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Updated 5/21/02 Release dates [among other things] subject to change. Our mailorder pages feature all the titles below-- and more-- sorted by release date at the following links:
4/1/02,
4/15/02 and
4/29/02.
Our March 2002 new release page can be found here.
 SAGE FRANCISPersonal Journals (anticon abr0021) CD/2xLP Released the week of April 15th, 2002 order from Midheaven mailorder Sage Francis, AKA Xaul Zan, AKA Strange Famous, member of the witness protection program, 2000 Scribble Battle MC Champ, 1999 Superbowl Battle MC Champ, and nationally ranked slam poet 1998 and 1999, is finally dropping an official, full length album. Sage or "Stage Presence" has gained a reputation from ripping live shows with his emotionally intense songs, freestyles, and spoken words, but this album provides a comprehensive and definitive introduction to a very different kind of MC and person. Recorded over the period of a year, Personal Journals beautifully chronicles Sage's often times painful life - from relationships to being an outsider. Sage has also employed a host of producers for beats on this album, including Sixtoo, jel (Atmosphere, Deep Puddle Dynamics, them), mayonnaise, Joe Beats, odd nosdam, Mr. Dibbs, alias and more. This album is destined to be the reference point for emo-hip hop.
 MY MORNING JACKETChocolate and Ice (BADMAN 980) CD Released the week of April 1st, 2002 order from Midheaven mailorder My Morning Jacket, the Louisville, Kentucky, outfit that continues to defy categorization, follows their critically acclaimed and commercially respectable At Dawn and The Tennessee Fire albums with 35 minutes of southern blues, Americana and dreamy psychedelia. My Morning Jacket's appeal stems from the haunting, raw vocals of lead singer and guitarist, Jim James. While simultaneously channeling the spirits of both Neil Young and Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, James leads his musical cohorts along a journey of reverb-drenched melodies, velvet, melancholy lyrics, and instrumentation that combines old country swagger with classic pop sentimentality. Live, My Morning Jacket turns the proverbial amp up to 11 and rocks so hard that, to quote a fan website, "shards of glass from broken beer bottles thrown against the chickenwire amidst a bar-room brawl only add to the rhythmic mayhem."
Can You See the Hard Helmet on My Head?  BANANAFISHIssue #16 (TEDIUM HOUSE PUBLICATIONS BF16) MAG + CD Released the week of April 15th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Oren Ambarchi Bill Burston interviews the founder of the Australian Noise Users' Society, who has made ultrarefined space-station scree with AMM's Keith Rowe, Sachiko M, Otomo Yoshihide, out-of-control spazzassins Phlegm, The Menstruation Sisters, Robbie Avenaim, et al. On the CD: Oren Ambarchi, "George" Leif Elggren Interview with Swedish electroacoustic musician, letter-writing prankster, dream theorist, national monarch of Elgaland-Vargaland, and conceptual artist whose work ranges from oblique performances to near-static installations. On the CD: Leif Elggren, "Soya" Robert Dayton Earl Kuck interviews one of Canada's most notorious extroverts (imagine Nardwuar as a real human being) about comics and diaries in the self-published Bunyon and his hilarious karaoke duo Canned Hamm. On the CD: Canned Hamm, "Teenagers are Growing Up" and July Fourth Toilet, "Noise Maker Pomposity" Repeat Jason Kahn debunks onkyo, discusses his electronic duo with Toshi Nakamura, and early work with Arnold Dreyblatt, Universal Congress Of, and Sainkho Namtchylak. On the CD: Repeat, "Brussels 2" Parmentier Dylan Nyoukis interviews hyper-relaxed New Zealand expats Rosy Parlane and Dion Workman about their bi-continental "work" as psychotropic electronic musicians. On the CD: Dion Workman, "06.00," and Rosy Parlane, "Lodown" Halim El-Dabh Selected excerpts from Denise Seachrist's upcoming biography of the Egyptian-born composer whose pioneering musique concrete predates that of Pierre Schaeffer, and is also noteworthy for an unusual Native American musical influence. On the CD: Halim El-Dabh with Mike Hovancsek, "Three Time Frames" Paul Winstanley Another New Zealander interviewed by Dylan Nyoukis, about his time in Texas performing electroacoustic improv/noise with Dave Dove Paul Duo, crashing Lone Star bohemian enclaves, and cruising with Pauline Oliveros's mother. On the CD: JDP Trio, "2/21/95 #2" and "2/21/95 #16" Lateral Agriculture Order Overview of this mysterious acronym-damaged Italian organization, including discography, particulars about performances, roster of artists (eighty different ones!) and other inexplicable details. On the CD: tracks by Figlia Villana, Fernanda Craniotome Divortula, Magia Der Callaro, Monarch, Torpid, Lateral Agriculture Order, Jeans Scirri and S.A.A.R.O. featuring Head Tumulata And the rest... "Rose Marie to Block," fiction by Roger Pinell; reviews; found mail
VARIOUS ARTISTSMassmen Label Sampler (MASSMEN MASS011) CD Released the week of April 29th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Since 1998, Massmen Records has been a foundation for releasing and reissuing projects from a collective of artists who started working together in the 1980s. Though Massmen has collaborated with other labels for releases, the Massmen core of artists is based mainly in Los Angeles and centers around Abstract Rude & Tribe Unique, Fatjack, Awol One, DK Toon, and DJ DW. The label has also been praised for bringing new artists to the ears of the masses via Project Blowed and Anticon Presents Music for the Advancement of Hip Hop compilations, as well as numerous guests on DJ 'D's Workers Union and Highlife Movement's ...estuary (such as Abstract Rude, Aceyalone, Mikah 9 of Freestyle Fellowship, Lady Blue of The Coup, Dr. Doom (SF),and L'il Kenya). This CD is a sampler of tracks on the label's 12-inch releases (six of them not previously available on CD) and favorite selections from past, present and future.
Track Listing:
1. Abstract Tribe Unique My Experience (From Mood Pieces, MM01) Released the week of April 15th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Membership in demonic drug-rock outfit Monster Magnet has two fundamental requirements: extraordinary musicianship, and an instense love of playing that can be sated only by maintaining (at least) one additional band on the side. But expecting The Ribeye Brothers' debut to resemble Monster Magnet would be like ordering bourbon from a moonshiner (similar drink, whole different drunk).
If I Had A Horse.... finds drummer Jon Kleiman and Magnet guru Tim Cronin teaming up to bring forth a garage-country quaalude quest that "any lover of '60s creep-show psych and Cramps-ish thugabilly will swoon for," to borrow a phrase from the Phoenix New Times. The Ribeye Brothers dip the ladle low and slow through endless, long-deceased decades of twangified plucking and outlaw swagger, squelching out a sick mix of cowpunk-cum-surf that defies pigeonholing as forcibly as it demands a rye chaser (and a zen-like, drunken blackout in Jersey). Fourteen tracks of hallucinatory, swamp-fuzz countrybilly embodying everything the spirit of Americana wished it was.
Twisted brainchild of Monster Magnet drummer Jon Kleiman and spiritual advisor Tim Cronin, who smear garage-shock ooze over twangy backwoods drunkrock and filter it through a deft psychedelic-pop sensibility, adding covers by The Creation and The Beatles for good measure. -Magnet
30-second RealAudio excerpts: If I
Had a Horse... Released the week of April 15th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Drums vs. Drum Machines. Samplers vs. Guitars. Take these oppositional elements, add a willingness to start a band first and learn how to use the gear later, crank it up to 25,000, and that's somewhere in the neighborhood of The Octopus Project, who create a unique style of music for people who like the experimentation of progressive music, the blips and bleeps of electronic music and the raw animalism of rock.
The Octopus Project is the latest development between longtime collaborators Josh Lambert, Yvonne Lambert and Toto Miranda, filling the gap between electronic and rock musics. Having added drum machines, samplers and keyboards to their standard guitar/drums/bass setup, they just turn everything on at once and end up with what has been best described as "ambidextrous equipment failure junk-tronica." Perhaps something like the rock-plus-electronic sounds of IQU, The Flying Lizards, Stereolab or Cornelius, but way more rock (larger, rougher, more collar-grabbing). The recent arrival of Dustin Kilgore and Nik Snell, both of whom play various instruments, adds to the confusion on stage.
Their reputation as the band that "hooks up their half-broken electronic shit all wrong" first attracts the attention, but actually seeing and hearing half-broken electronic shit played way, way too loud seals the deal.
30-second RealAudio excerpts: What They Found Released the week of April 15th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Knife in the Water's unique mix of bleak Texas pop and country creates the perfect soundtrack for downing a fifth of bourbon alone in your car, parked outside your ex's house in the dead of winter. You also may or may not be loading a gun. With a subtle blend of organ, guitar, pedal steel, bass and drums, they conjure the barren stretches of Texas plains, the faces in dusty bars and the smell of cheap perfume and sleazy motel rooms.
An Austin five-piece with an academic background in avant-garde minimalism and blood-bucket honky tonk, Knife in the Water is capable and serious in executing their boundary-blurring vision of unusual modern American sounds. The band is comprised of Aaron Blount (vocals, guitar), Laura Krause (vocals, Hammond organ), Bill McCullough (pedal steel), Mark Nathan (bass) and Cisco Ryder (drums), all Texans by birth.
Crosspross Bells finds them moving into more psychedelic-abstract territory than their previous long-players, Plays One Sound and Others and Red River. A resigned spiritual feel is evident on "Crosshair Chapel," and "From the Catbird Seat" bears the lysergic influence of the Thirteen Floor Elevators. The five songs on this EP share the themes of indifference and decay, and find a strange natural calm in both states.
With several US and European tours under their belt, including stints with Calexico and Rhythm of Black Lines, the band is scheduled to crawl the US again this March/April with NYC's Mendoza Line.
30-second RealAudio excerpts: From the Catbird Seat Released the week of April 15th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Make way for your new thrashcore heroes - Philly's sons of sonic mayhem are a fearsome foursome who deliver an aural anvil to the cranium with 20 blistering, high-speed anthems. After leveling every club, squat, and basement in America over the course of multiple tours, these ass-kickers have established a massive cult following. Imagine the Manson family with spiked hair, har har. Previous seven-inch releases (on such wholesome labels as Reactionary/11th Hour, Burrito Records, and Putrid Filth Conspiracy) and compilation appearances have laid additional groundwork for this ultimate crustcore epic, their full length debut on the Grand Central Station of extreme music, Slap A Ham. With markedly political lyrics (let's just say they're against it) and an unrelenting steamroller of sound, Otophobia is poised to flatten the punk scene and butcher its sacred cows. Mmm... sacred cow.
DIY crustcore madness at its absolute best. -avalauncher.com
30-second RealAudio excerpts: Drink and Go Home Released the week of April 29th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder The Country Teasers are best known for their stunning output on the Crypt and Fat Possum labels. How a band of Scots and Londoners crazily influenced by the likes of The Fall, Joy Division, Devo, Bauhaus, hip hop and country & western music wound up recording for labels best known for American rootsy-down-home-style output is anyone's guess. But here they are again with their most expansive and eclectic endeavor to date.
Science Hat Artistic Cube Moral Nosebleed Empire collects obscure singles, demos, outtakes and home recordings spanning the band's seven-year existence. 'Teasers front man Ben Wallers painstakingly pored through nearly twenty hours of material to find the best forty selections for the vinyl, and twenty for the CD, the concept being that each set of ten tracks represents a complete album. All together: "huh?" Wallers insists the double-vinyl set is actually four albums - pressed in an edition of one-thousand in a beautiful color gatefold jacket, by the way - and the compact disc, with twenty tracks extracted from that collection, is actually two albums.
Science Hat Artistic Cube Moral Nosebleed Empire offers the broadest range of the Country Teasers' styles, from the most savagely raw post-punk stomps to experimental electronic blow-outs. This collection is absolute proof that the Country Teasers are one of the most original bands around today.
Released the week of April 29th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder For the past six years Tim Kerr and the Lord High Fixers kicked up one of the craziest rackets to ever come out of Texas. Fronted by Mike Carroll, who had previously led Poison 13 along with Kerr (Now Time Delegation, King Sound Quartet, Big Boys Jack O'Fire), the Lord High Fixers made music drawing on influences from all over the musical map. Garage, punk, blues, free jazz, beat poetry and hip hop elements all found their way into the 'Fixers topography. Their rare live performances were the stuff of legend - chaos reigned supreme, with band members falling into each other, instruments getting unplugged and broken, bones, cartilage and skin all enduring more than their fair share of abuse. A band like this could only exist for so long before burning out, and The Beginning of the End is the final statement by this ambitious band, who are certainly exiting on a high note. Tim Kerr's guitar duets with free jazz saxophonist Ken Vandermark here are unlike anything else on a garage rock record. Even the straight garage rock is exceptional; why else would Byron Coley have bothered to write the band's liner notes / epitaph?
Released the week of April 29th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder After howling his way out of the swamplands of Louisiana into the national spotlight with his classics such as "Polk Salad Annie" and "Rainy Night In Georgia" in the late '60s, Tony Joe White toured throughout the '70s with some of the biggest artists of the decade. Dubbed "the godfather of swamp rock,'" White has a laid-back, misty, sensual charm and a voice to match. The way he tells a story, his southern drawl at times sounds almost like another language. It should also be noted that Tony Joe White had some of the coolest sideburns in rock'n'roll history and he actually made leather pants work.
The Train I'm On marks the fifth album in Tony Joe White's career, his second recorded for Warner Bros. Produced by Jerry Wexler and recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama, The Train I'm On delivers more of his classic, swampy, soul-infused rock 'n' roll. This is the first time it has been available in the USA on CD.
Released the week of April 29th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Transcendence is Alice Coltrane's most successful vocal album. Side two is especially mind-twisting for its use of surprisingly funky Hindu chants accompanied by Alice's organ and the Indian percussion of the singers. Purists might balk at calling Hare Krishna filtered through a gospel sensibility "jazz," but they're too busy arguing about Ken Burns' documentary to worry about Alice Coltrane reissues anyway. This is probably the most "swinging" Alice Coltrane material since Ptah The El Daoud.
Music runs in Alice Coltrane's family; her older brother, bassist Ernie Farrow, played in the '50s and '60s bands of Barry Harris, Stan Getz, Terry Gibbs and, most notably, Yusef Lateef. Alice McLeod began studying classical music at the age of seven. She attended Detroit's Cass Technical High School with pianist Hugh Lawson and drummer Earl Williams. As a young woman she played in church, and in Lateef's and Kenny Burrell's bands, eventually traveling to Paris in 1959 to study with Bud Powell. She met John Coltrane while touring and recording with Gibbs in the early '60s, married the saxophonist in 1965, and joined his band - replacing McCoy Tyner - a year later. She stayed with John's band until his death in 1967, and subsequently formed her own bands with players such as Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, Frank Lowe, Carlos Ward, Rashied Ali and Jimmy Garrison. Coltrane moved to California in 1972. She became increasingly concerned with spiritual matters, founding a center for the study of Eastern religions in 1975. Following the recently restored Transfiguration, Sepia-Tone is pleased to offer two more gems from Ms. Coltrane's discography.
Released the week of April 29th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder As jazz tried to crossover to pop during the mid-'70s - sometimes succeeding, sometimes sounding death knells for jazz careers - Alice Coltrane headed in a different direction, although where is still a subject of debate. On the reissue of her wildly eclectic Eternity, which originally brought her from Impulse! to Warner Bros in 1975, two tunes are lush horn-and-string-orchestra settings; two are meditative, Eastern-sounding pieces; the album is rounded off by her first use of vocals (on "Om Supreme"), and the percussion-heavy, rumba-esque "Los Caballos." As is customary all the tracks feature spiritual annotation and explanation. The legendary Charlie Hayden plays bass.
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Click the titles below for details on specific new releases.
April 2002
BANANAFISH
ALICE COLTRANE
ALICE COLTRANE
COUNTRY TEASERS
KNIFE IN THE WATER
LORD HIGH FIXERS
MY MORNING JACKET
OCTOPUS PARADE
OTOPHOBIA
RIBEYE BROTHERS
SAGE FRANCIS
VARIOUS ARTISTS
June 2002 new releases
Coming "soon":
dates subject to change
CHEATER SLICKS
SPEEDBALL BABY
JAWBREAKER
WARLOCKS
THE COUP
SPIRITU
DON COVAY & J. LEMON BLUES
INCREDIBLE STRING BAND
INCREDIBLE STRING BAND
SOLE
The releases above and on the left (as well as over 17,000 other
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Bananafish 16 (new!)
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RIBEYE BROTHERS
OCTOPUS PROJECT
KNIFE IN THE WATER
OTOPHOBIA
COUNTRY TEASERS
LORD HIGH FIXERS
TONY JOE WHITE
ALICE COLTRANE
ALICE COLTRANE
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