Cesspool Of The Angels
(Minimum Table Stacks) LP $20.00
“This solo album by the former Bananafish editor is a recording of naturally jarring qualities and intent,” says Duncan Harrison of Adhuman. “The rippling, continuous pace doesn’t allow a whole lot of time for sinking the talons in. Incongruous sound sources are bent, warped, wrung and wrenched between the ears, as if one’s brain is an object to be flossed by Glass’s quietly punishing dentist’s hand. Clattering machines and burnt-out organs fizz as though amplified via baby monitor. Brief, ad-hoc choirs of rendered vocals are drenched in clicky synthesis and, yeah, some train noises are even detectable in the mix. But don’t for a minute ascribe his motivations to churlish desire to throw crap at a kitchen sink, then a wall, with no sense of what should stick. I’ve spoken before about the supreme deftness with which Glass sculpts his sounds and it’s all in shining evidence here. If you’ve paid attention to our man’s offerings for decades via Glands of External Secretion, Bren’t Lewiis Ensemble, This Is Yvonne Lovejoy, and the many various collabs, you’ll recognize a ton of now-trademark things on Cesspool of the Angels, too. We could talk about how painstaking it is to collect speech samples of American Assholes tricking themselves into believing something incorrect, or the nerdily inclined might be keen to know serial and model numbers responsible for the massive palette of often rich, pristine electronics and processes, but the skill of Glass’s editing is more interesting, especially his ear for… production, lacking a better word for it. This stuff is not necessarily serious, but Glass and his peers are serious as hell about doing it, deserving of consideration among some of the finest, most world-class people pissing about with difficult sounds today. It’s got action enough to suit all, from bottom-feeding post-underground burnouts to all you guys who collect that INA-GRM type shit.” First handful of copies ordered come with a bonus fridge magnet.
Since My Baby Left Me
(Minimum Table Stacks) LP $21.00 (Out-of-stock)
COMING SOON. “A ghoulish, aural hellscape as dazzling as it is devilish. Flickers of Richard Earl’s The Egg Store Ilk and Esplendor Geometrico’s Eg1 ferociously stalk the perimeters, pushing a crescendo that ultimately detonates like a chain fight between Parable of Arable Land vs. Metal Machine Music. Hear what it means to open up & bleed.” Previously released by Loki Tapes in 2017, this edition of 300 includes hand-stamped insert and 12pp zine.
Material Pop Volume One
(Minimum Table Stacks) LP $19.00
“Ray Zarnowitz weaves lessons well-learned from the modern American noise underground, the loamy heritage of UK DIY, and punk as lifestyle / vocation into a strikingly personal statement,” observes Daniel Dimaggio. “Material Pop Vol. 1 wields genuinely idiosyncratic songcraft and rock’n’roll joie de vivre like corrosive agents, eating away at the tape loop sediment encasing its songs, and at the indignities of modern urban existence.” Andy Boay agrees: “On its face the record reads like John Cale or Mayo Thompson with Flying Nun production and sound design informed by the occult British Industrial scene. Disheveled and sincere, partly legible, partly lost.” Likewise, Macrae Semans admires how the album “deftly synthesizes post-punk and industrial influences into a compellingly murky and occasionally endearingly jaunty sound-broth that is able to pull off nuanced experimentation, melancholic pop and bleakly psychedelic vistas.”
Excess Death Cult Time
(Minimum Table Stacks) LP $20.00
Scuzzed-out ’80s UK DIY-style post-punk rattle on the debut LP by this Phoenix, AZ five-piece.
Smelly Neu Pollution
(Minimum Table Stacks) LP $22.50
New Zealand legend Brent Hayward AKA Fats White is probably best known as the vocalist and guitarist in Wellington and Auckland post-punk bands like Shoes This High and Kiwi Animal but when he wasn’t collaborating with others he performed and recorded solo as Smelly Feet — on street corners and stages, supporting The Clean and even The Fall on their legendary 1982 tour of New Zealand. The music of Smelly Feet is sardonic, chaotic DIY folk on the surface, but much deeper than that is a legit artistic genius baring his soul using just his voice and an acoustic guitar. Tuning is often an afterthought, because it’s the message that counts: prophetic, apocalyptic, cynical, passionate. Everything from three Smelly Feet singles is here, self-released in 1981, plus selections from cassettes from the same time and place. Liner notes by Stuart Page of Axemen and Bruce Russell of The Dead C. Edition of 300.
Son of Drib Against the Wind
(Minimum Table Stacks) LP $20.00
The twelve songs of scuzzed-out garage pop on the second LP from this trio (now expanded to a quartet) take you from Beat Happening to the Warsaw demos to the first Strokes LP, then right back home to Columbus, OH, where they hold their own with like-minded predecessors like Cheater Slicks, Times New Viking, Great Plains, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments and so on. Two songs were included in the soundtrack to Poser (which made its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival).
Vile Insect
(Minimum Table Stacks) 12-inch $12.00
One of the rarest and largely unknown documents of 1980s UK DIY post-punk. Touching on the same sounds as Scritti Politti, the Raincoats and the Pop Group, the Wales-based quartet existed for a short time, played a few shows, and recorded and self-released one two-song seven-inch on their own Cheek to Cheek label. After four decades of evading Kugelberg’s Top 100, Messthetics compilations, and 45 Revolutions, bassist Steve Walker dug up the perfectly preserved original quarter-inch studio tapes with both songs from the seven plus two more recorded at the same session but never released. Presented here for the first time, digitally remastered, are all four songs along with a fold-out insert with Walker’s liner notes, photos and ephemera from his archive, and a reprint of a 1981 fanzine interview with the band. Edition of 300
Skull
(Minimum Table Stacks) LP $20.00
“Originally released as a cassette on the Japanese label Vanilla in 1993,” explains Tom Lax, “Skull has been floating around the sub-underground for years. ZBZ was the brainchild of the late noise legend Hirohito Taneguchi (Seed Mouth) and the equally legendary Junko Hiroshige (Hijokaidan, Genbakukaidan). Much like Michio Kadotani’s Rotting Telepathies recordings, Skull’s great tremors of blurred clamber come directly at you, sometimes sideways. It’s hard to know how much is premeditated or what’s driven by organic impulse, which is what makes it such a great attestation of its era. In an instant, the album moves from a psychotic whoosh not unlike Twin Infinitives to an eerie gait similar to Dadamah’s. Plus, there's everything in between. A true blue-blood of disparate vision, ranking right up there in the masterpiece department with un’s self-titled album, New Zealand’s Ziggy Stardust Band, and those two solo albums from Eric Hysteric.” Edition of 300