Browse by Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Artist:	MERZBOW
Title:	Amlux
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 002CD

"Alas, Merzbow's masterpiece Amlux has arrived. Highly anticipated, and referred to as 'the definitive modern Merzbow record,' Amlux finds Masami Akita moving into new territory in terms of sound and production. Amlux throbs with industrial ambient drones and drum/guitar samples that slowly glide into eruptive filtered noise before evolving back into industrial-ambient bliss. It is rich in texture and much more sophisticated and evolved than most Merzbow records to date. Amlux proves that Masami Akita is much more than just the king of noise. A major selling point for Amlux is that it is the source material for a major Merzbow remix cd/lp to be released later this year on Important Records. Tentatively titled 'Merzmix,' this remix album will feature Alec Empire, Bola, Chicks on Speed, Jack Dangers, Acid Mothers Temple, DJ Spooky, Arto Lindsay, KK Null, Masami Akita, Sonic Boom and a few others who are currently unconfirmed. Remixers were asked to use Amlux as source material for original compositions, rather than being restricted to remixing one particular track. The results thus far have been astounding."

Artist:	MERZBOW
Title:	Merzbeat
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 004CD

"Merzbeat tands in stark contrast to all releases in Merzbow's post-analog, digital laptop-era. Containing over 50 minutes of brand new aggressive, psychedelic, organic, analog beat oriented Merzbow compositions, Merzbeat will be quite a treat for Merzbow fans who have been disappointed with modern Merzbow records. Drummed rhythms, a punk spirit and a return to analog Merzbow. KID 606 called it 'one of the greatest thing Merzbow has ever done.' The first pressing of also has a hidden remix of Amlux by Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto."

Artist:	JOHNSTON AND THE HYPERJINX TRICYCLE, DANIEL
Title:	Daniel Johnston and the Hyperjinx Tricycle
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 006CD

Year 2001 release. "Hyperjinx Tricycle is a band formed by Texas cult hero Daniel Johnston, New York pop-surrealist Ron English and Brooklyn singer/songwriter Jack Medicine. With the help of various producers this album celebrates the weirdness of these three strange writers. Most songs sung by Daniel Johnston. CD also contains two tracks of Johnston alone singing and performing 'Keep Your Feelings To Yourself' and 'Reality.' Highpoints of the disc include a beautiful version of 'Seasons in the Sun' sung by Johnston ('Seasons In the Sun' features production work and instrumentation from Kramer marking the first time these two have worked together since 1990) as well as Daniel's rejected theme song for the Fox program Greg The Bunny."

Artist:	JOHNSTON AND THE HYPERJINX TRICYCLE, DANIEL
Title:	Alien Mind Control
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	3" CD
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 013CD

"While his career thrives he has been comfortably recording on the side with his good friends from NYC as the Hyperjinx Tricycle. The casual studio atmosphere naturally created when friends get together to record has brought out the best in Daniel. These four tracks, each fronted by Daniel, represent some of his most striking and compelling work in a long time. Included is a new version of the popular track 'Long Lost Love'."

Artist:	MERZBOW
Title:	Ikebana: Merzbow's Amlux
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	2CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 016CD

"Artists were asked to use Merzbow's album Amlux as an instrument in an original composition, rather than to perform the conventional remix. We hoped that this would allow the artist to flourish with greater creative freedom and a less restrictive context. We didn't want to fit this project into any sub-genre of music. We wanted it to simply exist. Perhaps the beat oriented tracks, record scratching and vocals will annoy some Noise purists, and perhaps the noisy sound collages will irritate others, but hopefully this collection of tracks from some of the best electronic artists working today will enlighten the listener. Music is sound and sound is everywhere, regardless of classification." Remixers include: Jack Dangers, DJ Spooky, Luke Vibert, Alec Empire, Kawabata Makoto, Cornelius, Kid 606, Negativland, Nobukazu Takemura, Atom, Chicks On Speed, Experimental Audio Research, Bola, Kim Hiorthoy, Staalplaat Sound System, Lasse Marhaug, Kim Cascone, Freiband, Nau-zee-aun, Kurt Weisman, Raub Roy, Instavoid, Custom Drummer, John Wiese, Zipperspy, DJ Rupture.

Artist:	ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE
Title:	Magical Power From Mars
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 017CD

Repressed, remastered & featuring expanded artwork; originally released in 2003. "Acid Mothers Temple and Important Records have decided to release the complete Magical Power From Mars in its entirety with the addition of the fourth and final track 'Aladdin Kane.' Magical Power From Mars comes housed with completely new front and back art and no expense was spared on more 3D lenticular covers for the front. This is the complete album available for the first time in its entirety. Magical Power From Mars is an album full of epic statements from the Acid Mothers. Each track has an average length of 17:27 ( we did the math) and each track has its own unique musical ideals and arrangements which stand out in the Acid Mothers' diverse catalog. Makoto Kawabata and crew successfully set out to create an album unique in its look and sound and were extremely successful in the execution of that goal." Previously issued as 3 separate EPs, now all out-of-print.

Artist:	DAWSON, KIMYA
Title:	Knock Knock Who?
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 018CD

"On break from Rough Trade and her band The Moldy Peaches, our friend Kimya finds herself at home on Important Records releasing two full length albums at once. Both albums are full of moving original folk songs about Atari 2600's, love, growing up, growing old, overcoming hardships and Matlock . Kimya is one of the most genuine voices in modern music and the superstar of NYC's Anti-Folk scene. Both solo albums were recorded after her Rough Trade solo debut . Knock Knock Who? and My Cute Fiend Sweet Princess find Kimya stronger and more confident than before, creating more powerful records every time."

Artist:	DAWSON, KIMYA
Title:	My Cute Fiend Sweet Princess
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 019CD

"Obviously, both of Kimya Dawson's solo albums are highly recommended to fans of the Moldy Peaches, but don't expect sex and drug jokes, these albums are more serious, transcending the novelty and humor of the Peaches. Embracing nostalgia, melancholy and sincerity, Kimya proves to be as unique as she is brilliant, creating two albums both compelling and charismatic. My Cute Fiend Sweet Princess is an instant Anti-Folk classic."

Artist:	SPACE MACHINE
Title:	3
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 026CD

"Space Machine is Yamazaki Maso's solo synth-psych side project. This single CD release includes both the Space Machine 3 studio sessions as well as Space Machine live at Big Cat in Osaka, Japan with Makoto Kawabata of The Acid Mothers Temple. From around 1998 Maso Yamazaki started to incorporate trippy, spacy electronic elements into Masonna performances. In order to better pursue these elements alone, he started Space Machine in 2000, his self-labeled 'analog electronic cosmic sound project'. For as long as he had been performing under the Masonna moniker, Yamazaki had been ardent fan of early electronic music from the 50s and 60s, and in order to research the impact that electronic sounds had upon the spiritual lineage audible in sixties US and British psychedelic music and seventies krautrock, Yamazaki began collecting analog synthesizers and vintage electronic equipment. He continuously experimented with these instruments in his home studio, and while groping towards an understanding he discovered a new direction for his own music, a direction different from his work as Masonna."

Artist:	ANP (ABSOLUT NULL PUNKT)
Title:	Live In Japan
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 029CD

"ANP (Absolut Null Punkt) was originally formed in 1984 by KK.Null (before he started his progressive hardcore rock trio Zeni Geva) and Seijiro Murayama (founding drummer of Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha). Live In Japan was recorded at dates between December and February 2003 in Osaka as well as Tokyo. The live setting is a perfect showcase for ANP's diverse inspirations and unique approach to creating music. An echoing chamber of stark, pummeling fusion is created by combining strong elements of free jazz, heavy rock, industrial noise, glitch and free improvisation dynamics."

Artist:	DAWSON, KIMYA
Title:	My Cute Fiend Sweet Princess
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	LP
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 031LP

Repress of this 2004 album, now in full printed cover. "Obviously, both of Kimya Dawson's solo albums are highly recommended to fans of The Moldy Peaches, but don't expect sex and drug jokes, these albums are more serious, transcending the novelty and humor of the Peaches. Embracing nostalgia, melancholy and sincerity, Kimya proves to be as unique as she is brilliant, creating two albums both compelling and charismatic. My Cute Fiend Sweet Princess is an instant anti-folk classic."

Artist:	DAWSON, KIMYA
Title:	Knock Knock Who?
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	LP
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 032LP

Repress of this 2004 album, now in full printed cover; contains "So Nice So Smart" as featured in the movie Juno! "On break from Rough Trade and her band The Moldy Peaches, our friend Kimya finds herself at home on Important Records releasing two full length albums at once. Both albums are full of moving original folk songs about Atari 2600's, love, growing up, growing old, overcoming hardships and Matlock . Kimya is one of the most genuine voices in modern music and the superstar of NYC's anti-folk scene."

Artist:	FE-MAIL
Title:	Syklubb Fra H�lvete (Sewing Club From Hell)
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 033CD

"'Out of Norway comes the most exciting noise LP I've heard to date. These two women romp thru stimulating noise compositions fresh and clean w/ a distinct Scandinavian frost. But there's always an undercurrent of warm embrace, sweet and masterful.' -- Thurston Moore. Already an incontestable figure of the Scandinavian music scene, Maja Ratkje follows the release of her stunning first solo album, Voice (Rune Grammaphone), with Fe-Mail. A compulsive musician who, beside her main activity as part of all-female avant-garde free-improvisation quartet Spunk, is, at only 29, a lecturer in composition at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, a world-renowned contemporary composer, an impressive singer and accomplished musician. Together with fellow Spunk-ette Hild Sofie Tafjord, Ratkje improvises with analogue electronic gear, samplers, voice, harmonica, and miscellaneous acoustic instruments to shape a more defined and delicate, if such a word can in any way define the realm in which Fe-mail evolve, series of soundscapes."

Artist:	KING MISSLE III
Title:	Royal Lunch
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	IMPREC 034CD

"The notoriously outspoken and eloquently sardonic John S. Hall is back with the third incarnation of King Missile and this time his unrelenting lyrical avant-poetry/spoken-wordism is angry, irreverently subversive and politically charged. Though not the only topic on the album, Hall has taken aim at the Bush administration and Royal Lunch is a direct shot at the heart of the monster. Royal Lunch has the feel of an America on the brink of disaster, the exact climate the album was written in, and as always, John S. Hall channels the socio-political climate of the globe, mixing in his slanted wit, creating a brilliantly acrimonious masterwork."

Artist:	P-ORRIDGE, GENESIS
Title:	When I Was Young
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	IMPREC 035CD

"As the world awaits the remarkable reunion of Throbbing Gristle and a subsequent studio album from the group, this surprise full length from Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV founder Genesis P-Orridge, and produced by Astrid Monroe, has been slowly coming to fruition and it arrives with perfect timing. The true identity of Astrid Monroe has been kept a secret from all parties involved in the release of this CD. His production work is the only indication we have of who this gifted artist could possibly be. Slow, deliberate and lushly orchestrated, the eccentric instrumentation swirls pensively around audio tracks created by Genesis P-Orridge almost as if P-Orridge was the leader of a more adventurous Portishead or possibly even Massive Attack. Dark and dreamy, When I Was Young is a surprisingly unique addition to the P-Orridge catalog. It's emphasis on P-Orridge's unique word play, voice and annunciation create an eloquently pronounced lyrical and music journey."

Artist:	MAKOTO, KAWABATA
Title:	O Si Amos A Sighire A Essere Duas Umbras?
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	IMPREC 037CD

"In tribute to Sardegna where Kawabata's creative life recently achieved a highly influential spiritual climax. According to Kawabata, these recordings represent one of the most important moments in his life. While in Sardegna he found his 'cosmos.' At some point on his trip, a new cosmos opened for him and he received 'many wonderful vibrations' from these cosmos. These are the very first of his works created after this transcendental experience. Hearing and feeling these tracks it is apparent that Kawabata has been deeply spiritually affected since his last solo outing. O Si Amos A Essere Duas Umbras? is comprised of two epic, deeply meditative, spiritual and transcendental compositions."

Artist:	DANGERS, JACK
Title:	Forbidden Planet Explored
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	2CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 038CD

"You may know Jack as the founding member of the most experimental and influential group ever to hit the dance floor, Meat Beat Manifesto. His intensely elaborate work with Meat Beat Manifesto. This double CD release contains Jack's now famous soundtrack for the legendary sci-fi film Forbidden Planet. As a special bonus, Forbidden Planet Explored contains a second CD full of sci-fi sound effects inspired by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop."

Artist:	CHOMSKY, NOAM
Title:	American War Crimes and Imperial Fantasies
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	2CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 041CD

"Noam Chomsky talks to Alternative Radio's David Barsamian in Chomsky's MIT office about the history of the United State's perusal of imperialism and the crimes against humanity committed along the way. Is George W. Bush an international criminal and is his war in Iraq an egregious criminal act? In this thorough and in depth 2CD interview, Noam Chomsky, who is commonly referred to as 'the conscience of the American people,' carefully places Bush into a historical perspective explaining Bush's actions in relation to past US presidents and how Bush's war in Iraq is in blatant disregard of the findings of the Nuremberg Tribunal. In this exposing interview Chomsky recounts America's history of aggressive war, war crimes and murder while placing George Bush's Iraq invasion and occupancy into context."

Artist:	DANGERS, JACK
Title:	Loudness Clarifies/Electronic Music From Tapelab
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 042CD

"Jack has brought us a brand new Meat Beat style manifestation and a collection of 10 years worth of his electro-acoustic musique concrete. 'Loudness Clarifies'/'Music From Tapelab' brings forth both sides of Jack Dangers multi-dimensional audio personality into one single commercial package. From the distant, careful, experimentalism found in 'Music From Tapelab' to the dance floor oriented 'Loudness Clarifies' we experience Jack as a whole musical entity."

Artist:	LARSEN
Title:	Play
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	IMPREC 043CD

"Larsen's sound is equally as ambiguous as any attempt to describe them, imagine elements of Einsturzende Neubauten, The Swans, Barbez, Six Organs Of Admittance, Vibracathedral Orchestra and Godspeed You Black Emperor. Play, the brilliant new album, sounds like all of these influences processed through the Larsen main brain on heavy doses of Autechre. Yes, Autechre. Really. As an exercise preceding the writing of Play, Larsen spent a lot of time as a group improvising around some of their favorite melodies from Autechre albums. This experimental exercise slowly evolved into song writing and suddenly songs were coming out of the air with Autecherian melodies filtered through climactic Larsen arrangements. Play is a collection of Larsen 'suites' where hints of Autechre drift as inspiring ghosts rather than constituent matter. According to Larsen, they attempted to create curvilinear, not angular, interpretations of these melodies in an electric way, not an electronic way, with the eclectic instrumentation regular in Larsen's arrangement. As they planned, they failed perfectly at covering Autechre creating a hauntingly eruptive and droned out Larsen masterpiece in the process."

Artist:	BEEQUEEN
Title:	The Bodyshop
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	IMPREC 044CD

"It took Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar two years to complete the recordings for The Bodyshop, the successor to their much-acclaimed CD Ownliness from 2002. The Bodyshop continues where Ownliness left off. Ownliness marked a distinct break with Beequeen's past. The ambient-industrial drone music of yesteryear was said goodbye and the Beequeen's love of pop music returned. The instruments changed from organs, synthesizers and sound effects to guitars, drums, bass and guest musicians on cello and even vocals (a distinctive first for Beequeen). The Bodyshop features two of these remarkable vocals tracks; a cover of Nick Drake's 'Black Eyed Dog' (sung by Antenne's Marie-Louise Munck) and the indeed very sad track 'Sad Sheep'. Although Beequeen never cites influences, it's easy spot their interest in the Beatles' psychedelic period and latter day Talk Talk in combination with a love for krautrock and microsound -- not the most likely of combinations, but somehow it all makes sense on The Bodyshop."

Artist:	PIANO MAGIC
Title:	Opencast Heart EP
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 045CD

"Hands down, thee most purely electronic record Piano Magic have ever made -- a brash stylistically pendulum swing from the most recent album, The Troubled Sleep Of Piano Magic. It evokes not only cruel English Winters but also the ghost of a great lost treasure of English Literature, WNP Barbellion (his early 20th century diary was entitled, The Journal Of A Disappointed Man). It's a record with a warm heart in a glacial season. It was recorded at Piano Magic's Murder Mile Studio in the redbrick, rundown backstreets of East London and features the vocal contributions of Angele David-Guillou, oft chanteause with the band, though soon to be more regarded for her own exquisite project, Klima."

Artist:	MENCHE, DANIEL
Title:	Sirocco
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 046CD

"The first recording by him created by utilizing sound sources from several other sound artists. Andrew Lagowski, Asmus Tietchens, Main, John Duncan, Scanner, Akira Rabelais, Illusion Of Safety, Merzbow, ErikM, B. Labelle and AMT submitted one minute sections of sound for Daniel Menche to work with and to create a long continuous drone track by completely degrading and melting the source sounds and massively layering these to form one long graceful and intense storm to heat and scorch the speakers. Sirocco is a tremendously dynamic and wonderfully textured drone experience."

Artist:	CLUCK, DIANE
Title:	Oh Vanille/Ova Nille
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 049CD

'This record is by my favorite singer-songwriter in all of New York City. I'm so happy to be alive at the same time she is because I get to see her perform. It's her and guitar or her and piano or her and harmonium. Her lyrics are so good, when I play this for people they stop doing everything and are quiet for hours after.' Devendra Banhart. "Diane Cluck's hauntingly clear voice weaves melodies full of love and pain through her intentionally sparse arrangements of piano, acoustic guitar and harmonium. Perfect as they are, any additional instrumentation would be unnecessary adornments on these 'skeleton' songs, as she calls them. A classical training and obsession with Erik Satie has instilled a tasteful minimalism. Her recordings have been self released until now in a fashion similar to the manner in which she records them: deliberate, hesitant and beautiful." 2nd edition in regular printed sleeve.

Artist:	MERZBOW
Title:	Merzbuddha
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 052CD

"What did you listen to last summer? Masami Akita, otherwise know as Merzbow, spent most of his summer listening to Horace Andy, Dennis Bovel, Keith Hudson and a whole pipe full of other dub mavericks. That's probably why this brand new full length, with cover art by Jenny Akita, is dripping with deep bass riffage and a whole lot of electronic dub vibes and beats. Merzbuddha is third in the series of Merz-titled releases following in the audio footsteps of the flagship release Merzbeat. With the same reverence for crushing analog beats, weaving noise textures and a compositional complexity Masami Akita switches direction and dubs it up. Imagine The New Blockaders in an audio blender with King Tubby and you're not even halfway there."

Artist:	(R)
Title:	Under the Cables, Into the Wind
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 057CD

"Following the critical and commercial success of Larsen's full length Play, Larsen leader Fabrizio Modonese Polumbo is releasing his first full-length recording. Full of all the moods, methods and arrangement that make Larsen such a fascinating and engaging listen Under The Cables, Into The Wind takes the attentive listener in directions unfamiliar in Larsen audio landscape. Subtle, beautiful and melodic Under The Cables, Into The Wind would sit perfectly in the Larsen catalog if it didn't stand so well on its own."

Artist:	ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE COSMIC INFERNO
Title:	Just Another Band from the Cosmic Inferno
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 058CD

"Just Another Band From The Cosmic Inferno is the debut album from the brand new configuration of the Acid Mothers Temple. Drained creatively like 'dinosaurs on the brink of extinction,' Kawabata Makoto decided to disband the highly successful Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO lineup and replace it with something far heavier and much more powerful. Replacing the original lineup are deep-psych heavyweights including members and ex-members of The Boredoms, Ghost, Mainliner and Zeni Geva. With these ultra-heavy epic jams Kawabata Makoto has marked a new direction for his celebrated psychedelic collective. Appropriately, artwork was done longtime AMT fan and Sunn O))))/Khanate member Stephen O'Malley."

Artist:	VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA
Title:	Tuning to the Rooster
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 061CD

So far the first and only record ever made by The Vibracathedral Orchestra using a 24-track mixing board. Typically the group records on 2 tracks despite the fact that their eccentric and complexly arranged sound practically requires 24 tracks. "This is music as a shamanic aid, made as much for the players themselves as for the listeners. But as I'm writing from the listening perspective, I have to inform y'all that this is music to get you there. Every track sounds as though it has always just 'been there,' it's just you ain't quite tuned into its peculiar frequency until now. The 12-and-a-half minute 'Wearing Clothes of Ash' is like a piano-led 'Paradieswarts Duul-period drone-a-thon with John Cale and Terry Riley guesting on viola and keys. Following this, the sublime 'Baptism Bar Blues' is proof positive that they can rock the riot house with pure adrenaline rush when the decision is made. Indeed, this track is magnificent and should be available to the masses free or in pill form." -- Julian Cope.

Artist:	HOTOTOGISU
Title:	Ghosts of the Sun
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 062CD

"The Hototogisu masterfully create a dense sediment of Teutonic drone with the thickest layers of guitar, vocals and electronics. The Hototogisu are obviously seasoned sonic travelers, featuring the seminal legend Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards). Ghosts Of The Sun is one enormous composition, nearing two hours in length, unfolded and nailed together in seven movements. Starting with a slow drone electronic crawl and climaxing with crackling bone percussion buried howls of haunted minds, Ghosts Of The Sun cries out from beneath an earthquake of guitar feedback and distortion. Ghosts Of The Sun compresses eternity, from the creation of humanity to its own destruction, into seven parts on one double album. This is epic and total sonic overload, by way of The Hototogisu."

Artist:	BARBEZ
Title:	Insignificance
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 063CD

"Insignificance is the result of two years of intensive work and the culmination of seven years of exploration and growth by this unusual and powerful Brooklyn-based band. After the critical success of Barbez's self-titled full length debut on Important Records, they've returned with a groundbreaking sophomore album and a new Theremin player who Bob Moog has called the single 'greatest living' Theremin player on Earth. While Insignificance maintains Barbez's trademark ethno-punk-cabaret, the compositions have become more tight, more spacious, more frenetic and more explosive. Insignificance has more of a compositional complexity and careful instrumentation than Barbez's debut, promising to be a classic in this burgeoning sub genre known as punk-cabaret."

Artist:	GIFFONI, CARLOS
Title:	Welcome Home
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 064CD

"Welcome Home is less of a homecoming and more of a coming out for Carlos Giffoni, a highly respected and active NYC collaborator who typically shares the stage and records with the likes of Jim O'Rourke, Nels Cline, Chris Corsano, John Duncan, Massimo, Thurston Moore and many others. Giffoni has long been the experimentalist's experimentalist and now on Welcome Home, his first official full length, finds him center stage where he belongs. Like many of the great electronic artists Giffoni builds his own custom electronics and programs his own software with which he's able to achieve sounds uniquely his own. Welcome Home, taking over three years to complete, is full of heavy electronic compositions using meticulously arranged microsound particles generated from Giffoni's unique equipment."

Artist:	XXL
Title:	Ciautistico!
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 065CD

"Ciautistico! is the debut album from XXL (Xiu Xiu Larsen), a collaboration between the Italian experimental cult band Larsen and James Stewart's mutated-pop project Xiu Xiu. Both groups consider their joint creative clash as a new band in itself more than just an occasional collaboration. Edited out of long and intense jam sessions the sound of Ciautistico! is totally schizophrenic, swinging between orchestrated pop songs, almost-techno beats and minimalistic droning tracks, but framed into a common melancholic mood and fronted by the inimitable James Stewart."

Artist:	HAFLER TRIO, THE
Title:	Exactly As I Am
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	2CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 066CD

"Exactly As I Am is the third and final release in The Hafler Trio's collaborative series with Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros. Like the first two in the series Exactly As I Am is a double full length release and is comprised of all new material recorded in May/June of 2005. Exactly As I Am is lavishly packaged in a special die cut oversized package printed on two different types of parchment, meant to imitate small editions of French poetry ca. 1900."

Artist:	CARTER & ROBERT HORTON DUO, TOM
Title:	Lunar Eclipse
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 069CD

"Lunar Eclipse was culled from over 30 hours of recordings taking place, inadvertently, on the equinox, lunar eclipse and winter solstice of 2004.The duo of Tom Carter (Charalambides) and Robert Horton sound as if they are channeling the natural power of these significant calender days into the music. They both noticed something special was happening during the initial recording session when they looked at a clock and realised that they'd been playing for over 5 hours. Throughout the album Carter slowly plays louder and more powerfully than usual over drone-master Robert Horton's organic & electronic chimes, drones, jangles, dangles and splendor. The result is a vast, expansive sound cavern full of hidden melody, slow drones, textured tribal gong and hidden mystic rhythm."

Artist:	MERZBOW
Title:	Merzbuta
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 070CD

"Merzbow's back (you knew he would be) with another release in the popular Merz series on Important Records. This time Masami Akita has returned with Merzbuta (Buta means pig in Japanese) and he's looking back to the last 3 discs in the Merzbox as his primary influence for these recordings. This means that for the first time in a long time he has recorded his EMS Synthi model 'A.' Don't expect to hear anything from this record in a Volkswagen advertisement but Merzbuta is Merzbow's most approachable release yet."

Artist:	CITAY
Title:	Citay
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 071CD

"Out of San Francisco, Citay is a new project by Ezra Feinberg, formerly of Piano Magic (4AD), in collaboration with Tim Green from The Fucking Champs (Drag City). Citay, named for the way the word 'city' is often sung, is a powerful, elegiac blend of seemingly disparate musical elements. Taking its cue from the dramatic song structures of 1970s AM rock, Citay combines Led Zeppelin acoustic guitars and organs with soaring guitar harmonies and lush, choral voices. The influences of the early records of Mike Oldfield, Roy Harper, John Fahey, and more recently the Japanese band Ghost can be heard as well. Certain moments sound like the long, baroque intros of Metallica songs (before the metal takes over) while other moments unleash themselves in triumphant builds and emotional landings. The sound is rounded out by breezy, distinctly psyched vocal harmonies of The Byrds and The Beach Boys, adding a blissed-out flavor to the blend. The result is something entirely new. With smoking Thin Lizzy dual leads and California vocal harmonies, Citay will soon be enchanting the kids from the city to the country and back again."

Artist:	OCEAN
Title:	Here Where Nothing Grows
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 073CD

"Over the last couple of years Ocean has established themselves as an unparalleled current in the east coast metal scene. Here Where Nothing Grows is their debut full length album of three rogue waves clocking in at a full 65 fathoms. This is a slow ancient doom harnessing the deep low end drone of Sunn 0))), Burzum's screams, the crushing heaviness of Buried At Sea, and even the art rock of Mogwai. However, these obvious audio touchstones couldn't possibly prepare you for Here Where Nothing Grows, an album that can only happen in one place, by one group in a coastal Maine city nestled against the crashing waves of the cold Atlantic sea. Recommended if you like Neurosis, Burzum, Buried At Sea, Sunn 0))), Earth, Electric Wizard, downers, absinthe, molasses, sloths, etc..."

Artist:	ANOICE
Title:	Remmings
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 076CD

"Let's get this straight immediately. Anoice is not another instrumental group with strong rock tendencies and an armchair association with classical music. Unlike numerous contemporaries which they will undoubtedly be compared to, their goal is not to follow the trends and make the soft/loud/soft/loud juxtapositions in every song, but to carefully craft each song with a strong attention to melody, solid accompaniment, and courteous counterpoint. While each member cites different musical influences, it's fairly evenly split between rock (think My Bloody Valentine meets King Crimson), classical and modern composers (Perhaps Debussy and Shostakovitch writing together after drinking heavily from Phillip Glass), jazz and electronic (Autechre meets Mum maybe?). Combining all of these influences with their obvious Japanese heritage Anoice has created an album with an emotional arc, climaxing magnificently as it ends and leaves the listener determined to press play once again. Pronounced 'a noyce,' the name comes from the Celtic word for 'now' (Anois)."

Artist:	MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
Title:	Cosmic Light Of the Third Millenium
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 077CD

"Here the Opalio space-brothers push their improvised music of the Spheres in new cosmic territories, where the use of Roberto's wordless vocals impresses a still unheard lyricism inside the sublime complexity of their unique musical textures. 'Section I' opens the album with a slow and emotional epic crescendo generated by floating waves of electric space-guitars alongside glittering sounds of mini-xylophone and toy piano; this impressive astral monochord-blues increase leads to a denouement of electronics & cymbals storm. Whispered wordless moaning vocals and sparse rhythmic percussions resonating in the distance open 'Section II,' where the celestial explosion is followed by droning walls of guitar sounds and space-toys effects, lost in a vertical streamline of astral debris. An ambient minimal guitar tune introduces the final 'Section III': reiterated and limpid single guitar chords disclose the enlightened beauty of the Cosmos."

Artist:	CLUCK, DIANE
Title:	Black With Green Leaves/Macy's Day Bird
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 078CD

"This deluxe double CD, priced the same as a single disc, pairs up Diane Cluck's second full length album Macy's Day Bird with the EP titled Black With Green Leaves. Both were originally released by Diane in elaborate, tiny handmade editions. These are arguably Diane's most compelling, immediate and striking records and it was these two recordings that originally caught the ear of Important Records in 2001. Macy's Day Bird/Black With Green Leaves is highly recommended to Diane's many new fans who picked up on her after the release of Oh Vanille/Ova Nil in early 2005. The attentive listener will find her hauntingly clear voice weaving melodies of love, pain and city life through sparse arrangements of piano, acoustic guitar and harmonium. This material is newly restored/mastered by James Fei."

Artist:	MOUTHUS
Title:	The Long Salt
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 082CD

"This album is a return to more abrasive and heavy Mouthus territory after forays into acoustic instrumentation and, yes, a Fleetwood Mac cover on their recent Troubleman full-length. Free/tribal percussion spatter 'n clatter duels with endlessly mutating three chord sludge-riffage beneath thick, poison clouds of delayed-out vocal groan. Truly CHOCK full of manic bad-mood energy but maybe psych-droney and resin-soaked enough for the new crop of crunchier noise-heads to nod to as well. Electric guitars strung with duct tape and drums equipped with hundred-year old heads are jettisoned into deep space and dynamited, combusting so vividly that the after-images soak our retinas with mandalas of interwoven earthworms and beer funnels for hours afterwards."

Artist:	BLACKSHAW, JAMES
Title:	O True Believers
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 084CD

"When UK native James Blackshaw plays his 12-string, something spiritual takes place. This unassuming 23 year-old is transformed into a guitar god whose name belongs alongside the likes of Jack Rose, Steffen Basho-Junghans, and Glenn Jones. Making instrumental, solo, acoustic music that remains consistently interesting and moving is a difficult task. Yet, time after time, Blackshaw hits out of the park, constantly breaking boundaries in what could be conceived as a somewhat limited medium. O True Believers is the latest in a string of impressive releases, all with their own mood and inspiration. An untrained musician living in the isolated suburban environs of Greater London, Blackshaw draws inspiration not only from the early Takoma Records roster, but from sources as varied as the sublime film-work of Werner Herzog, the books of Richard Brautigan and an endless amount of music: free-jazz, '60s psych, drone, ethnic music and modern-day composers, to name a few."

Artist:	SLOMO
Title:	The Creep
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 085CD

'If the doom metal of Khanate is the ideal soundtrack to the 21st Century Odinists' hanging upon the tree of Yggdrasil, then the vegetal music of Slomo is the unfolding, nurturing, ever-becoming ur-ooze that titanically irrigates the roots of that sacred tree. Slomo restores our timeless beginnings and fulfills the Ginnungagap -- motherfuckers.' --Julian Cope. "The Creep by Slomo is one full length track packaged in a deluxe Important Records gatefold cardboard jacket printed on both sides with two custom inserts by Slomo. The Creep was originally released on Julian Cope's Fuck Off And Di label in a limited edition of 100 which sold out instantly. Since, it's quickly gained massive underground status after being propped up by the likes of Sunn O))) and The Wire."

Artist:	PESTREPELLER
Title:	Isle of Dark Magick
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 086CD

"Prepare yourself for this gem of free-improvised-found-sound-collage enriched with dark pagan folky vibes and supernatural horror noise dedicated to HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Austin Osman Spare! Most remember Pestrepeller only as the source material for Sonic Boom's (Spacemen 3) Pestrepeller remix album. It's true, while they're a supergroup of sorts and are in their tenth year of existence they've still only released three proper albums not including the Sonic Boom remixes. When Pestrepeller does make a sound, they make it count sharing stages with Borbetomagus, David Shea and Alan Turner among others. Pestrepeller consists of long-celebrated illustrator and Wire journalist Savage Pencil, Evan Parker student and ex-Medicine Head member Peter Hope-Evans, comic artist Ed Pinset, cartoonist Harley Richardson and Rob Brown."

Artist:	FLAHERTY/CORSANO/YEH
Title:	Snow Blind Avalanche
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	LP
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 096LP

"Snow Blind Avalanche is a completely different album than A Rock In The Snow also being released on Important though the two records were made during the same sessions. Snow Blind Avalanche finds the Flaherty/Corsano/Yeh in more abstract free dimensions with Yeh's presence in the sound even more firmly established. Recorded as the snow fell. 'No overdubs. Live in studio. Free-noise-punk-jazz with bent-sick-burning vocals. Amen.' -- Paul Flaherty.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Belly of the Whale
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 098CD

... Digital Music Made from the Sounds of Marine Animals. "The Belly Of The Whale project was brilliantly conceived together by two of the prime movers in the Natural Art world: Interspecies and Greenmuseum. The goal was to create digital music from underwater sound samples of creatures including orcas, dolphins, beluga whales, sperm whales, humpback whales, Weddell and Bearded seals, lobsters, shrimp and water. Together, Interspecies and Greenmuseum compiled a sample CD of 350 captured sounds and sent it out to many of their favorite electronic artists. Scanner, Merzbow, Yannick Dauby, LapCore, Jayne Fenton Keane, Kim Cascone and many others answered the call merging deep sea underwater sounds with their electronic aesthetics. What's most compelling about this project is the thoughtful way that the artists have listened and responded, both individually and as a community, to the sounds of our environment."

Artist:	MENCHE, DANIEL
Title:	Jugularis
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 103CD

"Imagine yourself riding on cells coasting through your body's veins. The sound of the heart grows stronger like a beating drum as you're pulled closer. Suddenly, you're embraced by this giant pulsating muscle and when you're finally released back into the veins you can hear it's sound fading slowly, but still growling with the same intensity that it has beat with for eternity. Jugularis is the soundtrack to this ride and like your heart it's packaged in blood: the ultimate symbol of life and intensity. Recently Daniel Menche has embraced more percussion based sound to create music that manipulates the listener's blood flow and intensifies the listening experience. Jugularis still contains a distinctly Menche sound yet being that it's intensely rhythm and percussion based it's extremely different from anything that he has created prior."

Artist:	MUDSUCKERS
Title:	Mudsuckers
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 104CD

Pete Swanson & Gabe Salomon (Yellow Swans), Tom Carter (Charalambides) & Robert Horton. "Swamp noise drone. Feedback is layered like mud on the carcass of song structure. Robert uses primitive cassette manipulation as well as digital processing to thicken the sound into a swamp. Think Credence Clearwater Revival without the one chord they knew. On three of the songs, Pete uses his analog reel-to-reel wall-of-sound processing apparatus. 'Longjaw Mudsuckers' was inspired by a mid-eighties cassette where Merzbow mixed John Hudak's nature sounds into a screaming mass of sonic debris. Robert recorded a stream after the huge New Year's Day storm and Pete plugged it into his system, making it sound at times like a stream, an ocean, and robots whispering mechanical secrets. This CD contains some of the first recordings of Tom Carter's circuit-bending. Individual attributes of Gabe Mindel's guitar roar, Tom Carter's ebow laptop whirl, and Horton's clanky homemades merge into the mud stew. Driving the swirl are samples of boogie woogie piano, riffs from the session, and pounding drums."

Artist:	GRAILS
Title:	Black Tar Prophecies Vol's 1,2, & 3
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 105CD

"The collected Black Tar Prophecies ends up being a more idiosyncratic mission statement for future Grails recordings, revealing their fondness for the groundfloor '60s and '70s experimental artists that saw music as a process of discovery as opposed to the pre-conceived, pre-parametered, commodified sport that underground music has become. A parallel is now forming between Grails and old-school experimental bands like Faust who, rejecting their past, started over from the beginning to build new languages in music. Grails' third full length recording, and first full-length since leaving Neurosis' label Neurot, is The Black Tar Prophecies. Seven of these nine tracks from this full length were released in small highly sought-after pressings of 12" vinyl on two European labels. The Black Tar Prophecies is a massive evolutionary step in the established Grails sound and it is shrouded in change and pain. The somewhat clinical studio sound and recording style which has established them a tremendous following has been replaced with a much more free and conceptual recording style. This method liberated the group in the studio and these recordings feel much more open, heavy and for lack of a better term, 'psychedelic.' We're not talking about the clich� co-opted psychedelic fashion, but psychedelia as a reckless embrace of new states of mind and possibilities."

Artist:	HOTOTOGISU
Title:	Some Blood Will Stick
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 106CD

"Hototogisu is Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards). They've been laying down billowing sheets of Teutonic guitar drone-noise since 2003 with the thickest possible helpings of vocals and electronics. Some Blood Will Stick is a collection of tracks from their ultra-limited self produced label Heavy Blossom. Songs were taken from Swoon Scream (2004) and Awful Symmetry (2005) with one additional track. What makes this disc more than a simple re-release is the extraordinary scalpel re-editing by Matthew Bower and the crushing and invigorating mastering by Scott Hull at Visceral Sound making this one of the heaviest and most beautiful Hototogisu releases."

Artist:	RIVULETS
Title:	You Are My Home
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 109CD

"Long-delayed 3rd album by internationally acclaimed solo artist, Rivulets. Featuring guests Jessica Bailiff (Kranky), Chris Brokaw (Codeine, Come, the New Year), Christian Frederickson (Rachel's), Fred Lonberg-Holm (Boxhead Ensemble), & Bob Weston (Mission of Burma, Shellac). Rivulets is the project of minimalist singer-songwriter Nathan Amundson. This is not a folk album. This is an album about hearts breaking, tearing it down, and moving on. Rivulets is a prolific songwriter, with releases out on several labels, including Acuarela, BlueSanct, Silber, and Chair Kickers' Union. This is Rivulets' 3rd full length album, and 1st for Important records."

Artist:	ANP (ABSOLUT NULL PUNKT)
Title:	Metacompound
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 110CD

"Metacompound is the first full length studio album from ANP in 19 years. Lavish metallic ink on vellum packaging by ANP fan and Sunn O))) member, Stephen O'Malley. ANP was formed in 1984 by K.K. Null & Seijiro Murayama. In 1987 ANP broke up. 17 years later they reformed for some live performances and released the singular Live In Japan on Important Records. Metacompound, their first studio recordings in over 19 years, is as indescribable as Live In Japan was. Combining free jazz, heavy rock, industrial noise, glitch and free improvised dynamics, ANP creates a sound that is entirely unprecedented."

Artist:	NULL, KK
Title:	Kosmista Noisea
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 111CD

"Kosmista Noisea is a brand new full length from Japanese legend K.K. Null. Packaged in a jewel box with a metallic print on a vellum tray card, this was lavishly designed by Stephen O'Malley (Sunn 0)))/Khanate). Kosmista Noisea (Finnish for Cosmic Noise) consists of live recordings from 3 different locations during the European tour in 2003-2004. 'Kosmista Noisea 1' is taken from 2 separate live recordings and uniquely combined in the studio into one piece with Talcent, Italy on the left channel and St. Etienne, France on the right channel. This technique is designed to give more depth and multiple dimensions. Kosmista Noisea 2 is a 45 minutes long non-edit of an entire live performance in Antwerpen/Belgium, showing the diversity of KK Null's music from intense clashing waves of noise to structured electro-acoustic ambience, droning isolationist material."

Artist:	FE-MAIL AND CARLOS GIFFONI
Title:	Northern Stains
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 112CD

"Northern Stains is the result of a collaboration between experimental phenomenon Carlos Giffoni and Spunk/Fe-Mail members Maja Ratkje & Hild Tafjord. Individually and together, Carlos Giffoni and Fe-Mail make records that are rich, detailed, dense and complex, constantly straddling the line between improvised noise and modern composition. It's this attention to detail and warmth that make Fe-Mail & Carlos Giffoni such celebrated artists and kindred collaborators. Northern Stains is an often absurd combination of live sounds, feedback, hilarious sampling with a genuine sentimental touch, which nods towards both the northern glaciers and the beauty and brutality of nature."

Artist:	SCHNITZLER, CONRAD
Title:	Klavierhelm
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 113CD

"Conrad Schnitzler is a genuine legend in the krautrock and electronic music worlds. Schnitzler studied under Joseph Beuys before joining an early Tangerine Dream. Their first album Electronic Meditation shows a band highly influenced by Schnitzler's unique, singular approach. Schnitzler left Tangerine Dream to form Kluster with friends Dieter Moebius and Hans Joachim Roedelius. When Schnitzler left Kluster they changed their name to Cluster, eventually merging with Michael Rother (of Neu!) to form Harmonia, a group who Brian Eno once called the most important rock group on the planet. Schnitzler also founded Eruption in 1970 along with Klaus Schultz, Manuel Gottsching (Ash Ra Tempel), and Klaus Freudigmann. Looking back at Conrad Schnitzler's career it becomes obvious that he was an architect who helped draw the blueprints for some very significant musical movements. Perhaps overlooked, or at least desperately underappreciated, it hasn't slowed Schnitzler down. Since leaving Kluster, Conrad Schnitzler has composed diligently for electronics and piano. Now located in Dallgow, Germany he continues to accumulate equipment and recordings of what he says is 'cold, hard electronic sound.' The piano is certainly an instrument with which Conrad Schnitzler is not often associated. However, his compositions on Klavierhelm exhibit his highly expressive and free approach to the piano. Calling to mind Erik Satie and Cage, Cecil Taylor and even Carl Stalling. Limited edition of 1000."

Artist:	SCHNITZLER, CONRAD
Title:	Trigger Trilogy
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	3CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 114CD

Nice box of great-sounding unreleased recordings from Schnitzler's vault. No recordings dates or additional information is included, but this is "cold, electronic sound" at its best. "Trigger Trilogy consists of three discs each selected from hundreds of hours of Schnitzler's private recordings. Each represents one of the few unique approaches that Schnitzler takes to recording, each uniquely identified and defined by Schnitzler. Within each of these recordings one can hear how Schnitzler influenced a generation of artists not only in Germany but in the world around and how he's brought those sounds into the modern day. It's also apparent in these recordings that Schnitzler is thoughtful and enlightened, a total pioneer floating freely in a world of sound. Trigger One consists of what Schnitzler calls his 'Solo Voices' or 'Solo Electronics.' This particular recording happens to be rhythmically-based electronic work. Recognizing that in traditional music the melodic line is subordinate to the ensemble leaving it no true impression of its own, Schnitzler has liberated the solo voice in his own music and given it its own vocation as noise, tone and sound. By superimposing several voices or forming a sound environment by mixing, Schnitzler has created new dimensions, worlds of sound where the individual voice is no longer subservient to synchronization or the conductor's baton. The results are sound combinations which adhere to no logic. Trigger Two is what Schnitzler refers to as 'Free Concert Mix Solos': 'From solo to mix, from melodic line to ensemble. Accumulation of voices, note clusters which are not opposed to one another but are equal and parallel in a free play of energy. The mix of solo voices produces concentrations of notes and noises, tangles, compressions, sound constellations, sound catastrophes, acoustic phenomenon.' Trigger Three, the final disc in the Trigger Trilogy, is a 'Con-Cert.' This is a tradition that Schnitzler has been working in for quite some time. Originally using cassettes and now using compact discs, Schnitzler creates live mixes of multiple recordings. The sounds are intentionally designed, shaped, constructed and composed in specific relation to one another."

Artist:	OPALIO, ROBERTO
Title:	Chants From Isolated Ghosts
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 115CD

"Roberto Opalio is half of the Italian space duo My Cat Is An Alien. Roberto Opalio is a visual and sound artist from Torino, Italy. His work includes painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, poetry, glass art, film/video, sound installation, and performance. Since 1998, Roberto Opalio acts as musician (together with his brother Maurizio) in the avant-garde improv duo My Cat Is An Alien. His special works of art represent the trademarked style of all the limited art-edition releases issued on their own Opax Records imprint. This aesthetic is described by Opalio as 'space art.' The extra-terrestrial nature of his work claims its ontological status in the act of creating a non-finished, otherworldly dimension -- a proper alien dimension."

Artist:	MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
Title:	Leave Me In the Black No-Thing
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 116CD

"New full-length album recorded April 10th, 2006, at MCIAA's Alien Zone, located in a remote region of the Western Alps, Piemonte, Italy. After having been irradiated by the Cosmic Light Of A New Millenium, you find yourself facing a black and white cover, where the only view of the universe is foreshortened, and represents a lighted shape showing branches of pine trees under a white sky, within the darkest black. Element which represents the aesthetic detaching and, at the same time, a further step in the duo's artistic process, which determines their willingness to go beyond any goal already achieved. For MCIAA to make art means to risk daring the unknown, daring the listener himself to excel his own limits of perception of the work of art in music, without losing anything of their unique and unmistakable style. If, as many of the international critics have been remarking, MCIAA's works live on the boundary between light and darkness, it's also true that Cosmic Light of the Third Millennium celebrated the light of the outer spaces as well as Leave Me In The Black No-Thing represents a jump into the No-Thing of the empty inner spaces."

Artist:	DEATH UNIT
Title:	Infinite Death
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 118CD

"Infinite Death is the first full length CD release from Death Unit, a supergroup of total psychedelic noise destruction formed by Carlos Giffoni, on electronics, in early 2005 and which includes Chris Corsano and Trevor Tremaine (Hair Police) on double drum attack and Brian Sullivan (Mouthus) on guitar. Covering all areas from total minimal graveyard tonal strange work to massive wall of drums/electronic/guitar assault, Death Unit was put together with one purpose: to leave nothing alive behind. Infinite Death captures the absolute essence and energy of Death Unit by combining a long studio track recorded at Sonic Youth's Echo Canyon studio with a scorching ferocious live track recorded on Death Unit's 2005 summer tour."

Artist:	BAIKAL
Title:	Baikal
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 119CD

"Baikal is a new burner from Bardo Pond brothers John & Michael Gibbons along with fellow Bardo Pond members Clint Takeda and Jason Kourkonis. This time they ventured down the route of heavy free-improvisation and a Last Exit style hard rock approach coupled with a hard psych bend. With two tracks each weighing in at over 30 minutes in length it's clear that Baikal is a deep voyage underseas with yet another mindblowing Bardo Pond side project featuring Bardo brothers John & Michael Gibbons as your tour guide -- and it's a heavy trip indeed. Dive in."

Artist:	AXOLOTL
Title:	Memory Theatre
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 120CD

"Memory Theatre is an absolutely essential collection of the best of Axolotl's out-of-print CD-Rs and vinyl-only releases. Karl Bauer spent quite a bit of time collaborating with Black Dice, Mouthus, Double Leopards and various other acclaimed members of the noise underground before heading off on his own as Axolotl. In the last couple of years Axolotl have released numerous CD, CD-R and vinyl releases, many of which quickly went out of print and started demanding some serious coin on eBay. Memory Theatre collects the best of these out-of-print releases into one convenient package designed by Karl Bauer. Axolotl has collaborated with the likes of the Skaters, Magik Markers, Yellow Swans, Inca Ore, Skygreen Leopards, Religious Knives, and Mouthus."

Artist:	MOUTHUS
Title:	Follow This House
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 121CD

"Follow This House by Mouthus is a companion piece to their 2005 full length for Important titled The Long Salt. Picking up right where The Long Salt left off, Follow This House is a record chock full of manic bad mood energy, crunching resin-soaked jams and hundred year-old instrumentation emerging from the soggy mire only to be slowly pushed back in by poison clouds of delayed-out vocal groan. Mouthus are on a stated mission to incorporate new sounds and new instrumentation into their recordings. Never repeating themselves Follow This House is less fractured and more minimal, embracing the Mouthus sludgefest like a settling foundation."

Artist:	VANISHING VOICE
Title:	Stone Tablet
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 122CD

"Total Can-style audacity from Brooklyn drone stew Edward Goreyian broken house Sufic wanderers the Vanishing Voice. Whatever Kraut or Swede compatriots that may be a part time relation the Vanishing Voice are mining the sound of the naughties in a subterranean part of Brooklyn, as reprehensible as that place might be the beast still roams Gotham and these fuckers got him by the tail. Stone Tablet is a trip to be sure. Mother Mark Ospovat cracks the whip of dogsled Imandi while snarling bad dog Pete Nolan kept a forward propulsion on skins and molten guitar spew. Mad man Steve J Taveniere of local faves Meneguar lent a cool head and a popular sensibility to the proceedings with skills on the acoustic axe to be sure. Non horse Crane, magnetic wizard and DJ let loose his usual bag of hidden charms and H. 'Reality' Diehl, with a voice said to make many a grown man cry, a magik trash harp and the mind of the other, kept us all in the ethereal realm."

Artist:	RAMESES III
Title:	Honey Rose EP
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD EP
Price:	$8.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 126CD

"Rameses III are architects of the most beautiful swathes of blissful ambience whose releases have previously found homes on labels like Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Music Fellowship, Scarcelight, MYMWLY, Barl Fire and Type. On Honey Rose, the group's first release for Important, the South London trio build a bucolic soundtrack to Jon Spira's mysterious short film Suityman. Whilst the influence of Bruce Langhorne, Boxhead Ensemble and much of the 4AD roster can be keenly felt on this six song EP, so too can the wondrous drone narratives that are such a feature of Rameses III's previous works. More structured and melodious then much of their output, Honey Rose is the perfect place for a newcomer to begin exploring the music of one of the finest purveyors of ambient drone operating in music today."

Artist:	BARK HAZE, THE
Title:	Total Joke Era
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 127CD

"This exclusive CD release is entirely different from the LP release on Important which is also untitled. The Bark Haze is primarily a guitar duo of GOWN (nom de plume of one Andrew Macgregor) and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth etfuckingcetera). Auxiliary members have been know to include Pete Nolan (Magik Markers, Virgin Eye Blood Brothers, Cops, et al). Their name came from a mis-hearing of the radical early '70s R+B group the Bar-Kays and from that moment the concept of mis-hearing and allegiance to presenting the mis-hearing as some open-ended musical course became The Bark Haze's identity."

Artist:	LARSEN & FRIENDS
Title:	Abeceda
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD/DVD
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 129CD

"This CD/DVD set captures an extremely special evening for Larsen, one that places them in a perfect visual and musical perspective revealing more than a little about this enigmatic quartet from Torino Italy. For one night only, Larsen assembled their closest musical friends to play to a sold out crowd at the Teatro Colosseo in Torino. The purpose of the performance was to pay tribute to the work of Czech avant garde designer, typographer, founder of Devestil and cultural radicalist Karel Teige and his Abeceda -- a 1926 collaboration with poet Vitoslav Nezva which minimalized text down to its basic components establishing a poetic dialogue between text and images. To Abeceda, Larsen brings their minimalist beauty and melody with this live performance incorporating music, dance and projections. With Larsen are their close musical friends David Tibet (Current 93), Baby Dee (Current 93 member and acclaimed solo performer) and Johann Johannsson (Touch/4AD). The music swells in gentle pulses of softly stated melody. Emotion clings to each note while glistening shimmers of electronics dance quietly in the mix."

Artist:	MERZBOW + CARLOS GIFFONI
Title:	Synth Destruction
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 131CD

"Over 60 minutes of total analog destruction by noise king Merzbow and Brooklyn noise boss Carlos Giffoni, this live collaboration was recorded during Giffoni's Synth Destruction Japan tour in September of 2006. This is Sound Totalism and is as heavy as it comes: totally brutal, totally ugly, totally beautiful, totally intense, totally classic, totally analog, total synth and total destruction. Intense artwork by Jenny Akita. Author, activist, painter and sound artist Masami Akita had been at the foreground of experimental music for over 25 years. Inspired by psychedelic rock, free jazz, early electronic composition as well the physical arts, especially Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau, Masami Akita has created a musical language all his own. Carlos Giffoni, despite his young age, has been an in-demand Brooklyn collaborator for many years. He has worked with Jim O'Rourke, Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, Chris Corsano, Fe-Mail, and many others. In 2005 he released his first solo record titled Welcome Home on Important Records. This is Merzbow and Giffoni's first collaborative release."

Artist:	VANISHING VOICE
Title:	Nordic Visions
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 132CD

"Nordic Visions was originally released in a tiny vinyl edition of 525 copies which sold out immediately. Here it is by demand, resurrected as a digital tiki for the original vinyl release. While Wooden Wand and Satya Sai jammed with the Sky High Band in beautiful California, the Vanishing Voice dug in deep in the frozen Northeast. Snowed in with utopian texts and mounting paranoia, Steven The Harvester, Heidi White Diamond Diehl, and Pete Wolfy Nolan joined Nonhorse in an abandoned textile factory, boiling out these ballads of suspended disbelief and hope for the better world."

Artist:	HOOKER, EYVIND KANG & BILL HORIST, WILLIAM
Title:	The Seasons Fire
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 133CD

"This all-star trio features William Hooker on drums, Eyvind Kang on violin and guitar and Bill Horist on guitar. Sync'd up like they've been playing together for eternity, these recordings represent a dramatic paradigm shift in the art of improvisation. These three thoroughly modern artists scan jazz, new music and noise -- stretching it all out and putting it back together within the expansive boundaries of these tremendously compelling high-energy recordings."

Artist:	RYLAN, JESSICA
Title:	Interior Designs
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 134CD

"Jessica Rylan (you may know her better as Can't) is finally releasing her first officially published instrumental work for synthesizer. Titled Interior Designs, these compositions are more 'classic' in nature than her work as Can't. Inspired by Pauline Oliveros, Eliane Radigue, Iannis Xenakis and especially Thomas Lehn, Rylan confidently takes her place among these monumental artists with this collection of strikingly original pieces recorded on a Serge Modular as well as analog synthesizers Rylan built herself."

Artist:	LARSEN
Title:	Musm II: A Collection of Unreleased and Rare Tracks
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 135CD

...1996-2006. "Originally released as a limited edition CD for Larsen's US tour in 2003 and then re-issued 1 year later on vinyl by Seattle based label Enterruption, Musm has since been out of print. Finally, Important Records is making it officially available in a new revised and expanded version with 6 extra tracks and brand new artwork. Musm II includes all the non-album tracks that Larsen have released since their first full length. 'No Arms, No Legs, Identification Problems' was recorded and produced by Martin Bisi in 1996, and now almost impossible to find. It is represented here by 2 ambient tracks and a brand new editing of some sounds from that album. Also included are 4 previously unreleased mixes from the album Rever (produced by Michael Gira) the award-winning soundtrack of some short silent animated movies by Winsor McCay,compilation tracks, collaborations with Julia Kent (Antony and The Johnsons) and an odd version of Syd Barrett's 'Vegetable Man.'"

Artist:	MERZBOW
Title:	Merzbear
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 136CD

"Author, activist, painter and sound artist Masami Akita had been at the foreground of experimental music for over 25 years. Inspired by psychedelic rock, free jazz, early electronic composition as well the physical arts, especially Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau, Masami Akita has created a musical language all his own. Merzbear is the sixth Merzbow release in his utterly essential Merz series for Important Records. Merzbear pulses and pounds with distorted droning heavy guitar feedback, pulsing noise-blasts and the swirling analog sounds of Akita's distinct EMS Sythi. Like most of Merzbow's recordings, Merzbear is a significant document of his ever evolving improvisational style. Slowly, he's been moving away from his pure laptop era and re-incorporating elements of his pre-laptop analog days w/ his homemade junk guitar, EMS Synthi & electronics. This hybrid sound brings the past into the present and pounds with total junk-collage Dada urgency as only Masami Akita can do it. Cover art by Jenny Akita."

Artist:	SMEGMA
Title:	33 1/3
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 137CD

" 33 1/3 is Smegma's tribute to their 20th century avant-garde and out-jazz influences. The title is one part reference to the happy revival of passionate vinyl listening in the 21st century and one part celebration of their long hard slog of 33 1/3 years of being one of the most free thinking and original American underground groups. Their focus, ideas and determination has brought them through more than three decades and to this day they remain unparalleled, original and highly influential. 33 1/3 is enhanced with live videos of 'Happy Holidays' live at End Times Festival (with Spencer Yeh and Twig Harper) as well as 'Grubsteak' live at the Three Million Tongues festival in Chicago. Smegma. Seriously. They've been at it for so long now that you can't really even say they sound like anyone else. You can only say that others sound like them. They're all here on 33 1/3: Oblivia, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Burned Mind, Conroy, Dr. Id. The core group drumming up their influences and pulling off another burning album of magnificent proportions. While Smegma has never really fit in anywhere their influence on the modern avant garde and improvised noise scene is absolutely undeniable. However, it's essential to remember that Smegma has never been noise for noise's sake. While they've had two feet firmly planted in avant-garde & free jazz, one must not forget their rock roots as well. For this reason alone they're bound to not fit in anywhere. Influences aside, no matter how much everyone else sounds like Smegma, you can bet that Smegma is always going to sound like nobody else. Nobody else channels so much energy, effort, influence or sound into their work. They may just be the greatest American band. Ever."

Artist:	STEFANA, ALESSANDRO
Title:	Poste e Telegrafi
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 138CD

"Poste e Telegrafi is the debut solo album from Italian guitarist Allesandro Stefana. Featuring an all-star cast including Mark Ribot & Leo Abrahams, Stefana creates a dreamy world of instrumental perfection and beauty. Inspired by the work of Ennio Morricone, Ry Cooder, Simon Jeffes, Steve Reich and Brian Eno, he has created a thoroughly modern Western world within his compositions and arrangements. With constant references to traditional music and rural blues he utilizes electric and acoustic instrumentation with tremendously compelling results. Acoustic, electric, and pedal steel guitars along with banjo, kalimba, baliphones and found objects were all carefully combined with some primitive electronic instruments such as an arpeggiator, omnichord and home made vinyl loops. His sound is entirely original yet clearly rooted in traditions such as film music, blues, experimental, ambient and avant garde musics. Stefana manages his cast of collaborators very well. Most tracks on Poste e Telegrafi are duets with these musicians keeping the sound and arrangement simple and pure. Instruments breathe and pulse with life and excitement in this highly original album. To call this a 'promising debut' would be to dismiss the tremendous success delivered by Poste e Telegrafi."

Artist:	IRONS & SWAAN MILLER, ASA
Title:	Asa Irons & Swaan Miller
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 143CD

"This record is forever. After listening to it you'll realize that it doesn't matter that Asa Irons plays in Witch with J Mascis as well as the acclaimed folk outfit, Feathers. This record needs no associations and its songs are so timeless that they feel as if they've been passed around for generations and hardly need any recording medium at all. This is the first release from Asa Irons and Swaan Miller, but it sounds like they've lived within each other's voices for a million years. Asa's deep-breath-voice lays down a mossy hill for Swann's beautiful voice to tread upon. His guitar work is simply intricate and his fingerpicking perfectly suits the way their voices combine to become one. This record always has been and always will be. This record is forever."

Artist:	ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.
Title:	Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 146CD

"Brand new full length album from the Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO featuring their recent addition, female vocalist Kitagawa Hao. Recorded over a period of four months at The Acid Mothers Temple this is a very clean sounding and polished AMT. Frontman Kawabata Makoto admitted, only half joking, that this has the 'cleanest sound in AMT history!' More controlled than many of their speaker destroying fuzz blasted speed guru jams, Crystal Rainbow Pyramid is focused on mystic ambient passages leading into Kawabata's head-heavy echo-riffs. Crystal Rainbow Pyramid is clearly one of the new classic AMT recordings. Prepare to have your mind blown slowly with evolving heavyweight jams and climactic peaks of exquisite ecstasy."

Artist:	BLACK MAGIC DISCO
Title:	Black Magic Disco
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 148CD

"Black Magic Disco is the new all-star band featuring Tom Greenwood (Jackie-O Motherfucker), Maurizio & Roberto Opalio (My Cat Is An Alien) and Ramona Ponzini (Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, Praxinoscope). The project was born out of an idea from Tom Greenwood, leader of the avant-folk-blues ensemble Jackie-O Motherfucker (JOMF), who invited Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, aka the Italian improv duo My Cat Is An Alien (MCIAA), and their close collaborator Ramona Ponzini (also involved with the two brothers in the projects named Painting Petals On Planet Ghost and Praxinoscope, as well as in the new collaboration with Z'ev) to perform with him for two months of touring throughout all Europe in May/June 2005. As one can imagine, the result was killer. The music which came out of the live performances was totally explosive, combining Ramona's Japanese vocals & hypnotic chimes with Greenwood's psych-blues guitar attitude & wild turntablism, over MCIAA's alien cosmic flux of electric guitars, space toys & percussions, creating a still-unheard mixture of sounds unifying archaic & post-modern, Western & Eastern, sky & earth. This debut CD represents a unique chance to experience almost 80 minutes of that pure and magic live action, divided in four long tracks taken from the original live recordings."

Artist:	KENT, JULIA
Title:	Delay
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 149CD

"Julia Kent left Rasputina in 1999, after releasing two albums on Columbia Records, and shortly thereafter became a member of Antony and the Johnsons. She played on and contributed string arrangements to the group's Mercury Prize-winning record I Am a Bird Now. Her debut solo effort, Delay, is a CD of multitracked cello and found sounds. It was inspired by airports, by transitoriness, and by the private emotional worlds that we create amid the disorientations and disjunctions of travel. Delay was recorded over the course of a year (or so) at home in between touring and traveling. After so many years of playing with other people, Julia felt that it was time to do something entirely on her own. As a result, she is the sole composer/performer on all tracks. The title refers to both the effect, to traveling and to the fact that it took so long to record. It is also an homage to Arthur Russell's World Of Echo -- a masterpiece of (among other things) externalizing the intimate."

Artist:	WEISMAN, KURT
Title:	Spiritual Sci-Fi
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 150CD

"While Spiritual Sci-Fi is a result of work that Kurt Weisman has been undertaking for the last 10 years, it's certainly also worth noting that he's a multi-instrumentalist in the acclaimed folk outfit Feathers as well as a member of J Mascis' Witch. Kurt's stunning musicality and absolute compositional prowess makes this an extremely compelling and wonderfully musical experimental pop-folk recording. Kurt Weisman is a New England composer in his late 20s around whom all the wheels of life seem distinctly sped up. The songs already sound like they're floating above something else when you hear them with just voice and 12-string. These are not regular songs with weird production. The alternative to the expectation refers to the expectation. He seems to know every tricky thing that's ever happened in pop music and how to take it further but then takes that further by giving verse tp all these ear-stretching variations on verse 1. There's a lot of weird meter stuff, little skips and jumps or little things that get stretched that seem inspired by his own computer micro-editing techniques. The 'song' and the 'production' are a snake biting its own tail. It's not just electronic sounding stuff (filters, pitch shifts, time stretches, delays, video game sounds, synth sounds, noise, beats) that lives all over these songs, there are also all sorts of weird parts his friends put on top too. Music teachers, ex-jazz students, self-taught searchers: New England is the future of music. Chord upon chord upon chord upon chord. The 'chord' is dead. This is something else. None of this is some kind of other from another genre or some critical or ironic side of his personality, it all grows from the same spirit that made the song itself. Some process is set into motion that's so creative, it becomes destructive, but somehow it all feels really good and also really spiritually and scientifically accurate. Kurt knows we're all going to die and that it's OK. The whole history of the composition is right there in the same space just like the planet, the universe, the soul. Creation and destruction are one."

Artist:	PIANO MAGIC
Title:	Part Monster
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 151CD

"7th 'proper' album from esoteric Anglo-French, London-based 'ghost-rock' group that ranges from brittle folkish introspection to dynamic all-out noise intensity. Produced by Guy Fixsen of Laika (engineer to the likes of My Bloody Valentine, The Pixies, The Breeders, Stereolab). Part-Monster, Piano Magic's 7th 'proper' album (excluding compilations) easily lives up to its title. Though Piano Magic are generally tarred with the brushes of ambient, coldwave or even ghostrock, Part Monster has its fill of all-out, near brutal, dynamic intensity. Indeed, anyone who's witnessed PM live over the past 2 years or so will testify that the shadowy introspection of their records is camouflage for a beast of many teeth. Bringing in Guy Fixsen, of the group, Laika, as producer, clearly marked the band's intention for a rawer, more powerful sound. Fixsen has taken the production and/or engineer chair for such luminaries as The Pixies, Moonshake, The Breeders, Joy Zipper, Stereolab, Lush and most notably for My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. That's not to say that Piano Magic have entirely turned the amps up to 11. Part Monster gracefully manages to balance this cathartic noise with romantic paeans to their favorite subject -- the more cruel, tragic side of their home city, London, and most notably tips a hat to perhaps the most graceful of its outcasts, Joseph Carey Merrick (The Elephant Man)."

Artist:	MAKOTO, KAWABATA
Title:	Hosanna Mantra
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 152CD

"Inspired by Popol Vuh and originally released in a tiny pressing of 550 on vinyl from the inimitable Acid Mothers Temple front man. Guitarist, violinist, performer on numerous traditional instruments, composer, leader of the Acid Mothers Temple, Kawabata Makoto expresses in this solo performance all his mantric cosmical vocations and spins them into space sonorities! He took inspiration from the Popol Vuh album of the '70s Hosianna Mantra, during his visit to A Silent Place headquarters in late winter 2006. In a sunny Sunday noon spent in the country-side, eating and drinking Apulian specialities and listening to some great experimental records, Makoto and his Italian friends Pierpaolo and Pasquale, took the decision to start this cooperation. A few days later, back in Japan, Makoto recorded the Hosanna Mantra album at the Acid Mothers Temple between March 12th and 13th, using electric guitar, bouzouki and sitar. The result is this new fantastic sound coming from the cosmos. A simple gem of crystalline beauty."

Artist:	PITRE/PILOTRAM ENSEMBLE, DUANE
Title:	Organized Pitches Occuring In Time
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 154CD

"Consists of two 25 minute pieces of music, both spawned from the same conceptual composition/score by Duane Pitre, titled 'Ensemble Drones.' With their form reminiscent of works by La Monte Young's 'Theater of Eternal Music' and their tonality touching on the floating works of Terry Riley, 'The Ensemble Chord in Eb with a Minor 7th' and a 'Pump Organ Base & The Ensemble Chord in C with a Major 7th and a Guitar Base' are aural tapestries based on a minimal tonal palette with their instrumentation consisting of guitars, alto saxophones, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, tone generator, and pump organ. 'The Ensemble Drones' composition varies from the traditional sort as it is rule-based with the score consisting of a set tonic, set pitch classes, playing methods, technique restrictions, and spontaneous conduction. The score is a structure for the performing ensemble to improvise on -- order spawning chaos producing order that is different on each occasion of a performance or recording. 'Ensemble Drones' is discipline and freedom, both within each other, the first major focus of the work. 'Variance' is the second major focus of the composition; with instrumentation, ensemble performers, tonic, pitch classes, and the physical space varying from performance to performance, the results can never be the same."

Artist:	ASTRAL SOCIAL CLUB
Title:	Neon Pibroch
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 155CD

"Neon Pibroch is dedicated to the memory of Textile Records founder, Benoit Sonnette. Astral Social Club is the current project of Neil Campbell, formerly of Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof!, A Band and many more. Campbell has been active since the early '80s, and The Wire magazine has said that, along with his friends Richard Youngs and Matthew Bower, he 'provided the map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the '80s and '90s.' Campbell's approach as Astral Social Club could be seen as both a continuation and a refutal of his work with Vibracathedral Orchestra -- a continuation in that it continues the quest into the unknown stellar regions of improvised drone-based music, and a refutal in its espousal of most of the elemental organic rock modes that made that band so special. The focus here is more on alien electronics and overloaded loop disorientation, sometimes even working with sounds more readily associated with the far end of dance music to produce a truly vast 21st century psychedelic sound."

Artist:	(R)
Title:	In Pink
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 157CD

"'In Pink is the 3rd ( r ) album. I've worked on it for almost 2 years, both 'cause I've been very busy with Larsen and XXL as well as touring and working in the studio with other bands, and 'cause it came through troubled and sometimes painful, but anyway intense times. Whereas the previous Under The Cables, Into The Wind was a very warm and relaxed album, and also my favorite so far, In Pink is a pretty extreme one, swinging between joy and fear, introspective moody songs and explosions of -- desperately optimistic -- energy. Still it is more a diary than an exorcism, filled with songs about death and transfiguration, including my version of an Irish traditional theme (which also Johnny Cash interpreted on one of his American albums) and Joy Division's classic 'Atmosphere' (which I list among the best songs ever written). It is also my most arranged and colorful album where my recent experiences as producer for other bands have converged, and the most 'band' oriented among my solos. While I was composing and recording it I was also playing lots of shows and often other musicians joined me on stage. I really wanted to have them on the album in order to get that sound in the studio too and also for personal and sentimental reasons, them being among my closest friends. Paul Beauchamp (who is also my partner in the Blind Cave Salamander project as well as one of the members of the Steve McKay -- of Stooges -- band), Ango (of Mariae Nascenti), il Bue (of Larsen) and the amazing Baby Dee have contributed to the final result of this album along with Marco Milanesio that even this time has not only recorded and mixed the album, but also co-produced it with me.'" --Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo

Artist:	SKY CITY
Title:	Sky City
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 159CD

"Sky City features Tom Carter (Charalambides), Robert Horton, Lisa Cameron & Lee Ann Cameron. Sky City is psychedelic space music with all the atoms of surfaces freed to inter and counter-react. Noise in the outer dimension. Horton's homemade inventions, Carter's lyrical e-bow guitar lines. The walking on the moon vocals of Lee Ann Cameron. The vibration of material planes by Lisa Cameron. The broken blues of the boot (Horton's oldest instrument, 4 strings on a piece of wood the shape of Italy). Sun Ra ark and Neil Young's arc put through a digital blender and reconstituted for space travel. The magical musical thing (MMT), a toy synthesizer from the '70s. A great drawing on the inside cover by Natacha Robinson. A chance for music-induced time travel to parallel worlds and an opportunity to receive a collect call from the future from Sky City."

Artist:	ACID MOTHERS GURU GURU
Title:	Psychedelic Navigator
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 160CD

"Acid Mothers Guru Guru features Mani Neumeier from the legendary and influential German Krautrock group Guru Guru as well as Kawabata Makoto and Atsushi Tsuyama from Japan's holy Acid Mothers Temple. The result is a fiery fantasy filled, loud/soft, colorful trans-generational psychedelic collaboration. The Acid Mothers Guru Guru started in a spontaneous session in March of 2006 in Nagoya, Japan. When the improvisation commenced, the passionate excitement was clear to all in the room and it was then that this special psychedelic trio began. A Japanese tour was planned, an album was recorded and this recording is the fruits of this mutual musical admiration. While all involved will admit that this is a dream collaboration, it was the Acid Mothers Temple guys who were worshipping Guru Guru in their teens. The Acid Mothers Guru Guru is two generations of psychedelic rock joining forces for the 21st century."

Artist:	NEUMEIER, MANI
Title:	Sketches
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 161CD

"Mani Neumeier has been at the helm of Germany's legendary Krautrock group Guru Guru for over 35 years and for 20 of those years he's been working on Sketches, his first solo album. Sketches is an absolutely sacred collage of rare field recordings, tribal music, heavy drumming, dream-like nature sounds and even an electrical generator in Thailand that inspired Mani in the middle of the night many years ago. This is such a personal percussion-based audio-journal/ethnic drum jam, that nobody other than Mani is suited to describe it."

Artist:	VA
Title:	The Garden of Forking Paths
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 162CD

"The Garden Of Forking Paths was compiled for Important Records by guitarist James Blackshaw. Compositions were recorded specially for this collection by Helena Espvall (Espers), James Blackshaw, Jozef van Wissem and Chieko Mori. Beautifully assembled, The Garden Of Forking Paths serves as a singular and particularly unique musical statement. The story of how this compilation came into being is, unlike many other stories I could mention, a relatively simple one. My wish was to put together a compilation of experimental music for solo stringed instruments, with little to no overdubs, that would hold up well as a thoughtful and engaging experience as an entirety, from beginning to end, much as I would if I were recording and sequencing an album myself. Given my own history of composing music for solo 12-string guitar, it may come as no surprise to hear that I have for a long time connected with such music in a very immediate and personal way and when the notion of curating a compilation first entered my mind, only a couple of months or so ago now -- an idea also, I believe, born out of a desire for a new creative challenge involving others and a wish to hear my own music in a different context -- it was immediately apparent who I would like to contribute: Chieko Mori, a Japanese composer, koto virtuoso and one-time FABRICA resident, who first came to my attention with her beautiful and mesmerizing debut recording Jumping Rabbit for John Zorn's Tzadik label in 2005, which ranks itself as one of my all-time favorite albums; Jozef van Wissem, a similarly accomplished Rennaissance lute player and composer from The Netherlands, who has collaborated with Gary Lucas and Tetuzi Akiyama amongst others and whose solo albums often make use of palindromic or mirrored structures interwoven with field recordings to haunting and immensely compelling effect; Swedish cellist and improviser Helena Espvall, perhaps currently best known for her work with U.S. psych-folk group Espers, but who has also played with such luminaries as Pauline Oliveros and Eugene Chadbourne and whose own recent solo work has demonstrated her amazing power and sensitivity as an artist. Each of them has a very unique and unorthodox approach of writing and performing, which challenges as much as it embraces their respective instrument's musical roots, be they in Eastern or Western traditional or classical forms. Despite the variation in instrumentation, not to mention the differences in nationality and backgrounds of the performers themselves, it is also interesting to note certain similarities to be found between the five tracks contained on this compilation. Sometimes it can be heard melodically; sometimes within the movement, space or color of the pieces; sometimes it is simply felt -- a purity or emotional resonance that defies analysis and can rarely be articulated into words, at least not by me anyway. It is better some things remain a mystery. That you would stop for a moment to consider it so is enough. I must also mention that the title of this compilation is intended as a homage to Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges' short fictional story El Jard�n de Senderos que se Bifurcan, although the album itself is not, maybe other than to the spirit and the themes which pervade Borges' fascinating and inspiring body of work."

Artist:	XBXRX
Title:	Sounds
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 163CD

"Sounds documents the improvisational side of XBXRX. The band has built a reputation over the past decade for its singularly high-energy live performances and commitment to pushing the limits of rock music forms and Sounds is the next step in this progression. Through the years, improvisation has been a major part of the XBXRX live show, but remained unrecorded until now. The album features 7 improvisations of distinctive character and mood, ranging from frenzied storms of white noise to pointillistic chamber music."

Artist:	SUISHOU NO FUNE
Title:	The Shining Star - Live
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 165CD

"Suishou No Fune [soo-ee-sho no foo-nay] was formed in 1999 by guitarists Pirako Kurenai and Kageo. They were quickly acknowledged in Japan for their unique take on Japanese psychedelic traditions but it wasn't until their inclusion on PSF's Tokyo Flashback Volume 5 that their international prominence began to grow. Heavy lyrical emotion transcends linguistic barriers and Pirako's blown-out fuzzy free-dream guitar work is an alternate universe psychedelic Japanese shoegaze. They are a forest at night drenched in echoing reverb and soaked with deeply spiritual/emotional melodies. Awash in waves of fuzz, Suishou No Fune's control of detail amidst chaos and heavy emotions is their deepest asset. Here's to the past. Here's to the future. Somewhere between Fushitsusha and Windy & Carl, there is Suishou No Fune."

Artist:	KUBISCH, CHRISTINA
Title:	Five Electrical Walks
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 167CD

"Christina Kubisch is a first generation sound artist of the highest order. Kubisch has been working with electrical induction since the late seventies and in 2003 she began her Electrical Walk installations. Listeners wear specially built headphones that reveal electro-magnetic radiation emanating from the technological world around us. Five Electrical Walks is her first collection of compositions untilizing material recorded during Electrical Walks."

Artist:	KUBISCH, CHRISTINA
Title:	Night Flights
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 168CD

Reissue of this 1987 album, originally issued on Auf Dem Nil. "Night Flights is a groundbreaking work from one of the most influential of the first generation sound artists. For some reason, this staggering work has been left out of print for over 20 years. Night Flights has been remastered and includes updated liner notes from Christina Kubisch. Night Flights is being released in conjunction with Kubisch's release of new work for Important Records titled Invisible/Inaudible: Five Electrical Walks."

Artist:	BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL
Title:	Seventh Ruined Hex
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 169CD

"A further step out in Birchville Cat Motel's ruminations on time/space distortion featuring the additional mystikal talents of fellow gravity destroyer, Matthew Bower (Hototogisu/Sunroof!). Seventh Ruined Hex presents like a lonesome planet, occasionally struck with super-sized fragments of space detritus, but for the most part, just hangs around, spinning on its axis and doing fuck-all. Strangely emotive for 'a buncha noise.' Like the deepest love, it's warm yet tenuous, and filled with the ever-present potential for loss and brutality. More in line with the estranged love tangle of the Birchville classic Chi Vampires than the most recent befuddling hyperspace rock overload of recent albums like Our Love Will Destroy the World and Birds Call Home their Dead. Features Matthew Bower, who has been known to put out a good album or two on a regular basis. Powerful."

Artist:	A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
Title:	A Place to Bury Strangers
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	LP
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 170LP

Repressed! "Vinyl version of the group's break-out self-titled release. Pitchfork 8.4, 'Best New Music.' A Place To Bury Strangers have often been called 'the loudest band in New York.' This may very well be the case, but unlike much so-called 'loud' rock and roll that's out there, APTBS is not loud simply for the sake of it. The sonically overdriven sound they've accomplished is no clumsy accident, but a carefully-cultivated and well-maintained entity all its own, fostered by an unbridled passion that's clearly evident in every live show they play and each recording they make. A Place To Bury Strangers does not so much play songs as allow them to pour out. They are songs about longing, heartbreak and confusion played extremely well and at a passionately loud volume. While there are obvious reference points: Pornography-era Cure, early Ride, My Bloody Valentine, and pre-1990s Jesus and Mary Chain, the sound is all their own."

Artist:	SUN
Title:	I'll Be The Same
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	LP
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 171LP

"Limited vinyl edition of the Staubgold full length CD. 500 made. Sun is the coupling of sound artist Oren Ambarchi and musician-producer Chris Townend. The pair have been kindred spirits for many years, with Townend being a sensitive and crucial ear in engineering Ambarchi's landmark solo recordings. It was their shared love for expansive pop that led them to their first musical collaboration together as Sun, released on Staubgold in 2003. The self-titled debut was a laid back delight of many melodic charms and artful creation, as sweet as it was wry in its lyricism. Those trademarks continue with I'll Be The Same, though the songs here are more freewheeling pleasures where an unaffected sense of experimentalism breezes in."

Artist:	TAU EMERALD
Title:	Travellers Two
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 172CD

"Travellers Two is a full length recording from the duo of Tara Burke (Fursaxa) and Sharron Kraus. Together Kraus & Burke create an ethereal record of dark-folk magic. Tara Burke and Sharron Kraus were due to travel to Finland together for a week but missed the flight, so instead they decided to spend the week recording together and Travellers Two is the result. The time was spent out in the fields, visiting burial mounds, and then coming back to Sharron's home studio to work. They had played previously together and done some recording but this is the first time an album was conceived."

Artist:	MENCHE, DANIEL
Title:	Glass Forest
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 176CD

"Glass Forest is a highly listenable starting point for any newcomers curious about Daniel Menche's vast discography. It is also, according to Menche, the last CD he will release. From now on he'll be releasing his music on LP only or on DVD to accompany films he's been working on. Glass Forest is also the companion release to Body Melt which is being released simultaneously on Important on LP only. Recorded in the winter of 2005, Daniel Menche's Glass Forest displays a glistening sound world that is finely textured with the most delicate of raw organic sound and chaotic electronic noise. Not at all extreme as with Menche's previous work, but rather a more subtle presence can be heard here on Glass Forest. Subsonic bass drums crawling underneath massive sheets of glass-like sound layering infinitely into a thick and dense forest of delicate noise. For fans of Daniel Menche's ambient work and also his loud violent work, Glass Forest fits exactly right in the middle of these two polarities."

Artist:	BEEQUEEN
Title:	Sandancing
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 177CD

"After the by now usual gap of some two years, Beequeen is ready to present their latest album, further maturing their sound from The Bodyshop (also on Important Records). More song-based, this album features new vocals by Olga Wallis solely (with some backing by Freek Kinkelaar). Well rounded pop songs in some places, but Beequeen never forgets to put in some strange element, without leaping in the dark alley of pointless experiment. Orchestral in 'The Illogical Song,' collage like in 'The Edie Three Step' or a simple rhythm machine in 'The Honeythief.' Beequeen does all, and with great care and seemingly ease. This album features also the help of Barry Gray, former (and first) guitarist of The Legendary Pink Dots, and would not have been the album that is without the invaluable productional skills of Erik Drost."

Artist:	RAMESES III
Title:	Basilica
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	2CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 178CD

"Basilica is Rameses III's eagerly anticipated follow-up to their acclaimed releases Honey Rose (Important), Matanuska (Music Fellowship) and Night Of The Ankou (Type). Basilica is a double album of live recordings of new Rameses material accompanied by re-interpretations of those same recordings by contemporaries Robert Horton, Keith Berry, Gregg Kowalsky and Astral Social Club. Each artist approached to contribute to the Basilica disc was given free range to experiment with the live files, to re-invent and re-interpret the recordings as they saw fit. Minimalist sound-sculptor Keith Berry rolled out the slow-motion waterfalls of Basilica and gave the album an early focus and provided inspiration for the glacial artwork. Gregg Kowalsky played the 'Rose Blood' remix as part of his own performance at the OVERLAP 02 event in San Francisco using its tuned sinewave oscillators, cassette tapes and loops to induce, to quote the man himself, 'a psychoacoustic listening experience.' Our subtle textures were pushed way into the red when noise veteran Neil Campbell sandblasted the original tracks into the howling mirror of Astral Social Club. His 'Tigers In The Snake Pit' was remixed live in the very same venue in which it was originally performed and finessed with some post-performance layering. And Robert Horton was open-minded and kind enough to allow Rameses III to remix his remix, leading to the gentle trumpet curlicues and electronic birdsong entwining the original drone of 'After The Red Rose.' Although Basilica was originally envisioned as a single disc album, once the remixes were complete, it slowly became evident that they should be paired with a disc of live recordings in order to put the Basilica disc into context. In contrast to the heavily-produced and painstakingly-constructed Rameses studio albums, all five of the previously-unreleased tracks on the 'Origins' disc were recorded directly to stereo at various venues around London. As such, they fully represent those moments in performance where the trio strive to make the most beautiful music they can."

Artist:	KLUSTER
Title:	Admira
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 179CD

Previously unreleased recordings from 1971. 2nd pressing, standard jewel case packaging. "Admira is sourced from original master recordings discovered by Kluster member and Tangerine Dream engineer Klaus Freudigmann. Along with Vulcano, also being released at the same time on Important, Admira is presented here for the first time in this deluxe package. These intense sessions were made with Schnitzler at the helm, as always, after the departure of Mobius and Roedelius from the group. Conrad Schnitzler founded Kluster in 1969 along with Roedelius, Mobius and often Klaus Freudigmann who had multiple roles within the group as a player, engineer and instrument inventor. Eventually Roedelius and Mobius left Kluster and continued on as Cluster while Schnitzler and Freudigmann continued as Kluster often exploring the communal aspects of music by bringing new people into the group."

Artist:	KLUSTER
Title:	Vulcano
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 180CD

Previously unreleased live recordings from 1971, recorded in Wuppertal, Germany. 2nd pressing, standard jewel case packaging. "Vulcano is sourced from original master recordings discovered by Kluster member and Tangerine Dream engineer Klaus Freudigmann. Along with Admira, also being released at the same time on Important, Vulcano is presented here for the first time in this deluxe package. These intense sessions were made with Schnitzler at the helm, as always, after the departure of Mobius and Roedelius from the group."

Artist:	FAHEY, JOHN
Title:	The Mill Pond & Collected Paintings
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 183CD

"The Mill Pond was originally released in 1997 as a double 7" that went immediately out of print. For its 10th anniversary, we're issuing it on compact disc housed in a deluxe letterpressed jacket and including an extensive booklet collecting John Fahey's paintings for the very first time. Limited edition. On this release, Fahey uses heavy reverb, electric slide and feedback to create an eerie mood. He gets a bit of help from Jeff Allman, who recorded the songs and adds some electronic noise in spots, and from Scott Colburn, who mixed the tracks, but this record is all Fahey. The Mill Pond is all over the place stylistically, so it should confuse those who try to pigeonhole Fahey into any one category. The Mill Pond further proves that there is only one category into which he fits: truly innovative guitar genius." "Four ecstatic, lo-fi grabs for the ring of eternity, recorded in Fahey's Oregon hotel room. Containing the first graspable evidence of John's throat-singing abilities, this represents the merging of the bull and the china shop. The crudity of the electronics and the delicacy of the stringwork makes for a wonderful match." --Byron Coley.

Artist:	THREE DAY BAND (JOHN FAHEY/AYAL SENIOR)
Title:	Three Day Band
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 185CD

"John Fahey and Ayal Senior laid down the tracks for Three Day Band in a Woodburn Hotel room at some point in 1999. These tracks show an undocumented improvisational side of Fahey. It's certainly not early period Fahey but not TOTE era, either. At night after the recording sessions commenced, Ayal would record Fahey reading and discussing selected excerpts from his writing. Fifteen tracks of spoken word Fahey are included. From Ayal Senior's liner notes: 'I think I first met John Fahey at a Vince Martin gig in Manhattan at some point in 1998. He was sitting in the back of CBGB's 'other' space, listening to the gig and painting with fat bright markers in a notebook he carried around with him. I kept in touch with Fahey and he picked me up at the airport in Salem with a blind friend whose name I think was Terry. We popped in a tape of my latest jams from the psych shack into his deck and Terry was really digging it. He definitely said it sounded like Hendrix. Fahey said he liked it too and then I think we went to a Denny's for some french fries and shakes. Readers of Vampire Vultures will no doubt recall my futile attempts to describe or comprehend the state of Fahey's motel room during this period. It was basically a crime scene. Empty fruitcups, wet paint on the carpet... My journal from that week records that Fahey's motel room was not cleaner than his car. We cruised the Value Village scene looking for records. It was during a trip to one of these thrift stores one morning that we bumped into a younger acquaintance of John's who said he'd want to jam with us back at Fahey's motel room. I think his name was Barry. Nice guy. We went to his place and grabbed some kazoos and other hobo instruments he had and threw them in Fahey's car. Next thing you know, we've got some guitars and amps and headed back to the Woodburn Inn with two pretty, young ladies. We closed the curtains and I pressed record. I had brought a 4 track minidisk recorder with me with the intention of hopefully doing some spoken word recordings of John but had no idea that I would be laying down some molten hot psych with thee Fahey. On tape, John's smoking away on electric guitar, but this ain't Womblife. There's three other people in the room besides us and I don't remember any of their names. I don't remember what they looked like or what the hell they were playing but we were definitely channeling some sort of highway poltergeists. I'm playing guitar as well, tweaking about a bit. For some reason, I kept myself from listening to it or playing it for anyone for a long time. Why? At night, Fahey would lie in bed and I'd record him reading various excerpts from his writings. He reminded me a lot of Kurt Vonnegut in his cynicism and gallows humor. I think they would have gotten along great.'" --Ayal Senior

Artist: BEEQUEEN

Title: Sandancing Demos

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 10"

Price: $16.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 186EP

"Limited edition of 300 copies in heavy duty screen-printed jackets by Monoroid. The Sandancing Demos 10", as its title suggests, contains the original ideas that birthed Beequeen's wonderful new album, Sandancing. Original versions, rough mixes & home demos plus an unreleased track."

Artist: FRIEL, DAN

Title: Ghost Town

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $13.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 187CD

"Ghost Town is the first full-length solo release from Parts & Labor singer/electrician Dan Friel. Characterized by its anthemic melodies, complex electronic arrangements and huge distorted beats, Ghost Town is an indie record the noise kids will love and a noise record that'll inspire the indie kids to pick up some busted electronic gear and strive for immortality. Ghost Town is where everyone can meet in the middle and freak out about how insanely good this record is. Think Wolf Eyes playing In The Aeroplane Over The Sea and you might be on the right track. Dan Friel has been using toy keyboards, guitar effects pedals, walkie talkies and R/C car remotes to make a series of instrumental electronics EPs since 2001. Ostensibly a western, Ghost Town alternates between dense, distorted, beat-driven epiphanies, and haunting solos from a variety of makeshift instruments. Ghost Town also features the eye-popping artwork from renowned print/illustration artist Shawn Reed (Racoo-oo-oon, Night People Records)."

Artist: FRIEL, DAN

Title: Ghost Town

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $16.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 187LP

LP version. "Ghost Town is the first full-length solo release from Parts & Labor singer/electrician Dan Friel. Characterized by its anthemic melodies, complex electronic arrangements and huge distorted beats, Ghost Town is an indie record the noise kids will love and a noise record that'll inspire the indie kids to pick up some busted electronic gear and strive for immortality. Ghost Town is where everyone can meet in the middle and freak out about how insanely good this record is. Think Wolf Eyes playing In The Aeroplane Over The Sea and you might be on the right track."

Artist: ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.

Title: Recurring Dream and Apocalypse Of Darkness

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $13.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 188CD

"Recurring Dream And Apocalypse Of Darkness is by far the heaviest Acid Mothers Temple record yet. So heavy, in fact, that Kawabata Makoto jokingly said 'the album is really heavy, maybe a bit like Sunn O))). hahahaha.' Both the CD & LP feature remarkable art work by Seldon Hunt."

Artist: GRAILS

Title: Take Refuge In Clean Living

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 190CD

"Opening with a nod to Syd Barret's Pink Floyd (Piper at the Gates of Dawn) Take Refuge In Clean Living begins with morse code and drops into one of the heaviest slow-burn grooves in the Grails canon. Sounding something like Hawkwind and Ravi Shankar scoring Blade Runner, it's lysergic and earthy for Grails in a new way. The rest of the record moves from blissful Eno-inspired ambience, to epic Morricone rock hymns, to an unexpected take on a Ventures tune that returns the listener back to the very beginnings of instrumental rock music. Take Refuge in Clean Living sees Grails pulling back their already-wide lens on multiple sonic horizons. Grails often take what seems like would sound over-ambitious on paper and make it flow sonically in a laid-back style. The band is defined by exploration and they've created a template for themselves where any style or method can be ingested to reap legitimate rewards. Take Refuge seems to suggest that Grails can't run out of ideas."

Artist: GRAILS

Title: Take Refuge In Clean Living

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $19.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 190LP

Deluxe heavy duty tip-on style jacket gatefold LP version.

Artist: CLUSTER

Title: Berlin 2007

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 191CD

"Cluster was formed around 1971 when Roedelius and Moebius left Conrad Schnitzler's group Kluster. Along with Kluster they have had a tremendous influence on the development of contemporary electronic music. Julian Cope has placed 3 Cluster albums in his Krautrock top 50 and The Wire included the first Cluster album in their list of 'One Hundred Records That Set The World On Fire.' Along with Neu! co-founder Michael Rother, Cluster formed the remarkable group Harmonia. Between 1976 and 1979 one of Cluster's most frequent collaborators was Brian Eno. Berlin 2007 was a monumental performance for the duo as it marked the first time that they had performed live in Berlin since their 12 hour concert in the Galerie Hammer in the Europacenter in 1969. The performance was a massive success as a sold out crowd cheered loudly for Cluster to return to the stage. Fortunately, the concert was preserved for posterity and is proudly presented here on Important Records."

Artist: BASS COMMUNION

Title: Molotov and Haze

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 193CD

"Molotov and Haze is packaged in a deluxe, tip-on style heavy-duty gatefold jacket with the CD slipped into a Japanese inner bag. Design by Carl Glover. Bass Communion is a project dedicated to Steven Wilson's recordings in an ambient, drone, and/or electronic vein. Most of the pieces are experiments in texture made from processing recordings of real instruments and field recordings. The atmosphere of the music has tended towards the dark and melancholic, but expressed with an almost zen-like beauty. More recently, Wilson has also started working with a guitar and laptop configuration -- the first material in this style is contained on this album."

Artist: YEH & PAUL FLAHERTY W/ GREG KELLEY, C. SPENCER

Title: New York Nuts And Boston Beans

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 195CD

"Violinist/vocalist C Spencer Yeh & unrivaled saxophone elder-titan Paul Flaherty team up without the assistance of acclaimed drummer Chris Corsano for the first time. Along for the jamz is bonkers Boston trumpeter Greg Kelley. After performing numerous times and honing a distinct group dynamic as a trio over many years with celebrated percussionist Chris Corsano, Yeh and Flaherty decided to try it out one-on-one. The record comprises of the best from two live sets from a short duo tour in the Northeast -- at the celebrated venue Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, and Nom D'Artiste in Boston. With minimal editing, this is the sound of two people tearing at the limits of their instruments, these iconic configurations of metal and wood; hurling their respective accumulated life experience into one another, exposed and raw. The duo is likely one of the most dangerous configurations for people to interact within, musical or otherwise. Greg Kelley on trumpet is added to the mix and the results mutate into an even more mysterious form -- the trumpet is indistinguishable from the vocals; the saxophone creaks so the voice doesn't have to."

Artist: MAKOTO & MICHISHITA SHINSUKE, KAWABATA

Title: Basement Echo

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 196CD

"Basement Echo is the historical meeting point of two generations of the Japanese underground. Kawabata Makoto, leader of The Acid Mothers Temple, and Michishita Shinsuke, leader of LSD March, are together here for the first time in a guitar duo. Though Kawabata and Michishita are from the same scene, the fact that they are from different generations means that they bring different energy to the collaborations. This fact is extremely exciting for Kawabata, who refers to Michishita as 'one of the most promising musicians in the Japanese Underground.' Both artists agree that Basement Echo was a step into the unknown with neither really knowing what the resulting sounds would be. For Michishita, the collaborations have been a dream come true. He describes Kawabata as having a 'soul of rock that never burns out.' After the recordings were complete, the two friends sat down and raised a triumphant toast. Recorded at Snowflake Sound in Sapporo in October of 2007. Totally improvised with no editing/overdubbing."

Artist: ASTRO/HIROSHI HASEGAWA

Title: The Echo From The Purple Dawn

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 197CD

"The Echo From The Purple Dawn is a brand new full length from C.C.C.C. member Hiroshi Hasegawa's solo project, Astro. Using a battery of oscillators, ring modulators and field recordings, Hasegawa has created an engaging and versatile album that masterfully drifts between spaced-out analog dream drone and a more extreme form of harsher droning. As Astro, Hasegawa is able to combine some of the harsher influences of C.C.C.C. into the world of analog space music to create the signature sounds of Astro. Included is a live track recorded at a festival at the Tokyo Keizai University organized by Tetsuo Kogawa. Cover art designed by Important. Born in 1963, Hasegawa began his improvisation with his voice and drums. In 1990, he made the group C.C.C.C. around the concept of improvised mass-noise with a very loud sound. Members included Mayuko Hino, Ryuichi Nagakubo, Fumio Kosakai. Hasegawa began his solo unit Astro with analog synthesizers in 1993 and continued playing in C.C.C.C. Though C.C.C.C. is no more, Hasegawa has continued with Astro and his numerous collaborations drifting between dreamy spaced-out bliss and full-on waterfalls of beautiful noise."

Artist: ASTRO/HIROSHI HASEGAWA

Title: Live At Muryoku Muzen Temple

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $17.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 198LP

"Live At Muryoku Muzen Temple is limited to 500 copies. This is the companion release to the Astro CD titled The Echo At The Purple Dawn, released on Important Records. Astro, of course, is the analog/space project of Hiroshi Hasegawa of the legendary Japanese group, C.C.C.C. This limited vinyl-only release was created using ring modulator and vocals which are rare these days in Astro recordings. Cover art designed by Important. Astro is Hiroshi Hasegawa's solo project. He is a founding member of the Japanese noise group C.C.C.C. Born in 1963, Hasegawa began his improvisation with his voice and drums. In 1990, he built the group C.C.C.C. around the concept of improvised mass-noise with a very loud sound. Members included Mayuko Hino, Ryuichi Nagakubo, Fumio Kosakai. Hasegawa began his solo unit Astro with analog synthesizers in 1993 and continued playing in C.C.C.C. Though C.C.C.C. is no more, Hasegawa has continued with Astro and his numerous collaborations drifting between dreamy, spaced-out bliss and full-on waterfalls of beautiful noise."

Artist: PARKINS, ANDREA

Title: Faulty (Broken Orbit)

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 199CD

"Faulty (Broken Orbit) re-imagines Faulty (Per-Objective), an hour long 10-channel site-specific audio work, premiered in 2007 at Diapason gallery for sound in NYC, with sponsorship from Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center and the New York Electronic Arts Festival. Faulty (Broken Orbit) is a poetic exploration of mic'ed surfaces and amplified quotidian objects activated into movement, layered against a shifting and slowly settling field of electric-accordion-driven feedback and processed instruments. This massive piece sets out to build elaborate systems in the manner of Rube Goldberg's circuitous contraptions, which Parkins claims as inspiration for both her customized sound processing software and compositional structures: emphasizing idiosyncrasy, tenuous states, and the threat of 'things falling apart.' Andrea Parkins is a NYC-based composer, sound/installation artist, and electro-multi-instrumentalist, acclaimed for her dynamic timbral explorations on electronically-processed accordion and inventive use of custom live sound processing. Together, her laptop electronics and Fender-amplified accordion create a gestural sonic language full of lush harmonics, noisy concretized disruption, and soaring electronic feedback."

Artist: CARTER, TOM

Title: Shots At Infinity 1

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 202CD

"This is the companion release to the Tom Carter LP titled Shots At Infinity 2 being released on Important simultaneously. Shots At Infinity 1 (the CD) is comprised of recordings from various basements in the northeastern USA from late 2007. Steering away from the more delicate string environments and modal folk improvisations of previous CDs, the disk features maximum loop delay drone overload stretched over long, densely harmonic tracks, retaining the melodic content and flow of earlier releases."

Artist: CARTER, TOM

Title: Shots At Infinity 2

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $17.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 203LP

"This is the companion release to the Tom Carter CD titled Shots At Infinity 1 being released on Important simultaneously. Shots at Infinity 2 is two long live tracks in the same mode as Shots At Infinity 1, but more cut loose and blown out, recorded in Nemo Bidstrup's record store and Burnt Hills' basement jam zone. Tom Carter is a guitar player best known for his work with acclaimed psych-drone iconoclasts Charalambides. Since 2000, however, he has become increasingly active as not only a solo artist but as a collaborator. He has performed with improvising musicians as diverse as Thurston Moore, Jandek, Tetuzi Akiyama, Matt Valentine, and many others, as well as being a key member in groups like Badgerlore (with Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance), Friday Group, Mudsuckers (with Robert Horton and the Yellow Swans), and Zaika (with Marcia Bassett of the Double Leopards and Hototogisu). Carter's solo work covers a lot of territory, but latter-day sightings show him to be concentrating on looped guitar drones of immensely stacked beauty, with heaps of psychedelic melodic content missing from the repertoires of many noise and drone bands. His influences include everyone from LaMonte Young to David Crosby."

Artist: MAKOTO, KAWABATA

Title: We Don't Know Where We Came From

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $21.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 204LP

"Limited edition of 500 copies in a letterpress jacket by 43rd Parallel Press. We Don't Know Where We Came From features Acid Mothers Temple leader Kawabata Makoto on both electric and acoustic guitars. Recorded at Kaccho-Buu Matsuzaka by Takayama Manabu. Live recordings."

Artist: MERZBOW

Title: Dolphin Sonar

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 205CD

"Author, activist, painter and sound artist Masami Akita had been at the foreground of experimental music for over 25 years. Inspired by psychedelic rock, free jazz, early electronic composition as well the physical arts, especially Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau, Masami Akita has created a musical language all his own. Dolphin Sonar is Merzbow's full length protest album against the annual brutal slaughtering of some 2,500 dolphins in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture Japan. This is an angry album full of beats, blasts and broken glass. Clattering smashes are pursued by pulsing analog whirls like the heart of a dolphin being chased through the bloodied waters of Taiji. Filtered blasts of pummel and sound slaughter. Another Merzbow classic with the finest cover art money can buy by Jenny Akita. Liner notes from the activist group Sea Shephard."

Artist: LARSEN

Title: LLL

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $24.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 208LP

"LLL is a live, LP-only release, put out as a companion to Larsen's full-length, La Fever Lit. LLL features Larsen, along with frequent collaborators Johann Johannsson, Baby Dee and Julia Kent. Material recorded live in Italy and Austria and packaged in a deluxe, thick 3-color screenprinted jacket by Monoroid. 500 made."

Artist: CONIFER

Title: Crown Fire

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 209CD

"Though Conifer has received quite a bit of critical praise they've somehow managed to live off the grid for the past six years. With Crown Fire, Conifer is finally getting the exposure they deserve. Mixing post-rock, Krautrock, metal and psychedelia, they have created this relentlessly driving and hypnotic masterpiece. Crown Fire's only vocals are from Oxbow's Eugene Robinson fronting the album's final 13-minute epic. Conifer has been writing primarily instrumental music with a lawless take on the styles from which they've taken cue. New content is found by way of augmenting brutality and suspense with time. Conifer seems to reckon with the notions of bands like Enemymine, Mogwai, or Grails while taking an approach toward their music that's entirely meditative (as opposed to premeditated). Minimal, ethereal passages are narcotically lengthened and crescendos of distortion are sustained well beyond the boundaries adhered to by many of their peers. 'Heavy' by way of being beat/repetition, heavy in not only a Shellac/Helmet sense, but in a way that is practically reminiscent of electronic discipline. Crushing riffs amidst the most ethereal, minimal moments. Six years in, Conifer has emerged from their mind forest into the clearing that is the future and past. Band members have come and gone and come again. Crown Fire is the latest battle that Conifer has fought in the war of obtuse movement. Welcoming dense riffage washes over the listener for the first half of the record, referencing pan-Asian themes and musical manifest destiny. The bombast that is their live show comes through loud and clear, intertwined with moments of delicate reflection. Without warning, it all goes wrong, the mainframe explodes, the ships crash, the tide of despair and denial rises, never to recede. Hailing from the capital of the heavy state of Maine, Conifer has an extremely close relationship with fellow travellers, Ocean. These two groups have shared a lot over the years, including members, tour transportation, practice spaces and members of the two groups grew up together in rural costal towns. Though different in sound, they're quite kindred in spirit, and obviously, Conifer is essential for anyone who loved Ocean's Here Where Nothing Grows."

Artist: CONIFER

Title: Crown Fire

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 2LP

Price: $24.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 209LP

LP version limited to 500 copies. "Mixing post-rock, Krautrock, metal and psychedelia, they have created this relentlessly driving and hypnotic masterpiece. Conifer has been writing primarily instrumental music with a lawless take on the styles from which they've taken cue. New content is found by way of augmenting brutality and suspense with time. Conifer seems to reckon with the notions of bands like Enemymine, Mogwai, or Grails while taking an approach toward their music that's entirely meditative (as opposed to premeditated)."

Artist: HOTOTOGISU

Title: Pale Fatal Sister

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 2LP

Price: $26.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 210LP

"Limited edition of 700 copies. Double LP pressing housed in a gatefold jacket. Being a Nabokovian and visceral garden of delights, a musical evocation of memory and desire spread over four sides of vinyl. The sound is conjured forth from dark wells to be birthed, twisting and screaming in silver winds. Recorded at Black Dirt Studios, over an intensive three-day period of hermetic isolation, while snow blanketed the surrounding fields, this work is both more detailed and conjures a heavier, more brooding occult atmosphere and sound, than any previous Hototogisu release."

Artist: TECUMSEH

Title: Avalanche and Inundation

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 211CD

"Formed in 2004, Tecumseh creates drone metal of the heaviest variety although with more forward movement than some of their peers and with the addition of cold electronic hiss. Using two basses, electronics, percussion and guitar, Tecumseh wrap themselves and their listeners in a warm sonic meditative slow motion blanket woven from their skilled use of sound and space. Avalanche And Inundation was recorded in the winter of 2008 with Jeremy Romagna (Yellow Swans, Trees, Silentist). 'This is the perfect metallic drifting off music, almost like they've discovered some new genre, sludge-ambient, doom-age, whatever you decide to call it, it's pretty amazing, and fans of all things slow motion, downtuned and yes, heavy will dig this big time,' --Aquarius.

Artist: TECUMSEH

Title: Avalanche and Inundation

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $17.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 211LP

"The LP version of Tecumseh's Avalanche And Inundation is pressed in an edition of 500 copies. Heavy drone/heavy meditation. Be inside the sounds."

Artist: SLOMO

Title: The Bog

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 212CD

"The Bog is the 2nd full-length release from Slomo, honing down the ritual clatter of their first album, The Creep (2005), into a more cumbersome and laden affair, ever heading downwards into the Northern underworld upon slurries of unsignposted mung. Core duo Holy McGrail and Howard Marsden once again create a lumpy bed of bass-heavy synthesizer and guitar drones while arch-drude Julian Cope provides a coda to proceedings with the recital of his poem Land, especially written for this album.Holy McGrail: Moog Taurus II, Sunn Mustang, Clatter; Howard Marsden: Korg MS10 & Korg MS20, Hiss; Julian Cope: Poem. "

Artist: RILES, ZAK

Title: Zak Riles

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 213CD

"Zak Riles is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in the Important band Grails (as well as M.Ward's band). His creative contributions to the group are immeasurable and can be heard clearly on this self titled debut solo outing. In fact, some of the pieces on this solo record have been reinterpreted into Grails favorites. Like his band Grails, Zak Riles solo work is an elaborate mansion built of inspiration but with so much strength and originality that it stands firmly on its own. On these rocky shores come crashing waves of Sandy Bull, Mogolar, Deuter, Popol Vuh and the Ventures while Persian breeze drifts by wafting the melodies of Hossein Alizadeh. Essential listening for followers of Important Records who favor the likes of Grails and James Blackshaw."

Artist: BAKER, AIDAN

Title: I Wish Too, To Be Absorbed

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 2CD

Price: $16.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 214CD

"Aidan Baker's I Wish Too, To Be Absorbed is a 2-disc compilation of tracks from various out-of-print, limited edition releases spanning the last 10 years of Baker's output, ranging from his very first release to material that was featured on the soundtrack to a book of his poetry. Toronto based composer Aidan Baker works under his own name, under the name Nadja along with bassist Leah Buckareff and also with the trio ARC. Hailing from the Great White North, Baker incorporates guitar, drums, bass, voice and tape loops into his myriad work hauling down a long iceberg of frigid doom, bliss and sound collage. He has also composed work for the The Penderecki String Quartet & The Uxbridge Chamber Choir and he is also a published poet. The first disc in the set features shorter, perhaps more accessible tunes with a wide range of instrumentation and songs ranging from minimal drone to delicate post-rock to ambient trip-hop. The second disc features longer, more drone/experimental-oriented pieces, primarly using the guitar (with the odd tapeloops and vocals) as the primary sound source. Adventures in ambience. Sonic immersion. Introspective dronescapes."

Artist: NADJA/AIDAN BAKER/LEAH BUCKAREFF

Title: Trinitarian

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $24.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 215LP

"Limited edition of 500 copies. Trinitarian represents an attempt to break down the essence of Nadja by offering a solo track from each of its two members plus one Nadja composition; two stripped down ambient pieces featuring single instruments (guitar and bass, respectively) to a full Nadja composition. 'Ousia' -- substance, presence, or essence. 'Hypostasis' -- As above, only referring more to reality rather than an individual. 'Perichoresis' -- A Christian term for the mutual/simultaneous existence of the father (god) and son (god)."

Artist: MY CAT IS AN ALIEN

Title: Roberto Opalio/Maurizio Opalio

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $26.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 216LP

"Limited edition of 300 copies packaged in heavy duty screenprinted jackets done by Neil Burke at Monoroid. Each side features a 20-minute solo track from both brotherly halves of the acclaimed My Cat Is An Alien. Both brothers were quiet about the inspiration for their tracks. Dig in and find your own meaning in the comfortable alien world of the Opalio space brothers."

Artist: MY CAT IS AN ALIEN/PRAXINOSCOPE

Title: For The Tears Of Land, Prayers From Outer Space

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 2LP

Price: $34.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 217LP

"Limited edition of 300 hand-numbered copies packaged in heavy duty screenprinted metallic ink jackets done by Neil Burke at Monoroid. My Cat Is An Alien's new surprising master work is a concept-album split with their side project, Praxinoscope. As always, in a world full of compromises, MCIAA represent fierce independence and complete freedom. Take Roberto's own words in the liner notes as the best introduction to this work: 'One day we realized it was no more possible to discern archaic art and post-modern art in our palette; it was clear that they were both reflected in the same hall of mirrors. In other words, alien art and archaic art are the same thing. All archaic art deals with death, sex, transcendence and Eternity. We're all living days suspended in the Void. The difference is in consciousness: this is real artists' duty. Beyond and other than this, only oblivion.'"

Artist: RISIL

Title: Non Meters Volume 1

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 218CD

"Risil is a collective of musicians that are all somehow connected to each other in some form or fashion. Risil's membership includes Guillermo Herren (Prefuse 73/Savath & Savallas), Zach Hill (Hella), Tyondai Braxton (Battles), John McEntire (Tortoise), Alejandra Deheza (School Of Seven Bells), Eva Puyuelo Muns (Savath & Savalas). The project started as a chance for a large number of people to freely collaborate without a set goal for the end result of achieving a certain sound. This turned into about 50 songs with possibly 5 different versions of each within a year. Therefore, this is the first volume of Risil recordings. They are split into three volumes based on the time each piece was made and the players who worked together the most during each period of open time."

Artist: RISIL

Title: Non Meters Volume 1

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 2LP

Price: $19.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 218LP

Double LP version. "Limited to 1000 copies. Cut at Salt and pressed at RTI for a pure audiophile sound."

Artist: OCEAN

Title: Pantheon Of The Lesser

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 220CD

"Following their acclaimed breakthrough debut album that caught the ears of critics and fans worldwide, and became Important's highest selling album, Ocean has returned with their forward-thinking, brutally heavy and purely minimalist sophomore album Pantheon Of The Lesser. Pantheon Of The Lesser was composed over a period of two years in Ocean's home studio in Portland, Maine. As the seasons, passed each track was written, re-written, played and then re-played as layers were slowly stripped away until the true essence of the song was revealed. Once Ocean entered the studio, it took another two years to deconstruct Pantheon Of The Lesser until they had found the essence of their writing. This disciplined deconstructionist approach to songwriting is how Ocean takes their music into the next level of the abyss. The result of this compositional technique is over an hour of strictly bare instrumentation and a kind of natural heaviness that slowly rises and falls in a pure organic fashion. Everything in its own time. Simply profound. Heavy like Sch�nberg. While Ocean continues to explore and expand upon their 'less is more' approach of profound musical minimalism and sheer heaviness, Pantheon Of The Lesser is a bit more musical than its predecessor. 'The Beacon,' the opening track, was played as Ocean's complete set on a recent U.S. tour and on dates with Mono and Boris. Clocking in at 41 minutes on record and over an hour live, 'The Beacon' evolves in 3 distinct movements with fleeting moments of hypnotic melody and earth-shakingly heavy dirges, creating an all encompassing tone of pure misanthropy. The second and final track on Pantheon Of The Lesser, titled 'Of The Lesser,' carries a similar theme of misery. Written as an ode to distraction, chemical and otherwise, it is Ocean at their most personal: a pure sonic stream of consciousness in slow motion. Packaged in a deluxe foil printed heavy duty cardboard jacket with art by renowned Maine illustrator Bruce Hutchison."

Artist: LARSEN

Title: La Fever Lit

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 221CD

La Fever Lit is Larsen's eighth album in 13 years of activity, and it is also their first studio album since 2006's Seies, after the double live Larsen & Friends CD/DVD set, Abeceda . La Fever Lit features the legendary dub-diva/post-punk-cabaret icon, from Crass to On-u sound via NWW, Coil and C93, Little Annie aka Annie Anxiety Bandez. Musically, La Fever Lit opens slowly, intentionally and deliberately. La Fever Lit could be considered the most focused Larsen record yet, but at the same time, it's also their most experimental and floating. Much of the material on La Fever Lit was composed for architecture, having been written to be played in Torino's landmark Mole Antonelliano, which is now a national film museum. Performing from the elicoidal stair inside the huge dome of this futuristic building, Larsen spread out massive reverberations of sound and bouncing lights upon the audience. Somehow, these bouncing lights are a big part of Larsen's new sound. Cinematic pop, illuminating rhythms, musical weightlessness and the nocturnal noire narrative style of Annie Anxiety. Larsen delivers one of their most unique musical offerings but it's ultimately Annie Anxiety who defines the album. Having seen Larsen live a few years back, she offered to sing and La Fever Lit was the perfect record for her vocal companionship. Her lyrics, her moods and her delivery, especially on 'Lefrak City Limits,' deliver the listener to an old and twisted reality, drowned in melancholy, where characters' lives suddenly make sense, if only for a few suspended seconds, framed in frozen time. All of this happens while Julia Kent delivers her most beautiful offerings to the Larsen sound and Marco Milanesio's production is so in tune with Larsen's sound, that he is able to extract the textures that their music is built on. Every listen brings you a little closer to La Fever Lit."

Artist: BRETHREN OF THE FREE SPIRIT

Title: The Wolf Shall Also Dwell With The Lamb

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 222CD

"Brethren of the Free Spirit are guitarist/composer James Blackshaw and lutenist/composer Jozef van Wissem. Named after a cult of 13th-century Northern European religious heretics, this duo play with an appropriately zealous intensity. Brethren of the Free Spirit debuted in New York and went on a crusade through the Lowlands, Belgium, Spain, Ireland and London even appearing On the Dutch National VPRO TV show 'Vrije Geluiden.' Intricate phrases circle and spiral in on themselves, and in the end, it's the subtle shifts in rhythm and tonal coloration that provide a kind of transcendence in a sea of repetition. The Wolf Shall Also Dwell With The Lamb was recorded at Locksley Hall, Amsterdam in April 2008. It consists of 4 long circular compositions in which the duo employ all methods of contemporary performance styles to free the lute and merge the two instruments. Intentionally recorded in mono, it's occasionally impossible to tell the two instruments apart. Perhaps that's just what makes this duo so successful -- the players and the instruments become unified in historical references to the musics of both the ancient lute & contemporary acoustic guitar. For example, 'Into The Dust Of The Earth' is based on a classical baroque lute prelude from 1650 by an anonymous composer. The theme is mirrored midway, turning the piece into a palindrome, updating the material in the process. Blackshaw weaves his 12-string tapestry, hypnotically intertwining the lute and the guitar into one modern piece of ancient tunage, bringing the lute into the present day. The drawings on the cover by Belgian brethren Wouter Van Haelemeesch reference Greek myths as well as medieval alchemical emblems by the likes of Michael Maier."

Artist: BRETHREN OF THE FREE SPIRIT

Title: The Wolf Shall Also Dwell With The Lamb

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $24.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 222LP

LP version. "Brethren of the Free Spirit are guitarist/composer James Blackshaw and lutenist/composer Jozef van Wissem. Named after a cult of 13th-century Northern European religious heretics, this duo play with an appropriately zealous intensity. It consists of 4 long circular compositions in which the duo employ all methods of contemporary performance styles to free the lute and merge the two instruments. Intentionally recorded in mono, it's occasionally impossible to tell the two instruments apart. Perhaps that's just what makes this duo so successful -- the players and the instruments become unified in historical references to the musics of both the ancient lute & contemporary acoustic guitar."

Artist: HOLY SONS

Title: Drifters Sympathy

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 225CD

"Brand new full length from Grails/Om member Emil Amos. While burying himself in old books on Cold War espionage and '70s Italian horror soundtracks, Emil Amos logged many hours into the night layering endless tracks of improv and then editing them into a cohesive sonic blanket over 2 years time. He emerged with his sixth full length record under the name Holy Sons called Drifter's Sympathy. Listeners will recognize Amos' signature hallucinatory/LSD-inspired mixing-style, heard on records like Black Tar Prophecies, Doomsdayer's Holiday and Take Refuge, by his other group Grails. Drifter's Sympathy draws from the instrumental moods of Grails and melds perfectly with his usually vocal-based solo-project creating a densely paranoid atmosphere that evenly balances sonic experimentation with refined folk/blues song forms. The main cornerstone of influence for Drifter's Sympathy are the German experimental four-track journeymen like Gunter Schikert, Eroc and Achim Reichel whose records reflected a sonic appetite that challenged the limits of the expressiveness of each instrument and tried anything in the mixing process to create a sound-world as labyrinthine and complex as the human mind itself. Rather than making music based only on skill, melodicism, soulfulness or technique, Drifter's Sympathy seems to argue that the most vital quality in music is pure imagination."

Artist: ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.

Title: Glorify Astrological Martyrdom

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 226CD

"Acid Mothers Temple's Glorify Astrological Martyrdom is sure to appeal to the myriad AMT fans who have made Crystal Rainbow Pyramid a new fan favorite. Professionally recorded mega-riffage for a super defined clean sound. Kawabata and company deliver this focused rock explosion full of hyper repetitive heavy hooks and freaked-out, pitched-up vocals. Cover art by Seldon Hunt."

Artist: ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.

Title: Glorify Astrological Martyrdom

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $16.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 226LP

"Limited edition of 1000 copies. Acid Mothers Temple's Glorify Astrological Martyrdom is sure to appeal to the myriad AMT fans who have made Crystal Rainbow Pyramid a new fan favorite. Professionally recorded mega riffage for a super defined clean sound. Kawabata and company deliver this focused rock explosion full of hyper repetitive heavy hooks and freaked out pitched up vocals. Cover art by Seldon Hunt."

Artist: STRINGS OF CONSCIOUSNESS & ANGEL

Title: Strings Of Consciousness & Angel

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 227CD

"This is a collaboration between Angel (containing members of Mum and Pan Sonic) and Strings Of Consciousness. This dense and droney construction echoes platinum reflections with warm fluidity and delicate detail. The more attention you'll bestow on that record, the more unsuspected new paths you'll be invited to wander about. This is an intricate and imaginative soundtrack with several layers of sound, gathering both organic and sonic elements to assemble a post-industrial sound structure. The latter will give life to a noisy magma where unexpected clicks stumble over interferences, where digital accidents happen and where drones, acoustic resonance fill the space in time. A multitude of digital notes will slowly stretch to reach a dark-grey chaos, a pure and clean big bang echoing and calling lost sound memories."

Artist: ANAHITA

Title: Matricaria

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 228CD

"Anahita is Tara Burke (Fursaxa) and cellist Helena Espvall (Espers). Tara recently showed up on Important as part of the duo of Tau Emerald with Sharron Kraus while Helena contributed a beautiful piece to the James Blackshaw curated Garden Of Forking Paths compilation. Anahita is a beautiful, laboriously created and floating affair of skeletal organ drones, ceremonial singing and subtly frantic instrumental accompaniment conjuring up a natural woodland romp and stomp."

Artist: LSD MARCH

Title: Under Milk Wood

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 229CD

"The new LSD March album, Under Milk Wood, is their first full length since 2007's Constellation Of Tragedy for Important Records. With grace (in the rock sense), style, humor & the perfect touch of heavy riffage this tremendously unique and original recording is a classic of the new Japanese underground. Recorded at Black Snowflake Studios in Japan, Under Milk Wood is a fascinating ghostly rock album full of clean untreated restraint, as a grounded calm compliments Takahashi Ikuro's drumming. It isn't until midway through the record that the heavy riffage begins to slowly become buried beneath the white blizzard blanket that is the remainder of the album. Much critical praise awaits this fine album and it's likely to become your favorite snow-storm record, too. Let the electric snow fall."

Artist: MERZBOW

Title: Suzume: 13 Japanese Birds Pt. 1

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 230CD

"On the flagship release to his 13 month/13 CD series, Masami Akita, herein known as Merzbow, returns to his drumset to accompany his complex analogue noise. His prowess as a drummer rivals his abilities as a noise artist making this an essential and exciting entry into the Merzbow cannon. Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13 Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will be released January 2010."

Artist: THIRTEENTH ASSEMBLY, THE

Title: (Un)sentimental

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 231CD

"Though each member of the 13th Assembly is acclaimed in their own right (including Taylor Ho Bynum who has worked extensively with Anthony Braxton) this group is very much a singular musical experience. The Thirteenth Assembly began as a touring collective made up of four musicians and four musically distinct small ensembles: Tomas and Taylor's duo; Mary and Jessica's duo; Taylor's trio with Mary and Tomas; and the collaborative quartet featured on this recording. The group is a microcosm of an exciting community of young New York musicians that is beginning to receive international attention, a new generation of artists comfortable referencing AACM and Morton Feldman, Otis Redding and the Melvins, yet dedicated to finding their own individual and collective voices. While each musician in the Thirteenth Assembly brings a highly varied and diverse set of influences and aesthetics to the table, the shared experiences and long friendships help create a powerfully unified ensemble sound. From the soul-inflected lyricism of Pavone's 'Hate Fields' to the driving jazz energy of Fujiwara's 'Chantal' to the distorted power chords of Halvorson's 'Pinched,' (un)sentimental traverses many stylistic paths, but the album as a whole captures a snapshot of contemporary music at its most exciting."

Artist: VAN WISSEM, JOZEF

Title: It Is All That Is Made

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 232CD

"Brand new full length comprised of six compositions from acclaimed lutenist and James Blackshaw Brethren Of The Free Spirit bandmate Jozef Van Wissem. It Is All That Is Made consists of six trance-inducing circular pieces composed for 10 course renaissance -- and 13 course baroque lute. The titles of the pieces and the storyline critically juxtapose the first chapter of Genesis with more contemporary narratives. This evokes a parallel to the mixing of idiomatic classical lute material of the 17th century with modern folk and avantgarde music. The pieces are played forward, then backward, creating music that is potentially without beginning or end. It Is All That Is Made consists of recurring minimal themes emphasizing the listening experience. The photograph on the front cover was taken during a Portuguese festival last summer outside on the museum steps performing for a large crowd without any amplification or artificial light in true cinematic dogma style. Composer-lute player Jozef Van Wissem is renowned for his unusual approach to the Renaissance and Baroque lute, probably the most unlikely instruments in the world of contemporary music. He cuts and pastes classical pieces, reverses melodies, adds electronics and processed field recordings made in airport lounges and train stations. The unusual wedlock of composition and improvisation creates an unheard amalgam of contemporary folk and early music. Van Wissem has accomplished the strange feat of bridging the idiom of seventeenth century lute literature and twenty-first century contemporary music. Although he uses subtle electronic sound manipulation, he has largely stayed faithful to the particular timbre, resonance and playing technique of the lute. Van Wissem first came to be noticed a few years ago because of his radical conceptual approach to Renaissance lute music: He deconstructed existing compositions, for instance, by playing them backwards. He also composed his own pieces for lute, using palindromes and mirrored structures. His music therefore does not have a traditional linear progression, nor leads to a climax, it rather stays on the same level of intensity. His music not so much demands concentrated listening, as it brings the listener in a state of concentrated listening. He performs extensively around the world. He also works with the likes of Maurizio Bianchi, James Blackshaw and Tetuzi Akiyama. With Blackshaw, he formed the duo Brethren of the Free Spirit. Van Wissem lectures, as well, on composing for and improvising on the lute."

Artist: MERZBOW

Title: Fukurou: 13 Japanese Birds Pt. 2

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 233CD

"Volume two of Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds series. Limited edition of 1000. Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13 Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will be released January 2010."

Artist: DAVIS & STEVEN R. SMITH, GARETH

Title: Westering

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $19.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 234LP

"Limited edition of 500 copies. Packaged in deluxe screen printed ultra heavy board stock. In May of 2008, Amsterdam-based clarinetist Gareth Davis and American guitarist Steven R. Smith convened at Worstward Studios in Los Angeles to collaborate and create music together, the results of which have been titled Westering. Gareth Davis is a dedicated performer of contemporary music who works with improvising musicians such as Jon Balke and Terje Rypdal as well as electronic artists including Machinefabriek and Ryan Teague (Type Records) and has completed the Rabbit At The Airport series of LPs with Martin Stig Andersen and Robin Rimbaud (aka Scanner). Steven R. Smith has been releasing a steady stream of solo records for over the last decade as well as playing in various improvisational groups including Thuja, Hala Strana and most recently Ulaan Khol. This fruitful collaboration has created the perfect meeting place between the scrapings and various layers of musical detritus Steven R. Smith has been known for and the textural, guttural and almost feedback laden bass clarinet of Gareth Davis to create a delicate and abstract musical language of shifting moods and textures."

Artist: SKULL DEFEKTS, THE

Title: The Temple

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 235CD

"Brand new full full length from renowned Swedish noise rock outfit the Skull Defekts. The Skull Defekts is a band from Sweden in the very north of Europe. Their intense, monotonous, rhythmic and sexual out-rock has, since their start in early 2005, been spreading energies of various kinds to welcoming audiences and listeners. The DFX is also exploring worlds of noise, the drone and psychedelic electronics on waves. The Temple is the follow up to last years Blood Spirits & Drums Are Singing but it's deeper, harder, more sex, more occult. With a background in hardcore, garage rock, post punk and experimental music -- The Skull Defekts wears echoes of their past alongside influences from tribal roots music, sufi rituals, drone, techno, no wave, '80s Factory Records stuff and its surroundings, industrial music, the occult, underground club culture and manipulations of the mind. Get DFXed. DFX is sex, rhythm and the power of sound."

Artist: SKULL DEFEKTS, THE

Title: Waving

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 7"

Price: $12.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 235EP

"Limited edition of 300. Screen printed heavy duty jackets. The Skull Defekts is a band from Sweden in the very north of Europe. Their intense, monotonous, rhythmic and sexual out rock has since their start in early 2005 been spreading energies of various kinds to welcoming audiences and listeners. The DFX have also been exploring worlds of noise, the drone and psychedelic electronics on waves on releases for labels like Riot Season, iDEAL, Release The Bats and Conspiracy Records."

Artist: SKULL DEFEKTS, THE

Title: The Temple

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 2LP

Price: $24.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 235LP

2LP version, limited to 500 copies.

Artist: MERZBOW

Title: Yurikamome: 13 Japanese Birds Pt. 3

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 236CD

"Volume three of Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds series. Limited edition of 1000. Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13 Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will be released January 2010."

Artist: TONGUES OF MOUNT MERU

Title: The Ocean Of Milk

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $21.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 239LP

"Limited edition of 400 copies. Deluxe heavy duty screen printed jackets. New project of Lasse Marhaug and Jon Wesseltoft; Marhaug is known from the noise scene, Wesseltoft for his work with black metal legends Thorns. As Tongues Of Mount Meru, they join forces to pursue a mutual passion for drone music. Their debut album The Ocean Of Milk is two side-long tracks of pure elevated long-form bliss. On vinyl only."

Artist: MERZBOW

Title: Karasu: 13 Japanese Birds Pt. 4

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 241CD

Featuring haunting cover art by Jenny Akita; the booklet includes a photo of Masami Akita standing on a bridge. "Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13 Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will be released January 2010. Each volume will be a one time pressing of 1000 copies."

Artist: WHITE, EMILY JANE

Title: Dark Undercoat

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 242CD

"Enormously urgent remastered and repackaged repress/reissue for this much buzzed about record that tragically went out-of-print just as demand was erupting. Includes la bonus track, 'Robotic Arms.' Armed with little more than an acoustic guitar and her fragile alto, San Francisco folk singer/songwriter Emily Jane White offers complex tales of melancholy and isolation. While comparisons to contemporaries like Cat Power and Hope Sandoval are frequent, Emily's music owes a clear debt to classic female jazz and blues singers such a Billie Holiday. The lead track 'Bessie Smith' from her debut Dark Undercoat is an homage to the influential legend. 'Wild Tigers I Have Known,' from Dark Undercoat, appeared on the soundtrack for the Cam Archer film of the same title and Rolling Stone recently placed Emily in their top 5 Hot List in which they describe the aforementioned song as 'melancholy as a rainbow glimpsed through the bars of a prison window.'"

Artist: PICK-UP

Title: Mouthless

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $17.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 243LP

"Pick-up is a new duo of Frans de Waard (Beequeen) on laptop and Martin Luiten (Girlfriends, Uw Hypotheek Advies) on guitar. Limited edition of 300. Hand made cover artwork. This is the 9th release in our Arts & Crafts series which pairs music with handmade artwork by the artists responsible for the recordings."

Artist: CAVE

Title: Made In Malaysia/Boneyard

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 7"

Price: $7.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 246EP

"Limited edition of 500 copies. 'Made In Malaysia' is the single off of Cave's brand new full length titled Psychic Summer. The B-side, 'Boneyard,' was pulled from the Psychic Summer recording sessions and is exclusive to this 7" release."

Artist: CAVE

Title: Psychic Psummer

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 247CD

"Welcome to the season of the Psychic Psummer. Important Records' dream come true -- a full length studio album from Chicago's Cave. Major momentum expertly crafted and embracing maximum minimalism, repetition, Can cloud-bounce & full on heavy chant. Like driving a train full speed off a cliff only to discover that the train can fly and you'll live forever if you stay inside."

Artist: CAVE

Title: Psychic Psummer

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $16.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 247LP

Limited LP version with photocopied insert.

Artist: BARDO POND

Title: Gazing At Shilla

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $17.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 248LP

"Limited edition pressing of 1000 copies on vinyl heavy enough to hold some of Bardo Pond's headiest jams. This is the first of four vinyl only Bardo-related releases coming out simultaneously on Important Records. Gazing At Shilla is Bardo Pond's first release on Important. The two pieces, both very different in sound and feel, have sat patiently in the Bardo archive waiting for the most opportune moment for release. 'Eight-Thousanders' and 'Kali' are both entirely improvised pieces with no overdubs. Slide blissfully into a smokey heaven and then forget your mind in a lower world of strange tones on side A. If you're still able to flip the record when the needle hits the runoff groove, you'll find yourself exposed to the Goddess Kali's naked blackness. Bardo is out. Are you in?"

Artist: ALUMBRADOS

Title: Monochord

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $19.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 250LP

"Limited edition of 500 copies pressed on virgin vinyl. The third in our four part Bardo Pond related vinyl set. 'Deep in the forest ethno-drones, drenched in buzz and shimmer. Sitar, guitar, cumbas and all sorts of percussion create exquisite layers psych drone Nirvana that will transport you to another dimension. Strangely peaceful, the music we hear in our heads when we lay in grass at night staring at the stars.' -- Aquarius Records"

Artist: MOON PHANTOMS

Title: Moon Phantoms

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: LP

Price: $19.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 251LP

On Moon-colored gray vinyl. "Limited edition of 500 copies pressed on virgin vinyl. Moon Phantoms is a collaboration of Bardo Pond, Alasehir and Suishou No Fune. The fourth release in our simultaneously released four part Bardo Pond related vinyl set. 'We Suishou No Fune and Alasehir played in East Coast tour of one week together again in the autumn, 2007. During the autumn concert tour, we had felt like that Moon always chased us. I started to look for where the moon was unawares when we visited each town. I have strongly remembered that the moon was full and very clear cut one night in Boston. The night was very pleasant and let us relax. Michael, John and Jason had a good conversation comfortably, looking at the moon. Kageo and myself also enjoyed the night to be just eased under the moonlight. I believed that we, Suishou No Fune and Alasehir could be one band under this special moonlight. The next day, I spoke my wish to perform music in one band to the members and we, all fall in each other in Providence. Therefore, the Japanese and American band named Moon Phantoms based on the concert tour with the full moon. And Moon Phantoms made the concert tour in the East Coast of the U.S.A. and had recording in Spring, 2008. Then we made this album.' -- Pirako Kurenai of Suishou No Fune."

Artist: MERZBOW

Title: Uzura: 13 Japanese Birds Pt. 5

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 252CD

Featuring "Requiem for the 259,000 quails culled at a farm in Toyohashi Part 1-3." Pictured in the liner notes is a stoic Masami Akita sitting on a rock. "Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13 Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will be released January 2010."

Artist: ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.

Title: Dark Side Of The Black Moon: What Planet Are We On?

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 253CD

"Dark Side Of The Black Moon is the Acid Mothers Temple's follow up to the much loved Recurring Dream And Apocalypse Of Darkness. Focused riffing, super fidelity recording & proggy psych sounds mixing Pink Floyd, fuzzed out wah guitars and sounds from the cosmos."

Artist: ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.

Title: Dark Side Of The Black Moon: What Planet Are We On?

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: 2LP

Price: $24.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 253LP

Gatefold 2LP version. "Includes bonus track and is packaged in a heavy duty tip-on style gatefold LP with artwork by Seldon Hunt."

Artist: MERZBOW

Title: Kamo: 13 Japanese Birds Pt. 6

Label: IMPORTANT RECORDS

Format: CD

Price: $14.00

Catalog #: IMPREC 256CD

Featuring opening track "Bird killer Governor Ishihara deserves to die." Pictured in the liner notes: a reflective Masami Akita sitting on some cement steps. "Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux. Beginning in January 2009 one volume of 13 Japanese Birds will be released each month. The 13th and final volume will be released January 2010. Each volume will be a one time pressing of 1000 copies. Cover art by Jenny Akita."

Previous Page Index of Labels Next Page

Artist:	ELECTRIC GHOSTS
Title:	The Electric Ghosts
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 081CD

Artist:	ALASEHIR
Title:	Sharing the Sacred
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 101CD

Artist:	ALUMBRADOS
Title:	A Generation Of Vipers
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 102CD

Artist:	YELLOW SWANS & BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL
Title:	Yellow Swans & Birchville Cat Motel
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 117CD

Artist:	MAJOR STARS
Title:	Portable Freak Factory/Can You See Me?
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	7"
Price:	$7.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 124EP

Artist:	XXL
Title:	Spicchiology?
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	2CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 130CD

Artist:	LSD MARCH
Title:	Constellation Of Tragedy
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 164CD

Artist:	FRIEL, DAN
Title:	Ghost Town
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 187CD

Artist:	CLUSTER
Title:	Berlin 2007
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 191CD

Artist:	BASS COMMUNION
Title:	Molotov and Haze
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 193CD

Artist:	YEH & PAUL FLAHERTY W/ GREG KELLEY, C. SPENCER
Title:	New York Nuts And Boston Beans
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 195CD

Artist:	MAKOTO & MICHISHITA SHINSUKE, KAWABATA
Title:	Basement Echo
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 196CD

Artist:	ASTRO/HIROSHI HASEGAWA
Title:	The Echo From The Purple Dawn
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 197CD

Artist:	PARKINS, ANDREA
Title:	Faulty (Broken Orbit)
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 199CD

Artist:	CARTER, TOM
Title:	Shots At Infinity 1
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 202CD

Artist:	CONIFER
Title:	Crown Fire
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 209CD

Artist:	TECUMSEH
Title:	Avalanche and Inundation
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 211CD

Artist:	RILES, ZAK
Title:	Zak Riles
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 213CD

Artist:	BAKER, AIDAN
Title:	I Wish Too, To Be Absorbed
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	2CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 214CD

Artist:	NADJA/AIDAN BAKER/LEAH BUCKAREFF
Title:	Trinitarian
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	LP
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 215LP

Artist:	MY CAT IS AN ALIEN/PRAXINOSCOPE
Title:	For The Tears Of Land, Prayers From Outer Space
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	2LP
Price:	$34.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 217LP

Artist:	RISIL
Title:	Non Meters Volume 1
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 218CD

Artist:	BRETHREN OF THE FREE SPIRIT
Title:	The Wolf Shall Also Dwell With The Lamb
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 222CD

Artist:	HOLY SONS
Title:	Drifters Sympathy
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 225CD

Artist:	STRINGS OF CONSCIOUSNESS & ANGEL
Title:	Strings Of Consciousness & Angel
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 227CD

Artist:	ANAHITA
Title:	Matricaria
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 228CD

Artist:	THIRTEENTH ASSEMBLY, THE
Title:	(Un)sentimental
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 231CD

Artist:	VAN WISSEM, JOZEF
Title:	It Is All That Is Made
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 232CD

Artist:	DAVIS & STEVEN R. SMITH, GARETH
Title:	Westering
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	LP
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 234LP

Artist:	SKULL DEFEKTS, THE
Title:	The Temple
Label:	IMPORTANT RECORDS
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	IMPREC 235CD