The finest in hermetic sound and vision from around the world…forever buzzing the tower.
Opening Bell allow very little to seep from the bunker prior to an adequate incubation period, therefore we are excessively pleased to alert listeners to the surfacing of this demonstration of the band’s “improvisational electronic doom” period of recordings.
<<< Direct yourself HERE and await further instructions for obtaining superior analog editions >>>
Kevin Micka’s long-running ANIMAL HOSPITAL, an institution we’ve long been fans of, will be joining NYC trio FINAL BOSS for 3 very special engagements beginning 9/11 here in New York before continuing into Massachusetts(9/12) and Rhode Island(9/13). Each concert boasts an impressive lineup and is not to be missed.
Stay tuned for details.
Local NYC heavies Opening Bell, Lawsuits, and Chain Gang Grave join forces to collectively rip in, what many are calling “Williamsburg’s ONLY venue”, Tiger Lounge, located clandestinely beneath the Midway Bar at 272 Grand Street in Brooklyn. The password is “no cops”.
*Ohio’s Griefhound have had to cancel their tour and will not be appearing.
Friendly reminder…do not miss….
From Mick Barr re: his upcoming residency at The Stone here in NYC:
less than a week til the week.
if you wanna buy a discounted ticket for the entire week, get in touch.
heres the list again, in case you lost it:
aug 18th:
8pm- Mossenek
Utter purveyors of primal vent. This show will probably be released.
chuck, mick, colin marston-bass
10pm- M.N.D.L.S.B.L.S.T.N.G.
Spontaneously composed superhuman splatterkraft.
mick-guitar, nondor-drums/vocals
aug 19th:
8pm- BarrSheaDahl
Brutal space-less shred trance.
mick-guitar, tim dahl-bass, kevin shea-drums
10pm- Oldest
Old Voivod and new Darkthrone. Pre-written music. No food will be served.
mick-guitar/vocals, brooks headley-drums
aug 20th:
8pm- Marc Edwards/Mick Barr Duo
Blistering guitar and drums improv with superman Marc Edwards from Dark To Themselves.
marc edwards-drums, mick-guitar
10pm- Ixot Expanse
Old school DC gogo jam. Featuring Franke Vogl of Meta-matics, Et At It. Tim Dewit aka Dutchegerm of Gang Gang Dance and The Crainium. Brian Degraw aka bEEdEEgEE of GGD and The Crainium. Dozens of years behind and ahead.
mick, franke vogl, brian degraw, tim dewit – instrumentation tbd
aug 21st:
8pm- Overishins
Second official performance. Born of dripping ancience. Murky dungeon thunder.
mick-guitar, chuck-vocals/electronics, johnny deblase-bass, mike pride-drums
10pm- Krallice
Ygghuur.
mick-guitar/vocals, colin-guitar, nick mcmaster-bass/vocals, lev weinstein-drums
aug 22nd:
8pm- Hathenter: Supermeld
Blue seratonin extra sensory 4 guitar meld worship performance. By way of the ouija.
mick, colin, eliane gazzard, brandon seabrook-all guitar
10pm- Encenathrakh
Technical improv brutal death metal columbus.
mick-guitar, colin-guitar, weasel walter-drums, Paulo Henri Paguntalan- vocals
aug 23rd:
8pm- Improvitor
Improvised thrash and psychic suppression. Members of SNL.
mick-guitar/banjo, lev weinstein-drums/logdrum
10pm- Ocrilim
Solo guitar set. Slow, fast, quiet, loud, all kinds of music. New stuff too.
mick-guitar
Happy to report that our friends GROWING will be returning to the live realm on Sunday, August 23. GROWING fans watch this space for exciting news on a related release via SGG..
(visual by Joe DeNardo)
$5! doors at 7!
beer n wine available at the jammer!
8PM J DIAMOND
9PM SUNWATCHERS
10PM GROWING
ST PAUL’S CHURCH
334 South 5th St (at Rodney) Brooklyn, 11211
entrance on south 5th.
Dead Hell in a Bucket. A shit-hot new compilation from Philadelphia’s Forward Fast label.
Our very own Final Boss contribute an exclusive track, as do our friends in The Retouched Ecce Homo Band(Richard Papiercuts and company, essentially), The Cats, and more. Excellent Slow Death Funnies-style cover art. Get one on the Internet or at a show.
From Forward Fast:
“A (technically) international compilation of underground heavy hitters. Each song is exclusive to this compilation and otherwise unreleased. Tracks from: Ivan the Tolerable, The Retrouched Ecce Homo Band, Honey Radar, The Cats, Final Boss, David Kenneth Nance, Darlingchemicalia, Peter the Pianoeater, Kaleidoscope Death, Huh, and a recently unearthed collaboration between Northern Liberties and Towers.
Pro dubbed tapes. Full color Jcards with pro printed labels on the tapes. Limited quantities.
Cover artwork by Gregory Labold.
Corporate rock still sucks.”
Monday, August 10 in Brooklyn…
SGG presents…
Darsombra (Baltimore)
“Imagine Expo ’70 cloaked in black, performing a seance with Tony Conrad and Lustmord, and you’ll have an idea of how much we must like this!” – aquariusrecords.org
New Firmament – Feast of the Epiphany’s Nick Podgurski’s solo excursions
Julia Santoli – Julia Santoli is a multi-media artist specializing in the synthesis of image, gesture, and sound through research-driven, interdisciplinary projects.
Human Host – long-running Bronx via Baltimore electronic upstarts.
http://humanhost.bandcamp.com/
Nassau Coliseum + Ala Muerte – Final Boss, Opening Bell, etc members Morales & Reisinger record as a duo under the NC banner and are joined this night by Bianca of Ala Muerte & Creeplings.
https://soundcloud.com/sleepinggiantglossolalia/tracks
90 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn. Doors at 8pm. $7. Don Pedro has a full bar and kitchen.
NYC murk-merchants Opening Bell (in the studio n o w!) are on an upcoming bill with the terrifyingly lovely Primitive Man, Colorado’s answer to a bludgeoning inside a gas chamber. The Communion(who have a release on Prison Tatt), the UK’s Opium Lord, and Mountain God round out an alarmingly heavy bill.
Our own Final Boss are understandably psyched to open for the recently reunited Dälek this Friday at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn. Azar Swan and Cleanteeth are also on the bill!
Way back in 2010, Final Boss/Mons Meg/Action Beat member Don Xero was the first to do the world this favor and give Glenn Branca’s “The Ascension” the vinyl reissue treatment it deserves via the Fortissimo label. We are proud to be able to offer it to you here.
This version is the initial vinyl reissue preceded only by the original 99 Records 1981 pressing(which sells for outrageous amounts) released in 2010 by Final Boss/Action Beat, etc member Don Xero on his Fortissimo label and thought to be out of print. We are pleased to be able to present this milestone recording to you at a fair price.
As Superior Viaduct stated for their 2014 edition:
“Glenn Branca’s first full-length album The Ascension is a colossal achievement. After touring much of 1980 with an all-star band featuring four guitarists (Branca, fellow composers Ned Sublette and David Rosenbloom, and future Sonic Youth member Lee Ranaldo) along with Jeffrey Glenn on bass and Stephan Wischerth on drums, Branca took his war-torn group into a studio in Hell’s Kitchen to record five incendiary compositions. Originally released in the summer of 1981, The Ascension effectively tears down the genre-ghettos between 20th century avant-garde and ecstatic rock ‘n’ roll.
On “The Spectacular Commodity,” chiming, shimmering tones unfold into sinister drone-territory à la Tony Conrad, while abrasive guitars and repetitive beats retain the raw primitivism of No Wave. The title track attains a densely packed, larger-than-life sound and (as author Marc Masters says best) “never stops climbing skyward.”
With artist Robert Longo’s stark front cover that depicts Branca battling an unidentified man, The Ascension is a must-have record not only for fans of early Swans and Sonic Youth, but also of Steve Reich or Slint’s Tweez.”
Track Listing:
Lesson No. 2
The Spectacular Commodity
Structure
Lightfield (In Consonance)
The Ascension
As Fortissimo(the label behind this original reissue)put it:
“Glenn Branca’s The Ascension was one of those rare records that managed to change things. Maybe not right away, but as time has passed, its importance and influence has become more and more clear. Branca’s idea was to marry the repetition and process of minimalism with the energy and aesthetic of rock music. The Ascension’s predecessor Lesson No. 1 showed this in a simple and refined manner but on the Ascension, everything was turned up to 11.
Glenn had put together a small group to tour in 1980. The “Ascension band” included Ned Sublette, David Rosenbloom, Branca and future Sonic Youth-er Lee Ranaldo on guitar, Jeffrey Glenn on bass and Stephan Wischerth on drums. By the time they recorded in 1981 they must have been a hell of a band. Recorded and mixed at the Power Station and mastered by Howie Weinberg, the Ascension is a truly fantastic sounding record, and is one of the benchmarks for total guitar awesome-ness. Chiming, ringing, chugging guitar bliss. In his liner notes to Acute’s CD reissue, Ranaldo complains however that the true sound of the Ascension could only be heard in a live room, where all the tonalities could crash against each other in the open air. We’ll have to take his word for it and settle for the record they released though, something nobody’s complained about yet! The Ascension came out in 1981 on the seminal label 99, where it was greeted with wide critical acclaim.
While looking at all the press that followed it’s release, one cannot avoid the debate, is The Ascension a rock band performing classical pieces, or an experimental ensemble performing rock music? Glenn’s prior work in The Static and the Theoretical Girls represented some of the most aggressively avant-rock sounds of the New Wave era, while his work in the two decades since has taken on a decidedly “classical” approach. However, for a brief moment, Branca and his band were able to transcend such classifications as High Art vs. Pop Culture, Classical Music vs. Rock and Roll, and release a record that, amongst all the debate, at least had all the critics agreeing on one thing: The Ascension is truly awesome. The Ascension features 5 compositions, none a moment too long or too short , none too leftfield to be inaccessible, none so mainstream to be boring. Just 40 minutes of sheer guitar bliss.”
Both records available from our store.
Quttinirpaaq “No Visitors” LP
The first offering from the Rural Isolation Project.
Julian Cope had this to say:
“Finally, Vinyl of the Month must surely go to that bunch of Texan ne’er-do-wells Quttinirpaaq, whose blood-red vinyl LP NO VISITORS dances indelicately and unconsciously between inchoate and stumbling no chance Geetar (pe-)riffery one moment and sub-sub-Suicide ROIR cassette-level lo-fi instraludes the next; between Monoshock v. Working Man Noise Unit microphone feedback wars, and/or interspersed with random cut-ups of Kramer’s Shockabilly rehearsals. You wanna Spahn Ranch hoedown by the wind and its most rock’n’roll mates? You goddit? You need need need more Liquorball but their release schedule stinks? Come to these guys… the only show in town, currently. Released on the immaculately titled Rural Isolation Projects label, this is one of the best 45rpm LPs of recent months. Come to think of it, it’s also one of the best 33rpm LPs of recent months! Dammit kiddies, that useful! That fucking useful!”
Aquarius offers this praise:
“We got our first taste of these Texas weirdos on a split with psychedelic drone-drug-doom heavies Bong, and the virtually unpronounceable Quttinirpaaq were definitely a good match, countering Bong’s longform sonic explorations with their own heavy psych / caustic noise / kraut-sludge pummel. What we didn’t know at the time, was that Quttinirpaaq includes among its membership, members of former Record Of The Weekers Rubble as well as Shit And Shine offshoot outfit Same Sac! Which totally makes sense, as No Visitors is a serious blast of drug addled Southern psych, the opening 90 second blast a crumbling almost industrial sounding dirge that sounds like Brainbombs at 16rpm, filtered through some seriously Butthole Surfers style drugginess. Which if you’re anything like us, had us sold pretty much right away. And while not all of No Visitors is nearly so noisy, it is all pretty goddamn great. From pulsing low slung krautrock style murk, like on “Malvert”, which drapes the motorik mesmer with wild squalls of caustic guitarnoise, and creepy hissy whispery vocals, and what might be some detuned pianos, to slo-mo black noise doom-dirge crumble, like on “Ex-Batts” which literally sounds like the tape has been slowed down, so all the instruments rumble and crumble and moan, everything wrapped in sheets of wild squealing feedback, and near Merzbowian noise, all the while lumbering and lurching like some lost Buttholes jam played back on a broken boombox.
These guys exist somewhere between skull crushing noise rock, atmospheric noise drenched Japanese style psych and primitive caveman dirgery, the comparisons we’ve read mention Brainbombs, Skullflower and Les Rallizes Denudes, but we’d probably also include Drunkdriver, Twin Stumps, Violent Students, Rusted Shut, Burmese, Liquorball, you can probably figure out what sort of glorious, druggy noisiness we’re talking about. Super heavy, ultra psychedelic, stumbling and crushing, tranced out and woozily hypnotic, massive slabs of churning low end, beneath crunchy, jagged, distorto guitars, wild streaks of feedback everywhere, the vocals yelped and yowled, sometimes bellowed, here and there delivered in a deeply dramatic, and sort of creepy croon, the sound constantly on the verge of collapse, but always seeming to eventually coalesce into some seriously demented, kraut-sludge heaviness that will have most aQ customers losing their shit big time. And hell, there’s even some faux techno, check out the gristly pulsating “Golden Needles”, that sounds like Shit And Shine on Kompakt. Fuck yeah!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!”
Quttinirpaaq “Let’s Hang Out” LP
The 2nd proper full-length from Quttinirpaaq, about which Aquarius had this to say:
“We made the debut lp No Visitors from these Texas drugged out psych/doom/noise/kraut/sludge weirdos a Record Of The Week back June, and well, since these tracks were culled from the very same recording session that produced that record, you could very well consider this a sort of Record Of The Week part two, and really if you dug No Visitors, this is more of the same, blown out psychedelic heaviness, that sounds like a mashup up of the Butthole Surfers, Hawkwind and Shit And Shine, all filtered though AmRep nineties noiserock and Texas knuckle draggers Rusted Shut. Which if you’re anything like us, is about all you need to know. But if you’re new to Quttinirpaaq, or just need a reminder, give a listen to the first couple samples below. The brief sort-of intro, the sweetly titled “Diary Of A Pig Keeper’s Wife”, is all detuned trudge, crumbling slo-mo riffage, death march drums, weird, slowed down chant like vocals, this is some sort of wasted, psychedelic ultra doom, but it’s on “Chinese Hercules” that Quttinirpaaq really get to flex their musical muscles, locking almost immediately into some seriously tranced out, heavy hypno-rock riffage, that weds super distorted drum pound to churning looped riffage, garbled vox and swirls of noise and effects into some heavy, space, psychedelic noise rock that takes everything we love about White Hills, The Heads and all the rest, cranks it WAY up, and drags it through the filth, resulting in some seriously next level kraut-sludge space-psych heaviness that KILLS.
And while it doesn’t necessarily get better from there (not sure how it could really), it stays pretty epic and psychedelic, heavy and warped, tripped our and trancey, most of the tracks some weird sort of hybridized psychedelic krautrock and noise rock crush, the band locked into endless grooves that roil and churn mesmerically, while all around sounds swoop and swirl, streaks of feedback, blasts of FX, constantly shifting textures, buried melodies, all blurred and smeared into heaving, noisy, heavy psych weirdness.
Some of the tracks here get downright out there, some surprisingly beautiful, still noisy, but infused with surprising melodies, and crafted with a delicate touch, while others are just pure skull caving crush, and still others are almost electronic sounding, seemingly dabbling in the same warped outsider electronics as Shit And Shine.
Needless to say this RULES. Everyone who bought and loved No Visitors, is gonna want this too. And if you’ve yet to check these guys out, Let’s Hang Out might just be your new favorite heavy / noise / psych / space jam. You have been warned.
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, clear with ‘blood red spray’. Comes with a full color insert, and it’s LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
We are happy to report, if you’ve not yet heard, that the long-running, influential, groundbreaking(and dear to us at SGG) genre-bending group Dälek are active once again and already challenging and rewarding adventurous listeners with new material.
A recently completed European tour was preceded by one secret NYC show and are evidence that Dälek are at the top of their game. Their first officially announced performance is July 17 with our own Final Boss at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn.
The video above is from a currently in-progress new record and sets the bar very high.
If you’re somehow unfamiliar with Dälek’s excellent output, allow us to recommend any of their brilliant standalone albums or collaborations with the likes of Faust, Techno Animal, Kid 606, & Destructo Swarmbots to name a few.
Here’s to the f.u.t.u.r.e.
