Vinyl, CD & Tape 217 Items

The album was created in two versions - a limited "color in color", of which 100 numbered pieces were produced, and a classic version with black wax, of which 200 pieces were produced.
After 10 years, Kixnare returns to U Know Me Records with his fourth original album. "Asteria" is a step towards even more experimental and abstract corners of electronic music. Each of the seven songs on the album reveals a fascination with completely different musical areas - from dark ambient ("Plaga"), through oriental ("Mystic Journeyman") / dubbing downtempo ("Impass") to stronger acid ("Mutacja") and techno ( "Omnis"). What connects everything is a constant atmosphere of anxiety - a reflection of the times we live in. Despite a completely different musical climate, "Asteria" refers in its character to Kixnare's last album "Rotations" from 2014, continuing the concept of inter-genre collage. All this comes together in the weekly radio show "Rotations", in which Kixnare presents his recommendations from the world of underground and experimental electronics on Radio Kraków.
"Asteria" is an album consisting of seven songs - almost 38 minutes of an amazing journey, the sound of which was worked on by the legendary Stefan Betke from Berlin (mastering author). The cover is the work of the flawless Animisiewasz.

Ofamfa by Children OF THE SUN

Original released in 1971 by the BAG groups (Black Artist Groupe) own label "Universal Justice Records" this album has for years been an impossible to find/listen to album, and this is its first reissue ever ..
Ofamfa by The Children Of The Sun, a band lead by poet/musicien Ajule/aka Bruce Rutlin Is a heady mix of poetry/jazz/political songs/ and a document of a comunity avent. The BAG group being about all the arts theater and dance.

The Muse/icians on the album are….
Rashu Aten / conga, small instruments
Oliver Lake / soprano &Alto sax, flute, poems, small instruments
Floyd LeFlore/ trumpet, small instruments
Ishac Rajab/ Trumpet
Arzinia Richardson/ bass, small instruments Vincent Terrell / cello
Charles "bobo" Shaw / drums, small instruments
Ajule / poetry, arrangements, small instruments, drums

Pledging to Keep It Alive with her debut album in 2022 (In The Red), Liz Lamere doubles down with her latest full-length second album, One Never Knows, released on In The Red. Dedicated to her late partner Alan Vega, with whom she collaborated on his solo works for over three decades, Lamere’s minimalist approach to creating music is clearly in line with the Vega aesthetic that she helped develop with him during countless experimental hours in the studio since the late ’80s.

Lamere teamed up again with her and Vega’s son Dante Vega Lamere in their Dujang Prang NYC home studio surrounded by the Suicide singer’s spectacular light sculptures, co-producer Jared Artaud, and mixing and mastering engineers Ted Young and Josh Bonati.

Vega had always encouraged Lamere to create her own music. After he passed away, she began writing as a form of catharsis which became the inspirational bedrock for her solo music. Lamere said, “At the end of Alan’s life, he was using the expression ‘one never knows’ to underscore that we don’t know how much time we have in this realm or where this journey will lead us. It was a phrase that had resonated so much for me. Alan taught me to go bravely into the unknown; to be fully present in the moment and deeply explore what is already here.”

Asher White’s third album in two years (and fifteenth overall), Home Constellation Study is less a refinement of last year’s sly, quaint New Excellent Woman, and more an explosion of it. Her meticulous chamber pop has given way to resplendent swells of horns and squeals of noise, throbbing bass and queasy orchestral loops. The cover, painted by White, frames a burst of flowers against a dark blue abyss, mimicking the music: over-frenzied sambas, bleary slacker rock, hushed ambient meditations, and surprisingly slick disco, White mines her personal minutiae for tokens of political decay, alienation, and religious rapture.

The past year has found the prolific Providence-based singer-songwriter ascending through her city’s fertile experimental rock scene alongside the breakout synth-punk act babybaby_explores and her labelmates Or Best Offer. Live, White’s band plays riotous, unpredictable noise rock that nods to their city’s storied DIY scene; on Home Constellation Study, mid-album highlights like “Downstate Prairie” and “Hymn” nod to Providence’s bands of yore with their blistering sheets of feedback and pummeling drums, placing White, improbably, within the lineage of local heroes Les Savy Fav or the broken pop dispatches of Black Pus.

At its core, however, Home Constellation Study is the product of studied, monastic auteurism. Like New Excellent Woman, it was arranged, performed, recorded and mixed by White alone in her basement studio in Providence. “Happy Birthday” is an earnest psalm, a paean of devotion and remorse to God a la Beverly Glenn-Copeland that drifts along with Panda Bear haziness. White’s concept of “toxic femininity” undergoes further investigation on “Good Luck!” and “Runes,” both with Elliott Smith-like chord changes and the barbs of cynical romantics like Aimee Mann. Asher White’s vision has never been so expansive and unpredictable.

Christopher McVicker could capably add a chapter or two to the omnipresent tall tale of perfect pop’s supposed rebirth in 21st century San Francisco. That’s assuming he could be bothered to weigh in on the subject. Still, for the last decade-plus, McVicker’s chosen musical guise of Swiftumz has certainly been inspirational to the current pack. This perennially loose project allows McVicker to shape myriad aural obsessions into something quintessentially his own. From the distorted fuzz-centric moments on his earliest recordings through his more recent punky bursts of shiny pop, McVicker’s work has wowed the fortunate few who have bent an ear in his direction. For sure, “Everybody loves Chris”. Now returning with Simply The Best, he has leveled up.

Aided by some of The City’s finest like-minded volunteers—Kelley Stoltz, folks from The Aislers Set, The Bananas, Dirty Ghosts and many others, Simply The Best is a varied, all-hits endeavor, placing vibey, holed-up bedroom ballads alongside idealized, sparkling pop rock, chilled on one occasion, sharpened on another. Of particular note are the lead guitar contributions courtesy of Chris Guthridge, adding punch to McVicker’s effortlessly cool arrangements. These combinations and contributions always seem to boost Swiftumz beyond expectations, toward the timeless and classic.

The prime testament to McVicker’s songcraft is that he makes it look and sound so easy. In truth, Simply The Best earned its name over six long years of construction, a tumultuous period that saw the tragic loss of a cherished friend and guitarist, the abrupt closure of the record’s pressing plant and countless other personal and professional upheavals. Somehow McVicker, far too blessed to ever be stressed, was able to see through all these hardships and get all these gems cut and polished. It is without question his finest work to date and a collection of songs that we are all so incredibly lucky to finally hear.

Another unearthed ripper from St Louis MO recorded during the years 1968-1973 and never released until now! Over the course of about five years beginning in late 1968, several musicians living in eastern Missouri rocked the area clubs and festivals with a mix of cover and heavy original songs. The band’s name, Parchment Farm, came from a song on Blue Cheer’s debut LP, Vincebus Eruptum. In their first iteration, lasting from 1968 to 1971, they opened up for such acts as Sons of Champlin and Brian Auger & Trinity. Following a line-up change in 1971, the development of original songs ramped up and they began playing and recording them right away. Opening slots for ZZ Top, Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes, and the Velvet Underground & Brownsville Station followed. More line-up changes occured and more opening gigs for the likes of Canned Heat, The Hollies, Rare Earth, and REO Speedwagon. They disbanded in late 1973.

Another unearthed ripper from St Louis MO recorded during the years 1968-1973 and never released until now!

Another unearthed ripper from St Louis MO recorded during the years 1968-1973 and never released until now! Over the course of about five years beginning in late 1968, several musicians living in eastern Missouri rocked the area clubs and festivals with a mix of cover and heavy original songs. The band’s name, Parchment Farm, came from a song on Blue Cheer’s debut LP, Vincebus Eruptum. In their first iteration, lasting from 1968 to 1971, they opened up for such acts as Sons of Champlin and Brian Auger & Trinity. Following a line-up change in 1971, the development of original songs ramped up and they began playing and recording them right away. Opening slots for ZZ Top, Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes, and the Velvet Underground & Brownsville Station followed. More line-up changes occured and more opening gigs for the likes of Canned Heat, The Hollies, Rare Earth, and REO Speedwagon. They disbanded in late 1973.

Another unearthed ripper from St Louis MO recorded during the years 1968-1973 and never released until now!

THE Drin forge further into their own captivating world of sound on their fourth album, Elude the Torch. Since 2021, the Cincinnati group has released one strikingly original album per year, crawling closer to the aether with a driving, reverberated rhythm. The Drin's current sextet lineup is at a new height—loose, yet focused and commanding. Deep layers of saxophone, synthesizer, percussion, strings and opaque environments stir with flickering emotion across Elude the Torch, while D MCCARTNEY's nebulous verbiage and grim auguries paint landscapes within the rock ‘n roll murk.

MAY is a double-LP collection of recordings made between 2020–2023 by Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew (ac&bd), whose ongoing series channels, inhabits and transmogrifies the vast corpus of traditional English folksong celebrating the most fertile of months. An auditory tapestry, MAY employs at its base a flank of analog synthesizers, field recordings and Churchman’s layered vocals, each combining to form a beautifully dizzy sonic collage that often spirals out across long durations into hypnotic rhythms and jubilant melodies. Both multi-disciplinary artists with roots in the English countryside and a fascination with folklore, Ac&bd tap into the multifarious manifestations of folk music across eras throughout the British isles, pushing it towards a new, noisy din with their experimental approach. This might represent a further dimension of “British visionary music” as described by Rob Young in his pivotal Electric Eden book. Perhaps an Electronic Eden? Opening track “The Cuckoo” begins with an atmosphere reminiscent of the more pastoral moments of Broadcast before devolving into a trance-like wall of noise, binaural beats and whispered incantations. “The Green Bushes” sets Churchman’s multi-tracked vocal harmonies atop a pulsing, single-chord foundation. MAY’s varied reference points include Anne Briggs, The Copper Family, Cyril Poacher, Steeleye Span and Shirley Collins, to name just a few. Originally released digitally by Drew’s Thanet Tape Centre label, new Pennsylvania label Love’s Devotee presents the first vinyl release of Ac&bd’s MAY, with tracks reedited and reconfigured by the artists especially for this compilation. Mastered for vinyl by Giuseppe IELASI—whose credits include releases by Alvin Curran, Catherine Christer Hennix and Charlemagne Palestine—MAY brings Ac&bd’s music out of the digital realm and into a physical release truly worthy of deep reverberation throughout your abode. Limited to 350 copies.

The fourth studio album from DIIV—a strenuous four year effort that challenged the group professionally, personally, and artistically., The result is a sound that stretches well beyond territory they've explored in their previous works. The album title is a reference to a “Boiling Frog” in Daniel Quinn’s The Story of B. The band explains “If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.” The sound and lyrical themes of the record are well suited for this metaphor. A heavy catharsis drenches listeners as vocalist Zach Smith delivers hauntingly beautiful lyric. Lines such as “I say I'm not afraid, I’ve lived through pain, I’m learning to see through everything” penetrate deep as they float atop a lush wall of fuzzed out reverb and simple but effective groove. Conflicting feelings of sadness, pain, and comfort wash over listeners like a warm bath. Start to finish, this is a truly beautiful record that positions itself to stand the test of time. Pressed on limited melting amber vinyl in an edition of 500 copies with obi strip.

Southern California punk rock quartet Plague Vendor are back and better than ever with their latest release, Rougher Than Rough. Songs that push, pulse, sway and groove; are all delivered with a distinct swagger that pulls from the greats of rock ‘n’ roll. This is a record not to be fucked with. Pressed on blood moon red vinyl in an edition of 300 copies.

Formed in Philadelphia during the Covid days of fall 2021, Bitter Wish is a psychedelic power trio comprising guitarist John Comune, bassist Clint Takeda (Bardo Pond/Double Wig) and percussionist Scott Verrastro (Kohoutek/ Heavy Lidders). While the band doesn't stray far from its Bardo Pond and Kohoutek roots, they incorporate more repetition and minimalism into their fuzzy vibe. Freeform psych—the children of Fire Music parents secretly raised on Sabbath... Candle Finger, Bitter Wish’s debut full-length, is comprised of two side-long jammers. Both sides are untitled, with side A starting out with nearly 10 minutes of psychedelic bass swells, light percussion, and soloing guitar, guiding the listener down the tunnel, just in time for the proverbial freight-train heading their way. It eventually builds into a faster-than-mid tempo scorcher, with heavily phaser-drenched bass, steady drumming with just the right number of fills, and that soloing guitar, still leading the listener on through to the other side of the mountain pass, before chilling things out before its time to flip the record. On the other hand, side B puts it right out there. Right off the bat, this is a thick, heavy, and plodding slab of awesomeness. Destroying everything in its path, before taking a slight breath for a bit, and then cranking up the speed to a manic frenzy. The last 5 or so minutes are spent winding things down, encouraging the listener to flip the record and start things all over again. Recorded live at Main Drag Music in Brooklyn NY, in July 2023. Mastered by James Plotkin. Edition of 284 copies.

"L.A.’s Rearranged Face is back with the follow-up to 2021’s A Rare Caged Fern 12”, giving their anxious, art-fractured racket only slightly more room to unwind this time around. Far Green Arcade features eleven tracks jammed out fully econo, a frenetic blur of whirring and beeping keys, taut rubber band bass, bee-in-bonnet vocals, and urgently bashed beats, dished out in mostly sub-two-minute increments, never overstaying their welcome. The band’s basic approach is still a jumpy mix of Devo-descended wiggly world rhythms (“Another Mystery” and “Blink of an Eye” are especially devolved), hip-swinging early ’00s post-punk revival sass (the hiccuping floor-burner “Serpentstone”), and the synth-flecked bounce of early new wave (before that became a completely loaded term). But rather than merely stitching those asymmetrical scraps into another by-the-numbers genre pastiche, Rearranged Face bring a restless energy and genuine weirdo creativity to their twitchy sound, crafting something that’s authentically their own while still lovingly citing touchstones from the past—the new wave of new wave."—Erika Elizabeth (MRR/Domestic Departure/Collate)

From 2004 until 2011, Stormcrow was active in the underground punk and metal scenes. Hailing from Oakland California and drawing their members from across the U.S., Stormcrow toured and shared stages with several bands across the spectrum; Coffins, Mass Grave, Ghoul, Sanctum, Paintbox, Asunder, Laudanum, Ludicra and Hellshock to name a few. During this time they released several splits with some of the bands previously mentioned on independent labels, including two through 20 Buck Spin. Now, nearly twenty years after its debut, Enslaved In Darkness is back in print. The EP that started it all upon its release in 2005. Originally engineered at the legendary Earhammer Studios and expertly remastered this time at Enormous Door by Jack Control, Enslaved In Darkness is available again through Brainsand Records, limited to 500 copies all on black vinyl. Includes sticker and 12x18 inch hand embossed screenprinted

Oakland's Parallel continue to evolve their hypnagogic take on post-punk and dream pop on Flooded. The six-song mini-album is a study in contrasts, pairing heavy, melancholic moods with light, radiant qualities, recalling ethereal forebears like The Chameleons, Slowdive, and The Durutti Column along with a range of influences from slowcore and coldwave to UK psych. The band's commitment to minimalism lends the songs a somber, fragile beauty, lush vocal harmonies interweaving with intricate dual-guitar melodies and driving basslines. Flooded explores the fleeting transitions between emotional states, delving into the "flooded" intensities of desire, rage, loss, and despair and the moments of suspension and dislocation that frame them. Current and former members of Ragana, Nothing Natural, Try The Pie, Romantic Feelings, and Negative Standards. Limited edition of 200. (Play Alone Records, Par-019)

Top-notch archival grab bag of hot steppers and house wreckers by Portland boogie guru Brandon Knocke aka Body San. Named for and themed around the dandy mob boss from 80’s cinematic lore, Hilly Blue spans the years just before and after Knocke’s formative westward migration from heartland America to the Pacific Northwest [2016-2019].

Electribe slink (“Glossy”) and luxury glide (“Glove Covered In Blood”) cross-fade with vapor shuffle (“Fondue Thought”) and afterhours downtempo (“Serious”), showcasing the bounce, bump, and bliss of Body San’s signature sound.

A little over a decade ago, Maltese mastermind Rudi Agius debuted as Jupiter Jax with City Life ‘88, a 6-track suite shading Chicago and Italo into a hypno-melancholic fusion tailor made for the House of Silk. Two LPs, three tapes, and two EPs later, the saga concludes.

Crafted across the last few years in pockets between other pursuits, Summer Grey slinks, flexes, and lifts on swells of collective memory and pleasures past. Rhythms and melodies cruise and crisscross, brooding and blissed along Mediterranean shores. It’s music of lost hours and fleeting farewells, dusted with the glow of endless sunsets. Balearica inverted by resignation and renewal, ecstasy and acceptance, tracing the beauty of vanishing points. Every summer fades from gold to grey.

Ambient craftsman Tomokazu Fujimoto aka Multi-Surface describes the 11 pieces of his 2nd album for NNF as “nap-like” – fleeting vignettes of FM synths and fragmented melody, looping and smeared across lost hours of the afternoon. Recorded over a year of sessions at his home studio in the Japanese countryside, the music moves in soft-focus swells and glistening arcs, gently swaying like paper lanterns.

A few outliers expand the palette – kosmische percussion voyager “I'll float a boat on those clouds,” churning lo-fi whirlpool “Through the forest,” jittery gamelan edit “One rat” – but otherwise the mood skews opaque and oblique, chiming hazes half-heard on the breeze. Fujimoto’s muse is inward but infinite, reflecting on “the paths one has taken” and, in brief dreams, “visiting those places again.”

Realistic IX, the third full-length by the duo of Michael Jones and Turk Dietrich aka Belong, is both an expansion and excavation of their signature acid-washed songcraft. Bleached guitars, metronomic drums, and buried voices rev, swirl, and seethe across shifting gradients of haze and hypnosis, alternately driving and diffuse. Melodies surge closer to the surface, flexing their form before resubmerging into quickening currents of feedback. Elsewhere the elements dissipate into a dusk of murk and microtonalities, electricity liberated back into infinite night.

Although it’s been thirteen years since Belong’s prior Kranky offering, Common Era, none of the duo’s rare synergy has decayed in the interim. Jones and Dietrich’s commitment to oblique states of motorik drone and liminal emotion continues to evolve and unfold, increasingly tactile and unreal, an alluring glow glimpsed through fogged windows at witching hours.

Since 2018, Vancouver BC’s jangle-pop meets riot-twee trio WUT have been making a local name for themselves with their joyfully heartfelt live performances. In 2020, the trio released NOW, an energetic cassette accompanied by 10 DIY music videos. These earnest and often humorous videos reflect WUT’s playful yet sincere songwriting. Recently, WUT recorded Mingling With The Thorns, their sophomore full-length album. Mingling With The Thorns was created during two years of intermittent quarantines which caused guitarist Kaity McWhinney (Knife Pleats / Love Cuts), bassist Tracey Vath (Knife Pleats / Love Cuts), and drummer Lauren Smith (Tough Age / Jock Tears), to write songs independently, and share their ideas through countless emails, dropbox folders, and google drives. Long periods of isolation were consumed by experimentation with different arrangements, and often an idea would be re-worked over and over (and over) again. This resulted in a collection of carefully crafted pop songs that reflect the bands mutual love for c86 jangle pop and early Flying Nun Records bands. McWhinney’s longtime friend and musical collaborator, Christina Riley (Artsick, / Burnt Palms) joins WUT on the track “Your Feelings”, which pushes the band into the realms of garage rock with her raw and frenetic lead guitar. On a surface level, Mingling With The Thorns may seem fun and carefree. However, a dig deeper into the album’s lyrical content draws up themes that grapple with patriarchy and late stage capitalism; specifically the struggle to find personal autonomy within these social systems.