TWO NEW TAPES AVAILABLE:

[UM016] Kommissar Hjuler / Mama Baer / Ninni Morgia / Silvia Kastel “LIVE AT MORDEN TOWER” CS

Imagine a meeting between two neo-dada artists, working their way through voice/body performance and broken tape sounds, one crazy free jazz/alien guitarist, and a synth head who goes from obsessive pulsating bass to ultrasound insect calls… this really happened during a series of performances in the UK last year, the two couples being Kommissar Hjuler (tapes, voice, breaking his hand on various surfaces) & Mama Baer (voice) and Ninni Morgia (guitar) & Silvia Kastel (synth). This is a recording from their epic show at the historic venue in Newcastle, The Morden Tower, home since the 60’s to sound poetry (Allen Ginsberg) and extreme industrial (The New Blockaders, Whitehouse…). The set starts out quiet, with a minimal “bass drum” created by Mama Baer by beating her mic on the floor, screeching guitar brushes by Ninni Morgia, creepy tape stutters by der Kommissar and Silvia Kastel’s hi-pitched alarm synth, then the tension builds up to a roller coaster of heavy wailing, crazy free jazz guitar and feedback, with a sound that comes close to Mars’ live recordings, P.16 D4, SPK and other sound criminals. Awe-inducing and uncomfortable, yes, but also kind of liberating. Double printed J cards with photo of the two pairs (taken outside the Morden Tower) & imprinted green tapes. Edition of 100.

Also comes housed in a limited numbered edition of 12 carboard boxes hand painted, decorated & signed by Kommissar Hjuler. Each box is unique.
Email info@ultramarinerecords.com for more info on the special edition.

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Europe €6,00 EUR USA & Other €9,00 EUR Asia €12,00 EUR

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[UM017] Bill Horist “THE SIGNAL INDEX” CS

Guitarist Bill Horist from Seattle is most well known for his solo work and for playing with Masters Musicians of Bukkake (with Alan Bishop and Charlie Gocher of Sun City Girls), Bill Frisell, Chris Corsano, C Spencer Yeh, KK Null and lots more.

Musically, he is known for his ability to shift and merge free jazz, blues, prepared guitar and avant manipulations… on “The Signal Index” though, he goes mostly for the latter: beautifully prepared, plucked, bowed, droned guitar that immediately takes you to a trance state. Various layers and textures cross and overlap, from subtle electronics producing little sketched melodies at times, to an electric fog of thick bagpipe-like drones and harmonic-rich sustains. Both instinct and controlled gestures here, like going on a trip where you know you’ve got all you need, but don’t quite know where you’re headed. The result is psychedelic and soothing, with just the right amount of disorientation. A catharsis for your ears!

Grey imprinted tapes & double printed 3-panel Jcards, with artwork by Brooklyn artist MP Landis. Edition of 100.
Download coming soon.

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Europe €6,00 EUR USA & Other €9,00 EUR Asia €12,00 EUR

New LP available now:

“Brand” is the new trio of Gary Smith (guitar), Silvia Kastel (voice and synth), Ninni Morgia (guitar).

Ninni Morgia lived in NY in the early 2000’s, where he played with Daniel Carter, William Parker, Peter Evans, Lee Ranaldo and many more. Since his relocation to Italy, he is now in a duo with free jazz veteran percussionist Marcello Magliocchi (they put out the LP “Sound Gates” on Ultramarine last summer) and in the group Control Unit with Silvia Kastel. Morgia has extensively toured the US and Europe, and has been widely recognized as an innovator of the electric guitar, both for his personal playing techniques and a creative use of effects and electronic textures.

Silvia Kastel is a singer, electronic musician and artist who studied with Joan La Barbara and Indian singing with Lee Torchia and graduated in electronic music and sound engineering, while living in NY. Since she has moved back to Italy, she has toured and recorded with Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer, Temperatures, Chora, played shows and festivals including the recent Colour Our of Space in Brighton, UK (together with Ninni Morgia). Her first solo release ‘Love Tape’ is a charming blend of synths, bass, beats, whispering, moaning, screaming, howling…

On this recording Gary Smith produces the playing for which he’s considered a master of avant guitar: multiple layering, complex grainy textures, dense counterpoint, influences of birdsong. Fused with the guitar of Ninni Morgia, which floats between minimal movements of primordial electronics, pre-war slide blues and Hendrix-esque feedback. Over, and blending with them, Silvia Kastel’s moaning, screaming and howling, alternates with her delayed, bubbling, glitchy or round bass synth.

It’s a dense sound for 3 people. Not just visceral and intense, but articulate and defined, and in some instances very delicate. The depth of sound and the strong group style give the nine pieces their own character and atmosphere. There’s no fear of tempo, pulse, more conventional musical devices, or pushing to unpredictable extremes. LP comes with free download card, edition of 330.

BIRDCAGE

DROPS

It’s surely no coincidence that the cover of this new trio record feels like a homage to Ray Russell’s 1969 album Dragon Hill: guitarist Gary Smith was Russell’s replacement in the Bill Fay Group after they cut Time Of The Last Persecution and in many ways – if there’s any tradition that Smith could really be said to come out of – it’s the Ray Russell school of radical six-string re-invention. Unlike many of his improvising contemporaries Smith owes little to Derek Bailey, despite his own conceptions being just as radically disorientating. Early on he developed a form of stereo guitar playing that involved a clean tone, a volume pedal and a pair of amps that married the kinda ferocious sonic reducer style of Pete Cosey with blunt Japanese psych, austere electronic composition and free improvisation, cutting a series of radical solo albums alongside collaborations with the late John Stevens (released by Thurston Moore on his own Ecstatic Peace imprint), Chie Mukai, Masayoshi Urabe, Shoji Hano and more. Since relocating to Italy Smith has hooked up with guitarist Ninni Morgia and synth/vocalist Silvia Kastel. Anyone who saw Morgia and Kastel in action with Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer on their recent tour and on the Two Couples LP will understand the kind of explosive energy the two bring to the table, combining fire music stylings with post-tongue improvisations and alien electronics. The trio hook-up is nothing short of spectacular. Smith has moved even deeper into subtle string tectonics and Kastel wraps her tonsils all the way around them, gargling notes like ball bearings and make stunning use of post-Monk body soundings while Morgia clashes with Smith with clanging subterranean tones and the sound of metal on metal. Indeed, at points it doesn’t sound like a guitar record at all, with the bubbling notes and sudden dead halts feeling more akin to the radical formal violence of 20^th century electronic composition than anything approaching avant rock. But in its refusal of consensual modes it paradoxically feels closer to the post Ray Russell tradition of radically extended six-string technique. A monster recording that would have sat just *there* on the Nurse With Wound list. Edition of 300 copies with a download card. Highly recommended. David Keenan, Volcanic Tongue

Download on Boomkat

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Italy €15,00 EUR Europe €18,00 EUR USA & Other €25,00 EUR Australia & NZ €30,00 EUR Asia €33,00 EUR

Domenica 11 dicembre

Ninni Morgia & Marcello Magliocchi

live show + presentazione LP “Sound Gates”

ore 20:00

@ Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea BLUorg
via M.Celentano 92-94
Bari

per info. e prenotazioni: tel. 080-990-4379   posti limitati

Our fav guru Julian Cope strikes again, this time with Silvia Kastel’s “Love Tape”:

Hot on the heels of her mighty performances on TWO COUPLES (see Address Drudion July 2011), comes Silvia Kastel’s hauntingly sexy and eerily disembodied LOVE TAPE cassette album for Ultramarine Records, on which she squeals, cooes, howls, snarls, grunts and yelps through all manner of intriguing analogue-ishness, whilst synthesizers, rough hewn bass and pre-constructed Igjugurjuk jawjaw conspire underneath to create the kind of compelling rudimentary musique concrète that post-punk ensembles such as Factrix regularly stumbled into. Better still, the cassette itself works as an art object of the kind that used only to be the realm of such record labels as Factory, Rough Trade and New York’s ROIR.   Julian Cope / Head Heritage / December 2011

We ran out of love tapes here, but some are still available from various distros.