Two ecstatically mind-bending free-improv face-melters and esoteric soul-healers from RAIC (the Richmond Avant Improv Collective)—which features members of the category-4 noise-rock hurricane, Among the Rocks and Roots—in one 2-disc set.
Communion and Il Delirio E La Mortalità Di Amore are RAIC’s 3rd and 4th albums, respectively. Ranging from traditional free-jazz combo improvisations to distorted noise jams and lush, global drones, the two albums span an impressive breadth of vision as well as offering an eclectic, yet unified, listening experience.
RAIC is the Richmond Avant Improv Collective. Founded in Richmond, VA. in September 2015 the collective has turned into a group featuring founders Samuel Goff and Abdul Hakim-Bilal. The group expanded in late 2016 adding Erik Schroeder and Zoe Olivia Kinney. Laura Marina rounds out the group joining in early 2018. The group has remained active playing shows in the Richmond area and has recorded 4 full length albums with the first “Lovers Never Leave” appearing in March, 2017 on Pennsylvania’s Orb Tapes. “Love Lingers Like Poison In The Veins” followed in November 2017. The group plays multiple genres including avant garde, jazz, noise, post rock, classical, black metal, free jazz, film scores, etc. All of their performances whether live or in the studio are improvisational in nature sometimes structured based on mood or emotion and sometimes not. RAIC has been busy, simultaneously recording 4 albums the first of which “Symbiosis” will be released in April on Chicago’s Lurker Bias label. The other 3 albums “Gestalt”, “Multiplicity” and an unnamed film score album will be finished by summer 2018.
Artist: BEARD CLOSET Album: Deadly Force Format: Cassette. C30, real-time dubbed, hand stamped shells. Styles: Drone, noise, experimental guitar, noise-ambient RIYL: Thurston Moore, Keiji Haino, Alan Licht, Sunn(((O))), Eno records run through a distortion pedal
We’re honored to issue Toronto experimental guitar and electronics artist, Beard Closet‘s wordless (but not silent) scream of rage and frustration at the continuing culture of murder and brutality in North America’s police forces.
We’ve released micro-batch CD-R editions of two new ‘ALPHABETA’ albums by BABEL. They’re both available in the merch section of BABEL’s Bandcamp.
The first is ALPHABETA 2: Outskirts. The nine tracks on this EP are first sketches, demos and out-takes from the original 2011 album sessions. Unlike the original album with its survey approach to genre, there’s a continuity of sound and approach found here—a sort of spaghetti western jazz along the lines of mid-90’s era Labradford, Tortoise and Godspeed.
The second album, ALPHABETA 3: Organizm, is a revisiting of the ‘ALPHABETA’ concept (creating compositions by using the letters of words as notes) using organ and echo loops in the manner of Terry Riley or Steve Reich.
TOTENBAUM TRÄGER / PROJET MUET // C60 // $7 (plus shipping) High bias tape, transparent red shells, fold-out poster and stamped edition cards featuring art by Lenny P. Robert, packaged in a translucent red envelope. With download. Edition of 50.
Last year’s Neurinomes CDby Mad/Mod was probably the release we were most proud of. So much so that, even though we’ve ended our split tape series, we didn’t hesitate to jump at the chance to release a tape split between two of Dominic Marion’s (“Mod”) other equally accomplished projects. Not so much a split tape, as a split artistic personality that combines into a unified statement.
With Totenbaum Träger he explores sometimes blissful, sometimes harsh guitar drones and noir-ambient spaces. A post-rock soundtrack for a lost David Lynch film.
The chamber trio Projet Muet travel similar roads to both Totenbaum Träger and Mad/Mod, but to different destinations and by different modes of transportation. Projet Muet rides waves of minimalist harmony on a raft woven from free-jazz and experimental no-wave. Churning, industrial thrum mix with meditative drones and zentropic bells.
FILE UNDER: post-rock, free-jazz, ambient, drone, chamber ensemble. SIMILAR ARTISTS: Mad/Mod, Don Cherry, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Angelo Badalamenti, Ennio Morricone, Morton Feldman, Do Make Say Think, Tortoise, Silver Mt. Zion.
Toronto’s Beard Closet and Primate Pyramid administer 40 minutes of essential Skullflower-esque doom-gaze guitar improvisations. White noise bliss. Harmonic reverberations. Avant post-rock drone. Ambient guitar experimentations. Hypnagogic feedback dreams.
High-bias cassette tape. Gold cassette shells. Hand assembled, fur-covered cassette boxes. Pre-order includes immediate download of 3 tracks in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or other formats. The physical cassette will be shipped on or before Halloween 2013 (All together now: oooo-whoooo-oooo).
Neurinomes(a type of nerve tumor that can affect the inner ear) is the haunting debut by the duo of Montreal-based reed player Marc-Antoine Dagenais (Mad) and guitarist Dominic Marion (Mod).
Shimmering drones and angular melody lines dance and collapse against hazy ambiance and fractured glass surfaces; ecstatic meditations give way to deep noir melancholy and fiery avant expressionism.
The album revolves around improvisation, rewriting of improvised sounds, resonant mappings, organic acousmatic, combination tones; a process one may call recomposition, using recordings of spontaneous interactions as draft mapping, free to be reinvestigated and refined. All timbers were produced solely by miking acoustic sources. With the exception of a wine glass slowed down to a low drone, these soundscapes remain faithful to original acoustic production.
The duo has developed their own vocabulary through research of improvised music based on harmonic specters, thoroughly experimenting in the fields of peculiar textures and frictions that their instruments can provide. Marion often, but not always, treats his guitar signal through a certain range of effects, working a specter of textures, going from delicate jazzy chords to screaming organ like sounds. Blending with those amplified sounds, Dagenais uses different extended techniques (trumpet sounds, multiphonics, screams, circular breathing and others) on the saxophone and flutes as well as different parts of the instruments to produce unusual soundscapes.
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.
$11.25 CAD + Shipping (North America $1o / World $17). Edition of 200 blue vinyl w/download.
Airmail Can/Expedited USA /Mexico
AIRMAIL Europe / Overseas
Note: For slower “GROUND MAIL” shipping to Europe/Overseas, please use “North America” for correct price.
We’re pleased to announce our first vinyl release is from resident psyche-folker, Moonwood. Subtitled Music For Water Borne Disease, the album’s 10 instrumental tracks wind like a river through far eastern modes and southwestern reverb. Multi-instrumentalist Jakob Rehlinger layers bowed strings, Romanian lap harp and gourd flute over fuzzy psyche-guitar and ethnic percussion, bells and gongs.
Deathwoods.Sessions recorded during and between the “Aubade” and “Coal Aberrations” albums (2009-2010). Originally planned to be released as a cassette mid-2010, now a digital album at the end. Available at Moonwood’s Bancampsite.
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