Rainbow Blanket With Brian Miller / This Song Is A Mess But So Am I




C20 released in September 2004. Superior blown out unrock and collapsing techno noise-opera bounce.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 1

Deathbomb Arc ran three years of a monthly subscription tape club before switching to a Digital Singles Club which is available via their Bandcamp page.

September 2004

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Quem Quaeritis / Djin Teeth




C20 released in October 2004. Fuzz n roll and fedback sea shanty jazz burp.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 2

October 2004

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Celesteville / Toxic Loincloth




C20 released in November 2004. Broken homemade electronics and surf bontempi post-punk.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 3

November 2004

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Yuma Nora / Debaser




C20 released in December 2004. Muffled electronic beats and percussion driven teenage jerkery.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 4

December 2004

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D Yellow Swans / Sex With Girls




C20 released in January 2005. Yellow Swans and plunderphonic crunk.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 5

January 2005

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House 1 & 2 / Minmae




C20 released in February 2005. Harsh tidal lightning bolt noise and brokeass basement rock clatter.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 6

February 2005

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Micose and the Mau Maus / Boozle Bam




C20 released in March 2005. Splendid chaos.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 7

March 2005

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David Semien / Total Recall




C20 released in April 2005. Broken underwater loops and tones and Warp(ed) bass driven snapped crackling doom.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 8

April 2005

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Anavan / Atole




C20 released in May 2005. Sly '80s post-punk disco bounce and a continually disintegrating electro nightmare.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 9

May 2005

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Grace's Amazing Kitty Cat Band / Danyyys




C20 released in June 2005. Slow motion Einstürzende Swans shaman vibe and dreamy Casio Gameboy rock.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 10

June 2005

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Miguel Mendez / Moth Drakula




C20 released in July 2005. Overdriven country rock and quality rumbling feedback noise.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 11

July 2005

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Anni Rossi / Mae Shi




C20 released in August 2005 featuring Anni Rossi and The Mae Shi. Twisted lo-fi plink-plonk and degraded electronic punk squawk.

Deathbomb Arc Tape Club Year One: Month 12

August 2005

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Stereolab ‎- Eaten Horizons Or The Electrocution Of Rock




This is an extraordinary LP released in an edition of only 130 copies (30 of which went to the band members). It features previously unreleased demos giving us a peek into a rougher unpolished Steroelab.

Released on En/Of in 2007.

Eaten Horizons Or The Electrocution Of Rock

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Stereolab ‎- Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night




I'm coming out! I admit it, I am an inverted snob! There, I've said it. But, do you know that feeling you get when people you hate start liking the bands that you love? It somehow becomes the bands fault? Well that happened for me with Stereolab. They started to become "popular" (in strictly relative terms) and they ended up being one of my guilty secrets where I would listen to them in private with the curtains closed. Well, now is the time to declare my unending love of Stereolab and it feels good!

Formed around the core of Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier, this also features Morgane Lhote, Mary Hansen, Simon Johns, Sean O'Hagan (of Microdisney and The High Llamas), John McEntire (of My Dad Is Dead, Bastro, Gastr Del Sol, Tortoise, etc), Jim O'Rourke (who also handles a lot of the recording and production duties) and a host of people on Strings and Brass. It was originally released on their own Duophonic label as a Double LP and CD in 1999.

It always was and remains an example of absolute aural perfection.

Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night

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Butthole Surfers - Hairway To Steven




This is the vinyl version that I was talking about! The first track (Jimi) is ripped at 45rpm. It was probably recorded this way as an in-joke but good god it works. If you only have the CD version then you will have never heard it before. It is right up there as one of my favourite Butthole's tracks. Acid-fried majesty!

Thanks to Xtm for sorting this out for me ... I want to have your children!

Hairway To Steven

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Help!




I've got some time off work and have done what any right minded person would do! I've been listening to the entire Butthole Surfers oeuvre. That is easy for me to do because I own everything that they have released and plenty that they haven't released.

I have a problem. The first track of the vinyl version of Hairway to Steven was meant to be played at 45rpm (the rest of the LP is at 33rpm). The subsequent CD re-releases have Jimi as a 12 minute number. I have everything the Surfers released on vinyl and bought all of the re-releases on CD. I was completely thrown by the fact that the CD version is not a patch on the 45 LP version.

My turntable is broke +

Has anybody ripped the 1st track of the LP in 45rpm so that everyone can hear the best track that they ever recorded?

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Culver / E.H.I. - Split




Lee Stokoe and Brian Noring on a C90 released on Brian's FDR Tapes in 1996.

Culver / E.H.I.

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Culver / Enigma Analogico - Split




Lee Stokoe's unmistakable Culver project in an early adventure with the mysterious Enigma Analogico.

"E.A. isn't a real musical band - it's just a ghost changing its name as a stupid joke. For this project it means Analogic Enigma. This tapework has been assembled in the practice room of EX C.I.M. on 27-May-96 by 6 different hearts - minds - tongues - 12 eyes, ears and hands... "

C86 released on Italy's Cadenced Noise in 1997.

Culver / Enigma Analogico

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Kommissar Hjuler ‎- ... In Fremdem Herbst




Kommissar Hjuler is Detlev Hjuler and you will also see his work with his frau Mama Bär. Their work derives from a Neo-Dada, Fluxus and Art Brut perspective. I could explain that further but it would take a long time.

This also includes a 24 minute reference to Offenbarung und Untergang and a combined interpretation of Verfall and Verwandlung Des Bösen by Georg Trakl.

This is a CDr released on their own Der Schöne Hjuler-Memorial-Fond in 2004 in a ridiculously low number.

Who said we make this shit up as we go along?

... In Fremdem Herbst

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Étant Donnés With Michael Gira - Offenbarung und Untergang By Georg Trakl




Étant Donnés are Eric & Marc Hurtado and Michael Gira is Michael Gira ... but I suspect you already know such things.

Georg Trakl was an Austrian expressionist poet. Offenbarung und Untergang was written in 1914. That year signaled the start of World War I. He "served" as a medical officer attending the humans subject to that brutality. He suffered bouts of depression triggered by what he was forced to witness and attempted suicide. He was confined to a military hospital in Kraków.

During these times, cocaine was a relatively new synthesized drug. It was considered a panacea. Sigmund Freud wrote his first published work under the influence of cocaine (and look at the problems that he continues to cause!) and prescribed cocaine and heroin to his friends and the unfortunates who were convinced he had credibility. Some died as a result. Now, we consider cocaine as an intoxicant. Georg Trakl considered it as an exit and he succeeded. In early November of 1914 at the age of 27 he took his own life via cocaine overdose.

This is a CD released on Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier in 1999. The words are fittingly sung and spoken in German.

REVELATION AND APOCALYPSE (Offenbarung und Untergang)

Strange are the nocturnal paths of Man. When I walked in the night past stony rooms and a silent lamp, a copper candlestick was burning in each, and when I fell on my bed shaking with cold, the black shadow of the stranger girl stood near my head once more and I silently hid my face in slow hands. And the hyacinth had come up blue at the window, and the ancient prayer hung on the crimson lips of the breather, crystal tears dropped from his eyelids, wept for the sake of the bitter world. In that hour I was the white son in my father’s death. The night wind burst in blue shivers from the hill, the dark lament of my mother — it came and it died away and I saw the black hell in my heart. Minute of shimmering stillness. Softly an unspeakable face arose from the chalky wall — a dying boy — the loveliness of a race coming homeward. White as the moon, the chill of the stones hugged my waking temples, the footsteps of the shades echoed away on crumbling stairs, a rosy dance in the little garden ...

I sat in silence in a vacant tavern under smoke-black, wooden beams, and feeling lonely over my wine. A radiant corpse bent over a thing of darkness and a dead lamb lay at my feet. From blue decay the pale form of my sister rose up and her bleeding mouth pronounced these words: “Go pierce me, blackthorn. Ah, my silver arms yet resound with savage thunder. Go flow, my blood, from my moon-white feet, blossoming in the paths of night over which the rat darts screaming. Go flicker, you stars, in my vaulted brows. And softly my heart chimes in the night. A red shadow with sword of fire has broken into the house, has fled with a forehead of snow. O bitter death.”

And a dark voice spoke from within me: “One night in the forest I broke my black stallion’s neck when madness rose in his crimson eyes. The shadows of the elms fell upon me, the blue laughter of the spring and the black chill of the night, when I, a wild huntsman, started a snowy quarry. My face died in a hail of stones.”

And a drop of blood fell glistening into the wine of the solitary, and when I drank of it the taste was more bitter than poppies. And a swarthy cloud hid my head, the crystal tears of exiled angels. And my sister’s blood ran silently from a silver wound and fell over me in a rain of fire.

I want to walk by the forest hem, a thing of silence from whose speechless hands the sun has slipped with his bright hair, a stranger on the hillside of evening who weeps and opens his eyelids above the stony city, a deer that stands still in the peace of the ancient elder. O the darkening head lies listening without repose, or the hesitant footsteps follow the blue cloud on the hillside, follow also its solemn stars. At my side the green seed escorts me in silence, the deer is my companion on mossy forest paths. The huts of the villagers are dumbly shut and the wail of the brook brings fear in the windless blackness.

But when I went down the rocky path, madness took me and I screamed aloud in the night. And when I bent down with silver fingers over the silent waters, I saw that my face had abandoned me. And the white voice said to me: “Go kill yourself.” With a groan the shadow of a boy rose up within me and looked at me with radiant eyes so that I fell down weeping under the trees, under the mighty vault of the stars.

Pilgrimage without peace through savage rocks far from the pools of evening, from homecoming flocks. Far away the sinking sun basks in a pasture of crystal, and there is terror in her wild song, in the lonely cry of the bird dying into blue quiet. But in silence you come at night when I lie awake on the hillside, or raving in the thunder of the spring. And ever more blackly heaviness vaults above the exiled head, shuddering lightning bolts appall the soul at night, your hands rip open my breathless breast.

When I went into the darkening garden and Evil One’s sinister form had left me, the hyacinth stillness of night enfolded me, and I rode on a curving boat over the resting pond and sweet peace touched my stony forehead. Unable to speak I lay under the ancient willows and the blue sky was high, high above me and full of stars. And when I died while gazing, all fear and pain died within me all the more deeply. And the boy’s blue shadow arose radiantly over the darkness, a soft song. On wings of moonlight there rose, high over the green tree-tops, over crags of crystal, the face of my sister.

On silver soles I climbed down the thorny stairs and entered the chamber whitewashed with chalk. A candlestick shone silently inside, and silently I hid my head in crimson linens. And the earth cast up the dead body of a child, a shape of moonlight that slowly rose from my shadow and fell down a stony chasm with broken arms, soft flakes of snow.

Offenbarung Und Untergang By Georg Trakl

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Michael Gira - The Consumer and Other Stories




This is a scan of the book written by Mr Gira and published in 1996 which I bought immediately it appeared on my horizon. I prefer a book in my hand rather than these newfangled electronic things. However, it sells for a pretty penny these days which will put it out of reach for a lot of people. I love this and it feels like a long conversation with the inside of Mr Gira's head as he gives free reign and explores all of the themes that you love in Swans (and then some). When I read this book, I literally hear this inside my head in the voice of Mr Gira. So ... just in case you ever really wanted to read this but could never afford to ...

The Consumer and Other Stories

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Swans ‎- Firlej / Wrocław




This is one of those unofficial bootleg LPs that thankfully crop up every now and again. The three tracks were recorded live in 2010 at Klub Firlej in Wrocław, Poland.

This features a 16 minute version of the classic I Crawled, Eden Prison from "My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky" and an Unknown Song which is actually a slower preview of Avatar which would later appear on "The Seer".

Firlej / Wrocław

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Various - Aotearoa Under Clear Plastic: The Art Of The Drone (Lathe Cuts vol 1)




Peter Wright, RST (aka Andrew Moon), Eso Steel (aka Richard Francis), Witcyst, White Winged Moth (aka Dean Roberts of Thela and The Tower Recordings) and Matthew Middleton (aka Crude which also appears here) and then some...

The Aotearoa Under Clear Plastic set are four "releases" that feature some of the tracks from the multitude of lathe cuts that appeared on any number of New Zealand labels. Some of the labels I am very familiar with and some I am not at all. I've sat on this for years trying to "authenticate" it. I've asked a number of people who appear here and they don't know about it. I've never even been able to find this on t'internet.

So here it is! A collection of tracks from some extremely rare lathes that feature some of the finest minds in the New Zealand history that has survived long enough to register with me ... and a lot of people that I know nothing about ... everything on the four discs are things that I would never have been able to hear otherwise.

Whoever took the time to put these together ... Thanks!

The Art Of The Drone

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Various - Aotearoa Under Clear Plastic: Antipodean Electrons (Lathe Cuts vol 2)




Pumice, Tanaka-Nixon Meeting, Witcyst (aka Michael Veet Ruiliude), A Handful Of Dust (aka Alastair Galbraith and Bruce Russell) amongst others...

Antipodean Electrons

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Various - Aotearoa Under Clear Plastic: Spawn Of Xpressway (Lathe Cuts vol 3)




Omit, CJA (aka Clayton Noone), Micheal Morley & Bruce Russell (both of The Dead C), Sandoz Lab Technicians and K-Group (aka Paul Toohey) are some of the people here...

Spawn Of Xpressway

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Various - Aotearoa Under Clear Plastic: Neutrinos w/a Southward Spin (Lathe Cuts vol 4)




Pumice (Stefan Neville), Omit (Clinton Williams), Simon Wickham-Smith & Richard Youngs, and Tanaka-Nixon Meeting (aka Danny Butt who is a member of Flies Inside The Sun and Michael Morley of The Dead C) are amongst the guest list...

Neutrinos w/a Southward Spin

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Immaculate:Grotesque - Pennyroyal Tea

A fitting way to end our run of rare Immaculate:Grotesque cassettes is with this self-released 3xCDR set from 2008. "Pennyroyal Tea" collects material from out-of-print I:G cassettes, business-card CDRs, compilations, unreleased albums, and remixes.

disc one
disc two
disc three

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Immaculate:Grotesque - Soiled

More fried circuits by the wonderful Immaculate:Grotesque, this cassette was released by Truculent Recordings in 2007 in an edition of 14 copies.

Immaculate:Grotesque - Soiled

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Immaculate:Grotesque - Lifetime

Another stellar cassette of fried circuitry, released by Truculent Recordings in 2006 in an edition of just 12 copies.

Immaculate:Grotesque - Lifetime

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Immaculate:Grotesque - Outsider Time Labyrinth

2007 cassette of synth buzz, edition of 13 copies.

Immaculate:Grotesque - Outsider Time Labyrinth

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Immaculate:Grotesque - Daylight Perversion

Glorious monolithic analog synth noise by Jeff Plummer, aka Immaculate:Grotesque. This cassette was released on Plummer's own Truculent Recordings label in 2007 in an edition of just 9 copies. 

Immaculate:Grotesque - Daylight Perversion

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Atomsmasher ‎- Atomsmasher




I've never thought of myself a mathematical genius but I may have to reconsider that. Here's an equation for you:

Dave Witte (give the funky drummer some), Paul Richard (aka Speedranch) and James Plotkin (yeah right, you've never heard of him...) + noiserock, glitch, plunderphonic, prog, space, techno, noise, bass, twisted shouty business + a shitload of fun fun fun = ... ?

No. The answer isn't 42. It's Atomsmasher.

CD on Double H Noise Industries from 2001 that is made for a Saturday night out!

Atomsmasher

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Phantomsmasher‎ - Phantomsmasher




This is more "traditional" than the posts that sit either side of this one. Obviously, all things are utterly relative. There are major parts of this that give me the same feeling as watching The Jesus Lizard live! That isn't a throw away comment ... I adore The Jesus Lizard!

Phantomsmasher

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Phantomsmasher / Venetian Snares - Podsjfkj Pojid Poa / Oisdjoks




7" released on Double H Noise Industries in 2003.

Phantomsmasher is the same line-up as Atomsmasher. And, you get Aaron Funk's Venetian Snares ...what else could you want?

Podsjfkj Pojid Poa / Oisdjoks

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Connolly - Fuck Wolf Eyes




Mike Connolly on a C60 released on Hung Like A Horse?! in 2004. Eventually Mike begins to appear more frequently than Aaron and eventually join up on a full term basis for quite a few years after this. Mike literally smashes it and signals a change in the Wolf Eyes sound that was to come!

Fuck Wolf Eyes

And, of course: Fuck You!

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Wolf Eyes - Fuck Pete Larsen




CDr released on Wabana Ore Limited in 2004. This has completely different music than the Bad Glue LP that came out two years earlier. Pete must have done a bad thing!

Fuck Pete Larsen

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Wolf Eyes - Fuck The Old Miami




LP released on Important Records in 2005 with an etched B-Side that you can still play.

"Flip it over for a needle-destroying playable b-side etching hand carved by Wolf Eyes into the original laquers. Grooves cut in their own home lathe. Play at your own risk". Don't worry, we have done that for you! Any contributions to smashed needles will be gratefully appreciated.

Fuck The Old Miami

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Wolf Eyes‎ - Fuck The Pigs




There is no label information on this CDr so let's assume that it was self-released. It's from 2004.

Fuck The Pigs

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Wolf Eyes - Fuck Birmingham




C74 released on American Tapes in 2003.

It's AM273 btw.

Fuck Birmingham

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Wolf Eyes - Fuck The Old Miami



This is a 3" CDr released on Chondritic Sound in 2003.

Fuck The Old Miami

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Wolf Eyes - Fuck Pete Larsen




LP released on Bad Glue in 2002.

Fuck Pete Larsen

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Wolf Eyes - Fuck Cleveland



CDr stuck onto the back of a spray painted piece of vinyl released on American Tapes in 2001.

It's AM177 btw.

Fuck Cleveland

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Alexis Malbert - People For NASA

Short but dense album of plunderphonic collage from obscure French weirdo Alexis Maibert, an artist sometimes known as Tapetronic, who also makes electronic music for radio and builds instrument-like things out of cassette tapes and magnets.  


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Cartesian Faith - Functional Media Derivative

Crunchy digital (?) noise from New York, self-released on CDR at a time when it wasn't very cool to do so. Cartesian Faith fell somewhere within that late-1990's loose escapees-from-IDM scene as Speedranch, Hrvatski, Lesser, Accelera DeckV/Vm, that sort of  junk.

Cartesian Faith - Functional Media Derivative

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Birchville Cat Motel / Small Blue Torch ‎- China Slope / L.P.




Here's another Kiwi conundrum. The original China Slope was a 12" lathe cut LP released on Stefan Neville's (I think) Stabbies And The Rocket Recordings in 1998. This contains an additional track "Wet Pack Myth" which I don't think appears anywhere else. The Small Blue Torch contribution is a bit of a mystery but the the recordings are from November 1996 ... is this another otherwise lost New Zealand lathe?

This is a C90 released on Campbell's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Is it 1999?

The Bleak Bliss archeology only takes us this far ...

China Slope / L.P.

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Small Blue Torch - Untitled (SBT 1 & SBT 2)

Not a lot of information on this one. Small Blue Torch was the mid-1990's duo of Campbell Kneale and Richard Francis, both from New Zealand. These guys would go on to "fame" as Birchville Cat Motel, Our Love Will Destroy the World, and Black Boned Angel (Kneale) and Eso Steel (Francis). This double CDR, issued by US label Last Visible Dog, might be a reissue of some sort. It's not clear where exactly the music came from. Are these tapes reissued on CDR? New or previously unreleased recordings? There are no track titles and no text. so it's impossible to say. Each disc is titled "SBT 1" and "SBT 2", but Discogs does not list albums by those titles. Maybe a Bleak Bliss reader out there knows more than I do about this.

Small Blue Torch - Untitled (SBT 1)
Small Blue Torch - Untitled (SBT 2)

Helpful info from the label's archived webpage (thanks to a Bleak Bliss reader for bringing this to our attention!):

"I contacted Campbell Kneale in 1998 after his release on Drunken Fish, hoping he'd have a little something for the dog. Shortly afterwards, we threw together the idea of a two disc Small Blue Torch release as a definitive document from this now deceased band. Compiling Full Fathom Five and Stockpile, Small Blue Torch is a landmark album in many ways, not least of which being SBT's first album available to Americans! At slightly over two hours of mesmerizing guitar drift, sputter and grind, Small Blue Torch is one of the most intensive and affordable (our price: $12) studies into the New Zealand soundscape, and your best introduction to Campbell Kneale's amazingCelebrate Psi Phenomena label. Those interested in this release will also wish to take note of Kneale's Ohm release." --Chris Moon, LVD

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Cowcatcher & Airport - Split

A very early cassette by two bands featuring a pre-Birchville Cat Motel Campbell Kneale, issued on CK's own Celebrate/Psi/Phenomenon label in (probably) 1995. Cowcatcher was a sludgy metal/rock band with screaming vocals with noisy guitars. There are several songs on the side, but they all run together so I didn't bother cutting it into separate tracks. On the other side is a more familiar sound, as Airport's stately drift is a clear precursor to Kneale's future band Lugosi.

Cowcatcher & Airport - Split

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Deterge - Parlous




The great Deterge gent is Jim Haras who also runs the mighty Fusty Cunt. Everything deserves your prolonged attention.

C10 released on Fusty Cunt in 2010 complete with an attached mousetrap.

Parlous

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Deterge - Peace Corps




C10 released on Fusty Cunt in 2012.

Peace Corps

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Deterge - Substrate Catalyzation




C20 released on Strange Rules in 2012.

Substrate Catalyzation

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