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Frank Sidebottom was one of great, original & often bizarre British comedy/ variety acts of the 1980’s/ early 1990’s. To Brits of a certain age( i.e. mid 30’s onwards) Frank is instantly recognizable due to his TV appearance in the 1980’s- with his large spherical fake head, & 1950s-style sharp suites. His brand of quirky humour & reinterpretations of popular pop & rock songs, was both very English & bizarrely unequal. This box set offers up four CD's worth of material, as well as a DVD- the set takes in two full length Lp’s, a selection of 12”’ & 10”, bonus tracks, and a live DVD.
The music world is full of unknown and unheralded masters, so it's no surprise learning of one in the (relatively new) synthesizer sphere. Synth pioneer David Borden has quite a history.
Gruen Digital presents From the Cistern, a new digital album by Bryan Eubanks. Eubanks is a musician composer from the Pacific Northwest in the U.S., but currently based in Berlin.
Blakk Old Blood is a new black metal outfit from Switzerland. Although the band originally intended to release just a single demo and then split up, they decided to stick together to complete a series of releases based on the seven deadly sins. Their second release, an EP called Wrath was released independently on tape and CD late last year.
Legendary jazz saxophonist Sonny Simmons, whose recordings date back to 1963, has injected his oeuvre with a fresh shot of powerful vitality with an intense spiritual album of Middle Eastern and jazz flavored psychedelic jam rock called "Nomadic". This album exists at a true crossroads between musical worlds, to the point that a listener uninformed as to the band's history would likely have difficulty discerning which culture it originated from.
This data DVD comes in LINE’s usual house styling: formal, clean and with an air of academia. Pretty much all of the releases I have heard from the label have carried that academic “potential”, without it ruining the simple pleasure of the works as sound. “Liquified Sky” ups the ante in this regard, with knotty texts explaining some of the science behind the four pieces presented. I say “explain”, but to be honest the vast bulk of it went right over my head; so I concentrated on the works themselves. Each “track” combines “abstract” visuals with befitting sounds, or vice versa if you’d rather.
Island is a four disc CDR set from this highly secretive walled noise project. And offered up here is some of the most punishing, extreme, and truly hopeless HNW recorded by this project (or any other project) ever.
California artist Jim Haynes has made a career out of "rust[ing] things." His continued decay of sculpture, photography, and sound has seen his work exhibited internationally. With a solid discography built over the past sixteen years, Jim sees his latest release, Scarlet, coming to us from The Helen Scarsdale Agency on cassette. Crackle, crunch, and a bit of pulse make up the basis of a very enjoyable album.
Baskura imprint presents Music from the SYNTHI, a full length CD by Yoshio Machida. Machida is a long-running multi-media artist from Tokyo who works with themes of “light, echo and possibility.”
Here’s a reissue of one of the off-shoots from long running British prog band Yes. This self title debut appeared in 1989, and really it was a Yes album in all but name, as it featured 90% of the bands classic line-up, but due to issues with the name at the time, the band had to go for one of the most lengthy( and ego fed) names of all time. But don’t let that put you off as this stands as some of the best work recorded by(members of) Yes in the 80’s & 90’s.
An air of adventure is difficult to cultivate in a genre focused blasphemy, brutality, and perversion. And although that tradition dates back to Bathory’s first Viking metal albums, very few bands are able to touch on that adventurous pride pioneered back in the late 80s. Macabre omen are of these few bands.
For a label more well known for their forward looking aesthetic and uncompromising adherence to the new this is something of a surprise. Exhumed from the vaults of mid-90s dubwise experimentation comes this re-issue of Brooklyn hip-hop outlaw Spectre's 1998 mixtape Ruff Cutz featuring contributions from the likes of Bill Laswell and Kevin "The Bug" Martin along with a host of less well known acts.
Raiz Iberica is a 2014 release of various artists from Spain and Portugal. Each of the bands here has deep connections with their roots and history. It’s sort of an introduction to Iberian folk music. Together they have initiated us to the history, myths and legends of the Iberian Peninsula.
Here’s an exquisitely packaged cassette from Andreas Brandal, on Tranquility Tapes; with effectively pointillistic artwork printed over the inlay and the blue tape. This visual element suggests a hidden magic - almost a Blakeian vision of the world; with the accompanying nine tracks, amounting to nearly forty minutes, marking out a similarly otherworldly space - albeit one very tied to the real world.
Tundra is an electro acoustic drone/ambient project from Gdañsk Poland- the project is a two piece affair & consists of Dawid Adrjanczyk and Krzysiek Joczyn. "Tajnie i G³êbie" ( English translation Mysteries and Depths)- is the bands full debut release, and it comes in the form of a six track CD.
From 2013 here’s a double CDR split that brings together a disc a piece from two US walled noise projects- and featured here are Kansas City based Abyzm, and Greeley Colorado based Toxic Bliss.
Leviatan finds Circle in a more mellow, laid-back & stripped back sonic mood. The albums nine tracks offer up a more kraut-rock focused acid folk vibe, with the whole thing been based mainly around acoustic instrumentation, taking in banks of strummed guitar, bouzouki, acoustic percussion, banjo, and dulcimer- all topped off with layers of moody Finish & English vocals, & subtle keyboard / organ traces.
Boston (!! WOOHOO !!) based technical death metal band is back with their sophomore effort, Evolutionary Miscarriage. Coming seven long years after their debut, No Lifeguard At the Gene Pool, one can assume that a lot of work went into this album. While tech to the gills, Pillory's latest suffers from some self indulgent noodling, but still manages to be a pretty enjoyable listen. Brutal when it needs to be and flighty when it wants, Evolutionary Miscarriage has enough balance to appeal to most of the metal community.
Scandinavian progressive power metal band Codex have just released this first album, an independent release titled "The Peace Paradox", available through bandcamp and elsewhere. All members of this band except the vocalist were previously in bands called Warchitect and Skeletor, about which little information can be found.
2014 found the latest release from French black metal band Mortifera. The band began back in 2001; it consists of Noktu on vocals (ex-Celestia, ex-Genocide Commando), A.E. on drums and Spektor on guitars and bass. Apparitia Recordings is a part of parent company Drakkar Productions (owned by Noktu).
Hissing Frames presents April Fools, a 3-way split CD-R from Werewolf Jerusalem, Robert Ridley-Shackleton, and She Walks Crooked. The prolific Werewolf Jerusalem is of course a staple and Scott Kinberg’s, She Walks Crooked, project has really been picking up steam. However, I’m unfamiliar with the UK-based Robert RIdley-Shackleton and his Hissing Frames label.
2015 marks the return of long-running Italian black metal outfit Abhor. Their second album with Moribund Records and fifth overall, Ritualia Stramonium is a fairly logical continuation from the band’s previous offerings. Abhor has being incorporating keyboards into their music since their first album, but it had previously been used as a backing instrument to supplement the guitars and slightly sinister atmosphere. The band’s most recent album, Ab Luna Lucenti, ab Noctua Protecti, saw an increased use of keyboards while still keeping the black metal foundation, and now with Ritualia Stramonium, the band has made them the center of attention.
Hard bop pianist Bud Powell was a renowned virtuoso in his time, who died an untimely death at age 42 from pneumonia after a life of heroin addiction. The liner notes self-deprecatingly state that by the time these concerts were recorded, late in Powell's life, his powers had waned somewhat in the eyes of the public, but I can't help but hear this as anything other than vital and unbelievably rich classic hard bop, with reams of subtle touches and details to be heard from each musician.
This cd comes in a digipak with oddly innocuous artwork: a cowboy lassoing horses on the front cover, with minimal shapes and patterns on the inside. All of which leaves the listener very unsure what to expect. The album has five tracks, with three around the eight minute mark and shorter/longer tracks at four and twelve minutes length.