Deluxe document of a legendary art-action by Joke Lanz (aka Sudden Infant) and Rudolf Eb.Er, two of the main players in the Schimpfluch Gruppe. An extremely limited pressing - only 200 copies – Akustische Aktion was initially put together to be sold at the Sudden Infant 20^th anniversary celebrations that took place in Berlin in April of this year. It comes pressed on 140g vinyl and packaged in a pro-pressed folded cover housed in a silkscreened PVC sleeve. Akustische Aktion is an audio documentation of a 1991 performance that saw Lanz and Eb.Er sit down to eat a meal with a microphone in front of each of them and the volume turned way up. I actually think this works even better as a recording than as a physical performance in that the sounds are so completely removed from their sources that you’re able to listen to it almost as some kind of instant composition. There are rhythms – chewing, cracking a can open, the clatter of cutlery on plates – and there’s the same obsession that runs through much of the Schimpfluch activities: making overt the previously hidden, bringing the inside to the outside, the interest in body sounds, organic rhythms, notions of composition and decomposition. Listened to without any context it sounds like a particularly abstract improvisation and the fact that it’s able to communicate on some many levels is testimony to the power of the group’s ideas and the rigor of their realization. An stunning art-action document, beautifully presented. Recommended.

Third album from this avant/anarcho garage punk project, here looking and sounding more like improvising conceptualists than hardcore minimalists. Mattin has talked of this album as the one that will alienate all previous Billy Bao fans (way to go!) and while the blueprint is essentially the same – challenging sonics given a radical political context and then edited to the point of Hyper – the line-up and the thrust of ideas is almost entirely upended. For Urban Disease Mattin and Bao are joined by Taku Unami, Tim Barnes, Margarida Garcia and Barry Weisblat and the sound is more attuned to the whole Industrial/communal improvisation style, albeit cut up with long silences, bowed strings and serrated drones. “It's important to remember that before Mattin and anarchism ruined his life, Billy Bao was a bit of a troubadour who accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and warbled wild songs of protest in his native Nigerian patois. This new album, his third on vinyl, finds Billy in a transitional phase toward the end of 2006, before the gaztetxes of Bilbao burrowed into his marrow, before Mattin became the Merle to his G.G., before Billy turned into herpes sore in the mouth of global capitalism. "Billy doesn't believe in hypnagogia," we're told, "because he always sleeps with one eye open, and when he dreams, all he sees is AIDS denialists, German shepherds, and soldiers disguised as UN peacekeepers." Before Taku Unami fucked it up, this session found Bao relaxed and in high spirits as he conducted a pickup band of itinerant improvisers through a song-by-song cover of Amon Düül's Psychedelic Underground. Margarida Garcia lent her astounding skill and highly personal idiom on the electric double-bass, in her hands an instrument with the tension of string on wood and the disruptive potential of a crackle box. Barry Weisblat, meanwhile, teased out a century of drone from a Cornell lunchbox of filament and circuitry. Who better to play drums and percussion than the sainted Tim Barnes? Mattin, thumb and forefinger compulsively pinching or stroking his Hitler mustache after every take, funneled Billy's malaise through laptop, percussion, and folk instrumentation. There was even, astonishingly, a women's choir on hand, eerily filling out the atmosphere with wordless vocals and incantations. But this is after, and the result is a fragmentary, extremely loud hippie jam session punctuated by stretches of uneasy silence and scrape. The Lp is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 500 copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press jacket which itself is housed in a silk screened pvc sleeve with original artwork by New York artist Henry Flynt.” – Pan. 

“British free jazz phenomenon Evan Parker with electronic and tape noise artist John Wiese in a set of real-time evolving improvisations intended for maximum volume. Vinyl version of the CD released earlier this year, but slightly different containing all the final mixes and edits of the sessions with a new and more intense mastering for the maximum listening experience. C-Section finds density in scarcity - deep, glacial muck bubbles emerge beneath Parker's inhuman circular breathing, only to plunge into an incessant clatter of industrial landscape. Evan Parker is a free sax legend, best known for his work with Keith Rowe (AMM), Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, Cecil Taylor, Peter Brotzmann (including on his epochal ‘Machine Gun’), Derek Bailey, and for his inspired, individualistic take on musical freedom. Being the UK's equivalent of Peter Brotzmann means that as far as free jazz saxophonists go, Evan Parker has very few equals. Hugely respected with a rich and varied back catalogue, Parker has graced the cream of the free jazz racks for the last forty years. John Wiese is an artist and composer from Los Angeles, California. His recent works have a focus on installation and multi-channel diffusions, as well as scoring for large ensembles. He has toured extensively throughout the world, covering the US, UK, Europe, Scandinavia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. He is also a founding member of the concrète grindcore band Sissy Spacek. The Lp is mastered by Diane Maroney, cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 330 hand-numbered copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press jacket which itself is housed in a two-tone silk screened pvc sleeve with interweaving geometric designs. All artwork by Kathryn Politis and Bill Kouligas.” – Pan.