Browse by Label: VERY FRIENDLY (UK)

Artist:	NO NECK BLUES BAND
Title:	Letters From The Earth
Label:	VERY FRIENDLY (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VF 031CD

UK reissue of this 1996 release, originally on Sound @ One/Ser. This double CD outputs 111 or so minutes worth of this group's dizzying array of sonic blattage, cable disruption, tribal tranceadelics and trip or drone aesthetic. I heard that this was largely recorded on a NYC rooftop, but you certainly can't hear any breeze -- there is, however, some serious driftage going on all over the place. Out-of-nowhere double album magnum opuses tend to go on to have genre defining significance, and it's easy to see this one having research visibility for decades to come, as the pinnacle of its contemporary scene. Packaged in a slimline jewel case (to assure those worried this thing would come wrapped in tree bark or something), with an intriguing multi-page booklet of almost Gysin-esque hieroglyphics.

Artist:	CLUCK, DIANE
Title:	Monarcana
Label:	VERY FRIENDLY (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	VF 035CD

"These songs were recorded at home from 2001-2004. Spontaneous songs, not like those worked on/recreated for live shows. For me they are direct communication. I have no idea what, if anything they might mean to other people. It feels good to offer them that way. Sometimes I'm asked why or it's assumed I intend to make 'lo-fi' recordings -- it's really just that when the baby's coming you don't always have time to sterilize the rags. When I hear a recorded song the music rises up & out from any tape hiss, digital clicking, etc... In my experience it doesn't interfere with what's happening/being conveyed. What is happening? An attempt to share & to connect thwarts & acceptances." -- Diane Cluck. Melodic innovation and off-kilter, bewitching harmonies -- an insanely beautiful album.

Artist:	KID 606
Title:	Who Still Kill Sound?
Label:	VERY FRIENDLY (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VF 004CD

"Who Still Kill Sound? Aka 'vol.2', more shiz, didn't fit on Kill Sound before sound kills you, more nails in the coffin, purging the soul, flogging a dead laptop, milking the cow dry, cleaning out the hard drive, stuff that didn't fit anywhere else, stuff that maybe doesn't even fit here. Ingredients: two booming thematically linked neo-rave breakbeat tracks, one live acid-house basement party jam, two rinsing ragga jungle slammers, four booty bass bouncers/two with vocals from Sue Cie of Gold Chains fame, one crunked up DJ Screw tribute, one unfinished Cex remix, one sweet emo Monosynth song Kid did when 17 in lots of pain after coming home from the orthodontist, one really good different version of a remix Kid did for Com.a, and 2 gabber blowouts Kid made to finish live shows with to try and crush the soundsystem while still retaining a element of danceable fun musical enjoyment (you can decide how it all came out)."

Artist:	JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER
Title:	Freedomland
Label:	VERY FRIENDLY (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	VF 045CD

This is a collection of live-recorded improvised material by Portland, Oregon's Jackie-O Motherfucker. Compiled by founding member Tom Greenwood, this music captures the sound of a reconfigured Jackie-O during the late summer of 2006, with vocalist Eva Salens (Inca Ore), Tom Greenwood, Danny Sasaki, and Nick Bindeman. Their first stop was at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, where the group were scheduled for their first appearance supporting the Dirty Three. There they would begin -- unrehearsed in this formation, and in front of a large audience. The plans to perform material from their newest release Flags of the Sacred Harp were scrapped, and the band launched into a free-form set of improvised, trance-inducing, punk-inspired, psychedelic rock, which became the framework of the new music they would develop together over the next few years. Freedomland is the document of this trip through America. The record consists of location recordings, captured live, and mastered in the United Kingdom. The songs were created from the spirit of improvisation, and honed by performing nightly in dive bars, music halls, and art galleries across America. Salens' vocal delivery is raw and honest, the words flow from conversations, to streams-of-sub-conscious conjuring, and prayer. Guitars alternately soar into cloud-scapes, and battle like free-jazz saxophones, propelling the group into new terrain nightly, while the percussion of Danny Sasaki alternates between exploratory and dead-solid motoric. The collection was edited by Tom Greenwood, from dozens of live recordings, and captures a rare moment in the band's long and confusing history. As Greenwood himself describes, this is "truly the music of everyday life -- birthed each night in a new form, from musicians who put great faith in each other, under awesome strain at times, to project modern music, with soul."

Artist:	ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE COSMIC INFERNO
Title:	Journey Into The Cosmic Inferno
Label:	VERY FRIENDLY (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	VF 046CD

The "Cosmic Inferno" manifestation of Acid Mothers Temple was initially formed in 2005, in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the planetary sonic event that is Acid Mothers Temple. As leader Kawabata Makoto explains: "Though we shall henceforth be Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno, the new group will also be known in short as Acid Mothers Temple and this will no doubt sow confusion in the minds of many. But the true manifestations of Acid Mothers Temple are many -- Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno, Acid Mothers Temple SWR. The future may see yet other groups bearing similar names. But each and all of them will be true manifestations of Acid Mothers Temple." This is the first studio recording since the addition of Pikachu, drummer and vocalist with Osaka grenade-girl duo, Afrirampo. A churning psychedelic mandala driven by Pikachu and Koji Shimura's (ex-Mainliner, ex-High Rise, ex-Nagisa Ni Te) explosive twin drum assault. The original super-heavy AMT & TCI groove is blended with Pikachu's wild and spontaneous power. Against a background of ultra-loud fuzz-wah guitar and swooping space sounds, Pikachu and Tabata's (Zeni Geva, ex-Boredoms) twin vocals beckon you on an endless journey through the cosmic inferno!

Artist:	KID606
Title:	Die Soundboy Die
Label:	VERY FRIENDLY (UK)
Format:	LP+CD
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	VF 047LP

Kid606 lives in Berlin now and returns to the Very Friendly fray with the vinyl EP Die Soundboy Die, six original songs (9 included on the CD) that devour and warp current musical trends like dubstep, bassline, ragga, techno and rave (both old and new) in his very unique and original way. These songs are all dark and scary bass-heavy jams made to help celebrate life while thinking about death. Hopefully stopping short of being a concept recording, every song is different in style and tempo, but a clear musical ideology links these songs together. The louder these songs are played, the better they will be felt. Tested on soundsystems and PAs worldwide, these songs have the low-end to make your ass shake and stomach rumble, all with mad respect to the dub and bass legends and current artists who have influenced him. Die Soundboy Die is the perfect teaser for Kid606's completely different, much happier full-length album Give Up Then Get Down coming in early 2009. Accurate words from diskant.net: "Perhaps one of the most straightforward things he's done. Straightforward in the sense that it's fantastic, pounding technojoy of the highest level. Absolutely dominated by pulsatile, growling bass lines, there are obvious dubstep grooves here, but delivered at the restless, aggressive pace we've come to expect from 606." Kid606 has taken the signifiers of classic electronica from the past decade (bits of jump-up, techno, hardcore and bass line all take the lead at various points) to create a miniature tour de force of dancefloor-fillers.

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