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viewing 1 To 11 of 11 items
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LP
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MIDWICH 011LP
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"James Marlon Magas has been reborn -- or perhaps, more accurately, born for the first time in his most undiluted image. Confusion Is My Name is his first album under his full given name, and the first album in over a decade to position him as a proper frontman at the microphone against the backdrop of his idiosyncratic electronic productions. It arrives as a statement of purpose, a detonation to vaporize the debris and clear out new territory. The album lays out his most diverse menu of styles and experiments to date, veering from technoid noise-pop animated by his maniacal vocal performances, to hallucinogenic psych rock with analog synths repurposed into bludgeoning guitar riffs, to something that resembles lounge music as performed by a delirious crooner on the eve of the world's destruction. Meticulously sculpted over the better part of five years, Confusion Is My Name takes up the reins of multiple eras of James Marlon Magas's output and conglomerates them into some rendition of the ultra-Magas. Just as his participation in the band Couch cast him as a swaggering vocalist howling out unhinged tirades, the Magas of today returns to a version of that role with an equal measure of demoniac belting and brain-melted post-crooning. Magas recasts his analog synths into the role of the guitar in some moments, even achieving a sense of back and forth 'stumming' with their oscillating wails -- not to be confused with the actual overdriven guitar contributions of French noise maven Electronicat on 'Lay My Money.' Other guests appear amidst the Confusion. Former Blues Control member Lea Cho pours out a rapid-fire keyboard solo on the climax of 'Feathers in the Clouds,' hitting like a boogie-woogie pianist on speed atop Magas's squelching synths. New Orleans freak music luminaries Miss Pussycat and Quintron contribute vocals, flute, and percussion to album opener 'Irma, Irma.' Chicago experimental/free-jazz veterans Fred Lonberg-Holm and Julie Pomerleau join in on the delicate album-closer 'Kiss on the Cheek' with their plaintive cello and violin layers brushing against Magas's Rhodes. For all its dense frameworks of production, James Marlon Magas's vocal performances occupy our full attention throughout Confusion Is My Name. He takes chances on the mic. He embraces some skewed rapping on 'Watch,' spitting bars alongside director/actress Asia Argento, with whom Magas collaborated as a composer on the 2014 film Misunderstood. Argento's verse finds her incanting a whispered malediction in her native Italian. Magas embraces the role of the quasi-doom metal vocalist on 'Stone,' all while his drum programming pummels us with snares and kicks more in the vein of electro. Magas inhabits the personas that each track calls for with unbridled confidence. This time around, he stands before you as a rock star, some type of demented oracle, and lays it all out on the table. He's not asking you to follow him if you don't want to, but he knows you can't stay here. Nowhere is safe, yet at least you could choose to spend the last of your energy in the company of James Marlon Magas as he serenades you into oblivion."
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12"
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MIDWICH 009EP
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"Magas's limited-to-200 4-track spring 2017 12" EP Explanatory Denial opens A1 with 'Shipping Container', a rough, minimal stomper, offering plenty of bounce, but no padding or instructions. A2's 'New Dawn' opens the door to a brightly-lit and concrete alternate reality. B1's 'Sky Castles' keeps bodies moving while synthesized strings whisper false reassurances of easy days and high pay. The closer, 'Indelible Mark' is an atmospheric lo-fi Casio and Rhodes lounge-funk spy groover that smells of Holiday Inn wood-paneling, dripping with Benson & Hedges Ultra-lite 100s. Deploying a variety of primitive electronic techniques, Explanatory Denial is a testament to the power of diligent synth-hunting and decades of basement refinement. Explanatory Denial is the 7th record by Chicago-based electronic producer Jim Magas under his longtime Magas moniker. In the '90s, he fronted unconventional 'no wave'-ish bands Couch and Lake Of Dracula. In the early 2000s, he recorded for material for Ersatz Audio and did a few remixes. In the Twenty-teens, he focused on instrumental productions for his own Midwich imprint and composing music for director Asia Argento's 2014 film, Misunderstood. In early 2017, Magas premiered new material during a U.S. tour in support of band Joan of Arc. Explanatory Denial is the first entry into Midwich Red, a series of no-frills, minimally-packaged, club-friendly, limited edition 12"s."
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LP
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MIDWICH 010LP
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"Maxwell Allison records improvised loop-based electronic music under the name Mukqs. 11,666,666,666,666,666,666, his first LP with Chicago imprint Midwich Productions, documents a session of intertwined synth melodies and technoid beat arrangements recorded live and presented without overdubs. Previous tape releases compiling live takes of textured noise and deranged sample manipulation using cassette tapes as sound sources appeared on labels like Phinery, Apothecary Compositions, and Hausu Mountain (co-run by Allison himself and Doug Kaplan). Allison and Kaplan perform with Natalie Chami in Chicago free music trio Good Willsmith, whose abstracted electronic rock jams and space drone ritual performances aim for a state of overloaded chaos. On 11,666,666,666,666,666, Allison sheds the randomized and abrasive aspects of past free-for-all jams and latches into an elastic pulse of syncopated basslines and complex percussion patterns pumped from a minimal hardware rig of drum machine and sampler. The LP evokes the subaquatic atmospheres and evolving analog arrangements of Drexciya, the recursive melodic ecstasy of Terry Riley, and the cyborg tonal juxtapositions of Oneohtrix Point Never. Mukqs's arrangements pit the insistence of a rigid grid against a system of arrhythmic synth samples that intersect with a loose logic all their own. Brittle vocal and flute preset tones clash with chordal clouds of sustain and swelling drones, as a network of hi-hat and snare patterns click a path through the center of the mix. Allison's thick bass bursts dominate the stereo spread, animating grooves and harmonizing in distortion with a web of crisp triangle wave arpeggios. His session stretches from the loping electro thump and siren synth walls of 'The Tulpoid Serpent' into the zen bongos and syrupy pads of 'Neo-Venezia.' 'Frog Work' hits a stride of major-key bliss when xylophone cascades blend with sitar tones over a 4/4 stomp, as if soundtracking a Studio Ghibli-core movie of Allison's own invention. 'Hashimoto-Appelbaum Syndrome' closes the LP with a palette of juxtaposed textures painted in kinetic rhythms: compounded organ lines mingle with vocaloid chirps and a lattice of pitch-shifted cymbals, as a chopped and screwed flute melody holds down the low end with faux-upright bass. If Mukqs's strict adherence to a live take/no overdubs recording regimen betrays a mentality closer to the noise underground, 11,666,666,666,666,666,666 elevates his stubborn practice to new heights of analog synth arrangement and cosmic density."
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LP
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MIDWICH 008LP
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"Midwich is very proud to close out 2016 with what we feel to be our paramount release. VIKI Viktoria's New Victorian LP is a crowning achievement in abstraction and time-folding. Its metallic future-scape could be the product of 2072 or 1972, harnessing an individual mindset at the peak of its powers. The sound vibrates, doubles up on itself and generally plays havoc with the senses, in the most pleasurable way. Deploying a dizzying array of primitive and advanced electronic techniques, this is one for the ages. Whether your first or hundredth listen, the album breathes with life and feels fresh each time. Years in the making, New Victorian is a timeless piece of electronic music. VIKI Viktoria (aka VIKI) is the pseudonym of Detroit multidisciplinary artist, improviser and composer Lindsay Karty, whose work involves historic and contemporary electronics, custom circuitry, sound spatialization and language experiments into combinations of live and telematic performance. VIKI formed from the same pond of DIY electronics as Wolf Eyes, Maximum Cloud, Nautical Almanac and went on to obtain an MFA, studying with composer Pauline Oliveros. Karty continues to host deep listening events in Detroit, as part of her ongoing certification. VIKI moves fluidly between sound worlds, street-smart as well as school-smart. In 2016, she co-curated Detroit's inaugural Trip Metal Fest, which hosted Morton Subotnik, Heiroglyphic Being + Marshall Allen & Danny Ray Thompson, among many others. VIKI has toured with Wolf Eyes, ADULT. and Paper Rad's Extreme Animals. She is also a member of SLIKI, a duo with Stallone the Reducer. She actively practices and collaborates in live multi-channel speaker performance in acoustically interesting spaces and club situations. Drexciya's Gerald Donald called VIKI 'The Gary Numan of Noise'."
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LP
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MIDWICH 007LP
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"The duo of Nate Young (Wolf Eyes, Regression) and David Shettler (Viands, SSM) return with their highly-anticipated full-length follow-up to MEQ 2LP remixes, released by Midwich in 2015. Humanizer is sonically diverse featuring varied modes of production throughout. Humanizer jettisons with their live staple 'New British Blues', the 10-minute track recalling Shettler's long-form work in Viands, putting synthesizers in space, as live drums invigorate the track with an earthbound brashness. 'Cycloid' is the album's most concise, bracing and dare-we-say catchy number -- a real ear-worm. 'Sea Dust' is a blasting electronic collage also featuring live drums (we think). The title track 'Humanizer' is classic Moon Pool, creepy and menacing with an off-kilter bass thump. 'A Gray Glow' continues in classic mode with thumping bass and queasy synths. 'Hospital Quiet' features pleasing, sunward-facing ambience to reassure listeners that all is good. Moon Pool and Dead Band have been a Detroit cult techno favorite since Shettler and Young joined forces in 2011. Uninitiated listeners are caught off-guard by the funkiness of the group, shaking assumptions about the group's perceived roots. We've all heard bad noise-techno records -- this isn't one of them. The danceable style is one that grows organically from the duo's life experience. Moon Pool and Dead Band approach the music with respect, knowledge and humor. Humanizer is a party-starter that could have only come from Detroit."
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12"
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MIDWICH 005EP
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"Midwich is proud to present the vinyl debut of Chicago duo HIDE, the artistic collaboration between visual artist Heather Gabel and musician Seth Sher. HIDE creates aggressive and sparse haunting music that empowers as it punishes. HIDE's name and visual aesthetic also reflects their ideology of personal autonomy as performers/humans in a world of moral judgement and surveillance. Showcasing top-notch production values and a seamless visual aesthetic, their immersive sound draws the listener into a trance state with dense, throbbing dirges. Their themes and presentation confront power dynamics and their relation to personal ideas about gender identity/fluidity. HIDE erupted fully-formed in 2015, stupefying unsuspecting audiences into frenzied throngs of spontaneous, orgiastic abandon. HIDE's stark sound and visual presentation evoke distant echoes of industrial dance music, gothic rock and metal, while eschewing cliched trappings of past constraints. Punishing sub-bass, aggressive rhythms, and haunting vocals combine to create an immersive, entrancing sound. Their awe-inspiring presentation quickly garnered them tour support for Marilyn Manson, very soon after forming. Although, HIDE is her first musical project, Gabel is an accomplished visual artist, whose aesthetics mesh seamlessly with the duo's sound and her commanding stage presence exude the mystery and charisma of a seasoned veteran. Sher draws upon his deep studies in percussion and production technique to conjure a dense yet sparse atmosphere, sure to test the limits of most nightclub sound systems. Obscured in darkness, strobe and fog, HIDE will pull you into their world. Following a series of self-released cassettes, Flesh For the Living is HIDE's vinyl debut. This 3-track EP contains 3 soon-to-be anthems. Showcasing top-notch production values, these tracks have a physicality that matches their live show. The title track provides a bracing adrenaline rush that will have listeners on their feet, fists in the air. The remix of that track by Watts (for American Primitive) slows the pace, evoking a cinematic, dreamlike atmosphere. 'Limb From Limb' is a sinister side-long stomper that menaces with ethereal vocals, ghostlike percussion and a gut-wrenching low-end hook. Flesh For the Living was mastered by Ruud Lekx and cut by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering in New York. It comes housed in a full-color UV gloss jacket featuring retina-burning artwork by renowned sci-fi illustrator and painter, Mark Salwowski with uniform Midwich layout by Beth Hall."
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LP
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MIDWICH 006EP
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"Midwich is proud to present the full-length debut of Alex Barnett under his own name. Barnett is a Chicago-based electronic musician known for his work with dark ambient group Oakeater and collaborative work with Faith Coloccia in Barnett & Coloccia on Blackest Ever Black, in addition to a handful of cassettes and collaborative projects. Barnett's personal blend of sound design and composition comes from many hours building, repairing and breaking electronics. Chew From the Mind is a raw yet elegant synthesizer album that is surreal, beautiful and evocative of previous horror-score theme work, while expanding his sound toward more raw electronic influences. The album draws from a heady mixture of early new wave and synth-pop, '70s-era Miles Davis, science fiction literature and the past 15 years of the American underground. Within its thematic unity, Chew From the Mind paints a variety of scenarios, ranging from claustrophobic to vast, ethereal to rawly physical. The tracks were recorded and mixed in his home studio, employing a diverse set of drum machines and synthesizers in various states of functionality or development. Chew From the Mind is not only a defining statement for Alex Barnett, but for the Midwich and the midwestern electronic underground. It is an alluring and addictive listen. 'This record focuses on themes of consciousness: embracing my own human ineffectiveness and mutant qualities, exploring machine personality, contemplating the functions and malfunctions of the mind, and mapping the suspense of everyday life'--Alex Barnett. Chew From the Mind was mastered by Ruud Lekx and cut by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering in New York. It comes housed in a full-color UV gloss jacket featuring retina-burning artwork by renowned sci-fi illustrator and painter, Mark Salwowski with uniform Midwich layout by Beth Hall."
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LP
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MIDWICH 003LP
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"Viands is a spontaneous collaboration between two auteurs of Detroit's underground music scene: Joel Peterson and David Shettler (Moon Pool and Dead Band). Temporal Relics, their debut album, is a deep, reflective and fearless alternate-reality keyboard meditation that draws on the pair's broad musical vision to explore new vistas. Temporal Relic #1 & #2 are carved out of the same continuous 40-minute session that marked the first time the pair sat down together and 'just hit record.' Temporal Relics is a vast, expansive and moody inner-journey of epic proportion. Joel Peterson (Immigrant Suns, Chatoyant, etc.) and Dave Shettler (Moon Pool and Dead Band, etc.) met in the early aughts while Peterson was actively building a name for himself presenting underground and new sounds (his and others) to Detroit audiences with his Bohemian National Home venue and Shettler was back-boning and warping various rock and R&B acts across Detroit and the western world. Viands began as a sound check for a visiting jazz pianist borrowing Shettler's Moog sitting atop the Piano in Peterson's current venue Trinosophes. All live, all completely improvised, Mastered by Ruud Lekx (Rude 66) and cut by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering in NYC. Temporal Relics comes housed in a wide full-color UV gloss jacket featuring artwork by renowned sci-fi illustrator, Mark Salwowski, with layout by designer Beth Hall. A digital download code is included."
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12"
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MIDWICH 004EP
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"Mick Travis's Face Disappears After Interrogation is a raw and severe experiment in modular synth, rhythm box and tape echo. Deceptively simple pulses oscillate from ear-to-ear forming head-nodding, brain-scrambling rhythmic patterns that could loosely be described as 'techno'. Although there are reference points that one can latch onto, they are accidental, as Mick Travis operates in a world of his own. Rubbery, squeaky jutterings, grey washes, shimmering metallic moire patterns and stereophonic psyche manipulation are some of the things that one can expect to dance to. Face Disappears After Interrogation was recorded at Tiny's Squat, in Brighton, 2012. Mick Travis has been the nomadic member of The Nevari Butchers, recording with them during his brief stay in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Travis also recorded the cassette There's Nothing to Smile About, for Aaron Dilloway's Hanson Records. Travis currently resides in the UK. Face Disappears After Interrogation was mastered by Ruud Lekx (Rude 66) and cut by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering in NYC. It comes housed in a wide full-color UV gloss jacket featuring artwork by renowned sci-fi illustrator, Mark Salwowski, with layout by designer Beth Hall. A digital download code is included."
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12"
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MIDWICH 002EP
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"Midwich is proud to present MAGAS's Heads Plus, the first proper vinyl release from James Marlon Magas since 2009's Violent ARP. For the past several years, Magas has been concentrating on instrumental production, eschewing vocal histrionics of previous work, in favor of moodier, more open-ended composition. This focus has resulted in the bombastic and hallucinatory Heads Plus, an all-instrumental wallop that fuses howling ARP Odyssey, capricious Juno funk and fuzzed Rhodes anchored to the ever-present throb of the Roland TR-808 drum machine. Freed from vocal constraints, Heads Plus conjures a cinematic ambience where light and dark wrangle for dominance in a dystopian post-techno near-future. Plowing ahead with gleeful abandon, this 5-track EP is a take-no-prisoners statement of intent. Heads Plus is mastered by Ruud Lekx (Rude 66) and cut by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering in NYC and comes housed in a eye-popping full-color UV gloss jacket featuring artwork by renowned sci-fi illustrator, Mark Salwowski, with layout by designer Beth Hall. A digital download code is included with purchase."
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2x12"
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MIDWICH 001EP
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"Midwich is proud to present Moon Pool and Dead Band's MEQ (pronounced MEK--futurespeak for 'mech'), an album of swinging, dirty, analog techno-funk, created with mountains of old synthesizers. MEQ consists of Moon Pool and Dead Band's earliest track, reworked by some of Detroit's (and ex-Detroit) best producers: Patrick Russell, BMG (Brendan M. Gillen of Ectomorph), JTC (Dabrye/Charles Manier aka Tadd Mullinix), Ice Cold Chrissy (Coyote Clean Up), Michael Dykehouse, Erno the Inferno and Nate Young in Wolf Eyes mode. MEQ plays like an album, rather than a collection of remixes. The remixers were supplied with 'stems' nearly one-half hour long, leaving each with an abundance of raw material at their disposal. There are no cloying, repetitive vocal hooks to disrupt the sonic narrative. Deep, dystopian techno-funk is delivered with the unerring raw assurance that only seasoned masters could deliver, leaving the music's rough edges appealingly unvarnished. The strong, danceable music is rugged enough to test the limits of any club sound-system, yet contains nuances, subtleties and warmth that make it ideal for home listening. Mastered by Ruud Lekx (Rude 66) and cut by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering in NYC. MEQ comes housed in a wide full-color UV gloss jacket featuring artwork by renowned sci-fi illustrator, Mark Salwowski. Layout by designer Beth Hall. A digital download code is included."
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