Ways to pay:
1. click on the "Add to Cart" buttons beneath each release and pay via paypal (super easy) 2. mail cash (hidden) or check (made out to NNF Records) to 5109 Loleta Ave, and include a note saying what you want. |
||
Flamingo Breeze NNF163—CS ($5) The Southern California mythology glints in the irises of certain dreamers more radiantly than it does in others, and few crews have begun capturing the imaginary high life of neon Corvette rides, Ray-Bans at night, and sea-breeze mind-surfing better than the Outer Limits Recordings collective. They operate under most radars but their output is a radical Rubik’s Cube of riddles, tape hiss, and tranced pop utopias. Matrix Metals is casually referred to as an “alien lounge music” project, but that’s not even the half of it. A hotwired collection of fringe-vision vignettes that roves from ghost club beats to astral 80s TV theme songs to loopy interdimensional dub-funk and beyond, Flamingo Breeze is a capitalized question mark in the NNF canon, and a recent obsession of ours. Anonymous pro-dubbed white tapes in cases with full-color “VHS box collage” J-cards designed by the artist, plus an insert and 2 tickets to a Matrix Metals performance at a fictional club in the future. Edition of 125. |
||
Inca Ore Ring Mining NNF160—LP ($13) Been waiting multiple years for this mind-melting meeting-of-minds to finally manifest itself in physical form, and there’s actually a story behind it. Rewind to 2006: Heavy Winged is an active, Brooklyn-based psych-rock band who’ve yet to dissolve into the bi-coastal logistical tangle they exist as now; meanwhile, Eva/Inca Ore is on tour (for The Birds And The Bees maybe); meanwhile, Nick Bindeman happens to also be in NY hanging out. Since all are friends or friends-of-friends, Heavy Winged ask Nick and Eva to come jam with them at a show at Northsix for the heck of it. They do. The set is a charged, psychotropic cyclone of ragged electric weight and possessed pixie shriek, stomping up and down over several damaged mountains of riff-wreckage. Miraculously, someone thinks to record the performance. Jed Bindeman sends us a copy. Our speakers implode, we high five. Fast forward to Fall 2008: Heavy Winged record a new 20-minute epic (“Into The Fog”), send it to Eva, and she records her own hypno-bliss keyboard mirage over the top. Eureka. So goes the nearly three-year history of Ring Mining, a slow-burn triumph of long-distance collaborative patience and alchemy between two of our favorite creative institutions. Mine on, you crazy diamonds. Black vinyl LPs mastered by James Plotkin and housed in jackets with mountain-collage artwork by Eva Saelens, plus a photocopied insert. Edition of 500. |
||
NNF152—LP ($13) Plastic palm trees. Beach scene snowglobes. Airbrushed neon sunset hotel paintings. All shining examples of potent Fake Escapism at work, in real life. And if you’ve ever wondered what the audio equivalent of this kind of cheap coastal utopian simulacrum is, take a good listen to the recorded works of Mr. Matt Mondanile aka Ducktails, a crazy talented suburban New Jerseyan who serves up masterpiece after blasterpiece of shimmering, smoke-and-mirrors exotic fantasia, rainbow psych-pop muzak for imaginary helicopter rides over crystal lagoons and lost waterfalls. His self-released tapes dropped over the past year-plus have seen his basement guitar/rhythm hypnosis instincts gently arcing upwards into a total art form, and this, Ducktails’ debut full-length LP, is the absolute zenith of the vision. Lazy island percussion loops under blissed horizons of hovering synth colors, warm jangly wah-wah guitars lap like waves alongside casual hammock-chilling vocals; song titles like “Beach Point Pleasant” and “Dancing With The One You Love” further articulate Mondanile’s mood agenda: maxin’ & relaxin’. A few numbers get a bit more tripped/spaced in a loosely post-Pacific City model, but those parts function less like a drug ride and more just like the hazy time of night after the beach bonfire’s burned out and you pass out on the sand, holding hands with someone special, staring up at the stars. What do you see? Endless blackness? Or a new BFF? Black vinyl LPs mastered by Graham Lambkin (of The Shadow Ring) housed in matte jackets with cover artwork by Jan Anderzen (of Kemialliset Ystavat/Tomuttontu), plus a photocopied insert. Edition of 600. |
||
NNF152—CD ($11) Plastic palm trees. Beach scene snowglobes. Airbrushed neon sunset hotel paintings. All shining examples of potent Fake Escapism at work, in real life. And if you’ve ever wondered what the audio equivalent of this kind of cheap coastal utopian simulacrum is, take a good listen to the recorded works of Mr. Matt Mondanile aka Ducktails, a crazy talented suburban New Jerseyan who serves up masterpiece after blasterpiece of shimmering, smoke-and-mirrors exotic fantasia, rainbow psych-pop muzak for imaginary helicopter rides over crystal lagoons and lost waterfalls. His self-released tapes dropped over the past year-plus have seen his basement guitar/rhythm hypnosis instincts gently arcing upwards into a total art form, and this, Ducktails’ debut full-length CD, is the absolute zenith of the vision. Lazy island percussion loops under blissed horizons of hovering synth colors, warm jangly wah-wah guitars lap like waves alongside casual hammock-chilling vocals; song titles like “Beach Point Pleasant” and “Dancing With The One You Love” further articulate Mondanile’s mood agenda: maxin’ & relaxin’. A few numbers get a bit more tripped/spaced in a loosely post-Pacific City model, but those parts function less like a drug ride and more just like the hazy time of night after the beach bonfire’s burned out and you pass out on the sand, holding hands with someone special, staring up at the stars. What do you see? Endless blackness? Or a new BFF? CD mastered by Graham Lambkin (of The Shadow Ring) in a 4-panel digipak with cover artwork by Jan Anderzen (of Kemialliset Ystavat/Tomuttontu), plus comes with a bonus song not featured on the vinyl version of the album. Edition of 500. |
||
Scales NNF151—LP ($13) LAST 30 COPIES ON CLEAR VINYL!! One of our favorite covens comes home to roost; break out the champagne/goat’s blood. We’ve long been fans-turned-fanatics of nomadic power trio Mythical Beast’s burned-out blackened sabbath songs, but even our mountainous expectations for their long-awaited debut were toppled by the reality of Scales’ reptile alchemy. Financed by Greg Weeks of Espers and tracked in a legit East Coast studio on generous banks of sick vintage gear, this 8-song LP is the aesthetic culmination of nearly four years of tours, trials, and twilit travels to the heart of the heart of the country. The results rip. Drone-ballad classics from their haunting 2006 demo like “Cycle/Circle” and “Chaos Spinner” reappear here in freshly realized forms, alongside a hefty handful of brand new tunes, ranging from quaking soul vox torch trancers to ritual string psych-rock skeletons. All pressure points are hit. The M Beast white magic wonder wheel is alive and hell-bound. Easily the high point in a discography already full of highs. Transparent yellow (streaked with black) vinyl LPs housed in glossy jackets with a pro-printed 11x11 insert. Edition of 500. CD edition available on Language Of Stone. |
||
Skeleton NNF146—CS ($6) Shit is cliché, but ya can’t fight the fact that time changes EVERYTHING (or wait, maybe it's money?). Either way: we’re pretty old but not so old we’ve forgotten the cradle days of early Abe Vigoda shows when they only liked Smashing Pumpkins, short shorts, and boating shoes, and their sets were short spiky blasts of post-Unwound lo-fi outsider-punk (a la the Sky Route/Star Roof LP). That was a long time ago. But like all good bands the Vigodans have re-invented themselves a half dozen times over since then, and it’s been a totally rad ride to witness the evolution/transformation, especially since their journey’s culminated in the total sparkling tropic magic sunbath of Skeleton, the best AV record ever. Years of fiddling with delay pedal settings and intricate bass/drums equations somehow resulted in a weird, bright, upbeat island punk sound that’s as catchy and life-affirming as it is tripped-out and overwhelming. Who knew? Catch these die-hards at a show in yr neck of the woods any day now; they are now on PERMA-TOUR. Pro-dubbed cassettes in a “Columbia Records”-style super legit J-card. Edition of 200. This album is also available on CD and LP from our friends at Post Present Medium. |
||
NNF145—2xLP ($19) BACK IN STOCK!! FINAL REPRESS OF 320 COPIES. All things must come to pass, if you love something set it free, it’s better to burn out than fade away, blah blah blah. No platitude can mask the permanent bummer of a favorite band breaking up in their prime, and such is the case with Iowa City’s most untamed civic treasure, feral-psych foursome Raccoo-oo-oon, who decided to dissolve this year after nearly half a decade of radical and galvanizing activity (tapes, tours, t-shirts, etc). Fortunately they’re generous sorts, so their parting gift to the fans/haters/planet is a vicious, thorny wilderness of endless, nameless songs heaved across four fried sides of black vinyl. Crawl a mile in their shoes. As far as R.I.P. band statements go, this self-titled monster is tough to beat, by far the most ambitious slabs of sounds the RAC pack has ever put together. Doomed, desperate prog-rock flailings decay into hollow purgatories of dimly pulsing ambience, only to re-erupt into pissed percussion firestorms and experimental electricity. There are a few moments of Behold Secret Kingdom-style focus, but for the most part the mood remains raw and acidic, four souls on edge, backs to the crowd, channeling everything they have left inside. It’s deconstruction time again. Nearly 80 minutes of music, mastered by Pete Swanson, housed in reinforced double LP jackets with “Andy/Daren in repose” photo artwork, plus a pro-printed 11x11 insert. Edition of 500. |
||
Me + Yoko NNF141—7" ($5) There’s no disputing the truth that certain formats befit certain artists. Think about it: where’s the logic in Tangerine Dream rocking a 3-way split 3” CDR? Those fools need room to roam. Conversely, why would Orthrelm drop a 4xLP? Who needs 160 minutes of 8-second spazz songs? The medium is a message, man. And for Megan Remy’s brief, brave re-imaginings of guitar/voice pop rapture done under the U.S. Girls flag, the 45 RPM 7 inch single is the absolute dream medium for transporting said sounds to the interested earhole. Short and sweet (and chemical) like a sugar rush, Me + Yoko is her latest reverb-gaze drug nugget in a string of strong singles (following releases on Hardscrabble Amateurs and Cherry Burger), and it’s another keeper. Whistling to life with a scrap of found sound/dialogue, the song then wings into a vague, hazed-out stone-toss between 2 tired notes (a dead ringer for that famous Les Rallizes Denudes bass riff), ebbing and flowing beneath smeary streaks of white-washed vocal blur. A Top 40 single for a universe of ghosts. The B, “Rise + Go,” might actually be the more aching of the two, a broke-down bedroom ballad, awash in sad seas of reverb, lapping at the shores of isolated islands, gently sailing into heartbreak. Sounds lo-fi but lush, like it was recorded high on a cloud on a cheap 80s boombox. Imagine that. Black vinyl 45 RPM singles, mastered by Pete Swanson, in photocopied sleeves with art by Remy. Edition of 380. |
||
Violent Narcissus NNF135—LP ($12) Secret Abuser Jeff Witscher is an enigma wrapped in a riddle rolled in cassette tape and plugged into a battered pair of towering PA speakers. He’s lived everywhere, met everyone, and inspired legions through his loner lifestyle, utopian fashions (“refugee chic”), and spellbindingly intense music. Up from Rainbow Blanket, through to Impregnable, and across the arid plains of Roman Torment and Deep Jew, Witscher’s maintained a singularity of vision and total commitment to execution that has wrecked us, personally, to the point of speechlessness at least a dozen times. But, despite his restlessly shapeshifting spirit, the past year plus has seen him settling ever deeper into his Secret Abuse sinkhole mode, and here’s hoping he lingers a while longer, cause it’s a fucking winner. Brutal, pensive, blown-out tones crossfade into tortured minor key guitar laments before being slowly subsumed in a droning ocean of choked vocals and sulking, selfish electronics. Repressed, burning, and emotional as only a young man pushing away everything can be, Violent Narcissus is as definitive a document as has thus far yet emerged from the SA canon (and lord knows there’s been a grip of gems). Look long and hard; the mirror is a bitter mistress. Black LPs, mastered by Bill Hutson, housed in jackets designed by Witscher. Edition of 445. |
||
Coveting NNF131—LP ($13) Misery wears many masks, but Tulare, California fatalist Jon Borges has etched his mark on most of them. For at least half a decade he’s pursued increasingly suicidal tendencies under his Pedestrian Deposit guise (which is currently on hiatus), splicing subdued loops of morbid beauty against savage canyons of harsh noise histrionics. Lately, though, he’s been straying more and more from this aggressive exercise in contrasts in favor of his Emaciator alias, which draws from the same dark wellspring of bitter memories and bipolar rage but, instead of unleashing it in grand frenzies, bottles everything up inside until it seeps out the pores. Early efforts/cassettes retained a strain of buzzing nausea reminiscent of his PD days, but the last 12 months have witnessed a complete abandonment of any ties to the past. Times are still bleak, sure, but the grey prisms of brooding ambience Borges now conjures and slowly collapses convey a depth of mood and subtlety far surpassing simple signifiers like Indifference, Resentment, Remorse. Coveting collects together five exquisite Emaciator compositions (including two particularly riveting songs that were debuted live at Echo Curio last winter) for a harrowing 40 minutes of troubled solace, crisscrossing suicide guitar lines, and entranced self-reflection. Meditation is a myth; desire does not sleep. Black vinyl LPs in shrinkwrapped jackets with layout by Borges, cover photograph by Shannon Kennedy. Mastered by Pete Swanson, edition of 430. |
||
Concussion Summer NNF130—LP ($12) BACK IN STOCK!! FINAL REPRESS OF 50 COPIES. PLUS: ALL LPs COME WITH A SILKSCREENED BACK-PATCH DESIGNED BY RYAN GARBES. The greater midwest 'hood is responsible for so much of the U.S.'s most living musics it seems like lately. Out here on the west we tend to get a bit blissed and burnt and, conversely, eastern seaboarders can fall into a condensed-consciousness that sometimes doesn't translate well to those outside their bubble. But in the middle country there's often a rawness that's honest and real and really clears the ears/mind, and for our tastes Ashland, Kentucky's Social Junk are champs at this direct, red-blooded approach. Somewhere between the Bible Belt brutality of Sword Heaven and Tusco Terror and the sticky southern electronics of Pax Titania or even recent Wet Hair, SJ navigate an interesting interzone, boiling together ominous loops, mangled sax, heavy riffs, various vocal moods (pissed, lost, aggro, angelic), militant tribal drumming, and a mess of electric atmospheres into something genuinely gripping and wholly their own. And right on the eve of both a behemoth bi-coastal tour (six weeks long!) and a brave re-location to CA's Bay Area, we are amped-as-shit to announce their vinyl debut after a million killer limited tapes and splits. Concussion Summer rumbles through noisy drum circles, hypnotic thrash, and even a couple creepy ballads, with Noah Anthony and Heather Young's co-dependent chemistry channeled into eight concise hybrid pieces of perfect/classic JUNK. High-time, and fully worth the wait. See them soon. Black vinyl LPs in jackets with artwork by Hair Police's Robert Beatty. Edition of 435. |
||
Sasqrotch NNF128—10" ($11) LA’s rep as a hometown to heaviness is backed up by a lotta props: Richter Scale-wrecking earthquakes, Vin Diesel racing an army camo hummer down Sunset Blvd on a daily basis, Buzz Osbourne loitering at pretty much every flea market within walking distance of a greasy spoon, etc. Oh, and the sick & twisted Sunn amp-manglings emanating from the respective lairs of Goliath Bird Eater and Sasqrotch. Duh. GBE is the half-decade-strong gauntlet through which Eagle Rock-based Teen Choice Award-winner Bobb Bruno gives voice to his solitary metal ruminations, and oftentimes riffs germinate in his brain/fingers for YEARS before being finally committed to 8-track tape. After a string of shaky drummers but SLAYING tapes/CDRs, he solidified shit enough to lock this timeless psych-crusher in the can. “Blood Silk Road” slow-rides a one-note rock monolith into the void before post office local (and Wilco wild card) Nels Cline steps in to wail an absurdly eyeball-shredding guitar solo that crescendos the song into a black light hurricane of repetitious death. Kill me now please. Highland Park’s Sasqrotch cruise in a scummier mindset, rolling together depraved sax attacks, freakish costumes, and even the occasional bouzouki curveball intro into their mythically hirsute spliff before torching it in a blaze of drums and drop-tuned oblivion. Their B offering, “Menstrual Cyclone,” is a fairly archetypal document of the road-tested freeform ripper they were jamming live for most of the latter half of ’07. Suck it down. Black vinyl 10 inches in printed jackets, plus a hand-numbered insert, with artwork by French electronic enigma Kikifruit. Edition of 400. |
||
Yellow Swans NNF113—LP ($10) FINAL 20 COPIES, DISCOUNTED PRICE. Two storied USA duo institutions share war stories across twelve miles of raw wax, and the rest of us are lucky enough to eavesdrop. Missoula, Montana’s Ex-Cocaine continue roping that weird rambling wind that seems to stir the soul and keep America mellow, and the pair of anthems they jam out here encapsulates the whole breadth of their sea-to-shining-sea cosmosis. Plainsong guitar lassoes around loose-limbed percussion flame-fanning, building and burning till a boss bonfire glows on the horizon, then they close out the side with a ragged and earnest Meat Puppets cover that’s become a live staple of late. Real and roamin’. On the B, Yellow Swans channel a supreme slice of psychedelic eulogy that cuts twice as deep with the knowledge that after many a summer (they birthed in 2002-ish) dies the Swan. Pete and Gabe’s DYS saga has spanned the decade and their impending non-existence will be lamented all over the world, so the more 11th hour record books they want to stencil with their electric synergies, the better for all of us. R.I.P.eace out. In a stunning “sexy legs” kaleidoscopic masterpiece art jacket by Religious Knife Maya Miller. Half on bleached olive vinyl, half on black. Edition of 600. |
||
SKULL NNF100—art book ($15) After some 27 LPs, 48 tapes, 25 seven inches, 33 CDs/CDRs, and 4 ten inches, the time has finally come for Not Not Fun’s first foray into the great wide world of book publishing. And there’s few better NNF BFFs we could hope to share the adventure with than Fuck It Tapes/Woodsist CEO (and Meneguar/Shepherds/Woods multi-instrumentalist) Jeremy Earl. Since early on in FIT’s adolescence, he began incorporating his own loosely composed symbolist/primitivist designs into the label’s aesthetic (highlights like The Brain Band and Blues Control’s “Riverboat Styx” J-card come to mind), but constant focused labor and the endless march of new projects forced his craft into a heightened state of evolution, birthing countless killer compositions along the way. SKULL is here to pick up some of the choicest pieces from bone-yard and bind them all together. The art inside spans several years worth of work, from 2006-era obsessively rendered ritual serpents and bleeding, 8-fingered hands up through Earl’s most recent experiments with collage and multi-media hieroglyphics. Over a dozen of his most striking and iconic cassette covers are included as well, in addition to scores of never-before-seen images. Dazed pterodactyls, radiant pyramids, possessed worms, faceless figures beneath winged specters: all lurk and loom from the eye of the SKULL. 40 full-color pages, professionally printed and bound, in a one-time edition of 500. |
||
Occasion NNF098—CD ($11) Hollywood, Florida family/band Max and Leslie Soren have been unleashing their private bouts of punishing ceremonial sludge-gaze for the past half a decade now, and there’s been some total titanic highlights (Between the Dead, Grandeur of Hair, etc). But the grunge swamp graveyard they seem to unearth their moss metal from must be profoundly fertile ground, because each new song-cycle they lay to tape is somehow even more miraculously brutal and shimmering and visionary than the one before it. This phenom holds true for Occasion, The Goslings’ newest and maybe deepest doom/beauty inquest. Eight thundering masterpieces of molten slime riff majesty, nightstalker drums, and soaring-into-the-sun female vox that crush the earth, bleed, and breathe in humid darkness. Ranging from the Slowdive-meets-Skullflower transcendent descent of “Motorcade” through to the quaking basement funeral of “Little Horn,” Occasion is a glorious passage into The Goslings’ hidden holy land. Mastered for optimal audio gravity by James Plotkin, and housed in a swank six-panel wallet-style metallic-ink digipak with artwork by the band. |
||
Blood Venus NNF047—CD ($8) Few dudes understand the Eastern zen of heavy riffing more than Bobb Bruno. The man lives in a literal lair of black amps, black hair, and black metal, and only emerges to eat fried chicken or get wasted at Mika Miko shows. Blood Venus rages this yin/yang vibe to the speaker-shredding breaking point, alternating feedbacker obliteration with passages of complete tunnel vision drone stasis. The rampant guitar slaughter is epicly complemented by Jeremy Villalobos' iron hammer drum moves, which kick from stoner lopes to total crash attack, sometimes dropping out to peripheral cymbal shimmer, all in a sick split second. And you can truly hear it all, too, as the songs were tracked in the studio on serious two inch tape. Nine deafening epiphanies of black leather headbang war, somewhere between Sabbath, Sleep, and...qualuudes. Oh, and no vocals, cause they're too metal for that shit. In jewel cases, with weird blood-tentacle squid-witch cover art. |
||
