The N.E.C. wax is officially in the works, I'm running low on tapes!
Just a handful of tapes away from selling out the Vital-Sound comp, as well as The N.E.C. and Sunny Muffdivers tapes.
Thank you for making 'Spective tapes so successful!
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Tapes! Tapes! Tapes!
The N.E.C. wax is officially in the works, I'm running low on tapes!
Just a handful of tapes away from selling out the Vital-Sound comp, as well as The N.E.C. and Sunny Muffdivers tapes.
Thank you for making 'Spective tapes so successful!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
February 2012 Update!
I hope everyone is enjoying their winter -- or lack thereof -- thus far. Just working on my collection, I have some new CDRs from Singapore to promote, and I found one new copy of The Leavitt Ours Vital CDR. That one is a trip -- a special show release from March 2010, sending Truman Peyote and the Lord Jeff off to SXSW.
Make sure to check out new developments. Cinchel has a set of excellent digital releases, and some new stuff on the way. The N.E.C. released Pineapple (Pretty Ambitious) at the close of 2011, and are busy as always. The Great Society Mind Destroyers released Spirit Smoke on wax (Slow Knife). All The Saints just released Intro to Fractions (Souterrain Transmissions), and Brainworlds has a new split with Plosive. Killer Moon and Rabble Rabble are also sure to have some new things on the way, so look out! There's a ton of great stuff available and on the way from Vital Sound bands.
AVAILABLE (prices US / international always negotiable, please email [spectiveaudio] at [gmail] dot [com]):
Sawi Lieu and I\D split CDR (CDR51, self-released from Indonesia / Singapore, $7 ppd US): Wild filtered synthetic loops and layers, and joyful experimentation populate this split CDR between Indonesian artist Sawi Lieu and I\D, a group from Singapore. Sawi Lieu’s contribution features unpredictable filter sweeps and building synthetic layers. I\D’s improvisation and experimentation feature wild interplay between guitar, drums, and noisemakers, contrasted against hypnotic guitar sequences.
I\D, Midnight Hot CD (CD32, self-released from Singapore, $10 ppd US): I\D play a type of acid-fusion, building their abstract elements into tense crescendos and structured jams driven by drums and guitar. The development of their noise is blissful, experimental, and completely free -- there is a willful feeling of exploration and creation. Yet, it's not simply outsider jazz or unfocused wanking; the driving, start-and-stop explorations display willful explosion of genre expectations while establishing their own parameters through their instrumental interaction. 2009 release.
I\D, Elite, Kvlt, and Irrevocably Tr00 (CS+60, self-released from Singapore, $10 ppd US): Heavy on the unrestrained noise throughout, I\D dabble in extremely percussive free improvisation and experimentation. Off-kilter blues contrast unclassifiable synthetic noise, wailing, and heavy percussion. 2007 release.
Emporium, Vision CS (home-dubbed, donation): A personal set from 'Spective proprietor Nicholas Zettel, featuring a culmination of summertime drone exercises and tape manipulation. Opening with ethereal atmosphere, this set of four songs meanders through two-channel follow-and-response folk, followed by reverb circuitry manipulation and backwards tape exercises.
The Leavitt Ours, Return CS (C26, clear, handmade cases, $7 ppd US): Beneath the shadows of Chicago's fuzzier and heavier psychedelic sounds, The Leavitt Ours perform experimental pop in the private press tradition. In order to develop and produce their own reflective spaces and musical statements, the trio embrace aggressive ambient soundscapes, synthetic guitar tones, eclectic percussion rhythms, and driving keyed bass and synthesizer backbones.
Various, Vital-Sound I CS (C62, opaque red, handmade art, $7 ppd US): Atlanta and Chicago psych bands split this compilation, presenting everything from paisley, drone, and repetitious instrumentals to acid blues, pure noise, and doom is covered here. Atlanta contributors are Sovus Radio, Soft Opening, The N.E.C., All The Saints, Brainworlds, and The Sunny Muffdivers. Chicago contributors are Implodes, The Great Society Mind Destroyers, The Leavitt Ours, and Killer Moon.
The Leavitt Ours, Vital CDR (extremely limited, xeroxed art, special show release from 2010. Donation): Early 2010 demos that precede Return cassette and accompany Movement tape (Notice), The Leavitt Ours resemble an outsider ambient troupe honing their sound. There are a bunch of tracks on this one that were eased out by the time Return was recorded; therefore, an eclectic mix of synthesizer, keys, noises, and bratty experimental songs.
Sunny Muffdivers, All Half Evil CS (C26, translucent neon, $5 ppd US): Pure sonic assault from Atlanta. Crusty psych sludge doom featuring bludgeoning rhythms, repetition, and drones create a disjointed landscape in which your mind and emotions can hide.
The N.E.C., B-Sides CS (C46, translucent red, $5 ppd US): Rarities, oddities, and background tracks from Atlanta psych/rock outfit versed in driving song craft and sonic exploration. Songs collected from 2007’s “Million Minks” through 2010’s “Is,” splitting ambient and heavy sides of Atlanta psych.
PayPal: [spectiveaudio] at [gmail] dot [com]
Make sure to check out new developments. Cinchel has a set of excellent digital releases, and some new stuff on the way. The N.E.C. released Pineapple (Pretty Ambitious) at the close of 2011, and are busy as always. The Great Society Mind Destroyers released Spirit Smoke on wax (Slow Knife). All The Saints just released Intro to Fractions (Souterrain Transmissions), and Brainworlds has a new split with Plosive. Killer Moon and Rabble Rabble are also sure to have some new things on the way, so look out! There's a ton of great stuff available and on the way from Vital Sound bands.
AVAILABLE (prices US / international always negotiable, please email [spectiveaudio] at [gmail] dot [com]):
Sawi Lieu and I\D split CDR (CDR51, self-released from Indonesia / Singapore, $7 ppd US): Wild filtered synthetic loops and layers, and joyful experimentation populate this split CDR between Indonesian artist Sawi Lieu and I\D, a group from Singapore. Sawi Lieu’s contribution features unpredictable filter sweeps and building synthetic layers. I\D’s improvisation and experimentation feature wild interplay between guitar, drums, and noisemakers, contrasted against hypnotic guitar sequences.
I\D, Midnight Hot CD (CD32, self-released from Singapore, $10 ppd US): I\D play a type of acid-fusion, building their abstract elements into tense crescendos and structured jams driven by drums and guitar. The development of their noise is blissful, experimental, and completely free -- there is a willful feeling of exploration and creation. Yet, it's not simply outsider jazz or unfocused wanking; the driving, start-and-stop explorations display willful explosion of genre expectations while establishing their own parameters through their instrumental interaction. 2009 release.
I\D, Elite, Kvlt, and Irrevocably Tr00 (CS+60, self-released from Singapore, $10 ppd US): Heavy on the unrestrained noise throughout, I\D dabble in extremely percussive free improvisation and experimentation. Off-kilter blues contrast unclassifiable synthetic noise, wailing, and heavy percussion. 2007 release.
Emporium, Vision CS (home-dubbed, donation): A personal set from 'Spective proprietor Nicholas Zettel, featuring a culmination of summertime drone exercises and tape manipulation. Opening with ethereal atmosphere, this set of four songs meanders through two-channel follow-and-response folk, followed by reverb circuitry manipulation and backwards tape exercises.
The Leavitt Ours, Return CS (C26, clear, handmade cases, $7 ppd US): Beneath the shadows of Chicago's fuzzier and heavier psychedelic sounds, The Leavitt Ours perform experimental pop in the private press tradition. In order to develop and produce their own reflective spaces and musical statements, the trio embrace aggressive ambient soundscapes, synthetic guitar tones, eclectic percussion rhythms, and driving keyed bass and synthesizer backbones.
Various, Vital-Sound I CS (C62, opaque red, handmade art, $7 ppd US): Atlanta and Chicago psych bands split this compilation, presenting everything from paisley, drone, and repetitious instrumentals to acid blues, pure noise, and doom is covered here. Atlanta contributors are Sovus Radio, Soft Opening, The N.E.C., All The Saints, Brainworlds, and The Sunny Muffdivers. Chicago contributors are Implodes, The Great Society Mind Destroyers, The Leavitt Ours, and Killer Moon.
The Leavitt Ours, Vital CDR (extremely limited, xeroxed art, special show release from 2010. Donation): Early 2010 demos that precede Return cassette and accompany Movement tape (Notice), The Leavitt Ours resemble an outsider ambient troupe honing their sound. There are a bunch of tracks on this one that were eased out by the time Return was recorded; therefore, an eclectic mix of synthesizer, keys, noises, and bratty experimental songs.
Sunny Muffdivers, All Half Evil CS (C26, translucent neon, $5 ppd US): Pure sonic assault from Atlanta. Crusty psych sludge doom featuring bludgeoning rhythms, repetition, and drones create a disjointed landscape in which your mind and emotions can hide.
The N.E.C., B-Sides CS (C46, translucent red, $5 ppd US): Rarities, oddities, and background tracks from Atlanta psych/rock outfit versed in driving song craft and sonic exploration. Songs collected from 2007’s “Million Minks” through 2010’s “Is,” splitting ambient and heavy sides of Atlanta psych.
PayPal: [spectiveaudio] at [gmail] dot [com]
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
More 2011!
Reflection
After a year of back catalogs and meandering through the history of rock, I focused my interests on new music in 2011. I dove into experimental music, writing and reviewing music for Foxy Digitalis, and listened to a lot of acid rock and outsider music.
I am enamored with psychedelic music because of the relationship between repetition and perception induced by patterns in music. Each sound imprints itself on the soul, into the mind, allowing the listener to frame their desires, emotions, and thoughts according to the precepts of that sound. Even repetitious sounds continually imprint the mind, and although the pattern may be the same, each reception of each repetition by the body marks a new signpost in perception, memory, etc. From psychedelic sounds unfold infinite fields that allow each person to thoroughly explore their affectivity and rationality. Needless to say, I take psychedelic music to truly mean, "mind-manifesting."
In 2011, I learned that beyond the perceptual powers of psychedelic music, individual, personal encounters are yet another valuable aspect of the small scale community that celebrates acid music. Last year, the ability to share in someone's individual vision through music greatly affected my listening. In a land where major distribution is eroding and regional labels and local bands are amplified, music reconnects to its roots as cultural communication. In that regard, the proliferation of small vinyl and tape labels, and individual, self-pressed records suggests that music is not suffering, but rather supremely vital, slowly returning to the raging local and regional scenes of the 1930s and 1940s.
Furthermore, experimental music presents a clear opportunity to move beyond music's ability to communicate culturally, instead focusing on templates that are completely free of cultural norms and sometimes actively opposed to our own society's commerce. By using synthesizers, electronics, and commercial tools, etc., to create pure noise or drones, experimental/noise music allows musicians to transcend and oppose everyday constraints of labor and commerce, and communicate a classless, universal society (however brief).
One of the constraints of statist thought is the requirement that any alternatives to the state be conceived in terms of structural organization -- for instance, the requirement of Marxists to answer, "how would classless society look?" However brief, my experience with noise and experimental music is entirely classless, entirely outside of the state, and thoroughly universal in an immediate, individual manner. I can describe how a classless society sounds, and that we can experience this sensation through music gives me hope that Americans might eventually rediscover a true political orientation to one another.
This is what I learned about music in 2011, beyond the records I purchased, traded, or heard, beyond the shows I saw, beyond the words I wrote. Here are some particular moments that I enjoyed, working beyond my list at FoxyDigitalis:
Best of the rest!
Carrion Crawler/The Dream by Thee Oh Sees (In The Red) and Black Sun Transmissions by Jasper TX (Fang Bomb) were the pop and experimental albums that I felt excelled in their intention and execution, and Phaedra's The Sea (Rune Grammofon) was the LP that hit me hardest overall.
However, I felt a lot of records were really strong this year, and there are many candidates for the best LP of the year; ultimately, I think it's the emotional and situational impact that leads someone to choose one over the other. So, here are some other LPs I seriously considered for the best:
Cleared S/T (Immune)
Tim Hecker, Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)
Lumerians, Transmalinnia (Knitting Factory)
Implodes, Black Earth (Kranky)
Efrim Manuel Menuck, Plays "High Gospel" (Constellation)
The Men, Leave Home (Sacred Bones)
Challenging Listens
JeaLousy, viles (Moniker): Poetry and slithering, decaying, processed bass outline sparse terrain that somehow feels completely enclosed. Opening, expanding, closing in on itself, perpetually. Beautiful layers emerge from a poverty of elements. Raw and worthwhile.
Helado Negro, Canta Lechuza (Asthmatic Kitty): A rural, remote album by an electronic noisemaker. No tension, suspended peace. Clearly a product of its own world, one particular place and time. A footnote.
Probably my favorite beat-oriented album of the year.
Bad Drugs, Raw Powder (Rotted Tooth): Claustrophobic predatory rhythmic doom metallic gloss ungodly pummeling breeding seismic shifts completely entrapped. Ritual: paranoia, addiction, intelligence, assault. Pure transcendence.
"Mainstream" Albums
Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop): I feel like this record provided a lot of people a meeting point; out and about, shop owners would play it, everyone had an opinion on it. This is the closest LP I experienced last year where I feel everyone I encountered heard it, enjoyed it, digested it. Beyond the developments, the maturity gained since the EP and debut LP, I can easily summarize this one: side D featured one of the most badass litesike excursions I've ever heard.
The Fresh & Onlys, Secret Walls (Sacred Bones): If 2010 was the year that Fresh & Onlys planted blistering garage pop seeds in our minds, 2011 was the year that Fresh & Onlys landscaped the fields. As nearly everyone in San Francisco seems hellbent on producing explosive acid rock, The Fresh & Onlys retreated only slightly to indulge in magnificent key-embellishments and distant reverb pan licks. THE closest logical conclusion to Echo and the Bunnymen I've ever heard, The Fresh & Onlys submerged 60s acid consciousness into remote 80s gloss. If it wasn't an EP, it might be my favorite album ever.
Lou Reed and Metallica, Lulu (Vertigo / Warner Brothers): I don't have anything smart or witty to say about this one. All I want to say is that I find it rather convenient that an entire generation of people that discovered Lou Reed as an experimental pioneer after the fact can completely destroy the man for a collaboration that might not even be the worst in his career. Anyway, I don't think anyone that wasn't there for the initial reception of Metal Machine Music can have any meaningful perspective on Reed's work with Metallica. Anyway, my money is on Lou Reed once again proving everyone wrong (set your clocks to 2031, when Lulu is reassessed as a conceptual, theatrical masterpiece), and my money remains on Lou Reed doing whatever the hell he wants anyway because that's why we love him and that's why his career is truly one-of-a-kind.
Favorite Old Records:
The Ronettes (everything)
Bo Diddley (everything)
The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man
John Coltrane, Meditations
Echo and the Bunnymen, Ocean Rain
David Bowie, Let's Dance
Tegan and Sara, The Con
The United States of America
Nice Strong Arm, Mind Furnace
The Dandy Warhols, Odditorium or Warlords of Mars
Thank You
Thank you to everyone who read posts here (or on 'Spective Audio) and purchased or listened to a tape this year!
I truly enjoyed working with all of the bands and artists on 'Spective Audio this year: thank you Cyrus Shahmir, cinchel, The N.E.C., Implodes, The Sunny Muffdivers, The Great Society Mind Destroyers, Rabble Rabble, Killer Moon, Sovus Radio, Soft Opening, Brainworlds, and All The Saints. I owe special thanks to my bandmates and partners in crime, Travis Bird, Kelley Crawford, and Evan Lindorff-Ellery.
I owe thanks to Permanent Records and Reckless Records for selling and featuring 'Spective Audio tapes. I especially owe thanks to Permanent and Aquarius Records for their weekly newsletters, which helped me learn a lot about music.
I also truly appreciate the time and energy of Robert Cole Manis, Mark Perro, Oliver Ackermann, Dion Lunadon, and Curt Sydnor, who helped me to write features thanks to their interviews and extended conversations.
I have not thanked my wife, partner, and best friend, for her encouragement, spiritual guidance, and gracious turntable time.
After a year of back catalogs and meandering through the history of rock, I focused my interests on new music in 2011. I dove into experimental music, writing and reviewing music for Foxy Digitalis, and listened to a lot of acid rock and outsider music.
I am enamored with psychedelic music because of the relationship between repetition and perception induced by patterns in music. Each sound imprints itself on the soul, into the mind, allowing the listener to frame their desires, emotions, and thoughts according to the precepts of that sound. Even repetitious sounds continually imprint the mind, and although the pattern may be the same, each reception of each repetition by the body marks a new signpost in perception, memory, etc. From psychedelic sounds unfold infinite fields that allow each person to thoroughly explore their affectivity and rationality. Needless to say, I take psychedelic music to truly mean, "mind-manifesting."
In 2011, I learned that beyond the perceptual powers of psychedelic music, individual, personal encounters are yet another valuable aspect of the small scale community that celebrates acid music. Last year, the ability to share in someone's individual vision through music greatly affected my listening. In a land where major distribution is eroding and regional labels and local bands are amplified, music reconnects to its roots as cultural communication. In that regard, the proliferation of small vinyl and tape labels, and individual, self-pressed records suggests that music is not suffering, but rather supremely vital, slowly returning to the raging local and regional scenes of the 1930s and 1940s.
Furthermore, experimental music presents a clear opportunity to move beyond music's ability to communicate culturally, instead focusing on templates that are completely free of cultural norms and sometimes actively opposed to our own society's commerce. By using synthesizers, electronics, and commercial tools, etc., to create pure noise or drones, experimental/noise music allows musicians to transcend and oppose everyday constraints of labor and commerce, and communicate a classless, universal society (however brief).
One of the constraints of statist thought is the requirement that any alternatives to the state be conceived in terms of structural organization -- for instance, the requirement of Marxists to answer, "how would classless society look?" However brief, my experience with noise and experimental music is entirely classless, entirely outside of the state, and thoroughly universal in an immediate, individual manner. I can describe how a classless society sounds, and that we can experience this sensation through music gives me hope that Americans might eventually rediscover a true political orientation to one another.
This is what I learned about music in 2011, beyond the records I purchased, traded, or heard, beyond the shows I saw, beyond the words I wrote. Here are some particular moments that I enjoyed, working beyond my list at FoxyDigitalis:
Best of the rest!
Carrion Crawler/The Dream by Thee Oh Sees (In The Red) and Black Sun Transmissions by Jasper TX (Fang Bomb) were the pop and experimental albums that I felt excelled in their intention and execution, and Phaedra's The Sea (Rune Grammofon) was the LP that hit me hardest overall.
However, I felt a lot of records were really strong this year, and there are many candidates for the best LP of the year; ultimately, I think it's the emotional and situational impact that leads someone to choose one over the other. So, here are some other LPs I seriously considered for the best:
Cleared S/T (Immune)
Tim Hecker, Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)
Lumerians, Transmalinnia (Knitting Factory)
Implodes, Black Earth (Kranky)
Efrim Manuel Menuck, Plays "High Gospel" (Constellation)
The Men, Leave Home (Sacred Bones)
Challenging Listens
JeaLousy, viles (Moniker): Poetry and slithering, decaying, processed bass outline sparse terrain that somehow feels completely enclosed. Opening, expanding, closing in on itself, perpetually. Beautiful layers emerge from a poverty of elements. Raw and worthwhile.
Helado Negro, Canta Lechuza (Asthmatic Kitty): A rural, remote album by an electronic noisemaker. No tension, suspended peace. Clearly a product of its own world, one particular place and time. A footnote.
Probably my favorite beat-oriented album of the year.
Bad Drugs, Raw Powder (Rotted Tooth): Claustrophobic predatory rhythmic doom metallic gloss ungodly pummeling breeding seismic shifts completely entrapped. Ritual: paranoia, addiction, intelligence, assault. Pure transcendence.
"Mainstream" Albums
Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop): I feel like this record provided a lot of people a meeting point; out and about, shop owners would play it, everyone had an opinion on it. This is the closest LP I experienced last year where I feel everyone I encountered heard it, enjoyed it, digested it. Beyond the developments, the maturity gained since the EP and debut LP, I can easily summarize this one: side D featured one of the most badass litesike excursions I've ever heard.
The Fresh & Onlys, Secret Walls (Sacred Bones): If 2010 was the year that Fresh & Onlys planted blistering garage pop seeds in our minds, 2011 was the year that Fresh & Onlys landscaped the fields. As nearly everyone in San Francisco seems hellbent on producing explosive acid rock, The Fresh & Onlys retreated only slightly to indulge in magnificent key-embellishments and distant reverb pan licks. THE closest logical conclusion to Echo and the Bunnymen I've ever heard, The Fresh & Onlys submerged 60s acid consciousness into remote 80s gloss. If it wasn't an EP, it might be my favorite album ever.
Lou Reed and Metallica, Lulu (Vertigo / Warner Brothers): I don't have anything smart or witty to say about this one. All I want to say is that I find it rather convenient that an entire generation of people that discovered Lou Reed as an experimental pioneer after the fact can completely destroy the man for a collaboration that might not even be the worst in his career. Anyway, I don't think anyone that wasn't there for the initial reception of Metal Machine Music can have any meaningful perspective on Reed's work with Metallica. Anyway, my money is on Lou Reed once again proving everyone wrong (set your clocks to 2031, when Lulu is reassessed as a conceptual, theatrical masterpiece), and my money remains on Lou Reed doing whatever the hell he wants anyway because that's why we love him and that's why his career is truly one-of-a-kind.
Favorite Old Records:
The Ronettes (everything)
Bo Diddley (everything)
The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man
John Coltrane, Meditations
Echo and the Bunnymen, Ocean Rain
David Bowie, Let's Dance
Tegan and Sara, The Con
The United States of America
Nice Strong Arm, Mind Furnace
The Dandy Warhols, Odditorium or Warlords of Mars
Thank You
Thank you to everyone who read posts here (or on 'Spective Audio) and purchased or listened to a tape this year!
I truly enjoyed working with all of the bands and artists on 'Spective Audio this year: thank you Cyrus Shahmir, cinchel, The N.E.C., Implodes, The Sunny Muffdivers, The Great Society Mind Destroyers, Rabble Rabble, Killer Moon, Sovus Radio, Soft Opening, Brainworlds, and All The Saints. I owe special thanks to my bandmates and partners in crime, Travis Bird, Kelley Crawford, and Evan Lindorff-Ellery.
I owe thanks to Permanent Records and Reckless Records for selling and featuring 'Spective Audio tapes. I especially owe thanks to Permanent and Aquarius Records for their weekly newsletters, which helped me learn a lot about music.
I also truly appreciate the time and energy of Robert Cole Manis, Mark Perro, Oliver Ackermann, Dion Lunadon, and Curt Sydnor, who helped me to write features thanks to their interviews and extended conversations.
I have not thanked my wife, partner, and best friend, for her encouragement, spiritual guidance, and gracious turntable time.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Label Update: December
Heads up, a new set of Vital Sound I tapes landed at Permanent Records Chicago. The tapes are also available online, support your local store! They also have copies of The N.E.C. B-Sides, The Sunny Muffdivers, All Half Evil, and our sold out Cinchel drone.dump.
If you're not near Ukranian Village, all Reckless stores have the Vital-Sound compilation, and the Milwaukee Ave. shop has The N.E.C. and Cinchel tapes. You can also find The N.E.C. at Loop Reckless. Again, be sure to support your local stores!
NEW CASSETTE! HOME-MASTERED TAPE MANIPULATION! 'Spective proprietor, Nicholas Zettel, presents Emporium, Vision, a summertime drone/guitar affair. Opening with ethereal atmosphere, this set of four songs meanders through two-channel follow-and-response folk, followed by reverb circuitry manipulation and backwards tape exercises. In order to amplify extreme echo patterns and manipulate decay time, these tracks were recorded in the red and mastered loud. Two-channel interactions showcase disparate stories and opposing sounds, invoking conversation/silence, soul/body, surreality/reality.
Each tape will be home-dubbed onto commercial tape for now; between $3.50 US PPD and $5 US PPD donation recommended for American orders. International shipping negotiable. Please contact [spectiveaudio] at [gmail] dot [com] if interested.
LABEL STOCK:
Please email [spectiveaudio] at [gmail] dot [com] to inquire about any year end deals or cassette packs. Cinchel's tape is sold out, but we still have copies of The Sunny Muffdivers, The N.E.C., Vital-Sound, and The Leavitt Ours.
If you're not near Ukranian Village, all Reckless stores have the Vital-Sound compilation, and the Milwaukee Ave. shop has The N.E.C. and Cinchel tapes. You can also find The N.E.C. at Loop Reckless. Again, be sure to support your local stores!
NEW CASSETTE! HOME-MASTERED TAPE MANIPULATION! 'Spective proprietor, Nicholas Zettel, presents Emporium, Vision, a summertime drone/guitar affair. Opening with ethereal atmosphere, this set of four songs meanders through two-channel follow-and-response folk, followed by reverb circuitry manipulation and backwards tape exercises. In order to amplify extreme echo patterns and manipulate decay time, these tracks were recorded in the red and mastered loud. Two-channel interactions showcase disparate stories and opposing sounds, invoking conversation/silence, soul/body, surreality/reality.
Each tape will be home-dubbed onto commercial tape for now; between $3.50 US PPD and $5 US PPD donation recommended for American orders. International shipping negotiable. Please contact [spectiveaudio] at [gmail] dot [com] if interested.
LABEL STOCK:
Please email [spectiveaudio] at [gmail] dot [com] to inquire about any year end deals or cassette packs. Cinchel's tape is sold out, but we still have copies of The Sunny Muffdivers, The N.E.C., Vital-Sound, and The Leavitt Ours.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Thanksgiving Update
Happy up-coming Thanksgiving everyone! I am thrilled about how this year turned out for personal and musical reasons alike. I'll say it's a great sign for the number of quality records released that I continually trade back my old music and find ways to get as many new LPs as possible.
'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.
'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.
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