New Releases for April 2008

Index of New Releases for April 2008

Artist:	JUNIOR BOYS
Title:	No Kinda Man
Label:	GET PHYSICAL MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	GPM 087EP

"No Kinda Man" from Junior Boys was first heard on their contribution to Get Physical's Body Language mix series. "No Kinda Man" begins with a stormy low-end rumble broken by a repeated, chiming guitar chord, a spacious, dubby 4x4 rhythm and Jeremy's plaintive, quietly imploring vocal. An added 12-bar blues structure is further proof that Junior Boys' music pays no heed to traditional genre boundaries. Classic, yet utterly contemporary. Jona and Chloé provide remixes.

GLIMPSE (GERMANY)

Artist:	GLIMPSE
Title:	5 Easy Pieces EP
Label:	GLIMPSE (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	GLIMPSE 007EP

"The next record in the new series from Glimpse since his brilliantly received Masculine EP. Glimpse releases 4 outstanding new tracks yet again displaying the diversity of his sound and production. '5 Easy Pieces' is a conscious progression in his sound and identity, further chasing the essence of a song, while still retaining his trademark jacking rhythms and eye for description texture and detail. 5 Easy Pieces is a dynamic release that covers a broad pallet of sound, from the harsh synths under the divaesque vocals of Patricia Wade in 'Pushing Claude' to the sultry beauty of 'In My Soul' with his trademark hypnotic vocals weaving between deep chords courtesy of the DX7. For the first time on Glimpse, Christopher Spero asks for a remix from his good friend Undo (Factor City Records) who remixes '100% Shiraz.' Taken from Glimpse '80% Black.' The release also sees him team up with Matt Tolfrey (Leftroom records) for the final track 'Misunderstood,' a monster of a track with a beautiful acid line building to some pounding live piano and trumpet action."

GUERSSEN RECORDS (SPAIN)

Artist:	PERERIN
Title:	Yng Ngolau Dydd
Label:	GUERSSEN RECORDS (SPAIN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	GUESS 020CD

"Welsh folk prog group Pererin are still not known to have released a 4th album in their career, and that's because it was only released on cassette, and most of the copies remained shelved without distribution. But it's a wonderful album and here we are to rescue that music before it's too late! Released in the mid-'80s, Yng Ngolau Dydd is the most traditional work by Pererin. On this one you won't find electric guitar or keyboards. This is much more traditional Welsh folk, with strong use of mandolin, as well as electric guitar, percussions, violin and some flute as well. A strong album, featuring some tracks that might be among the best of the group's whole repertory, like the instrumental closing track, which still has the relaxing prog feel of some earlier works. Now released in a 500 limited CD-only pressing, with master tape sound and new artwork."

Artist:	COOLEY-MUNSON
Title:	In Debt
Label:	GUERSSEN RECORDS (SPAIN)
Format:	LP
Price:	$28.00
Catalog #:	GUESS 040LP

LP version. "Bill Cooley and Alan Munson were two friends in Santa Barbara, California, living their early 20s writing folk-rock songs for their pleasure. That was 1972, and they decided to put these songs into the studio, self-produce the album and press a tiny quantity of 500 pieces hoping it could help getting a contract with a major company. This never happened, as you would have guessed, and sure this fact helped making their sole album, In Debt, a major collectable item in the folk-rock and psychedelic rock listeners and collectors. Today, original copies of this record fetch quite interesting sums when changing hands in record fairs or internet auctions. Being a private pressing, you can easily imagine it's not a big production, but no care. This album has the right feel and you won't need anything else to make it one of your faves. All tracks are original compositions, and the style is very personal. It's folk-rock, but many tracks are quite psychedelic too, in their own way. But don't look close for influences, they will not come to mind that easily. Bill and Alan had their own psychedelic folk-rock style, and the raw, sometimes amateurish feel that these recordings have give the album the final distinctive touch. Never reissued before in any format, now here we come with a splendid reissue, with the collaboration of the guys."

Artist:	MUNSON, ALAN
Title:	Good Morning World
Label:	GUERSSEN RECORDS (SPAIN)
Format:	LP
Price:	$28.00
Catalog #:	GUESS 041LP

LP version. Limited 500 copies vinyl pressing, comes with an insert with liner notes and unseen photos. "Alan Munson, the songwriter of Cooley-Munson duo, continued the folk-rock way. It took him some time, but in 1975 he was ready for what is (for him, and for me too), his best '70s work. Good Morning World includes nine original, acoustic based songs with a mellow psych and folk rock sound across this album. Meaningful and understandable lyrics, delivered by 'close-up' lead vocals, and background harmony vocals. Instruments played on the album include 6 string acoustic guitar, 12 string acoustic guitar, electric bass and percussion. Song arrangements include multiple guitar harmony lead solos and fills."

HAPNA (SWEDEN)

Artist:	TAPE
Title:	Opera Plus
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 040CD

Opera Plus is a reissue of Tape's 2002 full-length debut Opera (HAPNA 009CD), with three new tracks taken from the original 2002 sessions. Tape are Johan Berthling, Andreas Berthling and Tomas Hallonsten: guitars, laptop, pedals, synthesizers, harmonium, melodica, field recordings, percussion, harmonica, zither, piano, flute, bells, glockenspiel, accordion, trumpet, paper, styrofoam, yongmei. As Stephan Mathieu wrote at the time of this release, "Tape's music lives at the intersection of a 21st century chamber music and an imaginary folklore. Slowly passing by vast yellow rape fields and ancient, abandoned factories, the music on my headphones seems to fit almost too perfectly. The sun and nature are certainly core ingredients of Opera and its slowly floating melodies carry the spirit of travel, not on an aircraft, but submerged in a landscape instead." In the meantime, Tape have distilled their sound with their albums such as Milieu, Rideau, as well as collaborations with Tenniscoats more and more into an organic song-like format. While all of them are excellent, Tape's essence can be found in Opera. Listening to Opera again after almost six years, it proves to be a truly great and timeless album. Now in a digipak with new cover art.

Artist:	TAPE
Title:	Milieu Plus
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 041CD

Milieu Plus is a reissue of Tape's 2003 second full-length, Milieu (HAPNA 014CD), with four new tracks taken from the original 2003 sessions. When this album first came out, it sounded like nothing else. Seemingly improvised but still so tenderly composed, it took cues from both the most gentle free jazz and Brian Eno's ideas of ambient music, but at the same time leaning against both Swedish folk music and broken pop balladry. Milieu -- together with its forerunner Opera -- became something of a stepping stone for, if not a new kind of pop, at least a new way of approaching it and a new way of seeing what it could achieve. Tape had very little to do with traditional experimental music, they never fitted into jazz and -- although many tried to -- their beautiful songs could not by any means be labelled electronica. Instead it was the genuine gentleness itself of Tape's music that spoke to their soul mates across the world. Milieu opened a door to a musical heart their contemporaries had been trying to reach for a long time. As Andres Lokko describes of this release, "Tape stir up such forgotten feelings, they restore fading pictures we don't really want to share with anyone else. Or in some cases have forgotten they were ever there in the first place. The aching slowness of these melodies awaken reluctant nostalgia; a forced sentimentality. And they do so without the aid of words, only with the purest music; the electricity in the air that surrounds the captured moment." Now in a digipak with new cover art.

HEAVY BLOSSOM

Artist:	HOTOTOGISU
Title:	Under The Rose
Label:	HEAVY BLOSSOM
Format:	LP
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	HB 021LP

"Hototogisu's first LP release on their own imprint Heavy Blossom. Under The Rose is a pair of incantations for the dark and vengeful animal spirits. Sung in two parts, malignant coronation and origami skulls are blackened arias, dizzying vortices and canyons of screams, guitars and chaotic rhythms. Arising from this richly recorded and mastered vinyl slab come black tarpits of malevolence and savage beauty, harking back to a pre-Christian universe of animating spirits and tutelary daemons. Comes in a black jacket with a full-color photograph attached to the front cover and thickly inked silk-screened backs. Edition of 600."

HELEN SCARSDALE AGENCY

Artist:	NILSEN & STILLUPPSTEYPA, BJ
Title:	Passing Out
Label:	HELEN SCARSDALE AGENCY
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	HMS 013CD

"The first chapter found the drink. The second came after a night of intoxicated shouting. The third chapter is inevitable: Passing Out. The Nordic sound artists BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa have authored the last component to a trilogy of isolationist compositions for barren field recordings and lumbering electric drones, thematically linked in the psychotropic effects of alcohol. In doing so, they have issued a brief statement in defense of their research: 'It's been four years and three studies, Passing Out being the final. Even in its most general, colloquial usage, Passing Out indicates the occurrence of a state that is incompatible with active behavior. It is possible that the individual could experience both consciousness and unconsciousness at the same time while encountering Passing Out.' Yes, Passing Out is a crepuscular recording, with the flickering of twilight further dimmed by the distant arctic sun in wintertime and the blackened numbness of too much drink. With one singular track that spans 60 minutes, a nearly constant thrum and rumble of monochromatic low frequencies casts a grim pall upon the precisely dialed-in modulations and vibrations. Spectral guitars, maudlin tunes from haunted radios, angrily growling voices, and field recordings of wind-whipped snow and ice bury themselves deep amidst these subharmonic drones. All of these tease at the edge of perception, sculpting the narrative of the drone into a vehicle for unhinged expressionism of varying degrees of horror, melancholy, beauty, and oblivion. The Swedish born BJ Nilsen defines his work as 'focused upon the sound of nature and its effects on humans, and the perception of time and space as experienced through sound.' He has numerous recordings on Touch and has collaborated with the likes of Chris Watson, Christian Fennesz, and Z'ev. The Icelandic citizens Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson are Stilluppsteypa, whose electronic abstractions engage absurd theatrics that mar the pristine surface of minimalism. Passing Out features letterpress and silkscreen artwork in an edition of 1000."

HELICOPTER

Artist:	SPACEK, SISSY
Title:	California Ax
Label:	HELICOPTER
Format:	4CD
Price:	$34.00
Catalog #:	H 050CD

"Up to this point, Sissy Spacek have only released 4 proper albums, all of which could probably be squeezed together onto one CD. What we have in this release is 4 new full length albums recorded throughout 2007. Tinsel Dripping Ink (disk 1) is 26 tracks in 45 minutes covering all territory from grindcore, noise, electro-acoustic improv, musique concrete, noisecore, and electronics. It's primarily made up of new work, but also roots through the cutting floor for the best bits that didn't make it onto previous efforts for one reason or another, with a few tracks dating as far back as 1998. Police (disk 2) is 11 tracks in 40 minutes of electro-acoustic improv with girls on drums. Abreq Ad Habra (disk 3) gets its title from an Arabic phrase pre-dating 'Abracadabra' that translates 'hurl a lightning bolt even unto death' which we'll choose to misread as 'hurl an even lightning bolt until death.' This disc contains the most raw recordings Sissy Spacek have ever released, the first being a 40-minute inferno recorded on KXLU and the second from a 20-minute live set in 2002 in St. Louis. 13-Tet Los Angeles (disk 4) is a live document of a 13-piece lineup that performed two sets at The Smell in Los Angeles in December 2007 and is also the first live performance of a score by John Wiese. There are also many contributors to this set aside from original members of John Wiese and Corydon Ronnau: Mitchell Brown, Sarah Cake, Kevin Drumm, Gerritt, Kate Hall (Mika Miko), Joseph Hammer (Solid Eye), Aaron Hemphill (Liars, Skull Sküll), Jesse Jackson (Flaspar), Greg Kelley (Nmperign), Tim Koh (White Magic, Ariel Pink), Danny McClain (Grand Ulena), Giles Miller, Oblivia (Smegma), Andy Ortmann (Panicsville), Sam Ott (The Fucking Angels), Tom Recchion (Airway, LAFMS), Damion Romero (Speculum Fight), Jarrett Silberman (Skull Sküll, Young People), Dean Spunt (No Age), David Scott Stone (Melvins, Get Hustle), and Shannon Walter (16 Bitch Pileup)."

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Artist:	WIESE & C. SPENCER YEH, JOHN
Title:	New York/Atlanta
Label:	HELICOPTER
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	H 049CD