Albums and Singles

27 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

Artist: SHINJUKU THIEF
Title: The Scribbler
Catalogue No: CSR62CD
Barcode: 8 2356602422 4
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Dark Orchestral / Neoclassical
Shipping: 12th April 2007

Reissue of the 1992 classic by this Australian genius, originally released in an edition of 500 copies. Occasional bursts of factory noise, industrial rumblings and disembodied German voices form the backdrop to a minimalist reworking of Kafka's "The Trial." An album of dense filmic atmospheres and orchestral instrumentation.

'The Scribbler' has been digitally remastered and is enhanced with a series of video clips constructed by Richard Grant (I+T=R), incorporating both new material together with the original images prepared for "The Scribbler" live show.

MP3 Sample: "A Promise And A Lecture"�

27 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

artist: OCEAN/CONIFER
title: split
catalog #: IMPREC144
upc: 793447513621
release date: APRIL 24, 2007
format: LP

This split 12” release is limited to 1000 copies and pressed on rust and grey color vinyl. It is packaged in a screen printed mylar jacket with a screen printed mylar insert and a screen printed paper insert. Cover artwork is of a 19th century statue located at the center of Portland Maine, the dramatic coastal home of both groups. This is the sound of a musical brotherhood entirely unique to Ocean & Conifer.

Over the years Ocean and Conifer have shared vans, stages, members, practice spaces, apartments, beers, a city and a kindred musical spirit. In a lot of ways it's a shock that that split hasn't happened already but perhaps it was so obvious that nobody noticed that it needed to happen. Sometimes the truth is right beneath your nose.
With their original drummer back in the line-up, since Eric Brackett left to focus his energy on Ocean, Conifer has re-enlisted their original drummer Nate Nadeau. With Nate back in the group they're heavier, tighter and more united than ever before. They've toured and player with Mono, Black Dice, High On Fire, Asva, Mouth Of The Architect and many more. Summer of 2006 saw them embark on an ambitious 26 city tour.
Ocean's 20 minute epic was recorded in the same sessions that birthed their next album, currently untitled, for Important. Containing all of the epic minimalist intensity and robust heaviness that has gained them international attention, The Undoing is a whole new level.

27 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

artist: ASA IRONS & SWAAN MILLER
title: Asa Irons & Swaan Miller
catalog #: IMPREC143
upc: 793447514321
release date: April 24, 2007
format: CD

This record is forever. After listending to it you'll realise that it doesn't matter that Asa Irons plays in Witch with J Mascis as well as the acclaimed folk outfit Feathers. This record needs no associations and it's songs are so timeless that they feel as if they've been passed around for generations and hardly need any recording medium at all. This is the first release from Asa Irons and Swann Miller but it sounds like they've lived within each others voices for a million years. Asa's deep-breath-voice lays down a mossy hill for Swann's beautiful voice to tread upon. His guitar work is simply intricate and his fingerpicking perfectly suits the way their voices combine to become one. This record always has been and always will be. This record is forever.
“After spending years in New Hampshire and often Nova Scotia, I began writing songs about my Northeastern window through which I view the world. Most of the pieces represent strong fundamentals in my life such as living without comfort resources like electricity and running water, the building trends of carpentry and masonry with which I make my living, and the slow paced rural life in which I grew up. The land of Northeastern North America is very important to me and compelled me to describe it in the form of music. Many people in my life were musicians - my father, cousins, friends - so I had plenty of good examples to pull from and think about. My style of song writing, I believe, comes from the influence of these loved ones combined with certain deep-rooted melodies or images from books that have stuck with me. (Such as sound tracks of old cinema and authors like Tolstoy and Carolyn
Chute.)
My older sister's art work has also had a tremendous effect on the way I see the world. Many of her primary subjects revolve around various representations of our own home place and the people who inhabited this and
the other woods houses in which we grew up. One of the people connected to me through music and lifestyle is Swann Miller. She is the daughter of a man who was a good friend of my father's. Through the '70's our fathers built houses together around N.H. and also played a lot of music. So, I have known Swann my whole life and perhaps it was inevitable that we made music together. When I reached her house in the winter of 2003, I had just had my notebook of songs stolen along with other things. I decided to try to catalogue all I could remember by practicing them. Swann practiced with me. On a whim, her boyfriend - who works as a sound engineer - recorded the two of us singing in an abandoned yellow women's bathroom in the basement of the building where they lived. It all took about an hour and a half including set up of mics, recording, and
breaking down. I borrowed a twenty year old Guild guitar from a friend of a friend which was very similar to my father's guitar that I grew up with. I am so happy to have had the opportunity to help capture Swann's beautiful voice and continue the music of our families.
The album is a quick glimpse of a world view from Southern New Hampshire through the voices of two old friends whose fathers were friends before them.” Asa Irons

27 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

artist: SMEGMA
title: 33 1/3
catalog #: IMPREC145
upc: 793447513720
release date: April 24, 2007
format: CD

33 1/3 is Smegma's tribute to their 20th century avant-garde and out-jazz influences. The title is one part reference to the happy revival of passionate vinyl listening in the 21st century and one part celebration of their long hard slog of 33 1/3 years of being one of the most free thinking and original American underground groups. Their focus, ideas and determination has brought them through more than three decades and to this day they remain unparalleled, original and highly influential. 33 1/3 is enhanced with live videos of Happy Holidays live at End Times Festival (with Spencer Yeh and Twig Harper) as well as Grubsteak live at the Three Million Tongues festival in Chicago.
Smegma. Seriously. They've been at it for so long now that you can't really even say they sound like anyone else. You can only say that others sound like them. They're all here on 33 1/3: Oblivia, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Burned Mind, Conroy, Dr. Id. The core group drumming up their influences and pulling off another burning album of magnificent proportions. .
While Smegma has never really fit in anywhere their influence on the modern avant garde and improvised noise scene is absolutely undeniable. However, it's essential to remember that Smegma has never been noise for noise's sake. While they've had two feet firmly planted in avant-garde & free jazz one must not forget their rock roots as well. For this reason alone they're bound to not fit in anywhere. Influences aside, not matter how much everyone else sounds like Smegma, you can bet that Smegma is always going to sound like nobody else. Nobody else channels so much energy, effort, influence or sound into their work. They may just be the greatest American band. Ever.

artist: SMEGMA
title: 33 1/3
catalog #: IMPREC145
upc: 793447514529
release date: April 24, 2007
format: LP

This vinyl edition of 33 1/3 is limited to 1000 copies on black, red, red/black split and red & black splatter vinyl. Includes a bonus track only available on the vinyl version.
33 1/3 is Smegma's tribute to their 20th century avant-garde and out-jazz influences. The title is one part reference to the happy revival of passionate vinyl listening in the 21st century and one part celebration of their long hard slog of 33 1/3 years of being one of the most free thinking and original American underground groups. Their focus, ideas and determination has brought them through more than three decades and to this day they remain unparalleled, original and highly influential. 33 1/3 is enhanced with live videos of Happy Holidays live at End Times Festival (with Spencer Yeh and Twig Harper) as well as Grubsteak live at the Three Million Tongues festival in Chicago.
Smegma. Seriously. They've been at it for so long now that you can't really even say they sound like anyone else. You can only say that others sound like them. They're all here on 33 1/3: Oblivia, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Burned Mind, Conroy, Dr. Id. The core group drumming up their influences and pulling off another burning album of magnificent proportions. .
While Smegma has never really fit in anywhere their influence on the modern avant garde and improvised noise scene is absolutely undeniable. However, it's essential to remember that Smegma has never been noise for noise's sake. While they've had two feet firmly planted in avant-garde & free jazz one must not forget their rock roots as well. For this reason alone they're bound to not fit in anywhere. Influences aside, not matter how much everyone else sounds like Smegma, you can bet that Smegma is always going to sound like nobody else. Nobody else channels so much energy, effort, influence or sound into their work. They may just be the greatest American band. Ever.

27 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

artist: MERZBOW & CARLOS GIFFONI
title: Synth Destruction
catalog #: IMPREC131
upc: 793447513126
release date: April 24, 2007
format: CD

Over 60 minutes of total analog destruction by noise king Merzbow and Brooklyn noise boss Carlos Giffoni, This live collaboration was recorded during Giffoni's Synth Destruction Japan Tour in September of 2006. This is Sound Totalism and is as heavy as it comes: totally brutal, totally ugly, totally beautiful, totally intense, totally classic, totally analog, total synth and total destruction.
Intense artwork by Jenny Akita.
Author, activist, painter and sound artist Masami Akita had been at the foreground of experimental music for over 25 years. Inspired by psychedelic rock, free jazz, early electronic composition as well the physical arts, especialy Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau, Masami Akita has created a musical language all his own.
Carlos Giffoni, despite his young age, has been an in-demand Brooklyn collaborator for many years. He has worked with Jim O'Rourke, Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, Chris Corsano, Fe-Mail and many others. In 2005 he releases his first solo record titled Welcome Home on Important Records.
This is Merzbow and Giffoni's first collaborative release.

27 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

artist: PAULINE OLIVEROS
title: Accordion & Voice
catalog #: IMPREC140
upc: 793447514024
release date: April 24, 2007
format: CD

Pauline Oliveros (b. 1930) is an accordionist and composer who currently resides in Kingston, New York. Her instrument is tuned in Just Intonation and she often includes it in her meditative improvisational music. Her music is not meditative in the sense that it is intended for listening to while meditating, rather each piece is a form of meditation, such as her aptly titled Sonic Meditations.

A central figure in post-war electronic art music, Oliveros is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center (along with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, and Anthony Martin), which was the resource on the U.S. west coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music. Oliveros often improvises with the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing system she designed, in her performances and recordings.

“Accordion and Voice was the first of my recordings as a soloist. I was living in an A-frame house in a meadow just below Mount Tremper at Zen Mountain Center. I had a wonderful view of the graceful saddle mountain top. When away on a performance trip I would imagine the mountain as I played Rattlesnake Mountain. I followed the feelings and sensations of my many experiences of the mountain - the changing colors of the season, the breezes and winds blowing through the grasses and trees.
Horse Sings From Cloud taught me to listen to the depth of a tone and to have patience. Rather than initiating musical impulses of motion, melody and harmony I wanted to hear the subtlety of a tone taking space and time to develop. The tones linger and resonate in the body, mind, instrument and performance space.
My thanks to Important Music for bringing these pieces to be heard again.” - Pauline Oliveros 2007

27 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

artist: PAULINE OLIVEROS
title: The Wanderer
catalog #: IMPREC141
upc: 793447514143
release date: April 24, 2007
format: CD

The Wanderer is based on a single modal scale (B C# D D# E F# G#) and rhythmic modes based on a meter consisting of ¾ and 3/8. Part I, Song, is intended to explore the unique resonant qualities of accordion reeds through long sounds. Subtle variations come about from differences in tuning and air pressure. Part II, Dance, demonstrates the sharp accenting power of the accordion bellows in a mixture of cross rhythms characteristic of jigs, reels, batucadas, Bulgars, klezmer forms, Cajun dances, and music of other diverse cultures.
The Wanderer was composed in November, 1982 especially for the Springfield Accordion Orchestra, directed by Sam Falcetti. This recording documents The Wanderer's world premiere, as it was performed 27 January, 1983 at Marymount Manhattan Theatre. The orchestra consists of twenty accordions, two bass accordions, and five percussion, with Pauline Oliveros as soloist, Sam Falcetti conducting.
Horse Sings From Cloud, written in 1975, is one of Oliveros' best known works. Like most of her Sonic Meditations, it can be performed vocally and/or instrumentally, solo or in collaboration. A solo version of Horse Sings From Cloud has been recorded on Accordion & Voice. An early version of the score reads, “Sustain a tone or sound until any desire to change it disappears. When there is no longer any desire to change the tone or sound, then change it.”
This time, Horse Sings From Cloud is performed in ensemble. Joining Pauline Oliveros on bandoneion are Heloise Gold on Harmonium, Julia Haines on accordion, and Linda Montano on concertina. This quartet version incorporates the microtonal differences in tuning of the selected instruments, creating shimmering reed sounds somewhat similar to the shimmering of a Balinese gamelan.

27 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

Our newest in our free compilation series is up. It is called Silber on Silber & features 29 artists covering songs by artists on the Silber roster. Did we mention it is free?

A new QRD (issue #32) is up. We have a lot going on this issue. As some of you may know, I was in a car crash a few months ago & I have been talking to a lot of people about it & so I have a ton of car crash stories from semi-famous folks like Alan Sparhawk, James Newman, Nathan Amundson, Will Dodson, & myself. Nathan Amundson contributes a few more times for a Rivulets interview & an appearance in I Heart FX & a piece he co-wrote with me on Gifts for Touring Musicians. We have two short stories from long time contributor Paticia Russo called Bound and Loose & See and Say. A nice little short short from Tara Vanflower called She Was a Doll. I guess the big surprise interview this issue is David Galas, who last appeared in QRD #1 as a member of Lycia. We have an interview with our buddy Jamie Barnes who will hopefully interview his dad for us in June. There is an interview with Max Soren of The Goslings. Finally finishing up we have two more installments of I Heart FX from Martin Newman (Plumerai) & Shane DeLeon Sauers (Rollerball). So a big issue. & hopefully there will be more soon. I'm shooting for another one in two months.

A new Lost Kisses (#4) is up. Or watch it on YouTube It's a comic/slow-cartoon about watching the news & finding out an ex-girlfriend is dead.
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26 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

THREE NEW RELEASES FROM COLD SPRING

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25 March 2007

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Albums and Singles

If Toronto's Do Make Say Think haven't changed much in the decade or so they've been on the scene, it's because they haven't needed to. Their mastery of their basic aesthetic elements—from their natural, textured guitar sound, to their melancholy passages, huge crescendos, album-long symmetry and even their earthy packaging—works so well that they need little evolution. It's as if they found the perfect moment and haven't left it in ten years.

Constellation

It's because this blueprint is so well-developed that additions are easily absorbed and sometimes barely noticed. On You, You A History in Rust, this previously-instrumental band introduces vocals ("A With Living"), although they are given no preferential treatment. The vocals appear, make their statement and recede before a long trickle of instrumentation twice as long as the vocal segment. It's as if to say "a voice box, a singing saw, a violin…it doesn't matter what it is as long as it can express longing."

Similarly, "The Universe!" has the instruments fused, chugging along like a proper indie pop song (uncharacteristic for them) before disintegrating into a mass of noodling noise (much more characteristic). It in turn gives way to the gentle acoustic "A Tender History in Rust." It makes sense. These sounds could only have existed side-by-side. Everything they do makes sense.

The obvious criticism of DMST is to say "if I have one record, why would I need another?" Well, because the law of diminishing returns doesn't apply to them. They have stretched out this sound without losing impact. And when you find something beautiful, don't you want more of it?

samples: