Willow Court Audio

Today I've put up the pre-order for the first release on my tape label Willow Court Audio on bandcamp. It's a cassette edition of my (previously only digital) AB Lundberg album Space Wars Vol. 1 and contains 2 bonus tracks. I plan to make a few other choice albums (both old and new ones) from my output available in physical form on this label in the near future. It's a really small scale affair, and the editions will be limited. I have decided not to go for numbered editions at this stage, but suffice to say that the editions will likely be in the range between 25 and 75 copies. The tapes are all dubbed in real time straight from the masters in Logic.

The tape edition of Space Wars Vol. 1 comes on a yellow C40 ferric tape housed in a matching (well, almost) yellow library case with an insert printed in black on red 130 gram paper.

The cassette is available to order through my bandcamp page now.

Sommet

I couldn't resist making a short stop at Kollaps records in Stockholm this last Saturday on the international Cassette Store Day. I didn't pick up any of the CSD specific releases but went away with two tapes nonetheless. One of them was the tape version of the self titled album by Sommet, that I had been contemplating getting for a while. This concept album focused on Mount Everest consists of seven thematically named instrumental tracks of quite accessible synthesizer music. There's obvious links to the nostalgia soaked tunes of the Ghost Box camp and various incarnations of early eighties library music. It's sometimes quite simplistic in nature, but Sommet manages to make it work beautifully. After a few days listening to this I'm very impressed. The tape edition (of only 50 copies) seems to be sold out at source (though if you're in Stockholm, Kollaps seem to have one copy left) but there is a vinyl edition and a cd edition available from Desire Records. So if you're into Ghost Box, Steve Moore or the more melodic side of kosmische be sure to check this one out.

Maurizio Bianchi on bandcamp

Part of the allure of the slightly eccentric italian noise pioneer known as Maurizio Bianchi or simply M.B is the difficulty in getting hold of his work. Both because his back catalogue, at least the privately released tape part of it, is a bit hard to survey, and the lack of authorized downloads and more commonly available editions on cd, vinyl or cassette. However with the launch of the At War With False Noise bandcamp page recently their 2CD compilation of the Computers S.P.A. and Com.SA tapes is available to stream or buy at a very reasonable price. Both cassettes were partly released on the Vinyl on demand box set Archives in 2006, but are here given a full release in all their glorious 2 hours worth of vintage noise drones. As with many early M.B. releases the tracks seems to be 2 channel recordings panned hard right and left. Some of the early M.B.s stuff is quite contemplative in a dark ambient kind of way, but this one is much more confrontational and well, quite disturbing. If you're after the more murky ambient stuff go hunting for The ACVI tapes box set or the AWWFN 2CD edition of Technology 1&2 on Discogs. But if you're interested in the origins of noise and industrial be sure to check out the stream of Computers S.P.A/Com.SA on bandcamp, and you'll probably find you'll want to order a copy before they run out.