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Artist: ARCN TEMPL
Title: Emanations of a New World
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 39'aaTrx: 8
Catalogue Number: URCD030 / Shokyo3
Released: May 27, 2010
Recorded: Performed and recorded 2008-2010 by Leslie Low and Vivian Wang.
Mixed by Leslie Low.
1.Innocence & Ignorance
2.Three Realms
3.Wandering in an Empty Forest
4.Four Rivers of Melancholy Audio
5.Eighteen Steps of Evil
6.The Looming of Nothing
7.Dread Mountain Audio
8.A Thousand Arms of Mercy
Vivian Wang and Leslie Low, both of The Observatory, recount childhood memories of mythological fantasy theme park called Haw Par Villa. First called Tiger Balm Garden, the odd but colorful attraction contained a strange mix of characters and familiar tales from Chinese mythology and folklore, mixed in with earthy depictions of modern life and the Chinese concept of hell. The mutual love and dread of the park is told over eight recordings. Voice, guitar, percussion and other traditional instrumentation weave a cloth of surreal bliss, eeriness and horror.
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Artist: RM74
Title: Reflex
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 49'aaTrx: 11
Catalogue Number: URCD045
Released: May 27, 2010
Recorded: Recorded, arranged, mixed and mastered by Reto Mäder at Hinterzimmer,
Bern, 2007-2010. Reto Mäder: guitars, strings, percussion, piano, electronics, kalimba,organ, synthesizer, effects.
1.Early Morning Fog
2.Temporal Resolution Audio
3.Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
4.The Human Factor
5.Organ-Origami
6. Send a Message in C Flat Morse Code
7.Incremental Shift Audio
8.Garden of the Lower Lights
9.Ripple Tank
10.Slowly Up and Digital Down...
11. ...To Earth
Reflex is the fifth solo album by Switzerland's Reto Mäder (Ural Umbo, Sum of R, Pendulum Nisum) as RM74. A creepy, paranoid record of sinister melody and complex structure. Electronics, organ, synthesizer, guitars and other instrumentation drifts in and out of bizarre atmospherics. The tracks gain emotional resonance as they move among vexing swells of dense, rotting psychedelia. Presented in a heavy matte sleeve printed with dark metallic ink. Includes fold out insert. Photograph by Phillip Nesmith.
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Artist: M. Bassett/J. Gräf
Title: Peradam
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 39'aaTrx: 3
Catalogue Number: URCD047
Released: May 27, 2010
Recorded: Recorded Jan 2010 at DeKlab, NYC. All music by M.Bassett and J. Gräf.
1.Zero As Sky
2.Black Waters Glow Audio
3.Phantasmagorical Mapping Audio
In Rene Daumal’s Mount Analogue, a peradam is described as a clear and extremely hard stone, a true crystal. It is so transparent that it is nearly impossible to see. To discover a peradam was always the result of an inner act. At said moment in time, the stone's brilliance might catch the eye of one who seeks the truth. Most peradams were found on the rough and dangerous trails up the mountain. Peradam is the result of Marcia Bassett (Zaimph, Hototogisu) and Jenny Gräf (Harrius, Metalux) collaborating to map the arrival of their music. The three recordings on display reveal grainy, melodic vocal expressions combined with ritualistic, slow-burning noise and both women's belief in mysterious creativity. Photograph by Masahiro Miyasaka.
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Artist: Ural Umbo
Title: Latent Defects
Price: $7
Format: C40aaEdition: 200
Length: 38'aaTrx: 6
Catalogue Number: URCS043
Released: May 27, 2010
Recorded: Recorded in Bern and Chicago by Reto Mäder and Steven Hess. Mixed and mastered by Reto Mäder at Hinterzimmer, Bern. Based on material from URCD040.
Side A
1.Unknown Chemistry
2.Like a Supine Form Audio
3.Deeply Afflicted
Side B
1.Behind the Curtains
2.Elastic Curve
3.Final Acousma...Before The End Audio
Sister EP to the s/t debut release. Utilizing source material from the original recordings, Latent Defects is an meeting of bleak atmospherics and wintry incantation.
Black or translucent red cassette. Photograph by Rik Garrett.
This item is exclusive to Utech Records.
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SOLD OUT
Artist: Locrian
Title: Drenched Lands
Price: $30
Format: 8-trackaaEdition: 13
Length: 34'aaTrx: 5
Catalogue Number: UR8X046
Released: March 27, 2010
1.Obsolete Elegy In Effluvia and Dross
2.Ghost Repeater
3.Barren Temple Obscured by Contaminated Fogs
4.Epicedium
5.Obsolete Elegy In Cast Concrete
Drenched Lands was a huge album for underground superstars Locrian. So huge, in fact, that there seems to be no amount of available formats able to contain it. Not cd. Not lp. Not even cass. Drenched Lands required a format so archaic and unplayable as to put the final nail in the coffin. The corpse must never rise again. After lengthy negotiation Utech Records has secured the rights to issue this incredible album on 8-track. Each tape was painstakingly recorded on AGFA 45 Lear Jet Stereo 8 blanks using the Cadillac of vintage machines, the Sony TC-228. Make no mistake that this is the ULTIMATE edition. Only thirteen copies made.
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Artist: Hasegawa-Shizuo
Title: Lift
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 43'aaTrx: 1
Catalogue Number: URCD029 / Shokyo2
Released: January 23, 2010
Recorded: Recorded in Tokyo, Japan, 2009.Hasegawa Hirotomo and Uchida Shizuo all instruments.
1.Lift Audio Ia Audio II
It was on a night when sleep simply would not come, not matter how long
I sprawled on the grass or how many pages of my book I leafed through.
The black shaggy 'thing' expelled all the breath in its body.
Phu phu phuu.
And as it did so, something glowed softly at the crown of its head.
"Ahh, what a beautiful light! I should put a hat over it to stop it flying away."
The black shaggy thing took his favourite hat, the one he had hung from
a tree branch, and popped it onto his head.
"Perfect."
Hirotomo Hasegawa and Shizuo Uchida. Hasegawa was the lead singer of seminal early eighties Japanese punk/hardcore group Aburadako (Greasy Octopus), while Uchida was a long-term member of Haino's Nijiumu medieval dream-drone unit. The recording is the result of unedited improvisation. A beatific recording filled with light and avidity.
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Artist: Ural Umbo
Title:
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 47'aaTrx: 9
Catalogue Number: URCD040
Released: January 23, 2010
Recorded: Recorded in Bern and Chicago by Reto Mäder and Steven Hess.Mixed and mastered by Reto Mäder at Hinterzimmer, Bern. Roger Ziegler (guest musician on 1 and 7).
1.The Lights Would Stop Flickering
2.Theme of the Paranormal Feedback Audio
3.Förlåta Jag
4.Voices from the Room Below
5.Don't Eat Carrots, My Little Ghost Horse
6.Stumbling Upon Blood and Mercury Audio
7.Pendulum Impact Test
8.Among the Bones
9.Mathieu 2004-2009
Ural Umbo is Reto Mäder (Sum of R, RM74) and Steven Hess (On, Haptic) electrifying internal music through a broad spectrum of instrumentation. Horns, piano, organ, harmonium, bass guitar, strings, electronics, drums and percussion guide the formation of black, subliminal melodies and slow feedback accompaniments. Each piece consumes the organic and dynamically balanced process that created it. With a nod to 1960s horror movie scoring Mäder and Hess displace sound from the veil of the supernatural and coax it back to our world. Presented in a heavy black/white sleeve with white translucent paper overlay. Photograph by Rik Garrett.
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Artist: Architeuthis Rex
Title: Dark as the Sea
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 64'aaTrx: 7
Catalogue Number: URCD041
Released: January 23, 2010
Recorded: Recorded and mastered by Antonio Gallucci in Blissland, Spring, 2007.
1.Untitled No.1
2.Cephalopedie Audio
3.Dark as the Sea
4.We Dream the Seashore
5.Another Kind of Blue Audio
6.Bbroke
7.Untitled No.2
Architeuthis rex. Leviathan. King. Magnificent sea dweller and haunter of the dreams of Italian artist Antonio Gallucci. Dark as the Sea is that dream, each of the seven recordings an aperture into a horrific underwater world filled with the fear of what lies outside. Together, the album is a kaleidoscope of Don Cherry's Brown Rice, backward masked King Tubby acetates, strange strings, outer space broadcasts of unholy funeral rites, mescaline, percussion and metaphysical drone. Illustration by John Rockwell.
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Artist: The Skull Defekts/The Sons of God
Title: Received in Studio Dental, Gothenburg
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 61'aaTrx: 1
Catalogue Number: URCD044
Released: January 23, 2010
Recorded: Received in Studio Dental, Gothenburg by Leif Elggren, Joachim Nordwall,
Henrik Rylander and Kent Tankred.
1.Received in Studio Dental Audio Ia Audio II
For the recording, Henrik Rylander and Joachim Nordwall of drone operators The Skull Defekts got together with the legendary performance and noise duo The Sons of God - consisting of conceptual artist and self-proclaimed king of the Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland Leif Elggren and electro-acoustic sound artist Kent Tankred. The place for the meeting was Rylander's Studio Dental and the album was received in one night. The process developed immediately and there was no struggle to find a common idea of sound. Rylander and Nordwall on no-input mixing desk and analog synths and Elggren and Tankred on amplified metallic rakes, an old fan and FX. Something was caught on tape. That something is what you are now listening to. Photograph by Carley King.
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Artist: Blood Fountains
Title: Floods
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 40'aaTrx: 6
Catalogue Number: URCD023 / URSK9
Released: August 8, 2009
Recorded: Recorded and mixed by Stephen Kasner, 2008-2009.
Music: Stephen Kasner, David Beaver, Yoshiko Ohara, Mat Woods and Cheryl Pyle.
1.Cold Flood/In
2.Head Found in Aptos
3.Spiritless Audio
4.White Wax Blood
5.Hemming Audio
6.Picture of Time and Space/Out
There is no beginning, there is no end, only perpetual oscillation between experience, memory and gravity. Emotion propels our lives, connected to one another and all things through infinity. Floods reaches inward, to the icy depths of the heart to touch and to return with ancient elements unfolding in spectral bliss and horror. Reality of pain and agony is equally married with yearning, dreaming and joyous exaltation. Stephen Kasner evokes a fully-realized painting-to-music translation, with collaborations by David Beaver, Mat Woods, Cheryl Pyle and the vexing vocals of Yoshiko Ohara (Bloody Panda). Floods calls forth a remarkable section of time and feeling, simultaneously compressed and unfurling. A frozen monster of memories, hope and love, and a constant reminder of death's door. Seamless, endless, connected energy. These are fragments of hauntings within us all. We must always remember.
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Artist: VagusNerve
Title: Lo Pan
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 58'aaTrx: 3
Catalogue Number: URCD028 / Shokyo1
Released: August 8, 2009
Li Jianhong: guitar. VAVABOND: laptop.
1.In the summer of 2006, Li made a dream about a lopan and a UFO. Audio
2.Vavabond felt some magical power hiding between the symbols, numbers and
text on the lopan.
3.No doubt. The lopan is a universe. Audio
The lo pan is an ancient, intricate compass used in the practice of traditional Chinese feng shui and is sometimes referred to as “the universe on a plate.” A lo pan consists of two parts – a square wooden base into which is fitted a freely rotating saucer-shaped disk. In the centre of the disk is a small depression containing a magnetized needle. Between the needle and the edge of the disk are engraved several concentric rings, each divided into sectors containing different sets of Chinese characters.
The relationship between this physical object and the music you hear on this album was inspired by a dream that Li Jianhong (guitar) had in June 2006. In his dream he came to a clearing in a dark forest which contained a huge lo pan, as big as a table. Convinced that the device could provide a way to summon UFOs, he lay down on the lo pan and began to rotate around the various symbols on the concentric rings. As he did so, a vast array of UFOs appeared above the forest. For Li Jianhong then, the lo pan represents a form of ancient knowledge that can be used to unlock the secrets of the universe. His collaborator in VagusNerve, VAVABOND (laptop), reads the lo pan in a slightly different way. For her, it is a device which can be used to discover a balance between the individual and the cosmos, by aligning personal energy with the cosmic. This idea of balance runs through the music as it pulses, shifts and resonates freely, seeking to create and then destroy structures of equilibrium.
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Artist: Horseback
Title: The Invisible Mountain
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 38'aaTrx: 4
Catalogue Number: URCD039
Released: August 8, 2009
Recorded: Recorded by Nick Petersen at Track and Field and by Jenks Miller at The Chateau. Mixed by Jenks at The Chateau. Music and lyrics written and performed by Jenks Miller. Drums on "Invokation", "Tyrant Symmetry", and "The Invisible Mountain" by John Crouch. Additional guitar on "Invokation" and "The Invisible Mountain" by Scott Endres. Additional processing on "Hatecloud Dissolving into Nothing" by Jon Mackey.
1.Invokation
2.Tyrant Symmetry Audio
3.The Invisible Mountain
4.Hatecloud Dissolving into Nothing Audio
As Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain was a satire of the western approach to self-actualization, Horseback's The Invisible Mountain is a work composed as a means to channel the self-destructive tendencies of its maker, Jenks Miller. The channeling process has required a functionally solipsistic worldview based on the efficacy of individual will in ascertaining its specific reality. This worldview, in turn, has caused a sort of fissure between social consciousness and individual consciousness.
In specific, the invisible mountain is an abstraction of the God-self in this whole process, a tenuous and ever-collapsing fabrication that perpetuates the individual psyche amidst processes that would otherwise destroy it or steal its creative power. The mountain itself is false: existing only to the individual as he climbs toward self-realization, and unknowable in any external reality; but it is as necessary as it is false. Without the fabrication, individual reality would crumble and one would be stripped of creative power.
The record itself is based on repetitive guitar riffs and drum patterns similar to mantras in meditation, blackened vocals referencing the uncomfortable tension between one's quest for transcendence and their unresolved relationship with the rest of society The tracks are devices to help maintain discipline in an attempt to conquer. The last track breaks from the mantras into a less rigorously controlled wash of sound. Liberation.
Pressed with black ink on a black translucent paper sleeve. All white inserts with poster.
Art by Russian occultist Denis Kostromitin.
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Artist: Aluk Todolo
Title: Finsternis
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 39'aaTrx: 5
Catalogue Number: URCD022 / URSK8
Released: May 30, 2009
Recorded: Recorded on the first of August, 2008. Mixed during the months following
by Aluk Todolo.
Shantidas Riedacker: guitar.
Antoine Hadjioannou: drums.
Matthieu Canaguier: bass.
1.Premier Contact Audio
2.Deuxième Contact
3.Totalité Audio
4.Troisième Contact
5.Quatrième Contact
Aluk Todolo are a recondite creature. Part okkult black metal fiend and part snide kraut menace. Somehow the doppelganger works and Finsternis proves for a second time there is brilliance in the absence of light. Dry, spare percussion grievously mines the scrapes, shrieks and shimmer of mutated guitar and bass. Finsternis is the German word for eclipse, mimetic of cyclic elements, phases and unphases, endless rebeginnings, broken circles and perfect circles. A dangerous, noxious coil of all things black.
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Artist: GOG
Title: Mist from the Random More
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 40'aaTrx: 3
Catalogue Number: URCD037
Released: May 30, 2009
Recorded: Track 1 recorded and performed by Michael Bjella. Track 2, recorded live in the Firebunker September 4, 2008 on KFJC, San Jose CA with Frank Davenport, Cythoth and KFJC.org, Nate Clement (keys/pedals), Josh Bodnar (drums) and Bjella (guitar/pedals). Drums on Track 3 performed by Mike Haffey. All songs/lyrics composed by Bjella.
1.Night Zoe
2.Mist from the Random More Audio
3.Gasp in a Fifty Pound Claw Audio
GOG is the musical device of guitarist Michael Bjella. And Mist from the Random More is a raw, psychedelic platen. An opaque, finespun paragon of heavy. Built around a lengthy track recorded live at KFJC, Mist becomes a hallucinogenic chimera of drums, guitar, keys and FX pedals that soothes and batters with the same hand. Pressed in a heavy, black paper sleeve screen printed with white ink. Illustration by John Rockwell.
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Artist: Olivier Dumont
Title: Living in Holes and Disused Shafts
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 47'aaTrx: 5
Catalogue Number: URCD038
Released: May 30, 2009
Recorded: Recorded in Dijon, France, June, 2008 (1-2) and January, 2009 (3-5).
Olivier Dumont: buzz cable (1), tape recorder (2), guitar (3,4,5).
1.Room 237 Audio
2.Peep Show Arcade
3.Should We Move on or Stay Safely Away?
4.R-Grey Audio
5.Living in Holes and Disused Shafts
Olivier Dumont is ancillary to the noise he summons. A vassal for what the sound requires of him. Enshrined in a mass of cables, amplifiers and lo-fi tape equipment Dumont is lead to places of insane genius. Living in Holes and Disused Shafts was cut from hours of demo material and the finished recordings bear the scars of the avulsion. Gritty and confrontational.
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Artist: Calcination
Title:
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 37'aaTrx: 3
Catalogue Number: URCD026
Released: March 28, 2009
Recorded: Recorded at Ausland, Berlin. Mixed and edited by Ktho Zoid in Berlin.
Antoine Chessex: tenor sax, electronics, amp.
Ktho Zoid: guitar, electronics, amp.
1.Shadows Audio
2.Chystka Audio
3.Let 100 Flowers Bloom
Calcination is the first stage in the process of alchemical transformation, the administration of heat until a given substance is reduced to ash. It is often symbolized by sulfuric acid, a powerful corrosive that eats away flesh and reacts with all metals except gold. In sociological terms, the fire of calcination represents turning to dust/life and death. Antoine Chessex (Monno) and Ktho Zoid approach their music similarly, burning through dense layers of sax and guitar. Amplification, feedback and reduction are applied until an impenetrable resin remains.
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Artist: Guillaume Gargaud
Title: She
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 39'aaTrx: 8
Catalogue Number: URCD027
Released: March 28, 2009
Recorded: Realized to Limoges, France, 2009.
Guillaume Gargaud: guitar and electronics.
1.Le Chien de José
2.La Légende du Scarabé
3.Mer du Nord Audio
4.Clairière
5.Géante Rougewave
6.Lumière Froide
7.Émissaire
8.Au Bord du Lac Audio
French improviser Guillaume Gargaud offers a recording of incisive sound, exposed through the glass of guitar and electronics. Subtly weaving dark sinew with touches of mysticism, She reveals a fabric threaded with beauty, malaise and acrid whispers. An unnerving and august collection of songs.
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Artist: RST
Title: Tomorrow's Void
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 66'aaTrx: 10
Catalogue Number: URCD020 / URSK6
Released: November 22, 2008
Recorded: Recorded by A. Moon in West Aukland, New Zealand, 2007-2008.
A. Moon: guitar.
1.Radiant Audio
2.Constellation Drive
3.Eternal City Ruins
4.Queen of Heaven Audio
5.When Fire Itself Came to be Understood as a Process
6.Burnt Armour
7.High Path
8.Planetfall
9.Tin Sun II
10.Blue Smoke Sword
New Zealand’s Andrew Moon has spent the past decade plus as RST, finding the one thing the electric guitar was truly meant to do - make a holy noise. Somewhere between the hum of the amplifier and the vibration of untouched strings lies electricity's nervous system. Sound reduced to its cold essentials. Unsettled waves sluiced through luxuriant effects and delays. The gristle of the electrical grid harnessed and reconfigured as exquisite ostinato.
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Artist: Final
Title: Dead Air
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 64'aaTrx: 9
Catalogue Number: URCD021 / URSK7
Released: November 22, 2008
Recorded: Recorded, produced and mixed at Avalanche by Justin K Broadrick,
2005 - 2008.
1.Slow Air Audio
2.Caved
3.Fearless Systems
4.Disordered
5.Inanimate Air
6.Subterrane
7.Smeared Air
8.Descendre Audio
9.Dead Air
Justin K Broadrick (Godflesh, Ice, Painkiller, God, Jesu) is an iconoclast, a destroyer. Whether by scourge or more subtle measure he is unafraid to loose the blood of enemies. Final, the apotheosized slayer. Shifting, flowing, ascending. A life’s work. Dead Air takes hold and abducts the last of your breath with cruel ceremony. The most austere Final recording yet.
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Artist: Sum of R
Title:
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 58'aaTrx: 10
Catalogue Number: URCD025
Released: November 22, 2008
Recorded: Recorded, mixed, arranged and mastered by Reto Mäder at Hinterzimmer > Bern, Switzerland > November 2007 - September 2008.
Reto Mäder: bass guitar, strings, electronics, piano, effects.
Christoph Hess: manipulated turntable.
Roger Ziegler: harmonium, effects.
1.Physically Deformed
2.Our Karma is Broken
3.Bones, Beer and Muscles
4.Ural Umbo
5.Eleventh Rib Audio
6.Requiem for a Liar
7.Pack Mule Audio
8.Unlisted Disasters
9.Basics of Sleep
10.Good Night Francine
Switzerland’s Sum of R is Reto Mäder (RM74) and Christoph Hess and Roger Ziegler (Herpes Ö Deluxe) constructing/deconstructing sound in ways that infest and cloud the interior of the mind. The implements: electronics, bass guitar, piano, drums, harmonium and Lenco turntables. The science: deep pulsations, organic drones, melodic feedback accompaniment, vinyl loops, analog sound sources, reversed audio, haunting vocal treatments. The sum: a living, breathing organism that sustains varied levels of function without ever losing its holistic unity. Presented in a heavy black matte sleeve printed with silver ink. Includes silver/black fold out insert. Photography by Rik Garrett.
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Artist: The Stargazer's Assistant
Title: Shivers and Voids
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 25'aaTrx: 3
Catalogue Number: URCD018 / URSK4
Released: September 13, 2008
Recorded: Recorded, mixed and produced by Antti Uusimaki and David J.Smith at home and Anti-Establishment from September 2007 - June 2008.
Written and arranged by David J.Smith: harmonium, acoustic guitar, synths, water bowl, chain, door, matchbox, percussion, tapes, samples, vocals. Antti Uusimaki: mellotron, synth, effects. Sara Hubrich: bowed thunder-board (1,3) violin, viola (3).
Chloe Herington: bassoon (3).
1.Night Soil Audio
2.Shivers and Voids Audio
3.The Dream Kingdom
David J. Smith (Guapo, Miasma & The Carousel Of Dead Horses) releases a second set of recordings as The Stargazer's Assistant. Following The Other Side of the Island on Aurora Borealis, Shivers and Voids is a union of instrument, voice and tape. A soundtrack waiting for the right film to accompany it through the dark. Sweeping, intricate, sometimes ominous, yet always exuding a warmth of emotion. Ancient forests, vast plains, billowing clouds, rusted metal hulks, wet rock walls, lights flickering in darkness. The Stargazer's Assistant reveals all this to us.
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Artist: Klangmutationen
Title: Schwarzhagel
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 49'aaTrx: 4
Catalogue Number: URCD019 / URSK5
Released: September 13, 2008
Recorded: Recordings were made between February and May, 2008 in Cheras and Subang Jaya, Malaysia. Further editing, mixing and treatments by Yeoh Yin Pin.
Tham Kar Mun: tenor saxophone. Yandsen: tenor saxophone.
Yeoh Yin Pin: electric guitar. Kok Siew Wai: suara.
I.
II. Audio
III. Audio
IV.
Klangmutationen are arcanum manifest. Atrocious relics summoned from great depths. Old secrets bound in reverent mouths for fear that their utterance will spoil the object itself. Hailing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the underground musicians reference early recordings on FMP, Caspar Brötzmann Massaker, Solmania and the Takayanagi/Abe axis of Japanese free music. The black reverb and bleak ambience of the first audible intonations presage the ire that is to come. A dark, baleful recording, Schwarzhagel is the sound of a spirit falling past its own life after death, forever.
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Artist: Nadja
Title: Trembled
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 900
Length: 65'aaTrx: 6
Catalogue Number: URCD024
Released: September 13, 2008
Recorded: 1-4. Recorded by Aidan Baker at a private event, Toronto, Canada > March, 2006.
5-6. Recorded by Scott Slimm at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia > June, 2008.
Aidan Baker: guitar, vocals, drum machines. Leah Buckareff: bass.
1.Breakpoint
2.No Cure for the Lonely Audio
3.Corrasion
4.Tremble
5.Stays Demons
6.Tremble Audio
Trembled has returned, triumphantly. Released by Utech Records [046] in the summer of 2006 on limited cdr. The principal live recordings from Toronto have been remixed/remastered and include a rare performance of Swans "No Cure for the Lonely." The core of the release, though, is “Tremble”, a cascading improvisation of drift and atmospherics revealed to audiences on an occasional basis. The track is telling of the fluidity with which Nadja create and why the band has become so highly regarded. “Breakpoint” and “Corrasion” complete the set. Exclusive material has been added in "Stays Demons" and a second version of "Tremble" recorded by Scott Slimm in Philadelphia. Illustration by Justin Bartlett. The ultimate document of Nadja at their most electric and empyreal.
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Artist: Heavensore
Title: Asmodai
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 53'aaTrx: 3
Catalogue Number: URCD016 / URSK2
Released: June 28, 2008
Recorded: Studio E > August 1, 2006. Additional recordings by Panos A. at Red Needled Studio. Mixed by Panos A. and Nikos G. at Red Needled Studio and Studio 5.
George V: vocals, guitars. Panos A: guitars, sounds. Nikos G: bass.
Asmodai > drums by Panos A. and bass by Kostas K. Lyrics by George V.
1.Aurora
2.Tabula Smaragdina Audio
3.Asmodeus Audio
The forsaken mother has birthed a godhead. A triune declaration of intent rich in the beliefs of the Tabula Smaragdina and Solomonic Magic. Asmodai/Sammael reigns as the king of impurity spreading his blackened sovereignty like so much tar upon the heart of man. And as all things were by the contemplation of one; so all things arose from this one thing by adaptation.
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Artist: Runhild Gammelsæter
Title: Amplicon
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 53'aaTrx: 11
Catalogue Number: URCD017 / URSK3
Released: June 28, 2008
Recorded: Recorded and produced by Runhild Gammelsæter, Oslo > January-April, 2008.
Mixed by Tore Ylvisaker at Crystal Canyon, Oslo > April, 2008.
Runhild Gammelsæter: composition and lyrics, vocals, digital stethoscope, guitar, Rhodes piano, organ, Kaoss pad, bells, music box, flute.
1.Collapse- Lifting of the Veil Audio
2.Expanding Universe
3.Life Audio
4.Evolution
5.Incubation
6.Birth
7.Coming To
8.Love
9.Senescence
10.Dying
11.Void- Empty Spaces Between Filaments
Runhild Gammelsæter (Thorr's Hammer, Sunn0))), Khlyst) releases her first solo recording. The purpose was to create something organic – sound with and about life. A lonely thing, like life, arisen from void. Stillness and a microphone, vocal chords. An idea, thoughts, a goal. Sounds of cycles of life and death, birth and cessation, described with terminology from physics, chemistry and biology. Creating by amplifying an infinitely small idea – creating an Amplimer, an Amplicon. Amplicons are pieces of DNA formed as the products of natural or artificial amplification events. Like evolution, giving rise to animal forms with ability to reproduce and die. Amplifying from a minute non-tangible idea something larger which may be experienced with the auditory sense. In physics, matter creation is the appearance of elementary particles in physical processes; the opposite of annihilation. Amplicon see Gammelsæter as a creation operator, increasing the number of particles in a given state, taking the operation necessary to amplify ideas to sound. Mixed by Tore Ylvisaker of Ulver.
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SOLD OUT
Artist: Skullflower
Title: Desire for a Holy War
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 750
Length: 53'aaTrx: 7
Catalogue Number: URCD015 / URSK1
Released: April 26, 2008
Recorded: Wuthering Heights, West Yorkshire > November/December, 2007.
Matthew Bower: strings, throat and konkussion. Lee Stokoe: guitar and noise on track two.
1.Your Cities, Your Tombs Audio
2.Moses Conjured a Blood Niagara
3.Eve's Dream
4.Frozen Spectres Audio
5.Serbonian Bog
6.Unholy, Inhuman
7.Divinus Deus
Desire for a Holy War is mayhem piled on top of mayhem piled on top of squalls of caustic feedback. Furies spitting oaths of shrouded vengeance from ancient tongues. Plague riders dealing death on mounts of venomous ether, hooves pounding the wild earth. Matthew Bower may have reached a watershed with last year's Abyssic Lowland Hiss (Heavy Blossom) but it is with Desire for a Holy War that he has come to conquer. Never has Skullflower sounded so severe or remorseless.
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Artist: Suzuki Junzo
Title: Pieces for Hidden Circles
Price: $q13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 52'aaTrx: 8
Catalogue Number: URCD013 / Arc8
Released: December 22, 2007
Recorded: Atelier Himawari > October, 2007. Suzuki Junzo:Gibson ES335.
1.Shadows-Lights Audio
-Dropped Pieces for Discarded Dawn
2)Lost Chords
3)Ameria Audio
4)Wind
5.One-Armed Messenger
6.Circles for Vibrolux
7.Hats off to A.M.
8.Lights-Shadows
Japanese singer/guitar player Suzuki Junzo (Astral Travelling Unity, 20 Guilders, Overhang Party, Miminokoto) weaves an improvised country blues/folk music with touches of acid and psych. While performing and recording mostly as a solo artist, he has collaborated with Hiroshi Hasegawa, Tabata Mitsuru and Kawabata Makoto. Pieces for Hidden Circles is a recording of the highest order evoking spirituality and devotion unrivaled. A campaign to a world of solitude, each footfall and gust of wind resonating to the heavens.
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Artist: Tabata Mitsuru
Title: Lumrapideco
Price: $q13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 46'aaTrx: 6
Catalogue Number: URCD014 / Arc9
Released: December 22, 2007
Recorded: September-October, 2007. Tabata Mitsuru: electric guitar, guitar synthesiszer, organ, synthesiszer, percussion, vocals. Yamazaki Iwao and Suzuki Junzo: backing vocals.
1.Mahhagogo Pt.1
2.Dust to Dust Audio
3.Hydrozoa
4.Tiovivo Audio
5.Lumrapideco
6.Mahhagogo Pt.2
Japanese sound artist Tabata Mitsuru (Boredoms, Zeni Geva, Acid Mothers Temple, 20 Guilders, Leningrad Blues Machine) is a musician who has claimed his solo voice and skillfully hones it with each release. Lumrapideco (speed of light) is a collection of spaced-out electronics, bleak feedback and sedate guitar passages. Sometimes oppressive sometimes heart stirring, it is never less than magnificent._____________________________________________________________
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Artist: Zaïmph
Title: La Nuit Electrique
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 41'aaTrx: 4
Catalogue Number: URCD011 / Arc6
Released: October 27, 2007
Recorded: New York > 2007. Marcia Bassett: guitar, voice, electronics.
1.Track 1 Audio
2.Track 2
3.Track 3 Audio
4.Track 4
Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, Hototogisu) rears Zaïmph's vile head once again on La Nuit Electrique. A raspy, delicate instrumental passage begins like a crippled music box. Elegant and soporose. Blackened guitar and amplification apprise the rest. Acrid feedback hangs in the air and vocal modulations clot inside dark rivers of current. The night electric.____________________________________________________________
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Artist: Sachiko
Title: Kunado
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 58'aaTrx: 7
Catalogue Number: URCD012 / Arc7
Released: October 27, 2007
Recorded: Tokyo, Japan. Summer, 2007. Sachiko: voice, electronisc, bells, more.
1.Dmu-Bdud Kam-Po So-Zan
2.Dusk Audio
3.Route 21
4.Cosmic Garden
5.The Voice From the Border Audio
6.Gakida No Mori
7.Chiacona und Konzert in G Moll
Japanese vocalist and instrumentalist Sachiko (Overhang Party, Vava Kitora, Kosokuya) looses a second, white-hot solo release. Her brilliant debut You Never Atone For on There/Musik Atlack rode gilded wings straight to the heart of the psych sun. The journey continues with Kunado. A tincture of Taj Mahal Travellers, wispy oscillations and lysergic vocals bathes the recording in delicate atmosphere as Sachiko's sonic attack leaves vicious and harrowing results. A listen not soon forgotten.______________________________________________________________
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Artist: James Plotkin
Title: Indirmek
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 73'aaTrx: 2
Catalogue Number: URCD009 / Arc4
Released: August 18, 2007
Recorded: Afyon > NYC > May 26, 2007 > guitar > filter > powerbook.
Amfetamin > NYC > October 6, 2006 > pc > powerbook > software.
1.Afyon Audio
2.Amfetamin Audio
James Plotkin unveils his second solo release in as many years. Indirmek presents two distinct facets of his musical work. The first track, Afyon (opium) lies closest to Plotkin's trademark drift. In essence, a guitar track stretched to limitless possibility. An elemental fury contained, dissected and entrusted to a NYC audience for their consideration in the spring of 2007. Amfetamin (amphetamine) is a second recording from NYC, performed in the fall of 2006. The track is considerably more immediate. It's allure can be credited to Plotkin's use of electronics to invoke raw sound and shape it as he sees necessary to fit a given context. The track speaks a multitude of languages in succession and simultaneously.______________________________________________________
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Artist: Joshua Convey
Title: Vacant Integument
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 27'aaTrx: 4
Catalogue Number: URCD010 / Arc5
Released: August 18, 2007
Recorded: New York. Spring, 2007. Joshua Convey: guitar, harmonica, electronics.
1.Jejune Audio
2.Oospore
3.Shuck
4.Idle Audio
Vacant Integument is the debut release from NY resident Joshua Convey. Sharp, spiky overtones rattle four skillfully assembled tracks. Each gritty frame is lined with a delicate array of guitar, harmonica and electronics. Quiet drone hums along as melody slowly reveals itself amongst carefully placed shards of raw feedback and noise. Not since Kaoru Abe or Masayoshi Urabe has the harmonica been used to such magnificent effect. Vacant Integument is a singular and resonant work that deserves all manner of praise.
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Artist: Daniel Menche
Title: Wolf's Milk
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 63'aaTrx: 3
Catalogue Number: URCD007 / Arc2
Released: June 23, 2007
Recorded: House of Menche. Winter, 2006-2007. Daniel Menche: organ, gong, trumpet.
1.Track 1 Audio
2.Track 2 Audio
3.Track 3
Crystalline drones and sacred incantation. Nectar procured from golden fruit. Shimmering resonance channeled through dream. A most anticipated return to form for Menche. Breathtaking purity of sound. Wolf's Milk is a triumph of immense magnitude.
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Artist: Knell
Title: Last Ten Meters
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 58'aaTrx: 2
Catalogue Number: URCD008 / Arc3
Released: June 23, 2007
Recorded: Fern Place. Fall-Spring, 2005-2006. Johannes Buff: guitar, unprocessed field recordings, sound sources.
1.Track 1 Audio
2.Track 2 Audio
First release from French guitarist Johannes Buff. An attempt to disect the methodology he explores with guitar. Using a single sound source and unprocessed field recordings Knell invoke rich beauty and obsessive melodics. A luminous patina reveals vague, underlying threat. Drone as a catalyst of frequency and time. Nothing to understand through listening, only to gaze.
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Artist: The Skull Defekts
Title: The Sound of Defekt Skulls and Intense Cranium Contact
(Feedbacking Gothenburg and Chicago)
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 43'aaTrx: 1
Catalogue Number: URCD006 / Arc1
Released: April 21, 2007
Recorded: Jaimie Branch. Chicago, IL. September 30, 2006.
1.The Sound of Defekt Skulls Audio Ia Audio II
The Year of the Skull.
The Skull Defekts, represented by Henrik Rylander and Joachim Nordwall, were invited in late September 2006 by the Chicago non-profit organization Lampo to make their U.S. debut. With them they brought recorded sounds from their home on the Swedish west-coast Gothenburg. A city breathing culture, it is also Sweden's most important export harbor. While spending close to a week in Chicago, Rylander and Nordwall carefully prepared a piece to be presented on the Lampo event on September 30. The duo recorded more sounds, searched for the Skull sound of Chicago, and found inspiration from the city itself and the people they met.
They traveled with ten mixing desks and Nordwall's custom Drone Machine, ready to complete the project with sharp psychedelic & analog noise treatments. They also investigated the CM von Hausswolff "There Are No Crows Flying Around The Hancock Building" thesis. A crow was found below the building, it did not seem to be able to fly. The Skull Defekts recorded it while it was playing and testing it's wings in a nearby park. When the Skulls left, the crow was still on the ground.
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Artist: Half Makeshift
Title: Aphotic Leech
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 36'aaTrx: 1
Catalogue Number: URCD005
Released: February 24, 2007
Recorded: November, 2006. Nathan Michael: piano, guitar, organ, glitch work, manipulation. Nicholas Szczepanik unknowingly provided all percussion.
1.Aphotic Leech Audio
Aphotic Leech is the first movement in a series of ever changing modes which make up what Half Makeshift has slowly become. A bath of heavy drone and bitter piano chords strewn over top of subtle glitch work and manipulated percussion, Aphotic Leech trades malice for despair and shuns any probable hope. Created in November of 2006 from austere piano pieces, string fragments, a live percussion specimen and other various arrangements, this piece grew to be much larger than originally intended through a series of long manipulation and thought processes. It engulfs the body in a thick black sludge only to dissipate at once, become a reborn substance and finally drain itself leaving a small fragment lingering after it expires.
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Artist: The Vulture Club
Title: Live Young, Die Fast and Leave an Exquisite Corpse
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 500
Length: 53'aaTrx: 7
Catalogue Number: URCD004
Released: January 20, 2007
Recorded: July-September, 2006. Amps / gtrs / programming by Thomas Lee.
1.Ancient Nun Stripped Bare Her Head Exploding Foreign Deserts Even Audio
2.Intro to Ghost in a Foxhole Audio
3.Live Young, Die Fast and Leave an Exquisite Corpse
4.Terminal Bed Wetter Enters Lighthouse by Force
5.Alleged Plot to Blow Up the Holland Tunnel During Rush Hour
6.Bringing Back the Monolith
7.The Charred Face of Navy Gnr Yeo
"The guitar is not dead. It is still humming and I believe in it. Copper wound is copper wound, today and yesterday. Magnets are magnetic, today and yesterday. Wood is wooden, today and yesterday. Electricity is electric, today and yesterday. These things shift in their own time and on their own basis. They are not forced and in my own capacity, I do not force them. The editor's role is Advocate. The rattle you hear, that is the energy and the idea. It is not all mine and it is not all theirs and it is not all yours. But it is all ours."
"There was darkness before there was light, I guess. We live in between. Name is Thomas Lee // borne somewhere and will die somewhere too // currently living in Lawrence, Kansas. I reside here because neighbors are not so close and most of them are old and deaf already. Downtown where the hipsters are, I can walk amongst them and no one knows about the amps and guitars. No need to scream about the weirdness because I am invisible and alive // they let me walk fast and away. These are my people is one way or another and I refuse to belong to them. Live Young, Die Fast and Leave an Exquisite Corpse. I can't explain it any better than that." -TL
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Artist: Lasse Marhaug
Title: Spaghetti Western Rainbow
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 1000
Length: 55'aaTrx: 4
Catalogue Number: URCD002
Released: October 21, 2006
Recorded: Chicago / Boston / Bergen / Oslo. Various dates.
Final mix > Oslo > June 6, 2006.
1.Spaghetti Western Rainbow Redux
2.I Quattro Dell'Apocalisse
3.Oro Hondo Audio
4.The Endless Gundown Audio
Hailing from the land of the rising snow, Lasse Marhaug has become one of the most commanding and respected sound artists in Norway. As a musician and composer he has contributed to cd, vinyl and cassette releases for labels throughout Europe, Asia and America. Aside from solo work, Marhaug contributes to several ensembles including Nash Kontroll (iDEAL) and a large Jazkamer unit (Smalltown Supernoise) with black metal legends Enslaved. Having collaborated with artists from varying fields of musik (Sunn O))), Aaron Dilloway and Maja Ratkje) Marhaug's reach extends into musik for theatre, installations and video.
A salvo to Ennio Morricone, Spaghetti Western Rainbow stands testament to the Italian composer's enduring influence. Morricone collaborator Sergio Leone established the spaghetti western genre in 1964 with A Fistful of Dollars. The director used Morricone again to score the remaining two films in his three-part account of greed and violence (For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.) Leone's critics were struck by his brutal depiction of an unromantic West, but his singular style, camera angles and extension of time made his work different from any western that had come before. Lasse Marhaug exacts Leone's slow, beautiful power and love for expanse with shades of Morricone's subtle witchery to create what will inevitably be considered one of his masterworks. Harsh, dry passages blend with drifting soundscapes, bird calls and an asseverate guitar figure that promotes an invigorating context for film musik.
Released on Utech Records [001] in a small pressing of 100 cdr copies in the winter of 2004. Lasse Marhuag first performed this music as an improvised laptop work for Chicago radio station WNUR. This edition finds the original piece remastered and divided into two tracks that open and close the album. Two unreleased tracks have been added to cpmplete the disk. Artwork inspired by the film The Great Silence.
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Artist: James Plotkin
Title: Kurtlanmak/Damascus
Price: $13
Format: CDaaEdition: 1000
Length: 52'aaTrx: 2
Catalogue Number: URCD001
Released: September 9, 2006
Recorded: Kurtlanmak > NYC > December 27, 2003 > guitar > electronics > pc laptop. Damascus > Buenos Aires > August 26, 2005 > prepared guitar / trumpet / gongs / drumkit > powerbook.
1.Kurtlanmak
2.Damascus Audio
James Plotkin began his musical career as the guitarist for metal band OLD with vocalist Alan Dubin. The two would cross paths again under the guise of Khanate. In the interim Plotkin would become involved in projects ranging from guitar bent soundscape and grind to free improvisation. His body of work spans format and label, recording for Avant, Hydra Head, Asphodel, Earache, Southern Lord and Archive among others. Whether writing, performing, or producing, his output has been invariably unique and extreme.
Kurtlanmak/Damascus is no exception. Recorded live in New York and Buenos Aires respectively the tracks show a side of James Plotkin rarely seen. That of the solo artist. Plotkin utilizes two distinct setups for each performance and channels the sound of acoustic instrumentation through the hum of electronic sorcery. Released on Utech Records [022] as Kurtlanmak in the fall of 2005, the limited cdr was sold at dates on the Khanate "It's Cold When Birds Fall From the Sky" tour. The music on this edition has been remastered and the packaging expanded. A second, unreleased recording from Argentina is added to complete the disk.
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