A Number Of Small Things/Newest shop articles

Michael And The Mumbles - Michael And The Mumbles 16,99 €

Before MICHAEL YONKERS revised the history of recorded music with the clarion chords of Microminiature Love, he was in MICHAEL AND THE MUMBLES, who made this self-titled LP in 1966 - a naive, teenage trip through garage band moves typical of the era at first glance, but repeated listening reveals a darkness beneath the crisp, winsome visage. Same characteristics that make Micro the singularly original piece that is (just slightly less visible is all): emotionally bleak themes, dissonant undercurrents, and recklessly wild performances. So, once again, a Michael Yonkers LP is going to turn the world upside down, make the college girls scream and leave you to wonder how many more times this can happen. Vinyl only, with a digital download coupon, made from 45-year-old master tapes that, aside from a glitch on "Cold Town," sound amazing.

Zac Nelson - Sound A Sleep Sound 17,99 €

How do you describe magical, ethereal creatures that slide out of night skies and into your bedroom, offering a welcoming hand extended to invite you on a journey and a warm embrace after they've put you back to bed? Almost indentical is describing the odd wonder of Sound A Sleep Sound, a dynamic album that rockets out of the niches built by genre standards like ambient or drone. No, this is cosmic soul-searching, boiled down into 40 minutes of nebulous-pink, gooey extraterrestrial love. On this wax saucer, ZAC NELSON, of CHLL PLL and HEX LOVE fame, throws down two side-long floaters bent solely on mental coaxing into another zone. Patient, yet involved tones slip and shimmer into and out of perspective. The sounds liquify and coat your entire persona. Sit a spell in a dim room with the lovely drifters encased in wax. You will find yourself waking into a new reality. Your head might feel swimmy and your heart a little heavier. That means you're newly alive. Edition of 250 copies on either gold or white vinyl.

Sapphire Slows - True Breath 15,99 €

A stunning 5-song debut EP by this young Tokyo producer. Ghost-in-the-drum-machine rhythms layered with her exquisite Cocteau Twins vocal haze, but impeccably crafted into nuanced multi-movement compositions. Will be doing a full-length later in 2012 as well. Not Not Fun’s new female artist. Edition of 500.

The Label says:
A fresh voice is hard to find – especially in these days of such dense digital air (‘in the Shadow of the Power of Babble’ internet philosophers say). So it was with nuanced joy that we found ourselves spellbound and seduced by this young Tokyo gem-gleaner’s neon gallery of dynamic Casio nightlife masks, each of which is impeccably crafted and swathed in a fog basket of her effortlessly haunting Cocteau Twins-y shadow vox. There’s a wonderfully hushed vibe to Sapphire Slows’ most translucent tracks, beats materializing out of stray radio waves and metropolis static, electric piano memories washing away into the silent skyline of skyscrapers, synths congealing like synthetic whispers. The perfect soundtrack to urban insomniac wandering and wondering and lingering too long; almost like a Toyko take on Night Bus. True Breath is her stateside debut EP after one previous 7 inch on Big Love, and 2012 should see a full-length plus some global gigging so soak in her subtle night moves now while the breath is still warm. Black vinyl 12 inches in bilingual new wave patterned shadow portrait jackets designed by A & B Brown.

The Notwist - Music No Music 21,99 €

Precision work, Ecstasy: "The Notwist" and the 20-piece "Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra". A Tour Documentary. Housed in a 60 pages full color, hardcover photo-book (19,0 x 13,50 cm, landscape format)! PAL Version! Limited to 2000 copies!

Let there be sound! Jörg Adolph's playful On-the-road documentary follows the face-off of two bands that are both quite fond of experimentation. Noisecore, Minimal Elektro, Freejazz, anything goes. The Notwist and the Andremoda Mega Express Orchestra ignore genre boundaries as they hop from style to style, channeling their way through polymorphic soundscapes, wild and beautiful.
From the recording of Notwist's "The Devil, You + Me" album, via collective rehearsals in Berlin, to concerts in Hamburg, Amsterdam and Munich: these kindred spirits always try to improve, try to refine the patterns and arrangements. It seems as if the musiciansâ€™ main concern is to keep the songs in constant motion - Music Not Music. And the film reflects the sounds it documents: a rough and ready virtuosity, full of ease and focused dedication at the same time. It is about the awareness of young musicians far away from the lights of multi-platform stardom. And it documents of the end of the first decade of the new millenium. "There is no escape from this circling place."

Director: Jörg Adolph
Producer: Jörg Adolph, Forian Steinleitner
Author: Jörg Adolph
Camera: Jörg Adolph, Josef Mayerhofer, Daniel Schönauer, Gereon Wetzel, Martin Schulze, Martin Gretschmann
Sound: Martin Schulze
Cut: Jörg Adolph
Music: The Notwist, Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra

Movie / DVD Informations:
Lenght Movie: 85min
Lenght Bonusmaterial: 21.5min
Productionyear:: 2009
DVD-Reginonal Code: 0
Pictureformat: 4:3 Letterbox
Soundformat: Stereo
Language: german, english
UT: english

Harmonious Thelonious - Listen 13,99 €

"The world is spinning, and so is HARMONIOUS THELONIOUS, the latest project by Stefan Schwander (aka Antonelli). The Düsseldorfer's 2010 album ""Talking"" conquered new rhythmic worlds with Afro-Industrial music fueled by dizzying sequencer patterns, garnering much praise for its global mixture of sound. (Featured from international Resident Advisor Magazine and UK’s BBC Music over Caribou’s global DJ sets to “Record of the Month” in german De:Bug magazine). On his second album, ""Listen"", the harsh combination of the reduced pattern structures of American minimalist music with African-inspired rhythms heard on ""Talking"" has now given way to a bright, vivid harmony that seems much more direct, within which sometimes rages the rhythmic fever of South America. As an electronic musician, Schwander has always seen himself as a kind of human filter who gathers his listening experiences into something previously unheard. Yet strange new sounds and melodies are not merely used as decorative ornaments, but work as unified elements in a fearless balancing act between the pulse of Africa and the electronic groove of Europe.

Gultskra Artikler - Abtu Anet 15,99 €

Gultskra Artikler is the throat-tangling moniker of one Alexey Devyanin and while we might not have heard a great deal from him recently, ‘Abtu/Anet’ has been excavated from the dusty Miasmah archives for a long overdue reissue. Not that it ever had a proper release; the astute followers among you might have managed to track down the very rare ‘Abtu’, which appeared back in 2007 on limited 3” cdr, but its companion EP ‘Anet’ never reached the shelves and seemed destined to permanent unavailability.
Devyanin’s complex, surreal world was explored to wide acclaim on the ’07 album ‘Kasha Iz Topora’, and thematically ‘Abtu/Anet’ feels like a continuation of that record. Devyanin’s deeply original fusion of Radiophonic-era electronics, musique concrete, early European folk music and 1920s film scores is highlighted far further here, and somehow the record sounds more relevant now than it did five years ago. In an era where nostalgia is musical currency, Devyanin’s Vaseline-smudged visions are refreshingly free of kitsch and Youtube-era restlessness. He retains a deeply Eastern European, near-theatrical focus in his work that is as intricate as it is unnerving, and he manages to keep the nostalgia to a specific (and unfamiliar) area of the world. For most of us, the album feels like a lonely journey in the light of a half-moon, with crumbling, curled branches glancing off our ragged clothes. Frightening and unrepentant yet deeply compelling – ‘Abtu/Anet’ should remind you that stories can be told without a single word of dialogue.

Tim Hecker - Dropped Pianos from 11,99 €

This new Tim Hecker release is composed of sketch pieces recorded in 2010 in preparation for what would become the Ravedeath, 1972 album. All of the compositions are piano driven and minimal in nature.

This is not a new Tim Hecker album, but rather a peek behind the curtains into the working process. That these pieces stand on their own as compelling soundworks is a testament to the fact that Tim Hecker is at the absolute top of his game at the moment.

Peaking Lights - 936 Remixed 15,99 €

Ponies from the SILK stable turn 936 dub-a-dub lullaby groovers into full-on synth-sex, acid-bubble, twinkle-starshine dance ditties on this remix redux. Beat it with the chic vocal pitch n’ bounce and metallic/mechanic swing of Ital’s take on “Marshmellow Yellow.” Bring it on baroque with XANDER HARRIS’ Sly and Dario giallo-reggae revision of “Birds of Paradise.” INNERGAZE hi-five the minimal wave of “All The Sun That Shines,” transforming the original into a syncopated psych-out dark-disco-dose FX fest. And CUTICLE’s got the bleary bleep-bloop best of sweet serenade “Tiger Eyes” with Casio keyed-up flourishes, hi-hat space jams, and damp ramp-up breakdowns. Even beater than the real thing; let the Domino fall for 936-gone-nightlife.

Golden Calves - Collection: Money Band + Century Band 19,99 €

Collection gathers pre-Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice material from James Jackson Toth’s Golden Calves project. Originally released in 1996; reissue is limited to 1000 copies.

“It was really all about The Godz, Jandek, The Shadow Ring, Strapping Fieldhands, Swell Maps and Tower Recordings. Beyond these, I had only heard the ‘classic’ and most available free jazz, krautrock and noise albums. I was a long way from, say, the second Comus album or Charles Gayle. But this music changed my life. It was a record store owner named Eric McCarthy and a man who needs no introduction to anyone reading these notes, Matt Valentine, who taught me that there was a world beyond Dischord, Vermiform and Ebullition. I went to college, met hip people, and got a job at both the local record store and the college radio station. I was taking drugs. I bought a four track and began emulating my heroes. I called the project Golden Calves. I was eighteen years old....
In hindsight, I like to think that the noise scene liked us and responded so positively to us because, in our own naïve way, we were subverting a very rigid paradigm. Touring with noise bands and moving in experimental circles but playing proper ‘songs’ is what made us weird. It was an exciting, unforgettable time.
These are not perfect records. Perhaps worse than so-called ‘naïve art’ is ‘only-marginally-informed art’ and that’s what this is. I should have let my talents marinate for a while before rushing out records that now sound to me like thinly-veiled love letters to Siltbreeze. But fuck it, man. I was hopelessly arrogant then and remain so today. Why else would I greenlight this fucking thing?” - James Jackson Toth, Lexington, KY, Summer 2010

J.R.Plankton - Neon from 13,99 €

J.R.Plankton is a collaborative project by Jens Strüver and Robert Ohm.
Strüver also manages the M=minimal label which has been responsible for releases by people such as the late great Krautrock legend Conrad Schnitzler. With his Project Borngräber & Strüver (Transkontinental, Freispiell) he released in 2011 the Album "Urlaub" and also a collaboration with Schnitzler titled "Con-Struct", not to forget his "Kreuzberg"-release. His first collaboration with studionerd and multi-instrumentalist Robert Ohm was an hour lasting radioplay-soundcollage about the legendary composer Moondog, repeatedly broadcasted on german radio nationwide.
Now their own pure musical work on Neon is nothing less than a tour de force.
From the word go, the album sets an incredibly high standard. The french titled Musique Electronique is without a doubt a nod to the founding fathers of German electronic music, Kraftwerk. The highly charged electro style laid down in this opening track sets the pace for what follows over the remaining 37 minutes of the album.
Clocking in at a massive 8 minute City Jungle is equally epic in length. Musically the track changes down a gear though entering a more atmospheric world of ambient oscillations and arpeggiated synth sounds, while the tune moves towards a more driving industrial feel towards the end.
Sundance kicks in with a throbbing slap bass part, soon to be followed by wah-wahed guitars, all of which make for a surprise disco-funk track on this otherwise electro orientated album. This is clearly a feel good track and is sure to have any room jumping in seconds.
The penultimate track Nakamura starts as another downbeat foray into ambient but again builds to reach a powerful minimal crescendo. The track makes powerful use of textures to paint a sonic landscape which is a world unto itself. And this superb album draws to a close with Regen (trans. Rain), which is another masterpiece of arpeggio action. The tune teasingly implies that it might kick off at any moment, but the beat remains absent, creating instead a hypnotic tension.
Neon has all the elements one might wish for from a modern electronic record. The experimental nature of some of the more protracted interludes should appeal to fans of Kraut and electronica: these moments are ideal for losing oneself in the trance inducing intimacy of ones headphones. While at the same time there's plenty on the album to interest all you Djs out there who would do well to drop some of the more uptempo tracks on Neon. Debut albums don't come any stronger than this and one can only hope there will be a chance to hear more from J.R.Plankton before long.

Cuticle - Mother Rhythm Earth Memory 15,99 €

The NNF debut (after an EP on 100% SILK) by this Iowa City electronic maximalist. M.R.E.M. is the first purely solo CUTICLE release, after working with a series of part-time collaborators, and it's freed him to let loose his wildest and weirdest impulses.

Magnetic Fields - Andrew In Drag 6,99 €

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS return to Merge! “Andrew in Drag,” the A-side of this limited edition vinyl seven-inch is taken from the Magnetic Fields’ upcoming Love Under the Sea, due out on Merge Records in March 2012. The B-side, “When Next in Love I Fall,” is a non-album track. Seven-inches are limited to 1,000 pieces and include coupons for download.

Low - I Could Live In Hope 22,99 €

REISSUED ON VINYL!!! Originally released (only on CD) by Vernon Yard Recordings in 1994, I Could Live In Hope is the debut release from Minnesota's slo-core pioneers. Produced by the legendary KRAMER, LOW's first recordings show a band emerging fully formed with a sound that they carry on to this day. On vinyl (180-gram) for the very first time.

Various Artists - Pop Ambient 2012 14,99 €

POP AMBIENT 2012 begins in an unusually new but nevertheless somehow familiar fashion. MOHN with MANIFESTO is the opening act. A manifest of slowness. A slowness that Jörg Burger and Wolfgang Voigt have taken up as new mission. MOHN is their new ambient-grunge-down-beat project, scheduled to depart on its official musical journey to Middle Earth early 2012. What follows is equally surprising: the old KOMPAKT swashbuckler SUPERPITCHER is taking part for the very first time. His piece JACKSON is borne by a slightly uncanny, spherical voice floating above a jazzy pop accord coolness and faintly 70ies sequencer aesthetics. It is followed by a familiar face from past times who is making an anonymous return on KOMPAKT under his new pseudonym MOREK. PAN is a textbook example of a classical piece of pop ambient music. Timeless elegance. MAGAZINE, the "krauty" electronic guerrilla from Cologne-Deutz, has tailored the piece THE VISITORS BUREAU we all know from Magazine 4 into a measure-made ambient frock. Then comes Jörg "TRIOLA" Burger with a solo appearance. His multifaceted, intricately woven Arabian Nights-style sounds, with effectively placed harmonic shifts reminiscent of Pink Floyd in the best of their phases, indicate why the piece RICHMODIS was named after an old Cologne saga. Enter the Pope of Ambient: WOLFGANG VOIGT masterfully continues his impressive creative ambient frenzy in RÜCKVERZAUBERUNG 5, not by stagnating on the usual planes but by further developing his new concept into a novel direction of abstract jazz. BVDUB is taking part for the third time – for a good reason. The American, who lives in China, leaves nothing to be desired with his sensitive musical signature, over and over again. Likewise, MARSEN JULES constantly refines his bizarre, flickering sound constructions and even adds percussion drums that are atypical for ambient. SIMON SCOTT is a newcomer to POP AMBIENT but certainly no unknown face. The Englishman already impressed the scene a while ago on the Miasmah label. His contribution " For Martha" is a particularly good piece of classical pop ambient music that fits into this year's compilation like an homage. A relaxing final appearance is provided by a good friend of the house: Axel"The Field"Willner alias LOOPS OF YOUR HEART charms us with a light-footed, pleasantly filled guitar loop tempting us to press the Start button at the end of the CD/record. Gentle greetings.

Gesellschaft zur Emanzipation des Samples - More Circulations 6,99 €

After a two year hiatus, Faitiche presents four new recordings from the Gesellschaft zur Emanzipation des Samples (G.E.S.). On More Circulations G.E.S. remain stylistically and conceptually committed to the first release Circulations, instigating the following recording situations: audio playback devices are placed in public spaces in order to play the desired sample material. The resulting recordings document collages from public spaces: a hotel lobby in Lanzerote, a registry office in Berlin, Copenhagen's Tivoli garden, a beach on the Portuguese coast, the old town of Geneva as well a Mercedes Benz on the way to Eindhoven.
An album is in the making – this time with a special guest: G.E.S. member Helmut Schmidt will be sampling his way through the bourgeois canon of values.

Cough Cool - Lately 16,99 €

In essence, Philadelphia representatives COUGH COOL’s debut vinyl long-player, Lately, is a slow-burning, bedroom-based, fuzz affair. Equally channeling the influence of My Bloody Valentine and Ween, the album comes across as a swampy ‘90s alternative-pop record of the highest caliber. This band would be touring with Guided By Voices if this were to have dropped in 1994. Lately brings a wild pop sound to the table, but Cough Cool isn't afraid to leave the dirt firmly under fingernails and a layer of grit across the music. This isn't just some haphazard, trendy, lo-fi aesthetic we've seen done to death since 2008 either. The way the music oozes, lazily, out of speakers is all in the process. It's all part of the escape. It's all part of the magic of the project... AND the songs?? Classic fucking shredders. Cough Cool is pop music, deconstructed and rewired to create 2011's new traditional Alternative era. There's a way of blending the influence of past forefathers with modern-day peers (Blank Dogs, Dirty Beaches), that creates an entirely new, unpolished, unique, and perfect sound. Edition of 300.

Kyoka - Ish 13,99 €

Ununpentium/Ish (r-n 115) is the fifth release of raster-noton unun series. The name of the series derives from the greek atomic numbers of the chemical elements 111-119 in the periodic table.

Kyoka – the first solo female artist on the raster-noton roster works as a musician and composer in Berlin and Tokyo. She has been releasing music since 2008 and is known for her chaotic, direct approach and a heavy-rough sound resulting in a broken pop-beat with experimental yet danceable rhythms. Ish means “around”, “like” or “about” and reflects her way to be clear by being vague – brightness wrapped in a blanket of obscurity and abstractness.

The EP was produced by her longtime friend Frank Bretschneider and a remix was delivered by Atom TM to tune the first track Hadue to the dancefloor. Ryuichi Sakamoto underlines the exceptional talent of Kyoka: “Panic! It sounds like a toy box turned up side down. How can she make such pretty & chaotic sounds!? I love it!”

Jason Urick - I Love You from 13,99 €

Jason Urick explores a world of sound left to the far reaches of outer space. Building on the gentle ambient washes of sound from his debut album Husbands (Thrill 225, Oct 2009) and the more rhythmic and distorted tones of the Fussing & Fighting EP (Thrill 12.40, April 2010), Urick strives to bridge the gap between the familiar and the unfamiliar with I Love You.
Recorded at WORM in Rotterdam, at the Floristree in Baltimore, and at home in and around Portland, OR the sounds were entirely manipulated, mixed, and constructed on his laptop. The end result is an eerie soundscape of fractured tones, warm sheets of sound, and cryptic voices. Rhythmic pulses underpin the songs, enticing the listener to explore every intricate detail.

Starving Weirdos - Land Lines from 16,99 €

A new release from Humboldt County’s finest contemporary experimental unit, STARVING WEIRDOS. A couple of years in the making, Land Lines documents a vital step in the evolution and refinement of Starving Weridos’ freeform improrvisational practices, as well as its infamous and highly disciplined studio practices. The recording of these sessions was initiated around the time of the 2010 On Land festival in San Francsico, when the project’s core nucleus of BRIAN PYLE (ENSEMBLE ECONOMIQUE) and MERRICK MCKINALY expanded to include a larger than usual cast of players. Land Lines chronicles Starving Weirdos’ most focused and structured release to date, with pieces that import a distinctly European flavor into the sound of what, until now, has been a uniquely Northern California form of sonic experimentation.

Vazz / La Bambola Del Dr Caligari - Whisper Not / The Wrong Holiday 18,99 €

The Forced Nostalgia label continues to expand and inform with the release of this split release featuring 1980's outfits Vazz and La Bambola Del Dr Caligari. Limited to 500 copies only!
The A-side features six tracks from Glasgow's Vazz, a duo consisting of Anna Howson & Hugh Small. "Whisper Not" was recorded at the legendary Hellfire Club in Glasgow in 1982 and was eventually released on limited edition cassette, before the band were signed up to appear on the 2xLP compilation "Antelopes & Alligators" on Operation Twilight - a sublabel of Belgium's infamous Les Disques Du Crépuscules. For one reason or another the compilation never materialised - but the reference to Crépuscules should give you some idea of where Vazz figure in the scheme of things. "Whisper Not" really is an astonishing collection of tracks - a small but perfectly formed companion piece of sorts to Antena's "Camino Del Sol" (which appeared in the same year), with Anna Howson's distinctive voice accompanying guitars, bass, drum machine, percussion and the Casio MT-30 keyboard - a classic configuration. But what sets Vazz apart from their contemporaries is Hugh Small's forward thinking production signatures - something that's most evident on "Cast Reflections" - the standout track on this mesmerising set. The way the drum machine and guitar have been treated and compressed sounds like something from The Cure's "Faith" album reworked in a current electronic studio - it's just a profoundly beautiful and affecting piece. It really is hard to believe that these tracks have languished in the archives until now.
The B-side features Italy's La Bambola Del Dr Caligari and 5 tracks recorded between 1983 and 1986. The band were a short-lived minimal synth trio from Bologna, Italy, consisting of the exotically named Judy Asquith (voice), Aurelium Spitty (sound engineer, synth, drum machines, effects) and J.R. Ewing (keyboards, effects). They recorded their first demo tape in early 1984 and sporadically played live in 1985/86, eventually arranging the soundtrack for an installation at the art gallery Number Zero (Bologna) in Feb 1986. Several self-produced tapes were recorded over the years but were never properly released. In 2005 Roberto Napoli mastered all the recordings from the analogue tapes and kindly assisted in editing the selections made by Forced Nostalgia. The result features some of the finest lost-andfound musical gems from the '80s gloom-pop era, finally available for public consumption 25 years after they were recorded..

Tracklisting:
Vazz - Whisper Not
A1. Want of Anger
A2. Cast Reflections
A3. Lost Time
A4. Thirst for White
A5. Endless Road
A6. Flute Dance
La Bambola Del Dr Caligari - The Wrong
Holiday
B1. Strawberry Creeps
B2. Blue Soldier
B3. Deep Skanner
B4. Satan's Pride
B5. Voices On Am (Edit)