NEWER RELEASES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE

TAIGA REMAINS / RV PAINTINGS - Split LP ON SALE FOR MAY 2011 - £5.00
Taiga Remains is Student of Decay's master mind Alex Cobb project, if you ain't picked up his new disc on Digitalis 'Wax Canopy' yet, go get it, it is one of the best drone releases I have heard in a long time! The 15 minute track on this is new split LP is entitled 'Mengku From Mengsa'. Opening with far off chimes upon chimes, this leads to pure bliss dream zones, rather than the more intense material on the aforementioned Wax Canopy. This is a fantastic piece of drone work, layered to create some beautiful zoning out in the mind. RV Paintings is the project of Brian Pyle of the almighty psychedelia legends Starving Weirdos, along with his brother Jon Pyle, and Spencer Doran, who also plays under the name of Cloaks. This is an amazing track, kinda darker and bleaker than the Weirdos vibe, with some totally awesome free percussion playing central to the piece, this is hard to top in the drone game. A totally solid slab of sound from both acts. Limited to 400 copies featuring a pasted on 8" x 8" black and white art on lilac paper (and an insert) by Jefre Cantu.

MECHANICAL CHILDREN - I Rise To Cover All LP ON SALE FOR MAY 2011 - £5.00
Debut vinyl release from this new duo that makes up two thirds of Jazzfinger (Ben Jones and Sarah Sullivan). Based around the idea of used broken keyboards, Ben and Sarah make some totally fucked and pretty heavy noise jams, there's some searing moments in this beast, particularly across the two part 'Burning of the Light Fields' which spans all side A, and most of side B... the closer is 'Planatary Wasp', which pretty much would be what Jeff Goldblum would have sounded like if he'd turned into some kind of rancid badass wasp instead of that pussy fly! Turn it up! Incredible pasted cover and insert by Kevin E Anderson. Limited to 300.

STARVING WEIRDOS - B/P/M Series 1 LP ON SALE FOR MAY 2011 - £7.50
Absolutely mind melting release from this consistently amazing American duo. This release has a very different sound to there superb drone recordings of their recent releases, yet it is still totally immense but really quite unexpected... Previously issued as a tour only CDR in a press of somewhere between 20 and 30 copies. Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay spent sometime recording legendary Humboldt based pianist Darius Brottman. The recordings of Brottman were then reworked by McKinlay and Pyle separately. Pyle and McKinlay have a side each on this LP, both sides featuring very different ways of reworking the original beautiful recordings. Side A opens with some straight piano clinks layered with incidental sounds that occured during recording sessions, creating an amazing feeling of beautiful surrealness , leadings into multi-layered piano movements over and over. Side B begins with an powerful, erratic, forceful playing, coated in psychedelic loops and reversed sounds, then returning to a more straight piano playing. The second track on this side almost bleeds into familiar Weirdo territory. This is one bizarre, but equally genius and beautiful release. Both myself and the Weirdos are honored to have the artwork for this LP designed by artist Mick Wiggins. Printed sleeves, 180 gram vinyl and limited to 500.

MOUNTAINHOOD - Death Pod one-sided LP ON SALE FOR MAY 2011 - £4.50
Our very first one sided LP is a bizarre trip from Michael Curtis Hilde's Mountainhood project. This one follows on from the two LPs on Time Lag's Red Records label a few months back which vanished super fast, as well as other releases on Reverb Worships and Yod. Total outsider midnight missions into weirdness... strange strings twang and rattle into the darkness, a very strange experience spread across one side of black wax. Limited to 320 copies.

STARVING WEIRDOS WITH TOM CARTER & SHAWN MCMILLEN - Live At The Accident LP
ON SALE FOR MAY 2011 - £6.50
Crazy 3-way collaboration from some of America's best underground musicians... Charalambides Tom Carter is joined by Shawn McMillen, sometimes member of Warmer Milks and Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast, with he added power of Starving Weirdos. This two tracked collaboration has been around since 2007 and it landed in my mailbox a few months back, and man, its a real beauty. Side A is a total hypnotic slice of ravaged drone, the four musicians seamlessly blend their own styles of underground bliss outs to sheer perfection. Side B opens with a crazy loop of applause, waving back and forth with a growing repetative plug-in to new opening it up to create new levels of total sonic weirdness. Slow shimmering black chasms engulf the positivity until its awash with lo-fi scrapes and buzzing electrical nightmare. The loop eventually drops back in with total far gone chimes, jingling away at acid burnt psychedelic keys and a thundering bass loop. A totally bizarre jam, which just opens more potential ventures up for these artists, hopefully we'll see more from this collaborative team soon... Limited to 320 in pro-printed wraparound sleeves.

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD - Fucking Dracula Clouds LP ON SALE FOR MAY 2011 - £6.50
Stunning new LP from Campbell Knele's post Birchville Cat Motel project. Continues with the vibes set on his superb LP for Dekorder, total psychedelic filth noise. Two side long heavy pieces of gushing electric destruction, one sound lurches in and tears down another one, which it rebuilds an even more ferocious version of the original sound. Limited to 400 copies.

CAM DEAS - Blind Chance LP £11.00
Fantastic new LP from Cam Deas, which was issued in a tiny run CDR for his recent euro tour with Jack Allett earlier this year. This is the first larger run release from Cam since his 7" on the always excellent Great Pop Supplement. This is a slightly different release from the previous LP on BR and split LP with Spoono, essentially this is one long improvised acoustic freak-out. Loose frequent and infrequent twangs to pure whirlwinds of aggressive string assaults and finger shredding plucking. This still retains Cam's signature traditional playing somehow, especially the more intense heavier moments. A solid recording. Limited to 500 copies on heavyweight vinyl in pro-printed fold over covers with photography by Cam and printed labels.

TWINSISTERMOON - Then Fell The Ashes... LP £12.00
Brand new full length vinyl LP from Natural Snow Buildings' Mehdi Ameziane's solo project. Ameziane's sound has grown somewhat darker at times with this brand new LP featuring nearly 50 minutes of new material. The A side features 6 tracks, where as the B side is a huge almost 25 minute track. The opening track 'Black Nebulae' is a gorgeously textured psychedelic drone based piece, followed by a short, quieter, guitar plucked piece with vocals, but no words entitled '1976'. 'Ghost That Was Your Life' is a stunning beautiful layered guitar piece with Ameziane's astounding beautiful vocals shining through. 'Big Sand' opens as one of the darker pieces, with an occult feeling to its sound, swirling vocal drones, almost like a choir at times, and in come those stunning warm and distinctive gutar sounds with layered ghostly sound scapes, that haunt much of Ameziane's solo and NSB recordings. Half way through this track it fades into layered field recordings, drones, and distant chimes, the sound of this track at this point just has a real melancholy vintage sound, the last two minutes are again a change of sound with a slow plucking of guitar strings. 'Desert Prophecy' returns of the sound of just Ameziane and his guitar, with some lo-fi electric riffing distrotion in the background. Its pretty incredible to hear this and think that its from 2010, and not from the 60s or 70s. The sixth and final track on the first side is 'Trailer', another beautiful somewhat lighter folk sound, which is interesting considering the following is the albums title track 'Then The Ashes Fell', a side long track which is a considerably darker and heavier than much of the rest of the LP, but it weaves in some beautiful lighter more reflective moments. Heavyweight vinyl in deluxe heavy thick card tip on jackets. Edition of 979.
 
THE HUNTER GRACCHUS / KOMMISSAR HJULER UND FRAU - Split LP ON SALE FOR MAY 2011 - £6.50
The Hunter Gracchus have released an ever growing catalogue of super well received releases and collaborated with Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides and Chora as Le Drapeau Noir, as well as performing in Vampire Blues, Harappian Night Recordings and Blue Yodel. Their side is an amazing live recording from La Planta, Argentina entitled 'Mujeres De La Boca', and if you've ever been to their Furniture Makers practice space, it sounds like Hunter Gracchus somehow managed to transport its entire contents of obscure musical objects over there with their perculiar brains to record some of the best live shit they've produced so far... a really great side long free playing improvised weird out with screwed up voices, skronky blurts and freestyle tribal percussion. Kommissar Hjuler Und Frau have been releasing material for quite some time on Ultra Eczema, Scumbag, Blossoming Noise and their own Der Schöne Hjuler-Memorial-Fond label. For this split LP KHJ & F's 'Zwei Einenperson (Pt. 2)', is a manic 22 minute side of avant garde experi-mentalism, with Kommissar Hjuler shredding electric guitar strings and destroying tapes while Mama Baer's insane vocal fluctuate between the erotic and pure demonic screaming. This recording of Kommissar Hjuler und Frau was made in March 2009 when working on the set for the performance of Zwei Eineperson. This was presented live at the vernissage of Mama Baer's and Kommissar Hjuler's exhibition Geteilter Raum at Kunstraum Winterthur, Switzerland on 2nd April 2009. A CD-R with several parts from their work on this set was previously released on their SHMF label in a very small edition. This is the re-issue of part 2 from their recordings, live in their living room. Edition of 500 on 180g wax. heavyweight vinyl.

BEN NASH / MAGIC LANTERN - Split LP £12.00
This one's been brewing at BR HQ for quite sometime, due to come out long ago, this beaut of a split is finally seeing light of day. A mutual respect from these two camps brought about what is surely one of this years most exciting releases in the field of the split vinyl LP. Ben Nash returns after over a year's absence from releasing any solo work, now busy as a full time member of the excellent Chora, we may all be in for a long wait for anymore solo action after this release... but hear we find Ben entering new territory with less of the guitar plucking from previous solo outings... Across these three new tracks, Ben is heading in a more zoned out psychedelic drone pieces, fluctuating between blissful electric churning, and incredibly dark swarming monoliths, with buried electric guitar bursts, it's quite a new sound for Ben. Unsurprisingly, he comes out on top form, and it's maybe some of the most interesting recordings he's released so far, but it's a far cry from his debut LP, 'The Seventh Goodbye'. Fellow Sheffield heads Cam Deas and Jon Marshall (Hunter Gracchus) accompany Ben on two of his three tracks, along with Rob Lye of Chora. Following on from 2 massively excellent LPs for our buddies over at Not Not Fun, Magic Lantern return, with what also might be the last recordings we hear from them for a while too. What with these folks also featuring in other highly recommended acts Sun Araw and Super Minerals, as well as Cameron even had a brief stint in Pocahaunted, these guys are seriously busy. The Lantern was their original project though, and here they're still showing how much of a damn fine band they are. Their two track side opens with a wild murky sounding basement jam 'Mosquito Coast' recorded in 2008, followed by the 15 minute groove of 'Long Way Down', full of heavy organ, slow burning percussion, wild wahs, raw riffing and the occassional chanted vocal this is one heavy piece of stoned blues psyche rock out. 'Long Way Down' was recorded by Bobb Bruno. Pressed on heavyweight virgin virgin in an edition of 500.

KAWABATA MAKOTO - White Summer of Love Dreamer LP £14.00
Brand new LP from Kawabata Makoto, his second for Blackest Rainbow following on nicely from where 2008's 'Rainbow Of Love' left off. White Summer of Love Dreamer continues to develop Kawabata's experimentation into psychedelic drone music using a variety of instruments. Across the two tracks on this LP, Kawabata seamlessly uses acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bouzouki, sarangi, tambura, organ, hurdy-gurdy, electronics, field recording, and his voice to create a stunning soundscape of hazy summer days with cascading repetitive acoustic guitars, swirling drones, channeled vocals. Housed in a deluxe heavyweight tip on old style jacket adorned in photography by Joe Blanchard, and is pressed on heavyweight virgin vinyl. Limited to 494 copies.

KIM DOO SOO - Evening River 2xLP £17.99
Vinyl edition of this stunningly beautiful album of fragile and haunting Korean folk from Kim Doo Soo that was issued earlier this year on CD by Japan's consistently incredible PSF label. Kim Doo Soo's first major appearance outside of Korea was through the Damon & Naomi curated 'International Sad Hits' compilation featuring 4 tracks from Kim. This was followed with PSF releasing his first new record in 5 year, 2007's superb '10 Days Butterfly'. On 'Evening River', Kim has re-recorded some of his finest songs from his past records the recordings are largely focused on just Kim's fragile voice and sublime guitar playing and harmonica, but at times Kim is accompanied with several additional musicians instruments, including synth, cello, accordion, guitar, horn, bass and backing vocals. The songs and re-recordings are superb, capturing perfectly Kim's laid back guitar playing and his fragile vocals, somehow mixing psychedelic blurs, with traditional playing with melancholic turns. Edition of 500 copies, pressed on 140gram virgin vinyl housed in gatefold sleeves including an 8 page lyric book with Korean and English lyrics and colour photographs of Kim.

GNOD / A MIDDLE SEX - Split LP £11.50
Brand new split LP from fellow Manchester weirdos A Middle Sex and Gnod. Gnod follow on from some killer releases over the last couple of years, a split 7" with Bong, a tape on Not Not Fun, and most recently a collaborative LP with White Hills. The oddly titled 15 minute 'Why Don't You Smile Like The Other Children?' opens with hazy strings and cosmicly far out voices, this slow groove packs a multi-coloured burst of rhythmic psychedelic vibes. On the flip side, A Middle Sex take up duties of doing some equally psychedelic, but in a completely different style. There side is titled 'Polytheism', and is essentially made up of two tracks, the opener is a short wild spaced out cosmic synth piece, which is swiftly followed by there main 10 minute piece of layered drums and percussion, swirling electronics, distorted chanted vocals. There side is all about the rhythm, and they really got that rhythm down. Edition of 500. Pressed on 140 gram virgin vinyl.

CELER - Vestiges Of An Inherent Melancholy LP £13.00
Second vinyl LP from this formerly active American duo of Will Long and Danielle Baquet-Long. Vestiges Of An Inherent Melancholy follows on from the recent pairing of releases on Basses Frequences and features 2 sides of unearthed recordings that were created between December 2006 and July 2008. These two sides find the duo creating some truly beautiful drone works with their use of an organic and electronic palette of instrumentation; cello, violin, pipe organ, electronics, tape, field recordings, samples, and mixing board. This really is a standout side from Celer, pulling together their variety of sounds to make a heart breaking collage of sounds falling between beautiful dream tones and heavier dark moments. Vestiges Of An Inherent Melancholy again pushes Celer further to the front of modern minimal compostion, proving that they were one of the most interesting, consistently outstanding, and intriguing acts around in recent years, creating some of the finest and most beautiful, fragile drone records around. The full experience of a Celer release is complete with accompanying titled fragmented sections for the side long pieces, and striking cover photography by Danielle. Limited to 500, in thick old style hardback jackets, pressed on 140 gram virgin vinyl.

ARITOMO - Blooming The Ena LP £12.00
Continuing on from last years reissue of the first Aritomo LP, here we have Aritomo's second LP, 'Blooming The Ena' which was previously issued on his own private Hakanairo label in 2007. It was housed in a brown card sleeve with paste on artwork on the front and back with an insert in an edition of only 200 copies. This original pressing is impossible to find now. This reissue has a pro printed cover reproducing the original cover art as the private press edition and a 4 page insert printed onto parchment art paper reproducing the original insert that came with the LP. Aritomo's music continues to be a beautifully laid back as his first record, with gorgeous acoustic guitar playing and dreamy vocals backed with bamboo flute, piano, chimes, and occasional electric guitar bursts. Japanese folk at its best! Pressed on black virgin vinyl. Limited to 250 copies.

JACK ALLETT - The Collapsing Middle LP + CD £13.00
Debut full length vinyl release from Jack Allett, formerly known as Spoono, who previously had a CDR on Blackest Rainbow followed by a split LP with Cam Deas, and a 7" on The Great Pop Supplement. Jack also plays with Ben Knight (Helhesten) in the duo Towering Breaker. This debut waxer is a fine introduction to one of the UK's most interesting solo guitarists. Jack blends sublime finger picking with swirling drones and psychedelic static to create a sound that is very much his own. A must for fans of acoustic guitar music from the past few years, Jack could well be one of the most interesting players there is at the moment. Vinyl edition is housed in a full colour pro printed sleeve and is pressed on heavyweight black virgin vinyl and also comes with a CD copy. Limited to 300 copies.

HUSH ARBORS - Alive 2xLP £17.99
'Alive' is the first vinyl outing from Keith Wood's Hush Arbors since his split 7" with Jerusalem and the Starbaskets on The Great Pop Supplement back in 2008. Hush Arbors is the project of Mr Keith Wood, a good friend of Blackest Rainbow, who has also played in Wooden Wand, Six Organs of Admittance, Zodiacs, Sunburned Hand of the Man, and with Thurston Moore. Hush Arbors ever evolving sound pretty much encapsulates everything he does with these other fine projects, but Keith has definitely got his own thing going on with his fine song writing skills, whether its delivered with his beautiful acoustic playing or wild electric shredding. This double LP set comprises of two live recordings from Hush Arbors, the first being 'Live, Heeley Institute, Sheffield, England' which was actually the first ever release on Blackest Rainbow back in 2007, it was released in an edition of 101 copies on CDR. I'm personally very excited to finally have this out on vinyl, as it really is a fantastic set of Keith and his acoustic guitar playing what was one of the best venues that was frequently used here in Sheffield, so many great performances went down there (remember MV & EE's set from there that Singing Knives released?), and Keith's really was a great night. The second LP is 'Live from Kittery, Maine', a set from 12th February 2011. A whole different sound to Hush Arbors with this one... Keith is joined by Jason Ajemian and John Moloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man). Keith's sound has developed from the loner psyche folk of his earlier records and 'Heeley' to a more bourbon soaked country rock out vibe, as you'll hear on the Kittery set. 'Alive' is a fantastic example of two great, yet very different, performances the ever changing Hush Arbors. Pressed on heavyweight virgin vinyl and housed in a gatefold jacket, edition of 350 copies.

OWL XOUNDS EXPLODING GALAXY - Splintered Visions LP £12.00
BR worked with Adam Kriney of La Otracina and Owl Xounds on the Owl Xounds/Family Battle Snake split cassette back in May 2007, and its great to have this raging free jazz improv psyche out bunch back on Blackest Rainbow again for this awesome LP. 'Splintered Visions' was recorded back in February 2007, and has been torn from the archives of some of the wildest jams put to tape. This time round the group is in a quartet zone with Kriney on drums, Gene Janas on upright bass, Mario Rechtern on saxophones, electronics and devices, and Shayna Dulberger on upright bass. That's right, TWO upright bass shredders! All the wild instrumentation laid down blazes to the sky, getting mightier and mightier, everything wildly bright and energetic, this LP will rage through your psychosis like nothing else! Housed in equally insane psychedelic hippy techi-colour sleeves designed by the one and only Jefferson Mayday Mayday Vimana. The vision on this one (both visually, and sonically) is outta this world! Pressed on virgin vinyl and limited to 250 copies.
 
ACID BIRDS - Acid Birds III LP
£12.00
Acid Birds was formed in 2004 in Brooklyn, NY by Andrew Barker (drums & percussion), Jaime Fennelly (harmonium & electronics) and Charles Waters (alto saxophone & bass clarinet). NY-based Barker & Waters are both founding members of Gold Sparkle Band, and Fennelly is 1/3 of Peeesseye, and recently embarked on his new solo project Mind Over Mirrors. 'Red Beak, Yellow Eye' opens up the record with wild drumming, electronic screeches and raging alto sax, building to a rapid waterfall of incredible sounds and then falling back out to minimal electronic pulses and clarinet bursts leading to disintergrating electronics, percussive clatter, and back to full force with Barkers drums and Waters sax fusing together seamlessly with Fennelly's crumbling electronics. 'Rings and Lenses' is a shorter darker piece with Fennelly laying down a bleak electronic landscape with Barker adding sinister cello and Waters monsterous bass clarinet adding a real deep texture to the almost ritualistic piece. 'Acid Birds III' comes to a close with 'Rapture Rupture', an absolutely wild piece of free music, insane electronics, pummeling drums, and sax that at times doesn't even sound like a sax. What Acid Birds do here is completely tear down the walls between rhythm and noise music, creating something entirely new and pushing the genre of jazz and experimental free music to new limits and standards. Mastered by Scott Colburn. Pressed on 140 gram black vinyl in an edition of 500 copies with stunning artwork by Jacob Magraw and Rachell Sumpter.

ISIDORE DUCASSE - s/t LP
£12.00
A new collaborative project from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and William Trevor Montgomery. Both musicians played together in Tarantel and Moholy-Nagy. Cantu-Ledesma also runs the superb Root Strata label, releasing solo material under his own name (including a recent LP on Type), and also plays in The Alps. Montgomery also releases music under Lazarus, The Drift and Believer. This project was originally conceived and composed as a soundtrack to an unreleased western. The 14 tracks on this record are beautifully delicate, textured, sparse pieces ranging from slow acoustic reflective moments, to fully electric strumming, they capture the feel a western perfectly. It's a shame the film never made it out, because judging by the music it would've been a beautiful spectacle. The project was was recorded by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and William Trevor Montgomery and mixed at studio Lamantia, the record was mastered by Greg Davis. The image on the cover is a still from a Paul Clipson film, whose films have previously featured the music of Jefre, Barn Owl, Tarantel, Gregg Kowalsky and Metal Rouge. Sleeve layout by Jefre. Pressed on 140 gram black virgin vinyl. Limited to 500 copies.