altar of flies / sewer election - loco hills - release the bats – lp – 17$
Two of the best acts currently dwelling in the depths of the Swedish underground scene. Sewer Election should be well-known by now, previous releases includes a split 12" with Incapacitants, cds on Troniks and Chondritic Sound and the amazing Killing-tapes. Altar Of Flies has created quite a buzz over the last year with a huge amount of very limited tape/cd-r releases. On this split LP, Sewer Election contributes with the nasty Rotten Corpse. A crude and disgusting piece. Monotonous, freezing coldness. Altar Of Flies continues with his dark and eerie forest rumblings. Buried claustrophobic lo-fi insanity straight from hell. Heavy outbursts of feedback. Could've been outtakes from an old Dario Argento soundtrack. Mean-spirited ugliness from both bands.
-rtb
sheperds - loco hills - release the bats – cd – 11$
Loco Hills, the debut fullength from these Brooklyn bush babies,is the sound of a rolling southwestern road trip. It is the sound of unknown terrain, and appropriately Loco Hills finds Shepherds entering full band territory for the first time. A fully realized jam document, toying at times with structure, Shepherds never lose sight of the "drop everything and make music" mentality that makes them so exciting. Swirling strings, tape manipulations. Bongos and wah, fire and bone. This is our music.
Members from Meneguar, Woods and The Vanishing Voice.
dove yellow swans - live during war crimes vol 2 - release the bats – cd – 11$
The second volume, this time a collection of darker and more sinister live recordings taken from their tour in Europe early 2006. 42 black minutes of creepy soundscapes painting a depressive picture of a world going down in dust and ashes. The 5 songs all has a weird desperate and dense apocalyptic feel to them, making this a haunting and very bleak experience. Trashy dark rumblings and total coldness. Again very well-edited stuff by Pete Swanson, works more like a full proper album than just a collection of random recordings. Amazing.
Comes packaged in a Dual Plover full color sleeve with black felt. Cover drawings by Liz Harris of Grouper.
-release the bats
nonhorse - haraam circle of flame - release the bats – cd – 11$
Nonhorse is the solo act of Gabriel Lucas Crane from Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice and this is his debut album. On Haraam, piles of mysterious old cassettes are used as source material to create magic in a stunning way over 42 moody minutes. Different audio fragments on top of each other, over and over again, hand-mixed and orchestrated at what feels like must have been ritualistic tape laborations taken place somewhere where the sun never shines. Various echoes from the past are buried under layers and layers of manipulated voices, train signals, animal sounds and god knows what. Abrupt endings which burns like fire in your head. Churches in flames, the soundtrack to The House With The Laughing Windows played backwards, alien autopsys, cemetery fog, total devestation... Haraam is a beautiful junkyard nightmare, a horrifying and atmospheric album. 13 songs. Mastered by Pete Swanson.
-release the bats
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raccoon-oo-oon – is night people – release the bats – CD – 11$ sold out
Swirling sax-and-effects-heavy free-form punk from Iowa Citys Raccoo-oo-oon. Is Night People is their first magical recording, 7 organic rituals creating a
majestic outlet of neverending energy. Beautiful cascades of manipulated vocals and layers of feedback melting together over sunny explosions of
insane drumming. In the vein of Sun City Girls, Here Comes The Indian-era Animal Collective, Excepter etc.
The cd comes in a letterpressed black Arigato Pak with gold ink made by Stumptown Printers and stunning art by Shawn Reed in the band.
Recorded and mixed by Steve Wilson, Brad Brandhorst and Raccoo-oo-oon. Originally released as a tape by the band in early 2005,
now fully remastered by Pete Swanson (Yellow Swans).
xiu xiu / ghr – creepshow –release the bats – lp –11$ sold out
A beautiful exploration in ambience and darkness by Xiu Xiu and Grouper. This 5-song collaboration was created out of a shared childhood trauma involving some horror film from the 70's. The recording is ranging from melancholic, cryptic passages to lush soundscapes, all the time with a weird cinematic feel to it.
-rtb
woods - how to survive in the woods -release the bats- cd -12$ sold out
Experimental folk music anthems with Jeremy and Christian from Meneguar. How To Survive consists of everything from more traditional singer/songwriter songs to noisy yet beautiful outbursts of brilliant lo-fi madness. A truly amazing collection of songs. Originally released as a double cassette on Fuck It Tapes, now remastered and finally avaliable on cd. 13 songs, 42 minutes. Comes packaged in a Dual Plover sleeve (the same kind we used for the Dove Yellow Swans cd) with dark green felt and full colour artwork similar to the tape release.
pocahaunted / orphan fairytale - loco hills - release the bats – 7" –7.50$ sold out
One track each from Pocahaunted (California) and Orphan Fairytale (Belgium). Pocahaunted has been real busy the last year: opening for Sonic Youth, several collaborations with Robedoor, tape/cd-r releases on Not Not Fun, Arbor, Fuck It Tapes etc, split LPs with Christina Carter and Mythical Beast... and yeah, we could go on forever (and mention the 2 new vinyl albums on Arbor and Woodsist that are being released at the same time as this 7"...)! Here Amanda and Bethany gives us Warpaint, another dubbed-out and almost heavy lo-fi anthem with that always so special and unique Pocahaunted vibe. The discography of Orphan Fairytale, the solo moniker of Eva Van Deuren, mainly consists of very limited tape and cd-r releases so far, with the only previous vinyl output being an amazing collaboration LP with Mudboy. Live actions includes a performance at No Fun Fest 2007 and a set that took place inside of a container. Here she continues with her haunting and always captivating and melodic keyboard hymns. Made By Mermaids is a trip in the ocean gone bad. Limited to 500 copies. Full colour labels, yellow big-hole sleeves with design and screenprint (in glowing red) by RTB-sidekick HLG.
-rtb
oubliette - italian gore - release the bats – cass –6$ sold out
Spliced cassette madness from Georgia, USA. In search of the true audio essence of the golden era of the Italian horror, Oubliette here gives us Italian Gore! Filthy fragments from a range of the more trashy zombie flicks (Burial Ground and Zombi 3, 4, 5, anyone?). You may be to young to have been around in the days of the Video Nasties, banned home videos, Studio S and Strong Uncut VHS releases from Vipco but if you have the slightest interest in the Italian horror genre, you will get tears in your eyes when listening to this! This is all about the spirit of being 14 all over again and the excitement of watching Giovanni Lombardo Radice being drilled in the head in City Of The Living Dead for the first time or dropping your jaw to the ending in Nightmare City, or scoring an uncut copy of Anthropophagous, or trying to figure out what the hell is going on in a foggy VHS-dub of A Lizard In A Womans Skin, or... A true labour of love. Gross, harsh and disgusting. Originally released as a cd-r on Turgid Animal. Previous Oubliette releases out on Hanson, Audiobot, RRR, No Horse Shit etc. Limited to 40
raccoo-oo-oon - behold secret kingdom - release the bats – cd ––11$ sold out
Behold Secret Kingdom is the first proper fullength release from Iowa City's Raccoo-oo-oon after several limited cd-r/tape/vinyl releases (including cd reissues on Time Lag and Release The Bats). The band spent the last year working with Behold Secret Kingdom, tremendous amounts of love and hard work has been put into this recording which now will be unleashed by Release The Bats! 8 new songs that takes the band's psychedelic and dynamic free-form punk from previous releases to new heights, this is definitely their most focused and perfected recording so far. Darker, denser and almost brutal at times, Behold Secret Kingdom is also the heaviest recording they have done. It only takes a few seconds into ‘Black Branches’ and the mood is set for the rest of the album immediately. The stunning closer ‘Tail At Prospect Peak’ could easiest be described as campfire-doom with it’s slow riffing, heavy use of percussion and chanted vocals (everything suddenly bursting out in a chaotic crescendo…). The trademark tribal-like drums is still present, as is the vocal drones and the furious saxophone swirls. Behold Secret Kingdom is a epic masterpiece, there is really no other way to describe it. Chaotic and all over the place, yet so beautiful. Puts earlier comparisons to bands like Excepter and Animal Collective to a shame! Recorded by Mike Dixon in Bloomington, IN. Full colour digipack with the bands now well-known amazing artwork.
-rtb