wild gunmen –end ov the world -mad monk–cdr – 12$
We're pretty thrilled to offer up the third volume in this series of CDRs by Wild Gunmen. End Ov the World is our favorite of the bunch, because it offers the expected - chaotic wastoid jams, cacaphonous raging, and crude acoustic punk ditties - along with the entirely unexpected - essentially, the album's untitled 12 minute closer, which is by far the best thing the band has ever done. "12" is a monstrous piece of low bass tones, disembodied vocal samples, ominous cascading noise, spooky backward effects, and singer Kristy's deadpan voice (sample lyric: "I hate being raped every day / every day that I live I am raped / Everybody rapes me every day / do you know what it's like to be raped every day?"). Scary shit. This track is unlike anything else in the WG discography, sounding like a cross between Consumer Electronics' Teenage Nuremberg and "Revolution 9" for a post-Mullholland Drive world. There are other highlights as well, like the Godz-style punk of "Up Your Ass" (featuring rare lead vocals by either Ron or Witt), and a nearly lucid cover of "Folsom Prison Blues," complete with train whistle sound effects. Elsewhere, banjos collide with saxophones, guitars feed back mercilessly against found audio, chaos reigns. If you're new to Wild Gunmen, this is the place to start.
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claudio 2 –hot lead -mad monk–cdr – 12$
Latest and best from this mysterious tribe finds them in full synthesizer horror mode. Taking cues from the soundtracks of John Carpenter, the mutant space techno of Allan Bryant, the time-lapse mesmerism of Robert Fripp, and the intrepid synthesizer experiments of Ruth White, Hot Lead deals in nightmarish arpeggios, shapeshifting noise and ominous melodic variations. Recorded direct to 8 track - no boring, sterile microhouse polish here - and comprised of mostly solo tracks by individual members. Complete with dreamy Sisters of Mercy fanboy cover art. Limited to 150 copies,
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claudio two – contemporary suicide music - mad monk–cdr – 14$
Brand new dead end carpetbagger blues by these born losers. This third Claudio Two album (following the unreleased and indefinitely shelved Jazz Improve CDR) finds the crew flexing their muscles a bit - from wasted bedroom metal riffs carelessly layered over each other to create a zit cream vortex, to synth / occult pieces inspired by John Carpenter soundtracks and Ritalin snorting, to atmospheric black metal frightmares, and decrepid blooz rock, it's all here on this brief CD, which may or may not include the band's first actual cover song, by French geniuses Vietnam Veterans. Full color collage covers by local college radio personality (actually he just steals CDs from the station) Blake Conley. Only 150 copies of this one, hurry!
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claudio two – sniper at the gates of dawn -mad monk–cdr – 10$
Some folks may claim that improvisation is all about LISTENING, but Claudio Two – a new project starring partners Chazz Improv and Norma Bates (aka James and Jessica Toth, formerly of WWVV), and featuring the first appearance in over ten years by former Golden Calves vocalist Max “Mev” Wicker – is all about the opposite. Recorded in various spurts over the fall of 2007, Sniper at the Gates of Dawn is the debut CDR by Claudio Two, on which the band layers individual single tracks recorded solo and combines them unheard (a la Durian Durian), and, elsewhere, uses this source material to try to recreate this accidental music while in a group setting. Mixed in glorious mono. 150 copies, no reissues. $10
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owl xounds - teenagers from mars – mad monk / colour sounds recordings - lp -11$
We here at Mad Monk have been fans of Adam Kriney's many projects over the past few years and feel deeply honored to offer the vinyl debut of his long-running fucked-jazz unit Owl Xounds (formerly OWL SOUNDS).
Taking their psychedelic rhyhmic core of drummer Kriney (LA OTRACINA/BLIZZARDS/RUST IONICS/CASTANETS/THE PLACES) and upright bassist Gene Janas (Screamin Jaw Hawkins/Bern Nix's SEDITION ENSEMBLE) to any reedsman up for the challenge, the boys explode it all with Austrian sax-ist Mario Rechtern, who has been invlolved with free-music since the late 60's playing in the REFORM ART UNIT (with Sunny Murray, Linda Sharrock, & Leena Conquest) and more recently as a guest in the Weasel Walter QUARTET/SEXTET/TRIO.
Truly and honorably a post-ESP expression, it is much a post-SST expression. While the instrumentation and framework are a staple of the jazz/improvisaion tradition, the directions and velocities at which OWL
XOUNDS exist are just as informed of the worlds of hardcore/punk and experimental noise.
Citing the MISFITS as the most important band in his musical education, drummer/leader Kriney always felt the connection between the punk he grew up on and the free-jazz he became aware of later in life, the energy, the volume, the commitment, and most importantly the UNDENIABILITY of them both! And similarly the ostracism of the two is not to be ignored, being an outsider, the alienation from popular music, from popular culture, and from everyone around who just 'didn't get it' were also of significance. It is with these considerations that this LP was named, for after all, from Albert Ayler to Thurston Moore to Glenn Danzig to Kawabata Makoto to Peter Brotzmann, 'they' and 'we' are all Teenagers From Mars, and we don't care
-mad monk
owl xounds - teenagers from mars – mad monk / colour sounds recordings - lp - 11$
same lp as issued by mad monk with a little bit different artwork
kurt weisman - more is more -mad monk– 7" – 5$
We were crazy about the music of Kurt Weisman from the first second we heard it. You can Google at least two or three examples of us publicly gushing over “Past The Moon,” one of Kurt’s songs played with his band Feathers. It’s probably our single favorite song of last year. Needless to say we are overjoyed to release Kurt’s debut on vinyl, following an excellent self-released CD-R. Possessed with the rare talent of writing tunes that are at once whimsical and strangely ominous, Kurt’s music is reverential without being anachronistic. His solo work is even more far-reaching, adding electronic elements without sacrificing the charisma and charm inherent to the songs. While somewhat poppier than his work with Feathers, don’t worry - Kurt’s solo vinyl debut is just as possessed with the spirits of Canterbury. Fans of Les Maledictus Sound’s cut up / collage work, (not to mention their affinity for speeding up vocals) will be delighted, as will those who can’t understand why the Beach Boys didn’t make “Vegetables” a sidelong jam. Elsewhere, Kurt conjures Comus as remixed by Otto Von Schirach. He also writes some of the most compelling melodies we’ve heard in a long time – timeless, beautiful ones. Remember the feeling you got when you were a kid and you first saw that last scene in Over The Edge, where they play Valerie Carter‘s version of “Ooh Child” as the kids head off to juvie? Kurt’s single gives you that kinda feeling. Your life totally needs this
- mad monk
- past -
Matta Llama - s/t - mad monk – lp – 14$sold out
Matta Llama are already one of the most talked about bands in New York City, but after the psych beardstrokers, dateless dronemongers, and stoner rock wastoids get ahold of this, the band's name will be express-delivered to 'legendary' status alongside Trad Gras Och Stenar, Edgar Broughton Band, and High Rise. Featuring gifted artist Arik Moonhawk Roper on bass, this relentless foursome have crafted one of the most explicitly psychedelic and teeth-rattling albums to come along in years. With deluxe fold out poster and fancy matte printed covers, only 500 copies and destined to fly
-mad monk
Egypt is the Magick # - the valentine process - mad monk – lp –14$sold out
Egypt is the Magick #, the duo of Adam Mortimer and Dave Shuford (NNCK, Suntanama, Coach Fingers, Enos Slaughter, etc) (plus a mysterious third member) return after a seven year hiatus with an LP of archival material that somehow bests their massive CD on Psych-o-Path all those years ago. Beautiful full color covers and 180 gram vinyl, only 500 copies so hurry!
-mad monk
astral blessing - s/t - mad monk – lp –14$sold out
This vital release documenting the near-mythological Astral Blessing is, quite plainly, one of the reasons we started Mad Monk. Astral Blessing are / were a Northeastern ‘supergroup’ of sorts featuring renaissance man Paul LeBreque (Sunburned Hand of The Man, Trees Chants & Hollers, Aeth’r Myth’d, The Other Method, Soil Sing Through Me) and Daniel Presnell (Hildegard, Feed and Seed Records) along with drummer Marcus DeMaio. Sporadic gigs, often with fucking years in between them, left more than one trainspotter wondering if the band existed at all. This LP lays the whispers and rumors to rest once and for all. Totally crushing modern psych splatter, referencing the Theater of Eternal Music one minute and Oblivians the next. In total bootleg-style jacket so you can pretend you’re the only one who’s lucky enough to be in on this. Recorded entirely live. Obscenely limited.
- mad monk
turner cody - the great migration / quarter century - mad monk – lp –14$sold out
Turner has been kicking around the NYC folk scene for quite a few years now, but this is, perhaps inexplicably, his first foray onto wax. While most ‘singer / songwriters’ these days seem to draw most of their water from Iron and Wine via Pavement and back again, Turner sounds like he began his musical education listening to Gershwin player piano rolls and quit buying records somewhere around the time Dylan brought it all back home. Lyrically, Turner can turn a phrase with the best of ‘em, and the gloriously ramshackle accompaniment is Mungo Jerry meets Herman Dune sharing a squat in Tin Pan Alley. This LP combines two of Turner’s self-released CDs, and is as good an introduction to his wonderful music as any. Here’s what Jeweled Antler head honcho Glenn Donaldson sez about Turner: "Cody is pre-war, Old Testament & A Confederate General from Big Sur." Err…nuff said, no?
- mad monk
wild gunmen –volume one -mad monk–cdr –14$sold out
I was introduced to the music of Wild Gunmen by Russ Waterhouse, who handed me a tape wrapped in silver foil and told me I'd love it. He was right, and I immediately wrote to main Gunman Witt, just telling him how much I liked his band. He wrote me back immediately, promising "years" of more music, and telling me I'd better get ready, because this was some serious shit. He explained that the band - a trio - were 'bad on the biz end' because they were all saddled with being drug addicts and had also been dealt the unfortunate blow of all being born under the sign of Libra (???). He also told me that two of the members were former FM radio DJs on Cincinnati's WAIF. A few days later, a package arrived containing three unmarked 90 minute cassettes, and a handwritten letter. The letter featured color copies of a sexy drummer who, Witt explained, was dead now, and another photo of a very young girl who Witt claimed to have taken to see GG Allin. The letter, rife with more references to the copious amount of drugs the band takes, quotes from South Park, and casual boasting, was still not enough to prepare me for the amazingly twisted sounds contained on the tape. Eerie acoustic blues, with oscillator and other various noises, super confessional lyrics sung by what sounds like the demon spawn of Jandek's gal Nancy and Niagara, and the unmistakable sound of several fucked up adults getting together to rock out in a self-described 'drug infested nut house.' This one is hard to explain, and frankly, I'm at a loss - a very authentic psychedelic nightmare that may be a little too 'real people' for it's own good. Of all the amazing shit coming out of Cowtown lately (and there is a LOT!) this is some of the most fried by far. Some of it maybe sounds a little like Sam Esh? I don't know, man. Anyway, this is the first of what we hope will be many releases of Wild Gunmen material on Mad Monk. We are super excited to share this with the world! I asked Witt to send me cover art and song titles, and he told me to "just make them up, cause no one here can ever agree on them...our singer Kristy is a drug addict...half the time I just want to kill her. And surprise us and cook up your own design for a CD cover - title it anything you want." Okay, then! Only 150 copies, hurry!
-mad monk
wild gunmen –volume two: cocain spyders - mad monk–cdr –14$sold out
The second volume in this exciting series by this wastoid troupe from the buckeye state is even better than the first. While the highly popular Volume One introduced the band as the parole board's answer to the Cherry Blossoms, Volume Two: Cocain Spyders (the misspelling is the band's) finds the group more stoned, introspective and deliberate, with oscillators, delay drones, horns, and high pitched feedback squeals taking the place of more 'traditional' instruments. Singer Kristy is, as ever, center stage, singing beautifully harrowing misfit tales of lonely strangers, train wrecks and dreams fading away. Volume Two also features what is perhaps, in our opinion, the quintessential Wild Gunmen track thus far - an untitled jam near the middle of the disc begins like any other paranormal WG track, until Kristy nonchalantly takes a break from singing to audibly converse with her captive party guests about sex and cocain(e), while Witt and Ron, undaunted, lock into a supremely fucked clarinet / guitar duet that sounds like a moonlight meeting between Rafael Toral and Little Howlin' Wolf. When Kristy decides to begin singing again, the track only gets weirder, stretching out over several parts and nearly fifteen minutes like a lost ESP side or perhaps the music the guy who left the desperate answering machine message at the beginning of Charalambides Market Square might have made. As if all of this weren't enough, Volume Two also includes the soon-to-be-punk-classic "(I've Got A) Washboard (For A Stomach)."
This is the second in what we hope will be a long running series of releases by Wild Gunmen on Mad Monk, but each one could be the last - word has it a few of the band members are dead set against these releases - so treasure and cherish every minute while it lasts!
-mad monk