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Artist: ATLAS SOUND Title: Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel/Another Bedroom Format: Double LP Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $16.00 |
| "This is a true solo album, entirely created and produced by a single person. That is certainly not unique, especially in the contemporary scene. But Bradford Coxs unusual talent is the ability to take a wide variety of seemingly incongruous sound elements, and seamlessly meld them into a cohesive pop narrative. A sunken 4/4 techno beat underpinning "Winter Vacation"? Perfect. Mbira loops running over the top of "Quarantined"? Just what it needed. An insistent, clipped drum roll carrying "River Card"? Masterful. And ultimately it is this innate ability to combine all these disparate elements into a singular whole that makes this album such an enjoyable, and unique listen." - Kranky. |
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Artist: CARTER, CHRISTINA Title: Living Contact Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $14.00 |
| "The material on Living Contact is made up solely of Christina Carter on acoustic guitar and occasional vocals. It was recorded on boombox and four track tape from 1994-98, the period between Charalambides Union and Houston albums, with most of the material recorded in 1995 and 1996. Wholly Other originally released Living Contact as an edition of 100 CDRs in 2001 and the labels catalog describes the music as The primitive and spectral underpinnings of Charalambides rendered with mysterious simplicity." - Kranky. |
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Artist: CARTER, CHRISTINA Title: Original Darkness Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $12.00 |
| "Christina Carter has a gift. In a world where most people shy away from the truth, from honesty in emotion, Christina has the strength to address those feelings head on through her music. Within the songs of Original Darkness, she confronts loneliness, self doubt, inadequacy and desire. She bares these emotions in a sometimes tender, sometimes forceful, sometimes pleading voice, a voice in which you can hear her vulnerability, her trepidation. Christinas words, and the mournful sound of them, stirs a melancholy that is supported and framed by her gently plucked guitar notes, notes that echo the sadness in the world she sings of, as well as the words she sings. These 10 new songs are effective at painting pictures, exposing the underbelly of what we all really think but most will not say, of what we all really feel but push away. With the addition of gentle bells and occasional keyboards, Christina reminds us of what it means to be honestly human. The latest album from the longtime Charalambides mainstay follows her Electrice album from late 2006 on kranky as well as a split album with Pocahaunted from early in 2008." -Kranky |
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Artist: CARTER, TOM Title: Monument Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $14.00 |
| "Monument is a recording of guitar music from Tom Carter of Charalambides and is the second in a series of Charalambides-related reissues by Kranky. The two tracks of solo lap steel guitar were recorded live to DAT by Tom Carter a few days before a live performance in March, 2001. Monument was originally released by Wholly Other in an edition of 55 CDRs. The first track, Monument 1 (Memorial) is slightly longer than two minutes and barely reveals itself. The second, Monument 2, is 47 minutes in length and considerably more expansive and louder than the opening cut. The album was made using lap steel guitar, glass slides, digitech tsr-12 stereo reverb, a rat distortion pedal and craftsman screwdrivers." -Kranky |
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Artist: CHARALAMBIDES Title: A Vintage Burden Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $13.50 |
| "The long-awaited new album from the legendary CHARALAMBIDES, now pared down to the original core duo of CHRISTINA CARTER and TOM CARTER. After having worked out some dark demons with the release of their last album Joy Shapes, the duo has recorded a more melodic song cycle, reminiscent of their earlier albums Union and Market Square. Of particular note is the stunning guitar work Tom displays on the 18-minute instrumental "Black Bed Blues." The bands most cosmic and beautiful release to date." - Kranky. |
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Artist: CHARALAMBIDES Title: Exile Format: Double LP Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $18.00 |
| "Exile is the new Charalambides album. Five years in the making, it was recorded between 2006 and 2010 in various locations in New Hampshire, western Massachusetts and New York City, mixed at Black Dirt Studios, and mastered at Sand with Paul Gold. The group remains the core duo of Christina and Tom Carter, with contributions on one track by the string section of Helena Espvall and Margarida Garcia. Deeply imbued with the full historical spectrum of American folk and blues song form, Exile is a tapestry of suppliant invocations directed at the heart of the unseen spiritual forces surrounding us. Dense arrangements and thickly-overdubbed tracks sit side-by-side with material that ranks among the sparest and most skeletal the group has recorded, giving Exile the psychic scope of their classic Market Square album while building on the refinements of the more recent Likeness and A Vintage Burden releases." -Kranky. |
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Artist: CHARALAMBIDES Title: Joy Shapes Format: Double LP Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $17.00 |
| "To say that the words unique and singular are over-used in describing music is to state the obvious. To apply these words to the sounds created by the various duo/trio configurations of the Texas group Charalambides over the last decade plus would be understatement. To be sure there are numerous antecedents to their music; to deny this of any artists work would be akin to saying that they are deaf. But they have surely broken new ground in the primitive/folk/mystic/improv/psych valley in which they toil. This new album is certainly not for the faint of heart. Five songs stretch and crawl over 75 minutes, with Christine Carter finding a new fearlessness in her voice that will draw comparisons to Patty Waters or the early work of Meredith Monk. Joy Shapes is the first studio album recorded by Charalambides in a long time." - Kranky. CD also available. |
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Artist: CHARALAMBIDES Title: Likeness Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $13.50 |
| "Likeness is the newest release from the duo of Tom and Christina Carter. Recorded over a period of several weeks during the Spring of 2006, the album is a return to the spontaneous composition of previous Charalambides records such as Houston and Union. With the exception of The Good Life, which appeared in a primitive version on the Wholly Other CDR Home, all of the tracks on this release sprung forth after record was pressed, and were fleshed out via overdubs, editing and a malfunctioning space echo over the course of the next few months. Lyrical content largely derives from public domain, American popular song from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, edited, rearranged and largely deconstructed by Christina into abstract protest songs for the century at hand. Musically, the album departs from the warm psych of A Vintage Burden in favor of the lush and layered vocal strata of Christinas later solo works, and a chillier, more abrasive guitar sound that favors The Velvets over The Byrds. Though containing much of the compositional concision that gave A Vintage Burden much of its appeal, the sound here just as frequently turns the corner into the abstract echoing spaces that characterize the more discordant sounds of Charalambides at the dawn of their Kranky residency." - Kranky. |
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Artist: CHARALAMBIDES Title: Our Bed is Green Format: Double CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $15.50 |
| "Originally released on one cassette by the band in 1992 and later reissued as a limited edition compact disc on their Wholly Other label, Our Bed Is Green was the first release by Charalambides. Although no band is sui generis, anyone who heard the first recordings by Charalambides in 1992 could have been forgiven for thinking that of the duo. Our Bed Is Green was a recording that roped in folk, improvisation, psychedelia, blues and gospel into a crackling sound world unlike any other. Ranging across a 90 minute cassette and produced at home on four track, the music had only the means of production in common with the so-called lo-fi scene of the time. On their debut, Charalambides achieved the distinct otherness they retain to this day." - Kranky. |
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Artist: CHARALAMBIDES Title: Unknown Spin Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $13.50 |
| "Christina Carter and Tom Carter have been recording and performing as Charalambides since 1991. Unknown Spin is the first in a series of reissues of Charalambides material on Kranky. Originally issued by the bands Wholly Other imprint in a CD-R pressing of 300 [with a track by Scorces], Unknown Spin is now available to a wider audience and will remain in print. Since their first self released cassette, Our Bed Is Green, Charalambides have shown themselves to be inheritors of the Texas psychedelic tradition, channellers of the American primitivist instinct, luminescent improvisers and creators of indescribable wonders. Now their music can be appreciated without anyone having to bid for a limited supply of CD-Rs online." - Kranky. |
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Artist: DADAMAH Title: This Is Not A Dream Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $14.00 |
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"The complete recorded works of this now defunct New Zealand band, including the 2 singles on Majora, Drag City comp track and This Is Not A Dream LP (also Majora). Some of the coolest mantra-dream rock of the last decade." -Kranky. 90s CD issue of the entire Dadamah discography. Peter Stapleton (The Victor Dimisich Band, The Vacuum, Scorched Earth Policy, Terminals, Flies Inside the Sun, etc..), Kim Pieters ( Flies Inside The Sun,Doramaar, Rain, etc), Roy Montgomery ( The Pin Group, The Shallows, Dissolve, Hash Jar Tempo, etc.) and Janine Stagg.
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Artist: DISSOLVE Title: That That Is...Is (Not) Format: LP Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $16.00 |
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A Christchurch, NZ duo made up of guitarists Chris Heaphy and Roy Montgomery (ex-Dadamah, Pin Group). "Extrapolating from the drone of Dadamah, Dissolve move into new, stark landscapes marked by the spindly interplay of the 2 guitarists... will remind you of Bruce Gilberts work with Dome, the crystalline structures of This Kind of Punishment, the sidewinding interplay of Mark Riley and Craig Scanlon in the Fall..." - Kranky. 1994 release.
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Artist: GROUPER Title: A I A Format: Double CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $17.00 |
| "This is the first CD issue of Groupers 2011 self released two part album subtitled Dream Loss and Alien Observer, comprised of songs written and recorded over the last four years. A chronological order informs the thematic trajectory of the dual release. Dream Loss is the first album and is a collection of older songs, while Alien Observer is mostly made of newer songs. Each is meant to stand solidly on its own, and also as a satellite in the others system, subjects on either side of the waters surface, on either side of a trick mirror; at times reflecting one back to the other, at times looking straight through to the other. Enough has been written about Grouper in the past few years that there is no need to wax poetic here. Suffice it to say that Liz Harris has created an exquisite sonic universe where she is the sole inhabitant, and we should consider it a privilege to listen in." -Kranky. |
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Artist: GROUPER Title: Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $14.00 |
| "New reissue of Groupers breakthrough 2008 album." -Kranky. |
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Artist: GROUPER Title: Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill Format: LP Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $15.00 |
| "New reissue of Groupers breakthrough 2008 album." Kranky. |
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Artist: GROUPER Title: The Man Who Died in His Boat Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $14.00 |
| "When I was a teenager the wreckage of a sailboat washed up on the shore of Agate Beach. The remains of the vessel werent removed for several days. I walked down with my father to peer inside the boat cabin. Maps, coffee cups, and clothing were strewn around inside. I remember looking only briefly, wilted by the feeling that I was violating some remnant of this mans presence by witnessing the evidence of its failure. Later I read a story about him in the paper. It was impossible to know what had happened. The boat had never crashed or capsized. He had simply slipped off somehow, and the boat, like a riderless horse, eventually came back home. The Man Who Died in His Boat is an album of unreleased songs recorded alongside the Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill album." -Kranky. |
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Artist: GROUPER Title: The Man Who Died in His Boat Format: LP Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $15.00 |
| "When I was a teenager the wreckage of a sailboat washed up on the shore of Agate Beach. The remains of the vessel werent removed for several days. I walked down with my father to peer inside the boat cabin. Maps, coffee cups, and clothing were strewn around inside. I remember looking only briefly, wilted by the feeling that I was violating some remnant of this mans presence by witnessing the evidence of its failure. Later I read a story about him in the paper. It was impossible to know what had happened. The boat had never crashed or capsized. He had simply slipped off somehow, and the boat, like a riderless horse, eventually came back home. The Man Who Died in His Boat is an album of unreleased songs recorded alongside the Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill album." -Kranky. |
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Artist: GROWING Title: The Skys Run Into The Sea Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $14.00 |
| "Growing are a trio based in Olympia, WA. The Skys Run Into The Sea is their debut album and is aptly named; like the horizon line it delineates a place where elemental forces collide and overlap. Using guitars, bass and electronics Growing create rows of ascending and descending intervals of noise and silence which move rhythmically and reveal latent harmonies and dynamics. Growing recorded and mixed the album in their hometown." -Kranky |
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Artist: HAUSCHILDT, STEVE Title: Sequitur Format: LP Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $15.00 |
| "From Steve Hauschildt: This new album was recorded in both Vancouver and Cleveland. I used almost 20 different instruments, from every decade from the 60s to the present, most of them synthesizers, drum machines and effects. This gives the album a much wider palette than my last, Tragedy & Geometry, and it also gives it a more classic/new sound, yet it is still a logical follow up to that LP. I also used some techniques in the studio where I controlled older instruments with the computer and this opened up new ways for me to explore their potential as well as their innate idiosyncrasies. I was very interested in the artificiality of vocal or choir-like sounds that emulate a person or group singing, and how this has evolved with the advancement of musical technology over the years. I also sang myself, and used a vocoder, not to sound robotic, but to remove the connotations of gender. Those sounds are androgynous because they carry both masculine and feminine characteristics. I was inspired to carry this idea into music mainly because of the work of Camille Paglia and Donna Haraway. I feel that the album in a sense treads the imaginary boundary between nature and artifice. It is postmodern, but not necessarily a post-Freudian statement on cyborg theory or feminism. Rather it is a musically mimetic domain where these ideas freely collide and coalesce. Exactly one year on from his last album, Steve Hauschildt returns with his most commanding work to date. Dense and lush arrangements conjure a retro-futuristic soundscape for a time that never was, or one that may yet arrive." - Kranky. |
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Artist: HAUSCHILDT, STEVE Title: Tragedy & Geometry Format: CD Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $14.00 |
| "Perhaps the least prolific and quietest of the three members of Cleveland trio EMERALDS, STEVE HAUSCHILDT is usually found at their live performances playing the serious scientist as foil to the other two members more animated stage presence. As a teen, Steve bypassed the typical young music fan obsessions over punk and hardcore musics, drawn instead towards mid-late 90s techno/electro-revivalism and finding himself alone in an electronic universe of his own choosing. Steve has always considered himself more of an artist than a musician, and sees his work both in group and solo settings as much a visual experience as it is an aural one. The title Tragedy & Geometry is an ambiguous but subtle reference to Melpomene (Muse of Tragedy) and Polyhymnia (Muse of Geometry), or more specifically the collision/overlap of what they invoke. The opening track is also a direct reference to "Polyhymnia, Muse of Eloquence", the painting by the French artist Charles Meynier on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The album is a treatise on the idea that technology is becoming more disposable as its becoming more accessible, and how this circumstance has a more evident/direct effect on the interpersonal, i.e. relations, with others in the so-called Age of Information. What results is a gorgeous, flowing, floating world of post-kosmische musik, Steve Hauschildts first widely available release, and his first major statement as a solo artist." -Kranky. |
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Artist: HAUSCHILDT, STEVE Title: Tragedy & Geometry Format: LP Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $19.00 |
| "Perhaps the least prolific and quietest of the three members of Cleveland trio EMERALDS, STEVE HAUSCHILDT is usually found at their live performances playing the serious scientist as foil to the other two members more animated stage presence. As a teen, Steve bypassed the typical young music fan obsessions over punk and hardcore musics, drawn instead towards mid-late 90s techno/electro-revivalism and finding himself alone in an electronic universe of his own choosing. Steve has always considered himself more of an artist than a musician, and sees his work both in group and solo settings as much a visual experience as it is an aural one. The title Tragedy & Geometry is an ambiguous but subtle reference to Melpomene (Muse of Tragedy) and Polyhymnia (Muse of Geometry), or more specifically the collision/overlap of what they invoke. The opening track is also a direct reference to "Polyhymnia, Muse of Eloquence", the painting by the French artist Charles Meynier on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The album is a treatise on the idea that technology is becoming more disposable as its becoming more accessible, and how this circumstance has a more evident/direct effect on the interpersonal, i.e. relations, with others in the so-called Age of Information. What results is a gorgeous, flowing, floating world of post-kosmische musik, Steve Hauschildts first widely available release, and his first major statement as a solo artist." -Kranky. |
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Artist: HECKER, TIM Title: Ravedeath, 1972 Format: Double LP Label: Kranky Country: USA Price: $19.00 |
| "Tim Heckers latest work approaches a form of secular musical transcendentalism from within the battered temple of spirituality. Recorded in a church in Reykjavik, Iceland and using a pipe organ as the primary sound source, this new piece is essentially a live recording. In reality, it exists in a nether world between captured live performance and meticulous studio work, melding the two approaches to sonic artifice as a unity. It is in parts a document of air circulating within a wooden room, and also a pagan work of physical resonance within a space once reserved for the hallowed breath of the divine. While the title of the piece Hatred of Music might be a clue, the album is also partly an attempt to confront a pervasive negativity surrounding music. Historical rituals of destroying pianos, mountains of pirated CDRs pushed by bulldozers in Eastern Europe, or the melancholy of the digital music era began as sideline motifs which quickly informed the work on this record. They also really didnt at all. Despite that the context is wide open in such a form of musical abstraction, the substance of these immersive compositions showcases Heckers continued mastery of organizing sound into a visceral near entity. It is an almost physical presence that the listener feels as much as hears. This work is a significant contribution to Heckers oeuvre, one which spans over ten years of musical production. Ravedeath is an enigmatic document of beauty and force. The album was recorded mostly over the period of one day in July of 2010. Iceland-based musician Ben Frost assisted with the engineering and performs on this recording." -Kranky |