Without Murmur
(Chocolate Monk) Cassette $8.25
Tongue Depressor’s pipeman gets the orgone pulsing. “Four columns of bagpipe drone repossessed by tape speed alteration, sometimes palindromic,” he says. To avoid the temptation toward melody, “I took the chanter out of the instrument. The three drone pipes are the true wellspring anyway. The drone reeds behave strangely when loosened and played below typical air pressure thus the stuttering, murmuring, fluttering.” Edition of 50
And I, And I
(Chocolate Monk) Magazine + CDR $11.00
Hoffmann needles down into Fluxus-type performance / sound happenings: “Multi-track recordings of overwhelming and exhausting situations recorded over the past year,” they say. “Used laptop, objects, amplified zither, portable turntable, bluetooth transducers, fans.” Recent appearances in China and the UK prove that this Oberlin-based young’un ain’t your average bone-headed yank. No, sir. They know all about the power of the hum of a room. The clunk of a chair. Minimal tones. Space. Focus. Booklet of recent collages of black-and-white abstractions. Breathe deep. Edition of 50
Climax Denali
(Chocolate Monk) CDR $7.00
Don’t let that bird nest hairdo fool you. Andrew No C Zukerman threads together well tailored sound collage contraband from his Toronto hot box. Climax Denali finds our electronic whuzzman manipulating his machines to palate-tingling effect. Straight-to-video Euro thriller synth soundtrack outtakes sit cheek-to-cheek with deftly arranged exotic cut-ups and overheard band tune-up chat. Slow burners fade in with the promise of dirt and scandal before more nifty electro-tidbits get arranged with menacing pan. Rhythmic fever hook and tones tune out before more sounds get quickly fried. Our maestro’s tools are well oiled and greased. Let his anodic audio bacteria decompose the organic matter in your skull and convert the stored chemical energy into electricity. Edition of 50
On Governors
(Chocolate Monk) Cassette $8.25
“On Governors takes its name from the 1868 essay by Scottish physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell, a foundational work in feedback control theory from a mathematical and physical point of view, which laid the groundwork for more in-depth research into feedback and self-controlling or self-regulating systems. His paper did not focus on sound, but rather on the forms of feedback and control at play in steam engines, and, more generally, helped work out the mathematical foundation of the forms of regulation and control integral to mechanical forms of feedback. The pieces that came together for this release were recorded between 2023 and 2026 in Vienna on electronic, electro-acoustic, no-input, motorized, modular and magnetic feedback systems.” Edition of 50
Chowders
(l’Esprit de l’Escalier) CDR $9.00 (Out-of-stock)
COMING IN JUNE. Perched like a weathered gargoyle ruminating behind an undiagnosed nutjob glare, this batch of grating, surrealism-ravaged sound collages and bent audio blurt arrives on the 130th anniversary of the birth of F. Bushnell Tanks, director of silent films A Girl Called Minusha and The Lady In The Filing Cabinet, whose star Irene Gordon-Pheldt is depicted on the front cover. A live recording (from Wednesday Night Live on KZSU in Stanford, another from Shapeshifters Cinema in Oakland), plus two homemade beauty massacres from the Day Three of Dead Bats on The Porch sessions (for frappéd electronics and boomer delirium, respectively), and the third in a series of paper towel dispenser Fluxus actions.
Chessman Hazard Codechange Household
(Inu Wan Wan) 12-inch $20.00
Led by Katayoon, this Vancouver-based group fills out the skeletal collection of 12” EPs from the PacNW (Fastbacks, Bikini Kill), bearing the spirit (not the ghost) of ROCK. You’d have to cut out the tongue of an otter to digest the ocean of freedom in these four songs. With a classic Gashrat quality and a pinch of Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English, it speeds up and slows down through more dimensions than the 3Ds, as ambushed by separation as the Submissives.