Dynasty Suites
(Melon Expander) CD $13.50 (Out-of-stock)
Solid Eye's Joseph Hammer cites receiving more than one AM radio station at the same time and an episode of '70s TV show Land of the Giants, the one where astronauts use tape loops to thwart alien tyrants, as a couple of his musical influences. His unique utilization of consumer audio technology, tape loops, samplers and analog synthesizers yilelds compelling and varied musical expressions. Since 1980, he has performed and recorded with Points of Friction, Dinosaurs With Horns, Solid Eye, Blue Daisies, Steaming Coils, Debt of Nature (which became Medicine), Vector 3 Niner, Paramecial Wedding, Kitten Sparkles and Dimmer. Dynasty Suites is Hammer’s first solo CD, 51 minutes of real-time tape loops certain to scramble your eggs.
I Love You, Please Love Me Too
(Pan - PAN8) LP $27.00 (Out-of-stock)
Los Angeles sound artist actively creating experimental works since 1980 as a member of LAFMS, Solid Eye, Joe & Joe, Dinosaurs With Horns, Dimmer, and Points of Friction, Joseph Hammer continues his journey into playful yet heavily focused idiot-savant infinite psychedelic inertia. He utilizes consumer audio technology and 20th century detritus to decode and snake-charm mid-century sci-fi and AM radio beyond the point of recognition in multi-dimensional audio collages and free form, completely unorthodox plunderphonic hypnosis. Baked devotionals for tape loop minds. Edition of 330, 140g vinyl, black-andwhite LP jacket in a two-tone silk screened PVC sleeve with interweaving geometric designs. Artwork by Kathryn Politis and Bill Kouligas.
KAREN CONSTANCE / JOSEPH HAMMER / JOHN WIESE
Live At Colour Out Of Space 2009
(Chocolate Monk - choc.233) split CDR $9.00
Split release recorded live in Brighton 2009. Solid Eye’s gloved maestro of live tape manipulation conjures up amazing, smoked-out loop wobble. If you cut the guy, he would bleed Ferric Oxide. Constance and Wiese twist knobs and deliver spectral head scratch of marble-losing proportions. A sweet ear pickle all round.
ANDY BOLUS / JOSEPH HAMMER / JOHN WIESE
Prelude To Hawaiian Radio
(Helicopter) CD $12.00
Recorded on a dark and lively night at Studio 1/4 in Los Angeles, Andy Bolus’s cadaverous murk combines with Joseph Hammer’s reel-to-reel jitters and John Wiese’s electronic jolts to veer from sonic claustrophobia to audio manipulation wipe-out across a thirteen track cocktail of stumbling hiss, voltage-impinged oscillations, and tangles of oozed-out blurt and whirling, chirping lurch. Featuring exquisite color artwork by Sayo Mitsuishi and liner notes by Seymour Glass of Bananafish.
Recorded Live In Los Angeles October 2013
(Idiopathic - IR006) Cassette $6.75 (Out-of-stock)
Recorded late at night in a downtown Los Angeles loft, this cassette captures Hammer’s reel-to-reel sampling at its most intimate and ephemeral. An unlikely and stirring symphony made of spliced selections from a bargain bin CD collection. Crazed. C37
Roadless Travel
(Art Into Life - AIL003) CD $22.50 (Out-of-stock)
Unparalleled works of tape manipulation by this Solid Eye veteran. With twenty-four-page booklet of liner notes (essentially a full history of Hammer) by T. Sakaguchi, the foremost Japanese LAFMS historian.