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viewing 1 To 14 of 14 items
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LP
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BRG 012LP
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"Liquid Light Forms is Barge's first release for Koen Holtkamp, whose long-standing work both as half of the duo Moutains and as a solo artist has produced a diverse and rich catalog of electro-acoustic music. The album focuses almost entirely on electronic pieces utilizing predominantly voltage controlled modular synthesizers and sequencers. Liquid Light Forms radiates with pulsating, dense rhythmic patterns that morph and emerge as they compound on themselves. The result is a hypnotic and truly psychedelic listening experience that proves to be one of Koen's most captivating recordings yet. LPs released in an edition of 400 copies."
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LP
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BRG 011LP
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"Forms represents Pausal's sophomore production for Barge Recordings and sees the British duo merging their finely detailed sound design and ambience with a newly heightened sense of space and structure. Simon Bainton and Alex Smalley have clearly developed their compositional abilities since their earlier output; the ten pieces here are presented as four long tracks and feel natural in their melding of experimentation and harmonic progression. The rich, sprawling waves of aural grandeur and euphoria are distilled to create a musical narrative that shifts dramatically in mood, palette, and tone over the course of the album's 40 minute duration. Performed predominantly on guitar and laptop/sampler, their sonic pallet has expanded to incorporate a wider range of sound sources including dusty second hand vinyl finds (everything from 60's girl groups & 70's French 'Chanson' pop through to Mahler and Vivaldi) and for the first time - their vocals. The album was born mostly out of live performances (across the UK and in Europe), the rehearsals for which took place in a secluded barn deep in rural Wales, the landscape itself providing much inspiration for the music."
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LP
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BRG 010LP
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"Mike Weis is no stranger to the American indie/experimental music scene. He's been the percussionist and drummer for the highly respected Chicago outfit Zelienople for the better part of the last decade, and has collaborated with such esteemed underground luminaries as Scott Tuma, The North Sea, Xela (John Twells), and Jasper TX. With so many feathers in his proverbial cap, it's hard to believe that this is Mike's first solo outing. Upon the very first listen to Loop Current/Raft it becomes clear that Mr. Weis is much more than just another hired gun. The compositions on Loop Current/Raft breathe a singular vision of percussion as centerpiece to a multilayered aural canvas. Mike's drums are shrouded in billowy clouds of ambient sound and muted synthetic drones. Tribal rhythms glean in and out of focus as sheets of bells, claves, bowed cymbals, and rattles dance over a hazy backdrop of manipulated field recordings, short wave radio samples, and found sounds. There is a subtle yet unmistakably eastern feel to the recordings. Mike's training in West African polyrhythmic drumming as well Korean Pungmul drumming coupled with his foundation of traditional western 'rock' percussion patterns--birth an almost neo-gothic gamelan style. This inspired approach produces a recording that is both compelling and mesmerizing." Limited edition of 250 for the world. Hand assembled, stamped and numbered.
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LP
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BRG 009LP
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Ben & Isaac began The Fun Years in 2004. In the intervening years, they have made some of the most memorable and distinctive drone-pop albums to have come our way, evolving from layered ambience to a hybrid sound that's impossible to pigeonhole. Their setup of synths, turntables and guitar has lent their music a quality that's halfway between the haunted loops of Philip Jeck and the porous wall of sound so typical of My Bloody Valentine, without really sounding like either. Their drones are forever engaging and never quite follow the trajectory you'd assume or expect, often bursting into violent shards of sound. After 2008's critically-acclaimed Baby, It's Cold Inside, several festival appearances and contributions to Kompakt's Pop Ambient series, The Fun Years now return with a new album, their finest to date. Ben and Isaac haven't lived in the same city for several years, so their recording sessions have necessarily become less frequent and more intense. Splitting time between Ben's makeshift recording studios and Isaac's bedroom tomb, The Fun Years spent marathon recording sessions constructing, blurring and honing their sound. These sessions, coupled with some adventurous road tests performing the pieces in such uncharted venues as an air traffic control tower and the guts of a Richard Serra sculpture, imbues the album with a rich patina seldom heard in new drone experiments. This is most visibly displayed in the first half of the record, where shorter songs fizz with melodic repetition and almost traditional structures. The second half, by contrast, showcases a more harsh and artificial tone, offsetting the serenity of the opening with a more aggressive sound palette punctured with slow and dense skittering decaying into sparse passages and layered synth meditations, acting as a visceral yet cathartic fade-out for this wonderful album. Limited one-time only vinyl pressing of 500 copies for the world. Unique artwork and labels for the LP version.
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CD
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BRG 009CD
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"With God Was Like, No The Fun Years continue to experiment with turntable and guitar while retaining a sound that listeners have grown to recognize as an infectious, memorable style. God Was Like, No is not dissimilar from what you would expect from Cambridge/Madison-based The Fun Years, although upon deeper listening, the subtleties of a well-seasoned group further developing their sound begins to take hold. Ben and Isaac haven't lived in the same city for several years, so their recording sessions have necessarily become less frequent yet more focused. Splitting time between Ben's makeshift recording studios and Isaac's bedroom tomb, The Fun Years spent marathon recording sessions constructing, blurring and honing their sound. These sessions, coupled with some adventurous road tests performing the pieces in such uncharted venues as an air traffic control tower and the guts of a Richard Serra sculpture, gives God Was Like, No a rich patina seldom heard in new experimental recordings. Refining an already exceptional formula is a tough thing to do and The Fun Years -- masters at their craft -- tread these waters with ease."
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BRG 008CD
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"Lapses by Pausal is the first proper ambient release to come from Barge Recordings. These twelve gorgeous works of composed drone were crafted primarily from guitar, piano, violin, old classical vinyl and field recordings, all processed and played through various effects. Each song is like a specific place, highly personal, in which we're invited to visit and wander through. This is the core of their music, as you'll hear in tracks such as 'One Watery Lens' or 'With Seashell' -- where we can disappear in the essence of these recordings. Over time, organic yet precise details of the pieces emerge, revealing themselves more and more each listen. A certain attribute to the strength of Lapses is the slow dissolving of time itself. Pausal's compositions achieve the perfect balance of minimalism and drone to do just this. Another is their influence from classical music. Although a deliberate creative process through the application of found vinyl recordings, the sampling is quite functional, giving the pieces harmonic momentum and a unity to the full listen. This gift of retaining a certain musical framework and allowing the repetition of drone to run its natural course is something Pausal has perfected -- both as a recorded and live act."
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2LP
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BRG 007LP
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Double LP version on white vinyl with hand-stamped chipboard packaging. Limited, hand-numbered edition of 350 copies. "Animal Hospital is Kevin Micka's one-man musical recording and performance entity. Burying himself in a pile of electronics -- shelves of effects, mixing consoles, amps and delay units -- Memory is Kevin's latest venture into layered, processed guitar composition. Although composed in this experimental fashion, Memory is a completely realized recording -- a beautiful scape of shiny guitar tones, vocal washes, and dramatic build-ups, all of which cohere into a single musical vision. Memory is about as deliberate a title as you can get, and rightfully so. Recorded in an old bank in west Virginia, an antiquated movie theater lobby, apartments, studios, and Cape Cod, the album's realization is similar to a personal recollection of the past; a layered, non-linear, and often vague familiarity of places, things, people, known and unknown in our minds. Fueled by coffee and heartache, Memory serves as a highly personal account of its creator manifested into an amalgamation of musical themes, both delicate and brutal. Most notable about Memory is its intimacy -- the emotional thread tying his vast compositional approaches together. As an effort to connect Kevin's memories with ours and even to engage in one another's wanderings -- psychic exchanges between composer and listener -- Kevin searches out raw beauty within his repertoire of sounds. He performs guitar, drums, vocals, music boxes, and other gadgets with meticulous care; a detail for precision often discarded by experimental recordings."
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CD
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BRG 007CD
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"Animal Hospital is Kevin Micka's one-man musical recording and performance entity. Burying himself in a pile of electronics -- shelves of effects, mixing consoles, amps and delay units -- Memory is Kevin's latest venture into layered, processed guitar composition. Although composed in this experimental fashion, Memory is a completely realized recording -- a beautiful scape of shiny guitar tones, vocal washes, and dramatic build-ups, all of which cohere into a single musical vision. Memory is about as deliberate a title as you can get, and rightfully so. Recorded in an old bank in west Virginia, an antiquated movie theater lobby, apartments, studios, and Cape Cod, the album's realization is similar to a personal recollection of the past; a layered, non-linear, and often vague familiarity of places, things, people, known and unknown in our minds. Fueled by coffee and heartache, Memory serves as a highly personal account of its creator manifested into an amalgamation of musical themes, both delicate and brutal. Most notable about Memory is its intimacy -- the emotional thread tying his vast compositional approaches together. As an effort to connect Kevin's memories with ours and even to engage in one another's wanderings -- psychic exchanges between composer and listener -- Kevin searches out raw beauty within his repertoire of sounds. He performs guitar, drums, vocals, music boxes, and other gadgets with meticulous care; a detail for precision often discarded by experimental recordings."
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LP
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BRG 006LP
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Limited LP version. "Bird Show aka Ben Vida has been a major force in the avant-rock underground for over a decade. From his work in the seminal Town and Country to his two previous offerings under the Bird Show moniker, Ben has managed to consistently challenge his fan base while staying true to his unique musical vision. Untitled finds Ben exploring a wide variety of ethnic and traditional instruments creating an album of unique rhythmic ragas that are at once experimental yet easily listenable. Ben effortlessly blends world music clatter with indie rock song structure to create a modern composition that would instantly please fans of Konono No. 1 and Tortoise as well as Kemialliset Ystävät, Keith Fullerton Whitman and Jackie-O Motherfucker."
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CD
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BRG 005CD
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Restocked. Rated the #1 release of 2008 at Boomkat! "In 2007, The Fun Years released their first album with Barge Recordings. Life-Sized Psychoses was well-received by a diverse fan base of drone junkies, post-rock nostalgics and picky ambient collectors. It was clear that across the board, The Fun Years had struck a nerve; they were able to successfully reach different listeners while jeopardizing zero artistic merit. Audiversity.com put it well: "They understand the pros and cons of being at each polar end, inspired by both the classics and the unknown, and aim for a balance between idiosyncrasy, unpredictability and accessibility." True, yet their music is far from being crossover; more so a unique salient musical language which Ben and Isaac continue to utilize and a developed creative style that almost every type of underground music fan can find beauty in. Forged at the peak of The Fun Years' musical abilities and a significant broadening of raw musical sentiment, Baby, It's Cold Inside is not a record to be taken lightly. Once again 'exploring the pleasures of slow evolution, repetition and decay,' as music writer Susanna Bolle perfectly put it, but this time there is a much wider dynamic range, spanning from massive swells of guitar distortion to microscopic pulses, almost inaudible fragments. They harness compositional energy, focus it and release it in powerful blows, while exercising their innate sense for timing and restraint. The sense of artistic control achieved on Baby, It's Cold Inside is extraordinary, so much as to say The Fun Years have transcended the preconceptions of drone music as both a genre and scene."
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LP
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BRG 004LP
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"Barge Recordings is pleased to pair MGR and Xela on vinyl as the first in a series of split LPs. Shipping Gold/Calling For Vanished Faces treats the listener to two moving pieces that both compliment and contrast one another in style and compositional approach. Developed musically from two entirely different places, MGR's Mike Gallagher and Xela's John Twells respective careers have led them to this unique crossroad, a powerful recording capturing both artists at their creative primes. MGR / Shipping Gold: Hyper-slow development and dread-ridden tension building reveal themselves in Shipping Gold as in past MGR work, as well as the subtle swelling and closing of sonic space. Shipping Gold attracts our ears particularly due to its dramatic use of guitar in the foreground. Composed with both acoustic and electric guitar and effects, Mike's vigorous attack's and pitch-bent decay over a slowly morphing theme in a minor key behaves like some unknown light guiding us; its rays looming over an intense psychic landscape. Xela / Calling For Vanished Faces: Musically, it would be useless to categorize Calling For Vanished Faces as 'noise,' 'sound art' or anything aforementioned. In basic terms, every time we listen to this utterly mind-altering composition we discover something new; something to grab on to within its lush spectrum of dynamics. Bombarded with pulsating drumming, distant early-music inspired vocal harmonies, guitar distortion, morphing electronic buzzes and guitar feedback, Calling For Vanished Faces is a sonic arcade of sorts and delights the listener with each passing experience."
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2LP
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BRG 003LP
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"Referencing an old Providence armory in Geoff's neighborhood, Armory Radio is an ode to a specific chunk of time and space. Originally self-released as a double CDR in very small quantity, this limited double LP version features new material combined with reworkings of the original CDR version. Departing from last year's blues-influenced The Air In Pieces, Geoff surprises us once again with his creative diversity and his ongoing search for new sonic territory. At the start of the Armory Radio project in 2004, Geoff found a busted boombox in the trash with a barely-working short wave radio function on it. This roadside treasure was one of many found objects revived for unconventional reuse: handheld radios, cassette players and speakers which all play a role in structuring the album. This physical scavenging, along with other unplanned musical discoveries, led to the process-driven compositions on Armory Radio. Obsolete technology, found objects and a city's architecture are a few of the repeating themes embedded in Armory Radio's guitar-driven drones. Geoff's dramatic use of noise is prevalent as well, building thick fabrics of haze intertwined with fragmented feedback patterns that phase in and out with one another. Comparisons could be drawn to the ethereal short-wave recordings of William Basinski or Phil Niblock's massive drones, but Armory Radio is a more volatile work; no doubt influenced by the fertile noise underground in America (artists like Aaron Dilloway and Prurient come to mind, although not in too literal a way)."
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CD
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BRG 002CD
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"The Fun Years' new full length CD entitled Life-Sized Psychoses is a 50-minute composition combining drones, textures and stretched-out progressions. Split into five tracks (although we at Barge prefer listening all the way through), Life-Sized Psychoses is a perfect balance of soundscape meets song. A duo of turntable and baritone guitar, The Fun Years have disguised their instruments with atmospheric textures comprised of obscure samples and blissful repetition. The result is a stream of audio magma, filled with dreamy sound washes and subtle phrases that effortlessly tumble over one another. The Fun Years could be called experimental, but Life-Sized Psychoses is very well mapped out. As artists such as Stars of the Lid and William Basinski achieve, The Fun Years use time as a musical tool without pretense. They concoct thick layers of rich drone and underlying harmony that artfully conjure notions of memory, space and the subconscious. While Isaac Sparks' sampling creates a thick haze of pops and crackles from abstracted vinyl recordings, Ben Recht's guitar work of arpeggios and open tunings draws the listener into the world of The Fun Years."
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CD
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BRG 001CD
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"Innature is the maiden voyage for Barge Recordings. This compilation brings together some of the finest artists who continually defy the concept of genre. Curated and sequenced in a cinematic fashion, Innature conjures thoughts and associations with one's journey though a day: waking, urgency, contemplation and dreaming. It has a dynamic quality that inspires repeat listens when a certain mood is sought. Independent music veterans placed alongside the lesser known offers the listener a taste of familiarity as well as mystery, producing a listen that is both ear-opening and fan pleasing. Electronic compositions cross paths and often intertwine with traditional instrumentation. Ranging from dark and brooding to lush and beautiful, Innature sustains sonic diversity throughout the course of the record." Artists include: The Fun Years, The Kallikak Family, Birdshow, Polmo Polpo, Tim Hecker, Loren Connors, Animal Hospital, Circle, Geoff Mullen and MGR.
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