|
|
|
|
viewing 1 To 25 of 34 items
Next >>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 048LP
|
Closer To Stranger is the new solo album by Pakistani-born dream-folk musician Ilyas Ahmed. Drawing on a wide range of influences, his songs incorporate classic singer-songwriter gestures alongside more experimental leanings. Recorded to tape in the studio by Justin Higgins in the fall of 2016 and finished in the spring of 2017, Ahmed's instrumental palette includes: acoustic and electric six- and 12-string guitars, Fender Rhodes, multiple keyboards, tanpura, and percussion. Closer To Stranger stands as a meditation on uneasy identity politics during times of unreason, seeking peace amidst chaos. Jonathan Sielaff (of ambient duo Golden Retriever) cameos with guest saxophone on "Zero For Below", but otherwise the album is a solo affair, alternately feverish, tense, hazed, hypnotic, and narcotic. A slowly unfolding inward journey of late night lullabies and contemplative electric drift.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 045LP
|
David Toop, on hearing Áine O'Dwyer's Gallarais and the subsequent conversations between November 2016 and January 2017. "Sleep music, the underworld. Twenty-six letters were sent, not far to travel, from Proust, hypersensitive writer to his upstairs neighbour, Marie Williams -- 'I was rather troubled by noise . . . I was trying to sleep off an attack. But at 8am the tapping on the parquet was so distinct that the Veronal didn't work and I woke with the attack still raging.' Marie Williams played harp, though it was not the harp that dragged Proust from the fumes of a bedroom armed against asthma attacks, cork-lined to smother noise.. . . Proust spoke of an imperceptible breath, 'like the wind breathing into the stem of a reed', mingling with the subdued song of his dying grandmother's breathing, 'swift and light . . . gliding like a skater towards the delicious fluid', the human sighs released at the approach of death . . . 'Who's there?' cries out the old man, stark terror pulled awake at the faintest of noises from pitch black vicinity of an unseen doorway. . . . There is one voice or two, whispers of shaping breath thrown into far obscure and occult recesses of the space as if spirits on the wing whose feathers shriek and keen. They are swans with near-human heads, carrying the lightness of souls, moving between dry land of the living, subterranean rivers of the dead. Sleep music they make, its murmurs written by the method of 'passive writing', a transcribing of tongues unknown to all but the most open of listeners. . . . The space was a cave, a tunnel, a room without windows. A skull without eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, though as Beckett had noticed, the soul turns in this cage as in a lantern, silence 'beating against the walls and being beaten back by them'; the space was a chapel, upturned boat, perhaps the curragh that carried Maildun and his crew to the Isle of Weeping, the Isle of Speaking Birds, the Palace of Solitude. . . . 'Within a house described by Mary Butts, in Ashe of Rings (1998), the bronze note of a clock rings, 'like a body falling bound into deep water'. . . . The body descended into the tunnel, never to return as itself."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
MIE 044LP
|
MIE present Music For Small Ensemble & Computer, a double LP featuring works by Linda Lejsovka and Keith Freund. Originally self-released as two 12" records: Mold On Canvas (2014) and Fatal Strategies (2015). Written and recorded at home in Akron by Keith Freund and Linda Lejsovka, November 2013-April 2015. Features: Allison Boyt - violin (1, 8); Megan Elk - soprano (15); Evie Freund - Christmas tree (10); Flora Nevarez - violin (3, 9); Natalie Pillsbury - viola (5); Yuri Popwycz - violin (10); Andrew Rich - violin (10); Mike Silver - fretless bass and synthesizer (8); Claire Tolan - flowers, bottles, voice (12); Mike Tolan - computer (12). Mixed with help from Jacob Trombetta; Mastered by James Plotkin. Embroidery by Elyn Middleton; Design by Keith Freund. Gatefold sleeve; Edition of 500.
Keith Freund on Music For Small Ensemble & Computer: "I've always thought it'd be really cool to have someone write something smart and poetic about a release of ours, but here I am again trying to type this out myself and not have it be boring and embarrassing. I don't know, I guess I'll just be blunt and direct and hit 'send' ASAP. Music for Small Ensemble & Computer is a collection of what I call the 'DIY shitty classical' pieces me and Linda have been working on for a couple years. Using an inherited piano, freeware, and the basement floorcore spirit of discovery to trespass into a typically more rarefied style. And thankfully a few actually-trained friends lent their skills to the mess. To me, it's the sound of the two of us struggling to find peace and stability for ourselves, family, and small community in an often chaotic and hostile world. I'm really excited about this collection. We previously released these pieces on as-limited-as-possible 12" runs and went through them very quickly, so it's cool that MIE is giving them a wider issue. Linda and I have made quite a few records now, but to me this is really the closest to being 'us'. Put a headphone jack in my tombstone and have this playing. Does any of this make any sense?"
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 041LP
|
MIE unveils, after long gestation, Panisperna, the first long player by Jantar, an outer-borough ensemble historically known for their creeping strain of easy-listening, most often heard in empty lots and abandoned diners. Chad Laird and Tianna Kennedy have grown an experimental cover crop since 2009, gently cultivating a soil rich in ambient leaf rot and organic art-world chemical compounds. With the addition of Kirsten Nordine, Jantar began to run it through with speculative roots and melodic worms, digesting the tails of lost Euro soundtracks, and ultimately finding in drummer Kelly Rudman the crystalline lattice necessary for vertical growth... And yes, now this broad field is very much in rotation. Panisperna shoots riffs, stalks and flowers right up out of the ground. From the waves still reverberating from Canterbury's Gong and Soft Machine, Jantar propels green, driving rock forms, and leafs out into repeating rows of complex time and growth patterns. For this first foray into rock music, Jantar has enlisted the assistance of Pigeons Clark Griffin and Wednesday Knudsen, who contribute synth and sax, respectively. Long-time ally and champion Jason Meagher (No-Neck Blues Band, Steve Gunn) recorded this music at the venerable Black Dirt Studios.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
MIE 042LP
|
In 2015, Hey Colossus released two albums on Rocket Recordings, In Black and Gold in February (LAUNCH 077CD/LP) and Radio Static High in October (LAUNCH 083CD/LP). Dedicated To Uri Klangers is a look back. It's best summed up by the 3000 words that can be found on the inner sleeve of the record. The tale begins: "The 2LP compilation that's in your hands now was initially released on cassette by S.O.U.L for our tenth anniversary show, September 2013, about 50 tapes were made and sold on that night. We thought a 'Best Of' would be hilarious. We were average at that show and I'm being generous. I'd give us 5.5/10. A shame. Hacker Farm and Helm also played. It was at The Sebright Arms in London, somewhere out east....." The cassette sat in the MIE car for three years, sound tracking journeys back and forth across the country. When a new car was bought, criminally minus a tape deck, the decision was made to put it on vinyl. Included are one or two tunes from all the Hey Colossus albums released from 2003 to 2013. It includes the track "Witchfinder General Hospital" from the 12" of the same name, pressed in an edition of 100 in 2012. All vinyl versions of the albums from this era are long gone. The discography is a bit of a mess now, the band doesn't fully know and the Discogs site is not much help - Godspeed to anyone trying to buy the back catalog. This record is a fine way to dig into the first ten years. Comes in a gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves, stacks of photos and the aforementioned spiel; Edition of 500.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
MIE 040LP
|
MIE presents Knock on Life's Door from Cara & Mike Gangloff With The Great American Drone Orchestra. "There's a particular twinkle in the great expanse of American songwriting. This has seen countless nostalgic exploitations over the years - collections of popular songs strung together under the banner of the so-called 'Great American Songbook' that have reiterated the form of many of these songs without contemplating their depths. In terms of thoughtful, emotive synthesis, few have understood it in the way that Cara and Mike Gangloff understand it on this new album. They have taken older American songs, popular songs that we've come to understand as standards, and stretched them out into the rolling hills and vast expanses that gave birth to the nation's earliest music. American history is a history of tension. A group of aristocrats saw fit to bestow a limited degree of freedom upon the underclasses. They called this democracy, co-opting a concept that terrified them in the hopes that the implications of its meaning might placate the unwashed masses. Within that sliver of freedom, incredible heights were reached. Blues. Jazz. Mountain music. And on and on. The songs on this record are recognizable. They're classics. And yet here they play out in ways the songwriters could never have predicted. Cara and Mike Gangloff have married the colloquial with the eternal. With certain songs, like 'Sentimental Journey', they lift the material out of its saccharine setting and into the troubling and sublime nation from which it springs. 'All of Me' is rendered utterly psychotic, teasing apart the song's desperate, masochistic, violent implications. The songs become essays about themselves, investigations into their own histories of terror and escape. 'Mood Indigo' becomes a haunting dirge. 'Cry Me a River' is a rhythmically jarring lightning rod of unease. The inventiveness of interpretation is spirit-raising. The cultural history of the country is one of cosmic entertainment in the face of excruciating injustice. Transcendence has always been necessary. For better or worse, the United States of America is a nation defined by expanse." -- Matt Krefting, 2016. The Great American Drone Orchestra is: Sharon Stacy, Charlie Andersen, Matt Peyton, Sonya Austin, Joe Dejarnette, Sally Anne Morgan, Isak Howell, Scott Prouty, Anne Hartman, Tatsuya Nakatani, Nathan Bowles, Michelle Dove, Reilly Stacy Blackwell, Abriel Stacy Blackwell and Willa Shea-Gangloff.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 039LP
|
"Much has been made of the nesting compulsion that overtakes expecting parents. It's fair to suggest that this album owes its name to the fact that Asheville NC residents Tashi Dorji and Shane Parish were both looking forward to parenthood when they made it, and not much of a stretch to say that it expresses something that they both had to say before the babies arrived. That message is one of two guys bonding over shared understandings. They've been known each other for over a decade, during which time they've played both as a duo and as parts of larger ensembles. Both play guitar, and while their discographies map quite disparate interests, they share a devotion to the guitar as a vehicle for improvisation. The eight improvisations that make up Expecting grow out of a dynamic of sharing -- one fellow shows up with a tuning and maybe a string preparation, the other works out a response, and out of that comes not only a piece of music but a renewal and confirmation of a relationship in which two humans share what they love. Expecting parents tend to be anxious ones. Titles like 'Dust Of Dust,' 'Storm Sinks Boat,' and 'Break Up' give the impression that Dorji and Parish weren't free from trepidation when they made Expecting, and the record's discordant moments back it up. Nowadays writers are quick to lay the term experimental music on anything dissonant. But while one could say that this music actually earns that much-abused term because it comes out of a process of proposal and problem solving, an emotionally truer term would be experiential music. It came out of Parish and Dorji's real time communion, and it is informed by their shared history. For them, making the music was an experience; playing the record imparts a different experience, one of receiving rather than making, but it still expresses a dynamic of exchange." --Bill Meyer, Berwyn, Illinois, USA, January 31, 2016
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 037LP
|
"In most European cities you can find many canals that have been covered. Often though, underneath the cement and our frenetic lives, they still run. Constantly flowing water, unknown to us. Maybe we feel it. Maybe it influences us and we do not know it. It would be nice to lie down in between a 19th Century tram track among the windows of stores up for rent and wine bars offering refuge and put an ear to the cobblestones, like they used to do in the prairies to hear if a train was coming. I am sure that we would hear the sound of the Coypu. A constant and distinctive movement. Floating, their first album, is this: the electric landing on the muddy banks of that which has made Rock'n'Roll a gloriously celebrated thing. The Blues of a dried up Mississippi, the sonic violin of the Velvet Underground, Krautrock as an architecture of 'endless' sound. Vertical chords and botanic drones: something happening beneath us and which you hope never abandons us." --Maurizio Blatto
Coypu is the musical project born from the European-American friendship between Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance, Badgerlore, 200 Years, Rangda), Paul Beauchamp (Blind Cave Salamander, Almagest!), Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo (Blind Cave Salamander, Almagest!, (r), Larsen), and Daniele "Lo Dev Alm" Pagliero. Subtle electronics and drones, psychedelic guitar lines, and the melancholic sounds of the Appalachian dulcimer and musical saw merge into desertic, watery, and evocative soundscapes. Floating, Coypu's full-length debut, follows their 2015 debut EP, Of Tails and Whiskers. Gatefold sleeve. Edition of 500.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 038LP
|
Dreamboat is a collaboration between dream-folk singer and guitarist Ilyas Ahmed and the lunar-inclined analog-synthesizer-and-processed-bass-clarinet duo Golden Retriever (Matt Carlson and Jonathan Sielaff). The collaboration between these long-time friends began with a shared admiration for each other's work and a commonality in approach to making music, which one day begged the question, "What if our individual sound worlds intersected?" The result yielded a unifying love of exploded modal song forms, improvisation as composition (and vice versa), and a desire to interact with traditional song form. The record is a result of intense scrutiny of arrangement as well as a commitment to reckless abandon. Opener "Aftershock" introduces the trio's vocabulary with Ahmed's 12-string guitar and soft vocals floating through the billowing clouds of Carlson's synth wash as Sielaff's processed clarinet cuts through the haze like a knife. "Face to Face" ebbs and flows like the ocean's wash against the shore, with each instrument allowing the other plenty of space until the song's chorale-like outro. The B-side opens with "Mirrored Image," which straddles the line between abstraction and free-form chaos. Closer "Your Sunday Best" begins as a near-chamber-ensemble piece before segueing into the record's most overt pop gestures and playing out in a wash of modal hypnosis. Imagine Tim Buckley sitting in on the first Cluster recording session or Neil Young with The Taj Mahal Travellers as Crazy Horse covering Popol Vuh and you are almost there. Edition of 500.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 036LP
|
"Saturday Night Fever takes the concept of the movie of the same name and stretches the night a bit later, the fever a bit higher to the point where the party ends up blending into something much more sinister and wild. What starts out as a disco drumbeat with funky guitar swagger and melodic horns may slowly deteriorate into some sort of corroded ambient loop that eventually morphs into melodic horn samples. Basically every track is subverting its own gestures, carving out a narrative of interruption and stretching the disco template in directions simultaneously embracing and mocking the form. In a way, this album is a sequel to A Republic of Sadness (2010), embracing the criticisms people had of that album and expanding on those flaws. The resulting album sounds like Morley's pulling out some heaping doses of the hermit boogie and Otago funk and stretching it into some sort of Basinskian disintegration loop gone Bernard Bonnier zonked mutant scene. There are so many moves within each of the four extended tracks that it feels like that illuminated dance floor is always slipping beneath your feet. I promise it'll be worth the effort, twinkletoes . . ." --Pete Swanson
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 035LP
|
"Navigating by Starlight is the elegantly distended fourth LP by a New York band known for its fine taste in bourbon as well as its ability to explore strangely forested nooks of space. Composed of two side-long excursions of heavily bearded improv, this is what Bruce Dern should have been listening to throughout Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running. The first side is called 'Lovejoy Vapor Trail,' after the recently discovered comet said to be releasing enough alcohol to fill 500 bottles of George T. Stagg every second. Who could fail to be staggered by such a suggestion? Not these guys. Dave Shuford's guitar vomits stars in all known directions, Jimy SeiTang's bass and synth cover the proceedings with a blanket of darkness, and Rob Smith's drums drive things along like a pulsar. The flip, 'Scylla and Charybdis,' continues Rhyton's linguistic love affair with Ancient Greece. But with Shuford on electric mandolin, and the rhythm section picking their way between the twin threats more carefully than usual, the band creates a vibe that is more space-swamp than whirlpool (at least in this writer's opinion). By which I mean its method of sucking you into its vortex is staggered rather than continuous. Of course, once you've stuck your head into Rhtyon's sound-barrel, the specifics of destruction don't matter much do they? 500 bottles of Stagg a second . . . that would sure take care of the world shortage, wouldn't it?" --Byron Coley
After crafting Kykeon, the most detailed and finely intermeshed recording of their output, the cosmic compatriots Rhyton decided to get back to basics and kick out the jams with both ferocity and stateliness. Navigating by Starlight features two sidelong improvised slices of molten music recorded by the redoubtable Jason Meagher at apex temperatures at his Black Dirt Studio in upstate New York. The first side, "Lovejoy Vapor Trail," follows a journey from an initial solemn invocation through areas of blinding scree toward a summit of relaxed but rough and tough guitar elevation. The second side, with its natural bifurcation, was an instant composition of two halves that balance perfectly and exhibit a subdued menace.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 034LP
|
"The comet Kohoutek was first seen near earth by a Czech astronomer in March of 1973. David Berg, founder of religious cult Children of God, predicted its passing would cause armageddon the following year. A more welcoming family, the Sun Ra Arkestra, performed a concert dedicated to Kohoutek on December 12th, just two weeks before it came as close to our globe as it ever would. All of this could be insignificant trivia surrounding the name that Philly-by-way-of-D.C. band Kohoutek chose for itself. But somewhere in between all those early-'70s deductions, interactions, and overreactions might just live the keys to this group's expanding music. Inside their open, winding, slow-burning soundscapes lies the hard-edged reality of cosmic science, the hypnotic magic of mass-mind superstition, and the infinite paths of Saturn-bound outer spaceways. On Curious Aroma, that solar-seeking mix manifests as two spacious, patiently-developing LP sides. The music has the everything-works spirit of improvisation, but Kohoutek are just as curious about shapes and forms, equally interested in seeing which lines they can color inside and which they can bend and break apart. Guitars pick through the thickly-textured sonic space built by electronics and percussion, unafraid to knot or tangle, yet nimble enough to find gaps where others might blur. The rhythmic curves traced by bass and drums prove as apt for psych-drenched heaviness as they are for cloudier foundations. One side floats forward and backward and sideways until it wraps around space-time; the other melds sparks of feedback and distortion into metal lumber so hard you can touch it through your speakers. Along the way, Kohoutek conjure the ghost of their daunting live shows, which trek through so much aural territory it's a wonder you can still make out the band by the end. To call these two fully-realized explorations 'journeys' would be fair but insufficient. There are paths here that Kohoutek gradually move through, but that motion has the rare, intangible quality of sounding both spontaneous and guided, both new and determined. In other words, throughout the spaces which they travel on Curious Aroma, Kohoutek might not necessarily know where they're going, but they sure do know how to get there." --Marc Masters, Washington, DC, July 2015. Edition of 350.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 031LP
|
"Presage is an LP less split than twinned, like stars, each side pulled into a mesmerising gravitational dance by the other's backspin. Black Dirt Oak and Jantar, siblings of sibilance and site, complete one another's sentences in a dark and uncanny psychic psalmistry. For their part, Black Dirt Oak stomps out a series of chthonic ur-grooves, filthy bare feet splintered by silicon shards and splashing in puddles of molten rare earths. They kick up a black angel dust of decaying carbon-based lifeforms mingled with that of pulverized electronics, and the plume rises into the welcoming embrace of this album's other side, its sky. Jantar unfurls their canopy in a processional of single piano notes, bowed mists and skeins of flute light as cirrus. Once adrift, the vapors and star-like entities synchronize and calibrate themselves to a mysterious lunar pageant, a watery and flowing tide of incantatory voices pulled high behind its own luminous gravity. The two sides of Presage are distinct but describe in tandem the elemental contours of a shared world: namely, that of Black Dirt Studio and these musicians, some of whom have been recording here in other more familiar constellations for a decade now. Like the Dog Star Sirius, whose heliacal rising presages the wet season of planting and fertility, this twin system also rises, and hopefully augurs well for continued fertility and sonic flooding upon the plains of the lush Wawayanda region and this proven studio" --Rob Smith (Pigeons, Rhyton, Black Dirt Oak). Limited to 300 copies.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 033LP
|
There's a house situated amongst the knobby hills of the eastern section of the Hudson Valley in New York. In our new lives, buoyed by satellite perspectives, it is the proverbial needle in a haystack. But for years there have been somewhat secluded and secretive musical goings-on in the room between the domestic area and the over-stuffed garage. Beyond the large, sun-dappled bay windows, more than a generation ago, a man, a pioneer in his field, took his music to the north country and began to move the air inside this room, vibrating the wooden walls, opening those little portals some of us believe allow the magic to seep through, no matter how many years later. Now here we are, in those later years, and a small group of sonic voyagers have roosted in this space once again. Pigeons have arrived at this uncommon structure, The Bower, via oceanic travels around the Pacific Northwest with The Sea Donkeys and early duo explorations with tape machines and tube-sock-mallet percussion and saxophones and a drum machine named Sammy. This record, The Bower, is an explosion of change. They are in the midst of their longest-running lineup, with Wednesday Knudsen and Clark Griffin augmented by Rob Smith on drums and voice, tho' this particular configuration is new to anyone save those who have seen the band perform live since their last full-length. They have invited you back into their home after years rooting around the confines of the studio seeking their very particular, and peculiar, forms of clarity. Roles have changed; song structures have more movement, richer textures, greater surprises. For one long weekend in March 2014, about a year after full-time occupation of the house in the woods, the trio, perfectly captured by Mike Fellows manning the board, laid down the songs carved deep in the grooves of this slab, mixed by Jason Meagher at Black Dirt Studio in July 2014. Some know-it-alls will hear a wide breadth of influences; some will research the band's past and compare fleeting words to current sound; others will be confounded, befuddled, and tickled with the possibility of the old new noise pop lullaby prog earthly outer space future sounds of the band. Regardless, this is a new mach, and the blazing arc across the skies outside your window is the remnant of the band moving on to even newer sonic destinations.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 028LP
|
"Mike & Cara Gangloff's Black Ribbon of Death, Silver Thread of Life is the third in a series of loosely connected melodic investigations released by Mike Gangloff over the past two years. All three were recorded around the Gangloff home in rural Floyd County, Virginia, and were engineered by Joseph Dejarnette (Carolina Chocolate Drops, Bruce Greene, Curtis Eller). And all three feature the far-reaching improvisation familiar from Gangloff's work with the old-time stringband Black Twig Pickers and the acoustic-drone outfit, Pelt. Taken together, they form a musical triptych. Poplar Hollow (Mike on banjo and fiddle, with Cara joining on sruti box) reflects the social fiddle traditions of that part of Virginia, exuberant kick-ups that might be played at a barn-dance or at the country store. Melodies for a Savage Fix (recorded in an all-nighter with guitarist Steve Gunn, and featuring a host of non-Virginian instruments like gongs, tanpura and singing bowls) are the late-night ramblings and conversations that take place well after the dance is over, with dawn drawing nigh. Black Ribbon is an album from the day after, when the cares of the world have again settled in. But though there is woven throughout this album a pattern of fear, loss and regret, it is held together by the warp of tunes and songs marked by joy and hope. The foreboding of Charlie Patton's 'O Death' -- sung unaccompanied, in tones caught between resignation and jubilation -- is followed by 'Rocking in a Weary Land,' where the whirling of hurdy gurdy and the drone of fiddle rise to transcendent heights. The cautionary words of the Carter Family's 'Righten That Wrong' ('If you do wrong today, the price you must pay'), the regret of the18th-century Shape Note hymn 'David's Lamentation' ('Oh my son! Would to God I had died/For thee'), and the apocalyptic visions of 'Black Ribbon I, II and III' are offset by expansive, joyful fiddle-and-sruti tunes like 'Mulberry Raider' and 'West India.' John Fahey, in his notes to the American Primitive collection, posited that the Shape Note songs, spirituals and other religious music of the South were descendants of ecstatic religious practices stretching far back through the mists of Time, that 'underneath it all [one can] hear pan pipes tooting and a cloven hoof beating time': on Black Ribbon, ecstasy can be found in even the darkest of moments, and the silver thread of life shines throughout." --Adam Frost; Released in a run of 500 LPs with artwork by Jake Blanchard.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
MIE 027LP
|
"Tom Carter and Pat Murano, two figures with decades of history behind them, offer Four Infernal Rivers, their new double long player. Four Infernal Rivers illuminates their interlocking styles in a light that blurs their individual identities. The music breathes its own life, and consistently eschews the normal meanings of its own potential descriptors. To think and act intuitively across 80 minutes in real time, without falling into boring or wasteful modes, should be taken as a remarkable accomplishment. The album title is as descriptive as it is suggestive. 'Four' is the number of tracks. Easy. 'Infernal.' It's a harder one to parse out, harder still to live up to, yet the record's hellish qualities come from the fact that it seems like it could never end. Its fiendishness stems from a tone which is consistently ominous and ever-portending. 'Rivers' is spot-on. Close your eyes, draw up an image of a river, and the music pulls instantly into focus. It's not so much a soundtrack to a film or a scene, but rather an auditory evocation of something that is ever-present. To invoke water is to invoke the most crucial ingredient of life (insofar as we describe it) on this planet. A river is one and many things, an aspect of a system larger than itself, full of majesty and terror. One need only think of the rivers of Herzog's Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo, of Conrad's Heart of Darkness or Ballard's The Day of Creation, to understand the gist of what is being presented. The rivers forged by the duo are menacing and imposing, full of risk and danger. In an age when the entire aim of underground artists seems so geared towards either mimicking or revolting directly against the tides of mainstream culture, it is nigh-impossible to know where to turn. If this record has anything to say about it, it might be that the most valid instances of possibility are to be found in adhering to no preconceived method, in swimming with a current of one's own making. It sways between an understanding of musical history and a disregard for its confines. There is interplay that doesn't apologize for or attempt to live up to anything. It is music born of elements that have always existed and still cannot be grasped. Both spacious and immediate, moments exist either to be seized or to be let go. What might in another setting play out as a tension between dissonance and melody here lives entirely outside of those concerns. There is comfort and compatibility in this music, a sense that neither player would ever step on the other's toes, while still feeling the freedom to explore whichever tributary they might come across. Ideal traveling companions, then. 'It's after the end of the world, don't you know that yet?' June Tyson asked long ago. Some of us do and some of us don't. Those of us who aren't quite sure make records like this." --Matt Krefting, Easthampton, MA, April, 2014
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 025LP
|
MIE are delighted to be releasing A Daylight Blessing, the seventh record by Claypipe, the New Zealand noise/drone/pop duo of Antony Milton and Clayton Noone. Released in a run of 300 LPs on vinyl. The record has been mastered by James Plotkin and will come in a silkscreened sleeve made out of recycled card. "Clayton and I finally met in person back in 2001 when he came up to play a festival in Wellington and stayed at my house. We had been trading records for a year or so. It was inevitable that we would wind up recording together. I set up my 4-track on the lounge floor that afternoon and we recorded the Crescent LP (PseudoArcana). We live 100s of miles apart and so our get-togethers have been rare,but when we are together we usually record. We're an improvising project, sometimes noisy, sometimes drone-y but somehow playing in Claypipe draws a blessed-out sunny pop sensibility from both our natures, something neither of us are particularly well-known for in our other bands and projects. It's possible this is a direct response to nature itself -- the Claypipe methodology frequently involves taking battery-powered and acoustic instruments outside -- to a grassy hillside, stream edge, or in the case of this record, the sandhills by the beach down the road from Clayton's place in Dunedin. There's a hippy utopianism present here that I think perhaps catches us both a little off guard. But it works and I know for myself that I'm reluctant to interrogate it too closely for fear of casting too much light on a fragile magic. A Daylight Blessing was recorded over a few days in October 2010 while preparing for a gig supporting Richard Youngs. It was mixed and edited over the next few months in Christchurch where it gave welcome and happy distraction from the earthquakes and their aftershocks." --Antony Milton, January 3, 2014
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 026LP
|
Gang Wizard celebrates its 19th year with its fifth proper full-length LP, Important Picnic, on MIE. Mike Landucci started the band in 1995 with his brother Tom, and Jacob Anderson (Spirit Duplicator, Yuma Nora) joined shortly after. Christopher Breedon started drumming for them in '98, and those three have formed the core of the band ever since. Dozens of notable musicians have come and gone, most importantly, Brian Miller (Foot Village) who gains a mastering credit on this album, and Rob Enbom (Hospitals, Eat Skull), who, with Landucci and Anderson, took the band on an unexpected detour into more degenerative psych-noise terrain (think Amon Düül II), and as far as a European tour in 2007. Based in downtown Long Beach now, Landucci and Breedon have brought on board the two eldest Landucci boys (Linus, 19; Noah, 16) and local jazz guru Rob Woodworth, in between annual trips to Portland to record with Anderson. Recordings with every combination of this haphazard group are reflected on Important Picnic. It's easy to forget that every song is completely improvised in one take; they take on a verse-chorus-bridge format frequently. It's like Evaporators with none of the humor or musicianship; Hijokaidan deciding to cover the Hollies. Hints of no wave, garage, and straight-up bullshit indie noise weave in and out of these songs like it was natural and meant to be -- wink, nod, gasp, sigh. Simple-mindedness is celebrated, embraced, declared a virtue, and Gang Wizard invites you in to revel in it. One of Gang Wizard's 2013 self-released lathe cuts had the distinction of being purchased by exactly two people: Thurston Moore and Henry Rollins. Will the rest of the world ever catch onto whatever it is those two hear in the adventurous ramblings of the Gang Wizard? Doubtful. But stroll past Gang Wizard's Long Beach garage and hear the little broken amps squeal away while a Landucci screams his lungs out with the utmost urgency about nothing in particular, and you'll realize they really don't care.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MIE 018CD
|
Presenting Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo, the eighth album from the London/Somerset eight-piece, Hey Colossus. Now in their 10th year, the band have been gathering plaudits and accumulating new fans with every release, and after playing to thousands at Supersonic Festival, things are accelerating at an even faster pace. As with each album release, Hey Colossus continue to mutate and for their eighth album they have enlisted the support of a new drummer, Part Chimp guitar/vox man, Tim Cedar, who has undoubtedly brought a whole new kind of energy that has reinvigorated the band. When the rhythm section takes a shot to the bow it's only natural for the game to change. But long-term supporters need not worry, they're still heavy, still got the same vibe, only now they are focused in a fresh way. Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo was recorded live to tape throughout 2012 in Dropout Studios, South London, by Mr. Westminster Brown, mastered by James Plotkin. For this recording, Hey Colossus opt for a hefty hi-fi sound when previously they were drenched in lo-fi fuzz. Now there is room to breathe, when before they were utterly unrelenting. Tape loops and walls of noise created by bass and drum, rhythmic klang, dual vocals, and three guitars are supplemented by a variety of instruments including the bağlama saz, turntables and synths -- adding a whole new dynamic to their sound. These are signs of a band who are playing with their ears open and it's all systems go.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 018LP
|
|
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 016LP
|
2013 release. Koboku Senjû, meaning something like a "Selection of Dead Trees," is the quintet of Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura, Martin Taxt, Eivind Lønning, and Espen Reinertsen. Akiyama and Nakamura, on guitar and no-input mixing board respectively, have long been two of the leading improvisers from the Tokyo scene, and Lønning, Reinertsen, and Taxt, on trumpet, saxophone and tuba respectively, are three young and active improvisers from Norway with an increasing reputation for their adventurous yet mature musicality. Joining the queue to become one of those ordinary ghosts is a record of stunning minimal beauty; listen closely and get drawn into Koboku Senjû's empire of exquisitely-crafted noise. The LP was recorded live by Morten Brekke Stensland during a live performance at Cafeteateret, Oslo, on August 31st 2011. It was mixed and mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura before being cut at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin. The cover design and artwork is by Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) and the liner-notes by David Sylvian. Released in a run of 350 copies.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
MIE 015LP
|
2013 repress. MIE Records are unbelievably honored to present Effigy by Pelt, the first album recorded since 2007 by the acoustic-only droners. Recorded live in June 2011 in an old yoga studio in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin and a decommissioned synagogue called the Gates of Heaven in nearby Madison, the band have laid down their most accomplished and fully-realized work to date. Epic in every sense of the word, Effigy is a sprawling journey through their singular plan on the musical map. Layer upon layer of droning strings melt over never-ending harmoniums which threaten to engulf you while peals of gongs ring out to mesmerizing effect. Effigy sees Pelt reaching their blissful sonic enlightenment. Effigy is a testament to the ancient animal-shaped mounds called "effigy mounds" which dot the landscape in and around Madison, Wisconsin. No one has yet managed to work out who built these creations. Over the centuries they have greatly reduced in size but still the largest can measure up to 400 feet in length, and the outlines of birds, lizards, deer and bears are all clearly visible to the observer. Soil would have been carried from afar to construct these huge monuments with only crude implements at hand. The erection of the monuments would have surely been carried out by practically an army of workers or inhabitants and taken a very long time to build, indeed. Effigy comes as a 2LP with stunning gatefold artwork by Jake Blanchard. Mastered by James Plotkin. The first edition was limited to a run of 500 2LPs. Repressed in 2013 in a second run of 500 2LPs.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 013LP
|
2012 release. MIE present the latest LP by Sarin Smoke entitled Vent, which follows the 2007 Three Lobed recording of Smokescreen, which was recorded when both Tom Carter and Pete Swanson were still living in California. After performing at a concert in Oakland, 2010 and feeling proud of their musical output, Tom and Pete decided to collaborate with one another again. The resulting record amalgamates Tom's self-oscillating, power-starved shredding psychedelia with Pete's self-proclaimed "more neanderthal attempts at VU/Roy Montgomery-inspired simple melodicism." Ultimately, the album is an unusual haze of oscillator sweeps, dying batteries, ripping solos and clean(ish) two-chord backbones forming a very unique angle on the possibilities that the "psychedelic rock" format could aspire towards. Limited to 500 copies. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 017LP
|
2013 release. Cry was recorded in a shed at Taieri Mouth between 1998 and 2000 and then released by Emperor Jones on CD in 2000. Alastair Galbraith has always been one of the most admired yet paradoxically ignored musicians from the New Zealand underground since he first started out in The Rip on Flying Nun Records in the early 1980s. Having already worked with the incredibly talented New Zealander otherwise known as Michael Morley, it seemed natural for MIE's next step to go on to work with Alastair on getting one of his finest records issued for the first time on vinyl. Listening to the immensely personal and intimate Cry is like looking directly into the furthest recesses of Galbraith's mind. Weaving the fabric of the record with guitar, violin, organ, and vulnerable murmurs, frequently reversing and inverting instruments through four-track manipulations, Cry is at once haunting and unsettling. Alastair creates an incredibly complex mindscape with tenebrous drones, hushed, lilted words and a sense of deep warmth, pulling you further and further into the innermost intricacies of his world. Submerged deep within this world you start to see the faint rays of light and hope which have earned this record its place in New Zealand's musical landscape. Issued on vinyl for the first time in a run of 500 LPs. Original artwork by Alastair Galbraith. Mastered by Craig Stewart.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
MIE 019LP
|
2013 release. MIE releases Polar Satellites, the stunning collaboration by Nathan Bowles (Pelt/Black Twig Pickers) and Scott Verrastro (Kohoutek) on LP. Polar Satellites is a mesmerizing collection of percussion improvisations performed in duo by Nathan and Scott deep in the winter of 2009 and 2010 with absolutely no overdubs. Building on the starkness of Effigy by Pelt, (recently repressed on MIE), the duo have recorded an even bleaker, more minimal and hermetically-vibed record together. Unnerving and hypnotic, Polar Satellites is an intense journey into the unknown, awash with uncategorizable percussive instruments, kalimbas, and banjo. Nathan and Scott first met in Washington D.C. when Nathan would sit in on Kohoutek sets. They were brought together as a duo on a track recorded for Three Lobed Records' Jack Rose tribute album and were so struck by the results that they went down to Black Dirt Studios and laid down these tracks with Jason Meagher on engineering, recording and mixing duties. James Plotkin has again done an excellent job on mastering duties.
|
viewing 1 To 25 of 34 items
Next >>
|
|