andrew pekler “sentimental favourites” long playing record

• yesterday of love
  
• close to strangers
  
• (they long to be) misty blue
  
• wichita forever
  
• samba de cherbourg (les parapluies de verao)
  
• prelude to a summer
  
• suddenly (naturally)
  
  
• the twilight of your smile
  
• un vent et une femme
  
• music to sleep walk by
  
• everybody's raindrops
  
• moon velvet (shadows, whispers, rivers, windmills)

ensemble economique “crossing the pass, by torchlight” long playing record

• heat waves
  
• vanishing point
  
• to feel the night as it really is
  
  
• everything i have,  i give to you
  
• sparks exploding, splintering blackness
  
• somewhere, anywhere

daniel padden “ship chop” long playing record

• various saints
  
• flared up by love
  
• you have crossed 33 rivers, but please return
  
• trust in his deceptive charm
  
• dancers' reverse
  
  
• rattling belt
  
• belly of parchment
  
• war in a battle song
  
• a cow
  
• for example
  
• 17 leaves in the low register
  
• it is impossible to avoid birds

sculpture “toad blinker” picture disc long playing record

• bonus level
  
• conjugal bloom receptor
  
• dispersal projection
  
• data corporation
  
• visceral protocol
  
• glome organ
  
  
• elk cloner
  
• iterative deviation
  
• toad blinker
  
• e.m. slew percolator
  
• corolla

dekorder press release...

[058] sculpture toad blinker picture-disc lp we tracked the signal emanating from the rotary emitter and ended up here..exploring the lab where biological parts are spliced with virally spawned digital mutations. toad blinker is an incautiously assembled amalgam of mutated techno forms, analogue electronics, tape cuts and digital sampling, gleefully twisted psychedelia. it's a take on computerised music production that rejects tired badges of 'quality'. it's fast and cheap, unexplained, joyful, strange, it loves trash and mess and mistakes and too much energy, and revels in accidental collisions. sculpture aim to generate an energy greater than the sum of its constituent elements. dan hayhurst's music finds its ideal counterpart in reuben sutherland's animations. like their previous rotary signal emitter lp (dekorder, 2010), toad blinker is a zoetropic picture disc designed to be filmed at 25fps with a high shutter speed. during live performances, sutherland djs with home-made zoetrope picture discs, projecting looping fragments of surreal, kaleidoscopic imagery while hayhurst feeds tape loops, lo-fi analogue electronics, and digital sequences to a 'modular assembly' comprising a battered reel to reel tape recorder, cd player, walkman, hardware sampler and fx units.

xela “the sublime” long playing record

• lust & paradise
  
  
• eve's riposte

machinefabriek / gareth davis “ghost lanes” long playing record

• ghost lanes
  
  
• mackerel sky

astral social club “generator breaker” long playing record

• generator
  
• purring
  
• churl
  
• balloom
  
  
• wishaw
  
• splashdown
  
• breaker

pete swanson “high time b/w trees” seven inch single record

• high time
  
  
• trees

emerald cocoon press release...

pete swanson alone together #5 - high time / trees 7" [ec007] pete swanson's love for the new zealand underground is no secret (rumour has it that he engineered the entire yellow swans new zealand tour of 2005 just so he could procure a copy of the pin group 'goes to town' 12"), so we were pleasantly unsurprised when pete turned in two re-imaginings of classic nz underground tracks as his contribution to the alone together series. what surprised us greatly though was the form that they took: sparkling acoustic guitar, audible vocals, audible room tone – this was a pete swanson we'd never heard before. although his signature degradation systems are still in place (both sides end with a blown-out acoustic guitar emulating dirty-needled distortion), acoustic strings, four walls and a voice dominate, dislocated just enough to give you the sense that the world ends at your bedroom walls. this is a sound that shouldn't be unfamiliar to anyone previously baptised by 4-track channelled lathe transmissions from the bottom of the world. the dusty gems re-interpreted here are 'high time' by seminal christchurch kvltists dadamah (originally released as a 7" on the genius majora label circa '91) and 'trees' from gate's recent downer-techno masterpiece 'a republic of sadness', both are redolent of the darkest, coldest dunedin winter as imagined from half a world away. edition of 300.

mhfs “the grey lynn homeless set” seven inch single record

• untitled (1)
  
• untitled (2)
  
  
• untitled (3)
  
• untitled (4)

emerald cocoon press release...

mhfs alone together #4 - the grey lynn homeless set 7" [ec006] new zealand-born tokyo-based physicist mark sadgrove aka mhfs aka hometown fielding has been quietly upsetting petty notions like 'music' since 2004 when his 'west auckland driving songs' cdr barely drifted onto the scene via campbell kneale's celebrate psi phenomena label. from the start all the hallmarks were in place: site specific recordings, lyrical domesticity, systematically illogical recording choices, an acoustic guitar strung only with low e’s (his favorite string - who wouldn't want more of a good thing?), invented instruments, real-time linux csound programming, obsessively repeated lyrical fragments, an almost buddhist sense of 'sound as object', songs buried so quietly under so much hiss that even the most jaded 'difficult music' fans double checked their players to make sure something wasn't broken. in 2006 metal rouge played their first ever show (at the wine cellar in auckland, new zealand) which also doubled as helga's farewell party for her imminent departure back home to the us. mhfs was asked to play, but busy at work on his phd thesis ('resonant quantum transport for kick atoms') was unable to make it and handed us 'the grey lynn homeless set' to be played over the pa in lieu of an in-person performance. billed as a 'special non-appearance by mhfs', saturday night bar patrons were subjected to completely brutalized fragments of bone-dry pointillist guitar, seemingly random electronic beats jumping across the stereo spectrum and two sub sub sub low fidelity acoustic 'folk' songs buried under masses of hiss and digital haze – the only audible lyrics something about being 'fucking angry'.  i wish i could say the bar regulars stopped in their tracks, stunned by the sheer alien illogic of the misshapen audio tumbling from the bar pa, but alas…  most punters just assumed the pa was on the fritz and went back to their drinks – those sounds couldn't possibly be intentional, right?  emerald cocoon is now proud to present 'the grey lynn homeless set' in it's short and confusing entirety. check your cables, check your speakers – beauty has never sounded so broken.  part 4 of the 'alone together' series. mastered by pete swanson. edition of 300.

yek koo “oh woman b/w flame creation” seven inch single record

• oh woman
  
  
• flame creation

emerald cocoon press release...

yek koo alone together #3 - oh woman / flame creation 7" [ec005] helga fassonaki (of metal rouge) returns as yek koo with her first new release since last years 'i saw myself' on stunned records. gone are the horizontal string-sprawl epics of past, replaced by a new density and compositional focus. dictaphone guitar-swirl and declamatory vocal preaching atop loping nod-out rhythm samples, you could almost say yek koo has gone pop …. until the b-side hits: a sheet of live industrial slamming recorded at la's now defunct spiritual hub, the echo curio, that sounds like a realtime channelling of kali. as hard to pin down as ever, the closest point of comparison would be the morley / russell split 7" lathe on corpus hermeticum left to percolate in the merciless californian sun and even that sounds nothing like it. confusing, enticing, nuanced and brutal. part 3 of the 'alone together' series. mastered by pete swanson. edition of 300.

ashley paul “hidden face b/w leave mine” seven inch single record

• hidden face
  
  
• leave mine

emerald cocoon press release...

ashley paul alone together #2 - hidden face / leave mine 7" [ec004] ashley paul's music is the intersection of so many different facets of late 20th century art music that sometimes i'm surprised that the vinyl can still spin under the weight of all the ideas contained within. modern composition, euro free clatter and textural psychedelia converge as stilted song forms on the verge of careening off the very face of form on thin lines of carefully controlled reed-skree. amazing that a music so loaded with ideas could feel so hand crafted and warm. guitar, vocals, crotales and saxophone stitched together and moving in a constant slow peristalsis, never quite coalescing, never quite drifting apart. equal parts alien unease and folkish charm, these slowly tangled tones drift prismatic and high in the late afternoon light. ashley is also one half of aster (with artist of equal genius and partner in life/crime eli keszler) and paul & maurey (with sakiko mori). part 2 of the 'alone together' series. mastered by pete swanson. edition of 300.

christina carter “obelisk b/w tholos” seven inch single record

• obelisk
  
  
• tholos

emerald cocoon press release...

christina carter alone together #1 - obelisk / tholos 7" [ec003] a new 7" by christina carter which serves as the opening ceremony for our new 7" series of solo performances 'alone together'. a lone voice, the tangled bells, the caw of a crow, a plane passing overhead … a fortuitous overlapping of sound moments, trapped in amber by christina for us to bear witness. much like her early cdr’s 'hand & mind' or 'human as guitar', 'obelisk/tholos' is an act of white witchcraft, a healing spell that defines time with the merest of tools: bells, voice, a microphone … mastered by pete swanson, ed. 300

sunken “new zealand eels” long playing record

• eelman 003
  
• census
  
  
• the evidence
  
• eel meal
  
• pint

floris vanhoof “hootcha” c40 cassette

• hootcha (1)
  
• hootcha (2)
  
  
• hootcha (3)

stenze quo press release...

monday, january 23, 2012 floris vanhoof - "hootcha" known for his energetic live performances with homemade synths, tape echoes and 16mm film acrobatics belgian floris vanhoof knows how to surprise spectators and himself on repeat. on this recording acoustic instruments like gongs and strings meet warping electronics in refreshingly open and fluctuating compositions. on the a side a sweet electronic melody suddenly fades to one channel, whilst on the other appears what seems to be the sound of random zapping through tv channels. on side b a mutated beat monster, walls of synth floating in steadily shapeshifting patterns into a joyful delirium. floris has previously released cassettes on taped sounds, breaking world records and a lp on ultra eczema. yellow c40 in stencilprinted cover

keiji haino / jim o’rourke / oren ambarchi “imikuzushi” double long playing record set

• still unable to throw off that teaching
  a heart left abandoned
  unable to get inside that empty space
  nerves freezing
  that unconcealed sadness?
  
  
• ready and waiting
  ready and tired of waiting
  this happiness
  hovers for a while opaque..
  
  
• invited in
  practically drawn in by something
  facing the exit of this hiding place
  who is it? that went in..
  
  
• an acute sensitivity is
  not simply a "madness"
  an acute sensitivity
  to the resonance of "i love you"
  teaches us just a little something
  it's not that we can't do something
  it's just that we haven't done it yet...

black truffle press release...

keiji haino / jim o’rourke / oren ambarchi imikuzushi label: black truffle format: 2lp catalogue number: bt07 release date: 2/28/2012 the yearly summit of keiji haino, jim o'rourke and oren ambarchi continues with imikuzushi, which finds the group extending the power-trio strategies of 2011's highly-praised in a flash everything comes together as one there is no need for a subject (bt 005lp) and bringing to them a newly-sustained intensity. for this performance, haino limits himself to electric guitar and vocals, forming complex networks of slashing rhythm work, noise squall and chromatic shredding, moving at times to near-silent passages of howled vocals and isolated, hanging guitar strums. the tendency towards driving free-rock which surfaced on moments of the trio's last release is cemented here, with o'rourke's fuzzed-out, non-linear bass riffing moving the music into almost garage-rock areas, combining with ambarchi's drums to form a bedrock of hypnotic, metronomic pounding which transforms itself effortlessly into passages of flowing free-time. like all of haino's best work, the trio transcends any 'rock' genre exercise to enter a non-idiomatic zone of ritual intensity, creating a music formed purely out of instrumental and group-mind possibility. presented as four unedited excerpts salvaged from an epic show that lasted well over three hours, the sometimes raw nature of the recording only adds to its directness and harshly emotive quality. - francis plagne, melbourne, november, 2011 design by stephen o'malley (sunn o)))) with high quality live shots by ujin matsuo and stunning images by tokyo-based photographer and sound artist shunichiro okada.

oren ambarchi / fennesz / pimmon / peter rehberg / keith rowe “afternoon tea” compact disc

• afternoon tea 1 (19:15)
  
• afternoon tea 2 (24:37)
  
• no title (3:33)
  
• live tea 1 (12:44)
  
• live tea 2 (8:27)

black truffle press release...

ambarchi / fennesz / pimmon / rehberg / rowe afternoon tea label: black truffle format: cd catalogue number: bt03 who would have thought a relaxed sunny afternoon, newfound friendships and some spur-of-the-moment would have resulted in what’s been described as ’one of the most compelling documents of both free improvisation and electronica’ (all music guide) ? it’s the people involved in ’afternoon tea’ - originally released in 2000 on german label ritornell and now reissued on black truffle with a new master, bonus tracks and newly discovered live recordings after years of being out of print - that ensured it as more than a happy accident. the twin guitar presence of amm’s keith rowe and oren ambarchi and kindred spirits of the laptop - sydney’s pimmon, vienna’s christian fennesz and peter rehberg - made it a momentous day. with all the players coming together during the 2000 what is music? festival, ’afternoon tea’ stands as a highpoint of the then-emerging intersection between powerbook performance and guitar improvisation. all subtlety, nuance and detail, it is a revelation of restraint. built on a steadying flow of burbling rhythm, the quintet slowly weave around each others’ sonics in layers to create a tonal palette immersive in its atmosphere and magnetic in its compulsion. hindsight clearly reveals the heart of these pieces - important to note considering they were recorded at a time when laptop performance was an alien concept to many in experimental music, suffering controversy and backlash as well as an over-abundance of pale approaches from many who took it on as novelty as opposed to serious musical pursuit. those involved in the 'afternoon tea' session left their australian tour inspired, citing their merry time in the country eating, drinking and hanging out at the beach as well as their performances as a direct influence on their following work. many great live recordings were spawned from the tour itself including rehberg & bauer's 'passt', fennesz' 'live at revolver' (both on touch) and a collaboration between him and new zealand's rosy parlane (released on synaesthesia). additionally the seeds were sown for the fennesz classic 'endless summer' from 2001 (mego). ’afternoon tea’ remains one of the quiet and real achievers for experimental music of the past decade. remastered in may 2009 and with artwork designed by stephen o'malley.

perispirit “spiritual church movement” long playing record

• 14th annual séance
  
  
• attn: deficit order

vazz / la bambola del dr caligari “whisper not b/w the wrong holiday” long playing record

• vazz - want of anger
  
• vazz - cast reflections
  
• vazz - lost time
  
• vazz - thirst for white
  
• vazz - endless road
  
• vazz - flute dance
  
  
• la bambola del dr caligari - strawberry creeps
  
• la bambola del dr caligari - blue soldier
  
• la bambola del dr caligari - deep skanner
  
• la bambola del dr caligari - satan's pride
  
• la bambola del dr caligari - voices on am (edit)

oval “ovaldna” compact disc and digital versatile disc set

• quiro (oval post-ovalcommers) (2:37)
  
• kasino (pre-o) (2:47)
  
• tweakk (pre_commers) (3:32)
  
• australasia (pre-o) (3:21)
  
• credit line (post-o) (2:30)
  
• mara fax (pre-o) (2:56)
  
• heroic (post-o) (2:33)
  
• octaeder 0.2 (oval post-ovalcommers) (4:19)
  
• 70 kino (iso fabric jp bonus) (2:00)
  
• alpen (pre-o) (3:29)
  
• mersey (post-o) (1:22)
  
• in + love (pre-o) (3:19)
  
• stealth (pre_commers jp) (3:03)
  
• gegenlesen (iso fabric jp bonus) (1:03)
  
• savvy (pre_commers) (3:10)
  
• eigentlichen 2.0 (iso fabric jp bonus) (2:00)
  
• doku_drama (pre_commers jp) (3:18)
  
• breemo (post-o) (1:23)
  
• i (ovalcommers jp bonus) (2:39)
  
• flageo (post-o) (1:35)
  
• whypunkt (pre-o) (2:32)
  
• instantan 1+2 (iso fabric jp bonus) (2:21)
  
• pockyrocky (pre-o) (3:38)
  
• iv (pre_commers jp) (2:58)
  
• op (ovalprocess jp bonus) (4:04)

shitkatapult press release...

oval / ovaldna - strike0134 the dvd-rom contains 2000+ soundfiles by oval, ovaldna software, oval musicclips, oval documentation and bonustracks. in many ways, “o”, released on thrill jockey after a nine-year break, was a second debut album for markus popp aka oval. a radical break with old concepts and methods, a new beginning. while popp’s artistic approach in the 1990s and early 2000s was more of a structural, theoretical nature, “o” was just about the music itself. themes such as the means of production, limitations, dogma and concept took back seat to a musical sensibility. instead of writing new software to synthesize and process sounds, for “o”, popp dove into the heart of our preset-culture. he acquired a standard pc and only used the pre-installed sounds and plug-ins. with this ready-to-play machine and conventional musical instruments like the guitar and drums, a new chapter in the story of oval was written. the musician markus popp takes center stage: the developer, theoretician and media artist remains in the background - special knowledge, which makes it easier to understand oval’s music. just have a listen.  dna is a mountain of an album: an audio cd with 25 tracks, each about three minutes long. some are no longer than a minute. here you’ll find a collection of rare oval pieces and 12 previously unreleased tracks. dna is a mixture of music from markus popp’s various creative phases. it’s surprising how old and new meld seamlessly together, and how, for oval, formalism and musicality have produced similar results. markus popp has found an unmistakable musical language and declined it from a to z. dna, so to say, is the accompanying dictionary. originally, this album was supposed to appear before “o” and conclude the “electronic” phase of oval. a farewell of sorts.

bryter layter “two lenses” long playing record

• your verdant skin
  
• first light
  
• understanding interdependence
  
• the shadow of your smile
  
  
• aspect
  
• second light
  
• closing

danny paul grody “in search of light” long playing record

• hello from everywhere
  
• headlands
  
• china beach
  
• orbits
  
• union
  
  
• ohr
  
• stars gaze
  
• skylark
  
• unwinder

stefan tcherepnin / christopher delaurenti “heavy analog electronics vols. 2 and 3” c35 cassette

• among middles
  
• seconded
  
• four athwart
  
  
• penultimate horizon

draft press release...

stefan tcherepnin & christopher delaurenti, heavy analog electronics vols. 2 and 3 draft d015 / tape / edition of 125 bleed the capacitors: heavy analog electronics vols. 2 and 3 is the second release in a series of tapes by stefan tcherepnin and christopher delaurenti that document their work as an improvising duo (following up their first volume on banned productions). performing on serge analog synth and touch-controlled transistor circuit boards respectively, the duo launch raw electronic sounds that dance around the stereo field with jagged logic. dense noise bursts collide and fracture within tight response dynamics, interspersed with silence. reminiscent of early noise pioneers, this work fuses noisy textures and active improvisation to create a finely crafted set of music with jarring momentum. [35 min / pro-dubbed & imprinted]

rm francis “microtopies” c42 cassette

• grand opponent - connor
  
• gistxxt
  
• and every grief gave a sound, flat on the stone mantle
  
  
• omniated
  
• the herbivores collection
  
• this impossible fog
  
• on a [redacted] rode disappointment
  
• sun/michael/tunnel/world
  
• day 3

draft press release...

rm francis, microtopies draft d013 / tape / edition of 125 newcomer rm francis debuts his first solo release, microtopies, a meticulously constructed set of works that took an entire year to complete. using the computer to generate software patches and process hacked thrift-store keyboards, francis layers time-stretched timbres that aimlessly warble within odd, congealed masses of compressed texture. sound surfaces reveal the micro-artifacts inherent in digital audio processes, which take on a life of their own. these sounds are then crafted into rich, miniature sound worlds that seem as organic as they do chemical. ghostly meditations lift, weightlessly shape-shifting, gently deposited into cloudy pools of resonance. at times melodic, at times academic, this hybrid of automated sounds and finely tuned craftsmanship leads to a fresh approach, and an excellent listen. [42 min / pro-dubbed & imprinted]

aaron dilloway “modern jester” double long playing record set

• tremors
  
• eight cut scars (for robert turman)
  
• labyrinths & jokes
  
  
• body chaos
  
  
• look over your shoulder
  
  
• shatter all organized activities (eat the rich)
  
• after the showers

hanson press release...

artist: aaron dilloway title: modern jester catalog number: hn250 format: gatefold double lp edition: 500 copies release date: january 31, 2012. "modern jester" is quite possibly the culmination of everything we've heard from dilloway that's come before it. a hyper-focused monolithic double lp that distills all past phases of inspiration into a harrowing, but strangely beautiful journey. - fred thomas, all music guide aaron dilloway on tape loops, percussion, synthesizer, junk, voice, and tape fx recorded 2008 – 2011. 500 copies. silkscreened gatefold sleeve. note: with the exception of one track (eight cut scars), this is a completely different release than the cassette title of the same name.every second of this recording contains subliminal messages. from short bursts to long-form, hallucinatory epics, it's a sprawling collection that highlights every facet of dilloway's considerable arsenal. one of the album's two side-long attacks, ‘look over your shoulder’ is a lurid, subtly shifting piece with disembodied vocals and a barrage of extra-terrestrial tones that slithers into your cerebral cortex atop a funeral rhythm. - jeff conklin, east villiage radio

free agents / pete shelley / sally smitt / her musicians / strange men in sheds with spanners “the total groovy” quadruple compact disc boxed set

• free agents - untitled (side a track 1) (17:49)
  
• free agents - untitled (side b track 1) (4:14)
  
• free agents - untitled (side b track 2) (8:38)
  
• free agents - untitled (side b track 3) (6:00)
  
  
• pete shelley - sky yen part one (20:45)
  
• pete shelley - sky yen part two (20:43)
  
  
• sally smmit & her musicians - hangahar 1. (17:42)
  
• sally smmit & her musicians - hangahar2. (16:08)
  
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 1 (0:41)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 2 (2:03)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 3 (2:50)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 4 (4:06)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 5 (3:27)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 6 (1:20)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 7 (2:43)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 8 (2:38)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 9 (2:00)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 10 (5:02)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 11 (9:15)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 12 (3:11)
  
• strange men in sheds with spanners - 13 (1:35)

drag city press release...

the total groovy 4xcd box dc507/stp 7 containing: free agents £3.33 pete shelley sky yen sally smmit and her musicians hangahar strange men in sheds with spanners a little bit of history is a dangerous thing. how then would a present-day acolyte of punk rock’s strict regimen explain how pete shelley launched an avant-garde diy label while riding high on the british charts and touring internationally back in 1979 and ’80? today, buzzcocks’ sound is recognized as a template for the punk-pop sound, but the atmosphere in which they and their contemporaries gestated was markedly different than today’s pop-punkers might expect: a cultural free-zone where anything went, not just the fast and loud. early-wave british punks were looking for something different: outsider prog sounds, electronic “music”, primal screaming, free-jazz—anything, as long as it was interesting and set apart from the blandness of mainstream product. loving the art of records and their wayward appeal, it was only natural for shelley and francis cookson to conceive groovy records as a way to make some truly freaky (and decidedly un-punk rock) records, and do as much of the work of making the records themselves as they could. these releases represent some of the farthest-out sessions on the wild-to-begin-with late-70s manchester scene. that three of these four albums were released in the space of one big year, 1980 the one real year of groovy’s existence, is further testament to the swirl of passions in swiftly morphing times. free agents was the first of the lot, with an album named after its price, £3.33. cookson took live performance tapes from a tiller boys show (a conceptual band featuring himself, eric random, and, when available, shelley) and added some additional recordings using tape loops, feedback and anything else he could get on there. it ranged around from post–“revolution 9” collage to wack beats that one might associate with the emergent krautrock to stark industrial moments, flowing into each other with an organic, freely improvised quality. packaged in 12” sleeves with photocopies of cookson scribbles pasted on the front and back, free agents was diy all the way. the second of the groovys was actually the first to be recorded, back in 1974. sky yen dated back to pete shelley’s college days, where he chaired an electronic music society, playing records over the intercom during lunch hour. after he’d made the recordings that became sky yen six years later, he added them to his playlist—and his schoolmates’ consternation. the material wasn’t exactly easy listening / ambient style—it was raw waves of oscillator tones, wildly leaping up and down and stretching out into a pair of twenty-minute pieces. thirty years of electronics-saturated music culture lends perspective to the appeal of sky yen—the album’s edges are still jagged and sharp. surrealism raised its willfully mutated head on the third groovy release, hangahar, credited to sally smmit and her musicians, special guest lindsay lee. claiming to be the soundtrack of the film hangahar, the album was inspired by a casual demonstration of a made-up sung language. a full-blown recording session captured this previously unheard quantity, the better to wake the world to its allure. the groovy gang broke out the oscillator and any other synth devices they had on hand (along with a kitchen cabinet full of impromptu percussives) to back up the operatic overtones of the mysterious eponymous chantueses via drones, riffs, chanting and, with reverb pots fully open, loads of ominous atmosphere throughout. despite the deep feeling of synchronous accord throughout this recording, it has proved to be something of a path not followed for the once and future ms. timms — sally, that is, of eventual mekons fame. this was the last the world heard of groovy — until now. their house of ideas wasn’t spent by any means—as of 1981, another session was planned under the general description “a man sprays a ford fiesta brown” but that never came to pass. a sea-change was signaled with the buzzcocks’ break-up, pete shelley’s subsequent solo career and energy going to other projects. however, even as these events were unfolding, recordings were made on a porta-studio at pete’s place that further realized the groovy direction. after the pubs closed, pete brought back a motley crew of usual suspects and special guests, broke out the synths, drums and what-have-yer attitude, resulting in a wealth of additional material that provided private listening pleasure for the groovy alumni over the years. culled from francis cookson tapes, these pieces make a fourth groovy installment entitled strange men in sheds with spanners that features a bent towards more disciplined rhythm pieces scored with a very purposeful array of synthetic sounds — truly the lost next new wave of groovy, finally crashing on our ready shores in 2012. the lps came out last month, but now for the first time ever, these four aural tomes are collected together for cd release with all original packaging included in miniature (plus an exclusive shelley interview!) — so what are you waiting for? it’s been over thirty years’ now — you can finally get groovy on digital!