First volume in a proposed on-going series of vinyl reissues that restore hard-to-find BXC material. This one reissues some beautifully modulated electronic sound mutations originally released by Spencer himself on his own Drone Disco label as fig.64. Comes with glossy full-colour insert with art by Robert Beatty of Hair Police.

Second volume of this on-going series dedicated to restoring to vinyl hard to find BXC material. This one features "WSBC" from the WSBC double CD-R released by Dronedisco in 2003, "SSS" from the Sun Starved Skyscrapers C-20 issued on Since 1972 in 2005 and "TSYDFOLT" issued on a split 3" CD-R with Mike Shiflet that came out on Gameboy in 2003. Recompiled by Spencer Yeh in Summer 2006, this one comes with a full-colour insert featuring art by John Olson of Wolf Eyes.

Two sides of heavily phased vocal/noise confusion and elegiac electronic drug-trance from C. Spencer Yeh’s Burning Star Core.

Second release in Rococo's "Me Gusta Me Gusta" series of subscription-only one-sided LPs presents as killer set of aural pugilism from Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core and John Olson of Wolf Eyes/Graveyards et al. Hand-numbered edition of 200 copies. Moves from gunky, Dead Machines-style punk electronic wrassle through epic synth/goth peaks that sound like early Tangerine Dream re-scored for Nico performance by Brian Eno, John Cale and Yasunao Tone. Wild.

Unlikey compilation of early song-based pieces by C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core et al in an edition of only 135 copies on his own private imprint. Guitar and vocals from 2001 that seem to bridge the whole Twisted Village/Northwest USA basement songwriter vibe with the contemporary Brooklyn DIY style. Pretty surreal, played this to a few people and no one could believe it was Spencer.

Collaboration between Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core and artist Justin Lieberman, that Yeh describes as combining their love of “sound poetry, psychedelic rock, Japanese scum noise and Japanese psychedelic rock.” There’s also a more conceptual/absurdist cultural critique running through many of these tracks, using samples of voices, advertising inanities and surrealist interventions in a way that - at points - comes across as a more psychedelic Residents. The whole deal is beautifully packaged with the picture disc wrapped in a full-colour gatefold sleeve. Edition of 250 copies.

Edition of 177 copies on Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core’s own label documenting two live performances from this group that features Sara O’Keefe (Handicapper Horns/Eyes & Arms Of Smoke) and Trevor Tremaine (Hair Police/Burning Star Core/Death Unit et al). The sound is primitive, laid-back/stoned free jazz and electronics, with O’Keefe blowing brief halos of folk tone that Tremaine echoes and mutates via subtle shots of electricity while the two of em raise revenant vocal tones high above the din. One of the nicest reconciliations of free/folk in a while. Packaged in individually unique screened/sprayed sleeves. Already sold out at source.

CD reissue of what was originally a limited tour-only album from Spencer Yeh’s post-metal drone unit, bundling three massive huffs of dramatically piloted violin and sidereal electric forms that reconcile the kind of post-Kosugi trance dramas of his violin work with peaks of slow-burning Kosmiche crunch. Tony Herrington had a great piece in The Wire on BXC where he fingered Manuel Göttsching/Ash Ra’s more devotional/electro work as a precursor of this kind of monumentally damaged time/space sorcery and if that kind of comparison had your brain fluttering then plug it in here: Inside The Shadow is an even deeper pass through the kind of cranium-calming violence that illuminated much of Let’s Play Wild Like Wildcats Do and is one of Spencer’s most personally illuminating works. Recommended.

Debut album for the horse-killing free music trio of Don Dietrich (Borbetomagus), C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core) and Ben Hall (Graveyards). Great to hear Ben in this kinda context, playing in a rolling propulsive style that is the closest I’ve heard him come to the whole post-Milford school of exploded time.  Dietrich’s sax – naturally – dominates the sound, with a warp of Hendrixoid F/X contorting the tongue logic until it sounds like he’s licking a cement mixer. Yeh’s strings give the group an intense vertical lift and at points it sounds like he’s sawing the whole group straight off of the ground. A great record in the tradition of Babi Music, Demo Moe, The Celestrial Communication Orchestra and Borbetomagus. All exclusive material, none of which was on the American Tapes CD-R releases.  

Occupying the opposite pole from BXC’s masterful Challenger LP, Papercuts Theatre is a massive collage that smears several years worth of live recordings from Spencer Yeh and co into four monolithic movements that explode time and space in favour of vertical ascensions of tone and some of the heaviest nod-out rock moves of their career. Inspired by classic sleight-of-hand live reviews like The Grateful Dead’s Grayfolded, Sonic Youth’s Sonic Death and Flying Saucer Attack’s In Search Of Spaces, Yeh assembles dense, laminal settings of drone violence, Faust-styled Industrial-brut and outer space strings with a focus on their more aggressive jams. Long passages of tussling strings and thrifty percussion are blown apart by bursts of free jazz energy and screaming violin tones. The Faust Tapes were always a major organisational touchstone for the BXC production style, but Papercuts Theatre pushes the organisational logic of their albums to new spontaneous/hallucinogenic ends. Features Trevor Tremaine, Robert Beatty, members of Lambsbread and more. Recommended.

Limited edition of 550 LPs from Carter Thornton compiling a few years worth of mail collaborations with players like Burning Star Core, Alan Dubin (Khanate, Gnaw, OLD), Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, Zaimph), David Shuford (NNCK, Enos Slaughter), Pigeons, Kuwayama Kiyoharu, Marshall Avett (Zandosis), Greg Wildes (Gas Tank Orchestra), Carl Smith / Derek Phelps, Darwin Smith, Smith Harrison and Dr. Mijin Kim. Buncha styles devoured and regurgitated, from scattershot drone explosions and spare percussive strategies through laminal flashes of rainbow electronics. Plus it’s all compiled and programmed in a way that is totally maximalist, giving it the feel of some weird Euro art/rock obscurity in the orbit of Futura/Red et al. Excellent.

Billed as C. Spencer Yeh’s ‘first true solo album’, 1975 is an investigation of static drone works that forsakes the kinda barbarous dynamic violence of Burning Star Core for a series of luminous/ghostly tonal settings that coil like smoke around your skull w/deep fields of searchlight tone and jabbering cut-up detail. Buncha different sound sources flagged in the self-explanatory titles – “Two Guitars”, “Voice”, “Drone”, “Shrinkwrap from a Solo Saxophone CD (skit)” – with the music moving from tactile almost Philip Corner-esque miniatures through endlessly glissing xpressways of soft feedback that mirror the stately, surreal arc of Nurse With Wound’s Soliloquy For Lilith. One of Yeh’s most immersive and form-gobbling works, play this back to back with BXC’s Challenger for a lesson in the dynamic possibilities of killing time dead. Recommended. 

New wretchedly destroyed primitive rock ascension from Robert Beatty of Hair Police/Eyes And Arms Of Smoke and collaborator Walter Carson. One of the most repeat-killing Heavy Tapes blats to date, with full colour artwork by Maya Miller of Double Leopards and the usual classy HT production job.

Limited edition of 500 copies LP from Hair Police, with beautiful art sleeves assembled from hand-cut recycled paper and featuring a silkscreened B-side. Recorded while the group were trapped in a hotel room in Ohio during one of the worst snowstorms in history, this is classic bass-driven entropic noise/rock that occupies the same kind of low-end oblivion as early Neubauten, Skip Spence’s Oar etc while moving deeper into territory previously mapped by the less overtly aggressive tracks on Certainty Of Swarms. Recommended.

Edition of 80 copies in card boxes with paste-on wraparound full-colour sleeves. The Cove is Mike Connelly of Wolf Eyes/Hair Police in combative electro-acoustic/Industrial ritual mode. Clattering metal and unidentified tectonics conjure the claustrophobic sound of early CCCC and the Akita/Null duets, all played with a wild free music abandon.

Rarity: Brand new solo radiation from Mike Connelly of Wolf Eyes, Hair Police et al on Mike Bernstein of Double Leopards' imprint. Looped conveyor belts of tiny metal tracks are punctured by rattlesnake tones and steel blades of stumpy Morse code while fleets of black, tattooed helicopters come to a sticky halt in clouds of thick, flashing boo. Comes with a great full-colour printed cover by Maya Miller of Double Leopards and bonus sticker. Edition circa 200.

Excellent fucked-up distorto recording of this Lexington-area super group featuring members of Hair Police, Cadaver In Drag, Warmer Milks, Walter Carson and Kraken Fury playing pummelling Swans-style doomy hardcore illuminated by confused coils of spaghetti electronics and fronted by a vocalist who gargles black microphones like he’s choking on carrots. Massively fucked lumber-punk style, like if the NZ scene hadda spawned a sloth rock behemoth that only released cheap tapes via Expressway. More please! Recommended. 

“Connelly & Oldzone Refusal Unit: Two complete gigs from the mid summer tour with Uneven Universe, Evenings & Hive Mind. All acoustic, no amps, no electricity, nothing. Horrible scrape, empty litter containers with glass, bottle caps, metal, reeds, acoustic clutter supreme. One set from Gabe's killer Toledo Den of Death, the other from the amazing GOOD STYLE shop in Madison. Killer tour, ended in the woods jammin THE CHIEFTANS x 2 45s on 3rpm. Summer simmer acoustic. Racket to rocket to uncharted ear trails. Color Covers.” – John Olson.

Compilation featuring unreleased tracks from Connelly & The Machines, Body Morph, Hive Mind, Dog Lady and Drainolith: “So the other day, me and my lab buddy supreme Scott were knee f'in deep in trying to find out if a huge craggly motor was delta or wye three phase connected, and needless to say, was NOT having luck. It was a one of them RAW bologna built motors that has wire numbers, but its pointless cause its all on its own weirdo system. Whatever. So as usual, we shot the shit.
"What’s up this weekend man?"
"Not much, got a killer afternoon gig at the spot on Sunday...."
"What’s a gig?"
"Ah.... I’m having some of my weirdo friends over to make ah.... music...."
"You make music?"
"Sure"
"Would you ever play a 'gig' for the troops?"
"We should get black to that motor...I think I know the lead wires now..."
"Well, I can’t come over, I gotta fix my tires on my hunting jeep, but you know what would rule Olson?"
"What’s that?"
"If you would press that jammer on wax, mix all the tracks together into one inzane mess and sent it to Smith out west to press...."
"Man, you might be on to something"
"Make it one long one-sider with a lock groove, I mean shit...that’s how I remember gigs anyway.... and just use a flyer for the cover!!!"
"My man!!!"
So I took Scott's advice. Took the killer matinee jam, got out the scalpel, mixed everything together seamless inzane style, book ended it with an EVIL Hive Mind loop and boosh!!!! Pressed gig memory!!!! So it's just like a gig, except you don’t have KNOX MITCHELL's dad dropping you off or Collino spilling brews everywhere or your secret recipe INZANE CHILLI remains burning up in the bottoms of an empty crock pot. Oddly, not a peep of crew-audience noise to be found. Dog Lady played acoustic string scrape, Dan Body jammed reed universe from the uneven side (and then BLASTED Disclose and Firmeza 10 in the jamm room), Drainolith is my main man Alex K from Montreal and kept it uber real with amazing synth scramble, live from yep, THE BASEMENT. Greh said he did a cover of THE SHINING but I’ve never seen that mini-series. Dead Machines and Connelly jammed magical pixie flutes, infected metal scrape and vocals from an eerie afternoon lagoon. Like an endless gig, ...you gotta SIT THRU THE WHOLE THING...in one inzane memory blurr surpreme.... Record ends with an EVIL Hive Mind lock groover, endless...party. ... forever.... Was a blast, more of this style to come. And BYOB!!! There are three party stores right in the hood, duh!!! 2pm SHARP!!!> Edition of 100 in handmade recycled sleeves, numbered.” – John Olson.

Debut full-length album, recorded over five years, for Robert Beatty of Hair Police’s solo project: inchoate cut-up vocals and fucked-up beats give Persuasive Barrier a dark, Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV/Coil vibe and the electronics have a heady ‘automating’ appeal. The drones are microtone thick and have a devotional aspect to them that comes over like some of the more gothic Krautrock but it’s all cut up with a deeply illogic style, jump-cutting from transcendent tone ascensions to minimal beats and deconstructed speech that gives it the feel of an hallucinatory travelogue through surreal, imaginary landscapes. Think Minimal Man re-worked by Steven Stapleton w/Pan Sonic and you’re still nowhere close.