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viewing 1 To 10 of 18 items
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LP
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ABD 047LP
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In the pantheon of Western-tilted South East Asian tribute groups, Oakland, California's Neung Phak (pronounced: "Noong PAHK") have carved out a decade's worth of inspired and unique recordings and performance since their 2001 debut, (birthed as a spin-off from legendary Bay Area group Mono Pause). Galvanized by exposure to thousands of South East Asian cassette tapes, LPs and radio broadcasts harvested during years of travels (co-founder Mark Gergis is a key conspirator with international record label Sublime Frequencies), the 7-piece group play folk and pop sounds from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam and elsewhere, using a variety of Western and non-Western instruments. Neung Phak delivers international sounds that trade the gloss and sheen of so-called "World Music" for the energy and unpredictability you can find when you're somewhere else. After two releases on Abduction and several performances and tours, Neung Phak have returned with their second full-length studio LP. 2 showcases molam-folk pop and acid-rock hauntings from Thailand's yesterday and today, Javanese dancefloor dangdut, and Cambodian instrumental dramas -- all retold in inimitable Neung Phak parlance. The stunning Indonesian pop gem, "Bang Toyib," features guest Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls) on Bahasa vocals. Thai dance-pop cuts "Poot" and "Poo Jud" feature veteran singer Diana Hayes. The damning "Fucking USA" was purportedly recorded in a North Korean studio -- and the epic retelling of the classic southern Thai-styled "Sat Chatri," closes down the LP in sprawling, psychedelic form. Limited edition one-time pressing of 500 copies with download card. Last copies...
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ABD 032CD
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Originally released in 2005 as a limited edition vinyl LP -- the first Alvarius B. (Alan Bishop/Sun City Girls) full-length release in 7 years. Blood Operatives Of The Barium Sunset is a collection of songs seemingly based on actual, but unnamed, shady characters of the global underworld past and present, according to the brief statement on the insert. Regardless of intent, this is cryptic folk music of the highest order, with several tracks employing folk/rock/psych orchestrations featuring the talents of Eyvind Kang, Tim Young, Richard Bishop, Andrew McGinnis and Randall Dunn. Hailed as a masterpiece by a fair number of the few who've actually heard it, Blood Operatives... sounds as fresh, challenging, and separated from everything else today, as it did six years ago upon initial release. Twisted Americana folklore breeding with baroque Italian cinematic pop, dark ballads, and vagrant story lines, these 11 unique tracks compile the most "produced" Alvarius B. record to date. CD tri-fold digipak comes with a booklet of song lyrics.
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CD/BOOK
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ABD 046CD
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Repressed! "A much-needed CD issue of an LP, released this last February in microquantities. The dastardly minds behind this project, a first spurt from the reactivated Poon Village label, have collaborated on the new package as well. And it is a deluxe eye-swim through various forms of feminine beauty, its 32-page booklet displaying images that look as though they were found in a smoky catacomb carved into the hills of Charlestown. By my count, Baroque Primitiva is the sixth album by Alvarius B. and is, like its predecessors, a deep dive through mysterious waters. The 11 tracks here were recorded at various sessions over the course of several years and range from 'Humor Police' (a track imagining what Syd Barrett might have sounded like had he been a devotee of Rembetika) to a trippily Beatles-damaged version of 'You Only Live Twice' (the sole surviving shard of the aborted Alvarius B. Plays The Bond Songbook project). Baroque Primitiva is the first long-format telegram from Alvarius B. since he lost his mothership (the Sun City Girls, with whom he employed his slave name, Alan Bishop) and it also feels like his most consistently non-acerbic -- perhaps even most beauty-oriented -- work. The songs often have a meditative pace, filled with gorgeous lo-fi blends of vocals, guitar, bass and keys. Eyvind Kang guests on several tracks, but the bulk of the material was broadcast direct from the naked soul of Alvarius B., which turns out to be a warmer, sweeter place than you might imagine. And while this CD will be available for a tad longer than the 30 seconds the LP lasted, a set as thoroughly gorgeous as this will not linger. Take a deep breath of its magic and go for it. Why deny yourself such bountiful pleasures?" --Byron Coley
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CD
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ABD 045CD
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Repressed, one of 2010's most highly regarded albums. In stunning fashion, Sun City Girls' final studio record caps a 27-year run for what many hail as the most bizarre, eclectic and provocative musical trio ever assembled. From the delirious intro of "Ben's Radio" to the final drum crash of the title track, Funeral Mariachi delivers 11 well-crafted gems which display the refined studio production side of SCG shrouded in that otherworldly glow which has always separated the group from their contemporaries. Beyond the gorgeous folk and vocal styles which drive the album, there is a heavy retro Italian cinema influence, Arabic and Indonesian references, and a ghostly psychedelic moodiness throughout. Post-production and final mastering was completed by the Bishop Brothers after the untimely death of Charles Gocher in 2007 and the results will not disappoint followers of this impossible-to-describe unit. Funeral Mariachi provides a perfect introduction to the more melodic sector of the SCG universe surfacing, ironically, at the end of their career in the form of what someday should become one of the most beloved records they ever created. CD pressing housed in a beautiful, heavy-duty, 24-point, full-color mini-LP replica-styled gatefold jacket with the back cover photo taken during the last SCG photo session in 2006.
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LP
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ABD 044LP
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Seattle's Diminished Men present a full-length record for the Abduction label. This LP is a limited edition of 500 copies and comes pressed on 180 gram vinyl. "If current instrumental music was always as majestic and compelling as this, I'd hang up my retro-Italian soundtrack collector's boots for good. From the explosive drums rolls on the opening track, the only cover on the record, "L'Appel du Vere," from Roman Polanski's The Tenant (music by Philippe Sarde), to the darkly exotic finale, "A Housewife's Dram," this album is a superbly crafted mosaic of whip-cracking vengeance, speak-easy hallucinations and haunted geography. Besides the Italian-Western overtones, the carnival-esque freakshow backdrops, Korshid-Egyptian guitar passages, and flipped-out electronic space-psych, are perhaps the best surf-inspired tracks I've heard in years. It's spine-chilling how producer Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Eyvind Kang, Sun City Girls, Secret Chiefs 3, Six Organs Of Admittance, Wayne Horvitz, Matt Chamberlain, Grails, Wolves In The Throne Room, etc.) managed to make this record the ultimate mid-'60s surf-vampire-Western revival soundtrack. Elements of Joe Meek's best Moontrekkers productions cross with a dash of Badalamenti murder blues-drama, setting the stage for Steve Schmitt's cobra-twilight guitar work and the outlaw drums of Dave Abramson to leave their indelible stains across this 41-minute epic journey." --Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls)
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CD
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ABD 042CD
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The Brothers Unconnected are Alan Bishop and Rick Bishop. This CD was made to be sold only during the Brothers Unconnected Tour, summer 2008. It features an early rehearsal of the 2 running through acoustic material they would perform on this tour. Just a CD in a white envelope, no packaging. Not meant to "mean" a lot per se, it does exist & here it is.
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CD
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ABD 010CD
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Originally released as a limited edition LP of 1000 copies in 1998, this is another mysterious soundtrack work by Sun City Girls, featuring guest appearances by Eyvind Kang, The Ruins and Jesse Paul Miller. The music flips back and forth from melodic and reflective themes to shards of noise and collective improvisation. Throw in some clarinet lounge music and spooked-out drama and you have the backdrop to a film that was never completed, explained further here from the original liner notes by Alan Bishop: "A nervous, stuttering Japanese gentleman phones me in the Fall of 1995 requesting soundtrack services from Sun City Girls for his new film project about a secret underground alien base in New Mexico most commonly referred to as 'Dulce.' The real kick for us came when our new Japanese friend finally announced his allegiance to the esoteric Aum Shinrikyo group most famous for the sarin gas poisoning in a Tokyo subway not long ago. He also professed to be a former associate of Aum technical minister Hideo Murai who was killed by a Korean hitman in April of 1995. Murai joined the Aum priesthood in 1986, becoming the head of its science unit focusing on the current state of electromagnetic weapons development including EM beams using lasers and plasma. We flew to Japan to perform a few shows in April of 1996 and a clandestine meeting was arranged with our mysterious director friend on one of our days off in the electronics district of Osaka which happened to be less than a mile from where we were staying. So Doctor Gocher and I pretended to take a souvenir-gathering stroll down the hill and met 'Hachiro Maki' (a pseudonym, I'm sure) nearby in a temple courtyard. After thirty minutes of reviewing rough cuts on his swivel-screen Hi-8 camera and discussing the necessity of anonymity in today's international fast lane, we were one million yen richer with an 8mm tape in my back pocket. Haven't heard from him since..." --Alan Bishop, 1998
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CD
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ABD 002CD
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Originally released as a limited edition LP by Abduction Records in 1994, and released on CD for the first time ever, this is an essential yet overlooked Sun City Girls recording consisting of various electric and acoustic tracks with a few compositional ideas rarely heard or revisited in their immense back catalog. And when we say compositional, we mean improvisation as composition which was basically the SCG method of operation in the studio. The record opens with two patented SCG stretched electric guitar/bass/drum works of dark beauty and then things become weirder as odd keyboards, acoustic instrumental and percussive pieces, and strange vocals start to dominate the rest of the album, setting the mood for Piasa... Devourer of Men which was recorded directly after Juggernaut. These tracks were exclusively created for a short film project by Mark Roman Bodnar and Kyrill Kazemirovitch Protsenko (a Ukraine/USA co-production) which resulted in a limited promo VHS release and a few festival screenings before the film was buried and forgotten. Segments from many of the ten tracks were actually used in the film, although there is much more to hear on the original full-length cuts found here. Some of the most unusual SCG studio recordings are contained on Juggernaut, all recorded live to 4-track cassette in 1993 in Seattle by Scott Colburn.
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LP
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ABD 038LP
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Climax Golden Twins are back in action and perhaps better than ever here with this gorgeous limited edition 180 gram slab of wax. This is their debut release on the Abduction label and we're wondering why it took so long. These grooves are sewn together like a patchwork quilt of audio curiosities from a boarded-up backroad museum -- the kind that's haunted by vaudevillian ghosts of days gone by. There's the heavy electrified trio improv attack mode they've been utilizing at live shows lately to maximum effect along with some twisted front-porch twang and twilight melodic folk stitched together with odd field recordings and occasional sinister pathways not unlike their Session Nine soundtrack work. And where did that drummer come from? The finale "For The Exited" ascends and swirls into a deep coma of electro-cosmic rock. Turn it all the way up! If you always wanted to explore CGT only to find that most of their back catalog is long out-of-print, this LP is a great way to start, but you better hurry because it's a one-time pressing limited to 500 copies on 180 gram vinyl with vintage pulchritudes printed on the labels -- so wedge yourself between two hooters, farm boy, because there's fifty ways the cleavage smothers!
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CD
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ABD 039CD
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From the mind that brought you Return Of The Artist in 2004, pops two more figments of imagination straight from the ether: Mic Mulligan and S. Future are Original Space Neighbors. Planet Earth, ready yourselves for a cosmic awakening soaring deeper into late-night satellite smoke from this mini-LP of mega proportions. Sci-fi beats from lo-fi outer space intersect the big-bang theory of hip-hop morphing humanity into dripping plasma as S. Future's floating laboratory hovers low over the earth. These messages from the outer spheres of urban spaceship exotica are delivered in and out of time and rhyme by the Mic of Mulligan with a handful of cameo appearances. Those special guests include: Uncle Jim (aka Alan Bishop of the Sun City Girls), Jah Nice, Niggerachi, and the Space Needle! Limited to 500 copies.
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