Revolver USA Exclusive Label
New Release Schedule:

May 2000

Releases are listed as chronologically as possible. Dates subject to change.

Released the week of May 8th, 2000

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Considered by many to be an unsung classic, 1998's Terrible Things Happen established The Aislers Set as a great new pop band who perfectly synthesize '60s mod-pop, '70s punk and '80s/'90s indie flavors. We'd all be hard pressed to cite a more accurate end-of-the-century summation of where pop had been and where it was heading, but what really set it apart was the stellar songwriting and arranging of Amy Linton, whose studio acumen was compared to Phil Spector more than once.

The Last Match is even more ambitious in conception, upping the ante even farther into more orchestral areas. While the songs are still driving and catchy as a fish hook, the arrangements are far more sophisticated, with instrumentation augmented by a full-time organ player and various horns, giving the tunes the timeless feel of classic groups like the early Bee Gees, the Zombies and The Millenium.

This brilliant exercise in pop science easily skirts the retro-copyism of many '60s disciples through its sheer songwriting power and the originality of the ideas. Tracks like "The Last Match" and "Bang Bang Bang" are bold new benchmarks, their influences being completely subsumed into Amy's distinctive vision. The band's other songwriter, Wyatt, also does himself proud with his contributions, especially the plaintive "Lonely Side of Town."

Still preferring to record in the garage where they are allowed unlimited time for experimentation, the band has had no problem crafting an amazing sounding album that could have sprung fully-formed from the hallowed studios of Gold Star. This is no murky lo-fi production, but a fully rounded and rich-sounding recording with a warm, analog sound. Between the peerless songs, the clever arranging and the ingenius production, The Last Match is a golden moment for fans of pop, and should cement the band's reputation as a key pop band.

• The Aislers Set will be opening for Sleater-Kinney this spring

• Bold confident synthesis of mod, pop, punk, indie and oldie

• Puncture and Chickfactor have already committed to feature articles on the band-- what are you waiting for?

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  The Way to Market Station
  Hit the Snow
  Chicago New York
  One Half Laughing
  Been Hiding
  Balloon Song
  Lonely Side of Town
  Last Match
  Christmas Song
  The Walk
  The Red Door
  Fairnt Chairnt
  We Give Up
  Bang Bang Bang

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Released the week of May 8th, 2000

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Applying a philosophy similar to Mr. Bungle or the Secret Chiefs 3, Estradasphere emphasize musical composition and how easy it is to play circles around most of the big name musicians out there. But (guitar and banjo), bassist Tim Smolens, and John Wooley (saxophone and pennywhistle) are no mere show-offs: with all this extra psychic freedom at their beck and call, Estradasphere explore radical morphings of musical castes, and then explode the bastards with inspired ferocity - a barrage that doesn't degenerate into wank-a-thon territory. Much. When it does it's mysteriously excusable. It's Understood is alive and enchanting - dada and world influences are in abundance, as are beaucoups odd obsessions (with Winger, boy bands, outdated video game themes, black metal and The Days of Our Lives). In fact, the whole situation is deeply menacing, hilarious and absurdist.

• ON TOUR THIS SPRING WITH SECRET CHIEFS 3

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Released the week of May 8th, 2000

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Smells Like Records continues its Lee Hazlewood reissue series with perhaps the strangest of Lee Hazlewood's recordings - his album of duets with actress Ann-Margret (star of Tommy, Carnal Knowledge, Speedway and The Flintstones). This 1969 odd gem was originally released as the debut LP on Lee's own LHI label, following several singles by Ann-Margret and Lee, Honey Ltd. and others.

Lee Hazlewood took a break from his songwriting frenzy of the late '60s to record this collection of Hollywood/country epics about the sweetness and loss of love. The duo perform songs such as "Dark End of the Street" and "Only Mama That'll Walk the Line" with utterly unique style - archetypal, in fact, for Lee and Ann-Margret. In addition, Lee performs Tom Rush's "No Regrets" solo, taking a cold, hard look at the aftermath of love gone wrong in typical Hazlewood fashion.

Also included on this CD are four extremely rare songs from the first two singles on LHI: "Sleep in the Grass" and "Chico" (a pair of Hazlewood originals performed as duets with Ann-Margret, produced on par with his most baroque masterworks), were first released as LHI-2; "You Turned My Head Around" and "It's A Nice World To Visit (But Not to Live In)" are two slices of Nuggets-era psych-pop sung by Ann-Margret solo, possibly two of Lee's rarest and strangest productions. These four songs have been out-of-print since the time of their release and, along with The Cowboy and The Lady, make their first Hazlewood-approved appearance in 30 years.

• Number 6 in Smells Like's ongoing high-profile Hazlewood reissue campaign

• One of the master's rarest and most unique works

• Previously available, but barely, a long time ago without the four extra bonus tracks

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Am I That Easy to Forget?
  Only Mama That'll Walk the Line
  Greyhound Bus Depot
  Walk on Out of My Mind
  Hangin' On
  Victims of the Night
  Break My Mind
  You Can't Imagine
  Sweet Thing
  No Regrets
  Dark End of the Street
  Sleep in the Grass
  Chico
  You Turn My Head Around
  It's a Nice World to Visit (But Not to Live In)

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Released the week of MAY 8th, 2000

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"This music was not without some audience. When I first started doing live sets of this stuff in 1976, the early punks liked it. Blues fans and avant improv people? Not really. Avant jazz? No. The punk bands were the only people who could relate to it. I was a bit old (27) for that scene and I didn't look like them, but we had a similar energy (including tell-tale bad cough), and the various band people that came in contact with me at the time encouraged me to keep going with it. But all along, I knew that we were both ultimately in for a hard road. I think that both of us were, whether we knew it or not, swinging a wrecking ball into music."
--"The Sounds of the Late '70s," liner notes by Loren Mazzacane Connors

• Many ravenous Mazzacane aficionados who snoozed while the boxset quickly disappeared will do anything for this second chance. Anything

• One of the more significant guitar improvisors, as evidenced by the number of high-profile players who jump at the chance to share the stage with him, including Jim O'Rourke, Alan Licht, Thurston Moore, and myriad others

• Seventeen tracks of unaccompanied acoustic guitar improvisations, personally selected by Loren Mazzacane Connors from the out-of-print Unaccompanied Accoustic Guitar Improvisations Vol. 1-9 1979-1980 boxset, released last October to celebrate his 50th birthday.

• Prior to last year's reissue, all tracks had been originally released on Daggett Records in the late '70s and early '80s in miniscule editions.

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  track 1
  track 2
  track 3
  track 4
  track 5
  track 6
  track 7
  track 8
  track 9
  track 10
  track 11
  track 12
  track 13
  track 14
  track 15
  track 16
  track 17

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Released the week of May 8th, 2000

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Recorded live at Slim's in San Francisco, 1998, this CD, previously available as a limited edition mailorder-only item, features the touring incarnation of Secret Chiefs 3: Trey Spruance, Danny Heifetz, Eyvind Kang, BŠr McKinnon, Phil Franklin, and John Wayne Law. Packaged in a slim cardboard envelope with a sticker for artwork. Collectable.

Track Listing:

Adept Chamber of the Magian Tavern
Inn Of Three Doors
Theme from 23d Nade
Inn of Three Doors
1Ú4 1Ú4 1Ú4 1Ú4 1Ú4
Combat for the Angel
Theory of the Supreme Ones
Mary of Magdalen
Renunciation
Jabalqa/Jabarsa
Rose Garden of the Mystery
Assassin's Blade
Zulfikar
Ciocarlia

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Released the week of May 8th, 2000

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Found Star Sound is the annual dispatch for 2000 from Matthew Bower and friends, continuing their long legacy of outward-bound audio veritŽ. Recorded mostly at Bower's Cumbrian home in the rainy and windy UK "Lake" district, the group's droning guitars, organs, voices, and violins blend with twinkling percussion to evoke an atmosphere perfectly suited to such an environment. Following a brief living-room organ-with-built-in rhythm-section-gone-haywire introduction on "Pink Stream 1," the CD builds a vibe around Bower's thickly buzzing - but mellow 'n' casual - guitar. Steadily picking up momentum, the record peaks with the chugging sound-of-trains epic "Pink Stream 2," calms briefly, and then goes out strong with a rousing blast of guitar and violin scrape on "Silvera." Another scuff from the UK's biggest scuffmakers!

• The names Matthew Bower, Total, Sunroof and Skullflower all command awed hushes of acquisitive anticipation from completist fans of droning noise-blur
  
• Its predecessor, the Delicate Autobahn opus, continues to sell well
  
• Expect the usual flurry of internet / 'zine attention

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Pink Stream 1
  Bright Pacific Streams
  Pink Werewolf
  Radioactivity
  Glycerine
  Sweet Pacification
  Long Hair Glisten
  Milky Rockets
  Thin Radiance
  Pink Stream 2
  Betsy Braves the Billows
  Silvera
  track 17

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