Always nice to see a new outing from the Jewelled Antler mother ship Thuja. And of course it’s really nice that this one is on wax. Blue wax even. Culled from live recordings around California, this LP finds the usual suspects of Loren Chasse, Rob Reger, Steven R. Smith and Glenn Donaldson joined by a rotating cast of part time members Greg Bianchini, Keith Evans, Bryan DeRoo and Christine Boepple. Everything I love about Thuja is here. Earthy stretches of organic play, underwater sound waves and dreamy passages of acoustic strum. No one really does it like this.  Limited edition of 500 copies available over at Important Records

Thuja – Hemlock

Kazue Sawai is arguably the greatest living koto player. Her late husband, Tadao Sawai, was responsible for the modern day, though starting to age now, koto canon (and respective Western tunings). Here Sawai-san plays a “koten” (old song) called Midare.

The latest outing from Charalambides is a really peaceful side of bliss radiating from a new split 7″ with Pocahunted (via Not Not Fun’s still available Bored Fortress series, now in year 3!!). With a discography stretching back 15 years, Tom & Christina Carter seem able to effortlessly mainline each others intentions into otherworldly tone poems that often fall into black hole damage and delicate tone float in equal measure. ‘Memory’ is completely the latter, a shivering haze of colliding vocal & guitar sustain that sorta floats in, hovers around then quietly disappears. So Lovely. If only everything from Texas was this sweet.

Charalambides – Memory

The title of the latest Starving Weirdos disc kinda says it all. Electronic, as in these dudes plug a lot of shit in to jam. And sorcery, as in this stuff is magic. Like most of the Weirdos work to date, this set cuts a nice path between the absurd/sacred, minimal/maximal, acoustic/electric & solo/group play. The whole run maintains a scary sorta seance feel, with the weirdos channeling gaping holes of feedback into massive earth toned fog banks with zero visibility. Maybe my favorite discs by the bros yet. Released late last year on the stylish Dutch/German imprint Bottrop-Boy.

Pretty sure this is a limited run..so…yeah… pick it up.

Orchestra At Twilight

Stream both sides of the LP via UBUWEB

Yoshi Wada-bagpipes
Wayne Hankin-bagpipes
Marilyn Bogerd-adapted organ
Andreas Schmidt-Neri-perc
recorded May 1984, Berlin

Sweet set of new electroacoustic pieces from California resident Preston Swirnoff. You may recall his name from the massive Monosov/Swirnoff four LP set Eclipse dropped a while back. Or from his out rock duo (also w/ Ilya Monosov) The Shining Path. Or form that crazy Habitat Sound System dub record he made. Jeez. Busy much?

Anyway, I walked into AQ last weekend and picked this up because the first track was playing and I was instantly like “What the fuck is this?” & “Can I please buy it?”The mix of rolling piano thunder and electronic fog had me drooling on my shirt. Dreamy dreamy stuff. The other three tracks hit the whole Mills Collage / SF Tape Music Center vibe but in a much darker inner space kinda way, and with out any academic pretension.  Track 3 is another highlight, Swirnoff using tape speed to turn guitar harmonics into shimmering bell tones that bounce around like little stars. Perfect music for night. Out now on CD via Last Visible Dog.

MAARIV 1 For Piano And Electronics (edit)

So I think this was the last post that was up before the Blog went to hell. Not exactly sure what I said about this CD other than I really dig it and it kinda reminds me of Terry Riley playing a gamelan orchestra from hell. Or at least the second track does. All made with drums & gongs, etc. Basically you need this. Be sure to check Jon Mueller’s site here. Nice batch of live clips & video in there..poke around.
And check the super sweet label that he runs, Crouton Music

Homeostatic (edit)