Low-Fye – You Keep Them [2010]

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download I was asked to take it down for a while  (Anne)
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This must be the ghost of Syd Barrett who is recorded onto dictaphone.
32 tiny songs full of tape hiss and reverb. You always hear the click of the record button at the beginning, then some pretty remindable melodies, a whispering voice and ghosts that speaks through the tape hiss. Then clicks the stop button and the ghosts voices are still present in your room, in your head. But they would not harm you. They are like friends.
Released 15 April 2010

Nucleus Torn – Andromeda Awaiting I [2010]

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With every new album, Nucleus Torn open new vistas of sound in the realm of avant-garde rock music. Fredy Schnyder, multi-instrumentalist and founder of this ambitious project from Switzerland, plays up to twenty electric and acoustic instruments and ventures radical musical innovations. Following “Nihil” (2006) and “Knell” (2008), “Andromeda Awaiting” provides the disillusioned, yet conciliatory completion of a conceptional trilogy.

As on the two precursors, Nucleus Torn are creating a new sonic realm on “Andromeda Awaiting.” This acoustic and ethereal production blends elements of Progressive Rock with influences from Early Music (Middle Ages, Renaissance) and Impressionism as well as Folk and Jazz. Unique musical and compositional abilities are reflected in a pioneering synthesis of various stylistic elements often deemed incompatible. With “Andromeda Awaiting,” Nucleus Torn release the most daring and ambitious album of their career to date – they have reinvented themselves and their music for the third time in a row.

Head Of Wantastiquet – Dead Seas [2010]

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Head Of Wantastiquet is the alter ego of Paul Labrecque, an American musician, songwriter now residing in Belgium.
He has recorded several solo albums and collaborations (with Chris Corsano and Valerie Webb) and he plays and records with the bohemian group Sunburned Hand Of the Man.
He recorded for labels such as Mad Monk, Three Lobed, Eclipse and Bad Da Ding.
His new album under the Head Of Wantastiquet moniker is set for release on Conspiracy Records in October 2010.
Historically, aesthetically and sonically his new work bears genuinely comparison with ‘American primitivism’. It’s a mix of psychedelic banjo hymns, apocalyptic space folk and incredible drugged out soul-whispers.
It layers banjos, guitars and smoke as though they were shimmering veins of black pearls, pulsing against the scarlet dawn.
Head Of Wantastiquet manages to take a conceptual precept as dark as life itself, and invests it with an inner glow that churns our own black hearts like butter.

Olivia Pedroli – The Den [2010]

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After two critically acclaimed albums released under the stage-name Lole, the Swiss artist was able to take her particular brand of folk music beyond the borders of her own country (France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Scandinavia) as a headliner or as an opening act for renowned artists such as Joe Cocker, Paul Simon, Alain Bashung, Donovan, Marianne Faithfull, Nouvelle Vague…)
Olivia Pedroli is now back with “The Den” an intriguing new record at the crossroads between classical, folk and experimental, entirely produced in Reykjavik, by Valgeir Sigurðsson, the Icelandic producer well-known for his collaborations with Björk, Camille, CocoRosie, Bonnie Prince Billy, etc.

Omar Rodriguez Lopez – Cizaña de Los Amores [2010]

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Cizaña de los Amores is the seventeenth studio album by Omar Rodríguez-López as a solo artist. The album will be released October 18, 2010 on CD and vinyl by Rodriguez-Lopez Productions on Koncurrent in Europe, then November 18 through the US hello merch store. It is the first collaboration between Omar and vocalist Lisa Papineau, who had previously worked with The Mars Volta bandmate Juan Alderete in their band Big Sir. This record features the song “Victimas del Cielo” in studio form, having first been released on the live album Los Sueños de un Hígado.

That Summer – Near Miss [2010]

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This is That Summer’s 6th recording. That Summer is David Sanson (vocals, keyboards, piano) with Étienne Bonhomme (drums, treatments), Olivier Cavaillé (guitars, bass on Obviously, cello, backing vocals on The Angelhood) & Nikolu Jorio (bass, guitars, backing vocals, Kaossillator on ‘All Cats Are Grey’). Guest musicians on this recording were Sylvain Chauveau (vocals on ‘Obviously’), Bernd Jestram (various trippy devices on ‘April Skies’ & ‘All Cats Are Grey’), Geoffroy Montel (various overdubs), Krikor (overdubs on ‘The Hues of You’), Nicolas Etiève (accordion on ‘Chapel 16’).

Cas Kaplan – Maybe We’ll Be Friends [2010]

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This is the album i’ve been threatening to release for several years now. it’s undergone a number of title changes (“city winding down,” “history of the moon,” “an endless ocean of stars”) and the tracklist has been in flux. the songs themselves were written and recorded over a period of some five years (“the face that you made” is from when i was fifteen, while the chinese lullaby was done last winter) and i’ve spent all this time hemming and hawing about how to “release” it, and so now here it is. some of it is a little embarrassing, but i think there’s value to being embarrassed about some of one’s artistic output, because if the embarrassment is real then so is the art. i do hope you like it.

Cas Kaplan

Maria Lamburn – Heaven On Earth [2010]

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MADALENA (MARIA LAMBURN): composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist has created a stream of idiosyncratic projects in the last decade, performing internationally and in Britain. Her debut CD Murmur was recorded for indie jazz label Babel (BDV 2027) with financial funding from the English Arts Council. Her New Release Heaven on Earth was recorded with drummer Ian Thomas and bassist Dudley Phillips. Her multi-media work Taith Amser toured Wales and played at the Vortex, London (supported by a Creative Wales Award from the Welsh Arts Council). During 2010 she is launching her innovative Quartet Madalena with bassist Laurence Cottle, pianist Huw Warren and drummer Ian Thomas, and Spoke’n (duo with Huw Warren).

Phantom Payn Days – Phantom Payn Daze [2010]

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While in the widely neglected 39 Clocks, he made records that never sold and played gigs that few ever saw, Juergen Gleue has arguably been the most important exponent of electrified German sound since the late 1970s. Phantom Payn Daze was made in the mid to late 90s and has never been released. It’s his final LP and is overflowing with all the elements that romanticized, loner / stoner music claims, an encoded expression of highly private feelings, an ambiguous, emotional quotient, and a dark, murkily melodic vibe. It’s a record that first and foremost lives and breathes with an endless stream of great songs. But perhaps it’s most curious component is it’s amazingly prescient sound, a precursor to so many of today’s lo fi acts, all wrapped up in their San Francisco hair.

Sproatly Smith – Pixieled [2010]

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This is the second Sproatly Smith release on Reverb Worship.“Pixieled” is a really superb and enchanting recording which takes its inspiration from folklore.Many tales exist of mischievous spirits of the dead or other supernatural beings such as pixies attempting to lead travellers astray so that the hapless traveller becomes hopelessly lost, even when they are on familiar territory .