| #628 |
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2002 |
Indie Christmas always comes early. This is when the independent labels around the world flood the market with all the releases they want to get out before the great Britney Spears sucks the available retail shop floor space dry with “Britney Sings Silent Night” in November in the lead up to Christmas. Possibly more so this year because the major labels are soiling themselves at the latest reports that find sales are down, and now the clamouring of their shareholders is starting to get audible. Unfortunately, if you are releasing a new record independently then you’ll probably now have to wait until February when the machine cranks up again. But, if you are a punter, then the shelves are full of new records at the moment. Some excellent, some mediocre, and some that probably should have had a few more months production work done on them. And its certainly been a while since I’ve had so much new music in the in-tray and threatening to topple on to the computer . . . . First, is a tasty little demo cd from a Brisbane fellow named Puzhaki. Quickly snapped up for a early 2003 release on the local label Aliasfrequencies, Puzhaki is one of a new generation of producers for whom ‘normal music’ is what we used to call ‘experimental’. And he certainly isn’t a contemplative sit-down laptop glitch producer, instead he makes crazy jungle on a Squarepusher tip. His debut CD has some maniacal tracks which, in a live setting, he runs through the line input of the small Roland Groovesampler and messes with them with real time filters and time stretching. Keep an eye on this kid. And one release that has been delayed until next year is the new Herd album. Ready to go but held off lest it be buried under Britney, the new album is a big step forward with tighter rhymes and some very nice production that moves away from the world of Scallops. There is also a slew of big(-ish) name overseas releases. There is a new Godspeed You Black Emperor album promising more apocalyptic symphonic drone rock, a new Sigur Ros album with no album or track titles that comes in over the top packaging, and on the avant hip hop tip, the new Themselves album, The No Music, on Anticon, and the fresh new Buck65 album Square which is available from Warners Canada (only via internet ordering). Warp sublabel Lex, have the Boom Bip album Seed To Sun out via Creative Vibes which is a fabulous, if slightly inconsistent, collection of pastoral sounding hip hop instrumentals (save a few vocal cuts with Buck65 and Dose One). In amongst all this a new micro-distributor has sprung up. Not satisfied with just being a record label, the Ultimo-based Couchblip has expanded into the world of distribution. Initially spurred on by the difficulty of securing long-term distribution for their own releases, Couchblip has followed the example set by bloody Fist and decided to go it alone. They’ve picked up distribution for some like-minded overseas labels who were looking for a smallscale set up in Australia also and they’ve opened for business accepting internet orders from both individuals and retailers (who can by at wholesale prices). Couchblip are distributing boutique labels like Merck, the minidsic label n5md, plus Kracfive, Worm Interface and Lucky Kitchen as well as the larger Hefty, Carpark and Prefuse73’s Eastern Developments. Check them out at http://distribution.couchblip.com/. And in Frigid news, it’s the second of our ‘vs’ series with Hornsby’s Dumphuck crew taking on Frigid with Alphatown Collective playing live alongside Cathode Immersions and their in-house DJ, who we’ve never heard of, Manfred The Houseplant. Check that out on November 3 for top notch glitch techno and deep electro nonsense. Oh, I better remind you where – the Hopetoun Hotel in Surry Hills every Sunday from 5pm. Yellow Peril (www.snarl.org)  Goto
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