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viewing 1 To 13 of 13 items
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LP
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FAI 030LP
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Ursa Major Moving Group, the solo alias of singer and composer Ursula Russell, announces her self-titled debut album, out via Faith & Industry Records. Known for her mesmeric drumming for Snapped Ankles, Alabaster DePlume, Drop Out Venus, and Blue House, the album showcases the London-based artist's stylistic and instrumental virtuosity -- she played all instruments herself -- on an intense, dynamic and intimate musical journal that shifts between delicate folk, stirring indie rock, flamboyant chamber pop, and angular post-punk styles. Its complex themes reflect a multihued blend of musical styles that recall artists as diverse as The Pixies, Talking Heads, Joni Mitchell, Arthur Russell, and Julia Holter. Having built a reputation for her brilliance of musicianship as a band member, Ursa Major Moving Group sees Ursula establishing herself as a solo artist of brilliant, open-hearted originality. Amongst the album's many highlights is the driving, emotive opening track, "Reverse Invisible", which dives into memories of childhood alienation. The winsome "Goodbye George", which finds Ursula's delicate vocals and acoustic guitars melding with Alabaster DePlume's Ethio-jazz saxophones, delves back into her childhood. Edition of 300.
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FAI 032LP
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Twinkling like a glitterball in an abandoned dancehall, Peek-a-Boo is the ravishing solo debut from James Howard. Recent credits: electric guitar on Rozi Plain's Prize (and key part of live band), co-production and various instruments on Dana Gavanski's When it Comes, electric guitar on Alabaster dePlume's Gold, and To Cy and Lee vol. 1, and other work with Naima Bock, Clémentine March, and Charles Howl. Lilting lunar lullabies, seductive atmospheres, pretty harmonies, and starlit reverie mask an unflinching look at people doing what only people can do, being what only people can be.
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FAI 022X-LP
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Transparent green vinyl. Mermaid Chunky are an audiovisual duo made up of artists Freya Tate and Moina Moin. Bathing in milkmaid serenity and improvised chaos, the duo boasts of pumping trance rhythms, sad Easter time chicks and seriously arousing sax solos. Much of their cultivation has come out of the mossy club culture of Stroud's SVA and London's Total Refreshment Centre, collaborating with the likes of Alabaster DePlume, Danalogue, Donna Thompson, Grove, Snapped Ankles, and Yama Warashi. Their debut Faith and Industry album Vest (produced by Capitol K at Total Refreshment Centre), was birthed last year out of a history of improvised cheek and club dexterity fore fronting their live shows and audiovisual solstice celebrations, recently captured by British Vogue's 2021 PRIDE series. Championing this action is the Mermaid Chunky Mothership, a gang of fellow artists and performers, often clad in nauseous satin frills, swamping the stage with French mime and slut drops (Roundhouse 2021, End Of the Road 2021, SVA Solstice always). The MC gang just scoured their PRS Woman Make Music funding so who knows what they will be stirring up in the heat of summer soup 2022 (the most ducks in a year you will ever experience). The only way for you to find out is to join the chunklett buffet and dip your wicked, webbed fingers into something mega.
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FAI 023LP
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Ethno-alternative lo-fi absurdism from the mind of London based multi-instrumentalist and Primordial Soup member, Samuel Huxley. Expect everything from Hindu ceremonial music to dark lounge, post-punk, and avant-garde, to Kabuki theater score and world electronica, any number of which can be found within a single track. The Romance of Baba Loco is the union of wisdom and madness, eastern mysticism and western folly, absurdism to catch you with yer pantaloons down... The Romance of Baba Loco is the latest iteration of a recording project by Samuel Huxley that originally made ambient soundscapes for psychotropics. In 2017, Samuel was curating infamous venue and scene of a multitude of glories and horrors, The Five Bells in New Cross, SE London. One of his first acts to play was Primordial Soup, at that time a three-piece absurdist art rock band. They quickly became friends and began performing semi-improv shows as a five-piece, and later went on to form Primordial Soup Collective whose main focus was esoteric experimental theater and film, and rare multidisciplinary exhibitions. This changing focus of Soup away from sound provoked Samuel to channel his musical compulsions in to his solo project which had by then ventured far away from ambient soundscapes to shrieking Indian and Moroccan oboes over African and Indian tribal rhythms, with the desire to create the raw lo-fi atmospheres of street music. Gradually guitar styles of South East Asia and Latin America were introduced, leading to backing track solo performances and outrageous live improv freakouts with Craig Deporto (ex-Flamingods) and Luke Bell (Ex-Wild Birds of Britain). Finally, two days before the glorious pandemic lockdown, Samuel signed to Faith & Industry, which birthed new moniker The Romance of Baba Loco and three months-worth of ceaseless creation. From the Hindu Ceremonial music of the Shehnai and Nadaswaram to post-punk, absurdism, and experimental art, the Romance of Baba Loco finally united two seemingly dissonant sides of his personality in a manner he had not previously achieved. The old material was cast off, and these peculiar fruits of imprisonment, can be found on his first release, Cling Clang For Funk Monkeys. Experimental post-punk exotica for fans of Sun City Girls, Sunburned Hand of Man, Meridian Brothers.
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FAI 022LP
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Working in rhyme, costume and film they play drum machine, Casio, voice, saxophone, and a plethora of found household objects and toys to create their own sound world. Not to be tricked by this naive playfulness, Mermaid Chunky are musicians versed in classical and jazz lineage. Formed around the exciting SVA (Stroud Valley Artspace) a west country community arts center and music venue, Mermaid Chunky's captivating performances came to be recorded and produced by Capitol K at Total Refreshment Centre, and thus here is Vest. Produced and recorded by the one and only Capitol K, who has recorded the likes of Thurston Moore, Flamingods, Snapped Ankles, Alabaster DePlume, The Comet is Coming, and Deerhunter. RIYL: Mica Levi, Tirzah, Laps, Ivor Cutler. Edition of 200. "Idiosyncratic blend of Afrobeat, rap, post punk and performance art -- totally unique and always a joy to behold." --Good On Paper
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FAI 019LP
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Kristian Craig Robinson, aka Capitol K, is a multi-instrumentalist and record producer with a long history in London's most interesting under-the-radar music places and spaces. With a musical story like his, one can expect side streams. His new record, Birdtrapper, is "the sound of an initiation rave in a utopian hidden village", and his latest exploration of Mediterranean audio mythos following on from Goatherder (FAI 014LP, 2018). The six track mini-album was similarly formed from ritualistic improvisations performed in Malta (where Capitol K was born), using home-made flutes, reed pipe, bamboo percussion, drum machine, bass guitar, but this time features a wider use of synthesizers, with the alternative dance floor in mind. Where Goatherder was an awakening of genetic primitivism, Birdtrapper is an evocation of sonic bird callers, proto-rave abandon, ambient resonance, and an ecstatic captive state, along with the previous work's visions of hunters, temples and scrub land music. Goatherder caused a quiet kind of quake and was beloved by The Quietus, BBCR3, and 6Music. For the last seven years, K has been behind the consoles at the heavily influential Total Refreshment Centre, recording and mixing records with the likes of Trash Kit, The Comet Is Coming, Rozi Plain, Alabaster DePlume, Dry Cleaning, Flamingods, Cykada, Ibibio Sound Machine, BAS JAN, and John Johanna. It's not just recording; he's also become an influential, if understated, mentor to a new wave of producers and bands. His experience in studio environments is long and storied, including stints at Studio Plateaux on an island in the middle of the Thames and in the Royal Symphonia's squatted rehearsal rooms. Capitol K has released seven albums and the Birdtrapper follows a legacy of influential releases on early 2000s electronica labels including Planet Mu and XL. Aside from this he also runs the record label Faith & Industry. It's a friends and family, love not money affair and he has released music by Champagne Dub, John Johanna, Super Best Friends Club, Blue House, and Clémentine March. Clear vinyl.
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FAI 017LP
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Centered around the songs of principal writer James Howard, Blue House's Gobstopper is the compelling and cinematic result of two years work with Ursula Russell (who penned two tracks), Dimitrios Ntontis (Dimi The Greek), legendary producer Capitol K, and a host of other beautiful characters. Recorded at London's vital Total Refreshment Studio, Gobstopper is an album rich in its production, every track delivered with layers of harmony and instrumentation. The cover art is painted by artist, Phillip Reeves, taking Mingus' The Clown (1957) as its starting point. Gobstopper represents an expansion of sound and a widening of subject: it is an album sung from inside the gluttonized belly of up-for-grabs capitalist Britain, swallowing up whatever is in its way: a jukebox on the coast, "see-through wheels on a see-through motorway", Soho square policemen and silent discos. The record roams like a child on a sugar high turning over stones, sometimes finding compassion, sometimes the weird and beautiful, and sometimes just woodlice. Gobstopper narrates the poetic shift: observation and tellings on the experience, emotion when our gaze turns to that curious realm that exists between the day to day living, common need and the conditioned madness of the island of Great Britain.
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FAI 016LP
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Champagne Dub is a collective of selected artists who come together to practice psychedelic dub rituals. The project was conceived by drummer and producer Betamax (The Comet Is Coming, Soccer96) who makes a nod to a range of influences through free improv, psychedelic post-punk, English folk, performance art, and '70s dub. However, the band also draws on the teachings of Zen Buddhist philosophy to create sound without intention, to capture and dub the natural shape of subconscious intuitions. After several explosive live shows, the group headed into the studio where they found themselves deep in the presence of a 1/4" tape machine, the results of which were soaked in a biochemically-enhanced mix of reverb and analog effects. Once the vision was truly realized and tested on some animals, it was deemed safe for public consumption and pressed onto vinyl. Drops will be released into the sonic environment with the spiritual guidance of Faith And Industry. Bass player Ruth Goller (Melt Yourself Down/Acoustic Ladyland) applies her distinctive sonic boom to the low end of the group. Punk as fuck and funkier than a pimp truck, Goller pummels pure tones through the dirt with all the rhythmic precision of a washing cycle set to 'silk with rinse'. Ed Briggs is a sound artist from Brighton who plays homemade synths incorporating mechanical parts from a hurdy-gurdy. He also programs using MaxMSP, performing mind-melting sound granulation in real time. Briggs is a full-time DIY inventor and home-science experimenter with a family background in English folk. Mr Noodles, the anonymous performance artist/vocalist, uses many voices, shamanic percussion and unpredictable movement, haunting the band with a plethora of dreamy mantras. Mexican artist Nahum Mantra's day job normally sees him working as an artist/magician. Nahum mastered the art of hypnotism at a young age, and his career has gravitated towards the link between science and art. Also a member of Orchestra Elastique, Champagne Dub sees him feature on his natural instrument the Theremin. Betamax has been playing drums for ages. However after taking mushrooms he realized that there was a deeper layer of rhythm that remained trapped by his ego, an expression so honest, naked and uncultured that it had been withheld by the subconscious. It was a rhythm that couldn't be understood, one that always shifted, but always spoke the truth. Sometimes still, other times explosive, Champagne Dub is what is now.
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FAI 014LP
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Goatherder is the seventh album from underground London producer Kristian Craig Robinson, AKA Capitol K. This ace manipulator of audio and punk warlord of groove has crossed a tapestry of styles and approaches with his own secret compass since 1998. Along with everything from Chinese pop to the marching band music of the United Arab Emirates in his early musical vocabulary, the influence of rave, new wave, grunge, and noise-core would collide to create a bold new sound. The last seven years have seen Capitol K's stature as a producer elevated with his establishment of the renowned Total Refreshment Studio and recording work with musicians such as the Mercury Music prize nominated The Comet Is Coming, global dance act Ibibio Sound Machine, the pan-Arabic Flamingods, Serafina Steer and her BAS JAN project, and contemporary folk artist Rozi Plain, among many more. This latest work was developed and recorded in his native Malta, where he built a studio in a cave (a former goat stable). K gathered bamboo instruments collected around the world, including an ancient Quecha reed-pipe (his new-found lead instrument), and various resonating vessels and percussive objects including dry fennel storks collected from Punic troglodyte sites, and atonal flutes built from fresh cut farmland reed. Ritualistic improvisations took place over a series of seasonal visits, awakening genetic memory and plant communication. Back in London the tracks were interfaced and expanded with post-industrial machine beat and bass guitar lock down. Homage is paid to new age synthscapes, while a spirit jazz overtone arrives from K's recent years as the sonic muscle behind a plethora of luminous albums born in his Total Refreshment Studio. Goatherder follows on from the 2016 collaborative incarnation Loose Meat and sonically abridges 2012's Capitol K album Andean Dub. Outside of studio production and his solo repertoire as Capitol K, Kristian has toured as guest musician with multiple bands over the last 15 years, including Brazil's Cibelle, Archie Bronson Outfit, and Du Blonde. His last project, Loose Meat, was a collaborative album of poetic dance music received lots of radio play in the UK and toured across the country for a year, performing a number of festivals. He established the Faith And Industry record label which handled his subsequent releases. He now releases a number of other artists through this label that he develops and produces.
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LP
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FAI 013LP
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John Johanna's eclectic output uses psychedelia and oriental tonalities, primal gospel blues and folk -- among other ingredients -- to create a body of diverse, yet coherent devotional music. A singer and multi-instrumentalist who works on cassette and reel-to-reel tape at his home in rural Norfolk, and with Kristian Craig Robinson (Capitol K) at Total Refreshment Centre in London, his songs are informed by the mystical cosmology of the Eastern Orthodox Church. I'll Be Ready When The Great Day Comes, his debut vinyl release, draws from a range of John Johanna pieces gathering four remastered tracks which previously appeared on a now sold-out limited cassette tape run, and four new tunes. Leaning in part to the acoustic and dark balladeer aspect of his music, whilst drum machine and blues pieces hint to what's to comes in future. "Bound" is the most personal piece; written with a deceased friend in mind it recalls discussions on Greek mythology of Prometheus. "Rock My Soul" is an adaptation of traditional words from blues gospel lineage. "Knowledge And Power, Nathaniel" is a raga. "I'll Be Ready When The Great Day Comes" has a full live band accompaniment. The words of "World Unknown" come from the 1700's hymn writer and theologian, Isaac Watts. A lot of John Johanna's material takes its cue and shares from a rich tradition of mystical spiritualist music words and motifs. Characteristically appearing live accompanied with a four-track tape deck, his incredible voice and simple raw guitar style always recalls a pure mysticism. He's played sets at End Of The Road Festival and multiple supporting slots with label mates Blue House and Super Best Friends Club, amongst others. Artwork illustration by Chris Bianchi (Le Gun, Bare Bones). A3 250gsm poster print, folded over in clear liner. Edition of 200.
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CD
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FAI 007CD
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"Kristian Craig Robinson AKA Capitol K is on a quest to find a utopia within sound and with Notes from Life on the Wire with a Wrecking Ball, his 5th album, he may just have found it. There are few other artists who can make the experimental sound quite so engaging. Notes from Life on the Wire with a Wrecking Ball is a record born out of creative London, but Capitol K is by no means your usual citizen. Recent years he has spent much of his time living in squats and places soon to be demolished with other artisans. Ideas around the act of detournement (deviation of course), psycho geographic wandering, Utopian fantasy and outsider writings strongly influence this album. As Capitol K says, 'Seeing how artisans have reacted to social economic alienation, and managed existence alongside and in spite of rapid consumerist, homogenization, which is particular rampant in London, I became increasingly aware of the maximization of culture going on, maximum house, maximum color, maximum impact, so in turn I wanted to create a subvert maximum music for a maximum world.' Recordings were performed in a lo-fi studio set up in a squat on Drum St, alongside highly skilled Italian Jazz Drummer Vladimiro Carboni and Brazilian guitarist Felipe Pagani, whom he met while playing electronics for Tropicalist act Cibelle touring the world in 2006, they had little previous knowledge of the Capitol K unique sound, or electronica in general. This sums up his vision of combining cultures of the world, as K puts, 'I wanted their influence of real skill and strictness within the shaping of this album, to act as a balance to my lo-fi London Flaneur approach.' It is also true that this album is a love story, unless you are autistic in which case it's about mechanics."
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FAI 005CD
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"Kristian Robinson, aka the maverick musician and producer Capitol K provides another wonderful culturally diverse opus with his fourth studio album Nomad Junk. The album is a post-modern journey of playful and melodic pop juxtaposed with a global urban environment backdrop, as Tokyo, Taipei, Barcelona, London and Hong Kong all provide a heady brew of original found sound footage. Featuring a bounty of addictive hooks and melodies you can listen to or shake a leg at, Nomad Junk is an accomplished album from an artist with pedigree, and follows his previous albums Sounds Of The Empire (Planet Mu), Island Row (XL), and most recently Happy Happy (Faith & Industry). Capitol K's mixture of lo-fi rock, electronica, Asian-pop, field samples and Arabian melodies produces a dramatic collage of East meets West with a global magpie's eye."
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CD
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FAI 004CD
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"Happy Happy, the latest album release from Capitol K -- and the first for his own independent label Faith and Industry -- is the follow-up to 2002's Island Row (XL/Planet Mu). It's the most fully realized of Capitol K's recordings to date: a homemade, kaleidoscopic hybrid of precision electronics rendered boldly and beautifully live by an eclectic four-piece band; personal twists with a global perspective and psychedelic excursions interrupted by impromptu all-night parties in the parts of the city you can only reach by bike. Kristian Craig Robinsons first two albums as Capitol K, Sounds of the Empire (Planet Mu) and Island Row (Planet Mu/XL), secured his reputation as a cutting-edge studio producer melding innovative sampling and electronics with rock dynamics and a pop spirit."
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