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COMING SOON
Andrew Perry - Arresting Weirdo Magick Tapes
Ampersand - Junkyard Geniuses
Jon Collin - Meditate, Medicate, Levitate, OUT!
Crank Sturgeon - Goof King / Fish Wing
BBBlood - Stalwart Myth Node
Aqua Dentata - March Hare, Kraken Mare (CD-R)
AQUA DENTATA - MARCH HARE, KRAKEN MARE (CD-R)
Behold earthlings - the bloody best bit of Baraclough is back on Beartown! Celebrated sound-warlock AQUA DENTATA (Eddie Nuttall www.aquadentata.co.uk) returns with the almost spiritual/transcendental MARCH HARE, KRAKEN MARE.
Nuttall has developed his AQUA DENTATA project further, utilizing synthesizers, tapes, microphones and bowed miscellany creating a meditative and hypnotic vibe. The result is a sparse, desolate and quite frankly, downright eery affair - think majestic, gushing waves collapsing in on themselves, distilling into vacuumed interzone voids and seemingly sourceless, spectral whispers that may never even have existed. This is a recording that will leave your senses/sensors rendered irrelevant.
Don't trust your lugholes son, they just don't do what they're supposed to no more. MARCH HARE, KRAKEN MARE - the soundtrack to the ultimate game of Hide & Seek going totally wrong. He's a fucking cracker live too!
Edition of 40. Backyard paradise artwork by CWB.
Bad Orb - Chat Hole (C30)
BAD ORB - CHAT HOLE (C30)
BAD ORB beams in a far out feast of fetid field recordings, mesmerically mournful mumblings and doom-laden dirges of dustbin drone... all direct from her seaside abode on the South coast. Beartown is proud to release CHAT HOLE in its all full, (un)edited (un)glory.
Fakirs moan in the echoing taverns, accordions wheeze beneath the creaking arboretum while dead or dying televisions creep quietly across the attic floor.
Laments are wailed for the flammable careless masses, conversations clipped, chopped and reversed and chicken bone dream catchers rattle against corrugated iron fences from here to there... and back again.
Intriguing and enchanting, CHAT HOLE is over the horizon, between the hedges, beneath the surface and above the snow-line. While stocks last... and they always last.
Edition of 33 with radioactive green tapes, florescent “chocolate war bride” artwork and instructions of how to attain an MP3 version of CHAT HOLE.
Smear Campaign - Rapunzel, Let Down Your Mother (C42)
SMEAR CAMPAIGN - RAPUNZEL, LET DOWN YOUR MOTHER (C42)
Sample Coming Soon.
Alright Chap? All hail Stuart Arnot, famed futuro-medievalist and div-sound stalwart. RAPUNZEL, LET DOWN YOUR MOTHER is the second part of his Rapunzel trilogy. Mr Arnot has many guises / collaborations / whatevers to his name, including but not to limited to: Hard Pan Trio / Plum Slate / The Game Cock / Acrid Lactations / Mid-Leopard Violet Prism / Ghost Of An Ocotopus / Filthy Smear and a whole bunch of other things we can't remember or pretend to know about.
RAPUNZEL, LET DOWN YOUR MOTHER is a warped, scrooned C42. Botched, smleted, pikcled, battered electronics. Rapunzel syndrome for the 2012 generation. Schizoid bouts of reverb, crashing castle-noise, feudal analogue peasant grunts, distort-weird-lumped-natter - it's a real Ludwigsburg of a cassette!
Perhaps some sort of robotic knight from Dresden blowtorching a shoesmith in Saxony for not paying his taxes or some sort of wooden bird plane with flint propellas sent from a future that never existed. It's all in there. Stuart really puts the GRIM in Brothers Grimm. Audacious Flagon Saxony-Glasgow futuro-beatbox break metldown...
C42, edition of 30, complete with individual, abstact cassette and symbolist historical cover art.
Lunn Poly- Thee Cosmic Donalds (CD-R)
LUNN POLY - THEE COSMIC DONALDS (CD-R)
Monged loops of vocal drivel from salt-mining central.
LUNN POLY hail from east of the river Weaver in Wharton, in Winsford, in Cheshire. Sit back and become fairly underwhelmed as indecipherable voice box farts, squelches, grunts and general contact mic abuse temporarily homogenises, before collapsing into pools of fumble.
Always moving and strangely dynamic, the forty four minute piece holds its glass up to phonation failure and (anti?) repetition, repetition, repetition.
THEE COSMIC DONALDS comes with felt tip cretin art work, and is a timely and timeless testement to a pair of Cestrian wipe-out scoundrels uncomfortable with the notion of silence and working in very difficult conditions.
One track - forty four minutes. A so far unlimited edition with seasonal artwork.
Bjerga / Iversen - Attempting To Discover Where To Begin (CD-R)
BJERGA / IVERSEN - ATTEMPTING TO DISCOVER WHERE TO BEGIN(CD-R)
Beartown presents a 26 minute live track from Norwegian experimental drone duo BJERGA / IVERSEN (Sindre Bjerga, Jan-Morten Iversen). Recorded at the ACTE Project Space in Oslo in October 2011, ATTEMPTING TO DISCOVER WHERE TO BEGIN bristles with nauseous energy; a performance stretched and distorted by depthless sonic tension. The distant rattling of hidden urban rituals echoes over an ominous, lurking symphony of undulating drone textures.
A study in symbiosis, the superimposition of a superimposition upon a hologram of a copy, endless reflections of each other dance and weave sonic cloudscapes in a clear, moonless sky. Pulsing synthesisers ebb and flow, the tape-loop tide comes in, and retreats. Knocking and clattering, shuffling and rubbling announce themselves before disintegrating into silent ash, blown away by the advancing rumble-breeze.
Edition of 33 with photographic artwork, on-CD stickers and casually-selected insert.
TPIATNAW - Untitled (CD-R)
TPIATNAW - UNTITLED (CD-R)
TPIATNAW (Slump, Cavities, Black Sue / Blackk Suue) offers up frothing, bubbling, over-flowing cauldron of distorted analogue sound waves from the damp wilds of South Cheshire, via North London. A composite recording of domestic field recordings, rotting tape collage and overlapping arpeggios. Gusts of flowing electronics ascend and descend while the doors of perception are slowly crowbarred from their hinges by melodies of gurgling low-end static.
UNTITLED is a roaring, distorted hymn to the gods of radio dream-bulbs, the lost deities of microwave terminal chime-core. One for fans of relaxation, agitation and gestation – pop this on, brew the tea, and watch the kettle-steam ghosts dance and beguile to the sound of collapse.
Edition of 28 with collage artwork, and on-CD 'root vegetable' sticker.
VASSBOTN / Torturing Nurse - Split (C60)
VASSBOTN / TORTURING NURSE - SPLIT (C60)
Sample Coming Soon.
VASSBOTN are a noisy sound-tyrant triple play that count 'master of static' Lasse Marhaug among their ranks. Following a magnificent debut on the Obscurex label last year, this cassette is only the second official document of their so far calamitous and precarious tenure on planet earth. A thirty minute battering-ram of a track continually asserts and diminishes, arrives and departs, begins and concludes. A kaleidoscope of rumbling, grumbling and hardcore fumbling awaits beyond the play button...
TORTURING NURSE have been beaming transcendental baffle-noise from their Shanghai home for over 7 years and this latest transmission is as off-kilter and as out of whack as ever. 30 minutes of processed field recordings, echoing signal generators and cracked electronics. Cut 'n' paste loopery drips and oozes over droning static while contact mics are loved and abused in equal measure.
Edition of 50 with clear tapes, colour co-ordinated j-cards and stickers. Artwork by Lasse Marhaug.
Shit Hands - What Did My Toy Boy Really Think Of Me? (C30)
SHIT HANDS - WHAT DID MY TOY BOY REALLY THINK OF ME? (C30)
Beartown debutant SHIT HANDS unleashes a bizarre batch of half-song structures on this wonderfully peculiar plop parcel.
Drink-fuelled, kazoo-dominant ramblings of an idiot who's seemingly unable or unwilling to play a bass guitar properly. WHAT DID MY TOYBOY REALLY THINK OF ME sounds like literally dozens of plops of pigeon shit on some sort of amplified metallic shed, whilst someone inside is screaming with a kazoo and playing stupid records at the wrong speed.
Edition of 20, comes with limited “Paedo Chris” artwork and A4 pullout Shroppy-rambling sheet.
Blackk Suue - Tent Crisis Vol. 1 (C30)
BLACKK SUUE - TENT CRISIS VOL. 1 (C30)
Beartown records is proud to make available a fresh glut of live archive material recorded by Cheshire post-junk-noise bods BLACKK SUUE. Culled from tree-house rehearsal demos stretching back to the stagnant winter of 2009, TENT CRISIS VOL. 1 is a stark recommendation of ruthless self-censorship, and the dignity of non-releasing.
A poorly recorded sprangle-artifact that captures both the essence and tenacity of Buglawton's messy-Merz-boys.
Belches and farts of abused, weather-damaged synthesisers, screams and squeals of feedback and the clattering of pre-recorded daft-head muckery loops are all captured live and unadulterated. A hysterical post-noise-meta document if you will... which you won't.
Edition of 20, complete with A4 gunk-collage and “Congers Turning to Out” mini-thesis.
Slump - Dead Or Dying Roses (C25)
SLUMP - DEAD OR DYING ROSES (C25)
SLUMP stretches its legs and awakes for yet another failing/failed outing on Beartown Records. DEAD OR DYING ROSES is a splice-fest of brittle textures, angry feedback and lurking synthesis. Filing cabinet percussion, breathless vocal improvisations, and spiraling prayer-box mantras are chopped up and scattered onto the sonic canvas like so many coarsely ground post-noise peppercorns. Delicate sinews of AM radio are knitted into a disorientating fabric of backwards blab-chatter, sloppity-boppity stereo slurp madness and ectoplasmic glass-grinding.
Not harsh, but horrid. Not furious, but facile. Not essential, but existential. Not here, but there. All you need to while away the spring evenings, rearrange your mental furniture or glimpse cubist heaven in a cassette tape – fractured diads galore!
Edition of 35 with pale blue “hazing” artwork, powder blue “trees in the mist” on-tape stickers and baby blue cassettes. Comes with free rose-petal confetti.
Kylie Minoise - The Deliciousness of Fire (C20)
KYLIE MINOISE - THE DELICIOUSNESS OF FIRE (C20) http://www.kovoroxsound.com/
Lea Cummings (aka KYLIE MINOISE) is not only the proud father of numerous, impressive bludgeon-core projects, but also presides over and directs the rather wonderful Kovorox Sound label from his Glasgow home. Here he is serving up chunks of reliably (un)palatable harsh noise.
Side A of THE DELICIOUSNESS OF FIRE sees the superimposition of stuttering sirens, guttural feedback, and spiralling walls of deep static. Each layer of racket consuming and devouring the other – cannibal-jazz! Solid boulders of sound are drilled, extracted, refined and polished, before being cast back into the roaring furnace of futility.
On the flip side, a deafening toxic gale blows long and hard. Swirling columns of sonic detritus rise up and disintegrate, tumbling down in a series of echoing, slow-motion crash landings. A rusted, collapsing, corrugated iron shed of a release.
Edition of 45, with full colour “exploited crab” artwork.
Dale Cornish - Voluntary Redundancy Salad (C35)
DALE CORNISH - VOLUNTARY REDUNDANCY SALAD (C35) http://www.dalecornish.com/
DALE CORNISH's VOLUNTARY REDUNDANCY SALAD is a poignant document of breakdown, regeneration and the ineffable power of shredded greens. Utilising a collection of field-recordings, drones, sample and loops, CORNISH delicately constructs two pieces of intricately arranged “sound events”, with a view to disarm and engage the listener.
A collection of musics that, when scrutinised, begin to fall away just as they become discernible. An artifact to be treasured or forgotten, lost in the sea of distraction and detestation. As always, CORNISH's work is exquisite and porcelain-like – dainty and fragile, subtle and beloved of sensitive old ladies.
Edition of 35 with collage artwork, blue tapes and free essay on the politico-philosophical phenomenon of “The Free Floating”.
The Digitariat - Complex Loop Night (C30)
THE DIGITARIAT - COMPLEX LOOP NIGHT (C30) http://www.thedigitariat.blogspot.com
Active since 1994, Paul Knowles has been releasing work and performing as THE DIGITARIAT for over 10 years. COMPLEX LOOP NIGHT is a disorientating excursion into a world of reverberating vocal sampling, abrupt stabs of screaming distortion, and undulating landscapes of textural sonic improvisation.
Butchered synth loops, foreign chic-chat, and prepared abrasives elegantly dance and weave - duetting blissfully and shifting seamlessly under and increasing foreboding sonic sky. The storm on the horizon hits hard at the end of the Side A, I don't think we'll ever find out who fire-bombed the glockenspiel factory.
Side B. The last moments of a half-mad dying cyborg – screaming and flailing, recalling and announcing, coming and going in a blaze of rhythmic malfunctions.
Edition of 45 with clear tapes, green stickers, “dancing Charlie” artwork printed on tangerine paper, and free educational literature.
Vomir - Untitled CD-R
VOMIR - UNTITLED (CD-R) http://vomirhnw.blogspot.com/
Sample Coming Soon.
HNW warrior VOMIR as you've never heard him before...not really. Romain Perrot presents the great bear with a slab of juicy, medium rare noise wall. 73 minutes of nothing/everything experience that with break your bonce over and over again.
VOMIR's mission statement is one of lack. At times, Beartown speculates on whether this whole 'absence/void' actually exists... could it be that Perrot's work signifies the suspension of the suspended 'lack/void' meaning parallex? Probably, not really.
VOMIR's work presents an absence so powerful that not even nothingness can survive. One must project any notion of coherence upon this lack, only for it to be gradually mauled... it's meaning decaying and diseased, its objectivity all buggered and bolloxed.
There's something jovial about it all though isn't there? The great bear certainly thinks so... it's like a great big, slight aggressive fuzzy hug, a fleece of everything
Edition of 70. Hand spray-painted CDRs, collage artwork, free black bin liner back for listening and a snippet of easy reading prick-lit to aid with your mush-resting afterwards.
Filthy Black Methusaleh - Lost Midlands (C40)
FILTHY BLACK METHUSALEH - LOST MIDLANDS or THE WAY FROM SCHOLAR GREEN TO FEGG HAYES (C40) http://filthyfilthyturd.blogspot.com/
FILTHY TURD and the ever disintegrating BLACK SUE collective collaborate on relocated, post-Pendle, incantation, A500 horror disco - FILTHY BLACK METHUSALEH. The regurgitated mumblings of a mad man alongside droning, burbling, looping, fuzzing reverse radio splurge. A timely examination of the sinister underbelly of life in the Midlands. Stripping away the veneer of decaying market halls, abandoned duel carriage ways and burnt out kebab shops, FBM unearth something sinister, uncanny and truly sacrilegious.
Three tracks on side A. The beast awakens and sings glorious duets with the plug hole, the cesspit and the drunkard respectively before casting spells, hexes and curses on anything that moves. Side B sees the radio tuned to 666 medium wave whilst swaying acolytes gather round the cauldron and hum the theme from Zombie Flesh Eaters backwards, and at half speed.
Edition of 22. With translucent red tapes and "coral folk dance" artwork.
cheapmachines / Pollutive Static (C42)
CHEAPMACHINES / POLLUTIVE STATIC - SPLIT (C42) http://cmx.org.uk/ - http://pollutivestaticnoise.blogspot.com/
Beartown is pleased to welcome back CHEAPMACHINES, heard here providing one half of a terrifying whole. The other is bestowed upon us by stoic noise hero POLLUTIVE STATIC aka Hal Hutchinson. One slice of the ribbon each, documenting the continual breakdown and reconstruction of a furious vacuum, and an incremental removal and addition over a timeless span of excess and paucity.
Definitely one for reaching those states of consciousness that other noise tapes just can't get to! Pop this on the walkman and see a cityscape or countryside vista transformed into a collage of forms and shapes, shifting on imperceptibely subtle trajectories. Welcome to the interzone, leave your shoes by the door.
Edition of 45. With water-coloured tapes and "Serbian cosmos" artwork.
Oubliette - Untitled (C32)
OUBLIETTE - UNTITLED (C32) http://discogs.com/artist/Oubliette
OUBLIETTE makes his debut on Beartown with a freshly chopped block of good ole fashioned gutter-pop. Spiraling out of control from the word go,STILGAR sees the listener taken on a break-neck, break-brain speed journey through the outer reaches of the noise-composition-o-sphere. Ear-bleed metallic crashes and hyperspeed mumbo-jumno incantations blend and merge, only ceasing to allow echoing washes of FM radio through.
Elsewhere, DEEPER is the endlessly expressing brain in a jar turning his hand to passionate psycho sing-along. Somewhere in the distance is music box twinkle of a burning ice cream van, or the last tragic movement by a long forgotten robot orchestra, left to rot and rust on some damned wind swept abyss.
4 tracks over 2 sides of 1 tape. 4 reasons not 2 bother with any 1. Track list - A1 Morning Pool, A2 Stilgar, B1 Deeper, B2 Wet Moss.
Edition of 49. With green tapes and monochromatic artwork on textured paper.
Astral Social Club - Two Slabs(C30)
ASTRAL SOCIAL CLUB - TWO SLABS (C30) http://astralsocialclub.wordpress.com
From stints in the A-Band, and Vibracathedral Orchestra, from collaborations with Dylan Nyoukis and Richard Youngs, Neil Campbell aka ASTRAL SOCIAL CLUB has been churning it out and gurning it up for decades. The bears stalked and waited, the bears got drunk and sent a polite email, the bears are honoured to release this giddy excursion into pure, toe-tapping mesmo-paranoia. On side A we find head-nodding synth arpeggios, beats turned back on themselves, and eye-lid heavying metronomic drum pounds.
Side B is the calm after the calm before the storm, reversed field recordings lazily drag themselves through knee-deep expanses of heaving bass fuzz, and twinkling cycles of sparkling keyboard loops.
One for the long drive to the coast, or to be played at the funeral of your favorite clockwork dog.
Edition of 49. With blue tapes, cellular artwork and "Deirdre & Ken" on-tape stickers.
Now Wash Your Hands - Always Clean (C30)
NOW WASH YOUR HANDS - ALWAYS CLEAN (C30) http://www.myspace.com/washyourhandsnow
Nathan Nothing compiles a best/worst of NOW WASH YOUR HANDS, drawn from a series of 3 or so self-issued CDR releases. Whether he's combining punishing signal generation with grinding static hiss, or screaming hygiene advice over whirring synth sirens, Nothing enthralls and instructs, laying down the law with regard to post-germ theory cleanliness and the need to exclude the outer from the inner. Commanded to become healthy, the listener is surrounded by abject sickness.
An audiophonic assault, and a battlecry for the spik and span. ALWAYS CLEAN is both disorientating and focusing, scurry away from this tape and scrub until you are clean, you will never, ever be clean again.
Edition of 34. With clean white tapes, green stickers and instructions on appropriate usage.
Black Sue - Sugar Low Farms (C35)
BLACK SUE - SUGAR LOW FARMS (C35) http://www.myspace.com/blacksueuk
The first tape in what will hopefully be a series of releases exploiting the healthy "pre-fire" archive based on BLACK SUE's "Naturecraft Warehouse" recordings. From the dinge of the Cheshire backwaters, to the bright lights of the Staffordshire shopping arcades, SUGAR LOW FARMS incorporates cassette tape field-recording, guitar / keyboard doom dueling and hardcore cassette player wankery.
Phantastic phasers, rumble-pack tremolo, swirling drone oceans, meet summertime swallow song and post-post proto rock guitar explorations beneath a harrowing blanket of fuzz and hiss. Certainly a treat for the legions of BLACK SUE fans still hurting after 18 months of blissful silence.
Edition of 36. With grey tapes, wasp-like artwork and purple on tape stickies.
Slump - Battle Mustard (C20)
SLUMP - BATTLE MUSTARD (C20)
SLUMP bows out with 20 minutes of improvised radio manipulation, station-searching and circuit board abuse. Having received a scratched, unlabelled CDR in the mail about 8 months ago, with instructions to "release everything" we have now exhausted the disc, SLUMP is no more, and the world of people with ears/minds/memories can relax once more...
Chorus pedals, AM radios, FM radios, shortwave static and cassette tape fuckery. Head bangers unite for the pot of piss-weak pointlessness at the end of the RRRainbow. Broadside broadcasts from the Bemused Triangle, a see-sawing static twish-twash of double-tracked Senegalese talk-show hosts, Baptist excorcism ceremonies and North Sea weather warnings.
Edition of 28. "Food Hands" artwork by Florence Cobb.
raxil4 - Untitled(C30)
raxil4 - UNTITLED (C30) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzebWrrG43s
We first laid ears on raxil4 as it rolled from our radio, tuned as we were, to the formidable ILLFM. Droning dead stations, lumbering low-end static, and piercing mosquito whines combine with long lost choirs of marooned AM singals.
Buzzing street lamps, the echoing yawn of flexing metal, and ambient bleep-scapes are all shrouded in a thick fog of tape hiss and delay. You're working the night-shift and drinking beef tea in the abandoned drop forge.
Dubbed with variable beginnings, each tape is unique - 60 minutes of music distributed randomly over 30 minutes of magnetic tape.
Edition of 32. With monochrome artwork.
Infinite Space Infinite Stars - Untitled (C20)
INFINITE SPACE INFINITE STARS - UNTITLED (C20) http://www.thesefeathershaveplumes.com
INFINITE SPACE INFINITE STARS are London-based Andie Brown, and Brooklyn-based Louis Caldarola. On side A, they present a devotional space-dust wasteland symphony. Moaning sine-wave laments drift and glide effortlessly across a washed-out tundra of sweeping white-noise, while the approaching drone-wall glacier inches its way closer and closer to a soggy demise in a wam sea of triumphant crystalline keyboard cadences. Side B sees the snow drift thicken, only tiny specks of sunlight now visible beneath an ever increasing blanket of pure arctic harmonies.
Definitely one for lying face down on a beanbag, with the lights down and the volume up - as purifying and affirming as three hours chanting plainsong with a load of vegetarian noise-monks. Music of the spheres for sure.
Edition of 35. With "stone-effect" on-tape stickers and "mind-maze" artwork.
Blood Stereo - Palatine Arches (C20)
BLOOD STEREO - PALATINE ARCHES (C20) http://www.chocolatemonk.co.uk
BLOOD STEREO lay one hell of an audio egg, smash it with the gargle-hammer and cook up nothing but scrambly disco-dreggs. Gargling, moaning, looping deep-sea drum beats, chattering, and nursery-rhymes gone graveyard are all packed onto this slice of mud pie echo-mush. A C20 with a soul, a C20 without a mind, PALATINE ARCHES dropped out of the brains and mouths of B.S and straight into the tape deck.
Straight from the drains. The sound of desperate sewer-rat Sinatras, crooning and howling at the moon, their gutteral groans piling up and fading into the distance, while throbbing drones and pulsing static conspire in the background.
Certainly one for fans of leaky basments, haunted public toilets and sharing moonshine with crackpots.
Edition of 51. With "wrap around" artwork, cherry-red tapes, and arresting imagery.
RiggsRoyal - Dear Minotaur, I will Love You if You Spare Me (C30)
RIGGS ROYAL - DEAR MINOTAUR, I WILL LOVE YOU IF YOU SPARE ME (C30) http://www.holycheeverchurch.com
An exciting collaboration between CHRISTOPHER RIGGS, of the sadly defunct Holy Cheever Church Records, and ANDREW ROYAL. A combination of improvisational violin and juddering electronics/found sounds, this tape represents a measured exploration of the sounds between the sounds, the noise behind the noise, 30 solid minutes in the timeless void of delirious experimentation.
Straining metallic grinding and screeching, searing dissonance abound. Pure bow-abuse. Stuttering thumps and fridge-hum populate the background of the piece, lulling the listener with the forgotten textures of some long-lost, malfunctioning appliances. The two pieces evolve and undulate over 15 minutes, from fumbling inconherence to sublime, intuitive synthesis and back again - improvisation and experimentation at its most rewarding.
Edition of 38. With tropical ocean blue tapes and brain-frying "dead-fish" artwork.
Petals / Kodiak Gold / Slump- Tuft Ang Post-Meredith(C24)
PETALS / KODIAK GOLD / SLUMP- TUFT ANG POST-MEREDITH (C24) http://www.hairdryerexcommunication.blogspot.com
TUFT ANG POST-MEREDITH is a mail collaboration from three label stalwarts. The harsh hysteria of PETALS, the inquisitive improvisational bass-guitar chatter of KODIAK GOLD, and the gentle hum and hiss of SLUMP's cracked consumer electronics, all converge in 24 minutes of blind panic, directionless non-music, and rumbling spazz-clatter.
While the master tape was built upon and re-imagined by each contributor, all original parts were restored and edited together alongside each other.
From droning washes of background static, to the disorienting tap-tap of an undisciplined fret-board, Beartown is proud to issue this document of collective (un)thinking. An excercise in intuition, cooperation and posting stuff to each other.
Three unmixables, mixing.
Edition of 40. Grass-green tapes, with brown paper bag, collaborative, "wrap around" artwork.
Aqua Dentata - Seventh Past The Umbrella(C35)
AQUA DENTATA - SEVENTH PAST THE UMBRELLA (C35) http://www.aquadentata.org
AQUA DENTATA is the mesmeric side-project from sometime BARACLOUGH sound-warlock, photographer (http://www.eddienuttall.co.uk), and video artist Mr E. Nuttall. A 35 minute study in finely sculpted drone collisions where titanic banks of harmonic amorphosis gently ascend mountains of deep, sine-wave drone cycles. Absorbing, and evocative - a tape that will whisk you away from the daily drudge to a utopia of abandoned car parks, empty arctic seascapes, and infinite desert horizons.
SEVENTH PAST THE UMBRELLA is the debut cassette from AQUA DENTATA - a paean to meditative drones, crawling key-changes and the engulfing serenity of electronic synthesis. Wave upon wave of electronic-flavoured aural massage crash upon the naked beach of your mind, 35 minutes of relief, disguised as beguiling sonic ambiguity.
Edition of 49. "Make your own mind up" artwork and formidable "on-shell" stickers.
Inseminoid - Killer Crabs (CD-R)
INSEMINOID - KILLER CRABS (CD-R) http://www.mutant-ape.co.uk
Beartown is pleased to unleash an ear-trembling collision from two people we greatly respect - two disturbed, perturbed minds - Lee Stokoe and George Proctor.
Lee is a sometime member of several beautiful drone-splurge / spatter-noise projects including, but not limited to, the mind-mashing CULVER, rainy-day doom gurus SKULLFLOWER, and remote, meditative fuzz-buckets ERASES. Beartown cannot urge you enough to seek out every tape and CD with these names attached - the fog of genius envelopes each one for sure.
George, on the other hand, presides over the furtile and fetid spring of disaster-trash that is TURGID ANIMAL RECORDS. A label whose reputation is woven in the fabric of experimental sound like no other. A British institution.
KILLER CRABS mixes endless rolling guitar riffs, processed field recordings, atmospheric drones, crunching electronic crackle and hiss, and low-level, head-shaking bass rumbles. An epic piece, over 30 minutes in length, and a solid addition to a pair of formidable discographies.
Edition of 40. Full colour artwork with inserts and gloomy "on-cd" sticker.
Floris Vanhoof - Tapes Are Falling From Me Onto Your Valuable Persons (C36)
FLORIS VANHOOF - TAPES ARE FALLING FROM ME ONTO YOUR VALUABLE PERSONS (C36) http://www.endlesswebsite.tk/
OUT OF PRINT
"Two single channel tape studies by Floris Vanhoof."
This Belgian perception destroyer first melted our skulls in Nottingham sometime last year. Lights went off, looped film baked your sorry eyes, accompanied by blasts of tape reification/manipulation.
Truly relentless stuff.
Edition of 25. A4 Artwork.
Red Electric Rainbow - Ice Petal Flowers Revolving (C30)
RED ELECTRIC RAINBOW - ICE PETAL FLOWERS REVOLVING (C30) http://www.myspace.com/redelectricrainbow
RED ELECTRIC RAINBOW represents the escaping synth memories of Mr D. Smith. The drones give way to billowing triangle-wave melodies, the humming bass notes creep and crawl beneath sparkling cascades of rain-drop pitch splinters.
Four tracks over two sides, Ice Petal Flowers Revolving is a voyage into pure electronic sound. Organised, arranged and processed. We find endless whirlpools of beating, bleeping, and bubbling, flowing lines of dream-twinkle echo and overlap beneath the collapsing 16-bit sunset.
An honour for Beartown, and a gift for those wanting to escape the maze-like psycho trauma of their everyday lives. A sonic lilo for the listener to float atop an undulating ocean of analogue exploration.
"Satellite" artwork, pink tapes and limited to 29 copies.
Knox Mitchell - Open and Close Works (C35)
KNOX MITCHELL - OPEN AND CLOSE WORKS (C35)
From chaotic excursions into Free Jazz, to late night tape chumpery, from cassette label runnery to Mid-West nonesense domination, KNOX MITCHELL continues to radiate diverse and engaging music from every pore. His output is baffling, and the bear likes baffling.
So-called "handmade electronics" are the starting point for this study in confusion. Someone is torturing your old modem. Two lawnmowers and a motor boat have fallen into the casio-canyon. Both sides of this tape are detached, disturbing and free-flowing departures into the glitching world of circuit board savantism
Having listened to this tape, one would like to imagine any piece of beat-up electronic hardware could, in the hands of a disturbed scrunge-merchant like KNOX, form the basis of something as endlessly futile and joyous as Open and Close Works - here's hoping.
Edition of 34 with blue shells and "artwork".
Petals - The Second Time Around I Enjoyed It Twice (C40)
PETALS - THE SECOND TIME AROUND I ENJOYED IT TWICE (C40) http://hairdryerexcommunication.blogspot.com
PETALS (Leeds-based Kevin Sanders) has been beaming skewed transmissions direct from his 'haunted industrial estate' of a mind for over 5 years now.
5 years of bewildering stereo-attack, 5 years of sea-sick tape fuzz, and 5 years of drowning in blissful distortion.
Side A is a terrifying journey through the snow-storm trenches; the wind batters your bleeding ears, and a single, ash-covered television speaks hissing nonesense on the horizon. Swirling bleep-chaos, and the endless 'crunch crunch' of tiny digital skeletons conspire to entrance and disturb. The rumblings grow louder, the squeeling quietens before all you can hear is the blood rushing around your brain. You are a melon in a trash compactor.
Ever been beaten, locked up and tortured by a gang of robotic squid? Good. No need to listen to side B then.
You know the score - metal tentacles smashing through corrigated iron, the scraping of rusty beaks on your face, and a nightmarish chorus of cephalopods crying in the pitch dark.
Edition of 30 on orange-shelled cassettes with suitably meaningless artwork.
SLUMP - Malpas Way (C40)
SLUMP - MALPAS WAY (C30)
SLUMP picks up the ball again and runs. Off into the clean pyramids. The simple geometry of the mind are chipped and worn. Before long, the groaning, protesting heart of this world swallows our singing dream.
Lullaby arpeggios are quickly overtaken by saw-tooth buzzing. Soon, order and peace turn to audio-mush and serenity becomes a distant memory, the chattering modems transform themselves into a swarm of noisey locusts. As futile and meaningless as music gets - synth-love, radio-hate, release-ambivalence.
MALPAS WAY - science fiction soundtracks as made by the preoccupied? The collision of conceptual ingenuity with musical ineptitude? A subtle commentary on subtle commentaries?
Edition of 20. Black tapes.
Kodiak Gold - Thighs (C30)
KODIAK GOLD - THIGHS (C30)
"Thighs" personifies KODIAK GOLD's five year journey into making an instrument sound both like and unlike the notion of its self, at a simultaneous moment in time and space. Unfortunately for us, it sounds rather vile and has culminated in the release of this worthless, fatty, bag of offal.
Lots of unidentifiable fuzz external intefernce and ultimately, excessive, twisted bass-piss. Side A is a serving of virtually unbearable, manic, post-improv-guitar-slop; as soon as it looks like it could get interesting in any way, away it goes, metophorically searching for another mucky alleyway to fornicate or excrete in.
Side B on the other hand, flails around like some rotten, dying, metallic insect (lying on its filthy back no doubt), before descending upon a tragic HNW farce.
Having said all that, I'd much rather infect my brain with this than something like Ducktails - and the artwork is rather fantastic, if unsuitable. Side A sounds amazing if you hold down "play" and "rewind" at the same time on the CS player too.
Edition of 10 (thank fuck) with nice, aforementioned A4 artwork.
FREE DOWNLOAD
SIDE A - http://www.mediafire.com/?i4ys1ac54a2ab2e
SIDE B - http://www.mediafire.com/?u7hh04iuutjc6nu
SLUMP - The Eel (C30)
SLUMP - THE EEL (C30)
SLUMP spring back with yet another depressing slice of drone/nonesense. Tapes unravel, keyboards whine, radios drop in and drop out, no beginning, no middle, no end, no point.
Hypnotic loop music. The magnetic tide gently rolling in and out.
THE EEL finds SLUMP is rocking back and fourth in the corner, turning the handle of a broken music box and singing falsetto through a megaphone.
Listen hard for the clouds of gentle sinewave drones, the "someone left the gas on" tape hiss, and the distant rumble of a trainer in a washing machine.
A poignant release documenting the futile idiocy that invariably preceeds the slide into irrelevance.
Edition of 30, lilac tapes, playful artwork.
Baraclough - Vulpus Vulpus (C55)
BARACLOUGH - VULPUS VULPUS (C55)
OUT OF PRINT
BARACLOUGH are making noises. Baraclough are jangling cutlery. Baraclough are muttering weird nonsense. Baraclough are meditating. Baraclough are floating above you. Baraclough at flopping at your feet like a newly landed sound-haddock. Baraclough are scuttling through the city streets radiating beautiful music. Baraclough are truly strange and inspiring. Baraclough are Paul de Casparis, Dale Cornish, Eddie Nuttall.
A collection of unreleased recordings made during 2009 and 2010, this cassette represents the BARACLOUGH boys at their most beguiling; words spew out of the mouth-hole straight from the twisted brain-mush, and a choir of cassette-tape angels drown beneath the glimmering synthesiser sea.
It's a long overdue pleasure to have this band release a tape with Beartown, and well worth the wait!
Edition of 50, with blood red cassettes and carniverous artwork.
Slump - Without Promised Fridge (C45)
SLUMP - WITHOUT PROMISED FRIDGE (C45)
Soaring out of the industrial rust valley, you ride high on a gentle zephyr. The clink-clank of the blasted landscape beneath softens briefly and, just for a moment, you break through the blanket of grey smog and catch a glimse of a beautiful azure sky. Unfortunately, it seems that a few seconds of happiness is all you're getting this time buddy; your piece of junk, papier-mache flying-machine has let you down once again.
Decend back into the sludgey canyon. Folk songs for the 30th century? Side A is all drunken engineers in reverse, hammers on engines, tapes loops, reverb, and the sound of slow-motion dental surgery. Side B is an endless wander through the dunes, your footsteps are the tempo, your loneliness the rhythmn and your sunburn is the melody.
Edition of 25, clear cassettes with "so-banal it's upsetting" artwork.
Hard-Pan - Untitled CD-R
HARD-PAN - UNTITLED (CD-R)
OUT OF PRINT
HARD PAN is Pascal Nichols (Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides) and Luke Poot (Poot Records). Together they explore the abrasive characteristics inherent within voice, atonality, percussion, drums, found sound and feedback - and effectively document their significance in truly challenging and engaging improvised music.
A type of jovial, experssionist primitvism if you will. However, if one forgets all the futile over-theorising for a minute, this 7-track CDR is a shed-load of fun and one absolutely glorious racket that consistently baffles and bewilders. As huge fans, we're delighted to have popped this one out.
Edition of 50, all with brutal, monochrome artwork.
Cheapmachines - Cast (C20)
CHEAPMACHINES - CAST (C20) www.cmx.org.uk
Sample Coming Soon.
The audio experiments conducted by London resident and improvised drone specialist Philip Julian have bewildered and intrigued us for a hell of a long time now. Ever since we witnessed an intensive and utterly relentless computer-based performance at Area 10 in Peckham, London, we were absolutely hooked.
Whilst being a regular on the live circuit, Philip also specialises in sonic installations and here, under his rather fantastic CHEAPMACHINES alias, continues his exploration and scrutiny of the organ continues with two decadent, alluring and warm compositions.
Edition of 30 complete with slighlty optimistic, fold-out watercolour artwork.
Cavaties - The Egg Man (C35)
CAVATIES - THE EGG MAN (C35)
Sample Coming Soon.
Debut cassette from a peculiar, misanthropic and mysterious pissed-up duo (or trio, we're not really that sure). Each side mangles up minimalist object manipulation, along with a tragic belching, broken synthesizer, dubious samples of live sound and whatever they can get their grubby, drunken, little hands on - a glorious, awkward mess.
This is the sound of a collaborative breakdown. Consociational failure. Collective apathy. We took a big chance on putting out a CS from these reclusive goons - and it definitely paid off. This is their first (and probably last) release.
Complete with screwed up, irrelevant collage artwork. Not to be missed.
Andrew Coltrane - Andieu Mon Cherie (C45)
ANDREW COLTRANE - ADIEU MON CHERIE (C45) www.myspace.com/hermitagetapes1
Sample Coming Soon.
ANDREW COLTRANE's brain melting sound experiments touch down at Beartown in all their garish, stereo-tastic, nausea-inducing glory. Sharpen your eatin' ears and tuck in to 45 minutes of tape loops, "homemade instruments", and vocal samples all fighting to free themselves from a sludgy quicksand of reverb, tape hiss and delay.
ADIEU MON CHERIE seems to be a pretty good approximation of what it sounded like that time you got drunk, climbed in a dustbin, and rolled down the side of a hill. Having listened to this tape, you'll feel like you did at the bottom of that treacherous mound, climbing out of the can - blood and vomit in your hair, feeling sick, but surprisingly invigorated.
Edition of 30, with radioactive green cassettes.
Steffen Basho-Junghan - O Som Naha(C90)
STEFFEN BASHO-JUNGHANS - O SOM NAHA (C90) www.myspace.com/steffenbashojunghans
STEFFEN BASHO-JUNGHANS is a painter, composer, virtuoso guitar player and writer. In a career that has now spanned an incredible four decades, Steffen has quietly been composing and performing pieces of startling beauty, pushing the intrument further and further into uncharted territory. From swirling pastoral meditation to dissonant minimalism and beyond, the music bears the mark of an intense technician without ever sacrificing substance for style.
O SOM NAHA is the third instalment in Steffen's "Unknown Music" series and a true assault on tradition and stagnation. Two microphones, two bottles, one night and one steel-string guitar are the ingredients. On the menu, 90 minutes of devotional melody-collapse, and percussive hypno-symphony. A listening experience that is both meditative and challenging awaits, time is swallowed up as the gentlle tick-tock rhythm entrances, disorientates and mesmerises.
Edition of 40, with austere insert and transparent cassettes.
Fossils - TV Magic H20 (C35)
FOSSILS - TV MAGIC H20 (C35) www.myspace.com/fossilstrio
Immerse yourself in a murky world of creaking vocal chords, scraping tape loops, eerie moaning and nauseating drones. Listen with wonder as rhythmic thumps and bumps dance clumsily around the whistling whines of a detuned radio. Marvel at the snap, crackle and pop of chewed up cassette decks and the clanging tap dance of a junkyard drumkit.
Just be generally floored by a composition so beautiful futile it'd make you cry, if only you could drag yourself out of your own crippling apathy.
It's a stone-cold pleasure to have a transatlantic band of noisey scamps like FOSSILS releasing some of their joyous racket on Beartown. This 35 minute chunk of heaven was born in Canada, wrapped its greasy little tentacles around the first cargo ship heading Europe-wise before being recombobulated by Nottingham-based Fossil Johnny Scarr (www.myspace.com/johnnyscarr).
Edition of 35, with full colour wrap-around cover on "kack-grey" cassettes.
Black Sue - Mohareb (mini CD-R)
BLACK SUE - MOHAREB (mini CD-R) www.myspace.com/blacksueuk
Are you tired of a meandering, diluted secularism that fails to maintain a coherent notion of difference? Or do you feel you're constrained by a false nationalism, thus hindering your respective citizens communal harmony??
You're in luck.
Fortunately, no concessions are made here as North-West chumps BLACK SUE attempt to document a bleak, sonic personification of life in within a pre-delineated, pseudo-modern context. Swirling, acoustic atonalities persist throughout, reacting violently with throbbing bass-ridden structures. The warped mumblings of a decentred outside world are distorted, before being coerced by gut-wrenching sirens and slabs of harsh reality.
One untitled 20 minute track of irritable, heterogenous drudgery - the ultimate reverberating signifier of that which underwhelms us most. This really is it.
Edition of 28, part funded by the Islamic Experimental Music Council of Britain. Comes in hand-sewn pouch and unique, hand-drawn CD artwork. The majority of materials that construct this release were purchased from local charities.
Artwork by Emily Jones, Christopher Bostock and David Mellor.
Adrien Barbobott - Life's A Beach (miniCDR)
ADRIEN BARBOBOTT - LIFE'S A BEACH (mini CD-R)www.myspace.com/gimmesomechickennuggets
ADRIEN BARBOBOTT is the nom de guerre of California resident Kristin Calvarese. Her 3" CD-R release LIFE'S A BEACH, is a viscous, pulsating affair to be avoided at your peril! Dense and incredibly engaging fuzzed-out drones subtlely rise to the surface, only to disperse in a genuinely harrowing backdrop of uneasy muckiness. Wild electronics consistently engulf the listener, relentlessly pursuing total dominance.
It's as if all the electronic appliances on earth are spiralling out of control simultaneously - this is what we'll hear when the machines turn against us. You have been warned.
Edition of 28, complete with misleading gift wrap and garish colour scheme.
Play Loud.
BBBLOOD - Untitled (C30)
BBBLOOD - UNTITLED (C30) http://bbblood.blogspot.com/
Another enthralling expedition into the unknown with the shape-shifting London noise project BBBLOOD.
Fog-laden drones and the clicking whirs of some far-off clockwork mechanisms provide the equilibrium here. Squealing whines, metallic clanging and the intrusions of great static roars provide the disequilibrium.
Side A of this tape is a tense journey from comfortable miasma, through deconstruction, before settling with juddering drones that we all know and love/despise.
Side B takes disorientating stabs of reverberation as its starting point, and degenerates from there. Insectival chatterings create the sonic backdrop for an orchestra of broken fax machines.
Just wonderful.
This release includes monochrome wrap-around cover art and dark blue C30. It is limited to 40 copies.
Terminal Curl - Go Banshi (CD-R)
TERMINAL CURL - GO BANSHI! (CD-R) http://terminalcurl.blogspot.com/
OUT OF PRINT
Ever wondered what to get that psychotic robot granddad that spits oil in your face and beats you with his rusty iron claws for fun? Get TERMINAL CURL's GO BANSHI!
Having started life as an art collective spewing out collages, sketches and the like, TERMINAL CURL has now realised its chaotic vision in garish chunks of neon drone-death. The 3 "songs" amount to relentless machine gun rhythms layered over brittle, screaming drones; deranged murmurs and yelps beamed in from some distant, busted-up radio transmitter; and stuttering bursts of crash-clatter.
GO BANSHI! includes double-sided, full-colour printed insert and printed CD-R. Limited to 27 copies.
Skip Tooth - Untitled (C30)
SKIP TOOTH - UNTITLED (C25) www.myspace.com/skiptoothnoise
Beartown is proud to present yet more punishing Danish havoc in the form of this untitled examination of free speech, censorship and liberty. 25 minutes of distorted screaming, throbbing power-drones, spine-jangling feedback and ear-melting sonic atrophy pick you up, shake you by your grubby lapels and finally abandon you to contemplate your lack of faith, failure and selfishness.
SKIP TOOTH's music wanders the desolate precipice between frenzied coherence and wild-eyed insanity. This cassette sees him surge at your head-box with shuddering anger, a taste for the blood, and a frightening desire to make, in his own words, "a big fucking racket".
This release includes hand-sprayed C25 (SILENT on side A, SPEAK on side B), black and white insert with embossed red lettering and relatively extensive liner notes. Limited to 50 copies.
Writher - Anti (C35)
WRITHER - ANTI (C35) www.myspace.com/writhernguyenhonggiang
A VietNoise classic is here. The sound of fifteen thousand stainless-steel icicles crashing through floor after floor of a hundred story crystal skyscraper. ANTI combines sporadic screaming, manic ejaculations of throbbing static and feedback, feedback, feedback. WRITHER's "Free Noise" philosophy has been brought to bear in 32 minutes of demonic terror-din and unhinged aural havoc.
WRITHER is a one-man Noise-assault who is inexplicable studying classical music at Vietnam's prestigious music school, the Ho Chi Minh Conservatoire. Don't worry though, no harmony, melody, technique or rhythmn here.
Highly recommended for masochists and connoisseurs of Harsh Noise alike.
This release includes colourless black cassette, depressing printed insert and is limited to 30 copies.
I Dreamt of Her Beautiful Tentacles & Black Sue
- Untitled Split (2x mini CD-R)
I DREAMT OF HER BEAUTIFUL TENTACLES & BLACK SUE - UNTITLED SPLIT (2x mini CD-R) www.myspace.com/idohbt - www.myspace.com/blacksueuk
OUT OF PRINT
I DREAMT OF HER BEAUTIFUL TENTACLES - Danish noise-fiend unleashes junk-obsessed, murk-ridden sprawling debut from Southern Scandinavia. Loops and feedback mangles and rumbles before both becomming interwoven into a hellish mass of frustrating anguish. 3 slabs of gritty, edurence-testing concrete.
1. Se Paa Billedet 2. Lyt Til Vinden 3. Massemords Minder.
BLACK SUE - The dystopian sonic assault further mutates and develops (or not) on this double 3" CD-R release. The duo explore atonal textures, layer and splice enigmatic sound-disgrace and show increasing (im)maturity with regard to cohesion and technique.
1. Failures of Judgement 2. Confused by Questions 3. They Are Not Machines
Limited to 25 copies.
Earth Incubator & V. Maklakov -
Psycho Poetry(CD-R)
EARTH INCUBATOR & V. MAKLAKOV - PSYCHO POETRY (CD-R) www.myspace.com/earthincubator - http://ostroga.net/
Our friends from the East bewilder and unease one's auditory system with this limited CD-R release - available in the UK for the first time! Slavic streams-of-consciousness interpellate and unsettle, with nonsensical poetics of signifying fear and unease. Distorted, subtle rumblings intertwine and frustrate, before being further (un)complimented by arbitrary analogue glitches and screechings!
This beautifully disturbing one-track, 30 minute release is a genuine must-have for those of us who revel in discovering authentic, and overwhelmingly refreshing experimental soundscapes. Alexandr Kibanov (EARTH INCUBATOR) is a composer, writer, musician and designer who runs his own label called Mind Noise Disintegration (mindnd.narod.ru). Vitaly Maklakov hails from a small Ural town, is a graduate of graphic design and a prolofic composer of ambient and industrial music. Limited to 50 copies.
Black Sue - Untitled (C20)
BLACK SUE - UNTITLED (C20) www.myspace.com/blacksueuk
OUT OF PRINT
Debut release from BLACK SUE. Brooding sonic malevolence rules supreme in these two unflinchingly punishing soundscapes. Grinding, distorted bass rhythms compete with violent, piercing signal generation. Recorded live during the bleak winter of 2008, this is essential for anyone yearning to bask in the vacuous, black light of the modern age. BLACK SUE are an experimental duo from the North-West of the UK.
This release includes enigmatic, printed monochrome insert, hand-sprayed, white cassette and is limited to 50 copies.