensifications, or the crazy distentions of MV and PG Six. Layers of pluck and soar and light percussion mix at the upper edge of the cosmic barrier, and Sun Cycle is, to our ears, Elkhorn's most adventurous and fully realized album yet. On Elk Jam, Willie Lane and Ryan Jewell function more as members of a psychedelic folk-rock quartet, and the troupe takes things even deeper in a Bay Area-styled trip zone. Recalling the classic ruminations of Mountain Bus, the full four man Elkhorn is exactly what the doctor prescribed for a generation of sack-butts who imagine John Mayer's pudgy phallus-riffs have shit to do with transcendental psych exploration. Elkhorn are the true sonic dealio. Instrumental music doesn't get much better than this. As Capt. Beefheart once said, 'If you got ears/You gotta listen!' We couldn't agree more." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 300; Black/clear vinyl pressing.
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FTR 434LP
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"Vinylization of the recent Home Fi cassette (originally released on the Australian Brierfirld Flood Press label) by this magnificent New Zealand singer/songwriter. We were never able to score a copy of the tape, despite the fact we released Maxine's last LP, Silk (FTR 410LP), so we figured we would perform the public service of making it generally available to the whole wide world. That's just the kind of guys we are! Recorded in stark and simple terms, Home Fi represents Ms. Funke working mostly with just acoustic guitar accompaniment. And it's a classic. Most often, I'm put in mind of the Dandelion era recordings of Britain's Bridget St. John. There's a plainspoken quality to the songs and an equally straight forward approach to the musical bits that may not be indicative of the scope of Maxine's musical art (which has lots of space for odd noises and techniques), but it sounds just gorgeous. Hard to imagine anyone who actually likes music not falling for the sound of Home Fi. But hey, there's a clown born every minute. Not you of course. But look around sometime." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 400.
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FTR 430LP
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Chicago saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi, a touring member of Justin Vernon's Bon Iver and one-third of the inventive Chicago improvising collective Twin Talk, first encountered the music of Moondog a decade ago, while studying at Indiana University. "Initially, I liked the quirkiness of the music and the lore surrounding him," he says. "I had always thought that there was potential for the music to be reimagined in a more improvised context, but it took a long time for that to actually happen," explains Laurenzi. In fact, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that he formed a versatile octet designed to interpret and expand on those sounds. "I started listening to more of his music and I became really obsessed with it, especially a lot of the rounds on his 1971 record Moondog 2. That music is really meticulous contrapuntally and rhythmically, but also super catchy and groovy." Several of the pieces featured on that octet's riveting debut Snaketime: The Music of Moondog, including "Nero's Expedition", "Lament I", "Bird's Lament", and "Down is Up" utilize rounds, or perpetual canons. Laurenzi assembled a dazzling group of Chicago improvisers for the group, and his inventive arrangements of the material created various paths for each musician to extrapolate on the source material, whether through the extended passage bass clarinetist Jason Stein takes on the opening track "Nero's Expedition" over the polyrhythmic groove meted out by percussionists Ryan Packard and Quin Kirchner and bassist Matt Ulery before the rest of the ensemble chimes in, or the way the leader's imploring, powerfully sobbing tenor solo cleaves the cycling melody and practically silences his bandmates before they gently reenter. "Fiesta Piano Solo" deftly expands on the original solo piano work, engaging each horn player to contribute to a buoyantly infectious round robin party, where each statement lifts and inspires the next. The album was recorded live at Chicago's Hungry Brain in January of 2018, but Laurenzi didn't expect to release the music until he listened back later. The ensemble -- which also includes guitarist Dave Miller, trumpeter Chad McCullough, and alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella -- was carefully assembled: a mixture of players Laurenzi had worked with or had desired to. There's an inescapably human, idiosyncratic vibe to the album, coursing with raw emotion and fragile beauty that both honors the distinctive spirit of Moondog and creates something utterly fresh at the same time. Edition of 500.
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FTR 432LP
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"Another brilliant posthumous album by Letha Rodman Melchior. Letha's music, as her visual art, was a great collaged pile of extreme strangeness, with seemingly irreconcilable objects butting heads in ways that end up making great sense. I met Letha a long time ago, when she was in Cell, but I had not much idea of her work beyond that until she had moved to North Carolina and I started hearing her health was bad. Siltbreeze put out an amazing album called Handbook for Mortals (2013), and it was essential listening. Letha managed to create very very warped music without making it off-putting. Although her sonics were whacked as hell, they were created with such a warm and gooey center that even people who'd usually shy away from such things, would ask what was playing when we floated the album through the store's stereo system. Siltbreeze followed up with the ungodly brilliant, Shimmering Ghost (2015), after cancer claimed another genius, and we were stunned when Dan Melchior offered us the chance to do this LP. Letha Rodman Melchior was a truly singular artist. And it is with great pride that Feeding Tube presents another chapter of her largely undocumented saga." --Byron Coley, 2019
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FTR 437LP
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"Remastered reissue of the second brilliant Willie Lane LP released by Cord-Art, originally available (for a few moments, anyway) in 2012. Guitar Army of One is a bit less folk oriented than its predecessor, Known Quantity (FTR 413LP), in as much as there's more electricity and pedals being employed. But Willie's playing at this time was such a weird hybrid -- from quiet country blues passages to blown psychedelic bong-wash in the blink of an eye -- that no technique or approach was ruled out. Everything was permitted. Which led to some mind-bending results. As the album's title infers, Willie is on his lonesome this time with nary a collaborator in sight. But the sounds he layers on tape can be so complex (not unlike some of the work by his occasional running partner, Matt Valentine) that one gets the sense this the sound of Willie Lane playing duets with himself. Recorded in Philadelphia, shortly before he returned to Western Massachusetts to become, like the fictional Jesus, a carpenter, Guitar Army of One is a superbly satisfying spin. From the Heldon-esque vibe of 'Ill Star,' to the damaged canoodling of 'Rare Psych For Wayne' (which is also in the running for best Record Scum song title of the 21st century), there's a strange surprise around every damn corner. A monster of a record." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 500.
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FTR 439LP
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"A lot of people flipped out over how amazing Mako Sica's last album, Ronda (FTR 409LP, 2018), was. Ronda was a 2LP set whereupon the Chicago trio collaborated with legendary local percussionist Hamid Drake. This pairing seemed like a natural to us, but for some reason people have been woefully unaware of Mako Sica despite the fact they've been releasing killer records for a decade, and playing live shows that submerge your brain in a sonic soup that recalls the Sun City Girls at their most psychedelically Eastern. The band's approach to music feels almost alchemical. Trumpet, voice, guitar, drums and keys blend together in mysterious ways. The vocals are always more abstract than declarative, the guitar lines are sinewy, the rhythms roll and splash like a mirage oasis made real, and the trumpet arrives (when it does) sounding almost more like a shofar being played in a temple. The sound of Manifest Being is celebratory and so fully freaked you'll be soaking in it for years to come. The songs played are similar to the live set Mako Sika were polishing last year, and the results are stunning." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 250.
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FTR 418LP
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"The second volume of Water and Rock Music by British guitarist Jon Collin is another solid gambol in the outdoors. For much of this it sounds almost as though Mr. Collin is wearing a pair of hip waders and is up to his ass in a stream, casting for notes the way Hemingway casted for trout. His string bending recalls Loren Connors at points, but he has a manual approach to filigree Loren has never displayed. Notes bend and hover, but they also flutter, and the combination of sounds is not quite like anything that's preceded it. Some listeners have noted that the environmental sounds put them in mind of new age string pluckers, but Collin's compositions do not fall into the trap of needing to resolve melodic quandaries, or making gestures that chase after standard forms of beauty. Jon's music works as a series of comments on sound and questions about the physical space in which it's created, but like any good philosopher he knows when to leave a sense of mystery hanging in the air. There is plenty of sweetness to the playing here, whether he's strolling through a playground, standing in the middle of a busy street, or sitting the flight path of an airport. The music never seems dictated by the background sounds, so much as it encourages us to consider every part of the sonic construction to be heard as music (in the Cage-ian sense). The elements become a part of the greater whole in a seamless way. And the closer you listen the more that becomes clear. I am still most struck by (at least what sounds like) the 'stream' sequences. But that's just because I really like the visuals it conjures up. You may find different personal sweet spots. But find them you will. Water and Rock Music Volume II is a truly ear-opening spin." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 250.
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FTR 436LP
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"In 2017 we released the Possession Sessions LP (FTR 325LP) by this extraordinary Columbus, Ohio outfit. And while we wait for them to conjure up new fields of beautiful spew, we thought it might be a public service to make their first two EPs available as a single LP. Flash Fuck was released in 2013 by Tony Proccacino's visionary grunt-punk concern, A Wicked Company. Vernacular Splatter came out two years later on the great Columbus label, Superdreamer. Both of these records set our hair (what little of it there is) on fire, so when Mike Rep told us he'd recorded Possession Sessions we were on that bad bot like bees on a dead donkey. We finally got a chance to see 'em live at the last Cropped Out fest and they did not disappoint. Aurelie Celine stands at her drum kit, singing and playing with all the discordant orgone gush of Elisa Ambrogio back in the early Markers days, and Chris Corbin whips crazy avant-roots moves out of his guitar like they were low hanging fruit. Just bonkers. They had a third guy playing also, as they sometimes seem to do on records as well, and hey -- the extra flesh was a-okay. Sex Tide is a brilliant band by any standard. Don't be a moldy fig. Get with the program." --Byron Coley, 2019
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FTR 389LP
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"For the first release in Feeding Tube's Unknown Province series -- a run of records dedicated to exploring little known nooks of the Canadian underground, curated by Alex Moskos -- we are delighted to bring you the first vinyl reissue of the 1968 zoner masterpiece by poet bill bissett and his fellow Vancouver freaks. We have always been shocked this LP was not included on the NWW list, but Canadian releases often seem to exist in their own universe, so we suppose that's the 'explanation.' Because, in a list of any free-form freakouts, Awake in th' Red Desert would surely have a high place. bissett was a sound/concrete poet of high repute when this was recorded, and he was also something akin to the king of the Vancouver underground scene. The original album was issued by Jim Brown's See/Hear label, which Brown founded as an adjunct to his Talon Books imprint. Backed by a band of interesting musicians (a few of whom went on to straighter afterlives), bissett created an insane mass of sound, comparable to what Mayo Thompson's Red Crayola was doing in Texas around the same time, laced with heavy Fugs overtones. Pure freaked sonics, created while stoned, for an audience that was similarly blasted, and was willing to decode what was going on using the very best acid logic available. Hard for me to describe how much I love this album. And I will attest that this version sounds better than any other available version ever has or could. It is jacked. Nice detailed liner notes by Alex Moskos set the scene as well as anyone ever will, and if you don't feel your teeth wiggling while this plays, I suggest you may never feel that particular feeling. In your life. bill bissett is still going today, and we heartily suggest that anyone who digs this album runs out and tries to nail down one or another of his wonderful books before the sun sets." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 500.
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FTR 417LP
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"We were first made aware of this Brooklyn band by Gary Panter. When we asked Gary about some specific projectors for light shows, he said we'd be best off conferring with his colleague, Curtis Godino. And oh yeah, Curtis also helmed a dastardly psychedelic music unit called Worthless. Checking out some of Worthless's previous recordings for Beyond Is Beyond, Stupid Head, and Greenway, we were struck by the weirdness and seamlessness of their psych stretching; if ever there was music made for light shows, this was pretty much it. The Cave is Worthless' third vinyl LP and is as stellar a set of glistening sonics as you will hear this year. In a certain sense, this session marks the band's evolution in a direction that approaches the sweet spot with psychedelic and progressive music meet for long walks on the beach. The overall vibe of the album is free-form and floating, with the edges of the aural tapestry going in and out of focus with buzzing irregularity. There are big shards of Saucerful-era Floyd guitar zonerism, mixed with luminous Zappa-damaged pomp flourishes, a certain chunk of drama from the Nice, and a general sort of Vertigo/Dawn/Harvest gush that will keep your brain wonderfully off balance when you try to place this music in the context 21st century Brooklyn. The (often instrumental) passages of music on The Cave move like one of the nicest white whales from the class of '68, who has managed to remain uncaptured until now. It doesn't fall into any known style traps so common in music by young people who are reaching back into history for clues. This is music sweetly fried for the stoned future. Yours, we can only hope." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 250.
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FTR 419LP
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"Dan Melchior is great randomizer of a musician. Born in the UK, based in the US for the last 20 years, his discography ranges from raw garage rock to avant garde tape collages, visiting a whole lots of other points in between. Exhibit A is his first collaboration with P.G. Six (aka Pat Gubler) the wonderful New England based multi-instrumentalist, who has previously appeared with Wet Tuna (FTR 364LP, 2018), Weeping Bong Band (FTR 313LP, 2018), MV & EE (FTR 167LP, 2015) and Joshua Burkett (FTR 196LP, 2015). This time out P.G. plays keyboards, recorder and electric 12-string guitar, leaving the vocals and acoustic guitar to Brother Melchior. The material on Exhibit A hearkens back to some of Melchior's early records, which had a bluesy British simplicity somewhere between Duster Bennett and Sexton Ming. The melodies are fully formed and horribly hook-laden, but there's roughness to the textural edges (and riff-qua-riffs) that gives the music an extra layer of surly magnificence. Some of the lyrics are funny as hell. I dare you to resist from smiling while listening to 'Never Trust a Man Without Sideburns' or 'It Was Good Fun'. And the cover of Creation's classic 'Painterman' is as beautiful example of form-evolution as you'll find this year. Or any other. Exhibit A is a great spin from first note to last. There are lots of strange instrumental textures and tropes, all more or less inside the confines of modernist folk invention, and the whole shimmers with a very special kind of light, while still sounding deceptively plain. It's hard to keep up with Melchior's many releases and style shifts, but it's always worth doing. And this one is a pip." --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 300.
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FTR 390LP
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"The 2006 Nightmare Before Christmas festival was one of the most bodacious assemblages of raw human talent assembled on our planet since the First Continental Congress. But it wasn't all just guys and it wasn't all just proto-Americans, so that means it was far better than any other such gathering before and/or after. One of the crazier highlights of the weekend-long event was the set by Italy's insane fraternal duo, My Cat Is An Alien. Using guitars and various other kaboobs, the Opalio boys set Red's (aka Stage 2) on fire that Sunday night, blasting out zoned croaks, wobbly drones and the kind of blabbermouth logic you usually can't access without written permission from a doctor. There were many ecstatic musical yawps during that long-ago weekend, but MCIAA's set left a deep groove in my memory. And it's a stone pleasure to revisit it after lo, these many years. Two blurts of side-ling mystery, packed in Roberto Opalio's wonderful art, with a little liner note booklet that can only hint at what you may have missed. Thankfully, if you slap on the disc, close your eyes and sniff a can of beer while lying down, you can approximate the whirling thrill ride of the set itself. And sometimes an approximation is both closer to home and more comfortable than an actual experience. So, yeah -- you're welcome!" --Byron Coley, 2019
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FTR 394LP
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"Eugene Chadbourne is one of the great guitar players of the modern era. At the time he began recording in Canada in 1975, his music was a unique syncretic formulation. While its most obvious component was free improvisation in a style then most widely associated with English and European players, his music also contained elements of jazz, country, folk, blues, psychedelic and international sounds, referencing these threads in ways that were so diverse and intensely personalized it would take scholars decades to decode them. Volume 2-1/3 is the second of four LPs devoted to documenting some of the music Dr. Chadbourne was creating during the years he was based in the provinces of Canada, while avoiding the conscriptive powers of Richard Nixon and his ilk. Exact details of the recordings are unknown, but that's trivial. There are six tracks of improvisational guitar madness at its most glorious. Describing them is almost impossible, but I can at least tell you their names 'Piazza del Duomo', 'Preperation Dimafbay' (sic), 'Father (You Opened)', 'That's All Water Under the Bridge' (purported to be the first lesson of a proposed guitar instructional record, which is a fairly brain-searing concept) and 'Rocket!' (which is a different take of the Oliver Lake classic first recorded on Volume Two). This last one might be my fave Chadbourne acoustic piece ever. Maybe yours too! If not, just give this a spin and let us know your favorite. Maybe you'll win a button. Solo Guitar Volume 2-1/3 is even more amazing than the last one, in our opinion. And there's more to come!" --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 400.
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FTR 413LP
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"Newly remastered reissue of Willie Lane's 2009 solo guitar LP, Known Quantity, originally released on his own Cord Art label. Over the last few years, this album has been requested at the store more often than just about any other, but it sold out not long after it was issued and has risen in price consistently since that time. Listening to Known Quantity, it's not hard to understand why it has such a strong rep. Lane came out the Hampshire College scene that aligned itself with the Apostasy Records crowd (Krefting, Shaw, Rosenblum, etc.). His first known recordings were actually with some of the noisier experimental units associated with this cabal. Willie was based in Philadelphia for a long time after college, where he fell in with Jack Rose and the whole Fishtown scene of the early Oughts. Moving back to the Valley, Willie also began working with Matt Valentine's tribe, and his first solo album,Recliner Ragas, was issued as a C.O.M. CDR in 2006 before getting vinylized by the Humito label in 2012. And keen listeners out there will detect a certain "Spectrasound" feel to some of the electric passages here. The music on Known Quantity is a buttery mix of electric and acoustic string aktion. Samara Lubelski plays bass on one track, but it's all solo apart from that. And it's a wonderland of textures and sound shapes. Some of the pieces are almost straight ahead (somewhat more in tunes with the work Willie does when he plays live), but others are as wobbly and jagged as a drunk peacock. It's an amazing record, and rewards multiple listens with constantly unfolding details. Max Milgram (from Watery Love) did the new cover art (based on the original LP's photographic frontispiece) and the mastering by Carl Saff is mighty nice. Enjoy..." --Byron Coley, 2018. Edition of 500.
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FTR 414LP
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"The second LP by Mark Cunningham's current Spanish outfit, Blood Quartet, marks a directional shift from their 2016 debut LP, Deep Red (FTR 283LP). On Until My Darkness Goes the quartet abandons pure instrumentalism, including a few vocal takes by drummer Cândid Coll strewn amidst the album's various tangles. There is also a much more aggressively rockist focus shown at times. Rumor has always been that this is a firm part of the band's live trip, but recorded evidence of it has thus far been scarce. Of course, most of Until My Darkness Goes is in the same great vein as Deep Red. Noirish trumpet drifts across a rotten cityscape, batting down noise guitar rats that pop up from open manhole covers like goddamn Whack-a-Moles. But there are other things going on as well. "Surfing Rueda" sounds like some sort of unholy collaboration between the Raybeats and Sonic Youth. "Stress of Her Regard" plays like Robert Wyatt doing his version of hard rock vocals in front of the Tony Williams Lifetime. "Velvet Love" curls through the air like a smoky reconsideration on Eric Burdon & the Animals' soft-psych phase. It's crazy how fast this record drifts from style to style, although Blood Quartet always touches back to their basic Chet Baker meets Pete Cosey conception. The whole album is a collection of wild moves, as you might guess from the fact they cop a Stones quote for its title, and even name a track after the Representative from Corwood. I can't wait to hear what these guys get up to next, but for now we've all got plenty to digest. So dig in." --Byron Coley, 2018. Edition of 250.
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FTR 416LP
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"Although I have lately taken to associating Louisville's Ryan Davis with the maniacal blurt of Tropical Trash, I am reminded by the release of the fourth State Champion LP, Send Flowers, that this is his original mothership. Send Flowers is State Champion's most fully realized Beard Rock expression to date. The surrealist underpinnings of Ryan's lyrics are heavier than ever, but that is balanced by the band's most epiphanically tasty licking. The pieces fit together with such easy organic grace, it's tempting to suspect they're simple. But the closer you listen to the parts the more complex they appear. This begins with Ryan's words, which are sung so gracefully you have to concentrate to pick up on the timeless phrases he invents here, but when you pay attention they jump up and just about bite you. The same thing goes for the instrumentation, which initially passes as a mere recreation of lost Topanga threads, but surpasses those bounds with the something approaching the same assurance as the David Lindley-led band on Terry Reid's River LP (the transcendent Beard Rock masterpiece). Send Flowers will almost surely be misapprehended by lazy farmers and the cows who follow them. It may also be anathema to folks who primarily head-link it to Tropical Trash, but for anyone who digs the new generation of singer/songwriters out there, from Wooden Wand to Ned Collette to the legacy of the Silver Jews. Peel slowly and see." --Byron Coley, 2018.
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FTR 305LP
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"Patriots is the first actual vinyl record dedicated entirely to the music of Boston's boss post-core art-punk trio, (New England) Patriots. Their other two long players are splits, with Palberta (FTR166EP, 2015) and Skimask. And while those two bands are certainly estimable in their own rights, the unadulterated churn of (NE) Patriots gives this album a very special squirm. Certain aspects of the blabber still make me think of the late, lamented Cows, and their whole whizzing raunch shebang. But there's nothing in my personal listening history that has this exact brand of sonic adventurism. The Pats still just use guitars, drums and tongues at work in shaping their sounds (certain bass register tones being ascribed to fat strings, perhaps?), and they have a beautifully anarchic approach to song assemblage. Some of the tunes stretch out like worms in Gibby Haynes' colon, others are compacted the way the Hobson Brothers' nut sacs might have if they'd given each other cube-dunks back in Killdozer's heyday. A firm and mighty sound." --Byron Coley, 2018. Numbered edition of 300.
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FTR 405LP
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"You know that old phrase, 'Teach a penguin to cuss, and you'll never have to buy another comedy record' I'm sure you do. But what about its codicil? 'Teach a guitarist to play synth, and you'll never have to buy a new age record?' If you know that one, you might well be put off by the fact this album features one of New Zealand's most wickedly post-tongue guitar players fiddling about with oscillators and analog synths (in concert with a guy who does this stuff all the time). But you need not fear. The only New Age being brunted about here is the same one Fahey disemboweled back in '97. An ornery cuss, it has lived in the cracks some-damn-place, only re-emerging now that it has been called forth by Bruce Russell and Noel Meek. Much of the sound on Classical Music (how Fahey would have loved everything about this record!) makes me think of Chris Marker's classic film, La Jetée (1962). As you certainly recall, the central motif in that film is the main quay at Aéroport de Paris-Orly, where visitors gather to watch the jets land and take off (just as I did at New York's Idlewild Airport when I was a kid). Well, particularly on the second side, this record is a jolt of aural déjà vu for me. If I close my eyes I can almost see a parade of 707s and DC-8s careening around the flats of Long Island, missing collisions by what seem like a series of miracles to me. Mr. Russell's last LP for us was 2016's Howling and Instability at High Volume Settings (FTR 219LP), and it is a sheer pleasure to realize how unstable he can be on instruments besides the guitar. Mr. Meek is wildly successful at this as well, and the combination is as bracing as an early morning slap of Old Spice. Step up for blast of Classical Music-style reality today. You'll be oh-so-glad you did." --Byron Coley, 2018. Edition of 250.
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FTR 400LP
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"... When I first met Chris, Jess and Dan, they were all living in Western MA and I was in Eastern MA. And when they recorded this album in the Pacific Northwest, I had just moved to the Pacific Northwest. Though Chris and Jess had lived and created music in the Bay Area and Portland, Maine prior to their tenure in Western MA and have since moved back to the Bay Area, their music (Fat Worm of Error, Angst Hase Pfeffer Nase, Schurt Kwitters, White Limo) came to define certain aspects of the Western MA 'noise' scene of the late '90s/early aughts... while Dan Greenwood's music as Diagram A came to define an almost photonegative of these qualities, sharing some of the absurdity, conceptualism and instability with an added intensity, viscerality and violence . . . Once in Washington, they recorded multiple sessions of Chris' floortop guitar and electronics, a guitar Dan had modified with motors and springs, Dan's homemade cracked electronic circuitry, and one of Seattle instrument builder Dave Knott's stringboards. Combined with these were recordings made in and around Port Townsend's historic, decaying military installation at Fort Worden State Park, including recordings in Fort Worden's legendary two-million-gallon cistern, which has a dizzying 45 seconds of natural reverb. The cistern is well known as being the recording site of the very first Deep Listening Band album by Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster and Panaiotis, released in 1989. Chris, Jess & Dan brought down an analog synth, a clarinet, a Marantz tape recorder (and some tapes) and wandered throughout the cistern's roughly 200-foot diameter. Side one begins and ends with a heavy emphasis on skittery, sometimes abrasive, anxiously controlled electronics, particularly the idiosyncratic sound of Dan's crackling devices. Things become more mechanistic and open before offering a glimpse of the cistern recordings which will come to dominate side two, but the side closes out with more sonic steel wool. This serves to highlight the spaciousness of side two. The group utilizes the unique acoustic properties of the cistern to great effect, allowing the sounds to activate the space's resonance and then step aside. Amidst this Gothic cathedral of reverberating tones are delicately interwoven recordings of trains and thistly electronics creating a palpable foreground and background . . ." --Greg Kelley, Seattle WA, 11:11pm, 11/11/18
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