AVARUS - IV LP Ikuisuus - UK £10.50 / Europe £11.50 / USA & ROW £13.50 Avarus IV starts where the Rasvaaja LP ended. The IV, too, consists of Tomas Regan's careful high-quality recordings. On the IV Avarus makes and even longer dive in the warm and clear pond, into which the water is poured from both kraut and space rock, and from micro music and slapstick. The recording was made after the US tour, which guarantees the firm harmony satisfying the most demanding listeners. The delicate talent and the hilarious team spirit guarantee a recordful of heart-warming harmonies and surprising turns delighting an unprejudiced mind. The wondrous adult rock of Avarus is born from an uncompromising love for music. The finished recording deserved a fantastic cover, too. This in mind, the graphic visionaries Amanda Vähämäki and Pauliina Mäkelä spent their summer holidays swimming, drinking beer, and drawing their kaleidoscopic Davy Crockett epos inspired by music. BARN OWL - The Conjurer LPRoot Strata - UK £16.50 / Europe £17.50 / USA & ROW £19.50ALREADY SOLD OUT AT SOURCE! SORRY THESE WERE EXPENSIVE, BUT THE PRICES DO INCLUDE SHIPPING.'The Conjurer is the latest offering by Bay Area duo Barn Owl. This new long player finds Evan Caminiti & Jon Porras finally (by way of an actual recording studio) documenting something that is a bit closer to their very heavy live sets, with expanded peaks of white light distortion and enormous valleys of bottom end. Each side opens with a brief funeral dirge to set the mood, a procession of bare-bones drum beats and bell-like guitar statements that bridge the gap to the wider open spaces of the almost side long 'Across The Desert Of Ash' and 'Ancient Of Days'. It may seem obvious, or even a little overwrought, but it has to be said that these guys really do evoke all kinds of cinematic drama with their music. Apocalyptic westerns, bleak melodramas, mother nature fever dreams, it all seems to come to mind amid the evening guitar passages, incantations, flute tones, and finally, the solo piano that emerges lost among the electric mayhem to close the album. Considering the amount of terrain, The Conjurer is far from being scattered or rushed sounding. The record as a whole moves at a crafted even rhythm, slowly merging from one scene of violence to the next of almost silent recovery, then back up the mountain again. Edition of 500 LPs, half colored deep red, half black. Cover etching by Evan Caminiti' - Root Strata EVAN CAMINITI - Psychic Mud Shrine CD Digitalis - UK £9.00 / Europe £9.75 / USA & ROW £10.25 'For my money, Barn Owl is the best new band to emerge in the last five years. Their trajectory has been meteoric, progressing musically and conceptually in leaps and bounds. I've been thrilled to be there from the beginning, watching and listening in awe as the duo of Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti have carved out an impressive niche of their own. Heavy doses of guitar savagery and tribal essence have them firmly planted at the top of the mountain. So it makes sense to deconstruct the duo and present each as a solo entity, soaring on their own. In a perfect world, Evan Caminiti would be a guitar god worshipped by hordes of spike-wearing metalheads. Seriously. Caminiti's newest solo offering (and first large-scale release) is a big, smoldering mass of guitar sacrifices. We're deep down in the hollows now. "Psychic Mud Shrine" is epic in every way. Thick, massive walls of lava-flow guitars bow down at an altar of excess. Caminiti creates jagged drones like no other. Distorted guitars sound simultaneously tortured and energized like it's unsure if this hell on earth brings pleasure or pain. It's just so fucking massive. With titles like "Melting Temple/Plumes of Babylon," you know what direction this is heading and it's a train you don't want to miss. "Psychic Mud Shrine" is a powerful statement from an artist coming into his own. Over the course of four sprawling masterpieces, you'll be entranced and exalted. This album rings out from the deep valleys carved straight to the fucking core' - Digitalis ANDREW COLTRANE - Terminal Towers cassette MJC - UK £6.00 / Europe £6.50 / USA+ROW £6.75 yet another side/sound of A.C. 'terminal towers' showcases work with tape loops. side a = chord organ tape loop recorded on two channels and mixed in stereo warping out of time with itself. ends up sounding like a haunted ancient broken phonograph deep in the Hermitage dungeon,skipping for eternity and back again, degrading into a hypnotic hiss and buzz side b= one side selected from a private edition of 'tape loops' 4 cassette boxset A.C. handed to me during our past summer tour. it's a maniac stereo mix of ripping tape squeeze, industrial conveyor belt construction and dirty bombs. limited to 33 DONATO EPIRO - Sounding The Sun CDRStunned Records - UK £5.50 / Europe £6.00 / USA & ROW £6.50Over the course of ‘Sounding the Sun’, Italian psych magician Donato Epiro aims his wand in all directions of the acoustical field, doing his best chameleon’s dance with drums, flute, chanting, and strings. An impressive dynamism is in play when Donato takes his bonfire percussion & fluttering raga loops, then swiftly braids them down to stilled passages of minimalist vibration. It’s a blissful abduction of the ear’s attention/perception, harnessed to a pervasive feeling of time running backwards as the album spins forward. A beautiful and unpredictable escape to some far off sunny fields of a magical land long, long ago. Limited edition of 100 hand stamped cdrs with double-sided insert card & color cover in vinyl jacket. HARAPPIAN NIGHT RECORDINGS - Non Euclidean Elucidation of Shamanic Ecstasies CD Ikuisuus - UK £9.50 / Europe £10.25 / USA & ROW £10.75 Winnowed from the polymath, alchemist, “the man who could walk through in-between positions”, arch Black Duke of Maknovischina, peripatetic flux ingester haji gutterpup Ustad’s Almanac, his scribblings and tapes spanning 31 yrs, “Non-Euclidean Elucidation Of Shamanic Ecstacies” was hastily transcribed and assembled sixty nadis travel west of Sahiwal by an assemblage of Vamachara hounds and the Abdals of Rum wearing black mantles and animal hides over their shoulders with pouches of flint and herbs. Some with felt cloaks carrying drums, bells and horns, sometimes screaming. Others carrying large yellow spoons, iron rings, sucai clubs, ankle bones and singing bowls. Swords drawn across their chests and snakes twining the arms. After 30 days of pitri they sculpted 10 psychic enemas. HUSH ARBORS - Yankee Reality CDEcstatic Peace - UK £8.50 / Europe £9.00 / USA & ROW £9.50"Yankee Reality. What does it mean? Does it portend that there is some unique, other plain of existence for northerners and / or city folk? Something perhaps alien to, well, everybody else? Virginia cum citizen of London / rambling man Keith Wood knows all about it. Several years ago, he relocated to the city of crumpets and tea, where he, among other things, secured a gig playing guitar for notoriously intense death folk legends Current 93. In the midst of all this excitement, he has managed to write and record a brand new Hush Arbors album, his second for Ecstatic Peace!, and it’s his finest to date. With a full band in tow – multi instrumentalist Leon Dufficy, bassist Jason Ajemian, and drummer Ryan Sawyer – and none other than J Mascis in the producer’s chair, Yankee Reality continues Wood’s winning streak while introducing an embarrassment of riches in the way of surprises and curveballs along the way." - James Jackson Toth SEAN MCCANN - Phylum Sigh cassette DNT - UK £6.00 / Europe £6.50 / USA+ROW £7.00 Time to dust off that bong you have stored on the top shelf for special times..or whatever. Here's the debut full-length cassette by Sean McCann from San Francisco-by-way-of-Goleta. Meticulously recorded through out 2008, this album was crafted to numb minds and spin souls through use of euphoric strings and bending keyboard plains. Sean's most focused work to date. Hands down his best release yet, and that's saying a lot! Edition of 150 pro-dubbed baby blue cassettes in a plastic case with full-color wrap-around artwork. Look for SM's first LP on DNT later this year. THREE COPIES AVAILABLE MOUNTAINHOOD - The RIver / The Road 7"Important Records - UK £7.00 / Europe £7.50 / USA & ROW £8.00300 exquisitely handmade copies. These are amazing, each one has it own personalized artwork.'Part 2 in the Larger Multivisorial Dreamsaga Called: The Light, The Road, recorded in NYC, continues the Epic Narrative of Kria Blisses' Journey to/through the Chrystal Palace first introduced in Goldenness, Part 1. Packaging painted, pencilled, photographed in New Almaden, Northern California or Point Lobos, Big Sur, also forms a narrative whole broken down into several acts or series perceivable only by Over-Eye. This record follows his sold out records on Time Lag, Ecstatic Yod & Reverb Worship. This is volume ten in our Arts & Crafts series. Each record in the series is released in handmade packaging by the artist on the record. It's clear that Michael Hilde poured countless hours into these jackets so we've documented each one. There wasn't enough time to photograph the inside covers which are as detailed as the outside. Hilde went beyond all expectations' - ImportantMV & EE WITH THE GOLDEN ROAD - Barn Nova CDEcstatic Peace - UK £8.50 / Europe £9.00 / USA & ROW £9.50Brand new full length from MV & EE with the Golden Road, this time featuring J Mascis, Jeremy Earl, Mike Smith, Justin Pizzoferrato, and Doc Dunn. Featuring studio versions of some killer jams that appeared on our 12 x cassette Live set earlier this summer. NEW YAKI - II cassette MJC - UK £6.00 / Europe £6.50 / USA+ROW £6.75 here is the new true Canadian bacon of the underground scene at the moment. NEW YAKI =duo/trio of Andrew MacGregor (Gown, Bark Haze, Bastard Wing), Stephen Warren (partli cloudi) and Jakob Neil (Heavy Moon). mjc is proud to bring you "II" ~ the band's second release after a solid, now sold-out cdr on Warren's own (worth looking into) Folkwaste Library label. side a = a mix of three duo/trio work-outs startin out a whoozy weirdness giving way to primitive prayer service of psychedelia deciphering hot prophecies. side b = entitled "unknown live" is New Yaki in MacGregor & Warren duo formation,lightin up amp fuses and sendin feedback fireworks explodinguitars behind yr eyes. limited to 33 THE NORTH SEA - Exquisite Idols LP Type - UK £8.50 / Europe £9.00 / USA+ROW £9.50 Brad Rose is easily one of the free-folk movement's busiest exponents, splitting his time somehow between running the Digitalis and Foxglove labels, the FoxyDigitalis webzine and writing his own music under a variety of different monikers with a host of collaborators (Ajilvsga, Eastern Fox Squirrels, Alligator Crystal Moth, Corsican Paintbrush, Sea Zombies). Through all this pain and suffering at the hands of a busy and now somewhat hip scene he has managed to put together a brand new album which elegantly follows a hugely acclaimed collaboration with UK's Rameses III 'Night of the Ankou'. However, whereas 'Night of the Ankou' explored both acts occasional leanings towards ambience and drone, 'Exquisite Idols' instead shows Rose digging deep into the dusty vaults of his American heritage and drumming up an album dripping with blues, folk and free experimentation. This is folk music as played from a snow-drift in Tulsa, in a Mid-West wasteland or a forgotten forest drenched in moonlight, it is personal, secluded and almost lonely, but Rose never allows the melancholy to take over. From thejubilant opening crackles of 'Eternal Birds' right up until the rockin' stomp of 'Feather-Cloaked Silver Priestess' there is the distinct feeling that although this might be labeled as free folk, there's a barn somewhere full of like-minded drunkards waiting eagerly to get dancing on them there hay-bails. Just flip to the rip-roaring folk stomp of 'Take it from me Brother Moses', take a swig of moonshine and let your feet do the talking. 'Exquisite Idols' is an album steeped in tradition yet its greatness comes from Roses ability to absorb other cultures so easily - there are traces of Indian traditional music, Greek music and more, all hidden within the cacophony of banjo, guitar and clanging percussion. This is what sets him apart from his contemporaries and makes his music so absorbing - this might be the least sacred devotional music ever made… ROBEDOOR - Raiders LP Not Not Fun - UK £13.50 / Europe £14.50 / USA & ROW £15.50 'Following their 2008 East Coast tour with Woods and Pocahaunted the Robedoor agenda has mainly been: hibernating in the City Terrace zone above east LA, adding a drummer/modular synth dealer, and letting the smoke rise. Raiders is the first RBDR LP since 2008’s Endlessly Blazing and is the result of almost six months of slow-burn transformative tape machine meditation helmed by Mr. Ged Gengras. Bummed guitars, loner drone tones, low caverns of reverbed drums and rumble, echo dislocation, and dead voices cascade down into the isolated highways. Song modes are carved out and then left to rot. Features early trio live set staples like “Indo Shadow” and “The Downcast Eye.” You can’t stick your hand in the same black river twice. Change or be changed. LPs in jackets with cover photo by Caitlin C. Mitchell. Edition of 500 (250 on marbled grey, 250 on black)' - NNF SORC'HENN - Faro: Death of the Island Sheeps CDR Crucial Blast UK £5.50 / Europe £5.75 / USA + ROW £6.00 I've been haunted by the beautifully dark loopscapes of French artist Sorc'henn dating back to first hearing the band on their Harmonium pieces & dead reveries disc released by Faunasabbatha, so we were immensely stoked when Sorc'henn was interested in releasing some more of their music through Crucial Bliss. This new full length features four tracks of Sorc'henn's murky, dreamy drones that stretch out over a misty, grey-washed landscape much like the one pictured on the exterior of Faro's foldout sleeve, a lightless wetland that fades way into the distance, obfuscated by a thick veil of shadow, and the fourth track is additionally notable for being a collaboration between Sorc'henn and members of Portland black metallers L'Acephale and Virginia deathdrone outfit One Lifeless Eye. The first track is essential Sorc'henn, a twenty-one minute dronescape that is mainly made up of a single warbling harmonium loop that repeats over and over and over, as a young woman whispers lines of poetry over top. As minimalist and simple as this is, it's amazingly beautiful, and almost has a My Bloody Valentine-like quality to it, like one of the guitar-feedback ambient parts of Loveless that has been melted and crushed into a misshapen version of the original melody. The second track is a mere four minutes in comparison - a deep, murky field of subterranean rumblings and a distant crackling sound, like a phonograph needle stuck in a run-off groove over crashing waves of distorted tidal thunder and ominous harmonium drones. The next track is basically a continuation of the previous, with those sinister harmonium drones humming over surges of distorted low-end thunder and weird noises that pan from speaker to speaker. The last track, the collaboration between Sorc'henn and members of L'Acephale and One Lifeless Eye, is the longest on the disc at ovr twenty-six minutes. This one is a sprawling expanse of murky black ambience, a slow-swirling fog of muted harmonium notes, oceanic sounds, chirping noises that might be frogs, and hushed, whispered cackles and demonic processed vocals drifting across a vast void of Lustmordian darkness. SUN ARAW (FEATURING MATTHEW LESSNER) - In Orbit cassetteStunned Records - UK £5.50 / Europe £6.00 / USA & ROW £6.50Sun Araw’s Cameron Stallones & filmmaker Matthew Lessner are longtime Stunned brothers that go back with us before the music, the tours, the films, the label, you name it. As tireless globetrotters, both have spent the last year beaming their respective good messages far and wide to the delight of audio aficionados & visual art subversives alike. Marking a Second phase in all our geosynchronous friendships, ‘In Orbit’ finds these dudes collaborating on ascendant planes of high mind where outer Los Angeles and Inner Space bisect. Deep dubby howlin, Farfisa organ hang-gliding, gooey tempos, and trademark shimmering ‘Araw-guitar licks are the hybridized fruits harvested here. Along with your candy, flip this tape as needed. Happy to say, there’s no limit to the number of orbits it can (and will) make through your stereo and ours. Special edition of 222 pro-dubbed & imprinted c30s with jcard design by Cameron. SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN - Tailwind CDR Blueberry Honey - UK £5.50 / Europe £6.25 / USA & ROW £6.75 More live recordings find their way to the HONEY. Edits from the final leg of SUNBURNED's tour this past autumn. After several weeks on the road, this is a snapshot of maximum power blasting through the muddy trail. A shock to the system.... Locales include Chicago, Pontiac, Oberlin, Rochester, and Philadelphia. Moloney, Thomas, Franklin, O'Shea, Schneiderman, and joined by K & Richardson in Philadelphia. SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN - Cheap Blood CDR Blueberry Honey - UK £5.50 / Europe £6.25 / USA & ROW £6.75 Culled from sound check and live performance recordings made at the NETMAGE09 FESTIVAL in Bologna Italy this past January. Sunburned was honored to play live soundtrack for a multi-screened video and film aspect of the larger project, VILLAGE OBLIVIA, hosted by the creative force known as INVERNOMUTO (http://www.invernomuto.info). the rooms at the PALAZZO RE ENZO, where the event was held, were enormous, old, and beautiful.... Full color cover.