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2CD
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DC 836CD
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Repressed. "Like a bolt echoing back from the blue, We Have Dozens of Titles restrikes the iron of Gastr del Sol, plunging the listener back into the maelstrom of their all-too-brief passage of 1993-1998 via an assembly of previously uncollected studio recordings and beautifully captured unreleased live material. Gastr del Sol's music was of the transformative variety -- or was it transfiguration they were up to? Or transmigration? Flux was key, to be sure. David Grubbs formed Gastr from the final lineup of Bastro; on Gastr del Sol's debut, The Serpentine Similar, Grubbs, Bundy K. Brown and John McEntire downshifted from a thrashing electric outfit into a droning, acoustic-based one. Following this, the lineup shifted again, decisively -- Brown and McEntire departed to focus on the project to be known as Tortoise, and Jim O'Rourke arrived, pairing with Grubbs to make a sequence of unpredictable leaps across genre and practical approach alike, over three LPs and a pair of EPs. We Have Dozens of Titles contains nearly an hour of previously unreleased live recordings, alongside another near-hour of studio recordings culled from previously uncollected singles, EPs, and compilations. As much as Gastr del Sol's albums showcase a group eminently at home in the studio, they were inclined to thoroughly reinvent their compositions in performance. While reviewing live tapes for this compilation, the studio versions of most things felt more and more definitive, with the exception of the live takes included here, which essay startling new qualities in pieces that have been in the public ear for several decades. The majority of these live performances come from a miraculous find in the CBC archive -- a broadcast-quality recording of Jim and David from the 1997 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. The extended company of players on these numbers includes Jeb Bishop, Bundy K. Brown, Steve Butters, Gene Coleman, Thymme Jones, Terri Kapsalis, John McEntire, Günter Müller, Bob Weston, and Sue Wolf. We Have Dozens of Titles revisits the slow-burning incendiaries of Gastr del Sol, finding, once again and after so much time elapsed, another, further set of reinventions."
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3LP BOX
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DC 836LP
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LP version. "Like a bolt echoing back from the blue, We Have Dozens of Titles restrikes the iron of Gastr del Sol, plunging the listener back into the maelstrom of their all-too-brief passage of 1993-1998 via an assembly of previously uncollected studio recordings and beautifully captured unreleased live material. Gastr del Sol's music was of the transformative variety -- or was it transfiguration they were up to? Or transmigration? Flux was key, to be sure. David Grubbs formed Gastr from the final lineup of Bastro; on Gastr del Sol's debut, The Serpentine Similar, Grubbs, Bundy K. Brown and John McEntire downshifted from a thrashing electric outfit into a droning, acoustic-based one. Following this, the lineup shifted again, decisively -- Brown and McEntire departed to focus on the project to be known as Tortoise, and Jim O'Rourke arrived, pairing with Grubbs to make a sequence of unpredictable leaps across genre and practical approach alike, over three LPs and a pair of EPs. We Have Dozens of Titles contains nearly an hour of previously unreleased live recordings, alongside another near-hour of studio recordings culled from previously uncollected singles, EPs, and compilations. At long last, vinyl purchasers will hear the full range of 'The Harp Factory on Lake Street,' 'Dead Cats in a Foghorn,' 'Quietly Approaching,' and 'The Bells of St. Mary's' for the first time on vinyl -- all of it, live and studio alike, lovingly mastered and remastered by Jim O'Rourke, and packaged in a three-LP box set with a wicked Roman Signer image on its removable lid, interior printing on the box bottom and inner sleeves for each LP with performance credits for all the songs. As much as Gastr del Sol's albums showcase a group eminently at home in the studio, they were inclined to thoroughly reinvent their compositions in performance. While reviewing live tapes for this compilation, the studio versions of most things felt more and more definitive, with the exception of the live takes included here, which essay startling new qualities in pieces that have been in the public ear for several decades. The majority of these live performances come from a miraculous find in the CBC archive -- a broadcast-quality recording of Jim and David from the 1997 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. The extended company of players on these numbers includes Jeb Bishop, Bundy K. Brown, Steve Butters, Gene Coleman, Thymme Jones, Terri Kapsalis, John McEntire, Günter Müller, Bob Weston, and Sue Wolf. We Have Dozens of Titles revisits the slow-burning incendiaries of Gastr del Sol, finding, once again and after so much time elapsed, another, further set of reinventions."
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12"
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DC 054LP
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2013 repress of this five track EP from 1994.
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CD
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DC 133CD
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"This is the latest upgrade of the thing known as Gastr del Sol. And it's also their most musical album. Sometimes it's like an overstuffed musical armchair -- quite comfy, even when lumpy. The contribution of Markus Popp, whose style of digital scratching has made Oval an experimental household name, adds to the density and often provides an echo of Gastr past while the rest of Camoufleur paints the future."
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LP
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DC 133LP
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2025 repress. "2024's retrospective box We Have Dozens of Titles brought the revelatory 1993-'98 output of Gastr del Sol back into the world of physical objects, following a decade in which most of their music was mostly available online. Now comes the vinyl reissue series of the Gastrlog at the end of the line, with their 'art-pop masterpiece' Camoufleur. Gastr del Sol released Camoufleur in February of 1998. It was a ringing down of the curtain on an extraordinary five years of music making (and unmaking) with one of the best albums of that era. The backstory: Gastr first appeared out of the ashes of David Grubbs' postpunk band Bastro, whose final lineup -- a furious electric triad of Grubbs, John McEntire and Bundy K. Brown -- evolved into Gastr del Sol with The Serpentine Similar, an album of songs and singing that turned away from the loud and into the acoustic. Brown and McEntire then departed, to focus on the newly-founded Tortoise, just as improviser/tape manipulator/musical polyglot/total freak Jim O'Rourke joined. Picking up on Gastr's acoustic fascination, Grubbs and O'Rourke twisted in oblique strains of modern classical, avant garde, tape music, world music and space, launching on an entirely transformative tear with the Crookt, Crackt, or Fly LP, 'Mirror Repair' EP, and Upgrade & Afterlife 2LP. Nothing prepared one for the inquests of each successive record, and yet, Camoufleur managed to top them all, by presenting their (so-called) avant explorations as pop music. Released on LP and CD, Camoufleur had a prescient quality: like something that existed beyond such simple formats as LP and CD, or even the designations of 'record' and 'album.' It was the nascence era of the burnt CD, unmarked or attributed in any fashion. Compelled by an intense provocative love of the non-sequitur, they drafted in contributions from a diverse lineup that flowed through the songs with an equal weight of improbability and appeal. This was a startling set of sing-along tunes -- or you could whistle along with the music, or keen along with the sound you couldn't identify, however you liked. Once out in the world, Camoufleur went over like gangbusters. Listening in today, it still does -- time has only burnished its unique superpowers. Upon release, of course, and with the same sense of enigma in which they'd issued their music, Gastr del Sol abruptly vanished, leaving all that stuff to time."
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CD
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DC 043CD
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2nd album from 1993 which we never got around to stocking before. Following The Serpentine Similar, this was the first Gastr to feature Jim O'Rourke. Written and performed by Dave Grubbs and O'Rourke, with additional percussion from John McEntire and bass clarinet by Gene Coleman.
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LP
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DC 043LP
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2LP
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DC 090LP
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Repressed for the first time in many years. 2LP version in gatefold.
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CD
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DC 090CD
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First full length release in 2 years from the Grubbs/O'Rourke axis. The following people guest appear: Tony Conrad, Gene Coleman, Gunter Muller, John McIntire. John Fahey's 'Dry Bones In The Valley' gets covered. "Their most impressively impressionistic (and expansive) piece ever opens the record ('Our Exquisite Replica of Eternity')."
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