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FTR 780CD
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"Fifty years after I first encountered the music of Orchid Spangiafora, it is a pleasure to be listening to new work by this most bonny of modern sound manipulators. Like Flee Pasts Ape Elf (FTR 096LP), which we reissued in expanded form in 2013, Eel Asp Flays Feet (the title of which is an anagram of the earlier set) is an assemblage of immaculate invention. It manages to produce a unique splotch of confusing analog surrealism in an increasingly digital world, and Robert Carey (aka Orchid himself) deigned to provide these notes on creating the music: 'This album is a combination of some new material and ideas and some older stuff that had not found its way into a tangible (non-online) form.' 'Syllabus,' 'Dyad,' and 'Retroscope' were an attempt to return to an older style of electronic music. I put these on bandcamp, but they did not attract much attention. In mid-2021 David Greenberger provided me with the voice recordings he had made for the 'Everybody's Home' project he did with Tyson Rogers. He asked if there was something I could do with them. I put together 'Holding Pattern' and 'In A Fog.' These two pieces might be considered the 'dub version' of 'Everybody's Home.' I put them on bandcamp as 'Nobody's Home.' The rest were originally made up of typical Orchid snippets. When I first took an electronic music course in 1972 one of the things that struck me about tape loops was how readily they produced interesting rhythms. Since then I got more into selecting them for the rhythm, but rather than repeating I tried to convey it in a single shot followed by slightly modified versions. In a number of these pieces I tried returning to actually repeating phrases enough to hear the natural rhythm of each loop. The mechanical sounds combined with vocal loops in, for example, 'Interlude One,' probably were influenced by the collaboration with Seymour Glass on Cous Cous Bizarre. The rapid streams of syllables in the 'Ur Sonata' came from playing around with an audio batch processing program. I used it to cut up regular loops into very short bits and string them together. Then, as with most electronic or 'tape' music, the real work consisted of removing the parts that didn't belong. The title comes from Kurt Schwitters because I felt the piece shared some of the same motivation or aesthetic, although the implementation is not at all alike.' Well, those are the component parts, but to truly grasp the whole, you must hold your brain tight and jump right in. There is just nothing like an Orchid Spangiafora album. Tell your friends." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 787CD
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"Limitation Is Necessary is the third set of music by Massachusetts-based string genius Lloyd Thayer we've had the honor of releasing. This follows the Duets LP (FTR 406LP) (with percussionist Jerome Duepree) on which Lloyd split his playing between a Weissenborn lap guitar and a 22-string Chaturangui, and the Twenty20 CD (FTR 698CD) which was all done on a double-necked Weissenborn. Both of these album deep and monumental explorations of mesmeric string textures filled with elements that ranged from Indian classical to blues to psychedelic with hypnotic grace. The blend of elements so extraordinary and seamless, his slidework is almost incomparable. When I asked him about the germination and evolution of the new album, he wrote eloquently about its creation. 'The first piece I wrote for the album was the title track, which came out of improvising, day after day after month. I could feel the music pulling towards the last recording Twenty20, but I didn't want to do another 38-minute piece, hence Limitation is Necessary.' Once upon a time, long ago, when I did my first instrumental Dobro recording, I sent a copy to my teacher, the late Stacy Phillips. He gave me some very positive feedback, and then said 'can you play all of this stuff live?' My answer was yes, and for whatever reason that became a foundational part of what I do, recording pieces that I can duplicate live. Of course, some of that happens with effects pedals. One of the influences for me is Indian Dhrupad music, specifically the Rudra Veena, which some call the great grandfather of all stringed instruments. Dhrupad itself is an older and slower river than some of the music westerners are used to hearing, which is faster and flashier (Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee, Zakir Hussain), and of course all of these forms use some type of a DRONE. For a while now, I have been working on the question: what would be the western drone? Leaf blower, highway traffic noise, Walmart parking lot? etc. Most of the pieces on Limitation have a drone in the background, which comes from a sustain pedal or looping pedal. Sometimes it runs throughout the whole piece and sometimes it comes and goes. The two 12 string pieces ('Rumination' and 'Celebration') were influenced by Ralph Towner, who has sometimes used an 'odd' tuning for his 12 string, in which some of the string pairs/courses are tuned to different notes (unlike a 'normal' 12 string where they are tuned to the same note). I spent a lot of time working on this, trying to develop a very specific light touch, so that I could pick individual strings on the 12 string. The doubleneck Weissenborn is used on 'Deviation.' This track moves between three different Turkish Makamlar -- each with a different sort of feeling or mood -- which go back and forth between the two necks. The theory behind this is a little too 'thick' or turgid for human consumption. So there are three instruments used: 12 string (two songs); doubleneck (one song), standard Weissenborg (two songs). Thats it!' Limitation is, indeed, 'it.' I have difficulty imagining anyone who digs contemporary acoustic string music not falling hard for this album's breadth and quality. It's an amazing musical trip. And we are a proud as could be to help get it into your ears. --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 736LP
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"Well into the third decade of their existence as a musical juggernaut, a new (or at least semi-new) quartet iteration of Nashville's most aggressively shambolic band, The Cherry Blossoms, has recorded this dandy taster of a new LP. And Feeding Tube is tickled pink to bring it to you. Surreal ruralists of the highest order, this version of the Blossoms includes long-time collaborator, Josephine Foster, as a card-carrying member. Josephine has been colluding with the Blossoms for many years, and while most of their meets were live shows that exist only in the memories of those who have witnessed them, some documentation exists in the form of the Mystery Meet LP (FTR 511LP, 2020). On Stars of Tennessee, Ms. Foster adds autoharp, guitar, recorder and vocals, merging with the collective's original members: Peggy Snow (guitar, spoons, kalimba, vocals), John Allingham (guitar, harmonica, vocals) and Chris Davis (drums). Allen Lowery (another regular Blossom) was not around for this session, but Victor Herrero added guitar to a couple of tunes. And what tunes they are. The Cherry Blossoms always manage to evoke the simple pleasures of campfire sing-alongs, with the deep commingling of common interest and intimate friendship that idea evokes, interspersed with the sort of weird, but soft-edged logical jumps associated with the kings of post-hippie hillbillyism, the Holy Modal Rounders. It's not easy to tease apart the specifics of this binary aesthetic operation, but the band manages to pluck the twangers of both innocence and experience with equal vigor -- ambidextrous William Blake aktion of the highest order. The vocal and instrumental blends here range from beautifully pure to emotionally amplified, with lyrical topics that flow from nature's seasonal changes to the war in Ukraine. But everything is bathed in the same crafty light of sophisticated primitivism that illuminates the work of Michael Hurley (who has told me he's a long time Blossoms fan.) The homespun simplicity of this musical approach is wonderfully comforting and familiar, but the lyrics contains enough coded mystery (or at least sublime vaguery) to keep attentive listeners occasionally wondering what the hell is actually going on. And really, the only answer is, hey -- it's The Cherry Blossoms. There's nothing else exactly like them. So do yourself a favor and stock the hell up. You never know when you'll need a jolt of their essential whatsis. But need it you will." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 761LP
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"MX-80 Sound are one of the foundational underground rock bands of the last half century. Formed in the university town of Bloomington IN in 1974, the original version came about when Bruce Anderson and Dale Sophiea (from Screaming Gypsy Bandits) teamed up with Rich Stim and Dave Mahoney (from Chinaboise), adding another couple of drummers for extra confusion. Things fluxxed and mutated for a while. MX-80 played the Bloomington Public Library and rehearsed a lot. They opened for Patti Smith, one drummer left and they recorded the great Big Hits EP in '76 for local label BRBQ. Reviewed in Sounds by Carline Coons, the EP got the band a deal by which UK Island licensed and released their equally great first album, Hard Attack, in '77. Another drummer left and MX-80 Sound moved to San Francisco, where they made a couple of amazing albums for the Residents' label, Ralph. Drummers changed, but Anderson, Stim and Sophiea remained fairly constant, and together they created a signature sound featuring massive repeating guitar riffs, biting angular rhythms and casually surreal vocals. Over the years they all did their own things, but regularly rehearsed together as MX-80, at which point things generally coalesced into an easily identifiable (impossibly to categorize) style. As great as their live sets were, they didn't tour often, but every time I saw them they were superb. And the recordings that came from their regular meet-ups are as brilliant as they are idiosyncratic. Better Than Life was recorded shortly before the death of Bruce Anderson, which assures it will be the final MX-80 studio album, and it's a wonderful testament to how long you can keep creating fresh and vital avant rock music without ever making any goddamn money doing it. Better Than Life sounds great. Anderson's guitar is a huge as ever, Stim's movie-oriented lyric inventions and wry delivery are as weirdly dead pan as could be, Dael Sophiea's bass defines the urgent edges of the songs, and the other players -- guitarists John Moreman and Jim Hrabetin, bassist Chris Xefos, and drummer Nico Sophiea (son of Dale) -- are spot-on. Together, they create a lovely, complex and intelligent mix of the wildest avant-prog/punk-rock hybrid you'll never hear again. As much as we'll miss MX-80 Sound, their legacy will live forever, and the crazy blend of elements they created with such unforced power should stand as a challenge to every new band that comes along. This album demonstrates it's indeed possible to create a unique sound for yourself with enough interior space you can explore its mysterious sonic corridors for almost 50 years. This should be enough to give us all hope, and we should offer thanks to MX-80 for creating such a fine and freaky aesthetic model. If more artists followed their path, we'd all live a much better world." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 762LP
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"Bassist Margarida Garcia and guitarist Manuel Mota are two of the best-known string wielders from Lisbon's active improvising community. Both players work the edges of sound and form in ways that don't fit neatly into any genre category, while creating exciting sonic landscapes that appeal equally to fans of avant-garde rock, free jazz and experimental music. They have worked together frequently in a variety of formats -- duo, quartet, etc. -- but Margarida is the only one Feeding Tube has issued work by previously -- 2022's superb Good Night CD (FTR 716CD). That album was a wonderfully abstract collection of bass-generated sounds hovering in the mist, illuminated from within like the rotating lights of a swamp-bound UFO. Domestic Scene displays some of those same qualities, but the four tracks provide equal space to allow Mota's electric guitar to play around with autonomous musical ideas on a parallel track. It often feels as though there is deep communication going on between the players, but there is also a sense of this activity occurring in a sort of dream time, and possibly in languages that appear similar without being the same at all. Regardless, the music here is beautiful and engaging in a way that only true Intermedia art (in the classic Fluxus sense) can be. It refuses to exist within boundaries, forcing us to ponder its conceptual basis at the same time we dig the way it sounds. The fundamentally transitional nature of the music adds a layer of intellectual discord that otherwise wouldn't exist. And we as listeners can either engage with the questions it raises or choose to just enjoy it as sound art. Either way, it's a damn fine spin. So dig in, baby." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 650LP
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"It is absolutely appropriate the second volume of Wednesday Knudsen's Soft Focus suite appears as spring finally begins to take hold. Like the brilliant first section of this work (the whole of which was initially released on CD), the music here is a celebration of shimmering sunlight and the awakening of nature's tonal brilliance. But where the first LP focused on more bite-sized pieces of work, this one envisions and documents instrumental horizons that are ever expanding. The first of the three tracks, 'Sunshine,' is the shortest, and picks up where Volume One left off -- slow single note electric piano runs with lightly buzzing sustain that are darker than the song title suggests, but utterly devoid of overt bummer tongues. The way the keys' edges are muted for its ending feels like washing your hands in a bag of rough-cut diamonds. The second, 'Ariel's Letter and the Rain,' has a mysterious title that turns out to be far less abstract than you might imagine. It references a friend making some suggestions involving the rhythms and flow of nature at a crucial moment in the tune's gestation. As simple as that, and the resultant sounds are stunning. The final, side-long 'Soft Focus II' begins with the same slow-massed notes that end 'Soft Focus I,' but it mostly explores long tones generated by two or three notes that fluctuate and pulse like soft drops of dew on a car's window, drooling to the wind's commands while accreting size and strength. After a while, things shift to small piano figures that repeat and mutate casually, before cascading upwards with a sense of coalescent rebirth. Unlike Soft Focus Volume I, there are no vocals on this album, but the music creates its own meditative language that will transport you from wherever you happen to be, into warm sunshine and air filled with the languorous scents of earth awakening. Paradise is rarely this portable." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 766LP
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LP version. Mayday is the third LP by Montreal-based artist, Myriam Gendron. It follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma Délire: Songs Of Love, Lost & Found (2021). Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), with Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound. Most of the songs are original, sung in both English and French, and they blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. She is often accompanied on this album by the guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White), whose work provides a quietly aggressive sort of free-rock base. Additional players include Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lovie, Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba. Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. The music here certainly possesses a richly serious tone, but Myriam Gendron (like Leonard Cohen) is able to infuse her darkness with a subtle, powerful light that reminds listeners that even the most pitch-black night is but a transitional state. Beautiful work. Recorded at home and at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shea Brossard. Mastered by Harris Newman.
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FTR 757LP
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Edition of 300. "For his fourth Feeding Tube release, Curtis Godino (now a resident of the greater Nashville area) has created a soundtrack album for a destroyed film that exists only in his mind. Playing with a raft of fine musicians, unencumbered by having to match his music up with actual extant images, Curtis has created a suite of tunes that are stylistically connected to his earlier works, yet expand themselves into hitherto unexplored realms. A well-regarded maestro of the organ and Mellotron, Curtis's music has long reminded certain listeners of Frank Zappa's best mid '60s instrumental work -- music tied to the friendlier edge of 20th Century avant garde traditions, infused with a sort of rockist approach. And this is still true on Discorporation (a term perhaps most famously used on the Mothers' Absolutely Free LP), although the music here also references Ennio Morricone, Wendy Carlos, and even Angelo Baldalamenti, with results that are as cinematic as all get out. There are ten players besides Curtis on Discorporation, and the only ones whose names I recognize are the D'Addaroio brothers from the Lemon Twigs. But they all sound great. Huge reeking waves of sound spill out of the speakers just about begging you to close your eyes, rub them hard and start creating a personal movie inside your skull. Something with a huge Technicolor expanse filled with rubbery little cactus plants and guys who walk their horses into phone booths and then disappear. The imaginational possibilities suggested by Godino's fat orchestral sound can haul your brain in almost any direction you're capable of visualizing. And frankly, it transports me back to my first immersive experiences with music, sprawled on the carpet of my parents' living room, listening to the Frank Chackfield Orchestra's recording of Ernest Gold's theme for Stanley Kramer's 1959 movie, On the Beach, on their Motorola console stereo. Never having seen the film, I was freed to imagine its story unfolding in any way I wanted, and doing just that was one of my favorite ways to spend a rainy afternoon in 1960. Sixty-four years later, Godino is offering us all the same chance once again. And anyone who doesn't take him up on the offer is a goddamn duffer. Brilliant stuff, man." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 766X-LP
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LP version. Green color vinyl. Mayday is the third LP by Montreal-based artist, Myriam Gendron. It follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma Délire: Songs Of Love, Lost & Found (2021). Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), with Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound. Most of the songs are original, sung in both English and French, and they blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. She is often accompanied on this album by the guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White), whose work provides a quietly aggressive sort of free-rock base. Additional players include Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lovie, Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba. Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. The music here certainly possesses a richly serious tone, but Myriam Gendron (like Leonard Cohen) is able to infuse her darkness with a subtle, powerful light that reminds listeners that even the most pitch-black night is but a transitional state. Beautiful work. Recorded at home and at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shea Brossard. Mastered by Harris Newman.
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FTR 766CD
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Mayday is the third LP by Montreal-based artist, Myriam Gendron. It follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma Délire: Songs Of Love, Lost & Found (2021). Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), with Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound. Most of the songs are original, sung in both English and French, and they blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. She is often accompanied on this album by the guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White), whose work provides a quietly aggressive sort of free-rock base. Additional players include Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lovie, Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba. Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. The music here certainly possesses a richly serious tone, but Myriam Gendron (like Leonard Cohen) is able to infuse her darkness with a subtle, powerful light that reminds listeners that even the most pitch-black night is but a transitional state. Beautiful work. Recorded at home and at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shea Brossard. Mastered by Harris Newman.
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FTR 750LP
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"MB Jones and Rey Sapienz first encountered one another in 2018. Jones was living in South Korea and visited Kampala, Uganda with his partner. Before their trip he was surprised to find that the Nyege Nyege label knew of him through his ROK SPY record, which had even led certain label associates to wonder if, because of that project's presentation, he was an actual secret agent. Jones stayed for a few days at Villa Nyege, where label co-founder Arlen Dilsizian introduced him to Rey Sapienz. Prompted by a question Jones had about a man in Uganda building rockets in his backyard, Dilsizian had the notion to name the band after a Congolese rocket program, and recording ensued. Plans for Jones to return were dashed by a global pandemic, and thus the pair were forced, like so many, to work remotely. Processing of their initial sessions yielded the Grey Parrots cassette, released in an edition of 100. For this next album, they wanted something that more closely resembled songs. Jones crafted instrumental tracks and sent them to Sapienz, who handled the vocals and written word. Results were returned to Jones to be wrangled into their final versions. Along the way, a host of guest artists contributed as well. Jones was chuffed to get Otim Alpha on a track, and Northeast underground heads will be pleased as punch with the riotous appearance of Fat Worm of Error's Tim Sheldon. Among others. The music draws from disparate cultural touchstones to create its own vernacular. Enticing and unpredictable rhythms abound, punctuated by groovy loops, layers, and conglomerates of mechanical tones and atmospheres. Some songs are full of high frequencies and high energy, some swim in darker psychedelic waters. Some are spastic and crammed with information, some embrace space and breath. The vocals are uniformly excellent. The elements are mashed up, but it's a far cry from the stale concept of a 'mashup,' where familiar elements get bolted together in a clever manner that makes adults say, 'Wow, that's neat!' The music of Troposphere 7 blends sounds and styles as painters mix pigments to create something magical. To Keyi Toko Zonga a stunning experience, showcasing a highly sophisticated sense of possibility. Whether or not there will be another Troposphere 7 album remains to be seen and, to a degree, doesn't matter. What counts is that we have this marvelous LP. Given the creative restlessness of the participants, who knows if they'd want to do it all again anyway. This is art made for the moment it's in, reveling in the reality it conjures. So be here now, you won't regret it." --Matt Krefting, 2024
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FTR 758LP
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"A very nice return to unadorned acoustic guitar playing by one of the form's masters. Allred's last album for FTR, What Strange Flowers Grow in the Shade (FTR 656LP) was more of an imaginary band outing, but Folk Guitar plays it straight. Joseph reports they'd been listening to a lot to pieces by 16th-century composer, John Dowland, and the solo work of Pentangle's John Renbourn while this album was gestating. They also note Hammer Studio horror-film soundtracks as a touchstone for certain tunes, while others were inspired by the music in Chinese fantasy TV shows, and poetic fragments by Sappho. All of which means, this is another deeply considered and beautifully rendered set of tunes by this Tennessee-based rambler. Unlike some of Allred's early solo work, which manifested the same sort of syncretic brassiness as Robbie Basho's Takoma-era work, several of the pieces here display an extreme clarity of attack that reminds me a bit of British guitarist, John Pearse, whose work also explored folk and classical traditions (sometimes simultaneously). But of course, Allred's playing is as original as always. They manage to blend whatever influences they have consumed into perfect gems of musical karma -- each facet glimmering like a transcendental star. Folk Guitar is a work of unalloyed brilliance, and will prove to be a boon companion for anyone attuned to the art of solo guitar music." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 756LP
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Feeding Tube announces The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol LP. Verdun is the first studio LP this war-torn group have recorded in some time and boy oh boy what a magnificent freewheelin', incendiary and blissed out racket TBWNIS have conjured. Over the last 15 years there are few groups that have been more prolific or dedicated to pushing psychedelic rock and all things cosmic to its limits. With Verdun their sound has become even more expansive -- Scott Thompsons' outer zone zonk horn blowing... Jason Vaughan and Chris Laramee deep space swirling on synth/keys... Bill Guerrero's twelve-string is shimmering and Brydsian but this is the jangle of nails down your spinal chord? Dave Reford untamed and unleashed and going full tilt with Nathaniel Hurlow, and John Westhaver precise and driving. Verdun contains three monstrous compositions where shimmering tones unfold into sinister drone-territory which resemble German pioneers Neu! playing "This Heat!," where abrasive guitars and wild riffing, repetitive beats and raw primitivism are densely packed into a larger-than-life sound that never stops climbing skywards -- never have TBWNIS sounds so euphoric playing their brand of ecstatic rock 'n' roll. For anyone that likes to get lost in sound -- Verdun is a sonic amusement part -- close your eyes and climb aboard this rollercoaster, strap yourself in tight and let yourself get lost in the heaviest of vibrations as you go for a breathless physical/visceral ride. TBWNIS are one of the essential groups of the world's psychedelic underground and Verdun is a freaked-out trip.
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FTR 399CS
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"Tekla Peterson is the new pop-oriented solo project helmed by Wisconsin's Taralie Peterson. Peterson has been a member of Spires That In the Sunset Rise since their founding in 2001. Most recently a duo with Ka Baird, Spires has a sound that began deeply rooted in underground folk music, but evolved into a much more overtly jazzoid space. We released their 2017 collaboration LP with Chicago percussionist Michael Zerang, Illinois Glossalia (FTR 285LP). But Peterson has always had solo projects going. First she had Tar Pet, an exceedingly fine exploration of so-called wyrd folk. Later there was more avant/jazz-oriented, Louise Bock, with whom we did a 2017 solo LP, Repetitives in Illocality (FTR 374LP) and 2021's All Summer Long Is Gone (FTR 382LP) -- a duo album with string wizard, Pat 'PG Six' Gubler. More recently we have been introduced to a 'pop' persona, Tekla Peterson, who debuted with a 2022 cassette called Heart Press. Heart Press was created in reaction to the end of a long personal relationship, and is a cool, uneasy pairing of contempo-pop readymades and lyrics questioning some foundational aspects of romance. Mine to Give is Tekla's similarly-styled, though constantly evolving, sophomore effort. Assisted by Rob Jacobs on bass and beats, Peterson's vocals, keys, bass and sax are up front at all times, and do a massively fine job defining a musical/emotional space that is simultaneously pop-oriented and avant-garde. The songs and arrangements often have a surface feel akin to something you'd hear on commercial radio, but there are lots of strange experimental textures and techniques that enliven, enrich and transform the material into something that is transcendently 'other.' Parts sound a bit like what I imagine Taylor Swift has going. Inside those walls you'll hear echoes of acid folk, avant-jazz and post-industrial compositions, but only if you pay careful attention. As with other female artists who began their journey in the sub-underground and kept going (Natalie Mering's Weyes Blood, Meg Remy's U.S. Girls), Peterson creates deeply coded music with enough surface sheen to keep slow pokes from ever perceiving what's going on in the depths. The spelunker's pay-off. Great stuff." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 765LP
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"Engelchen" literally translates as "little angels," and for many in the febrile, dangerous era of the 1930s in Nazi-occupied Europe, as they wrote letters to arrange their paths out of danger as refugees, these were Ida and Louise Cook. Ida and Louise spent much of their early years in Sunderland, and in adulthood lived in a suburb of London with their parents. They were enormous fans of opera, and led relatively quiet and unfussy lives, Ida working for the civil service as a secretary and Louise as a writer of Mills & Boon romances under a pseudonym. Yet secretly these resourceful and eccentric women were using their musical obsessions as a means to help dozens of refugees escape with their lives. Their secretive heroics now almost beggar belief, and when Alison Cotton, herself from Sunderland, first discovered their story, she couldn't understand why it wasn't more widely known. Furthermore, she was inspired by their courage, fortitude and derring-do to compose Engelchen, a musical tribute to the duo's lives and work, first performed at Seventeen Nineteen Holy Church in Sunderland and now a full-length release by Rocket Recordings. Engelchen is a work which builds a bridge between the emotional intensity of the music that inspired the Cook sisters and the bravery and jeopardy of their lives. This story is relayed by Alison Cotton, whether acapella or by means of richly emotive string arrangements, with a deftness of touch, sensitivity and intensity that matches the feverish nature of the experiences and the unforgiving environs in which they took place. Summoning foley work to sum up the atmospheres of the sister's journeys (from train noises to the sound of gulls on the English coast, to the ominous military drumbeat) Engelchen is a transporting work whose spirit is situated in a very specific time and place. In putting together Engelchen, Alison met up with refugees living in the UK today via the charity North East Rise to discover the challenges they've faced on their journey, and those experiences ultimately found their way into a new version of the piece's eponymous track, connecting the Cook sisters' story to 2024. This is more than merely an inspirational tribute to two mavericks who beat the odds in an unforgettable feat of altruism. It's a celebration of the human spirit, one that reflects a universality in its narrative which transcends the boundaries of history and impacts very urgently on our daily lives. Whatever attempts may be made to tell this story, it's hard to imagine one that resonates deeper than Engelchen. Co-release with Rocket Recordings.
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FTR 742LP
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"Beautiful third LP helmed by multi-instrumentalist/tape manipulator, Brian Lucas. Following up on 2021's The Incandescent Switch (FTR 606LP) and 2022's The Air's Chrysalis Chime (FTR 675LP), Quartz Hive is a post-pandemic swirl of cloud sound based on the kind of music that makes all your inner walls melt like wax. Lucas has a wonderful way of creating clusters of texture that circle the room, slowly accreting bits of lovely ambient sound that transform themselves from vague suggestions into full-blown songs without adhering to any logic other than their own. Some of the players colluding here are Old Million Eye vets, like Steven R. Smith, Sheila Bosco, and Kevin Van Yserloo. But there are many new heads on the scene as well, like harpist Ceylan Hay (Bell Lungs) and saxophonist Zekarias Thompson (Agnes Martian), who adds a distinct Canterbury flavor to the tunes on which he plays. Like Lucas's other current outfits, like 43 Odes and Dire Wolves, Old Million Eye makes psychedelic music that glides through your head with startling originality. There's very little here that hews to stereotypical psych formulae, but its tendrils still manage to engage all your dream receptors with delicate power and grace. Music as deep as any tab in any ocean. Quarts Hive is a sonic delivery vehicle of singular beauty. Gorgeous stuff." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 754LP
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"Finely thuggish debut LP by a trio led by guitarist Micah Blue Smaldone, a well-known figure in the same South Portland Maine scene that gave us Big Blood and other treats. Indeed, Micah's fourth solo album was a split with Big Blood, but the fingerpicking sound of his solo recordings is a far cry from Wake in Fright. WIF are a trio. Micah plays guitar, Greg Bazinet plays bass, Jonas Eule plays drums, and all of them add vocals. It was Greg who sort of got things going when he convinced Micah to record some demos in 2022. Because of the lousy quality of almost everything in that year, the material Micah put together ended up being a lot harsher and hard-edged than anything he'd done since his days with the Pinkerton Thugs. Greg and Jonas eventually decided to assemble WIF to perform these songs the way they were supposed to be played -- loud, proud and punky. The models Micah had used while writing were largely '70s Australian bands -- from AC/DC to the Saints -- but to my ear, he has gotten pretty close to recreating the same vibe as that which drove early '80s Mission of Burma. Indeed, many of WIF's songs have the same lop-sided anthemic weirdness that Clint Conley's tunes in Burma did. There is also a whiff of the Twin Cities in their propulsion. I can hear echoes of both the Suicide Commandos and mid-period Husker Du inside WIF's manic churn. And like both those bands, they display a lot of attention to central riffs as a compositional motif, with the vocals howling to keep up. Very cool stuff. I can almost close my eyes and imagine these guys on stage at the Underground in Allston during the long cold winter of 1981, when Reagan had just been sworn in as president and we really thought the world was gonna end. So maybe this is just the kinda music everyone needs when it's Crisis Time. Which means we probably need Wake in Fright right now. As much as we've ever needed anything in our lives. Selah, motherfucker." --Byron Coley, 2024
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FTR 755LP
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"From the sui generis pop Wonsongwriting mind of Ryan Power comes World of Wonder, his first album since 2020's Mind the Neighbors (FTR 519LP). Following a string of influential releases on the Vermont label NNA tapes, World of Wonder is Power's second release on Massachusetts imprint Feeding Tube Records. While its predecessor presented Power in a largely stripped down, acoustic setting with lush horn and string arrangements, World of Wonder has Power return to his characteristic hyper-produced, high-fidelity home studio to craft a set of ten songs which harmonically undulate, consistently surprise, and which all further solidifies him as one of the most engaging songsmiths of our time. Power, 48, describes the lyrical content of this album as reckoning with a 'midlife crisis' -- or maybe more appropriately, myriad crises -- which encompass breakups, regrets, reconciliations, a horrific bike accident, childhood traumas, and personal forgiveness through it all. Despite the remarkable candor with which these morose issues are delivered, Power makes sure to convey them with levity and a surprising amount of humor. Power has always lyrically been an open-book, and World of Wonder is perhaps his most personally revealing statement to date. To that point, he says: 'I love art where at one second it's hysterically funny, but then at the next it's tugging at your heartstrings.' World of Wonder is laden with imminently catchy earworms, and even as they oscillate in mood and approach, Power never once sacrifices his penchant for songcraft and intricate, crystalline structures. The album opens with the infectious masterpiece 'Psychic Mechanic,' whose fitting opening line has Power wondering about 'how many people [he's] disappointed,' within a 'jungle of misguided faith.' Other highlights include the buoyant 'Was That Love,' a reckoning of previous relationships; the highly emotive ballad 'Back Online' where Power croons about how 'everything is a little precarious;' 'Silent Star' where Power mourns the loss of a friendship with the potent 'It's true, I still love you/it's true, we are through,' the meaning of which comes across despite the line being delivered in something of a British accent; 'Dracula Reality' where the singer reflects on being painted as Dracula by his grandfather for Halloween in 1983 but using that as a trojan horse for questions of identity and anxiety of attention on himself. World of Wonder concludes with the exquisite eponymous track where Power begins by asserting that '[he's] amazed by the world around [him]' and that he gets 'lost in the world of wonder' -- within Ryan Power's idiosyncratic pop universe, we listeners likewise get lost and are astounded by his singular accomplishments." --Sam Weinberg, 2024
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FTR 734LP
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"Jaw Guzzi is the ninth LP Melted Men have released since 1995. This is reportedly the year they formed, but as with all Melted Things, there is little hard information to back this up. Like an earlier experimental 'rock' band from Northern California (by way of Louisiana), Melted Men have embraced something akin to Nigel Senada's Theory of Obscurity. Facts regarding the band's details are smudgy at best, and that's the way they like it. About all I could get out my contact for the group is that they are currently a six piece, with members based in France, Croatia, Holland and America. They seem to have initially been centered in or around Athens, Georgia. And while they play live infrequently, the reviews of shows I've managed to dig up seem to be amazingly freaked out and fucked up. Which comes as no surprise. I've not heard all their records, but the ones I have are as bizarre as they are beautiful, and the same is certainly true of Jaw Guzzi. The music is a tough-to-untangle bramble of live racket, pre-taped material and audio fuckery of unknown origins. There are surely comparisons to be made with artists like Orchid Spangiafora and Glands of External Secretion, but Melted Men display more overt musical structure than those collage-oriented maestros. I have the (perhaps misplaced) notion that Melted Men are able to recreate larger portions of this sonic smut in live performance. Like the aforementioned (or at least aforalluded-to) Residents, Melted Men mix 'actual' and pre-recorded material in a way that taps deep into the artistic vein of surrealist/dada-damage that has pumped through the best fringe culture for a century. There are also similarities to certain units of the L.A.F.M.S, as well as the Birmingham Alabama Surrealist coven that birthed the Say-Day-Bew and Trans Museq scenes. Most of the material here is instrumental, using sly pinches of style ranging from lounge-exotica to Gary Wilson-style porn-funk to noisy ethnic forgeries, the music flows like sweet hot lava, igniting everything it touches into woozy gouts of flame. Jaw Guzzi is a bracing goddamn spin, sure to please anyone who likes buzzing guitars, clonky percussion and cascades of dark weirdness. In the immortal words of Roald Dahl, 'better coffee than this, there isn't.'" --Byron Coley, 2023
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FTR 751LP
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"Having listened to this disk 20 or so times over the past week, I have been struck time and again by the gently naif quality of Dan Beckman-Moon's songwriting. I keep thinking of Neil Young's earliest solo tunes, particularly 'Sugar Mountain,' as a sort of spiritual touchstone, although truthfully the music doesn't really sound anything like that. Still, the emotional core of the material has a similar sweetness and simplicity, while managing to steer clear of mawkishness with a nimble delicacy that parallel's Neil's early work. I have come to think of Valley of Spaces as a collaborative effort between Dan and his partner, Amy Moon, but this album often feels much more like Dan's solo effort. Amy definitely shows up in spots, but I miss the weird edge she brings to everything she does. I mean, there's a reason she was one of the first people Chris Corsano picked when he was putting together the original Ecstatic Yod crew back in the '90s -- her off-kilter perspective adds depth and subtle strangeness to her entire oeuvre. The same is often true of Dan as well (he was in Impractical Cockpit, after all), but That's Understanding has a purist hippie quality that owes karmic debts to the waves and hills of Santa Cruz, where Villages was based for the Plague Years (the years during which this music was written and recorded.) Most of Villages's avant proclivities are put on-hold this time. And whether or not that was the plan, this decision provides a folky balm for the last few lost years. Amy, Caleb Mulkerin (Big Blood), Don Godwin (Impractical Cockpit), and others -- especially violinist Kaethe Hostetter -- add to the gentle vibes that abound on this album. It's a set of music that bears up to many repeated spins. A very charming slice, for sure." --Byron Coley, 2023
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FTR 733LP
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First Nod release from 1992, now on vinyl for the first time. Originally self-released as a CD, a subset of the recordings were perfectly re-mastered by James Plotkin for this slab of black vinyl. During the "year punk broke," this trio (and sometimes four-piece) were holed up in a Western NY enclave, perfecting their craft of imperfections. A combination of studio and home recordings, this self-titled gem perfectly introduces you to the charming shambly rock which Nod has been creating for the past 30+ years. And after many self-released CDs and singles, and while getting "this close" with a stint on Steve Shelly's Smells Like Records (Steve was the drummer of Sonic Youth), the band has been producing a solid string of releases for Rochester NY based Carbon Records. The release includes driving/catchy tunes like "Summertime" and "Running Into Trees," while "It Don't Bring Me Down" has a perfect overlay of strumming guitar, similar to the guitar interplay of Bowie and Ronson circa '72, on top of an intense groove, while then breaking down into a slow warble, giving you enough time to take a swig. The meat of the release consists of a great combination of scratchy-guitar rockers -- transitioning into the Dada-esque blues of "Hot Potatoes," and then finally ending with "Wooden Chair" and "Queens of Lattice," which could almost be cassette out-takes from Reed & co. Co-released with Carbon Records.
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FTR 735LP
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Albany, New York's Sky Furrows -- guitarist Mike Griffin, bassist Eric Hardiman, drummer Phil Donnelly and poet/vocalist Karen Schoemer -- release their second album, Relect and Oppose. Recorded in 2022 with Justin Pizzoferrato at Sonelab Studios and Pete Donnelly at Katonah Sound, the album's eight songs crush and crunch, agitate and sprawl. All songs were written by Schoemer/Grifin and arranged by Sky Furrows, except for "Koba Grozny," with music by Grifin and words adapted by Schoemer from Martin Amis's 2002 book Koba the Dread. Sky Furrows formed in 2016 and released their self-titled debut album in 2020 on Tape Drift/Skell/Philthy Rex Records, but band members had been crossing each other's paths for decades. Schoemer and Hardiman overlapped in the late '80s at WCWM, a college radio station in Virginia. In the late '80s and '90s, Donnelly used to trek from his home in Saratoga Springs to Hoboken, New Jersey to see shows at the legendary club Maxwell's, where Schoemer was a regular. By the mid 2000's all four were living upstate. Grifin, Hardiman and Donnelly have roots in the local experimental scene and are longtime members of Albany psych band Burnt Hills. Schoemer, a former music critic for the New York Times, was developing her craft as a poet and began contributing to music projects around 2013. She has an MFA in creative writing from The Writer's Foundry in Brooklyn, NY and collaborates with Mike Watt in the bassvoice duo Jaded Azurites and with Oli Heffernan and his rotating cast of free-jazzers in Ivan the Tolerable. Grifin records and performs as Parashi and with the band Valley of Weights; Hardiman operates solo as Rambutan and plays in Century Plants and Spiral Wave Nomads. Sky Furrows' aggregated knowledge of, dedication to, and participation in postpunk, psych and experimental music scenes is vast and deep. This institutional commitment infuses every moment of Relect and Oppose. Grifin's razor shred and calamitous distortion and a foil in Schoemer's semi-spoken delivery and onslaught of observations and images. In "Shopping Bags" a woman doesn't realize the loneliness she's carrying around, while "No Cause for Concern" relentlessly builds into a mental and physical breakdown. Hang on the words or cruise on waves of sound -- Relect and Oppose melds both, forcefully.
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FTR 730LP
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Co-released with Repetidor. With five albums released, several tours around Spain, Europe, Uruguay and the United States in which he has paired among others with Geoff Farina (Karate) or Glenn Jones and even performed at the legendary John Fahey tribute festival in Takoma Park, Maryland (The Thousand Incarnations of the Rose), the passing of time has consolidated Isasa's musical career to the point of winning the praise of such exquisite critics as Byron Coley or Wire magazine, the blessing of masters of the new guitar such as Max Ochs or Richard Osborn, as well as the unanimous admiration and recognition of his contemporaries. Now, after a decade of solo career and the recently released debut of his current side project, Burro (featuring Trice), Conrado Isasa presents this fifth studio album, entitled Canciones de amor (Love songs). Sublime artefact with which the guitarist from Madrid (of Uruguayan origin) celebrates love in capital letters, through one of the purest poetic articulations that exist: the form without words. In this case, song without words. Recorded with Carasueño in Lar de maravillas, Zaragoza, although the album incorporates new timbres as far as instrumentation is concerned; such as the autoharp of Lorena Álvarez, the voice of Trice, the synthesizers and the piano of Carasueño himself and even suggestive voices stolen in the intimacy; all of this works at the service of the melody. A narrative melody that responds, concatenates and harmonises, displaying a polyphonic palette of chromatic relations that is so expressive that it moves. Isasa masters the tempos of melodic language like almost no one else nowadays (much less in the genre). What's more, in these compositions his skill is such that the maestro gradually, partially and carefully -- in chiaroscuro -- unveils the refractory legacy of his life experience to place it, bravely, before us. In doing so, he achieves the most difficult thing: to turn his life into music, to touch the universal.
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FTR 697LP
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"Like last year's brilliant Wings Dipped in Fire (FTR 398CS, 2023), this new album was recorded by Taylor Hales at Chicago's Electrical Audio. But this time, the duo (once known at Mako Sica) is joined not just by keyboard/trumpet master Thymme Jones, but also percussionist Hamid Drake, bassist Tatsu Aoki (on shamisen) and bassist Joshua Abrams. A total post-form all-star line-up, with more combined chops than a breakfast table crammed with lumberjacks. The mood on june 22 is weird and simmering. Blasts of heat alternate with spaced-out jam abstractions with Brent Fuscaldo's vocals and Przemyslaw Krys Drazek's guitar and trumpet dodging in and out of available crevices. As with all of this combo's recent music, exactly what genre they occupy is not easy to say. This is something they share with this generation of Chicago improvisers, who often seem to begin in jazz, but evolve into something much more intangible, mysterious and beautiful. Just as Abrams' Natural Information Society is making sounds requiring multi-hyphonic descriptives, so Drazek Fuscaldo have dissolved categorical confines, although their journey to this point began in a rock (or post-rock) formulation. By now the music contains multitudes -- jazz, folk, world music, avant-garde experimentalism and beyond. It defies being called anything other than MUSIC. Great music. And to quote the Captain once again, 'If you got ears, you gotta listen.' Don't know what else to say, except june 22 is a killer." --Byron Coley, 2023
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FTR 739LP
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"Vinylization of the splendid 2021 cassette, issued by Garden Portal. The music was recorded partially out west in San Francisco and Point Reyes (hence the title), as well as in Jeffrey Alexander's current locale of Philadelphia. An instrumental addition to Alexander's canon, the music was mostly generated on guitar, but other sonic elements include -- bass, pebbles, fake mellotron, waves, moog, shells, fife, magnetic tape, and talking book phonograph. The results are a sweet, rural stroll through the kind of mind gardens the various off-shoots of the Youngbloods explored back in the Raccoon Records era, when they were based in Point Reyes as well. Reyes's other main counter-culture avatar was Philip K. Dick, who lived there for a few years in the late '50s and early '60s. But Jeffrey's music displays none of the red-hot paranoia that flashed through PKD's work of that time. If anything, the mood is paranoia's antidote -- a rolling, casual float through cheeb-scented air with lots going on around the edges, but none of it in the least bit threatening. Given the loud sluice of Alexander's recent work with the Heavy Lidders, Reyes feels laid back and reflective, but there's nothing wrong with that. Indeed, there's everything right with it. In times like this, when the cultural shit storm shows no sign of abating, we can all use a record that allows us to lay back and center ourselves. Reyes is just that kind of record, and man is it ever perfectly timed for just such a moment as this." --Byron Coley, 2023
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