Ludo Is Fantastic
(Hypnagogic Films - HYPNO 011) DVD $13.25
Since the early 1960s, wildman Ludo Mich has actively operated on the fringes and the fringes of the fringes of the Antwerp underground art scene. He exists inside a world of his own creation where he has produced a significant body of work across multiple disciplines including visual art, holographic sculpture, Fluxus film, performance, avant garde science and philosophy. The core of his work is always the same: a need to stay pure to his own beliefs, regardless of the consequence. His family and friends know Ludo to be full of love and generosity. Devoted fans know him as a performer who continues to surprise and astonish. But despite 50-plus years of production, Ludo remains practically unknown outside Belgium. "It is his curse to be an outlaw, always," remarks his housemate Frank. Ludo has been banned from numerous bars and cafes in his hometown due to arousing raucous happenings and incidents of nudity. In 2014, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts threatened to sue him over a performance of his that allegedly incited the audience to mishandle works from the Academy’s collection. The police have been called to his home / studio on numerous occasions by neighbors complaining about his loud, barbarous, joyful laughter. Now in his 70s, Ludo’s work continues to gain integrity as he ignores conformity, financial gain and stays one step ahead of conventional and conservative art. Stewart’s mix of archival treasures, interviews with family and friends, and fly-on-the-wall footage immerses the viewer in the Mich Dimension. Seventy minutes in English and Flemish with English subtitles. Includes card for free download of the soundtrack.
Love-In-A-Mist, Edible
(Nyahh) LP $16.00
Recorded over a three-year period in Ireland, Amsterdam and Morocco on pianos in various conditions of ideal concord, these immediate, unfussy recordings, comparable to holiday snapshots, are only half about the playing of a piano, according to the Ireland-based sound-receiver herself. “They are also about the people around each piano and the room in which it lives.”
Two Variations for the Shadow of the Absolute
(Primordial Void) CD $10.00
Incorporating synthesized instrumentation and digitally manipulated studio recordings, the one-two punch of “Positive Charge” and “Negative Charge” falls somewhere between Ligeti’s electronic works and Boulez conducting Zappa, yet Harper’s trademark compositional techniques are present, and, above all, these two variations could only have been made by him and his shadowy cohorts (Dolphin Webinar, anyone?).
As a bonus for Tedium House customers, order this and receive a complimentary copy of Bananafish #13, featuring an interview with Twig Harper from the late 1990s, plus the companion compilation disc with an exclusive Nautical Almanac track.
Cemetary Archive Works
(Von Archives - VON009) DVD $13.00
SALE PRICE. Research for a future film about a cemetery of elephants, part of which experiments with archive film material as visual and sound matter. Based on classic adventure films, documentaries, Lost World literature adaptations and exotic adventure films from the golden period of adventure film. An overwhelming experiment with the audiovisual matter. Edition of 500
The Tailing
(Von Archives - VON010) DVD $13.00
SALE PRICE. A microscopical audiovisual study on pornography by the legendary American sound artist who describes The Tailing thus: “Slow writhing in near-total darkness. Intertwining drones from a church organ. Movement and sound heavy, thick as oil. Erotic and forbidden.”
Cathodic Works 1966-1976
(Von Archives - VON014) 2xDVD $16.00
SALE PRICE. Unreleased and classic documents from the NYC East Side scene by this Italian-American pioneer of video art and audiovisual experimentation. Includes “Black Video 1,” “Black Video 2,” “Black Spiral,” “Black Video 1 Pojections,” “Interview at The Black Gate Theater,” “Minus One,” “6673,” and “Clone.”Curated by Pia Bolognesi e Giulio Bursi. TEDIUM HOUSE BEST OF 2013
Blind Jesus
(Von Archives - VON006) LP $8.00
SALE PRICE. Stefano Pillia (guitar, audio collages and effects) and Andrew Hooker (electronics) exploring the essence of improvised ambient music. Edition of 300.
Nico And The Vascellaris
(Von Archives - VON013) 7-inch (one-sided) $8.00
SALE PRICE. Original studio recordings by this deeply unconventional band. Edition of 100.
CARLOS CASAS / NICO VASCELLARI
Choir
(Von Archives - VON000) DVD $8.00
SALE PRICE. Conceived as a Von Archives manifesto, this audiovisual experiment takes the shape of an installation and live media event, as well as a limited edition video work. The image and sound is a superimposition of source material selected and overlaid by the artists in order to produce ghostly images and, to quote some of the first viewers of the piece, an “hypnotic tantric metal experience.” Edition of 500.
Obitorio Veneto
(Von Archives - VON007) Used LP + CD $8.00
SALE PRICE. Italian band -– “a social punk sculpture” -- conceived by artist Nico Vascellari as a contribution to the Diedrich Diedrichsen-curated exhibition Rock Scissors Paper at Kunsthaus Graz. Lago Morto is “about things that casting calls usually exclude -- targeted aggression, unpredictable social effects and local politics.” The band performed for fifteen days in Vittorio Veneto in nonmusical venues such as bars, hotels, pizzerias, laundrettes, video stores, etc. All fourteen of the band’s songs are on the LP. The DVD contains a video from each of the sixteen locations of the tour, plus an extra montage of sixteen videos simultaneously. Edition of 200
Siberian Field Recordings / Interview with a Whale Hunter
(Von Archives - VON004) 7-inch $12.00
SALE PRICE. The oldest whale hunter of Lorino in Chukotka, speaking about his life and experiences in chukchi (a language that it is danger of extinction, one of Siberia's oldest).
EyEar
(Von Archives - VON011) DVD $13.00
SALE PRICE. Visual experimentation by the legendary percussionist-poet, in which percussion and rhythm alter visual pattern waves. This inner journey of primitive industrial psychedelia is as hypnotic as it gets. Editon of 500
Vezdekhod
(Von Archives - VON008) DVD $13.00
SALE PRICE. Field recordings from the northeastern extremity of Asia in the northern part of the Russian Far East, radio frequency scans, ambient landscapes. Apropos of one of the planet’s most desolate and extreme environments.
Death Condensed
(Von Archives - VON001) 7-inch $8.00
SALE PRICE. A wall of sound. Inaccessible, deep in sources, taking you down to the mysteries of noise and its origins in metal. A conceptual and extreme musical journey. Edition of 300.
Negative Reaction
(Zaius Tapes) LP $20.00
The brilliant lone album by Australian trio Mick Kingham, Milan Stojanovic, and Jim Bodnar was originally released on cassette by Tom Ellard of Severed Heads (Terse Tapes, 1981) and reissued on LP in 1982 by Dogfood Production Systems (home of the estimable Slugfuckers). So you know the pedigree is tip-top. While you’d be correct in assuming the vibe here is experimental — merely by association — be prepared for a perfect example of dystopian malaise released by a band from the then-burgeoning post-punk movement. It’s easy to overlook that in the dawn of the ’80s, specific niche genres hadn’t been painstakingly carved out. Negative Reaction’s album trods forth across the landscapes of industrial, experimental, and minimal, gathering the Cold War gloom and the bleak threat of impending global nuclear holocaust, and forges it all into this self-titled masterpiece. Done primarily with recitation, blurred guitar lines, echoes and feedback, it’s a harrowing snapshot from the other side of an inevitable apocalypse. The beauty is in its simplicity; it doesn’t jolt like SPK, nor does it attempt to shock like Throbbing Gristle. Negative Reaction go for the sublime, matter-of-factly and evenly laying down six tracks of impending doom that give “John” and The Book of Revelation a run for its money. One of the most pivotal records ever from a bygone era that was teeming with them. Edition of 250.
A “Therefore” Between Two Non- Sequiturs
(Coherent States) Cassette $10.00
An orgiastic and furious sound collage (but, simultaneously, a minimalist composition with a repeating pattern in which to easily lose oneself). It is pure musique concrète. It is clearly tape music. It is the externalization of Andrew No C Zukerman’s mental state. It is a paranoid but delicate grotto. A Soft QSO. An experimental noise concert canceled at the last minute and moved from the venue’s basement to the adjacent pizza house’s parking lot with the artist performing for the occasional passersby as his only audience. It is the leftover fries of lovers who broke up in the midst of eating them. Dive in. Softly.
Refill
(Loose Medicine) Cassette $10.00
Todd W. Emmert and Edward Madill’s home-recorded electronic / industrial folk / psychedelic instrumentals — the 14 best ones from the four albums they recorded in 2020 during the pandemic.