Brethren Of The Free Spirit

Brethren of the Free Spirit are guitarist/composer James Blackshaw and lutenist/composer Jozef van Wissem. Named after a cult of 13th-century Northern European religious heretics (they’re detailed in Greil Marcus’s Lipstick Traces), this duo play with an appropriately zealous intensity. Their first album All things are from Him, through Him and in Him was released as a CD/LP on Belgian imprint audioMER. The second CD/LP The wolf also shall dwell with the Lamb was released in November 2008 by Important Records. Brethren of the Free Spirit debuted in New York and went on a crusade through the Lowlands, Belgium, Spain, Ireland and London. On the Dutch National VPRO TV show Vrije Geluiden they were asked to elaborate.

“Intricate phrases circle and spiral in on themselves, and in the end it’s the subtle shifts in rhythm and tonal coloration that provide a kind of transcendence in a sea of repetition” — The Phoenix

Named after the 13th century European millenarian cult most famously documented by historian Norman Cohn and Situationist writer Raoul Vaneigem, Brethren Of The Free Spirit is the group name for one of the most perfectly matched of modern string duos, 12-string guitarist James Blackshaw and Baroque Lute player Jozef van Wissem. Blackshaw has always had a feel for sacred and Early Music settings, cutting his guitar instrumentals with devotional melodies in a way that functions as a specifically English take on Sandy Bulls chamber guitar concepts. Van Wissem’s stately lute playing strikes the perfect balance between the ornately austere and the more zoned avant, and together they create a minimal form of early string music possessed of a subtle, psychedelic grandeur. Both players make much of refrain and restraint, working simple, steel-tone melodies into repeating forms that suggest the iconoclastic logic of John Fahey or Albert Ayler applied to 13th century sacred music. At times it’s hard to tell the two players apart, but Blackshaw’s inspired use of harmonics on the opening track recalls Derek Bailey’s muzzy guitar style circa Aida. Van Wissem’s playing is methodical and hypnotic, sounding two or three note phrases around which Blackshaw gradually assembles layer after layer of ornamentation. It’s great to hear players with at least a foot in the underground reapplying that knowledge to traditional European Folk forms.

David Keenan for Wire Magazine

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Alex Monk “The Safety Machine” 2xLP

Drenched in a frozen, hypnotic melancholy, The Safety Machine is a double-LP tour de force by London-based musician and producer Alex Monk. Incorporating seventies kraut-synth psychedelic, cosmic ambient drones and haunting melodies into an ambitious framework of multi-layered sonic bleakness with hints of early Eno, Klaus Schultze, Robert Wyatt and Moondog, Monk creates a haunting world that's filled with loss, loneliness and ethereal beauty — staring into the abyss while the icecaps are hugging your skull…

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The Safety Machine double-LP comes in a hand-numbered edition of 310, with a screenprinted open sleeve. Also includes MP3 download voucher.

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BLOOD STEREO ‘Your Snakelike King’ LP

A release from Brighton mongs Blood Stereo, duo of Dylan Nyoukis and Karen Constance. 'Your Snake Like King' picks up where 'The Magnetic Headache' left off, a shape shifting and strange mix of tape collage, free vocals and electro-acoustic mischief.  Midnight to 3am recordings fueled by grape and smoke conjour up a blurred narrative, the meaning of which is never quite clear, like weird off camera sounds in some tripped out movie.

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"Anal fins tucked in tight behind them, Blood Stereo look like a pair of ill-kempt roosters, fighting over a doughnut. The guy rooster is jibbering in some unknown tongue, turning his face inside out, while shoving the microphone slowly through a hole in his cheek. The girl rooster appears to be pecking at him, either that or she's picking at various trash they have strewn around the stage. Every time she ducks her head there is the sound of a jet passing overhead. But when you look up at the sky there is no sign of a comtrail. After a while you think you are starting to get a handle on what they are doing, but the guy falls down and starts doing a spazz dance so utterly convincing you begin to worry about him. Then the girls starts screaming and it seems as though something is really profoundly wrong. And it is. But it's not like they're in any kind of trouble. They're just wrong, y'know? So savagely wrong from every angle that it's really tough to imagine there 's anything you could do to really help them. As if they'd even want in. In their masks or out, they sow confusion like wheat." - Byron Coley The Lp is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 330 hand-numbered copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press jacket which itself is housed in a two-tone silk screened pvc sleeve with interweaving geometric designs. All artwork by Kathryn Politis and Bill Kouligas.

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Boy+Girl “Cavity Orbit Sword” CD-R

Smeraldina-Rima 3
Limited to 60

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DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE ‘Frequency Conquistadors’ LP

Words are more often then not the point of departure for many works of Das Synthetische Mischegewebe. The track - titles here stem from ‘El Mundo Alucinante’ de Reinaldo Arenas, which itself is inspired by François-René de Chateaubriand’s ‘Mémoires d'outre-tombe’. It is about time rather than history and about being in history. Having lost the war of time, the only thing that remains to do is being, and here we go, ‘being infiniment exigent’ in it’s means of expression.

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DSM began in Berlin armed with a visual education from the early 80's. They quickly became part of the international industrial cassette scene. Composing for light installations with open-reel machines, cassette recorders, microphone and guitar fuzz boxes with both loud, quiet, occasionally full blast and frequently sneaking in little sounds, all alternating within a few seconds, create an electroacoustic anti-music. With unusual concerts in the underground network as well as in high art institutions and museums (such as Centre Pompidou) and later on with performances for mixed media installation, exhibitions and conferences on cognitive science and neurologic research related topics, the group toured with changing casts since the early 80's, and participated in international festivals throughout Europe and the US. Since 1982 they continue to produce vinyls, CD's and tapes on many international labels: Discos Esplendor Geometrico, RRRecords, Hypnagogia, Vinyl-on-Demand, Auf Abwegen, Harsh Reality Music, Equation Records, Das Cassetten Combinat and many others. Live and recording collaborations with musicians such as: The New Blockaders, Ralf Wehowsky, Frans de Waard, Ios Smolders, Zeitkratzer Ensemble, Artificial Memory Trace, ERG, MSBR, Toy Bizarre, Roel Meelkop and others. The Lp is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 330 hand-numbered copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press jacket which itself is housed in a two-tone silk screened pvc sleeve with interweaving geometric designs. All artwork by Kathryn Politis and Bill Kouligas.

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Don’t Move Play Dead “Live at the George 2nd Pub” CD-R

Smeraldina-Rima 4
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EXTRA SEXES “Spiral Mirror” LP

Smeraldina-Rima 16
edition of 300 LPs, cyan & magenta screenprinted sleeve, artwork by Tessa Deceuninck

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