Artists

Japan’s Atsuhiro Ito performs using his device the Optron, essentially fluorescent light tubes with integrated guitar pick-ups sent through a guitar amp stack. When the voltage applied to the tubes is altered, the lights flicker and the pick-ups harvest the electromagnetic noise perfectly synchronized with the flickering light, the intense noise creating a visual hallucination in which the observer sees supposedly non-existent colors and patterns. Ito also performs with the Optron in the duo Optrum, where he vies cacophonously with drummer Yoichiro Shin – they released the album Recorded on the Unknownmix label in 2006 – and he’s also previously collaborated with C. Spencer Yeh. You can find him in all three combinations on various riotous Youtube clips. Atsuhiro Ito comes to the UK in March to perform at AV10 festival on March 9, with other UK dates being added as we speak. See him in raucous, blinding action in the Media section.

solo Ito, Atsuhiro. Optvision. DVD. Gotobai, GTBI-D-01, 2009 Ito, Atsuhito. Acousmatic. CD-R. Euphoria Phone, euphoria phone-001, 2001. Ito, Atsuhiro. R.G.B./. CD-R. Omega Point, 1999. as leader, co-leader Optrum. Recorded. Unknownmix/Headz, UNKNOWNMIX 1/HEADZ 75, 2006. Optrum. Live! 2004. Intonarumori Orchestra. Intonarumori Orchestra. Off Site, OFF SITE-004, 2004. with other artists Kazuo Imai Trio. Blood. CD + DVD set. doubtmusic, dmf-124/5, 2008. Otomo, Yoshihide. Core Anode. Meenna, meenna-332, 2008. Makino, Takuma. In the Suburbs. Grid605, grid-001, 2008. Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Orchestra. Live Vol. 2: Parallel Circuit 2-CD set. doubtmusic, dmf-117/118, 2007. compilations Far for FUR. Unknownmix/Headz, UNKNOWNMIX 6/HEADZ 107, 2007. Le Son Sauvage: Tokyo Next Texture. Body Electric, EWBE 0014, 2005. Face.: Live at Off Site 2F Cafe. Commune-Disc, COM 40, 2004. 1 Minute. UMU, UMCD-005, 2003. Off Site Composed Music Series in 2001. 2-CD set. A Bruit Secret, 101-102, 2002. Deluxe Improvisation Festival 2001: Day Two. CD-R. ASE, ASE-05, 2002. Improvised Music from Japan Presents Improvised Music from Japan. 10-CD set. Improvised Music from Japan, IMJ-10CD, 2001.

Banjos and fiddles firmly in hand, the Black Twig Pickers long ago dove into the living tradition of old-time music that surrounds their homes in Southwest Virginia and never looked back.

Regularly playing a venerable square dance that draws hundreds of people to the one-stoplight town of Floyd, scouring archival recordings and sitting at the feet of older masters helped the Twigs become both scholars of the regional sounds and advocates of an ecstatic and highly personal approach to the music.

In recent years, the band accompanied Jack Rose on tours and recordings, something of a reunion since Jack and Black Twig fiddler/banjoist Mike Gangloff played together for years in Pelt. The collaboration resulted in last year's "Jack Rose & the Black Twig Pickers" album and a subsequent string of shows in the UK.

The Black Twig Pickers will return to the UK in September 2010.

Jack Rose & The Black Twig Pickers cd/lp (VHF/Beautiful Happiness - 2009)

Jack Rose & The Black Twig Pickers 'Shooting Creek' 7" (Great Pop Supplement - 2009)

Big Banjo Blues cdr (2008)

Hobo Handsake cd (VHF - 2008))

Midnight Has Come And Gone cd (VHF- 2005)

North Fork Flyer cd (VHF- 2004)

Soon One Morning cd (VHF - 2003)

Bong formed in 2005 in Newcastle. They merge classic doom rock tactics with a love of psychedelia and raga hypnotism, lacing their monolithic drones with vocal incantations and live sitar.

"Like space rock slowed waaaaaay down, Bong unleash a dark, dense roiling dirge drone doom, that slowly and gradually, and yes, druggily develops into something super rocking and ultra heavy. Crushing low end, lugubrious stoner doom riffs, pounding drums, and some buzzing sitar, adding a woozy Eastern vibe to the otherwise sludge-y proceedings. This is a total druggy lumbering stoned slow motion doom groove drug jam, channeling Monster Magnet, Black Sabbath, SUNNO))) and especially some Electric Wizard." (Aquarius Records)

Bong play Kraak Festival (Belgium) in March and Roadburn Festival (Netherlands) in April 2010.

Evolution Is So Creative (2xCDr, Ltd) Fuckin' Amateurs 2007

Head Of Steam 31/09/07 (CDr, Ltd) Fuckin' Amateurs 2007

Bong Live January 2008 (CDr, Ltd) Chance 2008 Under Byker Bridge 08/03/08 (CDr, Ltd) Slight Chance 2008

Bethmoora (2xCDr, Album, RE) Infinite Exchange 2009

Bong (LP, Ltd) Heidenwut Productions 2009

Bong At Tyneside Cinema June 12th 2009 (CDr, Ltd) Blyth Bites Back 2009

Exhalation / Tonight We Will Pretend We Are Human Beings (LP, Ltd) Blackest Rainbow 2009

Gnod / Bong (7" + CDr + , Ltd) Box Records (3) 2009

In And Around Newcastle (4xCDr, Ltd) Fuckin' Amateurs 2009

Novum Castellum (3xCD, Ltd, In ) Turgid Animal 2009

Recorded Live At La Toscana (CDr, Ltd) Blyth Bites Back 2009

Split (CDr, Ltd) Fuckin' Amateurs 2009

Blitzed In Brixton (CDr, Ltd) Untitled Fuckin' Amateurs 2009

Bong At Easter (3xCDr, Ltd)

2008 saw Anglo-American duo Cath & Phil Tyler release their debut album ‘Dumb Supper’ to great critical acclaim across all divides of the modern folk landscape – as Plan B rightly noted, “Dumb Supper is one of those rare modern folk albums that will find a home both in the longstanding ‘traditional’ music community and among those attracted to the form’s more experimental and lo-fi possibilities”.

And so it was that they were feted by a bewilderingly multilateral mix of critics from The Wire to Mike Harding to Brainwashed to Bob Harris (for whom they recorded a session too). Fiona Talkington of BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction was especially ardent, even arranging their performance at the Royal Opera House, this similarly contrasting with their underground UK tour in the company of Finnish jouhikko player Pekko Kappi.

And the only thing that stopped them fulfilling their booking at 2008’s Green Man Festival was the early arrival of their son Byron…

With their follow-up album 'The Hind Wheels Of Bad Luck' (out now digitally via www.diogenesmusic.com, out on cd in March), Cath & Phil Tyler further enhance their reputation for raw and powerfully emotive folk music that goes direct to the source, mining through their own contacts and treasure troves such as the Anne & Frank Warner Collection and the Sacred Harp song book, re-interpreting or adding their own music, and surfacing with pure gold.

And while they continue down their own thrillingly sparse furrow, this second album brings with it an added assuredness in their craft that shows how they’ve grown in stature as performers and players. So fully engrossing and fulfilling is their minimal sound, for example the voice and guitar on Dearest Dear, that when the accordion comes in on the song’s later stages, its as affecting and rewarding as if it were an entire orchestra.

While many of the lyrics have been unearthed, the majority of the music has been composed by Cath & Phil. Tracks such as Golden Ace (which segues into the starkly contrasting Courting Is A Pleasure) and Whip Poor Will highlight their divine union of the joy they take in playing and their sublime ability to do so. Phil’s banjo playing provides an indestructible backbone to the songs it features on, while his guitar playing darts, dips and flourishes joyfully – listen to the teasingly abbreviated The Wind That Shakes The Barley or the way his dancing strings vie with the fiddle on Golden Ace.

Phil is an exquisite guitar and banjo player, and layered with Cath’s earthen voice and their haunted harmonies, plus Cath’s barebones fiddle playing, makes for an exquisitely minimal, beautifully scything delivery.

Whip Poor Will, a Tyler-penned instrumental, sounds like a soundtrack to Where The Wild Things Are that should have been, conjuring a sense of child-like theatricality and anticipation that truly highlights Cath & Phil’s compositional skills, brilliantly breaking up the rhythm of the surrounding ballads and throwing something unexpected into the album’s emotional make-up.

Fittingly, ‘The Hind Wheels Of Bad Luck’ was recorded over a long weekend in Morden Tower, the ancient and legendary miniature music venue built into Newcastle’s old town walls that has hosted everyone from Allen Ginsberg and Basil Bunting to The New Blockaders and Sir Richard Bishop. The album was produced by Newcastle-based producer Andrew Gardiner. There’s something very fitting about a place that’s been a (largely unsung) cornerstone of Newcastle’s cultural evolution, and even older than many of the stories told on this album, being the place for this album to be made. Morden Tower holds a timeless and undying magic for those who’ve been there, its enigma preserved through the centuries. Similarly, Cath & Phil Tyler have brought us some ancient musical diamonds, added some of their own sorcery, and created something profound and wonderful for the folk of today.

Forthcoming dates:

28/1/10 Cumberland Arms, Newcastle w/ Felix & Men Diamler

10/2/10 Star & Shadow, Newcastle w/MV&EE

8/5/10 Citizens Theatre, Glasgow

http://citz.co.uk/whatson/info/frost_and_fire/

27/6/10 Leigh Folk Festival, Leigh on Sea

'The Hind Wheels Of Bad Luck' cd (2010) 'The Hind Wheels Of Bad Luck' digital album via www.diogenesmusic.com (2009) 'Dumb Supper' cd (2008)

It must be a crazy world when “authentic” is a term used to separate an artist from the pack. Charlie Parr is a folk and country blues musician who is routinely labeled “authentic” and “the real deal” by fans and critics alike. Charlie shows up with a lived-in rasp of a voice, National resonator and 12-string acoustic guitars, a banjo and a batch of his own songs and well-traveled numbers by Mississippi John Hurt, Charley Patton and other cohorts from another time. He lays it on you, and you sense that the gamblers, the union workers, the criminals and the sinners that wander around his songs are peering right over your shoulder. Parr has sung about these folks at steady gigs in his hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, showcase performances like “A Prairie Home Companion,” roadhouses in Texas and Montana, punk clubs in Ireland and pubs in London – let's just say that he's turned a lot of heads. His self-taught mix of slide, finger-picking and quasi-frailing technique, together with a voice that's low on drama and high on impact, can also be heard on four CDs (including the acclaimed 2005 release Rooster). The stories he tells get into some dark spots; that place where regret and remorse part company. A bit of a modern take on timeless conditions. Check him out and you'll probably agree – Charlie Parr is coming from a very real place, and this has, in fact, always been a crazy world. Charlie Parr grew up in Austin, Minnesota, in a house filled with the music that would inform his style. His late father loved the music found on collections like the field recordings by Alan Lomax released on the Folkways / Smithsonian label and Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. The elder Parr's first-hand accounts of growing up during the Depression, riding the freight trains and traveling to places like the Piedmont region (a North Carolina country blues mecca), made the music all the more visceral to Charlie. While his peers were immersed in what is now called “classic rock,” Charlie was soaking up the music of Furry Lewis, Rev. Gary Davis and Mance Lipscomb. As both his parents were union workers at Austin's Hormel plant – picket line fixtures during bitter labor strikes in the mid-1980s – Charlie himself got a first-hand view of what those old songs were talking about. Parr picked up the guitar around age eight, however, music lessons never held his interest. He's one of those self-taught guys who inevitably brings his own twists to music. He dropped out of high school as a freshman, eventually earning his GED after moving to Minneapolis. Parr's performing career began in 1988, playing in Twin Cities coffeehouses and clubs where he also spent a lot of time listening to (and learning from) resident greats like Dave Ray and “Spider” John Koerner. Over the next decade-plus, Parr continued to hone his style and took up songwriting in earnest. Parr also earned a degree in philosophy and became an outreach worker for the homeless, working for the Salvation Army in Minneapolis. His experiences in social services can be heard in his songs, the way any songwriter is impacted by their life experiences. Don't, however, look for any one person's story in Parr's songs. Like his music, Charlie's work helping people in tough spots has been nothing short of a calling (and it ain't no research project). Dignity, and the struggle to keep it, are central themes in Parr's songs, and he's not the kind of guy to trade it on the cheap. Parr moved from the Twin Cities to Duluth, Minnesota in 2000. In 2001 he released his debut CD, Criminals & Sinners, named “Best Local Folk Record” by Duluth's Ripsaw News. His three additional releases include 1922 (in 2002), King Earl (2004) and Rooster (2005). Glowing reviews for each release have cited the obvious influence of pioneers like Mississippi John Hurt and Robert Johnson, as well as more modern artists like John Fahey and Nick Drake. But what also gets people's attention is Parr's willingness to be himself – unbound by the constrictions of traditionalists and undeterred by present-day themes. (You wouldn't hear Robert Johnson refer to television or raising funds by recycling cans. Charlie does, but not for the sake of irony – it's simply part of his landscape.) Perhaps being steeped in pre-WWII acoustic blues while having his eyes wide open to current conditions explains how Charlie Parr has been embraced at punk clubs, jam band festivals and trendy bistros, in addition to traditional “Americana/roots” venues. On top of his workman-like gig schedule (that often includes a show in the day in Duluth followed by a bar-closing performance in the Twin Cities at night), Charlie Parr has played his share of high-profile and far flung stages. He appeared on NPR's “A Prairie Home Companion,” handpicked from the vibrant Duluth music scene when the show visited in 2004. In 2001, Parr performed with folk music icon Greg Brown at a fundraiser to restore a family farm barn roof, resulting in the live album Down in the Valley. Brown has become a fan and supporter (comparing Parr to Dave Van Ronk), and has invited him on stage at the Big Top Chautauqua and dropped in to play at a Parr performance at a Duluth tavern. Charlie has made four trips to the British Isles, performing in England and Ireland to enthusiastic crowds. From photocopied fanzines to The Sunday Times in London, Parr has been embraced as an Americana ambassador. Charlie Parr's fan base says a lot about how his music connects with people. From folk-blues purists to Goth-rock fans to 21st Century Deadheads, Parr has been welcomed into their worlds. With famous fans like Brown, noted eccentric and illustrator R. Crumb and fellow Duluthian Alan Sparhawk of Low, Parr has received some well-credentialed endorsements. When you hear all of these people from all of these outlooks describe Charlie Parr, one thing is evident. Their admiration for his music is, indeed, authentic.

Roustabout (2008) Jubilee (2007) Backslider (2006) Rooster (2005) King Earl (2004) 1922 (2002)

Alan Courtis & Aaron Moore return to the UK for more of their explosive collaborative live shows following their first tour and album together in February 2008. This time they’ll be providing a live soundtrack to Argentine Home Movie Cavalcade, the 2008 film by Sergio Subero and Sergio Brauer that compiles a selection of Argentine Home-Movies mainly from the 70’s. Based on amateur found footage from unknown authors in the 1970s, the film brings a portrait of Argentinian collective memory from those years and is presented with a live music performance oriented to experimental drone, psychedelic and abstract noise and free rock improvisation by Courtis and Moore. As Courtis/Moore they released their first collaborative album 'Brokebox Juke' (NO-FI) earlier this year, to a raft of critical acclaim - "a great achievement, and one of the year's strongest releases" The Wire Moore has also of late been touring in his band with No Neck Blues Band's Dave Nuss, Amolvacy, and has just completed 4 performances in New York as part of Boredoms for their Boadrum9 shows. And of course, he's an integral member of the increasingly seminal Volcano The Bear, who have, in the words of The Wire, "produced some of the finest, wildest British music of the last 10 years on record and on stage…”. Or, as Losing Today puts it, “No one sounds, has sounded or will ever sound quite like Volcano the Bear.” Alan Courtis (aka Anla Courtis, Alna Courtis, etc) was a founder member of the Reynols, a band with more than 100 releases on labels from USA, Europe, Japan & NZ, including conceptual and/or absurd projects like: 10.000 Chicken Symphony, Blank Tapes, Whistling Kettle Quartet. He has collaborated with musicians like: Pauline Oliveros, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Damo Suzuki (Can), Eddie Prevost (AMM), Sir Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls), Yoshimi P-Wee (Boredoms), Chris Corsano, Ashtray Navigations, Michael Snow, Birchville Cat Motel, and members of Avarus and Kemialliset Ystävät. He has also released more than one hundred solo releases and collaborations on labels like Tonschacht (Germany), Blossoming Noise (USA), Antifrost (Greece), Celebrate Psi Phenomenon (New Zealand), 267 Lattajjaa (Finland), Jewelled Antler (USA), Riot Season (UK).

Composer-lute player Jozef Van Wissem is renowned for his unusual approach of the Renaissance and Baroque lute, probably the most unlikely instruments in the world of contemporary music. He cuts and pastes classical pieces, reverses melodies, adds electronics and processed field recordings The unusual wedlock of composition and improvisation creates an unheard amalgam of contemporary, folk and early music Van Wissem has accomplished the strange feat of bridging the idiom of seventeenth century lute literature and twenty-first century contemporary music. Although he uses subtle electronic sound manipulation, he has largely stayed faithful to the particular timbre, resonance and playing technique of the lute.

Van Wissem first came to be noticed a few years ago because of his radical conceptual approach to Renaissance lute music: He deconstructed existing compositions, for instance by playing them backwards. He also composed his own pieces for lute, using palindromes and mirrored structures. His music therefore does not have a traditional linear progression, nor leads to a climax, it rather stays on the same level of intensity. It doesn’t demand concentrated listening, as it will bring the listener to a state of concentrated listening.

Jozef runs the Incunabulum label, and performs extensively around the world. He also works with M.B. / Maurizio Bianchi, James Blackshaw and Tetuzi Akiyama. With Blackshaw he formed the duo Brethren of the Free Spirit, which has two releases on Important records. Wire Magazine called his solo lute cd “ Stations of the Cross “ a small masterpiece. He has two solo records out on Important records and has lectured a.o. at Wesleyan University and Mills College on ‘the liberation of the lute”. Van Wissem has received numerous commisions and grants, most recently from National Gallery, London.

He performs about 80 concerts per year around the world and has appeared live on national tv and radiostations, twice on the Dutch Vrije Geluiden Vpro TV show and has performed at prestigious festivals and venues like Expo Zaragoza 2008, Spain, Kr-aa-k Festival , Belgium, ZXZW Festival, Holland, Sonorités Festival, France, Serralves em festa Festival, Portugal, Seattle Improvised Music Festival, Suono Per Il Popolo Festival, Montreal, Sintra Music and Dance Festival, Portugal, Byzantine Fresco Museum, Texas, I.C.A, London, and Glasgow, Schindler House, Hollywood.

“In “The Mirror of Eternal Light,” the Dutch lutist Jozef van Wissem catches his own reflection in tender, minimalist picking and gold-spray overdubs.” -David Fricke, senior editor, Rolling Stone Magazine, March 2008

"Van Wissem seems to breeze across musical boundaries with an effortless fluency" - Pitchfork Media

(Kiila will be touring the UK in March with Alasdair Roberts and band) Kiila is a collective based in Turku, Finland whose eclectic tastes are betrayed by their ever more adventurous recordings and live sets; its not unusual for Kiila’s sound to include folk rock, free jazz, psychedelia, turntablism and electronica within a matter of minutes. Theirs is no Jack-of-all-trades approach though, the band’s line-up comprising a sextet of virtuoso multi-instrumentalists with various tentacles in a range of adventurous Finnish acts. Kiila release records on the revered Finnish label Fonal. www.fonal.com Kiila released their 3rd album Tuota Tuota in June 2009 and, in the words of Dusted Magazine: “Kiila’s greatest coup is shoehorning genuine song craft into this mix without upsetting the balance. (For example) album opener, Viisi Hirvasta. For its first half it’s a hypnotizing instrumental built from plangent strings, stray percussion, and a recurring melody on the bass, until a half-chanted/half-sung passage emerges near its conclusion, making you wonder if it started life as a song, a poem or a jam. Tuota tuota is full of moments like these, where you have to question how it is your listening, as all your usual hierarchies are upended and genres turned on their heads. That you at first don’t quite realize Kiila is doing this is remarkable; that they make it seem so natural is even more so.” Often compared to like-minded US acts such as MV&EE, Wooden Wand and Espers, who have all found significant audiences in the UK and US, Killa are regarded by those who know them as at least as equally musically profound and influential but still to reap their much-deserved wider recognition. http://www.kiila.com/

Tuota Tuota cd/lp (2009) Silmät Sulkaset cd/lp (2004) Heartcore cd/lp (2001) Chamellows/Kiila split 7' (1999) Free Will Is Hard To Kill 7" (1998) Original 7" (1997)

Michael Chapman rose to prominence at the height of the UK’s folk rock scene in the early 1970s. He was championed by John Peel and Charles Shaar Murray, appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test (see the clip below) and had Mick Ronson on lead guitar on his classic ‘Fully Qualified Survivor’ album, one of several releases for the Harvest label.

Though slipping from the limelight in subsequent years, to some extent, Michael Chapman has recently enjoyed a renewed appeal and a new audience amongst new lovers of folk on both sides of the Atlantic. He was rediscovered and championed by artists such as No Neck Blues Band and Jack Rose, both of whom he toured the US with.

Chapman has released over 30 albums in his career, still gigs heavily, and is still a sublime guitarist who must be seen live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGRbPYhHM64

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYecbNduSEI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwYlQ7KhTgI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBlM8C2HtBM&feature=related

M.V. Carbon is a Brooklyn based sound artist and producer. Her work is comprised of complex, woven rhythmic structures and soundscapes that are formed with vintage drum machines, cello, guitar, analog synths, analog reel to reel tape machines, field recordings and vocals.

She has collaborated with many artists including Tony Conrad, Dominic Lash, Aki Onda, Evan Parker, Andrea Parkins, Alex Waterman, and John Wiese.

She is half of the electronic dark wave duo, Metalux who have released a series of records on various labels (5rc, Hanson, Load Records, No Fun Productions, Rampage, Recipient, Veglia) on their own and in collaboration with Smegma, John Wiese and Carlos Giffoni.

As well as her acclaimed collaboration with Tony Conrad, '45 Years On The Infinite Plain' which was performed at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall in 2008, Carbon was also part of NO-FI's Free Noise tour in 2007, featuring Metalux, Evan Parker, Yellow Swans, Paul Hession, C. Spencer Yeh, John Wiese, John Edwards and Culver.

Carbon's collaboration with Carlos Giffoni, Jackal Blade, release their first album 'Lid' on NO-FI in spring 2010.

MV Carbon's solo album 'The Dislodged Perihelion' comes out on Ecstatic Peace in spring 2010.

Natural Snow Buildings are the Burgundy, France based duo of Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte. They’ve been playing together since 1997 and in that time have released countless albums and cdrs, almost all in miniscule, rapidly disappearing runs. Sheffield’s Blackest Rainbow label went some way to making their work more widely available this year with the release of the deluxe package set Shadow Kingdom. Clocking in at over 2 hours, Shadow Kingdom typifies how Ameziane and Gularte have taken the whole idea of drone/folk or whatever you want to call it to a completely new level of virtuosity and production values. Its fair to say Natural Snow Buildings have no peers and inhabit an exquisite genre of one. Or as Foxy Digitalis put it, “It is a rare thing to hear an album that makes you appreciate the simple fact that music exists. As the notes begin, the rest of the world slowly melts away; the only thing that matters is the sound emanating from the stereo, taking a life of its own. French duo Natural Snow Buildings craft music so beautiful, so fragile, it almost makes me want to weep.” Comparisons abound to Windy & Carl, MV &EE, Rachels, Neil Young and more, but none have managed to convey in words yet just what is so magical about this duo. Using little more than guitar, cello, vocals and judiciously applied affects, Mehdi and Solange have, through an ever longer list of micro-releases and rabid word-of-mouth fanaticism on both sides of the Atlantic, found themselves at the epicenter of what can only be described as a cult-in the-making. This will be the first Natural Snow Buildings UK tour, and takes place in a year when they will rightly be getting a lot of attention once they no doubt rise to the top of many a year end poll this December. If you haven’t yet heard them, then its time to be spellbound.

Peesseye and Talibam! are two of the most independent and unique bands to emerge in the past decade. As such, they also happen to share a common history. Each group coalesced in the experimental improv scene of New York City in 2002-2003 and has gone on to create their own highly individual identities, retaining the exploratory ideals of improvisation, dispensing with what they perceived to be the rigidity of ‘avant’ type casting, and exploding categories by combining seemingly disparate and contradictory modes of music making and performance.

At a time when most culture sticks to conservative niche opportunities, Peeesseye’s gothic junk-folk expressionism and Talibam!’s Sun Ra meets the Stooges energy music both betray their shared interest in expansion, exploration, and sheer unpredictability.

Over the years, Peeesseye and Talibam! have shared bills and sat in with each other at numerous Brooklyn dates and increasingly, as the groups have each toured more and more overseas, at European gigs as well. In May 2008, they convened at a recoding studio in Brooklyn to collaborate for the first time on a full set of music, in the process producing a third stream of Peeesseye and Talibam! music, which is neither one nor the other, but rather a whole new Frankenstein fusion of steamrolling jams, slowly unfolding epics, and extensively tape edited experimentation.

Jaime Fennelly (electronics, harmonium, keyboards), Chris Forsyth (guitar), and Fritz Welch (percussion, vocals ) of Peeesseye and Matt Mottel (synthesizer, keyboards) and Kevin Shea (drums, percussion) of Talibam! have a list of collective credits and collaborations including Awesome Color, Storm and Stress, Mostly Other People Do The Killing, Phantom Limb & Bison, Tetuzi Akiyama, Mary Halvorson, Stephen O’Malley, Chris Abrahams (The Necks), Manpack Variant, Pee in My Face with Surgery, Daniel Carter, Cooper-Moore, Eric Boros (Vialka), Nate Wooley, C. Spencer Yeh, George Cremaschi, Tim Olive, Dylan Nyoukis, and the list goes on....

And now, Peeesseye + Talibam! have solidified their association by making one of the most audacious collaborative records in recent memory!

It is a sprawling document of their work together, simply titled Peeesseye + Talibam! and available on CD from Invada (UK) and 2XLP from Smeraldina-Rima (Belgium).

It's a monster of record which further distills each group's identities into one smoldering whole - a little Peeesseye, a little Talibam!, and a lot something else. Tumbling free rock mayhem, glossy walls of noise, politically deranged lyrics, downhome space folk jams, and deeply zoned fusion rub up against each other, sometimes within the same track.

More info: http://www.peeessye.com and http://www.trashfactory.net/talibam

Shogun Kunitoki is a quartet from Helsinki with a love of vintage synths and keyboards, oscillators and ring modulators. They have produced two albums of driving and insistent instrumental psychedelic rock that have excited adventurous music fans across the globe with their deft mix of lysergic revivalism and post-rock innovation. Debut album Tasankokaiku (2006) was immediately recognized by reviewers and music fans as a compelling cocktail of accessibility and ambitious aspirations where edgy 8-bit bleeps and soft-focus psychedelia shake hands on seven kaleidoscopic trips. Rave reviews gushed forth in The Wire magazine, PopMatters, Stylus Magazine, Exclaim!, Dusted Magazine, and Pitchforkmedia, where it was tagged as 'recommended'. It was also top of the weekly chart on New York’s WNYU radio station. Their second album, Vinonaamakasio (2009) saw Shogun Kunitoki claim full mastery of their somehow nostalgic yet futuristic and unique sound, with a fuller and fatter feel in both performance and production – the sound of a band in full possession of their powers. “There are splinters of Stereolab, bubbles of Broadcast, squeaks straight out of BBC Radiophonic experiments, the heart and soul of The Silver Apples... The end result, while oddly familiar, is almost impossibly irresistible and is sure to end up on many a top10 list at the end of the year. Shogun Kunitoki’s use of crusty analogue instrumentation and that band dynamic injects the project with the human element lacking from so much electronic music. You can hear the band busy at work, shakers rattling, keys being pressed, drums being hit – and it’s all the better for it. I was beginning to think music of this calibre had died out completely. Highly recommended.” Boomkat.com Despite the impact of their records, Shogun Kunitoki’s live appearances barely reach double figures, but their music has traveled wider, thanks to the endorsement of numerous music blogs and underground radio DJs in the US and Europe and as far as Australia and Japan. http://www.shogunkunitoki.com http://www.myspace.com/shogunkunitoki

Stellar OM Source is the solo project of Dutch electronic musician Christelle Gualdi. She began to play electronic music as a teenager while recording soundtracks for exhibitions, assisting her father at the radio studio using Yamaha MSX and Atari 1040 systems. Next to this, her music taste has been influenced by early fascination for fusion, guitar heroes and ECM artists, as well as disco and new-age music and her studies in music theory, electro-acoustic composition and architecture.

Across a range of different analog synths, Stellar OM Source uses music as "transport to the ocean realm within the stars". Christelle's beautifully liquid sonic textures form an ecstatic bridge between the music of machines and the rituals and sensations of the spirtual and devotional, and her work has been compared to Terry Riley, Alice Coltrane and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

She extensively tours throughout Europe and the United States and played with numerous members of the international experimental and avant-garde scene.

After several years of collaborative releases, her solo debut LP came out in March 2009, recorded and released by the American Black Dirt Records label in New York State. She self-released a CD trilogy in May 2009, spanning four years of recordings.

Stellar Om Source will tour the UK in May.

Solo The Far Skies Fellowship, Tape, Silver Ghosts NL 2005 Onness O ", CD, Endless Summer, NL 2008 Split Warmer Milks, CD, Pot, NL 2008 Ao Vivo Avenida (with David Vanzan) CD, Troglosound IT 2008 Trilogy CD, NL, 2009 Rise in Planes, LP, Black Dirt Records, US 2009 Heartlands Suite CD, FR, 2009 Exises CD, 2010 Bands Stiff River met Uw Hypotheekadvies, Julie Mittens, self-released, NL 2006 Mean Motion, cd, self-released, NL, 2008 Mean Motion Live I & II, Tape, NL 2007 Collaborations Keijo & Free Players, cd, Foxglove, US 2007 Weg van het Kruis, LP, Soundatone, US 2008 Uton, CD, Digitalis, US 2008 Original Innocence, LP, Soundatone, US 2009 Ashtray Navigations/Family Battle Snake/Stellar OM Source, LP, Absurd, Greece, 2009 Oneohtrix Point Never, CD Ocean Woman, US 2009

Träd Gräs Och Stenar (Trees, Grass & Stones) were forged out of the 'communitarian' underground scene in Sweden. Their fusion of psychedelic folk and cosmic rock has been hugely influential on today's underground. Describing themselves as Sweden's "first minimalist rock group", the band sound as contemporary now as ever.

Träd Gräs Och Stenar evolved from the ashes of equally legendary Swedish underground psychedelic acts Parson Sound and International Harvester.

Heavily influenced by witnessing a live performance by Terry riley in Sweden, TGOS' own take on minimalism merged with their lysergic roots to create a powerfully transcendent next stage in Swedish psychedelia.

Träd Gräs Och Stenar have in recent years become an increasingly acknowledged influence on modern psych folk and outsider rock music, touted by artists such as No Neck Blues Band and Keith Fullerton Whitman as a vital influential touchstone.

Live, the band are as hypnotic and transcendent as ever, and return to the UK for live dates in late April/early May 2010.