All proceeds from the sale of this release will go to Tom Carter. Read more about the appeal here: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tomcarterappeal

Edition of 214 one-sided LP with blood red silkscreened flip. Looped and live collaged ritual atmospherics and crude guitar/drum psych stand-offs that orbit a similar zone to early NNCK from a group that feature Tom Carter of Charalambides, Shawn McMillen (Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast), Brian Smith (Iron Kite et al) and Blake Carlisle. Less drone-focussed than previous releases and deeper into a kind of savant ESP Disk Godz/Fugs séance style.

Duo project from Tom Carter of Charalambides and Marc Orleans of Sunburned Hand Of The Man. If you’ve caught any of the recent solo blats from Tom Carter since his relocation to NYC then you’ll know that that these days his guitar is fully set to shred and this is a stunning document of two string-thinkers working with maximal freedom and organic rhythms. The opening “Eyes Of Jewels, Mirrored Bodies” marries Orleans great fingerpicking style – which comes from a similar place to Glenn Jones – to Tom’s wild west coast style. Later tracks explode the blueprint even further, marring a 90s underground feel for squeal with an immolating post-Sonny Sharrock aesthetic. Easily one of the wildest sides either of these guys have cut. 150g vinyl with download. 

All proceeds from the sale of this release will go to Tom Carter. Read more about the appeal here: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tomcarterappeal

Limited benefit CD-R arranged by the Hebden Bridge squad in less than 24 hours after Charalambides were forced to cancel their show there due to Tom Carter’s sudden illness, all proceeds going directly to Tom: tracks from Ashtray Navigations, Neil Campbell, Spider Stacey, Dylan Nyoukis, Bridget Hayden, Astral Social Club, Rick Tomlinson, Konntinent, High Aura’d, Listening Mirror, Will Bolton, Isnaj Dui, Kyle Bobby Dunn, The Failed NASA Experiment and Caught In The Wake Forever. 

All proceeds from the sale of this release will go to Tom Carter. Read more about the appeal here: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tomcarterappeal

Excellent new jukebox 7” from the duo of Tom Carter (Charalambides) and Marc Orleans (Sunburned Hand Of The Man), here joined by Betsy Nichols (Michael Hurley) on vocals and Michael Evans on drums for a full-band sound: very different in tone and attack from their Northern Spy LP, this is fantastic set of vaguely country-tinged hunch and European psychedelic volk. The a side is a gorgeous composition by Tom with his and Betsy’s vocals intertwining with alla the beauty of Gila’s classic Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee before Tom makes with a wild psychedelic fuzz solo. Orleans’ track on the flip has a fantastic sepia-toned early SF feel that’s somewhere between the original Charlatans, the International Submarine Band and early Dead. Totally great. More please!

All proceeds from the sale of this release will go to Tom Carter. Read more about the appeal here: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tomcarterappeal

Original CD edition of this 2005 release from Badgerlore that saw them operating as a quartet featuring Tom Carter of Charalambides, Ben Chasny of Six Organs Of Admittance, Pete Swanson of Yellow Swans and Rob Fisk of 7 Year Rabbit Cycle. Tracks move from the kind of staggered blues/bliss ragas originally formulated by Charalambides through all-vocal murk ala Skaters/Gyuto Monks.

New duo album from Tom Carter of Charalambides and Pete Swanson of Yellow Swans et al: this is a great melding of the two’s respective styles. Tom is sounding more and more like Sonny Sharrock circa Last Exit or even Tisziji Munoz these days, with a testifying melodic style that trades fuzz for feeling and here he tears through some iconoclastic melodies that scrape the lining off the goddamn sky over chugging shots of electricity. Swanson’s more into the kinda chord solos and devouring wah gravity that would trade Tokyo-isms for Dunedin-isms, and he combines fuzz-choked repeat chords that are straight out of the Lou Reed fakebook with spidery, single note ascensions and chugging infinite-repeat punk. All proceeds from the sale of Vent go towards the Tom Carter recovery fund. 

Third instalment in this thrilling on-going series from Pat Murano of The No-Neck Blues Band/K-Salvatore/Malkuth with each LP associated with an astrological attribution taken from Decimus Magnus Ausonius (310-395). 2 feels like an extension of the ancient/future ritual appeal of 1, with swathes of electronics moving in mysterious whorls that flatline into dense beams of light before phantom melodies that are somewhere between arcs of classic al strings and devotional kosmische start to rise to the surface. Imagine a heady gothic ritual ala Hermann Nitsch or The Cosmic Couriers but with a deranged High Mass appeal and a cracked post-Whitehouse/Buchenwald atmosphere. Edition of 250 copies in silkscreened sleeves. Massively heavy and highly recommended: can’t get enough of these Decimus sides.

New edition of 300 copies private press LP from Pat Murano of The No-Neck Blues Band, part of a series of 12 LPs visioned as reflections on the zodiacal attributions of Decimus Magnus Ausonious. 3 presents a set of scalding cracked electronics and automating ghost tones that’s somewhere between Conrad Schnitzler and some of the more ritualistic early-80s Industrial experiments. The rhythmic feel is really odd, with thin sheets of high feedback tone shuffling like sandpaper over thundercracks of doomy percussion and fuzz while a celestial almost Sonny Blount-style keyboard solo pilots the whole thing through your third eye. Amazing bleak psychedelia in the classic cold//austere European tradition but cut w/enough wig to make it a trip. Hand-painted sleeves. Recommended. 

Another instalment in the Decimus series of astrologically-themed electro-meditations from Pat Murano of The No-Neck Blues Band/K-Salvatore/Malkuth et al. This one comes in a run of only 250 copies with silkscreened sleeves. Minimalist, circling electronics and percussive tone patterns dominate 4, with an atmosphere that is somewhere between the stylings of Richard Youngs’ Festival recording, the more weighty of the Kraut-influenced Industrial music (Nurse With Wound/Maurizio Bianchi) and the phased tape/electronics experiments of Charlemagne Palestine. Recommended, as is everything in the series to date.

Been a long time since we heard from K-Salvatore, an offshoot of The No-Neck Blues Band that features Pat Murano (Decimus/Key Of Shame et al) and Jason Meagher (Coach Fingers/Black Dirt Studios) so this fantastic new studio album, recorded at Black Dirt, is a welcome reminder of their alchemical prowess: released in a run of only 300 copies on Murano’s own Kelippah label, Tsar Ova Elk presents a confusing minimalist soundworld that touches on aspects of The New Blockaders and The Godz  - lots of creaking, scraping and moaning – while generating a heady keyboard/electronics/wah-wah basement jam vibe that trades Dead C-circa “Driver UFO”-style atmospherics for the kind of lost-in-space feel that would combine the free-floating esoterics of classic Taj Mahal Travellers with what sounds like a Haunted House sound F/X LP. Indeed, if Kosugi and co had been more attuned to the sound of twisted metal and droning electro-chorales and if they were more into jamming in abandoned factories and claustrophobic grain silos than beaches and mountaintops, this might be the kind of rusty free music soundtrack they would’ve scored for concrete monoliths and poor strong factories. Either way this is exemplary cultic Industrial drone that should appeal to fans of communal Japanese tonefloat (Taj Mahal Travellers/East Bionic Symphonia/Group Ongaku/Marginal Consort) as well as fans of Xpressway, Broken Flag, Ferial Confine et al. Highly recommended!

Edition of 100 copies cassette from this NNCK off-shoot featuring Pat Murano (Decimus et al) and Jason Meagher (Coach Fingers et al): very minimal in construction, Dead Central touches on the more abstruse NNCK strategies, seeming to orbit around tiny guitar harmonics and electricity like an alien autopsy, as fizzing tones illuminate the backdrop and circular drones turn the air purple. The feel of some kind of alien investigation is heightened by the occasional ghost voice or shortwave broadcast fed straight out of the air, with snatches of disembodied wordage coming over like a half-forgotten memory or a deep fever dream. Extremely psychedelic and disturbingly mesmeric, this is a black lysergic nightmare w/Euro horror to spare. 

Live album from the American Psychotropic trio of Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards/Hototogisu/Zaimph), Pete Nolan (Magik Markers/Vanishing Voice/Virgin Eye) and Steve Gunn (Moongang). Recorded at Goodbye Blue Monday January 27th 2006, this one ditches the more rural/raga bent of their earlier recordings (tho still scarred with that devotional/Popol Vuh feel) for a deep smoke of eye-lolling choral vocals, heavy psychedelic guitar solo and a murk of drone. Very beautiful and possibly their best set to date.

Edition of 800 copies split 7 Record Store Day release from two of the most consistently wowing contemporary guitar slingers. Gunn’s side is a gorgeous meditation on American steel string modes that has a heady Fahey atmosphere while Ahmed’s is a little grainier and more downer/drone fixated, more focussed on the lonely aspect of his first two albums. 

Limited solo cassette from Truscinski, drummer with GHQ/X.O.4/Slaughterhouse Percussion, Steve Gunn et al, touches on the detonating Industrial rhythms of Einsturzende Neubauten, Z'EV et al while incorporating great blats of liberated Afro-American fire moves, passages of bowed and scraped drone and some grimy, distorto-primitive punk stratagems. On Bill Nace of Vampire Belt's own label.

New project from guitarist Steve Gunn, a member of GHQ alongside Marcia Bassett: Central Living is the duo of Gunn and Manuel Padding. Padding provides electronic accompaniment to Gunn’s guitar, birthing a hybrid of American Primitive string-think and otherworldly tone poetry. The A side sees Gunn playing in a beautiful cascading style while Padding dissolves tones in coronas of translucent F/X. The flip is a little wilder, with Gunn working a striking almost Bola Sete-inflected melody between high feedback tones before the pair settle into an ominous deep drone piece illuminated by shards of steel string. Indeed, this beautiful side feels closer to the experimental aesthetic of John Fahey circa Days Have Gone By/Voice Of The Turtle than any pale Guitar Soli copyist, factoring in aspects of 20^th century avant gardisms as well as a minimal, compositional aesthetic. Play this back-to-back with the last Glenn Jones album for an object lesson in the contemporary vectors of modern string thought. Edition of 300 copies on virgin vinyl. Comes with a download. 

Ultimate deluxe box set of live material from Matthew Valentine and Erika Elder, documenting their entire three-weekend residence at The Zebulon in New York City that took place in January 2012 in a stunning self-released edition of only 99 copies: the set-up in January was that every Sunday night MV & EE would present three sets with massively different configurations, all drawn from the Golden Road inner circle: Rongoose, Smokehound, Steve Gunn, Herbcraft, Willie Lane, Jeremy Earl & Jarvis Tavenier (Woods) and P.G. Six. So across this seven CD-R set, packaged in a large hard card fold-out book ala the Suub Duub and April Flower sets, there are acoustic shows, all-instrumental Environment-al blow-outs, full-on guitar army ‘septuplet’ bombs, nifty garage band rave-ups and deliriously extended jams. The set lists are particularly choice, drawing heavily on Drone Trailer material (which seems like a particularly endless font of potential reinvention at this point) while reaching deep into the back catalogue for some inspired re-toolings.
But the big news here is the presence of multi-track recorders, sound boards and room mics, meaning that the entire residency was captured in ultra hi-fi and skullfuck-deep Spectrasound. While Heroine-fi speaks in the kinda tongue that is undeniably volcanic, it is nothing short of a blast to hear this amazing music rendered with such clarity and magnificence.
“East Mountain Joint” is, for me, rapidly becoming MV & EE’s “Playing In The Band”, in the way it celebrates something that might initially seem kinda hokey by using it as a launching pad for the kind of inspired jams that the song was talking about in the goddamn first place. The version on “Skullbong/Pudding Tone” here, taken from the electric set on the second weekend w/Smokehound and Herbcraft, is an absolute revelation, poised on the perfect axis between endless riff-roll euphorics and sensual dissolve in F/X bliss. Indeed, the whole set is a peach and perfectly demonstrates the way that MV & EE can sail the void – and make you feel like you’re sailing it too – with nothing but the sound of one note and the next.
The ‘Beyond’ set from the first weekend – appropriately titled “See Ya” - presents a single 26 minute long ‘Environment’ from MV, EE, Rongoose, Smokehound and Gunn that sounds like the goddamn sun coming up over the Hudson-as-Ganges with the kind of constantly peaking modal string action that would give Kalacakra the bends.
The electric set from week three has a particularly celebratory feel, with the dream-team line-up of MV, EE, Willie Lane, Jeremy Earl, Jarvis Tavenier and P.G. Six played in a hyped-up teen garage band style that pretty much explodes classics like “Canned Happiness”, “Tea Devil > Powderfinger”, “Get Right Church” and more.
The ‘acoustic’ set from week three might be the most fractured and puzzlingly ‘Corwood’ of the box, with MV & EE joined by Willie Lane who is on particularly unfathomable form, working entry and exit points through amazing versions of “Drone Trailer” and “Feelin’ Fine” with alla the individual precision of a ballistics expert.
Erika’s vocal are at their disembodied, calling-over-time best while MV makes with the kinda vocoder blues that confuses man/machine like no one this side of Klaus Dinger.
Barley able to touch on the many highlights and surprises on this endlessly great set but suffice it to say that this functions as the ultimate MV & EE live box to date and stands as perhaps the greatest articulation of the many tentacles they have sprouted over the years. Expect to spend the best part of 2013 in here. All individually hand-assembled in the usual OTT/deluxe COM style, complete with a full-size booklet featuring in-depth commentary, full track details and liners from MV and Coot Moon. Highest possible recommendation. 

Great limited triple LP set that bundles two nights of wild free jazz that Qbico presented in Detroit and Buffalo back in 2006. High energy sets from Arthur Doyle & Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, Andrew Barker & Daniel Carter, Steve Baczkowski & Ravi Padmanabha, Muruga Free Funk (with Perry Robinson), Faruq Z Bey & Northwoods Improvisers and Odu Afrobeat Orchestra.

Hand-numbered edition of only 150 copies LP, a companion volume to the recent In Solo LP: here Doyle is on saxophone, flute and vocals while Costa, Saldanha and Silva contribute an array of assorted percussion, flute and electronics. I’m always wary of Doyle in contemporary group contexts but this is simply fantastic, with the group playing in a loose, laid back style that gives Doyle plenty of room to leer all over the place. Even when Doyle’s playing is wild and intense the group never push at him or attempt to replicate standard fire music dynamics, preferring to float in a kinda timeless third eye zone that touches on Don Cherry’s Holy Mountain feel while dropping in – or should that be out? – in classic nekkid Charlie Nothing mode for some fabulously hypnotic low-key head music. The fidelity has something of a classic Saturn pressing to it, lending the final testifying saxophone piece an almost Arkestral majesty. A beautiful document of the horn-thinking of one of the most magical folk-spirits on the planet, highly recommended!

New album from guitarist Chris Forsyth, also a member of Peeesseye. This is a full-band recording, featuring members of D. Charles Speer, Sunburned Hand Of The Man and Mountains, and it expands on Forsyth’s great private press album Dreams, with a vision of electrified Americana that’s somewhere between Glenn Jones and Cul de Sac’s re-visioning of the music of John Fahey through a more overtly Minimalist take on the kind of euphoric guitar exchanges of Television, all assembled in hypnotic instrumentals that take off on vertical ascensions of microtone-heavy euphoria to the point that the marching hallelujah melodies morph into dense vibrating structures that flash in front of you in the air. The addition of pedal steel and organ situate the music deep within a roots-music background that, combined with Forsyth’s guitar tone, sounds a lot like Richard Thompson circa I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. Indeed if you can imagine Fairport scholars Television’s live rips through The 13^th Floor Elevators’ “Fire Engine” denuded of vocals and re-scored in the studio for maximum psychoactive effect then you’re close to the kind of endlessly riffing American Primitive appeal of this great LP. And unlike so much of the name-dropping that has happened in the wake of his passing, the dedication to Jack Rose on “New Pharmacist Boogie” makes a lot of sense.

All proceeds from the sale of this release will go to Tom Carter. Read more about the appeal here: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tomcarterappeal

New duo jams from Chris Forsyth of Peeesseye and Koen Holtcamp of Mountains. Guitar/synth jams that comes across like a more sci-fi addled Rother/Dinger face-off, with flat-lined motorik grooves, cosmo synth and the kind of progressive avant/garage string burn previously favoured by Heldon. Edition of 500 copies. 

Edition of 300 copies LP from the solo concern of Justin Frye, also a member of Gary War’s group. PC Worship have a more ragged, basement appeal than much of the Shdwply catalogue, with a crude, DIY psych edge that feels closer to the homemade aesthetic of the early Twisted Village sides than the glazed psych-pop most associated with this amazing label. NYC Stone Age feels like a collection of tracks put together over a period of time and it veers into a bunch of mutually fucked zones: there are some honking brass-led jazz breakdowns that match Joshua Burkett-era Vermonster in terms of excessively-damaged free-rock motion, the kind of claustrophobic private basement psych that would erect temples around Vulcan’s Meet Your Ghost LP and some zoned pop/drone songs. Another great one from a label that can pretty much do no wrong.

Stunning double LP from the duo of Pat Murano (The No-Neck Blues Band/Decimus et al) and Mark Morgan (Sightings). This is wild a-formal low level Industrial/electronic minimalism that has all of the toxic appeal of Relay For Death with sidelong works that evolve from sputtering electronics and pugilistic drum machines into towering alien structures that touch on aspects as diverse as early Whitehouse, Faust and Conrad Schnitzler soundtracking a Hermann Nitsch aktion. Given full sides of vinyl to spread out on, the duo build the tension by the subtle addition of all sorts of subliminal laminal detail until the whole thing is suspended on screaming metal drones, arcs of flamethrower melody and scrambled alien vocal broadcasts that sound like modulated EVP. This makes a great companion to the recent run of killer Decimus sides and it’s a classic slice of austere death drone from a pair of heads with an instinctive feel for the blackest of psychedelics. Edition of 270 copies. A massive set: highly recommended. 

Crashing in with the kind of overloaded electricity of the early Moslang-Guhl sides or even Aaron Dilloway’s tactile contact mic work, the new album from the duo of Pat Murano (NNCK/Deimus et al) and Mark Morgan (Sightings) is a classic of bloody-minded electronic minimalism. Together the duo work clanging repeat-cells of steel tone and marching men rhythms into a dizzying storm of metal-on-metal. As the tectonic klang starts to peak all sorts of phantom aural spectra take shape until it sounds like a spectral Borbetomagus advancing out of the fog with dark, arcing chords and horn tones that have alla the endless magisterial violence of a Penderecki composition. Spectacularly beautiful Industrial electronics at an avant/classical high. Edition of only 200 copies. Recommended.

Much-anticipated follow-up to the earlier Ytiu LP, once more released on Pat Murano of NNCK/Decimus’s private Kelippah imprint, this time in an edition of 500 copies. CINo51 takes up where Ytiu left-off with a triumphal explosion of cymbals that leads into another section of “Daisy Chain For Richard Wright” where the mutant swamp/jazz jam gets into a kind of serpentine groove dominated by a heavy organ sound that could almost be Xhol Caravan dragged through a wormhole w/Terry Riley time-lag treatments before the whole thing starts to move vertically w/aspects of Popol Vuh’s Affenstunde giving way to a magisterial organ/percussion piece that comes over like the Hermann Nitsch orchestra plays Arzachel’s Garden Of Earthly Delights. The atmosphere is heady and devotional, with a dark, dramatic/gothic aspect that is profoundly effective. This gives way to the stunning second side which starts out with a minimal piece of tonefloat – “Prelude” – that sounds like a zonked out-take from Skip Spence’s Oar with the alien percussion sound from the original Sun Sessions recording of “Blue Moon” – style the most lunar of early rock/roll performances – married to wraiths of feedback tones and dark constellations of variously bowed non-identifiable instrumentation building to the amazing “The Danube” a piece of brain-stormingly devolved garage rocker complete with twin fuzz guitar euphorics and that classic Shaggs-meet-Siloah Nuss-style rhythm. No one has done more to join the dots between primitive Americana, outer space improvisation and avant garde art than NNCK and this is a flawlessly executed work that sustains a defiantly arch atmosphere across both sides while nodding like your favourite rock behemoth throughout. Pretty much everything you could want from a NNCK record in here and that final triumphal fuzz blow-out is one of the signature moments of their entire back catalogue. All copies come with individually hand-painted w/iodine sleeves. Highly recommended!

Inspired split LP that sees Pat Murano of The No-Neck Blues Band aka Decimus hook up with Brighton’s Ian Murphy aka Hobo Sonn in an edition of 300 copies with silkscreened sleeves: the Decimus side trades aggressively nuanced feedback tones and grinding nod-out  machine rhythms for the kind of distressed foggy atmosphere of early Whitehouse sides like Buchenwald or Maurizio Bianchi before giving way to a high fluctuating tone that almost works as a hallucinatory hymnal coda. Hobo Sonn’s run of vinyl LPs have been uniformly great and this is another eerie investigation into phantom place, with snippets of field recordings and found sound incorporated into a run of monolithic and arcane sonic environments in a way that would reconcile the radical collage style of Faust with the studio hermeticism of Nurse With Wound. Recommended. 

Edition of 300 copies debut from the new duo of Pat Murano (NNCK/Decimus et al) and Brad Rose (The North Sea): Safiyya has a dark soundtrack aspect, with cultic percussion, squiggles of electricity and high ghost tones that come over as somewhere between Amon Duul and Family Underground. Indeed, the Kraut quotient is particularly high, with that same feel for weirdo percussive ritual over sudden UFO touchdowns and moments of pastoral reflection that was birthed in the Swiss mountains by Leary, Ash Ra et al but all rendered with a post-Nurse With Wound surreal studio logic.