A love dedication to the seven inch format from Tomlab Records

Two in one day, it's insane. I remember picking up a couple of these here and there as they went on sale years ago....I think I have the Final Fantasy and maybe the Erase Errata single...I kind of thought it was a myth that they did every letter! This must have taken years to put out, and now all collected together? This is completely insane. I also kind of hope that they press this entire thing up every couple of years or so (yea right) because it's slightly out of my price range at the moment...although that Umlaut series with Mt Eerie and R. Stevie Moore might be possible....and then I get an awesome empty box to taunt me the rest of my life!

I also love that they go as far as to not put any of these out as digital downloads. They are as hardcore as 7 inches. Mp3's don't exist. My ipod listens to podcasts. I read that irony article in the NY Times and I worry that 7inches is feeding in to that. I just like records man...a lot. Take it easy.

What a liar.

THE TOMLAB ALPHABET SINGLES SERIES BOX SET concludes an eight year series with a total of 30 x 7 inch records. It started in 2004 with the letter "A" and did not come to an end with the letter "Z" since the German alphabet includes the additional "Umlaut" letters "Ä", "Ö", "Ü", and the special character "ß".

Available solely via www.tomlab.com and our online partner ANOST (DE).

Official dealer price:
175 EURO (incl. 19% VAT) for the full box set
35 EURO (incl. 19% VAT) for the "empty" box with 4 Umlaut Singles + 2 empty sleeves

Inquire by email to alphabetseries@tomlab.com for special shipping rates to your country.

This series is limited to 100 complete box sets.

Only 60 box sets are made available to the public.

In parallel 70 “empty” boxes are sold including the Umlaut series “"Ä", "Ö", "Ü" & "ß".

The Umlaut Series will officially be available through EU distribution starting 2013.

The following artists have contributed mostly exclusive recordings to the entire series.

(A)Mark Robinson vs. FLIM (B)Pups (C)Nathan Michel (D)Misha (E)P:ano (F)Simon Bookish (G)Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (H)Ninja High School (I)Seabear vs. Grizzly Bear (J)Hank (K)The Blow (L)Les Georges Leningrad (M)Max Tundra (N)The Curtains (O)Son (P)Dat Politics (Q)Alig Fodder (R)Tussle (S)Islands (T)The World Court (U)Erase Errata (V)The Dead Science (W)Numbers (X)Final Fantasy (Owen Pallett) (Y)Bobby Conn (Z)Parenthetical Girls (Ä)Nicholas Krgovich (Ö)Mount Eerie (Ü)Key Loosers (ß)R. Stevie Moore

Since this series is a love dedication to the 7 inch format no digital formats are available from Tomlab.

Volar Records - Strange Mutations 7" series

Just heard about this Volar Records series that just went up for sale the other day, 5 singles for $25 bucks, great deal and what must be the first single from Eat Skull in a few years, good to hear those guys are still playing together and I'm so curious to hear how damaged they've gotten since, or it's totally my fault and I haven't been paying close enough attention. Then you've got an Audacity/Big Eyes split, last heard from Audacity on Volar, a new Stalins of Sound single with more of their demented dark sounds and Beaters weird layered folk and Far Corners who I think just had something out on Limited Appeal Records?

Get this packaged set from Volar Records while you're clicking around the rest of the internet at work checking off your xmas list. You deserve it.

Volar Records' first proper singles series, Strange Mutations, collected here in its first volume. Set comes specially packaged. Set of five 7"s includes:

Beaters--"Jester" b/w "911=11"
Eat Skull--"Where'd You Go" + "Medication Time" b/w "Jefferson Angel"
Stalins of Sound--"Pool of Piranha" + "Panik" b/w "Rapture in Blood
Far Corners--"Sanity Suck" + "Not So Hot Right Now" b/w "Asleep Since the 70s"
Audacity/Big Eyes split 7"--"Bottle It Up" b/w "Half the Time"

Singles going home alone - 2013 Matador

Oh gosh, new year of singles from Matador, this time it's going to be one every MONTH! Starting with Jeff Novak....damn.

For 2013, we’ll be doing a single every month, plus a special secret bonus 7″ at the conclusion, plus a yet-to-be-determined container for all the singles (wooden box? carrybag made from human flesh? a tote bag Altamont manufacture for free? ). The first single in the series is a pair of new songs from Cheap Time founder Jeffrey Novak, followed by an entry from Matador alumni Superchunk in February (one original backed with a cover of SS Decontrol’s “Glue”). The tentative schedule looks like this :

Jan 29: Jeffrey Novak – I Never Knew I Knew So Much / B-7
Feb 19: Superchunk – I Hate History / Glue
Mar 26: Cian Nugent – TBA
Apr 23: Lower Plenty / Dick Diver – split 7″
May 21: Bits Of Shit – TBA
June 11: Royal Headache - TBA

There's nothing else to say.... except save one of the 750 for me. I have to leave something for my wife to get me for xmas. Thank you.

Cousins on The Noyes Records singles series

The Noyes Record subscription series is still going strong and their latest from Cousins came in just before the holidays. In the same ways Yuck or Broken Water...or fellow subscription series-mates, Dog Day, this duo from Halifax is mining the attitude and guitar tones of the nineties. "Secret Weapon" on the A-Side carries the ramshakle good times of Pavement with a loose, gritty electric blaring out of a broken practice amp from the right side of the stereo. The percussion jerky, odd timings and slightly distorted at times, high falsetto vocal from Aaron Mangle gives this a less than deadly serious delivery which makes them immediately likable. When you can coax out a near perfect rhythm like this, the combination of gutsy muted strumming with double time ceramic (?) cowbell  it doesn't need any extra dressing up, the simple capturing of this rimshot stomper is plenty. It's not getting into anything near lo-fi, but the exact right amount room sound and immediacy, and more importantly precise, catchy songwriting. That's what reminds me of Dog Day, The Hussy or another 'related' band, Blood on the Wall...there's pure classic innovation pouring out of these guys.
B-Side's "Speech", brings out a bit more of this raw practice room, garage side. There's some kind of down the hall sound from a record being played...or someone singing and a bluesy blown out garage number blasts in. This combination of Aaron's high vocal under heavy reverb, this elegant almost frail vocal alongside this scuzzy guitar is a great crazy direction, not to say he can't completely belt this out when the drums, with all fills take this solidly into the red. A raw sound expanding on the loose groove....I think that might be Leigh Dotey on drums, if the video below is the current line up.

Fantastic single, playful and stripped down, elements of garage and loose indie-rock, but classically all in service of the songwriting.

Damn this came out a while ago and should have been in contention for the year end thingys, but that isn't what this is about, they deserve to be picked up from Noyes Records...another solid edition to the singles club...you need more reasons?

Get this one direct from Noyes Records.


COUSINS - Speech from Mitch Fillion (southernsouls.ca) on Vimeo.

fennesz - Touch 7 inch series

I love the idea that a guitar can create all this sound....on one hand you think musicians will always be using guitars, they're so versatile, but at the same time if you're making sounds like these than conceivably you could do it with any instrument, so what's the point? Are you making guitars obsolete or more relevant?
I'm really getting lost in the weird guitar manipulations of Fennesz, checking out the ambient looped stuff on myspace I don't know how exactly this would work out on 2 sides of a seven inch, how the break is handled because the original track was an 8 minute digital download from Touch, who just recently pressed it on vinyl. Unfortunately I couldn't find this anywhere but imported from Touch or other mailorder places overseas.
A track like 'A year in a minute' is really dense and full of every type of sound, it's really hypnotic but structured to be more than just ambient noise, it's like listening to that disintegration loops stuff, it's slowly changing and kind of needs a lot of time to get everything, let it sink in. The Touch label has all kinds of other experimental music from Ryoji Ikeda and the like, but I might look for one of these full lengths by fennesz domestically.

Fennesz-Transition-Limited edition seven inch pressing from fennesz on the touch label. Part of the ongoing touch singles club series. The single features two tracks never released on vinyl before. The ep opens up with the track on a desolate shore which featured as a very limited digital release on the touch website last year along with a totally exclusive track a shadow passes by. Both tracks are quite reminiscent of the sounds of his amazing endless summer album with lots of glitchy sound effects layered behind washes of fuzzy guitars. Both sides end in locked grooves so you can basically listen to the last few second for ever. April 2008-7"-Touch

This is available from Touch records, or roadrecs in Ireland.

The big Matador Jay Reatard sale is tomorrow, so set your alarms for 3PM eastern time.....more tomorrow.