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LP
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FTR 279LP
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$16.50
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RELEASE DATE: 8/24/2018
"Recorded in fits and starts, while the artists worked on their moontans amidst strong waters, the sole release by Dead Girl's Party was originally issued on cassette by the Entr'acte label. Since that tape now goes for a ben-and-a-half, we realized it was time to make a vinyl document of these young jazz immortals. Scott 'Pfennig' Foust (XX Committee, IFCO, Tart and the founding philosopher of the Anti-Natural movement) and Matt 'Ha'Penny' Krefting (Son of Earth, Believers, Duck, MK Unit, etc.) decided to do this stuff because they were hanging out a bunch, and 2009 seemed like a 'down' year to them. What better to inflate its core than a totally-inscrutable duo, dedicated to creating noise-pop with no clear precedent? The three tracks on the first side run from the Francis Bebey-like 'The First Pill,' through 'I'm a Tick Tock Bomb' (basically a distillation of every good move the Fall made in the '90s), onto the Apocalypse-as-a-carnival-midway-game of 'Spin the Wheel!' It's what I sort of thought the Sleaford Mods might sound like when I first heard about them (boy, was that a disappointment). Just a weird, sometimes wordy collection of electronics and mood and barely suppressed outrage. The two tracks on the flip are sort of a post-Apocalypse song suite about pirates in a submarine who have to get rid of a lot of ballast, although they know they're gonna die anyway. And wasn't life grand? To which we say, 'yeah!' Impossible to categorize or to get off the stereo, The Things I've Lost is a monster for the ages. Listen in the light. Listen in the dark. Just listen." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 300; Includes download code.
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LP
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FTR 359LP
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$18.50
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RELEASE DATE: 8/10/2018
"Stefan Neville is one of the busier beavers on the North island of New Zealand. Recording under his own name, as Pumice (or a variety of other soubriquets), running the Stabbies & the Rockets label, drumming for the Coolies and so on, he keeps his tail moving quickly so that it does not grow moss. Greg Malcolm is one of New Zealand's premier avant garde string-benders. He did a bit of band aktion with Jay Clarkson in Breathing Cage but has mostly hewed to stranger improv-based roads. He plays oddly crafted guitar-like instruments of all manners and has lots of great solo recordings as well as various ad hoc unit-spew and a duo record with Eugene Chadbourne. And NOW, at last, he has Nuance as well. For Nuance, Greg plays strings, tambourine, voice and 'things.' Stefan counters with drums, reed organ, tapes, throat, and synth. The material ranges from 'Prospectus' (one of Steve Lacy's great '80s compositions) to Joe Meek's 'Telstar' to 'Hora' and 'Serba' (Jewish wedding music by the Epstein Brothers) with various unexpected stops in between. Apart from Jenny Ward's second vocals on Daw Henson's 'I'm Crazy Over You' (an old Kentucky tune, originally recorded by Alan Lomax in '37), it's just Stefan and Greg here. And they shine in lots of weird ways. Greg's strings often have lots of overloaded vibrational qualities to the way they sustain notes ('though they know how to cluck like chickens, as well) and Stefan's work ranges from stark drumming in the Mississippi style to key drones that extend the fake bounds of infinity. The breadth of the material they tackle is almost insane, but they manage to infuse it with their own distinct personality traits, and unusually friendly experimental tactics. Hard to grasp? Sure. But it's just as hard to stop playing it. That's what we call real Nuance." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 250.
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LP
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FTR 287LP
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$20.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/10/2018
"Reissue of an exceptional album of improvisations, recorded when percussionist Charles K. Noyes was lured to the Bay Area in the summer of 1979 by Henry Kaiser. Noyes and Maercks had played regularly as a duo when Owen was still based in Worcester, MA. But he'd shifted his ass westward in the wake of the Teenage Sex Therapist session (FTR 153-2LP), which had been organized by Kaiser following their collaborations in the band, Monster Island. Half of the album was recorded live at Woody Woodman's Finger Palace, with Kaiser on guitar and Greg Goodman on piano. The web of cluttered notes and interwoven melodic lines they created that night was incredible. And the duo studio session a few days later was massive as well. Free Mammals has long been a notoriously scarce document in the history of the West Coast's free music scene of the late '70s. And the album (nominally released on Owen's Visible label, although everything was handled by Charles) almost always sounded as though it had been pressed onto concrete. With the help of Jeremy Pisani and Carl Saff, we have attempted to present this extraordinary music with the best sonics possible. And it sounds mighty dandy. There is also a liner note insert, as well as full size repros of two fliers from both the show at which this was partially recorded, and also a subsequent trio set with Noyes/Kaiser/Goodman. They will look fine on your wall, should to choose to thus deface them. Regardless. Count your lucky stars and dive in. All of your dreams are about to come true." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 500.
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LP
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FTR 373LP
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$18.50
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RELEASE DATE: 8/10/2018
"We were first attuned to Dial by Bill Nace back in the early days of this century. He'd been sent over the moon by the incredible squall of the unit, a trio led by former UT-guitarist Jacqui Ham. We were so blown away by the re-emergence of Jacqui, we didn't even try to figure out who the other players were. But it turns out the other two dudes were Rob Smith, a most immaculate manipulator of drum dials and guitar feedback, and synth-pillager/bassist Dominic Weeks, who'd been in the most insane Rough Trade band of all times -- Furious Pig. This was news worth learning! Over the course of four CDs in 16 years, Dial managed to make a crazy amount of fully-braced guitar skronk, worthy of anyone you can name, without managing to get any of it onto that most durable of formats -- vinyl LP. Now. Finally. After more than a dozen years in the digital desert, Dial are being heard the way they were always meant to be heard. Noise Opera is an homage to Ornette Coleman's 1961 masterpiece, Free Jazz. The album consists of two side-long explorations of loud post-form guitar order and suggest different ways in which they can be organized, while remaining ecstatic throughout. The contours of the textures the quartet wrestle with in the dark halls of feedback and sheer skronk are incredible. Whole generations of New York post-form giants are referenced or destroyed in the course of Noise Opera. A statement as stunning as any you will hear this year." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 250.
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2LP
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FTR 308LP
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$24.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/10/2018
"Hard to believe it has been 18 years since this set was first issued, but that's what the calendar says. Paul and Chris had been playing together for a while before this. I seem to recall rehearsals outdoors in Hartford beneath stretches of raised highway under construction. But that may have been Chris and Pete Nolan, back when Pete played guitar. Who can remember exactly? It's been a long time. But I do remember we put this set together because it seemed essential to document how amazing the communication was between these two musicians, from different generations, but tuned into the same insane frequency. When we told Paul we wanted to do it on the Ecstatic Yod label, with art by Gary Panter, and actual liner notes, he thought it wasn't the best idea he'd ever heard, but what the hell. The actual hope of the label was to raise the profile of this incredibly talented but ruinously humble saxophonist, so that he'd be thought of in the same way as the day's other great players. And hey -- it sorta worked. The CD got solid reviews, and more people heard it. But what most listeners took away from it was how intensely telepathic the music is. It's all lightning and smoke. These guys were deep inside each other's heads, and that made for a wonderful listening experience. In a way it's funny to hear how 'jazzy' Chris's playing is. He's gone so far beyond known-moves over the last years, you almost suspect he must be holding back. But he's not. He's throwing down as hard as he can to meet the ragged flowing genius of Flaherty's horn at every turn. He just had different chops back then. And the music is still amazing. The Hated Music is one of the best extended drum/sax forays you'll ever hear. If we could have done it on vinyl back then, we would have, but no one was buying the stuff much right then. Jerks. That has changed a bit now. For the good. And we got the great Gary Panter to do new cover, since the old one was CD sized and weird. But everything else is the same. And it totally rips a hole in the universe. Now and forever. Amen." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 500; Includes download code.
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LP
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FTR 384LP
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$18.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 7/27/2018
"For his second Feeding Tube LP, following the superb solo outing Orphic Resonance (FTR 281LP, 2017), Eric Arn has chosen to team up with the Austrian shapeshifter Margaret Unknown (aka Max Bogner), for a set of acoustic guitar duets. Eric's history is well known via solo work, duets with Tom Carter, and hard psych playing from his pre-Vienna days with both Primordial Undermind and Crystalized Movements. We knew Margaret mostly for his work with (In) The Abyssity of the Grounds, who backed Linda Sharrock on her massive Gods 3LP set (which should be a fixture in every home). Recorded live at the mo.ë space in Vienna, Paranza Corta (Italian for a Sicilian style knife fight) is far less of a combat situation than a deeply explored intersection of stringed logic. Without being able to tell who plays what (and although the tracks are named after various bladed weapons), the music here is a fight, in the sense that the opening scene of West Side Story is a fight. While choreographed only on a subliminal level, these two guys allow each other a lot of space to change directions, and almost seem to be working in tandem, so immediate are their reflexive actions. The heft of the interplay here recalls some of the nylon string collaborations Eugene Chadbourne did back in the Parachute days, although he wasn't big on guitar duets (at least on record). The playing here offers the same brilliant mix of organically achieved weirdness that can begin as a gentle outside motion, and then grow to devilish proportions without ever going too far. If there even is such a thing. If there is (and I acknowledge the possibility), the music on Paranza Corta does not go there. It's a brilliant tapestry of gesture, reaction and recontextualization. Of course, as I write those words, I begin to realize that maybe it is more like a knife fight than I'd thought. We should really ask Russ Tamblyn what he thinks." --Byron Coley, 2018
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LP
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FTR 388LP
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$18.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 7/27/2018
"Matt 'MB' Jones has long been kicking back and forth between the Valley and Asia. His recordings with Jee Jee Band have reflected this duality. And this new 'solo' album, recorded mostly in his original backyard with a cast of local hottentots (Conrad Capistran, Tim Sheldon, John Moloney, etc.) continues this vibe, while changing it in many subtle ways. The K-Pop readymades of the Jee Jee Band's Glass Fish LP (EM 1138CD/LP) have continued to drift out of Matt's repertoire. This remodeling began on Jee Jee's Holy Yolk LP (FTR 304, 2017), and by this point the hints are still there if you know where to look for them, but they no longer jump out at you. Matt's basic constructions are still often electronic pop at their base, but the details that get piled on top of that now require a wide closet of costumery. From the multi-tracked vocal glistens of '$200,000 Ticket to Space' (with neo-gamelanic tone highlighting) through to the jaw-harp-riven dolor of 'Going Swimming in the Morning,' the only real common thread the mood of dislocation Jones bakes into many of his lyrics. It's never easy keeping one foot in reality (so-called) while extending your other foot into the vacuum of space, but it's forward trajectory Matt seems to have managed. Perhaps this is why he and Mike Watt have struck up a friendship (the two recently cut a lathe 7"). Just as Watt attempts to codify his personal history, while the statis of the world constantly slides past him on his endless tours, Jones seems bent on writing twin histories of his peregrinations -- one with each hand, while everything spins around his head. It's an epic quest. And one to which you should pay sweet attention." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 250.
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LP
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FTR 311LP
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$18.50
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RELEASE DATE: 7/27/2018
"Finally, what the world has been eagerly anticipating for the last four decades -- an LP by EMPOOL! Empool was a whacked-out, Detroit-based prog-noise combo (usually a trio or quartet), that would eventually merge into the rock-band-era Destroy All Monsters. Guitarist Laurence Miller was a constant throughout. Organist Andre Cynkin was generally on hand as well. Laurence's brothers, Ben and Roger, showed up now and then, as did pianist Rick Scott. Empool only played three live shows, but they recorded everything, and their use of pre-recorded tapes as a live sound source may have informed Roger's decision to do the same when he formed Mission of Burma. The tracks on this album were recorded between December 1976 and September 1977, and they're pretty amazing. Structurally, the stuff is far away from No Wave, but it has a lot of the same rough structural textures and jumbled sonics, although there's also crazy tape noise (some of it resembling gushing synth sequencing) and stun guitar stirred into the mix. The fact that it's mostly instrumental gives things a certain prog/experimental thrust that feels a bit parallel to the bands on the Random Radar label, but it runs wildly against the grain of anything else you'd hear in that era. With an insert containing Laurence's memories of the project, and album art guaranteed to lull prog heads into submission, Empool's DOES do did done is a magnificent head scratcher. Can be filed neatly between Sproton Layer and Destroy All Monsters." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 300.
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LP
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FTR 255LP
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$18.50
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RELEASE DATE: 7/27/2018
"Split LP by a couple of bands who have more tricks up their collective sleeves than most outfits you could name. Metabolismus are a musical collective from near Stuttgart Germany, who have been actively corrupting the minds of everyone around them since the 1980s. The number of players on any given session, as well as the style of music that will be generated, is almost infinitely mutable. About all you can count on is that it will be intriguingly fried. Mono Pause began as a duo in River Falls, Wisconsin in the early '90s, before relocating to the Bay Area. They also create ethnic forgeries under the name Neung Phak, but that's of no matter here. Like their German brethren, Mono Pause has no fixed line-up or output style. Their records are generally fluxed as hell, and we're all the better for it. Not sure exactly how this split LP came into being, but when we heard such a thing existed we agreed to release it faster than your mom will drop a red-hot potato. Typically, the record sounded nothing like what we expected. Which is the best kind of surprise. Metabolismus's side begins with deeply freaked, rotating guitar figures that connect it historically to the German progressive sub-underground. From there it skates off into Neue Deutsche Welle turf, eventually loafing around with people-on-the-street-who-talk-with-balloons, and go all over the park in search of snacks. By the time they start doing a flipped-out Gainsbourg/Bardot-style cover of 'I Know You Rider' you'll be talking with balloons as well. Mono Pause's side ranges from German-tongued Egypto-spaghetti-pop readymades to subterranean secret agent theme songs played on mock-Theremin to blips of pure Residential form-hunch and beyond. The width of their skitterage is surpassed only by its elegant weirdness. Parts make me recall a never-released Der Plan record I once heard in a dream. Hooray!" --Byron Coley, 2018 RTI Vinyl; Edition of 500.
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LP
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FTR 340LP
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$18.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 7/13/2018
"Unlike the last Bang! Bros. record we did (12/12/12, FTR 170LP), this one's frilly style was not dictated so much by a date as by time. According the jacket's notations, it was recorded in less than an hour in October, 2016. What? You might cry. What kind of a goddamn record can be recorded in under an hour? We'd like to point out that such live classics as Metallic K.O. (1976) and Mars Live at Artists Space (2011) were recorded inside those temporal parameters. Futhermore, we should point out that Bang! Bros. are a duo who live by the rules of real time interaction. They do not attempt to step in the same river twice. Theirs is a journey that leads only in one direction -- ever outward! The pair of musicians who are the Bang! Bros. (Mark Johnson and ARKM Foam) make a huge effort to always assure their attempts to manipulate electronic splint-chutes of all manners are observable as live events (observed either by eye, nose and ear, or ear alone). In the case of recordings, we are asked to accept the word of these gentlemen that their output is of the living variety, but they have never given us reason to doubt them, so why should we start now? The music on Hard Rocks Vol. 21 (only a few other volumes of which I have had actual access to) is the brilliant, spaced and sprongy, fast edit head wrench we have come to expect of the Bros. It delivers what I'd dare say is a full month's worth of confusion in just over thirty minutes. In this sense, it will be an incredible time-saver for many of us. Let's just get all that confusion jammed in, then we can do some chores! One can only hope that the cartoon on the back of the jacket -- in which Sam Gas Can suggests the Bang! Bros. will go and live in the jungle and forget to eat -- is just his idea of a sick joke. I mean I dunno about you, but if I had to spread my confusion out over the whole month, I'd be well and truly fucked." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 200.
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FTR 365LP
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$18.50
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RELEASE DATE: 7/13/2018
Feeding Tube Records present the first US LP by Dutch experimental artist Jan van den Dobbelsteen. Jan has been releasing music, non-music and kinda-music on his Cosmic Volume label since 1978. Often these works are connected to visual exhibits or installations, but they also work as standalone sound events. Feeding Tube Records had been tracking Jan's work for a good long while, but it was only after Phil Milstein told them he was friends of Jan and his partner, Danielle Lemaire, that their wheels began to spin--They had sponsored Milstein's show-and-tell song-poem trip to the Low Countries. Introductions were made, and here are the most excellent results. Because van den Dobbelsteen's conceptual palette is so wide, Feeding Tube Records approached this project without preconceptions or suggestions. What he came up with was a set of wild pieces for bells of all sorts. The effect is something like a shoebox version of Charlemagne Palestine's work with carillons, perhaps crossed with one of those records documenting the sounds of mechanical toys. When pressed for a few words, Jan described it thusly: "Constructing a music machine inspired from musical automata, self-playing instruments. Music boxes, barrel and street-organs, automatic mechanical pneumatic organs. Self-playing ensemble of bells. electromechanical random clicking and tinkle. No virtuosity or individual genius. Automated musical bells generates the sounds and motion in the performance and produce richly-textured sounds and jingle while there is no need for a composer or performer. rinkelen jingle tinkle jangle chink clang clank klingelen jingle tinkle tingelen tinkle jingle rammelen rattle jingle strum jangle sputter clash kletteren clatter clang clank patter rattle jingle gerinkel tinkle jingle clank jangle chink clang klinkklank jingle clink chink tinkle jangle ding a ling ring ding ping chime tintinnabulation clink chink tinkle ring ding ping ringing chime jingle bell toll peal rumble grumble carillion." Edition of 200.
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LP
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FTR 399LP
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$18.50
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RELEASE DATE: 6/29/2018
"The fifth LP by English guitarist Jon Collin is also his first U.S. release. Jon first came to our attention when he started the Winebox Press label. This fairly nuts project involved choosing a wooden object (like a wine box or door) from which to create cases (some of them quite complex) for cassettes he released. The size of the edition was determined by the number of the packages he was able to create from the original object, and the label's creations were pretty amazing. Some of his early bands, like Whole Voyald Infinite Light and the Serfs were documented, along with artists like the Hunter Graccus, Chora and Taming Power. Eventually he began to issue solo recordings, and they sounded as brilliant as they looked. This led to occasional U.S. tours, interest from other labels and a worldwide explosion of all things JON COLLIN. Well, that's not all really true. But the basics are. Collin is a wonderful player, incorporating the distention of Loren Connors alongside the blues figures of Jack Rose and the lyrical melodicism of Robbie Basho. He can also throw in blurts that are pure Derek Bailey to throw the punters off, but that's his business. This new album (which will be followed in a few months by Volume 2) is a lovely example of his most evolved beauty-moves, riven with hairs and rivers of discord, but generally dedicated to expanding (rather than collapsing) the head of anyone who will take the time to listen. Make time for it. You will be copiously rewarded." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 250.
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LP
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FTR 381LP
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$18.50
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RELEASE DATE: 6/29/2018
"Debut album by a wonderful Louisville-based guitarist/vocalist we happened upon at the 2017 Cropped Out Festival. Mr. Noguchi had recorded with Jim Marlowe on the Equipment Pointed Ankh cassette Sophomore Lounge put out (2016), but who could fucking remember that? Not us, so we were bowled over by the powerfully loud free-psych guitar set Shutaro's band played in the afternoon. FTR Boss Ted inquired of him as to whether he might have some recordings that were along the same lines. He said he did, and here they are. The tracks are partially like what his live set made us expect, but they go a lot of other dang places besides. Here the four long tracks rub against each other like adjacent bands on a PSF psych comp. The lengthiness of the song formatting allows a lot of textural motion in all directions, and the six musicians take full advantage of available latitude. The overall effect is strange and proggy, with Dane Waters' vocal overlays giving the proceedings a shiny surface they might not otherwise maintain. But the sound is wonderfully hybridized. At times its merger of prog, pop, fusionism and complexity make me think of a collision between the Glenn Phillips Band and Todd Rundgren's Utopia with Terje Rypdal sittin' in. I know I'm making it sound like a crazy quilt, and I suppose if sort of is, but only in the sense that it avoids the monochromaticism of so much contemporary music. Shutaro does not grab a single schtick and just shake it until his arm is tired. He mixes up of ballads and thunder (sometimes in a single song) in a way that strikes me as somehow very Japanese. But mostly it just strikes me about the head. In the most pleasant of ways. Take off your helmet and give it a try. You'll never know what hit you." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 250.
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FTR 385CD
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"Our last Big Blood release was the idiosyncratic Ant Farm, Colleen and Caleb's collaboration with the late composer Elliott Schwartz, which presented music designed for a museum installation. With Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, Big Blood return to the vast universe of strangeness they explore inside their own skin. Now fully incorporating the vocals and guitar of their daughter Quinnisa (previously a 'secret weapon' unveiled mostly at live shows, as the Dictators once did with Handsome Dick Manitoba), Big Blood sound nutsier and wilder than ever. Spaceship Earth is a massively psychedelic investigation of science fiction, science fact and the mythic spot where they reconcile. Specifically referring to the work of writers such as Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin and Buckminster Fuller, the music mixes the thunder of riff-thuggery with vocals beamed in from planet Comus and beat-slaps equally indebted to the Purple Revolutionary and the Neue Deutsche Welle. The combination is head-spinning and gloriously original but will be immediately identifiable as Big Blood by anyone who knows the band's music. I mean, it's so freaking strange and so freaking Maine, who else could it be?" --Byron Coley, 2018
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FTR 382LP
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"Debut LP by Brisbane's brilliant Greg Hilleard, who we first heard when he was part of the incredible Lost Domain. The Sheik is a solo album that makes us think of a summit between the Gibson Bros and Parachute-era Eugene Chadbourne (or something equally far-fetched). Pretty amazing by any yardstick. Anyway, Greg had a few words he wanted to share." --Byron Coley, 2018
Here they are: Celebrating 200 years of rock n roll. Former "leader" of Brisbane's premier room-clearers Strontium Dog (apologies to PORK), whose one and only record is terrible beyond belief (all surviving members agree). Shortly after the timely demise of SD, Gregory was asked to sit in with the Invisible Empire -- Brisbane (possibly Australia)'s, number one improv juke jumpers. John Henry decided being named after a dodgy pope was not very RnR and promptly renamed him Papa Lord God (apologies to the deceased). Evidence of the first meeting of minds is on the sadly unavailable Jeezly Fishcakes cassette. The Grubbage album was also recorded around this time. At some point one of the other more urbane members suggested that being named after the KKK (smash the invisible empire) wasn't maybe the best idea for impressing foreign investors and the name was changed to the Lost Domain. For 20 glorious years we free rocked the bars and verandahs of Brisbane to little or no response. Then Dave died. The guru, teacher, leader and philosopher (pre-war RnR division) was no more. This didn't sit well with Papa. Working in a gang made for light lifting and, being naturally work-shy, a solo thing wasn't really on the cards. Depression, madness and homelessness ensued. A period of semi-Calvinist sobriety followed (not recommended). Slowly muscles were stretched and strings were bent. A strong urge to avoid "tuneage" meant there would be no "writing". Freedom was the score and sound the means. Here is the first evidence for the prosecution/defense: Acoustic tracks recorded mostly first thing in the morning, in bed (Hello Furry Lewis!). Electric guitars recorded at the SweatLodge. Freedom yelps from the creek. Wordless protest. Dig in...
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FTR 385LP
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"Our last Big Blood release was the idiosyncratic Ant Farm, Colleen and Caleb's collaboration with the late composer Elliott Schwartz, which presented music designed for a museum installation. With Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, Big Blood return to the vast universe of strangeness they explore inside their own skin. Now fully incorporating the vocals and guitar of their daughter Quinnisa (previously a 'secret weapon' unveiled mostly at live shows, as the Dictators once did with Handsome Dick Manitoba), Big Blood sound nutsier and wilder than ever. Spaceship Earth is a massively psychedelic investigation of science fiction, science fact and the mythic spot where they reconcile. Specifically referring to the work of writers such as Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin and Buckminster Fuller, the music mixes the thunder of riff-thuggery with vocals beamed in from planet Comus and beat-slaps equally indebted to the Purple Revolutionary and the Neue Deutsche Welle. The combination is head-spinning and gloriously original but will be immediately identifiable as Big Blood by anyone who knows the band's music. I mean, it's so freaking strange and so freaking Maine, who else could it be?" --Byron Coley, 2018
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FTR 337LP
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"The Chicago-based string genius Joshua Abrams first talked to us about the idea of this album a while back. It took a couple of years to get together, but in a way, it's cool that it's being released in 2018 -- the 50th anniversary of the recording of the first free bass solo LP, Barre Phillips' Journal Violone. Issued by Opus One in the U.S., Music Man in the UK (as Unaccompanied Barre), and Futura in France (as Basse Barre), Phillips' groundbreaking album was a gorgeous and gritty exploration of textures that are usually bound deep inside the creative flow of unit improvisation. Hearing these sonorities explored, at length, without extraneous gabble was revelatory, but not easy to replicate. I could only think of a dozen other LPs of the stuff that have been done in the intervening years (CDs don't count)*. But Abrams is undaunted by such shit. Anyone who has seen him play or listened to him on record knows he has an aggressively wide palette and a fearless drive to explore new regions of sound. The tones on Excavations 1 have a much gnarlier feel than many of the tones Joshua explores inside group dynamics. Almost more like some of the bassists associated with avant garde composition (Bertram Turetzky, Fernando Grillo, etc.), Abrams' work here is about pushing against accepted precepts of melody and rhythm, freeing the bass from its accepted role, and allowing it to scream for real." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 500.
* 1974, Alan Silva - Inner Song (Center of the World); 1974, Harry Miller - Children at Play (Ogun); 1975, Kent Carter - Beauvais Cathedral (Emanem); 1976, Henri Texier - Amir (Eurodisc); 1976 - Fernando Grillo - Fluvine (Cramps); 1977, Henry Texier - Varech (Eurodisc); 1978, Dave Holland - Emerald Tears (ECM); 1978, Brother Malachi Favors - Magoustos Natural & Spiritual (AECO); 1980, Roberto Miguel Miranda - The Creator's Musician (Nimbus West); 1985, Joëlle Léandre - Sincerely (Plainisphare); 1986, Miroslav Vitous - Emergence (ECM); 1988, Klaus Koch - Basse Partout (Creative Works).
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FTR 361LP
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"Documentation of a rare summit meet by two of New England's stranger musical figurines, recorded at the Whitehaus in Jamaica Plain, MA back in 2012. The piece was created as a sort of dub battle showdown, with FOOM's turntables and Foam's cassettes & doodads all plugged into a 4 track and lit the fuck up. The jams here are languidly-paced, in comparison to a lot of contemporary assemblage, and the instant compositions unfold in way that puts one in mind of classic work by the L.A.F.M.S. Too often these days, music with some of the same experimental approach as is heard on Foom & Foam is either done at breakneck cartoony speed or stretched out endlessly. And while I like a good head-snapping or an excuse-to-nap as much as the next guy, I prefer it when artists doing abstract work allow you the space to ponder their plunder without making you wallow in it. With that in mind, this album unwraps itself like a precious gift for all to enjoy. By using previously recorded sounds as source, the artists eradicate both the ability and the necessity of trying to identify the instruments or objects producing the noise here. These are just sounds, freed from their original sonic context by the initial act of recording, now existing as naught-but-signals, to be interpreted by our brains as they see fit to interpret them. The F&F duo seem to understand this implicitly. And it allows them to manipulate the surface representations of previously-captured events in ways that recall Dennis Duck Goes Disco (1977), Steve Fisk's 448 Deathless Days (1987) and even Orchid Spangiafora's Flee Past's Ape Elf (1979). These confusional classics are all of a piece with the work here. Timeless beauty. All for less than the price of a good over-the-knuckle leather thimble. I'm not sure what you're waiting for, but get over it." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 450.
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FTR 355LP
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"Debut album by this Turners Falls-based quartet led by Adam Langellotti of Sore Eros and widely hailed for his engineering work. The sound on Transient Response is languid ruralist prog-pop, with help from Gary War, Ma Turner, Shannon & Beverly Ketch, and other Valley travelers. New Parents can be pretty raw live, but the overall vibe here is smoother and distinctly out-of-time. Different segments remind me of everything from Fraser & DeBolt to Brinsley Schwarz to Great Plains and back again. Something about the way the production is layered gives the record a feel quite redolent of the early '70s, but the more you play it, the clearer its contemporary origins become. Amongst the classic rock instrumental touches there are short bursts of weirdness that telegraph a 21st Century post-whatsis aesthetic as clearly as a skunk broadcasts stink. Jenifer Gelineau's violin work is an extremely important part of the tunes on which it appears. Her work here has a texture that binds Adam's voice and words to a point that looks forward and backwards in equal measures. Without it, I feel as though the album would have a certain wobble to it. Her fiddle is the gyroscope at the center of things. The fact that Anthony Pasquarosa did the cover art and Lee Ranaldo provided the insert photo are indicative of the company New Parents keep. Both of these cats are a hard-to-define mix of traditional and modern components. The same is true of Transient Response. And to those bitter orphaned critics who are bound (by law) to call this Dad Rock, I would hasten to correct them. It's Mom and Dad Rock, and if you can't dig that, your chances of ever hooking up with a real family are just about nil." --Byron Coley, 2018
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FTR 367LP
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"There is something very special about the sound of a bummed-out smart person alone in a room somewhere (studio or not) with just their guitar for solace. Many killer examples of the form exist -- Skip Spence's Oar (1969), Pip Proud's Adrenaline And Richard (1968), Roy Montgomery's 324 E. 13th Street #7 (1999), and so on. All of these records shine with very special darkness. To this list, I submit the new Mazozma LP, Stark Joy. Kentucky ex-pat, Mike Turner has been using this recording handle for a while. We did one previous album with him, Heavy Death Head (FTR 268LP, 2017), and like most of his solo work we've heard, it was a blasted lo-fi ramble through fields of destroyed form. Elegantly crafted, but so utterly fucked-up, it could make you feel dizzy. Stark Joy is a horse of an entirely different color. The music here is song-based, only strange in its detailing, and more straight ahead than any Warmer Milks fan would dare dream. Still, the ineffable Turner genius shines through like a lighthouse in a shitstorm. Recorded on an iPhone, probably nude, Turner's songs here contain a world of folk-longing, played with an all-mid-range approach that broadcasts deep spiritual weariness with the best of them. I could start name-checking the hordes, but I'll spare you. People familiar with Mikey's work will be struck by how straightforward and outright pretty his melodic constructions and guitar figures are. Those who are new to his work will just dig how open the album is. It's the kind of record that gives you a certain amount of comfort if you're wrapped up in your own personal storm. Conversely, if you're feeling good, you can focus on the vaguely upbeat tone that eventually suffuses everything. Having a hard time getting it off the turntable. It's that kind of record. Deeply personal in a certain way, but one which leaves it available to infinite interpretation, depending entirely on the listener. In a word -- interactive. As fuck. Get it today." --Byron Coley, 2018 Co-released with Mystra Records. Edition of 200.
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FTR 403LP
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"Mette Rasmussen is a Danish saxophonist, based in Norway, who has been recording with some of our favorite players (Chris Corsano, Alan Silva, Mats Gustafsson, Ace Farren Ford, etc.) She has also formed this duo with Asheville-based guitarist, Tashi Dorji (whose combo, Manas, has had two LPs on Feeding Tube this far: FTR 208LP, 2015 and FTR 330LP, 2017). The duo material for this LP was recorded in Montreal, right around the same time Mette and Tashi recorded a trio set for Trost (with the addition of drummer Tyler Damon). And it's all great stuff. Mette's playing has a raw tonal approach that makes one think of Eric Dolphy at his harshest. Her lines evince much of the same nimbleness as well. The effect is not unlike being hit in the face by a bunch of snakes with wings. Naturally, Tashi is playing electric in order to make himself heard, and the clots of sound he manages to coax out of his amp are worthy of comparison with such form-erupters as Keith Rowe. On the first side, there's a real physicality to the blocks Tashi creates, as well as to the manner which Mette's reed attacks them. It's an incredible sound -- brutal and communicative in equal measures. But as much as this may imply a musical surface akin to that of Borbetomagus, there's a lot more open space here. Especially on the second side, the music is paced to give itself over (now and then) to crenellations that allows in as much light as they emit. This record is a supremely human effort and hopefully the harbinger of much more to come." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 250.
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FTR 379LP
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"Tommy Jay and The General have been kicking around the Columbus scene (and various points on the map of that scene's diaspora) since the days of the True Believers (the ur-group in the history of Columbus underground hubbub). And this newly recorded album shows them to be at the height of their own amazing arc. Florida Songs is only Tommy's third proper LP under his own personal name and it's a killer. Recorded with help from a few old friends, including Nudge Squidfish, Florida Songs is a classic raunchy rock formulation by every known standard. Although the mood and tone shift mightily from song to song, the main thrust of the music here is brain-spattering ROCK of the pre-punk variety. Regardless of the fact these guys basically invented the template for several generations of punk>indie musicians, what they offer here is a survey of the roots of that music. You can hear shards of everything from the emotional bombast of Armand Schaubroeck Steals to Andy Zwerling's folk-rock readymades to the laid-back fury of the Stalk-Forrest Group to spurts of Roky Erickson phrase-howling at its gnarliest and onward and upward. These guys even throw in little production touches worthy of Bob Ezrin's work on Berlin. I shit you not. As anyone who's been lucky enough to catch Tommy's band live recently can tell you, Mr. Jay and cohorts are firing on all cylinders. And if this album is not hailed as a chunk of modern form genius at the apex of high, then all is fucking lost." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 250.
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FTR 383LP
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"Although I am not a painter, I urge you to sit down and listen to this, as if it were a game show, on prime time 'I Won The Prize, Ring The Bells' somewhere between an interview and the world's greatest puzzle someone would sing your songs for you regarding self-reference and identity an horsepower engine cruiser where it lacks in bathetic synth vortismuto in the afternoon it locks in an aplomb power balled tour d'fourths THE FOURTH WALL IS ON THE LANDSCAPE'S STAGE. Don't you recontextualize the tritone add variety of style/attitude including will, weal, wheel, the liner notes you'll def. Want to read, the heartbeat of this music is Constantine." --Billy McShane Edition of 250.
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FTR 374LP
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"Louise Bock is one of the performing names worn by Taralie Peterson of that most excellent duo, Spires That in the Sunset Rise. And the music on Repetitives in Illocality recalls a few aspects of Spires' recent live shows. It's akin to a dreamily aggressive take on the outer fringes of early ECM-style improvisation. A lovely hover between out-chamber-jazz, new music and the unknown tongue. Using cello, sax and treated lap harp, Louise Bock creates surfaces that are sometimes as chopped as ice sculptures made with a chainsaw, and at other moments as smooth as the soft expanse of Brian Eno's forehead. Those passages where the cello takes the lead are the most serious. Some passages, with their mournful sweep, almost sound like the slower parts of Kodály's 'Solo Cello Sonata.' The treated lap harp has resonance qualities not unlike a jaw harp at times, enabled to produce long tone lines, as well as to wobble like a jaw full of loose teeth. When Taralie's voice comes in, it can almost seem like Martin Rev is playing a solo on an old pushbutton phone while Judy Nylon blows clouds of aether into his wig. But the vocals combine with the sweet saw of cello in an entirely different way. Suggesting snippets of not-yet-discovered operettas about life elsewhere. Meanwhile, lap harp and sax appear to exist in a post-progressive universe where early '70s Gong may have actually had some serious moments. And this is some seriously amazing stuff -- solo, duos, trios and quartets drawn from the deep well of Louise Brock's imagination. Defy illocality. Come close and listen." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 300.
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FTR 313LP
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"Sub-underground super-groups are not common. This is less a function of the concept's oxymoronic nature than of the fiercely independent stance of musicians toiling in this area. By definition, they are doing what they do simply because they love it. It can be quite difficult to distract them from their main focus long enough to get them to do anything else. Weeping Bong Band is a lovely exception that proves this rule. Three members -- Clark Griffin, Wednesday Knudsen and PG Six -- are in the current line-up of Pigeons. One, Anthony Pasquarosa, has his own host of solo projects (Crystaline Roses, Gluebag, Burnt Envelope, etc.). And a final 'ghost member', Beverly Ketch, is half of the duo Viewer. Together, however, theirs is a rural psych engine that weeps as gently as a spring rain. This is high-provenance instrumental hippie spew from the apex of the Pioneer Valley. There's plenty of burbling psych guitar, laced with overtones that will make you conjure up visions of dark stoned nights. It is definitely music made in the day when marijuana had passed its medical-use-only status in the Commonwealth. Which is not to infer this music is unimbued with its own mystical curing properties, especially when played at mind-bending volume. Allow yourself to be bathed in the tears of the bong. Their sweet flow will wash away all traces of your sins." --Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 500.
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