|
|
|
|
viewing 1 To 25 of 32 items
Next >>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2LP
|
|
AMI 054LP
|
"Primitive Art Group 1981-1986 is presented on gatefold 2LP, and is a combination of the group's only two albums, consisting of one LP of Five Tread cuts plus 'Cecil Likes to Dance' a never-before-released live recording from Thistle Hall (1984) and the full 1985 LP Future Jaw-Clap. This material that has been unavailable since mid-1980s. It is well documented that in the early '80s, New Zealand was awash with adventurous new music. Though sharing the kind of happy isolation and the DIY ethic with contemporaneous outfits like Flying Nun, South Indies, and Xpressway, one band cut a decidedly different path. The Primitive Art Group, formed in Wellington, devoted itself to collective improvisation coming out of a jazz tradition. With the line-up of Anthony Donaldson (drums), David Donaldson (bass), Neil Duncan (saxes), Stuart Porter (saxes), David Watson (guitar), and originally with Pam Grey (on cello), the group's relatively brief existence left a lasting impression on the New Zealand's free music scene. Musically, there was no precedent in New Zealand for their combination of noise, collective playing and compositional freedom. The band's five-year lifespan was non-stop activity: rehearsing, touring, the creation of Braille Records (their own record label which released ten LPs), dance and theater work, appearances at music festivals, and hosting two hugely influential national festivals of improvisation at Thistle Hall, Wellington. In 1984, Primitive Art Group spent a week making their first recording, an ambitious double LP, Five Tread, which had only a single pressing and sold-out locally. One year later they were back in the studio making their second album, Future Jaw-Clap. This outing contained tighter pieces, as the band widened its repertoire with nods to broader influences and antecedents. In 1986, The Primitive Art Group gave their last concert at the Wellington Town Hall, just a half mile from Rawa House and the legendary Thistle Hall where their first shows had taken place. The band's Braille Records' recordings have never been released outside of New Zealand, nor have ever been available digitally. The group's brief tenure has continued to inspire new generations of improvisers, but nothing has ever quite matched the visceral blast of the Primitive Art Group's arrival on the scene. Every member of the group has carried on doing creative work at the highest levels: scoring films, making art, mentoring, organizing, touring and always playing."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMI 057LP
|
"Verity Den is comprised of Carrboro-via-Bellingham sound engineer and songwriter Casey Proctor (Harusplex Palace, Holy Sons) with Trevor Reece and Mike Wallace. All spent considerable time in their respective and shared DIY-music communities before converging to form the group in early 2023. Casey and Trevor initially met as members of an adhoc improv ensemble performing tape loops, strings, and electronics as part of a multi-disciplinary series hosted on a rooftop in Chapel Hill called Attic 506. Soon after, the three shifted from long-running musical projects to focus on exploring new sonic territories together. The band operates in an ever-evolving dynamic of group improvisation and studio experimentation, capturing moments of coarse circuit completion and bringing to fruition long-gestating ideas and songs. The sound is raw and largely unadorned, transmitting both truth and wildness. Working from a dedicated studio space in Carrboro, NC, songs came together quickly for the group's debut self-titled album. Engineered and mixed at home by Casey, the LP presents a guitar music refracted through clamor and tenderness, static and hiss, drum machine and synth. The lyrics survey themes of existential exhaustion and impressionistic reflections, all bound with persistent hooks and equally acidic edges. A sense of deep and ego-less collaboration runs through their process, as instruments are exchanged, vocal duties are shared and drum machines meld with live drum kits. The live unit is supplemented with an expanding cast of friends and rippers, that presents the music at its gentlest and most cacophonous."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMI 056LP
|
"Since 2016, Chicago's Luggage has operated according to a less-is-more philosophy, tastefully shuffling spare lyrics in a song space primarily occupied by guitar, bass and drums. This sense of openness and order define Hand Is Bad, their forthcoming album to be released by New York's Amish Records on September 29, 2023. Hand Is Bad arrives in succession of their pandemic-toiled 2021 Happiness EP (Husky Pants) and much like that release, the Chicago band picks their vocabulary carefully both with music and words. Michael Vallera presents guitar rotating around MJ Grant's airy bass rumble, and minimal, metronomic drum thud held down by Luca Cimarusti. Vallera's more abstract and understated musical and artistic past with projects like Cleared (Immune, Utech, Touch, Digitalis), COIN (Opal Tapes) and Maar (Umor Rex and Entr'acte) find their way into the production, arrangement and recording of Hand Is Bad. Grant and Cimarusti's musical output as Basic Cable (Permanent Records) adds a spindly post-punk edge. And it's a definite plus to get Luggage back in at Chicago's Electrical Audio, a place that enhances the crispness with a very distinct, unfettered mix theology. Jeremy Lemos returns as well-dialed-in engineer, recording and mixing in three days with minimal overdubs. Hand Is Bad is a tonal dream full of surprises, including the band members surprising themselves with some clear new pathways blazed since Happiness. For years there was a lot of challenging gravity going on, and for this outing it seems Hand Is Bad enhanced their own atmosphere to escape the Earth's."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
AMI 052LP
|
2023 restock. "Amish Records is pleased to finally announce an expanded and remastered edition of P.G. Six's 2001 debut album, Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites, to be released as a gatefold double LP and digitally on Feb 24, 2023. Fully remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, artist Meredyth Sparks reimagines the beautiful Chris Krol cover art in an evocative gatefold design. An eight-song bonus LP entitled Live Cuts and Radio Favorites will be included. Documenting performances from the calendar year just before and after the release of Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites, the bonus album gathers radio and live shows. P.G. Six plays both songs off the debut and the music of others: Pearls Before Swine's 'I Saw the World' (1968) becomes minimalist, approaching modern classical in his repetitive and percussive piano work; X's 'Drunk in My Past' (1983) feels refracted beyond the horizons of Los Angeles punk; Gubler even looks back to his more recent past with 'Cover Art,' from the debut album of Tower Recordings; looking forward, the bonus LP also includes versions of songs that would later appear on the album The Well of Memory (2004), which Amish will release in an forthcoming expanded edition."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
12"
|
|
AMI 051EP
|
"Amish is pleased to announce the physical release date of June 19, 2020 for Sunwatchers' third Amish-related release, Brave Rats EP. Quick on the heels of the band's fourth full-length, Oh Yeah? (Trouble in Mind) out April 2020, Brave Rats celebrates Sunwatchers and the EP format, well after the moment of the latter's extinction. The title track delivers Sunwatchers' most anthemic pop music to date, while the other five tracks mix the political with the punk, street toughs aligning with the avant-garde. Guitarist Jim McHugh recounts the origins of both the title song and the EP itself: 'I was walking home very late at night from a short-lived bartending gig on the Lower East Side during a period when I had been reading books about the struggles of working-class people and immigrants and squatters in those neighborhoods. Coming across the Williamsburg Bridge, I decided to go by our old practice space on South 4th, across from Pies-N-Thighs -- where I very briefly worked as a line cook. This was the night the restaurant had reopened in their new location -- and out front there was an enormous cadre of grease emboldened rats. I kept thinking about the rats in relation to the new residents of the Lower East Side and North Brooklyn. I hoped for those rats to be brazen and Brave in the face of the extermination efforts that they/we all face.' Other tracks on the 12" EP include: a hypnotic and vaguely psychedelic cover of Sonny Sharrock's 'Blind Willie' taken from Sunwatchers' first recorded studio session in March 2015; an alternate version of 'Everybody Play'; an esoteric and extended deep dive with 'Saxz'; and a live version of Alice Coltrane's 'Ptah, The El Daoud,' recorded when Sunwatchers opened for Bill Callahan in June 2016. The EP closes with 'Pedal One,' an outtake from Sunwatchers' score to Ian Olds' film Burn Country (2016)."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMIRW 038LP
|
"Tim Barnes' latest full-length: DEΔD-LOOP, his first solo release since 2002's All Acoustics. DEΔD-LOOP offers another arm in Barnes' wide-ranging body of music and work, as well as supplying an additional thread connecting the House, pop and sound art conversations the album engages. In many ways DEΔD-LOOP is house music that takes a sideways approach to the language of dance music. As both a concept and a practice, Barnes aims to turn house on its side, reconsidering its structure and form. The tracks on DEΔD-LOOP reflect Barnes' status as a renowned percussionist, offering rhythms and textures that both draw the listener in and maintain a spatial and temporal distance/uncertainty. This distance can best be heard on the quiet closing track 'NAKU,' but also in the hyperactive and layered percussion of 'AEMO' and 'GUALA.' This record isn't all concept, however, as the lead off tracks 'HORNA' and 'KONQR' sound like something you might hear at rave, albeit standing outside the club in the middle of day after everyone has crashed. The foggy celebration continues on this record, however; listen to 'JAPE' and its play with language, cracking words open and hearing what comes out of the space between syllable and sound. Since 1995, Tim Barnes has been internationally acclaimed as a musician, having played with a range of artists including Tony Conrad, Ikue Mori, Sonic Youth, Glenn Kotche, P.G. Six, Mike Watt, Royal Trux, Stereolab, Jim O'Rourke, Beth Orton, among others. Barnes has most recently become known for his radical site-specific sound art duo with Jeph Jerman (Erstwhile, IDEA Intermedia, Feeding Tube). Working across both genre and instrumentation, Barnes' singular history as a musician reflects his versatile ear and performance range. Barnes has also done important research and work as an archivist and engineer, most notably through his Quakebasket-imprint. Quakebasket made available and distributed the work of artists like Henry Flynt, Pandit Pran Nath, Christopher Tree and, most notably, Angus MacLise. In looking forward, Quakebasket released music by Michael J. Schumacher, Tetuzi Akiyama, Nick Hennies, and Valerio Tricoli, among many others. DEΔD-LOOP is the latest installment of Amish's in-house label Required Wreckers, pairing music and sound art with visual artists who share a thematic or process-based methodology. DEΔD-LOOP features the work of American-born and French-based artist/filmmaker Erick Baudelaire's Blind Walls series. These recordings were mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
AMI 050LP
|
"Sunwatchers teamed up with Eugene Chadbourne for two days of recording in October 2016 which resulted in Sunwatchers And Eugene Chadbourne's 3 Characters. These sessions were dedicated exclusively to the music of the Minutemen, Doug Sahm and Henry Flynt. Having never played together before, all the songs were completed in one or two takes and the recordings reflect an urgency and immediacy that audiences have to come to expect from these musicians. The three characters invoked on these recordings offer models for our current political and societal struggles. Creating a music that is both personal and political, artistic and activist, these three figures were/are soulful and practical examples of the artist-as-laborer, addressing a call for social justice and musical spontaneity. Chadbourne and Sunwatchers have taken up this struggle, touring and recording, writing and collaborating, throughout their respective careers. Pushing this ethos out into the field and on this recording, 3 Characters is a reverential labor of love, where musical labor becomes a form of both love and resistance. Mike Watt joins the conversation with spoken interpretations of lyrics, poetry, speeches and assorted agit-prop. Having Watt's contemporary voice alongside so many songs that he wrote and defined suggests this, and all artistic collaborations, function as part of a long continuum that inform future callings."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMI 047LP
|
"The Lloyd Pack is a project band of transplanted Englishman Dan Melchior. The Lloyd Pack A Tribute (AMI047) initially emerged from a conversation Melchior had with Graham Lambkin (Shadow Ring, Kye Records) about the prospect of doing a 'Faux African' record. For two British-expats living in the U.S. in the twenty-first century, this LP offers a peculiarly whimsical variation on the 'Faux African,' infusing lo-fi tribal rhythms with post-punk dance in the spirit of early Adam Ant, Fun Boy Three and the Fall. If one were to imagine adding Ivor Cutler to this British-mix, it might approach what Melchior delivers on this LP. And for the record, Cutler is a Scot. Lambkin offered some vocal components, alongside a large cast (including the late Letha Rodman-Melchior, Angela Sawyer aka Preggy Peggy, Gnarlos, Nick Hennies, Le Ann Baca Bartlett, and Johnny Brewton), all of whom chimed in on the recording process. Dan Melchior has put out dozens of records in the last decade under multiple guises including the Broke Review, Dan Melchior und Das Menace, under his own name and in collaboration with artists as diverse Billy Childish, Holly Golightly, Russell Walker, The Spits etc., and has emerged as one of the most unique voices in American outsider rock and experimental music."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMIRW 037LP
|
"The seventh installment in the Required Wreckers series. Primordial Forms is Forté's most demanding and conceptual work to date. Forté has always been intrigued by the visual representation of sound on the computer screen. Editing software depicts sound as 'waveforms' which can look like jagged landscapes or abstract geometric forms. For the five pieces that comprise the record, Forté created five one-second sounds on his computer based purely on the visual appeal of the waveform. He made these waveforms with the speakers off. These visually appealing forms became the seeds for the pieces on the record. With the speakers turned back on, Forté then turned these discrete sound units into long form music through a slow and deliberate process of looping, editing, and manipulation. The entire record was made in a pirated version of Sound Forge from the late 90s. No sequencers or multi-track programs were used and no real time playing occurred on these tracks. Forte's compositional process can be likened to cartoon animation, or Muybridge's photographic innovations capturing movement and motion. Forté is one of the most innovative and overlooked figures in contemporary experimental and extreme music, though those aware of his discography recognize the arch and foundational significance of his work. From Rorschach to Raspberry Bulbs, and more importantly in his solo releases on Schematic, Soft Abuse, Sublight, Wodger and Catholic Tapes, Forté is one of the most versatile and rigorous musicians working today."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMIRW 036LP
|
"Volume six in our Required Wreckers LP series, M Dwinell's Golden Ratio offers the only documentation of Dwinell's just intonation organ work, recorded between 2007-2008. Golden Ratio focuses exclusively on a natural tuning system generated from the harmonic series. By precise control of his instrument's tuning, Dwinell sets into motion a dynamic musical system of pressure, intensity, and calm. Golden Ratio incorporates both static pulsing drones and heavily arpeggiated passages, culminating in melodic lines that epitomize Dwinell's unique musical vocabulary as developed over the last twenty years. Golden Ratio pairs Dwinell's music with the artwork of Ricci Albenda. Albenda and Dwinell share an intense and concentrated interest in perception, especially in how sight and sound can both focus and alter one's awareness. The LP contains a 16-page booklet of Albenda's work that follows previous sound-and-art pairings in the R/W series."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMI 046LP
|
"The third release for Amish from Metabolismus and the twenty-third release in the collective's twenty-five year existence. SUS is the first in the band's long-awaited palindrome recordings, when the collective gathers on a day in the calendar year when the numerical date offers a mirror kind of reflection. These dates function as a conceptual parameter for both their process and instrumentation. Metabolismus recorded the basic acoustic material on 21022012 (February 21st 2012) and the playing time (at 45 RPM) is 12:21. The single sidelong track consists of one note on the vibraphone struck by a soft mallet. The same note is then bowed continuously on violin and the sound is processed with an envelope shaper, a narrow-band filter (tube-based) to accentuate some overtones, and some basic tape manipulation techniques like cutting/looping, speed/pitch alterations and change of playback direction. All rhythmic and harmonic processes result from the shifting of vibrato frequencies in the stereo panoramic field. No digital technology was used. The piece is designed to be played at any speed (mainly 33 and 45, but also anything from 16 rpm to 78 rpm). Side 1 plays from the standard outer grooves inward. Side 2 is Side 1 played backwards and plays from the inner groove outward, offering both the composition and the concept another layer of mirror-symmetry."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMI 045LP
|
"This LP/DA release marks an important new contribution to the modern jazz tradition. Among other reevaluations of New York that occurred in the aftermath of 9-11 and Hurricane Sandy, Chroma Colossus: 13 Visions of the City presents an important imagining of our relation to the space, sound, energy, and resilience of New York. Beyond Waters, the quartet consists of Andrew Barker (drums), Chris McIntyre (trombone) and George Rush (bass/tuba). The album's song cycle is based on a text by Brooklyn-based author and MacArthur Fellow Colson Whitehead, who reads a passage from his book The Colossus of New York on the song 'Brooklyn Bridge.'" Includes mp3 download code with bonus digital track.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMIRW 034LP
|
"While these performances occurred on opposite coasts, the source material is closely aligned in both concept and process. These works highlight Gregg's ongoing preoccupations with sound and setting, incorporating the focused blend of acoustic and electronic sources that Kowalsky is already well known for. 'Electronic Music for Square and Sine Waves' documents Kowalsky's contribution to the 2011 Activating the Medium festival in San Francisco. This commissioned piece continues Kowalsky's interest in how sound engages, manipulates and modifies one's awareness of space. 'For Baroque Lute, Tapes and Resonant Space' documents Kowalsky's on going tape chants process, a project previously realized on both his Battery Townsley (2011) and Tape Chants (2009) LPs. For this iteration, Kowalsky tuned square and sine waves to Dutch lutanist Jozef van Wissem's lute and then played these recordings through cassette players."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMIRW 035LP
|
"The fifth installment in the label's Required Wreckers series features side‐long compositions that borrow as much from the worlds of noise and power electronics that Swanson and Shiflet were affiliated with in the early parts of their careers, as from techno and modern composition. Mike Shiflet's 'Bedside' utilizes disparate sources - guitar, field recordings, abstract electronic textures and white noise - to create a composition that's both warmly pastoral and defamiliar. Pete Swanson's 'College View' documents another example of his recent recordings' attempt to blur the lines between techno, noise, and electronic music. 'College View' drags Detroit dance music into a static field of electricity, and then doubles back again." Includes 12-page booklet; wrapped in letterpressed Required Wreckers band.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
AMI 044CD
|
"Amish is pleased to officially announce a new release from Humboldt County's finest contemporary experimental unit, Starving Weirdos. A couple of years in the making, Land Lines documents a vital step in the evolution and refinement of Starving Weirdos' freeform improvisational practices, as well as its infamous and highly disciplined studio practices. Land Lines chronicles Starving Weirdos' most focused and structured release to date, with pieces that import a distinctly European flavor into the sound of what, until now, has been a uniquely Northern Californian form of sonic experimentation."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMI 044LP
|
LP version with download code.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMIRW 033LP
|
"Amish is pleased to announce the third iteration in its Required Wreckers Series, a split LP featuring new and exclusive work from Ben Vida and Keith Fullerton Whitman. Having collaborated over the last decade as a trio with Greg Davis, this release features new solo-work by two of America's most important emerging sound artists. The first side of this release debuts a new composition from Ben Vida. In keeping with his recent patchwork-based compositions, Aggregatepulseripper (Damaged IIII) continues to explore Vida's interest in both digital and analog control sources, a compositional process that refuses to fetishize one technology over another and, more interestingly, appears to displace the musician's hand from the compositional process. The flipside of this LP features Keith Fullerton Whitman's third in a series of splits (previous releases have included No Fun Production's b/w Carlos Giffoni and Amethyst Sunset's b/w with Mike Shiflet) documenting a particularly productive period in his creative output--a series of 'synth concerts' from 2007 and 2008. Recorded on January 14, 2008 at PA's Lounge in Somerville, MA, this piece documents the fourth in Whitman's solo synthesizer sets. Throughout the recording one can discern talking from the audience and ambient room--tone noise, as well as sound coming from different sources spread throughout the room--a small battery powered speaker on stage right, a giant Barbetta on stage left. Each speaker was fed into a different patch irrespective of its frequency response. Whitman uses a hybrid system of digital and analog sound sources that, with the exception of a single 4096 bd delay, is presented here without treatment, overdub, or sequencing of any sort."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
AMI 042CD
|
"...out of the ancient ruins of The Tower Recordings has now finally risen a stealth Metal Mountains! It features Helen Rush, Pat Gubler (Mr. PG Six) and Samara Lubelski, all former Tower soldiers, and some may say the very key ones. There's a sort of haunted architecture to Metal Mountains, they morph 1960s electric and psychedelic folk rock, the right VU influence, spatial excursions, and whispery dreams into a unique whole. It is a carefully crafted album that is real and intimate, yet has the air of ease and playfulness about it. It is confident in its frailty, if that makes any sense to you. Did I say it is perfectly sequenced? Y'know, that's the kind of thing a reviewer needs to mention if he wants to be taken at all seriously." -- Jesper Eklow/November 2010
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
7"
|
|
AMI 043EP
|
"Mauser O.K. celebrates much of what makes this German-ensemble so essential, drawing from a variety of sources and influences to provide listeners with another important indication of the contribution Metabolismus has made to psych and outsider experiments over its almost three-decade-long existence. Whether it be lo-fi pop, free improvisation, sixties psychedelia or music concrete tape manipulation, like the Sun City Girls (who formed around the same year) Metabolismus 'metabolizes music' of all styles, shapes and forms; for this release, they transform Crass' screed 'Do They Owe Us a Living' into a Canterbury classic and resituate Brian Brain's 'Asthma Game' into the delicate pastoral landscape of their native Germany. These pieces were recorded and compiled over a fifteen-year span and it has been well worth the wait."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMI 042LP
|
"...out of the ancient ruins of The Tower Recordings has now finally risen a stealth Metal Mountains! It features Helen Rush, Pat Gubler (Mr. PG Six) and Samara Lubelski, all former Tower soldiers, and some may say the very key ones. There's a sort of haunted architecture to Metal Mountains, they morph 1960s electric and psychedelic folk rock, the right VU influence, spatial excursions, and whispery dreams into a unique whole. It is a carefully crafted album that is real and intimate, yet has the air of ease and playfulness about it. It is confident in its frailty, if that makes any sense to you. Did I say it is perfectly sequenced? Y'know, that's the kind of thing a reviewer needs to mention if he wants to be taken at all seriously." -- Jesper Eklow / November 2010
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMIRW 032LP
|
"Brian Pyle is Ensemble Economique. This is the first LP release from Ensemble Economique. Digitalis issued the At the Foot of Nameless Roads CD in 2008. Both recordings are important primers to Pyle's nascent invocations of Holger Czukay's Cannaxis (on No GPS) and Karlheinz Stockhausen's Kontake (on At the Foot). With Standing Still, Facing Forward Ensemble Economique provides the most mature realization of Pyle's compositional process, which utilizes found sounds, field recordings, and musical performance that he later meticulously edits, layers, and loops in the studio. The effects of these processes are dramatic, cinematic and conceptually rigorous and this recording evidences Pyle as an important new composer emerging out of the long and storied tradition of West Coast experimentalism. Utilizing a delicate combination of the homespun improvisation of his other project, Starving Weirdos (whose work sounds like an American echo of AMM) with his own unique variation on the European avant-garde in Ensemble Economique, Pyle's practice involves a dense approach to composition akin to assemblage. But unlike electronic and laptop composition, Pyle's studio work aims to re-establish an organicism associated with live (or, in the case of the field recordings, lived) performance that pushes the studio out into nature and nature into the studio. In short, the Northern Californian landscape plays an integral part in Ensemble Economique's soundscapes, and this record captures much of the atmosphere of Pyle's home terrain." LP comes wrapped in a letter-pressed band and contains a 16-page art book.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
AMI 041CD
|
"Bird Show Band documents Bird Show's new collaborative spirit and stands as the culmination of Ben Vida's Chicago-based work, featuring a who's who of the city's improvisational luminaries, including Josh Abrams, Jim Baker, Dan Bitney and John Herndon. The improvisatory feel of the Bird Show Band sessions function as Vida's paean to the Windy City. Rather than another Bird Show release that involves guest accompaniment on select tracks, Vida conceived of these recordings as a foray into session playing, tracking the entire album over just two days. While Herndon and Bitney's percussion invokes German psych, progressive rock, and jazz idioms, Vida's synth-based experiments, here accompanied by Jim Baker's ARP 2600, provide the first indication of his recent musical preoccupations, an interest that relies heavily on the Moog and his own fluid, lyrical melodic lines. If you have had the luck of catching Bird Show or Ben Vida perform live over the last few years, you have witnessed the centrality he now gives to the Moog and one-touch patchwork, experimental forays that point to Europe and the mid-century avant-garde, especially the Cologne-based innovations of Stockhausen and his many students during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Regardless of this description, Bird Show Band is more than a mere intellectual exercise and the sessions balance brain with musical brawn in ways that Vida has yet to achieve on his previous outings."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMI 041LP
|
|
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
AMIRW 031LP
|
"With equal nods to Throbbing Gristle's retrograde conceptualism and Recommended Records' unwavering musicality, Amish is pleased to announce the Required Wreckers Series. Over the next ten catalogue releases, R/W will explore the work of artists operating at the intersections of sound art, improvisation, drone, outsider experimentation and modern composition. In the spirit of its name, R/W aims to disrupt the boundaries typically used to delimit genre and the sensibilities that help to inform taste. In so doing, R/W slips out from under the simple, reductive classifications so often used to discuss, and even critically engage, contemporary music. Each release is a one-time vinyl pressing and will be housed in a letterpress band (designed by Bryan Christopher Baker) that will vary with each installment. These LPs will also include artwork and assorted ephemera that invoke our deepest respect for the medium and the hand-crafted (and assembled) components we regret have disappeared with the rise of digital media. R/W terminates after ten installments. Beginning a decade ago, in a Pre-Weird America, Son of Earth has traveled a surprisingly linear trajectory through noise and collective improvisation to a simple, quiet, and more considered music. The band's path has led through hundreds of performances and collaborations (including Shackamaxon, which brought together all three members of Son of Earth with Marcia Bassett and Chris Gray of Double Leopards and Pete Nolan of the Magik Markers), but has resulted in only a handful of releases, often handcrafted and released on the group's Apostasy Recordings label. While still being filled with the unease and tension that is their hallmark, Improvements is the first record that also allows the humor and camaraderie between the members of Son of Earth to come to the fore. Most of their previous releases have been culled from live recordings, and the group has always thrived on the tension of live performance. Earlier studio efforts, such as the acclaimed Pet LP, though recorded at home, were composed in an everyone-has-to be- serious approximation of the live performance experience. This time, possibly for the first time, in a sweaty little room, and in a stairwell, and in a back yard tossing horseshoes in Holyoke, Massachusetts, the group finally dropped all pretense -- not of seriousness, but of obligation to some unseen spectator. On Improvements, you can really hear John Shaw, Matt Krefting, and Aaron Rosenblum being themselves, and being Son of Earth and it's weird. Manchester-bred, Rick Myers, who has worked with John Cale, Andy Votel, Dinosaur Jr. and Badly Drawn Boy and has created books with Nieves Zurich & Gladtree Press to name a few, provides the beautiful art / design-work for the LP jackets. LP comes wrapped in letterpressed band and contains a 16-page art book."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
AMI 030CD
|
"Tenebrae is Theo's fourth long-player and second with Amish (also see Dearly Beloved, [AMI-025]), marking the return of his patently unique songwriting, which includes a variety of regionalist folk-stylings -- the mountain music one discovers along the Appalachian trail; a Southern Gothic lyricism; northwestern eco-spiritualism; and above all, the music discovered in the woods just beyond a tent revival. Angell's densely hermetic iconography reflects an artist well-versed in myth, the avant-garde filmwork of Kenneth Anger and Stan Brakhage, and the ethno-poetics of Brion Gysin. Oh, and Theo's singing voice is unquestionably one of the most expressive and expansive in outsider folk today. Theo grew up in rural Oregon, was home-schooled along with his siblings by his minister father, which provided him little exposure to mainstream pop culture; the tunes on Tenebrae reflect these conditions, documenting both a reverence for and rebellion against isolation and spiritual absolutes. To that end, the title song, which is the Latin word for darkness, references a religious ceremony that involves the extinguishing of candles in advance of holy week. The album's song-cycle reworks various primitive musical forms to new and celebratory ends, twisting these styles into a unique brand of folk-psychedelia. For this outing, the Tabernacle Hillside Singers include, among others, Matt Valentine, P.G. Six, Tom Greenwood and Samara Lubelski. Tenebrae highlights again Theo's unique poly-vocal pyrotechnics and will no doubt prove to be one of the most beautiful records of the year." Comes in a mini-LP style gatefold sleeve.
|
viewing 1 To 25 of 32 items
Next >>
|
|