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New Releases for date: 10/28/02
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HONEYBEAR
Artist: DFI Title: S/T
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 HB040
Price: $12.00 Label: Honeybear
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***DFI is nothing if not an enigma. Unlike busily touring contemporaries the Fucking Champs and Orthrelm (both of whom DFI have performed with on various occasions), DFI has largely been a private affair, focusing on a dedicated following that is organically growing in number. DFI's performance at last year's Honey Bear Records' South By Southwest showcase at Sound Exchange in Austin was a highlight of the show and one of the best performances of the whole event.

Each DFI release has been an exercise in perfecting the craft of intellectual metal. Dave Didonato's fretwork is immaculate - far removed from entertainment and deep within the realms of mathematics and scientific experiment.

The bulk of this CD is made up of the highlights from DFI's first two now-out-of-print full length releases. For the first time DFI's music will be accessible to the many dazzled audiences who have seen him perform with the likes of Last of the Juanitas, Cherry Valance, Rye Coalition, Avail, Crom Tech, Cathedral, and many, many others.

Cover versions on this album include songs by Ulver and Human Thurma, and an incredible version of "Flight Of The Bumble-Bee." The cover art includes original art by Snake Pit comics artist, Ben White.

Artist: J CHURCH Title: Palestine
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 HB041
Price: $12.00 Label: Honeybear
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***Originally written as a follow-up to The Drama Of Alienation (Honest Don's / Fat Wreck Chords, 1997), this is the album that was sideswiped when J Church imploded after a year of touring. Leader Lance Hance's subsequent hospitalization completely sealed the fate of these songs until now.

Before he started writing about heart medication and dying, Hahn's songs dealt with Wim Wenders, the Jazz Butcher, and the revolution. Much of the music dates from a pre-Drama era when he was still working as guitarist for Beck. The open tunings, naïve slide guitar work, and harmonic melodies can all be traced back to that happier time when J Church was toying with the idea of signing to a major label (which explains the occasional long, drawn-out, Neil Young-inspired solo).

The original tracks are joined by a handful of other unreleased songs, some updated vocals and covers of "Blasé" (Archie Shepp) and "Not Proud Of The USA" (The Mice).

Brainy and melodic but not wimpy DIY punk rock. --Giant Robot

Quality emo pop punk. --Maximum Rock'n'Roll

One of the great unappreciated treasures of San Francisco. --Hit List

Possibly the most literate lyrics I have ever heard in a punk context. --Skratch

IN THE RED
Artist: MELCHIOR, DAN BROKE REVUE Title: Bitterness, Spite, Rage And Scorn
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 ITR090CD
Price: $12.00 Label: In The Red
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***Anything even remotely blues-influenced was thought to be pretty much beyond the pale until a short while ago. Dan Melchior has been playing his own twisted and driving take on barebones rock'n'roll for several years now, making appearances on over 20 commercially released recordings while constantly honing his own lyrical attack and idiosyncratic way with a tune.

Influences as disparate as Creedence, The Fall, and William Blake blend seamlessly, especially in his most fully realized work to date, Bitterness, Spite, Rage and Scorn, the second album on In The Red Records by Melchior and the Broke Revue. With Bruno Meyrick Jones on guitar, Brad Truax on bass, and Greg Anderson on drums holding a rock-steady yet fluid groove behind him, Melchior holds forth with an uncompromising and extremely articulate vision and voice. The playing of the band is superb, disciplined yet funky. Longtime collaborator Jones really shines on this recording, while Truax and Anderson shift effortlessly from one muscular groove to another.

The engineering expertise and general sonic know-how of Mike McHugh helps the band push their sound into unexpected avenues, resulting in eclectic but cohesive album, delivered with the intensity and fire In The Red fans have every right to expect.

Like his buddy Wild Billy Childish, Dan Melchior plunders elderly American musical styles ... and then rams 'em back home to us as outpourings of some eccentric and curmudgeonly Brit weirdo who's sorta like an overamped Doc Boggs.... Melchior ... freely combine[s] second-hand Delta blues with .... grimy murder ballads from England and Appalachia, and update[s] them thru the Toe Rag studio school of crooked-teeth charm.... His voice sounds lots like Childish or mebbe like Ben from The Country Teasers, and the Broke Revue sounds like the Headcoats playing an all-request covers set at Junior Kimbrough's blues joint the night the place burned to the ground. -Jon Sarre, Lollipop

Artist: MELCHIOR, DAN BROKE REVUE Title: Bitterness, Spite, Rage And Scorn
Format: LP Catalog
Number:		 ITR090
Price: $8.25 Label: In The Red
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
LEAF
Artist: V/A Title: Lost For Words
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 BAY27CD
Price: $4.00 Label: Leaf
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***A collection of tracks from the current Leaf stable of electronic-minded studs featuring exclusive, unreleased tracks from SONS OF SILENCE and EARDRUM, along with recent cuts from 310, ASA-CHANG & JUNRAY, BOOM BIP & DOSE ONE, ROB ELLIS, MANITOBA, MURCOF, A SMALL GOOD THING, SOFA SURFERS, and SUSUMU YOKOTA.
Artist: YOKOTA, SUSUMU Title: Boy And The Tree
Format: 2xLP Catalog
Number:		 BAY25 V
Price: $12.00 Label: Leaf
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***The sixth album from Japanese ambient specialist and one of the world's top electronic artists SUSUMU YOKOTA. A beautiful blend of playful melodies and atmospherics delivered with a fine sense of dynamics, tones, rhythms and textural sounds. Licensed by Leaf from Yokota's own Skintone label.
Artist: YOKOTA, SUSUMU Title: Boy And The Tree
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 BAY25CD
Price: $12.00 Label: Leaf
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***The sixth album from Japanese ambient specialist and one of the world's top electronic artists SUSUMU YOKOTA. A beautiful blend of playful melodies and atmospherics delivered with a fine sense of dynamics, tones, rhythms and textural sounds. Licensed by Leaf from Yokota's own Skintone label.
NINJA TUNE
Artist: DJ VADIM Title: Ussr : Art Of Listening
Format: 2xLP Catalog
Number:		 ZEN 68
Price: $17.50 Label: Ninja Tune
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
Artist: DJ VADIM Title: Ussr : Art Of Listening
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 ZENCD 68 CD
Price: $9.50 Label: Ninja Tune
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***Hip hop's favorite Russian ex-pat returns with his third album, and another stakes-raising groove-out smash-up. Fifteen tracks that continue the angular abstractions of his earlier work, but with an added sense of musicality, and revolutionary vocal-work from emcees SLUG, MOTION MAN, VAKILL, GIFT OF GAB, PHI LIFE CYPHER, YARAH BRAVO, KILLA KELLA, DEMOLITION MAN, TASK FORCE, REVD CLEVIE BROWN, and more. Global, fresh, and heady.
Artist: MR. SCRUFF Title: Trouser Jazz
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 ZENCD 65 CD
Price: $9.50 Label: Ninja Tune
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***The second Ninja Tune full-length from Manchester deejay ANDY CARTHY. Thirteen cuts of genre-busting, keepin'-it-unreal groovage, bumped with dancefloor dynamite, squelching wobbly beats, Brazilian flavors, and kitchen-sink sounds.
Artist: TOBIN, AMON Title: Out From Out Where
Format: 2xLP Catalog
Number:		 ZEN 70
Price: $17.50 Label: Ninja Tune
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
SEPIA TONE
Artist: DICKINSON, JAMES LUTHER Title: Dixie Fried
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 STONE10
Price: $12.00 Label: Sepia Tone
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***James Luther Dickinson is perhaps the best known unknown musician Memphis has ever produced. As a band leader, session musician and producer, his legacy stretches back to the early '60s, when he started out in garage rock bands like Flash and the Memphis Casuals. He developed into a session musician who was involved in recordings by a number of legendary artists at Ardent, Stax and for Sam Phillips. He played the piano on The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" and can be seen in the studio with the Stones in the film Gimme Shelter. In the late '60s he was part of amazing house studio band called The Dixie Flyers. Jerry Wexler, impressed by their ability to play just about any style, signed them to Atlantic to back various artists he'd sign to the label. During this time the Dixie Flyers backed Aretha Franklin, Sam and Dave, Lulu, Delaney and Bonnie and many others. Wexler decided to sign the Flyers on to do their own album so that they might become a band in their own right and begin touring, something in which the Dixie Flyers had no interest. Dickinson convinced Wexler to allow him to do a solo album instead. The resulting album was Dixie Fried-- nine tracks of pure southern fried boogie. Dickinson got the cream of local talent to participate on this album, including Dr. John and Charlie Freeman. The album has been out of print for decades and fetches a high dollar in collectors' circles. Dickinson later went on to be involved in the careers of Alex Chilton (he produced and played on the legendary Like Flies On Sherbert album and Big Star's final album), as well as producing and playing with such notables as Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, Mudhoney, Spiritualized, and Jon Spencer, among others.
TIGERBEAT 6
Artist: SODAHBERK, DWAYNE Title: Don't Want To Know You
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 MEOW58CD
Price: $6.75 Label: Tigerbeat 6
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***Shunting aside all pretense of retro-rock irony and designer furniture store etiquette, Swedish postpunk techno misfit Dwayne Sodahberk gives us a seventeen-song collection of excitingly memorable songs painstakingly composed and improvised with just the right balance between egghead super-collider DSP impacts and raw drum machine beats, twisted modular synth stabs, the occasional glitch, and melodic guitar workouts.

With a handful of EPs for his own Stuporsonika label and appearances on numerous compilations under his belt, as well as the occasional Absolut Vodka or Saab advertisement, Sodahberk has been quietly making a name for himself since 2000 with driving techno pieces that incorporate ambient elements and bursts of noise similar to the sounds championed by labels like Force Inc., Perlon and Kompakt. But Sodahberk is more than just a fresh face on the minimal techno scene, and this first album is a fabulous debut full-length full of dramatic dirges and delicate processes. Deeply inspired by all forms of music, he cites diverse influences-- from Unsane, Blonde Redhead, The Seeds, and Velvet Underground to Autechre, Super_Collider, Fennesz and Mike Ink. Quite possibly the most mature and promising long player to date for Tigerbeat6, Sodahberk's debut will receive a lot of recognition for its eclectic, daring, carefully composed electronica.

YOUNG GOD
Artist: BANHART, DEVENDRA Title: Oh Me Oh My...
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 YG20
Price: $13.00 Label: Young God
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***

To say Devendra Banhart is unique is an absurd understatement. When I first heard the voice of this completely unknown, precociously talented 21-year-old songwriter, I could not believe it. His occasionally warbling falsetto is alternately bizarre, comical, and often a little frightening. Coupled with his advanced finger-picking guitar style - which itself often veers schizophrenically from gentle grooves into jolting, non-rhythmic stabs and weird harmonic flights of chaos-- and the wildly surreal nature of his truly exceptional lyrics, each of the 21 songs on this CD (some of which clock in at about 30 seconds) contain their own special drama and immediately memorable melodies - no mean feat when your instrumentation is acoustic guitar and voice, with only the occasional hand clap or whistle thrown in as "orchestration." In a popular music environment inundated with computer and electronically generated sound and sanitized ProTools mixes, it's a tremendous relief to hear something so ridiculously compelling, low-tech, utterly personal, and hand-made. The songs were recorded on various borrowed and usually broken 4-track cassette recorders by Banhart himself in various haphazard locations around the globe. These recordings were made solely for himself, and they're better for it - devoid of any self-consciousness or artifice, just utterly personal and idiosyncratic, magically twisted and imaginative.

All kinds of comparisons that might be relevant in describing Banhart - from Marc Bolan's pre-T. Rex recordings to Daniel Johnston, to Nick Drake's inner purity and pathos, to Karen Dalton (one of Banhart's idols).

--Michael Gira/Young God Records

Artist: PALESTINE / COULTER / MATHOUL Title: Maximin
Format: CD Catalog
Number:		 YG21
Price: $13.00 Label: Young God
Release
Date:		 10/28/02
***On Maximin, the music of the seminal minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine is reconfigured and reiterated by David Coulter and Jean-Marie Mathoul, in full co-operation and collaboration with Mr. Palestine. Coulter and Mathoul have taken previously recorded works of Mr. Palestine and-- with the full respect due these often transcendent and sacred works--- have interwoven new and/or found sounds, drones, and unexpected textures into an ever-shifting flow that brings new light to these deeply soulful, sonic-sculptural emanations. Recontextualizing the pure and spiritual force of nature that Mr. Palestine's music represents could be a risky musical undertaking, but Coulter and Mathoul pull it off beautifully, inspired solely by their love of and respect for the original works themselves. The mixes have an authentic, handmade sensibility, and even when electronics are occasionally introduced, retain an organic feel.

David Coulter is an experimental, forward-looking UK composer and multi-instrumentalist whose history includes working in various capacities with the Pogues, Test Dept., The Kronos Quartet, Marc Ribot, Yoko Ono, Roger Eno, and many others. He has recently contributed sounds to, and has orchestrated a children's choir for the new Angels of Light album, in progress.

Jean-Marie Mathoul is a sound manipulator and collagist who sometimes collaborates with Coulter. He lives in Brussels, Belgium.

-Michael Gira / Young God Records

Though Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and La Monte Young are hailed as the pioneers of minimalist music, the portfolio of Charlemagne Palestine is equally reductive, relentless, and compelling.... Not to be confused with vacuous New Age pabulum, Palestine's work offers sonic sculptures to be thoroughly inspected and savored at every moment. --Dean Suzuki, www.wired.com

There's a transcendent timelessness about Charlemagne Palestine's music that makes me feel as if it will always be around.... Like Phill Niblock, Tony Conrad, Philip Corner or Yoshi Wada, Charlemagne Palestine ... is one of minimalist music's unjustly neglected figures, known to the lucky cognoscenti but perhaps too austere to survive the commercial crossover of late '70s minimalist music... --Brian Duguid, www.hyperreal.org

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