Browse by Label: ECSTATIC YOD

Artist:	CLARINETTE
Title:	Haze
Label:	ECSTATIC YOD
Format:	LP
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	E#60

"Regardez-vous the debut recording by Clarinette, a solo project that has flowed from the brain of well-known, California-based archivist, Daniel 'Dan' Vallor. Utilizing such instruments as guitar, swinehorn and kuck, Mr. Vallor has created a world of scrambled-diz miniatures of disarming variety. Played w/ tiny robot fingers, lacerated by stumps of home-studio fuckery, the five pieces here are as potently frenched a selection of man-handled string readymades as any record collector has ever waxed. Listening to the genteel hum and dribble of Haze it becomes apparent that Mr. Vallor has done more than catalogue the musics of NZ -- he has vibrated & matured in a manner sympathetic to their most exploratory resonances. Indeed, the weirdly shaped instrumentals that comprise the LP might easily be mistaken for the latest sounds from one of the bands on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Root Don Lonie for Cash, or one of the other labels that he has so brilliantly documented."

Artist:	GOODMAN/HENRY KAISER/LUKAS LIGETI, GREG
Title:	Heavy Meta
Label:	ECSTATIC YOD
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	E#76 CD

"Originally planned as a 1998 release for the ill-starred K'EY Records. Heavy Meta represents something like the return of one of America's prodigal sons. Not that pianist Greg Goodman has been away or anything. It's just that, after a brilliant series of recordings for his own Beak Doctor label, Mr. Goodman's unique style has been all but absent from the recording world. Until very recently, when Beak Doctor resurfaced, he had appeared only fleetingly with guitarist Henry Kaiser and in an unauthorized recording released by the Incus label, otherwise he had been silent as far as the outside world could tell. The trio assembled for Heavy Meta is formidable. Besides Mr. Goodman, it includes America's protean guitar improvisor, Henry Kaiser, and the powerful cross-cultural drumming of Lukas Ligeti. The programming of the material on this disk follows a pattern of inter-relationships as structurally complex and taut as those posited in Harry Mathews? novel, Cigarettes. The three shift between different paired settings and in and out of trio formation so nimbly that the entire process seems redolent of anti-Americanism. There is little evidence here of the individual braying that is thought of as our domestic style. Indeed there are passages of 'Riddled' where Mr. Goodman's interior piano plucking merges so completely with Mr. Kaiser's guitar jumble that it's difficult for my mind to force them apart. Playing such as that, or the free-ranging game of emotional post office that concludes 'War & Piece' has an ego-less quality that is far too rare in U.S. improvising circles. Tell that bastard Ashcroft the news. Listened to as a whole, Heavy Meta demonstrates both the excellence of Mr. Goodman's playing and the width of intelligence displayed by this unheralded trio. The opening track, 'Logical Types' is a bravuro performance from all hands. From the strumbly, Magic Band-like opening cadences by Mr. Ligeti and Mr. Kaiser, through the sequences of equally whacked piano (imagine Beefheart on the piano rather than the alto), the piece spurts and blurts with everything from a broken lyricism that recalls Paul Bley to squabbling crescendos that have a density approaching Nancarrow's machine cycles. This is a ferocious and lyrical bastard of an album. It hews to no strict traditions, but roils across the landscape of modern formalism like an Ernie Bushmiller hoopsnake obeying naught but a mysterious interior gyroscope. It is a splendid and dizzy thing. And it is yours."--Byron Coley, Deerfield, MA

Artist:	PICKS & LIGHTERS
Title:	Picks & Lighters
Label:	ECSTATIC YOD
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	FYP 025CD

"Picks & Lighters were a Knoxville, TN combo who come to us straight out of 1999. Because of fate's vagaries, their time is gone. Everyone missed and ignored the boat they offered us, and we were all left floating, lonely, in a sea of our own shit. Until now. We truly don't understand how this one got by us upon its initial release, but it did. Picks & Lighters even released a beautiful vinyl record to make sure we wax lovers gave them a chance, no dice though. Their cries of creation fell upon deaf ears; for a good while, anyway. Now, here we are in the year 2006, and there is finally enough time of give some love to the Picks & Lighters crew. So here's a re-release -- with proper jewel case packaging -- of their genius S/T CD from 1999. Their music combines all sorts of parts including (but not exclusive to) Royal Trux, universal Siltbreeze sounds, Rolling Stones feedback loops, American Primitive volk guitar, Boogie Rock, lo fi form-scrumble, etc. It 's a motherfuckin' shame this went unnoticed in 1999, but maybe now we can right some wrongs, change the world, and float a boat or two. Cause you know what Thurston Howell says -- there's always room for another yacht."

Artist:	PIETERS/BRUCE & MAX RUSSELL/PETER STAPLETON, KIM
Title:	Cold Sweat/Max Sings
Label:	ECSTATIC YOD
Format:	7"
Price:	$4.50
Catalog #:	FYP 14

"The trio of Pieters, Russell, Stapleton is well known to listeners who recognize & understand a good thing when they hear it. Their two CDs, Last Glass (Corpus Hermeticum 007), and Sex/Machine (Metonymic 005), are powerful extensions of free music improvisation, taking the shake of the unknown well past the barriers of all suspected tongues. The a-side of this 33rpm 7" is a palate-forcing distender of their previous work, making blocks of concrete shimmer w/ a force that seems almost entirely natural. The b-side, on which the three are joined by Bruce's son, Max, is another kettle of gawp. Not since the early days of papa Russell's Dead C, has NZ structure been so gorgeously deformed. In a sense, this track resembles nothing so much as the first punch thrown in the battle to give No Wave shenanigans a place at the Kiwi table. Yow."

Artist:	DREDD FOOLE AND THE DIN
Title:	The Whys of Fire
Label:	ECSTATIC YOD
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	FYP 20

"Thurston Moore and Pelt in Dredd Foole's Din this time around (past Din members include Mission of Burma & the Volcano Suns). Mastered by Jim O'Rourke. Quite handsome Acutal-tribute cover art. The Whys of Fire: The idea evolved a couple years ago. Dredd was play a lot again, after his move to Vermont, and it seemed like the time to get some of his new instant compositional gambits onto tape. It so happened that Pelt were going to be coming to town pretty soon. That seemed like a good connection. Chris and Thurston both played with Dredd already in various action units, so that made sense. Hell, it all 'made sense'. In the way that things can on hot, buggy nights in a swamp, when there's plenty of cold beer and enough electricity to go around."

Artist:	PLUTO
Title:	The Field Recordings
Label:	ECSTATIC YOD
Format:	LP
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	FYP 32

Pluto is the sporadically recording Berkeley-based improv outfit, here featuring MX-80's Bruce Anderson (guitar) and Marc Weinstein (drums), plus Ken Keanry (bass) and Russ Schoenwetter (drums, voice). These 1996 recordings act as a followup to their debut CD on Rastascan, Shoe Horse Emerging. The LP is housed in an elaborate full color gatefold sleeve that is designed in the style of the old French ethnic music label, Occora. A very touching "sausage" theme is illustrated on this sleeve, to rather unbelievable effect. Though I have not personally eaten sausage in a number of years, strange thoughts ran my head with rather vigorous velocity as I held this sleeve in my hands....

Artist:	DOYLE ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC ENSEMBLE, ARTHUR
Title:	Plays The African Love Call
Label:	ECSTATIC YOD
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	FYP 36

"Arthur Doyle is one of the great originals of American post-tongue freedom. His work on the saxophone, flute, voice-o-phone and vocals is beautiful enough to set anyone's hair on fire. Throughout a recording career that began in 1969, Mr. Doyle has been a premier exponent of high-energy improvisation. Even when it's whispered as though he was hidden in a barrel, Doyle's music possesses a riveting undercurrent of maniacal energy. There is always a sense that he is about to burst through his skin. And so it is here. Recorded live w/ members from some of the East Coast's most estimable, most thoroughly underground units (V3, Nod, Coffee, Temple of Bon Matin, Pengo, Sheet & the Strapping Fieldhands amongst them), Doyle is in rare and weird form here. Most of his previous recordings have hewn closely to one of his stylistic threads or another. W/ Alan Silva or Sunny Murray, Mr. Doyle works in the (so called) jazz tradition. Alone, he presents a side that reeks w/ spiritual confusion and an intense grapple w/ societal demonology. The guys he plays w/ here allow Mr. Doyle to balance himself between these two style-poles, and the results are pretty amazing. Recorded in very lo-fi, the music here was sonically dicked-w/ for many many hours by Jim O'Rourke."

Artist:	GOWN
Title:	Sacred Mountains
Label:	ECSTATIC YOD
Format:	LP
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	FYPL 047LP

"Gown is from the islands of British Columbia Canada, and spent an entire year living on one such island alone, apart from his dog and three or more goats. If rock-qua-rock and/or its sub-forms are based on blues epistemology, then Sacred Mountains is rooted in the vernacular of sea shanties, sea creatures and sea salt in general. The music swirls and eddies as water does when trapped in a cove, just before rejoining the ocean-proper's massive swells and crashing onto a buncha rocks. And I guess the music is like that rejoining, too. A process such as this is a journey and far from perfect, but the missteps sparkle and gleam like the random beauty that surrounds us. The LP was recorded over the course of a month in Florence, Mass, following a two month tour across the USA, playing in a duo with Christina Carter."

Artist:	DREDD FOOLE
Title:	A Long, Losing Battle with Eloquence and Intimance
Label:	ECSTATIC YOD
Format:	LP
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	FYPL 43

"7 songs of studio-recorded solo Dredd Foole on vocals and acoustic guitar, in a totally different vein than the last Dredd Foole & the Din record with Pelt & Thurston Moore (The Whys of Fire)." For years and years (maybe about 17 or so), people have been pleading with Dan Ireton to record an album of his songs, as they are here, "mostly in one take". That has, almost unbelievably at this point, finally been taken care of. Not necessarily "new" or particularly "weird", this is unquestionably (for lack of better terminology), "American". And when was the last time you could admit to that? In front of a crackling fire, it could perhaps sound good enough to melt into the floor, but even those illuminated by mere fluorescence will find pure captivation. Words, voice, guitar, culturally-informed emotional expression. Printed inner sleeve with lyrics, just like the old days. Great Kim Gordon cover.

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