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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 Volcanic Tongue (UK) DNT Records Time-Lag Forced Exposure Release the Bats (SWEDEN) Fusetron Sound Eclipse Apop Blackest Rainbow (UK) Gilgongo Morphius The Lotus Sound Staalplaat (GERMANY) Aquarius Family Conspiracy (BELGIUM) Reckless |
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NNF145—2xLP 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. |
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Mind Peril NNF142—CS So many steaming heaps of uniquely fried brains litter the “down under” underground landscape (Australia, NZ) you begin to worry for their greater wellbeing, health, sanity. But, at the same time, it’s hard to complain ‘cause those same forces have done wonders for the world’s weirdo CDR collections. Paeces, Lakes, all the Bros ‘o’ The Occult Sisterhood shit, Castings, Terracid, xNoBBQx (most of those Breakdance The Dawn bands, actually), Naked On The Vague, etc. – there’s a damn ARMY of Australasian gangs throwing up freaky signs and bizarre strains of audio consciousness, and we are all the richer for it. But our favorite such clan for the past year plus is Blank Realm, outta Brisbane. They’ve been emitting a steady smokestack of work-in-progress documents showcasing their pan-genre collective symbiosis the last couple years and each new cloud they puff out is a headier, heavier beast than the one before it – and Mind Peril shows they’ve yet to even fucking plateau. Self-released by the band early in ’08 in a micro-edition of a few dozen, we were fairly floored by it, and offered to spread the gospel a bit more. Listen up. Crouched hermetic energies arc upwards into unified spirals of electric heavens, animal clatter, basement trance, and zoner drums. 8-limbed songs grapple up from 4-track floors. Rituals retch into wrecked rock songs. Vertical motion for formless heights. This is Blank Realm at their blankest and best. NNF edition has a new track sequence, and is pro-dubbed on high-quality chrome cassettes, as befits this sprawling C54 classic. In oversized, hand-stamped, spray-painted cardstock sleeves with hand-ripped rainbow-tissue collage artwork. Edition of 100. |
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Beach Head NNF140—LP Sun, surf, and self-hypnosis: all the core particles for a perfect Pacific zone dream-day/daydream. And Beach Head is the soundtrack, in case you were wondering. Hot on the heels of May’s masterful coconut-dub Boat Trip EP comes Magic Lantern-bearer Cameron Stallones’ latest loner luau under the Sun Araw umbrella, and it’s an equatorial escape of the highest order. Unlike his NNF debut, The Phynx, Beach Head drops the drones and cosmic distortion (for the most part) in favor of slippery banana peel smoke stacks, undulating tropical hallucinations, and crystal/coastal moods. Waves, rare birds, and swaying palms cameo in the background. Across the LP’s four snaky rhythm reveries Stallones maps a loose, blissed void of voice, island bass-lines, and shimmering sunset electricity, inviting all to drift in and float on. It’s a total hit parade, top to bottom, might as well glue it to the turntable and weld the whole rig into yr yellow convertible and park that shit in the sand. Fans of Ducktails, imaginary Jimmy Buffet demos, and long walks on the beach will sleep easy on this grass mat. Black vinyl LPs in matte jackets, plus a pro-printed 11x11 insert, with artwork by head beacher C. Stallones. Edition of 420. |
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High Beams NNF137—LP After far, far too long lost in the merch-less dark, the LBC’s most married band, Magic Lantern, finally beam down the blinding full-length psych-statement we always knew they had hidden inside. It only took the Southern California sector a single 5-song demo plus a handful of incense-dense komische live flights to fully fall under the spell of ML’s oncoming headlights, but now the rest of the globe can hop on the band’s wild wagon. Hold on. High Beams throws out the total 20-sided die of the their illuminative powers, from stomping, storming show staples like “Deathshead Hawkmoth” and “Vampires In Heat” through to Sun Araw-vibed chime trancers (“Feasting On Energy”) and even a good time acid-addled feedback boogie (“Cactus Raga”). These are all of the Lanterns’ classic long-form anthems, captured in glorious high-def thanks to Bobb Bruno’s attuned production/recording capabilities and a radiant mastering job courtesy of James Plotkin. The riffs rip, the drums destroy, and the organ burns a hole in the sun. Walk into the light. Black vinyl LPs (with full color center labels) in glossy jackets with flag photography by Cameron & Erica Stallones, plus a fried-eyed, full-color 11x17 poster. Edition of 500. |
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Beasts Will Have You NNF134—CS Old folks often spout off to kids about not gettin’ in the car with strangers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t release cassettes by them. Good thing, too, cause bands creep outta the woodwork all the time with hoods on their heads and a fine master in their hand, and who’re we to give ‘em some inquisition shit? Law Of The Rope is an alleged trio (Nadine, Legin, and Beatrix Oppression, in case yr wondering) from the “United States Minor Outlying Islands” (yeah right) who mine a very idiosyncratic vein of isolated bedroom black metal somewhere between the more downtempo miserablist symphonies of Xasthur, the deranged 8-track stream-of-consciousness grooves of Lurker of Chalice, and the harsh arctic blasts of Wold. We’re no experts on the subject, but Beasts Will Have You holds its own against all those touchstones, and even adds a nice non-metal dimension to a lotta the songs that free ‘em up from the genre’s restrictions/expectations. The tape’s 2 16-minute-ish sides stalk through the spectrum of foul moods, at turns caged and violent, other times awash in arch-gothic negative grandeur, fleshed out with somber strings and icy life-in-prison-style keyboards. Bleak is back. Pro-dubbed & imprinted cassettes in black-on-black devourer art cases with black-and-blood paper fangs glued to the plastic. Edition of 100. |
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Taste The Blood Of The Deceiver NNF133—LP We’ve only had the good/loud fortune to witness Matthew Bower perform live on ONE solitary occasion, but the infinite incineration he managed to detonate out of a single electric guitar and knee-high practice amp was convincing enough to last several lives. In the meantime, there’s the gallons of celestial skree he bombards the listening universe with via his cavalry of audio aliases (Skullflower, Total, Hototogisu, Sunroof!, Mirag), all of which radiate with Bower’s iconic, influential, two-decades-deep quest to fuse the bruised with the blissed in a single white-light fist held up high. And although his specific mission for each project seems to have crossfaded a bit in recent years, it’s still huge news to us to be able offer up Taste The Blood Of The Deceiver, the first full-length Skullflower album to be pressed on vinyl since forever (at least the early 90s). Taste The Blood... finds Bower in the more blackened, doom-damaged terrains like those stripmined on the recent Desire For A Holy War or Pure Imperial Reform: abrupt vertical baths of blinding distortion and harmonic override spiked with cavernous cultish riffs and deeply bleak ritual moods. The blood is fresh, but the body’s unrecognizable. Charred and forgotten, this is another stepping stone on the path to the upturned altar. Black vinyl LPs in fucked-up-and-photocopied matte jackets. Edition of 500. |
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Island Diamonds NNF132—CD There’s a working theory out there about Pocahaunted: either EVERY record they’ve released is a concept album, or NONE of them are. There’s good proof to support both camps. But truth, of course, probably lies somewhere between the two (if that’s possible – which it isn’t), but Island Diamonds makes a stronger case for the former. The ladies’ longstanding studio union with Eagle Rock guru Bobb Bruno has explored an array of terrains in the past, but their partnership on Diamonds transforms Pocahaunted into a way weirder, doper, and dancier creature than ever before, inspired in equal parts by Manda’s obsession with Max Romeo tropical soul and bad acid jazz and Bethany’s abiding love of mainstream rap and the Cocteau Twins (that sounds like it’d be a nightmare, right?). Naturally, the results don’t really resemble any of the influences they may have attempted to channel during these sessions, but so what? Low-lidded drum machine beats, sparse guitar chimes, and the occasional air raid siren cycle beneath a night sky of cooing, crying, and caterwauling in the classic PHAUNT mode/model. This CD digipak edition is a repress of the sold out LP on Arbor, with all new collage-portrait artwork by the band, plus two bonus tracks added on (one an outtake from the Diamonds sessions, one the unedited mix of their Bored Fortress 7” single) and a freaky digital music video for “Ashes Is White” created by part-time Pocahaunted bassist/best friend Luis Naranjo. Edition of 500. |
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Concussion Summer NNF130—LP 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. |
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NNF129—CS Two bleak teams pass the death pipe across this black lake of a tape, and the mood – at best – runs from dread to dead (or undead, same vibe). Robedoor's "Terminal Abomination" finds them grappling their recent song-form style with bass, drums, and slime, a heavy metal swamp-thing crawl that drips and riffs from the depths to deeper depths. A strident stalk across new weird wetlands. The B side is a suite of songs from southern lord Husere Grav, who operates from more of a bedroom black metal/death drone perspective, utilizing buzzing guitar, tomb tones, and the occasional drum machine plod to convey his message of relentless misery with strange elegance. Past self-released CDRs like The Great Empty and Stay Asleep have mapped similarly cursed terrains, but his five queasy pieces here are easily among his most cold and cutting ever laid to tape. On pro-dubbed cassettes. Edition of 150. |
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Storm Veil/Desert Champion NNF127—CS Ex-Auckland high artists Helga Fassonaki and Andrew Scott first began hammering their flux-core electronics into sustained tunnels of pale fire back in early 2006, when living down under in New Zealand's thriving hive of free music freemasons. Their early documents were obscure, open-mouthed starclusters of harsh Hototogisu-heatspells, FX-heavy improv, and isolated tinkering. Since relocating to the Hollywood grid, however, the Metal Rouge matrix has transformed significantly. Recent volumes of their excellent Ephemeroptera series, as well the Eulogy For Keeler disc (on Phantom Limb), have showcased MR's increasingly controlled avant noise architectures, but Storm Veil/Desert Champion strikes their best balance yet. Both sides unfold from keening, tense beams of drone light, layering levels of expressionist tones one after the other, slowly growing into futurist frenzy, a thousand interstitial atoms of tempest noise warring for amp space. A focused and furious 40 minutes at the forge/4-track. Pro-dubbed, shell-imprinted tapes in cardstock J-cards adorned with metallic fabric shreds plus gold flecks. Edition of 100. |
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Sings the Blues NNF126—CS PLI have been preaching the “Peace, Love, Invisibility” gospel for at least a few years at this point, radiating sub-radar FX resplendence across a grand handful of subtle CDRs and shows, but Sings The Blues stands strikingly apart from their crouch-core past and is all the better for it. Raw hybrid soul dirges of commune lament and hypnotic mourning resurrected from dirt drums, wicker guitar, and ancient electric melancholy. Intense ballads of transformation, chains giving way to God, hope turning to flight. Two women, two men, constant sorrow. This young Danish underground pedal family have never sounded so up on their feet, momentous, musical. Break on through. An impending LP should further plumb the dark Invocation behind the Pink Luminosity. Pro-dubbed grey tapes with metallic shell imprinting in freedom-fighter silkscreened cardstock sleeves tied with prayer bells. Edition of 100. |
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I Turn Into You NNF125—2xLP Most musical matters seem to cycle through rise/crash wave patterns of popularity and lately it seems that the duo formation is for some reason at the crest of its particular prevalence/relevance. Perhaps it's something to do with the faster psychic communion that births between a pair (vs a 5+ gang-style band). Or maybe it's just to save on gas $$. Either way: very few fringe duos of the 2000s have succeeded in so fully utilizing the witchy, wordless, and wondrous bond of the twosome formation as Scorces' twin figureheads Christina Carter (also of Charalambides, Bastard Wing, etc) and Heather Leigh Murray (Taurpis Tula, CEO of Volcanic Tongue, more). Their early incarnation as East Texas fried-folk loners instantly struck a chord in clued-in heads for both its bold formless experimental moods as well its instantly gripping emotional power. Their 2003 masterpiece on Eclipse, Vivre Avec La Bete, captured their magic craft perfectly, and in retrospect has definitely cast a heavy influence over a whole host of today's underground's voice-based lonesome drifters. So it is with amplified honor that we offer up this latest tome of spells unearthed from the Scorces' vaults: I Turn Into You. Nearly 70 minutes of pedal-steel guitar tendrils, basement dust, whispered melodies, enchanted strings thrummed against the quiet, and possibly the planet's single intensest dual free-crooning chemistry (as anyone who caught one of their Fall '07 opening sets on the solo Thurston Moore tour can attest) sprawled across four spectral sides of black vinyl. All tracks were recorded several years ago back at Charalambides HQ in Houston, TX by psych-guitar journeyman Tom Carter, and they've aged like oil paintings (cracking, majestic, immense). Housed in embossed, metallic ink jackets designed by Marcia Bassett (with a racy poem by the Scorces' ladies on the back), plus an 11x11 insert with info and a live shot. Edition of 500. |
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Perpendicular Rain NNF124—CS Berlin-based Bird of Delay Steven Warwick has been winging away from the BoD nest under his Heatsick moniker with increasing frequency the past couple years, and each new flight seems to soar into ever more varied airstreams of cyclonic electronics and emotional wind-riding. Perpendicular Rain is his most recent convection cell, and it pits two pendulum-tilting pieces against one another for a beatific blowout of barometric disorientation. “Suspended Horse, Carousel” rides an orchestral morning glory hallucination forklift into total mind white out, layers of radial confusion overlapping in a circus wheel of entrancing electricity. One of Warwick’s audio-life highlights to date. The B, “Perpendicular Rain,” opts to flatline into more of a classic Heatsick stasis vortex (a lot like his semi-recent Reverse Gardens CS), wiring every circuit into itself till the mainframe collapses under its own wall/cloud weight. Let it come down. Hand-cut tape-labeled pro-dubbed red tapes in full-color double-sided fold-out J-cards with art by Warwick, plus a slight metallic stencil. Edition of 100. |
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From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light NNF123—LP Since first bearing witness to Barn Owl’s mythically desolate amplifier alchemy last year, we’ve been rabid fans/fanatics. But like lots of badass bands, BO are a rolling stone, heavy on the transformation tip, and the BO of today is an altered beast from the one that folkily fingerpicked Bridge To The Clouds and their self-titled disc way back when. And in case we’re not being clear: this is a beautiful thing. From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light burns with the sun-dead majesty of a Death Valley burial ground, all wasted waterless expanse and cracked earth smoke blowing in the dry wind. Heavy western drone revelations bleed into forlorn guitar drift, downcast percussion plods across the plain, a skull on its side lies in the sands. Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras have somehow flawlessly evolved Barn Owl into a blazing new universe, and From Our Mouths… is the first mission statement from their new spectral/aesthetic outpost, a stunning and timeless eight-song suite of grim cinematic electricity. Tune in, drop dead, rot on. In swank matte jackets with ‘four-armed demon warrior-yogi’ artwork by the band. Edition of 435 (275 on white wax, 160 on black). |
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Mythical Beast NNF122—12" This fair pairing has been in the wings for a few years now by our count, but tripped things come to those who wait, so better late-as-shit than never. Cloudland Canyon have been spanning geographies (Brooklyn, Germany, Memphis) and genres (krautrock, drone, psych-pop) since at least 2002, but only recently has their technological studio-sorcery began to gather steam and affect the more far-flung populations (powered in no small part by their partnership with Kranky Records). Anyone who's gotten lost in CC's latest, Lie In Light, knows this duo is currently at the pinnacle of their potency, and their offering here ("Harvest Hunt") is a fantastic mechanical motorik ascent into symphonic hypnosis. Comparisons to classic Teutonic psych outfits of yesteryear are warranted but inadequate: this is music of today, for tomorrow. On the flip, beloved Not Not Fun in-laws Mythical Beast return to the vinyl spotlight with two luminous soul meditations conjured during the past winter's grey maze of days. Both ballads burn with Corinne's voice-for-the-voiceless defiance, wind-draped and incensed by Jeremiah and Aaron's subtle electric string energies. Naked music for open spaces, empty skies, endless nights. High-audio 45 RPM LPs (NNF's first!) in matte-jackets with cloud-skull artwork by Blackblack beauty Diva Dompe. Edition of 415. |
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The Returner NNF121—CS It gets said a lot (and for good reason) but shit is the internet ever weird. We’ve had the good fortune to get outta the city/state/USA plenty of times but life’s short and the dollar’s weak so we haven’t trekked to most of the globe’s zones for firsthand audio-anthropology, and yet thanks to Firefox/Safari/whatever we are fairly well informed about the crucial psych emissions of Brisbane hypno-squad Blank Realm (thanks, online experience). So here we are. The Returner is BR’s most recent rusted grain silo mood piece cluster and though it might be their cleanest (fidelity-wise) crop of tracks to date, it also might be their trickiest one to pin down. Range-roving from overloaded bliss-noise collectivism to haunted barn bleak-folk death rattles, this C51 stakes out an endless outback of next-generation Musics Your Mind Will Love head-melt alternatives. Tape-labelled tapes in cases with full-color collage J-cards by Manda plus tied with black tassels. Edition of 100. |
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Loco Hills NNF114—LP A lot of beloved-by-us artists and artisans icepick out shapely creations from the marble slab of life on a steady schedule, but even within this rarefied realm it’s a real cause for jubilee when an individual/band fucks precedent and totally redefines themselves through a real masterwork. And, in our book (check it out, it’s a good read), Loco Hills is one such touchstone. Distilling down every fried fuzz-groove, tape-loop ghost cloud, and mass-mind motorik psychosis Shepherds have ever let loose into four perfectly sculpted jam-journeys, the language of Loco is a rolling, roiling ride through twisted wordless tongues and hieroglyphic electricity, at once more focused and far-out than anything else in their canon. Mentioning that members moonlight in projects like Meneguar, Non-Horse, and Vanishing Voice is meaningless, this is the Rear House posse’s shining achievement to date and it stands alone. Black vinyl LPs in matte jackets with the same ‘gnashing viper’ artwork of the Release the Bats CD edition. First 115-ish direct mailorder copies come with a bonus CDR of unreleased live recordings. Edition of 500. |
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The Phynx NNF112—CDR Long Beach psychonauts Magic Lantern get ranted about a lot by us for their mystic ability to overwhelm and transport, and don’t expect that to stop soon. But in the meantime we’ve had the good fortune to learn about ML guitarist Cameron Stallones’ solo universe as Sun Araw and, no surprise, the silver apple don’t fall too far from the tree (so to speak). Spanning Spacemen 3 garage cosmos, Starving Weirdos coastal séance, and a healthy stratosphere of pan-dimensional astral feedbackers, The Phynx is a fantastic four-track suite that floats freely from form to formlessness in the blink of a third eye. A great journey into white light dirge and dead distortion blues, and as killer a debut full-length as a label/listener/fan/head could hope for. Fingers are crossed that more Sun Araw sunbeams shine down our ears again before ’08 is out. Stenciled CDRs in full-color mysterio-portrait foldover artwork by Stallones, and sanctified with a triad of kaleidoscope stickers. Edition of 155. |
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Bummer Daze NNF111—CS Florida jam gang NASA have been launching around the International Noise Conference scene/periphery (plus other places) for a little while now, and every so often a rare snapshot cassette of their warped riff firepower finds its way into our Cali-fried hands and we always cherish the moment. Prime drum/strings shred of the best and most unclassifiable sort. Groovy, deranged, burned-out moonrock shrapnel that glows as it hits the ozone layer. High on the highway. Bad trip color haze J-cards with dumb smiley stickers and full-color tape labels. Edition of 100. |
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Mystic Induction NNF110—LP In today’s NEW new age one of the roughest audio landscapes to rehydrate and re-vivify seems to be ye olde ‘rock/roll.’ Too much schooled skill turns it to wanky puke, too much braindead string-mangling ends shit up in a puddle of noise drool. That hallowed middle ground is tough to hammer a stake into. But Portland posse Eternal Tapestry chase worms in that kinda moist soil all day and foggy night, and the two sides of glowing garden shroom-harvest they present on Mystic Induction makes a strong case for their status as psych-rock resurrectionists of the first degree. The LP opener, “Emerald Forest of Peace,” weaves a languid path through ET’s bright life as a short-lived five-piece (they’re down to a trio again now), with mossy bass and blissed drums kissing the slow-motion wah fireworks exploding above in the rain-drenched air. It’s a slow glide that continually threatens to ignite before eventually slipping into electric silence. And on the B jam (“Transcendence”), they make good on the threat of the A, riding a vertical riff into a howling storm of light and Jed Bindeman drum frenzy that leaves the rest of their recorded discography in the dust. Also marks the best use of wordless vocals ever captured on an ET track during the band’s brief window with diva Janina Angel Bath on the mic. Planet rock is no longer a cold dead place. Black vinyl LPs in fabric-collage jackets with artwork by guitarist Dewey Mahood. Edition of 450. |
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Harakiri NNF108—CS Much has been made of Mr. Siratori’s unchecked outpouring of textured black silt, but the fact remains that quantity and quality don’t necessarily rage hand-in-hand. Whether an artist paints a painting a day or a decade matters nothing if the results RULE. And Harakiri is a formidable and dense subterranean canal/C50 of wrecked electric waste and toxic sludge flowing ceaselessly into a bottomless pit. A good hypnotic void to pour in yr ears for the better chunk of an hour, semi-reminiscent of Black Monk’s drumless jams. Word is Kenji labors a lot on his alternate career as a cyberpunk novelist, and that makes plenty of sense in light of this audio apocalypto. Black tapes in cases with tactile art paper J-cards and cases stuck with hand-cut black shape runes. Hand-numbered edition of 64. |
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The Thaw NNF106—CS Tracing the veins of a band’s constituent parts can uncover strange and enlightening currents of influence, history, mystery, etc. And LBC riff kings Magic Lantern have as ripe and rich a creative periphery as any other crew in the NNF matrix: guitarist Cameron spellbinds as Sun Araw, other guitarist William does the luminous Eureka, drummer Chip stars in Christian musicals (!!), and together William and vocalist/keyboarder Phil soundtrack acid vistas as Super Minerals. What’s perhaps even more unknown to most is that SM actually predates Magic Lantern by a solid few years, and have been gently unfurling fried and frayed zoner atmospheres in micro-edition CDRs since at least 2005. Due to humility or mellow marketing, however, virtually zero of these have slipped into the greater global earhole. So when Phil one day graced us with the Minerals’ entire collected works, we realized the time was now to right this wrong, and began compiling The Thaw, a gargantuan C120 selection of their most truly tripped and narcotic audio mirages, and we couldn’t be more thrilled with it. Murky sunlight string-jangle, jungle Om heatwaves, distant insect whirr, phantom flute whispers, deep drugged rainforests of vibrant harmonic hallucination – this land is yr land. Immense and imaginary. Pro-manufactured high-bias chrome tapes (with shell-imprinting) in faintly silkscreened oversized cases with double-sided full-color ‘solar ooze devouring owl’ artwork by the band. Edition of 100. |
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Beach Cop NNF105—CS ”Where are you going, what are you doing, you’re doing a bad job, you’re doing a bad job.” Lyrics like these – and song titles like “Look at Me” and “Don’t Look at Me” – are what elevate Pukers’ meta-thrash into an even wilder arena of high art internal debate. Beach cops aren’t the only law enforcers brought to task on this savage C32; bike cops and park cops get equally brutalized. Since semi-temporarily relocating to Culver City/LA, Pukers have ditched the dead dog worship for a more conceptual crowd-surf across the polluted waters of stream-of-songciousness. The results are sick and blazing. Especially seeing as how the A-side finds Britt sitting in on electric axe for a session while the B stars Manda’s intuitive six-string synergies. This is some supergroup shit. Cardstock fold-out J-card in a case stuck with weirdo foam shapes. Edition of 100. |
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Bridge to the Clouds NNF104—CDR A couple months ago this subtle San Fran three-piece rolled into the local CURIO for a low-key night and fucked everybody up. No one saw it coming. Their Digitalis debut was great – a warm wooden walkabout of six-string finger-dancing and acoustic themes – but it seemed a bit squarely/safely in post-Chasny territory, so no one freaked. Well apparently they’ve since relocated to a darker oaken throne, cause the LA show was a Sabbathy campfire of pentagram bass grooves, eloquent electric desolation, and stripped war drums. Music for dying in the desert to. Bridge to the Clouds was the tour CDR they were slinging on the trek, and though it’s not as purely psychedelic and forsaken as their live incarnation, it does serve as a powerful pathway to the present…hovering above Barn Owl’s earlier earth-bound Evan Miller mode with foreshadowing flashes of future shamanic doom alchemy. An NNF full-length is in the works, and we can’t wait. Stamped CDRs in silkscreened, spray-painted, gold leaf stamped arigato paks wrapped with rainbow ribbon. Edition of 147. |
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At the Mountains of Madness NNF103—CS Plenty of cacophony comes crawling outta the NNF mailbox/inbox on a daily basis, but it’s been a spell since an hourglass of holy din has caught us captive quite the way Magic Lantern’s tape has. This LBC guru posse formed last year but only began laying down live sets in the last four months, and the evolution is radical. The A side shockwave, “At the Mountains of Madness,” rides a roiling riff through forcefields of charged tones, percussion concussion, and collective overdrive before slowly ramping up and over drug-rock repetition into raw light cone rapture. A perfect cyclone of basement storm and interstellar Hawkwind, and a real contender for CS single of ’07 in our book. The live B piece shows a looser slice of psychic youth, all amplifier wash and blissed waves of Bardo comedown…like a teenage Taj Mahal Travellers bootleg. Illuminating. Keep yr eyes peeled for more ML signal flares on NNF in the future. Stenciled tape-labeled tapes with full-color fire-dancer J-cards in gold-flecked cases embellished with jewels. Edition of 100. |
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NNF102—CS Huff on, heavyweights. The late summer smog seeps like slime into the sockets and circuits and strings and sweatsongs burning out from the east LA scorched earth, and Heavy Sets is a blurry Polaroid of the steam rising (and forming a skull). Documenting a pair of punishing mid-August live Echo Park meltdowns, the wrecked sets on this bible-black CS showcase the more nocturnal, wasted wing of the Rock/Eagle macrocosm, when the heat turns to fumes and the fumes turn to black light. Pass out but don’t pass away. Robedoor climb into a cauldron of seer’s soup and drums, the Pocahaunted fatales war-whoop with buried beats in the wind, and Sasqrotch wrestle a riff over a cliff of boiling mud. Street fights with sweet plights. 48 minutes of breathless brawl-space. Tape-labeled tapes in paint-streaked/glitter-encrusted cases, with a hand-cut piece of voodoo cloth. Edition of 100. |
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Into Great Peace NNF101—CS Ex-Texan Roy Tatum has been holing up in un-air conditioned apartments mumbling out his bleak loner blues drift for the past couple years, but his most recent-ish outpourings have found him plumbing even foggier inner vistas (see Five Thousand Nights, On The Other Side Of You, etc), and Into Great Peace may be the ultimate Changeling surrendering to date. A pair of blurry, beautiful guitar meditations that tread water in the sky, rippling with murmurs and weird waves, cycling through a lost, narcoleptic wash of reverb atmospherics and mirage vibrations. A slow-motion migration from new age depths to ancient heights. Let go. Pro-manufactured aqua cassettes with seaweed-green shell art in a Tatum-designed J-card. Hand-numbered edition of 200. |
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Pocahaunted NNF099—LP Been beautifully blissed on this pairing for months now and we’re amped it’s finally public unveiling time. Christina Carter has trekked around this country (and planet) countless times in the past decade plus, both by herself and with Tom Carter in Charalambides, and the constant gypsy-drifting has weathered her song-stories down into spare, spiral reflections on life, death, and afterlife. Here she lays down four perfect vignettes of acoustic guitar pattern, softly sung desperation, and dangerous intimacy. A beatific bring-down. Sisters-with-voices Pocahaunted handle the B side wax, and their two tracks span the psych-ward spectrum from doomy warpath exile (“Sweat Lodge”) to octave-climbing estrogen ecstasy cloud-tripping (“Silk Fog Traveler”). Both were recorded by Bobb Bruno at Eagle Rock HQ across summer ’07 and cling like cotton to the memory banks. Marbled-peach vinyl LPs in matte jackets with hooded/devoted artwork by Carrie Dietz. Edition of 500. |
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Earth Lodge NNF097—2 x CS Winter may be dead and gone (for now) but the haven of hibernation still calls out across the plains. And no landscape is more laid low by malevolent elements and psychic ice than the level-plane tundra of Oklahoma, which is where buffalo robed drone duo Ajilvsga (Brad Rose, Nathan Young) hole up/hibernate and eye the harvest moon. Earth Lodge is the soundtrack to a season spent in dirt shelters, hands in cold clay, amps bleeding out brown-green groans of bone OM and predatorial rapid eye movement. Riffs burrow through frozen soil, skull necklace percussion rattles under piles of pelts, inner spaces open up and unfold into invisible fields of blood and color and celestial imagining. Withdrawn and drawn out. Grey-sky tapes with printed labels in oversized cases with full-color double-sided antler mausoleum collage artwork by Manda. Edition of 100. |
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Emerald Snake on Ruby Velvet NNF096—3" CDR Here’s the deal: despite all hoopla/wrath/rapture focusing on Pocahaunted’s feather headdress mythos, their true vocal and musical reality draws equally from such non-native locales as the Staples Center (hi-tops) and Nature Mart (gluten-free raw-volutions). And this is key/crucial to keep in mind when meditating on the street beats and dub futurism of Emerald Snake on Ruby Velvet, the Eagle Rockers most recent reverb guitar mantra. A late summer set staple and a water-testing foray into the echo chamber percussion of Pocahaunted’s impending world/trance/dub-inspired LP on Arbor, Emerald Snake... coils in concentric circles of voice-wave wash-out and upsetter drone stutter, buoyed by Bobb Bruno’s drum pad path-finding. A new step away from the Trail of Fears of reinvention. Mystic-eye-stamped discs in cases with hand-cut covers embroidered with swatches of dyed snakeskin, in a hand-numbered edition of 99. |
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Ritual Heirs NNF094—CDR Out of the past and into the white. A three song cellblock originally slated for JYRK but Detainment Yellow Swans’ endless global touring enterprises and various other peripheral obstacles/injuries stranded it in limbo until now. And the omnivorous Now is all that matters. Recorded at the close of the Shining Smoke sessions, and edited/tweaked slightly by Pete Swanson in PDX, Ritual Heirs drifts from centrifugal spiral light patterns into a rarefied air of slowly choking atmosphere, ascending gravitational violence, the world’s weight dissolving into the marrow like a brick of hash lodged in the throat. No drums, no mass cult life to shoulder blame or sorrow. Only unclean clocks ticking above bodies, goatskin strings bowed by blind men, corridors of cold distortion. Inherit the end times. Metallic-stamped CDRs in white-on-white silkscreened sleeves with triforce die-cut ghost-painted/silver sequined plastic cases. Limited 165. |
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Black Zurnai NNF093—CS In Pink Luminous Invocation, Magnus Olsen Majmon works the fog machine, emitting sensory deprivation clouds of holistic brain smoke. But in his solo universe as Elektronavn, his duties run darker and deeper. Black Zurnai showcases a recent pair of summer collage-composition offerings from his Danish pedal factory, and they both traverse strange terrains of chain-shaking hymnals, enchanted echo attic exploring, and timeless vocal phantasmagoria. Personal, parallel odysseys into devotion and repetition. A forthcoming Qbico LP will only heighten the post-hypnotic haze. In hand-sewn cloth cases entwined with purple mesh and gold beads. Limited to 99. |
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Flowstone NNF091/ARBOR020—LP Flowstoned and dethroned, finally. Last year’s bored/burning summer spell of Eagle Rock entropy birthed a numb drum ‘n drones duo dubbed Black Monk. The aesthetic of inept, free-punk drumming and red-eyed, void-surfing low-end infinity found output on two micro-limited cassette releases (one on Buried Valley, one on Zac/Lambsbread’s Maim & Disfigure) and one weedian live show (in Tempe, AZ) and then the scholars split to separate coasts. Fortunately for us/you, Flowstone comes crawling outta the caverns of a babeless summer on a slab of black wax, collecting their out-of-print Murmur CS and half the V CS, plus an unreleased side-long wastoid-land of subterranean percussion and roaring magma. Just in time for 2012. Black vinyl LPs in stark pro-printed fold-over covers plus a poster of arcane team scribble by BM. Limited to 270. Co-released with Arbor. |
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Pig Cooks Pig NNF090—CS This California beard-commune have been jamming at a furious pace since forming back in who knows when. Featuring a rotating cast of VxPxC-ers, Antique Brothers, and other East LA psychedelicates, Thousands are limitless in their instrumentation, enthusiasm, and willingness to trek into the deepest deserts (both literally AND metaphorically) to excavate/achieve the perfect chemistry of tattered clatter and tripped vibes. On Pig Cooks Pig they turn in two side-long monsters of conceptual cop contempt, loose Mansonian lore, and fried pork psychosis. Greasy slabs of wasted guitar and synth smoke twirl on sticks above a pit of simmering campfire flames, loping drums creepy-crawl over murmuring voices and pitch-black hippie grooves. Bold, boundless, and broasted. Purple tapes in silkscreened art-flaps with printed labels. Hand-numbered edition of 72. |
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Logic On Its Head NNF089/WOODSIST010—10" Portugal’s greatest export (besides cork and textiles) continues its dusky, creeping bleed of six-limbed psychedelic windmilling. Loosers have always excelled at ripping strange spatial curvatures out of drums, electronics, and exotic moods, and Logic On Its Head serves up two more classic black platters of sidelight ritualism. The A drapes incense and chimes atop an old copper bowl of ringing tones and tentacle percussion fusion that slow-burns a sweet smoke you never wanna exhale. Don’t. The B, “Daeh Sti No Cigol,” is even more perverse, as backwards as its title and dusty as a mosque. Sudden gestures flutter in the dusk and the sky turns purple. Really commanding and liberated in a way few improv outfits achieve so easily. Impending double LPs on Eclipse and Qbico should only escalate their visionary aura. Two-color silkscreening on fabric-photocopied, hand-stamped sleeves. Black vinyl. Edition of 340. Co-released with the crew at Woodsist. |
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California Night Burning Dreams NNF088—LP + 3" CDR These world wide web weavers work in waves, assembling for key shows and small tours, then dissipating into their respective networks of parallel projects/bands (Magik Markers, Moongang, Hototogisu, etc). Their time together, however, burns bright. Last summer the GHQ triumvirate of Nolan/Gunn/Bassett united for a leg of west coast wandering and all who bore witness left converted. Fortunately for those not there, the minidisc was ON at these gatherings and the California portion of the proceedings have been pored over and wreathed into this luminous masterpiece of Golden State mind-reading ragas. The sets showcased (Sacramento, Eureka) shine like electric dew on a dawn Sequoia and sprawl through sitar starscapes, acoustic fingerpicking, cosmic harmonica, and forest floor hand-drums. A raw document of real time dream machine vision-questing. Slate sky-blue vinyl LPs in full-color jackets (with California-collage art by Manda) adorned with a GHQ “winged skull” logo sticker, plus a bonus 3” CDR of their Seattle performance. Limited to 500. |
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Taiga Remains NNF087—LP Sky of blue and sea of green, in our yellow methedrine. Unnatural energies harnessed into a new universe of planetary tumult and astral injection courtesy of bi-coastal frequent flyers Heavy Winged and sultan of Cincinnati solitude, Taiga Remains. Pure planar schizophrenia carved into perfect circles of fool’s glass. The Winged’s war, “Witches Cradle,” immolates a levitating altar of prehistoric granite into an ashen mass that blocks out the light from a hundred suns. As raw and frenzied and hypnotically devastating as any single piece of hyperkinetic sludge the power trio has released to date. The flip is the same radiant annihilation only spread across 66 million millennia….all motion and violence stretched into historical cirrus clouds trembling with gravitational tension. Infinity’s burden burning off in wisps of audio mirage and glacial stasis. Go nowhere fast. Originally released as a micro-edition CDR on the Australian MYMWLY label, this LP re-issue was pressed from a fresh edit of the HW material and comes with an entirely unreleased bonus TR track as well. Coke-bottle clear 12 inches in art-cage silkscreened picture disc sleeves bedecked with painstaking full-color mystico-textile sticker compositions. Edition of 300. |
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Vibrations New Dawn NNF086—CS Nothing ever ends. Eternal Tapestry’s fibers fray like worms up from the Oregon dirt, morph into cords coiled on the damp practice room floor, crawl the walls, and stitch themselves into the sky. The fabric is infinite, in/of everything. Comprised of the brothers Bindeman (Nick of Jackie-O Motherfucker, Jed of Heavy Winged) and bassist Dewey Mahood Wah, ET spike into a particularly pure vein of raw soul haze hidden in the forearm of today’s psyched/fucked underground. Vibrations New Dawn unfurls from fractured, feedback crystal-divining into slow-burn gravitational mass into astral kraut-rock motion/destruction. This is the new age of the newest new age. Black tapes in cases with hand-numbered, patterned textile J-cards adorned with hand-cut diamond-ranges of vision-colored cloth. Limited to 100. |
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Riven NNF085—LP Denmark's deepest dope-dreamers dig up another pair of prism-splitting slabs of decaying radioactivity. Riven is the FU crew at their most crouched and concentrated, couched in fever, fog, futurism, and fucked densities, channels of brain-wave light fusion overloading with synergistic zero hour tectonics. Uncanny ex-men (and woman) aktivity. More metallic than Axial and far hungrier than Future Bread, Riven resonates like a dead bell in a buried valley, ringing, subterranean, wasted, industrial. Man-made clangs echo in mechanized caverns. Hologram hands sweat black light in the center of the earth. Implosion fantasies bloom. Black LPs (mastered by Pete Swanson of Yellow Swans) in fractal cave art jackets by Svend Balslev plus a band-made insert. First 75 direct mail orderers also receive a limited FU pin. Limited to 450. |
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Hungry Ghosts! These Songs Are Doors NNF084—LP For most of us, the doors of perception are triple-bolted shut and cast in bomb-proof iron. Only supernatural shapeshifters (or career criminals) can slip through and seize the wisdom within. But, sweetly, there is a hidden entrance: musick-as-magick. Providence, RI patch-cable conjuror Mudboy is one such secret key-crafter and his unlocking labors on this long-player stand at the summit of his already awesome discography. Alchemizing stylized soundtrack spells, organ wizardry, melodic mind-reading, and elegantly meditative harmonium hallucinations, Hungry Ghosts! These Songs Are Doors lights an urn’s worth of ritual powders and powers, filling the speakers with a sign language of smoke runes and ghost tones. Lie on the floor and be floored by Mudboy’s primordial plainsongs. Record comes housed in a dizzyingly intricate laser die-cut fold-over cover with an acutely aligned flame-silkscreened inner sleeve. Painstaking and perfect. Half on blood-red wax, half on black. Limited to 500. |
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Eyes of the World NNF083—CS Named (maybe?) after some not-too-noteworthy Grateful Dead hoedown (off the Wake of the Flood LP, FYI), Eyes of the World here means the banner-in-the-sky under which Brooklyn’s tenders of the wandering psych flock, Shepherds, communed with Raccoo-oo-oon’s singer/shredder Shawn Reed for a C50-something of carefully cultivated rhythmic primitivism and early man ghost-chanting. Non-Horse-play tape loops spool in the shadows while J Earl percussion flashes light on cave art corridors of SK1 wave-walking and Christian’s stringed psycho-babble. Hold hands in the flames of the fire till your eyes are radiant with Right Now. Live and learn: regression is progression. Pro-manufactured-and-mastered orange tapes with full-color double-sided fold-out J-cards group-designed/drawn/written by Jeremy Earl, Shawn Reed, and Gabriel Lucas Crane. Edition of 200. |
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Feeders of Ravens NNF082—LP Prepare for sudden death. San Francisco brutalizers Ettrick finally deliver the full-length destruction they've been threatening for so long now. Feeders of Ravens is definitely the most potent collection of harsh jazz violence the duo's ever laid to tape, showcasing all their classic kill-moves: slaughtering saxophone dialogues, jittery percussive fits, raging horn/drum self-annihilation, etc. What escalates their improv attacks above just blind frenzy is the warped telepathy Jacob Heule and Jay Korber exhibit in their playing, wordlessly intuiting one another's energy upswings and downturns. And nowhere is this psychic connection more apparent (and demonic) than on "Raven Harvest,” the LP's final onslaught. Searing sax blasts burn through the ear drum, giving way to splatter paint percussion flailings and scraping metal, which then slowly take shape, coagulating into a dense, aggressive avalanche of pummeling, white-hot drum rapture. Life into death into life. Black LPs in pro-printed jackets with majestically sinuous, Haida-style cover art (and memento mori raven back art). Limited to 350. |
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Behold Secret Kingdom NNF081/NP015—LP You know what they say: beautiful tribal spirit psych lies in the eyes of the beholder. So enter the kingdom and hold the secret in your hands. Iowa City’s prodigal sun-starers offer up the fruits of their deepest inquest yet into the heart of the heart of the country. Eight wilderness rituals of swirling percussion, mossy guitar noise, forest howls, and animal instincts that unfold and erupt with more focus, intensity, and complexity than anything else in Raccoo-oo-oon’s discography thus far. The songs were tracked in the studio with warmth and power by Mike Dixon and then given a heavy mastering job by Pete Swanson, so sonically the vinyl shines and burns and explodes in all the right places. A crushing statement of electric alchemy by one of our favorite bands in the world. Black vinyl LPs in awesome pro-printed jackets, plus an insert, with Midwestern magick color visions/nature photography art by the band. Co-released with Night People. |
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Pink Fog NNF079—CDR Psychic smog. Memory-loss drugs. Tapestries of delay pedals. All great avenues to feeling fucked up and blissed/lost. Here’s another. Danish combo Pink Luminous Invocation serve up a half-hour bowl of sonic syrup, laced with wind chimes, methedrone, and déjà vu. Buried voices bleed like clouds, bouts of phasing stasis lapse into electric déjà vu. Like a more burned-out Pelt, or a sleeping Ghosting. Meditative and sedated. Silkscreened CDRs in black plastic cases with silk-screened, hand-stamped wraparound covers studded with jewels, plus a full-color insert. Hand-numbered edition of 71. |
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Water-Born NNF078—3" CDR Lie down in darkness, awake in white water. Eagle Rock’s most amp-laden spirit-talkers block out the sky with this deep, inner piece of elemental communion. Lulling, long-hair guitar strums flow into sweeping sea-breeze feedback while tidal dream-noise ebbs/flows over your blistered feet. Slowly siren voices wing down from grey mists and call you to wade into the warm waves, let go, be washed away…gradually the chanting submerges, dissolves, surrendering to the blood’s undertow, the ocean’s blue womb. A spectral, moving rite of psych passage. Spray-misted, hand-numbered 3” CDRs in full-color wraparound portrait-collage covers in plastic bags adorned with heavy woven strips of native textiles. Limited to 100. |
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Abasement Tapes NNF077—CDR Confusion is hex. Or worse. Digging around in the BBC vaults yields a lot of dubbed-over Aerosmith tapes and scrawled notes like “chaos jam – LOUD.” Factor in the steady membership flux and restless vibe/sound shifts and you’ve got an archivist’s nightmare on your hands. But here it is anyway. Abasement Tapes spans the band’s last 15 foggy months, culling fucked cuts from early Grace-phase, dual-drummer, post-political, microphone assault all the way to relatively recent Roy-era, stoned-free, art-rant amp-songs. Five tracks, fifty minutes, a thousand years of historical/celebrity shit-talking. Neon stenciled CDRs in black plastic cases with full-color wrap-around collage covers (artwork by Manda), affixed with weird beaded safety pins, plus a stenciled, hand-numbered insert. Limited to 120. |
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Pocahaunted Gone to Grey b/w Swayed Tongue NNF076—12" If the body is a temple, then the human voice is the endless Om pulsing within the architecture. And if the body is a corpse, then it's the post-life ghost mist hissing in the wind. Either way, it's a heavy force, and this split LP spotlights two of today's greatest vocal ritualists at the peak of their process. Drone gypsies Mythical Beast have spent the last few years like nomads, drifting from N'awlins to Austin to Kansas City, and their piece here ("Gone to Grey") throbs with a weary hypnosis, too many nights spent staring into foreign freeways...alien landscapes passing in the dark. These are blues for the rootless, homeless feedback curling up by the side of the road, by the side of a grave. Hitchhiking into the void. Pocahaunted, too, beckon the dead, turning in a crushing, low-lidded amplifier chant of clanging guitar and primitive distortion. "Swayed Tongue" treads even deeper into the forests of noise they explored on Native Seduction, bathing their tribe-song prayer shawls in rivers of electricity and twilight static. Totem soul totality. Opaque violet LPs in pro-printed jackets with unbelievable colored pencil tomb rumination artwork by NNF's favorite color dreamer, Devon Varmega, plus an eagle feather. Direct mail-orderers also receive a bonus MB/PHAUNT split C22 with exclusive material by each band (available while supplies last). Limited to 380. |
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Fifth Sun Visions NNF068—CS Watching Steve Gunn’s fingers fly as he shred-drones an acoustic guitar is probably the chief joy of witnessing a GHQ set (at least, it was for us when they cruised through LA this past summer). But when he’s not on the road with Magik Markers or GHQ or Nolan-knows-who-else, he builds buzzing structures of six-string acid navigations under the guise of Moongang. Past dispatches (mainly self-released) have ranged from tranquilizer ragas to swarming arkestral maneuvers to blissed emptiness, but Fifth Sun Visions offers up yet another orbit in Gunn’s psych solar system. Urban field recordings slowly dissolve into stumbling folk trance while static clouds of menace hover in the sky…later thick riffs emerge, bathed in black light, shot through with gross growling and crawling undertones of templar apocalyptica. An awesome oracle of ruin from one of NNF’s favorite psych shapeshifters. Purple tapes with painted skull labels in bags with full-color shadow-shrine collage covers, plus a black spider. Hand-numbered and limited to 100. |
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NNF067—7" Here it is. Crouched cloud-summoning from two of the west coast’s most coma-coaxing cloak teams. Both have been questing/crawling after the holy drug-drone grail for years now, but this vinyl union is an even deeper step into their respective fog/smog voids. Ghosting’s A-side, “Rivermouth,” might be the most awesomely charged piece of weather-stricken wire-séance the Portland duo’s ever recorded. Roiling banks of suspended densities and white-hot metals are shot through with flickering loops of lightning, lances of light beams. Stunning spiral sky-welding. The B-side (“Roving Shaman”) is more of a white-eyed trance, with Robedoor throwing bones under a thatched roof, eyes sewn shut. Smoke-tones spin and wobble while sixth sense frequencies chime in the distance. A no-mind ritual of atmospheric fear. White vinyl 7 inches with hand-stamped labels in 2-color silkscreened fold-over cardstock sleeves. Limited to 325. |
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Sudden Arrhythmic Death Volume 2 NNF066—3" CDR Imagine an immediate/permanent global blackout. Tons would change about daily life (duh): no TV, computers, light bulbs, AMPS. Severed from the electric mainline, a lot of bands would break up – or suck. But not Ettrick. The San Franciscan saxophone/drums duo need nothing but their own breath/blood and your bored ears to wreak consummate audial carnage. This 3 inch is brutal proof. Documenting a desperate session of their free jazz war at the last stop on their October US tour, Sudden Arrhythmic Death Vol. 2 morphs from skittering, sticks-on-steel heartbeat clatter to harrowing/hemorrhaging sax chaos incantations before finally mounting to a black death apocalypse of possessed percussion immolation. Far, far, FAR beyond driven. Brace yrself for the forthcoming LP (out spring '07 on NNF). Stenciled CDRs in Mayan-tile encrusted mini-jewel cases with color-printed wraparound covers (plus a quote from the Popul Vuh). Hand-numbered, and limited to 100. |
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We Grow NNF065—LP Today is the greatest. Cause time has come for total take off. Brooklyn/PDX instrumental interstellar overdrivers Heavy Winged deliver the most gravity-crushing pair of fight-flight journeys in their entire cumulative psych revolution thus far. And it is glorious. We Grow is the apex realization of every tectonic assault, wind tunnel vortex, and outer space meltdown HW have ever unleashed across the past 15 months worth of stunning CDRs, splits, and comp appearances. The A side, “A Stretch of Time,” slow-burns an ascent into explosive galactic violence, guitars, bass, and drums detonating into endless feedback fireworks. Then “Shifting Clouds” closes the album, marching a drifting riff of haze and mass into a majestic no man’s land of darkening space. A masterpiece record, and packaged accordingly. Blackened-blue vinyl LPs with collage center labels housed in full-color pro-printed jackets, in sleeves adorned with rad oval vinyl stickers, plus a hand-numbered insert. Limited t0 450. |
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The Defeatist NNF063—CDR For a while it looked like OC loners Horse Head were gonna follow the path out to pasture and never look back. Their Birds and Bees tape (Arbor) was pure nature, a feathery field recording of grassy, buzzing bliss, and even the singer/songwriter folk diaries of Make It Something Else (also Arbor) were pretty unplugged and barefoot-vibed. However: NEVERMIND, cause The Defeatist fucks this theory/trajectory to hell. Gone is the wind-in-yr-hair acoustic delay, the whispery poet croons. In its place? Total teenage guitar trash, exploratory garage chaos, psychedelic puberty. Percussion like metal shelves full of wrenches being kicked on to concrete. Pissed kids scream-talking at dry walls. Uncomfortable and ugly. Maybe this is a concept album? Hand-stamped CDRs in blurry woven fiber paper, with one-of-a-kind collaged wooden horses, and a hand-numbered insert. Limited to 64. |
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Unsummoning NNF062—CDR Too much voodoo, too little light, the cords coil into an elliptical infinity helix, the prayer rug bleeds. Darkening signs o’ the times. LA’s blindest seers peer once again into the voice/void for this pentagrammic document of dim delay worship and retching distortion ritual. Five fully forsaken tracks of synth séance, cello reckoning, and unholy howl. Anti-invocations for four-dimensional forces. Painted CDRs in witch-stitched, silk-screened cases with full-color wrap-around covers, plus a hand-numbered, silk-screened cardstock insert. Comes with a crust punk patch too. Limited to 100. |
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Moccasinging NNF061—CS Not Not Fun's newest ancestral spirit team is Pocahaunted, and this sunset-kissed C38 is their first foray outside the inner psychic teepee/sanctum of private dreamsong. So dance round the fire, the war for the plains is ON (yr tape deck). A spectral feather headdress of bone cloud chanting, turquoise noise, ocarina whispers, and trail-of-tears tom-tom tribalism, Moccasinging weaves together a ragged patchwork equal parts mother/earth lamentation, battle prayer, and primitive creation myth. Four tomahawk hymns of buffalo skull sisterhood. Hand-painted tapes in tie-dyed canvas pouches adorned with golden beads and eagle feathers, plus an insert. Limited to 100. Member of Quintana Roo. |
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NNF060—CS Hello/goodbye. Entrance tones and farewell dissolves. Two of NNF’s pinnacle favorite cell-melting haze-raisers bow heads across a bliss-blind C50. Watersports are the heroically rad Russ and Lea, who head up NYC’s chief trickle-down esoterica fountain/label, White Tapes. The duo’s flow session here, “Mother’s Touch,” rides a smoke-wave of four-dimensional heartbeat pulses and spirit-organ drift-shift into pure hypno-unbecoming. Like being absorbed into a holy amoeba. Obviously: beautiful. Changeling’s B-side, “Great Tranquility,” buries yr ears in even more dream-fog, with voices flayed across infinite green/grey webs of lattice glowing clouds. New age prism-swimming through skies of delay. Color-misted tapes in hand-numbered olive vellum J-cards, with hand-colored off-set heaven-cell stickers on the cover. Artwork by Roy Tatum of Changeling. |
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Runes Translucent NNF059—CS Looking down, looking in, under the sand, under the skin. A tape/trip for star/shoe/dirt-gazing, soundtracks for shapeshifting glow-zones deep in the distance. QR cast “Black Dreaming Place,” a 25-minute soul séance of sparse ghost dust and moonlit rattlesnakes. Recorded in the middle of the Anza Borrego desert with the rumbling help of Josh Taylor’s legendary generator. Warmth is Steev (aka the late Roxanne Jean Polise) and Branden (of Quilts, etc) and their tone blanket B side, “Sharing Antique Mothers,” crawls on slow and soft like a morphine drip. A drugged electronic massage from amplified hands with wire fingers. Painted-label tapes in white vinyl cases with dual-layer dream-vellum covers, plus an origami insert with a piece of found film salvaged from a trashed Brussels fleamarket. Artwork by Roy Tatum of Changeling/Quintana Roo. Limited to 100. |
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Bumba Meu Boi NNF058—CS The great unraveling continues. We first heard Loosers’ fried/frayed spool of sound-sprawl last year, via the Ruby Red/Jelle Crama-splattered LP/CDR offering. Immediate Portuguese fever set in. They, however, are a busy crew, dropping albums for Qbico and Our Mouth, touring Europe with Mouthus, generally ruling, etc. So NNF release plans moved slow. Fast forward to today: the CS is HERE, the time is NOW. Named for a semi-metaphorical 18th century Brazilian tale/dance concerning the FUCKED hierarchical relations between slaves and lords at the time, Bumba Meu Boi boils/roils with post-rational uprise, alchemical percussion ritual, and pulse-of-the-people electronic sub-consciousness. Two beautiful sides of fluidly splayed labor-as-magick post-Sunburned collectivist psych action. REAL tapes (a first for NNF) in hand-color-dyed, hand-numbered cardstock J-cards with cult cave-art covers. Limited to 200. |
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Astral Arch NNF057—1-sided 7" Attention sky-walkers: the eagle has landed. After an honest fistful of serenity-smoke cassette releases, Changeling finally alights his wings-of-gauze/claws-of-fog on this one-sided black vinyl seven inch. “Astral Arch” is a tranquil electric halo of hushed guitar sunrays flickering on lapping waves of cloud voice peace. A song for closed eyes, no memory, and impossible drift. Hand-numbered, hand-screened olive-branch cardstock jackets with unreal shape-shift cover art by Changeling himself. Plus the B-sides are stenciled with cryptic metallic runes. Limited to 176. |
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Live in Tempe, AZ NNF055—CDR This country’s way too big (cant we sell off a few states already??) but every blue moon or so faraway friends fuck distances, drive a billion miles, and UNITE. June 28th, 2006 was one such mesh/bond party of peace-pipe passing, extended high fives, and amplifier team spirit between Tent City, Quintana Roo, Black Monk, and Haunted Castle. Heavy ruling ensued. John Ryan & Co.’s sprawling Arizona backyard – and mercifully dim living room – played host to the geographical delirium of Michigan feedback, California smoke spirits, and hometown desert circle circuitry. Things ended in a 100-plus degrees 5 AM haze, but fortunately the mic was ON. Hear it all. Hieroglyphic-stamped CDRs in full-color hand-numbered fold-out cardstock cases bedecked with sun-gold string. Hand-numered, limited to 100. |
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NNF054—CS Modern life is full of chains: of ice, iron, money, ideas. So nothing suits the dull scorch of endless summer better than violent prison break catharsis. This sunshine gold/yellow tape holds up to the sky eighty awesome minutes of liberated blood rumblings, meandering animal thrash, and shattered-shackle séances. No walls, no laws, no limit. Two editions of 100 (same music, different packaging). One comes housed in hand-sewn cloth creature-heads with basement button eyes and dripping gore fangs (pictured above), the other in oversized flexi-plastic tape cases with color collage covers plus silkscreened meditative sasquatch-mystic cover art — courtesy of Shawn Reed of Raccoo-oo-oon — and illegibly psychedelic cloud-text band roster art on the back by Roy Tatum of Quintana Roo/Changeling (pictured below). The uncaged include: Goliath Bird Eater Mammal Non-Horse Pterodactyl Barrabarracuda Raccoo-oo-oon Bonzai Kitty Horse Head Alopex Lagopus Manipulator Alligator Grace’s Amazing Kitty Cat Band Mythical Beast Hive Mind Apple Snails Polar Goldie Cats Worm Hands Tusk Mammoth Wether |
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NNF053/FIT032—CS Growth is god dudes. Gotta change, morph, MOVE, ring in new harvests and let fresh blank tapes bloom black in the sun. This shadowy C60 is a cryptic/cloaked stare-off between two recently-birthed coastal crews. Shepherds traverse the Bushwick/Brooklyn axis, watching their flock from a high crooked branch off the Fuck It Tapes tree of life/death. Old world clatter meanders against dead-dub bass echoes while thin air prayers levitate from weary throats. A spiral-eyed masterpiece of tattered tunic improv. On the flip is west coast crawl unit, Quintana Roo, who burrow through sub-cellar levels of spirit dust and cursed dirt worship. “Mythological Animals” ponders bowed drones, autoharp rust, and disembodied drumming for a haunted half hour, before drifting back to tomb hum. Painted tapes in silver-mist latticework cases, with full-color covers. Co-released with Fuck It Tapes. |
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Rigor Lore NNF052—CS Hope you like to read/research. Cause Gabriel Lucas Crane aka Non-Horse here unfurls an ancient 80 minute scroll of dense cryptic sound/texts, perfect for dream-diviners and out-of-work drone-archeologists. The Brooklyn tape-manipulator conspiracy theorist (and full-time Vanishing Voice chief) has crafted similarly mystic audio-calligraphies for other visionary label undergrounders like Release the Bats and Fuck It Tapes but Rigor Lore is his first real novel-length outpouring. The A side walks through wondrous home recorded catacombs of dead machine murk and hieroglyphic mystery, murmuring million-year-old Masonic secrets to pharaoh ghosts, while the B terrain documents a series of his live rituals, which are equally occult and symbol-ridden. Fire-red tapes with printed labels in cases with runic/riddle cover art by GLC himself, color-copied on heavy Byzantine-gold paper, plus a lengthy scripture insert. Limited to around 200. |
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NNF049—CDR Hey beetles: love IS all you need. HOWEVER, love’s radness magnifies intensely when you run it through a hot pink thrash master pedal and tons of insane delay and jack it all on a volume 10 sunn amp. Which is how we celebrated our punk noise nuptials. Twas the MOST epic/beautiful day, crowded with a million siked friends, bands, amplifiers, microphones, beers/wines, vegan buffets, high fives and headbangs. Fortunately for us/you, our dear dude Bobb Bruno paced his bourbon intake that night, allowing him to semi-soberly record the whole amorous/glamorous affair on his black metal 8-track. 60 minutes of ripping sets by loud loved ones like Mika Miko, Abe Vigoda, Rainbow Blanket/Cruel Face (i.e. Jeff & Greg Witscher), and Hello Astronaut, Goodby Television. Stamped CDR comes in a collage-photocopied party-splatter envelope stuffed with confetti barf and tied with rainbow ribbon and yarn. Limited, and made with only love. |
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NNF048—CS You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but fuck, it helps. Because global strife/stress/chaos is XTREME of late. Definitely time to retreat, circle the wagons, build shelters. And this is the tape to withdraw with. Kalamazoo, MI-based Wigwam tether together fraying clouds of electric dis-ease and rumbling spirits, sewing a storm-blanket of amp warmth, dreamcatcher distortion, and…flutes? From the brains behind the Tapeworm Tapes label. Tent City are a tribe from the Arizona deserts/suburbs (Tempe), and their B side contribution, “Comes Full Circle,” is a patchwork quilt of recent live sessions and scattered backyard communions. Way more posi-vibed but similarly native in approach, TC clatter sticks and stones and broken drones for a giddy slumber party of free-whatever and vanishing voices. Housed in stenciled sandpaper covers with runic colored-sand emblazoned cases, and twine-banded with totem beads and feathers. Limited to 100 copies. |
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Whitman Near Purity NNF046—CS Intensity is a varied creature. There’s no question ten billion decibel whiskey-chugging amp-destroyers earn the adjective (most of the time), but vaguer/quieter types burrow the psyche too, obviously. Near Purity pairs two of the So-Cal desert’s truest intensity-bearers on one singular C16. Watching Him Die is an inner vision/testament of Jeff and Greg Witscher (of Rainbow Blanket/Men Who Cant Love), recorded deep in a familial dark night of the soul. Three anguished tracks of brotherly rage, intimate themes, and Long Beach longing. Harsh noise at its most naked. Whitman’s side-long side, “The Rise and Fall of Ken Miller,” is a return to the Beaumont loner’s earliest unsane fucked-folk style. An apoplectic fit of pots, pans, loony bin voices and stringed garbage. Barn-thrash for the chicken coop crowd. Lace-stenciled tapes in color fold-out j-cards, banded with blur-paint denim strips, and sealed with pins of artwork by Greg Witscher. Limited to 100. |
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Child Pornography NNF045—LP LA is a sprawl, no doubt, but the deserts get dryest out in the sick sticks of Riverside. Ever since we first trekked out to the Pixel Palace (RIP) and had our skulls redefined, the 92501 crew have struck us as maybe the truest keepers of the So-Cal house party bombing freak-wave flame. The scene's since changed of course, but these two bands were/are the kings of old-school Inland Empire radicalism. Quem Quaeritis are no more, sadly, but the trio's jams here show beyond a shadow of a doubt why they fucking ruled. Jesus-bent weird-hop, Laker boat free-jazz, and post-political tent spiritualism mesh into a holy trinity of lunatic Americana. No genres, no rules, spring break freedom turned inside out. Child Pornography have been rocking/annoying west coasters since nearly 9/11, and their game still ain't up. Nine spazzy rants of Suicide-on-pixie-sticks Casio-babble, dumb-wave guitar shred, and helium-keyed stream of consciousness word barf. Enough outsider vibes and confusing nonsense to irritate even the stone-chillest board-short bro. In fancy printed matte jackets with face-collage scribble Erin Allen artwork, on kryptonite green vinyl. Edition of 420. |
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Inside Men NNF044—CS For reasons related to movies and rollerblades, California is usually considered an outdoors-oriented landscape. Similarly, for reasons related to Xasthur shirts and Jagermeister-on-ice, Bobb Bruno is usually considered not intimately impacted by Denzel Washington’s on-screen presence. However, on both counts, this is WRONG. Inside Men is the weird truth, a black celebration of western interiors, dark electricity, and a driven cinematic enigma. Goliath Bird Eater’s side stalks from false-calm Boris-drones to Sleep-style apocalypse crush, all snare/cymbal slaughter and Quaalude riff burial. Robedoor’s “Draining Day” trances in more of a bells-and-smoke scene, with zone-out loops and lightless tape shred transmitting the sentiment of superior interiority. Painted tapes in Denzel-emblazoned cases with a Hollywood insert, and DIY shrink-wrapped. |
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Poison Hands NNF043—2x3" CDR Seriously: fuck international borders. These Vancouver dudes sent us the sweetest demo EVER. Gnarly skronk-shred jams that morph into free shriekback post-jazz dead-zones (in a die-cut jacket no less!!). This is like that. Except even better!! And more epic!! One disc of harsh shrapnel free-punk distortion-wave action songs, and one disc with just a single sprawling twenty minute clatter-creep shakedown. Perfect brainless/Brainiac feedback attacks for summertime. Painted-and-stamped discs in an oversized printed pamphlet with sick hands art and a photo-cornered insert. |
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Pre-American Lands NNF042—LP It feels like a trillion years ago that the musical universe collectively hyperventilated over the notion of “new weird America,” and thankfully so, as the catch-phrase was/is nakedly inaccurate. In contrast, Pre-American Lands tells it like it really is: insanely OLD. These are the sounds/songs of pre-concrete civilizations, resurrected by two of our country’s most mystic gangs of dream-beard antiquity-drifters. Iowa City’s Raccoo-oo-oon commune with dirt, drums, smoke, and tongues to ignite a sky-burning convocation of psychedelic exorcism and mumbled animal prayers. On the B side, Brooklyn’s Woods wander but are not lost, with stumbling strummed strings treading through a dense brush of forest jazz clatter and mossy electric hum. Pressed on blurry cream/sun vinyl with purple runic art labels and housed in awesome skull-magik screenprinted fold-over jackets (courtesy of Shawn Reed of R-coon), and adorned with a fortune-ensuring synthetic rabbit’s foot. |
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NNF041—cassingle w/pin Totally radical art noise youth puke in the concise cassingle format. Hot Girls Cool Guys are from Sacramento, and are – contrary to the name – an all dudes squad. But the singer screams nervous breakdown falsettos like a hot girl anyway, while the rest of the under-20 bros shred 90s style feedbacky multi-parts punk. Their cut is an anthem for neo moshers. And on the B zone, Chino workhorses Abe Vigoda offer up a raw, fun-wound rager of claustrophobe rhythm-grind and weirdo/aggro vibes. Painted tape plus insert in a hand-screened canvas tote (with art-visions by Michael Vidal of AV and George W Myers of Grey Skull) bedecked with a sweet duo-bands pin. Young guns, younger guitars. |
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The Wolf Tracks Peace Paws NNF040—CS Even though most bands sing and ALL bands have songs, the "singer-songwriter" vibe still makes us barf. Hard. Which is what's so rare/special about these two United Kingdom acousticks. Both fingerpick into pensive drift zones and solitary mumble rumination, but neither steps near the shit poet pulpit of fake public heartbreak. The End Springs spins six-string patterns like spider webs, all quiet bossa-nova wanderings and neo-Fahey dusty landscapes, spruced with poignant sunrise/sunset delay and subtle sampled naturalism. Total tranquility base. The Wolf Tracks hunts a more feral, wall-of-the-wild vein. Clawed guitar leads and chord organ drones collide with forest-wind flutes and hairy wolfpack percussion clatter while vague voices mutter in the dirt. Campfire songs for after the fire goes out. Hand-stenciled and twine-tied with a talisman of palm tree-shrapnel. Limited to 100. |
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Feel the Crayon NNF039—LP This is a moment of heavy honor dudes. Magick Markers scrawled a permanent place in NNF’s heart the first time we jammed their deranged-shaman society-ripper “White Bikini” at max volume. Instantly became a total dream to carve that magik on sike-adelic vinyl. This IS that dream. Originally released as a limited-run 7-song CDR by the awesome east coasters, Apostasy Recordings, the wax edition of Feel the Crayon shaves 2 of the emptier tracks (for length/sound quality purposes), creating a harsher, denser document of their ecstatic feedback questing. Pressed on purple-haze vinyl, in color-washed hand-screened jackets with lunatic utopia artwork by George W. Myers of Grey Skull. Also comes with a hand-numbered 16-panel art-zine of additional GWM creature visions/drawings. |
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Barrabarracuda Bleached Speeches NNF038—CDR Freedom means a lot of things to a lot of people. Some Montana cowboys are like “freedom means having the right to rocket launcher a mule deer into a thousand pieces!” And other freaks are like “freedom means I can sue Coca-Cola because their soda made me burp!” But to witness the peroxide waves of bikini-punk fireworks-rock that constitutes a Josh Taylor’s Friends Forever show is to have freedom redefined forever. Amy, Kenna, and Germaine’s track here is a non-stop 18 minute junk-van thrashsterpiece of rainbow drums, headbang bass, and kool-aid keyboard plasma. Messy LA beach-cruisers Barrabarracuda exercise their own fair share of western liberties across 3 outsider agitations, decrying (or glorifying?) urgent social issues like Patty Hearst, Watergate mystique, and Bush-backed torture policies via bleedingly liberal guitar shred, pissed trumpet protests, and healthy freedom-of-speech abuse. In hand-stamped, die-cut sleeves. Edition of 100. |
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Bored Fortress 7" Club — Year One
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Failed Grails NNF031/EXBX015—2xCS It didn’t seem like all that big a deal when Martin Luther nailed his 95 accusations of heresy on to the Wittenberg cathedral's door on Halloween night, 1517 (the Catholic church/people had a fucking heart attack, but whatever). Just a shattered dude, nailing stupid steel into holy wood under an old-school sky. But this medieval gesture of punk-rock protest unknowingly sowed the seeds of religious rebellion for a million hippie pagans, college Nietzsche name-droppers, and teenage Burzum posers. Thanks a lot. Fortunately, “Failed Grails” taps into the heavier shit, channeling spiritual siege and the ashen aftermath through circuitry storms, infidel howls, and charred-altar smoke-drones. Comes housed in intricately spray-painted dual-cover (inferno revolt, cursed ash) cassette bibles, with ominously flammable match spines. (Co-release with Excitebike Tapes). |
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NNF030—CS This barnacle-encrusted comp of nautical sonics just washed up on NNF's sandy shores. Nearly ninety minutes of salty punk waves, experimental undertow, and Marianas Trench murk. Each ocean-blue tape comes housed in a jellyfish-stamped burlap bag bedecked with a scavenged seashell. Seafarers include: Silver Daggers Big Nurse PussyGutt Solitary Hunter Bobby Birdman Hustler White Hello Astronaut, Goodby Television The Wolf Tracks Recognizer Impregnable Abe Vigoda Mikaela's Fiend Watersports Gastric Female Reflex Bipolar Bear Loopool Oak Treetops Robedoor |
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Whiskey Flats NNF029—CDR w/comic zine Half imaginary spaghetti-western score, half ragtime saloon brawl, and half pirated cowboy movie samples (how many halves is that?), Whiskey Flats is like a night out on the range, gathered 'round a low fire with some chaw-gnawing men who don't talk much. Just the sounds of the dark desert winds, somebody peein' over by the cattle, and some tired hands fiddlin' with a banged-up acoustic guitar. There's good, there's bad, and there's ugly, all courtesy of hard-drinkin' (but harder-gamblin') LVC chief, Joe Kendall. He's helped out on most tunes by the good Jacob Smigel, who pitches in coffee-can percussion, homesick harmonica, and lonesome singin' where need be. A 16-track masterpiece nearly two years in the making, Whiskey Flats is the Dodge City of gun-slinging folk music. Covers printed on 50-year-old aged onion paper found at a tumbleweed-strewn yard sale, and accompanied by a dusty pamphlet of wild west funnies. |
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The Mystery and Her Crew NNF028—CS Nostalgia rules, especially when what yr recalling are the softer days of mid-80s yonder – a time when Calvin Johnson was top swinger and the Pacific Northwest was his luscious green K-hole. Reminiscent of Rose Melberg’s tender lullabies, the sort for cable-knit sweaters, hand-made zines, and homemade zucchini bread. The Golden Hours are Not Not Fun’s gentlest venture, and why not? We aren’t afraid of our sensitive side, nor can we deny the sweet thumping heart of DIY mail music. From Raf in Providence to Eliza in Eugene to Brian in Portland to you. This tape case glows in the dark, so hold it up to yr cozy lamplight, place it on yr bedside table, and get dreamy. |
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NNF027—10" He-Man used to live in Castle Grayskull. That place was fucking haunted (proof? you point a sword at the sky, chant "I have the power", and turn into a hulk). So is this black-on-black 10" of wretched hallow's eve spook-noise. Haunted Castle are a suburban Detroit duo of tortured basement clatter and poltergeist attack thrash, and their cacophony ritual here ("Rainbow of Octopi") is a cauldron of psychic evil and wraith frenzy. Easthampton's Grey Skull are a little more physical, starting a skeleton brawl with harsh tones, seizure shriek, and occult war drums. A trio of rad dudes (and sweet artists), GS bury their record in a mean, dead haze. Insanely awesome screen-printed, die-cut covers by Shawn Reed of Raccoo-oo-oon. Also, first 40 copies come with a bonus 3" CDR (either Haunted Castle or Grey Skull). |
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NNF026—7” Oh shit. This release is the riot Silver Daggers always promised us. Four saxy tracks of downtown back alley thrash, anarchist jazz, and knife-storm hardcore, all on a steel-blue seven inch. Punker than a cold tofu block through a city hall window, and about the same price. Housed in seriously screen-printed cardstock art-zines, with lots of post-political Crass/Conflict-style collages and underground rebel scrawl. Recorded by LA’s secret guru of heavy jams, Bobb Bruno, for maximum police state-smashing density. Ideal for insane house parties, and agitated political gatherings. |
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Dreamcatcher NNF025—3” CDR Hopefully some of you are rad/blessed enough to be familiar with Gabriel Mindel Saloman. The man is a FORCE: lofty thoughts, love-buzz guitar drones, and laid-back footware. When Yellow Swans stopped through LA in August with Metalux we managed to corral Gabe into holing up in the Begeirdo amplifier coven, where we drank rum from real coconuts, talked about astrology, and laid down a sick, sprawling, 16 minute metal march of feedback longing and heavy spirits. Dark psychic tribalism for ecstatic peace-niks. Each stenciled CDR comes leather-tied to a wreath of twigs, with 7 blood red beads, earth-colored feathers, and a dangling dreamcatcher. Limited to 96. |
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NNF024—CDR Assuming you spent most of high-school head-banging to Unwound 7 inches (pretty much a given), this lost classic of late 90's post-angst math-heaviness will hit you like a time-warp. An awesome mix of oblique screaming, idealistic breakdowns, and "Fake Train"-style guitar shred, Herr K kick Kill Rock Stars comps in the gutter (conceptually) with 7 serious tracks of pummeling nostalgia-core Kafka-punk. They went on to form skronk-wave super-group Silver Daggers, but these are the roots, the source, the fountainhead. Own some history, kids. Spray-painted CDRs housed in cryptic Communist propaganda parcels with real Russian stamps, and wax-sealed. |
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NNF023—LP After way too long dredging the sub-muck underworld of dead-junk CDRs and murky/mystical cassettes, Madison, Wisconsin’s most unruly musickal skull-cult, Davenport, finally burn a batch of their heathen earth songs into some sunburnt vinyl grooves. Eerie psychic vibes and scorched earth folk death hymns emanate from battered acoustics, amplifier ghosts, demonic rural clatter, and doomed calls of the wild. These are campfire songs for killing fields. On transparent aged-blood wax, in skeletal-rider silk-screened jackets. |
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Blood Trance NNF022—CS Summer in the city means not wearing socks, drinking infinite juice, and sweating too much on yr distortion pedals. Which is cool, cause the moisture short-circuits the cords, turning the microphone-drones into humid heat spell dream sequences. This hypnotic, sanguine split tape captures 2 such swelter jams. Loopool’s “Temporare Trance #1” is like a field recording from a rotting rainforest graveyard, all jungle ghosts and paranoid predator lurk, while Robedoor’s side is more of a sword-sharpening blood cell sacrifice soundtrack. Each cassette comes drenched in glitter-crimson war paint and banded with an Aztec bone bead bracelet. Will melt yr mindhole. |
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Sky Route/Star Roof NNF021/PPM007—LP Chino, CA is in many ways a thriving place. There’s vegan Chinese diners, plenty of adult video stores, and an active post-teen no-wave scene. Sort of. Mainly there’s just Reggie, Mike, David, and Juan arguing about which colors suck (all of them) on a suburban porch. And thank god for that, cause these 909 loyalists are ubiquitous dudes, road-tripping to any two-bit post-punk community center that will let them plug in and play their claustrophobic angle jams. Repetitive beaten guitars, Animal (from Muppet Babies?) drumming, and burrowing, burying bass lines—like boating shoes and cut-off jean shorts, these are signature Abe Vigoda moves. Marbled grey vinyl in sprawling silk-screened jackets, with total stairways-to-heaven art by James Bradley. Record even comes with a CDR version of the album for all you demanding modernists.Co-released with Post Present Medium. |
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Como Se Dice Six Months to Live NNF020—CS w/beer What's so funny about inside jokes? Nothing. What’s so cool about beer? Duh, nothing. But c’mon, this is okay. Claire once drunkenly referred to us as Weirdo Beergeirdo (mild laughter ensued), which led to a release idea that couldn't fully form until the five of us were back together with hip HOPS and krautrock ALE-ments. This was of course long before Molly became obsessed with the phrase "como se dice chips?" which she used to ask the cooks at her coffee shop job. Turns out, the answer is chips. Go figure. And now Molly's only got six months to live, according to a pushy, but hopefully not psychic, bum who assaults her at her new book store job. Oh. And a beer comes with every tape*. So there's no mystery left, only the insanely rad, sweetly overdriven crunked jam epic of Weirdo/Beergeirdo…and the glitter/confetti shit all over yr car, too. It's a messy one !! Limited to 50. *If you buy this release online, we're sending you a root beer. Thems the breaks, kids ! |
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NNF019—7" 4 sub-terra LA bands’ tales of primitive kingdoms, thick mud, swamp bugs, and torrential downpour crumble the city’s asphalt jungle into the hot rocks of an equator summer dance ritual. *Complete with buried gold, poisonous ivy, and a mosquito bite.Chants by Weirdo/Begeirdo, Mika Miko, Hello Astronaut Goodby Television, and Abe Vigoda. Landscape by Jean Paul Garnier. Edition of 300. |
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Arabia NNF018—3” CDR My cousin Jamesie used to collect Desert Storm trading cards back when that shit was hot. It was all dusty guns, beaten Bedouins, and early 90’s TV patriotism. It still is. “Arabia” is Robedoor’s desert death march, one 20 minute sandstorm throb of contact-miked scorpions burning in stolen Saudi gasoline. Total bad-war crawl. Buried in black electrical tape and shredded wires, and limited to 50. |
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That Black Forest Feeling NNF017—enhanced CDR Kids get siked about all sorts of "whatever" shit (pixie sticks, zelda, sex,etc), but do you know what they worship more than anything else in the history of the multiverse? Nope, not bongs. TECHNOLOGY. Totally! Highland Park transplants MSD tap this youth hot topic with a rad leave-stenciled, twine-woven enhanced CDR single. Featuring a PROG-ressive pair of ambitious ballads about pinecones and bummer love, plus a bicycle-oriented video for Shark's top 40 KROQ B-side, "The Sham-o-tronic Fever," as well as a rare reel of footage (shot during their 2-show Central Valley Tour in May) of the band members riding in vehicles, standing in fields, and even playing music (!!), TBFF will probably either win a Grammy (for best ensemble performance), or an Oscar (for best picture). Sorry, Cinderella Man. Edition of 100. |
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Pasado De Verga NNF016—CS Apparently Silver Daggers is the name of a gang in like an 80s movie, at least that’s the rumor. But even if it is, I never want the band to admit it – keeping them retro-free and available for all post-posts to enjoy. Will’s taller than any of us and channels Yoko Ono, Jenna skronks sax attax, Marcus is the man-machine rhythms, and Steve’s all serious bass-blasts. They say snarky things to each other when they play. They’re even older than you’d think but still sometimes wear shorts. And let me tell you, this gang of Silver Daggers can go fast. Real fast. We love this tape like we love downtown and the puddles outside The Smell. NNF’s most street release ever. Edition of 100. |
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Tapeworms Eat Bookworms NNF015—2xCS Books aren’t just for horny Barnard co-eds and pre-law prison inmates anymore. They’re also for Not Not Fun Records to carve and shred to bits and then shove tapes in. Authors include: Haunted Castle Emergency Ensemble No Doctors Adam Lipman The Aum Rifle D Yellow Swans Wives w/The Cherry Point Corcoran Quartet BARR Mika Miko The Palladist Hello Astronaut, Goodby Television Watery Graves Ponies in the Surf Weirdo/Begeirdo Buffle Las Vegas Club Parker Posie’s Parkinsons Carrier Pigeonz Raking Bombs Quem Quaeritis Foot Foot Robedoor Whitman Le Joshua RTA Belly Boat My Sexual Dad Impregnable Barrabarracuda Golden Hours Jacob Smigel Lame Drivers Kid Finish Offal |
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Jewels In the Snakepit NNF014—CD I flipped out the first time we saw Yuma Nora in a small Riverside living room – where both Jake and Aaron were shirtless and Amy (sorry guys) was wearing a stained white slip complete with silver sparkly medieval mask. This is like free jazz soulful sex scattered beat noise brass explosion meets the nicest, quirkiest minds from the dreary Portland streets. We’ve been screaming about them for months as the stupid ass world finally wakes up to their “genius” (-Wire fucking Magazine !). Amy’s sultry as hell, Aaron’s got tribal blues, and Jake’s guitar is barely-there perfection. And thus, the Oregon rain clouds parted to reveal Yuma Nora, brewing up their own storm. |
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Giraffes/Jackals NNF013—10" So if the gag is that Jacob Smigel is the only crooner we know, then you might gag (with pleasure !) upon hearing Mr. Rob Kieswetter a.k.a. Bobby Birdman. His stats are mind-blowing: there's the literal battle jams with unruly hecklers, his casual recording sessions in the Hamptons, his Andrew WKesque posi-white jeans, his absolute maestro-like ownership of indian-style sitters, the correlation between his last name and the word "sweater," and his bedroom-ass eyes. When he says things like, "That's just her trip, I guess," and tells how totally okay with computer music he is - you start to understand just why he's so crucial and why this EP is so necessary. Edition of 300. |
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Pixelated Math Costumes NNF012—CDR Okay, they’ll admit to ripping off Sonic Youth, wanting to sound as good as Radiohead, and disliking Nirvana. It’s faux pas’ all over the place with Hello Astronaut, Goodby Television – the most insane, lovable pop thrashers outside of Downey. Our favorite HAGTv stuff: Luis works at Sizzler tirelessly and he once compared the band to Fleetwood Mac (“we like fight all the time but we write the best music”), Tori is a straight-up badass who cusses, wears a ton of black eyeliner, and plays the keyboards and drums AT THE SAME TIME, Matt has styles upon styles upon styles upon styles (i.e. he wears cologne and Stray Cats shirts), and Dani isn’t afraid to tell you that she’s been both a raver and a goth and that her bass parts are really hard. They could be metal, they could be hip hop, they could be the best thing ever. Edition of 200. |
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Yell It Yellott |
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Love Means Never Having to Say Yr Sorry/Sorry NNF010—2xCS World War two vets commemorate V-Day by visiting cemeteries and looking at cool old snapshots of subs. But Not Not Fun celebrates V-Day with a tape comp of U-Boat sized proportions !! That tingle in yr arm is a heart-attack in yr tape deck!
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World Fantasy NNF009—10" In the tradition of literary greats like “Bang the Drum Slowly” and Bowie’s not so great “Little Drummer Boy,” comes Foot Village – a bleeding, screaming, catastrophe drum circle that makes hippies wish they never invited Brian, Grace, Jeff, and Greg to jam on bongos at Zuma Beach. There’s been talk of covering Les Miserables and reenacting McDonald’s commercials, but for now Foot Village is happy to document their travels in World Fantasy. It’s a deep love for harsh noise, R. Kelly, Broadway musicals, and Rush that breathes life into the band that launched a million side projects. The Drum Machines Have No Soul guy is about to wet his pants. Edition of 300. |
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20 Minutes in Heaven with Claire Evans NNF008—CS Usually I wouldn’t suggest trying to french kiss our French keyboardist and oft-bassist. She’s taller than you and way out of your league. There’s semi-colon tattoos, baby pink belts, one very tiny ponytail, and that certain je ne *these are live jams where Claire Evans features prominently while puckering her lips. |
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Full Grown and Talking About Fountains NNF007—CDR Jacob Smigel is making love to you with his voice. He’s caressing yr desert-dry & chapped skin with various medicinal lotions and creams. He has diagnosed yr cat with leukemia, made wine out of yr sour grapes, tape-recorded your most intimate chit-chat, and brought you back to life with his seductively technical mouth-to-mouth skills. He can name all the parts of your body in Latin and melt yr heart with a kazoo hymn. Charmer. Lover. Drunkard. Paramedic. He writes the songs that make the whole world sing. Edition of 200. |
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Boo Yeah: A Halloween Retrospooktive (featuring: Hello Astronaut, Goodby Television, Zkullz, Anthology of Short Fiction, Prey With Fire, My Little Red Toe, Weirdo/Begeirdo, and Las Vegas Club) |
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Lovers and Drunkards b/w The Riddle Song NNF005—7" This is Not Not Fun’s first 7 inch and it’s probably our favorite Jacob Smigel song of all time. It’s mastered so it sounds really awesome, it’s pressed on sunny yellow vinyl, and all the covers are hand-colored by friends of Jacob. And “The Riddle Song” is an insiders hit about secret names that’s not available on any other recording in the world. AND there’s a found sound snippet that’s quite touching. Edition of 300. |
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So I'm Dude in this Equation NNF004—CDR/LP Usually Britt does this thing where he caringly refers to me as bro, Broseph, Brosephini, Brodigliani, or even the benign “dude.” Couple this with his incessant desire to play both the ridiculous off-base babbler and the weary, nay-saying admonisher in conversational banter with himself, and you have the secret behind W/B’s enigmatic title. We glued every one of the damned sequins on ourselves and I’m grossed out just thinking about it. So many treats and surprises you’ll be shocked to find there’s also sound where the sound comes out. Look, they don’t call it a debut album for nothing. Of pop-culture note: Joel says some guy thinks this sounds like the Moldy Peaches. Well, we prefer “sloppily destroyed and bored insider pun-pop,” thank you very much. Edition of 200 CDRs, 300 LPs. |
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Shark NNF003—CDR/LP An important thing to keep in mind while pondering Shark is that it has NOTHING to do with sharks. No fins, no razor-sharp teeth, no cartilaginous skeleton of sinewy deep-sea terror. None of that. Think, instead, of its abstract predatorial connotations, the implied prey in the equation, the hunt, carnivorous lust and bloodbath climaxes. This is the shadowy, metaphorical monster Evan, Evan, Annie, and Joel sketch out for the listener on their stormy debut. It’s top-of-the-food-chain rock, and once it sinks its jaws into yr thigh, the only method of escape is to punch as hard as you can in the nose. Edition of 200 CDRs, 300 LPs. |
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A-live EP NNF002—CDR What’s it like seeing My Sexual Dad live? I wouldn’t know, but I heard it’s just like being in yr living room listening to their live CD. Evan’s there eating a vegan burrito and little Evan’s holding yr hand during the scary parts; Joel’s quietly judging you, and Annie's looting your grandma’s brooch heirlooms. Sure, you could recreate this overwhelming sensation by attending one of their shows, but why not have the real thing? Limited to 35 copies. |
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Have an Uptight Party (featuring Pogi Brown, Jacob Smigel, Weirdo/Begeirdo, and My Sexual Dad) NNF001—CS A round of hi-fives to a group of lo-fi’s: this is our auspicious debut, and I still haven’t exhaled. But what you don’t know is that me and Joel and Britt nearly lost our fucking minds in the process of making this tape, and the fact that people keep telling us they only own an MP3 player isn’t helping any. Well, hello hi kids, things aren’t getting better, they’re just getting shinier. So buy any 3 tapes and I’ll send a NNF tape deck with them. That’s how serious this is [offer no longer valid. -Ed.]. Edition of 100. |
