Our ongoing split cassette series giving new and extablished artists and an outlet for experiments, oddities and even odderities.
Side 1/2: Gown / RobRobRob (C-40)
2010. Cassette. Deluxe cloth bag edition w/fold-out (limited run of 50). Free digital download link included.
Side 1: GOWN - Jake’s Strut (Live in Sackville, 2009 w/Omon Ra) – 20 mins
“MacGregor’s voice floats through the murky composition like a lost firefly, giving off light every so often in hopes that he’ll be found again. A foggy oasis steeped in washed out guitar effects, psychedelic clouds of harmonies that float by like the first black clouds before a beautiful thunderstorm.” ~ Foxy Digitalis
Side 2: RobRobRob - Water / Garden at Night / Pocket Thesaurus / Untitled / Sun on curtains — 20 mins
“The first thing that came to mind once the first track started was something along the lines of John Fahey on a This Mortal Coil album. That is to say, achingly beautiful acoustic guitar work with all manners of 4AD production tricks. Instead of ethereal female vocals, exotic instrumentation or covers, however, RobRobRob mainly sticks to heavily reverbed guitar and his own shadowy vocals, which resemble Ian Masters at his most detached from reality. It’s hard to tell if he’s actually singing lyrics or not, so in that way it also bears a likeness to Panda Bear’s Young Prayer album. The whole side is incredibly lovely; I’m especially impressed at how he uses reverb and distortion. It doesn’t drown out the acoustic sounds in noise; rather, it accentuates them and takes them to different places. I also really enjoy the free-flowing nature of this release; it’s all too fitting to hear birds chirping throughout some of the songs on here. Lovely stuff.” ~ Foxy Digitalis
$6.00 CAD world (incl. ship)
Side 3/4 : Healthy Animal / Summer Amp (C-40)
Side 3: Healthy Animal – 7X Untitled. Seven nameless compositions from the East Coast of the USA. Rhythmic and fuzzed-out, Healthy Animal’s music is as much a part of the No Wave and Krautrock traditions as it is the new schools of Chillwave and Shitgaze. But who cares about labels? HA bury pummeling rhythms under waves of blissed-out white-static psych haziness. Sounds kind of like a possible score to Charles Burns’ graphic novel Black Hole as performed by aliens who only know earth music from hearing Brian Eno on a poorly tuned radio-station.
Side 4: Summer Amp – Danger Zone. Five pro-wrestling inspired psych/noise jams from the West Coast of Canada. Features members of New Yaki and The Madonna Bangers. The vibe might be described as the sunburned hand of Tully Blanchard. Or tribal/industrial folk music for life at the end of the universe when there’s no electricity to play your Can and VxPxC records.
40 mins (total). Edition of 34. 2-sided full-colour poster insert. Cloth bag. Free mp3 download links.
$7.00 CAD
Side 5/6 Theo Angell / Moonwood (C-80)
2011. Deluxe cloth bag edition of 50 w/full colour insert and sticker. Free digital download link included.
$7.00 CAD (includes shipping)
Side 5: Theo Angell – Live @ Secret Project Robot 4-17-11
Mightily impressed by his Auraplinth and Dearly Beloved albums, we’re pretty excited to present this 40 minute live set by Theo Angell (JOMF, Hall of Fame) accompanied by one Hamish Kilgour (The Clean) recorded at Secret Project Robot in March. Arcane Eastern ragas and spooky Appalachian rags; ethereal whispers and raging acoustic freak-outs; jaunty alpine whistles and deep desert ceremonies. This here is bare bones psyche-folk wedding the weird and the beautiful to make babies with odd numbers of limbs and psychic eyes.
Side 6: Moonwood – The Path
Recorded by Moonwood during the same sessions as the mostly instrumental River Ghosts material, these nine vocal songs are vaguely woven together by Taoist mysticism and modern day beards. Southwestern reverb, droning psychedelic fuzz, Eastern percussion and plucked acoustic instruments mix with ritual chants and soft-spoken tales about death and small woodland animals.
Andy Futreal / Babel (C-46) 2011. Deluxe cloth bag edition of 50 w/two full colour inserts. Free digital download link included. Loosely based around “Tectonic Disasters in Asia”, this is the first themed release in the split tape series.
$7.00 CAD (includes shipping)
Side 7: Andy Futreal — Night Train to Xi’an / For Wenchuan
A vivid soundscape travelogue collaged from field-recordings and performances recorded in China during. 2008-2010. Andy has created vivid journey out of everything from a metal dishrack to the ambient sounds of Zhengzhou train station and the overnight train from to Xi’an. A piano score is derived from Sichuan Wenchuan earthquake gravity wave traces mixed with edited VOA broadcast. A haunting tribute to a harrowing disaster. (www.myspace.com/andyfutreal)
Side 8: Babel – Morpheum (1-4) / 4 Bowls / 4 Japan
Falling somewhere between the 20th century minimalists and the no-wave noise composers of the 1980s, Morpheum explores the tranquility and violence of dream states though a suite of duets and quartets for piano, mallet instruments, electric guitar and Taiko-inspired percussion. Languid, evolving melody lines sleepily weave through each other before cascading arpeggios awaken like a tsunami crashing through a nuclear reactor. Subtle and epic, peaceful and cacophonous, safe and perilous as an ocean or a dream.
