Mad/Mod : Neurinomes album preview

On May 30th, 2013, we’re excited to be releasing the debut album by Montreal avant-garde, improv/compositional duo Mad/Mod.

Here’s the packaging:

And here’s a sample of the sounds:

A release show is happening In Montreal on May 30th as well: Café l’Artère, 7000 avenue du Parc. 8pm.

Facebook event HERE.

BABEL Heurter EP

27:32 mins // Pro CD-R, thermal print // Spray painted white digipak // Numbered edition of 25

Three track EP of avant electric guitar improvisations. A prepared Fender Telecaster thwacked with mallets and layered with loop and delay effects. Recorded live, direct to two-track in late 2012 by Jakob Rehlinger.

Split Tape Series #8: Chik White / Holiday Rambler

C50 // edition of 50 // pro-duped // DL code // glossy accordion fold insert // cloth bag with hand stamped product tag.

Side 15 – Chik White: I Am Muck. You Are The Wind.

CHIK WHITE is the recording alias of Darcy Spidle, star and co-writer of the Canadian cult film, Lowlife, and the guy behind Canadian indie institution Divorce Records. Playing almost like a possible alternative soundtrack to Lowlife, I Am Muck sucks you into a starfish licking world of bizarr0 psych improvisations and avant soundscapes created from “experimental jews harp and acoustic guitar”. Exciting and fearless stream of consciousness music/noise/sound making—like the wind and tides blowing and flowing.

Side 16 – Holiday Rambler: It Lasted A Hundred Years, It Will Last A Hundred More.

“More like coal than gasoline”, HOLIDAY RAMBLER (aka D. Alex Meeks of Hooded Fang infamy) is one of those young men you meet where you simply know they have a time machine buried in their backyard. They’re just too comfortable wearing the attire and diction of yesteryear for it to be entirely an act. The title of this set of songs and sounds, It Lasted A Hundred Years, It Will Last A Hundred More, could be a reference to the timeless/old-timey nature of the Rambler’s American gothic folk-blues. Despite being a relatively young sprout, there’s a lot of gravelly down-home wisdom woven throughout the set of bluegrass and gospel informed tunes with a decidedly end-times feel. Kind of like a Smithsonian Folkways recording from the backwoods of Virginia in an alternate universe where the Great Depression never ended.

Split Tape 13/14: Silent Land Time Machine / Moonwood

C44 // edition of 50 // pro-duped // DL code // full-colour insert // special custom poly sleeve packaging

Side 13 — SILENT LAND TIME MACHINE

Track listing: Many Many Happy Returns / The Contours Of Perfect Distance.

They say everything’s bigger in Texas. That includes the mind-expanding tones coming out of out of Silent Land Time Machine’s epic looped violin compositions that weave and drone like tumbleweeds on crack’d black asphalt. Good sounds from bad lands. “Many Many Happy Returns” recorded LIVE at Marigold Studios (R.I.P.) in London, ON “The Contours Of Perfect Distance” recorded LIVE at Le Cagibi, in Montréal, QC, with additional amenities provided by Khôra & Nick Kuepfer.

BIO: SLTM; an inadvertent aural accumulator; a fractured signal; a concerted, compassionate memory resistor; the IN/OUT of an organic circuit experiencing itself for the first time; a starry-eyed-bliss-transformer; nerves attaching, detaching, strengthening, and severing; aimed at the clearing of neural circuitry with the frequency of white wind.

Side 14 — MOONWOOD, Soul Oaks

Track listing: Introlude / Drone #3 / Cardamom #2 / November /Cardamom #1 / Woodpecker

Moonwood guitarist, Jakob Rehlinger, works through six electric and acoustic solo guitar improvisations trying to get somewhere in the Easts (Far- and Middle-) while remaining rooted in the Americas. Lyrical, soaring airs played over dark, oily drones. Recorded direct to 2-track live in Moonwood’s rehearsal studio between Nov 2011 and May 2012.

BIO: Moonwood is the psych-improv project of Toronto (ON) guitarist Jakob Rehlinger, often joined by Jacqueline Noire on percussion, vocals and woodwinds. Solo or as a duo, Moonwood’s music is informed by (while not necessarily adhering to the traditions of) Tibetan funeral chants, krautrock, Balinese gamelan, classic psychedelic rock, traditional Japanese and South Asian music, dub, free-jazz and the usual grab-bag of avant-folk styles

Split Tape 11/12: Nick Kuepfer / Khora

C44 // edition of 50 // pro-duped // DL code included // 16 page full-colour mini-zine

Side 11—Nick Kuepfer, Tape Test For A New Year / Audrey’s Asprin / Grackles: Grinding string harmonies drone from the celestial abyss. Birds sing, forests crumble. A ghost trains thunders across the prairies, hammers on tin roofs as it passes. Somewhere to the south, a bank robber dies in the tumbleweeds, clutching a satchel full of money with a dusty hand. An entrancing, cinematic soundscape; a travelogue of the spaces between light and shadow.

BIO: Montreal-based guitarist Nick Kuepfer weaves nylon string and electric guitar pieces with live-sampled tape loops, recordings of animals, and drones from various sources. His predominantly wordless music ranges from subtle and static to frantic and abrasive, with a methodical, vigilant sense of experimentation guided by the search for consonance and dissonance with the sounds of “nature”.

Side 12—Khôra, Foris: Ringing in the shadows of a European cathedral, tones weave behind a camel train on the spice road and twist like smoke beyond the bazaars of Turkey before erupting like an Icelandic volcano, black ash on white snow.

BIO: Matthew Ramolo’s Khôra project is based chiefly on acoustic/electric guitar and field recordings, with extensive signal processing and digital interventions conditioning these sources to create an immersive soundworld of drones, chimes, rings and other pointillistic sonics. His longform compositions contain lovely stretches of relatively unprocessed and fully recognisable guitar work, with picking patterns and chord sequences that evolve/devolve into more signal-bent and DSP soundscapes. The results are highly organic and meditative while retaining plenty of icy shards, bubbling distortions and passages of controlled monumentalism, making this anything but an ambient listen.

Preview of Silent Land Time Machine/Moonwood split tape

Here’s some visuals of sides 13 & 14 of the ongoing split tape series. This volume features Silent Land Time Machine from TX, Amurkah and Moonwood from Tranna, Canada. It’s going to have it’s launch in Toronto at 10pm on October 17th at the Tranzac. Also will be available at our table at Canzine 2012 the following Sunday. Web store release shortly there after.

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And you can hear to audio samples below.

Split Tape 9/10: AARON LUMLEY / THE KNOT

C40 // edition of 50 // pro-duped  // DL code included // hand-assembled window sleeves

Side 9: Avant improv bassist Aaron Lumley has been making waves lately with his harrowing long-player Wilderness.  Of which Foxy Digitalis said “…searching for new methods to escape the limitations of technique, the human body, and the physical science of acoustics. By accomplishing this without straying beyond the boundaries of man and implement, he’s shown mastery of a vigorous beast, a task not for the faint of heart. Furthermore, the album is as appetizing for casual listeners as it is for serious improv mavens – a gravity-defying feat that is as rare as it is welcome!“

We posit this improvised session goes one further, both visceral and teeming with expression in the traditions of Dave Holland and François Rabbath. Recorded by Matthew Dunn in Toronto who, in Lumley’s words, “brought the fuzz and grime to the fore.”

And we have to agree. In the middle ages, people were burned at the stake for playing music like this—he’s clearly possessed by some kind of demon.

Side 10: We’re pleased to present the debut release for The Knot, the duo of cellists Tilman Lewis and Nick Storring. With allegiance to both form and freedom, they embark on sonic explorations that draw on various folk traditions and experimental musics. The pair love to bend the instrument’s lyricism, drawing not so much on extended techniques as on an array of audacious contra-techniques: preparations/ apparati (practice mutes, hair-clips, clamps, wine corks, mallets, egg beaters, plectrums etc.). They still, however, permit the cello’s natural beauty to have its place.

Their large palette of sonorities is channeled and combined into single unified textures, and everything from improvised heterophony, to stark contrast.

Intertwining beauty and discord meeting somewhere between the gravel pit and the northern lights.

TWO NEW BABEL ALBUMS: GLOCKENGEISTER and ALPHABETA

BABEL // GLOCKENGEISTER

79 mins // Pro-duped CD-R // Full colour 6-panel wallet // Edition of 50.

Sixteen beautiful, serene and often unsettling pieces for electronically manipulated glockenspiel, bells, mixing bowls,drums, wood block and ornamental gongs. Resonant tones weave and drift through ambient, limnal spaces.

“There’s a real feeling of exploration … it’s a very soft, spiritual atmosphere that should be your next soundtrack for falling asleep into lucid dreaming.” ~ Offerings / Hippie Cult

BABEL // ALPHABETA 

56 mins // Pro-duped CD-R // Full colour 6-panel wallet // Edition of 50.

A conceptual work where the pieces are composed from notes corresponding to the letters in their titles. Ranging from white noise freak-outs to measured, melodic themes, the 17-part suite covers the history of modern compostion from the 20th century minimalists such as Cage or Reich through Miles Davis’ jazz-fusion to maximalist post-rockers like Godspeed! and Tortoise.

SPECIAL LIMITED TIME COMBO DEAL:

Both albums for $16 (CAD, shipping included). Click HERE.

Aaron Lumley / The Knot split tape preview

The first cassette of our SPLIT TAPES SERIES 2 is set to be released on 2012/08/21. 20 minute sides; pro-duped; hand assembled outer sleeves. Edition of 50. We don’t have pre-orders set up but if you want to reserve a copy, you should email arachnidiscs@hotmail.com to get put on a list.

Side 9 is avant improv bassist Aaron Lumley who’s been making waves lately with his harrowing long-player Wilderness.  Of which Foxy Digitalis said “…searching for new methods to escape the limitations of technique, the human body, and the physical science of acoustics. By accomplishing this without straying beyond the boundaries of man and implement, he’s shown mastery of a vigorous beast, a task not for the faint of heart. Furthermore, the album is as appetizing for casual listeners as it is for serious improv mavens – a gravity-defying feat that is as rare as it is welcome!” We posit this improvised session goes one further, both visceral and teeming with expression in the traditions of Dave Holland and François Rabbath.

Side 10 is the debut release for The Knot, a cello duo made up of composer/improviser Nick Storring and avant virtuoso Tilman Lewis. Intertwining beauty and discord meeting somewhere between the gravel pit and the northern lights.

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RELEASED – MOONWOOD – The Strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the Strength of the Wolf is the Pack

MOONWOOD – The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack, and the Strength of the Pack is the Wolf

Buy Now: CD – 13 tracks/48 mins. Atmospheric psychexotica. Pocket sleeve in translucent red lino block printed envelope w/ 3-pack of pin back buttons.

From the meditative opener, “So The Darkness Shall Be The Light, And The Stillness Be The Dancing” to the rambling opium den epic of “Where The Flowers Blossom Red”, the album smoulders with Javanese go-go gamelan gongs, smoky Cambodian funk, wicked Celtic ragas, deep Saharan blues, simmering Sufi surf and spacedout Indian soul. A heady fusion for heady times (times like, say, 1972 or, possibly, 1912). RIYL: Six Organs, Dengue Fever, Robbie Basho

1. So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness be the dancing 4:47
2. The Palace of Malice 3:20
3. Phnom Penthouse 2:58
4. Invite me to stare into the darkness 3:12
5. Grafitti Blossoms 3:16
6. Geedoodles, it’s Captain Judas! 2:47
7. Hyaenas know the dead are safer meat than the even weakest living treat 3:21
8. It takes a child to raze a village 2:21
9. The twilight swallows the thicket 2:44
10. Fireflies trapped in a cracked pint jar 3:26
11. Woodwose walks wicked and wild 2:22
12. And the snake shall be your watchman 3:32
13. Where the flowers blossom red 10:18

Also available in a convenient digital format at BANDCAMP.

Watch the videos for “Grafitti Blossoms” and “It Takes a Child to Raze a Village”