Chimarendammerung
(Destijl - IND062) CD $12.75 (Out-of-stock)
Marcia Bassett has recorded with Un, GHQ and The Double Leopards, while Matthew Bower is all over Total, Skullflower, Sunroof, etc. A Wikipedia entry says “his huge discography of visceral, free drone-rock is probably the most formidable of its kind and he was rightly considered in 2005 by The Wire to be one of the map coordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the ’80s and ’90s”. Chimarendammerung is the third Hototogisu release on Destijl and its five untitled walls of vertical viola drone/overtone represent a current plateau for the duo — lapped by shifting electronic waves of feedback and blackened guitars, in tune with the breath of the cosmos, like a glacial reimagining of Van Der Graaf Generator’s “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers.”
Pale Fatal Sister
(Important - IMPREC210) 2xLP $22.00
Being a Nabokovian and visceral garden of delights, this musical evocation of memory and desire spreads over four sides, conjuring from dark wells to be birthed, twisting and screaming in silver winds. Heavier, more brooding, occult atmosphere than previously, if that's possible. Edition of 700
Robed in Verdigris
(Nashazphone - NP003) Used LP $12.00
Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, GHQ, Un) and Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Sunroof!, Total) deliver intense, guitar-and-electronics-based drones on a gargantuan scale. Their sixteenth release spreads extreme sunshine and ecstasy over three tracks. A total assault of metaphysical vibrations.
BURNING STAR CORE / HOTOTOGISU
Volume One
(DroneDisco) CD $10.50
Five tracks totaling approximately fifty minutes by the time-defying duo of Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Ramleh, Sunroof!, Total) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, GHQ, Zaimph) collaborating with C. Spencer Yeh, Robert Beatty, and Trevor Tremaine (the latter two of Hair Police, Eyes And Arms Of Smoke, Sick Hour). Originally released as a tour merch CDR, this edited and re-sequenced edition begins with an appropriate invocation and from there punches blindly through one stone cloud after another, coughs and gasps from exhaustion, stumbles and lies motionless. The ritual concludes with a moment of naked acoustic/instinctual spasm. Packaged in a black polycase with black-and-white inserts and a special randomly-selected one-inch button (five button variations in all). All different material from the companion volume HG/BxC II released by the Heavy Blossom label.