magic castles

magic castles ~ songs of the forest (moon glyph 2009)

"Songs of the Forest", the Magic Castles' first release on the Moon Glyph imprint, is a study in delicate psychedelia. Throughout the album, the group harnesses sounds that harken to the mid-Sixties experimentalism. From beginning to end, it is a collection that houses surprises, such as the killer organ riff buried deep in "The Mole People" and the unexpected trombone in "Songs of the Forest" to name only a few. Recorded between the witching hour and three a.m. over the course of several months, this autumnal record is a revivalist showcase that straddles audacity and restraint with aplomb. Play it and float along." moon glyph

foto: youretheocean

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hunter gracchus

hunter gracchus ~ companions of the porch (golden lab 2009)

"Hunter Gracchus are a free improvisation group based around the core of Syed Kamran Ali, Fiona Marshall and Jon Marshall (who runs Singing Knives). Percussion, wind instruments, melodica and bowed / plucked strings create a restrained and strange magic within acres of space." boa melody bar

foto: marie ek

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book of shadows

book of shadows ~ the secret garden (folkwaste 2009)

"Medicinal plants, strange berries, thick pollen, and brown dirt. Hailing from Texas, the Book of Shadows live in the soil trodden on by Jandek and Charalambides, sprouting from those voices, those guitar sounds. This secretgarden will grow on you, it's roots will envelope you, it's beauty overwelm you. Alternating between composition and improvisation the guitars echo down like the rain, drones warm the ground, thorny notes scrape up against the fragile skin of Sharon Crutcher's voice. Water your minds, shine from behind your eyes." folkwaste

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gnod

gnod ~ wuste zeremonie (reverb worship 2009)

"This is the latest limited edition release by uk based Gnod and what a trip this is. The Thunderbolt Loop starts things off and is very hypnotic. Bass, different percussion, slowly overtakes your attention for the starting dominant loop. Roofless (edit) is 24 minutes and starts with some chimes and disturbances. Nice chime playing but be patient. At around 8 minutes the chimes go wild and the aliens make the cd player spit the cd out and it is over. Damn… ok... well, could not hear the last 16 minutes of that track but Off Somewhere in a Dingy is like a strange native American Indian chant freakout. Be careful with the peyote." aural innovations

silvester anfang meets second family band & no-neck blues band

foto: jon edwards

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partli cloudi

partli cloudi - rotten wood (folkwaste 2009)

"Immigration problems plague these bedroom psych four trackers from leaving the house making spirit tape the medium for their blissful astral communication. Partli cloudi channel lustful demons and inner gods, focussing lower chakras to attract worshippers. Strange strings, odd percussion, smoky chanting, weird vibes. Looping delay pedals prove past, present and future no longer have meaning. No leaves were left unburned. Favorite things left unheard. 14 tracks. Limited edition of 25, with burnt wooden cloud sleeves." folkwaste

foto: catfat

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gnod

gnod ~ s/t (pariah child lp 2009)

"...a melting pot of free tribal drumming, Hawkwind swirl, Krautrock pulse and Sun Ra scrunge, Gnod are less of a band and more of a cosmic collective.. heavily percussive and bass led, covered in reverb and delayed guitars.. everything working in unison towards a climactic explosion, or shimmering off into the distance.." badacid

foto: oliver bryce yates

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glenn gould

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true love will find you in the end

01. wave crashed on rocks ~ meg baird
02. i wanted everything ~ kurt vile
03. free galaxy ~ angels in america
04. night swimmer ~ beth jeans houghton
05. bizarre moonlight ~ high wolf
06. stark wood #2 ~ the end springs & lex panayi
07. the tree told me ~ beggin' your pardon miss joan & siddhi
08. we always change ~ castlemusic
09. blackberry song ~ kurt vile
10. open melody ~ lucky dragons
11. nagg clef seatpoint ~ richard youngs & tirath singh nirmala
12. fall aside ~ hope sandoval
13. bowling green ~ alela diane & alina hardin
14. dog song ~ mountain man
15. my hopes and dreams ~ jj
16. fiest ~ beggin' your pardon miss joan
17. eleven days ~ pajaro sunrise
18. rain on ~ acoustic family creeps
19. new wife new life ~ truman peyote
20. memory ~ caboladies
21. rancher ~ julian lynch
22. forever ~ peter drake
23. all i do is dream of you ~ patience & prudence
24. in tall grass ~ tara jane o'neil
25. true love will find you in the end ~ daniel jonhnston

para renco y la abuelita pere

foto: árbore

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siren

siren ~ living light (buried valley 2007)

"...Under the Siren pseudonym, Bethany of Pocahaunted takes a step back from the duo spirit jams to ride upon a beam of melancholy that is spiraling slowly into silence. “Living Light” relies on a simple palette consisting of Bethany’s lovely voice, a guitar, and plenty of reverb for twenty glorious minutes. Both tracks are like a looped descent into the spirit world tapped by Pocahaunted but approached with much more trepidation and a lot less volume..." foxy digitalis

foto: aaron macdonald

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sun araw

sun araw ~ in orbit (stunned 2009)

"Sun Araw’s Cameron Stallones & filmmaker Matthew Lessner are longtime Stunned brothers that go back with us before the music, the tours, the films, the label, you name it. As tireless globetrotters, both have spent the last year beaming their respective good messages far and wide to the delight of audio aficionados & visual art subversives alike. Marking a Second phase in all our geosynchronous friendships, ‘In Orbit’ finds these dudes collaborating on ascendant planes of high mind where outer Los Angeles and Inner Space bisect. Deep dubby howlin, Farfisa organ hang-gliding, gooey tempos, and trademark shimmering ‘Sun Araw-guitar licks are the hybridized fruits harvested here. Along with your candy, flip this tape as needed. Happy to say, there’s no limit to the number of orbits it can (and will) make through your stereo and ours. Special edition of 222 pro-dubbed & imprinted c30s with jcard design by Cameron." stunned

foto: mariel britez

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bob theil

lady

no sé muy bien porqué, pero hoy cuando ya estaba anocheciendo en casa renosaba bob theil y sentí una necesidad incontenible de dejarle pasear por el bosque.

el favorito sello catalán, guerssen, reeditó en un ya lejano 2006 500 copias que volaron de su maravilloso "so far" en una preciosa edición que incluía el ep "another flight" con temas inéditos . todo un rare earth de los que cada vez me cuesta más escribir y que aunque editado en 1982, en realidad todo el álbum lo compuso en los setenta, es fácil sentir ese looser pyschedelic-folk . sin palabras para lady.

beggin' your pardon miss joan

beggin' your pardon miss joan ~ aloop (self-released 2009)

"...In the time after I first picked up the guitar but before I decided to ’share’ what evolved I committed these tracks to tape, as sketches and left them behind. I returned to these sketches over the weekend and have added, fiddled and tidied, amongst bloodied dawn’s, crisp riverside walks and intense paranoia…They are more than sketches now, methinks, so I am letting them leave the nest. I hope you dig them. If the songs stir you enough to want them on disc let me know I will see if I can pull something together. All of the songs were recorded in early 2008 so are an early representation of Beggin' Your pardon Miss Joan in it’s infancy (except for Black & White which is a demo I recorded earlier this year)

On another note we have also started putting ideas down for a full length Beggin' Your Pardon Miss Joan record. It feels like the right time!

Keep well,

Lex ±"

foto: smarsham

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black eagle child

black eagle child ~ two days (self~released 2009)

"I had just purchased a new pickup for my acoustic guitar and had played through several enjoyable sessions in which some music was recorded, and some was lost. The playing of these songs helped to dial down the eustress levels in our apartment a bit, since our daughter Mary had just been born a few rapid days earlier. Two songs were salvaged for this cassette, each recorded on a different day. The tracks are single take~acoustic guitar plugged into digital delay and amplified with a solid-state Kenwood amplifier." black eagle child

foto: skullkid

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campfire

campfire - beach at the top of the mountain (ace of tapes 2009)

"campfire is a band from berkeley made up of three boys named mose, sean, and sebastian. it was really exciting when they started playing their weird improvised music together because they seemed to immediately exhibit weird telephathic understanding of each others' noise moves and the ability to really swim around each other in song like the best of the new improvised weirdo music groups out there now. this tape is a collection of states, drones, jammz and zones from the past year or so. they really covered all the bases. no joke, there is everything from super-fucked metal to tribal thunder to harsh noise to perfect bliss music on here. housed in a beautiful paper sleeve." ace of tapezzz

foto: mose w. / campfire

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do make say think

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folle eglise

folle eglise - anna's present (kaugummi books 2009)

"Sometimes, you don't have to travel across the world to find an amazing new band. Anna's Present is the first effort from this two young french mermaids called Folle Eglise. This debut release have been recorded in august 2009 during some typical north-of-france misty summer days. Seven tracks for a long journey in the muzzy heads of Alice Dourlen and Sophie Bernadou, full of strange child pictures, gregorian recollections and wired worldmusic covers. If you hear the song of sirens, you'll never go back on board. Kaugummi is really proud to be the first label which turn out a record of this amazing new band. Handmade packaging made of caramel paper, thin cord and feather, plus a strange found photograph. Handnumbered edition of 100 copies." kaugummi books

thanks bartolomé, alice & sophie for this beautiful present!

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we're flying

1. mark mcguire • blue basktet
2. tara jane o'neil • dig in
3. equinox, the peacekeeper • cardiac pounds
4. castanets • worn from the fight (with fireworks)
5. s.e.rogers • toomus meremereh nor good
6. troll • mexicana
7. paul parrish • dialogue of wind and lover
8. the biesentales • 2nd biesentale
9. alasdair roberts • unyoked oxen turn
10. keijo • no more nowx
11. uesa guilbe • passer
12. julian lynch • garden 2
13. green pajamas • we're flying
14. beggin' your pardon miss joan • timber falls
15. equinox, the peacekeeper • au fond de l'impasse
16. the sing songs • first you put on your mask
17. niagara falls • illuminated atlas
18. azul • mamo
19. julian lynch • mercury

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un compi muy sencillo pero con corazón... dedicado a la ponita de los cuatro vientos*

inca ore

inca ore - silver sea surfer school (acuarela/not not fun 2009)

"Nine new narco-beatific tone-poems cut straight from the dreamer’s cloth. Eva Saelens’ deepest inquest into the Inca realm to date. Beautiful and bizarre." animal psi

"...2009 finds her offering up another psychic harvest unto the world, Silver Sea Surfer School, a new nine-song pipeline ride that floats through a whole new web of voice orbs and tape hiss and keyboard balladry. If anything, Silver Sea is Eva Saelens’ weirdest hour, layered in abstract environments, whispers, distant poetry, free percussion loops, with sudden passages of heart-dissolving ghost-piano beauty (“Shine On From The Heaven Above,” “Adventure In Light”). Heavily impressive, and a brave pearl-dive into even more personal waters for the Inca Ore lifeforce. LPs come in jackets with art by Saelens, plus a full-color insert. Edition of 500 (40 on clear ocean-water vinyl, 180 on marbled blue/white, 280 on black). cd edition available on Acuarela." not not fun

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kutomo

kutomo ~ lauluja surun kaaresta (dala horse 2008)

"Kutomo is probably the Finnish project that,in the last years, has best embodied the feeling of his mother land. In his music lives all the poetry about the cold, the lakes and the immense Finnish forests. Melancholy and intimate as a day passed looking at the snow falling outside a window but also, in a certan way, "ephic" as the natural landscapes of his land." dala horse

photo: jon edwards

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*the second release of the label is available here. Lidia has done an awesome job.

mountain man

mountain man ~ s/t (self~released~2009)

"Just in case you’ve resigned yourself to the onset of autumn, this is the perfect pick-me-up: ushering in the charms of crinkling leaves, thick jumpers and foggy breath. Mountain Man is a trio of women from Bennington, Vermont who write songs about the sound of redwood pines in the night and who are willing to play at your house. Their physical ‘tour’ album is sold out but you can listen to songs that are set to be released next year here. Thanks to Chocolate Bobka for this one." see what you hear

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aritomo

arimoto ::: e no naka no sora ukabu niwa - el jardín volador en la pintura (the flying garden in the painting)

[bracken records 2009]

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fotola: //n.polek

muffin

muffin • folklore [reverb worship 2009]

"A lovely collection of bedroom-recorded folk-pop from Japan's Muffin. Gossamer fragile and tinged with melancholy, this is just gorgeous - gentle harmonies, acoustic guitar, melodica and keyboard". boa melody bar

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still available here or here

fotola: golondriname