Allerseelen "Stirb und Werde" CD AORCD04
Songs and acoustic landscapes which span the years of 1989-1999. Pieces range from rhythmic industrial to dark haunted ritualistic soundscapes.
Aranis CD anticlock AC005
Aranis is a young Flemish septet with Joris Vanvinckenroye on double bass, Linde De Groof on violin and vocals, Liesbeth Lambrecht on violin, Marjolijn Cools on accordion, Axelle Kennes on piano, Stijn Denys on guitar, Jana Arns on flute and vocals, with guest Edwin Vanvinckenroye on violin, vocals, and Dick Van Der Harst on selmer guitar.
They alternate personal compositions with improvisation and intense solo performances. It's very hard to define the type of music Aranis brings. Acoustic/classic instruments are played in an unusual fashion. Aranis has taken the best parts of contemporary classical music, postrock and folk. Often compositions have a typical repetitive structure, which has a compelling and even flushing effect on the audience The cinematic nature and strange rhythms of this music create a lasting impression. The atmosphere during the concerts is inimitable: passion, expressiveness and variation always play a key role.
Barlow / Petersen / Wivinus "The Transparent World" CD Hand/Eye H/E011
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Hand/Eye is pleased to announce the release of "The Transparent World" by the Minneapolis-based instrumental improv trio Barlow/Petersen/Wivinus. "The Transparent World" is effectively the group's first proper release (aside from a live-to-cassette, self-titled CDR limited to 100 copies), and contains ten tracks encompassing a wide range of mood, texture and instrumentation. Whereas their earlier disc explored the ether via electric guitars, feedback and the multitude of sounds that can be derived from a variety of effects pedals, "The Transparent World" finds the group working exclusively with acoustic instrumentation to achieve a sonic landscape that is at turns lush and austere, meditative and menacing. All tracks on the disc are improvised at their core and utilize a wide variety of instruments and techniques, creating many sounds not normally associated with "acoustic" recordings. Of course there are guitars (both six- and twelve-string), but often unusually tuned and occasionally bowed. Piano, dulcimer, mandolin (occasionally augmented by e-bow and slide) bowed cymbals, the Freeman Monostring (played with a ballpeen hammer) the "rattletrap," bagpipe chanter and various other peripheral devices are all used to create a very singular and evocative whole.
Musically, the disc ranges across a wide variety of styles and influences, but still retains a unified vision and a cohesive sound. Any number of genres can be seen in fleeting glimpses throughout the recordings: menacing blues from the deepest edges of a swamp swimming with spirits and psychosis (as seen in the opening cut, "Buried Under Crows"), avant soundscapes conjuring images of a creaking old house with a will all its own and possible ill intent (the chillingly abrasive "That Night"), long and languid soundtracks toward the horizon at the end of a lengthy and perhaps lucid dream (as exemplified by the echoing piano-laden closing track, "Retribution"). This release rests somewhere between the experimental avant-garde, the darkest psychedelic folk music and the epic 360 degree horizons of pure drone/dream music. Fans of Third Ear Band, Makoto Kawabata's "Inui" project, Six Organs of Admittance and select movie soundtracks will surely find something to appreciate here.
track listing:
1. Buried Under Crows 2. Boatman 3. An Unmarked Trail 4. Husk 5. Death's Door 6. Flintlock Tincture 7. That Night 8. Creation Myth 9. Ray of Daylight 10. Retribution
Martyn Bates "Imagination Feels like Poison" CD Hand/Eye H/E018 (ASR022)
The first U.S issue of a full-length solo album by Martyn Bates, the stunning vocalist and founding member of Eyeless in Gaza - originally released mid 1997 to accompany the similarly titled book of lyrics – and has been unavailable commercially until this HAND / EYE release.Comprising new interpretations of songs extant 1982-1995 hitherto unheard, Imagination Feels Like Poison is primarily a collection of songs (occasionally threaded through with fleeting ”illustrative atmospheric” sketches); a music brightly bittersweet, conjuring up ghostly and vivid invocations of folk/psych. Voice and, perhaps surprisingly, Banjo (an unusual choice for Martyn Bates), are the principal instruments that carry this music, a skeletal, simplistic music, deftly coloured and fleshed out by inventive use of Autoharp, Percussion, Whistles and Pump Organ.
Constituting totally solo recordings (co-produced and engineered by Eyeless In Gaza’s Peter Becker), this collection bears the distinct air of the highly personal/autobiographical, with dedications and references to the authors family. Luxuriously melodic, easily side-stepping lazy characterisations of genre, the album extends and elaborates upon Martyn Bates’ previously explored musical endeavours … quiet fire; filigree and mercurial, silvery images.”
Track listing:
1• Mock Sun #1 2• I Can’t Look for You 3• Bones of Your Face 4• Years of Salt 5• I Forget You 6• The God on the Tree 7• Full Sail 8• Flanaghan 9• Fully Bright 10• Mystery Seas 11• This Wayward Love 12• Fantacinni Playground 13• Ellen Massey 14• Letters to a Scattered Family 15• Silvery Images 16• No-One Spoke
Martyn Bates "Imagination Feels like Poison" CD + Book
We have secured a handful of the original version of "Imagination Feels like Poison" which came with a book of the same title containing Martyn's selected solo lyrics 1982-1995. These are out of print and, to our knowledge, we have the remaining copies. Nicely printed, with many photographs, this compilation shows the haunting beauty of Martyn's words matches his voice. The CD with this edition comes in a cardstock slip-case with a different cover than the stand-alone CD edition, but otherwise the music/track listing is the same.
Martyn Bates "Mystery Seas (Letters Written #2)" CD Hand/Eye H/E019 (A-Scale018)
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Originally released in 1995, ‘Mystery Seas (Letters Written #2)’ sees MARTYN BATES exploring further the seeds of ideas contained within his first solo work of some thirteen years earlier, the legendary 'Letters Written' collection. Comprising songs composed during that period (circa 1982) together with brand new songs in the idiom, this collection of highly personal ‘letters’ -organ based songs and performances - is entitled 'MYSTERY SEAS (LETTERS WRITTEN #2)’. Haunted, richly melodic, and lyrical these new recordings are most emphatically SONGS, and as such they veer away from the more ‘experimenlal' areas in which Martyn has been known for working. Recorded at AMBIVALENT SCALE in 1995 (by EYELESS IN GAZA's PETER BECKER), this music is drenched in the myriad resonances of FOLK, whilst simultaneouslv circumnavigating any rigid and limiting definition (FOLK = the 'folk soul', the ‘collective unconscious’). With voice/ lyrics lo the fore, and with a (for the most part) skeletal, simplistic instrumentation, MYSTERY SEAS evokes a music of creaking ships, echoes, of distant sea-shanty, light thru' broken stained glass windows, blighted misfortune, morning light, searching glances, of each story running thru them, of salt water, clear rhyme and reason, of each mask, of a night sky - tall wall of no more, of floods of thought / unsettling fetters, of tears or words seeming to rip the surface alerting and dumbfounding at one and the same time, songs of a beautiful secret to own… MYSTERY SEAS (LETTERS WRITTEN #2) is released on Hand/Eye via A-Scale.
Track Listing:
1• You, Looking to Me for a Sign 2• Shorepoem 3• Calm of Dark 4• Imagination Feels like Poison 5• Trade Winds 6• Over the Waters 7• Everywhere there’s Rain 8• Empty Pages 9• Midday Coming Misty 10• On the Beach at Fontana 11• Sky after All 12• Fragment (Little Star #1) 13• If I Could See in Everyone 14• Of Night 15• Gift
Beneath the Lake "Inside Passage" CD Glass Throat 006
Soundscape/drone environmentalists Nicolas Lampert (NOISEGATE) and Dave Canterbury (WAGE CLASS SLAVE) draw inspiration through an epic beauty, of being on a vast, dark and cold body of water within Alaska's "Inside Passage"...BENEATH THE LAKE paint audible collages reflecting the splendor within the forces behind nature, which are grand, timeless and transcend human culture, logic and perception...From whales, to a wasp, to wind, environmental recordings are sampled and skillfully manipulated, then melded with melodic ambient guitar textures and dense synthesis to create an organic, warm and honest collection of movements...A spirited journey!!
Black Happy Day "In the Garden of Ghostflowers" CD silber053
Black Happy Day is Tara VanFlower and Timothy Renner aka tiMOTHy, Revelator. Tara VanFlower comes from Lycia, and of course, from her own wonderful solo albums. Timothy's history includes Stone Breath, Mourning Cloak, and The Spectral Light & Moonshine Firefly Snakeoil Jamboree, among other projects.
"In the Garden of Ghostflowers" finds them achieving a nearly equal combination of their styles with elements of ambient and experimental music, acoustic and electronic music, homemade instruments and digital recording techniques all combining to make something that some have called "ambient old-time music." That description may be as accurate or inaccurate as any - everyone who hears this album seems to hear something different.
Certainly, both Tara and Timothy have brought elements of their past to play here. Tara's soundscapes, loops, and beautiful vocals spin throughout Timothy's more acoustic settings; while their mutual love of drones finds them comfortably fitting the pieces together in this sonic puzzlebox.
track listing:
1• The Leaves of Life 2• In the Garden of Ghostflowers 3• Whore 4• Edward 5• Of the Wind and Loneliness 6• How They Weep and Moan! 7• A Lyke Wake Dirge 8• How Many Hours 'til the Spider's Work is Done? 9• Wolf & Hare 10• Hand in Hand 11• Be Thou My Vision
Chris Bozzone "Horizons of Death" CD Honeymoon Music
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Dark folk informed by 'apocalyptic' folk and the wyrdfolk that followed. Features vocals and cover art by Sarada of Stone Breath and vocals by Tara of Fursaxa. We'll turn it over to Mark Coyle for a description: "Chris could be considered part of the new generation of 'weird' folk artists, but his roots and intentions run deeper than prevailing fashion. There is a questioning, even macabre vision of morbid dread to Chris's music even when as on 'At The Ebb of the Time' it approaches the stark beauty of a traditional ballad. It doesn't feel compromised or tailored to sell, which is its strongest quality. For some this intensity and consistent Ambrose Bierce as folk-song approach will be too much. This is instead music for those who wonder what is released from cracks in a mirror, if your unsettled mind flickers with that which might exist just beyond our reach, here is the soundtrack to your disturbed dreams. You might though want to keep the lamp on while the fuzzed guitars of 'Tongues of Lizards' call you to endless sleep tonight..." (Mark Coyle in The Unbroken Circle)
Flake Brown "Help the Overdog" CD AFR001
‘Help The Overdog’ is the debut album from East Sussex based guitarist Tony Ramsay, performing under his pseudonym of Flake Brown. The album consists of fifteen tracks of stripped bare finger picked folk ramblings, with Flake’s signature voice present on all but the instrumental closing track.
Flake derives his music from many a musical genre and many influential names come to mind when describing his sound; the Gypsy Jazz of legend Django Reinhardt, the bohemian psych folk flare of The Incredible String Band’s Robin Williamson, the raw early recordings of 1920’s blues/ragtime guitarist Blind Blake and Traditional Celtic guitar style and Bardic story telling that has survived in Britain through out the centuries.
Bob Buckingham & Friends "My Friend is a Mule in the Mines" CD Dark holler hollr881
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"My Friend is a Mule in the Mines" was the second release from Dark Holler. Subtitled "Old-Time Excursions," this CD has been praised for it´s wonderfully original approach to old-time music. Fiddle tunes, old-time country, and blues are all handled with equal skill by Bob, a multi-instrumentalist from York County, Pennsylvania. The title cut is a song his Grandfather sang for the Bishop among others when he retired from the Methodist clergy. The CD also includes a nearly lost, traditional York County Fiddle tune, called "Unicorn".
Bob appeared regularly in the region with the Contra Rebels, the house band for the York Folk Dance Association. Fellow band members, Reed Martin and Todd Clewell join Bob on this project which includes four banjo duets with Reed. Other guests include Bob Hess and Timothy Renner.
track listing:
1. Old Molly Hare 2. Sandy River Belle 3. Going Down South 4. Ramblin Gambler 5. Forked Deer 6. My Friend is a Mule in the Mines 7. Long Steel Rail Blues 8. Unicorn 9. Ground Hog 10. Soldier's Joy 11. Lying Blues 12. Dark Holler Blues 13. Liberty 14. Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down 15. Mole in the Ground 16. The Yellow Rose of Texas 17. Sourwood Mountain 18. Sally Ann 19. Improv/Deal
note: depending on what we have in stock, we will send either the Dark Holler edition or the reissue.
Jessica Constable and Philippe Gelda "The Vine & Vein Collection" CD Hand/Eye h/e035
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Jessica Constable sings written texts or stream-of-consciousness lyrics that she uses to explore resonance and texture, sometimes using electronic filters, echoes and modulation to transform her voice. Jessica also plays as a duo with New York sound artist Andrea Parkins; tours regularly with Ellery Eskelin, Andrea Parkins and Jim Black (with whom she has also recorded two critically acclaimed cd’s: ten which also included guests Marc Ribot and Melvin Gibbs and Quiet Music). She has composed for dance and theatre and performed in recent years with French Jazz Patriarch Francois Jeanneau’s Pandemonium big band, has recorded albums and/or toured with amoungst others Jeff Sharel, Soulreactive, The Flow, Tellemake.
Philippe Gelda prepares upright piano using everyday objects like beer mats and clothes pegs or uses other keyboards such as organ, toy piano, or melodica to create percussive and harmonic soundcapes reminiscent of some contempory composers and sound artists, French popular song, and rock. He plays solo, in various bands and composes extensively for theatre and dance, especially with choreographer Patricia Ferrara. He also collaborates regularly with visual artist Benoit Bonnemaison-Fitte who did the artwork for this release.
Jessica Constable and Philippe Gelda have been composing, improvising and performing together since 1991. Their suites for voice and piano (or organ) have been performed in venues ranging from theatres to a shepherds cabin. Constable and Gelda consider The Vine and Vein Collection to be a turning point in the evolution of their duo, when years of striving relaxed and became instead gratefulness for their unique working relationship.
track listing:
1• Trembling Bass Introduction
2• Bitter
3• Caillou Tremblant
4• Fishes
5• Wonder
6• Box
7• Shawl
8• Cool Thing 3
9• Cool Things 1 & 2
10• Cool Thing 4
11• Minor Changes
12• Caristoi / Classical Bla Bla
13• Major Changes
14• Hymn
15• Overflow
16• Trembling Bass Conclusion
Crow Tongue "ditch mix" volume two 3" CDr Hand/Eye h/e027
Continuing the "Ditch Mix" series with a second volume of deep root experimentalism using a home-made tape delay system, home-made instruments, broken effects boxes, and more. For this volume, Shane Speal provides some drums and Sarada provides some vocals.
Crow Tongue is ditchdigger hymns and callous hand songs; neanderthal loops and cromagnon drones; home-made instruments and circuit-bent effects; broken machines and primitive electronics.
A limited edition 3" CDr, the second volume in a series by Crow Tongue.
track listing:
1• Wake Nicodemus
2• Prayers for the Dead
3• Chant Revolution
4• The Red Hand Mark
Crow Tongue "ghost eye seeker" CD Hand/Eye h/e034
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Crow Tongue’s first full length finds them summoning distant howls from the fog of night. Fingerpicked strings and Eastern instruments recall Crow Tongue’s musical heritage (the acid-folk of Stone Breath), but here they are layered with primitive homemade instruments, circuit-bent electronics, and mantric drones.
“Ghost Eye Gaze” opens the album. A 5-part drone-raga, improvised to back a shamanic chant, pushing from free-folk to free-noise and back again. “Seeker” follows in 2 parts with bass dulcimer and tablas leading into an electric swarmandal excursion. The album closes with “Candle, Corpse, and Bell” where Crow Tongue shows their dub influence with guimbri and tabla-machine slowly spinning through the echochamber.
track lsting:
1• Ghost Eye Gaze: Ghost Eye See
2• Ghost Eye Gaze: Brightless Gaze, the True Vision
3• Ghost Eye Gaze: The Silverspun Web
4• Ghost Eye Gaze: Cloud Eye Sight
5• Ghost Eye Gaze: Beneath Wings, Above Wind
6• Seeker: Seeker Chant
7• Seeker: Dream Asleep, Pray Awake
8• Candle, Corpse, and Bell
note: covers may vary in color from image shown above
Crow Tongue "Hoofbeat, Caw, and Thunder" CDr Hand/Eye h/e024
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On Old Christmas Eve and Old Christmas Day, January 2006, Timothy, Revelator, having had on his mind thoughts of the death of Time; and in his ears and eyes, great gatherings of crows wherever he went; and in his heart his twin children; sat down, put pen to paper, and wrote "Hoofbeat, Caw, & Thunder." In two days' and two nights' time, thoughts and hopes and fears began to spin together like a spider's web, and he produced what is perhaps his most personal work to date. Biblical and personal revelation blend as animist apocrypha is reconciled to Catholic Apocalypse, disappointment to hope, past to future. All these thoughts of ENDING blending with the demise of Stone Breath (Timothy's now defunct band), and the fact that he has not released an album in well over a eighteen months' time, lent this material a sense of urgency and he began to put it to music immediately (perhaps, in his mind, before The End).
With a host of instruments at hand (guitars, banjos, dulcimers, harmonium, lute, and something Timothy calls the motheart), he began to compose songs and drones to marry to his text. Besides bowed strings and blown harmonium reeds, Timothy created drones from field recordings he made of steam engines and whistles from various antique engine shows (another anachronistic interest of Timothy's); as well as recordings of the loudest instrument in the world, the factory steam whistle in York, PA, which is played every Christmas at midnight and heard for many miles around. He recruited friends Sarada, whose silvery vocals have graced many of Timothy's previous albums, and Shane Speal, the King of the Cigar Box Guitar, to help. Sarada sang with Timothy while Shane played a double-necked bass/guitar cigar box and a fretless electric bass.
"Hoofbeat, Caw, & Thunder" was meant to be taken as one piece (though divided into tracks for the convenience of the listener) and the sound weaves elements of Timothy's past with hints at his future musical direction. Not steampunk exactly, but steamdrone and folk (wyrd or otherwise), sometimes with distorted dissonance, and other times in quieter, acoustic lead settings. In this, Time has turned in on itself; where sounds of medieval lutes meet 1970's tube-driven recording equipment, and 1880's steam whistles are sampled, reconstructed, and looped by modern devices. "Hoofbeat, Caw, & Thunder," with sonic leaps back and forth through Time, becomes a meditation on the end of all things, or perhaps of just one man, and on love, and family, and what we leave behind.
9 tracks, 58 minutes.
note: this album was previously credited to tiMOTHy, Shane Speal, and Sarada but we have retroactively assigned it to Crow Tongue as many of the ideas for the genisis of that band came from this album. Covers may vary in color from image shown above.
Crow Tongue "crowskull" t-shirt
The first Crow Tongue t-shirt features the crowskull art from tiMOTHy that accompanied the "Hoofbeat, Caw, and Thunder" CD (that was the genesis for Crow Tongue anyway)... Crow Tongue logo at top, crowskull profile at bottom, and a crowskull on each sleeve. Printed in light grey ink on black shirts and available in size M ONLY - all other sizes sold out; heavyweight 100% cotton t-shirts.
Crow Tongue "Prophecies and Secrets: the Red Hand Mark in Dub" CDr Hand/Eye h/e037
Crow Tongue has taken their songs from “The Red Hand Mark” and reinterpreted, remixed, and otherwise broken down to their skeletons…all in order to twist, tweak, reimagine, and rebuild them as “Prophecies and Secrets: The Red Hand Mark in Dub.” Not a traditional dub album, but using the techniques and experimental spirit of dub to create something new from the source recordings of “The Red Hand Mark.” (also includes some bonus material). “Prophecies and Secrets” will be housed in a flat cover that will fit INSIDE the cover of “The Red Hand Mark” – for those who purchase both.
Track listing:
1 Undead Voices
2 Four Horses Ride
3 Calling to the Ancient Ears
4 Owl Eyes
5 Evergreenman
6 Patchwork Men
7 Dreamer Prophets
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9 Corpse Candles
Crow Tongue "The Red Hand Mark" CD Hand/Eye h/e036
“The Red Hand Mark” closely mirrors the Crow Tongue live sound. The bones of this sound are guimbri-banjo (a bass banjo based on a Morroccan lute), hand-drums, and vocals. Their live sound has been called everything from “a more tribal Neurosis” to “Appalachian Doom.” Crow Tongue worships the groove, plowing out raw and primitive, dark, tribal earth and spirit songs. Featuring tiMOTHy of Stone Breath.
Track listing:
1 The Red Hand Mark
2 Ghost Seeds
3 Osiris
4 Ypres
5 Sixteen Hooves
6 The Prophet’s Dream
Crow Tongue "Wind Chant" sticker
Nice vinyl sticker featuring the art from Crow Tongue's side of their split 7"ep with Language of Light. Art by tiMOTHy.
Note: Above prices are for single stickers, with no other items. If you would like additional stickers, or if you are ordering stickers with other items (excluding digital downloads), just add $1.00/sticker.
Crow Tongue / Language of Light split 7"ep
Limited to 500. Crow Tongue finally comes to vinyl accompanied by friends, Language of Light. Marbled vinyl - no two are alike. Wraparound cover. 1 song from each band as Crow Tongue bring the drum n' drone for "Wind Chant" while Language of Light's drone-folk piece, "The Tower," graces their side.
The first in a planned series of Crow Tongue split eps released by various labels. This one comes from Anticlock / Ethedrone.
Robin Crutchfield "For Our Friends in the Enchanted Otherworld" CD Hand/Eye h/e032
A tiny treasurebox from a lost garden, “For Our Friends in the Enchanted Otherworld,” finds Robin Crutchfield further exploring his unique world; one of delicate harp compositions, glissando, and deep drones. Soundscapes for daydreamers of this and other worlds.
Robin co-founded the experimental no-wave art band, DNA, and later collaborated with varied artists (including Steven Brown of Tuxedomoon and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch) in the guise of his Dark Day project. His new solo explorations have been described by Devendra Banhart as “beguiling, powerful, hypnotic, mesmerizing, commanding, delicately unnerving, lilting, mellow,” and “tense as hell.”
track listing:
1• SummoningSpell
2• StampingGround
3• LostOnTheBreadcrumbTrail
4• FindingOurWoodlandWay
5• InCrystalCaves
6• DappledForestDaylight
7• TheBirdsKnow
8• CharmedSleep
9• EnchantedIceCreamTruck
10• DidIImagineThat?
11• MagicPuffbox
12• Hovering
13• DwarfishDetermination
14• GossamerSwing
15• FaerieDreams
Ctephin / Sigillum Dei split CDr ethedrone musak
Brooding occult harsh ambient for your earbulbs. Sigillum Dei comes with 2 wonderful drone tracks manipulated from audio of the great beast himself,while ctephin presents 3 tracks of beauty in destruction,a wonderous cacophany,and swirling peices of dark matter colliding with sonic walls of bleekness.
