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VHSX 013LP
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The return of Andy Votel's most elusive alter-ego with a new album of delirious and darkened collage pieces brought to you by his own Pre-Cert Home Entertainment label, run alongside longtime spar, Sean Canty (Demdike Stare). Hiding behind "Cowardly Pseudonyms" inspired by the incognito exploits of Jean-Pierre Massiera and a long list of Italian library musicians, Applehead is the twice-removed alter-alter-alter ego project of Dead-Cert, Finders Keepers, Cacophonic, Pre-Cert label boss and designer Andy Votel, aka Anworth Kirk, aka Xian Orphic, aka Tandy Love, aka Tony Deval, aka Neotantrik, and the list goes on. This hang-dried and un-cured collection of low-brow electronics, oblique movie-tones, cold-funk, ready-made poetry and domestic plunderism spans five years since the debut Applehead LP on the Pre-Cert label (2011). Cut and pasted from a pool of overnight rare synth-lends, some obscure foreign-pop fix-ups and a stash of emotive tonal sketches and tape-edits (prepared when touring Milan and Rome with Suzanne Ciani and Northern Italy with the blink-missable Stanza Nera punk-funk project) these multifarious, Crepaxian comic-book compositions have clearly absorbed a strong Italian DIY muse. With respectful nods to Daniela Casa, Raskovich, Frizzi, and AR Luciani, Applehead also combines surrealist shlock with Letterist informed random Roman female spoken word and occasional back-handed salutes to Throbbing Gristle and NWW projects. This self-motivated, naturalistic response to the broad vista that has informed 20 years of Votel's unwaning multi-dis adventures offers an infrequent opportunity to hear his personal problematic-pop and scalpel-happy art in the comfort of his own creative confides complete with square-pegs and sandpaper. Mastered by Matt Colton. Edition of 500.
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VHSX 012LP
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Tongues of Light present Channelled Messages At The End Of History. Totally stunning record, drawing cosmic, primordial vectors between glossolalia, sound poetry and improvised music via the nebulæ of Youtube for Demdike Stare and Andy Votel's Pre-Cert Home Entertainment. Arguably the label's most striking, even transcendent release, Channelled Messages At The End Of History started life as a gift for a friend following long conversations about the nature of improvisation, spontaneity and musical mediumship and subsequently dawned as a remarkable document of occult praxis in the digital age. Tongues of Light acts as a sort of psycho-pomp or liminal interpreter for a wide range of belief systems, all rooted in the common conviction that they are channeling sounds from some "other" or "higher" entity or dimension, much in the same way that Sun Ra believed he was channeling celestial bodies thru his music or the Dogon people of Sub-Saharan Africa believed they received alien codes describing humanity's heritage. The record unfurls as a seamlessly sequenced compilation of samples - all framed by plasmid drones and synth pads which connect and highlight the links between seemingly disparate elements. By the record's end the effect is really quite uncanny; compounding disparate new age coordinates on a common plane, and thereby revealing their underlying, subconscious metaphysics. It's great to hear Pre-Cert Home Entertainment connecting the dots between generations of new age thought and practice. This slab will stand out as one of their defining releases for time to come. Features sleeve artwork designed by Andy Votel. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering. Edition of 500.
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VHSX 011LP
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Once again mining a rich source of archival material, tape works and improvised recordings, Andy Votel's Neotantrik tap deep into the subconscious with a highly-visual trip into the furthest reaches of psychedelic ambience. Following on from Blue Amiga (VHSX 010LP) that came and went in a flash, Omnichrom is a more brooding, studied affair. Unfurling from a delicate modular opening sequence, the A-side flows into a hallucinogenic fever-dream fleshed out with barely-there analog malfunctions and strings that suddenly throw you into a cacophony of noise in a proper creeped-out, tense fashion. The flipside carries on from this point -- pushing you deeper into a Badalamenti-esque soundworld replete with unnerving found sounds and mechanical percussion swung in and out of one of the trippiest Kosmische sessions we've heard in a while. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering in an edition of 500 copies.
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VHSX 009LP
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Intervisions documents select live actions by Andy Votel, Sean Canty of Demdike Stare, Jane Weaver, and N. Racker's NeoTantrik syzygy over the last 12 months. It breaks down to five parts recorded on location in Bristol, Rotterdam, and Stockport -- some previously issued on tape -- in mutating alignments of personnel all deeply focused on common goals of abstract sonic transcendence uniting a mind-field of mimetic and sensual references to nu-religious and metaphysical phorms. Three pieces were captured at Bristol's Cube Gallery, ranging from the pineal dilation of "Parched Effigy (Cube 3)" to their tunneling, 10-minute trip across fragmented free jazz and kosmische "Intervisionary Heretic," and the overheated machine squall and concrète confusion of "Xian Octagon." The Rotterdam parts are more concise, potent, travelling great distances during two minutes of astral flight in "Coloursound (Worm1)" and vaporizing into radiant metallic dissonance during the five minutes of "Crolyn Emphasis." Jane Weaver's contribution provides a more controlled and somber counterpoint, calcifying their abstract tendencies in the organ meditation, "Sous le même soleil, vie disparu dans le ciel," recorded at Compstall Mill in Stockport. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton at Alchemy in an edition of 500 copies. Artwork by Andy Votel.
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VHSX 008LP
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Limited restock. The newest addition to the Pre-Cert library comes from Xian Orphic, a new recording project from Andy Votel, combining new automated analog music, positive meditational repeaters and neo-tantric sound collages presented in five parts. This multi-purpose music draws from a broad range of kindred influences and approaches synchronized transcendental/nu-religious/metaphysical and sensual music forms from a new perspective, drawing direct influence from private music pioneers such as Kat Epple, Marc Disler, Dariush Dolat Shahi, Mark Shreeve, Suzanne Ciani and Ramases while giving nods to sound sculptures by the likes of Egisto Macchi, Bernard Parmegiani and Bruno Spoerri. Like many Pre-Cert releases, this project is as a micro-archive of experiments and references, leaving an open-ended avenue for further volumes. By contrasting processed modular synth tones with recorded and transposed melodic pulses, Xian Orphic adds lo-fi domestic sounds and classic Kosmische to paint positive psychological relationships. The overall effect manages to reflect elements of German electronic records while re-contextualizing the more optimistic moments of popular horror soundtracks by artists like Alan Howarth, Klaus Schultze and John Carpenter. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering.
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VHSX 006LP
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Anworth Kirk casts a spellbinding sixth Pre-Cert edition with this mystic invocation of eldritch ritual music. Divining inspiration from myriad and disparate fake-loric sources -- Egyptology, drug abuse, early Freemasonry, Carnatic music, Oramics in Ardwick, Kommune pop and Letterist actions, to name a few -- this protagonist projects dank and discomforting electro-acoustic psych-scapes quite unlike anything already in circulation. Reclaimed fragments of degenerated second-class sound are dredged from silty memory banks, soaked in ether and draped across a skeletal framework of possessed percussions and concrète bridges, plotting a labyrinthine course through hallucinatory interzones seldom travelled by the sane of mind. Alchemical formulations of sampled textures catalyze noxious atmospheres; unheimlich apparitions bypass liminal dimensions, making connections between electric Smithsonian releases and primitive mechanical industry, muddying the waters of sonic fiction until it's too dense to make sense of anything. Parts of this disc are presented in both Stereo and Mono and it is to be played at 45rpm with a low gram stylus pressure. Cut by Lupo at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. 700 copies only.
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VHSX 007LP
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After delivering a limited edition cassette release that sold out in a couple of hours, N.Racker unveils his vinyl debut for Pre-Cert Home Entertainment, a label run by Demdike Stare and Andy Votel. We're not at liberty to divulge his real identity for fear of the Pre-Cert wrath, however, we can tell you he hasn't previously appeared on the label; his roots reach further back into one of Cottonopolis' most cherished imprints. The sound he makes is full of rumbling gloom, misery and arcane folk mystery, think somewhere between Sunn O))), The Haxan Cloak and Morricone/Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza -- albeit with a distinctly Northern English slant. The material on Flock Toxicant is based on an imagined alternative history of a sinister, pre-industrial pestilence among the ovine population and the people who work in wool processing, ending in complete devastation and dereliction. The atmosphere is chokingly heavy and nocturnal throughout, making use of self-constructed devices, antique electronics and altered acoustic contraptions made by the artist himself, designed to blacken every surface. You could think of it as a soundtrack to a low-rent steam-punk-sci-fi-horror, or just the latest in a line of immersive, conceptually-opaque transmissions from this ever-intriguing label. Cut by Lupo at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. 700 copies only.
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VHSX 005LP
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David Orphan's Devon Folklore Tapes is a research and cultural heritage-based community label in the vein of Smithsonian Records, founded by Finders Keepers' David Orphan. Although the label has been releasing music on special edition/customized books and cassettes for some time, this contribution to the Pre Cert Home Entertainment label sees Orphan deliver his long-awaited vinyl debut. The soundtrack to Hannah Henley sees a mechanical hybrid of old Soviet electronic organs, looped field recordings and found vocals lost in an immediate and tensely hypnotic narrative to an account of opposing forces that is as unsettling as it is captivating. Field recordings were utilized and integrated within these pieces, adding more flesh and providing a sense of place. The LP becomes a sound portrait blurring the lines between documentary, music, and artefact. The cover art features an inverted letter-press coded graphic using the text from the story of Hannah Henley as its visual source along with a bone found and utilized within the recording itself. The words to the tale are included in the accompanying sleeve notes, for those interested in those dark details. Cut at Berlin's Dubplates & Mastering, limited to 500 copies only.
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