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CASTLE FACE RECORDS

The Fall

Live At St. Helens Technical College '81 - SIGNED POSTCARD SET EDITION

    LIMITED EDITION SIGNED POSTCARD SET.
    SET OF 4 INDIVIDUALLY SIGNED POSTCARDS BY FALL MEMBERS MARC RILEY, STEVE & PAUL HANLEY AND CRAIG SCANLON** BLACK VINYL & 7".


    "I’ve had the pleasure of being a Fall fan since I was a teen. I was lucky enough to have some guidance from my local record shop stoner-lords. They turned me on to many of my heroes, but once I heard my first slanted and barky Fall song, I was part of the army for life. The word prolific gets tossed around a lot. It almost seems like a slag-off in the press, as if they wish the artist would produce less so they wouldn’t have to do their self imposed job of judging releases for the rabble. The Fall is subjected to this lazy word often. Yet I can honestly say that I am SO thankful for any nugget of Fall that lands at my feet and in my brain. Live Fall performances are always a pleasure because they seem to take what already made the Fall great and push it even a bit more into the rough and bloody uncharted wasteland that is drug scorched proto-punk and heady political poetry. So, it is with great pleasure that we introduce this Fall bootleg soundboard recording to you. Recorded during one of the many strong points in the bands vast and mighty history. They really burn bright here and bring every ounce of what you expect from this formidable force. We have reached out to every surviving member of the band, the sound person, the bootlegger who recorded it and the photographer and received their blessings & help piecing it all together. Castle Face will be donating 50% of our profits to Centrepoint which helps the homeless in the Manchester area get back on their feet, so the local and deserving Fall fans get a little, and give a little back, too. Nothing but the hits here folks and as raw as you dig it. This one really is exceptional in terms of live sound for The Fall. All the stars were aligned over St. Helens that eve. And it wouldn’t be complete with a bit of Fall fan saltiness so, fuck you too, Jason.” - John Dwyer.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Blob '59
    2. Prole Art Threat
    3. Jawbone And The Air Rifle
    4. Middle Mass
    5. Rowche Rumble
    6. An Older Lover
    7. City Hobgoblins
    8. Leave The Capitol
    9. The NWRA
    10. Gramme Friday
    11. Fit And Working Again
    12. Muzorewi's Daughter
    13. Slates, Slags, Etc

    OSEES

    A Foul Form

      "Osees don’t seem to mutate or morph so much as remain extraordinarily open to what moves them to do next and capable of getting music done that’s consistently good. What motivated the band to turn loose this hyperconcentrated slightly less than 22 minute burst of meteor density somewhat punkazoidal music? When it comes to the Osees, that’s at best a mediocre inquiry as they just do the next thing, genre, prevailing tastes or whatever influence might guide a lesser unit are not even a consideration. A Foul Form is a cool pivot from their 2020 studio efforts Metamorphosed, Panther Rotate and Protean Threat. A Foul Form vigorously shakes the Oseesetch a sketch clear so whatever comes next (which will probably be sooner than later) will likely be something completely different yet again. As far as a potential inspirational indicator, you might notice the final track on A Foul Form is a cover of Rudimentary Peni’s Sacrifice, which can be found on their Farce 7” released in 1982. A fitting way to blow out this rad slice." HENRY ROLLIINS.

      Brain stem cracking scum-punk
      recorded tersely in the basement of my home.
      After a notoriously frustrating eon the knee-jerk song path was aggressive and hooky.
      This is an homage to the punk bands we grew up on.
      The weirdos and art freaks that piqued our interests and pointed us on the trail head to here/now.
      Bad times make for strong music is something I agree with.
      I would say that is evident by the past few years of output from the underground.
      Transmissions have been all over the map.
      scanning…
      searching…
      sweeping out in the darkness looking for a foot hold.
      A Foul From represents some of our most savage & primal instincts.
      Fight or flight.
      And the importance of a sense of humor in the darkest hour.
      Nothing wrong with keeping it snappy in the meantime.
      For fans of Rudimentary Peni, Crass, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Screamers, Abwarts, Stooges and all things aggressively tilted towards your face.
      You can lean back but don’t flinch…it’s a brief foray into the exhausting pogo pit so stiffen your back and jerk with your knees.

      Enjoy - JPD.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Funeral Solution
      2. Frock Block
      3. Too Late For Suicide
      4. A Foul Form
      5. A Burden Snared
      6. Scum Show
      7. Fucking Kill Me
      8. Perm Act
      9. Social Butt
      10. Sacrific

      Bent Arcana

      Live Zebulon

        “Recorded at Zebulon in Los Angeles as a warm-up show for a show I had booked in Holland. What was meant to be a jumping point for the ‘first show’ ended up being a real burning set. A slightly more stripped-down version on the ten piece band [Bent Arcana] (for sake of ease) keeps it nice and concise. Nerves sometimes bring out these little lost jewels of which this recording is full of…gotta love improvisation for fleeting moments.

        “Recorded super-hot by none other than our sound person Liza Boldyreva. Selections of songs from Bent Arcana and Moon-Drenched-cockpit stoned space jazz here you come. Mixed by John Dwyer and mastered by JJ Golden. This hunky double disk sports a zoetropic screen-printed animation of the Death’s Head moth circling on its D side that works with a strobe light off yer phone...fucking cool. Fucking hot. Dig in and be well. ” - John Dwyer.

        TRACK LISTING

        1. The Gate
        2. Misanthrope Gets Lunch
        3. Oblivion Sigil
        4. The War Clock
        5. Psychic Liberation

        Bronze

        Absolute Compliance

          We here at Castle Face dig a good trance. Hypnosis, mesmerization, and brain trickery are some of our favorite results of deep listening and it is a suggestive, ritualistic and dreamlike vibe that Bronze ooze like pheromones all over their excellent new record. Absolute Compliance is a truly hypnogogic group of tunes from Bronze on their best and weirdest behavior and it hits all my favorite things about them immediately and repeatedly: Insistently strange synth voicings emanating from Miles Friction's mad scientists lab worth of equipment controlled by a homemade-looking oversized knob; Brian Hock’s throbbing, woolly, hall of mirror grooves; and above it all Rob Spector’s thousand yard croon the vaguely familiar touchstone amongst the Lynchian, mutated surroundings…these are songs of dreams and nightmares, hidden rituals observed, futuristic coliseum entertainments displaced in time, sci fi jams of an uncertain future. Bronze are one-of-a kind great and if you’re unfamiliar you should go find their other records (including their great live record for us) and get caught up. They are real-deal weirdo kings of San Francisco and their spell is not easily dissipated once cast. 

          TRACK LISTING

          1. New Mexico
          2. Crack In The Surface
          3. Bad Brad
          4. People Watching People
          5. Power
          6. 2 Is A Letter
          7. Sweating Man
          8. Swell

          System Exclusive

          System Exclusive

            “Often when music is constructed with synths and other electronically generated sound makers, their level of exactitude and control is such that the vocalist will either wittingly or otherwise seek to emulate the relative artifice of the soundscape. This is often done to great effect, think Kraftwerk. But what if there was a unit whose music was synth-generated but the vocals were coming from a hot-blooded, singing-for-the-cheap-seats approach? If done well, it’s a case of two great tastes that taste great together, which brings me to System Exclusive.

            Their multi genre/time period collision is like a car accident where all parties walk away not only unscathed but sure they had a great time, like two different recording sessions sharing the same space and making it work. Vocalist Ari Blaisdell (previously of Lower Self, The Beat Offs) co-exists excellently amidst the driving beats and synth waves and her guitar further helps to jailbreak the tunes from the often sterile entrapments that synths provide. Matt Jones (previously of Male Gaze, Blasted Canyons, and continuing Castle Face behind-the-scenesman)’s smart use of live drums bring great juxtaposition against the machines. Ari’s irony-free sincere delivery is the perfect closer on this very cool record, recorded ably by Enrique Tena Padilla (Osees, Wand, Beach House) in their backyard studio mid-pandemic and adorned with original artwork by Miles Wintner (L.A. Takedown, Mr. Elevator, Devon Williams). If you don’t get this slab of goodness, well, that act of non-compliance will confirm you as the pain-in-the-ass that many have described you to be in great detail during Zoom chats. How dare they! Prove them wrong! Reduce their snark to mere pseudo-intellectual piffle! Your lifeline arrives in March. Grab it.” - Henry Rollins.

            TRACK LISTING

            1. We Follow
            2. Close Encounters
            3. In An Instant
            4. Game Of The Fool
            5. Magdalena
            6. Inline Online
            7. Carole Anne
            8. Stay With Me
            9. Not Too Late
            10. :59
            11. Maybe It's Better

            EXEK

            Advertise Here

              Gliding in on the twin engine discordant tones we’ve come to love from EXEK comes their new transmission 'Advertise Here' Beats bumping up thru a flapping spring reverb Gilded production choices Stripped bass bubbling in the cauldron With each pass of the witch’s ladle, words float in the steam over the cacophonous concoction The coven that croons together slays together With every layer peeling back on our ear’s tongue we will exclaim “wicked” Perhaps their strongest effort yet The twin engines reappear now, tardy Guitar and synthesis, rounded edges, worn and ever so slightly fuzzed out Perfection This LP strives for new lyrical highs in my opinion Pop at an arm’s length Thru a greasy lens A conversation A conversation on drugs A passing comment that sticks an utterance from the death bed Reminiscent of Brian Eno, White Fence, PiL, Full Circle, ESG, all things Geoff Barrows, Eroc, Lard Free, and music of free weirdos everywhere This one is the mossy titled deck of a half submerged shipwreck A green light in a red room A lump of clay The end of the night when you think “perhaps I should have left ages ago” But it’s too late now…you’re in too deep…might as well have one more dance This LP is leaping even further out into the unknown for EXEK A trip indeed Full of hits with zero diss and lots of hiss on no near miss” - John Dwyer

              John Dwyer, Ryan Sawyer, Wilder Zoby & Andres Renteria

              Gong Splat

                • Latest in quickly selling-out series of John Dwyer (OSEES frontman) with friends lock down experimentations and improvisations.

                • Featuring fantastic collage art by Dan Lean.

                • Recorded at Stu-Stu-Studio by John Dwyer in the peak of dope smoke lock down.

                What’s this? Today’s holiday gift? One final transmission from the core of the planet! Cresting slabs of concrete and powdered bone, rich soil—improvisation freak flag flitters atop a gutted highrise: Gong Splat. Featuring Ryan Sawyer on drums, Greg Coates on upright bass, Wilder Zoby on synth and mellotron, Andres Renteria on conga, bongos and hand percussion, and John Dwyer on guitar, synths, pan flute, cuíca, hand percussion, space drum and effects.

                This one is spitting fat and neon night-light city drives, white in the corner of the pilot’s mouth. Furry, fuzzy and frenetic, motorik and full of blood-rich ticks…maggots unite! There’s a show tonight! Welcome back humans.

                STAFF COMMENTS

                Barry says: You always know you're in safe hands with Dwyer & co, and this one is a brilliantly heavy swerve into eastern-influenced psychedelia via garage percussion and brain-melting avant-synth swells. Elsewhere loungy keys meet jazzy tentative drum fills. Predictably brilliant, entirely mad.

                TRACK LISTING

                1. Gong Splat
                2. Cultivated Graves
                3. Toagut
                4. Anther Dust
                5. Yuggoth Travel Agency
                6. Hypogeum
                7. Oneironaut
                8. Minor Protocides
                9. Giedi Prime

                Nolan Potter

                Music Is Dead

                  Nolan Potter is putting us home recording freaks to shame. We had a year of global pandemic to lay out our grand ideas and the sum total of most artists “quar-riffs” wouldn’t push the constraints of a normal band practice (gosh, remember those?)

                  Nolan Potter, in the meantime, has quietly painted us a beatific masterpiece that veers from the whimsical to the wigged out, deftly weaving an untamed tapestry of sound all the while archly commenting on the present musician’s predicament - and he did it alone. No drum machine clattering in the background amidst tape hiss and 4 track grime here - this is a fully realized, insanely well played, full on rock record that might even one-up his first LP for us, last year’s excellent Nightmare Forever.

                  The guy’s got more chops than a beauticians’ college across a wide array of instruments - no small feat, and easily overlooked when you leave the lyric sheet and credits on the dining room table. That the songs travel far, wide, up, down, backwards, and gamely spill out over the 5 minute mark with exceptionally loose interludes and diversions is just another marvel in this carnival of aural delights. It’s a gem of a record!

                  TRACK LISTING

                  Side A
                  1. One Eye Flees Aquapolis
                  2. Stubborn Bubble
                  3. Gregorian Chance

                  Side B
                  4. Holy Scroller
                  5. Preeminent Minds
                  6. Music Is Dead

                  FLEXI:
                  1. Overture For A Short Film

                  J.R.C.G.

                  Ajo Sunshine

                    Ajo Sunshine (pronounced “Ahh-Ho”) is heralded by an alarming horn ensemble, stabbing with the dramatic urgency of a killer’s theme in a midnight movie. It’s a jarring but appropriate entry point for this brilliantly blasted listen, an array of exquisitely sharp edges punctuated by kaleidoscopic respites of throbbing warmth and surprising tenderness. J.R.C.G. (Justin R. Cruz Gallego)’s previous work with Seattle’s excellent Dreamdecay may foreground the broad strokes here, but he’s pushed things way outward in terms of his sonic palette.

                    Abutting field recordings captured from rodeos off Ajo Way, a stretch of highway that leads one westward out of Tucson Arizona directly into the sun, both acoustic instruments and gleaming walls of synthetic noise are framed in dour and dissonant chord shapes, crackling with overdriven drum mics and seasick waves of distortion. It’s homage that plays out like a collage, a dream switching from station to station, a series of dedications broadcast on late night radio. All pin-hole size images from scenes never seen whole, strung together in but one version of complete, all making for a dazzling listen.

                    TRACK LISTING

                    1. I.L.W.T.W.
                    2. Rainbow
                    3. Holy Hope
                    4. V
                    5. De La Frontera
                    6. Brother Was A Bullrider
                    7. Ajo Sunshine
                    8. Lowrider
                    9. Bopp
                    10. Olga
                    11. Brown Boy
                    12. Love Is A Drum

                    John Dwyer, Ryan Sawyer, Peter Kerlin, Tom Dolas, Brad Caulkins, Kyp Malone, Marcos Rodriguez, Ben Boye, Joce Soubiran, Laena Myers-Ionita & Andres Renteria

                    Moon-Drenched

                      The same crew as the boundary pulsing improvisation record Bent Arcana has made a trajectory shift and picked up Ben Boye along the path. The aptly-named Moon-Drenched is the second instalment from these sessions and keeps a heavy-lidded late night perspective on things as it eases from the somewhat familiar liminal twilight of skittering hues of black-blue and snaking street groove, to fizzing off into the ether in pursuit of lunar prism beams heretofore unseen. The more rhythmically dialed bits here have a lysergic halo of strangeness to them, and the wispy bits between are spun of iridescent gossamer. It sounds like a frizzled message from a future just filthy with guitar hoots echoing off of neon-splattered high rises, oil-slicked waterways and skittering digital beasts. For Castle Face’s money this is the strangest slice of this last bunch of John Dwyer and his crew’s improvisations.



                      STAFF COMMENTS

                      Barry says: It's quite the lineup of musicians here, and true to the calibre on show, the tunes themselves are some of the most mind-meltingly psychedelic grooves committed to vinyl. Think JOMF but with a load of coffee instead of acres of weed and you might be somewhere near. Jazzy, loungy, psychedelic and groove-laden, classic Dwyer but with a host of wonderful guests.

                      TRACK LISTING

                      1. Psychic Liberation
                      2. X-Cannibal’s Kiss
                      3. The War Clock
                      4. Der Todesfall
                      5. Get Thee To The Rookery
                      6. Spoofing
                      7. Terra Incognito

                      Grave Flowers Bongo Band

                      Strength Of Spring

                        Los Angeles’ Grave Flowers Bongo Band’s sophomore LP “Strength of Spring” is an inverted pyramid balanced on the headstock of an acoustic guitar, a rainbow painted in campfire smoke, an endless staircase circling into the clouds. That acoustic guitar, perfectly captured here by Ty Segall’s excellently sere and close mic’d production, plays skeleton to these conjurors woolly grooves, and singer Gabe Flores’ thousand-yard moan keeps us guessing as to exactly where this wildebeest is headed. He pinions these far out tunes, which burst generously with shit-hot guitar leads, Stoogeseque sax squalls, and a gaggle of great eight-armed drum fills, with a flinty wrist-flicking heartbeat as the band turns from whimsy to nimble riffery on a dime, following that pied-piper six string jangling down many lovely rabbit-holes of melody and exploration. It’s obvious these guys play together a lot (the lineup shares two members with acclaimed space rockers Hoover III to boot) and the telepathy on display here is synapse-snappy. Coursing throughout is that note-pad filling, lighter raising, undefinable black magic that feels so rare these days….

                        TRACK LISTING

                        1. Lazy River
                        2. Sleepy Eyes
                        3. Tomorrow
                        4. Smile
                        5. Inner Bongolia
                        6. Animal Lord
                        7. VATMM
                        8. Outer Bongolia
                        9. Down Man

                        John Dwyer, Ted Byrnesm Greg Coatesm Tom Dolas, Brad Caulkins

                        Endless Garbage

                          “Walk the dog. Exercise. Make art.’The mind is happy when the body is.’ Things I can potentially fill my days with if I am stuck at home for months on end…Then, one day, I hear a frenetic, free drummer playing in his garage a few blocks from me. And I think ‘interesting’. I stand outside his garage staring at the wall, like a fool, for a minute, then decide to leave a note on the car parked there. This is how I ended up meeting and working with Ted Byrnes. He wasn’t creeped out, and he ended up sending me a pile of truly spontaneous drums recordings from the carport to work with. I decided to have every musician come in one at at time and just take a wild pass at their track over the drums. None of these people had ever met or played together. I was the connecting thread. I scratched the surface initially with electric bass, saxophone, guitars, cuica, synthesizers, flute and effects, but soon realized I would need heavy hitters to make this place habitable. “Greg Coates, upright bass expressionist extraordinaire, hacked through the dense weeds, vines and frayed cabling. He lays the map out and makes breathing room. Space to swing a cat. Tom Dolas (keys), my often foil, came in and began tip-toeing through the rubble and refuse. Dotting the layout with flecks of light, flights of fancy and potential tangential trajectories. Then the finisher, Brad Caulkins on horns. As always, Brad came in like grace itself, scanned the floor for food, and huffed and puffed and blew the house down. He takes a bruiser situation and lends it some warmth and hospitality, old school. “After I spent a bit of time mixing and editing this down to a palatable offering I couldn’t help but think about human consumption. ...Endless Garbage seemed a fitting title. A cacophonous and glorious sketch of ourselves. For fans of Albert Ayler, ECM records, Gong, improvisation, sustainability and consumption” - John Dwyer.

                          TRACK LISTING

                          1. Vertical Infinity
                          2. No Flutter
                          3. Goose
                          4. Four
                          5. Lucky You
                          6. Pro-Death
                          7. A Grotesque Display
                          8. No Goodbyes

                          EXEK

                          Biased Advice

                            “A weird trip of a band…the second this was playing I was immediately hooked. I initially dove in because their name was attached to Mikey Young for mastering (I have a rule with Mikey…if he had his hands on it, it’s probably worth a listen). This band exceeds in all my trials.

                            “Esoteric nature, but oddly poppy and ready to prick up any ears out there. Deconstructed, but full of hooks. If I were a lazy man, and I am, I would say its for fans of PiL, but they transcend that pigeon-hole.

                            “Wonderful production lends its self to this unique LP. It seems as if the room expands and contracts throughout songs. Pulling away, then blocking your field of vision entirely. Wasteland funk. Dub from the depths. Punk from the pit. “Even the instrumentation is worth mentioning: saxophone, drums (and cut-up drums), guitar, synthesizer, vocals (poetry) and general fuckery all combine to make this a very interesting and worthwhile escape from the average. And thank the Gods for that right now. Inspired and desired by the active mind. A job well done by EXEK, and there’s new stuff brewing too...

                            “For fans of BEAK>, Phantom Band, PIL and general Jah Wobbleness, Magazine, short-wave radio, ESG and underground Kraut”. - John Dwyer.

                            TRACK LISTING

                            1. Submitted
                            2. A Hedonist
                            3. Foreign Lesions
                            4. Replicate
                            5. Baby Giant Squid

                            M. Caye Castagnetto

                            Leap Second

                              Influenced by a life split between Lima, London, and Twentynine Palms, Peru-born M. Caye Castagnetto’s Leap Second is an intriguingly personal and hard to classify debut album. The album is a thick collage of samples Caye recorded with different artists and musicians, including Beatrice Dillon and the late Aileen Bryant, that spans five years in the making. There is something in Leap Second that tracks the speed of bodies, how they approach and retreat. The ten tracks are speedy and languid, thick ruffles, and dirges. In parts it feels like one’s stumbled upon a forgotten incredible ’70s folk record but that feeling gets broken quickly by clever sleights of hand. Caye’s balladry is angular, time is elastic. Each song is a fresh cape. How dandies really mean it, so masc- that it’s fay, how the only moment is this one and it’s just passed, etcetera.

                              “While it doesn’t really sound like anything else, there are moments that feel like a Latin-flavored Nico, that’s edging its way towards some of the outings of the Sun City Girls. In my opinion it checks all the boxes, by checking none of them.” —Bjorn Copeland, Black Dice. 

                              “A truly interesting conglomeration of loose inspirations and conjurings. A hard to decipher sound all together which makes it worth every moment...a sprinkling of Catherine Ribeiro, Dr. John, Terje Rypdal and Nico. Far-out sun-soaked odysseys and moon-dappled woodland night creepers...” —John Dwyer.

                              TRACK LISTING

                              1. I Invented Disco
                              2. Stopping You
                              3. Slippery Snakes
                              4. Mi Mentira
                              5. All Points North
                              6. Amor Cabra
                              7. Hands On The Business
                              8. Until
                              9. Street Trees, Evening Green
                              10. Chase Water, Blue Moon

                              The newly shorn Oh Sees waste no time in racing headlong into nightmarish battle with the mighty Orc, and wouldn’t ya know it, they’ve clawed even farther up the ghastly peak last year’s A Weird Exits stormed so satisfyingly. The band is in tour-greased, anvil on a balance beam, gut-pleasingly heavy form, nimbly braining with equal dashes of abandon and menace on this fresh batch of bruisers and brooders, hypnotically stirred into to the cauldron of chaos you’ve come to expect from, ahem, Oh Sees. Fresh blood Paul Quattrone joins Dan Rincon to form a phalanx of interlocking double drums, alternately propelling and fleet footing shifting ground to pinion Dwyer’s cliff-face guitars to the boogie. Tim Hellman keeps it swinging like a battle-axe to the eyebrows. The tunes veer towards the violence of their live shows, with a few tasty swerves into other lanes… heavy to lush, groovy to stately… throughout it remains sinister in its swaggering skulk, manic in its fuzz-fried fugues… they hit all the sweet spots the heads foggily remember, and there’s plenty to sweat over if you just hopped into the sauna. Ew. More evil…more complex… more narcotic… more screech…. more blare…. more whisper… there’s even more Brigid. Less “Thee”, but more of everything else.

                              TRACK LISTING

                              01 “The Static God”
                              02 “Nite Expo”
                              03 “Animated Violence”
                              04 “Keys To The Castle”
                              05 “Jettisoned”
                              06 “Cadaver Dog”
                              07 “Paranoise”
                              08 “Cooling Tower”
                              09 “Drowned Beast”
                              10 “Raw Optics”

                              OSEES

                              Panther Rotate

                                Companion / remix album of art rock renegades’ latest, Protean Threat.

                                “In the swirling and undulant warm mud of jettisoned reels of magnetic tape, blurps up the fog of reinvention. Every night I would parley with my pilots and run and rerun the recordings. Right up until the moment sleep slips its veil over eyes and ears and you drift back without a sound. Protean Threat dream haze becomes Panther Rotate in the other dimension. A companion LP of remixes, field recordings, and sonic experiments using all sounds generated by the him and crackle of the desert farm. “A second version of our Protean Threat if you will, but barely conspicuous in its relation. Forward, never straight! Sunrise, sunset. Two lives connected by a cosmic thread, One for your feet and one for your head. For fans of Thee Oh Sees, Oh Sees, OCS, The Oh Sees, Osees...etc etc etcetcetc…be well.” - John Dwyer.

                                TRACK LISTING

                                1. Scramble Experiment
                                2. Don’t Blow Your Experiment
                                3. Synthesis
                                4. Toadstool Experiment
                                5. If I Had An Experiment
                                6. Miz Experiment
                                7. Terminal Experiment
                                8. Poem 2
                                9. Gong Experiment

                                Population II

                                A La O Terre

                                  Introducing Population II

                                  Blazing through the stratosphere
                                  Boiling up from beneath the sea
                                  Hanging in the air like smoke
                                  These elemental tunes drift and fluctuate, at one with the air, over extreme heat
                                  Population II has beamed out of Quebec with a mind melting debut of hard psych freckled with punk sentiment
                                  Both old school and timeless
                                  These young humans rip
                                  They are impressive in their live actions and this album captures this raw energy on wax
                                  Produced by Manu from the great band Chocolat
                                  A very high bar has been set, indeed.
                                  Fluid, tough, and over-saturated this album is bound to please fans of the label and new-comers alike reminiscent of Amon Duul, early Pink Floyd, Kollektiv, Laurence Vanay, Les Olivensteins, early Kraftwerk, even a touch of the Kinks.

                                  TRACK LISTING

                                  1. Introspection
                                  2. Ce N'est R've
                                  3. Les Vents
                                  4. L'Offrande
                                  5. La Nuit
                                  6. Il Eut Une Silence Dans Le Ciel
                                  7. Attraction
                                  8. La Danse
                                  9. ' La Porte De Demain
                                  10. Je Laisse Le Soleil Briller

                                  Brigid Dawson & The Mothers Network

                                  Ballet Of Apes

                                    Tip-top of our osmosis list is the first quiver of tunes from Brigid Dawson and her newly minted Mothers Network: wise warnings dyed in dark hues, knotted and hard-won torch songs from the edge of a turbulent sea, bittersweet balladry spun in defense against evils familiar and unknown. Lovely though it may seem from a distance, the striation of loss quicksilvered throughout provides weighty balance to her contralto lilt. Those familiar with her harmonic counterpoint from her time in Thee Oh Sees or in OCS know she can belt as well as lullaby but there’s a fresh and smolderingly heavy swing in her step on display here that we mightily dig.

                                    “Ballet of Apes” tapestries together sessions that read like a who’s who from outside our own castle walls - in Australia with Mikey Young (Total Control/Eddy Current Suppression Ring), in San Francisco with Mike Donovan (ex Sic Alps), Shayde Sartin (ex Fresh & Onlys/lifetime ringer) and Mike Shoun (ex Oh Sees/Peacers), and in Brooklyn with instrumental heavy-weights Sunwatchers - and the results are spellbinding. At the focal point of this maelstrom, our lady, as if illumed by candlelight, intones, pleads, consoles - white magic perhaps but it carries with it the anodized tang of blood. 

                                    TRACK LISTING

                                    1. Is The Time For New Incarnations
                                    2. The Fool
                                    3. Carletta’s In Hats Again
                                    4. When My Day Of The Crone Comes
                                    5. Ballet Of Apes
                                    6. Heartbreak Jazz
                                    7. Trixxx

                                    Eddy Current Suppression Ring

                                    All In Good Time

                                      It is impossible to deny no one sounds like Eddy Current. I was hooked from riff one and I was lucky enough to do a full tour of Australia with them years ago—good fucking boys, simple as beer and chips, and that satisfying live. But that’s not to say there aren’t odd complexities to their definitive sound. “You can smell Mikey Young’s guitar approach like Sasquatch rustling the bushes, every time you think you see the bend ahead, you go into a tunnel or backtrack for a moment, then back to a nice place you can call home. Rob [Solid]’s bass is pub-fuzz groove. It’s shellson- the-floor and leaning-against-the wall-with-one-hand-while-youhave- a-piss thinking: maybe you can take that guy? Only one way to find out— oh wait, he’s smiling…nice bloke! Danny [Young]’s drums are a clinic in reservedness: 4-on-the-floor. This guy’s Charlie Watts in the looking glass, every hit a necessity—solid, not flashy, like the lead street tough in a ‘70s flick. He don’t say much, but it counts. And then there is Brendan [Huntley], be-gloved lead mensch in this quartet. Singing with earnest street poet confidence, his message coming in on the weird-wire, hard to describe, best to just listen and see: a pubpunk- priest. “We are very pleased to have these boys back on the streets. It had been far too long.” - John Dwyer.

                                      STAFF COMMENTS

                                      Barry says: Castle Face definitely have a sound, and this newest one from Eddy Current Suppression Ring fits right in, seamlessly. Grooving guitars, frantic freak-outs and snarling vocal madness all embellish a satisfying and groove-led odyssey. Ace stuff.

                                      TRACK LISTING

                                      1. All In Good Time
                                      2. Medieval Wall
                                      3. Shoulders
                                      4. Our Quiet Whisper
                                      5. Voices
                                      6. Reoccuring Dream
                                      7. Vicariously Living
                                      8. Future Self
                                      9. Human Race
                                      10. Like A Comet
                                      11. Modern Man


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