DREW DANIEL (MATMOS) / JOHN WIESE (SISSY SPACEK) - 'Continuous Hole'
CD £9.50 - out 23/06

        

This collaborative album by Drew Daniel (Matmos, The Soft Pink Truth) and John Wiese (Sissy Spacek, Smegma, LHD,) is the fruit of over 10 years of recordings in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Baltimore.

"Continuous Hole" melds improvisation and musique concrète composition into a uniquely sweaty document of labour-intensive rhythm document of labour-intensive rhythm. A finger puzzle of reconciled opposites: lockstep structure and constant flux.

Relentlessly variable source material is relegated to precisely timed gated forms and patterns. Without using any sampling or MIDI sequencing, the rhythmic cuts are constructed entirely from volcanic, gnarled abstraction, and eschew typical genre elements.

Raw yet precise, from mayhem to menace, this is a album of strong contrasts from two American artists discovering common ground in the joy of frenzied cutting. Our personal favourite is 'Abhorred Shears', which reminds of the cut-up works of COIL's LSD yet remains utterly unique.

A prolific recording artist and visual artist with an extensive discography under his own name, and with noise stalwarts Sissy Spacek, John Wiese is currently based in Cleveland. One half of the electronic band Matmos and all of The Soft Pink Truth, Drew Daniel is based in Baltimore.

Mastered by Thomas Dimuzio. Presented in a matt-laminate 6-panel digipak with photography by John Wiese. The cover photograph was shot by John Wiese in Drew Daniel's office on the campus of Johns Hopkins University where Daniel is a Shakespeare professor.

B.E.F. (post-HUMAN LEAGUE / pre-HEAVEN 17) - 'Music For Stowaways'
LP Electric Blue £23 - out now!

   

Second - and final - reissue of seminal early 1980's electronic recordings from the British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.), aka HEAVEN 17 / ex-THE HUMAN LEAGUE's Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, with Adi Newton (CLOCK DVA / THE FUTURE), and John Wilson (HEAVEN 17), originally a cassette-only release (1981).

• Ltd x 500 copies on 180g Electric Blue LP (Cold Spring only)

Also available: LP Black £23 | CD £12

Following two groundbreaking albums ('Reproduction' and 'Travelogue'), the original line-up of Sheffield-based The Human League split in half in late 1980. The two primary musicians in the group, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, formed a new production company - the British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.) - and signed a deal with Virgin Records to write and produce up to six albums a year. The artists they were to produce would include Heaven 17, their own new band formed with vocalist Glenn Gregory.

B.E.F. would also release their own material, commencing with the music on this collection, which was issued in various permutations in 1981-82. Its initial release in March 1981 was a limited edition numbered eight song cassette entitled 'Music for Stowaways', with 'Stowaways' being a reference to the original name for the then-new Sony portable cassette player - later renamed the Walkman - of which B.E.F. were great fans. 'Music for Stowaways' was intended to be listened to on such a device. The cassette was followed by a seven song LP, 'Music For Listening To', which had a slightly different tracklisting, while other B.E.F. music was utilised for B-sides of early singles by Heaven 17.

This music was among the first recorded by Martyn and Ian directly after their departure from The Human League. Some tracks had evolved from other recordings they were working on at the time, such as 'Groove Thang' - an instrumental version of the debut single by Heaven 17 - and 'The Old At Rest', which derived from a version of 'Wichita Lineman' by Jimmy Webb, their very first recording with Glenn that would subsequently appear on B.E.F.'s 'Music of Quality and Distinction, Volume One' covers album in 1982.

Supporting musicians on 'Music For Stowaways' included Adi Newton of Clock DVA (who had been a member of The Future with Martyn and Ian pre-Human League) on the track 'Uptown Apocalyse', with John Wilson (who provided incredible guitar and bass for Heaven 17) appearing on 'Groove Thang'.

The innovative sounds heard on 'Music For Stowaways' were an inspiration to many aspiring electronic artists. In 2015, Uncut magazine included it in a list of the '50 Greatest Lost Albums of All Time'.

"One of the most innovative and important electronic albums of all time" Electronic Sound

★★★★ Mojo    ★★★★ Record Collector    ★★★★ Classic Pop     8/10 Uncut

VA 'Музыкальное Приношение' (Musical Offering) - out now! | CD £11

      

Available on CD (or any other format) for the first time outside USSR, Soviet composers perform their works on the legendary ANS synthesizer.

Recorded in 1971, "MUSICAL OFFERING" is 6 tracks (42 mins) of experiments on the unique machine by: Eduard Artemiev (2 tracks), Oleg Buloshkin, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov, and Alfred Schnittke.

"MUSICAL OFFERING" demonstrates a 'musical' machine unlike any other and has long fascinated cutting edge, modern electronic composers, notably COIL and THE ANTI GROUP COMMUNICATIONS (TAGC) / CLOCK DVA, that have both released recordings utilising the ANS.

Try to imagine a score sounding by itself without a conductor; an orchestra without musical instruments. This magic is possible by using the musical ANS synthesizer. Created by Soviet scientist Evgeny Murzin over the course of 20 years, ANS is an instrument with which a composer can not only create but also draw their music without notes. You can see the twinkling of different lamps, the rotation of grooved glass discs... The drawings on the glass are 'sounding notes'. To listen to the drawn picture, press the button and a wonderful transformation will begin. Murzin dedicated his photoelectronic apparatus to Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (ANS), the creator of the 'Poem of Ecstasy', and a famous explorer of synesthesia.

These tracks have only ever been available on an LP pressed by the state-run Soviet Union label Melodiya over 30 years ago. Soviet music lovers will already know recordings made on ANS from Tarkovsky's films Solaris, The Mirror, and Stalker, Konchalovsky's film Siberiade, and others.

Presented in a digipak with the new artwork by Abby Helasdottir (who also created the compelling promo video), complimenting the ANS process perfectly.

ONE LEG ONE EYE - '...And Take The Black Worm With Me' CD (Nyahh Records) - £12
ONE LEG ONE EYE - '...And Take The Black Worm With Me' LP Coloured (Nyahh Records) - £26

As a founding member of Dublin experimental folk group LANKUM, Ian Lynch explores submerged leylines of music and song. His new solo project One Leg One Eye sees him taking a fresh approach to musical arrangement culminating in a sound that is more rooted in the raw aesthetics of second wave black metal than contemporary folk. Over the course of a year, Lynch enjoyed the freedom of experimenting and exploring different paths of sound design without expectation or pressure. Seeking out interesting settings to record music and gather field recordings, the essence of which have seeped into the spirit of the music, Lynch explores rediscovered spaces in Dublin and familiar interior spaces. He frequently visited the abandoned warehouse were his father worked and sang with his shruti box, contented in his solitude. The result is a distinct and sometimes harrowing drone-folk atmosphere conjured throughout the album's five lengthy and enveloping compositions, with a beautiful, immersive sadness resonating throughout. CD in digipak / Ltd LP pressed onto recycled vinyl chips, meaning all records are a different colour.