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Updated 3/14/02 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:
2/11/02
and 2/25/02.
Our January 2002 new release page can be found here.
 anticonwe ain't fessin' (double quotes) (anticon abr0019) CD/10"
Released the week of February 25th, 2002 order from Midheaven mailorder The anticon posse's rhyme-testing, extremely abstract title cut, originally heard on the giga-single, gets more than just a remix; it gets a wrecking ball. As soon as you think you get it, they've moved on to the next thing. By the time it's all over, you realize that you're going to have to play it back. "More From June," the lost Deep Puddle Dynamics song, is on the flip, with anticon MCs Dose One, Sole and alias, along with Slug and Eyedea of Rhymesayers, over the music of Tortoise's John Herndon. CD includes the bonus track "Pitty Party People." Miles removed from the oft-acclaimed hip-hop underground..., a distinctly different hip-hop underground has been brewing, its spiritual center based around...Anticon, a label / crew who titled their very first compilation Music For The Advancement Of Hip-Hop [reissued on CD by Massmen. "We Ain't Fessin' (Double Quotes)" was first heard on] The Anticon Giga Single, a...showcase of their off-the-wall production and lyrical stylings with showstopping turns from head-scratcher sound-assemblers...
With more than a dozen MCs, producers and a DJ or two (Doseone, jel, Sixtoo, Buck 65, Mayonnaise, Why?, alias, Sage Francis)..., Anticon...boasts that more than a dozen...contributing artists [many of whom] will have full-lengths out [in] 2002. Ranging from the mellow, soul-searching posse manifesto "We Ain't Fessin" to Buck 65's Dr. Octagon-ish "Pen Thief" and Controller 7's excellent instrumental workout..., Anticon's strength is its range, with a thread of intelligence, humility and imagination running at all times. "What we're doing now is relevant to the average human being, who doesn't go around serving MCs or smacking woman," says Sole.
Q: I don't buy that "it's too weird" shit anymore; there is nothing weird about what we're doing, it's all been done before in other forms of music. So what if we rap? I don't have the patience to write a book. You, and the whole of Anticon, seem to get grouped as just a bunch of kids using big words for the sake of it.... Do you think that as an audience we've gotten complacent and unwilling to embrace anything other than a "battle rap"? A: Yeah, and I hate that shit. That's what the "We Ain't Fessin'" single is about - it's all rap-versey and straightforward. They wish that we're not talking about anything and it's just a bunch of big words. Sucker MC's out today can still look good talking nonsense if that's the case. When you have to rhyme every other word to make a song work you're eventually sacrificing content. I think hip hop is the best medium for expressing emotion, but so few people "mean it" that it doesn't go there.
 INFINITE Xss/t (CHAINSAW CHAIN25) CD Released the week of February 11th, 2002 order from Midheaven mailorder After a few short months holed up in Los Angeles last year writing new material, Jody Bleyle (ex-Team Dresch, ex-Hazel) and Tamala Poljak (ex-Longstocking, ex-Automaticians) emerged with the opus that has become the self-titled Chainsaw Records debut by Infinite Xs. Everything between the opening track, "Welcome to the Show," showcasing the songwriting and vocal skills of guitarist Whitney Skillcorn (ex-Fighter D, ex-The Little Deaths), and Poljak's album closer, "Brand New Reconnection," is a joyride combining the best of Bleyle's emo punk anthems with Poljak's pop masterpieces, sprinked with Skillcorn's soft spoken pop punk gems. Scotty Walsh, also of the Automaticans, rounds out the line-up on drums. Richard Balyut (Versus) makes guest appearances on guitar and tambourine, but spent most of his time working on this album from the producer's chair.
 ETERNAL ELYSIUMShare (METEORCITY MCY019) CD Released the week of February 25th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder What America creates, Japan improves: We invented the gramophone, they produced the Home Theater. We brought forth The Creature From The Black Lagoon, they answered with Godzilla. The latest U.S. casualty: bottom-heavy riffage. Eternal Elysium has blown it all away... and thank God they did. Share is phenomenal. It's a fact. Jack Endino himself, acclaimed record producer and rabid rock fan for only about the past three decades, says about Eternal Elysium: "I'd work with Eternal Elysium in a hot second, although it might be hard to improve on what I heard coming out of the stereo. It sounds outrageous!" Share follows Eternal Elysium's globally worshipped Y2K debut, Spiritualized D. This band hasn't started playing it safe. They pull from '60s psychedelia, '70s riff-rock jams, '80s stadium metal, '90s post-grunge groove, and wildly disparate cultural influences from African beats to Krautrock. Only true music lovers could make a record this diverse. Only unabashed Sabbath fiends could make a record this heavy. Only morons wouldn't want to hear the result. This power trio defies the laws of physics, constructing an absolutely colossal guitar sound with its surprisingly spare set-up. What sets it apart from the other sprawling groove-oriented bands, however, are the vocals of Yukito Okazaki, whose soaring, crystal-clear pipes are unusually high in the mix. The overall effect? Cream turned Satanic. -CMJ Another humiliating case of a Japanese rock band embracing an American trend and then royally kicking our sorry fat asses. Apparent Deep Purple worshippers, Eternal Elysium combines space trucking tweakiness with huge bludgeoning boulders of crunch. This shit slays. - Backfire This is killer. -Jack Endino, Producer (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Nebula) 30-second RealAudio excerpts: Schizy  DON HOWLANDLand Beyond The Mountains (BIRDMAN BMR038) CD Released the week of February 11th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Don Howland is best known for founding seminal blues-roots-deconstructionist outfits The Gibson Bros., The Bassholes and supergroup Ego Summit (with Ron House [Great Plains, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments], Jim Shepard, early Gibson Bro Tommy Jay, and Mike Rep); as well an appearance on the Cheater Slicks' Forgive Thee double-CD. Our colleagues at Matador have praised the Bassholes' "fine unrefined distillations of Howland's various likes, from Skip James to disco, the Germs to Bob Dylan." The fine folks at Revenant also note that Howland's work "has consistently hewn closer to music's great primordial gloop than anyone since Hasil Adkins." But it took some hack at Tucson Weekly to nail it: "Howland is a blues purist with a long list of punk-related credentials... [including writing for Village Voice, Spin, New York Rocker, and Trouser Press. His] vocals possess the raw emotional depth of Rufus Thomas or Skip James, and he brandishes his six-string weapon [with] trashy exuberance... If David Johansen decided to unearth the corpse of Charley Patton and start a crude, punk-meets-Delta blues band, Howland might be elected to carry the shovel, [having been] historically aligned to the twisted and fucked up roots of Americana music." If you're still sitting there thinking, "Don Who?," it's your own damn fault, okay, igmo? On The Land Beyond the Mountians, Howland is by himself with guitar, piano and unidentified percussive instruments. This is Howland's music how it's meant to be heard - recorded in a basement on a four-track for under fifty bucks. Darker and moodier than previous works, thanks in no small part to the covers he's chosen (Pearls Before Swine's "Sail Away," Jessie Mae Hemphill's "Cowgirl Blues," Furry Lewis's "Judge," and the Edgar Allen Poe poem "The Conqueror Worm"), Land Beyond The Mountains stands as one of his finest achievements.
Awol OneTrilobites b/w Static (MASSMEN MASS010) 12" Released the week of February 25th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Awol One has long been considered one of the most sought-after lyricists in the independent hip hop generation. As one of the original members of the Massmen crew, he has developed his talents alongside the likes of the Abstract Tribe Unique, The Shapeshifters, Afterlife crew, as well as many others. Because of his raspy voice, sing-song delivery, and "why me?" lyrical style, Awol One has carved out a loyal following in the L.A. underground and earned himself the title of "hip hop's Lou Reed."
"Trilobites" captures the best of his rhyme style and the best of D.W. (D.J. 'D) and Fat Jack's production. Backed with "Static" from DJ 'D's The Worker's Union, this 12-inch serves as an introduction to many releases to come from Awol One on the Massmen label.
Track Listing
A. Trilobites
B. Static Released the week of February 11th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Formed in 1997 by guitarist G.E. Stinson with bassist Steuart Liebig and guitarist Nels Cline, L.Stinkbug consciously chose to complete their line-up with a drummer who could groove-- percussionist Scott Amendola. Both Stinson and Cline prepare their guitars with an assortment of springs, toys, paint brushes, an electric drink stirrer, enough clips to make a beautician queasy, an egg whisk (that's right-- an egg whisk) and numerous other custom-made objects, and run them through a variety of effects, harmonizers and looping devices; same goes for Liebig - chopsticks between the strings, looping devices, extended technique, the works.
L.Stinkbug traffics in "instant compositions" packed with dynamics, textures and virtuosity. The Allure of Roadside Curios opens with an electro-orchestral prelude worthy of Sonic Youth on an exceptional night, building to a roaring, Boredoms-like overture that capsizes into some heavy grind familiar to fans of Lark's Tongue in Aspic-era King Crimson. Yet throughout the album's four tracks (plus a secret fifth one), all recorded live at Bruno's in San Francisco, the quartet's unpitched, heavily electronically altered wakajawaka sprawls like a spacy, permafrost delta in which an electric Miles Davis influence lurks at all times.
Because everyone in L.Stinkbug is involved with numerous other groups, they play together in this configuration infrequently and never tour (their handful of live appearances to date have occurred solely in California - Los Angeles, Ventura, San Francisco, and Berkeley). The Allure of Roadside Curios is a rare opportunity to hear world-class improvisors together at their best.
30-second RealAudio excerpts: Chopped Up and Laid End to End Released the week of February 11th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder Dark Noontide is the third full length release from Six Organs of Admittance. While listeners were pleasantly surprised by Ben Chasny's out-of-nowhere acid-folk genius on earlier releases, Dark Noontide comes in a notch or two higher with another spectacular merging of dreamy, hypnotic, finger-picked melodies and psychedelia concrète, not to mention some very fine fuzz guitar.
Eight incredible tracks seamlessly blend powerful blues foot-stomp, backward interludes, strange strings feedback, dark, tabla-infused vibrations, and the amazing debut of Chasny's electric guitar as a lead instrument.
Minds can only be blown by this album. Initiation is only a matter of time. This is the dream follow-up release that fans of Six Organs of Admittance have been waiting for.
30-second RealAudio excerpts: Spirits Abandoned Released the week of February 11th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder In contrast to the live performance-based pieces on Simon Wickham-Smith's 1999 CD Butterfly Dust, the perversely titled follow-up Extreme Bukake is a dissection of religious music, realized on laptop computer. Traditional components like Catholic hymns and Wickham-Smith's vocal on a Hare Krsna prayer get fragmented, splintered, and reassembled into a rich blob of sound. According to his notes on the tracks, "The Self-Immolation of Thich Quang Duc" is a programmatic work based around the death of the titular Viêtnamese monk who set himself alight to protest about the activity of the Viêtnamese government in the early 1960s. He was a friend of Thich Nhat Hanh, whom Martin Luther King Jr. nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. The music sounds like the insanity of the situation, the external noise of cars and people and the internal noise of the heart and the soul of this man. "Sri Guru Vandana" is a song from the Hare Krsna (ISKCON) tradition of Krisna Vaisnavitism, a nod in the direction of Wickham-Smith's pre-Buddhist, teenager self, the young man who got into ISKCON and then freaked out at the evangelical nature of the organization. This track acknowledges the positive side of his experience. "Ave Regina Celorum" is based on a Catholic hymn to Mary, an attempt to create a piece which could perhaps be used for meditation, either formal or informal.
30-second RealAudio excerpts: Sri Guru-Vandana Released the week of February 11th, 2002
order from Midheaven mailorder The latest and current pinnacle from the quintet of Neil Campbell, Bridgit Riley, Julian Bradley, Michael Flower, and Adam Davenport was assembled from recordings of their weekly sessions in Flower's kitchen. The tracks here represent the joyous, celebratory side of VCO - all forward motion, massed strings, percussion, horns, and little instruments rocketing forward in a swirl of sound. Compared to the more austere sounds of recent CDs like Lino Hi and Versatile Arab Chord Chart, the tracks here take off from the spot where the loose hippie-chant-and-drum action of collectives like Amon Düül intersects with the polyglot instrumental approach of mid-'60s Sun Ra (ref. "Exotic Forest," "Shadow World," etc). "There is no chord formation that can be planned," says Neil Campbell, "which creates elation or sadness, or any art which is profound enough to change anything fundamental about a person. There is just a resonance around us which musicians and artists are using or not using."
30-second RealAudio excerpts: Hypnotism in Yr Hips |
Click the titles below for details on specific new releases.
February 2002
anticon
AWOL ONE
ETERNAL ELYSIUM
DON HOWLAND
INFINITE X's
L. STINKBUG
SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE
VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA
SIMON WICKHAM-SMITH
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
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