FEARTHAINNE s/t (Glass Throat) 2cd 23.00
Much black metal has been coming out of Cascadia lately, Wolves In The Throne Room, Fauna, Echtra, but not all is grim and frosty and cold and buzzy and black in the Pacific Northwest. Fearthainne is the work of the two players who make up Fauna, whose Rain record we raved about a while back. But in Fearthainne, all of the buzz and bluster have been replaced by delicate crystalline guitar, gruff emotive vocals, deep ominous drones, all woven into a slow, drifting, meditative mountain folk.
On the same label that in the past has brought us mysterious sounds from At The Head Of The Woods, The Elemental Chrysalis, Ruhr Hunter, Alethese and Beneath The Lake, Fearthainne sound right at home, blending dense whirring minimal soundscapes, with gentle meditative folk rituals. Long long tracks that slowly blossom, smoldering, clouded in warm browns and cool greys, strings weep and moan, effects gently cradle the various elements, adding texture more than changing the sound. Mesmerizing, trancelike ruminations on nature, on death, on the beyond. Simple percussion demarcates sprawling folk strum and fields of lilting shimmer and and delicate flutter. The vocals are a strange contrast, almost atonal, moaned more than sung, reminding us of solo records by either of the Neurosis frontmen, giving the proceedings a much more ominous vibe, ritualistic and hauntingly spiritual.
Gorgeous in its simplicity, mysterious in its minimalism, Fearthainne is the soundtrack to a land outside of time, of trees towering over a world unspoilt, clouds drifting across empty skies, night turning into day, the cycle of life continuing on, the world and the universe around it gradually moving into a new, more magical existence. Beautifully sublime.
Incredible packaging, full color 6 panel oversized sleeve, amazing images of ancient forests, late night rituals, and the band gathered beneath a mighty tree, cradling a baby, dressed like witches, and looking like a band of bearded forest dwellers (which they may very well be!).
MPEG Stream: "Fauna"
MPEG Stream: "The Veil"

FEASTER, PATRICK (AND VARIOUS ARTISTS) Pictures Of Sound - One Thousand Years Of Educed Audio: 980-1980 (Dust-To-Digital) cd+book 50.00
Dust-To-Digital are known for their excellent reissue work, unearthing and preserving music from scratchy old shellac 78 rpm recordings and the like. Bringing us vintage blues, gospel, Tuvan throat singing, and more, all with elaborate packaging and incredible attention to detail. They've been responsible for a host of fine cds, boxsets, and books, among 'em Victrola Favorites, Opika Pende, Steve Roden's I Listen To The Wind That Obliterates My Traces, and Goodbye, Babylon.
But THIS handsome book + cd set may be their most remarkable release yet, at least in terms of radical sound-conservation technique. It's certainly their most unusual. For example: one of the tracks here is an excerpt of an after-dinner speech given by late-19th century American orator and politician Chauncy M. Depew. You can listen to it on the cd, and distinctly make out the speaker's words, voice, and phrasing, amid a thick patina of hiss, hum, and distortion. Sounds like a poorly-preserved old gramophone disc. But, that sound isn't coming from the disc itself being played (and re-recorded for release on the cd). It's actually derived from a PICTURE of that disc, reduced by 2/3rds original size, that appeared in a 1898 magazine advertisement. The spiraling grooves on the record were pictured clearly enough that with creative use of off-the-shelf computer software, author Patrick Feaster was able to "play" a fairly accurate semblance of the sounds originally encoded on the gramophone record being advertised!!! Ok, that's pretty cool! Talk about DUST-to-Digital. And it's but one example of the MANY different, quite intriguing excercises and investigations in "playing back" sound from such antique and/or unusual "recordings" that Feaster and his colleagues at the First Sounds initiative have come up with, presented in fascinating detail in this fancy (gold gilt edges!), hardback 144-page book and accompanying 28-track compact disc.
Of course, one can argue, just what IS a "sound recording" anyway? In large part, that's what this is about; in fact, Feaster's introduction is devoted to that very question, which turns out to be both a philosophical one, as well as a technical one. Even in Feaster's expansive notion of the term, the idea that "sound recordings" exist from as far back as the year 980AD is perhaps a fanciful one, as he will admit, but still fruitful to consider.
Because, what this book is also about, more generally, is how human beings have sought to understand sound phenomena (from nature, voice, and music), through the ages, how sound has been "captured" and put on paper in graphical form to be perceived and studied visually. These visual representations of sound, are essentially all in the form of graphs of frequency, or amplitude, over time: sound spectrograms, sound oscillograms, phonoautograms, melographic inscriptions, manometric flame sketches, and many more. Various techniques, applied to various subjects. Found in these chapters and tracks, there's FBI voice-recognition studies from the '70s, phonophotographs of Negro spirituals from the '20s, and examples of Athansius Kircher's "Magia Phonotatica" circa 1650 (works which bring to mind Conlon Nancarrow's Studies For Player Piano), among others.
So, this is all very historically & scientifically interesting. Also, completely compelling just for the beauty of these images alone, which may or may not directly reflect the beauty of the sounds they represent - this is a lavishly illustrated book, with full-color reproductions of these various "sound recordings" to accompany the insightful text explaining it all. And the magic really happens, when you experience the book and cd in tandem, as each track on the cd, even the briefest, has an entire several-page chapter in the book devoted to it, and it really helps to read about and look at the visual sound source, while listening. Some tracks sound like antique recordings we're used to from wax cylinders and 78s, complete with the surface static we love so much; others like strange field recordings or ghostly experimental drones or balloons being rubbed together; still others like music boxes or similar devicesÉ
This is the sort of unusual sound document to file with such aQ faves as the mysterious Ghost Orchid EVP recordings, the VLF recordings of Stephen McGreevy, or even the famed Conet Project (soon to be available again, with a bonus 5th disc!). In fact, one of the exhibits here, an 1890 phonoautogram by Emile Berliner, kind of reminds us of a Conet "numbers station" track, being a spoken series of numbers and letters recorded at varying speeds.
All in all, an astonishing, thought-provoking, and simply gorgeous book and cd, recommended to anyone interested in sound, science, OR art; meaning, probably everybody reading this!
MPEG Stream: "This Is A Sound Spectrogram"
MPEG Stream: "Scripture's Curves"
MPEG Stream: "Phonophotography"
MPEG Stream: "Numbers And Letters"
MPEG Stream: "Phonoautograms From 1857"
MPEG Stream: "Alleluia"
MPEG Stream: "Barcelonnette"

FEATHERS s/t (Gnomonsong) cd 13.98
Originally released on lp by the band, now available on cd via the Gnomonsong label run by Devendra Banhart and Andy Cabic of Vetiver.
A customer turned us on to this Vermont-based group who have quietly been making their own brand of druggy hippy psych folk, releasing loads of cd-r's and this here s/t album, and it seems like only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches on and they'll be psych-folk household names like Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart. Simple strummed guitars, sweet sweet harmonies, banjo and occasional acid fried guitars, simple and insistent tribal drumming, very reminiscent of seventies British folk a la Incredible String Band, Shirley Collins, even Comus (but not nearly as psychotic). However, they do occasionally wander down a darker path, exploring moody and minor key acoustic dirges, each one curiously ominous folky swirl beneath a brooding strum and thump. There's also an old timey element to Feathers, the tracks sound so old, but timeless at the same time, almost otherworldly (assuming the other world had banjos and folk music and record players) sounding a lot like sitting in a dusty room listening to old 78's. So so nice. Includes a big booklet with lyrics, and lots of photos of the band all fringed and tassled and feathered up, frolicking in the forest.
We loved this already, when that LP first showed up, but now we're even more fascinated by Feathers in light of how amazing (and different from this, being soooo heavy) that Witch album featuring two Feathers members is!
MPEG Stream: "Old Black Hat With A Dandelion Flower"
MPEG Stream: "To Each His Own"

FEATHERS s/t (Feathers Family) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A customer turned us on to this Vermont-based group who have quietly been making their own brand of druggy hippy psych folk, releasing loads of cd-r's and this here lp, and it seems like only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches on and they'll be psych-folk household names like Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart. Simple strummed guitars, sweet sweet harmonies, banjo and occasional acid fried guitars, simple and insistent tribal drumming, very reminiscent of seventies British folk a la Incredible String Band, Shirley Collins, even Comus (but not nearly as psychotic). However, they do occasionally wander down a darker path, exploring moody and minor key acoustic dirges, each one curiously ominous folky swirl beneath a brooding strum and thump. There's also an old timey element to Feathers, the tracks sound so old, but timeless at the same time, almost otherworldly (assuming the other world had banjos and folk music and record players) sounding a lot like sitting in a dusty room listening to old 78's.
Comes with a big poster of the band all painted up and luxuriating in the tall green grass.

FEATHERS Something's Wrong with Feathers (self-released) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New tour-only full length cd-r from hippie psych-folk collective Feathers. Nine Songs in round robin style, each one dedicated to the likes of Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Nabob (from Brightblack Morning Light) and the Dictionary, amongst others. Like the previous cd-rs, "Kurt Sings" and "Tour Paint" (both sadly unavailable), these are hand-printed, colored and sewn, and so very, very limited!
MPEG Stream: "Space Alien Blues"
MPEG Stream: "We Are In Danger Now"

FEATHERS Tour Paint (self-released) cd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Folks who witnessed Feathers opening for Vetiver and Espers a few weeks back, mentioned that they were one of the quietest bands that had heard. So much so, that a rock venue was hardly the best venue to witness their delicate beauty. While the band was here we managed to snag the last of this tour-only ep, a gorgeous self released, hand sewn and packged glimpse into their ethereal dark folk world. The first track is so quiet, it's like Feathers are whispering in your ear, the candlelight flickering, their warm breaths as loud as he barely strummed guitars. So lovely. The next two tracks are much more rambunctious, some seventies British style pagan folk, with Syd Barret like vocals and lots of druggy psychedelic filligree. The final track returns to the hushed beauty of the opening song, a dark dolorous minor key lament, with angelic vocals and haunting steel string guitars.
Packaged in a hand screened paper sleeve, sewn together with colored thread. Each and every one is unique.
THESE ARE THE LAST 30 COPIES. ONCE THEY ARE GONE THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD!
MPEG Stream: "Wandering With You"
MPEG Stream: "Angel In The Sky"

FEATHERS, CHARLIE Get With It: Essential Recordings (1954-69) (Revenant) 2cd 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here is a 2 cd retrospective collection of the often underrated, and totally amazing rockabilly, country great Charlie Feathers. We have carried this before, now it is reissued in fancy packaging. Charlie grew up tending his parents farm. He sang in church and listened to the Grand Ole Opry. A local sharecropper named Junior Kimbrough taught him how to play guitar. He reminds me at times of Hank Williams, Eddie Arnold, and even Hasil Adkins. Feathers wrote "Can't Hardly Stand It" which was later covered by the Cramps. He has the talent of mixing the best elements of blues, country, bluegrass and rockabilly in an original and inventive way. Some songs are slow lazy sad country, and then some are rockin' and tough. As this collection proves he was hard working and eclectic in the mid '50s, but it was during the '70s resurgence of rockabilly in Europe that he was revered and appreciated. Many country and rock n rollers credit Feathers for inspiration (Johnny Cash for one). Dispite horrible health problems he persevered till the end recording and touring, mostly in Europe. Charlie Feathers died August 29, 1998 of complications following a stroke; he was 66. Here are all his Sun, Flip, King, Meteor, Kay, WalMay and Holiday Inn sides, plus rare, unissued tracks including Sun demos, alternate takes and early home recordings with the likes of Junior Kimbrough. You also get a fancy detailed 48 page book.
RealAudio clip: "One Hand Loose"
RealAudio clip: "Can't Hardly Stand It"
RealAudio clip: "Everybody's Lovin' My Baby"

FEATHERS, CHARLIE Get With It: Essential Recordings (1954-69) (Revenant) 3lp 36.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl! A massive trible lp in a gorgeous gatefold sleeve. Here's what we had to say about the cd:
A retrospective collection of the often underrated, and totally amazing rockabilly, country great Charlie Feathers. Charlie grew up tending his parents farm. He sang in church and listened to the Grand Ole Opry. A local sharecropper named Junior Kimbrough taught him how to play guitar. He reminds me at times of Hank Williams, Eddie Arnold, and even Hasil Adkins. Feathers wrote "Can't Hardly Stand It" which was later covered by the Cramps. He has the talent of mixing the best elements of blues, country, bluegrass and rockabilly in an original and inventive way. Some songs are slow lazy sad country, and then some are rockin' and tough. As this collection proves he was hard working and eclectic in the mid '50s, but it was during the '70s resurgence of rockabilly in Europe that he was revered and appreciated. Many country and rock n rollers credit Feathers for inspiration (Johnny Cash for one). Dispite horrible health problems he persevered till the end recording and touring, mostly in Europe. Charlie Feathers died August 29, 1998 of complications following a stroke; he was 66. Here are all his Sun, Flip, King, Meteor, Kay, WalMay and Holiday Inn sides, plus rare, unissued tracks including Sun demos, alternate takes and early home recordings with the likes of Junior Kimbrough. Massive batch of super informative liner notes!
RealAudio clip: "One Hand Loose"
RealAudio clip: "Can't Hardly Stand It"
RealAudio clip: "Everybody's Lovin' My Baby"

FEATHERS, CHARLIE Honky Tonk Kind (Norton) lp 12.98

FEATHERS, CHARLIE Wild Side of Life (Norton) lp 12.98

FEDERATION X Rally Day (Estrus) cd 14.98
Dirty, sludgy, poppy, grunge rock from the two worlds of Bellingham, WA and New York City. Rally Day is heavy on the power-chords and rock n' metal riffs. One of our more favorite tracks, "Nightmare Nation", features some pulled-down vocals treatments that reference a bit of Ozzy. Overall the production of this record leaves us feeling pretty ho-hum which is too bad because the energy in their songs seems to be pretty powerful, potentially. This could be one of those things that the band is totally amazing live, but falls short here by way of their recording process, cause the band certainly knows how to rock! For fans of Love As Laughter, The Apes, Part Chimp.
MPEG Stream: "Hydrogen, Nitrogen & Bullshit"
MPEG Stream: "A Fear To Fly"

FEEDTIME Billy (Amphetamine Reptile) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
These fellas make the Cosmic Psychos seem childish. They tied your favorite singer to the rear fender of their pick-up truck and they drove and they drove and they drove fast, and in your direction.

FEEDTIME The Aberrant Years (Sub Pop) 4cd 17.98
As much as we're perpetually on the prowl for new sounds, sometimes it's the old sounds that move us the most. And it's a good time for revisiting old sounds for sure. So many classic records getting reissued, whether it's the gnarled indie rock of Archers of Loaf, all the Sebadoh records, the seminal math/post rock of Bitch Magnet, the forthcoming reissues from slowcore legends Codeine, there's no shortage of old bands who definitely deserve another listen, and there's most definitely a whole new generation ripe to discover all these bands for the first time. Which brings us to feedtime, a band whose influence amongst OTHER bands can't be underestimated, but in terms of commercial success and enduring popularity, well there's definitely a disparity, one that will hopefully be addressed with this comprehensive reissue of all four record from these Aussie minimal thud rockers, whose sound, who, listening to these records again now, influenced so many of the bands we've flipped over since, right off the bat we're hearing Wire (a band they're often compared too, although they claim at the time to have never heard), we hear the Melvins, Killdozer, Flipper, their countrymen Kingsnakeroost and Lubricated Goat, we hear Nirvana, the Ramones (albeit at a much lower RPM), Mudhoney, really, it's hard not to hear generations of bands who explored a similarly minimal take on punk rock or post punk or even pub rock, cuz really, feedtime were essentially a pub rock band gone wrong (or right), their sound in many cases like a classic rock or blues rock, slowed down and stripped down and dirtied up, their sound as much about mesmer and repetition and trance as melody or hooks, maybe even more so.
Their first record, originally self released, is fantastically home brewed, lo-fi, but still noisy and heavy, and their kick ass cover of Mississippi Fred McDowell's "I Wonder What's The Matter With Papa's Little Angel Child" is most definitely THEE jam, a revved up blues dirge workout that kills, and the slide guitar (which shows up throughout the group's discography) prominently on display, and like it did the first time we heard it, it'll have you wondering why all bands don't have slide guitar. Their second record Shovel, found a marked improvement in production, but other than that the sound remained pretty similar, the songs mostly one or two parts, the band tight as fuck, but still somehow sounding loose and alive, and that slide guitar, subtly employed but adding a little something extra, the sound noisy, the vocals a guttural bark, the Killdozer vibe is huge, and we begin to hear Halo Of Flies and other AmRep bands, and this is the record where you can hear for the first time, that feedtime is all about THE BASS, driving everything, percussive and melodic, driving and dense and thick and sinewy, it gives the songs heft and a low end energy, there's also female vox, it's pretty crazy stuff, that definitely sounds incredible even all these years later.
The third disc in the set is Cooper S, their cover record, on which they cover the Beach Boys, Lee Hazlewood, the Rolling Stones, the Ramones, The Stooges, Slade, the Easybeats, Animals, a traditional or two, they even make a song out of an e.e. cummings poem (maybe cuz they both start their names with lower case letters), but in the hands of feedtime, the originals are totally reimagined, and in many cases, barring the lyrics are transformed into something unrecognizable, the band stripping away tempo changes and various other superfluous elements and instead making the songs their own, maniacally minimal and dirgey and hypnotic, they even mix in some trumpet, and other sonic sweetness, but there's just something so magical about their sound and what they were able to make out of so little, and in the case of the cover, what they were able to do to classics, making them their own kind of classics, which again, in many cases, sound to these ears better than the originals, "Paint It Black" is the perfect example, the band slowing it way down, the result sounds almost more like a dirge rock Devo, the sound oozy and slithery and so much blacker than the original.
The final disc in the set, was the final record for the band, Suction, and while in some ways it was tighter and more polished, it was also another disc of heady, churning noise rock minimalism, and in some ways it even manages to sound a bit more lo-fi, the slide guitar in full effect, making the whole record woozy and wonderfully warped, there's also harmonica, and some of their best / our favorite jams, "Pumping A Line" sound almost like it could be a Circle track, a sort of churning looped metallic hypnorock, or "Confused Blues" which is some serious Killdozer style pigfuck slithery blues, or the weirdly poppy, almost Velvets sounding "Ever Again" complete with slippery slide and moaning horns, fuck this stuff is so great. We never really stopped digging these guys, but having all of it together, it's a pretty intense and fantastically intensive listening experience, and one that definitely paints feedtime as a band not only ahead of their time, but a band who lots of folks owe their whole goddamn sound to.
The reissues tack on all kinds of extras, compilation tracks, B sides, and the records (and cds) come in a big box, with each album in a sleeve reproducing the original album cover, and with a big booklet crammed with pictures, liner notes, as well as the notes that accompanied the various original releases.
MPEG Stream: "Haha"
MPEG Stream: "Fastbuck"
MPEG Stream: "Dead Crazy"
MPEG Stream: "Shovel"
MPEG Stream: "Rock N Roll"
MPEG Stream: "Fun Fun Fun"
MPEG Stream: "Lightning's Girl"
MPEG Stream: "Motorbike"
MPEG Stream: "Possum"

FEEDTIME The Aberrant Years (Sub Pop) 4lp 39.00
As much as we're perpetually on the prowl for new sounds, sometimes it's the old sounds that move us the most. And it's a good time for revisiting old sounds for sure. So many classic records getting reissued, whether it's the gnarled indie rock of Archers of Loaf, all the Sebadoh records, the seminal math/post rock of Bitch Magnet, the forthcoming reissues from slowcore legends Codeine, there's no shortage of old bands who definitely deserve another listen, and there's most definitely a whole new generation ripe to discover all these bands for the first time. Which brings us to feedtime, a band whose influence amongst OTHER bands can't be underestimated, but in terms of commercial success and enduring popularity, well there's definitely a disparity, one that will hopefully be addressed with this comprehensive reissue of all four record from these Aussie minimal thud rockers, whose sound, who, listening to these records again now, influenced so many of the bands we've flipped over since, right off the bat we're hearing Wire (a band they're often compared too, although they claim at the time to have never heard), we hear the Melvins, Killdozer, Flipper, their countrymen Kingsnakeroost and Lubricated Goat, we hear Nirvana, the Ramones (albeit at a much lower RPM), Mudhoney, really, it's hard not to hear generations of bands who explored a similarly minimal take on punk rock or post punk or even pub rock, cuz really, feedtime were essentially a pub rock band gone wrong (or right), their sound in many cases like a classic rock or blues rock, slowed down and stripped down and dirtied up, their sound as much about mesmer and repetition and trance as melody or hooks, maybe even more so.
Their first record, originally self released, is fantastically home brewed, lo-fi, but still noisy and heavy, and their kick ass cover of Mississippi Fred McDowell's "I Wonder What's The Matter With Papa's Little Angel Child" is most definitely THEE jam, a revved up blues dirge workout that kills, and the slide guitar (which shows up throughout the group's discography) prominently on display, and like it did the first time we heard it, it'll have you wondering why all bands don't have slide guitar. Their second record Shovel, found a marked improvement in production, but other than that the sound remained pretty similar, the songs mostly one or two parts, the band tight as fuck, but still somehow sounding loose and alive, and that slide guitar, subtly employed but adding a little something extra, the sound noisy, the vocals a guttural bark, the Killdozer vibe is huge, and we begin to hear Halo Of Flies and other AmRep bands, and this is the record where you can hear for the first time, that feedtime is all about THE BASS, driving everything, percussive and melodic, driving and dense and thick and sinewy, it gives the songs heft and a low end energy, there's also female vox, it's pretty crazy stuff, that definitely sounds incredible even all these years later.
The third disc in the set is Cooper S, their cover record, on which they cover the Beach Boys, Lee Hazlewood, the Rolling Stones, the Ramones, The Stooges, Slade, the Easybeats, Animals, a traditional or two, they even make a song out of an e.e. cummings poem (maybe cuz they both start their names with lower case letters), but in the hands of feedtime, the originals are totally reimagined, and in many cases, barring the lyrics are transformed into something unrecognizable, the band stripping away tempo changes and various other superfluous elements and instead making the songs their own, maniacally minimal and dirgey and hypnotic, they even mix in some trumpet, and other sonic sweetness, but there's just something so magical about their sound and what they were able to make out of so little, and in the case of the cover, what they were able to do to classics, making them their own kind of classics, which again, in many cases, sound to these ears better than the originals, "Paint It Black" is the perfect example, the band slowing it way down, the result sounds almost more like a dirge rock Devo, the sound oozy and slithery and so much blacker than the original.
The final disc in the set, was the final record for the band, Suction, and while in some ways it was tighter and more polished, it was also another disc of heady, churning noise rock minimalism, and in some ways it even manages to sound a bit more lo-fi, the slide guitar in full effect, making the whole record woozy and wonderfully warped, there's also harmonica, and some of their best / our favorite jams, "Pumping A Line" sound almost like it could be a Circle track, a sort of churning looped metallic hypnorock, or "Confused Blues" which is some serious Killdozer style pigfuck slithery blues, or the weirdly poppy, almost Velvets sounding "Ever Again" complete with slippery slide and moaning horns, fuck this stuff is so great. We never really stopped digging these guys, but having all of it together, it's a pretty intense and fantastically intensive listening experience, and one that definitely paints feedtime as a band not only ahead of their time, but a band who lots of folks owe their whole goddamn sound to.
The reissues tack on all kinds of extras, compilation tracks, B sides, and the records (and cds) come in a big box, with each album in a sleeve reproducing the original album cover, and with a big booklet crammed with pictures, liner notes, as well as the notes that accompanied the various original releases.
MPEG Stream: "Haha"
MPEG Stream: "Fastbuck"
MPEG Stream: "Dead Crazy"
MPEG Stream: "Shovel"
MPEG Stream: "Rock N Roll"
MPEG Stream: "Fun Fun Fun"
MPEG Stream: "Lightning's Girl"
MPEG Stream: "Motorbike"
MPEG Stream: "Possum"

FEEDTIME Today Is Friday (S.S. Records) cd 13.98
On the last New Arrivals list we reviewed the recently released, comprehensive career retrospective of legendary Aussie noise rock / post punk minimalists feedtime, all four of their records together with tons of bonus tracks, check out the review of that collection for the full breakdown of just how rad feedtime are, and how essential those records are, and why pretty much anyone into the sort of stuff we champion around here, will very likely be as into feedtime as we are. And it's really not until you ARE as into Feedtime as we are, that you'll need to pick this up, a collection of unreleased tracks and demos, recorded in studios, hotel rooms, one track was even recorded in a hole in the ground beneath the floor in a rented house, but all of the tracks here, are the perfect addendum to that Aberrant Years collection, anyone who picked up that boxset and flipped out, and decided they needed more more more, well, this is for you.
As we mentioned in the review of that collection Feedtime are a gloriously minimal concoction of Wire like riffage, thud rock drumming, and gravelly vox, all woven into something impossibly hypnotic, tranced out and rocking, but rocking in a way few others were capable of, some reference points would be the Melvins, Killdozer, Flipper, fellow Aussie bluespunks Kingsnakeroost and noise rock heavies Lubricated Goat, even Nirvana, the Ramones, Mudhoney, but feedtime, for all they had in common with those other bands were their own twisted sonic beast.
The tracks here are culled from sessions for three of the group's four records, there are early demos, some live tracks, that aforementioned hole-in-the-ground, that sorta sounds like it, filthy and dirgy, with some wild caustic howled vox. There's a handful of killer covers, they do the Stones' "Street Fighting Man" and it ends up sounding like the Ramones crossed with Spacemen 3, there's a super distorted version of Fear's "I Don't Care About You", which is way more fierce and fucked up than the original, and a Flipper cover that sounds like a feedtime original, the rest of the tracks offer up variations on feedtime's unique sound, whether it's a sinewy post punk pound, or some blown out gutter blues, or some psychedelic dirgery, it's all fucking incredible, and totally recommended. If you bought the box set, you definitely NEED this, and if you didn't buy the box set yet, well, now's the perfect time to remedy that situation (then you can come back and get this one later!)...
Fair warning, the cd has FIVE extra songs that aren't on the lp version!!!
MPEG Stream: "Nice"
MPEG Stream: "E B G D"
MPEG Stream: "Fractured"
MPEG Stream: "Street Fighting Man"
MPEG Stream: "Dead Crazy"

FEEDTIME Today Is Friday (S.S. Records) lp 16.98
On the last New Arrivals list we reviewed the recently released, comprehensive career retrospective of legendary Aussie noise rock / post punk minimalists feedtime, all four of their records together with tons of bonus tracks, check out the review of that collection for the full breakdown of just how rad feedtime are, and how essential those records are, and why pretty much anyone into the sort of stuff we champion around here, will very likely be as into feedtime as we are. And it's really not until you ARE as into feedtime as we are, that you'll need to pick this up, a collection of unreleased tracks and demos, recorded in studios, hotel rooms, one track was even recorded in a hole in the ground beneath the floor in a rented house, but all of the tracks here, are the perfect addendum to that Aberrant Years collection, anyone who picked up that boxset and flipped out, and decided they needed more more more, well, this is for you.
As we mentioned in the review of that collection Feedtime are a gloriously minimal concoction of Wire like riffage, thud rock drumming, and gravelly vox, all woven into something impossibly hypnotic, tranced out and rocking, but rocking in a way few others were capable of, some reference points would be the Melvins, Killdozer, Flipper, fellow Aussie bluespunks Kingsnakeroost and noise rock heavies Lubricated Goat, even Nirvana, the Ramones, Mudhoney, but feedtime, for all they had in common with those other bands were their own twisted sonic beast.
The tracks here are culled from sessions for three of the group's four records, there are early demos, some live tracks, that aforementioned hole-in-the-ground, that sorta sounds like it, filthy and dirgy, with some wild caustic howled vox. There's a handful of killer covers, they do the Stones' "Street Fighting Man" and it ends up sounding like the Ramones crossed with Spacemen 3, there's a super distorted version of Fear's "I Don't Care About You", which is way more fierce and fucked up than the original, and a Flipper cover that sounds like a feedtime original, the rest of the tracks offer up variations on feedtime's unique sound, whether it's a sinewy post punk pound, or some blown out gutter blues, or some psychedelic dirgery, it's all fucking incredible, and totally recommended. If you bought the box set, you definitely NEED this, and if you didn't buy the box set yet, well, now's the perfect time to remedy that situation (then you can come back and get this one later!)...
Fair warning, the cd has FIVE extra songs that aren't on the lp version!!!
MPEG Stream: "Nice"
MPEG Stream: "E B G D"
MPEG Stream: "Fractured"
MPEG Stream: "Street Fighting Man"
MPEG Stream: "Dead Crazy"

FEEHAN, MARK MF (Siltbreeze) lp 15.98
While Bill Orcutt has been carrying the post Harry Pussy torch, with his own mangled lo-fi junk blues Americana, as well as a sporadic Harry Pussy reissue campaign (starting with the recent HP oddity on Editions Mego, Let's Build A Pussy), there was in fact another guitar wrangler in the 'Pussy back in the day, a man by the name of Mark Feehan, who played in a bunch of other rad Miami noise rock outfits, but who will no doubt be best remembered for his stint with Orcutt and drummer Adris Hoyos.
And like Orcutt, Feehan has definitely moved in an entirely new direction, the tracks here gorgeous exercises in looped repetitive swirl and churning minimal guitarscapery, the first two tracks sounding like a more lo-fi detuned Durutti Column, or a more spare softly psychedelic Roy Montgomery, with just a hint of the Americana that Orcutt traffics in, but here, Feehan's music sounds more like something you'd find on some mysterious New Zealand cd-r, urgent strumming, chiming, jangling, buzzing, looped and mesmeric, slipping from crunchy and brittle, to washed out and woozy. It's not until the third track, "Sopio", that things get weird, the prettiness of the first two tracks still present, this time just buried beneath a blown out rhythmic pound, and chittering high end chirps, a sort of abstract noise rock house music maybe but still all wedded to Feehan's cyclical jangle. There appears to be some vocals in there too, but all distorted an chopped up.
The middle of the record does seem to lean more toward the noisy and chaotic, short bursts of heavily effected guitar howl, layered billows of tangled melodies and swirling buzz and crunch, chaotic sprawls of almost Our Love Will Destroy The World like kitchen sink soundscapery, but even at its noisiest, the sound remains sort of blissful and hypnotic, and Feehan eventually slips back into dreamy bits of guitarswirl shimmer, like the crackle drenched muted jangly thrum of "See You In Brundisium", and into almost Sun City Girls like rhythmic meanders, like the moody string laced percussion driven "Stoned Pilot B", or the downright dreamy hushed drift of "Arma Virumqu Cano", that is probably the prettiest thing here.
LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!! Includes a download coupon.
MPEG Stream: "Salvete"
MPEG Stream: "Sonnabend"
MPEG Stream: "Sopio"
MPEG Stream: "Arma Virumque Cano"

FEELIES, THE Crazy Rhythms (Bar None) cd 14.98
We somehow missed out on the Feelies back in the day, but after years and years of hearing them namechecked we were pretty psyched to finally hear them, and we ended up liking them way more than we imagined. Heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground, and in turn, heavily influencing R.E.M., the feeling infused their post punk / indie rock / new wave, with as the title of their debut suggested, crazy rhythms, the drums tribal and super busy, while the guitars wove lush shimmery layered soundscapes behind the bands frantic, frenetic punkish pop. We actually hear a lot of Television in their sound as well, especially in the guitars.
Crazy Rhythms was the Feelies debut and would remain their defining record, opener "The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness" seems to capture the jittery vibe of the band both in sound and in title, with the extra percussion (all four members played percussion), the lush tangly guitars, the subtle hooks, the whole record follows suit, with the vocals often spoken/sung, a la Velvet Underground or Jonathan Richman, and the closing song and title track seals the deal, all rubbery bass, skittery drums, loads of space, wrapped around almost twangy jangle and strum, the sound practically surfy, before the big anthemic outro. So good. Kicking ourselves for missing out, but heck, better late than never!
MPEG Stream: "The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness"
MPEG Stream: "Fa Ce La"
MPEG Stream: "Crazy Rhythms"

FEELIES, THE Crazy Rhythms (Bar None) lp 21.00
NOW ON VINYL!!!!
We somehow missed out on the Feelies back in the day, but after years and years of hearing them namechecked we were pretty psyched to finally hear them, and we ended up liking them way more than we imagined. Heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground, and in turn, heavily influencing R.E.M., the feeling infused their post punk / indie rock / new wave, with as the title of their debut suggested, crazy rhythms, the drums tribal and super busy, while the guitars wove lush shimmery layered soundscapes behind the bands frantic, frenetic punkish pop. We actually hear a lot of Television in their sound as well, especially in the guitars.
Crazy Rhythms was the Feelies debut and would remain their defining record, opener "The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness" seems to capture the jittery vibe of the band both in sound and in title, with the extra percussion (all four members played percussion), the lush tangly guitars, the subtle hooks, the whole record follows suit, with the vocals often spoken/sung, a la Velvet Underground or Jonathan Richman, and the closing song and title track seals the deal, all rubbery bass, skittery drums, loads of space, wrapped around almost twangy jangle and strum, the sound practically surfy, before the big anthemic outro. So good. Kicking ourselves for missing out, but heck, better late than never!
MPEG Stream: "The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness"
MPEG Stream: "Fa Ce La"
MPEG Stream: "Crazy Rhythms"

FEELIES, THE Good Earth (Bar None) cd 14.98
We somehow missed out on the Feelies back in the day, but after years and years of hearing them namechecked we were pretty psyched to finally hear them, and we ended up liking them way more than we imagined. Heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground, and in turn, heavily influencing R.E.M., the feeling infused their post punk / indie rock / new wave, with as the title of their debut suggested, crazy rhythms, the drums tribal and super busy, while the guitars wove lush shimmery layered soundscapes behind the bands frantic, frenetic punkish pop. We actually hear a lot of Television in their sound as well, especially in the guitars.
Good Earth was the followup to the perhaps-impossible-to-top Crazy Rhythms, and the band made it no easier on themselves by altering their sound quite a bit, exploring more abstract sound structures, ditching the typical verse chorus verse arrangements, mellowing out a bit, slowing down, the only remnants of their more frantic sound being "The Last Roundup", with its flurry of fast picked notes and tumble of drum rolls to match, and the propulsive "Two Rooms", but for the most part the rest of the record is way dreamier, laid back, strummier and at times almost Grateful Dead sounding, but within these new song structures the band continued to explore and do amazing, and definitely un-pop things, strange guitar parts, lots of textural layered ambience, harmonies, all in all a pretty nice balance to the more intense debut. And while they did go on to make two more records, the first two remained the ones most folks considered their finest moments. And we'd have to agree.
MPEG Stream: "On The Roof"
MPEG Stream: "The High Road"
MPEG Stream: "The Last Roundup"

FEELIES, THE Good Earth (Bar None) lp 21.00
NOW ON VINYL!!!
We somehow missed out on the Feelies back in the day, but after years and years of hearing them namechecked we were pretty psyched to finally hear them, and we ended up liking them way more than we imagined. Heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground, and in turn, heavily influencing R.E.M., the feeling infused their post punk / indie rock / new wave, with as the title of their debut suggested, crazy rhythms, the drums tribal and super busy, while the guitars wove lush shimmery layered soundscapes behind the bands frantic, frenetic punkish pop. We actually hear a lot of Television in their sound as well, especially in the guitars.
Good Earth was the followup to the perhaps-impossible-to-top Crazy Rhythms, and the band made it no easier on themselves by altering their sound quite a bit, exploring more abstract sound structures, ditching the typical verse chorus verse arrangements, mellowing out a bit, slowing down, the only remnants of their more frantic sound being "The Last Roundup", with its flurry of fast picked notes and tumble of drum rolls to match, and the propulsive "Two Rooms", but for the most part the rest of the record is way dreamier, laid back, strummier and at times almost Grateful Dead sounding, but within these new song structures the band continued to explore and do amazing, and definitely un-pop things, strange guitar parts, lots of textural layered ambience, harmonies, all in all a pretty nice balance to the more intense debut. And while they did go on to make two more records, the first two remained the ones most folks considered their finest moments. And we'd have to agree.
MPEG Stream: "On The Roof"
MPEG Stream: "The High Road"
MPEG Stream: "The Last Roundup"

FEELIES, THE Here Before (Bar None) cd 14.98
Reunion records can be a huge let down. Sure it's fun to see a band get together and play all their old hits, but the minute you hear those famous last words "Here's a new song we've been working on", most of us tune out. So when those new songs they've been working on get maid into an actual album, we're definitely wary.
But c'mon, it's the Feelies, who as we admitted to in another review, we actually missed out on back in the day, but when we did finally hear the amazing Crazy Rhythms record, and the almost as amazing The Good Earth, we were definitely kicking ourselves. And ever since those records got reissued recently, we have been playing them nonstop. And we were pretty excited to hear this new record. It has been THIRTY ONE years since Crazy Rhythms, and TWENTY since their last full length, but the second this got put on in the store we knew just what it was. The sound is definitely classic Feelies, not as jittery and percussion heavy as Crazy Rhythms, but then neither were any of the other records. The vibe is maybe a bit more mellow and laid back, the guitar playing not as strange and layered as on some of the old records, and the vocals more sung/spoken a la Lou Reed, but we're digging it, a LOT. The sound is warm and familiar, shimmery and jangly, that classic eighties/nineties college/indie rock sound we love so much, and like classic Feelies records, Here Before is a grower, the sound as we mentioned is great, but on repeated listens, the songs begin to seep in, the hooks gradually revealing themselves, and suddenly any of these songs could get stuck in your head.
If you're new to the Feelies, we'd probably recommend Crazy Rhythms or The Good Earth first, although this is really not all that bad a place to startÉ and of course if you're already a fan, you won't be disappointed.
MPEG Stream: "Nobody Knows"
MPEG Stream: "Should Be Gone"
MPEG Stream: "Again Today"
MPEG Stream: "When You Know"

FEELIES, THE Here Before (Bar None) lp 19.98
Reunion records can be a huge let down. Sure it's fun to see a band get together and play all their old hits, but the minute you hear those famous last words "Here's a new song we've been working on", most of us tune out. So when those new songs they've been working on get maid into an actual album, we're definitely wary.
But c'mon, it's the Feelies, who as we admitted to in another review, we actually missed out on back in the day, but when we did finally hear the amazing Crazy Rhythms record, and the almost as amazing The Good Earth, we were definitely kicking ourselves. And ever since those records got reissued recently, we have been playing them nonstop. And we were pretty excited to hear this new record. It has been THIRTY ONE years since Crazy Rhythms, and TWENTY since their last full length, but the second this got put on in the store we knew just what it was. The sound is definitely classic Feelies, not as jittery and percussion heavy as Crazy Rhythms, but then neither were any of the other records. The vibe is maybe a bit more mellow and laid back, the guitar playing not as strange and layered as on some of the old records, and the vocals more sung/spoken a la Lou Reed, but we're digging it, a LOT. The sound is warm and familiar, shimmery and jangly, that classic eighties/nineties college/indie rock sound we love so much, and like classic Feelies records, Here Before is a grower, the sound as we mentioned is great, but on repeated listens, the songs begin to seep in, the hooks gradually revealing themselves, and suddenly any of these songs could get stuck in your head.
If you're new to the Feelies, we'd probably recommend Crazy Rhythms or The Good Earth first, although this is really not all that bad a place to startÉ and of course if you're already a fan, you won't be disappointed.
MPEG Stream: "Nobody Knows"
MPEG Stream: "Should Be Gone"
MPEG Stream: "Again Today"
MPEG Stream: "When You Know"

FEELING OF LOVE Dissolve Me (Born Bad) cd 17.98
NOW ON CD!!!
Killer disc of droned out buzz drenched post punk dirge pop from this French outfit, their sound a Velvets inspired druggy synth/organ heavy haze, fans of Moon Duo will flip for these guys, the same sort of kraut-drone mesmer, but Feeling Of Love, with what we can only assume is a live drummer, sound a lot looser, and a lot more rocking, getting downright garage-rocky in places, but they often lace that rock with some dreamy angelic background vox and infuse everything with some seriously prismatic poppiness, which is pretty irresistible. The band sound as good rocking out jubilantly, as they do churning away in a dour sonic trance, both of which they do in equal measure, and it's a pretty fantastic combo, but the band also display a fairly expansive sonic palette, occasionally unfurling long stretches of hazy rhythms, wreathed in squealing feedback, and wrapped in smokey tendrils of psychedelic guitar, or bursting into twee pop ditties at the drop of a hat, somehow even managing to mix the two once in a while, like on "La Bas C'est Naturel", which sounds like some lo-fi drug psych rock via K Records, but then before long, they slip right back into their droney swaggery hypno-rock, but one that seems to have limitless permutations, whether it's the druggy Fuzztones via Spacemen 3 trance out of "666 Blank Girls", or the Railroad Jerk like junkyard bluesiness of "Empty Trash Bag", or the frenetic caffeinated drum heavy, yelpy vocal-ed jangle and crunch of "I Am Right, You Are Wrong" (which has a surprisingly KILLER chorus)...
Fans of groups like Night Control, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Pink Noise, etc, will dig this big time, as will everybody who loved records by aQ faves J.C. Satan, or heck really anybody into hooky, druggy, droney, garagey, psychedelic garage pop radness.
MPEG Stream: "Cellophane Face"
MPEG Stream: "Dissolve Me"
MPEG Stream: "La-Bas C'est Naturel"
MPEG Stream: "666 Blank Girls"
MPEG Stream: "Empty Trash Bag"

FEELING OF LOVE, THE Dissolve Me (Kill Shaman) lp 16.98
Killer disc of droned out buzz drenched post punk dirge pop from this French outfit, their sound a Velvets inspired druggy synth/organ heavy haze, fans of Moon Duo will flip for these guys, the same sort of kraut-drone mesmer, but Feeling Of Love, with what we can only assume is a live drummer, sound a lot looser, and a lot more rocking, getting downright garage-rocky in places, but they often lace that rock with some dreamy angelic background vox and infuse everything with some seriously prismatic poppiness, which is pretty irresistible. The band sound as good rocking out jubilantly, as they do churning away in a dour sonic trance, both of which they do in equal measure, and it's a pretty fantastic combo, but the band also display a fairly expansive sonic palette, occasionally unfurling long stretches of hazy rhythms, wreathed in squealing feedback, and wrapped in smokey tendrils of psychedelic guitar, or bursting into twee pop ditties at the drop of a hat, somehow even managing to mix the two once in a while, like on "La Bas C'est Naturel", which sounds like some lo-fi drug psych rock via K Records, but then before long, they slip right back into their droney swaggery hypno-rock, but one that seems to have limitless permutations, whether it's the druggy Fuzztones via Spacemen 3 trance out of "666 Blank Girls", or the Railroad Jerk like junkyard bluesiness of "Empty Trash Bag", or the frenetic caffeinated drum heavy, yelpy vocal-ed jangle and crunch of "I Am Right, You Are Wrong" (which has a surprisingly KILLER chorus)...
Fans of other Kill Shaman releases, by the likes of Night Control, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Pink Noise, etc, will dig this big time, as will everybody who loved the records by aQ faves J.C. Satan, or heck really anybody into hooky, druggy, droney, garagey, psychedelic garage pop radness.
MPEG Stream: "Cellophane Face"
MPEG Stream: "Dissolve Me"
MPEG Stream: "La-Bas C'est Naturel"
MPEG Stream: "666 Blank Girls"
MPEG Stream: "Empty Trash Bag"

FEELING OF LOVE, THE La Peur Est Une Illusion: Singles 2006 - 2008 (Captcha) lp 17.98
We went absolutely nuts for Feeling Of Love's Dissolve Me record, a twisted collection of droned out, post punk, garage rock dirgery, not really sure we didn't make it Record Of The Week at the time, cuz for some of us, it was pretty much all we listened to for a while. And cuz we're the way we are (and we're guessing you are too), we immediately wanted more more more. So here's the latest blast of garage punk shenanigans from these French weirdos, not a new record, but instead a collection of singles, and comp tracks and rarities. Here's a quick run through the song titles, just at least give you a flavor of that they're all about, and why we dig em so much: "I'm Nothing But A Drunk Pussy", "The Right Bitch At The Right Place", and of course "You Rock You're Seventeen You Should Kill A Ten Years Old Kid". The sound pretty much fits perfectly with those titles - raw buzzed out garage guitar, primitive drumming, yelped echo drenched vocals, swaggery and snarly. Opener "Hand Clap Girl" sounds like a bluesier, more wasted Thee Oh Sees, the song driven by a programmed beat, that features a very loud simulated handclap, and when the kick drum kicks in, it's the sort of moment, that you can imagine inspires a crowd of sweaty, bloody kids to lose their shit. The aforementioned "I'm Nothing But A Drunk Pussy", is nothing but that line, or variations of, delivered in a drunken, garbled, heavily accented mush mouthed croon, over caveman blues, and THEE most damaged drumming EVER. And so it goes, this is Feeling Of Love at their most raw, blown out, and utterly primitive, all of the sounds are doused in crumbling distortion, totally in-the-red, this is sweat soaked, drum machine driven garage punk weirdness that like the proper record has us hooked. If you wished Thee Oh Sees was way more damaged and demented, and sounded super shitty and lo-fi, like some drug addled Neanderthal psychedelic garage rock monster mash, then this is yer shit! So goddamn great!

FEELINGS Especially For You (Ba Da Bing!) cd 12.98
With members of Sone and Built To Spill.

FEELINGS IN AMERICA (PETE SWANSON) s/t (Root Strata) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

FEENEY, TIM & MATT SAMOLIS Monument (lildiscs) 3"cd-r 5.98
Fifth in this series of ULTRA LIMITED hand made drone / ambient cd-r's from boutique label lildiscs, who specialize in short form 3" cd-r's of dark drone drenched ambiance.
This installment comes from the percussion duo of Tim Feeney and Matt Samolis, this 20+ minute piece is all percussion and is the soundtrack to a short film, documenting the destruction of a television set, from the perspective of the TV, and manages to be clattery and chaotic while at the same time being dreamy and hypnotic. A multilayered soundscape, in the foreground, a dense filed of clang and clatter, like someone rifling through a silverware drawer, or someone digging through a bucket filled with pottery shards, a jagged bit of crunching and crashing, that manages to be sort of nice to listen to, as the track progresses, it sounds more like someone bending metal, creaking and grinding, the sound of rubber stretching, rubbing against steel, sort of industrial but also sort of creepy. In the background, bits of metal moan and groan, like distant foghorns, slow, whale call like tones, drifting across the sound field all wrapped up in reverb. Later on the creaking and groaning bits of metal, get louder, more insistent, sheets of metal boom out like thunder, bits of metallic high end scream like feeding back guitars, a muted cacophony, as weirdly lovely as it is creepy and abrasive.
Painstakingly hand assembled. Tiny 3" pale green fold over sleeves, with a glossy sepia toned image affixed to the front, sealed at the bottom with two rivets, tied with a ribbon, with a little circular badge. Inside the disc nestles between two sheets of gorgeously textured paper, hand printed and so lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Monument (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Monument (excerpt 2)"

FEHLMANN, THOMAS Gute Luft (Kompakt) cd 15.98
We had no idea that Thomas Fehlmann had been making music for more than 30 years, beginning with his time in the band Palais Schaumburg moving on to his work in Detroit/Berlin techno group 3MB (with Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald), finally playing in the Orb to this day, as well as tons of solo records, quite impressive for sure, but this one, this is something else, selections from a score Fehlmann did for a film called 24H Berlin, which is the longest documentary film in history, a full 24 hours long, the filmmakers employed 80 cameras, and followed various Berliners over a 24 hour period, documenting a day in the life in Berlin. It's hard to even fathom trying to compose 24 hours of music, thankfully, Fehlmann shared those duties with another composer, so he probably needed to only come up with 12 hours worth of music, but still, incredible.
And the sounds here are of course gorgeous, that Kompakt sound we love so much, a lush mix of old school techno, modern Berlin dub, and washed out dreamlike pop ambience, if you didn't know this was a soundtrack, you might just assume this was a regular Fehlmann release, which for listening purposes it might as well be. After some cool, late night skitter and thump, the record blossoms into some truly lovely dronemusic, prismatic and crystalline, before slipping back into some clipped stuttery dub and we're off.
The whole record is very warm, and soothing, dreamy, melodic, from the hushed pulse of "Speeding", definitely evocative of late night drives, to the almost Kraftwerk sounding "In The Wind II", lilting and lovely, but underpinned by a busy bit of warbly bass, to the hazy ethereal blurscape of "Von Oben", that eventually transforms into some minimal ambient techno, to the lush and warmly melodic closer "Schieben", which musically sounds like a time lapse photo of a city growing dark as the sun slips beneath the horizon, reminds us of Tim Hecker or Fennesz, so gorgeous.
The songs are balanced pretty evenly between beats and ambience, the two elements constantly blurring into one another, the result being a lush, easy flowing, drifting, dolorous electronic dreamscape.
MPEG Stream: "Alles, Immer"
MPEG Stream: "Falling Into Your Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Wasser Im Fluss"
MPEG Stream: "Schwerelos"

FEHLMANN, THOMAS Gute Luft (Kompakt) 2lp + cd 19.98
NOW ON VINYL!! Includes cd version too.
We had no idea that Thomas Fehlmann had been making music for more than 30 years, beginning with his time in the band Palais Schaumburg moving on to his work in Detroit/Berlin techno group 3MB (with Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald), finally playing in the Orb to this day, as well as tons of solo records, quite impressive for sure, but this one, this is something else, selections from a score Fehlmann did for a film called 24H Berlin, which is the longest documentary film in history, a full 24 hours long, the filmmakers employed 80 cameras, and followed various Berliners over a 24 hour period, documenting a day in the life in Berlin. It's hard to even fathom trying to compose 24 hours of music, thankfully, Fehlmann shared those duties with another composer, so he probably needed to only come up with 12 hours worth of music, but still, incredible.
And the sounds here are of course gorgeous, that Kompakt sound we love so much, a lush mix of old school techno, modern Berlin dub, and washed out dreamlike pop ambience, if you didn't know this was a soundtrack, you might just assume this was a regular Fehlmann release, which for listening purposes it might as well be. After some cool, late night skitter and thump, the record blossoms into some truly lovely dronemusic, prismatic and crystalline, before slipping back into some clipped stuttery dub and we're off.
The whole record is very warm, and soothing, dreamy, melodic, from the hushed pulse of "Speeding", definitely evocative of late night drives, to the almost Kraftwerk sounding "In The Wind II", lilting and lovely, but underpinned by a busy bit of warbly bass, to the hazy ethereal blurscape of "Von Oben", that eventually transforms into some minimal ambient techno, to the lush and warmly melodic closer "Schieben", which musically sounds like a time lapse photo of a city growing dark as the sun slips beneath the horizon, reminds us of Tim Hecker or Fennesz, so gorgeous.
The songs are balanced pretty evenly between beats and ambience, the two elements constantly blurring into one another, the result being a lush, easy flowing, drifting, dolorous electronic dreamscape.
MPEG Stream: "Alles, Immer"
MPEG Stream: "Falling Into Your Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Wasser Im Fluss"
MPEG Stream: "Schwerelos"

FEHLMANN, THOMAS Honigpumpe (Kompakt) cd 15.98
One of the strongest forces and brightest minds in the German electronic scene of the last few decades, Thomas Fehlman has always had two different and distinct musical sides. There is his love of Detroit born raw hard techno, and then there is his endless fascination with more spaced out and ambient sounds influenced by the likes of Fripp, Eno and Tangerine Dream. Honigpumpe is for sure a result of the latter. Dreamy and blissed out electronica with beats that aren't as much for the dancefloor as they are for the living room or the couch or the bed. We've been putting this on every time we have to do unglamorous tasks like laundry and the dishes and with this on time seems to move a little faster and so do we. As a full fledged member of The Orb and his constant producing and live dj sets, Fehlmann shows no signs of slowing down and that's a very good thing. We want more!
MPEG Stream: "I.R.N.I.I.Z."
MPEG Stream: "Stralensatz"

FEIST Let It Die (Cherrytree / Interscope) cd 11.98
Feist has a voice that you can't help but fall for. You may remember her from her vocal contributions on records by Broken Social Scene and Kings of Convenience. She even toured with Peaches adding back-up vocals (they used to live together). This, her solo debut showcases her totally pretty voice matched with songs that are smartly written and totally well executed. So smooth and catchy but so much more smart and interesting then everything you hear on commercial radio. Makes us think a little of Dani Siciliano. A perfect Sunday morning kind of record. Imagine someone holding Sade hostage and taking away all the gloss and overwrought production but keeping an inkling of her smooth voice while turning her on to an indie aesthetic and maybe you get close to what Let it Die sounds like.
MPEG Stream: "When I Was A Young Girl"
MPEG Stream: "Mushaboom"

FEIST Metals (Polydor) cd 16.98

FEIST Metals (Cherry Red / Interscope) lp 17.98

FEIST Open Season (Cherrytree / Interscope) cd 10.98
For those expectin' a new studio album from this fine Canadian songstress, sorry folks, you'll have to wait a little longer! In the meantime treat your ears to an assortment of Feist-y remixes and collaborations by the likes of Postal Service, Jane Birkin, k-os, Gonzales and her Broken Social Scene brethren Apostle Of Hustle. Open Season is primarily focused around a handful of tunes from Let It Die -- a couple mixes each of "One Evening" and "Gatekeeper" as well as four treatments of "Mushaboom". While we've found some of her music to tread disturbingly close to adult contemporary / easy listening, the majority of these fifteen tracks nudge her into new pleasing downtempo-y territory. Also included is her 'live at the BBC' version of the BeeGees' "Inside + Out" as well as her cover of her ol' pal Peaches' "Lovertits".
MPEG Stream: "Mushaboom (Postal Service Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Lovertits (with Gonzales)"

FEIST The Reminder (Cherrytree) cd 13.98
On The Reminder, her second album, Feist takes a much more active songwriting role including a pretty great adaptation of one of our all-time favorite Nina Simone songs, "See-Line Woman" which she altars to Sea Lion Woman. With Gonzales in the production chair once again and great guest spots by pals Jamie Lidell and Eirik Glambek Boe (Kings Of Convenience), Feist's voice continues to sound smooth and confident. There is definitely a reason this debuted on the top 20 of the Billboard charts and is probably playing in hundreds of cafes as you're reading this. But luckily it's one of those records that while totally accessible is actually really quite good.
MPEG Stream: "Sea Lion Woman"
MPEG Stream: "I Feel It All"
MPEG Stream: "Past In Present"

FELDMAN, MARK Music for the Violin Alone (Tzadik) cd only 15.98
Does anyone know what other outfits he's played with? This is a manic and intense violin freakout.

FELDMAN, MORTON Complete Music For Violin & Piano (Mode) 2cd 30.00

FELDMAN, MORTON Complete Works For Two Pianists (Alice Musik Produktion) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Like the album title states, all of the compositions that Morty scored for two pianists. The pieces were all composed between 1951 and 1963 and include several of Feldman's earliest experiments with using graphical scores. For those overwhelmed by the temporal immensity of Feldman's later works, this release might be the ticket, as all the pieces here are well under the 10 minute mark, though it was irreverently noted that listening to this disc you might be convinced you were listening to one long piece. This because many of the works in this collection instruct the pianists to play at such a glacial pace that a new note is not to be struck until the preceding one has faded completely into silence. Yet not all the tracks here hold this molasses-like tempo. There are a few pieces such as the mantra-like "Work for Two Pianists" and "Ixion - For Two Pianos" which are densely packed with notes -- enough notes to make a dozen Feldman compositions. Includes a nice 39 page essay by pianist Mats Persson on Feldman's career and his close relationship with the visual arts and artists. Comes packaged in a handsome hardcover booklet.
RealAudio clip: "Vertical Thoughts 1 for Two Pianos"
RealAudio clip: "Projection 3 for Two Pianos"

FELDMAN, MORTON Composing By Numbers (Mode) cd 16.98

FELDMAN, MORTON Crippled Symmetry: at June in Buffalo (Frozen Reeds) 2cd 22.00
Hee's an absolutely stunning recording of Feldman's most often played durational chamber piece, Crippled Symmetry. Recorded in 2000 for the 25th anniversary of "June in Buffalo", an annual series of concerts at the University of Buffalo begun by Feldman after he took over the post of Edgar Varese Professor there. Crippled Symmetry was written in 1983, four years before the composer's death, for a trio consisting of flute/alto flute/bass flute; glockenspiel/vibraphone; and piano/celesta. Commissioned by the remaining members of a collective ensemble called The Feldman Soloists that the composer worked with over the years as a writer and pianist, this new recording is performed by all three of the original players, and is hailed by them to be the definitive performance of the piece.
Spanning ninety minutes over two disks, this interlocking minimalist composition was not scored so much as it was instructed. Taking its influence from the handmade process of weaving oriental rugs where slight imperfections are regarded with high importance to the overall effect of the piece, hence the title, Crippled Symmetry. The musicians operate in their own tiny clusters of sound creating dappled circular patterns against the other players causing an undulating and slowly twisting tapestry of sound forms. Not quite melodic, but not at all dissonant, the sonic field of the trio becomes a singular vibrational unit and the effect of attempting to stay wholly aware as a listener is akin to attempting deep meditative contemplation. A great place to start for those unsure where to begin in the Morton Feldman catalog!
MPEG Stream: "Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Part 2"

FELDMAN, MORTON Ensemble Recherche Plays... (WDR) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Collection of recordings of Feldman's music from his "middle period" (what self-respecting composer doesn't have their oevre divided into three periods I ask you) as performed by the Ensemble Recherche. Feldman broke with the absolute serialists of his day -- Stockhausen, Babbitt, Cage & Boulez -- to compose music in an unfashionable, "intuitive" way (there's an anecdote in here of how, when Feldman was in residence at Darmstadt, Stockhausen followed him around demanding "What is your system?") and filled his pieces with slow moving, simple melodies. More importantly, he relenquished much of the authority over note durations up to the performer(s). The results are often bleak, never sterile and always texturally rich. Includes detailed notes in English by acclaimed musicologist Kyle Gann. And if you know German or French, it appears that the liner notes written in those languages are written by two different people and are completely different from one another, not merely translations.

FELDMAN, MORTON For Bunita Marcus (Sub Rosa) cd 15.98

FELDMAN, MORTON For Philip Guston (Dog W/A Bone) 4cd 51.00
One of Feldman's later, and longer, works, "For Philip Guston" clocks in at just under five hours. Performed by Petr Kotik (flute, alto flute, piccolo), Joseph Kubera (piano, celeste), and Chris Nappi (vibraphone, marimbaphone, glockenspiel, chimes) of the S.E.M. Ensemble, Guston is one of the zeniths of Feldman's acheivements. A piece stretched out to such an extreme length is, as Feldman admitted himself, quite a difficult task. The ability to have a piece which retains a natural, organic quality without losing control over it and controlling the development of the piece without being forced into repetitive banality was a compositional conundrum that Feldman struggled with more and more as his pieces grew in length. How Feldman manages to get this piece off the ground, I don't know, but he does and keeps it flying the whole 4-plus hours -- with the help of some excellent musicians. The entire piece (I hope I'm not scaring anyone out there with this) was recorded in a studio, but still has the quality of a hall performance, perhaps touched up with some nice reverb. The studio method of recording the piece has the side effect of causing such everyday performance anomalies such as page turning to become amplified much greater than what one would experience in a hall setting and the flautist Kotik suggests that this be used as a measuring device to set the volume properly at home: if you can hear the page turns clearly, turn down the volume. The booklet included with this issue has a conversation between Petr Kotik and Walter Zimmerman... but maybe "conversation" is the wrong word. I think maybe "argument" might applied here to better describe their dialog, and a hilarious argument it is. A hoot for anyone who gets a kick out of listening to musicologists scrapple.
RealAudio clip: "For Philip Guston"

FELDMAN, MORTON Give My Regards To Eighth Street: Collected Writings Of Morton Feldman (Exact Change) book 15.95

FELDMAN, MORTON Last Pieces (Sub Rosa) cd 14.98

FELDMAN, MORTON Patterns In a Chromatic Field (Tzadik) cd 16.98
Feldman is easily one of our favorite modern composers, attacking space and decay in a similar way as do many of our favorite drone artists and electronic minimalists, focusing not on the attack of a note but the various sonic colorations and permutations the note goes through as it slowly slips away. In the same way, Feldman composes with space as much as he does with sound. Very dark and meditative, dreamy and otherworldy, but somehow also quite personal and romantic. "Patterns..." has many of those obvious Feldman elements but is much more dynamic and jagged than many of his other pieces. The drifting ambient parts definitely harken back to one of our all time favorite Feldman pieces "Rothko Chapel". But unlike the calm and meditative tranquility of "Rothko Chapel", "Patterns" is peppered with jagged atonal piano and squeaking cello. While for some it will obviously detract a bit from the overall mellow moodiness, but as a whole it adds another element of tension and almost aggression, before it slips back into slowly unfolding sweetly intimate quietude.
MPEG Stream: "Patterns In A Chromatic Field"

FELDMAN, MORTON Piano And String Quartet (Hat Hut) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As far as I know this is the only the second time this piece by Feldman has been recorded -- the first by the Kronos Quartet with Aki Takahashi on Elektra -- but I could be wrong. Composed in 1985, Piano & String Quartet comes late in Feldman's career. Like other pieces of this period, this piece is quite lengthy, clocking in at over 70 minutes (the good people at Hat Hut have even put in arbitrary track numbers throughout the piece, just in case you can't finish it all in one sitting.) For those who found the 4 cd "For Philip Guston" a bit extreme of a commitment, this single disc might be a better introduction to Feldman's large scale works.
RealAudio clip: "Piano & String Quartet"

FELDMAN, MORTON Rothko Chapel Why Patterns? (New Albion) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.