Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Geoff Mullen - Accidental Guitars LP - Rel Records
Geoff Mullen - Accidental Guitars LP - Rel Records
It's no surprise that Geoff Mullen's new record sounds chaotic on first listen -- the LP is made from the haphazard layering of a live set recorded to tape and two different improvised accompaniments to that set each recorded later to a different cassette deck. What's surprising is the way the record slowly takes shape, revealing passages of synchronicity and cohesion. Scattered, percussive guitar playing will ease into more meditative sounds, agitation give way to calm. Definitely not an easy listen, it is certainly thought-provoking and often mesmerizing.

$17, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Robert Ridley-Shackleton - Shut Up Egg - Self-Released
Robert Ridley-Shackleton - Shut Up Egg - Self-released
Following up his recent tape on Goaty, Robert Ridley-Shackleton returns with Shut Up Egg in a self-released edition of 30. Bracingly unhinged, fans of Baronic Wall will be familiar with the territory but Ridley-Shackleton is certainly on his very own trip. Shut Up Egg is a concept album of sorts, documenting Robert's fury towards an egg-man he finds in his kitchen trying to kill his wife, and his feverish desire to inflict yolk-splattering violence against the intruder and his supermarket kin. It's not completely strict in its theme, however, and includes a track about a "silly little poochie" with big feet and ears and a blood-lust towards Robert and his family. A pleasant surprise of the tape comes in the form of the backing tracks and instrumental work, which is less Casio-centric than I remember the last tape being and more experimental in texture, filled with weird growls and industrial noises. Maybe it's because I was listening to him earlier today, but there something vaguely Hasil Adkins about Ridley-Shackleton's strange visions(I'm thinking obsession with killing an egg versus obsession with cutting a woman's head off). Anyway, insular and somewhat unsettling, well, no, straight up unsettling, Shut Up Egg is the product of a unique mind, and will certainly perplex and entertain.

You can listen to it here:
http://robertridley-shackleton.bandcamp.com/album/shut-up-egg

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Uhlaan Khol - La Catacomb - Soft Abuse
Ulaan Khol - La Catacomb - Soft Abuse
Pummeling in its poise, La Catacomb is a leveling slow burner of frayed guitar work that finds its peace in waves of distortion. Without thinking too much about it, the reference that comes to mind is Popul Vuh's soundtrack work for Herzog -- that sense of calm and unease somehow at the same time. Impeccable stuff. Honestly it's a little bit weird to me that this is only on tape, enough so that I spent some time looking for who had put out the vinyl version only to find that there was none. A little background info, Ulaan Khol is a project of Steven R. Smith, who first came to my attention in the early Aughts via his excellent work as Hala Strana, though he was also playing in Thuja at the time along side Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson. Which is to say he is a veteran of the Jewelled Antler scene and has been "doing it" for a while now. Really excellent tape, highly recommended!

$7, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Laura Warholic - What Comes Before The Word?? - Faux Pas
Laura Warholic - What Comes Before The Word?? - Faux Pas
Solo tape from the boy-half of Angels In America -- despite all the horror movie posturing of that duo, What Comes Before The Word?? is a surprisingly unguarded take on downer bedroom pop. There's plenty of "creepiness" in the form of spoken word bits with squealing electronic sounds in the background but it seems less concerned with dead bodies in the corner and more with bumming oneself out on a lonely Friday night at home. I think Russian Tsarlag should get the nod for creating this genre. One track on the B-sides goes for full-on AIA mode, pairing an apocalyptic/Freudian short story with industrial beats but I'm not feeling it, for whatever reason. I am digging the combo of pop songs and artsy spoken bits, also digging the wider range of images, emotions and sounds covered here than on the AIA stuff I've heard. Maybe the group is going in this direction?

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

PS. Volume levels go up and down from track to track on this tape, just a heads up if that kind of thing bothers you.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Noise Nomads - Menacing Bells - Faux Pas
Noise Nomads - Menacing Bells - Faux Pas
The keywords are "noise" and "menacing" -- the existence of bells must be taken on trust. Brutal mid-range cacophony like they do it in New England(the liner notes say a Vox amp is involved, to give you gear-heads an idea) emphasizing repetition, feedback and growling, rhythmic pulses and shying away from layering of sound or texture. Head clearing stuff, really gives the ears a ream. Says it was recorded at Lasagna Zone, which sounds like a place I'd like to visit someday.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Primitive Motion - By Arc Or Chord - Soft Abuse
Primitive Motion - By Arc Or Chord - Soft Abuse
Australian weirdness from Brisbane. Am I picking up on a Brisbane "sound"? Like the excellent Sky Needle, Primitive Motion bring quite a bit of composure to their wigged-out worldview, and similarly, I suspect both groups are hiding a decent level of musicianship in their clatter, or perhaps get their nice sound from a good ratio of musicians to non-musicians. The tracks here are minimally arranged and rhythm heavy -- some kind of groove is established and then the singer lays down unaffected sing-speak poem-lyrics. The songs that really click are rugged and hypnotic and definitely suggest that these guys have a killer LP in them. Cool stuff. Good energy and fresh vibes.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Concern - Living Wage - Digitalis LTD
Concern - Living Wage CS - Digitalis
Concern is something of a giant in my mind -- his mysterious drone music made from tape loops of real, live, vibrating instruments (dulcimer, piano, lap steel, etc.) never fails to stun with its depth and attention to texture. Emotionally, too, his pieces are deep, and steer clear of the usually traps of maudlin "ecstasy" or goth-y doominess. What I'm getting at is that what you hear on a Concern release is the work of person diligently following their own path and honing their craft, making music that is above trends and superficial distractions. Music that will last.

$7, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Ampax Catalog - DSR.SLT - Phaserprone
Ampax Catalog - dsr.slit - Phaserprone
Elemental and trippy, Ampax Catalog dial in some classic electronic vibes reminiscent of early BBC Radiophonic/Delia Derbyshire and library music LPs of the mono synth era. Couple tracks lean in a more Mark Lord-esque dystopian industrial zone but keep with the M.O. of stark arrangements and tones. Super nice harmony of sound and design with this tape, probably the best looking Phaserprone release to date, no small feat, thick paper and two color letter-press printing. Very elegant!

$7, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Eggy is your one-stop Mad Nanna shopping center...
Mad Nanna - If I Don't Sleep Tonight 7" - Wormwood Grasshopper
Mad Nanna - If I Don't Sleep Tonight 7" - Wormwood Grasshopper
Very excited to get a handful of this 100 press Australian 7" from my fav Weirdos of Oz. "If I Don't Sleep Tonight" finds the 'Nanna band in a moment of surprising tenderness -- late-night sentiments of love and psychosis transmitted via their usual out-of-tune clatter. The unlabeled b-side is mellower still, a very pretty folk-pop number with muted strumming and a guitar line out for a midnight wander, with occasional, distant vocals. An excellent pair of tunes, very skewed and lovely.

$11*, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

*A ton of money, I know, but I'm really not making any money off this release, I should charge more but I just can't. More than $11 is too much for a 7". It costs that much because it's a tiny run size of 100 and it's coming all the way from Tasmania(!). And I just had to have it in the mail order.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Sad Horse 1
Sad Horse - Eggy Tape - Eggy Records
Perhaps one of the highest compliments I can pay to Sad Horse is that after hearing their 7" on Mississippi Records and waiting to see them play for the first time, I realized that I had no idea what kind of people were about to take the stage. From the sounds on their record they could just as easily be a pair of young punks with a melodic streak as stylish artsy-types recently transplanted from New York. (I won't tell you what they're really like!) And I think this gets right to the core of their music -- it's not reducible to a certain "sound" or genre but instead represents the two distinct personalities behind the songs. Their music is frenetic and melodic, pleasantly frayed while executing tricky passages, spry one moment and rock and roll heavy the next. And also funny. In the few years since that first show I've gotten to know the two of them, and been able to figure out some of the elements going into their music -- Geoff's past playing drums in the band Fuck, his love of Thinking Fellers, little snippets of surf music, some African guitar, a dash of Dead Moon, for example. Elizabeth's deep, subliminal love of Zooey Deschanel. But ultimately what comes out is the particular combination of the two of them, Geoff's dizzying guitar lines with Elizabeth's scatter-shot drumming underneath, then suddenly 90s-heavy chords with a no-nonsense beat, and both of them hollering away on top. This release breaks a long dry-spell from one of Portland's great bands, and with a record in the works for the excellent, new Water Wing imprint it looks like there's a lot more good stuff to come.

$5, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Here's "Check's In The Mail":








And you can check out a few more tracks here.
And also, if you are in Portland, don't miss the release show!
Woolen Men & Sad Horse & Well
Sad Horse
Woolen Men
and our new friends
Well
...at the World Famous Kenton Club! Free! If you drink like crazy the bands get paid!
Sad Horse - Eggy Tape - Eggy Records

Monday, November 14, 2011

The Garbage and the Flowers - Stoned Rehearsal LP - Quemada Records
The Garbage and the Flowers - Stoned Rehearsal LP - Quemada Records
Well, the title says it all but I can fill you in on the details. The Garbage and the Flowers are a New Zealand/Australia band whose approach to music is so laid back that it sometimes feels like a small miracle that their recordings ever even see the light of day. After two decades of existence they have left a sparse trail; beyond a double LP, only two 7"s, a tape and a handful of compilation appearances. They seem to enjoy drifting along the margins, beloved by the lucky few who happen upon their music, which itself drifts along, sometimes noisily but usually, lately quite hushed, always on the verge of coming together or falling apart, but amazingly, beautifully, doing neither.
Stoned Rehearsal dates to 2007. It was first released by the band, then re-released by Near Tapes, small editions in both cases. In terms of mood, it's very much in line with the Alamo Rose 7" that came out Skull Tones a few years back(and actually has stoned versions of the two songs on that record), which is to say quietly anthemic, full of off-kilter guitars and wobbly harmonies. And really, this record is what it says it is -- the band meanders around the songs, starting and stopping, flubbing guitar lines, the dogs start barking, lyrics are forgotten, chords discussed. It's like a normal Garbage and the Flowers recording except more so. But the songs, despite being all wrong, so utterly, totally, completely wrong, are great. Bracingly tender, quietly cacophonous. An oddity and a classic. Comes with a lyric sheet!

$14, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Le Super Djata Band Du Mali - En Super Forme - Musique Mondiale
Le Super Djata Band Du Mali - En Super Forme LP - Musique Mondiale
Four long, hypnotic tracks from the Malian Super Djata Band. Discogs lists the original issue of this LP at 1982 but I would guess that these recordings date to at least a few years earlier given the nicely swampy fidelity. Similar to other group records from Mali I've heard, the songs tend toward mid-tempo and draw their strength from their magnetic repetitiveness. The bass, for example, locks into a single, simple line for each long song and plays it into infinity. My knowledge is limited, but the Super Djata Band seems fairly stripped down, lacking horns and featuring a single guitarist -- but they use the economy of the setup very well and the guitarist is really extraordinary, easily moving from the chiming figures that accompany the singing into the nimble leads that intersperse the songs.

Here's live footage from Malian television, circa the early 80s. The group on the LP sounds much smaller than the relatively large one here but the song is fairly representative and -- holy shit! -- that guitarist! that guitarist!


$12, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it

Monday, November 7, 2011

A pair of limited run re-presses on the table. Was doing some organizing and realized I had the tapes and covers to put a couple tapes back in print that I thought some folks might be interested in:
Jovontaes - Masks of the Land (reissue) - Eggy 11b (1)
Jovontaes - Masks of the Land
An Eggy favorite and early-ish release from these Lexington, KY rippers. They've got a new LP on Hello Sunshine and are on the up. I've got just a handful of these. $5
The Polyps - Flies Of Winter
The Polyps - Flies Of Winter
Made these up for the recent east coast tour (in support of a Hello Sunshine LP) and sold them all on the road, thought I'd do a few more for non-east coasters. Very stripped down, songs and improvisations on acoustic guitar for the most part. $5

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Ural Thomas - Push Em Up/Deep Within My Heart 7 " - Mississippi Records
Ural Thomas - Fade Away/Smile 7" - Mississippi Records
Ural Thomas - Push Em Up/Deep Within My Heart and Fade Away/Smile 7"s - Mississippi Records
Sometimes given the distinguished title of "Whitest City North of the Mississippi," North Portland was actually the home to a vibrant, if small, African American community in the decades before and after the second World War. Ural Thomas is the most well-known singer to emerge from that scene, recording a few singles in the late '60s for the UNI label, which failed to bring him mainstream success at the time but in later years earned him cred from crate diggers who rediscovered his West Coast take on Northern Soul (check out "Pain Is The Name Of Your Game"). My ears tell me Push 'Em Up/Deep Within My Heart dates to earlier than his UNI records and sounds to have been recorded in a small -- Portland -- studio(Note: I'm told 1963 is the year). Gritty and upbeat, the two cuts here are absolute gems. Unlike his later studio work with open, hi-fi production, these songs are swampy and sweaty, all smeared organ and snappy drums. I was expecting a ballad from Deep Within My Heart and while the tempo drops a few notches this side has the same giddy energy as the flip. Fade Away/Smile is an oddity of a record; Thomas himself pressed it in 1968 in a run of less than 400, which in 1968 was a minuscule number. Fade Away is a rambling jam featuring a band consisting of children, some of them playing hollow metal bedposts as horns, with the vocals somewhere deep in the mix -- easily one of the stranger soul sides I've heard -- and Smile is a solid and straightforward ballad in a kind of Curtis Mayfield style. These are $5 each, I highly recommend Push 'Em Up. It will make you happy, for real.

Email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Thought Broadcast - Up Maker 7" - Phaserprone
Thought Broadcast - Up-Maker 7" - Phaserprone
Brooklyn-based Phaserprone continues to impress, pairing excellent design work with a unique take on the fringe music scene. Thick paper and stately letter-press work have become the visual hall-mark of the label, while musically the releases tend toward rhythmically focused experimentation. Thought Broadcast reminds me of the other Broadcast actually, though only tangentially. These are of course not pop songs, nor is there a demure chanteuse, but it's not hard to imagine these four songs as lost instrumental tracks from the late, more experimental era of the British band. There is something vaguely 60s about the rhythms -- they are simple and propulsive -- and the odd electronic sounds are channeled into semi- and sometimes overtly melodic phrases. Very cool and mysterious 7", the somewhat high cost reflects the high production value.

$8, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Thursday, November 3, 2011


























TOMORROW NIGHT AT NATIONALE!
The opening of a new show of excellent and funny art by Lil' Jeff Kriksciun with musical accompaniment by Ketchup Duo DJs (me and Josh)

Nationale
811 E Burnside
6 to 8pm
More info here.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Polyps/Well Valentine's Nov 1st
Tuesday night!
The Polyps
Well
DJ Ghost Animal

Valentine's
FREE!

Friday, October 28, 2011

Very happy to announce the release of a new tape on Eggy! Two more will follow shortly as a trilogy of Portland pop music...
The Charts/Besties - Split CS - Eggy Records
The Charts/Besties - Split Tape - Eggy
Besties are Orca Team's evil twin and the Id of Portland's pop scene. Leif Anders heads both groups, but trades in Orca Team's (see Eggy releases 12 and 16) airy, pre-Beatles 1960s fascinations for a focus on tightly-wound and propulsive songs. The beat leads on the one and the guitar winds relentless arpeggios, verses happen as quickly as the choruses, and all but one song clocks in at around 2 minutes; lean and forceful.

"Sleepovers With Sara" by Besties








The Charts are Portland's Traditionalists, proudly carrying the torch of Classic Pop Songcraft. We are talking about three-chord wonders that are stuck in your head before the first verse is even over. And then there's the chorus. The Charts are also a mess, but a good mess (most of the time), and it would be hard to imagine them any other way. I am a big enough fan of these guys that after months of pestering them about when they would finally get it together and record already, I took matters into my own hands. The four songs here are the fruit of two weekends of blood, sweat and beers the Charts, my cassette 4-track and I spent together and I couldn't be more proud of them.

"We Got It Good" by the Charts








More tracks can be found here:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Charts/Split_Tape

And there is a release show as well!

Sunday, Nov 6th at Rontoms
The Charts
Orca Team
FREE!

Tape costs $5, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Young Prisms - Demos, Etc. - Gnar Tapes
Young Prisms - Demos, Etc. - Gnar Tapes
Nice tape of reverb with lots of pop songs, er, I mean...
Young Prisms are an SF unit who combine the sugar and innocence of Strawberry Wine-era MBV with the hazy, faraway feel of Loveless-era MBV, skipping over the dissonance and power of You Made Me Realise-era MBV (there is a little bit of grit but it's behind so much reverb it doesn't really feel gritty). This tape would feel right at home in the Night-People pop roster. Some nice tunes buried in here.

$7, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Sudden Infant - The Wicked Mothers - Robert & Leopold
Sudden Infant - The Wicked Mothers - Robert & Leopold
Avant-weirdness from this prolific and long standing Berlin based artist. Stuttering, seething noise in an impressionistic vein on the A side. The flip incorporates more concrete elements, at one point locking into a menacing rhythm and then later incorporating a bizarre tape-loop of a woman alternately crying and giggling. Inscrutably European.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to make an order.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

New blog! No reading required! Just fill your eyeballs with colorful, beautifully designed pieces of paper:

http://cassetteart.tumblr.com/

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Noveller - Glacial Glow LP - Weird Forest
Noveller - Glacial Glow LP - Weird Forest
I was a hater. The first Noveller -- Sarah Lipstate -- track I heard was a snoozer and it came paired with a glamor shot of the artist, which automatically made the cynic in me think, "Oh, I see, because this girl's a babe, she gets to make passable drone music and people will say they like it," which is an awful thing to think and I am happy to report that I was wrong. You'll note the imprint -- Weird Forest have been behind a number of stunning LPs in the last year or two, notably the Love Cry Want double LP, the DJ Yo Yo Dieting double LP, Winter Drones, the M.B reissue. Glacial Glow is a record of restrained, textural guitar music, a slower, more elegant counterpart to Mark McGuire's recent output. While the appeal of the LP comes largely from the sense of how composed it is, the places it really shines are where the guitar playing is more open and melodic, where there is a free, krautrock feeling without an overt effort to sound like the 70s. Lots to like on this LP, looking forward to the next one.

$15, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Couple new-ish tape in from Lee Noble's No Kings label. I would recommend scoping the site, the design aesthetic is really a treat. Every tape is a little treasure.
Ttotals - Live at Grady's - No Kings
Ttotals - Live at Grady's - No Kings
Ripper of a tape from a duo from Nashville. I know the "Live at..." thing is always a turnoff but honestly I don't think you'd be able to tell it if it weren't in the name. The recordings are way blasted for sure but the mix is right and the energy combustible. Ttotals play a style of revved up psych; the vocals are an echo-ed out wash but the guitar is raw and relentless, and the drums thunder away behind, never dropping below an energy-level I would call "amped." Short and sweet at four four-ish minute jammers, reminds me of some of the psych leaning tapes in the last Night-People batch, I'm thinking Daughters of the Sun and Lantern. Cool stuff.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Hobbledeions/Sugar Sk*-*lls - Secret Fuge Machine split CS - No Kings
Hobbledeions/Sugar Sk*-*lls - Split CS - No Kings
Woah. Beats. This tape confirms my suspicion that 2012 is going to be a year of Beats. Used to be, "Hey man, check out my new synthesizer," but it's gonna be, "Hey man, check out my new beat." Also, while I have your attention, let me predict that Roni Size is going to make a comeback in 2013 and instead of food we'll be able to Paypal calories directly into the bloodstream or pancreas or wherever it is that calories go. Just kidding, the world is going to end 2012. Anyway. Hobbledeions and Sugar Sk*-*lls are both Nashville cats, I believe, Hobbledeions on the A bringing what my untrained ears would call break-beats and Sugar Sk*-*lls on the flip doing chirpy, 8-bit-style electronics. Beats from beginning to end. Beautiful packaging on this one, two colors of paper to chose from, nice letter-press work, and the color palette just sings.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Ophibre - Chronic Complications - No Kings
Ophibre - Chronic Complications - No Kings
Raw electricity from Boston-based Ophibre, the nom de synth of Ben Rossignol. Side A comes from what I would call the primitivist school of synth playing; no lush sounds or melodies here, nothing cosmic or new age, but instead a focus on the stark, roiling textures of energy flowing through electronics. Uneasy patterns drift in and out, high-end squeal and hiss alternates with shuddering bursts of low-end detritus. Side B makes a sharp right into drone territory, stately where the flip is unruly. The tightly-wound tone that begins the tape slowly unfurls over the duration; subtle modulations of frequency and texture swing farther and farther out, creating new interferences and rhythmic patterns and bit by bit pushing the stereo field into an expansive width until the demure starting point has become a shuddering, unstable, tangle of sound. Nice.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

A few more photos:
Hobbledeions/Sugar Sk*-*lls - Secret Fuge Machine split CS (detail) - No Kings
Ttotals - Live at Grady's (detail 1) - No Kings
Ophibre - Chronic Complications (detail) - No Kings

Thursday, October 20, 2011

V/A - Street Musicians of Yogyakarta LP & 7" - Mississippi Records
V/A - Street Musicians of Yogyakarta LP & 7" - Mississippi Records
It's really too bad about this cover. The vast spectrum of "world music" records stretches from funky, James Brown-influenced party music to drab ethnographic document, with the cover art and title a pretty good indicator of the contents (Ghana Soundz has a "z" for a reason, for example). On the Fun Indicator this LP looks like it would score something around "raisin bran." But we all know what Bo Diddley would say about the situation, and indeed, this record looks like a farmer but it's a lover. Street Musicians of Yogyakarta is secretly one of the best folk-pop records I've ever heard and its contents as colorful and kaleidoscopic as its cover and title are monochrome. If you've ever explored the music of Indonesia it very quickly becomes apparent how dizzyingly expansive the musical landscape is, from the slow, stately court music of Javanese gamelan to the Ventures-meets-kroncong instrumental music of the Steps (head over to Radiodiffusion Internasionaal for a primer). What makes Street Musicians, recorded in the late 1970s, so interesting is that it represents a vast array of traditions and styles, all channeled through the format of street performance -- which is to say, under the constraints of extreme economy of both instrumentation and players. The musicians all use portable, acoustic instruments -- guitar and guitar-like instruments, zithers, violins, small gamelan-type percussion, tambourine and hand drums -- and whenever a group performs together, the number of players is as small as possible to get the song across (more players means the already small pay is split more ways). For the most part, this equates to fairly straight-forward songs, some of them traditional, some modern compositions, performed by one or two people, often up-beat, incorporating enough western influence that they immediately register as familiar to western ears but still foreign enough to be surprising.

There are a few, sometimes stunning, exceptions, however. Arguably the centerpiece of the record is a 14-minute long piece of what could be called "street gamelan." The droning melodies and elastic tempos and dynamics of the Javanese court version are represented, but instead of a large ensemble of metallophones, percussion and fiddle-like strings, the piece is performed by only five musicians; three singers, a zither player and a hand-drummer. Incredible. And the ritualistic presentation of court gamelan is substituted for a loose, expressive style (at one point in the piece, one of the singers takes a break to roll a cigarette!). It's truly psychedelic; passages of lush, beguiling polyphony suddenly conjuring themselves literally out of the thin air, the song coming back to earth for a moment (a singer clears her throat), then once again twisting into new, heady shapes.

The LP itself is quite long, close to 50-minutes, and included with it is a 7" EP with 4 songs on it. There is an informative booklet with detailed information about each track on the record proper but not the EP -- my ears tell me they are additional recordings of musicians represented on the LP, and perhaps the lack of description means they were not included in the original 1982 issue (which was not vinyl, so I think that means cassette). I highly recommend this release, it's really an "eye"-opener musically and something I can easily foresee still listening to years down the line. The only bad thing about it is the cover!

"Kuda Lumping" (a song in the dangdut style):









$13, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

An oldie but goodie...
Car Commercials - Prisoner of Type 7" - Soft Abuse
Car Commercials - Prisoner of Type 7" - Soft Abuse
This release is by no means new, in fact I thought it was out-of-print -- when I found out I could still order it I was excited to get a few copies for the mail order. Car Commercials are a duo, Daniel DiMaggio of Home Blitz and David Sutton, who make incredibly damaged music that is in some distant way related to rock and roll. This 7" comes after two thoroughly alienating LPs and a couple tapes and is really where it all comes together. The LPs are daunting affairs, at any given moment either bracing or bewildering -- except those brief snippets where Daniel's irrepressible and inscrutable pop genius comes barreling through, somehow aligning the howl and clatter into a moment that resembles power-pop, and then chaos again. Prisoner of Type tempers the willful, sometimes flimsy extremes of the LPs (they also seem to ditch the death and dying campy stuff) without losing the damaged, side-ways energy that is the appeal of the band, and for the most part it seems like Daniel is at the helm of the release, so the pop-element, though never on the surface, is almost always there in the background. Definitely not for everyone, in my opinion it's a classic.

$5, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Grasshopper - Miles In The Sky - House of Alchemy
Grasshopper - Miles In The Sky CS - House Of Alchemy
First time having this stalwart Brooklyn duo in the mail-order, digging their particular style of hands-on drone music made from trumpet and electronics. The piece on the A-side, "With Diamonds," moves like it's going to build a dream-scape out of the slowly mounting layers of sustained horn notes but in fact keeps pushing upward until instead of a blissful drone-zone we are treated to the shifting rhythmic play of maxed-out trumpet overtones. Nice. Bring back the cosmic horn for a second beneath the drifting shards of distortion and call it a day. Side B finds the duo lively and dissonant, going at it full bore with lurking tones and wild electronic squiggles. Cool sounds, wish it had the purposefulness of the flip. Kinda gets there at the end when they lock into a weird groove but then it fades. Ah well. Still, a nice one for sure, makes me wish I knew more about these guys (they have an LP? anyone?).

$7, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Pauline Manson - Wasted To Oblivion/999 - Goaty Tapes
Pauline Manson - Wasted To Oblivion/999 - Goaty Tapes
Another one from Australia. The delicate Goaty packaging is something of a ruse here -- Pauline Manson is a duo consisting members of Taco Leg (still have copies of the Taco Leg/Constant Mongrel split tape, by the way) and Rank/Xerox, which means there is nothing delicate about the contents of the tape. Ten short, irresistible, beer-fi tunes that could probably be scientifically proven to lower your IQ. Sounds like Taco Leg with some organ and clumsy acoustic guitar. Really totally enjoyable, very funny and secretly some of the choruses are winners.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Weyes Blood/Angels In America - Split - Northern Spy
Angels In America/Weyes Blood - Split CS - Northern Spy
Halloween is around the corner, which reminds me I haven't written about this Angels In America tape yet... Creepazoid pop music very much in the school of Russian Tsarlag, boy-girl duo making murky trudgers about dark corners and skeletons and people dying/death in general. Super minimal sound -- Tsarlag style -- got some simple drum machine and one-note-at-a-time synth playing, they do layer it up for a moment at the end, which makes me suspect that these guys might have some pop moves up their sleeves. On the flip is Weyes Blood, very cool project from Natalie Mering, who NEVER PLAYED BASS IN JACKIE O MOTHERFUCKER. Not that it's a good or bad thing to play bass in Jackie O Motherfucker, she just didn't. Anyway, I would say that generally speaking I am siked about Weyes Blood, who seems equally interested in solid, late-60s-style folk songwriting and interesting sound textures and tape manipulation. Saw her play recently, I was into it, but there was also a middle-aged couple there, total randos, and they were fucking stoked. So yeah. Three tracks here not on her NNF 12", relatively unadorned, the first one is killer and the last a cool sound-piece that also functions as a song. Prescient split of two interesting, up-and-coming projects on the interesting, up-and-coming Northern Spy label, yours for a mere six dollars.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Two from Australia
Muura - Untitled 7" - Albert's Basement
Muura - Untitled 7" - Albert's Basement
Believe me, I love Eddy Current as much as the next guy, but as the Australian Invasion continues to go strong (see also: Woollen Kits/Woolen Men tour 2012), I've really been digging the darker, weirder corners of Oceania that have come to light as a result. Generally speaking, a big salute goes to Albert's Basement for unearthing and funding a lot of the great stuff that has crossed my ears, and specifically speaking, I have a few copies of their latest release, this mysterious 7" by Muura, one Matt Earle from Brisbane. A very personal record, not in a heart-on-sleeve kind of way, but to put this record on is to step into a world of it's own musical logic, a world foreign but also comforting. Two sides of hushed, murky distortion, organ and tape hiss somehow making it to one's ears from a faraway place. No melodies, no lyrics, but not drone music either. Strange and gentle despite the blasted fidelity. Not a record for everyone, but some of us will cherish it as our secret.
NB: two kinds of art for this 7", one full color and very hand-made very much in the style of old-school Not Not Fun releases, the other B&W photocopied, only have one of the full-colors.

$7, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Mad Nanna - I've Been Talking 7 " - Little Big Chief
Mad Nanna - I've Been Talking 7" - Little Big Chief
Two Garbage and the Flowers-style stoned strummers from the excellent Mad Nanna, different versions of tracks that are on the Goaty Tape ("I've Been Talking" and "I Made Blood Better"). This is actually an American reissue of the 7", which originally came out on Albert's Basement and sold out quite briskly. So big ups for Little Big Chief for stepping up and making it available again -- the AB edition was actually my introduction to the band, and in the distant future when all of our cassettes are warbley and broken (I didn't say that) I will be very happy to have this little gem of wax to spin on the turntable. Seriously guys, weird, excellent music on vinyl is the best. It takes balls to release it and you will be comforted to own it.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Pebbles (detail)
Pumice - Pebbles LP - Soft Abuse - $13
Originally issued in 2007, right before it was a given that there'd be an LP pressed along with the CD, and a few years before everyone knew what you meant when you said Xpressway, Soft Abuse have decided to issue the record in LP format for the first time, and kudos to them for reminding us all what a classic Pebbles is. And even though Pumice -- Stefan Neville -- has been releasing music since the early 90s, time feels about right for a "rediscovery" of his impressive body of work; what better way than with a beautiful LP, especially since this is only the 3rd full-length of his to be pressed on vinyl(!). (I mean, on one hand there is no shortage of love for Pumice, on the other there were maybe 15 people in the crowd the last time he played Portland.) The record itself is a collection of "pop" songs gently smothered in distortion, which is to say the early 90s kind of lo-fi and not the ear-bleed of the Aughts. And the songs themselves remind that you can wriggle quite a bit of craft into a song without risking it's pop appeal, and also that a single artist -- when that artist has a style and vision -- can range over a wide territory of mood and tempo without it feeling eclectic. Pebbles is a great place to dig into Neville's world of home-made experimental pop for those new to it, and also a welcome reissue for those who loved it on CD.

$13, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Hi everyone,
The mail-order will be closed until mid- to late-October. I will be on tour on the East coast. Please come say "hi" if I'm coming through your town. Also, if anyone in NASHVILLE knows of a place that will host the show we set up with R Stevie Moore, Betty's Bar has fallen through and we would really, really like to make that show happen. And if anyone in either NEW BRUNSWICK or BALTIMORE knows of or wants to set something up for October 2nd, we are down. Or if you live in ATHENS and play in a rad band and are not playing Athens Pop Fest, we are looking for local support.
The tour is in support of the new Polyps LP coming out on Hello Sunshine, and I will have a limited edition tour tape and art zine in tow.

Polyps tour
(all dates with Lame Drivers except the first two)
Sept 23 — Waltham, MA Brandeis University w/ Mount Eerie
Sept 24 — Providence, RI – City Effect w/ Japanther, Cat Vet, Jacob the Terrible
Oct 1 — Rad Town tour kickoff show, Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, w/ Ed Schrader's Music Beat
Oct 2 — New Brunswick NJ or Baltimore
Oct 3 — Live on WXYC/ Live on WFMU 91.1-FM NY/NJ | wfmu.org (Liz Berg’s show)
Oct 4 — Nashville TN @ Betty’s Bar & Grill TBA w/ R. Stevie Moore
Oct 5 — Athens GA live on WUOG + Farm 255
Oct 6 — Asheville NC @ BoBo Gallery w/ Coppertone & Weyes Blood
Oct 7 — Durham NC w/ Brainbows and Useless Eaters
Oct 8 — Washington DC @ The Cherch w/ The Cheniers
Oct 9 — Philadelphia @ Pi Lam w/ Pet Milk

If you still want to browse the mail-order while I am away, the catalog is still up on the previous post.
Thanks!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Beer Séance, Vol 1
Beer Seance Vol 1
Beer Seance p 1, 2
Beer Seance p 7, 8
Beer Seance p 9, 10
xeroxed, 11x17, 12 pages, edition of 20, $6, available from me on tour:

Polyps tour
(all dates with Lame Drivers except the first two)
Sept 23 — Waltham, MA Brandeis University w/ Mount Eerie
Sept 24 — Providence, RI – City Effect w/ Japanther, Cat Vet, Jacob the Terrible
Oct 1 — Rad Town tour kickoff show, Bed-Stuy Brooklyn
Oct 2 — New Brunswick NJ or Baltimore
Oct 3 — Live on WXYC/ Live on WFMU 91.1-FM NY/NJ | wfmu.org (Liz Berg’s show)
Oct 4 — Nashville TN @ Betty’s Bar & Grill TBA w/ R. Stevie Moore
Oct 5 — Athens GA live on WUOG + Farm 255
Oct 6 — Asheville NC @ BoBo Gallery w/ Coppertone & Weyes Blood
Oct 7 — Durham NC w/ Brainbows and Useless Eaters
Oct 8 — Washington DC @ The Cherch w/ The Cheniers
Oct 9 — Philadelphia @ Pi Lam w/ Pet Milk

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Eggy HQ 1
Eggy HQ 2
WELCOME TO MY LIFE
It's Labelmates time again at Holocene tonight, and as per usual Eggy Records will be hanging out. Gnar Tapes will also be representing again, plus Mississippi and Sublime Frequencies this time around. It will be great. And it's free. Archers are going to play, Scott from Exiled is going to DJ a little bit, as is Hisham from Sublime Frequencies. SEE YOU THERE.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Sky Needle - Neckliner - Albert's Basement
Sky Needle - Neckliner - Albert's Basement
My friendship with the Australian Albert's Basement label has been long-standing and buoyed by a good deal of mutual respect. That said, in the last year or so they have truly hit their stride, release upon release further articulating their vision of Australian music from the fringe. Frequent reviews at Volcanic Tongue and at the Siltblog provides further evidence that heads are beginning to turn. So I present you with Neckliner, the new tape by this Brisbane four-piece. Have not heard anything from Brisbane in recent memory, which leads me to believe this group has been free to develop their wholly unique sound free from the usual pressures to conform to a scene. Pop music in that the snare lands on the downbeat and that the vocals are upfront, but what a strange beast Sarah Byrne's vocals are, lithe and wordless, making strange figures in the air, and there's also that saxophone to account for, freely providing dissonance and skronk. But aside from some passages of scrabbling improvisation, this isn't wild, indulgent music -- actually reminds me a lot of a looser, more organic Art Bears, minus their rock and roll indulgences. Fresh new sounds from Australia, cool stuff for sure.

$7, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.
Idea Fire Company - Postcards - No Basement Is Deep Enough
Idea Fire Company - Postcards - No Basement Is Deep Enough
JUST IN FROM BELGIUM! Very excited to have these in stock -- Eight new tunes (and one old) from a band soon to be universally hailed as legendary, I have no doubt. Excellent follow up to their recent LP on Kye (Music From The Impossible Salon, I'm not stocking it but I highly recommend you track down a copy!). It's a slight return from the dream-land excursions of that record, still heavy on the piano and trombone but with synthesizers and radio once again prominent, darkness and weirdness pushing forward a little bit again. Now is as good a time as any to introduce yourself to these Massachusetts stalwarts, and definitely recommended for fans of Impossible Salon (the piano and trombone number "Fiume" would have been a standout on that LP). By the way, I highly recommend sacrificing a little bit of your precious time right now, and periodically in the future, by finding your way to Scott Foust of IFCO's Swill Radio website. A good read. This is a great tape!

$10, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Jonas Palm - De-Compositions - Borft
Jonas Palm - De-compositions LP - Borft
Rescued from two old cassette tapes, De-compositions is a collection of bedroom-recorded ambient synthesizer music from 1981, made in Sweden by Jonas Palm. Slated to be his second album(his first, Ze Wormnest, is rare and beloved enough for Keith Fullerton Whitman to do an edition of it on his deftly curated Creel Pone imprint), the record slipped through the cracks and was never released until now. And now is certainly the time for it; these Cluster-influenced 80s jams mellowed by tape hiss sound eerily contemporary. Which would all be fluff if the material weren't as good as it is. Much more open than his dark, focused first record, this LP has been on my turntable a lot lately and when it's good, it's really, really good, riding the epic, propulsive vibe of classic Harmonia/Cluster but tempered by the charm of home-recorded warmth and his economy of means(two synths and a rhythm box). Fans of the contemporary synth scene will find a lot to like here, although the appeal is certainly not limited.

$20, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Two From Sun Foot
Sun Foot - A & B - Folding Cassettes
Sun Foot - A & B - Folding Cassettes
Very happy to have two releases from the mighty Sun Foot in the mail-order. Easily one of my favorite bands around, describing their sound is not so easy. Minimalist Free Punk. Minimalist in that they leave as much space between the sounds as Young Marble Giants, Free as in they improvise or leave the song structures loose, and Punk as in the Minutemen, as in they are punk but they are also funny and real humans. A & B, on Mike Donovan's Folding Cassettes label, is made up of two side-length jams. One is an inscrutable instrumental that starts out in frictionless, drum-machine land, veers into good ol' martian rock and roll and somehow ends up in a gentle organ and bass pop-style very reminiscent of the previously mentioned YMG. The other is a "song" whose lyrics deal in the kind of surreal politics of the everyday which is a Sun Foot thing, and start to almost make sense by the end of the ten-ish minute duration. It's zonked for sure. I mean it's zonked even before the clarinet comes in.

This tape costs $8 and can be purchased by sending an email to eggyrecords@gmail.com

Sun Foot - Songs In the Key of R, B, C LP - Teenage Teardrops/Awesome Vistas
Sun Foot - Songs In the Key of R, B & C - Teenage Teardrops/Awesome Vistas
R, B and C being the first initials of the three Feet; Ron Burns, playing drum machine pads completely sans sequencing, and the occasional pot lid; Brian Mumford and Chris Johanson, switching up on guitar and bass, and someone plays a keyboard from time to time. Further explorations of Abstract Figurative Music, sounding super good on groovy vinyl. A-side is one long one, fuller sound and more psychedelic than I've heard from Sun Foot, nice chanted vocals swooping around in there. B-side is a cut and paste of shorter, impish jams and a few proper Songs, my favorite being "Sun Foot" -- bona fide Pop with lyrics like, "I have an electronically illuminated interior lifestyle/Does that mean that I don't have a Sun Foot?" Surreal politics of the everyday, I think I said before. This music exists more-or-less outside of any scene I can think of, for that reason it will strike some as exhilarating, might leave others scratching their heads. I know they've got some great material up their sleeve, looking forward to the next LP.

This record costs $15 and can be purchased by sending an email to eggyrecords@gmail.com