Celer - Compositions For Cassette (Digitalis, 2009)

A1 Untitled 7:51
A2 Untitled 1:43
A3 Untitled 9:00
A4 Untitled 2:50
A5 Untitled 8:33
A6 Untitled 2:51
B1 Untitled 1:02
B2 Untitled 4:15
B3 Untitled 4:51
B4 Untitled 7:02
B5 Untitled 5:27
B6 Untitled 8:25

Huntington beach's husband/wife duo celer lull you into an enchanting, yet slightly uncomfortable stasis with over an hour full of solemn piano-based drones. "compositions for cassette" is distilled in glass and sent down a river of molasses. what danielle baquet-long and will long do is set this decaying, enchanting journey on it's course. they built the multiple cassette loops used to create this minimal symphony, this ode to american pianists of the 1920s.

"Compositions for cassette" is a funeral march of ghosts through alien fog, lost in a world that no longer exists for their original beings. in the end, it's only the whispers in the air that remain, a near silent elegy for notes and nooses left behind. stunning.
Digitalis

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Chubby Wolf - Ornitheology (Digitalis, 2010)

1 On Burnt, Gauzed Wings
2 Phantasmagoria Of Nothingness (Prey To Our Emotions)

A great review on 5:4 blog


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Sean McCann - Flutter Oasis (Digitalis, 2008)

1 Untitled
2 Untitled

by request

Another crazy limited cassette release. This one from a name we'd never heard before, Sean McCann, but judging from this tape, we'll definitely want to be hearing more.
The sound is super distorted and in-the-red, lo-fi and warbly, like it was recorded on some old thrift store tape on a busted up tape recorder, the guitar being the focal point, but rendered in numerous un-guitar-like sounds and setting, simple strums are distorted to the point of complete collapse, strange effects make the tape sound like it's skipping, vocals howl and croon, everything super washed out.
Some tracks are warm and whirring and warbly, almost old timey sounding, everything shimmery and dreamlike, circus like melodies, kitchen sink percussion, and a soft focus patina of fuzz and buzz and whir, the tape continually slowing to a crawl, or skipping and hiccupping like the stop and record buttons getting pushed, others are dense and chaotic, but with the same sort of sun dappled summer dreaminess, the distortion and the tape drop outs as much, if not more of, a part of the sound than the actual instruments.
Noisy, but that sort of soft noise, dreamy, but not sleepy, instead a sort of druggy bleary eyed drift, think lo-fi folk or pop, via Merzbow, filtered through Philip Jeck and Tim Hecker, recorded by Faxed Head, and played back on a Dictaphone with dying batteries plugged into a massive P.A. with blown speakers. So cool.
Aquarius Records

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Ajilvsga - Girl Who Married A Star (Digitalis, 2007)

01 Girl Who Married A Star 19:01

This 3" available only to those who pre-ordered Digi049, 052, & 053.

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(VxPxC) - The Last Days Of (VxPxC) (Foxglove, 2006)

1 Retablo
2 Churning Of Angels
3 Massive Squallor
4 The Heart's Lament
5 Out, Out Damn Moon

after their monster 3xCDR set from earlier this year, we just knew that one day the los angeles-based (VxPxC) would steal our little hearts. on this, their final session of 2005, these boy wonders extricate spacious, intricate compositions from the spiral galaxy drones of yesteryear. a vast array of instrumentation provide the perfect canvas for these majestic spells. this is music that grows from the roots, falling head-first into the icy tendrils of the new dawn. their voices pierce the organ murk and guitar expanses like lonesome souls begging to be freed. this is magical toward oblivion.
Foxglove

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My Cat Is An Alien / Corsican Paintbrush - Split (Opax / Foxglove, 2006)

A My Cat Is An Alien Transmission From Planet KFJC
B1 Corsican Paintbrush Landfall
B2 Corsican Paintbrush The Temper Of Bastet

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Anvil Salute - A Discreet History Of Bone (Foxglove, 2005)

1 More Power To The Party People (6:57)
2 Blinking Red Face, Little Wax Moustache (7:36)
3 Snaps & Claps (1:35)
4 Variations On A Modal Theme (6:29)
5 Jive Talking (4:15)
6 Brad As Ali; We All Play Free (16:34)

those who say oklahoma is a red dirt-infested wasteland are clueless. anvil salute are the finest that norman, oklahoma (just outside of okcity) have to offer. now, that may not seem like much but in reality, anvil salute are true kingpins. "a discreet history of bone" is taken from a live show this past april. the players include gabe wingfield (who runs the maritime fist imprint) and r. loftiss (of the magical gray field recordings) and the music is heavy on the jams but easy on the ears. the electric wreckage here is nothing short of beautiful. and tribal flow mixes with free-flowing psychedelia to offer up something sensational and new. but the ragas? they've simply gone home.
Digitalis

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The Cone Bearers - Dew Drops On Grass Blades (Foxglove, 2004)

1 In Your Illumination, I Will Swoon (5:51)
2 Sanctuary Plains (7:02)
3 When It Rains, It Rains Softly (4:46)
4 Mosaics For Spring (3:37)
5 Perfect Fronds (3:20)
6 Towering Poplars, Singing In The Sun (6:46)
7 Ground Cover (6:09)

on the eve of november, the cone bearers ascended from the overcast shadows of halloween. on that night, there was magic falling from the trees. channelling the spirits of irish heroes and hindu gods, the cone bearers journey is a mystical dream. this trio of ammon taylor, eden hemming rose, and brad rose (the north sea) soften the edges of jagged rocks and walk through forests of moss, making the trek to coniferous heavens. dancing with gnomes and melting wax on rocks, this is your gift.
Digitalis

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Brad Rose - Angels With Only One Wing (Digitalis, 2003)

1 Admirals In White Sand
2 Tin Vs Sheet Metal
3 Heaven Sent
4 I'll Be Your Russian Revolution
5 Red & Orange Origami Flowers
6 Your Eyes / Diamonds
7 Covered In Stars
8 Chelsea Hotel Pt 2
9 I Am No Frenchman
10 The Last Snow
11 Wear Your Silver Ring

the sixth album from solo artist, brad rose (ex-terrene, ex-ocasek). mostly acoustic based, but the instrumentation is deeper than on past efforts. he gets some help from ammon taylor (piano), matt hopper (upright bass), and eden hemming rose (vocals). there was little beer consumed for the production of this album, yet the songs are as strong as they ever have been. recorded between march and october of 2003 in tulsa, ok and seattle, wa.
Digitalis

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Fursaxa / The Juniper Meadows - Split (Foxglove, 2004)

** sorry, no cover art **

1 Fursaxa No Occult And Exoteric (3:46)
2 Fursaxa Elder Bears Watching Over You (3:58)
3 Fursaxa The Blue Sky Makes A Good Quilt (12:03)
4 The Juniper Meadows Dutch Elm Disease (3:58)
5 The Juniper Meadows Alchemists In The Sky (5:29)
6 The Juniper Meadows Like Water Birds Singing (4:10)
7 The Juniper Meadows Night Steeples (5:30)

David and goliath, harmony is found. fursaxa and the juniper meadows join forces for this new split release. fursaxa offers up three nuggets, the juniper meadows offer four. each contribution clocks in around 19 minutes. fursaxa has become a mainstay in the world of freeform, psych-inspired music. tara burke is like the goddess watching over us, curating the experiences we have. the juniper meadows quiet improvisations fit alongside her offerings nicely. it is the giant taking the hand of the meek, and the results befit a queen.
Foxglove

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The North Sea & Hush Arbors - Singing Through Moss And Mist (Foxglove, 2004)

** sorry, no artwork **

1 Hush Arbors I Will Carry Bones In My Knapsack (11:37)
2 Hush Arbors Wasp Of Leaves (12:01)
3 The North Sea Spiralling Timbers (7:28)
4 The North Sea Another Birdsong Ministry (10:26)

brothers in feeling and spirit, the north sea and hush arbors parallel paths come to a head on their first split release. each offers up two tracks of organic drone, extracted from the depths of the earth and released into the air, captured on tape. at just over 40 minutes, the density and texture on each track is introspective and free. while there are obviously differences, these two projects share a commonality that cannot be simply explained through words. one must not just hear these groaning extolls, but must listen to their fledgling grace.
Foxglove

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The North Sea - The Oscelot Chronicles Vol. 2 (Foxglove, 2004)

** sorry, no artwork **

1 Emeralds And Rubies (4:19)
2 Mississippi Sings (2:57)
3 Moth Wings (2:12)
4 Cherry Blossom Mosquitos (4:09)
5 Stainless Steel Waterfall (9:30)
6 Limestone Fields (3:00)
7 Cellophane Dragons (1:44)
8 Forcefield (5:42)
9 Covering Our Tracks With Crusted Jewels (13:15)

they say, "it's an organic world, and we can only hope to survive," to which i respond with indifference. it makes no sense. but in this landscape where guitars sink in the ocean and where the blues are the only real heart ache left, i present the second installment of the tribute to the most underrated of the big cats. glockenspiels whir, bowed guitars assault flutes and recorders, thunder dances with piano, and mississippi? oh, it sings. you better believe it sings.
Foxglove

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The North Sea - The Oscelot Chronicles Vol. 1 (Foxglove, 2004)

** sorry, no artwork **

1 Drinking Gallo By The Seaside
2 Ghost Robotics
3 Nothing But Rust
4 Rainy Day In April
5 Clandestine
6 Old Buildings Come Down
7 Telefilm
8 Vegas
9 Sinking Poseidon

the debut of the north sea. the first of three odes to the oscelot, the most underappreciated of big cats, in some way? not sure, but running the gambit between improvised ambient guitar drones to acoustic meanderings mixed with field recordings to noisey assaults, there's something for everyone here. this cd-r has the distinction of being the only album i've ever mixed mere hours before nearly getting killed in a tornado. ah, how the birds were singing that afternoon.
Foxglove

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Taiga Remains - Fairing's Chapel (Digitalis, 2009)

1 Fairing's Chapel (17:56)

Only available with the first 100 copies of Wax Canopy CD.

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Machinefabriek, Leo Fabriek, Wouter van Veldhoven & Mariska Baars - Live Edits (Digitalis, 2008)

A Machinefabriek, Leo Fabriek, Wouter van Veldhoven & Mariska Baars 08•03•08 (15:21)
B Machinefabriek, Leo Fabriek & Wouter van Veldhoven 29•03•08 (12:56)

Cette cassette rassemble deux sessions différentes réalisées en mars 2008, de beaux drones utilisant une multitude d'instruments (harmonium, piano, guitare, voix, taperecorders, etc) mais qui restent simples, le tout dominé par les notes du piano...

An all-star line-up of dutch artists convene to make this very special, infuriatingly limited cassette for Digitalis. Rutger Zuydervelt, Wouter Van Veldhoven, Mariska Baars and Leo Fabriek are the players in question, between them representing Machinefabriek, Soccer Committee and Julie Mittens. The cassette draws together two distinct live sessions recorded separately in March 2008, each edited into side-spanning drone pieces assembled from guitar, harmonium, tape machines and voices. The end result is predictably epic in scope, sounding like some distant orchestra tuning up across the vast, droning A-side, while once flipped over the cassette reveals a more overtly detailed, more conventionally musical persona, with hazy remnants of piano melody taking form, establishing a corroded melodic sensibility augmented by fractious electronic elements. Despite the abundance of contributors there's never any real sense of clutter, and the outcome of these edited sessions is a music that sounds supremely patient and somehow unassuming in its minimalist tactics, yet listen carefully and you'll hear a body of work whose clarity and sophistication goes far beyond the usual parameters of the conventionally murky world of cassette music.
Boomkat

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Xela / Ajilvsga - I Love Her Till I Die (Digitalis, 2008)

A Xela The Night Of Sevens (A Love Song) (19:09)
B Ajilvsga Haxti (20:40)

Ambient sombre et hantante...

One side: Type records head honcho John Twells' ambient doom outfit, creating another haunting, crumbling, creepy world of doom-ed sound, epic and heavy, intense and soaring, layers upon layers of coruscating guitars, woven into moody moving droning beauty. The other side: new discovery Ajilvsga, another ambient doom outfit, a duo, one half of which is Digitalis overlord Brad Rose, their side is a thick viscous grinding sludge of blown out guitars, crumbling distortion, heaving slow motion glacial heaviness, that manages to imbue its buzzing creep with haunting melodies and strange blackened beauty.
Gorgeous full color covers printed on textured paper, each one hand numbered, gone before you know it...
Aquarius Records

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Twinsistermoon - Rivers Of Blood Ending In The Sun (Digitalis, 2008)

1 Tarnek (2:34)
2 Harvester (1:59)
3 Sea Throne (4:31)
4 Marks Of Ashes (6:58)
5 Rivers Of Blood Ending In The Sun (5:16)
6 House Carpenter's Daughter (2:05)

Offert en pré commande avec l'album Levels and Crossings...

Only available as pre-order companion disc to Levels and Crossings...

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Peter Wright & Uton - Birdsong For Sewers (Digitalis, 2005)

1 A Hermetic Notion
2 Creeper
3 The Angels Of Melancholia
4 Japanese Paper Treehouse
5 And Mind Was The Last Thing
6 Feathers
7 Underneath The Bridge Is My Home

Le néo zélandais Peter Wright et le finlandais Jani Hirvonen unissent leurs efforts pour un album de drones particulièrement prenants...

Birdsong for Sewers are Uton and Peter Wright. Recorded on location in Christchurch, London, and Tampere between December 2002 and March 2004 and compiled by post.

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Kyrgyz - Kyrgyz (Digitalis, 2006)

1 Kyrgyz (Crown Of The Yurt, Window To Heaven) (23:47)
2 Clown Hands Dokalmak (11:08)
3 Hirzur Vadisi (Peaceful Valley) (6:52)
4 Ele Almak (5:50)
5 Kyssa (2:05)
6 Yurt: Invitation (11:37)

Kyrgyz est, des productions 2006 de la Bay Area, un des projets les plus excitants et les plus risqués à la fois - car en réunissant trois musiciens parmi les plus en vogue de la côte ouest expérimentale américaine, Robert Horton, Tom Carter (Charalambides) Loren Chasse (Thuja, Coelacanth), et Christine Boepple (Skygreen Leopards Skyband), Kyrgyz forme, quelque part, ce qu'on appelle dans le monde rock un "super-groupe". Type de formation qui, bien que parfois prolifique, tend surtout à prouver que les talents artificiellement réunis s'annulent plutôt qu'autre chose.

De ce point de vue, Kyrgyz est vraiment une bonne surprise. Il se trouve que le quatuor ici constitué est d'une complémentarité et d'une capacité à l'improvisation qui n'a rien d'artificiel. On serait même tenté de dire que chaque intervenant voit ici sa spécialité mieux mise en valeur que sur nombre de disques solo.

Horton, joueur comme jamais (c'est certainement lui qui introduit sonnettes de vélo et autres jouets dans la session), trouve les partenaires qu'il cherchait peut-être depuis 20 ans. Les impro drone/psych/minimalistes de Tom Carter, sur son électro-acoustique, apparaissent sous une nouvelle lumière, parfois noyés dans la masse, réduits au drone, puis refaisant surface sur la seconde piste, sous un jour inédit, avec un son rythmé et franchement psychédélique presque proche de Sunburned (un son qu'on retrouve aussi sur son nouveau duo avec Horton sur Digitalis). Le jeu de Chasse est peut-être le moins reconnaissable, moins "concret" qu'à l'accoutumée, plus touche-à-tout, et il y gagne en fait beaucoup d'intérêt. Mais Kyrgyz, en rassemblant des musiciens aux personnalités extrêmement fortes et différentes, réalise surtout la prouesse - certainement est-ce le fait d'une simple intuition commune de l'impro - de constituer un album et des morceaux très cohérents, passionnants, et qui non seulement n'ont rien à envier à d'autres formations du genre plus "naturelles" (Vibracathedral Orchestra, par exemple), mais s'installent en plus dans un son très personnel, à la fois aéré, sans jamais laisser tomber la pression, et souvent léger, un peu mystérieux. Comme ces lointains pays d'Europe de l'Est, si lointains de la Californie...

Webzine Mille-Feuilles

Don't worry about the unpronounceable album name - it's not the decaying spirit of IDM that hangs over Kyrgyz, it has been taken from a country (Kyrgyzstan) and it's all above board, nothing to see here sir! Anyway, on to the more important stuff - this is another release from the hot Digitalis label and sees some of the finest exponents of the psyche/folk/avant/weirdness scene get together for a kind of spiritual love-in. Loren Chasse is one of ...
Boomkat

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Steven R. Smith - Antinomy (Digitalis, 2004)

1 untitled
2 untitled
3 untitled
4 untitled
5 untitled
6 untitled

"Six gorgeous instrumentals, all dark and dreamy, ranging from heavily reverbed Appalachia, to haunting and spare abstract ambience. Electric guitars waver and shimmer in a vast cavern of sympathetic overtones. So beautiful. You can almost picture a lone hooded figure, perched on a small outcropping of rock, playing strange mournful odes by the light of a lantern, serenading all the creatures in the dark, kept at bay by the light, and narcoticized by the tranquil and elegant sounds. So nice." – Aquarius Records

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