First up, on Tuesday it was 20 years since Tales of Ephidrina was released, the first album on Astralwerks. To celebrate, two never before heard alternative mixes of Liquid Insects and Mountain Goat were added to the label's Soundcloud page. The tracks are quite similar to the released versions, but there are noticable differences to make them interesting curios. You can stream those here.
Next, new release news. Four EPs appeared on FSOLDigital on Thursday. It is not known whether these are alias or other artists, although it is presumed they are aliases. First up, Blackhill Transmatter - "EP". Written by Blackhill Transmitter. Recorded at Nine L West. Produced by Yage.
01 - Five Twenty Seven (3:08)
02 - Tower (3:08)
03 – Landslides (1:41)
04 – Karman Line (3:55)
05 – TX DSO Stage 1 (3:22)
06 – Hurple (2:37)
07 – Black Grain (2:34)
The tracks are mostly ambient with live sounding drums, and not entirely unlike some of the Environments 4 material in their organic feel.
The second release is, finally, the first release from EMS : Piano, a short EP entitled "One". The credits this time: Written by EMS : Piano. Recorded at Nine L West. Produced by Yage.
Recorded to 1/4 ” tape – warm and saturated - EMS : PIANO use exactly whats on the tin to create this 3 track EP. Taken from the album “VESSELS”
TRACKS
•01 – Grazing (Part 1) (5:44)
•02 – Swimmer (3:12)
•03 – The Suitcase (3:32)
Two of the pieces will be familiar from the EBS mixes. We're looking forward to the full album!
Next up, Sand Sound Folly - Salient Moons 1973. This one is very much a mystery, with the only credits being: Recorded live at The Panvision Gallery 03/04/10. Mixed at 9L-West. The EP is very organic sounding again, lots of acoustic instrumentation and percussion. TRACKS:
•01 – A Silent Moon (4:23)
•02 – Wishbone (4:58)
•03 – Willow (2:52)
•04 – Ebb & Flow (4:02)
The final of the four EPs is Stillness by Suburban Domestic, which falls firmly into the category of ambient dub. No credits whatsoever for this one, and five tracks:
•01 – Stillness (3:33)
•02 – Suburban Domestic (6:56)
•03 – Naked Earth (4:07)
•04 – A Pleasure Doing Business With Ya (3:13)
•05 – Municipal Infrastructure (4:28)
Sound samples of all releases are on the FSOLDigital pages, which can be found by clicking the EP titles in the above text.
Finally there is new merchandise to purchase on the site too. Four new t-shirt designs of the hand-drawn hands from the Amorphous/Paul Weller remix 12" released a few Record Store Days ago, the Environments logo from volumes 1 and 2 of the series, a Papua New Guinea cover and the FSOLDigital 'splash' logo. The t-shirts are hand-printed, made from organic cotton, ethically produced with low carbon footprint (more information on the individual tee pages). There's also an Alice In Ultraland poster on the site.
Meanwhile, in a 1970s cop film...
CARTEL Vol 1 the first release in a new series ' MONSTROUS BUBBLE SOUNDTRACKS produced and performed by the Amorphous Androgynous. It's a parallel series to the MONSTROUS PSYCHEDELIC BUBBLE DJ series but AA write and produce all the music in this series ( rather than DJ like MPB )exploring sub genres of MPB. The Cartel explores ' psychsploitation' where blaxploitation meets psych - a psychsploitation soundtrack for bank robberies , car/ cop chase/ heists, gunrunners , counter-surveillance, killing sprees and regret . . . .
Text and bizarre punctiation & capitalisation by Gaz there, of course. Ok, the tracklists for Volumes 1 & 2 are here - are you ready for this?
Volume 1
1. The Wasp
2. The Bug
3. Banksters
4. Regrets and Last Respects
5. The Chase
6. Hide and Speak
7. Loaded Silence (Part 1)
8. The Plaza Heist
9. Eyes and Ears to the Ground
10. The First Billion is the Hardest
11. Where Does the Evil Go When Evil Men Die?
12. Radio Breakdown
13. Taken Delivery
14. The Harry Limescale Theme
15. Down The Memory Hole
16. The Rat
17. Never Trust a Grass
Volume 2
1. Watching the Watcher
2. The Watcher
3. An Ocean of Regrets
4. Hombre Malo
5. The Visitor
6. Loaded Silence
7. Jah Skansters
8. 20 Years Behind Bars
9. The Killin' Spree (Theme From Harry Limescale)
10. 1,000,000 Stashed
11. Dead Vapours
12. Tap-Up
13. Billion Breaks
14. The Decision
15. Tunnel Sequence
16. Dead Man's Shadow
17. The Costa Rican Cartel
18. Cook The Books
19. Gun Runners
20. Some Time Later
And here are a load of video promos for the albums:
I think that's probably enough to keep us going for the moment.
