BA DA BING! - Forced Exposure

$25.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/4/2023

"The Dead C's trio of albums in the middle of their harsh '90s reality served for many as entry points to the band. Operation Of The Sonne, The White House, and Tusk received wider distribution than the band had ever seen before, and this was the first rays of them being considered amongst the most important rock bands of the 20th century. This trio of vinyl reissues capture their intensity and presence in a way that may even blow out the candle of the original pressings. Newly remastered by Lasse Marhaug, and with bonus tracks, these 2023 reissues have been cut carefully and loud, with the sonic wars heard on these now-classic tracks more blaring than ever. Coming after the monster that was Harsh 70s Reality, and its evil twin, Clyma Est Mort, this album has always confounded even soi-disant Dead C fans. Side one documents the discovery of the analog synthesizer coupled with field recordings from the basement of Willowbank, Koputai's 'most stately' home. Side two emerged spontaneously to cassette on stage at the 'fabled' Empire Tavern -- and it still sounds like stripping the breathable atmosphere from an already-depleted biosphere."

$36.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/4/2023

"The Dead C's trio of albums in the middle of their harsh 90s reality served for many as entry points to the band. Operation Of The Sonne, The White House, and Tusk received wider distribution than the band had ever seen before, and this was the first rays of them being considered amongst the most important rock bands of the 20th century. This trio of vinyl reissues capture their intensity and presence in a way that may even blow out the candle of the original pressings. Newly remastered by Lasse Marhaug, and with bonus tracks, these 2023 reissues have been cut carefully and loud, with the sonic wars heard on these now-classic tracks more blaring than ever." The Dead C on The White House, now including bonus track 'Breakdown/World': "Recorded in the winter of 1994, sessions were accompanied by snow, an infrequent but always super-exciting event in downtown Dunedin. Mainly if not entirely recorded direct to REVOX B77, just like The Clean's Oddities. Our version of Led Zepp IV with no 'Stairway', as recorded by the Meat Puppets in a K-hole. Originally M&D by Matador, this is as major label as we got. Mere pseud post-grunge sell-out moves-ah."

$36.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/4/2023

"The Dead C's trio of albums in the middle of their harsh '90s reality served for many as entry points to the band. Operation Of The Sonne, The White House, and Tusk received wider distribution than the band had ever seen before, and this was the first rays of them being considered amongst the most important rock bands of the 20th century. This trio of vinyl reissues capture their intensity and presence in a way that may even blow out the candle of the original pressings. Newly remastered by Lasse Marhaug, and with bonus tracks, these 2023 reissues have been cut carefully and loud, with the sonic wars heard on these now-classic tracks more blaring than ever. How does one follow up one of the most immediately-revered noise rock releases of all time? Definitely not by spending ten times the money and time recording their next release and doing a bloated double album. Tusk (now including bonus track 'There Is Something To Be Gained'), The Dead C record, is uncompromising and unrelenting. Here's a band enjoying more attention than they ever got before, and they launch their new album with a long, ominous percussive rattle. Tusk digs into the thought bubble that formed via Operation Of The Sonne and The White House, sharpens the edges and reveals some of their greatest broken progressions and vicious feedback. The band is at their performative peak, staking their ground with an amp covered in dirt."

$16.00 IN STOCK

2023 reprint. Originally published in 2014. "The story of Jackson C. Frank is tragic. The victim of a school fire in his youth, struggling with homelessness and mental illness throughout his life, half-blinded in old age before his death in 1999, Frank met continuous obstacles. And yet he enjoyed a shining moment with the release of Jackson C. Frank on Columbia Records in 1965. The album would go on to be seen as one of the greatest folk albums of the decade -- maybe of all time -- and its opening track 'Blues Run the Game' has become a standard covered by hundreds. Jim Abbott's book is the result of years of research piecing together evidence, relations and apocryphal stories from Frank's life. It is also part memoir, as Abbott cared for Frank through the final decade of his life. Their friendship was fraught with difficulties, which Abbott portrays with the honesty of a journalist. In doing so, he draws a portrait of a uniquely gifted songwriter, blessed with talent and besotted by demons. At 250 pages, Abbott's memoir shows a flawed and caring individual whose struggle was best depicted in his songs. Following the release of Jackson C. Frank: The Clear, Hard Light of Genius, Ba Da Bing will release three volumes of Jackson C. Frank: The Complete Recordings in early 2015, compiling work from throughout his life, including unreleased material." 250 pages; paperback.

$10.00 IN STOCK

"Tiny Ruins, the project of New Zealand musician Hollie Fullbrook, are back with their fourth album, Ceremony, out on Ba Da Bing Records. The follow-up to 2019's celebrated Olympic Girls, Ceremony goes deep into all the old and murky mysteries of what it means to be human -- and sometimes it nearly goes under. Yet these songs also show how one can find the strength to swim from the shipwreck, push through the silt, surface into another new morning -- another new chance. Ceremony washes in and takes one out like a strong tide, its songs 'chapters' of a saga set on the shores of Tāmaki Makaurau's (aka Auckland's) Manukau Harbour. Known to locals as 'Old Murky,' its western fringe of the Waitākere Ranges is home to Fullbrook. And while the harbor itself is a treacherous and oft-polluted body of water, move to one of its many peaceful inlets and it's all tidal flats, shellfish and birdlife. 'It's beautiful but also muddy, dirty and neglected. It's a real meeting of nature and humanity' says Hollie. The album's songs took shape as she explored the turbulent landscape on foot with her two dogs. The things Fullbrook was struck by there are annotated across Ceremony (cover art by Christiane Shortal) as luminously as a naturalist's scrapbook. After touring Olympic Girls both solo and with her long-term band line-up of Cass Basil (bass), Alex Freer (drums), and Tom Healy (electric guitar, producer) for eighteen months, Fullbrook returned home to the banks of Little Muddy Creek, exhausted and with the global pandemic looming. The songs that would become Ceremony existed as note files, 'scrappy poems,' words written earlier during a profound period of personal loss, words from a 'difficult place' that she'd become adept at avoiding. When lockdown started to ease, Fullbrook went to stay in an old train carriage in the town of Raglan and spent several days forging these hard lyrics into songs. The intuitive rapport of her bandmates steered these early demos in another direction, with inventive, often joyful arrangements that land Fullbrook's hard songs into a blissfully warm bedrock of sound -- steadied in a kind of musical trust fall."

$22.00 IN STOCK

"Asher White's music is a complex and heartfelt reaction to the churn of the modern world. With tender intimacy and resounding anxiety, White takes a wide view through the lens of her own queer sexual politics and transgender identity; what does it mean to renew, to progress, to transform? What is lost, gained, or irreversibly altered? At 22 years old, White has developed a massive self-released discography: over a dozen albums since 2015, each one started the moment the last one was finished. New Excellent Woman is a distillation of these experiments and discoveries, a new achievement in songwriting that stands astride the cracks in the earth and lopsided ground. Songs jump between styles like a pubescent sex drive, all locked together by White's ability to pull melody out of chaos. New Excellent Woman wanders a meticulous cut-and-pasted path paved by forebears like The Books and Animal Collective. It sounds like a live band, bursting with kinetic energy, but the album was constructed alone in her Providence, RI studio, where she arranged, performed, recorded, and mixed the record herself. The ingenuity of Dirty Projectors is laced with the catchiness and warmth of The Kinks, and maybe a dash of Elephant 6. It's like an ADHD party and the listener is the first to arrive. New Excellent Woman is built from detritus, often quite literally: from the thrift store amplifiers and scavenged keyboards she uses to her penchant for discovering and sampling obscure YouTube videos into her songs. The thick fog of 'Bedsong' is made up of little more than a Hammond organ found on craigslist and a few muffled drums piled with rags; opener 'Ptolemy' uses a seemingly random video of teenage boredom as its textural and rhythmic backdrop. The ceaseless march of the modern world can feel both awe-inspiring and abysmal. New highways and condominiums are erected in a matter of weeks as historic burial grounds are demolished. Even short TikToks seem to expire in real time. Asher White won't change things, but New Excellent Woman gives one a fresh and poignant perspective of the shifting world around through her eyes -- and maybe a connection is the best one can hope for."

$25.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. "Tiny Ruins, the project of New Zealand musician Hollie Fullbrook, are back with their fourth album, Ceremony, out on Ba Da Bing Records. The follow-up to 2019's celebrated Olympic Girls, Ceremony goes deep into all the old and murky mysteries of what it means to be human -- and sometimes it nearly goes under. Yet these songs also show how one can find the strength to swim from the shipwreck, push through the silt, surface into another new morning -- another new chance. Ceremony washes in and takes one out like a strong tide, its songs 'chapters' of a saga set on the shores of Tāmaki Makaurau's (aka Auckland's) Manukau Harbour. Known to locals as 'Old Murky,' its western fringe of the Waitākere Ranges is home to Fullbrook. And while the harbor itself is a treacherous and oft-polluted body of water, move to one of its many peaceful inlets and it's all tidal flats, shellfish and birdlife. 'It's beautiful but also muddy, dirty and neglected. It's a real meeting of nature and humanity' says Hollie. The album's songs took shape as she explored the turbulent landscape on foot with her two dogs. The things Fullbrook was struck by there are annotated across Ceremony (cover art by Christiane Shortal) as luminously as a naturalist's scrapbook. After touring Olympic Girls both solo and with her long-term band line-up of Cass Basil (bass), Alex Freer (drums), and Tom Healy (electric guitar, producer) for eighteen months, Fullbrook returned home to the banks of Little Muddy Creek, exhausted and with the global pandemic looming. The songs that would become Ceremony existed as note files, 'scrappy poems,' words written earlier during a profound period of personal loss, words from a 'difficult place' that she'd become adept at avoiding. When lockdown started to ease, Fullbrook went to stay in an old train carriage in the town of Raglan and spent several days forging these hard lyrics into songs. The intuitive rapport of her bandmates steered these early demos in another direction, with inventive, often joyful arrangements that land Fullbrook's hard songs into a blissfully warm bedrock of sound -- steadied in a kind of musical trust fall."

$25.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"The rawness of The Veils' Nux Vomica can be enjoyed to a degree never heard before, with Ba Da Bing's limited edition pressing of the records with the original mixes by Nick Rainey left intact. Originally released in 2006, The Veils sophomore album Nux Vomica was praised for its 'Herculean intensity' by The Guardian, and called 'a heady blast of gothic psychodrama' by The Observer, while Pitchfork praised leader Finn Andrews' 'magnetic, outsized persona.' Long out of print, the vinyl version was resuscitated by Music On Vinyl in 2017 and quickly sold out. Now, The Veils present the definitive version of their most heralded album to date, which dusts off the original mixes by legendary producer Nick Launay (Public Image Limited, The Birthday Party, INXS and Midnight Oil) and offers them to fans here for the first time. Taken from the original two-inch analog tape reels, each song was carefully remastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios in London. Nux Vomica was the first of many creative reinventions for Andrews, who at 22 had already released an album on Rough Trade, moved from New Zealand to London to form a band, then back to New Zealand where he once again started the band anew. The creative progression is clear in Andrews' incisive lyricism and knack for hell-fire dramatics. All intentions to release this dark and raw set of recordings were dashed upon submission to Rough Trade for approval, who didn't like the results. They hired mixing engineer Bill Price to adjust the sound and add additional instrumentation. Launey's mixes were shelved and forgotten about, while the album nonetheless went on to be a critical highpoint for the band and is much loved to this day. To celebrate the release of The Veils' massive new double album, ?And Out Of The Void Came Love, Ba Da Bing is issuing a limited-to-1200-LPs simultaneous run of Nux Vomica in a form one has never heard before. The brilliance of Andrews' talents come through clearer in this version, which strips his songs to the core and allows the holes to show. Here's where the seeds of a lifelong artistic talent really began to first take root."

$10.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"It's been seven strange years since The Veils' last studio album Total Depravity, and Finn Andrews has a new double album to show for it. ...And Out Of The Void Came Love is the result of this tumultuous period of injury, isolation and new life. Following the release of Total Depravity, Andrews released a solo album and began a worldwide tour. One night, while lashing out at a particularly intense moment on piano, he broke his wrist on stage. He played on and finished the rest of the tour, but it wasn't until he got it examined much later that he realized what a bad move that was. The convalescence that followed meant a lengthy hiatus from touring, so he did what he does best and stayed at home and wrote songs. Just when his hand had healed sufficiently for him to play again, The Veils found themselves in need of a new record label, but Finn set about starting to make a new record regardless. Producer Tom Healy invited Finn to his small studio underneath the old Crystal Palace ballroom in Mount Eden, and they listened through the legions of songs he had amassed throughout the previous year. Following another two years of intermittent recording between lockdowns, Finn's wife became pregnant, and yet more songs started coming. By the time the songs had been recorded, it was clear that arranging the album into two halves best suited such varied material -- but the meaning of the songs as a whole still eluded Andrews. The result of all these years of questioning, confinement and precarious uncertainty is this magnificent new double album. It is an album intended to be listened to in two sittings with a short break in the middle. Composer Victoria Kelly's soaring string arrangements play an integral role in bringing the songs to life, as do musicians Cass Basil (bass), Dan Raishbrook (lap steel, guitar), Liam Gerrard (piano), Joseph McCallum (drums), the NZTrio and special guests the Smoke Fairies on backing vocals. The Veils have toured consistently throughout their twenty-year history and garnered a formidable reputation as one of the world's greatest live bands. They have also been praised by film directors Paolo Sorrentino, Tim Burton and David Lynch who have all used their music on their soundtracks."

$36.00 IN STOCK

Double LP version. "It's been seven strange years since The Veils' last studio album Total Depravity, and Finn Andrews has a new double album to show for it. ...And Out Of The Void Came Love is the result of this tumultuous period of injury, isolation and new life. Following the release of Total Depravity, Andrews released a solo album and began a worldwide tour. One night, while lashing out at a particularly intense moment on piano, he broke his wrist on stage. He played on and finished the rest of the tour, but it wasn't until he got it examined much later that he realized what a bad move that was. The convalescence that followed meant a lengthy hiatus from touring, so he did what he does best and stayed at home and wrote songs. Just when his hand had healed sufficiently for him to play again, The Veils found themselves in need of a new record label, but Finn set about starting to make a new record regardless. Producer Tom Healy invited Finn to his small studio underneath the old Crystal Palace ballroom in Mount Eden, and they listened through the legions of songs he had amassed throughout the previous year. Following another two years of intermittent recording between lockdowns, Finn's wife became pregnant, and yet more songs started coming. By the time the songs had been recorded, it was clear that arranging the album into two halves best suited such varied material -- but the meaning of the songs as a whole still eluded Andrews. The result of all these years of questioning, confinement and precarious uncertainty is this magnificent new double album. It is an album intended to be listened to in two sittings with a short break in the middle. Composer Victoria Kelly's soaring string arrangements play an integral role in bringing the songs to life, as do musicians Cass Basil (bass), Dan Raishbrook (lap steel, guitar), Liam Gerrard (piano), Joseph McCallum (drums), the NZTrio and special guests the Smoke Fairies on backing vocals. The Veils have toured consistently throughout their twenty-year history and garnered a formidable reputation as one of the world's greatest live bands. They have also been praised by film directors Paolo Sorrentino, Tim Burton and David Lynch who have all used their music on their soundtracks."

$10.00 IN STOCK

"Eliza Bagg leads a complex musical life: working as a classical opera singer, she has soloed with the New York Philharmonic, performed in Meredith Monk's opera at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and toured Europe with the legendary John Zorn. While making her own music under the guise of art-pop solo act Lisel, she's also collaborated as a vocalist with some of the most renowned experimental artists, including Ben Frost, Julianna Barwick, Daniel Wohl, and many others, all while playing indie rock venues and lovably dingy basements. One day, it's Lincoln Center or The Kitchen, the next it's an outdoor LA ambient series. She was always torn between her two worlds, and it wasn't until she began work on Patterns For Auto-Tuned Voices And Delay that she discovered a way to merge them together. Patterns comes out of Bagg's experience as a vocalist singing Renaissance and Baroque music along with the work of modern-day minimalists like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. 'I developed a vocal processing system that allowed me to change the idea of what my instrument is,' Bagg says of the album's genesis, a system that combines her virtuosic singing with autotune and delay effects to create a melding of human and machine. Sure, she'll admit it. 'I'm a sci-fi nerd,' she says, with a laugh. 'I'm a Blade Runner and Battlestar person. I love things that explore how society interacts with machines.' While making Patterns, she dove first into Renaissance polyphony and chant. The music of Hildegard von Bingen, Thomas Tallis, and Carlo Gesualdo is a familiar world to her. Starting with Renaissance and Medieval singing styles and idioms, she added processing and electronic world-building to bring out new, expressive qualities of those styles. From there, she improvised in these styles, fed the performances into Ableton, and incorporated modern day hyperpop (like SOPHIE) and ambient electric sounds and aesthetics. From Philip Glass to Charli XCX, Carl Stone to Grimes, Patterns makes radical connections. Yet, it was important for Bagg to maintain the spiritual origins of these vocal techniques. Patterns For Auto-Tuned Voices And Delay stands within those traditions, using voices to transcend the cerebral and overwhelm the listener, all while evoking a unique set of references that span five hundred years."

$25.00 IN STOCK

LP version. "Eliza Bagg leads a complex musical life: working as a classical opera singer, she has soloed with the New York Philharmonic, performed in Meredith Monk's opera at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and toured Europe with the legendary John Zorn. While making her own music under the guise of art-pop solo act Lisel, she's also collaborated as a vocalist with some of the most renowned experimental artists, including Ben Frost, Julianna Barwick, Daniel Wohl, and many others, all while playing indie rock venues and lovably dingy basements. One day, it's Lincoln Center or The Kitchen, the next it's an outdoor LA ambient series. She was always torn between her two worlds, and it wasn't until she began work on Patterns For Auto-Tuned Voices And Delay that she discovered a way to merge them together. Patterns comes out of Bagg's experience as a vocalist singing Renaissance and Baroque music along with the work of modern-day minimalists like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. 'I developed a vocal processing system that allowed me to change the idea of what my instrument is,' Bagg says of the album's genesis, a system that combines her virtuosic singing with autotune and delay effects to create a melding of human and machine. Sure, she'll admit it. 'I'm a sci-fi nerd,' she says, with a laugh. 'I'm a Blade Runner and Battlestar person. I love things that explore how society interacts with machines.' While making Patterns, she dove first into Renaissance polyphony and chant. The music of Hildegard von Bingen, Thomas Tallis, and Carlo Gesualdo is a familiar world to her. Starting with Renaissance and Medieval singing styles and idioms, she added processing and electronic world-building to bring out new, expressive qualities of those styles. From there, she improvised in these styles, fed the performances into Ableton, and incorporated modern day hyperpop (like SOPHIE) and ambient electric sounds and aesthetics. From Philip Glass to Charli XCX, Carl Stone to Grimes, Patterns makes radical connections. Yet, it was important for Bagg to maintain the spiritual origins of these vocal techniques. Patterns For Auto-Tuned Voices And Delay stands within those traditions, using voices to transcend the cerebral and overwhelm the listener, all while evoking a unique set of references that span five hundred years."

$10.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"Eva Louise Goodman's Nighttime project locates itself on a musical tree planted on the British Isles, perched atop the branch of folk leaning into '60s rock. Her upstate New York environs don't stray far from that image. With tempered percussion, floating mellotron, and singing that evokes Bleecker & MacDougal on a fervent Saturday afternoon, her new album Keeper Is The Heart reaches deep into the essence of musicians such as Vashti Bunyan, Sibylle Baier and Pentangle, breaking down the decades into a sound thoroughly and bizarrely modern. Through her years performing with Mutual Benefit, Goodman fell in love with life on the road and the collaborative energy of a band. In this third Nighttime album, she channels these experiences into her own music. The creative journey from writing to recording to mixing drove her deeper into a sense of self while expanding her sound. In the process, she put aside lo-fi origins and challenged herself to achieve the same intimacy with a bigger production. Like most paths of self-discovery, the journey started with displacement. In October 2019, Goodman set out to record the album on her own, while cat-sitting at a friend's empty Brooklyn apartment. Rather than recording, she was drawn to the overgrown garden, where she spent her days listening to music and reading old journals. Charlie Megira, The Incredible String Band and Roy Montgomery invoked the spirit of the album, as she realized that a new, more collaborative approach would be necessary to bring the songs to life. In March 2021, after a pandemic year immersed in sound experimentation and writing, she entered the upstate New York studio of recording engineer Rick Spataro (Florist). Together, Spataro and Goodman dove into creating the album, recording one song a day, letting the spark and excitement of spontaneity be their guide. 'I've always been fascinated with 'automatic' arts,' Goodman says, 'where things are created intuitively and without premeditation, from the subconscious.' In this light, they worked with abandon -- pushing through the heaviness of songs written years earlier with the same energy as songs which were not yet fully developed. Taking chances, improvising, they sought to strip away pretense, and elude perfectionism at all cost."

$22.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. "Eva Louise Goodman's Nighttime project locates itself on a musical tree planted on the British Isles, perched atop the branch of folk leaning into '60s rock. Her upstate New York environs don't stray far from that image. With tempered percussion, floating mellotron, and singing that evokes Bleecker & MacDougal on a fervent Saturday afternoon, her new album Keeper Is The Heart reaches deep into the essence of musicians such as Vashti Bunyan, Sibylle Baier and Pentangle, breaking down the decades into a sound thoroughly and bizarrely modern. Through her years performing with Mutual Benefit, Goodman fell in love with life on the road and the collaborative energy of a band. In this third Nighttime album, she channels these experiences into her own music. The creative journey from writing to recording to mixing drove her deeper into a sense of self while expanding her sound. In the process, she put aside lo-fi origins and challenged herself to achieve the same intimacy with a bigger production. Like most paths of self-discovery, the journey started with displacement. In October 2019, Goodman set out to record the album on her own, while cat-sitting at a friend's empty Brooklyn apartment. Rather than recording, she was drawn to the overgrown garden, where she spent her days listening to music and reading old journals. Charlie Megira, The Incredible String Band and Roy Montgomery invoked the spirit of the album, as she realized that a new, more collaborative approach would be necessary to bring the songs to life. In March 2021, after a pandemic year immersed in sound experimentation and writing, she entered the upstate New York studio of recording engineer Rick Spataro (Florist). Together, Spataro and Goodman dove into creating the album, recording one song a day, letting the spark and excitement of spontaneity be their guide. 'I've always been fascinated with 'automatic' arts,' Goodman says, 'where things are created intuitively and without premeditation, from the subconscious.' In this light, they worked with abandon -- pushing through the heaviness of songs written years earlier with the same energy as songs which were not yet fully developed. Taking chances, improvising, they sought to strip away pretense, and elude perfectionism at all cost."

$25.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"Push open the door of the old Norwegian school house in the rural hinterland Juni Habel shares with her close-knit family and climb the stairs and one will find oneself in a former classroom -- the home of her new album Carvings. Crafted seventeen years after guitar tuition would try to iron out the creases of her bohemian upbringing, it is a songbook of life's lessons offering an expansive perspective as it navigates personal shadows between darkness and light. Just as her more featherweight debut album All Ears would attest, the timelessness of Habel's music has evolved from her lived experiences. Growing up with six younger siblings alongside horses, hens, sheep and pigs on the family farm, she was a Forest School child. Today, little -- and a lot -- has changed since eschewing the city in favor of koselig-cohabiting with husband Emil, friend Isis, cat Lisa, dog Sajo. Living alongside them is Grandmother Inger, who gave Habel her first guitar aged ten and has always been a big influence on her life. This unyielding spirit of family and nature is etched into Carvings' unschooled approach. With beauty in mock-simplicity and radiating humanity like the music of Tia Blake, Julie Byrne or Myriam Gendron, Habel's songwriting unfolds on her own terms, and is the sound of facing whatever mother nature decides will find its way to the top of the list. Recorded between the classroom ('big hall'), the hallway on the second floor, and her bedroom with simple gear and vocals laid down in a single take, Habel extended an invitation to her musical family; husband Emil Nøjgaard Petersen (electric guitar), Sofie Mortvedt, Ellen-Martine Gismervik and Håkon Brunborg (strings) Thea Hernæs (drums) and uncle Sverre Thorstensen (double bass). Co-producer, musician and singer Stian Skaaden, became her melodic confidant and experimental co-conspirator, halving the burden by building the album's layers through blowing a pipe, playing bow on the banjo, bottles or glockenspiel. As Habel traces family, loss and grief, nature, love and music, be sure to remove one's shoes at the door; within each of Carvings' deepest cuts the warmest welcome awaits." "Meet Norway's new pastoral folk voice -- guitar lines ripple like Nick Drake strumming for Karen Dalton -- think Sibylle Baier or Julie Byrne." --Uncut

$10.00 IN STOCK

"As Heather Trost put together her new album Desert Flowers, she imagined herself sitting out on the mesa amidst the arid climate and sand. Even with such little water to survive, wildflowers bloom. This vision is an embellishment of Trost's Albuquerque surroundings, an intersection of rural splendor and emptiness. She remains focused on those purple, yellow and orange flowers with faces beaming up to the sky, thriving on very little. 'How does a flower grow in the desert?' she sings. Desert Flowers postulates the potential for new life. Using the messages from the unconscious during sleep, the record ultimately conceives a bridge to the world beyond one's own. Written and recorded in her home studio, Trost began with harmonic frameworks, allowing the melodies to naturally take root. Introductory track 'Frog And Toad Are Friends' -- yes, named after the book -- is like a surf song from a sci-fi movie. Trost sees it as a mindwipe, 'a playful kind of romp to help shake off the cobwebs and get the bones moving.' The album ripens as it progresses, and 'Sandcastles' best embodies the spirit of the record. Lush strings and bass are complemented by a slow guitar groove, as Trost soulfully fantasizes about Earth's regeneration. 'In time, the bullets and tanks, and all of humanity's violent creations will melt back into mountains and the ocean,' she says. Integral to the record's creation was Trost's cohort in A Hawk & A Hacksaw and record label Living Music Duplication, Jeremy Barnes. 'This album wouldn't sound the way it does without his wonderfully discerning and courageous ear,' she says. Much like her previous two albums, Agistri and Petrichor, the record was primarily recorded at their home studio. Many of the tracks on Desert Flowers were created during difficult years, during which Trost's strident creativity offered a much-needed path to solace. 'Maybe these songs are a bit like desert flowers,' she reflects, 'pushing their way towards the sun, and in turn searching and pushing roots deep into the ground for water. As above, so below, the light and the dark, extroverted and introverted, color and monochrome.'"

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. "As Heather Trost put together her new album Desert Flowers, she imagined herself sitting out on the mesa amidst the arid climate and sand. Even with such little water to survive, wildflowers bloom. This vision is an embellishment of Trost's Albuquerque surroundings, an intersection of rural splendor and emptiness. She remains focused on those purple, yellow and orange flowers with faces beaming up to the sky, thriving on very little. 'How does a flower grow in the desert?' she sings. Desert Flowers postulates the potential for new life. Using the messages from the unconscious during sleep, the record ultimately conceives a bridge to the world beyond one's own. Written and recorded in her home studio, Trost began with harmonic frameworks, allowing the melodies to naturally take root. Introductory track 'Frog And Toad Are Friends' -- yes, named after the book -- is like a surf song from a sci-fi movie. Trost sees it as a mindwipe, 'a playful kind of romp to help shake off the cobwebs and get the bones moving.' The album ripens as it progresses, and 'Sandcastles' best embodies the spirit of the record. Lush strings and bass are complemented by a slow guitar groove, as Trost soulfully fantasizes about Earth's regeneration. 'In time, the bullets and tanks, and all of humanity's violent creations will melt back into mountains and the ocean,' she says. Integral to the record's creation was Trost's cohort in A Hawk & A Hacksaw and record label Living Music Duplication, Jeremy Barnes. 'This album wouldn't sound the way it does without his wonderfully discerning and courageous ear,' she says. Much like her previous two albums, Agistri and Petrichor, the record was primarily recorded at their home studio. Many of the tracks on Desert Flowers were created during difficult years, during which Trost's strident creativity offered a much-needed path to solace. 'Maybe these songs are a bit like desert flowers,' she reflects, 'pushing their way towards the sun, and in turn searching and pushing roots deep into the ground for water. As above, so below, the light and the dark, extroverted and introverted, color and monochrome.'"

$22.00 IN STOCK

"Anita Clark's new Motte album, Cold + Liquid, builds glacial atmospheres, frozen moods and isolated impressions. Portraying New Zealand through socio-geological sound, breathing in Christchurch cultures and locales, the album embodies an artistic simulation of the Kiwi environment. With this release, Clark aimed to make something colossal, and set about finding the right textures to add. A friend who works at Oamaru Freezing Works gave her field recordings of the temperature control room, a vast cold space of isolated machinery, where ice grows and dissolves in ever-evolving sculptures. Getting her hands on shortwave/longwave radios, she incorporated frequency sweeps. Another friend provided her with the mechanical drones underneath the deck of a cement cargo ship, as it lay docked in Lyttelton Harbor. Still more sources came from Sign of the Bellbird, an historic environmental site in South Christchurch, where Clark and Thomas Lambert recorded bellbirds, rolling boulders, snapping sticks, thrown dirt and the papery sound of the native harakeke plant. While violin dominates the first Motte album Strange Dreams (2017), Clark sought to expand instrumentation. She was gifted a handmade Pūrerehua puoro, a traditional Māori instrument that sounds similar to the whirling and hovering of a moth (which is 'motte' in German). A reacquaintance to the guitar occurred after developing an alter-ego project entitled Sex Den, with sleazy noir-esque guitar riffs in response to a failed rumor from a local drug-addled dive bar. Guitar and synth allowed for a broader songwriting palette along with a sometimes Dadaist approach to lyric writing. These new tools accent the extreme ambiences of Cold + Liquid, while additional work was provided by Ben Woods on synth and bowed guitar. Listening to Cold + Liquid is a fulsome experience of articulated sound and specific place. Anita Clark dances around the shining candescence of her culture like a night insect, always seeking a better vantage point to the light."

$20.00 IN STOCK

"Cassandra Jenkins's An Overview on Phenomenal Nature emerged from the blue earlier this year. With pandemic unknowns and political upheaval leaving most at frayed ends, the New York-born musician's assuring voice and expansive fresh take on songwriting created a much-needed reflective space for listeners worldwide. As 2021 comes to a close, Jenkins revisits those flowing textures and refrains with (An Overview on) An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, a collection of previously unreleased sonic sketches, initial run-throughs, demos, and sound recordings from the cutting room floor that provided the scaffolding for what became one of this year's most critically acclaimed albums. When Jenkins visited Josh Kaufman's studio this summer, they opened up their original sessions to uncover the ideas that were shed in the creative process. This new collection isn't merely a retrospective; it acts as a clear-eyed addendum as well as a compelling origin story, coming to life as a subconscious companion to the original album. (An Overview on) An Overview on Phenomenal Nature bookends Cassandra Jenkins's musical output this year with nuance, coloring in the corners, and giving the listener another window into her ever-expanding world of chance encounters, experiences, and sonic textures. They glimmer like the sun's changing patterns on the wall as a new day gets going."

$34.00 NOT IN STOCK

"Ichiko Aoba's albums have only been available as expensive Japanese imports, until now. In November, Ba Da Bing will release Windswept Adan on 2xLP in North America, Europe and the United Kingdom, with deluxe packaging. After creating her label, hermine, last year to celebrate her tenth anniversary in music, Aoba released the most complex and rewarding work of her career, 2020's Windswept Adan. While audiences in the west are only just learning she exists, her accomplishments are unquestionable; she contributed to the soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, was cited by Owen Pallett as an inspiration ('I've never been so blindsided by a musician as I was by Ichiko Aoba'), and has collaborated with the likes of Haruomi Hosono, Cornelius (who met her only two years after she first picked up a guitar and was blown away), Ryuichi Sakamoto, and recently Mac DeMarco. Ichiko Aoba's iconic voice and classical guitar playing are immediately recognizable, timeless sounds. Windswept Adan, envisioned as a soundtrack for a fictional film, builds its own world with sweeping co-production and arrangements from Taro Umebayashi, which 'recall the Wes Anderson scores of Mark Mothersbaugh or the cinematographic swells of American composer Jherek Bischoff' (Bandcamp). It's the story of a young girl sent to the island of Adan, a place where there are no words. While international listeners of Aoba may not understand the words she sings, and despite the central importance of lyrics in her writing, it's a testament to the power Aoba wields that one can resonate so deeply with her work. No matter the breadth of her sonic palette, and on Adan her scope is as wide and encompassing as Joanna Newsom's on Have One On Me, Aoba manifests an intimacy that makes one feel in the room with her. Ichiko Aoba's work gained greater exposure in the past year as the need for comfort grew while the world sequestered in solitude. She has a rare musical gift that is matched only by her ability to hone it into meticulous craft. Her music embraces and elevates alone time to a generous and tranquil place. In it, listeners are invited to feel a sense of consolation and possibility. The magic she imparts yields articles like 'Ichiko Aoba and the emotion of space during the pandemic;' in other words, her effect is singular."

$20.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

LP version. "An Earth Mirror is a magical device. Found in German occult literature, it is a clod of earth sandwiched between layers of glass. Gazing into the Earth Mirror is said to reveal the locations of hidden treasures. Magical visions and the revelation of mysteries in the landscape are two prominent features of Earth Mirror, the new album by Layla and Phil Legard alias Hawthonn, and their second for Ba Da Bing. Somewhere between moon musick and ethereal pop, the songs of Earth Mirror reflect the band's transition from studio project to live performers in the wake of 2018's Red Goddess (Of This Men Shall Know Nothing). The themes for the songs on this latest reflect the Legards' experiences, magical and mundane, in the wake of Red Goddess and as the world then headed full-tilt into pandemic. On Earth Mirror, Layla's heavenly voice accompanies a sonic palette encompassing field recordings of ice cracking on an ancient Corpse Road, mysterious hymns sung in disused medieval chapels, spectrally processed horse shrieks, rumbling organ, crystalline electric piano, electronic textures, and modulated jaw harp. No guitars appear on this album. Nor do conventional song-structures: the compositions here organically developed from dreams ('Dream Cairn'), experiments with inducing magical visions ('Odo Galse', 'Vehiel'), ruminations on lunar beings ('Crowned Light', 'Circles Of Light'), and ecological anxiety ('Cat's Cradle'). Their literary influences include English witch Andrew Chumbley, nihilist philosopher Emil Cioran, the Enochian language of John Dee and Edward Kelly, and even Kurt Vonnegut. As true practitioners of niche occultism and sound manipulation, Hawthonn could easily have been an inscrutable project. However, under the careful guidance of the Legards, Earth Mirror feels close and immediate, minimal and expertly atmospheric."

$10.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"An Earth Mirror is a magical device. Found in German occult literature, it is a clod of earth sandwiched between layers of glass. Gazing into the Earth Mirror is said to reveal the locations of hidden treasures. Magical visions and the revelation of mysteries in the landscape are two prominent features of Earth Mirror, the new album by Layla and Phil Legard alias Hawthonn, and their second for Ba Da Bing. Somewhere between moon musick and ethereal pop, the songs of Earth Mirror reflect the band's transition from studio project to live performers in the wake of 2018's Red Goddess (Of This Men Shall Know Nothing). The themes for the songs on this latest reflect the Legards' experiences, magical and mundane, in the wake of Red Goddess and as the world then headed full-tilt into pandemic. On Earth Mirror, Layla's heavenly voice accompanies a sonic palette encompassing field recordings of ice cracking on an ancient Corpse Road, mysterious hymns sung in disused medieval chapels, spectrally processed horse shrieks, rumbling organ, crystalline electric piano, electronic textures, and modulated jaw harp. No guitars appear on this album. Nor do conventional song-structures: the compositions here organically developed from dreams ('Dream Cairn'), experiments with inducing magical visions ('Odo Galse', 'Vehiel'), ruminations on lunar beings ('Crowned Light', 'Circles Of Light'), and ecological anxiety ('Cat's Cradle'). Their literary influences include English witch Andrew Chumbley, nihilist philosopher Emil Cioran, the Enochian language of John Dee and Edward Kelly, and even Kurt Vonnegut. As true practitioners of niche occultism and sound manipulation, Hawthonn could easily have been an inscrutable project. However, under the careful guidance of the Legards, Earth Mirror feels close and immediate, minimal and expertly atmospheric."

$22.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"Melbourne-via-Tasmanian four-piece Quivers first released their 2018 debut We'll Go Riding On The Hearses as hand-made cassettes. The album dealt with singer Sam Nicholson's loss of his brother in a freediving accident, and 'trying to not think about that, and often coming back to ghosts, benders, water, and pissing in the snow.' When demand for the album grew, it received a vinyl release and led Quivers to tour the US, film a KEXP session, and be selected by NPR Music for both the Austin 100 SXSW preview and as a 'Slingshot' artist to watch. Their life-damaged but hopeful jangle pop has only sharpened since then, and while 2021 follow-up Golden Doubt conjures up REM or The Clean, there is a lyrical directness that sets this record apart as always its own. Golden Doubt is carried by shimmering guitars and the harmonizing vocals of members Holly Thomas and Bella Quinlan. Elevated by the production of Matthew Redlich (Holy Holy, Husky, Ainslie Wills), the record explores what comes after grief, and how one throws oneself back into love. As Nicholson explains, the album tries to bottle 'the rush of feelings and fears when you give in to falling for someone. It's also an album in love with other albums, and the other bands around us.' Before each take at Woodstock and The Aviary studios in Melbourne, Australia, the band would imagine a scene together (a waterhole for 'Laughing Waters', an overgrown carpark for 'Videostores') and then dive in to capture live group takes. Quivers need to get words on the page and sounds out to keep moving on. Both Nicholson and Thomas lost their brothers in the same year, and through that shared vulnerability they all have together that runs deep. Golden Doubt is also a love letter to playing music as a band and processing it all together rather than just carrying it as a weight. The cancellation of a 21-date US tour they had slated for 2020 has left them undeterred; Quivers plans to continue being a band and get back out into the world as soon as it's possible."

$16.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

"epic represents a crossroads for me as an artist. Going from intern to artist at Ba Da Bing, from solo folk singer to playing with a band for the first time and beginning to play shows on tour where people showed up. I am in awe of the artists who wanted to participate in celebrating my anniversary and reissue, from young inspiring musicians, to artists who took me under their wing, who I met on tour, and to artists I've looked up to since I was a teenager. Each one of these artists continue to influence my writing and provide a sense of camaraderie during this new era of sharing music." --Sharon Van Etten "Sharon Van Etten's career since the release of her second album, 2010's epic, is well-known; critically lauded albums, films, and television shows have continually displayed her expanding artistry. Upon its release, epic laid a romantic melancholy over the gravel and dirt of heartbreak without one honest thought or feeling spared. Her songs covered betrayal, obsession, egotism, and all the other emotions disliked in others and recognize in oneself. Van Etten's grounded and clenched vocals conveyed a sense of hope -- the notion that beauty can arise from the worst of circumstances. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this special album's release, and to acknowledge the convergence of Van Etten's present and past work, she asked fellow artists she admired to participate in an expanded reissue, where each artist would cover one different song from epic in their own style. Some are musicians Van Etten herself admired in her early days (Fiona Apple, Lucinda Williams, and Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon of Big Red Machine), some are peers (Courtney Barnett, IDLES), and others are part of a younger generation of innovators (Shamir, St. Panther). What they all share is embodied by epic -- a musician frankly communicating the power of music. The resulting epic Ten is a double album featuring the original plus the new album of epic covers and reimagined artwork."

$26.00 IN STOCK

2022 repress; double LP version. "epic represents a crossroads for me as an artist. Going from intern to artist at Ba Da Bing, from solo folk singer to playing with a band for the first time and beginning to play shows on tour where people showed up. I am in awe of the artists who wanted to participate in celebrating my anniversary and reissue, from young inspiring musicians, to artists who took me under their wing, who I met on tour, and to artists I've looked up to since I was a teenager. Each one of these artists continue to influence my writing and provide a sense of camaraderie during this new era of sharing music." --Sharon Van Etten "Sharon Van Etten's career since the release of her second album, 2010's epic, is well-known; critically lauded albums, films, and television shows have continually displayed her expanding artistry. Upon its release, epic laid a romantic melancholy over the gravel and dirt of heartbreak without one honest thought or feeling spared. Her songs covered betrayal, obsession, egotism, and all the other emotions disliked in others and recognize in oneself. Van Etten's grounded and clenched vocals conveyed a sense of hope -- the notion that beauty can arise from the worst of circumstances. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this special album's release, and to acknowledge the convergence of Van Etten's present and past work, she asked fellow artists she admired to participate in an expanded reissue, where each artist would cover one different song from epic in their own style. Some are musicians Van Etten herself admired in her early days (Fiona Apple, Lucinda Williams, and Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon of Big Red Machine), some are peers (Courtney Barnett, IDLES), and others are part of a younger generation of innovators (Shamir, St. Panther). What they all share is embodied by epic -- a musician frankly communicating the power of music. The resulting epic Ten is a double album featuring the original plus the new album of epic covers and reimagined artwork."