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CD
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KRANK 179CD
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"'Though the album title Lullabies and Nightmares suggests music thematically rooted in sleep, the debut full-length from Brooklyn-based/Michigan-bred trumpet player and composer Justin Walter owes more to a sense of emerging. After years of touring, random gigs and session work as a gifted player, Walter emerged with a sound that rendered all of that almost inconsequential. Spending a couple years intensively exploring the EVI, or Electronic Valve Instrument, a 1980's synthesizer/horn hybrid, he eventually worked out webs of bubbling loops made on the instrument, processed trumpet and fragmented electronics. Following a few low-key cassette releases and solo loft performances, Walter took the project into the studio, working with Erik Hall and drummer Quinn Kirchner to create a more controlled statement. Building on the loops and textures of the EVI, the album incorporates phasing patterns, the occasional motoric churn of dubbed out drums and considerate passages of trumpet improvisation, calling on Walter's years of experience as an improviser. Longer pieces are bridged by truncated interludes, wandering between modes that are by turns spooky, restless and sublime. The nightmares are there, with dissonance and panic on the heels of redemption in almost every song, but they're there only to be awoken from. The lullabies pass by quickly, too. The album moves naturally through its meditative cycles in a constant state of emergence.' -- Fred Thomas -- Presenting the debut album from longtime Nomo member Justin Walter. If this was a vintage Nonesuch label release, it would come with some dry title such as Music for Electronics, Trumpet, EVI and Percussion. The recordings here are anything but dry, instead being an exhilarating interface of the human and machine."
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LP
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KRANK 179LP
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2LP
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KRANK 175LP
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$19.00
NOT IN STOCK, SPECIAL ORDER
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CD
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KRANK 175CD
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"With percussionist extraordinaire Steven Hess now a full-fledged member, Mark Nelson and Pan American deliver their first new album since White Bird Release in 2009. This collection of new sounds began with the duo rehearsing for a series of shows in southern Europe in late 2011 and early 2012, the songs written together as a group to be played live. Bobby Donne (Labradford, Cristal) plays bass on multiple tracks, further emphasizing the live band feel. Mark Nelson's deft production touches abound, subtly mixing disparate elements into a fully integrated whole, while Hess prominently displays a myriad of percussion techniques showing a mastery of understated rhythms. The resulting album is a resonant listen that ranks with the best of Pan American's catalog."
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KRANK 174CD
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"The band Implodes has, on their previous albums, tapped into the deep psychic recesses where our sonic memories first took shape. They have played the part of the ancient ancestor, lying submerged in the shallows, waiting to make its gambit onto dry land and into a new world. With their new album, Recurring Dream, Implodes breathes fresh air. Melodies that were once distant echoes are now suffused with energy and clarity of purpose, submerged rhythms now walk in the light of day. Implodes does not, however, eschew its heritage. Heaviness abounds. The band has not abandoned the crushing pressure of the deep, dark places. But Recurring Dream breaches the thin membrane that contained its previous efforts and preys unmolested in its new environment. There has always been an organic component to Implodes' music, and not just because the band is comprised of humans. Its music is tied to those very earliest of our sonic traditions, to the sounds of Earth and space and deep water and simple machines. Recurring Dream is about waking up in the dark and witnessing the slow birth of consciousness, still tethered to fantasies and nightmares, and walking into the unknown."
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LP
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KRANK 174LP
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CD
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KRANK 178CD
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"Hymnal is the fourth kranky album by Thomas Meluch under his musical alias Benoit Pioulard, following Précis (2006), Temper (2008) and Lasted (2010). It was written and recorded throughout a year spent in southeastern England and on the European mainland, during which the ubiquity of religious iconography and grandiose cathedrals became an unexpected muse. Raised as a Catholic but never especially pious, Meluch drew on this aspect of social history as the basis for Hymnal's 12 chapters. He notes a particular preoccupation with the ways that faith offers a sense of solace and belonging in an existence that inherently provides none, framed in a context of tradition, ritual and the notion of the eternal. Themes aside, Hymnal contains some of Meluch's most expansive instrumental works ('Knell', 'Gospel') and fully realized pop compositions ('Hawkeye', 'Reliquary', 'Margin'), making for a rich and dynamic long-playing arc. Also featured are string arrangements by kranky label mate Felix and guitar work from ambient maestro Kyle Bobby Dunn."
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LP
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KRANK 178LP
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LP version. "Hymnal is the fourth kranky album by Thomas Meluch under his musical alias Benoit Pioulard, following Précis (2006), Temper (2008) and Lasted (2010). It was written and recorded throughout a year spent in southeastern England and on the European mainland, during which the ubiquity of religious iconography and grandiose cathedrals became an unexpected muse. Raised as a Catholic but never especially pious, Meluch drew on this aspect of social history as the basis for Hymnal's 12 chapters. He notes a particular preoccupation with the ways that faith offers a sense of solace and belonging in an existence that inherently provides none, framed in a context of tradition, ritual and the notion of the eternal. Themes aside, Hymnal contains some of Meluch's most expansive instrumental works ('Knell', 'Gospel') and fully realized pop compositions ('Hawkeye', 'Reliquary', 'Margin'), making for a rich and dynamic long-playing arc. Also featured are string arrangements by kranky label mate Felix and guitar work from ambient maestro Kyle Bobby Dunn."
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CD
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KRANK 176CD
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"New reissue of Grouper's breakthrough 2008 album."
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LP
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KRANK 176LP
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Repressed; LP version. "New reissue of Grouper's breakthrough 2008 album."
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