|
|
|
|
viewing 1 To 25 of 31 items
Next >>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2LP
|
|
TER 084LP
|
$34.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/19/2021
"Sensational -- that's Frank Hatchett! These words can be found on many of the 16 albums credited to the legendary jazz dancer, choreographer, and teacher to the stars. At the height of his fame in the 1980s, Hatchett's classes in New York City at the wildly popular Hines-Hatchett studio (now renamed the Broadway Dance Centre) attracted celebrities including Madonna, Brooke Shields, Olivia Newton-John, and Naomi Cambell. Though he hated flying, preferring to cruise in a Corvette from Massachusetts to Manhattan, each week saw Hatchett jet setting for classes and performances around the world. Despite his star power, Hatchett's signature 'Vop Style' -- emphasizing emotion and attitude over strict technique -- was made accessible to children, adults, and people from all walks of life. He was also known for forming personal bonds with his students through dance like Richard Simmons did with Sweatin' to the Oldies, Hatchett's role as a father figure inspired the nickname 'Papa Frank,' while Good Morning America dubbed him 'The Doctor of Jazz.' Hatchett's name and photos may appear on the sleeves of his records like Dance Crazy, Jazz Power, or Vop Style, but he is nowhere to be found in the music contained within. Instead, these albums dating back to 1974 were recorded by largely unknown studio players under the guidance of musical director Don Tipton or arranger Zane Mark. Performers include keyboardist Fred McFarlane (Madonna, Keith Sweat, Evelyn 'Champagne' King), drummer Bernard Davis (Steve Winwood, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Kool & The Gang), and actor Tamara Tunie, best known for her role as medical examiner Melinda Warner on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit . . . In the highlights compiled on this expansive double LP set, the sounds of Hatchett's albums run the gamut from disco and funk in the 1970s to electro and proto-techno as they glide through the '80s. Like many albums in the dance instruction genre, nearly one third of the songs are covers (Prince, Paul Hardcastle, Earth, Wind & Fire, Billy Cobham) and most clock in at a brisk 2:30 -- the ideal length for Hatchett's classes or his students' recital performances. Fans of library music will find a similar focus on immaculate performances, while the tightly coiled drum breaks, Afro-Cuban rhythms, and thumping 808s will send rare groove collectors into a state of head nodding bliss..." --Jesse Locke
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
TER 080LP
|
"Before forming outer limits jazz-rock outfit Badge Époque Ensemble, Max Turnbull masterminded the oddball pop persona Slim Twig, wrote and performed with U.S. Girls, and moonlighted in varyingly experimental groups across his native Toronto. While this was going on, the devout cratedigger had his third eye trained on another project -- one that would span the breadth of his mercurial creativity. This 'journal album,' as he puts it, is titled Scroll, and it collages together the pearls of Turnbull's eight-year dive into his songwriting imagination. Sprawling across 90 audacious minutes, Scroll -- released simply as Badge Epoch, a tidy distinction from the collective Époque Ensemble -- sounds unearthed from a lost musical Atlantis. Turnbull calls it 'a cosmic hodge podge of funk, jazz, ambient techno, aggressive guitarmonized rawk, musique concrète, and hip-hop.' The aesthetic breadth is woven playfully together in a form evoking classic album collage-works: J Dilla's Donuts, Uncle Meat-era Mothers of Invention, Broadcast & the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, and Actress's 'sui generis masterpiece' Ghettoville. In their spirit, the record is peppered with musique concrète interludes and has a dream-sequence feel, as if somebody else's memories had been scattered around your head. Turnbull began assembling the nuggets in 2017, when he enlisted the Toronto sound artist Andrew Zukerman, aka Fleshtone Aura, to collage his works-in-progress into sequences before adding undercurrents of Zoom-recorder-snatched sounds and Buchla synthesizer. 'My instruction was to cut things up, open windows, slice, dice, what have you,' says Turnbull. 'Eventually this turned into 4 discrete cycles of music,' each taking up one side of vinyl."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 083LP
|
$23.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 9/24/2021
"RIYL: Four Tet, Lido Pimienta, Terry Riley, Principe Records, Chancha Via Circuito. The double meaning of Brandon Valdivia's pseudonym Mas Aya neatly encapsulates his musical outlook. Over the past fifteen years, the Toronto composer, percussionist and producer has established himself as an integral part of the city's vibrant and varied music community through his membership in groups such as Not The Wind, Not The Flag, Picastro, The Cosmic Range, I Have Eaten The City, and alongside the GRAMMY Award-nominated Lido Pimienta, who appears on this disc. The Mas Aya moniker speaks to the interplay of the traditional and the exploratory in his work and refers both to the Nicaraguan town where his grandmother is from, and the Spanish phrase 'el más allá,' meaning 'the beyond.' Máscaras, Valdivia's fourth release since 2012, marks his debut with Telephone Explosion and first release on vinyl. It's easily his most colourful and expansive outing to date; nowhere else in his catalogue is the aforementioned collision of musical lineages and sonic discovery more evident." --Nick Storring
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 081LP
|
"Album is the experimental glitch-groove duo of Olivier Fairfield and Simon Provencher, two tirelessly creative musicians working in the small but fertile community of Hull, Québec. Fairfield keeps busy as a drummer and producer with acts such as Last Ex and FET.NAT, whose 2019 album Le Mal was shortlisted for the Polaris Prize. Provencher has earned his own reputation as the guitarist of frenzied post-punk group Victime, bolstering their songs with an array of alien sounds and bizarrely shaped instruments. Though the pair's various bands have shared stages throughout the past five years, Album's fractured beatscapes are the fruits of their first proper collaboration. Fairfield and Provencher began working on the music that would become Album's debut album with a series of freeform jams in late 2019. The guitarist added fretless bass and heavily processed vocals to these improvisations, as the drummer integrated vintage sci-fi sounds with a DX7 synthesizer. The most exciting moments of these sessions were then used as the basis for sampling as they sliced and diced passages back together into an eerily futuristic electroacoustic patchwork. While it's difficult to pinpoint any direct influences on these unclassifiable beat-driven collages, Album contains refracted echoes of experimental hip-hop and the jazzy acoustic elements of drum and bass producer Roni Size. Fans of genre-defiant Warp Records acts such as Seefeel and Squarepusher may also find something to enjoy in Album's blurring of ambient waves, instrumental shredding, and clicky electronica. 'We thought of the '90s as a reference point, but not any specific artists,' shrugs Provencher."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 078LP
|
"On Further Up Island, André Ethier completes the trilogy of solo albums that began with 2017's Under Grape Leaves and 2019's Croak In The Weeds. While not narratively linked in the traditional sense, these records document the musician's ongoing collaboration with producer Sandro Perri. Like Robert Altman's run of brilliant films with Shelley Duvall in the 1970s, the duo have developed a singular creative kinship over the course of three LPs. Since his days as the frontman of the Deadly Snakes, Ethier has cultivated an entirely different artistic practice as an acclaimed contemporary painter. At the same time, he has quietly slipped out a spellbinding body of work as a solo musician, with this album trifecta showcasing his skills as one of Canada's most vastly underrated songwriters and storytellers. Ethier's songs are casually played but carefully orchestrated, allowing each element to appear in sharp focus. 'These albums are a series using the same palette,' explains Ethier, whose softly coloured paintings also grace the covers of the trilogy. 'The tools Sandro and I used on all three of them are similar so that the songs can almost be interchangeable. It's a way of giving time to a creative relationship so it can blossom, like developing a shorthand with a co-worker. Nurturing that process allows it to grow.'"
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 079LP
|
"Anything Can't Happen is the long-awaited debut album from Dorothea Paas, one of Canada's most beloved singer-songwriters. For over a decade, Paas has played her unique, prismatic style of folk songcraft for audiences across North America, and lent her talents as a guitarist and vocalist to artists like Jennifer Castle, U.S. Girls and Badge Epoque Ensemble. The songs on this album have been through a near-infinite number of forms -- Paas has played them solo and with a full band, electric and acoustic, at house shows and in sold-out venues. they manage to fit inside each context, like water taking the shape of its container. All of this makes Anything Can't Happen feel far more mature and complex than a debut album. It's a statement of purpose, a next step in a decade-long process of artistic growth and evolution, and a bridge between the DIY style of Paas's previous cassette releases and a more refined studio sensibility. Recorded in studios in Hamilton and Toronto, and mixed by Max Turnbull of Badge Epoque and U.S. Girls and Steve Chahley, these songs bring a diverse range of musical influences into conversation: inflected with the layered reverberations of Grouper, shot through with the piercing harmonies of the Roches, electrified with the searing energy of Sonic Youth. You can hear Neil Young in the grittiness of the title track's guitar; Joni Mitchell's Hejira in the album's lyrics, Fairport Convention in Paas's voice. The influence of Stevie Wonder -- one of Paas's greatest musical role models -- is present too, in the album's conceptual foundations."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 076LP
|
"Who is Jane Inc.? She is CEO and pencil pusher; she is a blank, unknowable Jane Doe, and she is the singular solo project of Carlyn Bezic. Also known as one half of weird-pop duo Ice Cream, one fifth of rock and roll fever dream Darlene Shrugg, and touring member of US Girls band, Bezic has been building a body of work on merging a pop sensibility with off-kilter influences. Jane Inc's debut album, Number One, out on Telephone Explosion in March 2021, is an exciting progression of that body of work: a meditation on the self that marries pop songwriting with swirling sonic experiments. The eight songs on Number One act as pieces of a collage, forming a face that's both familiar and strange, direct and oblique. Synths sneer and shimmer, fuzzed-out guitars play against Bezic's soothing and hypnotic voice, and a constant and confident bass grounds each track. She brings us into flowing, dreamlike reflections, creating an expansive world that stretches beyond the album's limits. Number One began with Bezic layering bass, guitar, synth, and vocals on top of drum breaks and samples. She later recruited Toronto recording engineer and stalwart Steve Chahley (Badge Epoque, US Girls, Ben Stevenson, et al) to co-produce. They then recorded live drums performed by Evan J. Cartwright (U.S Girls, Tasseomancy), saxophone by Nick Dourado (BUDi Band, Aquakultre, Fiver) and Wurlitzer by Scott Harwood (Scott Hardware), expanding a bedroom project to blown out depths and glittering heights. The album's thoughtful production and lush layering of futuristic synths push the quick satisfaction of pop song structure into a hypnotizing work that reveals more of itself with each listen. Know thyself. Number One is a testament to the endurance and the shortcomings of that familiar maxim in our current climate. How do we make sense of the world and our place in it when we feel both complicit in its ills and victimized by them? How do we navigate being more connected than ever, when that connection twists reality and disconnects us from ourselves? How do we understand our mental health, our relationships, the structures that surround us? We look inward to find glimmers of truth, watching the fragments come together to form a distorted reflection, our own eyes atop a stranger's grinning, Colgate smile."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 075LP
|
"Bernice is the experimental pop vessel of musician/songwriter Robin Dann and her longtime collaborators Thom Gill (keyboards, guitar), Philippe Melanson (e-percussion and drums), Daniel Fortin (bass) and Felicity Williams (voice). Together and apart, they have performed with Martha Wainwright, Andy Shauf, Lido Pimienta, Bahamas, KNOWER, and Beverly Glenn Copeland among many others, which led to them being referred in the press as 'Toronto's ever-evolving backing band.' In their own right, however, they have repeatedly proved to be far more than the sum of their considerable parts. Bernice's Polaris Prize-nominated 2018 LP Puff: In the air without a shape received major international attention, described as an 'analytical, self-dissecting monument to ephemerality' by The New York Times, and 'a fascinating musical conversation' that blends pop and R&B influences with C86 aesthetics by Pitchfork, alongside high praise from outlets like NPR, FADER, and Stereogum, and many more. Nearly three years on from that release (for Bernice a rapid turnaround by comparison to the seven-year gap between their 2011 debut and Puff), the band return with their third full-length, Eau de Bonjourno, out from Telephone Explosion and figureeight records. It marks their first collaboration with producer Shahzad Ismaily, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist who has worked with artists as varied as Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, John Zorn, and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. While their genre reconstruction remains distinctly Bernice, Dann's lyrics bring a newfound focus to storytelling in the present moment, compassionately meeting ourselves where we are, and finding joy in spaces that are familiar but ever changing. Eau de Bonjourno, according to Dann, 'openly plays with the shape of a pop song,' drawing on the band members' backgrounds in jazz, subverting rhythmic formulas, and resting in grooves that sit just outside of predictable. Instead of letting instruments take extended solos, the tone is set on opener 'Groove Elation' with brief blurts of synthesized sax, patient passages of space, or clusters of beats, tenderly held together by Dann and Williams' intimate vocals. The album's sound is experimental in its truest definition, chopped up like musique concrète and then delicately placed back together with the loving touch of a scrapbook collagist." --Jesse Locke
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 074LP
|
"Barely a season passed in 2019 between the release of Badge Époque Ensemble's self-titled debut album, and its follow up, the disco-sleeved 12" Nature, Man & Woman. Now, three months on from the release of the group's acclaimed sophomore album Self Help, we find them repeating the trick with a surprise fourth title on Telephone Explosion Records, the fittingly titled Future, Past & Present. A compilation of sorts, the album collects instrumental, alternate mix versions of all BÉE songs which originally featured guest vocalists. In practice this results in a pseudo-greatest-hits survey of the Ensemble's catalogue to-date, touching on highlights from all three releases while emphasizing the group's strength as versatile mood-conjurors. Where these songs once featured vocal heavyweights like Meg Remy, Jennifer Castle, James Baley and Dorothea Paas, they are now strung together instrumentally in a sequence which represents the purest distillation of BÉE's collective musical chemistry to date. Crowning this delectably listenable platter is an exclusive, nearly eight-minute composition; title track 'Future, Past & Present'. A spiritual sequel to 'Nature, Man & Woman', both tracks cook at a decidedly 'luded tempo as pressurized atmospheres swing from pleasantly meditative to sinisterly growling. On 'Future, Past & Present' bandleader Maximilian 'Twig' Turnbull returns to the approach of the earlier track, chopping drum and percussion stems from previously released BÉE works, refashioning structures for bold new compositions. This approach is an interesting contrast from the reputation BÉE has cultivated for their LP compositions which are cut live off the floor, unadorned with little to no intervention. It suggests the possibility of an expanding sonic universe for the collective, as these collaged compositions shade closer to a more explicitly hip-hop oriented pallet mostly hinted at elsewhere in the catalogue. Fittingly, the rest of the runtime plays like a set from a well-appointed hip-hop producer's crate; flattening the distances between proto-prog slap, sensuous soul flute and Brazilian AOR influenced pockets into a cohesive whole. While the band's burgeoning reputation for dusted fidelity grooves is well observed, it is formed on the basis of a contemporary chemistry and approach. Future, Past & Present is a summation of that approach to date, and well worth crating."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 057LP
|
"Back for a limited second pressing of 300, Badge Époque Ensemble's 2019 ST LP sold out immediately and has since started to fetch upwards of $70 a copy on Discogs. Flute, congas, bass, drums, guitar and clavinet; this unconventional arrangement of instruments intertwine to form the debut album by Badge Époque Ensemble -- a group of creative improvisers assembled to perform new, largely instrumental compositions by Maximilian 'Twig' Turnbull (formerly Slim Twig -- DFA Records). Badge employs an eclectic cast of characters from the Toronto underground music scene, whose combined experience would take pages to spell out. It includes stints accompanying songwriters Andy Shauf and Marker Starling, outfitting heavies Blood Ceremony and Biblical, and respective careers spent gigging Django-jazz and the classical cannon. Badge's distinctive sound arises from the diversity of these musical exploits, creating a palpable chemistry well captured on the live-tracked songs that form the group's self-titled debut. Part of this crucial chemistry can be attributed to the fact that four of the six players in the Ensemble have been at the core of the live, U.S. Girls band, a group that has scorched stages internationally over the past year and was hailed by Paste magazine as the best live band of 2018. While it may call to mind an improbable collision between psych-era Stevie Wonder and the whimsically dark, Fantastic Planet score, it is clear we are operating in a post Wu-Tang paradigm. If a crate of library, Tropicalia, prog and electric jazz records were flattened into a single 12" and then fed into a sampler, we might approximate the process."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 072LP
|
"Toronto's Badge Époque Ensemble announce sophomore album Self Help out November 20th on Telephone Explosion Records. Recorded live in the months before lockdown, Self Help is an exploratory record that dances across time and genre, guided by fidgety miniatures and jazz inflected collage. While constructed from the inspiration of soul, funk and film music, BÉE mediate those influences having first digested them through the productions of Madlib & the RZA. Throughout, the band pool together their instrumental chops, moving from fluid and serpentine R&B to meditative, minimalistic piano, evoking a contrast of virtuosity and self-surrender. A sticker on the sleeve tells us Self Help 'combines jazz-funk and mysticism,' a signpost to where its musical and spiritual concerns align. The jazz-funk component translates to arresting hooks in sideways song forms: echoes of Gainsbourg spooled through Azymuth-style Brazilian jazz and punctuated by the whip and snap of Steely Dan. 'The Sound Where My Head Was,' the instrumental centrepiece, exemplifies present-wave jazz but also ancient sounds, giving off the mothballed air of a Hiroshi Yoshimura record in a library-music archive. Self Help's mysticism emerges in broad and specific ways, denoting not only a search beyond cliché and intellect but also an inquiry into the beat, the spirit, the one will. This isn't new territory for them: Turnbull -- the artist formerly known as Slim Twig, who writes and performs with U.S. Girls and various other Toronto concerns -- named the group's Nature, Man & Woman EP after the Alan Watts book. Building these songs from his drafts over three weekends at Toronto's Palace Sound studio, the ensemble was free to tap out of the city and into some other place, taking up residence in a collective mind maze. The album produces, in equal measure, familiar surprises and the surprisingly familiar. Intoxicated jazz riffs swerve left at phantom intersections. Rhythms cut loose and tie you in knots. But wired in to each song is a sense of gentle accumulation, making every featherlight flourish weigh a ton. U.S. Girls' Meg Remy brings serenity to 'Sing a Silent Gospel,' and wears its antic melodies lightly. The soul shimmer of 'Unity (It's Up to You)' lets the players pool their R&B chops into something fluid and serpentine while, on guest vocals, the musical performance artist James Baley issues urgent declaratives: 'Water must pool, as a rule, before tasted/Or else the water is wasted.' The words throughout the record complement the ensemble music while riffing on the precarious nature of unity itself. Then, closer 'Extinct Commune' finds Turnbull deserted at the piano, playing phrases of meditative minimalism taking after the composer Joanna Brouk. For all the record's reach, it is these contrasting quiet moments that bring Self Help's communal spirit into focus. A note on personnel: Badge Époque Ensemble now has a seventh member in Karen Ng, the saxophonist and sometime collaborator of Do Make Say Think, Feist, and others. In BÉE, Ng joins Chris Bezant and Giosuè Rosati, her bandmates in the Andy Shauf live band, as well as U.S. Girls co-conspirators Turnbull and Ed Squires, and other Torontonian cross-pollinators listed below. Guest vocalists across Self Help include Meg Remy, who sings with Dorothea Paas on the opener, James Baley, and Toronto singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle on the remarkable 'Just Space for Light.'" --Jazz Monroe
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 071LP
|
"Good Time is Teenanger boiled down to its very essence. A lean and muscular eight-song album that is the sound of a band who simultaneously has everything and nothing to prove. It's what happens when seasoned songwriters flex their chops in an environment that fosters boundless creativity. It is also Teenanger's most fun album. Choruses soar to previously unattained heights, descending to a rhythmically fertile ground to pull earworms that will stick inside listeners' heads for days. If its songs were citizens, they would reside in a diplomatically neutral city-state, melting pots of art rock, pop, dub, post-punk and new wave. The music of Good Time certainly elicits pleasure, but lyrically things are more weighty. The band does not shy away from its commentary on contemporary issues. There are calls to reject societal norms, ruminations on humanity's obsession with technology and warnings about our impact on the environment. Teenanger never gets too earnest, delivering everything with an irreverence that has been there since day one. Good Time captures a pivotal point for Teenanger. The decision was made to take a leap of faith, leaving the confines of their past and moving into a space they could call their own. This allowed the band members to embrace a new way of making music and existing together. They may have almost died in Studio Z, instead they were reborn."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 070LP
|
"More than a decade ago, Freak Heat Waves emerged from Canada's stark Midwestern prairies, establishing their voice through early cassette-based experiments and DIY performances. Over the years, the group's live incarnations evolved as they endured a rigorous and nearly non-stop touring schedule. When not on the road, the Freaks became hermits, engaging in countless writing/production sessions that grew increasingly complex, eventually forcing them to travel beyond guitar, bass and drums. Their home studios continuously relocated, advanced and diversified. New instruments started to appear and new trajectories were explored. The studio process became more dynamic, involving many overdubs, avant-garde recording techniques, experimental sound design and orchestrations that utilized legendary effects, drum machines and synths. Tireless curiosity fueled the duo as they merged their original sound with new discoveries and seemingly disparate influences. With their latest work, Zap The Planet, the Freaks find themselves splitting coasts in Montreal and Victoria, distanced by geography and time, connecting via serial transmission tethered to a lone ethernet terminal. Extenuating logistics can unexpectedly prompt innovation. No Freak Heat Waves record has followed a singular path and no two are alike. Each album is an evolution in musical direction, songwriting and conceptualization. With Zap The Planet, (their second album on Telephone Explosion,) the duo has manifested more of their intrinsically unique vision and become more pronounced in their unhinged artistic process. The follow up to 2017's Beyond XXXL finds the Freaks taking a fearless, inventive leap to create the greatest departure from their previous work. There are no fads here, no accidents either. Freak Heat Waves give us a record full of lo-fi digital grit and early MIDI instrumentation. Dirty samples crackle as they skate over immense analog synths. Psychotropic rhythms plant roots and the timeless, signature Freak Heat Waves vocals serve as guides throughout the journey. Through it all the Freaks find themselves zapped!"
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 069LP
|
"New Fries has never been interested in being a band. What we mean is a spirit of abandoning ideas of what songs should be, how they should be performed, and by whom. We've never been interested in the tradition of songwriting -- though we're interested in musical elements like repetition, space, and dynamics. We have wanted our music to make people dance but have also wanted to produce the feeling of that being taken away from a room. We often work around these sorts of energy transfers (whether or not we name them this way). This space to make music in has felt wild and free. We have also contradicted ourselves. We are also always changing. In 2018 Ryan Carley (synthesizer) left the band and we found ourselves at our first juncture to restructure and re-evaluate New Fries. This is such a classic boring story, we know. But immediately we knew that as a three piece (the band's original formation) we had to turn to something new and open -- the way some describe 'beginners mind'. Anni grabbed bass (which was new to her), Tim grabbed guitar and a sampler as a new juggling routine, and Jenny reduced her drum kit to three pieces. We wanted to create a structure that allowed us to be curious about being in transition. Much of this record sounds and reflects on this in-between. It's anxious in its repetitions and unsure of genre. It rejects a singular character or emotion and attempts to instead act as a container for many. Anni's lyrics state this directly: 'it lacks a mood, it lacks definition' / 'curiosity beyond expectation'. Her lyrics describe the spaces, objects, people, and situations that embody an in-between -- her grandfather who worked as medium, the ecology of the foreshore, Mount Tambora's eruption in 1816 that produced the Year Without a Summer, and mesh (the fabric). The result is a collage of 6 songs and many otherwise quick ideas. Much of this collage was testament to the work of engineer/musician Carl Didur. Carl (Zacht Automaat, formerly US Girls) is a long-standing pillar of Toronto's experimental music community. He is also a tape expert, which we knew these songs needed entering the recording process as mostly bare grooves. The result was less that of hiring an engineer than it was working with a collaborator. His musical ideas are all over this record. Is The Idea Of Us is the situation of musicians/non-musicians making music together perhaps completely illegible in the music on this record and to the random listener who doesn't know our story in South Bend, Indiana (how did you find us?!) But with this title we name this absurd gesture, through our changing relationship to making music both as a unit and as individuals. There are enough bands out there; we insist on do it differently."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 066LP
|
"In the mid-70s, Mariangela Celeste signed to a major label (Polygram) at the age of 13. She would then go on to record her self-titled album with rising European superstar Vangelis. Though tragically overlooked upon its release, Mariangela is a gem of early electronic pop with sparkling synths, drums machines, and lush arrangements, propelling the songs of an unapologetically strong-willed Adolescent. By 1972, Vangelis' band 'Aphrodite's Child' had earned widespread acclaim for their lavish psych- prog masterpiece, 666. Though still years away from the Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner soundtracks, that would make him a household name also in North America, Vangelis had already released three solo albums, and was well on his way to becoming a worldwide celebrity. Polygram hired him as a producer to work with upcoming artists of their list, and he handpicked the teenaged singer-songwriter Mariangela. Mariangela's most successful songs are the ones she wrote herself, coupled with Vangelis' forward-thinking production. The heart-pumping beat of 'You Are The One' sounds like a teenage impression of ABBA or sonic forerunner to The Carpenter's song 'Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft'. Floating head and shoulders above all else is Mariangela's wave ballad 'My Dear Life', reminds of the fusing the spellbinding vocals of Wendy and Bonnie's 'Genesis', combined with the dazzling futurism LP of Roberto Cacciapaglia's The Ann Steel Album. The sophisticated ballads 'Alone With The Day', and 'Memories of Friends', consist of impressively orchestrated, heart touching melodies that give a powerful and moving experience to the listener. Its sound is years ahead of its time, with Vangelis' decisions to wrap the song's dreamy melodies in sundazed synths, popping drum machines, and cavernous guitar effects, confounding even its creator. When the album hit the shelves in 1975, its release was confusingly limited to Greece, Canada, South Africa, and Holland. Why Polygram would choose to make it nearly impossible to find it in Western Europe or England, where Vangelis' star was rising, remains a mystery up to this day."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 065LP
|
"On April 3, 2020, Toronto's Scott Hardware will be releasing Engel, his second full-length album, and first on Telephone Explosion Records. It will mark the end of a three-year process of writing, recording and letting down his guard (for better or worse.) His last album, 2016's Mutate, Repeat, Infinity, was the culmination of a years-long obsession with the HIV/AIDS crisis and how it was shaped by capitalism. Hardware's early years after coming out were shaped by the courage of people close to him who were dealing with difficult diagnoses. 'Looking at these situations from a macro/societal lens must have been the only way I could process and share those years of my life and my loved ones' lives with an audience' Hardware recalls. 'From a writing and production standpoint, I was trying to re-imagine various eras of dance music and sound as urgent and vital as they would have in their heyday of the '80s and '90s.' Within a year of moving back (to Toronto) from Berlin, Scott watched Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire and was immediately filled with its inherent curiosity. The film, in short, follows angels around pre-unification Berlin as they listen to the thoughts of the mortals they are surrounded by. 'I sought with this album to capture the film's velvety feeling -- in turns funny, depressing, dark and mundane -- in LP form' Hardware says. 'These songs imagine Wenders' angels buzzing around my friends, my family and I. Writing from their point of view allowed me unfettered access to my own thoughts about them and myself.' Engel's cover art is adorned by an image by artist Chris Curreri called the Insomniac. Curreri's work winks and nods to queer sex, emotionality and darkness, and this piece is no different. This is work that reaches back to queer artists such as Francis Bacon and brings back with it a timeless everyday horror faced by queers: shame. These are artists who visualize monsters and demons hiding in plain sight. Like singing to dead queer ancestors on Mutate, Repeat, Infinity, Hardware is trying to make sense of another queer cross-to-bear, this time coming from within. The image is gory and difficult, not unlike the process of digging shame from one's spirit. Engel, in its preoccupation with angels, the afterlife and private thoughts holds hands with the image."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 062LP
|
Limited restock, last copies. "Quiet Music is a collection of pieces created by Steve Roach between 1983 and 1986 in respect for silence. The gentle electronics of Roach's synthesizers mix with flute, electric piano and nature sounds flow like breath, enveloping the listener in a sustained, delicate and translucent atmosphere. Quiet Music was originally released as a three tape cassette series in 1986 on Fortuna Records and is now being issued as a complete series on vinyl for the first time ever. After Structures From Silence was released, Steve was receiving invitations to create music for the emerging meditation yoga and healing arts community in Los Angeles. Quiet Music 1 was originally commissioned for a meditation video, which featured a collection of video images of lush forested areas, wild flowers and natural serenity. But by the time the piece was completed the producer passed away and the project was never completed. Quiet Music 1's direct connection to a distinct environment set the tone for the trilogy of albums. The Quiet Music series was released in a timeline that is often seen as linear but this music was created directly alongside the dynamic fully electronic albums like Now, Traveler, and Empetus. In the early '80s Steve would be shifting between the invigorating sequencer-percussive driven music and then move directly into weightless drifts and contemplative spaces. This way of creating grew naturally out of a desire to not settle into one place sonically and to nourish himself with a space that could be creative and fine-tuned, creating a calm and renewing zone while living within the hectic pace of urban life in Los Angeles."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 063LP
|
Limited restock, last copies. "Quiet Music is a collection of pieces created by Steve Roach between 1983 and 1986 in respect for silence. The gentle electronics of Roach's synthesizers mix with flute, electric piano and nature sounds flow like breath, enveloping the listener in a sustained, delicate and translucent atmosphere. Quiet Music was originally released as a three tape cassette series in 1986 on Fortuna Records and is now being issued as a complete series on vinyl for the first time ever. After Structures From Silence was released, Steve was receiving invitations to create music for the emerging meditation yoga and healing arts community in Los Angeles. Quiet Music 2 was inspired by Steve spending a lot of time in deserts and was created as a natural progression from Structures From Silence, and the more nocturnal feeling of Quiet Music 3 were pieces designed for Steve's personal healing practices. The Quiet Music series was released in a timeline that is often seen as linear but this music was created directly alongside the dynamic fully electronic albums like Now, Traveler, and Empetus. In the early '80s Steve would be shifting between the invigorating sequencer-percussive driven music and then move directly into weightless drifts and contemplative spaces. This way of creating grew naturally out of a desire to not settle into one place sonically and to nourish himself with a space that could be creative and fine-tuned, creating a calm and renewing zone while living within the hectic pace of urban life in Los Angeles."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 064LP
|
Sold out, repress in May/2020. "Quiet Music is a collection of pieces created by Steve Roach between 1983 and 1986 in respect for silence. The gentle electronics of Roach's synthesizers mix with flute, electric piano and nature sounds flow like breath, enveloping the listener in a sustained, delicate and translucent atmosphere. Quiet Music was originally released as a three tape cassette series in 1986 on Fortuna Records and is now being issued as a complete series on vinyl for the first time ever. Limited restock, last copies. After Structures From Silence was released, Steve was receiving invitations to create music for the emerging meditation yoga and healing arts community in Los Angeles... The more nocturnal feeling of Quiet Music 3 were pieces designed for Steve's personal healing practices. The Quiet Music series was released in a timeline that is often seen as linear but this music was created directly alongside the dynamic fully electronic albums like Now, Traveler, and Empetus. In the early '80s Steve would be shifting between the invigorating sequencer-percussive driven music and then move directly into weightless drifts and contemplative spaces. This way of creating grew naturally out of a desire to not settle into one place sonically and to nourish himself with a space that could be creative and fine-tuned, creating a calm and renewing zone while living within the hectic pace of urban life in Los Angeles."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 058LP
|
"Croak In The Weeds, the second instalment in a planned trilogy from ex-Deadly Snakes frontman André Ethier, will be released in fall 2019 on Telephone Explosion Records. The nine-song album was created in collaboration with Sandro Perri (producer) at his Toronto studio in late 2018/early 2019. Croak In The Weeds continues Ethier and Perri's musical relationship which was originally established on 2017's Under Grape Leaves. Croak expands upon that album, deconstructing synthetic elements to a point of raw organic beauty. Lyrically, André's approach has shifted to the natural world, focusing heavily on flora and fauna. Almost every track on the 34-minute album references animals, with central characters ranging from pigs to dragons. This is André's third attempt at a trilogy of records. Previous attempts have stalled for various reasons; disillusionment with genre, unrealistic sense of self, arachnophobia... Though it would not be inaccurate to suggest that he now has completed a trilogy of unfinished trilogies (he would thank you for your optimistic reasoning,) and is still planning to finish this one. Regarding trilogies, André opines: 'In the first you establish the tools and build yourself a room, in the sequel you live in the room and imagine what's outside, finally in the third... you escape?' He doesn't know, he has never gone all the way..."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 055LP
|
"Canadian private press mega-rarity/obscurity from the artistically schizophrenic Bob Bell. Recorded in 1978, Bell splits the difference between his love of basement psych splatter/pummel and squalling free jazz ramble, the former occupying side A with a stunning four-part suite of wasted guitar scuzz and churning Krautrock-like drama with an akin to German Oak, Roland Kirk, Albert Ayler, DNA, Melt Banana (minus the vocals) and Guru Guru. The latter represents Bell as a saxophonist on side B, and the music itself translates into a 15-minute free-jazz exploration. Necropolis is a highly sought-after 35 min doom-laden trip for the connoisseurs of noise."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 054LP
|
"In the mid-80s, an original form of music was discovered on the midi-capable little planet of Austin, Texas. At the age of 32, Charles Ditto would release his first solo album applying cutting edge computers and synthesizers of the era (Roland DX7, Roland MKS-20, Roland MKS-80, Sequential Circuits Profit 2000 along with a Macintosh SE), creating a unique and detailed world that was inspired by Cluster, Eno & The Residents. In Human Terms bridges the gap between contemporary classical and minimal pop. Rhythmic but melodically abstract. Microtonal and organic. Often described as experimental electronics, tone poems or Cyber-delic-psychotropic-avant-garde. In Human Terms, remains very emotion, deep and different. Ditto's music imparts a new listening experience that is still somewhat indescribable today, but remains approachable and relatable."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP + 7"
|
|
TER 053LP
|
"After no-wave legends Liquid Liquid broke up in 1984, singer Salvatore Principato took some much need to time to revaluate his musical direction. Renting a studio on the Lower East Side with Ken Man Caldiera. It was there that they started their next musical project, Fist of Facts. In 1985 Ken Man showed up in the studio with this IBM AT computer. It had a 1/2 MB of RAM and some Voyetra software that could sequence music, becoming the duo's backing band. Fist Of Facts contributors included Mark Cunningham from Mars, Felice Rosser, Genevieve De Monvel Boutet, Carlos Vivanco, Scott Hartley from the Liquids and a whole host of others. Fist Of Facts expand the natural groove that Liquid Liquid established over their quick career, with a strong political message combined with abstract dub soundscapes."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
TER 052LP
|
"Chandra Oppenheim was a child star like no other. As the daughter of famed conceptual artist Dennis Oppenheim. By age nine, Chandra was staying up late at her parents' art-world parties, collaborating in her father's projects, and performing her own plays at downtown hotspots such as The Kitchen and Franklin Furnace. This set the stage for Chandra's course-altering collaboration with members of The Dance, who were looking to form yet another project and found their muse/fuse in ten-year-old Chandra. Transportation EP, originally released in 1980 by The Dance's own label, ON/GoGo. Balancing on razor-wire guitars, liquid bass lines, and dub-style melodica, the Chandra band unveiled their first four songs: 'Opposite', 'Concentration', 'Subways', and 'Kate.' While Chandra's music can be compared to her no wave contemporaries Y Pants, France's Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Su Tissue of Suburban Lawns, or 'Delta 5 meets the Jackson 5', to quote critic David Ma, her lyrical fixations are truly singular. With hypnotic, chanted vocals focusing on chilling themes of mind control, multiple personalities and missing the train. At age 12, the post-punk pre-teen took the stage with her band for the first time at New York's legendary Mudd Club. A whirlwind of press coverage ensued from glossy magazines like Vogue and Paris Match to the influential underground zine Non LP B Side and a Soho News cover story. The infectious, propulsive 'Get It Out Of Your System' opens Chandra's second EP with one of her most commanding performances. 'Stranger' slows the pace with stop-start rhythms, woozy synths, and the harmonized return of the melodica, while its lyrics find her being followed by a mysterious character revealed to be a woman. 'Tish Le Dire' sounds like The B-52s in an eerie alternate universe with instructions on speaking up to your parents or authorities to the point of threatening suicide. Chandra stepped away from the band at age 14 to focus on her education. Sadly, the second EP was shelved and would not see the light of day for decades. Chandra's trip continues with this new deluxe reissue from Telephone Explosion Records. Returning her debut EP to its original four song, single-record release at a dancefloor-ready remastered 45 RPM, the expanded edition also adds to the second EP with a pair of never-released songs from her 1983 four-track cassette demos. 'Day Without Success' and 'They're All Alike' find Chandra's dream-like vocals driven by minimal wave synth zaps and pulsating drum machines."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
TER 051LP
|
"Melodic Energy Commission is a Canadian gem and an interesting branch of the Hawkwind family tree (featuring Del Delmar on electronics.) Hailing from British Columbia, their unique blend of space rock, progressive and hippie psychedelia began in 1977 as a recording-only project titled The Melodic Energy Commission of Collected Artists. MEC quickly released two albums: 1979's Stranger in Mystery and 1980's Migration Of The Snails. The music is raw and heavily exploratory, often shifting styles radically within a single track, moving from quiet chamber orchestras to dissonant guitar freak outs with smears of analog electronics filling in gaps along the way. RIYL: Amon Düüll II, Tangerine Dream, Hawkwind, Sun City Girls and Syd Barret."
|
viewing 1 To 25 of 31 items
Next >>
|
|