| Everything on this page is GONE. However, lots of rad distros & dudes carry NNF stuff from time to time, so feel free to explore some of these places, as there's a chance they've still got a stray copy or 2. if you'd like specific help, go ahead and write presents@notnotfun.com Revolver/Midheaven Forte (UK) Bis Auf's Messer (GERMANY) Tomentosa Permanent Records Thrill Jockey Fusetron Sound Eclipse DNT Records Carrot Top Forced Exposure Volcanic Tongue (UK) Release the Bats (SWEDEN) All Day Records Discriminate Music Gilgongo Morphius Staalplaat (GERMANY) Aquarius Time-Lag Family Rainbow Conspiracy (BELGIUM) Insound Godspill (HOLLAND) |
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Dawnrunner NNF199—CS Anthony Swanox has been shadow-walking the greater west coast for a half-decade-plus at this point by our count, operating in various capacities, from helming the moss-cult micro-label Caligula Recordings to contributing percussion for live Sudden Oak actions to his own erratic stream of tranced private modes under the Swanox moniker. Past CDRs and tapes were bathed in a blacker light, crawling through various doom-haunted ambient sludge parking lots, but Dawnrunner hitchhikes down a markedly different road. The album opens with a hot springs soak in glowing, long-form new age ritual electricity before slowly dissolving into a patchwork of mumbly, loner drone-folk and hypnotized dusk hikes through fields of wet ferns. There’s an inner peace vibe to many of the B side pieces that’s never been heard in a Swanox sound-structure before, and the evolution feels brave. A strange collection of questing songs from a rad west coast lifer. Pro-dubbed cassettes in cases with cool photo portrait covers of Swanox’s brother, smoking by a beamer in the forest. Take the ride. Edition of 100. AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 1 |
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The Crown Center NNF198—7" West Coast ghost squad Topaz Rags stalk back into the deadlights with a fresh vinyl single, their first new material since the Capricorn Born Again LP. Recorded in the heart of winter in a room with one blue light bulb, “The Crown Center” is pure nightprowler music: quaking bass, grime-jazz keys, dusty drums, witch choirs floating through the smog and into sleeping homes with the power lines cut. The sound of crime to come. The flip (“You Go On”) slips deeper into the psych-psycho psyche, a bleached-brain riff-rhythm grinding away endlessly while voices and electric piano stabs arc across the stereo field, raining ash. A grimmer twist on the Topaz formula, the dreamer’s dream turned dark. 33 RPM 7 inches of variously colored vinyl in hand-silkscreened cardstock sleeves. Edition of 345. |
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Office Romance NNF197—CS Misery may love company but the reverse is true as well. And few improv-y crews are as adept at coaxing delicious smoky noir heartbreak as City Terrace quartet Low Light Situations. It only takes a couple turtlenecks, two beards, three folding chairs, one clarinet, and a single sizzle-chain for these itinerant east LA session players to slow-roast a set’s worth of mesmerizing instrumental reverb chamber mystery-jazz. Whispery percussion, piano bar bass noodles, echo-twang guitar spiderwebs, and twilit ivory tickling slow-dance and romance in a tall-ceilinged hall of mirrors, occasionally spilling over into passages of dissonant drama or hushed emptiness. A great sustained mood melodrama parsed into six subtle micro-movements. Hopefully the LL Situations will grace the world with more of their covert outsider noir in the not-too-distant future. Pro-dubbed and imprinted cream cassettes in full-color cardstock j-cards designed by Manda B Brown. Edition of 100. |
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Mummy Fingers NNF196—CS First had the perverse pleasure of tapping into Mr. Trance’s bizarro soundworld courtesy of archeologist housesitter Dylan Ettinger, who issued TT’s golden classic – The American Heartbeat – on his astute El Tule imprint last year. Fires were stoked so we tracked down Tracey/Tyler and he replied with a small mountain of lunatic live documents tracing the contours of his wacked stream-of-consciousness keyboard/organ abracadabra. Following a Herculean spring ‘10 U.S. tour with fellow fringe Americana guru-drifter Charles Taterbug, a solid tape on Night People, and an even weirder self-released opus (Hangtown U.S.A.), we are jazzed to present T Trance’s latest acid circus, Mummy Fingers. Recorded on a 4-track in a cabin in rural Washington, this sparkling C30 slipslides through all his manic dual-keys modes (one hand mans the organ, the other dances up and down a wah-fucked Casio), accented with the occasional mushroom starchild sing-songing vocals. It’s reminiscent of nothing else, and that’s obviously a rad/rare compliment. Hopefully more synthetic ivory tickling by this weirdo master will surface on NNF in the future. Pro-dubbed/imprinted orange tapes in j-cards with bootlegged Mozart art. Edition of 120. |
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NNF195—12" Virtual reality trans-time zone collab between So-Cal sample sister LA Vampires and Madison, WI (though soon to be LA!) neo-Siouxsie Zola Jesus. Despite the distance the respective vibes vibe beautifully. Cold dub rhythms echo down grimy corridors while heartbroken tag-team femme howls come bleeding out of the horizon drenched in spectral delay. There’s a few bangers (“Bone Is Bloodstone,” “Looking In”), a few ballads (“In The Desert,” “Vous”), and a couple quasi-covers (“Searching,” “No No No”), so every mood is given its due. Local photographer (and drummer) extraordinaire Caitlin C. Mitchell even lays down some smoky trumpet on one track. Additional deep space Moog and production duties were handled by City Terrace studio wizard M. Geddes Gengras. A dark, gleaming gem of a 12”, and cool step sideways for both artists. 45 RPM black vinyl LPs in disco-hole sleeves with artwork and layout by Manda Beth Brown. Edition of 600. AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 1 AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 2 |
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Hyperion NNF194—CS Few folks need an excuse to wanna visit Paris but it doesn’t hurt the city’s rep that some cool new musical fumes seem to be steaming up from the cobblestoned underground lately. Chief among ‘em on our map is Sebastien Forrester, a friendly French boheme who traffics within a mélange of aliases and outfits but whose freshest mask is Holy Strays, and it’s our favorite. Stuttery motorik drum machinations, Stereolab basslines, hypno keyboard spirals, melodic fogs that float up then dissipate, a pleasingly blurry production vibe – the elements are all there and they gel superlatively. Hyperion is his first time out under the HS flag and there’s every reason for it to not be the last. Pro-dubbed/imprinted clear green tapes in j-cards with art by Forrester. Edition of 100. |
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Foxy Baby NNF193—LP Of all the magical inverse-universe warp-zone pop-whiplash geniuses loosed upon the world by the shortlived Outer Limits Recordings corporation, few of them deserve their pedestal status as righteously as the Foxy Baby LP. Recorded two summers ago in Berlin amidst constant nocturnal glitter-blinded visits to extraterrestrial discotheques, the album tells the strange, fragmented story of a young weirdo artist who has an encounter with an exotic otherworldly woman (the titular Ms. Foxy Baby), becomes obsessed, loses her into the cosmic blur of the city, then slips backstage at one of her shows to find her, where they mysteriously share a final cigarette while staring out across the metropolis’ skyline, then ascend into a holy void of alien lights. Or something? The specifics are tricky to pin down, but the songs say it all: tape hiss-soaked glam-damaged new wave dream-rock anthems interspersed with tripped FX interludes of revving cars, astral bubbles, and murky sparkling echoes. A total bizarro masterpiece from one of our favorite masterpiece-makers on the planet. Lipstick-colored vinyl LPs in trashy zebra-print inner sleeves in a jacket with artwork by Mr. Outer Limits himself. Edition of 500. AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 1 |
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New Age Outlaws NNF192—CS 2009 was a bomb year for Bloomington’s finest, D. Ettinger Esquire: grips of great tapes, a slaying single (“Smokin’ b/w Miami Heat”), plus a stack of cracked magic from his label, El Tule. Thumbs up. 2010 is shaping up to be boss too, with an LP on Digitalis, and now this 50 minute opus, New Age Outlaws. A patient, layered, crypnagogic odyssey through a dystopian parallel universe metropolis glittering with towers of neon and cabalistic pawn shops (run by sharks like Rico) and outside-the-law loners down on their luck (enter Gordon), this is Ettinger’s weirdest and most baroque soundtrack to date. Wonky, echoing synths pitter-patter arpeggiated messages of retro-futuristic melancholy and blade runner blues while primitive drum machines pulse and whirr under the muted blur of the city. Repeated listens reveal strange secrets, hidden plotlines. Allegedly this is the end of Ettinger’s post-Moroder/robot sleaze/soundtrack era, so who knows what the future holds. Whatever it is, we’ll be there. Pro-dubbed tapes in cases with two different screen-grab cover designs. Edition of 200. |
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Showstopper NNF191—7" Companion platter to the Platoon LP, this 33 RPM single finds the Lanterns firmly in retro motor city rave-up rockist terrain, covering the cult classic “Showstopper” on the A, backed with their own James Brown soul revue funk-rock shaker “Cypress” on the flip. Recorded during the Platoon sessions and mastered by James Plotkin. Black vinyl 7 inches in cosmic boogie collage jackets designed by Cameron Stallones. Edition of 500. |
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Platoon NNF190—CD It’s been a while since The Lantern shined its High Beams out into the world but life’s a maze of alternate paths (marriage, children, Portland Oregon, etc) and that’s just the way it goes/went. Fortunately for lovers of heavy male psych brotherhoods the ML gang convened back in 2009 before parting ways to track their second full-length, Platoon, and here it is. As oughta be expected, it's a monstrous hot-rod cruise into screaming dual wah distortions powered by the poker faced Gavin/Chip rhythm section and splattered with jazzy freak-out organ (courtesy of Phil/Stunned), trademark white light William Giacchi guitar shred, and the occasional Stallones echo yelp. Featuring most of their live classics from the pre-hiatus era (“Dark Cicadas,” “Friendship,” etc) and tracked/mixed by Best Coaster Bobb Bruno. Matte CD digipaks with typical National Geographic photo collages designed by Cameron Araw. Mastered by James Plotkin. Edition of 500. CD edition also contains both sides of the Showstopper 7" (NNF191) as bonus tracks. |
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Platoon NNF190—LP It’s been a while since The Lantern shined its High Beams out into the world but life’s a maze of alternate paths (marriage, children, Portland Oregon, etc) and that’s just the way it goes/went. Fortunately for lovers of heavy male psych brotherhoods the ML gang convened back in 2009 before parting ways temporarily to track their second full-length, Platoon, and here it is. As oughta be expected, it's a monstrous hot-rod cruise into screaming dual wah distortions powered by the poker faced Gavin/Chip rhythm section and splattered with jazzy freak-out organ (courtesy of Phil/Stunned), trademark white light William Giacchi guitar shred, and the occasional Stallones echo yelp. Featuring most of their live classics from the pre-hiatus era (“Dark Cicadas,” “Friendship,” etc) and tracked/mixed by Best Coaster Bobb Bruno. Black vinyl LPs in typical National Geographic photo collage jackets designed by Cameron Araw. Mastered by James Plotkin. Edition of 700. Also available on CD. |
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Ascension NNF189—LP Pyramidal meditationist High Wolf has been highly active since last summer’s Animal Totem tape dropped on NNF: he’s released three full-length CDRs, started his own record label (Winged Sun), begun a mail-collab with Astral Social Club (as Iibiis Rooge), embarked on two UK/Euro tours (one with heavyweights Gnod), plus trekked out on a 2-month-long solo journey through India to collect field recordings and get deep. Whoa! Makes you feel lazy right? Well actually that’s not all, as he also spent a few months somewhere in there recording, mixing, and re-recording the five multifaceted ethno-flux odysseys that comprise Ascension, his debut vinyl full-length. Utilizing his usual toolbag of looped tablas, fuzz guitar leads, chiming white light guitar, synth swells, and cloud-climbing electronics, the album safaris through a host of ecstatic ritual landscapes with more focus and magic than any other High Wolf hunt to date. A beautiful album for dissolving, dreaming, dancing (in a certain way). Been spinning this one weekly, share the flight. Black vinyl LPs mastered by Pete Swanson and housed in jackets with artwork by Maia Serena and layout by Kaugummi Magazine captain Bartolome Sanson. Edition of 400. AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 1 |
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Make It Real NNF188—LP After a six-month hiatus, a complete line-up overhaul, a trip to SXSW, a UK/EURO tour, and a full year-plus of only playing shows and writing songs and amassing totemic objects, finally Pocahaunted return to the recorded realm with their first album since 2008. Time flies when yr having not not fun and all that. Make It Real collects seven of the band’s 2009 live staples for a 40-minute-ish collage of basement body music, garage dub damage, outsider funkadelic sprawl, voodoo rhythm workouts, duo femme soul vocal dynamics, dripping gold sweat, and dream fulfillment. Recorded barefoot and shirtless and direct to tape at Green Machine Studio in summer ’09 by M. Geddes Gengras and featuring guest bamboo sax by jazzmaster Alex Gray (of Dreamcolour/Deep Magic) and mastered by James Plotkin. Black vinyl LPs in jackets with warped LA post-Parliament utopia artwork by vision wizard Spencer Longo. Edition of 500. Also available on CD. AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 1 AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 2 |
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Make It Real NNF188—CS Limited cassette edition of Pocahaunted's latest full-length, made for their recent June U.S. tour, only have a small box left. Here's what we said before: "After a six-month hiatus, a complete line-up overhaul, a trip to SXSW, a UK/EURO tour, and a full year-plus of only playing shows and writing songs and amassing totemic objects, finally Pocahaunted return to the recorded realm with their first album since 2008. Time flies when yr having not not fun and all that. Make It Real collects seven of the band’s 2009 live staples for a 40-minute-ish collage of basement body music, garage dub damage, outsider funkadelic sprawl, voodoo rhythm workouts, duo femme soul vocal dynamics, dripping gold sweat, and dream fulfillment. Recorded barefoot and shirtless and direct to tape at Green Machine Studio in summer ’09 by M. Geddes Gengras and featuring guest bamboo sax by jazzmaster Alex Gray (of Dreamcolour/Deep Magic) and mastered by James Plotkin." Pro-dubbed and imprinted tapes in J-cards with artwork by Spencer Longo. Edition of 100. |
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On Patrol NNF187—CD If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around, shit still gets crushed. If Cameron Stallones holes up solo-style in a suburban cave and wah-riffs over canned bongos for five straight months, double LPs still get dropped. These are basic life laws. The latest from Mr. Araw is easily his least compromising audio self-portrait to date. Three minute rhythm sketches are stretched into ten minute loop pedal odysseys. Organ solos last for entire vinyl sides. Ambiguous law enforcement themes are toyed with then abandoned in a haze of hypnagogic sleaze. Gone is the sweaty orchestration and funk of Heavy Deeds, extra long gone is the sun-kissed pop smoke shuffles of Beach Head. In its place is a heavily casual, zoned, patient 85 minute drum machine burro-ride accented by phasered organ gasoline, echo guitar sparkles, funny flute trills, tried/true Stallones vocal exclamations (“Whaaaah Ohhh”), and oddball FX. Magic Lantern cornerstone William Giacchi drops by to jam on one track but it doesn’t much upset the overarching On Patrol thesis: Ride It Out. The sound of one man’s conga mind soaking in its own juices, refracted down a hall of mirrors, and allowed to ferment. Matte CD digipaks with Knight Rider-y photo collage artwork by Stallones featuring plenty of his trademark triangles and yellow fontmanship. Mastered by James Plotkin. Edition of 500. |
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On Patrol NNF187—2xLP If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around, shit still gets crushed. If Cameron Stallones holes up solo-style in a suburban cave and wah-riffs over canned bongos for five straight months, double LPs still get dropped. These are basic life laws. The latest from Mr. Araw is easily his least compromising audio self-portrait to date. Three minute rhythm sketches are stretched into ten minute loop pedal odysseys. Organ solos last for entire vinyl sides. Ambiguous law enforcement themes are toyed with then abandoned in a haze of hypnagogic sleaze. Gone is the sweaty orchestration and funk of Heavy Deeds, extra long gone is the sun-kissed pop smoke shuffles of Beach Head. In its place is a heavily casual, zoned, patient 85 minute drum machine burro-ride accented by phasered organ gasoline, echo guitar sparkles, funny flute trills, tried/true Stallones vocal exclamations (“Whaaaah Ohhh”), and oddball FX. Magic Lantern cornerstone William Giacchi drops by to jam on one track but it doesn’t much upset the overarching On Patrol thesis: Ride It Out. The sound of one man’s conga mind soaking in its own juices, refracted down a hall of mirrors, and allowed to ferment. Two black vinyl LPs in a thick gatefold jacket with Knight Rider-y photo collage artwork by Stallones featuring plenty of his trademark triangles and yellow fontmanship. Mastered by James Plotkin. Edition of 800. Also available on CD. |
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Super Space/Mind Peace NNF186—CS A natty sidestep into phased sunshine and reggae abstractions from PDX posi preacher Dewey Mahood (Eternal Tapestry, Plankton Wat, Bloodbiker, etc). Super Space/Mind Peace is Mahood’s debut release under the Edibles banner and it captures seven of his most colorful and casual cruises into high-flying space junkadelica. Chilled guitar echoes, dub percussion details, vapor trail melodies, and basement bongos bop along like the slowest brokest car along an island dirt road at dusk. All instrumentals except for the wordless fog chant on “Inna Groove.” More from this champ is on the way courtesy of fellow west coasters Stunned and DNT. Peace out properly the first time around. Pro-dubbed tapes in full-color J-cards designed by Amanda/NNF. Edition of 100. |
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LA Vampires NNF185—LP Every day’s as new as you want it to be so take up the torch and light something unlit. Definite off-the-grid mentalities prevail on this genre-dissolving split 12” between San Fran anima soul voyager Leyna Noel aka Psychic Reality and So-Cal acid-jazz crate-digger LA Vampires. Noel’s toured the states coast-to-coast and dropped a couple potent tape/CDR effigies in the past year but this is her vinyl debut and it captures everything searing and singular about her live alchemy in glowing, glorious detail. Four inter-flowing songs of tone-float piano keys, bedroom drum machines, and white light amplifier vox. Trance-damaged and truth-seeking. LA Vampires’ side madlibs through a more mercurial matrix, using slowed/screwed tapes, boombox Casio FX, low end theories, and bleached voice patterns to conjure a reverb chamber’s worth of dance floor mirages. Future collabs with Zola Jesus and Matrix Metals should expound her rhythm method mission. Abuse yr illusion. Black vinyl LPs in glossy jackets with a boldly disrobed duo cover portrait by Caitlin C. Mitchell. Edition of 450. AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 1 |
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LA Vampires NNF185—CS Limited cassette edition of this OOP split LP, grip it while it exists. Here's what we said before: "Definite off-the-grid mentalities prevail on this genre-dissolving split between San Fran anima soul voyager Leyna Noel aka Psychic Reality and So-Cal acid-jazz crate-digger LA Vampires. Noel’s toured the states coast-to-coast and dropped a couple potent tape/CDR effigies in the past year but this is her vinyl debut and it captures everything searing and singular about her live alchemy in glowing, glorious detail. Four inter-flowing songs of tone-float piano keys, bedroom drum machines, and white light amplifier vox. Trance-damaged and truth-seeking. LA Vampires’ side madlibs through a more mercurial matrix, using slowed/screwed tapes, boombox Casio FX, low end theories, and bleached voice patterns to conjure a reverb chamber’s worth of dance floor mirages. Future collabs with Zola Jesus and Matrix Metals should expound her rhythm method mission. Abuse yr illusion." Pro-dubbed and imprinted tapes in J-cards with a color-tweaked version of the LP cover portrait by Caitlin C. Mitchell. Edition of 100. |
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Science & Industry NNF184—CS Got to see this hairy chain gang of Manchester cosmos-manglers bulldoze a hole in the sky at the Islington Mill last summer when Pocahaunted was on tour in the UK, and the experience left an impression. Jamming their self-released LP was a nice forced flashback but we wanted more and, fortunately for us all, Gnod are obliging types (they spearheaded the post-show dance party when we were in town). That said, we weren’t braced for the 60-minute astral sludge opus Science & Industry when it landed in our mailbox. Opening with a low-end raga of wah guitar, spoken word, and spaghetti western trumpet trills, the piece gradually builds in volume, density, and desperation, finally exploding at the 10-minute mark into a pummeling storm of drums and heavily delayed horns that sounds like the soundtrack to a movie about post-apocalyptic galaxies at war. From there things get intense. There’s stomping bruiser anthems (think Motorhead on elephant tranquilizers), swirling space rock rituals, crushing Loop-style (circa Fade Out) downer ballads, zoned motorik rhythm workouts, biker howling, black holes, science, industry, infinity, whatever. In short: this is your brain on Gnod. Can’t even describe what a magnetic wrecking ball this album is, an April European tour should help spread the word. Pro-dubbed and imprinted tapes in ghost-face J-cards designed by Amanda. Edition of 100. |
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Sun Ark NNF183—7" Left coast karaoke machine obsessive Cameron Stallones leaves no loop unturned in his questing for the ultimate kaleidoscopic island-psych cocktail, and relocating from the LBC to Glen Rock (half Glendale, half Eagle Rock) freed him up to construct his own hermetic jam cove – dubbed Sun Ark Studio – thereby ratcheting up his workaholic-ism several levels. And so this Sun Ark 33 RPM single serves as both a love letter to his new musical HQ and a curious vinyl document of Araw’s next next-wave. Dubby basslines and reverbed drum pad action still reign hard but the song construction is less western and more loose (reflecting his new all-solo live set up). “Bump Up (High Step)” is a warped reggae pop joker, flangy guitar cheese and jungle rattles. “Live Mind” is the B side, and it’s descended from the Heavy Deeds lineage, lots of sweat, low end pulse, dry funk scratch, bucket percussion, etc. A new boat trip on an altered vessel. Black vinyl 7 inches in glue-pocket jackets with art by you-know-who. Edition of 500. |
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Towers Of Spines NNF182—CS Don’t even bother trying to fathom the name, it’s a bottomless game. Here’s what we do know: Topping Bottoms are a loose liberated squad of itinerant Tokyo drifters that traffic in a billowing, burned out brand of post-millenial psych-loitering that feels like someone slow-motion shattering a lava lamp over yr skull and letting the fluorescent slime drip-drop into yr eyes. That good/weird. Featuring sometime members of an odd constellation of other projects (Ainotamenishis, Evangelista, Duchesses, etc), the semi-steady TB line-up (Kate, Masaki, Tracy, Ryo) wields shadow-sleaze PSF guitar licks over dark drugged drumming lightly splattered with Bore-junk electronic sludge. Towers Of Spines is actually a reconfigured and re-sequenced version of an earlier OOP self-released CDR (on Ryo’s own Create Evil imprint) but packed out with a fresh unreleased live cut tracked at a riotous spring 2008 performance. Tapes come in insane double-sided fold-out silkscreened j-cards designed by Ryo which are in turn housed in stunning exterior cassingle-style art shells, all done up in a spectrum of shades and art-paper variations. Basically: the visual quotient on this tape is huge. Edition of 150. |
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Solar Meditations NNF181—CS Deep Magic means many things to many people (two seconds of internet research reveals one of those things to be a Chronicles Of Narnia “fanlisting collective”), but to us and many So-Cal dwellers it means the solo orb of Dreamcolour drummer/figurehead Alex Gray. Since fragmenting out into his own DM sphere with two self-released tapes, Gray’s grasp of spatial composition and celestial cloaking devices has matured and expanded into a totally unique stargazing expedition worth its weight in ether. Solar Meditations is what it sounds like: 90 minutes of deep-sky holistic crystal healing. Melodic clouds of keyboards, chiming guitar, tubular bells, field recordings, moonlit piano, and amplifier gauze all shimmering down across stop-motion images of suns rising and vanishing into the Pacific. This is music for observatories; endless and nameless. Pro-dubbed tapes in double-sided full-color fold-out J-cards designed by Amanda. Edition of 100. |
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Bringin' The Heat NNF180—cassingle Companion cassingle to the Smokin’ 7 inch (NNF177) finds Ettinger out on his own, sans The Heat, but even without back-up he still brings it. “Bringin’ The Heat” is a killer coast guard coda, searchlights fanning out, SWAT Team guitar licks, hypnotized Kevlar keyboard prisms, delicate synth wah surf spray misting up your teal iridium Oakleys. It’s make-it-or-break-it time; be a pro. The other song on here is “Cancer,” which washes over the closing credits as the cast and info scroll down and people leave the theater. A melancholic cocaine-y synth-pop outro ode with multiple micro-solos and some defeated echo vocals crooning out the final fade-to-black vibes: we did what we could, it was what it was, but forget it Jake that’s life on the squad, another day another dollar (or something). Material repeats on both sides to save you some flipping. Pro-imprinted cassettes in full-color J-cards with art by NNF. Edition of 125. |
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Capricorn Born Again NNF179—LP Grey clouds stay grey. Low light situations birth low-lit moods. It's all bummer clockwork. West Coast lurk-jazz triad Topaz Rags return to vinyl with their debut long player, Capricorn Born Again, an eight-song comedown recorded/mixed from spring-to-fall of '09 via a complex 4-track/boombox assemblage method. Everything creaks and hisses, there's smoke in the air, players at the end of their ropes, lyrics washing over faded raga ballads, slinky electric piano bar depressions, shadow gauze cavern pop. The bell jar is half empty, obviously. Slow dive and sink in. Black vinyl LPs (mastered by Pete Swanson) in jackets designed by Amanda. Edition of 400. |
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The Labor Of Love NNF178—LP Still waters run deep but wild waters run deeper. Both when fronting San Fran free-punk body-music trio Mi Ami or performing angst-dance psycho-dramas under his solo alias, Sex Worker, Daniel Martin-McCormick always succeeds in generating total motion (and emotion) and breaking the fourth wall. His vision of tranced/anguished rhythm questing hits an apex on The Labor Of Love, his LP debut under the Sex Worker guise, and we’ve been soaking in its dark arts for months. Pulsing, lo-fi kraut electronics bubble and sputter under hazy arcs of weirdo vocal smear. Escapist disco drum machines cruise into the horizon under a canopy of dubby accents and FX percussion, sometimes peaking in harsh frenzies of echo-scream meltdowns. All three pieces function as anthems or elegies or protest songs articulating Daniel’s heavy anti-sex trafficking/enslaved bodies activist agenda but you don’t have to know the depths of the ethical framework to grasp the vibe. An intensely unique and hyper-personal statement from one of our favorite west coast music-dreamers. Black vinyl LPs in jackets designed by the artist. Edition of 450. |
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Smokin' NNF177—7" We had heard a couple cassette outings by this Bloomington young-bloomer over the last 4-6 months and each one hit us better than the last but nothing had prepped us for Ettinger’s most recent evolution into neon skyline chase scene soundtracker and that’s part of what makes it so amazing. For Smokin’ he wrangled together a small posse of close comrades (enter The Heat) and tracked a sick session of smoky synth themes, Corvette noir moods, echo dystopia, faded voices, and sleazy Miami sax. The A, “Smokin,’” is the more ballad-y of the pair, sad and smooth, just fired-from-the-force, midnight cruising on the strip, no one to call. The B, “Miami Heat (The Stakeout),” amps the tension, camera zooming in over palm trees and blue-lit swimming pools, a deco mansion on the coast, the place is surrounded, the heat is on, all that. A cool sleaze-psych vision, sickly executed, by a rad fresh energy from the underground. Fingers are crossed there’s more where this came from. Black-vinyl 7 inches, plus a photocopied insert, in full-color sleeves with art by NNF. Edition of 380. |
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Dirty Ark NNF176A—CS Killer C33 companion album called Dirty Ark (culled from the same sessions as the Heatless Ark LP) housed in yet another radical silkscreened J-card courtesy of Ryo from Topping Bottoms. |
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Heatless Ark NNF176—LP We’ve touted this Brisbane clan on multiple occasions in the past (the Mind Peril and The Returner tapes on NNF) but they say the third time’s the charm and clearly that’s true because not only is Heatless Ark Blank Realm’s vinyl debut, it’s also by far the weirdest, deepest, punkest, freakiest, aka BEST album the band’s ever made. And so for all these reasons (and more) we are happy as heaven to offer it up for the world. The porous BR line-up allows for a lot of instrumentation flux and this transience translates on record here to a strange range of agendas: open electric ecstasies (“Fabulous Terror Index”), dissonant outsider-wave art-punk (“Saint Tegram,” “Heatless Ark”), loner Jandek-y demos (“Blues Helix,” “Blues Helix 2”), slow-diving femme-sung dream-gaze (“Till I Clear My Own Name”), and beyond. Varied, wild, and intensely ambitious, this LP establishes Blank Realm as high on the high heap of the rich Australian underground, with miles more expansion potential. Hopefully western world touring plans can congeal soonishly to drive the point home. Black vinyl LPs in beautiful metallic ink smoke-ritual jackets (these jpegs don't do them justice) screenprinted by art-wizard Ryo from Topping Bottoms. Edition of 400. |
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Silver Sea Surfer School NNF175—LP Eva Saelens’ life-quest has taken her from Michigan to Oregon to Oakland back to Portland and back again, with several overseas explorations and inner journey roadtrips thrown in for good measure. Whatever path she’s on is long and winding and hidden in the shadow of overhanging cherimoya trees. Fortunately she maps her migrations with haunted, exotic breath-and-electricity sphinxes ranging from 2006’s Brute Nature Vs. Wild Magic to last year’s brainwashing Birthday Of Bless You LP. 2009 finds her offering up another psychic harvest unto the world, Silver Sea Surfer School, a new nine-song pipeline ride that floats through a whole new web of voice orbs and tape hiss and keyboard balladry. If anything, Silver Sea is Saelens’ weirdest hour, layered in abstract environments, whispers, distant poetry, free percussion loops, with sudden passages of heart-dissolving ghost-piano beauty (“Shine On From The Heaven Above,” “Adventure In Light”). Heavily impressive, and a brave pearl-dive into even more personal waters for the Inca Ore lifeforce. LPs come in jackets with art by Saelens, plus a full-color insert. Edition of 500 (40 on clear ocean-water vinyl, 180 on marbled blue/white, 280 on black). CD edition available on Acuarela. |
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Human Taste NNF174—LP Portland, OR-by-way-of-Michigan garage gang Little Claw first tripped our radar with their self-released Why Not 7 inch, which was/is raw and physical and swingin’ in all the ways you want a 7” to be. Their LA live shows proved even more ripping and charged; we were sold. So we sprung at the offer to enshrine their latest (and best) album, Human Taste, on vinyl for the world’s turntables to adore. Packed with classic, cracked anthems (“Frozen In The Future,” “Colors You Drown”), basement weirdo stompers (“Modern Vampire,” “Breathing Tape,”) and naked art-punk riddles (“Lay To Waste,” “Summerphile”), the LP’s two sides are slyly sequenced to seduce, blind, and devour, demonstrating a rad range of attacks, escapes, claws, tongues. It’s a great late summer record: between styles, beyond genres, and aggressively alive. Taste the Taste. Black vinyl LPs in jackets with art designed by the band, plus a pro-printed, double-sided 11x17 poster/insert. Edition of 600. CD edition available on Ecstatic Peace. AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 1 |
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Powwow With Chopper NNF173—CS Named (hopefully) after the scorching ‘75 Fela LP that was inspired by an incident where Nigerian cops planted a joint on him but then he ate it to destroy the evidence and then they detained him till they could inspect his feces (can you believe that?!), Expensive Shit are a wrecked wrecking crew from Austin that specialize in braindead riff carnage of the rawest order. By their own interweb admission they consider their influences “sludge meditation” and “winging it” and their band policy is “no practice, we play anywhere.” That said, Powwow With Chopper – the band’s first public release as far as our we know – road-blasts through gnarly terrain: pulsing avalanches of zen distortion, basement garbage drums, mono-chord ascension marches, etc. No maps, no artifice, just now-minded in-the-blood-red street fighter rock chaos. Pro-imprinted tapes in wild double-sided full-color J-cards with crazy “Zangief chain fight” artwork by Pittsburgh rip-nagogic scholar Spencer Longo. Edition of 128. |
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Glass Fountain NNF172—LP Welcome back. One of NNF’s total favorite active bands return with a second full-length (most of which was recorded during the same sessions that birthed their debut LP, Dream) and we are pleased as spiked fruit punch. The Reed/Garbes duo mainly sticks to their guns, mining the same post-Suicide art-trance vein they perfected on Dream, but with Glass Fountain there’s an added emphasis on the disembodied, oscillator pop mode that Wet Hair often toy with. Fountain’s five tracks include some of the band’s simplest but catchiest songs (“Crucifix In The Waves,” “When The Right Time Comes,” etc), mesmerizing organ melodies over plink-plonky vintage drum machines with weirdo soulful singing and outer space electronics, like an outsider-punk Silver Apples or something. Hard to say exactly what universe Wet Hair are operating in and that’s probably part of why we love it so much. A killer record that gets better each spin. In jackets with art drawn and designed by the band, plus a pro-printed 11x11 insert. Edition of 600 (400 on opaque lavendar vinyl, 200 on black). |
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How Is Hell Fact Met? All Of Them Witches NNF171—CS Hello, history lesson: those who forget the past are condemned to check it out via limited cassette reissues. Or something like that. Malibu Falcon was an early aughts act from Portland, Oregon that existed sporadically in impulsive electrical fires of shows and recording sessions and starred west coast lifers like Eva Inca Ore and Nick Bindeman (plus others) amongst its ranks. Shows were rare, releases even more so, and the combined forces of life and other band commitments soon dissolved the Falcon before a wider awareness could be achieved. Alas. So we are lucky to have on hand this salvaged anthology of 60 minutes of prime time heart-of-weirdness MF legacy. Low basement bass lines pulse under primitive sheets of guitar feedback while Eva alternately whispers, banshee screams, and rants fucked up poetry stories about LSD, boa constrictors, and stealing babies. Their general audio vibe is so heavily art-damaged it’s impossible to tether to any specific scene; too mind-fried and visceral for experimentalism but way too raw and psychotic for any kind of psych rock/pop association either. Total crevasse music, lost in limbo, PSF DIY dreams, dead end riffs, untapped, unconscious, confusion isn’t sex. For fans of freaks. Pro-dubbed tapes with collage art J-cards by Eva Saelens copied on metallic paper. Edition of 100. |
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Live From The New Age NNF170—CS Bands are people are jobs/schools are cities are lives are lifestyles. Paths veer, verge, converge, diverge. And so it comes to pass: Live From The New Age is the final Pocahaunted release with the original Amanda/Bethany arrangement, before the band evolved onwards to the new line-up. It is what it is. And Live From The New Age is a 40-minute cassette collecting 3 vintage live performances showcasing their classic shapeshift spellbind powers, backed by an array of beloved collaborators: Bobb Bruno, Jeremy Earl, Cameron Stallones, Jarvis Taveniere, Andy Spore, Ged Gengras, etc. The whole family tree is here, stretching against the sky, sunlight, storms, lightning, laughter. Soak it in or shut it out. Pro-dubbed and imprinted cassettes in cases with psychic healer J-card artwork designed by Amanda. Edition of 200. |
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Heavy Deeds NNF169—CD Heavy Deeds, indeed man. One of So-Cal most hustling musicos steps back up to the vinyl plate with five focused tracks meshing together the cosmic feedback of The Phynx with the sunshine ecstasy of Beach Head and the equatorial swelter of Boat Trip, plus a potent mainline of primitive rhythm, drug funk, and broken glass. Check the blazing wah streetfight that breaks out mid-way through “Get Low,” the magic brainbath haze soaking into the joints of “Hustle And Bustle,” or the endless feel-good float-away of the climax of “All Night Long.” Mastered by James Plotkin with lil’ Stevie screengrab artwork designed by Stallones. CD digipak version also contains "Hey Mandala!" (Sun Araw's side from the split 12" with Predator Vision) as a bonus track. Edition of 500. |
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Heavy Deeds NNF169—LP Heavy Deeds, indeed man. One of So-Cal most hustling musicos steps back up to the vinyl plate with five focused tracks meshing together the cosmic feedback of The Phynx with the sunshine ecstasy of Beach Head and the equatorial swelter of Boat Trip, plus a potent mainline of primitive rhythm, drug funk, and broken glass. Check the blazing wah streetfight that breaks out mid-way through “Get Low,” the magic brainbath haze soaking into the joints of “Hustle And Bustle,” or the endless feel-good float-away of the climax of “All Night Long.” Mastered by James Plotkin with lil’ Stevie screengrab jacket artwork designed by Stallones, plus a full-color pro-printed double-sided insert. |
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Low Cut Fades NNF168—CS This west coaster coasted into our worldview semi-recently with a long, loopy tape of tape hissy guitar anthems (that should see the light of vinyl on Future Sound Recordings later this summer) and we were immediately on board the Rangers zamboni. Low Cut Fades is an even fresher work, loaded to the tip-top with bedroom fantasy riffing, home-tracked keyboard trips, and teenage pop haze. It’s got a lot of that post-Ariel Pink ghost radiowaves mood, and here he chooses to ditch the vocals (there’s a decent bit of singing on his earlier album) in favor of getting down and loose and lost, and the glove fits, man. Expect more from this Bay Area time-traveler. Pro-dubbed tapes with full-color labels in J-cards with art designed by Mr. Rangers himself. Edition of 100. |
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Raiders NNF167—LP Following their 2008 East Coast tour with Woods and Pocahaunted the Robedoor agenda has mainly been: hibernating in the City Terrace zone above east LA, adding a drummer/modular synth dealer, and letting the smoke rise. Raiders is the first RBDR LP since 2008’s Endlessly Blazing and is the result of almost six months of slow-burn transformative tape machine meditation helmed by Mr. Ged Gengras. Bummed guitars, loner drone tones, low caverns of reverbed drums and rumble, echo dislocation, and dead voices cascade down into the isolated highways. Song modes are carved out and then left to rot. Features early trio live set staples like “Indo Shadow” and “The Downcast Eye.” You can’t stick your hand in the same black river twice. Change or be changed. LPs in jackets with cover photo by Caitlin C. Mitchell. Edition of 500 (250 on marbled grey, 250 on black). AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 1 |
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Raiders NNF167—CS Following their 2008 East Coast tour with Woods and Pocahaunted the Robedoor agenda has mainly been: hibernating in the City Terrace zone above east LA, adding a drummer/modular synth dealer, and letting the smoke rise. Raiders is the first RBDR LP since 2008’s Endlessly Blazing and is the result of almost six months of slow-burn transformative tape machine meditation helmed by Mr. Ged Gengras. Bummed guitars, loner drone tones, low caverns of reverbed drums and rumble, echo dislocation, and dead voices cascade down into the isolated highways. Song modes are carved out and then left to rot. Features early trio live set staples like “Indo Shadow” and “The Downcast Eye.” You can’t stick your hand in the same black river twice. Change or be changed. Pro-imprinted cassettes in J-card appropriation of LP artwork. Edition of 100. |
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Bermuda Telepaths NNF166—LP Bermuda Telepaths is the latest title lifted out of the fruit-and-photocopy-strewn Outer Limits Recordings archive and into the ears of the world at large. Recorded under the never-again-used Explorers moniker and first edited into album form about a year ago, this hallucinatory patchwork trip into the ether synthesizes all of OLR’s deepest loves – boombox fidelity, quick cuts, keyboard loop sorcery, underwater pop, general mind surfing – into a humbly hypnotic whirlpool of energies. Apparently there was a concept/thesis behind the album’s genesis somehow involving psychic powers, lizard people, and the Bermuda Triangle, but the details are hazy. Which befits the audio in question. Read your palm. Take a walk in your thoughts. Explore away. Black vinyl LPs in jackets with artwork designed by the artist, plus a copy shop poem insert. Edition of 330. |
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The Invisible Landscape NNF165—LP Last year’s Mystic Induction LP captured PDX wah junkies Eternal Tapestry at their hairiest hour, awash in color trails and nightshade flashbacks. Since then they’ve reverted back to their original power trio line-up, circled the tube amps, and written a fresh, flooring set of brand new electric rippers. And The Invisible Landscape is the fruit of this from-bliss-to-blistering evolution/revolution. It’s packed deep with six kraut-punk psych-shredders, huffing fumes from the twin guitar hero dogfighting of Dewey Mahood and Nick Bindeman while drum demon Jed Bindeman does barrel rolls and nosedives into the eye of the storm. There’s also a rawness and warmth to the production that helps the songs bleed into the ear with more electricity than before, and the riff/vocals interplay is streamlined for optimum mainlining. A fiery high point for a fiery high band. Hit it or quit it. Randomly colored LPs (hues range from silt grey to swamp green and beyond) in pro-printed jackets with art by the band plus a photocopied insert. Edition of 500. |
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Spiritual Celebration NNF164—CS There’s currently a glut of bands dog-paddling around the trans-continental psych-pond with names involving words like ‘color,’ ‘dream,’ and ‘infinity,’ and Ventura County brass-groove arkestra Dreamcolour are smack thick in the middle of this ’08-‘09 nomenclatorial zeitgeist (though to their credit they use the British spelling). Yet, semi-ironically, the mood of the zones they explore on Spiritual Celebration are wonderfully vintage, with a strange, reverential “out of time” quality that seems decidedly non-NOW. Hand-drums beat along with a steady, easy lope, saxes are crooned (not skronked) smoothly up towards the sun, Farfisa trills further brighten the corners. There’s no damaged FX-abuse or lo-fi freakouts; all minds are fused into one gently simmering open-air spiritual jazz homage. Echoes of Don Cherry abound. The tape is split into three chapters: a stunning 20-minute A-side hayride (“Spiritual Celebration”), a briefer horn flurry piece (“Sun Ritual”), and a gorgeous lunar meditation chamber (“Moon Ritual”). A great West Coast force with an exotic back catalogue and a killer live vibe, worth keeping tabs on. Pro-dubbed cassettes in cases with full-color marker/collage J-cards designed by Amanda. Edition of 100. |
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Flamingo Breeze NNF163—CS 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. |
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Live On NNF162—LP Bodymore, Murderland has a long and still-living history of wacko art/music loons operating out of cheap warehouses (Tarantula Hill, RIP) and cheaper apartments (The Comfort Dome, etc), and something about the place’s civic/social vibe seems to foster an almost schizophrenic degree of diversity amongst its bands. Needless to say, this is a good good thing. But despite the city’s recent-ish rep as a home to neon strobe light teen party heroes like Daniel Deacon and Ponytail and whatnot, there’s obviously a ton more to the story, and the band that seems to us crucial to this neo-wave B-MORE renaissance is Teeth Mountain. A seven-piece jam crew comprised of 2-3 odd drum kits, sax, clarinet, mixer drones, electric guitar, a pile of pedals, various voices, and probably other unknown mystery junk, they straddle a fine, fucked up line between carefully orchestrated rhythmic psychedelia and total drum-circle-damaged freeform freak-sprawl. To us, it’s a holy zone, and one we hope they continue to linger in. TM’s 2008 LP on SHWDPLY (recently reissued, grab one ASAP) was easily one of our top recs of the year, and so we are obviously awesomely jazzed to offer up Live On, their follow-up. Two all-new sides of artfully interwoven live recordings encompassing all the band’s best moods: outsider world scorch, jittery horn ragas, basement attack trance, etc. Raw and real and alive as life. Future Teeth Mountains will be scaled at NNF, learn the terrain now. Black vinyl LPs in jackets with painted-craft-cathedral artwork by the band, plus an 11x11 full-color double sided insert. Edition of 500. |
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Diamonds & Wood NNF161—CS These post-everything (noise-rock, kraut-punk, thrash-psych), post-Floridian (they live all over the place now...Canada, East Coast, etc) post-teens (somebody’s 20) have a savvy knack for mainlining that exact slow-burn basement car crash guitar/drums symbiosis that makes us wanna simultaneously mosh, steal a skateboard, and put out a tape. The previous NASA cassette on NNF (Bummer Daze) rolled in more of a groove-damaged Blues Control-on-glue mode, and the production was kinda clean and line-in sounding in places. But Diamonds & Wood (in addition to being the name of a bangin' Underground Kingz song) is in fact an earlier NASA album, recorded back in 2006 and originally released in an edition of 24 on their own H Tapes imprint. We’ve always wanted to reissue it for more ears, and happily that day has come. A staggering hour-long descent into frenzied depths of overdriven riffing, drum abuse, and distortion psychosis that seems to get inexplicably more and more lo-fi as it grinds on, this is what the teenage garage bands of America in our dreams sound like (not far off from a wasted, rawer Heavy Winged). Sloppy, shredding, surreal, sick, and stupid in equal parts, NASA at the height of their Epcot Center-based powers are nothing if not a shining example of low/high/no-art primitivism in its most gutter and uncut form. Take it or leave it. Pro-dubbed and imprinted tapes in silver-misted cases with full-color wood grain/bejeweled artwork designed by Amanda. Hand-numbered edition of 100. |
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Ring Mining NNF160—LP 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 are 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. |
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Psychic NNF159—7" Every family has a freak (or 2). Every deck’s got a wild card. We’ve got Vibes. Ante up. NNF’s loosest cannons return to the recording fray with Psychic, a blown-out briar patch of basement garage fantasy masquerading as obscurist protest funk – and the band’s first vinyl statement. Recorded in Eagle Rock on a “last legs”-style 4-track, the EP’s four songs are jacked deep in the red, with fuzz bass, wah shrapnel, vocal sloganeering, and drum racket all fighting for tape room. Competition is fierce. Recent live faves like “Dead Horses” and “Night Court” appear in particularly revved-up form, as do the first two Vibes songs ever written, “Psychic” and “Prisms Of Fame.” All bases are covered. All soul trains are derailed. Here comes the judge. Black vinyl 33 RPM singles in full-color fold-over sleeves with collage artwork and lettering by Cameron Stallones, photographs by Caitlin C. Mitchell, plus a rant-y revolution scrapbook insert. Edition of 400. |
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Animal Totem NNF158—CS For some reason unexpected pleasures are superior to the expected variety, at least 9 times outta 10. And so it was when we happened upon the dizzy/fizzy music of French loop enthusiast High Wolf for the first time, regarding whom we had zero preconceived notions. Cheers to open minds/ears then, cause the High Wolf audio worldview is weird and wobbly and one that should appeal to all lovers of tripped out, swelter-zone equatorial electronics. Animal Totem is High Wolf’s debut release, and it piles wavy, tranced keyboard melodies one on top of the other into a pulsing ritual heap of colored smoke. Elsewhere he slips in sunset fuzz-guitar lines and temple meditation tones and even dangles down some flanger-flecked synthetic percussion like a bunch of mellow yellow bananas. Take a look up/down/all-around. Overall it’s a rich, ripe rumble in the escapist-psych jungle. Future trips are booked on Long Beach drone/craft emporium Stunned Records, keep an eye open. Pro-dubbed cassettes in cases with full-color animal-collage artwork by Amanda. Hand-numbered edition of 100. |
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Imaginary Falcons NNF157—CS Since you asked, here’s a new truism we vibed out of the cosmos: Isolation (not Necessity) is the Mother of Invention. ‘Cause distance makes the heart grow radder, remember? And drift-pop duo Peaking Lights (aka epic newlyweds Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis) have proven this in spades, by beating a sweet retreat from the big city to a cool commune deep in the rolling, wooded hills on the outskirts of Madison, Wisconsin, where they’re free to bond with the land, breathe easy, and levitate lofty organic magic from their unique analog electronics mainframe. It’s like they say: location, location, location. Apparently the big sky country is hittin’ their bloodstream like an exotic opiate, because their latest full-length, Imaginary Falcons, digs deeper and flies higher than anything else they’ve ever laid to tape by miles (which isn’t to say their early shit isn’t sick too; it is). Seven strung-out sing-song serenades of Suicide-style drum machinery, groovy lost ghost candle crooning, dubby keyboard echoes, gentle guitar gestures, and narcotic harmonia, woven into an expertly sequenced lucid dream you never wanna wake up from. This is the sound of Peaking Lights peaking; hold it yr ear as long as you can. Already dangerously high on our “One To Beat For ‘09” file. Pro-dubbed cassettes in cases with pro-printed full-color J-cards designed by Amanda. Edition of 150. Also available on LP from our friends at Night People. |
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Season's Feast NNF156—CS You don’t need a cassette description to school you on the knowledge that blood is thicker than water, but if that’s what it takes to make the lesson stick, so be it. Or, if you want a shortcut, just peruse the discography of Connecticut-bred brothers Cy and Ged Gengras. They’ve been harvesting jams together under the Antique Bros banner for, shit, almost four years now, and in that span have trawled through a thousand different hybrid strains (creep-folk, math-psych, chaos improv, etc). But the inter-family familiarity hasn’t bred contempt (take THAT, old proverb); on the contrary it’s spawned a secret psychic/musical language the rest of us ain’t privy to. And, despite a hefty local bias (Ged’s an LA/NNF hero, drums for Pocahaunted, Robedoor, AND Vibes), we can still say with honesty and confidence that Season’s Feast is easily our fave Antique B full-length to date. The ragers are dense and bearded, the acoustic passages evocative and hazy, the ambient lulls sticky as fresh resin. There’s a flow and a focus here that’s rare within the AB discog, and it makes for more meat on the bones, more flames in the fire. If yr already a fan, you’re in luck; and if you’re new to the Antique canon, THIS is the place to start. Pro-dubbed tapes with hand-typed/stamped labels in bags with full-color art by Amanda. Edition of 100. |
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...On Sea-Faring Isolation NNF155—LP A casual interweb cruiser could be forgiven for confusing Dolphins Into The Future the “band” (aka the one-man tape-loop blue-age ambient project executed by Belgian Cetacean Nation ambassador Lieven Martens) with Dolphins Into The Future the book (written by dimensional traveler Joan Ocean concerning her 20-year-long real life spirit-quest to commune with a school of 200 wild Hawaiian Spinner dolphins). And, to be fair, they’re a LOT alike. Both deal heavily in trippy, drifting logics, vibrational holograms, and an overdose of psychedelic pastel artwork. But Ms. Ocean’s books are out of print so instead we have …On Sea-Faring Isolation, Mr. Dolphin Martens’ vinyl debut under the DITF banner, after a 2-year string of increasingly blissed tapes and CDRs. Composed of three interwoven pieces per side, Isolation is one of those baffling magic eye LPs that seems to dissolve yr memory of it during the very act of listening. Turquoise webs of billowing synth smoke curl and dissipate into grey horizons of open sea field recordings. The wooden mast of a ship creaks quietly while astral bells toll away in morning fog. You are alone. This record could make a sailor homesick, and Joan Ocean weep. Beautifully composed and sequenced, with just the right amount of wobbly porpoise sonar prisms bubbling up from the deep, this LP exceeded all our expectations (and they were high). A fantastic voyage into the pan-dolphinic dawn. Black vinyl LPs in matte jackets with aquatic-loner artwork by Martens himself, plus a photocopied album review/interpretation by DJ Bongo Man. Edition of 375. AUDIO-VISUAL SAMPLE 1 |
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Dream NNF154—LP When Iowa City freak-out free-rockers Raccoo-oo-oon called it quits last year it left a bummer scar in the Midwest underground scene. But time is a great healer, and so are new bands. So out of the ashes of the RAC pack comes Wet Hair, a synth-punk-trance duo composed of keyboardist/vocalizer Shawn Reed and keyboardist/drummer Ryan Garbes, and Dream is the band’s debut vinyl full-length after a series of increasingly shredding limited-edition cassettes on their own Night People label. Piling together an unlikely trash heap of Suicide-style drum machine beat-bops, zone-droned krautrock keys, and fucked up outsider crooning, the LP’s four tracks careen across a spectrum of moods and mangled melodies. Recorded at Flat Black Studios by Luke Tweedy and mastered by Pete Swanson, Wet Hair’s cult electric annihilation has never gleamed with such razor-edged weirdness; this is their dream made real. Black vinyl LPs in jackets with artwork by Reed and Garbes, plus a pro-printed full-color 11x11 insert. CD edition available on Release The Bats. |
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Jailhouse Rock NNF153—LP It’s been a while since Scorces sorceress, Jandek collaborator, and Volcanic Tongue branch manager Heather Leigh has ventured out on vinyl under her own name. And it may be a while longer, as Jailhouse Rock is in fact a wax reissue of a long OOP 2006 cassette classic on Michigan crud factory Fag Tapes. It was a fave of ours that year (and every year), so it feels extra celebratory to be able to offer up a freshly remastered (by Pete Swanson) LP edition of the album for global re-appreciation. Sprawling, long-form descents/ascents into mythic electric disorientation, powered by her trademark recipe of FX-soaked pedal steel and voice. Jailhouse feels loosely more aligned with a mid-aughts drone/noise aesthetic than the outsider dirt road Americana of her Devil If You Can Hear Me LP (also on NNF), but the distinction is a slight one. Side A swims in swooping sheets of vox and tempestuous wind tunnel dynamics before slowly dying away to wheezing disembodied harmonica. The B piece begins in a more overtly beautiful mode, a trinity of crystalline notes picked and stretched until they’re transformed into a rapturous sky of textural distortion. Sensual and vertigo-inducing in equal measure. Black vinyl LPs in jackets with brand new paint/collage artwork by Heath Moerland (of Sick Llama, Slither, Odd Clouds, etc). Edition of 400. |
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NNF152—CD 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. |
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NNF152—LP 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. |
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Scales NNF151—LP 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. |
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