Browse by Label: CATSUP PLATE

Artist:	DOUBLE, THE
Title:	Palm Fronds
Label:	CATSUP PLATE
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CPR 719CD

"The Double that you hear on Palm Fronds is very different than what founding members David Greenhill and Jeff McLeod originally conceived. The band began as a guitar/drum math-rock-cum-outre-blues duo replete with intricate time signatures, multiple song sections, and an overall sense of angular complexity. But the production, drum machines, and general vibe have a wonderfully overmodulated digital crunch, plenty of echo, broken electronics and all sorts of whatsit thrown into the mix. Which is to say that all that songwriter stuff, when The Double finally let you hear it, owes a lot to a bunch of digital dub and experimental electronic types."

Artist:	IVYTREE, THE
Title:	Winged Leaves
Label:	CATSUP PLATE
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CPR 720CD

"Glenn Donaldson plays in a whole slew of phenomenal bands -- the Skygreen Leopards, the Blithe Sons, Thuja, the Franciscan Hobbies and about a half-dozen others -- releasing them on Jewelled Antler, the label he co-founded, and numerous others. His vast and engaging creative output covers everything from field recordings and found sounds to plaintive pop to wide-eyed, drooling psychedelia and remains engaging and compelling. Winged Leaves, the Ivytree follow-up to the 2003's Orchards & Caravans (credited to The Birdtree -- stay with me here), again finds Donaldson brewing a potent and unique style of acid folk balanced with incidental and instrumental pieces that focus on field recordings and less traditionally structured pieces. The songs here are based on guitar and voice improvisations and fleshed out with layers of bowed bouzouki, banjo, and dulcimer, along with organ and percussion. There is a distant melancholy in these songs, a mournfulness that somehow manages to be stately and tuneful in the rumble of sounds passing by. Donaldson's voice accounts for much of this: his echoing, wordless (or, at the very least, indecipherable) falsetto cuts through the layers, like the summer sun poking through a dark canopy of leaves above. Edition of 1000 copies in hand assembled, letterpressed chipboard digipaks, with full color tipped-on cover image and poster with Donaldson's dizzying collage work."

Artist:	SMITH, STEVEN R.
Title:	Crown of Marches
Label:	CATSUP PLATE
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	CPR 722CD

"Steven R. Smith is best known for his participation in Thuja and Hala Strana as well as his contribution to many Jewelled Antler projects. In the spirit of Keiji Haino, Popol Vuh, Dead C, and Flying Saucer Attack, Crown of Marches takes the possibilities of the basement psychedelic guitar excursion and fashions something very new and inspiring -- a piece alternately beautiful and overwhelming. Crown of Marches begins with a low rumble of feedback and speaker hum; a lazy Eastern melody pokes through the haze and establishes a strong contrast with the rumbling. This is the basis upon which the piece will expand and contract over the next 40 minutes. At times the feedback rumble drops away and relatively bright guitar lines come to the fore. At other times faint keyboard lines or bowed cymbals add texture and additional gravitas to the proceedings, only to be pushed away with the wail of distant guitars and more distortion -- like the heaviest rock with the skeleton removed." Limited stock.

Artist:	COPELAND, ERIC
Title:	Al Anon
Label:	CATSUP PLATE
Format:	LP
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	CPR 727LP

"Al Anon concludes Eric Copeland's two part album entitled Alien In A Garbage Dump. Where the first half offered a discombobulated collection of radio cross-signaling, here the alien finds its groove for a minute and tidies up the frequencies. There is still something outsiderish here, but with more of an effort to get inside, to play by the rules even? Or maybe the motivation is to sneak something subversive into the norms' hideout? Since Al Anon was recorded at the same time as two Black Dice albums, there are obvious parallels in the results; an uncompromised sonic landscape. But outside the group setting, Copeland has found places one can only find alone: small inner dialogues and isolated mind caves where an idea may only last a moment. He captures and tweaks these ideas into fragments of many memories; a déjà vu record déjà vu record. Funny characters drop in and out. Songs come and go. Al Anon proves to be a strangely curated time capsule of OUR time right NOW; music where birds beat-box with car-stereo subwoofers and the neighbors' Espanol sings on top the Sabbath siren. With all this going on, Copeland sometimes disappears into the anonymity, playing a 'behind-the-scenes' role, pushing cords and pulling buttons, laughing because the batteries are dying. Here the familiar becomes mysterious and the unknown feels normal and we can listen to this one all day trying to make those distinctions. Edition of 500 copies with jaw-droppingly amazing black and white collage artwork by Copeland, screenprinted by VG Kids."

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