a.m. - rag red reverie –pseudo arcana– cd – 12$
Full on over-the-top psychedelic noise guitar assault from Antony Miltons A.M project. With beats!
Eschewing the last vestiges of embarrassment at several years 'lost' to rave culture in the late 90s A.M channels the furious ecstasies of phasing tones and pounding beats through electric guitar lined red hot into an ancient tape recorder to produce a riff driven avant-party album... With its endless driving riffs and noise incursions ascending to ever higher levels of intensity the sudden free falls into sudden deep ambient bliss are like the first glimpses of dawn on a mountain top on acid..
And then the beats kick in again.
A 'wave your arms in the air' boogie noise record? Who would have thought?
CD.
-pa
the bad statistics - lucky town gone –pseudo arcana– cd – 12$
On the follow up to last years debut "Static" LP ((Kr-aa-k)3) The Bad Statistics have set about laying waste to the New Zealand suburban dream with this album, a much darker and heavier affair than their debut. Led by a bald suit clad psychopath named Thebis Mutante (rumoured to be the alter-ego of NZ improv/fire music impressario Jeff Henderson) who chants and howls and grunts throughout their doom laden droning rock mantra the closest comparison I have been able to come up with is some sort of hybrid of The Birthday Party, Circle, and The Reynols.
If the debut LP were to be regarded as the Mission Statement of Bad Statistics Great Annual Report in the Sky, "Lucky Town Gone" is not the Business Highlights chapter to be expected next, but a sideways lurch straight to Appendix 17: Corrupted Data.
Recorded onto degraded old cassette tape, "Lucky Town Gone" is a collection of mean-spirited practice room jams that sees the core four-piece of BAD STATISTICS further embracing the stoner doom drone rock that already defined large parts of "Static".
The seven tracks of "Lucky Town Gone" are again spearheaded by the abrasive, sense-eluding vocal emissions of Thebis Mutante. Critical response to Mutante¹s contributions on "Static" was deeply divided, and the new album is expected to further polarise opinions. Mutante is backed by Mark Williams (Marineville, Idle Suite, Cookie Brooklyn) on guitar, Justin Barr (Raskolnikovs, Users, Wrongdoings, Delaney Ghost Orchestra) on bass, and Johannes Contag (Jay Clarkson, Cloudboy, Sleepytime) on drums and production.
CD.
-pa
keijo - carry on with us –pseudo arcana– cdr/book – 12$
Latest missive from Finlands motorcycle crazed improvising drone shaman. 'Carry On With Us' features extended percussion rites and long sections of uber-blues guitar. In some ways this is a challenging record with Keijo veering into Jandek like atonality at times. But there are also moments of lush sublime beauty.
Overall it reflects honesty and frankness. Sure signs of 'true' magic..?
Packaged in a high quality 12 page book of photos and collage works by Keijo.
-pa
paper wings - ash field –pseudo arcana / black petal – cd – 12.50$
Paper Wings is the electric guitar duo of Australian Anthony Guerra and New Zealander Antony Milton.
Recorded in a small room on a winters day in Sydney in 2005 Paper Wings full-length debut drifts through beautiful bowed drones, tender melodic excursions and harsher sonic adventures. Four pieces that find these two guitarists at the top of their game.
(Paper Wings previously appeared on the Last Visible Dog compilation 'Crows of the World (Volume 1)' with the track "Horse Lattitudes'.Reviews said:
".. The real reason to pick this [compilation] up, though, is to hear Paper Wings' "Horse Lattitudes", an extended twin guitar dirge layered with whispered and wailing vocals. Beginning slowly and chaotically, it unfolds into a colossal mesh of The Velvet Underground at their most primal and Earth at 16rpm. Just when it threatens to peak, the duo fall back into another bout of feedback induced guitar meltdown, wringing every amplified note out of their instruments until the bones of the piece have been picked clean"
Edwin Pouncey, The Wire
"A masterclass in free improv that is even better at ear-splitting volume"
Simon Lewis, Terrascope.
CD in hand painted Japanese artpaper sleeve.
-pseudo arcana
sunken - eye electric organ, bran electric nerve –pseudo arcana– cd – 15$
Deep in the swirling depths of the ocean a terrible yet wondrous beast stirs slow but sure amidst great forests of sea algae. Taking on the form of a pair of conjoined drown-ed sailors it sets forth upon the currents determined to loose its apocalyptic vision upon the earth via droning sea shanty and great humming hymn.
Sunken is the duo of sunken sailors Stefan Neville (Pumice) and Antony Milton (Nether Dawn/A.M etc). Using a range of organs, sonar gear, live tapeloops, vocals and an unhealthy amount of submarine reverb they create a glorious droning pop noise. 'Eye Electric Organ, Brain Electric Nerve' follows on from their acclaimed self titled debut (also on PseudoArcana) and various compilation appearances.
-pseudo arcana
sun of the seventh sister - old dust of absent wars –pseudo arcana– cd – 9.50$
Back in January 2007 New Zealand's shores were invaded by a ramshackle hoard of rowdy Aussies. Laying waste to all behind them they halted briefly in the capital before setting out to scuttle the inter-island ferry enroute to their utter subjugation of the South Island.
Whilst in the capital they established positions in an old military complex overlooking the heart of the city from whence they set forth sonic spells upon the masses arrayed below. Mothers wept as their sons fell foul of the sinister melodies and drones that radiated from the hilltop bunkers. Reed instruments, violins, guitars, drums, electronic noises... A long drowning in a reverberant psychedelic flood.
Suns of the Seventh Sister features members of XNoBBQX, The Unaustralians, and various other folks from the Breakdance the Dawn/Pulled Out Records axis... On these recordings they were joined by the despicable national traitors Snakes Beings and Antony Milton.
CDR.
-pseudoarcana
temples - murk –pseudo arcana– cd – 12$
With the advent of September 11, 2001 the musical underground found itself ripe once more for a rejuvenation of beards and acoustic guitars. And who am I to complain- I have a beard and like a bit of a finger pick myself..
Temples is Kevin Richards . He hails from Denver, Colorado, in the good old USA. 'Murk' is an acoustic guitar album. I'm not sure if Kevin has a beard. What is refreshing to these ears about this record is that its an acoustic guitar album wherein the guitar itself is subsumed within the glorious phenomena of the recording media itself, and in this case one of my personal favourites- TAPE! Building up layer after layer of distant and hissy strummed and picked guitars Temples creates a kaleidoscopic miasma which shifts and drifts through vast caverns and tiny rooms, the various rhythms in and out of phase as patterns collide and repel.
There's a deceptive ease and simplicity to the way Murk breathes. I know for a fact that Richards spent many months shaping these pieces into the ramshackle atmospheric drone works they have become. If you were after a comparison I would suggest that Temples does for the guitar what Dialing In does for keyboards and shruti boxes.
I'm often worn down by long pieces, and especially long albums. Just because one can fit 70 minutes on a cdr doesn't mean one should. 'Murk' however is an album that benefits from the extended room that the individual tracks are given to roam and evolve. This is a murk I'm more than happy to lose myself in for an hour.
CDR.
-pseudo arcana
peter wright -yellow horizons –pseudo arcana– cd – 14$
New Zealand guitarist and sound-artist Peter Wrights back catalogue stretches to something like 30 releases over the last dozen years. 'Yellow Horizons' is the most recent of these and follows on from 2004's 'Distant Bombs' (Last Visible Dog), and 'Desolation Beauty Violence' (Digitalis). This CD finds him relocated to dirty old London town from where he has written a series of love-drones to the wild South Island of his homeland.
Wrights guitar craft opens vistas that are as contemplative as they are emotionally engaging. Periods of preperatory silence awaken into long slow shifting drones; layered 'folk' patterns build to an almost psychotropic intensity before being subsumed once more within the drone... These scenes are as varied as the South Island itself. There are glaciers as well as sunburnt plains.
Simply brilliant new collection of heady jammers by Tunnels aka Nicholas Bindeman (Eternal Tapestry, Jackie O Motherfucker, Heavy Winged’s Jed Bindeman’s bro). Tunnels encapsulates the psygrrdelic space between rock and noise, head and body, stardust and gravelpit. Total all OUT experience that moves from Taj Mahal Travellers like spirituality to the vox vs. guitar/bells/chime hypnosis of Grouper/Fursaxa and the pastoral synth styled drone panorama’s of Tangerine Dream/Popol Vuh/Klaus Schulze. Heavy delay style. 50 copies in square dvd cases with full colour, pro printed cover magick by Matt Lock.
Cahier is shaping up to be a grandmaster of contrast, dude’s got a thorough vision of how to soundtrack his growingly fucked up mind. This new joint collects some of his most extremely damaged psycho thoughts. Broken guitar amps singing through layers and layers of grey noise, piercing feedback symphonies which he actually manages to shape into melodic weirdo jams and a cold and wasted feeling throughout the whole thing. A fucked up fairytale for society’s lepers. We all know we’ll end up dead anyway. Edition of 50, black and white photo art, tragic.
From the dark side of San Francisco, Droughter serves up a plate of harsh noise phantasies. Inspired by cheap ass horror flicks and burnt meat, Beast Growth manages to shape harsh electronics, brutal vokills and terrifying lo-fi scuzz into engaging storylined tracks. These tunes go somewhere and they all add up to something grim and tormenting in the end. Droughter knows how to combine brutal and engaging. Sooo psyched to have this beast released, you’ll be hearing more from this guy soon, for real. Edition of 50 in polyvinyl sleeves, bleak artwerkkkk.
a.m. - episterne - seedy r – cdr – 9.50$
originally released on Peter Wrights Apoplexy imprint. Definately one of the best A.M albums to date!
futurians - robots in diguise - seedy r – cdr – 9.50$
another full-on grainy high end distorto-blast from Dunedin sci-fi rockers The Futurians. This disk is made up predominantly from live recordings of cover versions of the likes of The Rolling Stones, Joy Division, and Billy Joel..! Fantastic RAW stuff with plenty of extended synth solos to keep the Star Wars generation happy.
-pseduo arcana
van the van - the road to kyogle - seedy r – cdr – 9.50$
In September 2005 Antony Milton shared a van with the band '6Majik9' (of the Musicyourmindwillloveyou collective) on a mortifyingly hairy psychedelic road trip from Sydney to Kyogle up Australias east coast. Distance 900 km. The van was crammed to the gunwales with musical instruments, sleeping bags, sweating food, and stoned musicians. There was also a taperecorder...
The legacy of this 'trip' is a surprisingly cohesive album of epic jams, cosmic shifts(...) and ecstatic psyche that will put the fear of God into nervous drivers everywhere.
-pseduo arcana
seht - communion - pseudo arcana – 3" cdr – 8$
Beautifully stark minimalist drone and edgy shimmerings from Stephen Clovers seht project. Successfully marries analogue synth with 'digital treatments' of found sounds to create subtle ripples in the deep pool mirror of the 'other'.
-pseduo arcana
sun stabbed - radio - seedy r – cdr – 9$
French duo (Thierry Monnier and Pierre Faure) specialising in great old school table top guitar feedback improv. Now, I've heard a hell of a lot of this kind of stuff but these guys have a particularly nuanced touch. Although named after a Dead C record and having the graunch and thrill of those dinosaurs the proceedings here have a far more stately and refined air...
-pseduo arcana
The Wire Thicket is the swirling shimmering US power-drone duo of Alex Cobb (Taiga Remains/ Students of Decay label) and David Kirby.
Processed acoustic(!) guitars and voice etc are layered and sculpted to construct dense spine-tinglingly intense edifaces
that soar ecstatically high above the plebian mire.
The best of this disk is reminiscent of Simon Wickham Smiths great tearing epic 'Katotohanan' (from Dyro), and the more God-fearing of Birchvilles bliss explosions.
The Skaters - Gambling in Ohpa's Shadow - pseudo arcana– cdr – 12$
Does anything more need to be said about The Skaters? They exploded into the consciousness in early 2004 with 'Dark Rye Bread' (an album about to get a vinyl reissue courtesy of Norways Humbug imprint) and blew minds everywhere with their exceptionally 'JOYOUS' music. For those who haven't heard them yet The Skaters are the duo of James Ferraro and Spencer Clark. The main instrument used by these 2 genius's is voice, but not voice as we're used to it. Ecstatic chants are looped live through archaic delay units and played at a monstrous volume through old and broken amplifiers. Occasionally a broken-leaded guitar is strummed, or a very bent tribal sounding percussion looms into the mix, but overall its those crazy gnostic-gnomic voices that dominate.
As with James Ferraro's solo 'Wooden Cupboard' project (see below) the immediate comparison that springs to mind is that of Angus MacLises Kathmandu recordings. Not everything is so chaotic on this disk, there are poignant moments of relative calm, but overall it is a remarkably distorted, energising - and joyous - affair.
Note that some of the distortion on this disk is 'digital' in nature, a further manifestation of Ohpa's will sings morsecode clicks from out the void...
CDR
The Wooden Cupboard - Boiling the Animal in the Sky - pseudo arcana – cdr –8$
One of the most exciting listens I've had this year was the Skaters and Wooden Cupboard releases that have come out on Nature Tape Limb.
Based around the core pair of James Ferraro and Spencer Clark (The Wooden Cupboard is Ferraro's solo project) they sure manage to make a hell of a joyous and utterly insane ecstatic racket on their disks.
The overall sound they capture is reminiscent of the recordings by Angus MacLise of tripping screaming hippies involved in dodgy rituals in Nepal in the early 70s, with crazy drumming and loops of lo-fi noise,
except that rather than hippies it sounds more the ritual is being conducted by a cult of hyperactive and demonic elves... But its GOOD!
Extraordinarily energising music and one of my all time faves for the label so far.
-past-
peter wright - unvarnished, untreated, unzipped - seedy r – cdr – 9$ sold out
incredible live trks recorded during Peter Wrights 2005 UK tour. Perhaps nothing more needs to be said?
Well, ok then... The 1st trk was recorded in London and is built up from field recs and guitar loops in an ocean of reverb and is reminiscent of his work on Yellow Horizon and Desolation Beauty Violence. The 2nd trk was recorded in Aberdeen and features feed back loops and delayed strumming patterns that get more and more intense until they reach a truely spinetingling crescendo.
Essential!
-pseduo arcana
V/A - The Tone of the Universe (= The Tone of the Earth) - pseudo arcana – 2xcd –15$ sold out
This compilation (the debut CD cds for PseudoArcana) arose out of an online discussion about the news that astromoners have discovered a galaxy - far far away -
that is resonating in a steady B flat drone. Due to this drones inaudibility (not only is it remote but it is also something like 50 octaves below
an audible pitch...) it was decided that a compilation of 'cover versions' was in order.
That is not to however imply that the tone b flat is neccesarily present in all of these trks..
.Featuring: Blithe Sons, Peter Wright, Keijo, Eugene Carhesio & Leighton Craig, CJA, Anla Courtis, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Hands of Satisfaction,
A.M/Uton, The Moglass, Neil Campbell, Birchville Cat Motel, The Skaters, seht, Of, 1/3 Octave Band, The Nether Dawn, My Cat is an Alien
2x CD in 3 panel gatefold.
6majik9 - weapons and maps of western despondency - pseudo arcana – cdr – 11$ sold out
From out of the twig-clad back-blocks of Queensland and northern New South Wales arrives another ecstatically apocalyptic missive from the musicyourmindwillloveyou collective (home of Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood and Terracid, White Cobra et al...).
6majik9 is obstensibly the 'big band' manifestation of the collectives psychedelic enhanced group mind and features multiple guitrists, flautists, cellists and drummers and an irrepresible (and quite mad...) vocalist cum theremin stroker(!)
Ranging from propulsive driving drum reveries to lilting nuanced drones 'Weapons and Maps' catches the whole chaotic enterprise in charmed and glowing flight.
-pseduo arcana
vluba - '...' - seedy r – cdr –9$ sold out
·Vlubä '...'
"We are Vlubä, posted at Buenos Aires at now, but borned in the chrome moon circa (since) 1965...
Our music works consist at no music, drone music, freak rock, acid rock, cosmic music, conceptual art music, free improvisation, magical music for the high kings from the high spheres and extreme experimental music or whetever... some from this side of the planet, or the other planet?
Crazy lo-fi Argentininian Psychedelia. Fans of Armpit will LOVE this.
-pseduo arcana
Birchville Cat Motel.- Our Love Will Destroy the World - pseudo arcana – cd –12$ sold out
Settling in around the 2 epic tracks from the essential 'screamformelongbeach' 3" cdr (PseudoArcana 2003)'Our Love Will Destroy the World' adds 3 new tracks and finds Campbell Kneale engaged in a deeper archaeological sifting of the rock and metal tropes that he has recently been exploring with Black Boned Angel.
Whilst remaining resolutely a Birchville album the instrumentation employed has been culled from the heavier end of the rock/metal spectrum to produce what is, in a weird and wonderful way, perhaps Birchvilles most ‘accessible’ album to date.
Fluidly shifting but piercing guitar feedback and endlessly heavy riffs are married to grindcore drumming, organ fugues and electronics to create a huge wash of sound that somehow manages to exemplify the ecstatic beauty of so much of the Birchville oeuvre at the same time as being ‘supremely heavy’. This is Birchville's bliss reverie 'ROCK' album...
glory fckn sun - vision scorched - pseudoarcana – cd & book –16$ sold out
Formed in 2003 as a conduit for intense ritualistic sonic exploration Glory Fckn Sun is the ecstatic psyche-noise trio of Antony Milton (guitar/electronics), Ben Spiers (guitar/violin/electronic) and improv percussionist Simon O'Rorke (gongs/percussion).
'Vision Scorched' collects together one studio track and two live pieces. These range through long form rumbling distorted deep space explorations (complete with supernova and the odd blackhole), intense yet ethereal harsh noise to close with a droning metaphysical raga-esque paean to the great cosmic inevitable of the collapse of the sun, And of light itself.
Glory Fckn Sun have been described as having a sound that is like a cross between Flies Inside the Sun and Keiji Haino.
Nearly 2 years in the making and continuing in the PseudoArcana tradition of fantastical over-the-top packaging (...) 'Vision Scorched' is presented in a professionally bound 72 page picture book of sun related imagery with hand printed covers. This is a limited numbered edition CD of 200 copies.
The Once and Future Herds -'lion-colored hills -pseudo arcana– 3” cdr –8$ sold out
The Once and Future Herds are a Jewelled Antler offshoot made up of Glenn Donaldson, Donovon Quinn and Loren Chasse.
Lion-coloured Hills documents a journey to said hills as manifested through bowed and plucked strings, drones and utterences.
pumice - sexual (live) - pseudoarcana – cdr –11$ sold out
CDR re-release (with new tracks) of the Stabbies and Rocket cassette. Wonderfully shambolic and 'rocking' tracks from Pumice gigs circa 1998-2002. I couldn't really say that its as good as being there but it comes pretty damn close!
-pseduo arcana