RVNG, an imprint that writes some of the smartest hype stickers and one-sheets in the business, describes: “The album’s twelve pieces are layered and interwoven, tonally and rhythmically complex––moiré-like patterns of interaction and tessellation that play out for both mind and body, full of sonic warrens with an inescapable groove. An electrifying leap forward for the band’s shared language, Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! aims to liberate the listener into a spiritual, ecstatic, and utopic dimension of sound.”
To which we might add, to us Horse Lords and their musicality always felt akin to Henry Cow, Art Bears, the Recommended catalog.
And there may be regional American historic antecedents too: the rhythmic and melodic complexity of Richmond’s Orthotonics and one of our favorite Downtown acts V-Effect, which featured Rick Brown, Ann Rupel, and David Zonzinsky. Both of those projects involve humor, shronk and politics alongside complex rhythms. Two of our favorite bands from the 1980s! Go Rift Records!!
We loved Horse Lords live album, As it Happened: Horse Lords Live (RVNG 2024), which doesn’t involve any of the vocal elements presented on this new LP, though it does begin with one of the greatest introductions to a live record since Kiss Alive! by Jacques Palminger’s “bam, bam, bam,” followed by a very long description in German.
These folks are really good at sequencing their albums. We are album people, so grateful for their care.
A genuine leap forward on this new album, while still maintaining their punctuated rhythmic sensibility and unique tuning systems. Beginning with what we take to be their first use of (here processed) vocals (again, think Dagmar Krause!!) this is a fantastic addition to the Horse Lords discography!
Why hasn’t this album gotten more praise and/or shoutouts yet in 2026? We did see someone compare it to Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, which doesn’t quite sit right, though we understand the reference. One of our favorite releases of the year, Kammerkonzert is essentially chamber music with Tom Jenkinson playing all of the parts, framed by Squarepusher’s electronic vocabulary.
Like so many of the releases that came out after Jenkinson’s breakbeat period and the iconic Feed Me Weird Things (1996), Kammerkonzert positions electronic and acoustic instruments in dialogue. Jenkinson prefers to frame the electronic versus the acoustic as an “argument,” though this 2LP flows quite smoothly between these voices.
There are Venetian Snares-like moments where breakcore and classical music come together with with Rossz Csillag Alatt Született-future-leaning beauty, but most of these tracks evoke Univers Zero and/or orchestral Prog, ECM, fusion, funk and, to our ears and the best side of all, mid-century classical music. Again, Art Bears and Henry Cow provide grab bag references.
Please see the final side of this double record, which as a self-contained unit offers a perfect arc across many classical periods and instrumentation. Ending with organ music in 2026 feels almost like parody coming from Squarepusher. That said, the album closes with somber and still beauty, reverb, then quiet.
Where many of Squarepusher’s contemporaries benefit from the CD format, the purest of uninterrupted long players, this double LP uses its four discrete sides wisely. As is often the case with Squarepusher, his music and ideas demand much of the listener. Having a short break to flip the record offers space/time to digest and appreciate an artist working at a frenetic pace, even if this chamber concert is mostly quite mellow. Even in those places where the bass and percussion point back to last century’s Drum&Bass, everything sounds smooth in presentation and tone, smartly integrated and well considered.
Originally issued by EREMITE in 2021, this is the Aguirre Edition (2025). One of our favorite recordings from NIS in years and includes Evan Parker!!
From the one-sheet:
“LPs pressed on premium audiophile-quality vinyl at Pallas Records. Rich in musical associations yet utterly singular in its voice, joyous with an inner tranquility, the music of Natural Information Society is unlike any other being made today. Their sixth album in eleven years for eremite records, descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is the first to be recorded live, featuring a set from London's Cafe OTO with veteran English free-improv great Evan Parker, & the first to feature just one extended composition. The 75-minute performance, inspired by the galvanizing presence of Parker, is a sustained bacchanalia of collective ecstasy. You could call it their party album.
This was the second time Parker played with NIS.
Joshua Abrams: "Both times we played compositions with Evan in mind. I don't tell Evan anything. He's a free agent."
The music is focused & malleable, energized & even-keeled, drawing on concepts of ensemble playing common to musics from many locations & eras without any one specific aesthetic realization completely defining it.”
and …
"The rhythms that Mikel plays are not an exact reference to Chicago house, but that's in there," Abrams says. "I like to take a cyclic view of music history, can we take that four-on-the-floor, & consider how it connects to swing-era music? Can we articulate a through line? I dee-jayed for years in Chicago & lessons I learned from playing records for dancing inform how I think about the group's music. The listener can make connections to aspects of soul music, electronic music, minimalism, traditional folk musics, & other musics of the diaspora as well. It's about these aspects coming together. I don't need to mimic something, I need to embody it to get to the spirit, to get to the living thing."
For jazz fans, the sound of Parker's soprano & Jason Stein's bass clarinet might evoke Coltrane & Dolphy, even though they didn't necessarily set out to do that & they play with complete individuality. Abrams sees a bridge to the historical precedent, too. "Since we first met in the 1990s, one of the things that Evan and I connected on was Coltrane's music," he says. "I hoped that we would tap into that sound world intuitively. In this case, I think that level of evocation adds another layer of depth, versus a layer of reference."
Indeed, this is a performance in which the connections among the ensemble & the creative tension between improvisation and composition build into a complex mesh of associations & interactions. While the band confines itself to the territory mapped out by Abrams' composition, they are remarkably attentive & responsive, making adjustments to Parker's improvisations. When Parker's intricate patterns of notes interweave with the band, the parts reinforce one another & the music rockets upward. Sometimes, Parker's lines are cradled by the group's gentle pulse & an unearthly lyrical balance is struck.”
From the one-sheet: "
“In the industrial shadows of early-’80s Milwaukee, a band emerged from the wreckage of Midwest punk and Rust Belt disaffection with a sound that was as brutal as it was visionary. Die Kreuzen didn’t just blur genre lines—they detonated them […] Die Kreuzen’s self-titled LP became a defining document of American hardcore. But rather than stand still, the band evolved—each album more experimental, more unpredictable, more uncompromising than the last. They toured relentlessly, made little money, and called it quits before most mainstream critics could even categorize them.
For the first time, Don’t Say Please: The Oral History of die Kreuzen tells the band’s story from the inside—through the voices of members Keith Brammer, Brian Egeness, Dan Kubinski, and Erik Tunison, as well as the musicians, producers, and friends who were shaped by their sound.
Featuring rare photos, artwork, and firsthand accounts, the book includes reflections from influential artists like Thurston Moore, Steve Albini, Neko Case, Butch Vig, and Lou Barlow, who lay bare the band’s lasting impact on underground and alternative music.”
So excited for this book and the show up at Moma here in 2026. The one-sheet reads:
“Over six sessions between September 1951 and November 1952, Marcel Duchamp sat down with collectors and gallerists Harriet and Sidney Janis for a wide-ranging conversation about his inspirations and working processes, and his many opinions on the workings of the modern art world and its histories.
The Janises, owners of the influential Sidney Janis Gallery, were ardent supporters of modern art and close friends with Duchamp. Harriet, an accomplished author, led the interviews with an eye toward writing a monograph on Duchamp, though this was never realized. Now, this previously unknown chronicle is available for the first time through the efforts of Carroll Janis, Sidney and Harriet's son.
Under Harriet's expert guidance, Duchamp holds forth on his artistic philosophies, his career, his friends, his rivals and his lifelong obsession with chess. He provides an inside look at some of his most famous works, from his controversial 'Readymades' to 'The Large Glass.' Contextualized with illustrations, annotations and an introduction by Carroll Janis, this publication is a rich treasure trove of information on one of the 20th century's most controversial, groundbreaking and larger-than-life artists.”
Follow-up to a shop favorite from this century, Lasse Marhaug’s PERSONAL BEST (2011-2024). His latest turns a page, though not an entirely new chapter, on what we appreciate most about Lasse’s work.
8090 VÅG
Like PERSONAL BEST, 8090 VÅG includes long-form interviews with a wide range of top-tier artists, innovative photo portraiture and imagery, artwork and design.
Plus, no ads or pay in advance, pre-order b/w crowd sourcing [sic!!] then something may or may not show up years later.
Lasse does it right and all above board!
Issue 1 of 8090 VÅG includes interviews with:
Government Alpha: Japanese noise musician, Yasutoshi Yoshida, Xerxes label founder
Ronny Wærnes: Norwegian noise artist
Mental Overdrive: Per Martinsen, R & S artist
Fredrik Nilsen: LAFMS artist and photographer
Stina Stjern: Norwegian omposer and performer
Jérôme Noetinger: Thymolphthalein (Editions Mego), French curator and artist
Jim O’Rourke
Ralf Wehowsky: German, Permutative Distortion, RLW, this century collaborations with Andrew Chalk and Kevin Drumm, among others
Michèle Bokanowski: amazing French Paris-based electroacoustic music composer
and a survey on Metamkine’s 1990’s Cinéma Pour L’Oreille 3”CD-series, which may be the 10” format of the early digital age!! But no shade from us, Metamkine is a great label, 3” or naught!
88 pages offset, CMYK (with Pantone on cover), sewn-glued binding with a 9mm spine, and folded flaps cover
Highest Recommendation!!
Used In - Japanese edition of Current 93 in early neofolk mode. Includes a 7” of live tracks from Tokyo, insert and photo. This edition numbered 282 of 1000. Pristine copy.
So pleased to stock the last Sightings show ever, Stavanger 30.4.2013, issued on tape by the Norwegian Drid Machine imprint back in 2015!
We’ve said it before, Sightings remain the greatest band of the era that brought about the Brooklyn brand, though Msgrs Hoffman, Lockie and Morgan had no part in the beards, the button-downs or Vice magazine. That said, they did circle with Andrew W.K.
Here is the setlist, total heat, drawing heavily from Terribly Well (Dais, 2013) and Amusers and Puzzlers (Dais, 2015):
CC
Take It In Trade
Mute's Retreat
Rivers Of Blood
13
Bucket Brigades
Bundled
The Loafer
Highest recommendation (and we don’t even like the tape format that much)!!
From the personal collection of David Grubbs, this exceptionally rare tape compilation on Holocaust Tapes features a row of first generation UK and EU Anarcho punk. No sales history on Discogs or any other secondary market.
This compilation features songs with titles like “Fight for Justice,” “Fight for Freedom,” and some outliers like “System of War” and “Violent Pride.”
Xeroxed cover on a TDK tape that has been fully rewound and appears unplayed.
Near Mint for Autonomous Youth!
Tracks include:
01 - Criminal Justice - The Race Is On (For N.A.T.O.)
02 - Political Asylum - System Of War
03 - Political Asylum - Autonomous Youth
04 - Blood Robots - The Valley
05 - Blood Robots - Poppies
06 - Abductors - Your Decision
07 - Deceased - Realisation
08 - Deceased - I Don't Wanna Die
09 - Self Abuse - Teenage
10 - Self Abuse - Beirut
11 - Stress - State Of Decay
12 - Stress - Fight For Justice
13 - Flux Of Pink Indians - Left Me To Die
14 - Diabolists - Devil Surrounds Me
15 - Diabolists - Ashes To Ashes
16 - Kulturkampf - Violent Pride
17 - Kulturkampf - General Instigators
18 - Shrapnel - Fight For Freedom
19 - Shrapnel - Missile
20 - Impact - Law Of The Land
21 - Impact - Your Decision
22 - Legion Of Parasites - Savages -
23 - Legion Of Parasites - Hypocrite
Tape is numbered
November 17, 2023: After more than a decade, our Dystopian t-shirt has been put to rest. The cheeky irony sits less well when living through our own spotty patch of history. Yesterday we spotted two burned out cars on the street in just one commute home. The spirit of Rollerball lives on even if the t-shirt design is no more.
To right/re-write the tone of our last t-shirt a bit, we borrow from an iconic avant-garde luminary who is experiencing a renaissance of sorts. Everyone is crazy for Robert Ashley these days, so many voices doing the voices.
We’ve decided to appropriate what’s appropriate too, so here’s our Automatic Ashley design!
Acquired these direct from Bill Orcutt during his March 20, 21 and 22nd residency at Roulette. The Four Louies night on 3.21.26 was extraordinary, especially the performance of that Fake Estates Lp. And the other nights featured an amazing cast of fellow artists, some on PALILALIA, and among others:
Wendy Eisenberg
Chris Corsano
Shane Parish
Cyrus Pireh
Ava Mendoza
Kris Gruda
…. and even an appearance from shop favorite William Winant!
We only have a few of each size, so please act fast.
Selling it a smidge cheaper than the Orcutt’s merch table, as not appear like we are in on the grift.
Grateful to have these in the shop.
From Palilalia.com:
“Few sounds in music are as instantly recognizable as the searching sting of guitarist Bill Orcutt and the cyclical propulsion of drummer Chris Corsano. At the same time, every single performance or recording I’ve heard by the duo has been markedly different, discovering new paths with a given set of tools. For more than a decade now they’ve been meeting up to instigate visceral sonic journeys without a map, engaging in elliptical dialogues with one another, but more often conjuring twinned excursions that occur with a kind of telepathic independence. They don’t need to plan or discuss what will happen when they get together. They simply jump in and see where things go, pushing and pulling when necessary, yet more often letting each other roam freely with the knowledge that they’ve a rapport that can weather all storms.
The performance captured on Play at Duke was taped at the von der Heyden Studio Theater in the Rubenstein Arts Center on the campus of Duke University. The set closed out a three-day festival celebrating the 21st anniversary of Three Lobed Records, and the music they made feels utterly galvanic, a fitting conclusion by turns triumphant and bloodied. The set clocks in at just under 26 minutes but there’s nothing lacking, nothing slight. The best performances fuck with time, as this sublime encounter does. The duo were in an obvious flow straight out the gate, with Orcutt unleashing fat, fragmented arpeggios that morph from anthemic chords to flickering long tones—tense moments of repose that anticipate some new digression a la Hendrix. In the first of the three Play at Duke the duo packs in so many discrete ideas and dialogues that it’s hard to believe they only needed eight minutes to get it done.
Orcutt and Corsano sets are thrilling, in part, because we don’t know what will happen. Will they gel, butt heads, or get cranky. The guitarist sometimes delves into his Harry Pussy roots and unleashes a post-hardcore sally to shake things up, whether it seems necessary or not, but with this particular set there’s no doubt that the pair is sync. Ideas, motifs, needling lines (shadowed, of course, by Orcutt’s wordless falsetto screamed out into the air) pile up with pure compositional logic, each new melodic theme or textural divot flowing out of the previous one with remarkable ease and fluidity. Both musicians can access all sorts of traditions at the blink of an eye. The second piece opens explosively, with Corsano delivering a singular kind of flailing energy that’s nevertheless completely liquid, while Orcutt jerks between post-no wave skree, ominously prescient chords that channel the aggression of AC/DC and Hound Dog Taylor, and upper register stabs that that both tap into some primordial wellspring of the blues and fling clusters of sound at gravity, seeking to be free of our planet’s limitations. The album’s final piece begins with repose, a breath-catching reset of contemplative tenderness that gradually opens up, the duo teetering at the edge of an explosion that never really arises, as a lyric quality manages to ride the cresting wave of energy, cutting back- and-forth into a sudden, crystal-clear denouement that feels like destiny.”
We always credit when the writings not ours, especially when the prose reads so swimmingly.
This from Orcutt’s resident writer:
“Another Perfect Day is Bill Orcutt's first solo electric guitar record since 2017’s eponymous Bill Orcutt. While that eight-year gap might not seem like a ton of time on the cosmic scale, it nonetheless represents a busy half-decade plus for Orcutt projects: a raft of improv collaborations, an acclaimed run of chopped and looped albums on Fake Estates, and the collision of Orcutt's computer and guitar music on Music For Four Guitars and last year's How to Rescue Things, both on Palilalia. The undeniable alchemy of those latter mashups inspired not only a wider appreciation of Orcutt-as-composer, but also the resurrection of Orcutt-as-bandleader, as the Bill Orcutt Quartet hit the road in support of Four Guitars, Orcutt's first work with a proper score (courtesy of Shane Parrish).
All of the above makes 2025 the perfect year to reacquaint ourselves with Orcutt-as-solo-performer, wielding his trademark four-string rather than a mouse, running the neck rather than shuffling waveforms, blasting through Cafe Oto's tattered Fender Twin (the cover model for the aforementioned How to Rescue Things) rather than a pair of ancient NS-10s. Indeed, this 2023 performance at Oto, East London's finest music establishment, boomerangs back into the slashing chords and frenzied double- picking of the Harry Pussy years, tossing the gentler melodic glow of the last few solo records into the dustbin.
In other words, this may be Orcutt's most overtly punk-rockist record since Gerty Loves Pussy, his first solo electric LP from a decade ago. It's an affirmation that Orcutt is above all a lead player—angular runs scaling the heavens, ricocheting back to ground zero before climbing again. Orcutt builds tension with short phrases, repeated with slight variability until it seems like they’ll never stop, finally slamming into a fresh line like the dawning valley at the crest of the mountain pass.
Another Perfect Day is, ultimately, something of a solo guitar Nouveau Roman, an exhilarating run through melodic iteration, impossible crescendos (check out those ecstatic crowd hoots on ‘For the Drainers’) breaking into—a moment rarely found on an Orcutt record—soft, whisper-quiet tracer notes at the end of ‘A Natural Death.’
Another Perfect Day returns Orcutt to the immediacy of his earliest records while maintaining the melodic complexity, phrasing, and flow of a player, who's been going, what—four-plus decades now? And when he taps his roots, it's a reminder of exactly what was so exciting about Orcutt's playing in the first place."
—TOM CARTER (Nov 2025)
From the one-sheet:
“For those paying attention to the arc of Orcutt's electric records, which chart a course from Quine's choppiness to Thompsonian/Verlaine-ian flow, it should be no surprise that the ten-year gap between acoustic records should expose a similar underlying journey. But what's maybe more surprising is that Jump On It, with its living-room aesthetics and big reverb, packs a disarming intimacy absent from the formal starkness of Orcutt's earlier acoustic outings. Although you might sense the looming human in the audible breath whispering intermittently between chords (a physical flourish reminiscent of the late Jack Rose), such documentarian signposts are the exception rather than the rule. Not quite refuting (yet not quite embracing) the polish of revered watershed records by Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, or Bola Sete, Jump On Ittreads a path between the raw and the refined, exemplified in tracks such as 'The Life of Jesus' and 'In a Column of Air' that alternate swaying chords with Orcutt's trademark angular quicksilver runs (cut brickwall short). While you won't mistake Jump On It for incidental music, at least not if taken at full strength, stray passages radiate a conversational beauty that would please the most dissonance-adverse listener.”