Clara Engel: Ashes and Tangerines

C56 / 11 tracks § edition of 50 § smokey cassette shells § burlap sleeve § stamped and numbered tags § fold-out poster/lyric sheet § download code

Release date: April 28th, 2014

Order here: $8.00 (+plus regional shipping)

Burlap. It conjures the innocent fun of potatoes sack races. It evokes the scents of coffee beans or even its own rustic spice. And it haunts us with the cruel tragedy of kittens, drowned in a sack at the first light of dawn.

Clara Engel‘s enchanting Ashes & Tangerines is infused with the dark heart of the Nick Cave, the gruff sensuality of PJ Harvey, and the storied lyricism of the Cohens and Dylans of the world.  It was a pleasure to put together the packaging for this album; an album which is every bit as smokey as the noir-tinted cassette shell and coarse and earthy as the burlap it comes wrapped in.

“Clara Engel’s voice comes to me from that deepest of all places, imaginative space, from which she visually retrieves an inner landscape converted by breath into the rock equivalent of poetry. Rarely has a voice sounded so authoritative, so unapologetic in its disclosures, so sure of its direction in going home into song.” ~ Jeremy Reed (UK poet) 

“The album’s production blends Clara’s poetry with her music, so as to produce a very interesting mixture of strong senses. “Ashes and Tangerines”; destruction and reboot. Now and never. Everything exists in her fantasy, inside the forest of the tale where she landed, stayed and perceived, among other stuff, the rare blending of fantastic and real things … She introduces herself and invites you to enter the world the way she perceives it. It is a fairy tale experience for grownups. One you definitely should not lose.” ~ Metacapsule Says

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.

SOLD OUT!

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 11/12: Nick Kuepfer / Khora

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

SOLD OUT!

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.

Theo Angell / Moonwood : Split Tape Series 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.