PATTERSON, BEN Liverpool Soundworks Volume One (Audio Research Editions) cd 17.98

PATTERSON, BEN Liverpool Soundworks Volume Two (Audio Research Editions) cd 17.98

PATTON, MIKE Adult Themes for Voice (Tzadik) cd 16.98
Like chilling in the greyhound station listening to Aphex Twin through a shitty boombox... Only it's some guy sitting in a hotel room at 4 in the morning screaming into a 4-track.

PATTON, MIKE Crank High Voltage OST (Lakeshore) cd 17.98
We could go on and on and on about our undying love for the first Crank movie, easily THE most deliriously over the top action movie EVER. Filmed super stylistically as well, so the high (low) concept is reflected by the film stock and speed and angles. For those living under a rock, the movie revolves around a hitman, who is drugged and left for dead, the drug slows down his heart, eventually causing his death, but hellbent on revenge, our 'hero' manages to finds unique and inventive ways of keeping his adrenaline up and thus stay alive, in order to exact his revenge. He does lots of drugs, risks life and limb, fucks with cops, picks fights with gangs, fucks his girlfriend in the middle of Chinatown, but eventually SPOILER WARNING! He falls from a helicopter calling his girlfriend on the way down.
Fast forward to Crank High Voltage, only to discover, somehow he did not die, instead, he was spirited off by Asian gangsters, who remove his heart, replacing it with an artificial heart hooked up to a battery, with an hour's worth of charge. The hook this time around is, he needs to continually charge himself up, while he tries to track down his heart and have it put back in. Far fetched? For sure. But that's the joy of these movies. And who better to score a movie like this than Mr. Mike Patton. But instead of doing crazy voices, and wild shrieking weirdness, Patton has crafted a super weird, ultra varied, practically perfect soundtrack, alternately heavy, freaky, skittery, metallic, jazzy, it is a soundtrack after all, so removed from the images, a little is lost, but this soundtrack stands up pretty well. In fact, besides being blown away by the movie, the first thing we all thought afterwards was "we need to get this soundtrack". So here it is.
The best part is our hero's theme, a simple 6 note melody, that resurfaces throughout the movie in different forms, it's catchy as all get out, appropriately ominous and minor key, and definitely suits the spirit of the character. Beyond that, Patton has cooked up a wild imaginative hodge podge of sonic cues, mini jams, micro epics, dark mood music, and everything in between. Which is important since in the film, the action is all over the place, flitting from extreme violence, to dying-heart stupor, beaten to a pulp wooziness, to recently recharged hyperactivity, and Patton comes whips up the perfect killer jams to accompany the various moods and scenes.
Skittery industrial weirdness wrapped around that main theme, and peppered with circusy synths and spacey effects giving way to pounding punk rock, a creeping moody crawl, chugging muted guitar, chiming melodies, interrupted by bursts of pounding drums, string swells, and thick metallic guitars, groovy sunshine-y almost jungle beneath twangy Summertime guitar and crooned female vox and handclaps, moody Morricone-ish twang and drift, funky retro porno grooves, mysterious Old West style flute flecked accordion weirdness that transforms into a creepy polka, grinding digital metal, with lots of stops and starts, warped and warbly sound effects draped over super haunting vocals whirs and whoops, Jew's harp jams and glitchy electronics, plenty of glitchy stuttery abstract hip hop, tolling bells over distant rumbles and on and on and on. Fans of Fantomas, especially the soundtrackier stuff will probably dig, and folks who are sometimes put off by Patton's wild vocalizing, might just dig this big time.
Needless to say, you should definitely buy this, but you should also see both movies, they're puerile, over the top, hyper violent, and funny as fuck. And they look AMAZING. Be warned though, the first film is much more 'cute', it definitely has a heart of (tarnished) gold, while the second one is much more meanspirited and harsh, but hell, as far as outrageous super stylized ridiculously impossible and hilariously brutal action movies go, you can't beat Crank. And Patton's soundtrack is pretty much the aural equivalent. Which means, ABSOLUTELY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Chelios"
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Cream (Redux)"
MPEG Stream: "Organ Donor"
MPEG Stream: "Juice Me"
MPEG Stream: "Surgery"
MPEG Stream: "Car Park Throwdown"

PATTON, MIKE Pranzo Oltranzista (Tzadik) cd 15.98
Mr. Bungle/Faith No More vocalist Patton's debut as composer, following his previous solo Tzadik noise-fest. On this record, he is joined by John Zorn, Eric Friedlander, Marc Ribot and William Winant, for a Naked City-esque bash!

PAYNE, MAGGI Ahh-Ahh Music for Ed Tannenbaum's Technological Feets 1984-1987 (Root Strata) lp 17.98
For its first ever archival release, the Root Strata label delves into Bay Area composer Maggi Payne's computerized music experiments from 1984-87. Composed for a unique dance/video project collaboration with experimental video maker Ed Tannebaum for a series of performances called Technological Feets. For these performances, the movements of three dancers live on stage are captured on camera and processed in real time on a screen above them. The dancers can view the processing on video monitors in front of them and thus react to their own movements. The music is then a mixture of live performed responses over prerecorded tracks. You can check one of the videos here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98fvPSNJHpw
Payne, who is a dancer herself (as well as flautist, who performed on David Behrman's "On The Other Ocean" from 1977), imbues her music with a fresh rhythmic energy that makes these pieces instantly engaging. The terrific opener, "Flights of Fancy" is full of dynamic uplift but countered by a brooding undercurrent of minor key melancholia that for us outshines many current synth practitioners, the way it inches quite close to pop music. Titles like "Gamelan" and "Shimmer", give pretty clear clues to their direction, but the title piece, "Ahh-Ahh (Ver 2.1)" sourced from many forms of white noise, flute and snare drum, where, according to the liner notes, "spatial location and modulation are of primary concerns in this piece", is all subtle layered shifts of audio spectrum effects that is a tranced out disorientating delight. Root Strata has done a great service in getting this little known composer some much deserved wider attention. Payne who is currently the Co-Director of Contemporary Music at Mills College probably has had a hand in inspiring scores of young musicians and composers, we're sure among them the likes of Mariell V. Jakobsons and Gregg Kowalsky as well as Roger Tellier-Craig (Le Revelateur) and Sabrina Ratte who had a hand in getting this release to see the light of day. We can't recommend this enough!
MPEG Stream: "Flights Of Fancy"
MPEG Stream: "Ahh-Ahh (Version 2)"

PAYNE, MAGGI The Extended Flute (CRI) cd 13.98

PEACOCK, ANNETTE I'm The One (Future Days Recordings / Light In The Attic) cd 15.98
Sweet! The 1972 solo debut from the one and only Annette Peacock has at last been properly reissued on both cd and vinyl. This has been unavailable for years and definitely deserves to be heard. Last year, we found out that Peacock had just done her own reissue on cd, but they were only available in prohibitively expensive, autographed editions, though we were quite tempted to order 'em anyway. Glad we waited, for this more affordable and widely available reish comes in both digipak cd and lavish vinyl. We've sold quite a few of these already, so we guess some peeps were waiting for it too.
How to describe this? It's jazzy, bluesy, avant pop music, an inside-outside hybrid, with acid rock and electronic experimentation alongside the likes of a cover of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender", rendered ultra moody and dramatic. Throughout, Peacock's vocals are expressive, edgy, extreme, and electronically effected (fed through a Moog synth, in fact), but also seductive and sensual. At her best here, she comes across like a free jazz version of Betty Davis (the funkstress ex-wife of Miles). It's also likely that fans of Yoko Ono will approve. Quite a debut, from a woman who had toured with Albert Ayler, hung out with Timothy Leary, and could count David Bowie and Diamanda Galas among her fans.
The epic title track ferinstance, starts off all skittery-skree freeform freaky, then, staying freaky, turns into a funked up torch song when the vocals come in. There's parts that sound like Sly & The Family Stone or Stevie Wonder grooves, other parts that sound like spaced-out Moog madnessÉ all in the same song! That's the opening track, too, and sets the tone for the entire album, which is full of groovy bits, sad piano ballads, and spooky electronic soundscapes, in various combinations. Some of the synth stuff is played by her (then?) husband Paul Bley, with whom Annette had made a few improvised synths/vocals albums around about the same time. The album also features Brazilian percussionist Arto Moreira.
This reissue is remastered, and comes complete with brand new liner notes and previously unpublished photos. Here's hoping this means there's also a reissue of Peacock's 1978 masterpiece X-Dreams not far behind.
The double lp version is limited to 1000 hand numbered copies and includes a poster, the cd comes in a digipak with thick booklet.
MPEG Stream: "I'm The One"
MPEG Stream: "Pony "
MPEG Stream: "Gesture Without Plot"

PEACOCK, ANNETTE I'm The One (Future Days Recordings / Light In The Attic) 2lp 33.00
Sweet! The 1972 solo debut from the one and only Annette Peacock has at last been properly reissued on both cd and vinyl. This has been unavailable for years and definitely deserves to be heard. Last year, we found out that Peacock had just done her own reissue on cd, but they were only available in prohibitively expensive, autographed editions, though we were quite tempted to order 'em anyway. Glad we waited, for this more affordable and widely available reish comes in both digipak cd and lavish vinyl. We've sold quite a few of these already, so we guess some peeps were waiting for it too.
How to describe this? It's jazzy, bluesy, avant pop music, an inside-outside hybrid, with acid rock and electronic experimentation alongside the likes of a cover of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender", rendered ultra moody and dramatic. Throughout, Peacock's vocals are expressive, edgy, extreme, and electronically effected (fed through a Moog synth, in fact), but also seductive and sensual. At her best here, she comes across like a free jazz version of Betty Davis (the funkstress ex-wife of Miles). It's also likely that fans of Yoko Ono will approve. Quite a debut, from a woman who had toured with Albert Ayler, hung out with Timothy Leary, and could count David Bowie and Diamanda Galas among her fans.
The epic title track ferinstance, starts off all skittery-skree freeform freaky, then, staying freaky, turns into a funked up torch song when the vocals come in. There's parts that sound like Sly & The Family Stone or Stevie Wonder grooves, other parts that sound like spaced-out Moog madnessÉ all in the same song! That's the opening track, too, and sets the tone for the entire album, which is full of groovy bits, sad piano ballads, and spooky electronic soundscapes, in various combinations. Some of the synth stuff is played by her (then?) husband Paul Bley, with whom Annette had made a few improvised synths/vocals albums around about the same time. The album also features Brazilian percussionist Arto Moreira.
This reissue is remastered, and comes complete with brand new liner notes and previously unpublished photos. Here's hoping this means there's also a reissue of Peacock's 1978 masterpiece X-Dreams not far behind.
The double lp version is limited to 1000 hand numbered copies and includes a poster, the cd comes in a digipak with thick booklet.
MPEG Stream: "I'm The One"
MPEG Stream: "Pony "
MPEG Stream: "Gesture Without Plot"

PEAKING LIGHTS Imaginary Falcons (Night People) 12" 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

PEAKING LIGHTS Lucifer (Mexican Summer) cd 10.98
With their latest record, these long time faves, psychedelic psych-kraut space-dub husband and wife duo Peaking Lights, continue in their trajectory, away from the warped drugginess and abstract noisiness that defined their early records towards something WAY more blissed out and laid back, still druggy most certainly, but less 'bad trip' druggy and more woozily wasted on some lost sun dappled tropical isle under a warm deep blue summer sky.
Like their previous record 936, which was a HUGE hit around here, Lucifer gradually unfurls as a another heady sprawl of blissy dubby psychedelia that relies heavily on looped, cyclical rhythms, cascading layers, and bleary blurry loops. The opening intro is the perfect introduction, a soft cacophony of what sounds like murky muddy marimbas and steel drums and xylophones all tangled up into a glorious swirl. But "Beautiful Son" starts off the record proper, with doleful piano under a skyful of strange glitchy electronics, and reverby swirls and swoops, bloops and trills, all beneath some lush angelic female vox, the result sounding like a more tropical, dubby and abstract take on Stereolab, droney, pulsating and percolating, a little bit sci-fi, but the sort of seventies version of sci-fi, that retro futurism filtered through sixties dub pop.
"Live Love" lays down another backdrop of loops and cascading rhythms, this time driven by what sounds like a Casio on 'calypso' setting, reminding us a bit of James Ferraro, but with the 'dub' cranked, most notably, the woozy bassline, and the vocals dubbed into soft echo drenched swirls.
"Cosmic Tides" is the first full on dub, the duo offering up their own electro-dub version of the classics, the beat, heavily reverbed, the organ, the upstroke guitar, but this is Peaking Lights, not King Tubby, so soon, the song splinters into some dreamy space pop, and over the course of the song drifts dreamily between the two.
And so it goes for the record of the record, the sound veering from reggae like grooves, to warped lo-fi reverby slo-mo eighties pop-dub that sounds like Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" slowed way down, and finally a hazy ambient coda, all dreamlike piano wreathed in reverb, strange backwards swoops and squiggles, all smeared into a strange bit of haunting psychedelia, which had us hankering for more of that sort of thing along with all the dubby dreaminess next time around.
Cool La Dusseldorf homage cover art. LP is limited to 2000 copies and includes poster and a digital download!
MPEG Stream: "Moonrise"
MPEG Stream: "Live Love"
MPEG Stream: "Cosmic Tides"
MPEG Stream: "Morning Star"

PEDAL s/t (Staubgold) cd 17.98

PEDESTRIAN DEPOSIT Austere (Monorail Trespassing) cd 11.98
Pedestrian Deposit began as a full-throttle noise project back in 2000 by Jon Borges, then a high-school kid living in the Central Valley town of Tulare, California. For those of you not familiar with the geography of California, Tulare and the outlying areas do not instill the psychogeographical sense of wonder that The Starving Weirdos get from Humboldt County of that Jewelled Antler invoke from the Sonoma coastline. Nope, this is a depressed place in terms of culture, the economy, and opportunities beyond low-rent gangs and cheap drugs for the youth of Tulare. Borges had been clearly channeling much of his discomfort with his place through noise, occasionally interwoven with simple, downer melodies; and even as he's matured into his twenties and found a new home in Los Angeles, a steely fist operates behind the curtains of his relatively subdued constructs. Nowadays, Pedestrian Deposit is a duo with Borges joined by Shannon Kennedy on electronics and cello, while Borges' solo work is now expressed through the spectral drones-plus-noise of Emaciator.
Austere begins with a crackle of electrical static that bristles against a unsettled loop that collapses into a necrotic low-end hum, which seems intent on declaring that something ominous is afoot. For the next twenty minutes, Borges and Kennedy unravel lilting passages of post-Basinski loops pointing to a melancholy antiquity, hypnotic ambience full of shadow, smoke, and mirror, and gliding tones from Kennedy's cello. That sense of foreboding and dread which opened the album definitely subsides, and that's certainly by design as it only heightens the impact from the bursts of noise that crash through the mix at unexpected points through the latter half of the record. The album does explode for a blistering six or seven minutes by the end of the album in a power electronics fury, before fading into oblivion through a beguiling set of soft-focus loops. Quite nice.
MPEG Stream: "Impermanence"
MPEG Stream: "Trail"
MPEG Stream: "You Didn't Break Me"

PEDESTRIAN DEPOSIT East Fork North Fork (Monorail Trespassing) cd 11.98
Pedestrian Deposit have relentlessly toured the United States for as long as we can remember; if your hometown has some shithole warehouse space or a couple of dudes who host noise shows in their house, chances are that PD have been there. Given their constant touring in a car with a tape player, it makes perfect sense that the cassette would be the preferred media for PD; in fact, PD's Jon Borges has released a shitload of noise and drone tapes over the years through his Monorail Trespassing imprint. East Fork North Fork did in fact come out as a cassette earlier in 2010, only to disappear before anybody really got to get a hold of it; but the tape has been usurped by the cd for the reissue of this pretty fucking awesome record, with two new unreleased tracks as a nice bonus.
The days of Pedestrian Deposit abusing soundsystems with deleterious feedback and earscraping noise are pretty much gone. Nowadays, Borges is working with his partner Shannon Kennedy in constructed a frightening, haunting set of recordings for cello and electronics, thick with echoing drones and ghostly shadows that creep out of the woodwork. The amount of empty space on East Fork North Fork is notable, with Borges and Kennedy layering backish abrasions of rusted objects on contact microphones, distant pluckings of cello looped into seasick passages, heartbeat thumps coupled with subterranean scrapings, and hauntological half-melodies pushing to the foreground. Everything appears tuned as to announce the possibility of a huge surge of punishing noise, much like the atmosphere that Michael Gira built on Children Of God; and Pedestrian Deposit does allow for one such explosion on the album. But for the most part, it's the post-noise threat of audio holocaust that gives East Fork North Fork its sense of drama.
This is easily the best thing that Borges has released either through Pedestrian Deposit or through his solo Emaciator project.
MPEG Stream: "A Blessing"
MPEG Stream: "Strife/Meridian"
MPEG Stream: "Cycle Of Combustion"

PEDESTRIAN DEPOSIT Kithless (Arbor) lp 15.98
Spring of 2010, the stalwart San Francisco sound arts organization 23five hosted their annual Activating The Medium festival, commissioning a handful of experimentalists, noise technicians, and field recordists to present work based on the theme of Ice. While G*Park's allegorical plunge into an ice cave and Cheryl Leonard's dripping icicles with Antarctic recordings and bowed penguin bones were thoroughly compelling, Pedestrian Deposit's performance was terrifyingly amazing. PD has transformed itself over the past decade or so from a harsh noise project into one of the most accomplished electo-acoustic outfits of our time, bringing languid cello tones and buzzing harmonics to a well-versed pedal-driven electronic arsenal of rumbles, drones, and noisy grit. A duo of Shannon Kennedy (cello, electronics) and Jon Borges (noise, electronics), Pedestrian Deposit tours constantly through the noise underground; and that time on the road has served them well in terms of delivering the goods. For their 23five commission, their set began in a familiar mode to those who've witnessed Pedestrian Deposit before, Kennedy crafting hypnotic patterns through loops on her cello while Borges hinted at something far more ominous through tectonic rumblings of feedback and black noise. Upon the dissolution of this spellbinding movement balancing noise and grace, Kennedy set her cello down and climbed into a wash basin which was positioned at the front of the stage. The basin was filled with ice water which she poured over her head in slow repetitive fashion, while a microphone captured the sounds of her chattering teeth and frigid gasps as she began a process of self-induced hypothermia. For what seemed like an eternity, Borges did nothing, allowing the raw human gasps from his partner to be the only sound they presented. Eventually, a glacial semi-melodic drone worthy of a BJ Nilsen or a Deathprod recording slowly emerged beneath Kennedy's shivering for a superb coda to such an abject piece of electro-acoustic theater. Kithless features the whole performance as the A side, and even without the physical presence of Kennedy dumping ice water on her goose-pimply skin, the recording is a powerful document and certainly stands on its own. The B side "Under A Veil Of Living Light" is a worthy companion to the live document with Borges building a crunched, tactile noise crescendo out of pools of sonorous hum and rasping buzzed cello. A magnificent accomplishment!
MPEG Stream: "Drift Gently Down The Frigid Tides Of Sleep (extract 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Drift Gently Down The Frigid Tides Of Sleep (extract 2)"

PEEESSEYE & TALIBAM! s/t (Invada) cd 12.98
We had been hearing about this collaboration for a while now, definitely excited but not sure what to expect from a meeting of the warped musical minds between weirdo outsider noise jazz terrorists Talibam! and just plain weirdos Peeesseye, who would prevail, jazz or noise? Would it be unlistenable? Would it be unlistenable in a GOOD WAY? Would it rock?
So while the answers are both, both, no, yes, yes, all you need to know is this is a serious chunk of psychedelic spaced out jazz flecked heaviness. It is on Invada after all, home to both the Heads and White Hills, so in that sense, this does sort of fit. The opening track is basically a super charged jazz kraut blow out, the guitars fuzzed out, the organ warbly and wild, everything wreathed in thick clouds of buzz and hiss, loads of effects, total post Hawkwind psych drone free jazz freakout, which shifts gears at some point and becomes even more of a krautrock jam, crunchy and distorted, with some weirdo vocals buried in the mix, eventually exploding into a frenzied freakout, before finishing off with a super distorted, in-the-red churning chugging space drone dirge finale. Phew.
The next track offers some recovery time, a gorgeous raga like buzzscape, minimal percussion, weird production, some abstract twang, but the core sound a thick shimmering layered dreamlike drone. Ten minutes of pure cosmic bliss.
But c'mon, that can't last long with these guys, "Everything for Everyone" is a crumbling, fractured noisefest, weirdly melodic, but chaotic and harsh, some slice and dice weirdness, fields of feedback, and more upper register drones, "A Grey Mountain of Shit" is full on freaked out psychedelic free jazz, with some incredible drumming, wild tangled guitaring, and a weirdo stumbling whatthefuck outro, all Tom Waits like growls, warped synths, and more wild unhinged drumming.
The record closes with the 17+ minute "Year of the Moral Orgy / Grit of the Ghost", which begins life as a sprawling bit of psychedelic dronefolk, a distant buzz, little curlicues of high end melody, random percussion, a smoldering minimally tense dronescape, which grows more and more chaotic and intense, the drone threatening to swallow the song whole, never fully exploding, instead, stumbling to a confusional halt, complete with garbled vox and a slowly collapsing universe of sound.
MPEG Stream: "You Tried (To Eat It)"
MPEG Stream: "New Vitality In The Biomass"

PEEESSEYE (PSI) Artificially Retarded Soul Care Operators (Evolving Ear) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We actually bought one of these when we were in a shop in NYC, based entirely on the cool cover art. What is surprising is that the art is courtesy of one Mr. Stephen O'Malley. It's not surprising because it's cool, just that is looks so unlike the rest of his immediately recognizable work. A sort of angular, geometric, psychedelic Pippi Longstocking. Fucked up for sure, but totally appropriate to be adroning this latest record from PeeEssEye, or PSI or whatever (part of the reasoon it looks so different is it's actually a collaboration between O'Malley and PSI vocalist Fritz Welch). We initially expected some sort of metal, maybe something sludgy or doomy, but it's really not metallic at all. it's more of an abstract, sound collage noise record. Lots of sineaves, and swoops of white noise and fuzzed out static. There is metal present, but in the form of clanking clattery percussion. Or in the shape of some weird live performance, where the band seems to be spewing metallic shrapnel through a blown speaker. Super distorted and totally fucking bizarre. The rest of the record is a series of abstract soundscapes, from twinkling shimmer, to full on harsh noise. Definitely falls sonically somewhere between the Yellow Swans, the Skaters, Wolf Eyes and the like. Fans of any of that sort of brass knuckle to the skull goodness will dig this as will strong stomached iron eared dronesters. Comes in a cool mini gatefold style sleeve with badass O'Malley artwork!
MPEG Stream: "Bholier"
MPEG Stream: "Whiplash"

PEEESSEYE (PSI) Commuting Between The Surface & The Underworld (Evolving Ear) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We discovered the confusionally monickered Peeesseye or PSI or whatever, on one of our many record shopping trips, bought entirely because of the crazy cover art. And while it wasn't what we expected, it was pretty fucking weird and cool. So we got a bunch of the store and everybody seriously dug PSI's druggy abstract what-the-fuck free rock weirdness. So we were super psyched to discover a brand new record. But they managed to throw us for a loop again with Commuting Between The Surface & The Underworld, on which the band take a whole new direction, less noisy and purposefully obtuse and more folky and dreamy and sort of pretty. And while we really liked the last record, we're beginning to LOVE this one.
The opening is the first sign of PSI's strange new direction. A killer sort of folky Dead C buzz and strum, with damaged FX doused vocals, thick drones all over the place, distant moans and scrapes, but at the center of it all, a simple steel string strum and a warm wheezing wash of fuzzy shimmer. Like a clattery clangy Wicker Man style forest ritual, tribal and primitive, but run through some tweaked and damaged primitive effects box. No Neck and Sunburned Hand are definite reference points, but PSI is less clattery and rhythmic and more blissed out focused on a murky buzz drenched folk. Which is a huge turn around from their old, significantly noisier incarnation.
The whole record seems to follow a similar template. Some sort of minimal steel string guitar, strummed, picked, lazy and meandering, soft melancholy melodies unfurling sleepily, while all around these stretches of folk dreaminess swirl thick washes of grimey gritty distortion, fuzzed out psych rock guitar, dense swaths of rumble and whir,
as well as drifting clouds of percussive tinkle and shimmery shuffle. Definitely for all you fans of the current crop of abstract cd-r free folk troubadours.
The last track, a massive 20+ minutes of barely there ambience, and what sounds like a straight field recording, lets the band dip back into their obtuse bag of tricks with an endless stretch of street noise, random clatter, footsteps, what sounds like either a bawling child or a billy goat, bird song, and an electric razor. Like some surreptitiously captured day-in-the-life. Strangely hypnotic in it's own way, but a suitably random coda to the rest of the record's beautiful buzz.
MPEG Stream: "Oo-Ee-Oo"
MPEG Stream: "Ballad Of Fine Decay"

PEEESSEYE (PSI) Oo-Ee-Oo (Burnt Offering) (Evolving Ear) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MPEG Stream: "Oo-Ee-Oo (Burnt Offering)"

PEEESSEYE, THE Mayhem In The Mansion, Shivers In The Shack (Evolving Ear) cd 11.98
Fucked up far out sonic explorers Peeesseye (or PSI) return with a brand new disc that finds them sounding as weird and wacked as ever, and continuing to drift in the same direction as their last disc, Commuting Between The Surface & The Underworld. The first time we heard these guys, they were a much noisier proposition, spewing a caustic and fractured noise rock, that we liked quite a bit, but by record number two, they seemed to be exploring songs and melody more than noise and texture, their sound markedly prettier and folkier. On Mayhem In The Mansion, the band continue to drift through some strange folky forest, but being PSI, it's all glimpsed through some cracked funhouse mirror. A strummed acoustic guitar seems to root most of these songs, but that guitar is strewn upon skipping stuttering electronics, strangled yelps, random clatter and chaos, growled vocals, dense clouds of cymbal shimmer, stumbling tribal percussion, random bits of thump and rattle, distant moans and creaks, shimmering electric guitar melodies, furious squalls of static drenched psychnoise and lots and lots of effects.
It's definitely pretty and folky, but so completely out there. The prettiest parts somehow manage to get all tangled up with the obtuse angular bits, folky strum is smothered in buzz or bleep or both, but it works, it becomes some impossible artpop weirdness. A lot of this sounds like Avarus or No Neck, but more than anything it sounds sort of like Animal Collective, but with most of the hooks removed. Or better yet, like Animal Collective's deformed mutant twin brother. The one they keep locked in the basement. With just a busted up acoustic guitar, some effects with dying batteries and a 4track.
And shit, if that doesn't sound amazing, well, then we give up...
MPEG Stream: "Moon Vegetables"
MPEG Stream: "Plastic Grass"

PELICAN City Of Echoes (Daymare) cd + dvd 32.00
In the overcrowded world of metallic post rock, or post metal, or whatever the heck you want to call it, there seem to be two forces constantly battling it out, Pelican and Isis. But it's hardly a battle, as both bands are friends, share a label, and share a sound too. And the interesting thing is they both seem to be developing in a similar fashion. Each band, in their own way, and at their own pace, seems to be phasing metal out of their sound. Not completely. But where Isis once sounded a LOT like Neurosis, they now sound much more like a post rock band with metal bits here and there. Expansive and epic and only heavy to balance their ultra melodic side. And while Pelican seemed to be on a serious metal bender there for a while, this new record, while indeed rife with metallic moments, finds them at their post rockiest, and we have to say it suits them.
From the opening track, with its loping minor key math rock intro, to it's downtuned metal chug middle, to a killer harmony guitar / double kick bridge, the band never go all out metal, even if it might sound like it on the surface. Sure, we're loving the occasional flurry of maniacal kick drum, and the occasional Fucking Champs like Carcass riffery, but it never completely transforms the sound into pure metal. Metal plated maybe, but regardless, it sounds amazing!
Pelican nowadays sound like the very heaviest band you loved in the nineties, come back to life, supercharged and metallized. We hear lots of Slint, Bastro, Polvo, Shellac, Don Caballero, June Of 44 and bands like that, in the riffs, the arrangements, the melodies, which is fine with us. In fact, a lot of City Of Echoes sounds like a heavier Explosions In The Sky, who obviously owe a great debt to the loud-quiet-loud math rockers of days gone by. Sure it's metal enough to hit the spot for that sensitive metalhead in need of a melodic instru-metal fix, and yeah it may be heavy, and it may be metallic, but c'mon, this is indie rock, a kick ass, heavy as fuck indie rock maybe, but still...
While they last, we have the limited Japanese import Daymare double disc version of City Of Echoes, much like the fancy version of Jesu's Conqueror we carry instead of the domestic Hydra Head version. Ultra deluxe packaging, gorgeous design, thick 6 panel digipak, spot varnish gloss on matte finish, Japanese obi, Japanese liner notes, but most importantly, a bonus dvd of the band performing live at the Knitting Factory in L.A., playing mostly new songs but a few Pelican classics like "March To The Sea". The dvd looks great, sounds great, and unlike some past performances we've seen, the band are on fire -- they've always sounded great, but they didn't always move that much, but here the band are super active on stage, jumping around, swaying, head banging, which makes it way more intense and fun to watch. And it's cool to see the new songs played live too...
MPEG Stream: "Bliss In Concrete"
MPEG Stream: "City Of Echoes"

PELT Ayahuasca (VHF) 2cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
I'm beginning to think that Pelt are the real heirs to the "drone throne(tm)" formerly kept warm by Tony Conrad, LaMonte Young and John Cale. Middle Eastern flecked skree-scapes of slowly bowed strings and rich overtones that beat against each other to produce microscopic, subtly shifting pulses and rhythms. The difference with Pelt is their penchant for Appalachian folk, which surfaces here and there as a sort of Fahey-esque deconstructed back porch crawl of plucked banjos and strummed acoustic guitars over a wash of violins and sitars and bowed metal. And even some actual singing! 'Ayahuasca' finsishes up with a two part raga that lies somewhere between Skullflower's roaring/screeching soundscapes and the pseudo-industrial drones of Organum or Lustmord. So gorgeous and completely amazing. One of the best drone records in recent memory.
RealAudio clip: "True Vine"
RealAudio clip: "Raga Called John Part 1"

PELT Effigy (MIE) 2lp 29.00
Recorded live in 2011 (in a yoga studio and a synagogue), the latest from these Virginian dronelords, once again prove these guys are still the modern masters of the raga. Seven extended tracks of exquisite modern minimal drone music, lush, layered tones, constantly shifting textures, and ever shifting overtones, multiple instruments deftly woven into one single organic whole, all recorded live, on acoustic instruments, with no overdubs, this is pure sound, Pelt masterfully weaving this pure sound into expansive/expressive sprawls of mesmerizing, meditative minimalism, the sound varying greatly from track to track, whether it's the near atonal din of opener "Of Jack's Darbari", or the downright folky "Wings Of Dirt", they both revolve around the drone, as do all the tracks here, the thread that binds all these sounds together. And the fact that the various instruments can be busy on their own, unfurling flurries of notes, that on their own, would have a completely different vibe than as part of the whole, where all of that business, simple adds texture, and propulsion, tonal color and depth, and these songs are deep, the sort that require deep listening to truly appreciate the sort of spiritual sonic tradition these guys are a part of. LaMonte Young, Pandit Pran Nath, Henry Flynt, Charlemagne Palestine, Catherine Christer Hennix, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Pelt's incredible body of work most definitely fits among those masters, and this live document demonstrate that Pelt can still channel that cosmic energy and form it into gorgeous, transcendental sound. In almost any form. The band really do explore every facet of the raga/drone here. Deep sonorous tones crafted from scraped bells and bowed metal, become a hushed metallic shimmer, rife with subtle movement and endless tonal variation, huge clouds of blurred shimmer are formed from piano notes drifting atop abstract percussion, and lush room reverb, wheezing chords are layered and layered, wreathed in keening streaks of high end, fiddles and harmoniums woven into a lustrous prismatic soft focus skree, dark bell tones hover over muted rhythms, wrapped in woozy metallic shimmer, and a mournful fiddle emits an aching, scraping tone, while below, thick slabs of metal rumble and whir. So incredible.
Packaged in a super striking, gorgeously psychedelic, full color, heavy gatefold jacket. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Of Jack's Darbari"
MPEG Stream: "Wings Of Dirt"
MPEG Stream: "Ashes Of A Photograph"

PELT Heraldic Beasts (Eclipse) 2lp 24.00
If there was ever a band suited to the double lp format it would be Pelt. Their massive drone raga epics can fill a cd in a blink of an eye. Theirs is the sort of transcendental inner space music that you want to drift on for ever and ever. So four side long slabs of glacial buzz and dreamlike drift is just about perfect. Each side a slow shifting swirl of buzz and whir, thick layers of shimmering swaying creakling crumbling colossal sound. Epic expanses of grinding bombinating active ambience. On Heraldic Beasts maybe more than any other Pelt record, the band get seriously fierce, kicking up super caustic walls of gritty guitar and harsh feedback, huge Total like dins that often (but not always) settle down into more familiar moody murkiness. Neo Appalachian guitar hero Jack Rose is in there somewhere, as Pelt is his musical day job, but he's not channeling Fahey here, instead, he's possessed by the spirit of Haino, spitting out huge surges of molten guitar skree which the band then twists into dronelike shapes. Most of this disc occupies the dreamlike raga space we've come to associate with Pelt, but there is most definitely plenty of supercharged blown out psychedelic freakout scrabble and skree, that fans of SUNN, Skullflower, Fushitsusha and the like will find well worth checking out.
Packaged in an ultra deluxe full color gatefold and pressed on super thick vinyl!

PELT Skullfuck / Bestio Tergum Degero (VHF) cd 13.98
Jack Rose may be the new John Fahey, the modern master of neo-Appalachia, his steel string skills unsurpassed, but he still calls Pelt home. Rose, lets his bandmates in Pelt, Patrick Best, Mikel Dimmick and Mike Gangloff take him away from his pick and twang and together they explore a slow motion soundscape of ghostlike ragas and endless drones. Dark dense landscapes of chiming bells, buzzing strings, and warm whispery whirs. The first track here is actually a Jack Rose song, and it sounds like it. Lilting mournful steel string guitar, with the other guys in Pelt swirling and swooshing, in, under, around and over Rose's guitar with an assortment of exotic instruments, harmonium, sruti box and singing bowls as well as gongs and flutes and fiddles. The rest of the disc is made up of the lengthy 3 part "Bestio Tergum Degero", a cavernous wash of rich overtones and metallic reverberations, huge swells of sound like metal waves on an iron sea, microscopic vibrations traveling lazily the length of a soft metal soundscape. Lush and hauntingly alien, a dark dreamy, slightly ominous drone drenched drift. As always, so nice!
MPEG Stream: "Calais To Dover"
MPEG Stream: "Bestio Tergum Degero Pt. 1"

PELT Untitled (VHF) cd 13.98
Folks around these parts (including us) have been freaking out over the gorgeous post-Fahey, neo-Appalachian guitar playing of Jack Rose, whose last few records have been massive AQ faves and whose dark and droning, delicate fingerpicked guitar work had us completely mesmerized from the first time we heard it. Makes it easy to forget sometimes that Rose has been making music for years with his equally talented bandmates as Pelt, a group that conjures up extended instrumental ragas, expansive pulsing suites of drone and shimmer, from all manner of bowed strings, bowed metal, hurdy gurdy, sundry Eastern instruments, and simple percussion as well as more traditional instruments like guitar and cello albeit utilized in highly unconventional ways. Makes sense in a way, as Rose's solo guitar is definitely informed by his years exploring the extended drone in Pelt. This new Pelt record, featuring a slightly expanded lineup, continues their quest to discover the heart of the drone, nirvana attained by never ending sound, sonic ripples that pulse and reverberate into infinity, a lovely and mind blowing musical head trip. The first track is a static shimmer, a swirling keening drone, that unlike much drone music, is not at all simple, instead it is a lush and multi layered wash of minor key melodies, stretched and smeared into a slightly ominous, almost cinematic extended dirge, intense and gorgeously imbued with all sorts of feeling and emotion, not often found in experimental minimalist musicks. The second track features Rose's immediately recognizable steel string guitar, which is soon disrupted by creaking streaks of sound and eventually overtaken by a thick fog of moaning cellos, morphing from an Eastern-tinged raga, to a throbbing fuzzed out drone, and eventually settling into a spare ramshackle soundscape of creaks and clatter. Track three is classic Ur-drone, not all that dissimilar to Sunroof! or Total or Vibracathedral orchestra, a cloud of keening high end skree cobbled together from percussive overtones, bowed metal, and ringing harmonics. The final track is a brief splatter of madly sawed cellos, creaking and squeaking strings and random splattery percussion, almost a musical version of 'shaking it off', sort of decompressing after nearly an hour of intense spiritual musicality. All you cd-r hounds / drone-heads that slobber all over everything Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Celebrate Psi and the like should definitely explore the magical mystical world of Pelt.
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 3"

PELTOLA, MARKKU Buster Keatonin Ratsutilalla (Ektro) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's always exciting when we get a new release on Jussi from Circle's Ektro label. Will it be South American stoner rock? Will it be an unearthed Finnish psych/folk rarity? Will it be an L.A. sort-of-glam band Andee was obsessed with when he was a freshman in high school? We never know. This latest release is from a man named Markku Peltola and there's very little information to be gleaned about him from the Ektro website other than he is a famous Finnish actor and played in the semi-legendary Finnish underground band Motelli Skronkle. But no background is really neccessary to enjoy this beautiful gem. Dreamy, almost chamber ensemble-ish pieces, with strings and acoustic guitar and occasional electronic embellishments. The first band that leapt to mind was the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and it's the comparison that seems to make the most sense. Light and breezy instrumentals with melancholy strings soaring over bubbly, bouncy rhythms. With the very lo-fi casio beats cropping up occasionally. Sometimes lounge-y, sometimes soundtracky, sometimes a little like a wedding reception. It may sound very pastoral and tame, but there are moments where there's some sort of weird creepiness hovering just below the surface with droney horns and the occsional garbled vocals. Although for the most part this is pretty and simple and quite nice.
MPEG Stream: "Sahkosatula"
MPEG Stream: "Ou-Ou-Ah?"
MPEG Stream: "Notskilla"

PENDRO Infusorium (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fflint Central is a U.K. label run by two extraordinarily nice guys and darn fine hosts (good enough to befriend a sick and bedraggled on-tour Andee and buy him Cokes). Fflint specializes in experimental electronics and harsh abstract noise. One would think that there's enough, or too much of both, but the men from Fflint have that something special (fuck-you attitude? undefinable sound? sense of humor?) that makes these records way better and way more interesting than the majority of the 'electronica' we hear these days. Fans of VV/M, Lesser and other 'troublesome' electonica will dig this stuff. Affordable CD-Rs. Go ahead and take a chance. You may regret it...
Album number two from the one man Pendro. A demented odyssey of warped records, chiming atmospherics, and hiccupping robot armies. Squiggly atoms of sound careen wildly between waves of what sounds like groaning bowed metal. Nice.
RealAudio clip: "Restless Crescent"

PENDRO Nocturne Convolute (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
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The Fflint Central factories have slowed down a bit lately, having churned out right around 20 releases in the last 5 or 6 years. But even kicking out 3 or 4 releases a year, that's practically nothing compared to the 50 releases a month we get from all the billions of other cd-r labels we deal with, which is maybe part of why we love these guys so much. Fflint more than any other cd-r label, have definitely focused on quality over quantity. Instead of releasing every single jam, every practice, every get-together-fuck-around, these guys actually spend weeks and months working on music, on SONGS. Every single Fflint disc is totally unique, but still immediately recognizably Fflinty, but more importantly, each disc is good. Really good. Fucking great actually. In fact, we can't think of a single Fflint release that didn't immediately and totally kick our asses. And Nocturne Convolute is no different.
Pendro is the work of Tim Jones, one half of the TimJonesBarryWilliams core that IS Fflint Central, and Nocturne Convolute is Pendro number 5 by our count and carries on in Pendro's quest to reach some strange electronic Nirvana. The beats were almost entirely jettisoned a few records back, but resurface now and then here, less as beats per se, as much as muted pulses, or stuttering throbs, but more often the beats are just rhythmic smears in a larger overall soundfield. Ambient is definitely one word that comes to mind, but not cheesy or new age, more a malevolent, very active sort of ambience, sounds churn and roil, multilayered soundscapes of organic electronic minimalism. Drone is another obvious descriptor, but drones are just a small part of the whole. Almost every track here drones in some way, but all in dramatically different ways. Nocturne Convolute is a dizzying journey through some otherworld of sound...
A huge chaotic din, like Sunroof! vs. the Dead C, immediately chopped into bits, so each blast of skree is separated by murky electronic pulses, and thick waves of freight train rumble, blissed out Muslimgauze like jams, all raga like buzz and throbbing Eastern percussion, peppered with all sorts of little glitches and electronic twinkles, cavernous industrial soundscapes, dark ambient whirs beneath chaotic bits of clatter and crunch, all morphed into a swirling smear of sound, wild blasts of outerspace sonic freakout, swooshes and bleeps and bloops, whipped into an absolute frenzy that eventually blurs into a high end drone, slow burning gongs ring and reverberate like ripples in some huge black sea, some damaged jazz squeaks and skronks in a vast expanse of haunting late night murk, buried within a sweetly melancholic melody, beats and loops chopped and sliced and diced and haphazardly reassembled into blasts of digital splatter, and some almost drill and bass, but as with most tracks the beats sort of implode and become bits and pieces of a swirling electronic glitchscape, gorgeous thick whirring drones are assembled from stuttering tones and blurry notes, creepy but so lovely, building in intensity until the drone becomes a crackling lightning storm of clicks and glitches and bzzt and grrt. Harsh and harrowing, but somehow still totally mesmerizing and beautiful.
By the time Nocturne Convolute comes to an end, you feel exhausted, like you've just BEEN somewhere, experienced SOMETHING. This is not easy listening at all, most Fflint stuff requires some work on the listener's part, some deep listening, every play reveals more sounds and more secrets, each listen builds on the one before, and prepares you for the one after. Which is precisely Pendro's (and Fflint Central in general) blessing AND curse. The sounds here are amazing, the music intense and hypnotic, sounds that make your ears hum, the inside of your head ring like a struck bell, but the sounds are are also abstract, difficult, challenging, and maybe too much for the casual listener. But you know what? Fuck the casual listener, this is not casual music, this is music to luxuriate in, to dunk your head in until you run out of breath and start seeing all sorts of strange colors, this is music that gets inside of you, and suffuses all your senses with it's strange glow. This is not background music, this is music that makes everything around it fade into the background. As with all things Fflint, totally and wholeheartedly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Uncertain Flight Cycle"
MPEG Stream: "The Tammuz Tree"
MPEG Stream: "A Cellar Full Of Nightjars"

PENDRO Peninsula (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Most of you who read the list know how into Fflint recordings we are. And what do ya know, the almighty Fflint Central strikes again! Why aren't these guys huge? Especially when they are making some of the craziest, most original electronic music we've ever heard. Blows away most everything else we've heard. But how they do it? Do these guys ever sleep? Don't they have jobs or families? Or lives? But then, who cares, when we're treated to a new record this good every few months. And this one is GOOD. A quick trip through 'Peninsula' reveals: stuttering bagpipes and far away seal calls, as if Oval got a hold of some Amps For Christ cds, growling and scraping woodblocks timestretched into sinister growls, raw and ultra distorted high end melodies, player pianos reverbed to death until they become an ominous hum like a swarm of mechanical wasps pinned down by loping, stumbling Autechre-ish loops, rhythmic workouts: all stuttering thumps and slow motion handclaps, like Timbaland being held down in your bathtub, struggling for air, delicate and crystalline bubbles of ringing percussion and shimmering washes of dreamy spaciness. The record ends with a monstrous, upper register extended drone, warm and hypnotic, but still intense and ear piercing, like having an icepick made out of cotton driven into your skull. Very reminiscient of Pelt, Lamonte Young, or a very relaxed, very peaceful, very stoned Skullflower. Buy this. Seriously.
RealAudio clip: "The Camouflage Router"
RealAudio clip: "Sepiaville"
RealAudio clip: "Flip"

PENDRO Portals (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're running out of superlatives ffor those ffuckers ar Fflint. Just to be decent, you think they'd drop a stinker here and there. Give us a breather. But no, every single release has to be ffantastic. And this new one from Pendro is no different. Still ffucking weird, and still ffucking brilliant. Pendro is seemingly becoming less and less concerned with beats and ffocusing more on atmosphere which is just ffine with us. The sounds of children playing and staticky radio broadcasts are transmitted sporadically through a dense haze of reverb into the Twilight Zone, steel string guitars are bombarded by swoops and bleeps and other assorted sonic detritus purchased from Acid Mothers Temple at a London swap meet, dreamy kraut-prog ambience is rhythmically enhanced by lasers and phaser fire, electronic crickets are stuffed into trumpets and fflugel horns and dropped down a well, a malfuctioning player piano is lowered into a cave ffull of locusts and barbed wire. And so it goes. One indescribable sonic adventure after another. Beautiful sounds. Perplexing sounds. Ugly sounds. All masterfully woven into dense, dark swaths of confounding ambience. Once again the boys at Fflint give the old middle ffinger to the established electronica community by making yet another record that is so good, nobody knows what to do with it. Except us. And of course you.
MPEG Stream: "Apertures"
MPEG Stream: "Anglesey Night Shapes"
MPEG Stream: "Dusk Dwellers"

PENDRO The Oxide Heresies (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fflint Central is a U.K. label run by two extraordinarily nice guys and darn fine hosts (good enough to befriend a sick and bedraggled on-tour Andee and buy him Cokes). Fflint specializes in experimental electronics and harsh abstract noise. One would think that there's enough, or too much of both, but the men from Fflint have that something special (fuck-you attitude? undefinable sound? sense of humor?) that makes these records way better and way more interesting than the majority of the 'electronica' we hear these days. Fans of VV/M, Lesser and other 'troublesome' electonica will dig this stuff. Affordable CD-Rs. Go ahead and take a chance. You may regret it...
Pendro (aka Tim Jones, the second half of the FFlint dynamic duo) describe this record as 'psychedelic', but God knows what he must have taken to come up with this. Things start off with a cascade of blips and bleeps that seem quite menacing (that's quite a feat for blips and bleeps, mind you) and slowly evolve into a more psychotic Boards of Canada. The rest of the record is a crazy mix of chopped and mutilated classical samples, found sound, hyper-distorted melodies, malfunctioning cd-player rhythms and gurgling computer glitchery, all of which eventually coalesce into a droning, buzzing coda. Really great.

RealAudio clip: "Anybody Just Yet..."

PEOPLE LIKE US A Fistful Of Knuckles (Caciocavallo) cd 16.98
People Like Us is the work of UK plunderphonician Vicki Bennett, whose previous albums mined the UK radio talkshows to construct brutally hilarious collages loaded with sexual innuendo and scatalogical humor. "A Fistful Of Knuckles" is her Americana record, taking the dredges of thrift store vinyl to their most surreal end. Way out on the open range of After School Special soundtracks and cowboy adventure records, Bennett had compiled a wacky album of twangy looped samples, lone harmonicas, decontextualized spoken words elements which make us Americans sound down right stupid, and a very very naughty version of "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain." People Like Us have been joined in the 'Happy Valley Ranch' by Mr. Wobbly, The Jet Black Hair People (Peter of Negativland / Wetgate / Monopause), M.C. Schmerz (aka Martin from Matmos), etc... All in all, this may very well be her best record.

PEOPLE LIKE US Hate People Like Us (Soleilmoon) cd 15.98
A 'remix' album of plunderphonic/sonic dadaist People Like Us by a handful of experimentalists such as Negativland, Coil, Stock Hausen & Walkman, Mika Vainio, Dummy Run, Boyd Rice, Bruce Gilbert, Farmer's Manual, Death In June, Christoph Heemann (Nurse With Wound/H.N.A.S.), Rehberg & Bauer, and Sons of Silence. So this may be a stupid semantic argument...but is a remix album of somebody who pilfers everything anyway merely a compilation of tracks (to be catagorized with 'Various Artists') or is the conceptualization of culling these 'remixes' together fall under the catagory of being the intellectual property of the original artist (and thus is to be filed under the original artist's name)? Does it really matter?

PEOPLE LIKE US Lassie House / Jumble Massive (Caciocavallo) cd 13.98
"Lassie House" and "Jumble Massive" were two vinyl-only limited edition releases on Soleilmoon by the whimsical plunderphonic artist People Like Us (aka Vicky Bennett). Much like the comedic moments of Negativland (without the social commentary), People Like Us slices up samples culled from British radio broadcasts (talk shows about gardening and dour radio dramas) and rearranges the cut-ups into bizarre dialogues broken up by silly Herb Alpert-esque horns. Quite wonderful stuff.

PEOPLE LIKE US Recyclopaedia Britannica (Mess Media) cd 15.98
"Recyclopaedia Britannica" could be seen as a 'greatest hits' compilation for Vicky Bennett's People Like Us; however, she is not content to merely pick tracks from her comic cavalcade of plunderphonic recordings from the past decade. Rather, this album rewires, recontextualizes, and reconfigures various snippets that have previously made their way onto all of her records, and stands as something that's almost new. Thus, this makes for an excellent introduction to her work, but will certainly be enough to warm the hearts of her fans. The opening burst (ehm) of collaged farts on "Recyclopaedia" sets the stage for the scatalogical humor that runs rampant throughout all of Bennett's work. Sampling liberally from various thrift store finds, Bennett generates an arsenal of wacky loopings from yodeling Alpine polkas, high-lonesome moseys from Cowboys and Indians childrens' adventures, and Fellini-esque blasts of circus music. Splattered throughout these musical interludes, People Like Us rearrange garden variety narratives from radio dramas and talk radio into bumbling, sexualized farces (often punctuated by more farting). In these spoken word elements, Bennett often emphasizes the breathes, umms, ahhs, and slurred pauses from her unsuspecting victims to turn their speach into wickedly funny collages of broken stumblings. This work - like the profound art joke of Piero Manzoni's can of Artist's Shit - isn't merely toilet humor, nor is it smug irony, but an uncomfortable juxtaposition of audio perversion guided by an incredibly sharp intellect and deadly comic timing. Required listening for fans of Wobbly, Negativland, and John Oswald.
RealAudio clip: "T424PLU"
RealAudio clip: "If Someone Touches You"
RealAudio clip: "My Son Jim"

PEOPLE LIKE US Stifled Love (Soleilmoon) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In a career that has spanned almost a decade, People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett) has specialized in reconfiguring the audio detritus of BBC talk radio, instructional recordings, Italian exotica, and country/western kitsch. Her rhythmically tinged audio collages rip apart the conventional perceptions of these sounds and expose them as sexually explicit or scatalogical punchlines to absurdist jokes. It's not uncommon for People Like Us to recontextualize a talk show guest gleefully rambling about gardening into a frenzied yet bumbling vocalization of sexual ecstacy. "Stifled Love" is a limited edition, vinyl only release that is her 'love record'. Yet, this is as much of an album about love as Wobbly's "Wild Why" is about hip hop. In other words, People Like Us deconstructs the archetypes of the love song in such a way as to extract a vibrant sense of slapstick humor without devolving into an self-reflexive ironic posture of smart-ass appropriation (i.e. the "Bootleg" phenomenon that was the craze in England during the summer of 2002). At first, Bennett mines the same territory heard in the "Wide Open Spaces" collaboration with Matmos and Wobbly, where clipped samples from various country-western tunes evolved into simple riffs of cowpoke swagger. Yet, jazz crooners and Hawaiian romantica also find their way into Bennett's variety show of plundered material. The highlight of the album is definitely another country reference, as Bennett chops up vocal samples of Dolly Parton and amasses them into a dramatic crescendo of Dolly's unmistakable drawl. Nicely done.
MPEG Stream: "Stifled Love"
MPEG Stream: "Dolly Pardon"

PEOPLE LIKE US Thermos Explorer (Hot Air) cd 16.98
Newest recording from England's pluderphonic artist par excellance Vicki Bennett. This release finds Vicky entering more and more into the musical realm of Stock, Hausen & Walkman and entering it with style. Humorous and infectious samples that don't tire with increased listening like so many "funny" electronica releases. Highly recommended.

PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ Perpetuum Mobile (Soleilmoon) cd 16.98

PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ Withers In The Waking (Touch) 7" 8.98
The latest entry in Touch's ongoing series of limited 7"s from People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz is by far the biggest surprise of bunch so far, in that you'll find no deep drones or abstract minimalism or delicate soundscapery, instead, as it states plainly right there on the sleeve, we get "Two new rolls of woozy dream circus lovingly cooked by two bakers of antiquity. Recorded in the ice and snow, in clay ovens, by broken down carousels."
Which is pretty much what it sounds like. Lilting sunshine-y melodies, circusy calliopes, gentle summery strum, and lushy boy girl vocal harmonies, all spun into some sweet pop confection. Sort of like Belle And Sebastian run through The Decemberists, and indeed all woozy and warbly, playful and pretty, old timey pop. But that's just the A side. The B side begins with a rhythm straight out of Perrey And Kingsley's songbook, but it's not long before the vocals come in, and again offer up a sing songy fractured doo wop duet, while the strange honk and skronk continues on beneath, along with some warm record crackle and some warped off kilter keyboards.
Definitely a weird one, and will likely rub some of the more striaghtlaced minimalist Touch music fanatics the wrong way, but it's a pretty darn giddy chunk of high art gone low brow, which is mos definitely a good thing.

PEOPLE LIKE US & KENNY G Nothing Special (Soleilmoon) cd 15.98

PEOPLE LIKE US & WOBBLY Music For The Fire (Illegal Art) cd 16.98

PEOPLE OF THE NORTH Steep Formations (Brah / Jagjaguwar) 2lp 16.98
Record number two from this Oneida offshoot, two long form pieces, both heavily drum driven, spaced out, psychedelic and very very rhythmic, beholden for sure to the many minimalist greats that came before, not to mention heavily indebted to krautrock classics, but for everything these guys borrow from the past, they manage to infuse it with its own unique modern psychedelic energy. So much so that it's actually quite difficult to describe. The 40+ minute, two part "Border Waves" begins with a strange flurry of stuttering drumming, over heaving swells of whirring organ, and buried swirls of melody, it's not until about 4 minutes in that the sound shifts, the drumming shifts from snare to toms, and gets all tribal, the sound mesmerizing and hypnotic, folks who flipped for the Boredoms Boadrum performances (of which Kid from Onieda and POTN played a big part), will go nuts for this too, a similarly drums-as-portal-to-the-cosmos energy to the sound, that sound growing more and more chaotic, the swirling swooshing background sounds growing more and more active and noisy, but never losing that droned out psych-kraut mesmer. The second movement is almost like the sonic flipside, the background sound, the tripped out synths and drones moving to the fore, squelches and swooshes drifting over a bed of grinding crumbling blacknoise, a similarly stuttery drum rhythm, albeit way more stripped down, enters the fray, but fades way after not too long, letting the various other sounds shift and sway, a dark ambient spaced out psychedelic drift, underpinned by that ever present distorted low end rumble.
The 30+ minute title track, might be the heaviest, darkest krautdrone jam yet, all rumbling whirring low end, pulsing synths and grinding buzzing thrum, laced with minimal spare drumming, a sense of propulsion infused into the sound, less rhythmic, but still weirdly motorik, the caustic crunch almost SUNNO))) like in its tarpit creep, but strap some headphones on and lose yourself in the undulating layers and the lush, blackened textures.
Comes with a download card too!
MPEG Stream: "Border Waves (Part 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Steep Formations"

PEPE WISMEER Le Stridor De L'escargot (Equation) lp + cd-r 25.00
One of two new, ultra limited, extravagantly packaged releases from the always amazing Equation Records. Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find a new one from Irr.App.(Ext.), a lp+7" tribute to Organum and David Jackman, and then there's this one, the most recent release from an oddball French duo who some of you might remember as a remixer on Nurse With Wound's Two Shaves And A Shine Remix Project. Others might even remember their last record on Equation, a twisted mix of psychedelic folk, spaced out lysergic cabaret, and ambient dronemusic, which definitely situates itself not that far from the NWW axis, occasionally also displaying more of a dramatic cabaret / balladry vibe.
This new one is limited to only 100 copies, and we got 10, so won't go into too much detail since these will likely be gone pretty quick. But if you've yet to be exposed to the warped musical soundworld of Pepe Wismeer, please step right up. This time around, the soaring, moody chamber pop that was only a part of the group's sound as expanded into something lush and majestic, reminding us of Antony And The Johnsons, Peter Hammill, Scott Walker, the vocals dramatic and passionate, alternating whispering and belting it out, the music is lush and lovely, soaring strings over tranquil folkiness, everything flecked with mysterious sounds and strange effects, swirling percussion drifts atop, hushed expanses of dark psychedelic shimmer, swaths of synths buzz through clouds of insectoid electronics, everything dialed back and muted, the vibe more stately and melancholic, almost like torch songs, given a subtly experimental tweak. The tracks themselves are super short, but al woven into a single expansive songsuite, that's brooding and moody and darkly dreamy, and quite lovely, the weirdness and experimental elements just adding texture to the already deep, lush landscape of delicate pianos, hushed vox, swirling strings, and hazy, softly psychedelic ambience. So gorgeous.
And like all Equation releases, they've pulled out all the stops. the record is in a plain black sleeve, with pasted on full color artwork, inside a printed postcard, the lp sleeve numbered AND a bonus cd-r of extra home-recorded material!
Again, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, we got ten, and will NOT be able to get more.

PEPE WISMEER Musi (Equation) lp 19.98
Not a person, but a duo from France, Pepe Wismeer create an incredible concoction of otherworldly cabaret, psychedelic chamber folk and mysterious minimal ambience, creating a soundworld that seems to situate itself somewhere between Nurse With Wound, Antony And The Johnsons and Natural Snow Buildings.
Pianos and strings swirl and soar, while operatic female vocals drift over the top, the sound is stirring and dramatic, soundtracky and cinematic, occasionally those sounds fade into the background allowing the aforementioned folk to surface, the duo crooning warmly over this very unlikely assemblage of sounds, seems like it would be too much, but it's perfect, like a doom folk NWW whipping up this, moving tales of lost loves, the dark meandering minimal soundscaping augmented by bells, chimes, samples ouds and sitars, creaking and moaning, random animal sounds, it's like a musical interpretation of Alice In Wonderland, surreal and fantastical, occasionally dark and ominous, always warm and weird and mysterious, lapsing now and again into some serious chaotic noisiness, but always returning to the group's glorious core brood and drift, shimmer and soar. So wonderfully and mysteriously lovely.
LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES!! Each one is numbered, on the sleeve AND the lp, includes an 8 page booklet, and is housed in a gorgeous paste on jacket.

PERCEPTION s/t (Mellow) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
France's freaky Futura label originally released this on LP in '71. It's jazz fusiony stuff, kinda "Zeuhl" (saxophonist Yochk'o Seffer, the leader of the group, soon went on to join Magma and then formed Zeuhl group Zao). Perception features his sax and clarinet blowing backed by busy drums and bass and electric piano action. Over the four lengthy tracks here, they'll quiet down for a moody respite, then go off on a noodley prog-groove that quickly explodes into full-on free jazz improv clatter, and then quiet down again for some melancholy, melodic sax soloing, and then back to the energetic ensemble interplay, and so on... Perception are definitely more jazz than rock, and a lot more together and musical than some of the other, even freakier Futura releases. Fans of Magma's jazzier side should definitely investigate.
RealAudio clip: "Chirato"

PERICH, TRISTAN 1-Bit Music (Cantaloupe Music) jewel case 1-bit electronic music generator 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Attention music geeks, music-tech nerds, cool gadget obsessives and espeically anyone who freaked out over the amazing Buddha Machine! We've got another far out musical gadget that will have you all in a tizzy.
Tristan Perich is a name we had never heard before. Turns out he's a musician and inventor, who has released this record, his debut we think, of 1-bit music (more on that in a moment) in its own self contained jewel case player. What's that? A gorgeous little electronic sculpture, made up of a plain old plastic jewel case, and a handful of colored wires and chips and tiny dials, completely self contained, a headphone jack in the jewel case offering you entry into Perich's crunchy minimal electronic sound world.
As many of you know, 8-bit music is the sound of '80s video game music, all your arcade favorites, super simple electronic sounds crafted into equally simple harmonies and melodies, so get rid of seven of those bits, and you're left with just ONE bit, the smallest increment of memory and sound. So Perich has taken these super minimal tones, and constructed some amazing electronic music, that is crunchy and raw, the sound all buzzy tones and staticky clicks, ranging from playful lullabies to grinding dense tangles of squelch and squiggle. Some of the tracks definitely sound like they could be some lost video game music, but others are drone-y and weirdly layered and textured smears of crumbling lo-fi bleep and buzz, through headphones it sounds amazing, but through your speakers, it sounds like someone is in there pulling your speakers apart with rusty blunted shears. This would destroy a dancefloor, add some booming beats and you'd have some Daft Punk jam of the year, all grinding minimalism, in fact one track sounds like Fischerspooner via your Atari 2600, while some of the others sound like a much more playful and lo-fi Ryoji Ikeda, the sound of someone playing Pac Man turned into a 1-bit techno jam, and like the ultra minimal little brother of Skweee (that Scandinavian electro we've been so obsessed with lately)!
But the music really only is half of it. The player is so striking, the whole record contained on a tiny chip, soldered to the jewel case, a battery in its little holder, two tiny volume controls, a mini on/off switch, a button to skip tracks, wires leading to a tiny headphone jack, the only liner notes a printed piece of paper that comes off with the plastic shrinkwrap, and a transparency with Perich's name and the name of the record. Before any of us had even heard the music, we all new we had to have one. It's a tiny musical sculpture, a piece of art that functions as a piece of sound art as well. Anyone who bought a Buddha Machine will want one of these. And if you were wondering what to get that weirdo music freek friend of yours, we'd be hard pressed to think of something cooler than this!
Be warned. We got ONLY 50 COPIES!!! They are super labor intensive and hand made. Perich is currently trying to sort out a way to make more, so when we run out, it may be a while before we can get more, so if you want one, and we can't imagine how you wouldn't, then act fast!!!
Cool music gadget (and minimal lo-fi 1-bit videogame glitch crunch record) of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Certain Movement"

PERICH, TRISTAN 1-Bit Symphony (Cantaloupe Music) jewel case 1-bit electronic music generator 30.00
Music nerds may get obsessed with records all the time, but they also get pretty into musical gadgets, as evidenced most recently by FM3's Buddha Machine, which we've sold about a billion of, and most folks we know own more than one. And heck, that's just a little plastic box that plays short little loops. We didn't think anything would be able to trump the coolness of the Buddha Machine, which appealed to music geeks and tech nerds in equal measure, but then along came 1-Bit Music from a composer named Tristan Perich. Not only was 1-Bit Music Perich's debut record, it wasn't a record at all, instead it was simultaneously a piece of sound art and a miniature sound producing gadget, a collection of tiny wires and chips and switches and a watch battery, all affixed to the inside of a plain old cd jewel case. The result, a super striking looking little gizmo, but one that produced some weird and amazing 1 bit sounds. But what exactly are 1 bit sounds?
Well, most folks are familiar with 8 bit sounds, all your favorite vintage arcade game music is 8 bit, and all the modern purveyor of Casio core or Nintendo core, they're using those crunchy lo-fi 8 bit sounds to make awesomely retro music. So one bit, is the smallest increment of memory and sound, and Perich composed his music using just 1 bit sounds, the result, beyond being small enough to fit on a tiny chip, and that chip along with some switches and wires in a jewel case, it also made for some alien sounds, like video game music, but as if imagined by the roster of Raster-Noton, a series of clicks and beeps and tangled squiggles of squelches and primitive melodies, almost like some ultra minimal toy techno or something. And while in headphones the sounds were intense and loud and raw, through speakers, they were INTENSE, super destructive and brutal, the sort of sounds, no matter how playful and simple, that DESTROY speakers. So awesome.
Sadly, Perich and his crew had trouble keeping up with demand, as each of the releases, were hand made, every wire and switch, glued into each jewel case one at a time. So eventually that 'record' was discontinued. But now, we have Perich's latest release, no longer simply 1-Bit Music, now, it's a 1-Bit Symphony! And it is in fact more complex, with the various tones and beeps and squelches woven into lush tapestries of sound, rhythmically complex, and harmonically lush, at times sounding almost like M83, sometimes like Steve Reich or Terry Riley composing on a primitive toy Casio keyboard, other times like some lost old school video game, the sounds panning wildly from speaker to speaker, the melodies tangled and intricate, the overall sound so hypnotic and mesmerizing, the compositions sprawling and epic, ranging from 5 minutes, to nearly ten minutes to infinite, the final track a gorgeously lush chunk of distorted fuzzed out minimal buzz, that manages to sound all moody and shoegazey, warm and woozy and crunchy, an endless loop, that we really could imagine listening to endlessly.
But like 1-Bit Music before it, the music is really only half the equation with 1-Bit Symphony, the packaging, which IS the record, is so striking, a gorgeously arranged series of wires and switches, a battery, a volume knob, a button to switch tracks, an on/off switch, a headphone jack, all affixed to a clear jewel case, with a simple stick on the front, and the booklet in the plastic sleeve on the outside of the jewel case, adding a spare white background to the visuals, but also including liner notes, not to mention an intense and fantastically confusional poster featuring what appears to be the composition presented as it was programmed, which also manages to be visually striking and a work of art in its own right.
This one is not so nearly limited as the last one, but probably safer to not risk it, cuz if you're at all into weird music, and weird music related thingies, you are definitely gonna want one of these, and you'll probably want to give one to all the music nerds in your life as well. And like the first Perich 1-Bit release, this one too, is no doubt destined to be the cool music gadget, and minimal lo-fi 1-bit glitch crunch shoegaze squelch symphony record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Movement 1"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 2"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 3"

PERINEUM The Nail And Key (Chambara) cd-r 9.98
There's a seriously thriving noise scene in San Francisco, shows all the time, tons of tapes and cd-r's, performances in warehouses, street corners, micro labels popping up all the time, the one bummer, for us at least, is we're not all that into noise. Well, Allan is into Japanese noise, the rest of us like things that are noisy, but prefer our NOISE to be pretty, or droney, or in some way not all that harsh. Soft noise some folks might call it.
But we're not noise prudes, our ears are made of stern stuff, and there's plenty of thick, buzzing caustic skree we love to cuddle up to. Like this, the debut full length from local duo Perineum, made up of two members of other aQ faves, Ben from local black metal horde Horn Of Dagoth, and Derek from local kraut / drone outfits Horseflesh and Ozmadawn.
Two tracks, appropriately enough titled "The Nail" and "Key". "The Nail" begins with a wall of crumbling caustic distorted heaviness, a swirling buzzing churning swirl of processed tapes, effected vocals, tons of fractured effects, all ground into a roiling black cloud, but something strange happens about three quarters of the way through, the noise abates, leaving a ghostly smear of backwards melodies, delicate crystalline shimmer, soft resonant swells, all layered and fused into a dreamy warm drift that gradually grows quieter and quieter.
"Key" begins as a whispered bit of hiss and whir, like a collage of amp buzz and muted record crackle, smeared into a fuzzy prickly bit of soft white noise, within which is buried subtle rhythmic variations, slowly shifting textures, gradually growing more and more corrosive, the sound decaying and crumbling, bits of feedback beginning to show through, the sound like a Wolf Eyes / Blue Sabbath Black Cheer mashup, eventually within all that hiss and buzz, deep moaning melodies become barely visible, jagged shards of high end surface like chunks of black ice a winter sea, and the sound grows white hot, before fading and gradually disappearing completely.
Packaged in a cool mini dvd style plastic case, with printed and collaged inserts, and the inside of each case hand painted with some mysterious and arcane symbol.
MPEG Stream: "The Nail"
MPEG Stream: "The Key"

PERLONEX Peripherique (Zarak) cd 12.98
A little over a year ago, Frans de Waard left Staalplaat and dedicated himself fully to his own Korm Plastics imprint. De Waard's presence had actually grown to be synonymous with Staalplaat, despite the fact that he didn't own the shop / label. So his departure made us wonder what might've happen to Staalplaat. We need not fear for Staalplaat is going strong and continues to press up more Muslimgauze CDs than you can shake a stick at. Ignaz Schick is now one of the people who has been filling de Waard's shoes (or at least he's the guy we order our Staalplaat gear from).
The inner workings of Staalplaat may be unimportant to most of you, but the context of Ignaz' employment begins to make sense once you realize that he's the force behind the under-represented improv / electro-acoustic ensemble Perlonex. In many ways, Perlonex follows an AMM line-up of relatively commonplace instruments used in very non-traditional means for the manufacture of sound. Schick principally performs on turntables and tape machines, Jorg Maria Zeger has his guitar, and Burkhard Beins takes after Gunter Muller and Jason Kahn as a very non-percussive drummer. Peripherique is Perlonex's second CD and concentrates on a very complex interplay of trio's gestural sounds. It's a far cry from most improv skronk, which revels in its own mastery of the equipment; rather, Perlonex respond to each other in a slow and curiously sensitive march towards incendiary noise. A very impressive document!
MPEG Stream: "Peripherique I"
MPEG Stream: "Peripherique II"