'Spective Audio News
(1) If you're interested, I am releasing a set of semi-improvised tape manipulation/reverb-circuitry manipulation recordings on limited, hand-dubbed (commercial grade) tape. These recordings were compiled on my nearly-dead Tascam and featured intensely textured experiments with infinite decay and infinite echo, along with lots of backwards droning. These will be $5 PPD US (international shipping negotiable), or other offer. As always, email spectiveaudio [at] gmail [dot] com.
I will be more than happy to negotiate shipping, prices, and trades.
(2) The N.E.C. have been busy with dates and their new LP, Pineapple, available from Pretty Ambitious and fine record stores. This one showcases the band's power pop sensibilities as much as their ability to dive into exceptional droning textures, and at their best, they combine both. The N.E.C. place yet another notch in their psych belts, but the driving backbone and soul sensibilities are never far from the group's strangest excursions.
Copies of the group's B-Sides cassette remain available, featuring oddities and rarities recorded over a several-year span from Million Minks and Is. The tape is full of extended wild, noisy breakdowns, short rockers, and surprising ambient segments -- it spans the full spectrum of N.E.C. sounds, and you'll hear a lot of the band's current elements in utereo. C45, translucent red tape, artwork by Cyrus Shahmir, $5 PPD US (international negotiable).
(3) The Vital-Sound groups have amazing music out this year (or on the way).
As mentioned, The N.E.C. just released Pineapple, and the Great Society Mind Destroyers' Spirit Smoke received its rightful vinyl incarnation. Soft Opening produced a mind-bending instrumental journey.
Killer Moon's Tunnel Vision is on the way, and Rabble Rabble followed up Bangover with their ripper, "Why Not" b/w "Long Hook." Implodes' much-anticipated Black Earth also saw the light this year, following the group's visionary cassette from a few years back.
All The Saints' next LP Intro to Fractions will be released in January 2012, following their life-changing Fire on Corridor X (that LP probably opened the door to more than half of my psych obsessions).
Brainworlds continue to release cassettes at a furious pace, and The Sunny Muffdivers introduced their tape All Half Evil, also on 'Spective.
Copies of Vital-Sound are available for a suggested donation of $7 PPD US (international negotiable)
(4) Cinchel has a handful of copies of drone.dump remaining, as do Milwaukee Ave. Reckless, Permanent, and Discogs.
Cinchel also has many other recordings available, including his Feedback Loop release Ritual Habitat.
(5) The Leavitt Ours are now officially in Cleveland and New Orleans, after many individual journeys across the United States this year. Travis Bird toured with Evan Lindorff-Ellery and Jaap Pieters, and also put together a solo tour earlier in the summer. Dense Reduction, the pastoral, textured noise duo of Travis and Evan, come highly recommended, for obvious personal and musical reasons, and so does their label, Notice Recordings.
Copies of Return by The Leavitt Ours are available for $7 US PPD suggested donation (which includes the tape, artwork by Evan, and individually sewn, handmade cases by Kelley Crawford).
Thank you for an amazing year, everyone -- bands, friends, and everyone who ordered tapes, reviewed them, and sold them at stores. I never dreamed that these tapes would be across Europe, Canada, and the United States -- but it still feels like a close-knit group of people who like psych, outsider, experimental music.
Recent Obsessions
(1) Notice's Ben Own tape, Birds and Water, 1, totally kicked my ass. There are some serious depths of frequency captured on this cassette. One of my year-end favorites for sure.
(2) Bad Drugs produce some of the best heavy music I've heard this side of Cacaw. Rotted Tooth have had an amazing year of releases, but Raw Powder is blowing my mind continuously with shifting structures and brutal noise.
(3) Thee Oh Sees are going to make me go broke. Obviously everybody loves Carrion Crawler/The Dream, and so do I. Exceptional acid rock; I feel like Thee Oh Sees are rewriting chapter after chapter of the Sonics/Nuggets/freak folk tradition in American rock.
(4) Sloow Tapes blew my mind this year, from The Great Society Mind Destroyers tape, to their compilation of Belgian psych, to their recent batch of traditional folk/psych tapes. Those tapes really took a lot of time away from the "Phono" setting, but when my belt and needle work beyond their expected life, I'll have these tapes to thank.
(5) As for Foxy Digitalis material, I've been re-listening to a bulk of material I reviewed earlier this year, and there are a lot of standout releases this year. Jasper TX Black Sun Transmissions and Phaedra The Sea remain among my favorites. Recent material I've heard by Food Pyramid, Cut Hands, Moonwood, Muscle Drum, and Blue Sausage Infant is going to make end of year lists nearly impossible.
(6) Old music obsessions: Echo and The Bunnymen, Ocean Rain, The Beatles Yesterday and Today, The United States of America, The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man, Tegan and Sara Sainthood, U.S. Maple, etc., etc.
Thank you for reading! I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving...let everyone who needs peace have peace, and let's continue to share music for the rest of this year and all of the coming ones.
