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viewing 1 To 9 of 9 items
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KHZ 1007LP
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A broken telephonic call to the future's past, Algae & Tentacles' The Mouth is a Resonant Field combines solo voice, intuitive free improvisation, minimalist endurance, and noisy accident in order to reimagine the sonic palette of American folk song. Through the filter of consumer grade pedal electronics, old songs become sites where new worlds can emerge. Always with an ear toward the vast, oceanic sonic confusion of these unknown spaces, Algae & Tentacles (John Melillo) works in the undersound of traditional song. Melillo works through old chants, ballads, and melancholic work-songs to create a sound that is both old-time and no-time. Imagine song as a resonating field of vocalization extending itself in shards of audibility passed from mouth to ear to text to recording machine, in a pluralized time and space that sings bodies as much as bodies sing it. Thrown out of the orbit of tradition, these songs are not nostalgic places of return but rather sites from which new worlds emerge. Algae & Tentacles is the sound work of John Melillo. It is an umbrella for an eclectic set of sonic outputs that often hover around song, including verse-chorus-verse constructions, digital sound art, sound poetry, and electro-acoustic improvisation. Algae & Tentacle's first album was released by Lightning Records in 2015. Melillo has released collaborative albums with Cecyl Ruehlen (Where Tremble Heart, Unsilent Desert Press, 2022) and Geoff Saba (Dry River, FREAKS, 2017).
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LP
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KHZ 1009LP
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Damage Mécanique thrusts the listener into a malfunctioning industrial sci-fi soundscape. Trance-inducing guitars beckon with haunting wails, high-tension wires spin and spit with a crackling hiss. Circular kosmische rhythms and anxiety-drenched beats destroy and rebuild around fractured melodies and noise. The band oxidizes and melts into experimental post-punk and acousmatic environments as hypnotic groove and vertigo copulate in cinematic assemblage. Drawing from elements of film noir, psychedelic exotica, experimental rock, deviant surf and musique concrète, Diminished Men refocus their influences into something entirely unique. Collaged with menacing electricity, the raw materials are broken up and reassembled in their crude private facility. The group has spent more than a decade crafting their style and have established themselves as an integral part of Seattle's underground music scene. Diminished Men are an instrumental group formed by guitarist Steve Schmitt, drummer Dave Abramson (Master Musicians of Bukkake, Climax Golden Twins, Secret Chiefs 3, Spider Trio) and bassist Simon Henneman. Their 2005 first full length Names of the Dead introduced the band's jagged, hard-charging approach and cinema obscura ethos. A bizarre series of cassettes American Volume Swells and their Six O' Clock Baby album revealed a raw and unchecked side of the band through live recordings, improvisations and collage. It was their 2009 Shadow Instrumentals LP on the Sun City Girls label, Abduction Records, that got the band wider recognition for their creative and distinctive sound. Followed by Capnomancy and Vision in Crime, they cemented their status as formidable figures, developing a dedicated audience of audiophiles who found themselves entranced by Diminished Men's high energy live performances.
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LP
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KHZ 1008LP
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The first material object from Idol Ko Si references a life of musical investigation without distinct clarity for the derivation of those references. Yes, the group has devoured sounds from other times and lands, but never once do those influences announce themselves. It is a minimalist result with a maximalist intent. Every group does this to some extent, but Idol Ko Si seems to consciously avoid the "recommended if you like" syndrome. Idol Ko Si has been called an abstracted supergroup -- featuring as it does members of Aframes, Climax Golden Twins, Factums, Dreamsalon, AFCGT, Sublime Frequencies, and Yves SonAce. But supergroups tend to yield competing sounds and here Min Yee, Matthew Ford and Robert Millis congeal into something significantly distinct that is not immediately audible in any of their other projects -- fractured sounds, broken beats, cocaine ambiance... low key, lo-fi and hazy. Sinister has never had a more appropriate companion. A disorientation begins as you get further into the album. The sounds are crisp, but by "'ludes and words" the obfuscated vocals galvanize a confusion that lasts until the album's end. It wouldn't be surprising to learn this creation originated from a part of the psyche that we prefer not to acknowledge, or it may just be a result of present times. It seems these sounds wouldn't be out of place as a soundtrack to the Zone from Tarkovsky's Stalker.
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KHZ 1010LP
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From the electrical entrance to the fragile departure, Derek Monypeny's Cibola is a continued exploration/distillation of the approach and methodology that Monypeny first introduced on The Hand As Dealt. The 15-string Indian electric banjo known as the shahi baaja again features prominently, and many of the tracks could be called "drone-based." The sound melds something new without the absence of the reference material, but Monypeny also wanted to expand further. Cibola marks the first time he has ever had drums on any of his solo records; his dear friend, the brilliant San Francisco-based percussionist and sound artist Kevin Corcoran, sent him a complete drum track and he played shahi baaja and guitar over it. The result is "Nala Gem," where Monypeny and Corcoran explore quasi-Southeast Asian bell tones, dynamics, and heavy wash. And Monypeny ends the record with "A Tin Tear Drop," where he introduces an electric autoharp, which he plays using mallets to create a multiphonic, glowing Fabrege sound-egg. Monypeny has recorded a companion piece to this record that 2182 has pressed in limited quantities available directly through mail order. Remote Duets is a seven-inch consisting of two open-source percussion tracks performed and recorded by Ted Byrnes in Los Angeles, CA. Derek Monypeny is a Joshua Tree, CA-based guitarist/multiinstrumentalist who has played in the bands ALTO!, Oaxacan, and Sir Richard Bishop's Freak Of Araby Ensemble. Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce, his album of solo oud recordings released in 2011, received international acclaim. He has performed and toured with artists such as Bill Orcutt, Jozef van Wissem, Eva Agulia, Arrington de Dionyso, and many others.
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2LP
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KHZ 1006LP
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How many records are truly prescient? How many are after living through 2020? Even though Derek Monypeny's The Hand As Dealt was recorded before arriving at such a chaotic point, the album is of this time. The tracks are a song cycle of creative tension that crescendos with "The Tamarisk," but never allows for the chaos to overtake the compositions. Conceived deep in the Mojave Desert, these masterfully executed solo guitar and shahi baaja recordings cover a wide sonic and emotional gamut, passing through pastoral psychedelia, severe shred-freak outs, hazy Egyptian string sections, and Riley-esque pulsing hypnosis. It is a sprawling, immersive homage to the spiritual music of the elders -- Don Cherry, Alice Coltrane, Umm Kulthum (and her orchestra), and Terry Riley. The fifth release from Twenty One Eighty Two Recording Company, The Hand As Dealt is the first solo record for Monypeny in seven years. His involvement with 2182 extends another concentric circle out from the label's Mount Meru series, which was developed by Alan Bishop, David Oliphant, Joel Robinson and Monypeny's bandmate Richard Bishop.
Derek Monypeny is a Joshua Tree, California-based guitarist/multi-instrumentalist who has played in the bands ALTO!, Oaxacan, and Sir Richard Bishop's Freak Of Araby Ensemble. Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce, his album of solo oud recordings released in 2011, received international acclaim. He has performed and toured with artists such as Bill Orcutt, Jozef van Wissem, Eva Agulia, Arrington de Dionyso, and many others.
"Derek, using tastefully deployed effects and small and patient gestures, digs deep into those thin places where all kinds of inner space visions can flourish." --Larry Dolman, Blastitude
"Monypeny... makes a stake for a conception of the parameters of variously translated formal/cultural/biological folk modes as the keys to the goddamn kingdom that is every bit as persuasive as Sun City Girls at their most alien." --David Keenan, Volcanic Tongue
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2LP +7"
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KHZ 1006LTD-LP
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Limited version with bonus 7"
For those who are quick on the uptake, Monypeny has recorded a companion piece to this record that 2182 has pressed in limited quantities. Derek Monypeny Plays Sun City Girls Songs On The Shahi Baaja is a seven-inch dedicated to the memory of Charles Gocher, Jr. "The circles beget other circles which extend out in an attempt to find any movement forward. It is a hopeful optimism for the future."
How many records are truly prescient? How many are after living through 2020? Even though Derek Monypeny's The Hand As Dealt was recorded before arriving at such a chaotic point, the album is of this time. The tracks are a song cycle of creative tension that crescendos with "The Tamarisk," but never allows for the chaos to overtake the compositions. Conceived deep in the Mojave Desert, these masterfully executed solo guitar and shahi baaja recordings cover a wide sonic and emotional gamut, passing through pastoral psychedelia, severe shred-freak outs, hazy Egyptian string sections, and Riley-esque pulsing hypnosis. It is a sprawling, immersive homage to the spiritual music of the elders -- Don Cherry, Alice Coltrane, Umm Kulthum (and her orchestra), and Terry Riley. The fifth release from Twenty One Eighty Two Recording Company, The Hand As Dealt is the first solo record for Monypeny in seven years. His involvement with 2182 extends another concentric circle out from the label's Mount Meru series, which was developed by Alan Bishop, David Oliphant, Joel Robinson and Monypeny's bandmate Richard Bishop.
Derek Monypeny is a Joshua Tree, California-based guitarist/multi-instrumentalist who has played in the bands ALTO!, Oaxacan, and Sir Richard Bishop's Freak Of Araby Ensemble. Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce, his album of solo oud recordings released in 2011, received international acclaim. He has performed and toured with artists such as Bill Orcutt, Jozef van Wissem, Eva Agulia, Arrington de Dionyso, and many others.
"Derek, using tastefully deployed effects and small and patient gestures, digs deep into those thin places where all kinds of inner space visions can flourish." --Larry Dolman, Blastitude
"Monypeny... makes a stake for a conception of the parameters of variously translated formal/cultural/biological folk modes as the keys to the goddamn kingdom that is every bit as persuasive as Sun City Girls at their most alien." --David Keenan, Volcanic Tongue
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2LP
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KHZ 1004LP
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The early 1980s was a formative time for a wide variety of outstanding unique music coming out of Phoenix, Arizona. Experimental DIY, punk, prog rock, noise, comedy, jazz was all mixed together for a few years at any given "punk" show. In 1981, Alan Bishop and W. David Oliphant along with a rotating roster of talented musicians formed the post everything (at the time) group Destruction. This was a mix of jazz, punk, found sounds, loops, voice, and droning walls of noise. After 35 wandering years, Alan and David joined forces again along with Joel Robinson. They met up in Southern Arizona in August 2017 to record with the same post everything genre approach that had begun decades earlier. Black Hole Diaries is the result. For years music from Phoenix has been considered "sun damaged", Twenty One Eighty Two Recording Company suggest that something much more sinister is afoot. Black Hole Diaries is music that comes from an undefined place, familiar yet not quite right. This is a sonic movie and you are both the projector and viewer of the visions that grow out of these sounds. Music that seems lost to time and perhaps even chemically induced but isn't. A need to bring together while still isolating the experience as singular. Three composers refining their craft, but also using the tension and energy from each other to power something complete different from their own artistic statements. Experimental in collaboration, but not in purpose. "What a rebuke of capitalism might sound like if we weren't suffocated by it." --Donald Frankowski
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KHZ 1003LP
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Phoenix is where Twenty One Eight Two Recording Company are from, but it isn't where they are at. The scene is essential to nothing, but that doesn't mean the musicians here aren't essential. Music attempts to appeal to as large an audience as possible, but composition attempts to engage the listener in something different. Enter Sunn Trio. A punk trio that is influenced by Middle Eastern psych, free jazz, and improvisation. While not recorded in a traditional studio, these recordings represent the first studio-produced sounds from this group. The group is built around Joel Robinson and has had as many as eight-to-ten members in recordings and live performances, but more recently has been focused on a trio that composes music that challenges every notion of what rock, punk, or psych can be; however, at the same time, the music is crafted with improvisational focus and middle eastern influence that should be the basis for this generation's new music. Robinson makes his melody maker sound like an oud, rabab, and even at times a gamelan when he isn't using these instruments to generate the lead lines to the compositions. The music has an import that shows a deference to eastern music, while expressing a freedom that isn't present in any modern music. We stood idle during the Arab Spring; we decimated Iraq and Afghanistan; and now we retreated from Syria as the Kurdish people struggled to survive. Sunn Trio creates music that responds to these atrocities and works to build a bridge to these people. Urgent music for urgent times. Electric Esoterica is the third album from Sunn Trio. It is the third in a series of records that revolve around Alan and Richard Bishop, Charles Gocher, W. David Oliphant, and Joel Robinson called the Mount Meru Anthology. These sounds are rooted in a history of creation in Arizona that involves people that were inspired and supported by people who do things differently. Sunn Trio wants you to listen, but don't be fucking passive.
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LP
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KHZ 1001LP
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Although Sir Richard Bishop (SRB) and W. David Oliphant (WDO) worked together periodically in the '80s through Sun City Girls and Maybe Mental, they never set out to simply work together as a duo. Fast forward to 2011, SRB, feeling the need to temporarily step out of his solo guitar zone, approached WDO with the idea of this joint collaboration... Beyond All Defects was composed and recorded live in the studio in Phoenix, Arizona in December of 2011 (remastered in 2018 by Mark Gergis) and presented on vinyl for the first time by Twenty One Eighty Two Recording Company. The sonic landscapes presented here find their origins in Tibet, and are heavily inspired by Tibetan Buddhism -- specifically the body of teachings known as Dzogchen. Many of the musical ideas for this project were literally derived from dreams the night before they were created. The remaining ideas were formed centuries ago. Sir Richard Bishop plays acoustic guitar throughout. Often detuned, bowed, and beaten, the guitar was "treated" by Oliphant during the live recording process. SRB also provided audio from field recordings he captured in India. WDO used a variety of computer software with a MIDI controller to create all the other sounds. All tracks were captured in real-time, direct to disk. Beyond All Defects is the first in a series celebrating the audio adventures created by Arizona sonic composers. Clear vinyl; Edition of 500.
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