"For those of you already living a couple of years ahead of the rest of us, you will know that this will be the fifth full length by this band, and that it was originally released in 2006 on their own white elephant imprint. It's actually more like a solo outing by LSDM front-man Shinsuke Michishita (on voice, guitar, bass and percussion), accompanied on two tracks by legendary drummer Ikuro Takahashi (High Rise, Fushitsusha, Tamio Shiraishi, Kosokuya, Che-Shizu, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Nagisa Ni Te, etc). most of the songs here are intimate, in-your-inner-ear ballads, hypnagogic and melancholic, achy hangovers from the third Velvets LP -- sorrowful birds on the last tree in the universe, thinking themselves into being, then forgetting themselves, then remembering again. except for the title track, that is -- an 8-minute doppler-effect trance that gets you wasted on polonium 210, sets the dials of the Kabbalah for the heart of the sun, and clicks 'send.'"

First copies with bonus CD added; extra deluxe packaging from Die Stadt. "Torch Songs is a collaboration between Jonathan Coleclough and Andrew Liles. They met in October 2004 when they both performed at Intergration 3 in Preston, UK. Liles subsequently reworked the recording of Coleclough's solo performance from that evening. He went on to add, subtract, multiply and divide further live recordings supplied by Coleclough, and the eventual result was this double LP. Torch Songs is packaged in a gatefold sleeve featuring 'I Dreamt I Was a River,' a poem composed and painted by Geoff Sawers during a performance with Coleclough in Geneva in March 2005. The sound of Geoff's brush painting this lettering can be heard on side B of Torch Songs. There is a special edition of Torch Songs (250 copies) which includes an additional CD of Coleclough's solo performance at Intergration 3, the basis for some of the music on Torch Songs. The album comes in a full color gatefold sleeve with full color inner sleeves in a limited edition of 500 copies. 180gr. vinyl."

1St Release from LE BONHEUR MEDIAS !

« Let me preface this review by saying that I’m beginning to loathe the day when any group of outcasts or fuckups decide that it’s a good idea to pick up flutes and sitars and, after having formed their collective and listened to nothing but The Incredible String Band’s “The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter” (a great record yes, but it has already been made) for a solid week, retreat into some forest to commune with nature, only to emerge some months later with limited edition LP with hand printed covers. The gentle results are usually inauthentic and make me irate; those are the records that make me long for smashable acetates. Luckily, Belgium’s Drifting Bears Collective seems to have gone another route entirely, creating intense and caustic music, actually suited for the fact that the world we live in today isn’t out of the pages of a J. R. R. Tolkien novel, but is one on the brink of collapse.

“South of No North” seems to be aware of its surroundings; it is, as we are, always existing on a precipice. To its credit, it never totally falls apart; it retains intensity throughout, never lulling, always moving forward with frenetic energy, electric energy, enraged energy. The LP culminates with the side long “Cum Black Frost,” a track that rambles through what sounds like a muezzin chanting over street traffic before giving way to a healthy dose of fuzzed out guitar. This is what new music should sound like. 9/10 -- Neale Gay (29 August, 2007) Foxy Digitalis

When we last left off with Dälek, they had released Absence, a dark and dirgy romp through hip-hop's underground that left countless listeners and critics in awe. However, while it would probably be a good career move to replicate that album's noisy charm, Dälek have once again reinvented themselves with their fourth and most accomplished full-length, Abandoned Language. "We've been making wall of noise records for a long time and I think with Absence we realized that was as far as we wanted to go with that sound," dälek (the MC/producer) explains. "That sound was just so heavy and dense, but the new one is about composition and notes we are playing. The layering is still there, but the instrumentation is totally different." In fact, from the sinister strings in "Lynch" to old-school hip-hop flavor of "Isolated Stare" to the heady melodicism of "Tarnished", Abandoned Language is complex enough for fans of avant-noise, but accessible enough for mainstream hip-hop audiences. This is the clear vinyl edition.

Performed and recorded by michael gibbons (bardo pond) over the course of 2006 in the lemur house, apocatastisis is a meditation on restoration and awakening. an inner voyage in seven parts consisting of guitars, effects, sitar, tabla and violin. a truly special record. from a one-time pressing of 677 hand-numbered copies. housed within sleeves that were individually silk-screened by alan sherry (SIWA).

BLACK FOREST/BLACK SEA is the Providence duo of Jeffrey Alexander (mostly guitar) and Miriam Goldberg (mostly cello). They play free-form music that draws from folk traditions. The have toured extensively in the US and Europe, from Savonlinna to Sicily, Riga to Reykjavik and Portland to Portland. This is the fourth BF/BS full-length, and the 2nd self-titled album - recorded in Providence, RI, Portland, ME and Montague, MA with guest performances by Italian sound sculptor Stefano Pilia (guitar, tiny sounds) and Miriam's sister Margot Goldberg (phonorgan). Yet another sister - Gillian Goldberg - provides lyrics. Miriam and Jeffrey also incorporate voice, ur-pedal, casio, bul bul tarang and omnichord. **This pressing of the BFBS LP is limited to 500 copies and are on 12x24 white stock. The covers are hand-silkscreened with the same artwork.

Steven R. Smith began recording music under the Hala Strana moniker in 2002 as a way to further explore his interest in traditional Eastern European folk music, apart from his solo releases under his own name and collaborative work in Thuja, Mirza, and other Jewelled Antler creations. Heave the Gambrel Roof is Smith's fourth full length album under the Hala Strana name. The album is a return to the shorter, more song-based form of Fielding and Hala Strana and includes reworks of four traditional Albanian tunes as well as seven original tracks. **The second, and last pressing of the LP is limited to 250 copies. The cover is 12x24 natural fiberboard cardstock silkscreened with the same cover art - screen printing on both sides.