Long-time coming collaboration between The No-Neck Blues Band and original ethno/jazz Kraut caravan Embryo. Embryo made some great recs in the early 70s, including the super-heavy Bremen 1971 and members of Embryo played alongside Conrad Schnitzler et al at the Zodiak Free Arts Lab and as members of the free-improvising think tank Eruption. Their commitment to guerrilla folk/art actions, their whole get-in-the-van ethos and their multi-disciplinary approach to improvisation makes em ready bed-fellows with NNCK and anyone who has seen that amazing Embryo Eurasian tour documentary will already be fully aware of the parallels. This big band set is heavy on the percussive side, with miniature hand/glock/throat rituals giving way to moments of sublime melodic clarity that have a touch of eastern European klezmer music to em (especially reminiscent of that beautiful Khevrisa set on Folkways) along with a little Marion Brown/Gunter Hampel. Elsewhere there's an almost Sun City Girls level of mutant lip along with touches of contemporary psych units like Dungen although that particularly lop-sided percussive swandive that they invariably tumble into and Michiko's great vocal interjections mean that the whole deal is unmistakably NNCK. NNCK have always done a great job of drawing attention to the crucial breakthrough role played by various non-canonical freaks working well below the radar and this is another swell public service event. And it sounds great. Comes with a booklet with tons of great pics and liners. Highly recommended.

Edition of 340 copies archival release from NNCK documenting their earliest four-piece incarnation. This is NNCK at their most alien, with the abrasive sound of the classic “Clearing” 7” extended to two sides of abstract metal tones punctured by bursts of acoustic noise and the kind of all-devouring soundfields of AMM circa The Crypt. If you prefer NNCK at their most extraterrestrial and less ethnic/rhythmic focussed then this is a winning blat of early improvisatory refusal and makes a great companion volume to Locust’s At 6AM We Become The Police. Beautifully packaged with hilarious conceptual sleevenotes by Keith Connelly. Chris Morris couldn’t have done a better job. Recommended. 

Massive limited edition LP on NNCK’s imprint documenting a series of recordings from this ambitious American/European big band that unites Dave Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band with Spencer Clark and James Ferraro of The Skaters alongside Jan Anderzen of Kemialliset Ystavat, Jonna from Kuupuu, Stellar Om Source, Mik Quantius from Embryo and Tiitus Petajaniemi and Jari Koho of Uton/Keijo. The whole entourage toured through Europe in the spring of 2007 and this LP collects the best of the jams. Three long tracks and one fragment, including two pieces recorded at VPRO Radio. The sound takes off from the kind of free goof blueprint of The Godz, with a lots of percussion and odd rhythmic dunting while The Skaters work lush keyboard parts and a wall of ululating vocal drone deep into the backdrop. Quantius supplies vocals that are somewhere between Don Van Vliet and Alan Bishop and the whole thing proceeds into this kind of weird ethno-zone where fragmented world rhythms and sounds are twisted to dark, psychotropic ends. But the real gravy is the side long fourth track, the most convincing update of the monochord bass/drum confusion of Skip Spence’s “Grey/Afro” ever improvised in real time, combining sublime vocal highs with a hypnotic bottom end. Highly recommended.

Third instalment in this thrilling on-going series from Pat Murano of The No-Neck Blues Band/K-Salvatore/Malkuth with each LP associated with an astrological attribution taken from Decimus Magnus Ausonius (310-395). 2 feels like an extension of the ancient/future ritual appeal of 1, with swathes of electronics moving in mysterious whorls that flatline into dense beams of light before phantom melodies that are somewhere between arcs of classic al strings and devotional kosmische start to rise to the surface. Imagine a heady gothic ritual ala Hermann Nitsch or The Cosmic Couriers but with a deranged High Mass appeal and a cracked post-Whitehouse/Buchenwald atmosphere. Edition of 250 copies in silkscreened sleeves. Massively heavy and highly recommended: can’t get enough of these Decimus sides.

Stunning double LP from the duo of Pat Murano (The No-Neck Blues Band/Decimus et al) and Mark Morgan (Sightings). This is wild a-formal low level Industrial/electronic minimalism that has all of the toxic appeal of Relay For Death with sidelong works that evolve from sputtering electronics and pugilistic drum machines into towering alien structures that touch on aspects as diverse as early Whitehouse, Faust and Conrad Schnitzler soundtracking a Hermann Nitsch aktion. Given full sides of vinyl to spread out on, the duo build the tension by the subtle addition of all sorts of subliminal laminal detail until the whole thing is suspended on screaming metal drones, arcs of flamethrower melody and scrambled alien vocal broadcasts that sound like modulated EVP. This makes a great companion to the recent run of killer Decimus sides and it’s a classic slice of austere death drone from a pair of heads with an instinctive feel for the blackest of psychedelics. Edition of 270 copies. A massive set: highly recommended. 

New edition of 300 copies private press LP from Pat Murano of The No-Neck Blues Band, part of a series of 12 LPs visioned as reflections on the zodiacal attributions of Decimus Magnus Ausonious. 3 presents a set of scalding cracked electronics and automating ghost tones that’s somewhere between Conrad Schnitzler and some of the more ritualistic early-80s Industrial experiments. The rhythmic feel is really odd, with thin sheets of high feedback tone shuffling like sandpaper over thundercracks of doomy percussion and fuzz while a celestial almost Sonny Blount-style keyboard solo pilots the whole thing through your third eye. Amazing bleak psychedelia in the classic cold//austere European tradition but cut w/enough wig to make it a trip. Hand-painted sleeves. Recommended. 

New edition of 300 copies private press LP from Pat Murano of The No-Neck Blues Band, part of a series of 12 LPs visioned as reflections on the zodiacal attributions of Decimus Magnus Ausonious. This one is radically different from much of what has come before in the series, with a set of almost baroque synth work that at points comes off like the cosmic solo album that Ayler sideman Call Cobbs never made in the wake of Love Cry, with almost-harpsichord stylings circling around early music motifs while a planetary scale drone drags the whole deal over the event horizon and into an endlessly reflective/fragmentary zone where ghost tone bounce off each other again and again creating a delirious music box/hall of mirrors style that just keeps  on peaking. Wow. Certainly the deepest and most disorientating outing yet from Decimus. Hand-painted sleeves. Dedicated to Rabbi Hiya. Recommended. 

Another instalment in the Decimus series of astrologically-themed electro-meditations from Pat Murano of The No-Neck Blues Band/K-Salvatore/Malkuth et al. This one comes in a run of only 250 copies with silkscreened sleeves. Minimalist, circling electronics and percussive tone patterns dominate 4, with an atmosphere that is somewhere between the stylings of Richard Youngs’ Festival recording, the more weighty of the Kraut-influenced Industrial music (Nurse With Wound/Maurizio Bianchi) and the phased tape/electronics experiments of Charlemagne Palestine. Recommended, as is everything in the series to date.

Another instalment in the Decimus series of astrologically-themed electro-meditations from Pat Murano of The No-Neck Blues Band/K-Salvatore/Malkuth et al. This one comes in a run of only 300 copies and is one of the darkest and most claustrophobic Decimus sides. Minimal/primitive rhythm box jams with all of the alien appeal of Tolerance and the rest of the Vanity cabal cut-up with psychotic/dark modulated and variously filtered vocals that have all of the uncanny appeal of the most deformed and threatening of the early Whitehouse sides. The sonics walk the line between ethereally beautiful and darkly threatening and if this hadda come out on Come Org back in the day you’d be auctioning your grandma for a copy. A superb side and a singular instalment in this excellent on-going series. Recommended.

Album from this fantastic free jazz action trio featuring Matt Heyner (NNCK et al) on bass stunts, Matt Lavelle on trumpet and Ryan Sawyer on drums. Moves through great, pounding drums/trumpet face-offs that sound like a more martial take on Cherry and Blackwell's Mu to three-way time fluxing and wildly abstract silence/motion. Highly recommended.

Multi-region DVD that features a live set from Dave Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band, Angelblood et al playing wildstyle drums to the point of collapse live in the former Postfuhramt building, Berlin Mitte, encircled by a moving close-up camera. "In Performance 2, Dave Nuss tests his own physical limits, as in his drum solo he consciously passes the point at which the mind controls the body. Trance-like ecstasy is his aim." - DCP.

Debut album from Dave Shuford of the No-Neck Blues Band's new project, where he combines weird Southern banjo/guitar stylings that draws from a parallel folk tradition that has a pair of working boots planted firmly in a continuum occupied by The Dillards, Michael Hurley and Koerner, Ray and Glover and another in orbit around lonesome satellites like Comus and US Saucer. Indeed, there is something of Brian Hageman in Shuford's weird ass delivery, the way he combines straight ahead mountain hollers with idiosyncratic bullfrog phrasing, though Shuford has a much tighter grip on syncopated pre-war modes while his partners play electric slide guitar as mutant as anything birthed in the volcanoes of Mu by Antenna Jimmy Semens. But a song like "Bound To Ride" is just an absolute joy, up there with Hurley circa "Portland Water" or the more off-the-cuff moments of Dylan's Basement Tapes (particularly Dylan's back-and-forth take on "All American Boy") and as if to toss you a subtle red herring, Shuford even drops in a flash of the kinda hick falsetto that will send you right back to the first time you ever heard Nashville Skyline. It feels almost occult, but I guess the title effectively gives the game away. So pick 'em as a comer, dog hummer.

New single from this No-Neck Blues Band offshoot featuring Jason Meagher, Dave Shuford and Dave Nuss. A-side is whole new side of country scuzz while the flip is a cover of The Kinks' "Johnny Thunder" from We Are The Village Green Preservation Society.

New live duo CD that pairs saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi, one-time member of Fushitsusha, with the mysterious saxophonist/pianist/vocalist Mico from The No-Neck Blues Band. Shiraishi has a phenomenal facility with phantom upper-register squeals, developing a whole vocabulary from lonesome feedback highs ala Kaoru Abe or Masayoshi Urabe and Mico brings a wild ritual edge to the deal, exploding into jabbers of unknown tongue and ripping darts of breath from her saxophone. The disc compiles live performances from across the world recorded between 2001 and 2007. Comes in a glossy hard card gatefold sleeve.

"Coach Fingers is serious about having fun and with the debut long player No Flies on Frank, no one is spared from the plentiful good vibes Frank has to offer. Packed with more hooks than a ship crowded with one armed pirates, No Flies on Frank is a meaty affair of giddy but bearded late '60s/early '70s outlaw boogie rock & roll prominently featuring three members of the New York free noise whatsit collective The No Neck Blues Band -- Coach Jason Meagher, Dave Nuss & Dave Shuford -- along with Meagher's brother Sean on keys and -- future guitar god worshippers take note -- the Coach's secret weapon, master shredder George Devoe. So come on, friends, it's time to join the Fingers friends & family in the Beaujolais Revolution; take a sip from a glass full of Ronnie Lane's boozy rock, the charming laissez-faire balladry of Kevin Ayers (circa Joy of a Toy & Whatevershebringswesing) & a whole lot of crazy fun." - Locust. 180g vinyl.

Excellent new collaboration LP from Denmark's VU-obsessives Family Underground and Mr David Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band et al. "Summer 06 Family Underground (DK) recorded with Dave Nuss of NNCK at Black Dirt Studios in the woods of upstate NY. The yield was as characteristically unhinged as one might expect: sweeping electronic sounds backed with wood and bone percussion spirit-conjure. However also harvested was some new and especially tasty crop: sung and spoken song, electric guitar/conga 'rock' and an odd ghostly sheen coating the entire proceeding. Nuss comments on the session: 'I remember when we were recording, momentarily leaving the studio and going out into the night and feeling it thicken like a partition separating us from this intense state of clear consciousness we had in the recording, which was like... humankind's natural state. And then thinking about Jesper from FU, an adopted Vietnamese living in DK, and how much he resembles Michael Jackson, and realizing that across continents no man can be divided from himself. We had to make this music to provide for us some fantasy of fulfilment that would carry us through the weekend like rejuvenated suns born again climbing to heaven, after being washed in the deepest bluest sea....' Jacket by designer Susan Cianciolo and screened inserts by Stellar, NL." - Woodsist.

"Tom Thayer is a NY visual artist who creates paintings, drawings, sculpture, music, puppetry, film and theatrical experiments. These works are often loosely strung, frail objects depicting dilapidated, fantastical scenes of abstract human and animal figures. This is his first record of music, self-titled LP, edition of 550, released on his own Cardboard Mirror label. From the artist, "This record contains a broken, mildewed darkride of songs and beats held together by adhesive tape and string." We saw his gig and there were bird puppets playing records with their beaks, speeding up/slowing down, pecking the vinyl. This recording-remember the Plonsky record, or the recordings of Jean Dubuffet? Profound minimal electronic manipulation in real time by his own hand, mixed with crude sampling, creates a stunning first offering. Check his art at www.tomthayer.net." - Sound At One/NNCK.

“At least pray God to give me patience in my suffering.' So concludes 'Lover Go From Hence,' a tale of tumultuous romantic upheaval on the new Amolvacy record Ho-Ho-Kus. Here we have hearts wrenched from guts and firmly planted in the dirt; but also sprouting new romance, seduction, and... the church? And the French? Francois Rabelais wrote Garantua And Pantagruel -- a major influence on this album -- in the early 16th c. to caricature the faux morality of his time. Amolvacy offer Ho-Ho-Kus in the same cantankerous spirit, but this time perhaps to parody their own morality. Love, marriage, sex, affairs, betrayal, and loneliness are all exposed in naked vulnerability and placed on the chopping block for emotional dissection. Lead vocalist Sheila Donovan (ex-Tall Boys) is a longstanding member of the Laboratory Theatre Company in NYC, and her partners are Aaron Moore of Volcano the Bear and Dave Nuss of the No-Neck Blues Band. Together they are the Amolvacy family. All things were shared in the making of this record, nothing hidden, no secrets left untold." Pressed on clear vinyl, in a die-cut sleeve.

Deluxe limited edition LP with gold sleeves and multiple inserts released on a new sub-division of the great Italian avant garde label Alga Marghen from a one-off group that features Dave Nuss and Keith Connolly of The No-Neck Blues Band alongside Timo Van Luyk (In Camera/Af Ursin) and Raymond Dijkstra (Asra). Reputedly inspired by the work of Japanese film-maker Kyoshi Kurosowa and the theories of Franz Mesmer this is a spare, hypnotic set that combines a lot of low-level string and percussion work with a weird electronic/synth tonal centre making it a little bit more ‘explicable’ than much NNCK product while lending the tracks the feel of extended elegiac codas. Beautiful, delicate improvised music by four modern masters of the language, though reports suggest that this will be the first and last document of this brief collaboration. Edition of only 300 copies.

Deluxe 180g vinyl in heavy Stoughton gatefold sleeves from this offshoot from the No-Neck mothership led by David Shuford and featuring Marc Orleans (Sunburned Hand Of The Man), Hans Chew (Jack Rose et al) and Rob Gregory (The Suntanama). Distillation is an even deeper countrified pass through classic Americana given the kind of psychedelic nudie suit edge of The Byrds circa Sweetheart/Notorious or the first Flying Burrito Brothers album. Shuford’s vocals have an uncommon weigh that gives the songs a Biblical/basement tapes feel while the arrangements are weirdly sophisticated in a way that rewards repeated deep listening. Edition of 891 copies, bundled with a bonus CD that features a live set from the group and an MP3 download coupon.

Timely repress of our album of the year from 2010, Sabbath Assembly’s magisterial Restored To One: Sabbath Assembly is a project put together by Dave Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band and Jex Thoth of Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice et al in order to re-process the Gnostic hymns of The Process Church Of The Final Judgement. The Process were active in the late 60s and early 70s, with radical re-programming techniques that found their roots in Scientology, magickal thought, theosophy and psychedelic politics. Their theology was based around a reconciliation of Christ and Satan alongside the figures of Jehovah and Lucifer but they’re best remembered for their presence on the fringes of 60s psychedelic culture, their black robes and Alsatians, the appearance of their texts on a bunch of Funkadelic albums and their influence on Psychic TV, Coil et al. Here Thoth (on vocals) and Nuss (on drums) are joined by guitarist ‘Andy’ and bassist ‘Dan’ for a series of inspired re-workings of Process hymns. Thoth’s vocals are stunning, soaring over the fuzz guitar and doomy organ in euphoric waves that have a genuinely devotional feel. The music is some of the best and most authentic sounding modern psychedelic rock. But it’s psychedelic in the way that Fraction’s Moonblood is, relying on notes as played and ecstatic band dynamics more than the easy application of F/X. Indeed, Moonblood is its closest cousin in terms of the perfect marriage of visionary garage band energy and songs of profound spiritual transcendence. And it just *sounds* so great. Really, the whole thing is flawlessly executed and steers well clear of pastiche or mere camp. A massive achievement and a reverent though forward-thinking translation of the message and vision of The Process. Soaring female vocals, wailing psychedelic guitars, beautiful hymns of surrender to Satan, what more are you looking for? Comes on white vinyl. Highly recommended!

Unbelievable out-of-nowhere limited edition private press LP, co-released by Mick Flower and Chris Corsano, that documents an expanded Flower-Corsano Duo, now with Count Hejnowski aka Matt Heyner of The No-Neck Blues Band/Test/Malkuth et al on electric bass. Safe to say that with the loss of the late Yasushi Ozawa Heyner has taken the crown of greatest living improvising electric bassist and his addition to what is merely one of the all-time greatest free music duo partnerships pushes the whole deal into the stratosphere. The sound is amazing, recorded live at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY across two nights in October 2009. Flower – best known for his helming of the UK’s Vibracathedral Orchestra – has single-handedly reinvented the Japan Banjo as a sonic reducer par excellence, combining endless riffing euphorics that are somewhere between John Cipollina and Sonny Sharrock with a droning, modal style that is uniquely brain flattening. Corsano is, of course, the wildest drummer on the planet and the combination of their limbs feels like the ultimate free music cocktail, re-wiring Fire Music modes with vertical stratas of technicolour. Heyner comes in with a totally brutal bottom end attack, playing fast bass runs that serve to nudge and pummel the music into new zones of dunt, at points bulldozing the front line with all of the steamroller force of Mik’s work in Kousokuya or even Fushitsusha. Indeed, together the three of them succeed in storming the kind of heavenly metal/free jazz/garage/psych zone that Last Exit were always pitching towards but never quite made it, mostly down to Laswell airbrushed bass attack. No such qualms here for Heyner who plays with a blunt, bloodied tone and with the kind of logic that only works to bolster the full-bore ascension style of the duo. It’s not all wall-destroying force tho, and there are some nice almost Pharaoh Sanders-style cosmo bliss outs in amongst alla the thunder. Four tracks, with Heyner doubling up on drums on a single cut. Last minute candidate for hands-down album of the year? No question. Highest possible recommendation!

Out-of-nowhere private press LP, released on Pat Murano aka Decimus’s own label, in an edition of only 300 copies with individually hand-painted (w/iodine) sleeves, every one unique. Safe to say that NNCK have been *the* central free music ensemble to come out of the US underground in the past few decades and their music has continued to evolve at such a staggering rate that every release seems simultaneously unique and a further expansion of their project to push improvised musical expression further into new vectors of alien tongue. Ytiu was recorded at Faust Studios and it is particularly spectacular. NNCK have always had a tangential relationship to American Primitive - it’s no coincidence that John Fahey’s post-Takoma imprint Revenant briefly became their home - and Ytiu feels particularly informed by American folk forms, albeit variously amplified and obscured. The same focus on odd expressive rhythm is here, with an oblique groove illuminated by droning/vaguely-gothic keyboard work that comes straight out of the devotional Krautrock songbook: think Siloah, Zweistein... the guitar work drops into a dosed country lollop, a singing string band lament with a woozy Venusian quality. NNCK have a way of playing around central themes, of orbiting them more than overtly stating them, so that their particular brand of minimalism often results in maximalist emotional/cerebral impact. And here the architecture is towering, as the music builds through subtle plateaus, accruing all sorts of odd sonic detail along the way, extrapolating west coast ballroom moves via Silence-ear jams to the point of instrumental redux across two beautifully sustained sides. The end result is particularly euphoric, as the jam explodes into nowhere and someone – Dave Nuss perhaps? – is left crashing two cymbals in a triumphal instrumental refrain. Can’t think of anyone who so perfectly marries the kind of higher-minded experiments in free music that took place at Slug’s Saloon in the mid-60s with mantric rock form and oblique avant/minimalist strategies and this has got to be one of their most elusively addictive long-form works to date. Magical, is the word. Highly recommended!