Browse by Artist: SIC ALPS

Artist:	SIC ALPS
Title:	Pleasures and Treasures
Label:	ANIMAL DISGUISE
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	ADR 072CD

"What can I say about this band without sounding too ridiculous or stoned? Ah well, here it goes... this stuff just has that sound, man. A timeless breath of aged freshness with a heavy vintage feel. We could call it rock, psychedelic rock, lo-fi garage pop, but when you start labeling something, the words start to supersede the sound. Just flip this on, sit back, listen for yourself and breathe it in. That's it, the sound -- it's like taking a deep breath. An honest breath of timelessness, filtered through the delay and echo of the past. A modern psychedelic classic. Honestly, it's hard to tell when this was recorded. Early-mid '60s, '70s? Something about this band... OK, enough of the voice of non-reason, I'll just tell it straight. This is the debut album by Sic Alps, recorded in 2004-5 and now getting the proper treatment courtesy of Animal Disguise. Sic Alps are the duo of Mike Donovan and Matthew Hartman (Cat Power, Coachwhips, Total Shutdown) but at the time of this recording they were a three-piece: Mike Donovan (Big Techno Werewolves, Folding Cassettes label head), Bianca Sparta (Erase Errata), and Adam Stonehouse (The Hospitals). This is their 'lost' masterpiece and defining document of modern garage-psych-rock circa 2004 San Francisco."

Artist:	SIC ALPS
Title:	A Long Way Around To A Shortcut
Label:	DRAG CITY
Format:	2LP
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	DC 400LP

"Ever shrouded, serpentine by design, the legend of the Sic Alps has at last made its way to the gates of Drag City. The new, first-time-ever-on-vinyl 2xLP reissue of A Long Way Around To A Shortcut is somehow a 'greatest hits' of the golden not-quite-decade of Sic Alps. Well, not quite golden, either. Can gold be tarnished? Can it be done on purpose? If so, Sic Alps are artisans of the highest order -- for their music is the bright, surging sound of ye olde rock and roll radio (and the garages that tuned in), but heard through air darkened with specks of nameless obstruction. In and amongst their ingrown sounds, Sic Alps take on classic tunes from Strapping Fieldhands, Throbbing Gristle and The Zipps on A Long Way Around To A Shortcut. It is to their credit that they completely absorb their estimated predecessors and create the only sound left to them: the sound of the Sic Alps. A Long Way Around To A Shortcut was issued as a CD in 2008. It collected songs that were first issued throughout the epic years of 2006 and 2007 on two 12"EPs, three 7" singles and a cassette, plus a song from a compilation CD-R and a song released nowhere else but on the ALWATAS compilation. The records were originally given titles like United, Strawberry Guillotine, Semi- Streets, Hip-Hop Sweepers Vol 1, Teenage Alps, The Soft Tour in Rough Form-- but all these original releases are long gone, and the CDs fairly much OOP as well. Can this vinyl version be far behind? The hordes are coming, so heed well and get your own copi(es) in stock now." With full color innersleeves.

Artist:	SIC ALPS
Title:	Napa Asylum
Label:	DRAG CITY
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	DC 455CD

"Napa Asylum is the Sic Alps in 2010 -- two and one half years since the fabled release of US E.Z.! Napa Asylum accounts for the swift tilt of time since aught-eight with twenty-two crafted tracks bubbling in the reverb tank. The Alps are in the summer of their years, where they suddenly find a minute to reflect on the breaking down of the years previous. Napa Asylum is overfull with Sic pleasures, echoing half-emptily like they do as the hooks slide into your flesh, animating you marionette-style to tip-tat your way across the dance-floor. Let's away to the Tascam 8-Ball! Themes from Napa Asylum include re-incarnation, magic and schizophrenia. SUCH AS: 'The First White Man to Touch California' ties the 'discovery' of California to the recent mortgage crisis. 'Zeppo Epp' tells parallel tales from Midwestern homes: Zeppo Epley drives off to never be heard from again while Charlotte Muldeen breaks up with her girlfriend and joins the Navy. And there's more, lots of it there, all dripping through a $100 preamp for your misunderstanding. Yeah, the sound reflects a minimal set-up, but don't let them fool you. The process is the flavor -- and three albums in, you can still get in on the ground floor, 'cause Sic Alps always record in the basement. Get down your steps while you can, the songs are as short as they are bitter-sweet. But the one that ends just makes way for the one coming next."

Artist:	SIC ALPS
Title:	Breadhead
Label:	DRAG CITY
Format:	7"
Price:	$6.00
Catalog #:	DC 487EP

"Sic Alps go in and out of synch, always clicking at the 100th of a second that you wish they would, allowing both you and they to enter the reality of your tastiest imagination on the beat. The four tracks on this record are stuck together from different sessions, recorded half by King Riff at Bauer Mansion and half by Sic Alps at home. Though the sound is classic Sic, their face has been rearranged, and this time out, Mike D is aided and abetted by a who's-who of the SF gutter-gold scene: members of Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall and all of Big Techno Werewolves made tracks on the last track of this mother."

Artist:	SIC ALPS
Title:	Battery Townsley
Label:	DRAG CITY
Format:	7"
Price:	$6.00
Catalog #:	DC 495EP

"D'we say Sic Alps? More like Slic Alps with this A-side they got goin'. The acoustic guitar is just that--acoustic! Almost glistening for real in front of the band with their rockin' and scrubbin'. Even the vocal is tanked-out in an almost hearable way. Almost--but then the flip is boasting that v-word and living a bit more roughly than its clean shaven neighbor. Clangorous, with trash crashing in the background and hissing into grey. The guitars agree around the riff, the vocals trace the way, the drums explode and suddenly it's over. We're left with echoes. And we like echoes."

Artist:	SIC ALPS
Title:	Vedley
Label:	DRAG CITY
Format:	7"
Price:	$5.50
Catalog #:	DC 508EP

"In answer to the unasked, 'why one single when twenty-three would do so much more for this world,' Sic Alps have made a 7" record that pursues both options simultaneously, choosing quantity not over quality but instead declaring them equivalent, a musical answer not simply for short attention spans but for the meticulous, the fastidious, the obsessed and the tormented, all of whom have something to benefit from music of all kinds and all of whom will find their needs met at some point when they hear every bit of the scars-on-45 double-A rendition(s) called Vedley."

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