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previous record label:
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there are 16 titles on helen scarsdale agency in stock.
they are listed below.
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 helicopter 
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threads:
modern-composition
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lo-fi
musique-concrète

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 019 lp
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 019 lp

rv paintingssamoa highway” long playing record

  • millions
  • round-a-bout bench on a cold, foggy day

  • mirrors
  • from manila to forever
  • as far as we could see
october 2010 release ; fine set of coastal thrum from starving weirdos / ensemble economique’s brian pyle & brother jon ... a bit smokier & perhaps more rustic than sw’s perennial energy-haze (even if stray moments do lift off into similar levels of clatter ; c.i.p. the sound-sample) ; the mix-buried twin drum-kit thrash throughout is a very nice touch, as are the musique concrète flourishes ...
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
rv paintings
samoa highway lp
the helen scarsdale agency : hms019

release date: october 26, 2010

rv paintings were born in california. humboldt county, to be exact. it is nearly impossible to imagine their origins being elsewhere since the brothers brian and jon pyle, who currently pilot rv paintings, constantly mine the metaphysical properties of their homeland through a heavy-lidded psychedelia. the redwood trees that majestically rise from the rugged terrain may have been one of the endemic objects that inspired rv paintings to "jam nature;" but humboldt county's other major cash crop -- marijuana -- cannot be far behind. as much as the pyle brothers channel a psychotropic animism through sound, their diaphanous drones and foggy ambient tangles spring from a schematic intelligence that belies any method acting of getting stoned and jamming in a room.

samoa highway is the second full album for rv paintings, following the nature jam transmissions of trinity rivers published by root strata in 2007 and a well-suited split lp with taiga remains from blackest rainbow. just as the debut payed homage to the rugged river system that cuts through forests and mountains of the region, samoa highway refers to the lengthy bridge that runs between two coastal communities in humboldt county, one of which houses a municipal airport. a swarm of drone guitars announces the opening of the record on "millions," with a shoegaze wash collapsing into rarified tone purity and bulging through a metallic buzz. field recordings of airplane take-off and firework explosions punctuate the undulating bleary smear of the pyle brothers' guitars. the result is one of levitation, even as rv paintings seem to be plugging their guitars and electronics directly into the moss, soil, and mycelia of the humboldt forest. echo-soaked flutes, maudlin stringsscabrous noises unearthed from the bottom of the pacific, and a cinematic arcs of guitar shimmer complete the beautiful and haunted miasma of samoa highway that falls somewhere between taj mahal travellers, organum, and the caretaker.

brian pyle may be best known as one of the founders of the starving weirdos and records his solo work as ensemble economique. samoa highway stands the first piece of vinyl published by helen scarsdale agency, pressed in an edition of 500 copies.

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threads:
electro-acoustic-composition
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minimalism-drones

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 017 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 017 cd

spiracleananta” double compact disc set

  • ananta (strato version) (52:39)

  • ananta (mystery sea version) (62:22)
september 2009 release ; epic double-disc set, proffering two discrete variations of an hour-length piece by hitoshi koji, intended as a sleep-aid ...
the helen scarsdale agency press release...

spiracle
ananta
the helen scarsdale agency : hms017 : 2cd

release date : september 2009

hitoshi kojo (aks spiracle) professes to have some difficulties in falling asleep. when sleep comes to him, it can often arrive at dawn, when the colors of the sun begin to break through the darkness of night and when some are just rising after their own good night's sleep. ananta is a twin set of compositions that urge the listener toward a dreamless sleep-state, while reflecting the glowing warmth of a blossoming sunrise. in constructing the two variations of ananta, kojo began with finely tuned drones extracted from a dilruba and a sarangi, and applied a process of merging sympathetic field recordings and other tonal interferences alongside those instrumental sounds. the resulting pieces are elliptically static drone compositions that brightly shimmer with hues of gold, crimson, and aquamarine.

one of the two variations of ananta was published back in 2006 as a micro-edition cdr through mystery sea. in composing the mystery sea version, kojo purposefully eschewed the representational sounds of the "night ocean drones" espoused by the label, opting for these aforementioned concepts. on this piece of tiny churning textures streaming along a linear path, kojo's piece nearly achieves infinity, which happens to be the translation from sanskrit of "ananta." while other works from kojo enjoy the darkly elegant arches found in select recordings from organum and lawrence english, the mystery sea version of ananta fits more of the tradition of the roland kayn, yoshi wada, and charlemagne palestine in constructing pieces which require endurance, lest you succumb to kojo's audio hypnosis. the strato version of ananta is a previously unreleased composition, that bends and undulates around a fundamental drone, all the while still maintaining the sun-flecked glints magnified in the mystery sea version.

limited to 300 copies

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threads:
electro-acoustic-composition
field-recordings
jewelled-antler
musique-concrète
minimalism-drones

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 016 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 016 cd

irr. app. (ext.)kreiselwelle” compact disc

  • kreiselwelle (45:53)
april 2009 release ; a glowing, 45-minute continuous musique concrète collage from matt waldron ...
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms 016

irr. app. (ext.)
kreiselwelle
cd

release date: april 2009

irr. app. (ext.) is the sound-engineering project of californian m.s. waldron, whose liminal slippages and detourned croons have been spotted recently on stage in nurse with wound. yet for all of the antics that are required for the nww spectacle, mr. waldron still dedicates himself in the parallel pursuits of irr. app. (ext.) with a discography that reads more like a wunderkammer of uncanny investigations into futility declared as its reverse.

kreiselwelle is the third and final installment to a body of works that irr. app. (ext.) has composed under the influence of wilhelm reich, the unorthodox 20th century psychologist who proposed amongst many hypotheses, an interconnectivity between energy, organisms, and the entire cosmos. the title to this album translates as ‘spiral wave,’ a structuralist form which reich had observed throughout nature within numerous systems, whether that be the grand arcs of galaxies down to the radial symmetries of micro-organisms. for kreiselwelle, mr. waldron returns to the same collection of field recordings which began this trilogy that includes ozeanische gefühle and cosmic superimposition ; however, he restricted himself to those sounds with spiralling origins: resonating springs, the sounds of the ocean cyclically churning over pebbles on the beach, the wafting of air around various objects, or simply a lamp-shade spinning in place.

the resulting recording develops as an organic sublimation of one sound transforming from one state into another and then another. motorized sounds of mechanical toys set askew settle into a tremolo phase pattern of electrical vibrations. these in turn morph into a cauldron of slow locomotive rumbling, which beget one of many glassine drones that float throughout kreiselwelle. many of the sounds seem to have origins in objects that are broken, obsolete, or just plain wrong; but through waldron’s deft alchemy, these sounds are allowed to flourish in this richly dark and oddly serene amalgamation.

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threads:
electro-acoustic-composition
field-recordings
jewelled-antler
musique-concrète
minimalism-drones
analogue-synth

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 015 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 015 cd

matt shoemakererosion of the analogous eye” compact disc

  • erosion a (17:17)
  • erosion b (23:46)
  • the analogous eye (25:28)
june 2009 release ; a trio of deep, void-oriented pieces, constructed largely of analogue synth timbres ... immersive work, some of the best i’ve heard of shoemaker’s ...
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms015

matt shoemaker
erosion of the analogous eye
cd

release date: june 2009

the studio of matt shoemaker is alive with electricity. impossibly complex wirings channel signal in and out of analog synth modules, an array of curious aluminums boxes with unmarked knobs, slinkies strung from ceiling to floor creating a set of giant spring reverb units, accelerometers attached to consumer electronic errata, and even a few conventional tools like guitar stomp boxes and a bruised computer. for all of the convoluted engineering that goes into shoemaker's equipment, the resulting mesmerism in sound appears effortless and strangely organic.

shoemaker has enjoyed a semi-obscure career through his polymath activities that bridge such electronic experiments with a choice library of globe-trotted field recordings and a broad knowledge of avant-garde cinema. for erosion of the analogous eye, shoemaker waves his hands about his laboratory to construct an ever-evolving album for mutant dronemuzik. his electrical seas of synthetic bristling undulate with placid regularity, only to find shoemaker contorting these brain-melting psychedelics into cancerous, atonal bellows. out of his allotropic shifts, one can find swells of irradiated static transform into the graceful chime of temple bells; and electrical phase patterns slip into deep forest murmurings dotted with narcoleptic birds calls. on one hand, this album is prescient of the revival for progressive electronics currently underway in the flood of us post-noise projects; it's easy to triangulate this between emeralds and heldon. but on the other hand, erosion of the analogous eye is the continuation of where shoemaker had begun with his early work on trente oiseaux with its grotesques exaggerations of field recording into this beguiling piece of art.

the artwork on erosion of the analogous eye features unique hand-dyed abstractions mounted onto letterpressed paper. this has warranted a very small pressing of 300 copies.

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threads:
electro-acoustic-composition
field-recordings
jewelled-antler
musique-concrète
minimalism-drones

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 014 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 014 cd

loren chasse / michael northamthe otolith” compact disc

  • the broken house (6:09)
  • spinning cloth (6:18)
  • waiting (2:59)
  • cataract (10:29)
  • the spectral harvest (9:02)
  • crag (2:48)
  • regeneration (8:16)
  • eggeater's retreat (12:37)
october 2008 release ; first signs of this on-going collaboration (materials herein date back to 2003) between jewelled antler’s loren chasse & michael northam ...

extremely present / well-recorded pieces utilizing field-recorded events & naturally occurring sonic phenomena as source material ; often stripping the sounds of their geographic significance and/or spectrally reducing environments to ghostly fragments of their actual selves (as is the case of the piece excerpted in the sound-sample) ...

droning psychedelic ragas, indeed ...
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms014
loren chasse & michael northam
the otolith
cd

release date: october 2008

the recordings of loren chasse and michael northam begin and end with the great outdoors. yet, the well-documented wanderlust of these two kindred sound artists is only part of the equation. field recordings of wind, water, and stone intertwine and hybridize within private rituals of droning psychedelic ragas that return as a folklore reiterating the mystery of the natural world around us. through his numerous contributions to the multi-faceted jewelled antler as well his solo work, chasse has long postulated the microphone as an extension of his ear, which magnifies and probes the surface of the earth for a tactile grit that permeates all of the sounds that he generates. northam claims his inspiration from vast geographies, microscopic detail, and severe weather, which he compacts through various techniques to explore what is between improvisation and acousmatic composition. both chasse and northam entertain such notions through an alchemy of arcane instruments: autoharps, ouds, flutes, bells, gongs, bowed wires, harmonium, and northam's magnetic table harp.

the otolith is the result of several years of work, with sounds gathered collectively in the san francisco bay area and throughout europe. the album speaks as a bramble of fence wire and chaparral scrub oak, acquiring an unkempt collection of rubbish, cobwebs, insects, and soil within its tangle. as the wind pushes in one direction, this mass emits a quite if scratchy melody as if the ghost from a forgotten song; but when the wind changes directions, it bellows a rasping din of metal and vine cracking against itself. this sodden calliope tumbles into a miasma of droning atmospheres, softly rasped distortion, and very subtly rendered lulabies lurking deep within the overgrowth.

hand letter-pressed in an edition of 700 copies.

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threads:
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minimalism-drones

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 013 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 013 cd

bj nilsen / stilluppsteypapassing out” compact disc

  • passing out (67:50)
a single hour-plus construct/suite jointly composed by the stilluppsteypa duo of sigtryggur berg sigmarsson & helgi thorsson and bj nilsen ; not exactly the ice-cold blast of scandinavian warmth you might expect, but a rather zonked cut-up of tape-speed mangle & deviant synth-patterns - of the triptych of albums that make up the trio’s work for hms, this one’s my favorite (for obvious / aesthetic reasons) ...
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms013
bj nilsen & stilluppsteypa
passing out
cd

release date: april 2008

the first chapter found the drink.
the second came after a night of intoxicated shouting.
the third chapter is inevitable: passing out.


the nordic sound artists bj nilsen & stilluppsteypa have authored the last component to a trilogy of isolationist compositions for barren field recordings and lumbering electric drones, thematically linked in the psychotropic effects of alcohol. in doing so, they have issued a brief statement in defense of their research: "it's been four years and three studies, passing out being the final. even in its most general, colloquial usage, passing out indicates the occurrence of a state that is incompatible with active behavior. it is possible that the individual could experience both consciousness and unconsciousness at the same time while encountering passing out."

yes, passing out is a crepuscular recording, with the flickering of twilight further dimmed by the distant arctic sun in wintertime and the blackened numbness of too much drink. with one singular track that spans 60 minutes, a nearly constant thrum and rumble of monochromatic low frequencies casts a grim pall upon the precisely dialed-in modulations and vibrations. spectral guitars, maudlin tunes from haunted radios, angrily growling voices, and field recordings of wind-whipped snow and ice bury themselves deep amidst these subharmonic drones. all of these tease at the edge of perception, sculpting the narrative of the drone into a vehicle for unhinged expressionism of varying degrees of horror, melancholy, beauty, and oblivion.

the swedish born bj nilsen defines his work as "focused upon the sound of nature and its effects on humans, and the perception of time and space as experienced through sound." he has numerous recordings on touch and has collaborated with the likes of chris watson, christian fennesz, and z'ev. the icelandic citizens sigtryggur berg sigmarsson and helgi thorsson are stilluppsteypa, whose electronic abstractions engage absurd theatrics that mar the pristine surface of minimalism.

passing out features letterpress and silkscreen artwork in an edition of 1000. there are two separate versions of the artwork: one with all black, the other with the white overprint on semi-opaque vellum.

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threads:
minimalism-drones
new-zealand
electro-acoustic-composition
lo-fi
analogue-synth

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 012 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 012 cd

omitinterceptor” double compact disc set

  • disruptor (5:29)
  • dropsite (2:00)
  • locknut shadow (9:48)
  • location becon (10:02)
  • unstable rotor (3:55)
  • lopper (5:33)
  • rebiluder unmounted (6:22)
  • pod 4 lander (5:18)
  • blanker (2:53)
  • remanagement system (8:24)
  • soft iron core (6:37)
  • input lander (3:55)

  • loop rebounder (3:28)
  • dekkcapod (3:20)
  • output bender (3:03)
  • sideband (1:50)
  • skimmer (3:42)
  • horztial tracking sysyem (13:26)
  • transmitter logger (9:45)
  • drop process operater (8:26)
  • total point failure (4:04)
  • lander (4:33)
  • waveform rider (10:03)
  • rigged output (3:06)
august 2008 release ; second double-disc set of clinton williams’s sprawling electronic compositions from the helen scarsdale agency ...

fits neatly between hiroshinerve net noisekumakiri’s straight-line synthesizer automations & the more long-form work of classic purveyors such as douglas leedy, all while retaining that indescribably new zealandsizzle(to the rest of us :: tape hiss) ...

perfect as a zone-out soundtrack ...
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms 012
omit
interceptor
2cd

release date: august 26, 2008

omit is the nom de plume for clinton williams, an electronic musician who has been quietly toiling in new zealand for a good portion of the past two decades. his work has appeared alongside such luminaries of the nz free noise community as birchville cat motel, the dead c, flies inside the sun, dean roberts, surface of the earth, etc.; however, omit’s home-spun constructs widely detour from the sculpted grit and mottled distortion found in the work of his countrymen and -women. in listening to his masterful quad (a 3cd opus released in 1998 through corpus hermeticum), one gets the very palpable sense of an artist in a contentious argument with his own unwieldy mousetrap of tape-loops, modular electronics, effects pedals, drum machines, and the creaking sounds of his house. that internal debate with himself through his machine exudes an existential melancholy, which could be applied to any number of grander metaphors of the dependency of electronics, cybernetics, and technology upon mankind.

interceptor is the result of an experiment whereby williams worked with a portable studio away from his longtime home of blenheim. he possessed two suitcases of drum machines, effects, and analog synths; and, williams recalls being "pissed off with myself wasting time recording this stuff when i was trying to find a job." his frustrations stripped away much of the grandiose sweeps of ambience and shadow, leaving behind a life-support system grid of overlapping, phase-shifted blip and click. an undertow of hypnotic tonalities pulls those rhythms towards a crepuscular gloom. williams has always been at odds with his own work, yet his self-doubt continues to deliver magnificent albums which thrive in a symbiotic struggle with mechanical disintegration. interceptor conjures the best offered by mika vainio, klaus schulze, and the throbbing gristle tracks authored by chris carter. always the pessimist, williams grumbles, "in many ways, it’s a document of my failure to do the most simplest things in life." if only all of our failures could be this brilliant.

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threads:
electro-acoustic-composition
field-recordings
site-specific
sound-art

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 011 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 011 cd

murmerwe share a shadow” compact disc

  • untitled (27:48)
  • untitled (18:35)
april 2009 release ; re-press / re-issue of this prior o/p helen scarscale disc, featuring the work of one patrick mcginley ...
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms011
murmer
we share a shadow
cd

release date: december 2007

murmer is the pseudonym for patrick mcginley, a man with several passports which have taken him to many a foreign land in search of found sounds of the unsettled, the forgotten, the mysterious, and the beautiful. his field recordings of activated environments (e.g. resonant industrial spaces, windswept telephone lines, bowed branches, gasping ventilator systems, etc.) originate from all of the locations where he has traveled; yet, the documentation of these sounds is the not the terminus of mcginley's work. he is far more interested in extracting a particular emotional, transcendent, or metaphysical kernel from those sounds, and then recontextualizing that germinated sound into sympathetic compositions of magnificent dronemusik.

we share a shadow continues where murmer left off with the exceptional husk album (in collaboration with jonathan coleclough), in spiraling his manipulated field recordings as a slow revelation of the environmental sonorities that undeservedly go unnoticed each and every day. singing frequencies of a bowed piece of metal undulate against a grey tapestry of rain and rasping insects. golden overtones from shimmering drones quell what agitated textures reside in mcginley's active field recordings, rendering the aggregate sound a nocturnal opiate with considerable potency.

as murmer, patrick mcginley has produced a handful of releases on icr, ground fault, drone records, and absurd; and he has performed in venues both large and small across north america and europe. he is also the host the framework radio show on resonance fm, dedicated to the consecration of field recordings and their use in composition.

we share a shadow is strictly limited to 300 copies, featuring hand water-coloured artwork and letterpress printing.

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threads:
electro-acoustic-improvisation
minimalism-drones

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 010 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 010 cd

matt shoemakerspots in the sun” compact disc

  • ... (1) (6:04)
  • ... (2) (17:57)
  • ... (3) (7:00)
  • ... (4) (16:46)
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms010

matt shoemaker
spots in the sun cd

matt shoemaker pulled his chin away from his hand after several ponderous moments, positing that the title to this electrically charged opus of encrypted drone holds at least two entry points. the most obvious reference for spots in the sun would be the astrophysical study of sunspots with all of the allusions to earthly disturbances triggered by events millions of miles away. yet, on the other hand, shoemaker also proposed an earthbound reference to regions of the world that only exist – perhaps literally, perhaps psycho-geographically – under the intense glare of sunlight. he then shrugged his shoulders, hoping for an ideal situation in which his audience will confront his work as a vacuum and allow personal references to be drawn from within.

in simplest terms, spots in the sun is a grotesque, sonic landscape with details exaggerated out of proportion and narratives folded upon themselves in a magnificent abstraction of electro-acoustics, rarified field recordings, and particulate matter plucked from ether. shoemaker works in monochrome, shaping his gray tonalities into rhizomes of shadow which occasionally erupt in brilliance of hyper-realized clarity. while the familiar sounds of encircling birds, turbulent weather, and temple bells litter shoemaker's recordings, the sonic topography describes a vulgar and hostile landscape where fits of delirium and circadian arrhythmia are common human responses. shoemaker achieves these complex metaphors through labyrinthine drones spiralling through irradiated fog and glassine vibrations, punctured by the scars of a landscape in perpetual revolt. in many ways, shoemaker's spots in the sun could be mistaken for bernard parmegiani at his most focused or even john duncan at his most gracefully brutal.

shoemaker has two previous recordings for bernhard günter's seminal trente oiseaux label of lowercase sound, and he currently resides in seattle.

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threads:
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plunder-phonic

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 009 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 009 cd

jim haynestelegraphy by the sea” compact disc

  • telegraphy by the sea (55:55)
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms009

jim haynes
telegraphy by the sea cd

release date: september 26, 2006

"i prefer to abstract recorded sounds to the point that i can't remember how i made them," says rust-tinged artist jim haynes. "this way i can't go back and reverse engineer anything." the source material for telegraphy by the sea spans four years and several continents. during the time between conception and completion, mr. haynes perfected fragments of the album in numerous contexts, including an exhibition in melbourne, australia, a marathon six-hour performance at the diapason gallery in new york city, and a fortuitous encounter with a rainy stairwell. mr. haynes submitted an early version of the album to sound artist giancarlo toniutti, who provided caustically constructive -- yet graciously enthusiastic -- criticism, sending him back to toil away in the depths of his sonic workshop for two more years before emerging, blinking in the harsh light of day and drastically higher gas prices, with the finished product clutched in his battered, grime-stained hands.

as a result of this process, mr. haynes has forged a breathtaking album of mangled field recordings and droning techniques perched at the allegorical intersection of electromagnetic landscapes and meteorological phenomena. here, it is not uncommon to find exasperated blasts of air bellowing in harmony with a swarm of mechanical locusts and a tumbling landslide of jagged rock. yet mr. haynes grounds the bulk of the album in a dynamic play of sinusoidal drones. at times, these timbral flutterings waver into asymmetrical smears of holy-minimalist splendor; at others, monolithic grey slabs of drone collapse upon themselves into turbulent oceanic currents. if comparisons must be made, perhaps telegraphy by the sea parallels william basinski at his most fortified or the hafler trio at his least arcane.

mr. haynes is a san francisco-based artist, who describes his work by simply stating: "i rust things." he has exhibited his work internationally and collaborated on four recorded documents with loren chasse as coelacanth. he is one of the conspirators behind the sleeping moustache (alongside m.s. waldron, steven stapleton, sigtryggur berg sigmarsson, and r.k. faulhaber) as well as a contributing writer to the wire. this is his second solo endeavor for the helen scarsdale agency.

telegraphy by the sea sports mr. haynes' own handsomely hand-printed letterpress & silkscreen artwork in a meager edition of 500 copies. -- helen scarsdale

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threads:
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minimalism-drones

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 008 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 008 cd

bj nilsen / stilluppsteypadrykkjuvísur ohljódanna” compact disc

  • svefnlaus / sömnlös (14:44)
  • elstöt / rafstuf (12:36)
  • undir ahrifum / sundurlaus (12:29)
  • supbröder / drykkjufélagar (6:15)
  • undermaskin / töfra maskína (4:20)
  • skuggbild / skuggamynd (13:28)
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms008

bj nilsen & stilluppsteypa
drykkjuvisur ohljodanna cd

release date: september 26, 2006

in scandinavia, it's not uncommon to hear of someone's mother, grandfather, uncle, or plumber who drank him-or-herself to death at an early age; and the swedish drone artist bj nilsen has felt the alcoholic pangs which may foreshadow his own demise. in recent years, nilsen has turned to his icelandic neighbors sigtryggur berg sigmarsson and helgi thorsson (collectively known as stilluppsteypa) in existential sympathy over the problems of their collective lust for alcohol. drykkjuvisur ohljodanna marks the second collaborative document of abject minimalism that these three have composed; and like its predecessor vikinga brennivin, this album is spiked with drunken thought. any alcohol induced euphoria has been tempered by perturbing blackouts, moments of cruelty, and an all-consuming nihilism. beyond their shared scandinavian heritage, their expressionist urge for the frigid drone, and their penchant for drink, bj nilsen and stilluppsteypa intend this recording as an open ended experience, wandering through their sound without the burden of any exegetical text that may get in the way.

drykkjuvisur ohljodanna resolves itself as a grim kaleidoscope, where the bleakness of the wintry scandinavian landscape and the langour of a drunken escapade constantly mutate through the highly refined sensibility of dronescaping. sonar pings announce the beginning of this album, with its echoes returning as an amorphous fog and locating little but a gloomy pall upon the event horizon. clattering electronics scurry across the barren sounds like death-watch beetles upon the tundra; and creaking doors offer something much more foreboding than what pierre henry envisioned for musique concrete. drykkjuvisur ohljodanna adheres to the psychological dis-quiet through sound design that alan splet provided for eraserhead or that nurse with wound achieved on salt marie celeste. yet for all of their tendencies for brooding and desolation, bj nilsen & stilluppsteypa retain a compulsion for a glacial beauty through their intoxicated visions of the sublime.

bj nilsen has released numerous records for touch and ash international, both under his given name and as hazard, often focusing the sound of nature, its effect on humans, and the perception of time & space as experienced through sound. he has also previously collaborated with christian fennesz and chris watson. stilluppsteypa have unleashed well over a dozen releases in their tumultuous existence of electro-absurdism laced with subversion, blackhumour, and horror.

drykkjuvisur ohljodanna is a limited edition pressing of 1000 copies.

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threads:
electro-acoustic-composition
sound-art
sound-poetry

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 007 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 007 cd

m.s. waldron / steven stapleton / sigtryggur berg sigmarsson / jim haynes / r.k. faulhaberthe sleeping moustache” compact disc

  • sprawled naked across a piano (10:13)
  • the over-night sister (1:47)
  • a few items known as children (10:45)
  • look out! that one's dangerous. (2:31)
  • a bottomless black eye (10:08)
  • woolen pubic hair (2:11)
  • a little act of familiar daily routine (10:21)
  • annoyance, ignorance, and forgetfulness (3:20)
  • oh sir, i'm scared (11:15)
  • candlelight ceremonies for killing time (2:26)
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms 007

m.s. waldron, steven stapleton, sigtryggur berg sigmarsson, jim haynes, and r.k. faulhaber
the sleeping moustache cd

release date: may 2, 2006

let's begin with the introductions.

m.s. waldron may be best known for his work as irr. app. (ext.), an unwieldy moniker that begets uncanny, hallucinatory sound. steven stapleton is the genius behind nurse with wound, the consistently unpredictable project that scrambles musical obsessions for krautrock, surrealism, and avant-garde composition into a brash quest for expressionism through experimentation. sigtryggur berg sigmarsson hails from the icelandic electro-absurdist duo stilluppsteypa, which continues to investigate the finer points of drunken minimalism. jim haynes prefers to merely state that he rusts things. r.k. faulhaber is something of a mysterious figure, looming around mr. waldron's irr. app. (ext.) recordings and performances while keeping his own work a hermetic secret.

each with a peculiar understanding of the audio arts, these five artists came to the proverbial table and thought it a good idea to collaborate. given the predilection for the surreal and the sidereal that each of these five employ in their many audio and visual projects, those agendas oozed from the recordings that became known as the sleeping moustache.

an epiphany of controlled disorder, a convulsion of beauty, a cascade of thought from delirious minds, the sleeping moustache is an exquisite manifestation of sound poetry scattered into a tortuous collage mired in an oblique melancholy. magnetic tones extracted from the ether, mechanical sounds smeared into a lugubrious growls, horns trumpeting straight out of john's book of revelation, ululations sliced into information overload that schwitters himself would be proud of. the sleeping moustache presents a psychically instable landscape, where dreams and nightmares wreak havoc upon the drudgery of daily life. the closest audible territory for the sleeping moustache might be the psychoactive constructions of nurse with wound's homotopy to marie, although the characters in this drama happened upon an entirely different map of that terrain.

the artwork for the first edition of the sleeping moustache features five letterpress prints from each of the artists with an edition of 1700.

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threads:
sound-art

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 006 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 006 cd

spoonbender 1.1.1stereo telepathy academy” compact disc

  • stereo telepathy academy (40:44)
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms 006

spoonbender 1.1.1
stereo telepathy academy cd

release date: valentine's day, february 14, 2006

in 1913, marcel duchamp dropped three pieces of string, each a meter long, from a height equal to their length. he then cut shapes into pieces of wood in order to document the rumpled line of his three fallen strings. in essence, duchamp conceived his 3 standard stoppages as a preservation of chance, which he viewed as a means to combat logical reality. in addition to duchamp's self-proclaimed antipathy to the rational world, he was quite particular in how he contextualized and executed his ideas through readymade objects, chance operations, and his notorious psycho-sexually charged dioramas. it is this dualism between the chance operation and an absolute intellectual/technical control which brings us to the present age, and to spoonbender 1.1.1 in particular. the acceptance and integration of opposites results in the 3rd option: everything.

the san francisco-based spoonbender 1.1.1 outlines itself as the 'tele-ambient dream self' of the critically-acclaimed, 'populist avant-tronics and media group' i am spoonbender. it is important to note that spoonbender 1.1.1 declares itself not a side project of i am spoonbender, but a psychologically immersive extension of the central ias concept. both projects uncover the hidden connections that lie beneath the surface of reality by delving into the arenas of paranormal research - the exploration of the occult significance surrounding the number 3 and its strange laws, for example - but the intended outcomes for these concepts are decidedly different. for stereo telepathy academy, spoonbender 1.1.1 exercises psychic community through the architecture of the soundtrack.

at the beginning of the first 'transmission' of stereo telepathy academy on november 3rd, 2004 - a performance where the group supported genesis p-orridge's ptv3 - 1.1.1's dustin donaldson announced that "tonight's spoonbender 1.1.1 show is governed by chance operations and the 'third mind' technique. spoken text was taken from one film, overlayed onto images from another film, and the score was composed while viewing a third (and secret) film source. the synchronistic results appear to be intentional." such was the strategy of duchamp's aforementioned piece nearly a century ago; but spoonbender 1.1.1's collision of artforms also employs the technique found in the william s. burroughs / brion gyson classic the third mind. as the images of david cronenberg's rarely seen film crimes of the future flickered, spoonbender 1.1.1 radiated an inverted telekinetic minimalism of undulating tones supporting the third piece of the puzzle: spoken text from cronenberg's stereo, a faux-documentary detailing a surgical procedure for the advancement of telepathic communication. the result: a sort of 'wizard of oz / dark side of the moon' for the mimetic engineering mindset.

(not surprisingly, another triangle was completed at this event: donaldson and p-orridge met for the first time. burroughs and donaldson were friends, as were burroughs and p-orridge. psychic tv 3 / spoonbender 1.1.1 on the 3rd of november...)

the same principles and elements apply for stereo telepathy academy, the group's long-awaited debut studio recording (1.1.1 has existed solely as a live group for years).

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threads:
new-zealand
modern-psych
minimalism-drones
lo-fi
analogue-synth

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 005 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 005 cd

omittracer” double compact disc set

  • sequester (20:53)
  • de-trop (3:08)
  • hex-shader (2:34)
  • rhythm shift (4:55)
  • decayer (3:01)
  • din shader (2:48)
  • slip link (3:10)
  • topper-flex (4:29)
  • mini-trop (2:10)
  • seq-void (1:34)
  • rip flex (3:05)
  • syn flex dump (9:10)

  • clicker (7:44)
  • din-cycle (2:55)
  • link-op (10:09)
  • eq-shader (3:21)
  • tapper flex (8:53)
  • bug-capper (2:12)
  • pro-hiss (6:17)
  • flick (3:30)
  • dinker drop (3:22)
  • eska-flex (2:17)
  • hisstronic (9:05)
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms 005

omit
tracer 2cd

release date: october 11, 2005

clinton williams admits that he has never been particularly keen in marketing the obsessive electronic constructions he's produced under the moniker omit over the past two decades. williams once infamously quipped to nick cain that he should simply print a couple pages of zeros in lieu of the failing interview that cain was conducting for his own opprobrium magazine a little over a decade ago. while such actions may be confused with those of a curmudgeonly hermit, williams is concerned with his impeccable battery of synthetic sounds intent on psychological dislocation.

having released the bulk of his work in tiny self-published editions of lathe-cut singles and hand-dubbed cassettes, omit has enjoyed several high-profile releases thanks to the diligence of corpus hermeticum and anomalous records who both rescued some of omit's finest work from terminal obscurity. the helen scarsdale agency is proud to announce the arrival of his latest recording tracer a double disc set.

as with all of his previous work, tracer is an antiquated behemoth, constructed from analogue synthesizers, primitive drum machines, homespun electronics, and numerous effects pedals. simple wooden rhythms trot, trudge, and even glide along taut metric grids hotwired with bursts of mechanical splutter and the occasional creak from pierre henry's wooden door. an occasionally menacing, but more often melancholic orchestration of synthetic tones ripple, flex, and dissolve across the uniform structuralism, creating an ecstatic paranoia rarely heard with such splendor, rigor, and sublime blackness. if sonic references are required, then the klaus schulze masterpiece cyborg remains the closest analogy to what may be found in tracer. -- helen scarsdale, september 2005

the helen scarsdale agency offers omit's latest opus in an edition of 750 copies, hand printed through letterpress and silkscreen.

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first in stock on
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threads:
electro-acoustic-composition
minimalism-drones

the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 004 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 004 cd

b. j. nilsen / stilluppsteypavikinga brennivin” compact disc

  • en dåre kan fråga mer än tre visa kan svara (einn fáviti getur spurt meira en thrír adrir geta svarad) (12:54)
  • heiler, thorn eirs hlyddu (lycklige de, som lyssnat) (12:26)
  • untitled (1:37)
  • vidunder (4:20)
  • det är bäst att jag börjar, annars kommer jag aldrig hem (nú er kominn tími til ad byrja, annars kemst eg ekkert aftur heim) (24:51)
february 2005 collaborative effort between the icelandic/dutch ensemb. stilluppsteypa (very active in the pre-and-post digital sound-research wasteland of the late 90s) and touch/ash artist bj nilsen (aka hazard).
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
hms 004

bj nilsen & stilluppsteypa
vikinga brennivín cd

release date: april 5, 2005 brennivin is an icelandic liquor vulcanized from the humble potato and flavored with cumin, although you’d be hard pressed to taste much beyond the astringent burn that it leaves in your mouth. bottled in matte black glass and stamped with ominously simple labels, brennivin appears less like something to imbibe and more like poison; and in that creeping slow death kind of way, it is. for the icelandic electro-absurdist outfit stilluppsteypa, brennivin has soaked into every fiber of their being; and as a result, oozes out of their terminal drones, sputtered rhythms, and atomic fractures. as much brennivin (and mind-altering chemicals in general have been a muse for stilluppsteypa, they are also a curse; stilluppsteypa’s oblique dada expressionism and devilish black humour erupt with megalomaniacal invincibility that comes with a few too many drinks; but at the same time, stilluppsteypa has developed a parallel ethos of clinical minimalism the reflects the introspection, headaches, and melancholia of the morning after.

in their poetically abject celebration of brennivin, stilluppsteypa (comprised of sigtryggur berg sigmarsson and helgi thorsson) accepted the invitation from swedish composer bj nilsen to collaborate upon an album related to alcohol and its mind-numbing effects. nilsen has been working in various constellations of experimental music, best known for his recordings as hazard published through touch and ash international. focusing the perception of natural sounds through a reconstruction of time and space, nilsen has rendered the commonplace sounds of wind, rain, and snow as stealthfully seductive and quietly menacing drifts of frozen sound. their resultant collaboration is an existentialist allegory in which the three drunkenly stumble out in a scandinavian winter night and spiral toward the inevitable point in which they blackout. lest this be construed as a derelict piece of method acting, the craft that nilsen, sigmarsson, and thorsson brought to vikinga brennivin is impeccable, as the extended soundfields breath with the majesty of distant fog horns and sparkle with the delicate light of countless stars cast down from the black heavens onto the frozen tundra below. frightening and barren, yet hauntingly compelling, vikinga brennivin is an isolationist masterpiece.

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file under:
sound-research
the helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 002 cd
helen scarsdale agency (usa) #hms 002 cd

irr.app.(ext.)ozeanisch gefühle” compact disc

  • ozeanische gefühle (41:56)
  • the demiurges presumption (12:18)
third album from this bay-area performance/sound artist of note (recent activity including a collaboration with nurse with wound on one of the “angry electric finger” projects has people buzzing all of the sudden... see recent exposé in the wire). two long, slowly unfolding sound-works that harken back to the “golden age” (i’m thinking early-mid 80s organum) in their use of field recordings (rain), mysterious bowed metal-layers, and low shifting clouds of filtered noise. masterfully assembled, a joy to experience...
the helen scarsdale agency press release...
assembled in winter 2001 | cover photo by tracey waldron | other images and design by m.s. waldron | thanks to: jim haynes & helen scarsdale, christoph heeman & andrew chalk, shinichi momo koga, tracey waldron, goerge & jeannine waldron, and r k faulhaber. dedicated to the stubborn persistence of wilhelm reich

"irr. app. (ext) is the work of california-based sound artist matt waldron, whose collected body of work is far too important to continue to be forgotten. during the past decade, only two full albums -- dust pincher appliances (2003 on crouton) and an uncertain animal, ruptured; tissue expanding in conversation (1997 on fire, inc.) -- have seen the light of day despite the fact that perhaps a dozen albums have been completed. the public silence for irr. app. (ext) was never by waldron’s design, as numerous recording deals collapsed, one after the other. the story becomes all the more of conundrum as these misadventures of neglect and ignorance occurred despite waldron’s high-profile collaborations with nurse with wound and stilluppsteypa. if a humble organization like the helen scarsdale agency can have its say, then we speak to remove whatever curses that have haunted irr. app. (ext.) in the past and provide the world with the opportunity to revel in the spectacle and the beauty that is matt waldron’s art.

had things gone differently, ozeanische gefühle would have been one of the lost irr. app. (ext.) recordings. that would have been a shame for ozeanische gefühle stands as an impeccable composition of post-surrealist dronescaping rivaling such masterpieces as the hafler trio’s kill the king, jonathan coleclough & andrew chalk’s sumac, and nurse with wound’s soliloquy for lilith.

the title has origins with freud and earlier thinkers; yet waldron came across ozeanische gefühle (which translates from the german as "oceanic feelings") in his studies of wilhelm reich who referenced the term to describe the natural state of every healthy organism as connected to and engaged with the world around it, with its energies flowing from the center outwards. for waldron, reich’s ideas became the starting point for a metonymic exercise seeking to discover that which is near a signifier and spiral beyond each successive discovery along a complicated aesthetic thread by way of intuition and accident.

the album tumbles through a series of sympathetic dronings, field recordings, and performative gestures, continuously traversing the emotional polarities of psychological tension and externalized jouissance. the album begins with a heavily processed flutter of sustained woodwinds accompanied by thunderous rumbles in the distance before dispersing amidst bernhard hermann-esque slashings of discordant strings. later on, the grotesque pathos of a wurlitzer organ dissolves into a blackened emptiness that envelopes the complex resonant frequencies from waldron’s slow, deliberate performance upon bowls and bells. despite the incredible depth of his source materials, waldron displays an uncanny intellect that reflects all of his wandering passages through the lens of a melancholic ambience. simply put, ozeanische gefühle is a wonder to behold." -- helen scarsdale, june 2004

previous record label:
 heavy tapes 
...and that's everything on helen scarsdale agency in stock.
(why not take a look at the previous and next labels?)
next record label:
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... this page was last updated on saturday, february 11th, 2012 @ 5:09 pm