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LP
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CREP 094LP
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More than a decade after the release of Land Lines, the mythical Humboldt County, California based duo of Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay reappears seemingly out of nowhere with Atheistsaregods. With past releases on such cult-like labels as Root Strata, Weird Forest, Blackest Rainbow, or Digitalis, Starving Weirdos were an indelible part of a sprawling and loose network of artists in Northern America whose DIY work ethic and extreme activity revolved around shoestring-budget constant touring, numerous limited editions on CDR, tape, and vinyl, and a relentless drive to push the boundaries of genre. Out of that cauldron, Starving Weirdos stood out as one of the most persistent and visionary acts, developing a mind-altering body of work that went from warm soundscapes through droney digressions, freeform improvisation, and raucous noise summoned from a myriad of instrumentation and low budget processing -- vocals, keyboards, violin, flute, percussion, and an assortment of less identifiable sound sources. Ten years on their legacy remains a timeless and wildly under-appreciated one, but hopefully this new album will shine a light on their idiosyncratic approach. As time itself was never a constraint. This is music suspended outside of it. Right from the start with the echoing percussion, dissonant keys and processed vocals of "Haiku Nagasaki", Atheistsaregods draws a continuous flux of psychedelic elevation that goes from the gloomy electronic motifs not unlike the early Cluster vibes of "Invocation" into the dank percussive maze of the appropriately titled "Barulho do Samba". The self-titled track induces a sense of post-apocalyptic vertigo via hallucinatory scraps of voice, suspended synth tones and reverberating field recordings, connecting into the droney mystics of "Dudukahar (Reed Prayer)". Coming full circle, "For Vinny" brings back the echoing percussion amidst hypnotic cello lines until it drifts off into the unknown. With the same palpable sense of urgency, Starving Weirdos feel as vital as ever. Welcome back. Artwork by Mioshe. Mastered by Rashad Becker.
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CD
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AMI 044CD
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"Amish is pleased to officially announce a new release from Humboldt County's finest contemporary experimental unit, Starving Weirdos. A couple of years in the making, Land Lines documents a vital step in the evolution and refinement of Starving Weirdos' freeform improvisational practices, as well as its infamous and highly disciplined studio practices. Land Lines chronicles Starving Weirdos' most focused and structured release to date, with pieces that import a distinctly European flavor into the sound of what, until now, has been a uniquely Northern Californian form of sonic experimentation."
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LP
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AMI 044LP
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LP version with download code.
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LP
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SIDRA 006LP
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...Without A Rest Forever Onward. Firstly, this is not for the faint-hearted, but fear not, this is not another noise record. This LP is something else altogether. This is a massive, glorious psychedelic din, a thick fog of dramatic sound events. Starving Weirdo's latest offering promises to enfold the listener who will experience the ecstatic grandeur of Anton Bruckner as much as the rich industrial drone of David Jackman. This is Lhasa in California -- a world drenched in ecstatic thrills and intense ethereal exploration. There are sounds, there are drones, there are rhythms and there are songs -- a glorious concoction that moves in a vertical fashion. As we live today, in all this murk; all this twisted history and convoluted present, we can be thankful that these folks in California came together to create such a glorious record for all to bathe in. But this, like all good things, is limited and will not be around forever. Step in now or forever remain the great unwashed. Edition of 350 numbered LPs, housed in a heavyweight silkscreened sleeves.
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CD
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RS 020CD
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2007 release. "More heavy head trips from the Weirdos camp. Shrine Of The Post-Hypnotic is the second real CD released by the group, and by far the most coherent one to date. Flowing like an epic nighttime hike through the damp forest of the Northern California coast, it's packed to the brim with acoustic sound worlds and moon beams of electricity. Unfolding slowly, It never peaks out, instead drifting along like a dense patch of heavy coastal fog."
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2LP
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WEIRD 049LP
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"First off, this 2xLP set has THEE best cover I've laid my sockets on in many moons. It is soooo eye-burningly great that I'm tempted to run out and buy a van just to have the image painted on it. It's about time the art world came around to the lucrative 'ray-gun touting topless women riding giant tarantulas through darkened valleys' market. Bra-fuckin'-vo! But I'm not getting off my high horse just yet. I must say that this latest from NorCal's finest, Starving Weirdos, is one of their most swell/swollen yet to date. Four flippin' sides of confuse-adelia for both the farm-fresh kid to the well-heeled cad. Way noisier than the releases on Root Strata, Path of Lighting is chock full of mystery moves and dynamo hums, from the tripped-out textural flips on 'Into the Flatlands' flickering in and out of foci to the almost-an-environmental-statement of 'N.Y. Blues' with talk show jibber jabbing into the corrosive static as the grooves run out. The two dudes in Starving Weirdos are joined by yet another dude for two tracks and it's tough to know exactly what he's adding (besides another layer of ecstasy gush) but they're my fave sides. For sure. These two sides sound like the fine line that separates No Neck Blues Band from Sunburned Hand of the Man. The final track could/should have been in the movie Rosemary's Baby, right around the time Mia Farrow is screaming 'What have you done to his eyes!' As the kids these days say, 'Fuck you, dad!' -- no wait, 'Dude, that would rule!' Yeah, that's it. So, let recap -- you get the deluxe gatefold jacket courtesy of the always peachy Weird Forest label, twin slabs of head-spinning secret laboratory recordings and man -- that cover is making me so hot!." -- Dennis Yudt
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LP
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BRR 118LP
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"Absolutely mind melting release from this consistently amazing American duo. This release has a very different sound to the superb drone recordings of their recent releases, yet it is still totally immense but really quite unexpected. This was previously issued as a tour-only CDR in a press of somewhere between 20 and 30 copies. Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay spent sometime recording legendary Humboldt based pianist Darius Brottman, who also happens to have a radio show before Brian's own show on KHSU college radio. The recordings of Brottman were then reworked by McKinlay and Pyle separately. Pyle and McKinlay have a side each on this LP, both sides featuring very different ways of reworking the original beautiful recordings. Side A opens with some straight piano clinks layered with incidental sounds that occurred during recording sessions, creating an amazing feeling of beautiful surrealness, leading into multi-layered piano movements over and over. Side B begins with powerful, erratic, forceful playing, coated in psychedelic loops and reversed sounds, then returning to a more straight piano playing. The second track on this side almost bleeds into familiar Weirdo territory. This is one bizarre, but equally genius and beautiful release. Both myself and the Weirdos are honored to have the artwork for this LP designed by artist Mick Wiggins. Pro printed sleeves, pressed on 180 gram vinyl and limited to 500 copies."
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CD
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WEAVIL 038CD
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This is a new release by California's extremely prolific avant-drone duo, Starving Weirdos. These eight new pieces bear all the hallmarks of Starving Weirdos' greatest work: the dizzying mixture of instrumental sounds, electronics, and field recordings, the pointillistic attention to sonic detail, the duo's post-production technique, which achieves something like the aural equivalent of deep-focus photography. On Into An Energy, the duo of Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay is joined by occasional collaborators Steve Lazar and Greg Devaney for the length of the record, and perhaps their chemistry together accounts for the elusive shift in focus heard on these cuts. You see, even though Starving Weirdos routinely break out the rain sticks, the horns, the hand drums, the guitars, or the cup-and-ball, at its core their art is a kind of deep-forest-ghetto-musique concrète. You can never tell if what you're hearing is a real-time performance or a product of copious editing and overdubbing, whether those sounds emanated from tapes or from live instruments, whether it occurred in a tangible three-dimensional space or in a virtual soundcard reality. Most of the time, it's a combination of all these, and the results are profoundly transportive and disorienting. Yet while the Weirdos' song and album titles suggest an esoteric or spiritualist bent, their music is always reassuringly lucid, even earthy. Theirs is a mysticism grounded in the ordinary sounds of everyday life in their native Humboldt County, California. At their best, Starving Weirdos achieve that high romantic ideal: to make the familiar strange, and make the strange familiar.
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LP
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OESB 010LP
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"Full-length vinyl release from northern California 'free drift' unit the Starving Weirdos. Blue Herons features two side-long tracks: 'Manila' and 'King Radness On His Royal Swim,' both choice selections of their expansive drone/improv sound. Deluxe gatefold silkscreened covers with art by Nate Nelson (of Mouthus/Religious Knives/Crazy Dreams Band). Limited edition of 470 copies."
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