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24—02—17
HOLD MY HAND… THE NOOSE WAITS FOR YOU.
Some dark + depressive black metal by WOE BATHER coming up on Phantom Lure
24—02—09
Crabe Géant by Colin Johnco is an album between Free Jazz and Electronic Music. More than an hour of spiritual and psychedelic journey throughout 5 tracks.
The album draws its sources from sounds and atmospheres which recall experiences close to ambient or post-rock from the 1980s, the Made To Measure collection for example, undoubtedly because of the brass, the imaginary exoticism of a Jon Hassel, the instrumentals of Tuxedomoon or Brian Eno present on his sung albums. The album’s connections with jazz, improvised music and musique concrete or sound art give it a certain (…) timeless singularity with very analog colors.
— Jean-Yves Leloup
On Johnkôôl Records in March 22, 2024.
24—02—08
Martin Rev initially explored free jazz and similarly free forms of musical expression before discovering the magnetic attraction of electronic production and instrumentation, enabling him to create music in a wholly independent and autonomous environment.
Using the most rudimentary equipment, he grafted the roots of rock’n’roll into the process of combining effects and devices to generate electrified sounds, the likes of which had never been heard before. This music would map out the way forward not only for Suicide, but also for a fascinating solo career.
Martin Rev’s predilection for experimentation knew no bounds. At home, he played around with rough ideas, trying out all manner of variations and colorations. These tape recordings provide a captivating insight into his modus operandi, often representing the early stages of what would later become Suicide tracks or cuts on Rev’s solo albums.
Spanning the period 1973 to 1985, the recordings on “The Sum of Our Wounds” are much more than a collection of demos and outtakes. One has the sense of listening to a rounded album of familiar compositions, now portrayed in a completely new light. The brittle fragility of these cassette pieces reveals a deep-lying sensitivity, like a collection of wounds.
Martin Rev himself remains as transfixed as ever by these recordings, as if he could immediately pick up where he left off and continue to expand on the ideas that came to him decades ago: »They often have a certain freshness or unpolished energy here… and (there is) always scope for new ideas, to be derived from them as a whole or even in small areas.«
The cassette medium proves to be more than a means to an end – the tape recorder itself has a role to play as an instrument, the ideal basis for an artist who understands how to condense an idea into its fundamental elements: »The cassette sound, with its individual peculiarities, many even thought of in terms of inferior sound, can have an interesting dynamic. Maybe especially in certain minimal contexts when they are not being overloaded. Although they often seem to take on a lot of texture as well and with a warm response.«
And so these snapshots can be seen as stages of a ceaseless evolution, one we are allowed to witness as we sit alongside Martin Rev at the tape deck, listening as he captures the sounds of the unquiet city.
– Daniel Jahn, June 2023
on Tapete Records.
24—02—06
A doctor, scientist, organist, and biblical scholar, Anton Phibes, seeks revenge on the nine doctors he considers responsible for his wife’s death.
The Abominable Dr. Phibes is a 1971 British dark comedy horror film starring Vincent Price.
Dr. Anton Phibes, a famous concert organist with doctorates in both music and theology, is believed to have been killed in a car crash in Switzerland in 1921, while racing home upon hearing of the death of his beloved wife, Victoria, during surgery. Phibes survived the crash, but was horribly scarred and left unable to speak. He remade his face with prosthetics and used his knowledge of acoustics to regain his voice. Resurfacing secretly in London in 1925, Phibes believes his wife was a victim of her doctors’ incompetence, and begins elaborate plans to kill those he believes are guilty for her death.[7]
Aided in his quest for vengeance by his beautiful and silent assistant Vulnavia, Phibes uses the Ten Plagues of Egypt as his inspiration, wearing an amulet with Hebrew letters corresponding with each plague as he conducts the murders. After three doctors have been killed, Inspector Trout, a detective from Scotland Yard, learns that they all had worked under the direction of Dr Vesalius, who tells him the deceased had been on his team when treating Victoria, as were four other doctors and one nurse. Trout discovers one of Phibes’ amulets (torn off during a struggle) at the murder scene of the fourth doctor, which takes place while he is interviewing Vesalius. He first takes it to the jeweller who made it, then to a rabbi to learn its meaning. Now believing Phibes may still be alive, Trout and Vesalius go to the Phibes mausoleum at Highgate Cemetery. Inside they find a box of ashes in Phibes’s coffin, but Trout deduces they are probably the remains of Phibes’s chauffeur. Victoria’s coffin is empty.
The police are unable to prevent Phibes from killing the remaining members of Vesalius’s team, so they focus their efforts entirely on protecting Vesalius himself. Phibes kidnaps Vesalius’s son Lem, then calls Vesalius and tells him to come alone to his mansion on Maldene Square if he wants to save his son’s life. Trout refuses to let him go so Vesalius knocks the inspector unconscious, then races to Phibes’s mansion, where he confronts him. Phibes tells him his son is under anaesthesia and prepared for surgery. Phibes has implanted a key near the boy’s heart that will unlock his restraints. Vesalius has to surgically remove the key within six minutes (the same time Victoria was on the operating table) to release his son before acid from a container above Lem’s head is released and kills him. Vesalius succeeds and moves the table out of the way. Vulnavia, who was ordered to destroy Phibes’s mechanical creations, is surprised by Trout and his assistant; backing away, she is drenched with the acid and killed.
Convinced that he has accomplished his vendetta, Phibes retreats to the basement to inter himself in a stone sarcophagus containing the embalmed body of his wife. He proceeds to drain his blood while simultaneously replacing it with embalming fluid and lies down in the sarcophagus next to Victoria. The coffin’s inlaid stone lid lowers into place, concealing it. Trout and the police arrive but cannot find Phibes. They recall that the “final curse” was darkness just before the basement goes dark.
Three years after these events Dr. Phibes Rises Again…
24—02—03
Joseph Shabason hit rewind on his VHS copy of the skateboard classic “Welcome To Hell” from 1986 hundreds of times in his youth, each watch as thrilling as the last. That invigorating, improvisational, full-body experience of skateboarding is one that Shabason likens to jazz, where a shared language exists between the wheels and woodwinds. The way the skateboarder and musician command that language is what distinguishes them, adding definition to the mercurial concept of “style.” This connection becomes most apparent in collaboration; ensembles of skaters and musicians are a noisy, creative bunch. Reflecting on this relationship and the Toy Machine classic would ultimately lead Shabason to wonder: what does hell sound like?
24—02—03
37 song retrospective of fantasy sea synth on ocean waves swirl vinyl. Mastered for vinyl at Mammoth Sound for maximum auditory experience. Includes all works previously released by Lost Armor Records and Out of Season.
24—01—30
Witchboard is a 1986 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Kevin Tenney. The plot centers on a college student who becomes entranced into using her friend’s Ouija board alone after it was accidentally left behind at her party, resulting in her becoming terrorized by a malevolent spirit.
24—01—25
24—01—25
A double CD served in a gatefold card case with extensive liner notes from author of People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae, David Katz.
Collecting together all three volumes of the If I Had a Pair of Wings LP compilation series for this special double CD edition, with extensive and illuminating notes.
“…all of the music on this compilation is the result of the forward-thinking artists and producers that realised the worth of local Jamaican artistry during a time when the island’s leading political figures had not yet managed to throw off the colonial yolk. These are sounds with a certain innocence and the optimistic promise of better to come, with the influence of American pop ballads and doo-wop looming large, yet already pointing to the innovations of the future. Listen keenly and take in the sounds of the Jamaican music industry at its very beginnings, its singers and players drawing from the popular styles of the island’s larger neighbour and already changing those styles into something their own.” – David Katz
24—01—25
Presenting the second thematic volume on the “Aquapelagos” series – a collection of split LPs where selected artists offer their own take into water surrounded cultures and communities. After the initial release of the Anthology compilation Aquapelago in 2022 (Discrepant ,CREP91) and the split LP Atlantico by Lagoss & Banha da Cobra (Keroxen, KRXN027) we proudly introduce an unique collaboration in the series in the shape of no other than two improvising giants, Mike Cooper and Pierre Bastien.
This second volume blows the lid wide open with a sound journey inspired by the equally majestic and mysterious Indian Ocean, a wide space of open ocean bounded by Africa, to the west, Asia to the north and north-west and Australia, to the south west.
From Philip Hayward and Matt Hill’s liner notes:
‘’The album opens with Return To Chagos by emphasising human presence in the oceanic space, opening with gentle percussive taps and distant looped male vocalisation that gradually come into sharper focus, layered and thickened, accompanied by thicker percussion and mouth harp. The sense of departure is taken up in Trincomalee, which lifts over the oceanic textures, opening with slow, struck and scraped metallic sounds before thick low pitched wind instrument sounds… more
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