- Ganglians Monster Head Room LP+7"
- Listen to Ganglians-CandyGirl.mp3.
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Glee. See that’s a word I rarely party with in my codex but it’s just the one that I would ascribe to Ganglians. Everytime I see these chaps play I come away with a big old grin on my world-weary face. How do they do it? Well it’s the lightheartedness in their playing ... the angelic Wilson-esque vocal harmonies ... then from out of nowhere come those West African guitar stylings! And yet I can never pin down this band’s sound ... not that that’s a bad thing. In fact it’s always been a sure sign for me that the music’s doing something right. From the lazy day musings of To June to the monumental yarn Valient Brave. Jam this on your next road trip or on your back porch drinking an Arnold Palmer. This is a record for summertime if ever there was one. It’s pop music in the best sense of the word ... paramount and perennial. Hot on the heels of the recently released self titled Woodsist 12" and the split 7" with their buds Eat Skull.
- This is an LP + 7" package. The CD version of this album is available from Woodsist.
- Brand new copies missing lyrics insert & specially-priced accordingly.
- $10
- Mark McGuire Tidings / Amesthyst Waves 2xLP
- Listen to
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Trying to put the last 15 years of music into context, you’d be hard pressed to get anyone to agree on a single thing. If anything, this period has been a collective convergence of all things cool-sounding: naïve experimentalism, academic composition, art-rock synthesis, electronic nihilism/flagellation, and, well, everything else. Mark McGuire could muddy anyones interpretation of the contemporary canon with his buddies in the triadic mega-unit, Emeralds, his collaborative outings in Sun Watcher and Skyramps (with Daniel “Oneohtrix Point Never” Lopatin), and his prolific, yet well-executed, solo work. ”Have you heard his shredability, incomprehensible astral traveling and meditative neutron stasis on any of those solo jams, the dude must be ancient!?” Truth is, Mark Mcguire is a youngin’, not a refugee of the ’70s. Nor is he mining unfamiliar territory; he produces something old and familiar, yet it sounds so fresh and necessary for today.
Originally released as limited edition cassettes and masterfully cleaned up for this definitive release by James Plotkin, Tidings/Amethyst Wavesfinds McGuire packing 60+ minutes with trance-inducing, melodic guitar intricacies, an occasional wall-of-squall reminiscent of Mizutani riding a thunder horse, and filaments of a drifting stratosphere where organic synthed-out solos are nestled in tight. With this release, Mark McGuire has hatched a true American Euro-vision utilizing major shifts in the ‘music as language’ paradigm. No joke, this is where Wyld Stallyns is heading in the year 2398 A.G. and Tidings/Amethyst Waves is as essential as anything in the Emeralds catalog.
Colored-vinyl version now sold out, only black vinyl version available.
- Package boasts photography by Mark McGuire, with design by Aaron Winters.
- Edition of 1000 in Stoughton, tip-on gatefolds and printed inner sleeves. 800 black vinyl, 200 colored purple/turqoise colored vinyl.
- $20
- Love Cry Want Self-Titled 2xLP
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Nearly 40 years after its creation, Weird Forest is proud to release this seminal jazz album for the first time ever on vinyl. The incendiary grooves captured in this wax defy description. It is not free, funk, fusion or fire music — it encompasses all of these sounds and then blasts far beyond them. Featuring the late great organist, Larry Young (Miles Davis circa Bitches Brew, Tony Williams’ Lifetime, etc), this album is mandatory listening for fans of Miles Davis' “Live Evil” fusion era, Young’s own “Lawrence Of Newark”, Sun Ra’s cosmic explorations and even Japanese guitar terrorists like Keiji Haino and Masayuki Takayanagi. Beautifully packaged, Weird Forest-style, in a deluxe double-gatefold cover and remastered for vinyl by Weasel Walter, the Love Cry Want 2xLP is an essential document of a criminally unheralded group. Here’s the scoop:
“June 1972.
“The times were filled with darkness and turmoil. This music, of loving, of crying, of wanting, makes a powerful statement. It is awash with the anguish of the times, yet it heralds the promise of better days to come.
“Love Cry Want was a legendary jazz fusion group based in Washington D.C., and led by guitarist, Nicholas. This recording took place during a series of concerts in Washington, held across from the White House in Lafayette Park, and featured the late, great jazz organist Larry Young, who had just recorded the historic “Bitches Brew” LP with Miles Davis and had left the Tony Williams Lifetime and guitarist John McLaughlin to combine forces with Nicholas and drummer, Joe Gallivan.
“This second incarnation of Love Cry Want featured the triumvirate of Nicholas, Gallivan, and Young performing some of the most important music in the history of jazz. No record company would release this music, which was ahead of it's time.
“Nicholas, who pioneered the development of the first guitar synthesizer (in association with Electronic Music Laboratories) performs on the first prototype guitar 'synth' along with fellow musician, Joe Gallivan, who pioneered the development of the drum synthesizer with inventor, Robert Moog.
“June 1972, Lafayette Park.
“Richard Nixon was President. There was a nasty war going on in Vietnam, good people were rioting in the streets and cities were aflame. During this series of concerts outside the White House, President Nixon ordered aide, J.R. Haldeman, to pull the plug on the concert fearing that this strange music would “levitate the White House.” This is that music, remastered for this first time-vinyl release by Weasel Walter.”
Personnel:
- Nicholas: prototype guitar synthesizer, ring modulator, wind, rain, thunder, lightning, water, hi-tension wires and wailing dervish
- Joe Gallivan: drums, steel guitar, moog synthesizer, and percussion
- Jimmy Molneiri: drums and percussion
- Larry Young: Hammond organ.
- Package design by Aaron Winters. Mastered for vinyl release by Weasel Walter.
- First edition of 500 copies with deluxe Stoughton tip-on style gatefold jacktets . Second pressing available now.
- $22
- Buk Buk Bigups S/T 12"
- Listen to BukBukBigups-HotterMessDrumEdit.mp3.
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Weird Forest drops the debut 12" from Sacramento’s newest, best-kept, filthy secret. Buk Buk Bigups was created as an avenue for Sacramento-BASED musician Aaron Zeff to explore the outer parameters of popular and experimental music. Influenced by industrial tones, kraut rock rhythms and disco humor, Zeff takes the forgotten sounds of 1999 pre-Brooklyn Sacramento and reinvigorates the disco-not-disco formula with some guitar freakazoid dead-pan party anthems and fried mutant bedroom funk. The A-side, “Hot Mess”, gives a nod to DFA-style production through chopped high-end riddim, but with a classic vibe: Manzanera’s “Primitive Guitar”-era axe soaring solos, Roger Troutman’s blunted affected vocals, and unconscious “Dirty Mind” cat-calls. “Endless Itch”, the B-side, is a lurching oxycotin-laced slow burner not straying too far from a funkier version of Factums or a subdued Gary War, but channeling Bay Area legends Tuxedomoon. We’ve already coined the default genre descriptor for your blog: “plastic brown-eye soul” or, if you like, “valley downer funk.”
- Design by Aaron Zeff with custom typography by Aaron Winters.
- Limited to 500 copies on black vinyl.
- $9
