Twisted & Bent
(Beniffer Editions) Cassette $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Batson's first tape, dating back a few years before the Spare Parts LP. Fewer backing musicians lend it intimacy. With photographic proof that Batson is truly an unknown modern Beefheart. C44. Edition of 100.
Live
(Beniffer Editions - BFF129) Used LP $16.00
Convergence formed in 1976 (and disbanded around 1980) as an appendage to the Humber College Ensemble for Experimental Music. With written music for the ensemble scarce, improvisational sessions became more frequent. Their first few concerts at The Music Gallery had a somewhat haphazard and random mix of students, some of whom didn’t quite get the notion of free improv. Eventually director Michael S. Horwood whittled it down to a quintet of the most spirited and creative of the student improvisers. Recorded live at the Music Gallery in September 1979, their instrumentation includes trumpet, trombone, piano, percussion, home-made instruments and toy instruments, which puts them in a zone between the boundaries of avant-garde jazz and free-form contemporary classical, a la Le Sonde, New Phonic Art, Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. Screenprinted jackets, two inserts. Edition of 200.
The Collected Works
(Beniffer Editions) 2xLP $25.50 (Out-of-stock)
Memorial tribute to the composition and performance of this obscure genius. Recordings from between 1972 and 2001, including the complete set of three Phantasie Impromptus; four Incantations; lengthy passages from his two continuing works, Mix of the Month and The Book of Floating Music; the Introduction from his magnum opus, Ashley: My Dear; a clever take on I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad; and short passages of Cooper speaking about music and his works. A must-have for all lovers and collectors of out-of-the-way electronica and keyboard aficionados. With essay by M.S. Harwood. Screen-printed five-color gusseted jacket. Edition of 300
Custody
(Beniffer Editions) Cassette $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Canadian outsider rock recorded between 1991 and 1997, sounding like a mix of mangled Corvette tunes by a basement philosopher. With illustrations from lead singer Rudy Gwana's high school yearbook. C86. Edition of 100.
Birthdays
(Beniffer Editions - BFF130) LP (one-sided) $16.00 (Out-of-stock)
Recordings from 2007–2010 by 85-year-old French composer (his first appearance on vinyl since Sous Le Regard D’un Soliel Noir [INA-GRM 1982]), exploring high-fidelity studio editing methods of concrete sound and vocal manipulation. Platters are screenprinted by hand with archival high-gloss varnish. PVC sleeve, sticker, program notes by Dhomont and Jean-Francois Denis. Edition of 300.
The Weird Watusi
(Beniffer Editions - BFF127) 7-inch $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
Californian braintrust spearheaded by Count Loachfillet, whose gaggle of undead minions retool the sternness of electronic music in his own cemetery sensibility, allowing it to cross-breed and co-mingle with a playful, haunted-house-sound-effects vibe. Musique concrète meets monster rock: the rutting of a decapitated cat, a cauldron of devoured souls with fingernail xylophones, a witch with a speech impediment, sodden graveyard memories of a mangled airplane casualty who died in vain. Second edition of 50 in gatefold jacket, out of print since 2010.
FLESHTONE AURA / DYLAN NYOUKIS
Dylan Nyoukis / Fleshtone Aura
(Beniffer Editions) split LP $17.25 (Out-of-stock)
One side is a throwback of sorts for fans of the crude, Fluxus-certified tape collage of early Nyoukis. Here he combines the spontaneity and natural course of direction of his bellyaches with straight-no-chaser editing. On the flip, Gastric Female Reflex founder and visual artist Andrew Zukerman side-steps his ironic didactic collage and dives into traditional tape music techniques, modified electronics, and Ciat-Lonbarde interfaces. Pierre Henry without the inheritance. Screen-printed three-color jacket. Marbled vinyl. Edition of 300
Studio Jams
(Beniffer Editions) Used Cassette $12.00
Lo-fi house from Karlskrona, Sweden. Side A contains classic Frak club sounds with call 'n' response bumping and a clairvoyance between band members. On Side B, things get weird and abstract, with the bass handling the transportation. In a seven-inch-by-seven-inch hardboard package, five-color screenprinted front, two on the back. C45. Edition of 100
GASTRIC FEMALE REFLEX / BRIAN RURYK
Destination: Poon
(Beniffer Editions - BFF6066) split LP $16.50 (Out-of-stock)
High spasticity by two of Canada's national treasures. The mad dog of guitar Brian Ruryk's "Alliances for Debris" is twenty-odd minutes of glass and metal connecting with hard surfaces at fast speeds, chopped up and re-spliced into microscopic fragments. A frenzy that should drop the jaw of even the know-it-alls. On "Nairobi Pieces 13-26" Gastric Female Reflex uses longer samples drawn from decaying radios and televisions, in-between-song recording outtakes, prayer tapes, random clicks, crackles and cuts, ambient bass rumbles, Tim Allen, and sound effects. According to Discogs, this was released in 2006 with different artwork and no title (some of the photocopy inserts are the same); all copies here have new silkscreened prints (not the same as what is shown at Discogs, but similar to others in our copies, and in different combinations). No two copies are alike, basically. It's a mess, granted, but confusion comes with the territory of landmark releases. Just accept it.
Musique Concrète Realizations Of Two Poems By Robert Creeley
(Beniffer Editions) 7-inch $11.80 (Out-of-stock)
Creeley readings of “The Pattern” and “Dimensions” (both dense with complicated meanings often running together, and difficult to set musically) taken in new directions by this American expat living in Canada who, subsequent to these 1968 recordings, would release material via the Opus One, Sound Of Pig, and Albany labels. The A-side is manipulated with speed change, splicing, direction change, and multitracking, while on the flip, Creeley’s narration occurs over and through the dense texture, his voice blending into a mangled and distorted free improvisation on cello and percussion. Screen-printed gatefold jacket. White vinyl. Edition of 300
ID M THEFT ABLE / COUNT LOACHFILLET
Organ Standards
(Beniffer Editions) 2xCDR $13.50 (Out-of-stock)
The sound structures of West Coast solo anomaly with LAFMS connections Loachfillet are the sort of thing that occur when one dissects Quintron’s Frog Tape, Rosa Rio’s horror picture theatre organ, or The Phantom Of The Opera, and reconstitutes them as a horrific, ungodly monster meant to roam the filthy sewers, or tend to overgrown bats and spiders in a deep, dank cave (to be determined on a case-by-case basis). Whereas East Coast stag entity and maker of ever stranger organ audacity ID M Theft Able sings, raps, abruptly stops, skips and fluctuates sound. Meaning: weird-ass sequential counting, cut-ups in a glitchular noisy atmosphere, loops and echoes of nonsensical mutterings, and at no extra charge because you are my friend, odd and playfully spazzy interludes. Certified A-1 by Guy Montag. Screenprinted and sewn foldout. Edition of 100.
Cone In Horse
(Beniffer Editions) Cassette $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Unsound by Toronto artist Kevin Hainey, whose hi-fi mic picks up ghostly atmospheres from source materials smoke and breath. In an eight-inch-by-eight-inch screenprint. C44. Edition of 50.
DIY Practitioner
(Beniffer Editions) paperback book $30.00 (Out-of-stock)
Eight-inch-by-eight-inch 36-page screen-printed book, the first-ever release Lessard has published under his real name, all interpretations of the best of the best of the handmade RRRecord one-offs. Contains six one-color prints, six four-color prints, and twenty-four two-color prints. Each book cover is a personalized one-off collage by Lessard; no two are alike. Edition of 120.
Puzzle Answers
(Beniffer Editions) LP $16.50 (Out-of-stock)
When dealing with weird Canadians, best to simply quote Weird Canada's Aaron Levin, who seems to know what he's talking about: "On the brink of a sexual explosion, Man Made Hill’s warbled army of synthetic bone tweak[s] the subconscious with unmitigated groove. Only Toronto could provoke such a paramount of reductive funk bursting with subterrestrial bass and xenomorphic rhythm, paving the way for incumbent beings of radiant grind." Edition of 300.
Fluidium
(Beniffer Editions) Cassette $14.00 (Out-of-stock)
A real growler on side A, with additional sounds and final touches by Kiyoharu Kuwayama. The title track on the B side is a concrète vocal exploration with additional sax and synth accompaniments. In 1976, while preparing The Perfect Performance for the Extra-Terrestrial exhibition in the ICC, James Lee Byars saw a halo around Mich's head and manically tried to capture it in a series of twenty Polaroids (ultimately failing). Mich already tried to visualize the 11th or M-Dimension in previous performances; The Fluidium can be considered another experiment in a similar direction. In a sextuple foldout hand-cut box with five-color silkscreen on the front. The gatefold is a three-color silkscreen performance / film still. C47. Edition of 100
Massive Ejaculation
(Beniffer Editions) 7-inch $16.50 (Out-of-stock)
Lacking sense and sobriety, St. Petersburg resident Phil Wolotkin is the most disoriented electronic composer on the planet. He counts among his skills, dizzy toilet bowl mornings, cut up editing to the millisecond, and mockery of Wolf Eyes. The 10 x 10, 18pp screenprinted book (folding out to 10 x 40, with a sewn pocket for the seven-inch) includes art by Jacob Horwood, Sekitani Norihiro, Dylan Nyoukis, Fatboobs, Jesjit Gill, Andrew Zukerman, Jeff Garcia, Zeesy Powers. Edition of 150.
Occultronics
(Beniffer Editions) 2xCassette $19.50 (Out-of-stock)
All-analog modular synthesizer exploration of the electronic darkness. Completely screenprinted box, with more optical prints inside. Two C30s. Edition of 98.
PART WILD HORSES MANE ON BOTH SIDES
Aulos’ Second Reed
(Beniffer Editions) LP $17.25 (Out-of-stock)
Pascal Nichols and Kelly-Jayne Jones have gone outside themselves and become a whole listening unit with a singular pulse. Made with what appears at first to be a two-person small Gakaku-style setup, the elegant A-side meditates with occasional tympani and flute call-and-response that seems sourced from a hundred years ago. Treated field recordings add a sense of authenticity to the ceremonial experience. The patient and expertly conceived B-side focuses more on collage, sounding like a creaking vessel that does not want to dock. Screen-printed four-color jacket, with card poetry insert. White vinyl. Edition of 300
Guitar Weakling
(Beniffer Editions) 7-inch (lathe cut) $19.50
Another devotional candle for worship at the altar of keeko-bleeko guitar-playing. Cover is printed rubber, mounted on a surface raised with ball bearings. Worth framing and keeping on your desk at work. Edition of 50.
Paris Aktionen
(Beniffer Editions - TA090) LP $18.00 (Out-of-stock)
This brutal document includes: Aktion 961123 (also known as the infamous "Spaghetti-Action"), featuring Rudolf Eb.er, Dave Philips and Helena Greter; and Aktion 970223, with Doris Tomasoni joining Eb.er, Philips, and Greter. According to our BFFs at Volcanic Tongue, “One set seems to be based around violent hyperventilating, chokes, and groans building into overwhelming cathartic vocal violence. The second set … makes more use of dynamic tension, with long periods of silence populated by nothing but a ticking metronome before the introduction of tortured vocals and split-seconds of warped electronics gives way to an electro-acoustic pile-up…. [P]rimitive vocal poetics of Dylan Nyoukis / Blood Stereo and the body-focused investigations of the original actionists [are] combined with a theatrical approach to avant garde performance.” Edition of 500 copies.
Two New Compositions Never Heard Before
(Beniffer Editions) Cassette $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Minimal, spatial pieces reminiscent of A Long Wait Produced Nothing Further (ERS 2001). Each movement of this mellow collage of slightly effected sounds commands attention without asking too much. C50. Edition of 100.
Tomuuntuu
(Beniffer Editions) LP (one-sided) $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
Commissioned by Aanem Lumo Festival for New Sounds. Heard for the first time at the Orion Theatre in Helsinki on November 8, 2010. Artwork by Janderzen and Jacob Horwood. All music by Janderzen. White vinyl picture disc. Edition 300.