Thrash, Death, Black, Grind, Punk, Metal, Melbourne; Cassette - As new
Brilliant death/thrash from Melbourne, this cassette is the long sold out second release from this heavy thrash trio. Cassette comes with glossy fold-out cassette card - a nice 7 track release for the black death thrash crowd....
Dark Wave, Industrial, Experimental, Electronic, Post-punk, Melbourne, Self Released; Limited Edition Cassette w/- Download code - As new
One of Australia’s most intriguing darkwave electronic acts, the tandem of Mohini Hillyer and Emma Hart as electro-tinged post-punk outfit Mollusc, has played a crucial role in defining and galvanising the growing darkwave scene in Australia, which has flourished in the latter half of the 2010s. Hypnotic and near-impenetrable in nature, the band’s 2015 debut EP is a sterling example of the power of the genre, blending a mixture of haunted industrial leanings, formidable throb-n-punch, a foreboding weight and simmering aggression. In six songs, Mollusc managed to take all the good bits of the genre and serve them up on a platter, setting a standard for the scene here in Australia. This is the original 2015 cassette release, later reissued on vinyl through 'IT Records'.
Robin Fox, Experimental, Electronic, Synaesthesia, Rare, Digital, Australia, Melbourne; DVD - Ex Used condition
"Digital culture is obsessed with synaesthesia, especially sound/image convergence. From club ‘visuals’ to automatic ‘visualiser’ plugins for mp3 applications, there’s an ideal of sensory fusion at work which draws on cyber/psychedelic rave culture, and utopian new media discourse.
Ideals aside, digital media forms do create new potential for varieties of ‘machine’ synaesthesia–automatic mappings between sound and image. Visualiser plugins offer specific and more-or-less arbitrary mappings of image to sound. While they can’t (promise to) induce a synaesthetic experience, they do offer a machine synaesthesia that might challenge, reorder, or at least reflect on, our own audiovisual perception. Yet most synaesthesia machines are little more than bolted-on nozzles that turn all your favourite tunes into generic visual sludge.
By contrast Robin Fox’s Backscatter disc presents a highly specific and refined synaesthesia machine. He has assembled a simple audiovisual synthesizer using simple digitally synthesised audio and an old analog oscilloscope. The oscilloscope is in ‘polar’ mode, so instead of scanning left to right, displaying the conventional ‘trace’ of the waveform, the trace orbits the screen. Waveforms create woven circles, loops, twisting spirals, filigreed knots.
Response is instantaneous, so the screen jumps and twitches in sync with Fox’s audio signature skitters and blips. The sound-vision mapping is supple, the images beautiful and sometimes surprising. The pieces feel quite controlled, even composed, the way they seem to literally reveal new twists and tricks. Overall, the results are staggering."
Mitchell Whitelaw
Earbash
Julian Cope, Underground, Obscure, Reviews, Doom, Jazz, Experimental, Metal, Psych, Krautrock; Large Paperback Book - New
Eschewing the usual criteria of chart success or acknowledged influence, the Copendium — a collection of album reviews and themed track samplers — takes energy, originality and heaviness as its bearings. The result is a feast of obscure and neglected masterworks that together form a surprising but entirely credible new tradition. Krautrock, motorik and post-punk, stoner and doom metal, occasionally even jazz, spoken word and hair metal: they are all represented in a wholly persuasive sequence. Cope is the perfect guide to this novel terrain: impeccably informed, passionate, insightful and deeply funny. Copendium is his re-imagining of a useful canon of popular music, and it is set to become required reading.
Features reviews including Henry Flynt, Chrome, Magma, Melvins, Monoshock, Psychick TV, Sleep, Boredoms, Harvey Milk, OM, Sunburned Hand of the Man etc...
Perth, Australia, Hardcore, Punk, Numbered; Limited Edition Cassette - New
Perth hardcore punk band HELTA SKELTA released this limited cassette in 2010, featuring embers of NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT, PRAG, PRIORS, BLKOUT, BREAK EVEN, JAWS, WARTHREAT, HUMAN NOTHING, DROWNING HORSE, COLD MEAT, NERVE QUAKES etc. Edition of 50 hand-numbered cassettes with riso print covers.
Brisbane, Hardcore, Punk, Limited Edition, Numbered, Demo; Cassette - New
Brisbane hardcore punk outfit "Sick People" released this demo cassette on 'Delayed Response' in 2011. This is the second dub limited to 100 copies (number 45).
Germany, USA, Punk, Hardcore, Split, Live, Bootleg; Cassette Release (1998) - Ex Used condition
Rare German split Cassette featuring German Hardcore punk band Yacøpsæ, split with US hardcore legends DRI. DRI tracks from two separate live shows in 1983 and 1984, contains and Yacøpsæ's first demo as well as a live set recorded in Hamburg in 1998. This is a rare bootleg cassette from 1998. Includes Xeroxed A4 size fold out cover slip loaded with lyrics and info.
USA, Experimental, Electronic, Techno, Noise; Cassette (New Body Label) with download code - New
"...sounds like equal parts Ben Frost and Steve Reich, blended on an electric soundboard in hell. It is what I would expect to hear in the background if my life were a David Cronenberg film." --
TINY MIX TAPES
USA, Noise, Harsh, Experimental, Power Electronics, Power Violence; (Darker Days Ahead Label) Limited Edition (25 copies) Cassette - New sealed
Here’s a split tape with a side project of Andrew Quitter from Regosphere and Cory Shumacher. Schumacher is up first with heavy noise walls. The distortion is piled on thick as molasses here with a ton of delay in the mix. Not the spastic cut-up style delay but the heavy booming delay which envelopes the whole mix. Fade sticks out a little with some really interesting sound elements like being battered by an electric wind storm. An unrelenting wall of harsh noise spews forth. A swirling miasma of aggressive frequencies, uncontrolled screams, junk noise and plenty of distortion to bring it all to the next level. A heavy slab of uncompromising noise, almost bordering on wall noise yet more detailed and large shifts in sound over time. A very enjoyable split from start to finish with two artists who compliment each other well. They were able to get on the same page for this and the result is quite effective. Recommended dosage of 1 listen every other night for three weeks straight and that whole “being able to hear things” issue will be cleared up for any listener.
USA Experimental, Electronic, Noise, Improv, Musique Concrete; Limited Edition (50 copies) '905 Tapes' Cassette (2010) - New
Here’s a great split with two very well paired artists. Hunted Creatures appears here as a 4 piece and Blown Doors a duo. Both projects play a kind of experimental/musique concrete style of composition that has an improvisational feel to it, but also with elements that are well though-out and expanded on. Blown Doors presents Unseen Glaze a highly layered and detailed track that features a heavy dose of bass, with shuffling textures that converge and elements that sync up rhythmically only to break down again and fall apart. The track makes use of a range of dynamics ranging from sparse and repetitive to bold and noisy but always slowly morphing and keeping a layer of bass – guitar maybe? – at it’s core. Hunted Creatures has a lighter touch here with an untitled track. Being a four piece it is quite varied with acoustic instruments – piano, violin perhaps – being used to create these experimental layers. The track has more common with side A then it contrasts, mainly in regards to structure, accents, and gestures rather than the actual textured sounds. It takes the listener on a similar journey though complimenting Blown Door’s sound well and expanding on the split. Great production, neat design and a well though-out and put together release. 905 Tapes shows consistent quality and is not to be ignored – doing tape releases right. A great split for fans of the more academic style experimental noise and free improv. Great work.
Noise, Harsh, Power Electronics, Experimental, Industrial, Power Violence; Limited Edition Cassette - New Sealed
Rare USA Handmade power electronics/noise cassette release from 2019 on 'Profuse Bleeding' label. Limited to 15 copies.
Psych, Experimental, Noise, Rare, Avant Garde, Argentina, Rock; 2xCD set - Ex Used condition (Jewell case damaged)
The Argentinian band Reynols wasn’t widely known even before they disappeared for some 17 years. They just don’t do the kind of music that gets a band known. Reynols represent everything rock pretends to be. The band has been around since 1993, although if you ask singer and frontman Miguel Tomasin, he might tell you that the band has been around since 1967 when, at age 3, he started banging on pots and pans in his mother’s kitchen. He might say something else, too, but he’s said that in the past. Tomasin is, by any definition, the visionary of Reynols. Without him, Reynols wouldn’t be the most important band in the history of rock. Rock has certain conventions—rhythm, instrumentation—that generally don’t vary all that much. But something more important that rock has, or should have, or at least pretends to have, is attitude. Rock is about the rise of the outsider. Rock is about breaking down power structures. Rock is about believing in yourself. And in that respect, Tomasin is a veritable rock hero. The fact that Tomasin has Down’s syndrome may or may not matter; We’d have to know what kind of band he’d have if he didn’t have Down’s syndrome to say for sure, and we don’t know that. But Tomasin is a visionary and in Roberto Conlazo, Pacu Conlazo and Anla Courtis, he has a devout ensemble ready, willing and able to do his bidding. And that’s what makes Reynols the most important band in the history of rock. Tomasin’s bidding hasn’t always brought home the bacon. Past releases have included recordings of chickens and an album of dematerialized music, housed in an empty jewel case. The band has also worked with Acid Mother’s Temple, the Nihilist Spasm Band and Pauline Oliveros, and has always stayed true to his wishes. That dedication is what gives the band its strength.
