FEEDING TUBE RECORDS - Forced Exposure

$11.50 IN STOCK

"While they have collaborated a good many times, Next is the first recorded evidence of Danish guitarist (or more properly Bastardist) Jørgen Teller playing with American ex-pat multi-instrumentalist Mark Cunningham. The pair both have long histories on the fringes of known sounds. I first heard Teller as a member of the dizzily freakoid Tzarina Q Cut and Cunningham's decades of musical adventurism with Mars, Don King, Bestia Ferida, Blood Quartet, etc. have been well documented, not least by us. This is Mark's tenth FTR release! The four pieces here are improvised instrumental duets. The material was recorded in October 2023, as part of an ongoing residency Mark has at the Fabra I Coats creation center in Barcelona. Throughout, Teller plays Le Bastard (a Hofner 137 electric guitar with two bass strings and three guitar strings). Cunningham plays mostly trumpet and delays, but also whips out his old Dan Electro for one of the tracks. Overall, the sonic results are droney, druggy, lightly-noisesome slabs of brilliant buzz. In a general way, Jørgen's amped strings set up a humbucking sound-sheet against which he and Mark can each toss spontaneous squibs of creation and destruction, When Mark is playing trumpet and pedals, the music sometimes manifests a strange sort of charm that almost has the feel of a noise rock approach to the Canterbury Sound. By which, I mean the stuff is rackety, but there are built-in glissandos that make me think of nothing less Camel's brilliant live work on the Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dancehall. Of course, these moments resolve themselves in weirder ways than any Pete Bardens has ever dreamed up, but it demonstrates the duo's avant-prog game is strong! The doubled guitar track (called 'Next 3' to contrast it with 'Next 1,' 'Next 2,' and 'Next 4') is a superb piece of string work with rockist overtones that put fellow in mind of some of the best moments by classic two-man string units like the Smashchords or early Half Japanese. But with a more overtly hypnagogic overlay that forces your brain's receptors to stretch themselves in new ways. It's all amazing stuff. Sounding so fully evolved you'll be tempted to swear it weren't improvised! But you'd be wrong, friend. Some people just have the gift. To paraphrase that old softy, Lou Reed, their week beats your year. Get up with it!" --Byron Coley, 2025

$36.00 IN STOCK

Belgian musician and filmmaker Jef Mertens has been an active force in the experimental music and film scene for nearly two decades. Known for his documentaries on artists like Sonic Youth and Borbetomagus, as well as his work with the now-defunct Dadaist Tapes label, Mertens continues to push the boundaries of sound exploration. His previous solo works include No Mathematics, released on KRAAK/Feeding Tube Records. With Orchid Alto, Mertens dedicates himself to the taishogoto, a Japanese stringed instrument that became a new focal point in his sonic explorations. Initially drawn to its unique tonal qualities, he approached the instrument with an open-ended curiosity, using it as a means to reshape his musical language. The transition to taishogoto marked a shift away from guitar-based compositions, offering a fresh perspective on texture and resonance. Through these explorations, Orchid Alto serves as a blueprint for new sonic possibilities. A bold and immersive sonic journey, Orchid Alto merges traditional resonance with modern experimentalism, further shaping Mertens' artistic voice -- one influenced by artists like Michael Flower, Turner Williams Jr., and Bill Nace. Edition of 200. Co-release with Aguirre. Performed, recorded and edited by Jef Mertens at Scherpendries, Geel, 2023. Mixed and mastered by Jürgen De Blonde. Artwork by Jim Faes.

$27.50 IN STOCK

LP version. "While they have collaborated a good many times, Next is the first recorded evidence of Danish guitarist (or more properly Bastardist) Jørgen Teller playing with American ex-pat multi-instrumentalist Mark Cunningham. The pair both have long histories on the fringes of known sounds. I first heard Teller as a member of the dizzily freakoid Tzarina Q Cut and Cunningham's decades of musical adventurism with Mars, Don King, Bestia Ferida, Blood Quartet, etc. have been well documented, not least by us. This is Mark's tenth FTR release! The four pieces here are improvised instrumental duets. The material was recorded in October 2023, as part of an ongoing residency Mark has at the Fabra I Coats creation center in Barcelona. Throughout, Teller plays Le Bastard (a Hofner 137 electric guitar with two bass strings and three guitar strings). Cunningham plays mostly trumpet and delays, but also whips out his old Dan Electro for one of the tracks. Overall, the sonic results are droney, druggy, lightly-noisesome slabs of brilliant buzz. In a general way, Jørgen's amped strings set up a humbucking sound-sheet against which he and Mark can each toss spontaneous squibs of creation and destruction, When Mark is playing trumpet and pedals, the music sometimes manifests a strange sort of charm that almost has the feel of a noise rock approach to the Canterbury Sound. By which, I mean the stuff is rackety, but there are built-in glissandos that make me think of nothing less Camel's brilliant live work on the Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dancehall. Of course, these moments resolve themselves in weirder ways than any Pete Bardens has ever dreamed up, but it demonstrates the duo's avant-prog game is strong! The doubled guitar track (called 'Next 3' to contrast it with 'Next 1,' 'Next 2,' and 'Next 4') is a superb piece of string work with rockist overtones that put fellow in mind of some of the best moments by classic two-man string units like the Smashchords or early Half Japanese. But with a more overtly hypnagogic overlay that forces your brain's receptors to stretch themselves in new ways. It's all amazing stuff. Sounding so fully evolved you'll be tempted to swear it weren't improvised! But you'd be wrong, friend. Some people just have the gift. To paraphrase that old softy, Lou Reed, their week beats your year. Get up with it!" --Byron Coley, 2025

$27.50 IN STOCK

Eric Arn has mined the nether regions of avant-rock, free improv, drone and psychedelia beginning with the Crystalized Movements in the 1980s, and continuing with Primordial Undermind for over three decades. Eric has released records on a wide range of other labels, including Feeding Tube Records, Stoned to Death, The Lotus Sound, Sloow Tapes, and Ramble Records, among others. Eric has also collaborated with the likes of Tom Carter (Charalambides), Jasmine Pender, Margaret Unknown, and Eyal Maoz. Nearly four years to the date after the release of Higher Order, Eric Arn's previous release for Carbon Records, comes his latest collection of guitar excursions. The songs on fixe Idee have a rolling, rambling guitar feel that builds sonic lattices which drift in the air like steel spiderwebs in the summer sky. The record opens with the American Primitive-esque storytelling saga "Impromptu pour le fantôme," setting the stage for a nice variety of playing and recording styles to follow. The more pastoral tracks "Sunrills" and "Gutbucket" are nicely interspersed with the more raw, lo-fi slide-based joints "Rhyolite" and "Ewigkeitsgasse," each with variations of tipsy tones dancing off the edge of the fretboard to bathe in a swirling concoction of acoustic fantasia. Fixe Idee finally moves back into the Primitive landscape with the "raag Melathys," then the closer, the perfectly titled "Bear," completely unraveled starts with more spastic and experimental Derek Bailey leanings, then eventually settles into more rhythmic patterns, and an exhaling finale. This is a record made by someone whose passion for the guitar as a physical instrument creating sound for enjoyment, and as a catalyst for getting right with the Universe, is deeply evident.

$27.50 IN STOCK

"Liz Durette returns with a gorgeous fourth LP (her third for Feeding Tube) and not a moment too soon! With Well Up, Liz delivers a bright and sparkling sonic gem to illuminate our days and nights. Liz is an artist, keyboardist, improviser, and deep thinker based in Massachusetts, after many years in Baltimore. She has created an uncanny body of musical work of keyboard improvisations. Her style strikes me as utterly unique, and this latest album offers an entirely new example of her vision. While her earlier records were often shifting, madcap melodic constructions, Well Up offers another side, in a rich and distilled scope. Here, Liz generates a lush and enchanting sound world of morphing, cycling melodic phrases which gently swirl and pool into three great lakes of beauty. Liz improvised this music on a MIDI Polyphonic Expressive keyboard, but the album can't be characterized as a 'synth,' 'ambient' or 'minimal' release. Her employment of multiple voicings of pre-modern sounds like flutes and reeds create a singular headspace that defies easy description. 'Heart' begins the album with serene, mysterious melody that unfolds in elastic and expressive motivic gestures. All of the three songs are built on phrases of simple melodic variation that spiral out of simplicity, slowly and steadily, with subtle layers of increasing ornamentation. The touch sensitivity of Liz's instrument with its parameters of ultra bendy notes spill phrases across the soundstage in delightful patterns. It's a beguiling stew. The second piece, 'Lake' was born from Liz's complete mis-remembering of a Lebanese folk song which transformed itself into this special and hypnotic reverie. I can picture a court of dazzling beings promenading in a splendid choreography as I listen to this track with my eyes closed. You may capture something equally grand in your mind's eye while listening, it's ultra visual music. Side two offers us the side-long opus of 'Naga.' It gradually unfurls and billows into a vast and deep pool of sound that I don't light heartedly describe as cosmic. I can imagine this piece playing on for eternity like some gyroscopic, perpetual motion machine that generates the world's dreamiest tones. The album is another rare example of music that generates a strange emotional response (at least for me), operating in a special region that exists somewhere at the border of joy and sorrow. I can't conjure a word or phrase in English that captures it accurately but I'm sure you'll know it when you hear it. The sounds surely live up to Liz's brilliant and peculiar cover art featuring an exquisitely manicured hand threatening to insert a deep blue push pin into a blazing pink balloon. While Liz has openly expressed having derived inspiration from improvisation and ornamentation across a variety of eastern and western traditions, this work seems to me to be pure Durette. Calm, soothing, novel, exotic, luminous and expansive -- much more could be said or written about this album but the wonderful sounds do a fabulous job of speaking for themselves. Please let them speak to you." --Rob Thomas, 2025

$27.50 IN STOCK

LP version. "This album has been a long time coming. We were lucky enough to do a tape in 2022 with Jeremy Hurewitz (aka Rootless) called what the truth leaves out. But this is the first time we've been able to work with long-time fave, Matt Lajoie, who appears with Ash Brooks as half of the no-longer-active duo, Starbirthed. The idea for this pairing was presented to us by Jeremy, who recorded the album at his cabin in southern Vermont in 2019. Jeremy's Rootless project generally features at least a soupçon of acoustic guitar (often combined with electronics or other things) and Starbirthed was initially canted towards producing music for meditation, although their instrumentation -- voice, bass, guitar, synth, bells, etc. -- also meant that some of the recordings possessed more of a gentle free rock heft than anything overtly new agey. Anyway, soon after the session, the Plague hit, the members of Starbirthed decided to go their own ways, and everything got sorta dragged down in the torpor of the times. But Jeremy persisted in wanting to get the session finished and together, and he succeeded quite admirably. The music on Rootless & Starbirthed is a glorious celebration of what I'd describe as a rural utopian vision of possible futures in which the world does not go straight into the shitter. This is music that glows with kind of positive energy that might be galling if it didn't sound so great. Both Rootless and Starbirthed (as well as Matt's many other projects -- Herbcraft, ML Wah, etc.) are about creating an atmosphere in which beauty thrives as much as anything else. And this great collab LP flows like a newly discovered river, carrying us away from the anxiety and insect paranoia of our quotidian reality. Positing something better, just around the corner. Something we are not yet able to see, but which might. just. save the day. This might sound like old man hippie thinking, but that's cool. I've been called worse. And so have you." --Byron Coley

$9.50 IN STOCK

"This album has been a long time coming. We were lucky enough to do a tape in 2022 with Jeremy Hurewitz (aka Rootless) called what the truth leaves out. But this is the first time we've been able to work with long-time fave, Matt Lajoie, who appears with Ash Brooks as half of the no-longer-active duo, Starbirthed. The idea for this pairing was presented to us by Jeremy, who recorded the album at his cabin in southern Vermont in 2019. Jeremy's Rootless project generally features at least a soupçon of acoustic guitar (often combined with electronics or other things) and Starbirthed was initially canted towards producing music for meditation, although their instrumentation -- voice, bass, guitar, synth, bells, etc. -- also meant that some of the recordings possessed more of a gentle free rock heft than anything overtly new agey. Anyway, soon after the session, the Plague hit, the members of Starbirthed decided to go their own ways, and everything got sorta dragged down in the torpor of the times. But Jeremy persisted in wanting to get the session finished and together, and he succeeded quite admirably. The music on Rootless & Starbirthed is a glorious celebration of what I'd describe as a rural utopian vision of possible futures in which the world does not go straight into the shitter. This is music that glows with kind of positive energy that might be galling if it didn't sound so great. Both Rootless and Starbirthed (as well as Matt's many other projects -- Herbcraft, ML Wah, etc.) are about creating an atmosphere in which beauty thrives as much as anything else. And this great collab LP flows like a newly discovered river, carrying us away from the anxiety and insect paranoia of our quotidian reality. Positing something better, just around the corner. Something we are not yet able to see, but which might. just. save the day. This might sound like old man hippie thinking, but that's cool. I've been called worse. And so have you." --Byron Coley

$14.00 IN STOCK

Thirty-two artists honor the extraordinary legacy of Suzanne Langille through interpretations of her vast songbook. Langille is best known as an acclaimed avant-garde singer-songwriter and collaborator of guitarist Loren Connors. They ventured into electrified blues and abstracted artsongs across more than a dozen albums since the mid-1980s. Langille's songs, with Connors, solo, or other collaborators, are marked by distinct and captivating depth. Her evocative lyrics, layered with themes of loss, longing, and the natural world, defy conventional boundaries, blending poetry with potent melodies. Her work embraces the uncertainty of life and the delicate spaces between joy and sorrow. The double CD includes a 20-page booklet with artist bios, rare photos, and liner notes tracing Langille's roots from a cappella harmonies to 1980s protests through today. This Connors-produced collection is a joint release by Family Vineyard and Feeding Tube Records. The Suzanne Langille Songbook features a diverse array of artists who reinterpret her music, showcasing its timeless and transformative power. Contributors include Kim Gordon & Bill Nace, Jim O'Rourke, Heather Leigh, Lee Ranaldo, Zoh Amba, Sarah Davachi & Sean McCann, William Hooker, Daniel Carter, Alan Licht & Angela Jaeger, David Grubbs, Alison Farrell, Byron Coley, Ras Moshe Burnett, Loren Connors, Tom Carter, Ronnie Yates & Gabriel Martinez, Neel Murgai, Novaga, John Kolodij & Jane Hesser, Kim Gordon & Bill Nace, Andrew Burnes, Dean Roberts, Boris Hauf & Andrea Belfi, Laura Ortman, and Adam Casey & the Liminal Choir with Katherine Walsh.

$16.00 IN STOCK

"What a pleasure it is to hear this new album from France's Jean-Baptiste Favory, long-distance associate of Los Lichis, presenter of France's longest running avant garde radio show (Epsilonia), and a goddamn great musician. I Was Thinking is the solo third album we've done with J-B (preceded by Things Under (FTR 333LP, 2017) and Ciels (FTR 703CD, 2023)), and we think it's the most varied and fascinating one yet. Using guitars, keyboards and electronics, Favory explores the edges between avant-rock, experimental composition and free form madness, in all their dark glory. The tracks here rarely follow merely one or another of these threads. They tend to careen wildly through all of them in sequence or even simultaneously. For example, the title track opens with a crackling field recording of frogs peeping in vernal pools, accompanied by guitar playing whose lines are as abstract as they are genteel. Slowly everything gets swamped in surface noise, stuttering electronic waves and pulses until the whole scene fades out in smoke. But (today anyway) my faves tracks are an odd couple. 'The Seasick Sailor' is a primarily electronic composition, which starts with what sounds like a cold wind blowing straight up Popeye's ass, forcing him into a position that allows Bluto to give him an Indian Ropeburn. None of this is explicit, of course, but how else could we interpret such sounds? On a completely different note, 'Under Things' begins with J-B playing acoustic guitar in a yearn-drenched neo-folk style. Eventually swirling layers of organ drone start to cover everything and the track draws to a sweetly shuddering close. And these are but two of the ten tracks, none of which makes much effort to ape that which came before. I Was Thinking offers listeners a goddamn smorgasbord of sounds, as brilliantly arcane as any you are likely to find this year, or any year. We suggest you play it often and with gusto." --Byron Coley

$27.50 IN STOCK

"Nice to hear the first solo LP in a good while by this most excellent guitarist who also runs the superb Scissor Tail label. Dylan writes, 'I made the title track a couple years ago at the beginning of summer. I was thinking about how as you get older you have fewer new experiences. That feeling of excitement for summer fades, after it used to be such a big deal as a kid. Those experiences can only be new and vibrant once. The rest of your life can be spent in nostalgia for them. It's a sad thought and maybe not true for everyone, but I suspect it is for most. The album is a sort of ode to that Stand by Me vibe of childhood. Which's a big part of why Cody M Lane's photograph of the kid skateboarding in cowboy boots hit me so hard. That's a thing I've seen multiple times here in Oklahoma over the years and it cracks me up, but is also just a perfect photo in my opinion. All of his photography really captures my latchkey childhood -- wandering around the streets all day with friends, not a care in the world. The recording process was spaced out over 12 years. I compiled these songs around a theme although they weren't recorded with a theme in mind. My songs are usually extracted from longer recorded improvisations, then expanded. Some tunes like 'Good Directions' and 'No New Summers' were just made in one shot without overdubs. The track 'Buoyant' is me playing bowed upright bass and layering some found sounds and field recordings I've made over the years. 'Light Peeking Through' and 'Unanchored' are pedal steel songs. For 'Unanchored' I found a way to process my steel to sound like cello and oboe so, after lots of layers of classical instruments, the pedal steel sounds like an orchestra. 'Light Peeking Through' is another pedal steel song I recorded several years ago. When I met Gary Peters I asked if he might want to add to it. He gave the tune more low end and put in some very cool chords, adding more dissonance at times. I think it took some of the twee out of the song. A result I liked a lot.' We like all these songs a lot. Dylan's approach to composing and playing involves hybridizing American Primitive, folk, country, soundtrack and avant influences into a unique and powerful alloy. Spinning the record is nothing short of a goddamn trip. Transportational music of the highest order. Get some today." --Byron Coley, 2025. Co-released with Worried Songs.

$13.50 IN STOCK

"Fifty years after I first encountered the music of Orchid Spangiafora, it is a pleasure to be listening to new work by this most bonny of modern sound manipulators. Like Flee Pasts Ape Elf (FTR 096LP), which we reissued in expanded form in 2013, Eel Asp Flays Feet (the title of which is an anagram of the earlier set) is an assemblage of immaculate invention. It manages to produce a unique splotch of confusing analog surrealism in an increasingly digital world, and Robert Carey (aka Orchid himself) deigned to provide these notes on creating the music: 'This album is a combination of some new material and ideas and some older stuff that had not found its way into a tangible (non-online) form.' 'Syllabus,' 'Dyad,' and 'Retroscope' were an attempt to return to an older style of electronic music. I put these on bandcamp, but they did not attract much attention. In mid-2021 David Greenberger provided me with the voice recordings he had made for the 'Everybody's Home' project he did with Tyson Rogers. He asked if there was something I could do with them. I put together 'Holding Pattern' and 'In A Fog.' These two pieces might be considered the 'dub version' of 'Everybody's Home.' I put them on bandcamp as 'Nobody's Home.' The rest were originally made up of typical Orchid snippets. When I first took an electronic music course in 1972 one of the things that struck me about tape loops was how readily they produced interesting rhythms. Since then I got more into selecting them for the rhythm, but rather than repeating I tried to convey it in a single shot followed by slightly modified versions. In a number of these pieces I tried returning to actually repeating phrases enough to hear the natural rhythm of each loop. The mechanical sounds combined with vocal loops in, for example, 'Interlude One,' probably were influenced by the collaboration with Seymour Glass on Cous Cous Bizarre. The rapid streams of syllables in the 'Ur Sonata' came from playing around with an audio batch processing program. I used it to cut up regular loops into very short bits and string them together. Then, as with most electronic or 'tape' music, the real work consisted of removing the parts that didn't belong. The title comes from Kurt Schwitters because I felt the piece shared some of the same motivation or aesthetic, although the implementation is not at all alike.' Well, those are the component parts, but to truly grasp the whole, you must hold your brain tight and jump right in. There is just nothing like an Orchid Spangiafora album. Tell your friends." --Byron Coley, 2024

$11.50 IN STOCK

"Limitation Is Necessary is the third set of music by Massachusetts-based string genius Lloyd Thayer we've had the honor of releasing. This follows the Duets LP (FTR 406LP) (with percussionist Jerome Duepree) on which Lloyd split his playing between a Weissenborn lap guitar and a 22-string Chaturangui, and the Twenty20 CD (FTR 698CD) which was all done on a double-necked Weissenborn. Both of these album deep and monumental explorations of mesmeric string textures filled with elements that ranged from Indian classical to blues to psychedelic with hypnotic grace. The blend of elements so extraordinary and seamless, his slidework is almost incomparable. When I asked him about the germination and evolution of the new album, he wrote eloquently about its creation. 'The first piece I wrote for the album was the title track, which came out of improvising, day after day after month. I could feel the music pulling towards the last recording Twenty20, but I didn't want to do another 38-minute piece, hence Limitation is Necessary.' Once upon a time, long ago, when I did my first instrumental Dobro recording, I sent a copy to my teacher, the late Stacy Phillips. He gave me some very positive feedback, and then said 'can you play all of this stuff live?' My answer was yes, and for whatever reason that became a foundational part of what I do, recording pieces that I can duplicate live. Of course, some of that happens with effects pedals. One of the influences for me is Indian Dhrupad music, specifically the Rudra Veena, which some call the great grandfather of all stringed instruments. Dhrupad itself is an older and slower river than some of the music westerners are used to hearing, which is faster and flashier (Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee, Zakir Hussain), and of course all of these forms use some type of a DRONE. For a while now, I have been working on the question: what would be the western drone? Leaf blower, highway traffic noise, Walmart parking lot? etc. Most of the pieces on Limitation have a drone in the background, which comes from a sustain pedal or looping pedal. Sometimes it runs throughout the whole piece and sometimes it comes and goes. The two 12 string pieces ('Rumination' and 'Celebration') were influenced by Ralph Towner, who has sometimes used an 'odd' tuning for his 12 string, in which some of the string pairs/courses are tuned to different notes (unlike a 'normal' 12 string where they are tuned to the same note). I spent a lot of time working on this, trying to develop a very specific light touch, so that I could pick individual strings on the 12 string. The doubleneck Weissenborn is used on 'Deviation.' This track moves between three different Turkish Makamlar -- each with a different sort of feeling or mood -- which go back and forth between the two necks. The theory behind this is a little too 'thick' or turgid for human consumption. So there are three instruments used: 12 string (two songs); doubleneck (one song), standard Weissenborg (two songs). Thats it!' Limitation is, indeed, 'it.' I have difficulty imagining anyone who digs contemporary acoustic string music not falling hard for this album's breadth and quality. It's an amazing musical trip. And we are a proud as could be to help get it into your ears. --Byron Coley, 2024

$25.50 IN STOCK

"Well into the third decade of their existence as a musical juggernaut, a new (or at least semi-new) quartet iteration of Nashville's most aggressively shambolic band, The Cherry Blossoms, has recorded this dandy taster of a new LP. And Feeding Tube is tickled pink to bring it to you. Surreal ruralists of the highest order, this version of the Blossoms includes long-time collaborator, Josephine Foster, as a card-carrying member. Josephine has been colluding with the Blossoms for many years, and while most of their meets were live shows that exist only in the memories of those who have witnessed them, some documentation exists in the form of the Mystery Meet LP (FTR 511LP, 2020). On Stars of Tennessee, Ms. Foster adds autoharp, guitar, recorder and vocals, merging with the collective's original members: Peggy Snow (guitar, spoons, kalimba, vocals), John Allingham (guitar, harmonica, vocals) and Chris Davis (drums). Allen Lowery (another regular Blossom) was not around for this session, but Victor Herrero added guitar to a couple of tunes. And what tunes they are. The Cherry Blossoms always manage to evoke the simple pleasures of campfire sing-alongs, with the deep commingling of common interest and intimate friendship that idea evokes, interspersed with the sort of weird, but soft-edged logical jumps associated with the kings of post-hippie hillbillyism, the Holy Modal Rounders. It's not easy to tease apart the specifics of this binary aesthetic operation, but the band manages to pluck the twangers of both innocence and experience with equal vigor -- ambidextrous William Blake aktion of the highest order. The vocal and instrumental blends here range from beautifully pure to emotionally amplified, with lyrical topics that flow from nature's seasonal changes to the war in Ukraine. But everything is bathed in the same crafty light of sophisticated primitivism that illuminates the work of Michael Hurley (who has told me he's a long time Blossoms fan.) The homespun simplicity of this musical approach is wonderfully comforting and familiar, but the lyrics contains enough coded mystery (or at least sublime vaguery) to keep attentive listeners occasionally wondering what the hell is actually going on. And really, the only answer is, hey -- it's The Cherry Blossoms. There's nothing else exactly like them. So do yourself a favor and stock the hell up. You never know when you'll need a jolt of their essential whatsis. But need it you will." --Byron Coley, 2024

$22.00 IN STOCK

"MX-80 Sound are one of the foundational underground rock bands of the last half century. Formed in the university town of Bloomington IN in 1974, the original version came about when Bruce Anderson and Dale Sophiea (from Screaming Gypsy Bandits) teamed up with Rich Stim and Dave Mahoney (from Chinaboise), adding another couple of drummers for extra confusion. Things fluxxed and mutated for a while. MX-80 played the Bloomington Public Library and rehearsed a lot. They opened for Patti Smith, one drummer left and they recorded the great Big Hits EP in '76 for local label BRBQ. Reviewed in Sounds by Carline Coons, the EP got the band a deal by which UK Island licensed and released their equally great first album, Hard Attack, in '77. Another drummer left and MX-80 Sound moved to San Francisco, where they made a couple of amazing albums for the Residents' label, Ralph. Drummers changed, but Anderson, Stim and Sophiea remained fairly constant, and together they created a signature sound featuring massive repeating guitar riffs, biting angular rhythms and casually surreal vocals. Over the years they all did their own things, but regularly rehearsed together as MX-80, at which point things generally coalesced into an easily identifiable (impossibly to categorize) style. As great as their live sets were, they didn't tour often, but every time I saw them they were superb. And the recordings that came from their regular meet-ups are as brilliant as they are idiosyncratic. Better Than Life was recorded shortly before the death of Bruce Anderson, which assures it will be the final MX-80 studio album, and it's a wonderful testament to how long you can keep creating fresh and vital avant rock music without ever making any goddamn money doing it. Better Than Life sounds great. Anderson's guitar is a huge as ever, Stim's movie-oriented lyric inventions and wry delivery are as weirdly dead pan as could be, Dael Sophiea's bass defines the urgent edges of the songs, and the other players -- guitarists John Moreman and Jim Hrabetin, bassist Chris Xefos, and drummer Nico Sophiea (son of Dale) -- are spot-on. Together, they create a lovely, complex and intelligent mix of the wildest avant-prog/punk-rock hybrid you'll never hear again. As much as we'll miss MX-80 Sound, their legacy will live forever, and the crazy blend of elements they created with such unforced power should stand as a challenge to every new band that comes along. This album demonstrates it's indeed possible to create a unique sound for yourself with enough interior space you can explore its mysterious sonic corridors for almost 50 years. This should be enough to give us all hope, and we should offer thanks to MX-80 for creating such a fine and freaky aesthetic model. If more artists followed their path, we'd all live a much better world." --Byron Coley, 2024

$27.50 IN STOCK

"Bassist Margarida Garcia and guitarist Manuel Mota are two of the best-known string wielders from Lisbon's active improvising community. Both players work the edges of sound and form in ways that don't fit neatly into any genre category, while creating exciting sonic landscapes that appeal equally to fans of avant-garde rock, free jazz and experimental music. They have worked together frequently in a variety of formats -- duo, quartet, etc. -- but Margarida is the only one Feeding Tube has issued work by previously -- 2022's superb Good Night CD (FTR 716CD). That album was a wonderfully abstract collection of bass-generated sounds hovering in the mist, illuminated from within like the rotating lights of a swamp-bound UFO. Domestic Scene displays some of those same qualities, but the four tracks provide equal space to allow Mota's electric guitar to play around with autonomous musical ideas on a parallel track. It often feels as though there is deep communication going on between the players, but there is also a sense of this activity occurring in a sort of dream time, and possibly in languages that appear similar without being the same at all. Regardless, the music here is beautiful and engaging in a way that only true Intermedia art (in the classic Fluxus sense) can be. It refuses to exist within boundaries, forcing us to ponder its conceptual basis at the same time we dig the way it sounds. The fundamentally transitional nature of the music adds a layer of intellectual discord that otherwise wouldn't exist. And we as listeners can either engage with the questions it raises or choose to just enjoy it as sound art. Either way, it's a damn fine spin. So dig in, baby." --Byron Coley, 2024

$25.50 IN STOCK

"It is absolutely appropriate the second volume of Wednesday Knudsen's Soft Focus suite appears as spring finally begins to take hold. Like the brilliant first section of this work (the whole of which was initially released on CD), the music here is a celebration of shimmering sunlight and the awakening of nature's tonal brilliance. But where the first LP focused on more bite-sized pieces of work, this one envisions and documents instrumental horizons that are ever expanding. The first of the three tracks, 'Sunshine,' is the shortest, and picks up where Volume One left off -- slow single note electric piano runs with lightly buzzing sustain that are darker than the song title suggests, but utterly devoid of overt bummer tongues. The way the keys' edges are muted for its ending feels like washing your hands in a bag of rough-cut diamonds. The second, 'Ariel's Letter and the Rain,' has a mysterious title that turns out to be far less abstract than you might imagine. It references a friend making some suggestions involving the rhythms and flow of nature at a crucial moment in the tune's gestation. As simple as that, and the resultant sounds are stunning. The final, side-long 'Soft Focus II' begins with the same slow-massed notes that end 'Soft Focus I,' but it mostly explores long tones generated by two or three notes that fluctuate and pulse like soft drops of dew on a car's window, drooling to the wind's commands while accreting size and strength. After a while, things shift to small piano figures that repeat and mutate casually, before cascading upwards with a sense of coalescent rebirth. Unlike Soft Focus Volume I, there are no vocals on this album, but the music creates its own meditative language that will transport you from wherever you happen to be, into warm sunshine and air filled with the languorous scents of earth awakening. Paradise is rarely this portable." --Byron Coley, 2024

$13.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Mayday is the third LP by Montreal-based artist, Myriam Gendron. It follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma Délire: Songs Of Love, Lost & Found (2021). Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), with Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound. Most of the songs are original, sung in both English and French, and they blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. She is often accompanied on this album by the guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White), whose work provides a quietly aggressive sort of free-rock base. Additional players include Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lovie, Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba. Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. The music here certainly possesses a richly serious tone, but Myriam Gendron (like Leonard Cohen) is able to infuse her darkness with a subtle, powerful light that reminds listeners that even the most pitch-black night is but a transitional state. Beautiful work. Recorded at home and at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shea Brossard. Mastered by Harris Newman.

$27.50 IN STOCK

Edition of 300. "For his fourth Feeding Tube release, Curtis Godino (now a resident of the greater Nashville area) has created a soundtrack album for a destroyed film that exists only in his mind. Playing with a raft of fine musicians, unencumbered by having to match his music up with actual extant images, Curtis has created a suite of tunes that are stylistically connected to his earlier works, yet expand themselves into hitherto unexplored realms. A well-regarded maestro of the organ and Mellotron, Curtis's music has long reminded certain listeners of Frank Zappa's best mid '60s instrumental work -- music tied to the friendlier edge of 20th Century avant garde traditions, infused with a sort of rockist approach. And this is still true on Discorporation (a term perhaps most famously used on the Mothers' Absolutely Free LP), although the music here also references Ennio Morricone, Wendy Carlos, and even Angelo Baldalamenti, with results that are as cinematic as all get out. There are ten players besides Curtis on Discorporation, and the only ones whose names I recognize are the D'Addaroio brothers from the Lemon Twigs. But they all sound great. Huge reeking waves of sound spill out of the speakers just about begging you to close your eyes, rub them hard and start creating a personal movie inside your skull. Something with a huge Technicolor expanse filled with rubbery little cactus plants and guys who walk their horses into phone booths and then disappear. The imaginational possibilities suggested by Godino's fat orchestral sound can haul your brain in almost any direction you're capable of visualizing. And frankly, it transports me back to my first immersive experiences with music, sprawled on the carpet of my parents' living room, listening to the Frank Chackfield Orchestra's recording of Ernest Gold's theme for Stanley Kramer's 1959 movie, On the Beach, on their Motorola console stereo. Never having seen the film, I was freed to imagine its story unfolding in any way I wanted, and doing just that was one of my favorite ways to spend a rainy afternoon in 1960. Sixty-four years later, Godino is offering us all the same chance once again. And anyone who doesn't take him up on the offer is a goddamn duffer. Brilliant stuff, man." --Byron Coley, 2024

$27.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Green color vinyl. Mayday is the third LP by Montreal-based artist, Myriam Gendron. It follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma Délire: Songs Of Love, Lost & Found (2021). Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), with Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound. Most of the songs are original, sung in both English and French, and they blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. She is often accompanied on this album by the guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White), whose work provides a quietly aggressive sort of free-rock base. Additional players include Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lovie, Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba. Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. The music here certainly possesses a richly serious tone, but Myriam Gendron (like Leonard Cohen) is able to infuse her darkness with a subtle, powerful light that reminds listeners that even the most pitch-black night is but a transitional state. Beautiful work. Recorded at home and at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shea Brossard. Mastered by Harris Newman.

$24.00 NOT IN STOCK

LP version. Mayday is the third LP by Montreal-based artist, Myriam Gendron. It follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma Délire: Songs Of Love, Lost & Found (2021). Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), with Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound. Most of the songs are original, sung in both English and French, and they blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. She is often accompanied on this album by the guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White), whose work provides a quietly aggressive sort of free-rock base. Additional players include Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lovie, Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba. Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. The music here certainly possesses a richly serious tone, but Myriam Gendron (like Leonard Cohen) is able to infuse her darkness with a subtle, powerful light that reminds listeners that even the most pitch-black night is but a transitional state. Beautiful work. Recorded at home and at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shea Brossard. Mastered by Harris Newman.

$27.50 IN STOCK

"MB Jones and Rey Sapienz first encountered one another in 2018. Jones was living in South Korea and visited Kampala, Uganda with his partner. Before their trip he was surprised to find that the Nyege Nyege label knew of him through his ROK SPY record, which had even led certain label associates to wonder if, because of that project's presentation, he was an actual secret agent. Jones stayed for a few days at Villa Nyege, where label co-founder Arlen Dilsizian introduced him to Rey Sapienz. Prompted by a question Jones had about a man in Uganda building rockets in his backyard, Dilsizian had the notion to name the band after a Congolese rocket program, and recording ensued. Plans for Jones to return were dashed by a global pandemic, and thus the pair were forced, like so many, to work remotely. Processing of their initial sessions yielded the Grey Parrots cassette, released in an edition of 100. For this next album, they wanted something that more closely resembled songs. Jones crafted instrumental tracks and sent them to Sapienz, who handled the vocals and written word. Results were returned to Jones to be wrangled into their final versions. Along the way, a host of guest artists contributed as well. Jones was chuffed to get Otim Alpha on a track, and Northeast underground heads will be pleased as punch with the riotous appearance of Fat Worm of Error's Tim Sheldon. Among others. The music draws from disparate cultural touchstones to create its own vernacular. Enticing and unpredictable rhythms abound, punctuated by groovy loops, layers, and conglomerates of mechanical tones and atmospheres. Some songs are full of high frequencies and high energy, some swim in darker psychedelic waters. Some are spastic and crammed with information, some embrace space and breath. The vocals are uniformly excellent. The elements are mashed up, but it's a far cry from the stale concept of a 'mashup,' where familiar elements get bolted together in a clever manner that makes adults say, 'Wow, that's neat!' The music of Troposphere 7 blends sounds and styles as painters mix pigments to create something magical. To Keyi Toko Zonga a stunning experience, showcasing a highly sophisticated sense of possibility. Whether or not there will be another Troposphere 7 album remains to be seen and, to a degree, doesn't matter. What counts is that we have this marvelous LP. Given the creative restlessness of the participants, who knows if they'd want to do it all again anyway. This is art made for the moment it's in, reveling in the reality it conjures. So be here now, you won't regret it." --Matt Krefting, 2024

$27.50 IN STOCK

"A very nice return to unadorned acoustic guitar playing by one of the form's masters. Allred's last album for FTR, What Strange Flowers Grow in the Shade (FTR 656LP) was more of an imaginary band outing, but Folk Guitar plays it straight. Joseph reports they'd been listening to a lot to pieces by 16th-century composer, John Dowland, and the solo work of Pentangle's John Renbourn while this album was gestating. They also note Hammer Studio horror-film soundtracks as a touchstone for certain tunes, while others were inspired by the music in Chinese fantasy TV shows, and poetic fragments by Sappho. All of which means, this is another deeply considered and beautifully rendered set of tunes by this Tennessee-based rambler. Unlike some of Allred's early solo work, which manifested the same sort of syncretic brassiness as Robbie Basho's Takoma-era work, several of the pieces here display an extreme clarity of attack that reminds me a bit of British guitarist, John Pearse, whose work also explored folk and classical traditions (sometimes simultaneously). But of course, Allred's playing is as original as always. They manage to blend whatever influences they have consumed into perfect gems of musical karma -- each facet glimmering like a transcendental star. Folk Guitar is a work of unalloyed brilliance, and will prove to be a boon companion for anyone attuned to the art of solo guitar music." --Byron Coley, 2024

$25.50 IN STOCK

Feeding Tube announces The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol LP. Verdun is the first studio LP this war-torn group have recorded in some time and boy oh boy what a magnificent freewheelin', incendiary and blissed out racket TBWNIS have conjured. Over the last 15 years there are few groups that have been more prolific or dedicated to pushing psychedelic rock and all things cosmic to its limits. With Verdun their sound has become even more expansive -- Scott Thompsons' outer zone zonk horn blowing... Jason Vaughan and Chris Laramee deep space swirling on synth/keys... Bill Guerrero's twelve-string is shimmering and Brydsian but this is the jangle of nails down your spinal chord? Dave Reford untamed and unleashed and going full tilt with Nathaniel Hurlow, and John Westhaver precise and driving. Verdun contains three monstrous compositions where shimmering tones unfold into sinister drone-territory which resemble German pioneers Neu! playing "This Heat!," where abrasive guitars and wild riffing, repetitive beats and raw primitivism are densely packed into a larger-than-life sound that never stops climbing skywards -- never have TBWNIS sounds so euphoric playing their brand of ecstatic rock 'n' roll. For anyone that likes to get lost in sound -- Verdun is a sonic amusement part -- close your eyes and climb aboard this rollercoaster, strap yourself in tight and let yourself get lost in the heaviest of vibrations as you go for a breathless physical/visceral ride. TBWNIS are one of the essential groups of the world's psychedelic underground and Verdun is a freaked-out trip.

$15.00 IN STOCK

"Tekla Peterson is the new pop-oriented solo project helmed by Wisconsin's Taralie Peterson. Peterson has been a member of Spires That In the Sunset Rise since their founding in 2001. Most recently a duo with Ka Baird, Spires has a sound that began deeply rooted in underground folk music, but evolved into a much more overtly jazzoid space. We released their 2017 collaboration LP with Chicago percussionist Michael Zerang, Illinois Glossalia (FTR 285LP). But Peterson has always had solo projects going. First she had Tar Pet, an exceedingly fine exploration of so-called wyrd folk. Later there was more avant/jazz-oriented, Louise Bock, with whom we did a 2017 solo LP, Repetitives in Illocality (FTR 374LP) and 2021's All Summer Long Is Gone (FTR 382LP) -- a duo album with string wizard, Pat 'PG Six' Gubler. More recently we have been introduced to a 'pop' persona, Tekla Peterson, who debuted with a 2022 cassette called Heart Press. Heart Press was created in reaction to the end of a long personal relationship, and is a cool, uneasy pairing of contempo-pop readymades and lyrics questioning some foundational aspects of romance. Mine to Give is Tekla's similarly-styled, though constantly evolving, sophomore effort. Assisted by Rob Jacobs on bass and beats, Peterson's vocals, keys, bass and sax are up front at all times, and do a massively fine job defining a musical/emotional space that is simultaneously pop-oriented and avant-garde. The songs and arrangements often have a surface feel akin to something you'd hear on commercial radio, but there are lots of strange experimental textures and techniques that enliven, enrich and transform the material into something that is transcendently 'other.' Parts sound a bit like what I imagine Taylor Swift has going. Inside those walls you'll hear echoes of acid folk, avant-jazz and post-industrial compositions, but only if you pay careful attention. As with other female artists who began their journey in the sub-underground and kept going (Natalie Mering's Weyes Blood, Meg Remy's U.S. Girls), Peterson creates deeply coded music with enough surface sheen to keep slow pokes from ever perceiving what's going on in the depths. The spelunker's pay-off. Great stuff." --Byron Coley, 2024

$29.00 IN STOCK

"Engelchen" literally translates as "little angels," and for many in the febrile, dangerous era of the 1930s in Nazi-occupied Europe, as they wrote letters to arrange their paths out of danger as refugees, these were Ida and Louise Cook. Ida and Louise spent much of their early years in Sunderland, and in adulthood lived in a suburb of London with their parents. They were enormous fans of opera, and led relatively quiet and unfussy lives, Ida working for the civil service as a secretary and Louise as a writer of Mills & Boon romances under a pseudonym. Yet secretly these resourceful and eccentric women were using their musical obsessions as a means to help dozens of refugees escape with their lives. Their secretive heroics now almost beggar belief, and when Alison Cotton, herself from Sunderland, first discovered their story, she couldn't understand why it wasn't more widely known. Furthermore, she was inspired by their courage, fortitude and derring-do to compose Engelchen, a musical tribute to the duo's lives and work, first performed at Seventeen Nineteen Holy Church in Sunderland and now a full-length release by Rocket Recordings. Engelchen is a work which builds a bridge between the emotional intensity of the music that inspired the Cook sisters and the bravery and jeopardy of their lives. This story is relayed by Alison Cotton, whether acapella or by means of richly emotive string arrangements, with a deftness of touch, sensitivity and intensity that matches the feverish nature of the experiences and the unforgiving environs in which they took place. Summoning foley work to sum up the atmospheres of the sister's journeys (from train noises to the sound of gulls on the English coast, to the ominous military drumbeat) Engelchen is a transporting work whose spirit is situated in a very specific time and place. In putting together Engelchen, Alison met up with refugees living in the UK today via the charity North East Rise to discover the challenges they've faced on their journey, and those experiences ultimately found their way into a new version of the piece's eponymous track, connecting the Cook sisters' story to 2024. This is more than merely an inspirational tribute to two mavericks who beat the odds in an unforgettable feat of altruism. It's a celebration of the human spirit, one that reflects a universality in its narrative which transcends the boundaries of history and impacts very urgently on our daily lives. Whatever attempts may be made to tell this story, it's hard to imagine one that resonates deeper than Engelchen. Co-release with Rocket Recordings.