For those of you keeping score at home:

Ota Keiti
Prominent Japanese illustrator. Interview and lots of samples of his mind-blowing work.

NT Fan
Electronic sideproject of Trey Spruance (Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3). Reprints of several of his over-the-top cultural paranoia tracts.

Jazzfinger
English low-decibel-noise duo with a strong cinematic sensibility. Interview by The Neil Campbell.

Octavian Nemescu
Romanian "new complexity" composer, contemporary of Dumitrescu and Anatol Vieru, known for heavily layered, polystructural works for various instrumental combinations and tape. An essay originally published in a European journal calling for a return to conceiving of music as an initiative, participatory event made of "energy ladders," translated and published in English for the first time.

Surrealestate
Los Angeles-based new music ensemble. Their improvisational reaction to Nemescu's essay appears on the CD.

Polar Goldie Cats
Los Angeles-based instrumental quartet with releases on Ecstatic Peace!, W.I.N., and Detector. Interview by Carla Bozulich and Nels Cline of Smells Like recording artists Scarnella

John Wiese
Interview with this type designer, member of Bastard Noise, solo noise artist, and curator of Helicopter's MoonLanding seven-inch series.

James Goode
Interview with this San Francisco-based Mills College postgrad; a short essay on "phylogenetic music," excerpted from his Mills thesis; program notes from Foment in the Brailles of Zoopsia, an excerpt from the premier of which appears on the CD.

Panicsville
Hostile interview by Tina Gladden with this Midwest noise artist, raconteur, sculptor whose chosen medium is roadkill sealed in clear plastic, cartoonist with a unique quasi-kaleidoscopic style, and designer of handmade CD jackets for the Nihilist label.

Mandate
A track on the CD by Bananafish autophysiopsychic music editor Stanley Zappa's improv quartet, describe by The Rocket as "a bunch of monkeys let loose in a trombone factory."

Reynols
Photo-autobiography. Celebrated oddballs at home in Argentina, they've collaborated with Pauline Oliveros on the internet, released recordings of blank tapes and 10,000 chickens, and splashed around the limited edition noise CDR cesspool in the States.

Vote Robot
Canadian duo with hotwired reel-to-reel decks and an uncanny knack for creating erotic electro-lullabyes. Interview by our own Earl Kuck.

Cooks 'n' Chefs 'n' Their Assistants
Meta-comix by the Duchess of Landers, Peg Murray (ex-U.S. Saucer).

30-second RealAudio excerpts:

Vote Robot - Nope
Margaret Murray - Cooks 'n' Chefs 'n' Their Assistants
Reynols - Bolomo Mogal Saludo Almerica
Mandate - Promise Keepers
NT Fan - The Secret Mausoleum of Mankind
Jazzfinger - Riverbank
James Goode - Foment in the Brailles of Zoopsia excerpt
Panicsville - The Simplistic Sadistic Statistic
Panicsville / John Wiese
John Wiese - Arcade and Panorama
Arrmy of Robots - Live Friday the 13th, Valentine's Day, 1998
Arthur Crawshay and Margaret Murray - Chicken Curry
Surrealestate - In Reaction to Octavian Nemescu
Polar Goldie Cats - Frankenstein

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BECK Stereopathetic Soulmanure
(FLIPSIDE FLIP660) CD/2xLP

Released the week of September 25th, 2000

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Stereopathetic Soulmanure is Beck's very first recording. Spin hailed it immediately: "His folk music sounds most sincere when he piles on the Star Wars and other galactic funk . . . a far richer album, fitting folk, new wave, and punk together."

Culled from recording sessions between '88 and '94 on live two-track, demo four-track, and 16-track, ending months before the Mellow Gold sessions (which launched him into instant fame with the single "Loser"), this album documents Beck's first connections with greatness, and it hasn't eroded one grain in the interim. Stereopathetic is filled with slide guitars, banjo damage, wacked-out country, folk, blues, and endless references to alcohol, broken hearts, and tacos. It captures the spirit of the West in a way that no one had ever done before, wrestled far away from traditional musical convention.

Beck's status as a cultural icon has offically reached "Voice of a Generation." The awards keep on coming. The albums keep on selling at incredible rates. He was named "Artist of the Year" by Spin in 1996; for three years in a row ('98 through '00) he's won "Best International Male Performer" at the UK Brit Awards; and more recently he snagged "Best Alternative Performance" in the Grammys 2000.

• Unavailable for all of 2000 thus far and a good portion of 1999
  
• First time on vinyl, ever!
  
• First recordings of the Voice of a Generation

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Pink Noise (Rock Me Amadeus)
  Rowboat
  Thunder Peel
  Waitin' for a Train
  The Spirit Moves Me
  Crystal Clear (Beer)
  No Money No Honey
  8 . 6 . 82
  Total Soul Future (Eat It)
  One Foot in the Grave
  Aphid Manure Heist 1
  Aphid Manure Heist 2
  Aphid Manure Heist 3
  Today Has Been a Fucked Up Day
  "Rollins Power Sauce"
  Puttin It Down
  11 . 6 . 45
  Cut 1/2 Blues
  Jagermeister Pie
  Ozzy
  Dead Wild Cat
  Satan Gave Me a Taco
  8 . 4 . 82
  Tasergun
  Modesto

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HALL OF FAME (s/t)
(SILTBREEZE SB80) CD/2xLP

Released the week of September 18th, 2000

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Hall of Fame's third full-length album finds these NYC indoor miners forging even deeper into their secret cave of gems (financed with new picks'n'shovels on the Siltbreeze tab). Like their previous output on the Amish label, this one's a melange of tribal thump, eastern drone, raga concrete and melodious melancholia. Hall of Fame's unique, not easily identifiable sound has been compared to revered oufits such as Flies Inside the Sun and The Shadow Ring, sometimes even in English. If, like the young scribes from Hayfever magazine, your recollection and your record collection go back further than a time we like to call "the early '90s," it's okay to shout "king me!" and move on. But if you really wanna sit around the ol' checkerboard discussing strategy, then your next stop is a Lower East Side of the late '60s; Hall of Fame's healthy smattering of influences stretches back to Ludlow Street-era Velvet Underground, Prestige-era Moondog, The Godz and Angus MacLise.

Recently the band played a series of shows with The Red Krayola, impressing the hell out of that old Quixotic Dadaist Mayo Thompson and his erstwhile Sancho Panza, David Grubbs. Senor Grubbs was so impressed that he enlisted HoF's Dan Brown to do some drumming for his forthcoming release of covers from various performances from the King Biscuit Flower Hour. Only in New York!

• Available on both CD and the rarely discussed limited edition LP format.
  
• Samara is also a member of Tower Recordings, Metabolismus and Sonora Pine. Dan Brown has done time in Stratotanker and God Is My Co-Pilot. Theo Angel wears a long, full beard that he fills with birds and diamonds.
  
• The band has played with such luminaries as Cat Power, Arab Strap, Ghost, Red Krayola & Azusa Plane, sometimes in small, European countries such as Philadelphia.

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Vistas of Pasadena
  Waves of Stations
  Whirly Bird
  Feedback Rising
  Fruits of the Earth
  Energy Plan for the Western Man
  Cuneiform Calling
  Motion Passings
  FM Relic
  Sooner Seeing Eyes
  Space Disposed into Silence

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LOWRIDER Ode To Io
(METEORCITY MCY012) CD

Released the week of September 18th, 2000

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As any bad-ass worth his red wings knows, all heavy groove and stoner rock is based on the music of Kyuss, but while many bands have duplicated and even exceeded the volume and heaviness of the Palm Desert legends, none until Lowrider have captured their understated softness. They wear their influences proudly, from Kyuss to November, to Fu Manchu to Deep Purple.

Ode to Io is a fluid trek into the heart of a desert storm. Lowrider has composed an epic laden with thunderous blasts of raging power, but are careful not to pound the listener numb; amid the crashing cymbals and wailing vocals are moments of sudden calm that provoke the senses and demand new focus. Among all the clones and pretenders to the throne, Lowrider is here to assume their mantle and put down the revolution.

When Lowrider released their first song, "Texas Pt. I & II," on MeteorCity's 1998 Welcome to MeteorCity compilation, fans of Kyuss recognized what they'd been missing since the disbanding of their lords and masters in 1995: Lowrider have the sound. Their 1999 double-EP released with Nebula only increased the ecstatic response among the Kyuss-starved unwashed. "If dinosaurs ever came back to Earth and stomped our worthless asses into the mud," wailed the humbled flock, "they would do it to a Lowrider soundtrack." Finally, a doomsday cult that knows how to rock!

Lowrider bounce over-amped '60s psychedelic rock off the reverberating walls of the Grand Canyon . . . swingingly Sabbath fried, coasting on chunky riffs that hearken back to the sound of those masters of reality. 4 out of 5 Ks.

-Kerrang

• Kyuss is dead, long live Lowrider!
  
• Lowrider's dynamic stamina among the enduring stoner rock subculture is becoming legendary
  
• Heavy internet presence via DownloadsDirect.com and ArtistDirect.com
  
• Cover printed with silver ink on special paper!

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Caravan
  Flat Earth
  Convoy V
  Dust Settlin'
  Sun Devil
  Anchor
  Texas pt I & II
  Riding Shotgun
  Saguaro
  Ode to Io

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SPEEDBALL BABY Uptight
(IN THE RED ITR72) CD/LP

Released the week of September 18th, 2000

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New York's Speedball Baby combine the twang of rockabilly and the shout of gospel with a healthy injection of Lower East Side no wave dissonance. Talk about a touch o' class! There's more hysterical, horn-driven mayhem and psycho stream-of-consciousness on Uptight than a Las Vegas wedding reception. The only thing missing is an erotic ice sculpture.

It wouldn't be an In The Red record without a guest appearance from either Mick Collins or the Blues Explosion's Judah Bauer; this one has both! What's more, the best-album-yet by Speedball Baby Ñ bearers of a torch fondled and molested by The Cramps, Pere Ubu and Tom Waits and numerous other upscale raunchophiles Ñ is a joyous celebration of dark, sleazy, disjointed rock'n'roll.

"Like the soundtrack to A Streetcar Named Desire as directed by Richard Kern ... Singer Ron Ward's caustic voice dazzles with the special effects of a Bible Belt theologian." --Spin

"Speedball Baby are a weird hybrid of noise and silence, light and shade, and half the records gathering dust in the back of your collection. Though they try hard to give the impression that they only picked up their instruments the day before yesterday, amid all the chaos and confusion lies a heart beating out its love and loathing in acutely accurate time." --Melody Maker

• Guest appearances by Mick Collins and the Blues Explosion's Judah Bauer
  
• Previous releases on PCP Entertainment and Fort Apache/MCA scorched; all the right pumps are primed, baby, priiiiiiiiimed
  
• Increased cultural presence via In The Red's growing media stature
  
• HORNS!

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  I'm Addictive
  Dangerous Top
  The Al Green Shuffle
  December?
  Mekong Sue
  Hot Boxin' Baby
  Tappin' My Neighbah!
  Numb
  Pocket Fulla Fish
  The Crybabies (Otis)
  8 Ft. Cigaret
  Wobbly Organ

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