Browse by Label: ATP RECORDINGS (UK)

Artist:	VA
Title:	All Tomorrow's Parties 1.0: Tortoise Curated
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 001CD

Originally released in 2001, this is the first All Tomorrow's Parties compilation, curated by Tortoise. Featuring mostly live, exclusive, rare, edited, unedited and/or unreleased tracks from IDM, electronic, experimental, indie and hip-hop acts who appeared at the sold-out event during the early days of April 2001 at Camber Sands Holiday Centre, East Sussex UK. The festival itself featured exclusive performances from Television (original Marquee Moon line-up), Lambchop, Boards Of Canada, Sun Ra Arkestra featuring Marshall Allen and also ESG. This mix features a never-heard-before edit of Boards Of Canada's "In A Beautiful Place," plus exclusive material from Autechre, Broadcast and Calexico as well as deleted material from curators Tortoise and The Sea and Cake. This is an excellent selection, and historically captures the spirit of these artists at this particular point in their musical development. Artists include: The Sea and Cake, Prefuse 73, Broadcast, Calexico, Rick Rizzo & Tara Key, Black Heart Procession, Tortoise, Mike Ladd, Boards of Canada, Atmosphere, Cannibal Ox featuring El-P, Autechre and Russell Haswell.

Artist:	VA
Title:	All Tomorrow's Parties 1.1: Sonic Youth Curated
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 002CD

Originally released in 2001 as the companion to ATP 1.0, All Tomorrow's Parties 1.1 was curated by Sonic Youth, and was initially created to accompany the All Tomorrow's Parties events held in Los Angeles and England. This compilation definitely has the Sonic Youth fingerprint with acts as far ranging as noise mavens Boredoms to husky crooner Cat Power. Features exclusive unreleased tracks and new song versions by Sonic Youth, Unwound, Stephen Malkmus, Stereolab, Bardo Pond, Cat Power, Papa M, Cannibal Ox, Dead C, Boredoms, Kevin Drumm and Satans Tornade. This compilation captures the very spirit of the ATP Festival by matching disparate musical elements that together create a cross-section of the very best under-represented music.

Artist:	VA
Title:	All Tomorrow's Parties 2.0: Shellac Curated
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 003CD

All Tomorrow's Parties 2.0 was originally released in 2002, and the festival itself was hosted by indie rock icons Shellac at Chamber Sands in Sussex, UK. As is the tradition, the curators were asked to assemble a lineup of their favorite acts to share the stage with them at the event. The accompanying compilation CD compiles moody angularity, and sometimes jaunty, sometimes orchestral indie emotives with a particularly Steve Albini stamp. All Tomorrow's Parties 2.0 features new and unreleased tracks from the likes of Shellac, Mission Of Burma, Bonnie Prince Billy, Nina Nastasia, Threnody Ensemble, High Dependency Unit, Arcwelder, The Fall, Shipping News, Do Make Say Think and Rachel's.

Artist:	VA
Title:	All Tomorrow's Parties 3.0: Autechre Curated
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	ATPR 004CD

Originally released in 2003, this is the fourth installment in the All Tomorrow's Parties festival series, representing the Autechre-curated festival in the UK of that same year. In an astounding mix of big-bassed hip-hop, whirring electro, orchestral IDM, atmospheric doom, along with breakbeats and acid lines, this 2CD package is considered one of the best ATP comps in the series. All the tracks on this release are exclusive and unreleased featuring the artists: Public Enemy, Masters Of Illusion, Gescom, Push Button Objects, Jim O'Rourke, O.S.T., Made, Dr. Dooom, Stasis, Anthony "Shake" Shakir, Disjecta, Mark Broom, Baby Ford, Pita, Autechre, Earth, Bola and Hecker.

Artist:	BARDO POND
Title:	On The Ellipse
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 005CD

Originally released in 2003, this is Bardo Pond's sixth release. Formed in Philadelphia in 1989 by brothers John and Michael Gibbons, Bardo Pond is one of the most mesmerizing bands of the past few years. On The Ellipse sounds like a heavy mix of Sabbath riffs blended with the folk beauty of Led Zep III -- a broad-stroked swirl of heavy riffs, improvised jams and acoustic meditations. Often quoted as being Mogwai's favorite band, Bardo Pond performed at the very first ATP festival, as well as being hand-picked by Sonic Youth for their ATP in Los Angeles. Both heavy and intense, Bardo Pond possesses a hypnotic spell that lures you into a psychedelic lair and always leaves you wanting more.

Artist:	MAGIC BAND, THE
Title:	Back To The Front
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 006CD

Originally released in 2003, Back To The Front is Captain Beefheart's legendary group The Magic Band reuniting after 20 dormant years. They first reunited to play some shows and perform at the 2003 ATP festival in L.A., featuring key members John "Drumbo" French, Gary "Mantis" Lucas, Denny "Feelers Reebo" Walley, and Mark "Rockette Morton" Boston. Playing classic tracks from all the best albums such as Safe As Milk, Trout Mask Replica, Lick My Decals Off Baby, and Clearspot, this is something all Beefheart fans must have. Includes the bonus track "Nuff 'N Yes I Do."

Artist:	WHITE OUT WITH JIM O'ROURKE & WILLIAM WINANT
Title:	China Is Near
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 012CD

China is Near by New York's pioneer experimental group White Out, represents their third album and promises to be their most adventurous release to date. This session busts out of the gate, and careens all over the tonal soundscape zagging from icy calm to furious insurrection in sixty seconds. The estimable talents of multi-instrumentalist Lin Culbertson and drummer Tom Surgal are fused with the efforts put forth by master eclectic Jim O'Rourke, their frequent collaborator in recent years. Rounding out the session is special guest William Winant, the supremely gifted percussionist who has worked with everyone from John Cage to Yo Yo Ma to Sonic Youth. The unorthodox instrumentation (analog synthesizers, drums, autoharp, bells, chains, timpani, vibes, scrap metal, springs, gong, etc.) employed by these maverick innovators, helps to create an electro-acoustic collage like no other. The electronic cries and soul stirring blips of the synthesizers, accompanied by the spectral strains of the autoharp, emphatically combine with the clang, spit and growl of the extended percussion. The listener is instantly transported to another sonic realm altogether. A space place where dark mystery resides and possibility is infinite.

Artist:	FURSAXA
Title:	Lepidoptera
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 013CD

This is the fourth full-length release from West Philly-based solo artist Tara Burke aka Fursaxa. Boasting a fan base with the likes of Bardo Pond, Acid Mothers Temple and Thurston Moore who released a record by her on his Ecstatic Peace! imprint two years ago, Fursaxa is a new signing to ATP Recordings. A previous member of the band UN, Burke is now one of the epicentres and key collaborators of the North American free-folk movement, along with such luminaries as Jack Rose, Charalambides, Ben Chasny and the Jewelled Antler Collective. With her hypnotic, echo-y churchbell chanting, Burke possesses a power-filled vocal sound that harkens back not only to those other polar queens of disaffected freakout psychedelia Nico and Barbara Manning, but she is also akin to and inspired by Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century Benedictine mystical abbess. With the low drone of chord organ and Farfisa, detuned ringing guitar, and endlessly looped, multiply-tracked vocals applied with heaps of delay, Fursaxa sounds like a tripped-out medievalist perched upon a poppy petal. Burke has an alchemical knack for turning folk into lo-fi, and then into sheer psych and back again, but more importantly, her music is pure humming narcosis.

Artist:	BARDO POND
Title:	Selections: Volumes I-IV
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	ATPR 014CD

Following their 2003 ATP release On The Ellipse, Philadelphia indie-psych drone masters Bardo Pond return with a new offering comprised of rare unreleased tracks that have previously only been available in limited numbers as CD-Rs at the band's live shows. Selections is the band's seventh full-length release, and documents the highlights of their career, re-mastered and repackaged by ATP. Formed in 1989 by brothers John and Michael Gibbons, Bardo Pond is one of the most seriously underrated bands of the past few years and Selections is no exception to their mesmerizing work. Both heavy and intense, the album possesses a hypnotic spell that lures you into a psychedelic lair and always leaves you wanting more.

Artist:	TUCKER, ALEXANDER
Title:	Old Fog
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 015CD

Alexander Tucker is a new signing to ATP Recordings and his new full-length album Old Fog illustrates his use of field recordings and tape loops. Tucker began as vocalist in post-rock hardcore five piece Unhome. In late 1999, Tucker went on to tour with Detroit space rockers Fuxa, developing a shambolic approach to acoustic and free-noise electric guitar while beginning to play solo shows using tape loops, detuned guitar, Dictaphones and field recordings processed through FX pedals. In early 2000 Tucker recorded a solo album of acoustic finger-plucking, spooked vocals and psych-electronics, which was picked up by Tom Greenwood of Jackie-O-Motherfucker and released under his U-sound archives label. Old Fog is a delicate and beautiful record that feels like a soundtrack to a winter evening, evoking an eerie feeling that haunts listeners to seek more. His commanding performance as a musician has led to invitations to play guest guitar slots with the likes of Jackie-O Motherfucker, Sunn0))) and Bardo Pond. His solo live shows are also a powerful document -- Tucker shows that playing alone with a 4-track can sometimes be more effective than many live bands offer.

Artist:	VA (MATT GROENING)
Title:	All Tomorrow's Parties: 3.1
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 016CD

ATP's latest compilation, curated by The Simpsons/Futurama/Life In Hell-creator, Matt Groening. Featuring performers from the Groening-curated 2003 All Tomorrow's Parties festival, this release is a reflection of the artist's passion and dedication to music, as well as a tribute to his past history as a music critic for the L.A. Reader. This compilation features regular album tracks, as well as some rarities, including an unreleased Jackie-O Motherfucker track, and Sonic Youth's interpretation of The Simpsons theme, previously available only on the 1996 compilation Go Simpsonic With The Simpsons. The cover art and pull-out poster should please any die-hard Groening fan and the music within provides a reassuring appraisal of a group of artists that, even after years and years of work, still remain relevant and vital. Artists include: Sonic Youth, Iggy and The Stooges, The Magic Band, Spoon, The Shins, Modest Mouse, Elliott Smith, Daniel Johnston, The American Analog Set, Electrelane, Deerhoof and Jackie-O Motherfucker.

Artist:	DRONES, THE
Title:	Wait Long By the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies...
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 018CD

Based in Melbourne, this second release from The Drones is a magical but terrifying ride toward the edge of danger... sometimes chaotic and stern, sometimes melodic and joyful. Summoning the dirge/garage grime of The Cramps, and the hollow bellow of Nick Cave or Jon Spencer, The Drones aren't afraid of hiccups and raw, explosive guitar scrawl. Emerging as one of the best new bands in Australia, the combination of Mike Noga (drums), Fiona Kitschin (bass), Gareth Liddiard (vocals/guitar) and Rui Pereira (guitar) first began their beautifully chaotic journey in 2001, with the release of their manic, but poetic debut album, Here Come The Lies. It was an exuberant, soulful, harshly beautiful and darkly comical affair in garage/blues howlers. It also received huge praise all over the world and is now heralded as an Australian classic. The Drones' music can be compared to early Green on Red, fellow Australians The Scientists, early Birthday Party, Suicide, Hank Williams, Towes Van Zant, Black Flag, and Dirty Three with their live performance conveying an unmatched intensity. Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By, is proof that The Drones are well and truly of one of the most intense and gifted bands in the world, on stage and record. This is the distillation of Australian rock n' roll history condensed in one perfectly-formed album. This is Down Under voodoo.

Artist:	JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER
Title:	Flags of the Sacred Harp
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 020CD

This is the highly-anticipated fifth full-length JOMF release, their first in three years. Jackie-O Motherfucker was formed in 1994 by Tom Greenwood and Nester Bucket layering guitars and sax over hand-cut analog tape loops and collage, collections of found sound, field recordings, cut-up classic rock, hip-hop beats and 4-tracked drones. Assembled and processed, the band rehearsed often in the basement of an abandoned drug store on Mississippi St. in North Portland. The first live performances featured an amplified reel-to-reel tape machine and electric guitar while additions of live percussion, 8-track tapes, alto sax, and a turntable filled out the sound. After a US/European tour in the late summer of 2003 the East Coast configuration of JOMF temporarily dissolved, with members returning to Brooklyn and Montreal. The group re-assembled in Portland and recording sessions began for Flags of the Sacred Harp. Honey Owens returned to working with the group again, having departed after Fig. 5 to work with her other group Nudge. The new configuration also includes guitarist Adam Forkner (Yumi Bitsu, Whiterainbow, Devendra Banhart). Over a year in the making, Flags of the Sacred Harp displays the group's patient and evolved songwriting style with historic references to American blues and hymns. One of the most focused and sublime releases from Jackie-O Motherfucker, the release contains songs that are all manifestations, mutations and re-interpretations of old blues and gospel, specifically from an old hymnal called "The Sacred Harp." Three lush, beautiful vocal arrangements on each side of a 17-minute soaring instrumental making a total of 7 songs unfolding over 70+ minutes. Flags of the Sacred Harp is an epic recording documenting the group's maturing skills in writing, arranging and production and is a timeless de-construction of American music.

Artist:	BARDO POND
Title:	Ticket Crystals
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 021CD

Philadelphia's Bardo Pond return in June 2006 with Ticket Crystals -- their sixth studio album and second for ATP Recordings. Completing a trilogy of work -- first embarked on with 2001's Dilate and centered with 2003's On the Ellipse -- Ticket Crystals resumes the quintet's signature doom tempo, multi-layered drones; while introducing a lighter pastoral, even Tudor-like feel, which rallies throughout against the band's youthful riff petulance. Recorded over two years at the band's home studio, a handful of the tracks first came to light on Bardo Pond's 2003 live UK dates alongside kindred spirits and former label mates, Mogwai. Tracking down the elusive balance between extensive improvisation and acutely structured arrangements, Ticket Crystals includes the spellbinding "Moonshine" (a ten-minute plus ethereal expedition that immediately recalls the acoustic intricacy of Led Zeppelin III coupled with the contemporary quirkiness of Cocorosie) and live favorite and album opener, "Destroying Angel," which only just manages to contain the sheer force of the brothers Gibbons' amplification and vocalist and flautist Isobel Sollenberger's haunting and occasionally terrifying tones. Also featured on the album is the band's unique reworking of The Beatles' White Album classic, "Cry Baby Cry," which was originally recorded for and broadcast by the BBC as part of their commemoration of the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death.

Artist:	DRONES, THE
Title:	Gala Mill
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 022CD

The Drones mark their return in 2006 with the release of their much-anticipated third album, Gala Mill. Recorded in a mill on an isolated 10,000 acre farm on Tasmania's east coast, Gala Mill is an album full of extremes -- moments of stark, ghostly beauty set against outbursts of the dark, intense noise for which the band is renowned. The album's sense of place is palpable -- barking dogs and birdsong are heard between tracks, and the island's history and atmosphere resonate through the songs. This is as diverse and eclectic a collection of songs as The Drones have recorded to date. It opens with "Jezebel," nearly eight minutes of sound and fury wound tightly around a complex lyric that encompasses subjects as diverse as nuclear testing in Australia, the Beslan school massacre, a cow that glows in the dark and the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl. "Dog-Eared" is a quietly introspective ballad, while "I'm Here Now" chronicles watching friends slide into heroin addiction. "Words From the Executioner to Alexander Pearce" tells the story of the notorious convict Pearce who escaped twice from Macquarie Harbour, both times cannibalizing his fellow escapees, and was eventually executed for his crimes. "I Don't Ever Want to Change" is about depression and denial, and "Work for Me" sees Kitschin's debut on lead vocals. "I Looked Down the Line and I Wondered" takes its title from a song by the 1930s gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, while "Are You Leaving For The Country" is a breezy cover of a song made famous by Karen Dalton. Finally, "16 Straws" is a lyric ballad without precedent in The Drones' previous work, a song that draws on a rich tradition of Australian storytelling. Infused with a rich sense of history and yet utterly modern, both thought-provoking and viscerally compelling, Gala Mill marks the welcome return of one of Australia's most intelligent, innovative and important bands.

Artist:	TUCKER, ALEXANDER
Title:	Furrowed Brow
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 023CD

This is UK-based Alexander Tucker's second release for ATP Recordings. Tucker began as a vocalist in post-rock hardcore five piece Unhome. In late 1999, Tucker went on to tour with Detroit space rockers Fuxa. Simultaneously, Tucker had been developing his interest in improvisation using detuned guitars, tape loops, mini-disc players and FX pedals. In early 2000, Tucker recorded a solo self-titled album of acoustic finger-picking, experimental electronics, field recordings and spooked vocals, which was picked up by Tom Greenwood of Jackie-O-Motherfucker and released under his U-Sound Archives label. Tucker's ability to combine compositional song structures, drones, layered vocals and improvisations culminated on his 2005 album Old Fog, a collection of spectral moods, eerie landscapes and fragile emotions. His commanding live performance has led to collaborations which include working with Stephen O'Malley (SunnO))), Khanate) on his Ginnungagap side project, providing the soundtrack to Lali Chetwynd's performance piece at Tate Britain and playing as a part of JOMF, Duke Garwood, and Little Wet Horse. Furrowed Brow was recorded in his home county of deepest darkest Kent. For this new recording, Tucker has combined harmonized vocal patterns, layered instrumentation and heavy sonic bliss riffs to create a cross between David Crosby, doom metal and Terry Riley. Alexander Tucker is also a visual artist, creating artwork for all of his album covers and side projects, including ongoing drawings and comic artwork for Sturgeon White Moss (White Moss Press) and the new cover for Nordic doom-master Wolfmangler.

Artist:	SCIENTISTS, THE
Title:	Sedition
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 024CD

Sedition is an ultra-high quality live recording from the legendary Australian garage-rock punk act, The Scientists. Recorded on May 11th, 2006 at Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, the superior sound-quality plus amazing set list make this album more of a "best of" than simply a live record. The Scientists went through many incarnations in their 9 year history but are remembered mostly for the lineup that existed from 1981 to 1985: Kim Salmon, Tony Thewlis, Boris Sujdovic and Brett Rixon together had the peculiar chemistry that produced the classics Swampland, Happy Hour, Blood Red River mini-LP and We Had Love. With a sound that was swampy, primal and modern-urban all at once -- as much in the tradition of rock and roll and punk rock as it was a rejection of those things, The Scientists' formula was as universal as it was specific to their own experience. They were about what it was like to be young and living in modern times in an Australian urban/suburban environment. The themes of getting wasted on alcohol and drugs, driving round in hotted-up cars, being trapped in crap jobs and paranoia were their subject matter. Machine throb bass and drums with jagged car wreck guitars were their modus operandi. Fitting into no place or time, they spurned all but the most rudimentary and elemental of rock structures along with other people's modes of embellishment. They rejected the contemporary sound and look and so consequently were never able to carry around baggage that would allow them to sound dated. You could put on a Scientists record from this period and not know it was 23 years old! The Scientists might have been overlooked in their own time, but there has been no shortage of younger bands that have cited them over the years. Mudhoney, Nirvana, Jon Spencer, The Von Bondies, The White Stripes, The Drones and scores of others just keep coming along dropping their name. Presented in super-deluxe souvenir packaging (like a moleskin book) with liner notes by Thurston Moore, Jon Spencer, Warren Ellis, Gareth Liddiard and Henry Rollins.

Artist:	FURSAXA
Title:	Alone in the Dark Wood
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 026CD

This is the fifth full-length release from West Philly-based solo artist Tara Burke aka Fursaxa, her second for the All Tomorrow's Parties label. Boasting a fan base with the likes of Bardo Pond, Acid Mothers Temple and Thurston Moore who released a record by her on his Ecstatic Peace! imprint two years ago, Burke is now one of the epicentres and key collaborators of the North American free-folk movement, along with such luminaries as Jack Rose, Charalambides, Ben Chasny and the Jewelled Antler Collective. With her hypnotic, echo-y churchbell chanting, Burke possesses a power-filled vocal sound that harkens back not only to those other polar queens of disaffected freakout psychedelia Nico and Barbara Manning, but she is also akin to and inspired by Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century Benedictine mystical abbess. With the low drone of chord organ and farfisa, detuned ringing guitar, and endlessly looped, multiply-tracked vocals applied with heaps of delay, Fursaxa sounds like a tripped-out medievalist perched upon a poppy petal. Alone in the Dark Wood, recorded half in Pennsylvania, half in Finland, evokes pale moonlight and deep shadows, where tree limbs bend to form cathedral arches over a procession of mystics. Disembodied female voices rise like sacral fire-smoke amongst the strum of mandolin, balalaika, and the piper's call of bells and flute-whistle. At some turns mournful and stark, at others a celebratory invocation, Alone in the Dark Wood displays Burke's alchemical knack for turning folk into lo-fi, and then into sheer psych and back again, but more importantly, her music is pure humming narcosis.

Artist:	FUCK BUTTONS
Title:	Street Horrrsing
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 028CD

This is the debut full-length release by Bristol, UK duo, Fuck Buttons. Conceived by Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power in the winter of 2004, the group was initially born as an outlet for their nihilistic-noise tendencies but quickly, the two Fuck Buttons realized they could harness the use of noise as a tool to immerse and evoke. No longer afraid of melody or rhythm, the group started fusing all these elements to the point when drone becomes melody becomes rhythm. With their electric live performances sealing the notion that the two Fuck Buttons are attempting some kind of transcendence between the listener and the Universe itself, one could easily envisage one's psyches being shaken by the very rumbles of the earth's motions. Tribal beats and subtle, beautiful melodies weave amongst contorting Technicolor drone-scapes while preaching distorted vocals scream for dear hope. Fuck Buttons straddle you between the wall of sound that lies between the beginning of destruction and the end of birth. This grand noise will fondle you into a state of totally immersed euphoria.

Artist:	APSE
Title:	Spirit
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 029CD

This is the debut release by Cape Cod's Apse, originally released on Acuarela Discos in 2006. In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered by a hemispherical vault, most often referenced in the context of Christian churches. It is a piece of construction that denotes an altar, a sanctuary. Spirit aspires to a similar state. Less an album than one long song cut into pieces, its one hour duration consists of patterns and colors and shapes. The closest thing to a "single" is the dramatic 7-minute composition "Legions," a particularly concentrated example of the group's shimmering melodies and otherworldly rhythmic spells. Throughout the album, however, the key elements remain consistent -- helium voices emerge and stay wordless, sounding like a preacher speaking in tongues. The music sculpts ornate shapes, then breaks down into an ethereal mist, or ramps up into an extended freakout. Moments of grace and ambience cohere into something greater. A list of predecessors with analogous goals might include the Krautrock innovators Neu!, Iceland's Sigur R�s, the Midwestern modernists Tortoise, the bucolic electronica duo Boards Of Canada, or the tribal experimentalists Animal Collective and Liars. All of these groups have occasionally been lumped into the genre post-rock. Apse, however, may be the first known exponent of this style to encapsulate a particular brand of Northeastern melancholy. Singer and multi-instrumentalist Robert Toher formed Apse 9 years ago in that hotbed of musical activity Newtown, Connecticut. The rest of the band -- Michael Gundlach, John Mordecai, Jed Armour, Brandon Collins, Aaron Piccirillo -- has accreted over the years. In recent years, they have developed an ardent fan base in Europe where live performances have taken on a great intensity. When listening to Apse's music, you'll recall groups of old, but moreover, you will be reminded of New England's weather and history -- a specific geographical consciousness that inspired both the artistic community of Provincetown and the hardy Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock. Cold winds and long nights. Rolling clouds, forbidding beaches, summer swells, etc. Spirit sounds like a dramatic reaction to endless days trapped inside, and bears the markers of a band with the time and space to follow their weird vision to its logical conclusions.

Artist:	TUCKER, ALEXANDER
Title:	Portal
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	ATPR 030LP

LP version. This is UK-based Alexander Tucker's third release for ATP Recordings. "Portal is a work of such unparalleled bewitching splendor, that any rote comparisons would read like hyperbole, thus doing it a great disservice. Even Tucker's previous albums Old Fog (2005) and Furrowed Brow (2006) seem like stepping stones in the wake of Portal. But if we must draw comparisons, then let's say Chicago musician/composer/innovator Jim O' Rourke; both are unparalleled in their pairing of the 20th century avant-garde techniques of composers like Stockhausen and Steve Reich with the archaic sounding free-folk of John Fahey, Robbie Basho and Loren Connors. The late Karlheinz Stockhausen envisaged music where "instead of very precisely formed single notes there are little complexes... little crystalline blooms that pass through a register form." During Portal, Tucker's finger-picked guitar lines become indistinguishable from the more traditional string arrangements and voice. These melodic clusters interweave like the paths incurved by a figure skater. This is still to say nothing of Tucker's voice, which sounds as if it is emanating from a ghost channel on an ancient mixing desk rather than sung on top of the epochal arrangements. It's a voice comparable perhaps to Meddle-era David Gilmour or John Martyn on Solid Air. These are big claims of course, but then Portal is a work of such extraordinary majesty that even trying to surmise it in words seems like a heresy. If you disagree after listening, then I'm sorry to inform you that you are spiritually dead." --Tony F. Wilson; Portal clearly shows that Tucker has even further honed his droning looped guitar technique with ever more mesmerizing effect, adding strings, vibes, bells and a sorcerer's range of well-placed, far-out effects.

Artist:	TUCKER, ALEXANDER
Title:	Custom Made
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	2X7"
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ATPR 6D002

ATP Recordings presents the second installment in their limited edition 2x7" Custom Made series from Alexander Tucker. Tucker chose a version of "Phantom Rings" with a heavier riff and a harmonized vocal cycle. This version of "Veins To The Sky" features electric mandolin and "Rodeo In The Sky" is Tucker's take on his favorite Fursaxa song. "Florence Blue" was inspired by Neil Campbell and Richard Youngs and includes bowed mandolin loops, doomy classical guitar, and melancholy vocals. Limited to 1000 copies.

Artist:	DRONES, THE
Title:	Shark Fin Blues (Radio Edit)/You Really Don't Care
Label:	ATP RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	7"
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	ATPR SP001

Australia's The Drones scooped the first ever Australian Music Prize for their album Wait Long By The River and the Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By. Now they present a double A-side picture disc of "Shark Fin Blues" (their punk-blues anthem) and "You Really Don't Care," both songs from their aforementioned album. This quartet screams out like Beasts Of Bourbon, the Scientists and Birthday Party all rolled into one. In short, the distillation of Australian rock n' roll history -- a perfectly formed band.

Previous Page Index of Labels Next Page