DNT Records

Below is a complete listing of out of print DNT releases, with photos and original blurbs/reviews, in reverse chronological order. These were released between May 2006 and December 2015. In its first act, DNT Records had 88 releases (11 LPs, 52 cassettes, five 7″s, nine cdrs, eight 3″ cdrs, three VHS tapes). Visit here for currently available titles, and try discogs to find out of print DNT releases. We will be slowly adding titles to our Bandcamp as well.

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TK “2005” demo cassette (DNT088)

Unearthed solo tape recorded by a sixteen year old Tynan Krakoff, prior to starting DNT. Recorded on one of those big Yamaha keyboards, plugged straight into the stereo to tape in real time. Poppy 60s garage style organ voice with the occasional Roy Orbison style cornball karaoke drum machine, complete with bloopers and boners galore. In an extremely limited edition release on lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff.

Maskalyn “Suicidal Plastic Man: Maskalyn’s Greatest Hits” cassette (DNT086)

Fully bizarre cassette recorded by a group of thirteen and fourteen year-old suburban white boys in Palm Springs, CA in 1999-2000. Named after a mishearing of “mescaline” in an early scene in the blockbuster hit movie The Matrix (1999, Warner Bros). Recorded straight to Sound Recorder with a headphone in the mic jack. Leftfield outsider experimentations with the same naiveté as early 1970s Residents. In an extremely limited edition release on lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff.

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Tad “Great Generic Park” b/w “Have You Ever Had A Witch Bloom Like A Highway” demo cassingle (DNT085)

One of four new Tad demo cassingles. Extremely limited edition release on lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff. If you run a label and are interested in releasing Tad, get in touch.

Novaya cassette (DNT084)

New cassette release by Oakland’s Novaya (Lexagon + Boxus). In an extremely limited edition release on lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff.

latticework shuttle cassette (DNT083)

Solo tape by DNT’s Tynan Krakoff. Recorded summer 2009 while undergoing chemotherapy, but labeled and filed away until now. 10-song circuit-bent keyboard demonstration sounding as if it was recorded by a man in deep psychosis about current trends in pop tones. Recorded straight to boombox avoiding the seal bouncing a ball on a whirling buzzsaw drum machine stuck in a negative feedback loop, overlayed by a nonexistent radio transmission. In an extremely limited edition release on lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff.

ADVANCE SPECTACLE 1-sided cassette (DNT082)

Solo tape by DNT’s Tynan Krakoff. Recorded summer 2009 while undergoing chemotherapy, but labeled and filed away until now. Demented musicbox weirdo pop on a circuit bent keyboard on the fritz. Like being stuck in a revolving door at your corner bodega. A poor man’s Orphan Fairytale. In an extremely limited edition release on 1-sided lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff.

Affectionate Light Bulb 1-sided cassette (DNT077)

Tape manipulated spoken word burning the midnight oil (via a most affectionate light bulb) melted into an electric pool of treated PK11. Recorded late 2014 by Tynan Krakoff and the Awareness Festival. In an extremely limited edition release on 1-sided lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff.

Meet the Octopus 1-sided cassette (DNT076)

One sided tape echoing with the notes of the briny deep. Murky sustained electric organ buried below a silt schoolhouse educated by an octopus. Meet the octopus. In an extremely limited edition release on 1-sided lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff.

Meadow Argus cassette (DNT075)

Meadow Argus is a solo project of DNT’s Tynan Krakoff. This project has been in the works since 2006 and has finally reached fruition. Based primarily on field recordings on a handheld microcassette recorder made on a trip summer 2009 trainhopping and hitchhiking from Palm Springs, CA up the coast to Oregon, and back down. Excerpts from those flow in and out via tape manipulations. Hazy PK11 keyboards and a distant pitter patter percussion. Extremely limited edition release on lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff.

Although “Meadow Argus I” wasn’t released until 2015, the Meadow Argus project was started in 2006. I was living in the Pacific Northwest at the time and it was dark and depressing all the time and I had a conception of blending super slow, saturated droney keyboard/organs with field recordings and tape manipulation workings I was messing around with.

My recording process is very slow. I’ll make field recordings or short tapes of sound exploration on tape players, cheap keyboards, organs or other homemade instruments, and let the tapes sit and collect dust for years. Then revisit these tapes and build on them, or cut into tape loops, or depending on the saturation use as-is a background layer in a collage. What’s nice is that most of the time I don’t remember making the tapes, so in a way I consider the project a collaboration or conversation with my past selves.

The first Meadow Argus release is pretty minimalist, especially compared to the thick collages of later tapes. But hear where it all began! On this tape, on top of droney, warbly reed organ loops and light percussive elements sprinkled throughout, I use samples from microcassette field recordings I made while on a west coast freight trainhopping trip I had with my brother Max and friends in the summer of 2009. Many of these samples are from loose conversations with friends, just hanging out on hot summer days. The tape is intended for deep listening ideally lying down with headphones on.

https://meadowargus47.bandcamp.com/album/meadow-argus-i

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Tad “Yucatan Sunshine” b/w “Have You Ever Had A Witch Bloom Like A Highway” (fast) demo cassingle (DNT073)

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Tad “Yucatan Sunshine” (frozen) demo cassingle (DNT072)

One of four new Tad demo cassingles. This is a one sided single, and is a rough demo version of a song in progress. The B-side contains “Path to the Dutchie” and its version (DNT039). Extremely limited edition release on lime-green c20 cassettes in hand-painted, one-of-a-kind jcards with colorful artwork by Pearl Morgan and Tynan Krakoff. If you run a label and are interested in releasing Tad, get in touch.

Rambutan “Surface Language” cassette (DNT071)

“This music is the fruit of late night basement experiments in sleep deprivation coupled with the ongoing struggle to translate thoughts into sound and ideas into words.

Recorded in Delmar, NY 2014. Music by Eric Hardiman. Many thanks to Tynan for the invitation to be on DNT. Endless gratitude also extends to Ray Hare, Mike Griffin, Nick Mitchell, Jefferson Pitcher, Phil Donnelly, Matt Weston, Nate Brennan, Jackson Wingate and hundreds of other sources of inspirations. Hand-numbered edition of 50 on lime green shells with spray-bottle watercolored jcards”

“In the middle of last month, DNT quietly dropped a trio of mind-expanding tapes by Metal Rouge, Eric Sanchez, and Eric Hardiman’s long-running Rambutan project. Hardiman has spent a number of years cultivating a sprawling and prolific discourse of experimental music, including but not limited to running the incredibly consistent Tape Drift imprint, staying active in several knock-out bands and collaborations (Century Plants, Burnt Hills, Twilight of the Century, Location Ensemble, Mensheviks), and contributing to these very pages. Surface Language is the latest in Rambutan’s rewarding discography and highlights just another facet of the project’s hyper-varied sound. Splayed across two sides of long-form, distant tones and drones, the cassette is a ghostly drift of sonic apparition, both present and absent at the same time. Various chimes, creaking tones, and occasional glimpses of rhythm warble through space in a hypnotic haze of grim activity. The tape’s B-side, sampled below) opens with a dissonant, decayed bell chiming over an over in a minimal, industrial symphony of barren beauty. The cyclical drift floats along throughout the entire second side, wallowing in an infinite daze of noise and subtle manipulation. Copies of Surface Language are still available (along with Metal Rouge and Eric Sanchez’s cassettes) directly via DNT’s online shop.” -Decoder Magazine
http://www.secretdecoder.net/blog/2015/01/14/rambutan-surface-language/

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Metal Rouge “Gamble” cassette (DNT070)

Metal Rouge’s “Gamble” eschews their previous LP Soft Erase’s martial drum machines and rock structures, delivering instead rudimentary jazz fire and blaring white-heat guitar continuums soaked in unintentional tape manipulation. Four tracks: a journey from pointillist guitar/trumpet sparring to a completely warped amorphous hell, an epic single minded guitar/vocal flare-out, a piano-driven cloud of massed utopian strings and a staggering primitive drum raga. Nine years into their existence Metal Rouge are still finding new ways to cast aside the false, uphold the unrefined and crawl into the marrow of the music. Hand-numbered edition of 100 on dark blue shells with full color art by Christina Carter.

“Another great release by this ex-pat New Zealand duo. They use drones as a backdrop for slowly exploding electric guitar improvs of a non-benign nature — spacey, raw and loud. Other parts are more rugged and include a trumpet scoot in the Mark Cunningham vein, as well as very berserk duos for voice and guitar, as fully skronked as some of those early Tensmat singles. A bodacious move.” -The Wire, March 2015

“For the past seven-odd years, Andrew Scott and Helga Fassonaki have traversed heady spheres of dissonant drones via guitar and tape machines (among other tools of the trade) as Metal Rouge. Largely issued on their own Seymour Records imprint but with canon highlights curated by Digitalis, Root Strata, Not Not Fun, Sloow, and many others, Scott and Fassonaki’s exercises a simple but potent template for possessive drone music that’s just as dissonant and off-putting as it is mesmerizing and beautiful. Gamble, released just a couple of months ago by DNT alongside rewarding tapes by Rambutan and Eric Sanchez, might be the most well-rounded and blissful set released by the duo to date, with four tracks of varied, psychotic focus that hit at the heart of Metal Rouge’s sonic mission. “Venus of Pleasure” opens the tape with a spat of free jazz, blending together a mix of fried saxophone exclamations and psyche-altering guitar tones delayed and beautified into some grotesque, towering drones. “Nude” pits Fassonaki’s haunted howls with Scott’s piercing, distorted guitar lines for a lucid nightmare of sorts, channeling every good basement noise gig you’ve ever attended. “More Love II” offers a cloud of industrial noise beamed from an abused guitar, while closer “Make It Gold” chants a tribalistic heap of feedback and ritualistic percussion to put your (pl)ease your fears. It’s yet another fascinating chapter to an established project.” – Decoder Magazine

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Digital Natives “Long Homesweetened Entry” cassette (DNT067)
If you’re unfamiliar with the brolific catalogue of Jeff Astin’s Digital Natives, then oh do you have some catching up to do! Take the warped Americana journey through a thrifted sound collage that sounds like it was sourced from a salvaged tape deck found in the desert. Professionally duplicated yellow cassettes with hand-glued labels and a double-sided text collage from vintage sources individually hand-colored with a unique DNT spraybottle-watercolor concoction.
Mr. Astin in an interview with Procurement Records talking about DN:
“I’ve just about always been fascinated with chance operations/divination; William Burroughs’ ‘cut-ups’ collaboration with Brion Gysin, the I Ching, and Jason Nicolaus; all are very inspirational.
In the 90’s, I would put together mix-tapes for friends and eventually came up with an idea: I’d lay all my records/tapes out in piles all over my bedroom and roll dice to determine which pile to choose from, and then again for which record, then which song, etc… Digital Natives, in general, is a mutant evolved from this process. The rules are complex and build the foundation for every track as well as addition of every other layer and the effects involved.”

DNT062 – Plankton Wat “Alchemy of Darkness”/”Dawn of the Golden Eternity” cassette
in spirit of the “back 2 back classic albums” tapes of the 80s, DNT is happy to reissue Plankton Wat’s two DNT albums, “Alchemy of Darkness” (DNT034) and “Dawn of the Golden Eternity” (DNT055) *we just received a box of copies back from a distributer, so the lp is still available!*. Edition of 100 pro-dubbed tapes with artwork and imprinting imitating that style (including shrinkwrap!). Here are a few snippets of reviews from each album:
“The first side starts slowly with tentative, measured guitar figures that are slowly bathed in reverb, becoming more and more prolonged as they begin to overlap. These gorgeous overlapping ripples begin to take on an edge, with a slight bite of distortion keeping the whole mess from drifting off into the ether. Continuously refracting into gorgeous peaks and valleys, this wonderfully long first side is finished off with more steel string guitar bathed in ambience. As the jams on the second side of Alchemy of Darkness rock and sway in the waves trailing from Mahood’s ever-spacey guitar, the dreamy mood that makes this tape so wonderful becomes comforting and warm. With such gorgeous execution and flow, Alchemy of Darkness becomes one massive, droning meditation that won’t be leaving my tape deck for a good while.” -c60 radio (http://c60radio.wordpress.com/)

“Debut solo LP from Dewey Mahood of psych monsters Eternal Tapestry, with a range of styles that is as beautifully fucked as The Faust Tapes. Some searing lead guitar, some reflective looped string work that has a whiff of Mark McGuire’s six-string alchemy, doomy acid folk and some cranky Kraut grooves, pretty much what you were hoping for.” -volcanic tongue

Yup, that’s right. This has both Dewey Mahood’s first limited tape (ed. 100) and one of his latest albums that was previously only released on wax. Each take up a side of this tape, just like those double album tapes from the ’80s. This is a super cool release because I’m not sure many folks got a shot at hearing “Alchemy of Darkness”—I know I didn’t—plus you get another album for the first time on tape. That alone is reason to pick this up. As always, Plankton Wat pulls off greatness.

I’ve already reviewed “Dawn of the Golden Eternity,” so you can read about it there. However, hearing “Alchemy of Darkness” for the first time I got a whole new appreciation for everything that PW’s done since. It was kind of like a sampling of everything that he would go on to do. There are your more extreme Eternal Tapestry-style jams, which makes sense because this is his solo project straight out of his contributions to the band. Fairy dust spreading electric shreds that sprinkle magic psychedelia into your soul. Then there are your more mild musings that are on the cusp of amplified raga and hypnotic mantras of Oms. Brain-rotting meditation. A good way to describe the combo of styles is acid folk. I’ve heard it all on his other work and now I know the source. No wonder “Alchemy of Darkness” was so highly acclaimed! I would say that the strength of this tape is that it combines the promising beginnings with the latest fruits of the project. Limited to 100, so pick it up for $6! What a steal!” -dave miller, foxy digitalis

“Chilly winds sweep through Sunn O))) sounding bass drones. Doomy and deathy. Bobb Bruno comes out of LA, land of fake tans and photoshoped smiles. Drums come in halfway, creating this into a murky doomed sound. The howling electronics have a haunting rhythmic feel, you can almost picture the ghosts singing in unison. Halfway through the first song, it turns into a lovely floating keyboard/bell sounding tune with visions of hearts and glistening bubbles. The second track picks up right away with buzzing & twirling electronics playing tag. Soon the looping drums come in, and a slow semi-prog like keyboard takes charge…followed not too shortly by fuzz & bass. Play either on their own, and brave the whole thing in continuous mode. Bobb Bruno has recorded with the likes of Pocahaunted, Robedoor, Nels Cline, Devin Sarno and others.” KFJC http://spidey.kfjc.org/?p=4009

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DNT060 – “Birthdaze Haze” VHS SOLD OUT. try tomentosa, eclipse, discriminate, or mimaroglu soon
Four more years! Four more years! Seriously, it’s hard to believe DNT has been around this long. When do I get my cake?? Four year anniversary VHS with new videos by Pod Blotz, Sam Goldberg, Xiiphiidae, Sean McCann, and Nomen Dubium. Limited to 50 copies with paint-splattered covers on purple NTSC tapes.
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DNT059 – Ättestupa “1867” 12″
Northern Europe 1867: A winter so harsh, a spring so cold and a summer so late. A dead harvest. The failure of the crop meant starvation and thousands and thousands of people died. Bark bread, lichen gruel and families slowly fading away. This bleak period, ended in 1869, resulted in that more Swedes than ever emigrated to Northern America and other places for a better life. Based around those years, Gothenburg’s Ättestupa here creates an absolutely terrific soundtrack to this misery with their new 3-song EP. Exploring the dark past of their native country Sweden, this is a well-executed journey into the neverending well of hopelessness. Into the struggle of nature and mankind. You’ll recognize the sound from the RTB LP from last year and the Abisko tape, but here they are taking everything up a notch. The unique production is getting close to perfection, a raw and disgusting thick sonic bliss with a continuous crunch. A sharpened blend of noise, kraut and black metal with a crude melancholic atmosphere. Vocals buried deep under the soil and guitars being more prominent. Organs, screeching metal junk, tape loops. Pounding drums. The recording reeks of bad times and tremendous coldness and it’s hard to grasp for air. No hope and definitely no joy. Recorded during the first three months of 2009. Limited to 330 copies on black vinyl.

“The last great famine of pre-industrial Europe, localized in Finland and Northern Sweden and peaking in 1867, led to the deaths of between one and two hundred thousand people. Interpreting this moment, Swedes Ättestupa present a bleak yet empathic trilogy of methodical scum rock. Divulged in layers, the music becomes slowly evident in delicate strands from beneath a black sonic brusque like the dug grooves of the vinyl (at 45rpm, a complimentary definition to this intensely granular sound). Made of trebly percussion, feedback squalls, and full-breasted vocal harmonies, the performance is frequently subverted by looping manipulations which emulate and dissemble the song structure. Given its chronologic orientation, the musical time seems always to be marching, drawing focus to the segues in which no music seems to move but merely sounds that stall. After the robust struggle of “Missväxt”, the organ fugue (I wouldn’t assume an actual organ at play) of “Halshuggarnatten” is a cultured goodbye and an end-coming-near. On the reverse, “Storsvagåret” eeks vacant oscillations as though the rhythm of this desolate sphere is all that remains. And from this statement, a coda of sorts: a spectral march of heavy brood footfalls pound relentlessly, forever, with blearing colors of distorted guitars and the constant exhale of a mighty wind whipping through the soundscape. Blistering back to grotesque life in the final moments, a manic electronic whistling is something of an afterthought which over-plays this particular historical moment, or else emits as a byproduct of so much hazardous alchemy. Presenting the aesthetic of doom without the genre of metal, ‘1867’ attests to a cultural and historical place of creation which cannot but express what so many others apply as tropes – a startling, but not enviable position to be in. Limited to 330 copies on black vinyl with blank sleeves. Mastered by Pete Swanson. Recommended.” -Animal Psi

“Coming totally out of left field, DNT brings this Swedish crew overseas to share their blackened, famine-inspired racket and I’m digging it. The full page insert is all in Swedish I presume so I’m letting the music do the talking and it’s whispering unsettling things.
“Missväxt,” the first of three tracks on the 45rpm LP, starts the record off in fierce, serrated fashion. There’s bad vibes from across the spectrum at work here. There’s a heavy dose of noise (whether it stems from harsh noise or Big Black is anyone’s guess) and live percussion that plays like a meat packing plant but what really makes the jam so killer is an even heavier dose of Jesus Lizard-esque loping, dead-eyed intensity. The groaning vocalist is so deep in despair he isn’t even trying to be heard above the din. The band establishes the structure of the jam right off the bat and then builds it continually into a greater and greater cacophony until it can’t support itself any longer and lapses into weird gnarled loops. It’s great; maximum cerebral blastitude or whatever. “Halshuggarnatten” begins with an instrumental intro with some rather nice organ juxtaposed with crunchy percussion loops. Minimal, measured drumming and lethargic vocals enter turning the song into a bizarre, queasy, slo-motion flurry. The seasick vibes continue onto “Storsvagåret” which takes up the full b-side. A whirring organ produces a series of bent-out-of-shape pitches over distorted clanks and whatnot. This section continues for a little bit until Ättestupa shift into a deliberate trash rock stomp, lead by the organ. There’s a phenomenal counter-melody with a music box/toy piano timbre that really seals it for me, though it’s nearly crushed by the blown out drums. It’s totally unexpected and heightens the sinister mood with its duplicitous, “good-natured” melody. For some reason this piece seems even more zoned out than the other side. A continual bleary-eyed trudge through a smoldering nightmare world. That is until the track begins to smolder itself, cannibalizing itself with static-laden, manipulated loops. Excuse me while I flip the record back over.
I’m not totally sure how to classify this, they’ve got their fingers in a couple different cookie jars. Noise rock is the most inclusive tag you could give it, but there definitely seems to be some inspiration in noise, drone and not-shitty industrial music, particularly for atmosphere. I’ve never really heard such elements combined in this way, or least they haven’t achieved such an effect. The effect, I would vaguely define as, inescapable dread without fear. Something is rotten in Sweden, for sure.” -Auxiliary Out

“Another one from the vaults, this time hearkening from the DNT camp a ways back via Sweden. A little out of left field for the DNT label, this EP is by a mystery unit that in some way features (recently reviewed here) Sewer Election’s Dan Johansson. Apparently titled after a year of brutal starvation in Sweden, this offering is a soundtrack of sorts, produced to ultra dismal effect in homage to staggering suffering and desperation.

Thing kicks off in brutal fashion on “Missväxt,” whose clashing drum lines and guitar meld with deeply drowned vocals for a graveside call to arms. Total thrashing punk/goth/motorik material here that grinds on before dwindling out to wheezes and windz that blubber on long enough to drown it out. The following “Halshuggarnatten” goes heavy on the crud lurch with a nice funereal organ line mingling over top. Sounds like a morgue service next to a construction site, and the dichotomy is too good to ignore. Like kids playing hopscotch at the cemetery using headstones for humdingers while ghastly vocals dig dirges in the draperies. Real killer sound that’s super dismal and down and out, the organ line just right above it all while the vocals are backstage screaming through an aquarium full of cyanide.

Flip side features the lone “Storsvagåret,” which starts out nice and meddling as chairs are dragged over linoleum tiling and the hum of stench looms outward slow and steady. Really reads like a playground full of poltergeists taking over in the name of decay. Super steady slow mo degradation here. Industrial meets circuit twisting meets grind meets slime. Rusty as hell and going nowhere fast before it opens up with a hunkered down, face to the floor organ and drum line that wiggles itself free from the mulch. Sick, head banging and dilapidated stuff, ultra mechanic in its stuttered organics. Heavy ride all around, mastered by Yellow Swans own Pete Swanson and well worth the price of admission. Dig the stripped back presentation here too, with the typed up Swedish liners (I’m assuming) detailing the event in all its ugliness. Grab it before it turns to ash. ” -ear conditioned nightmare

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DNT057 Tad “Sweet Potato” cassingle demo (DNT057)

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DNT056 – Sean McCann “Chances Are Staying” LP
Debut vinyl release from Californian droniac Sean McCann. Recorded in the summer of 2009, this album was meant to be a continuation of the kaleidoscopic sound of his first albums, “Phylum Sigh” (DNT051) and “Frame Of Mind” (Stunned no.34). While still beaming with beauty and grace, this record demands a bit more from the listener than his other works. The first side of Chance Are Staying explores stringed melodic minimalism ala Tony Conrad, yet with much more poignant and somber motifs. The second side displays the ambit of his sound, from rapturous (and even … grooving?!) violin and saxophone blurs to ecstatic mind-warps. This record stands as a pillar in the dawn of this young man’s career. Guaranteed to make your heart shine with memories of affection and glimpses of an uncertain future. Full color matte jackets with insert – in a hand-numbered edition of 400 mastered by Pete Swanson.

“[A]nother LP that could be said to fall into the New Age bracket. Chances Are Staying by San Francisco based McCann adds acoustic instrumentation (drums, strings) to similarly widescreen keyboard vistas, once again confounding my sceneophobia by the simple expedient of being really good. It’s reminiscent of scene kings Emeralds certainly, but McCann’s synth washes have a slightly brighter (digital?) edge, and the use of subtly lopsided beats offsets any sense that the music might become overly programmatic. Windham Hill never sounded like this” -Wire Magazine review by Keith Moline. August 2010

“The standard touches of Sean McCann’s Chances are Staying LP — some wah, oscillators set to stun, pitch bends — besmirch his DNT debut a tad. It’s not exactly instinctive to equate the tropical trees and dripping dew of Chances Are Staying’s LP jacket to synths and effects globs, either. Still, there are creatures moving in the distance, watching. I know because I can hear them taking furtive, measured steps. Attempting to encircle me, they are. And that’s what these sidelong, or close to it, jams feel like: An envelope captures you against your will then cradles you lovingly as long as you need it to, the overarching fluidity and scope of the project winning out in the end. Already a steady name to tape-traders and drone-mongers alike, McCann snaps a salute to Nurse With Wound’s Space Music, Kyle Bobby Dunn (a fellow youngster on the drone take), and stretching out on the hot grass … not the worst place to be.” -Grant Purdum, Signal to Noise magazine

“Debut album from this USA space/drone loner. The first side is taken up with gorgeous rays of strings arcing over clouds of elegiac microtonal melodies and hallucinatory movements of tone and the effect is somewhere between Samara Lubelski’s amazing In The Valley release on Child Of Microtones with a more overtly euphoric take on the dark minimalism of Cale and Eno’s Nico arrangements or a more Lower East Side-fixated Emeralds. The flip features warped sunbleached drones deformed by backwards tape, muffled Terry Jennings style saxophone and whole choirs of wordless vocals. Fantastically affecting lush cosmo minimalism.” -Volcanic Tongue

“After releasing dozens of tapes and tons of limited releases, Sean McCann delivers his gorgeous vinyl debut on local SF label, DNT. If Sean McCann is a new name to your list of weirdo dronesters, you better get hip quick, McCann is one of the most prolific ambient artists of recent years, and has delivered countless offerings of violin based, long-tone beauty on almost every home-spun tape label around. And even though “Chances Are Staying” is McCann’s first attempt at vinyl glory, he’s no newcomer to the soft-drifting world of string-based soundscaping.
What really draws us into McCann’s music is his signature, ever-changing kaleidoscopic whirl, sounds and notes constantly shifting and swirling over crumbling layers of noise and grit, never a boring moment in an ocean of crashing color and melodic smear, so propelling yet immersive and entrancing. There’s a refined quality to McCann’s music that definitely reminds us of stuff on the Kompakt label, but that precision is offset by a weirdo playfulness that leaves each track unpredictable and completely fluid. It also reminds us of early Not Not Fun releases or maybe Ducktails. “Labyrinth” opens with a gauzy melodic passage, distant bells and chimes echo into a rhythmic lull, synthy washes and a deep low-end pulse guide you deeper into a gorgeous ambient headspace. Dry passages of violin stretch across the echoing beauty below, a buzzing drone builds into an epic flurry until suddenly the track is over and you’re itching for more! “County Heirlooms” is another favorite, drum and bass set the rhythmic pulse as soaring strings and bellowing horns become tangled in a mess of field recordings, drones, and weirdo noise, so nice and quite unlike anything we’ve heard before. Somehow pleasant and very very strange all at once, like someone manipulating a Pharoah Sanders tape while a krautrock rhythm section rehearses next door.” -Aquarius Records

“One of Earth’s most promising musicians has finally received the proper formatting for his music: vinyl, and Chances Are Staying is an album that wouldn’t better accompany any other format. Sean McCann really sets the bar for how far a one-man project can really go, and gives the feeling of a complete orchestra with his music. With cassette releases on just about every backyard label imaginable, Sean McCann has received recognition almost to the extent of masters such as Yellow Swans or Merzbow, and rightfully so.

Chances Are Staying begins with “Labyrinth” which I feel can best be described by these adjectives: mystical, adventurous, and monolithic. For it’s 17-minute length, it travels in many directions just by the key change of the orchestration, and never reaches a point of monotony; a very surreal and inviting introduction to an album. Thus we enter “County Heirlooms” which has a steady rhythm playing over layered woodwinds and strings. Every instrument seems to be playing in a different tempo however remaining in the same key, which equates to a beautifully confounding 10 minutes.

“Stasis” takes the part of the album’s aberration; though too enticing to serve as an “interlude,” it allows the album to take a rest and gives evidence that Sean McCann was focused on making a thematic album as opposed to a collection of tracks roughly recorded around the same time. The closer, “The World He Left Behind” takes the same approach as heard on “Labyrinth” and has a heavy emphasis on its keyboards’ phaser effect. Though I have a pet peeve with this sound, the track perfectly closes the album with its abrupt feedback squeal that gives an aura of disorientation. Sean McCann’s vinyl debut Chances Are Staying is both a masterful and ambitious work of art. Its beauty lies within its melodic drones, and its intricacies lie within its cacophony; an intelligent and epic masterpiece.” -Olive Music (http://olive-music.blogspot.com/2010/06/review-sean-mccann-chances-are-staying.html)

“lovely record from the prolific guitarist / composer sean mccann, heard here both chiming in his classic “waves of sound” style (listen to the sound-sample) as well as dabbling in a few different “new directions” (the opening b-side track works plunderphonic vocal stabs over mutant 80s film-score grooves ; the closing track’s an auto-filter bliss-out ala astral social club) … ” -mimaroglu music sales

“Can you believe this is the first time Sean McCann has ever been on vinyl? I mean the guy has released roughly 620 tapes and CDrs all of which range from being pretty damn good to pretty damn amazing. He’s one of the most consistent players on the field so give ol’ DNT a hand for finally moving McCann up to the big leagues.
The first side contains the side-long piece “Labyrinth” which seems to be drawing maybe a little inspiration from Steve Reich and that kind of sound while remaining unmistakably “McCann.” There’s a phantom pulse buried way down deep and McCann populates the piece by stacking flowing synthetic frequencies, glistening strings and ghostly vocal/guitar/electronics(?) muck. The piece just seems to wander without much arc but goes down real easy anyway. This guy is just a master of composition; he has complete control of every sound creates, yet he makes it seem effortlessly organic, as if its the music of a forest that always seems to just exist. The final few minutes are spectacularly beautiful. When McCann begins to change things up, he introduces the radiant, buzzing synths and mournful string melodies with so much grace you forget there’s a human hand behind this. Probably more than anyone else in the underground, McCann’s music really makes me feel something deep inside. My experience with his music goes far beyond “I like this. This guy is really good.” (which is absolutely true.) But there’s so much heart and passion in his music and he imbues it with such unmistakable beauty that I can’t help but get a little choked up sometimes.
3 pieces fill out the b-side, the first of which is “County Heirlooms.” The swirling jam adds drums, banjo, reeds and sloshed vocals to the mix and the piece flits in between loping country rhythms to loping reggae-ish rhythms. “County Heirlooms” is a pretty fitting title as the vibe I get from this is a total nostalgia flashback. And I don’t mean nostalgia in the artificial way that’s so popular right now; this piece sounds like listening to a whirlwind of memories. Sounds rush by ephemerally, only able to snatch glimpses before they’re gone, never gaining a complete experience of their presence. But the larger sense you get from the piece is not confusion, just a contented, sunny smile. “Stasis” is only about 2 and a half minutes and its a nice little keyboard piece but its basically just a respite between the more robust “Heirlooms” and “The World He Left Behind.” There’s some fantastic moments on this album for sure but I think as far as an entire track is concerned my favorite is the finale. “The World He Left Behind” is less subtle with the synths and it sounds really great in the headphones. There’s such a perfect melodic shifting that goes on almost subliminally in the bass frequencies that all the little bells and whistles he throws on top are merely icing on the cake. There’s a bevy of chimes, strings and lots of keyboard melodies. It’s the most dense piece on the LP, really leaving it in the listeners hands to take the plunge and explore everything it has to offer.
This is yet another excellent record from Sean. Surprise, surprise. I probably wouldn’t call it my favorite McCann but its definitely up there on the top tier with the best of them and there are certainly many moments on here that belong in McCann’s hall of fame. Everytime I listen to it I appreciate it more and more so maybe as time passes it may become my favorite, but by then who knows what other portals McCann will have opened. Regardless of my personal placement of it though this is a phenonmenal record from a true artist and at 400 copies you actually have a chance of physically owning the next essential piece of McCann’s discography. Take the chance, as this record is staying. (It seemed right to me to end on a terrifying pun, deal with it.)” -auxiliary out blog (http://auxiliaryout.blogspot.com/2010/08/sean-mccann-chances-are-staying-dnt.html)

“Until recently, if you wanted to drift in the wake of Sean McCann’s blissful drones you’d need to break out the tape player and you’d need to be mighty quick to snap one of the limited tapes up before they went out of print. With the help of DNT, Sean make’s the transition from the melted spools to his first piece of vinyl, a stunner of a record called Chances Are Staying. Opening things up in grand fashion with the sidelong drop into the abyss, “Labyrinth”, things only get headier from there on in. McCann’s usual guitar formations are augmented with loping violin and sax waves that compliment his crystalline tones and even move into relatively raucous territory for the veteran drone shepherd. This one’s a little less scarce than his previous output but by no means abundant so move fast!” -Raven Sings The Blues (http://ravensingstheblues.blogspot.com/2010/11/sean-mccann.html)

“As you probably already know, Sean McCann is one of the few drone artists that is considered essential. It would be impossible for any fans of the genre to turn up their nose at a chance to behold with their ears one of his audible concoctions. They’re always a delight and each one proves to be yet another masterpiece in his strong career. Usually he feeds his work to us via cassette or the more occasional CDr, but “Chances Are Staying” is just a bit different. It is a powerful vinyl debut. Just think, now you have the chance to enjoy his innovative dronescapes on LP! Thanks to DNT Records, now you can. One thing I love about DNT is that their vinyl is always quality for the money. Just a side note, it seems like oftentimes buying records can get expensive, I mean it’s easy for a fresh British import to cost nearly or over $20. But, DNT usually sell theirs for a lot less. God bless ‘em! So, this just means that you get a great value with this one.

Now, the album itself is amazing. The first side has one long track, “Labyrinth.” This one pans out as a nice lengthy ambient bliss piece, which I think has been more of his direction lately. I feel like this type of sound really permeated his latest double disc, “Fountain.” Whereas, I feel like many of his previous releases were more eclectic and really pioneering, perhaps even trying to find out what he could do with his art; this one is much more straightforward. Repetitive relaxed environments that might have an odd sound thrown in or an overlaid texture a la McCann. The second side on the first track, “County Heirlooms” gives us back some old school antics of his. There are some brief moments of some melted free jazz. Dilapidated out-of-tune brass. It doesn’t fight to overpower anything, but is actually nicely blended. Then, “Stasis” is a much shorter track, not even filling two and a half minutes. It’s a more low-ringing, oscillator of a track. A quick contemplative moment. But then the final album track, “The World He Left Behind” not only has a great title but gives us a noisier, more familiar soup of a mix that McCann ladles up for us so well. It’s got lots of nice brushstrokes of color-inducing wah, tape recordings, and zowey effects, painted against a funscape canvas. Total freak drone, that is both hinting at nature with its swamp-like oozes and prattles, but then could even be cosmic with its out-of-this world astrological gazing enchantments.

Anyway, McCann is always aces in my book. But you can’t miss his vinyl debut—you just can’t!” -Foxy Digitalis (http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/?p=2210)

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DNT055 – Plankton Wat “Dawn of the Golden Eternity” LP
Debut solo LP by Dewey Mahood of Portland psych-jammers Eternal Tapestry. Ten songs recorded at the Owl House basement last winter on cassette 4-track. The LP encompasses a vast array of sounds and moods, from blissed-out drone punk rippers to super chill deep space folk. Total late night stoney textures, and radiant sun anthems. Acoustic and electric guitar, drums, banjo, mbira, and some singing, all mega tripped with syrupy analogy delay. Really beautiful heavy zoners. Hand drawn covers and insert by Dewmah. Edition of 500 on marbled red vinyl.

“Here’s a bomb. After what felt like an ample hiatus–just starting to mourn the loss in the form of frequent checks to the website–DNT has returned not with a fully loaded batch but with one ultra focused and fondly constructed LP from Dewey Mahood’s Plankton Wat project. Probably better known as a member of Eternal Tapestry, Mahood’s solo ventures have actually already been captured on the DNT imprint via a cassette from a ways back.

While that one was an ultra-serene pleasure cruise though, this one pushes against the shores a bit more. Opening with the flanging guitar of the “The Magic Citadel,” a kind of paired down Burnt Hills psych number with real focus and drive, the piece is a call to arms for the rest of the album, which presents nine semi-miniatures in which one idea is essentially worked out and through and over. The title track, whose clattering free drums and guitar drift splay themselves out like the arched arms of illuminated cacti, segues beautifully into the Delta sproing and pan flute pitterings of “Song of Winter Death,” whose Fahey allusions extend far beyond mere use of finger-picking. He somehow conjures the underlying weirdness as well, the uncertainties. “Shrouded Path of Enchantment Occult Blues” is a solo guitar venture that allows Mahood’s spare caution to flower into a raga Renaissance blues style whose patient sense of time and restraint display a maturity far beyond the usual in this field, evolving incrementally as each successive leaf drifts to the floor. Closing out the side, “The Exiled Wanderer” finds parallel vocal and banjo lines sliding effortlessly into a sacred netherworld of Tibetan Appalachia, closing the side out with an emptiness immediately filled upon the flip.

“Sphere Within the Lotus,” like the opener of the album, harkens in the side with gusto never again reached on the side. Splashes of guitars and frolicking drums mix with bells, vocals and Harper Mahood’s flute for a brief cleansing of the palette before “While the Clouds Gather” takes delayed guitar into meditative drone worlds ripe with atmospherics and tender thematic painting via harp-like gracings over the strings. Resonating hairs strum by fingers as it meanders into warm winded vocal glides over the tundra on “Other Realms,” building a humble cathedral of its resonant rainfall guitar before teetering inward for a bask in the light projected on the floor. Closing it out is “Voyage of the Night Pavilion,” a drone and guitar piece firmly pointing toward the eternal beginning. A beautiful one from DNT and company, and a real accomplishment for Mahood. Killer package all around, glad to have DNT back. ” -ear conditioned nightmare

“1-man gtr-psych debut, at its best approaching early-mid Six Organs instrumental styles” -blastitude

“To enter the home of avant-garde veteran Dewey Mahood is to walk into a kind of domestic bliss that is distinctly Southeast Portland: In the basement, he and his girlfriend, Loni, have two separate workstations; she for her clothing design business, he a makeshift recording studio. It was down here, in the winter months of 2008, that Mahood created Dawn of the Golden Eternity, a hazy, blissful, almost entirely improvised album set to be released under his solo moniker, Plankton Wat. While his still ongoing band projects, also mostly improvised, tend toward the loud and aggressive, this is the product of a different frame of mind, one that’s closer to his reality as a father: He would usually record after putting his 7-year-old daughter, Harper, to sleep.
“This is more of a late-night, I’m getting tired, I’m getting ready for bed, so I’ll record for a while [kind of thing],” he says, “once the energy is going down a bit.”
Indeed, Dawn of the Golden Eternity is a record that feels born after-hours. Its 10 tracks, a melding of various instruments including guitar, banjo, African thumb piano, harmonium and at least one flute solo from Harper, coalesce into a heavenly, temple-massaging drone. Sonically, it is a far cry from the sound of his other groups—the revivalist ’80s hardcore of Bloodbiker and the distorted krautrock of Eternal Tapestry—but philosophically, it keeps with what Mahood has been doing since he moved to Portland from Northern California in the early ’90s.
“I was just doing pretty much all experimental, improv-type stuff, which has a good following now, but back then it was the smallest group of people,” the 38-year-old says. “Most people just did it at their houses. No venue would really have you.”
Of course, things change. And for somebody who has been messing with sound as long as Mahood, it’s a welcome shift.
“When I first started doing this and giving people tapes, I’d always get a funny reaction from people. They’d just be like, ‘What is this?’” he says. “Now it seems people are a lot more excited about it.”” – Matthew Singer/Willamette Week

“First of all, I must note how beautiful this record looks. Dewey Mahood (Plankton Wat) contributed great artwork from the sleeve to the labels and DNT main man Tynan Krakoff put it all together beautifully with lovely ruby red marbled vinyl. Damn, I just couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened it up.
Last I heard from Plankton Wat was last year’s tape on DNT. It was a great psych slow burner but Mahood has tweaked his sound just a bit for this LP and topped himself in the process. The first of ten, “The Magic Citadel,” caught me off guard as it’s a total fist pumper. Glistening waves of guitar set in with raucous tambourine hits before Mahood just starts burning up the fretboard. It’s probably only about a minute and a half but it gets your heart racing. The title track cools things down a bit with airy, looped layers of guitar and free drumming. The drums really control the dynamics of the track cause when they’re mellow cymbal rolls it’s a pretty piece but when they get hectic so does the whole track. “Song of Winter Death” features more great, and completely different, drumming. Hollow, thudding toms make a semi-hypnotic base for acoustic slide guitar and flute to do their thing. “Shrouded Path of Enchantment” reminds me a bit of that DNT tape with stark and brooding acoustic guitar arpeggios. There’s a second guitar that provides subtle plucks of the root note occasionally and it creates a strange sensation, the sonic equivalent of an undertow. A single, skeletal melody is doubled by banjo and voice on “Occult Blues.” It’s short but pretty profoundly eerie. “The Exiled Wanderer” is an awesome rhythmically driven track. Each instrument is used to percussive ends but Mahood deftly weaves flickers of melody from mbira and other instruments within the tangled web of rhythms.
The second side kicks off with “Sphere within the Lotus” and I’m not sure if it’s possible to give a song a more “psychedelic” name. It fits cause it’s a squall of a song drenched in glorious, or copious, amounts of fuzz and wah, depending on your viewpoint. Mahood is even rocking wind chimes harder than they’ve ever been rocked before. Sadly, the piece is pretty short. “While the Clouds Gather” is a mellow number, and there’s not too much to say other than it’s supremely, if unassumingly, gorgeous. It sneaks up on you. “Other Realms” is the default epic of the side, marking the return of Mahood’s wordless vocals paired this time with guitar. The track drifts for a while until a slamming groove comes out of nowhere making everything get real good real quick. “Voyage of the Night Pavilion” finds acoustic and electric guitars making a great team, the former handling the melody and the latter producing a fuzzy fog and chiming in on the melody when it feels like it. Its a perfect outro cause of the gently lilting vibe, though it heats up near the end with a melting guitar lead.
Dawn of the Golden Eternity is another great installment of Mahood’s 4-track psych excursions. I like that he kept most tracks pretty short so he could cover a lot of ground, but I wish he’d given the openers of both sides a bit more time to jam it out. If you dig Mahood’s stuff this definitely worth the pickup and if you don’t know it, this is a fine place to start.” -auxiliary out blog

“i’m impressed both by the range (backwards, faust-ian chug & sandy bull-esque raga guitar … but also 60a-lineage guitar loops & free drums & the kind(s) of muted hand-percussion boggle of the finnish scene) & the quality of playing/production herein ; something of a sampler-pack / dabbler-manifesto, sure, but all done w/ a laudable grasp of each discrete mode’s myriad inflections …” -mimaroglu music sales

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DNT054 – Jovontaes “The Thief of Baghdad” cassette
Named after 90s street skater Jovontae Turner, Jovontaes are a group of kids from the Lexington, KY community, tearing up both the psych and skateboarding scenes. Not doing what you’d expect from a bunch of skaters, these dudes are making caveman psych rock (with hints of surf and kraut) like a scaled down Eternal Tapestry yet still sounding way weirder than the standard psych-jam band trying to live in the past of the 60s. Not too detached from last year’s rad tape on Eggy, on this one you get almost 50 minutes of songs, closing out the second side with a sprawling free-form musique-concrete jam piece. Recorded late 2010 in their Void Skateshop, (which apparently is right around the corner from Caboladies’ old recording space). Hand-numbered edition of 100 pro-dubbed clear tapes (with a lil’ skatebuddy imprinting) and absolutely stunning full-color psychedelic artwork by Camille Bryant.

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DNT053 – Carl Calm/Flower Man “The Sag”/”The Breslin Wayside Rotary” split double cassette SOLD OUT. try tomentosa, eclipse, discriminate
Brand new double cassette set highlighting the solo work of Caboladies masterminds Chris Bush and Eric Lanham. “The Sag” represents a fascinating first glimpse into the pointalist minimal techno collage world of Caboladies co-conspirator Eric “Carl Calm” Lanham. With the Sag, Carl Calm lays out a crisp collection of constantly unfolding electronic nuance that strikes the balance between surgical precision and hype ambiance. Steady pulses expand on harmonic webs of complex time collapse techniques, repeat morphs, and other occult party mob tweaks. Definitely a new calculus for the minimal techno idiom.

“The Breslin Wayside Rotary”, the newest addition in the ongoing bedroom synth/confusion electronics saga of Chris “Flower Man” Bush finds the operator wrangling jungle worship drums, meta-communicative bird speak, and a number of other warped synthetic imaginations. There is a certain “narrative” quality at play on the Breslin Wayside Rotary whose broad trajectory begins with amnesia and ends with fewer answers than it started with. Safe to say, delirium abounds over the course of this bizarre, yet carefully considered musical tour. Edition of 100 pro-dubbed cassettes housed in separate cases with covers designed by CC & FM.

“In anticipation of an upcoming Caboladies LP, DNT Records CEO Tynan Krakoff has prepared this double cassette of the two Caboladies solo projects. Flower Man and Carl Calm each contribute a succinct, twenty minute tape to the release though on slightly divergent paths.
Flower Man’s tape is marked DNT053A so I’ll start with that one first. Cramming in 10 pieces, Flower Man is apparently a bit of a wildman. He’s all over the map here with his electronic squiggles, acoustic percussion and weirdo birdcalls on the opening title track. It’s somehow frantic and mellow at the same time, don’t ask me how. “Away Outdoors” could be an m83 outtake or something, a buoyant synth arpeggio recycles itself and chiming tones hammer out a melody. Very nice piece. “Yayenna Airplane” is a bunch of spacey oscillator manipulations a la Forbidden Planet. “The Quoclo Zoom” sounds like an old video game score with a marching drum machine and stressed synth tones warning of the ghosts, neon boulders and other dangers lying ahead, waiting to befall you. Wrapping up the side, “A Ripple Near the Sun” rests on a looped group of synth plinks with animal-like oscillator manipulations groaning and squealing over top.
Flipping it over “Fostered by a Latch” (ha!) burbles and rumbles to a start. It’s another weird one with an array of percussive electronic noises and I think briefly a voiced couched in radio static. “Resurfacing” resembles the title track but features a number of glistening keyboards nestled uncomfortably next to each other over what I think is the same percussion loop from the first piece. “The General Effect of Science” is a collage of random electronic beeps, swoops and whirs similar to “Yayenna Airplane,” do I detect a pattern here? “To Be/Wildlife” is a very nice synth number with a mellow, smooth arpeggio and a grumbling oscillator. “Seagull Pill Box” closes out the tape with more animal-like noises, like recreating an aural jungle habitat using nothing but a synthesizer. I know I’m repeating myself but this is some wild stuff, if a little underdeveloped.
Carl Calm flips the script with what is more or less an electronic/dance project. Contributing 5 tracks and one alternate mix… “Acayucan Cacique (Orchestral Mix)” flickers to a start with stuttering organ backed by almost choral keys. It’s a great introduction to the tape; its rather a modest arrangement but still with an epic touch. “Crocs Time” gets the beats rattling and shaking, they tick away in a vacuum so to speak until the synthline drops and everything suddenly makes sense. The spacey arpeggiated melodies take over while the beat smashes away in the background. Mister Calm keeps piling on more keyboard melodies and subtle funk guitar stabs among other sounds. Very cool groove. Almost makes me wanna go out and buy a pair of those ugly ass Crocs shoes outta respect. “Bone Destined” takes the tape into a more abstract zone, with many, many layers crashing into each other. Although, they start communicating and making friends as the track progresses with a slowly pumping drum track, materializing along with hints of melody.
“A Royal Hole in the Sky” is built upon a series of short loops, I think from a bass or guitar. Carl does a good job jostling through and splicing the series of loops while the drum track clicks away. “Broad Jaunt” is actually not much of a jaunt. It’s by far the most chilled out piece on the tape. Unfurling cosmic keyboards with scattered drum machine coming along for the glide. The tape is bookended with “Acayucan Cacique (Hype Mix)” a much more upbeat version of the track. A drum machine marches along with disembodied singing and scrappy keyboard melodies which I’m really digging. After a breakdown into a solo section of said melodies, the track comes back a little heavier before settling back into the song’s main passage.
It’s a cool little set as you definitely get a bit of a yin and yang vibe, Carl Calm’s intricate sound structures and Flower Man’s talent for concocting exotic textures. When DNT drops that Caboladies LP I’m gonna try applying this little decoder ring to see how the two members’ styles fit together.
This has been sold-out for a while now, so check the distros for copies… ” -auxiliary out blog
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DNT052 – Pod Blotz “Snowstorm of Electricity” cassette
“Snowstorm of Electricity” combines thoughtful synth work with sweeping organs lift offs and plenty of bubbling tape manipulations. This release is a more in depth exploration of other Pod Blotz works and is truly Otherly. She combines pulsating and careful synth work with strange organ melodies and controlled raw electronics. A wide range of tonal ranges is covered in this strange icy landscape as it visits warm textures and oscillations. Voice sounds mimic Theremin sounds and vice versa. Some of these tracks were performed at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, 2010. Edition of 100 pro-dubbed tapes.

“Oakland artist Suzy Poling evokes a foundational electronic sound as Pod Blotz. A nice mix of enthusiasm for her electrified instruments and a tuneful approach, ‘Snowstorm of Electricity’ is equal parts Mills College portfolio and Noveller LP: with a surge to begin the tape, “Snowstorm” is a wailing wall of sooty synth swells, whoops and hollers transformed into a rousing organ shanty. Like the soundtrack to a film on microbiology and complimentary to the cover image, “The Unseen Journey” teems with crystalline figures over an eerie backdrop recalling classic horror schlock as much as the elegant graininess of the recent Black Swan LP. “Reptiles and Owls” begins side B like a sequel to the intro track, organ distortions and radio wobble overlayed with a voice becoming-instrument, the sound refracted through various layers of filter and distilled into the single menacing frequency of the following track. Despite this transition, there is little flow in this collection but rather a series of discrete pieces in different media. Closer “Liquified Worlds” is an odd tape experiment, turning a thin reproduction into a secondary rhythm of sonic globs gummed to the reels, generating a loping pace. Though engrossing – in fact, because it is so engrossing – one longs for more visual accompaniment beyond the single panel of the glossy insert. Nevertheless, a smart batch of sounds. On 100 pro-pressed tapes.” -animal psi

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DNT051 – Sean McCann “Phylum Sigh” full-length cassette
*Second edition was on green tape, edition of 32*
Time to dust off that bong you have stored on the top shelf for special times..or whatever. Here’s the debut full-length cassette by Sean McCann from San Francisco-by-way-of-Goleta. Meticulously recorded through out 2008, this album was crafted to numb minds and spin souls through use of euphoric strings and bending keyboard plains. Sean’s most focused work to date. Hands down his best release yet, and that’s saying a lot! Edition of 150 pro-dubbed baby blue cassettes in a plastic case with full-color wrap-around artwork. Look for SM’s first LP on DNT later this year

“This time around it’s McCann on DNT, with a cute little doggy on a couch on the cover. While that might not connote anything too outrageous, the tape may even be trippier than the Stunned, with a greater emphasis on electronic blips and pseudo techno effects fiddling.

This can be seen from the outset on the first track, “Betazoid,” which careens back and forth in electronic bliss, waters a bubblin’. Totally weird stuff here, endlessly aimless and drifting, but beneath all the murk you can here the soft tingling of banjo strings or the bass bellow of some distant organ line. Endlessly complex and really tough to get a handle on, this is stuff that avoids any overt genre and is just plain exciting. More than that though, it’s also highly emotive. “Sunk Eyes” has drowning string gestures and laser tones flitting about in a surprisingly tough tugger of the heart strings. Beautiful. Or dig “Ice Age Tea,” which takes the longing sounds of the previous track and opts to send them into some mental sink hole of bright colors and summer thunders.

The second side has five tracks, and with that many angles squished into so little a space you’d think that not much would be possible, but McCann says so much from the outset that he really doesn’t have to get that far to make his presence known. The opener, “Mango Christmas,” lets loose from the outset with haunting vocal moves and decaying chatter above a highly rich and amorphous bubbling synth. “Meaningless Desire” gets a bit more deranged as Dolphins into the Future sounds bounce around above some saw blade string bows and warbling atmospheres. I could go on and on, especially seeing how this tape is VAST. Super long and totally fulfilling. You know the deal, every release this guy does is better than the last and these two are no exception, presenting some of the best work I’ve heard from him yet.” -ear conditioned nightmare

“Swirling bright multileveled strings/keys dream music” -blastitude

“Sean McCann’s latest is a tour de force of wails, chimes, tweets, and spasms. Like the aftermath of a tornado ripping through a Medieval carnival, Phylum Sigh is an organic treat. The album draws its power from the sounds of busted Ferris wheels, carnie barkers, warped children’s jewelry boxes, and any kitchen sink-associated sound that can be transformed into the happy sounds of children at play amidst the rubble that was once a spritely theme park. Often, McCann’s Frankenstein creations border on the scary and sadistic — the sort of monkey-grinding fair that would accompany It, as he torments his long-time victims for the last time — but for reasons unexplainable, as distant and jarring as the songs seem, there’s a familiarity to cling to. Whatever specters conjured from Phylum Sigh’s ghost town are ran away by Peter Pan happy thoughts. During the darkest times, the happiest in all of us can flip the script and save us from damnation.” -tiny mix tapes (http://www.tinymixtapes.com/TMT-Cerberus-05)

“Split into the most pieces, the eight tracks of ‘Phyylum Sigh’ serve to separate the diversity of sounds which McCann would otherwise accumulate into a single sprawling track. A cheery symphony of twisted electronic springs blossom into “Betazoid”, where layered strings saw melancholy lines across “Sunk Eyes”; the nearly 20 minute “Ice Age Tea” engulfs the rest of the side in a lazy churn of fluttering bassbeats and high-toned drones shimmering on the surface, aimlessly reproduced into a haze. The sentiment is resumed on the opposite side, as “Mango Christmas” runs into the minor notes of “Meaningless Desire”, an appropriate title for this compulsive streak. The adjoined tracks “Spring Spill” and “Just Around” raise the sonic movement to the surface, warping a melodic loop through liquid submersions as a premise to introducing tape twitter and banjo runs as sympathetic sounds not to claim focus, but to reify this pervasive activity of “relax” through to the closing glimmers of “Look Out”. Limited to 150 pro-pressed copies on blue tapes, with a wonderful wrap-around insert.” -Animal Psi

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DNT050 – “Psyched Punch” 2XC60 SOLD OUT
Has it really been three years now? Are you suuuure? And this the fiftieth release? Since many people are late to the game, we’re doing this right. The first three sides of this release collect bits and pieces of some long out of print DNT releases. Missed the first DNT release? Well now you can hear Robedoor, Forbici, and others. Fell asleep the week the Warmth/Yellow Swans 7″ came out? No problem! Also included are Mudboy, Nomen Dubium, Acre, Dead/Bird, German, Jazzfinger and Quilts. The fourth side is new music by the likes of Blank Realm, Super Minerals, Plankton Wat and Birdcatcher. Hand-numbered edition of 100 with full-color artwork By Dewey Mahood. Pro-dubbed C60s with sparkly glitter art.

“Got an ace little thing here.. I’m stubbornly refusing to go back to having a tape deck but things like this Psyched Punch double cassette (released to celebrate the third anniversary of DNT Records) are making resistance ever more difficult. Contributors include the likes of Yellow Swans, Plankton Wat, Robedoor and Jazzfinger and the music includes the likes of drone, noise, ambience, experimental electronics and all kinds of weird and wonderful combinations of the above, with moods range from relaxing to bracing to Clangers. Amazing stuff and all packaged up all cracking like with a neat plastic case and loads of colours and glitter. Phil says it looks like something a five-year-old would make and that pretty much sums up the beauty of it. Highest rekomendayshuns!” -norman records

“Seems like DNT has been around a lot longer than just three short years; by looking at their impressive back catalog, you’d think they were around for ten or more. This two-tape set is the perfect introduction to anyone wanting to dabble in far-out experimental chromium culture. With such a bizarre and diverse roster of releases, these tapes take you through the “best of” DNT without going overboard, ranging from drone noise by the likes of Jazzfinger, Robedoor and Yellow Swans all the way down to obscure freeform oddities such as German, Acre, and Forbici, First three sides dish up tracks from the label past three years while side D offers brand new and exclusive tracks by Blank Realm, Super Minerals, Birdcatcher and Plankton Wat, recorded especially for this special 3-year anniversary. Limited to 100 copies.” -Dusted “Still Single” Vol.5 No.9 (http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/843)

“Here’s a double cassette offering I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around in the last couple weeks. In celebration of DNT’s 3 year anniversary and the 50th release on the label, Tynan put together this double cassette compilation featuring past favorites from the label alongside one final side of new material from four DNT-style projects. Four sides and about 15 projects is a lotto ingest at once, but the compilation does a fine job of reminding us what a strong aesthetic stamp DNT has, making for a pretty nicely flowing offering here.

With something like this it seems impossible to cover it all, but highlights come from the opening track, an early Robedoor track called “Tribe Rites” off, I believe, the first DNT compilation. Real plodding and much buzzier and weirder than their more doom oriented stuff of late. Forbici’s manic electronic psychosis on “Remote Concentrator” is out of control while Yellow Swans’ “Untitled” crackles and leaks static all over the surge lines. Jazzfinger and Plankton Wat make swell appearances, as does Mudboy’s “Untitled” and Super Minerals classic “The Piss.” The gentle and extended “Pink Hotel” by Quilts is also a real highlight, spreading out for 15 long minutes of organ drone and simmer that lasts long enough to clear the pallet for the incoming new material on the fourth side.

As for the new material, time is given to Blank Realm, Plankton Wat, Super Minerals and Birdcatcher. It’s a nice way to present the material, looking back on the label’s past without feeling like a straight retrospective. Pointing firmly toward the future, these four bands all present some swell material, with Blank Realm’s “Cat’s on the Edge” grooving like the Doors on floors in a kind of lazy goth psych groove. Nice stuff that reaches a nice rolling boil of numb nod and trod. Think a lyrically spare, post-Can take on Question Mark & the Mysterions. Plankton Wats’ “Ghosts” is a spare guitar and voice drifter whose open incantations present a kind of ritualized summer haze, tinkling bells and all. Super Minerals “Purple Gravity Spindles” finds the unit meshing their minimalist Clusters sound with the dirty and hollow groove of earlier releases, though the sound here treads slightly heavier on the side of The Piss, only with a warmth and cavernous glow to it. Like some slowly deteriorating jungle cave, humid and sticky. Quite a beautiful one here, a real full and defined sound. The closing “Dusk” by Birdcatcher is a fine end to the excursion, not only closing out the tape as a milestone of arrival, but also pointing its deranged finger forward toward a future of more psychosis-stemmed sounds from this consistently killer label. Really nice package that got snagged up pretty quick from the label, but poke around. Well worth finding, and a great way to hear some stuff you probably won’t get to hear again. ” -ear conditoned nightmare

“The tape starts spooling with a vintage Robedoor track “Tribal Rites.” All militant, pounding drums, angsty wordless vocals and a whole lot of fuzz bleeding everywhere. Quite a good track that transports me back to 2006 when I first heard the band. Forbici is next with “Remote Concentrator.” Never heard of Forbici before but apparently they released something on DNT. This track is wiggly, directionless electronics—decent but not totally my speed. German makes the first of two appearances here with the minute long “Vein,” a surely grooving interlude. The Warmth/Yellow Swans 7inch (which was one of the earliest AuxOut reviews) is captured here in its entirety. Check the old review if you want more details but Warmth conjures a sonic bog and Yellow Swans are brighter than usual and as awesome as ever. Also, I finally learned what the Warmth track is called (“Demode”) cause the info is hidden behind a blotch of blue ink on the 7inch. German returns with “Neun,” a track of boisterous drumming and clanging, ghostly thumb piano. “Ironlung Wheeze” by Dead/Bird is the side’s finale. A bit like the Warmth joint but full of sputtering synthesizers and dying machines.
“Desert City Summer” by Nomen Dubium kicks off Side B in style. I remember a ND tape coming out a while ago on DNT a while back but I never checked it out and, man, I wish I had. This track is one of best of the comp. It’s incredibly lush and melodic and gorgeous. Really knocked my socks off when I first heard it. Wonderfully layered with some of the strata being soothing and other bits being of a more chugging nature but all blending beautifully. This cat has a VHS due later on DNT; I’m so there. UK crew Jazzfinger contributes a piece called “Birth of the Knife” and believe me it fucking sounds like the birth of a knife. Violent, sharp, searing, grinding, serrated, metallic—all belied by a lilting reed organ which as far as I can tell is the only sound source. Unassumingly but unflinchingly bloodthirsty. Plankton Wat contributes a track of winding reversed guitar called “Translucent Nights” and Acre closes the side doing his thing with unchanging walls of sound.
The final side of the reissued material begins with an untitled track by Mudboy. Since I’ve heard all DNT Mudboy releases save for Livish I can deduce this comes from that. The track features signature stacked organ lines and waves crashing in the background. A nice, borderline meditative track. Super Minerals make their first appearance with the title-track from The Piss, one of the most apocalyptic moments from the tape’s apocalyptic half-hour. Swollen sores of fuzz bear down on oppressive shrieks, creaks and rattling before they approach melody in the final moments. Quilts contribute the 15 minute “Pink Hotel” from their split with Quintana Roo way back from ’06 if I remember correctly. This comp is interesting cause it only looks back 3-4 years, but you can see how quickly the underground changes. Quilts, for instance, put out some cool stuff awhile back but have since dissipated (I guess) cause I haven’t heard or thought about them lately. Anyhow, “Pink Hotel” is a sweet track, if on the long side. There’s a lot of space in the piece, silence is poked through with plinking (toy?) piano, manipulated vocal slur and a static drone—all of which are run through delay pedals. By the end they have scraped together a subtle but persuasive melody.
Moving on the side of new material… The biggest surprise for me was the Blank Realm song “Cats on the Edge.” The bits and pieces I’d heard of Blank Realm was fine, folky free-psych stuff but it didn’t leave much of a mark. This track however is utterly slammin’. It’s nearly 8 minutes of mellow, ravin’ 60sish organ driven psych rock. This track is just the epitome of cool. The band constructs the song really well, perfectly balancing surfy spy guitar, heavy organ riffage, a solid rhythm section and a touch of wispy vox and keeping it all moving with chugging grooviness with effective dynamic shifts. Basically, I never want this track to end. It’s in a fist fight with Nomen Dubium for my favorite new discovery. Plankton Wat contributes another short track which weirdly enough has a lot of vocals in it in addition to the guitar. Super Minerals return with an awesome track “Purple Gravity Spindles.” It features the Minerals in total spirit summoning mode. After a bombastic opening, a good chunk is pretty quiet with a lonely flute until Phil and Will bring on heaps and heaps of lush, living sound. Really transcendent and frighteningly beautiful. I don’t know anything about Birdcatcher but they close with “Dusk.” It’s a good track similar to Super Minerals with murky flute loops (part of a complete breakfast) and bowed something-or-others creating a real doomy vibe.” -auxiliary out blog

“For Tynan and his Doris Nordic Tribute records three-year anniversary, we receive four sides made of cherry-picked tracks from the body leading up to this, catalog no. 50. Despite the two cassettes, I’ll make this quick, as much of this has already received attention here (type “dnt review” in the search bar over there on the left); it’s rehashed material, so you’ve probably heard much of it; it’s limited in typical double-digit editions, but you all steal stuff on the internet; and because it’s already sold out, so it doesn’t need any more heralding. That said, I’ll focus on the last side, with four new contributions from some familiar faces in the DNT harem. Unevenly split between the participants, the side is dominated by Birdcatcher’s ten minute “Dusk”, a thick braid of deep, droning tones and high-frequency/low-volume vibrations in an unceasing, random series of regeneration. Suggesting a turn of the focal angle, the horizontal lines begin to skew – vertically, but also in depth along a third axis – evoking the aggressive automotivation of a drag-racing motif. With two clockwise twists of the volume, Super Minerals present yet another fine abstraction, building constantly with shimmering rides and upward progressions the bells and animal sounds which get lost in the depth of the recording implying one forest of a soundfield (compared to the soundsea of which “The Piss”, on side 3 is drawn) of with a sudden border made by an abrupt cut. The contribution by the six-strung Plankton Wat, seems to vanish even sooner than the brief three minutes it’s assigned in the liner notes; telegraphing notes with harmonic precision as if from some divine index, decorated with chimes and folksy, bent-note spooks which gives “Ghosts” it’s significant detail. And that brings us back to the front of the side and the apex, “Cats on the Edge” by Australia’s Blank Realm: much like the psychedelic motorbike rock of Religious Knives, the largely instrumental piece wilts blackly with downstruck reverb and Doug Ingle organ hyperventilating as they push through the bulbous bass and thin crash which weave the lo-fi rye. Though the style often passes on atmosphere or texture alone, this song succeeds by being just that, melodically-compelling and smartly-directed.

Of course, if my search engine sucks as much as I’ve found it does, you aren’t familiar with Tynan’s labors, you don’t steal, and you manage to come across a copy of this for sale – by all means, help yourself to a nice overview of the last three years and a “bonus” side fresh enough to make the rest look like the “boners” sides.” -animal psi

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DNT049 – Sean McCann “One Morning I Waked Up Very Early” VHS SOLD OUT, try eclipse, discriminate, amethylsunset
First fully-realized video work from Sean McCann, circa late 2008. A sensory overload of aquatic and galactic collages, a surreal journey. Featuring an original soundtrack, recorded following the Midnight Orchard sessions – quite mesmerizing and peaceful. Edition of 50 hand-numbered copies on blue-shelled NTSC tapes in green spray-painted cardboard cases. Look for Sean’s debut full-length LP on DNT in a month or two.
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DNT048 – Black Pus/Foot Village split 12″ SOLD OUT
Including the tracks from their split cassette released last year on DBA, this 12″ adds 1 Foot Village bonus track and 2 Black Pus bonus tracks. This music is raw, distorted, and totally fucked up drum rock. Each 12″ includes a 16″ x 22″ poster that is a full color animal photo with art by Brian Chippendale screened on top. Brian is the dude behind Black Pus and he is the drummer of Lightning Bolt. This release is all about drums being punk as fuck. Edition of 300. Co-released with Deathbomb Arc.

“The Foot Village side starts off with demented voices talking about food until a big load of trashy noise kicks in that Phil reckons is like every train in the world running over his head all at once. He’s a sensitive soul, that one. Basically it’s just a massive shit off televised instrumenthammerthon like someone’s sampled a couple of seconds of Shit and Shine at their most manic and repeated it over and over. Ace in other words. They do have a shorter track that’s more in the vein of that 7″, dual male-female vocals scrapping it out over trashcan tribal drum clattering. Black Pus is B-Brian Chippendale (Rescue Ranger) from Lightning Bolt, I’ve heard a couple of his CDR jobs in this guise and they were both quite tidy. This doesn’t let the side down at all, the apple hasn’t fallen that far from the tree as it does sound like a more dirgey and repetitive of his main noisemongers.. It sounds like DJ Scotch Egg is there too but they’re fucking with his amp so you can only hear him occasionally. This is packaged in quite remarkable fashion, inside a plastic sleeve the record is held inside a massive folded up page from a nature book with one side screen printed with the artwork. Wowsers!” -norman records

“DNT keeps working their way up the awesome label chain with another LP, co-released with Deathbomb Arc, notched on its belt, not to mention having some sure to be amazing LPs on the way by Ducktails, Social Junk and Barrabarracuda.
The disgustingly/cleverly named Black Pus (a joke on the three trillion “Black ______” band names in existence) is the solo project of Brian Chippendale—he’s in Lightning Bolt, in case you are unaware. When the needle drops yr hit with the riotous party jam explosion of “Floatzilla”. I know Chippendale is playing drums and singing but there’s a lot of fuzz in here too and I’m not sure where it’s coming from cause it sounds overdub-free. Anyway who cares, I’m just loving how groovy and swinging this track is while also being a sludgy bludgeoning. The song moves relentlessly at the max frequency of fun. It real cool, to paraphrase Gwendolyn Brooks. There’s a weird electronic pseudo-flute freak out at the end which is just icing on the cake. “Altar Rat” matches energetic free drumming with crumbling, squeaking noise loops. I think there may be an electronic drum kit at work here in addition to Chippendales usual set-up, because the drums have a bit of a phased/filtered vibe with electro-pad-sounding interjections. This track is a slow-melting mass of drums, feedback, and vocals much like the first track but it sounds like it’s in danger of imploding in on itself at any time. It’s like an unstable nucleus on wax. The Pus’s last entry is “The Black Whole” beginning drumless with a funky low-end synth loop and lots of pretty(!) layers of keyboard on top of it. Even without the drums the piece grooves endlessly (well, until the end groove). I love Chippendale’s drumming but he should totally explore this drumless area further, it’s a rad and different take on synth music. A classic side overall.
L.A. drum nuts Foot Village take the other side with two tracks of silly voices and some the most fiery drumming I’ve ever heard. The silly voices are actually really hilarious particularly the opening dialogue of “Race to the End of Food”, where a sinister sounding dude challenges a hungry guy to a race for food. Every time the guy says “me hungy”, it has be in stitches. However, this isn’t a comedy album (I think) and, as I mentioned, the drumming is ferocious. It reminds a bit of Ettrick in double drum mode but multiplied to the point where all the drumming becomes a blur. This track almost comes off like a noise record because of how all the fury of drums is built upon and matted on top of itself. A few brave souls attempt vocals but can’t really be heard above the volcanic din. My favorite part is a brief drum solo just before the race’s winner is announced, everyone claps and one sane individual in the room says “I can’t believe this is our song”. “420 (National Holiday)” fits in snugly with the classic Foot Village song format, and is one of the best examples of the format I might add. Excellent dynamic, polyrhythmic drumming and everyone contributing to the catchy four-part vocal chants. This too gives way to another hilarious skit about “The Celestial Bong”. I usually am not down with stoner-based humor but it’s pretty funny here. The female stoner voice is so pitch-perfect that I just lose it when she says “ohhh, that suuucks. I don’t know, maaan.” Another face melting/gut busting recording from the Foot Village.
The Black Pus/Foot Village LP is sold out on DNT’s end (though I’d still recommend taking advantage of his killer 3-for-$15 vinyl deal) but Deathbomb Arc is still selling copies last I checked. The artwork is done by Chippendale and it’s an awesome bit of silk screen graffiti over a fold-out animal poster. Each one is different too, I got two cuddly tigers.” -http://auxiliaryout.blogspot.com/

“Just received word about four new (killer looking) DNT releases, which reminded me that I hadn’t gotten around to this Black Pus/Foot Village split co-released by Deathbomb Arc. But before we talk about the delicious ear delights, allow me to direct you toward that beautiful cover designed by Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale. I’ve seen a bunch of different animals used (mine’s a llama, which is sick if you catch my drift) but I figured the label stock photo was enough to wet the appetite. It’s actually a reissue of a Deathbomb Arc CS from last year sometime, only with two bonus tracks from Black Pus and one from Foot Village.

The first of the unlabeled sides is Brian Chippendale’s Black Pus. Considering that Chippendale is the drummer for Lightning Bolt, it’s not difficult to see how this stuff fits right in with that aesthetic. Chippendale’s drums are crushing, pummeling along beneath walls of static, glitched out electronics and near indecipherable vocals that take electronic thrash to its most extreme conclusion. Using a variety of overdubbed electronic scribbles, Chippendale has a kinetic propulsion rarely matched, and his scrawling gestures and blown out gusto find some odd meeting ground between Rashied Ali and Merzbow. Really beautiful, cathartic stuff, as active and physical as it comes.

The Foot Village side opens with some weird, crazed spoken word stuff about me being “hungy” and how we’ll all do whatever we have to for food. Some starved stuff that really puts the ass in ass-backwards. When everyone is properly ready to race for food, the whole thing opens up into a total crushing onslaught of percussive mayhem. Just fucking manic distopia here. Full frontal assault that delves into way more chaotic territory than Friendship Nation ever did. Nice and muddy and, like the flip side, as crazed as can be. Mellows out a bit later on, with more synchronized chanting and the like, but the message is clear. Drumming and screaming are fun. I suppose the chants of “420!” suggest other things are fun as well…

The whole LP represents the onslaught that DNT has been harvesting from time to time of late, and though it may not be for the feint of heart, it does serve its purpose well. Why punch pillows when you can thrash your body about in contorted mayhem? Sounds way more fun to me.” -ear conditioned nightmare

“This will knock the plaque off your teeth and out of your arteries. Black Pus, lead by Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale is extreme noise punk in the vein of Harry Pussy. Foot Village are at their loudest and most extreme, the drums are so fucked up that it borders on noise. Excellent and extreme.” -Z Gun

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DNT047 – Deep Magic “Soul Vibration” c60 cassette
This hour-long ambient voyage will take you through time and space, float you past the constellations, and softly place you on a far distant planet where all of your troubles & worries are easily forgotten and every muscle in your body begins to slowly relax. Your only concern is for the moment the music stops, as you know it will catapult you back into reality. Edition of 100 pro-dubbed blue-shelled cassettes with cardstock covers designed by Mr. Gray.

“The last batch of DNT jewels had a lot of big names in it but it was this unassuming gem that really wowed me during my first survey of all the materials. Just when I think I’m out of the neo-new age, “psychy haze vibe zones” (as a friend recently put it) they pull me back in.
The gorgeous first twenty minutes of the tape by Alex Gray (Dreamcolour) are, well, gorgeous. It’s complete sonic anesthesia. You could give me a root canal and I’d be fine as long as this was pumpin’ in my Walkman. It’s keyboards and stuff but what Gray used to make this isn’t really important. It’s the effortless melodies he creates and the lovely, indelible arrangement of the piece. It evolves slowly but never releases its core melody that entranced you in the first place. Have you ever seen the film For All Mankind? (you should if you haven’t) This piece totally reminds me of that, witnessing pure, inescapable, indescribable, otherworldly beauty for an extended period of time. You close your eyes while listening and you’ll either melt or just glide for eternity. Deep relaxation music for sure, just a brilliant piece of work. No joke, it’s seriously therapeutic. I love this.
The rest of the side is filled out by a nice piece lead by atmospheric echoey guitar, backed by liquid keyboards. It doesn’t match the unspeakable genius of the first piece but it holds it own. I particularly like these deep bassy bass throbs that occur in the second half of the track. The real key here is that Gray manages to make music that’s weightless and still substantive.
The tape starts up again on the B-side with some placid hand drum action and smooth tones. There’s all sorts of new-agey talk about “energy” and endless reflections and “laughter in the universe” and “peaceful vibrations of the soul” on the j-card, and this piece seems to have no other goal than to emit easygoing vibes. The track doesn’t develop much, just keeps takin’ it easy. The last track resembles the second one a little bit. Heavy shroud of delay amongst others things. I think there could be some sax buried in here too as this is the murkiest piece on the tape. Not dark or dank just cloudy and all smeared together. The second half of the piece mellows slightly, running on synth fumes, before coming to a complete stop.
This is the first I’ve heard of Gray’s work as a solo artist but I was thoroughly impressed particularly with the first piece. The tape’s been sold-out for a little while so check the distros or wait for Gray to drop another atomic bliss bomb. ” -auxiliary out (http://auxiliaryout.blogspot.com/2010/08/deep-magic-soul-vibration-dnt.html)
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DNT046 – Steve Gunn/Shawn Mcmillon “End of the City” split LP
*There are cover-less copies left, email to buy a copy*
This record showcases two very talented musicians in their prime. Steve’s side clearly displays his guitar wizardry, while remaining honest and heartfelt. After several years with GHQ, Steve has sharpened his skills and it really shows. If you’ve had the pleasure of seeing him perform live, you know exactly what I mean. Shawn’s recent collaborations with Warmer Milks seep through on his side of the album. Bleaker and darker than Steve’s side, Shawn tells his tale through guitar, piano, synth and tape manipulation. It’s completely engrossing. With it’s many crooked bends and turns, it will lead you to a sort of discomforting fulfillment that gets more intense with each listen. Edition of 500 on black vinyl in a pro-printed jacket with full color artwork by Mary Kidd. Co-released with Abandon Ship & Abaddon.

“Excellent split LP featuring GHQ’s Steve Gunn on one side with an acoustic guitar figure, heavy on repetition and with a gorgeous warm sound. The sound around the guitar builds up with bowed strings and electric guitar into a lovely piece of hypnotic American blues / folk. Shawn David McMillen is a member / ex-member of Ash Castles on the Ghost, Friday Group and Iron Kite. His side explores ethnic and primitive folk in a more experimental way with barbiturate spiked accumulations of strings and metal.” -boa melody bar

“The first side belongs to Gunn, whose done some great solo work as well as stuff with GHQ and Zac Davis along the way. This is easily the best and most complete example of his vision yet though, subtly mixing folk guitar ramblings with drone, percussion, and an almost jammy bluegrass vibe that isn’t so much about drifting through space and reaching towards the cosmos as it is about slowing the pace and reaching for the cosmos (the beverage that is…). Actually naw, that’s not true, this is way more lie back in the field with scotch in hand material. The whole work takes its time too, building toward a gentle intersection of lines looped over and through one another with ad eft compositional touch. Almost a Moby Grape vibe here with the guitar angles, but far less song-based and more patient. A relaxing and rambling summer hummer that’ll have you reaching for the wheat grass and the weed grass all at once. Gunn definitely has a knack for sounding like no one else, and he never subscribes to standard modes of “experimental” guitar, instead appearing for more focused on perfecting his distinct sound, and it’s refreshing to here an artist with such a voice further pursuing his vision.

If Gunn’s side was a slow-mo stomper for the coming months, McMillen’s is the incoming Winter air which, when meshed with the warmth, is sure to cause some odd weather patterns. Not strictly using guitar, McMillen (who’s played with Warmer Milks) also pulls from piano, tapes, synth, and from the sounds of it some small percussion tactics to create a weird and disparate little composition that goes through a ton of zones. One moment there’s a strange synth garble below some almost Chopin-style piano flourishes (though far more aimless of course…) before getting increasingly distorted with an incoming choir of both people and bird chirps. A lot of weird spaces here, none of it is too claustrophobic which keeps it eerie without slipping into cliched modes. Some of this stuff even gets a bit dream-like, as shimmering sounds and voices meld together in building toward some distant and odd realm. Really effective stuff, and a great opposition to the single-minded side of Gunn. Despite its differences though, it feels just as carefully constructed and cared for, ultimately displaying just as effective and complete a voice as the counterpart on side one.” -ear conditioned nightmare

GHQ’s Steve Gunn sidles up to Shawn McMillen for the split release ‘End of the City’ (split not only by artist but by label as well, the product of three aspiring houses Abaddon, Abandon Ship, and DNT). Like one of Jackie-O Motherfucker’s live U-Sound captures, Gunn’s side is a finger-picked master’s piece of acoustic guitar set aloft a warm Om ring-spun from near eastern cousins that arc effortlessly between the polarities of Fahey and Shankar (or whichever name you prefer to drop in their stead). From my perspective a brilliantly sound construction of the leanest material, rhythmic notes are plucked like from a golden mean to reinforce the rambling though rounded melody. Delving into regular refrain, the piece continually renews its warmth in the ascension, and reifies Gunn as a rising pastoral guitarist. Conversely, McMillen’s side is total collage of four or five dominant patches of electronic malaise and captured sounds cohered (though regularly transcended into the realm of the “musical”) by piano miniatures understating more than a little talent. Strings wail and motors oscillate, guitar wheezes and harmonica breathes, voices blather self-important, and all the while a thread persists. Like the frustrated musings of a prodigy, these nineteen minutes remove the flattering shell from virtuosity to reveal an elegant though often terrifying design beneath. Harkening to one of my favorite split formulas, specifically the Growing/Mark Evan Burden (and the sonic similarity to McMillen’s side), and generally the dynamic of steady façade to a flipside of algorithmic – for sake of ignorance – abstraction, the pairing serves not only to telegraph the disparate approaches in between these oppositions but to compliment smooth physiognomy with messy genome in this weird modernity of ‘music’. Thematically, I can’t detect which city we may be bordering within/out, or what “city” really has to do with any of this (other than a glib deconstruction), but it’s good enough to say this point may be ignored to no ill effect. On black vinyl, and so very professional in every way. Edition of 500 copies.” -Animal Psi
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DNT045 – Sasqrotch/Yuko Chino split cassette
After countless outings practicing unsafe hesh, the mighty Sqrotchers have finally been burned by the evil loins of love. They have been infected with cruel, punishing, unforgiving Genre-rhea… Performed in burkas, recorded live at the smell 8-5-08. Flipside is Yuko Chino. Bedroom black metal at it’s met-lest! Current Sasqrotch bassist/guitar danny no/fi brings you Filosofem era Burzum meets Khanate & Burning Witch for a night out on the town with Shellac’s drum kit sans corpse paint & cut off jean jacket. I wish I had one of those… Art/design/layout & mastered by Danny No/Fi in an edition of 100 pro-dubbed cassettes.

“Sasqrotch side delivers punished doom ridden black metal, but don’t expect any easy BM riffs in this band. Extremely complex and nightmarish with a twist of Morricone-like epic style influence with nods to sounds like Sunn O))). But while other doom metal imitators feel the need to do “more of the same”, Sasqrotch took it to the more atmospheric and esoteric route. Other side contains new works by Yuko Chino, being the solo moniker for Sasqrotch bassist/guitarist, Danny. Much different that his main endeavor, it still draws on basic noise/black metal influences in the form of what one could figure to be a basic rehearsal jam captured to tape.” -Dusted “Still Single” Vol.5 No.9 (http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/843)

“Never got around to this split on DNT so it got tucked away for a bit, which is a real shame considering the content therein. Splitting the action between two groups, the split explores some of the darkest territory a DNT release has contained, splitting the bill between the awesomely named Sasqrotch and Yuko Chino, the side project of Sasqrotch bassist and guitar player Danny.

The first side is given over to the group effort, whose doom laden drone rock is thick and soupy as guitar wails are sent spiraling down into the vortex. It’s a grizzly scene to be sure, but it does contain a certain intimacy and bedroom charm (though I suppose that’s only the case if you can find the same in the likes of Robedoor or some other dark droners). The difference I suppose is that this isn’t really drone so much as chiseled down rock forms, more in line with Sunn 0))) if they were to loosen their grip. Sax wails scream something creepily close to “Taps” as played from Uncle Sam’s grave while crazy ghoulish howls emerge from the black. Totally heavy material here, with a definite end-of-days, dirge-like vibe. Even when it gets quieter, hunkering down into its lonely gloom, the terror is only amplified. Then the drums drop. And now Sasqrotch, cloaks in hand, display their true colors as the doom-metal scream heads that they are. And it is heavy as a black hole and expansive and just totally ruling.

If you expected anything less from the Yuko Chino side, then the first sign you were right would be the cheerily innocent child singing like he’s along some god forsaken gumdrop road. The first sign you were wrong would be the leaving of said child in favor of a minor melodic progression that is soon overlaid with the most shreddingest guitar loop ever. The bass and drums come next, and all too soon this thing has worked itself into a dark instrumental realm for harsh effected vocals to scream across like a razor to canvas. Raw as can be. Next comes the buzzing, which is accompanied by guitar twang and heavy bass oscillations while feared whispers turn into screams. Just bleak as hell, and totally killer.

Super nice split and another success from DNT. The two sides fit right in next to each other but be warned. This ain’t break up music. It’s breakdown music. ” -ear conditioned nightmare

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DNT044 – Pipeline Alpha “Darking Lights of Mazil” cassette
Dark chills from Germany’s Marcel Seeck aka Pipeline Alpha. Who has been under the radar for a few years now, with past releases on the Ruralfaune label and his own label Amid the Waves and here is his American debut. A forgotten dream of an archaic astral bardo. Boggy whisperings like an unfurled book of spells embeds you. Edition of 55 pro-dubbed cassettes with spraypainted/stenciled cases. 45 48 wave 616

“Just when I thought DNT had released some of the weirdest and most diverse recording this planet had to offer, they go ahead and slip out a nice gem by the moniker of Pipeline Alpha. PA seems to have crawled from the cutting room floor of The Conet Project and threw itself through enough effects processors and gristleizers to make one wonder what planet this is from. Spare keyboard drones overlaying countless drones, creepy samples, musique concrete inspired field recordings and freaky vocal experiments.” -Dusted “Still Single” Vol.5 No.9 (http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/843)

“Whoa doggie! Yet ANOTHER DNT series is out already, and this time the suddenly prolific Tynan unloads one of his murkiest runs yet.

Thought I’d start with this one from Pipeline Alpha. Had to go over seas for this one, enlisting Germany’s Marcel Seeck, who apparently has had some stuff put out on Ruralfaune and also does stuff on his own Amid the Waves label. Hadn’t heard/heard of his stuff before now, so here goes.

Side one opens with “Nagelfar in an Icier Lull,” which sort of scoots along with some weird, icy drones and odd gobbley-gook cauldron bubble. A serious Phantom of the Opera castle vibe here, only fed through some Vodka Soap/Dolphins into the Future approach. Slips right into the hushing”shhhs” of “Seth in Deserts,” where some weird chant is said all shroud like. Could just be that I don’t speak German, but this whole thing has that same Halloween vibe that Heath Moreland put out on that “Shrieks and Creaks” cassette a while back. Nice and airy instrumentation here, fog horns, slipping electronic gagunks, electronic neo-space/undersea urchin material. Some sax line quietly reverberating around, real simple and not jazzy at all. Just plain spaced out, with only the tiniest little rhythm pushing things into more mantra-like, head-nod/kneading grounds. Some real fertile ground here. Third and last track on the side, “Anubis Cures Aschmodaii,” continues in this aesthetic realm; lots of dark greens mingling around, with some bass heavy droning beneath the metallic stutters.

Side two only has two sides, which lets the whole thing sit a bit more uneasily. “Zusa” starts things in similar fashion, with long horn-like drones shot through some mountain pass. There’s evil in the air style. Never really arrives though, maintaining a nice, ominous vibe that rests easy in stagnant discomfort. It’s where the worry resides. Under the drones there are some truly glitched out, warm gook, not unlike the sticky-icky harnessings of Sam Goldberg’s material. “Dark City” is even more ambient, with a nice pseudo industrial, muddled radio transmissions vibe.

Sweet cover too, but limited to 55 so snaggeth quick.” -ear conditioned nightmare

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DNT043 – Uneven Universe “Nightcrawler Walls” cassette
Dan (Haunted Castle/Body Morph) and Holly acquired saxes awhile back and things haven’t been the same since. Dank basement sax murk collides with bleak tape howls. Hand-numbered edition of 100 pro-dubbed ivory cassettes with skeleton imprinting. Cover artwork by Macklin Vietor.

“This tape seems to start off pretty slow and confused as to what direction this could possibly take, but that mystery soon reveals itself after a good minute into this release. Echoed sax drone perfectly layered on top of minimal soundscapes, very reminiscent of early Nurse With Wound with a strain of John Olsen/Wolf Eyes free drone jazz rhythms. It ebbs and flows into sparse and creepy structures which could only feel right in the dark, wet basement of last night’s taco-induced bad dream. Highly recommended.” -Dusted “Still Single” Vol.5 No.9 (http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/843)

“Haunted Castle’s a name a lot of people know about, but lately that unit’s Dan and Holly have been putting out more stuff under their new Uneven Universe project. Opting for the basement sax-electronics rig, the duo put out some serious no-go jams that fit right in with that whole midwest sound. This new DNT offering serves up a mighty slab well worth digging into.

Opening with some electronic screech, it doesn’t take long for the saxes to come in, bending around and echoing about behind aquarium bubbles. Keeping the skronk in control, Dan and Holly opt for an emphasize on taut unity of feel, with virtually every sax line serving as further textural drive to the electronic slashing. That bass low-end cranking keeps things as dismal as possible, but there’s some lively interplay here as the sax’s delay sends it bouncing about in the murky waters and buzzing click-clack of dismembered tape loops. Some beautiful moments come of it too, when the elctronics slink back to almost nothing and the sax moves about in lyrical dissonance only to be punctuated by some screeching oscillation or distant cargo carrier bellow.

I guess this stuff could be compared to a group like Graveyards or Slither, but in my eyes it’s a bit more Handicapper Horns style. Staying away from being too jazzy or low-end constructivist, the unit keep things intimate and fairly personal despite the apparent coldness of the atmosphere itself. It’s imrpov without being “improv,” staying noisey enough that there are genuinely unexpected moments of total morticious terror as well as stretches of immense softness and beauty. Has to be a killer live show.

I could really go on and on about this as this is a sound I can really get behind, but instead I’ll just suggest you find something by them, especially as they seem to have releases popping up everywhere right now. This cassette’s sold out from DNT, but he says to e-mail if you’re looking for it, and I’m sure Tomentosa’s got a copy. Worth watching, very playful and thoughtful without trying so hard as to become sterile. And you gotta love the skeleton print on the tape, it’s too perfect. ” -ear conditioned nightmare blog

“The kids of Haunted Castle have dusted off their Uneven Universe banner for this release, but the jams here sound like they might have emanated from an actual haunted castle. The A side blends a tumbling, regurgitated hum with sounds of gurgling water, but that swirling bed of sound is quickly overthrown by shrieks of feedback. The eerie howls of a hotly mic-ed saxophone penetrate the din, exploding in brief bursts of far-out free jazz skronk. While, at first, this piercing sound is more than a little offsetting, it slowly begins to develop and draw the listener back in. With the use of the water sounds and dissonance, Uneven Universe are summoning the same sort of vibes as the Nevari Butchers tape from earlier last year. But here it isn’t oppressive – it’s almost welcoming. The side is sparse at times, allowing the sax sounds to really stretch out, heaving and flailing as they are overcome with delay. The wonderful thing is that, between each bleat, you can hear those plaintive wails fade out into an infinite silence. The B side picks up with more lonely sax calls, but here they’re kept on a tight leash, constantly being sucked back into the din by waves of distortion and effects. As the dark, watery electronics bubble and stagnate, the sax squals struggle to push through the murk of clicks and electronic gargle. With the nautical sounds going on, the sax starts to sound like the lonely call of a fog horn and the churning electronics like the engine of a overworked tugboat. This is a really solid release that nails a very specific, desolate vibe. It’s also a great peek into what’s going on in the scene if you’re not really into harsh “noise” releases. Released in an edition of 100 with the amazing artwork we’ve come to expect from the folks at DNT Records.” -c60 radio

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DNT042 – Family Underground “Helium Rug” 1-sided LP $10
Denmark’s drone demons release another one. A helium rug would float, which is exactly what your melted mind will do while listening to this record. Whistling blown by the birds of hell. This has been in the works for quite some time. Originally intended to come out last summer on their US tour, but we didn’t want to flood the market (they already had 3 LPs coming out the same time). Edition of 299 on black vinyl with bi-color stencil on b-side. The front cover is what you will look like after listening to this. Your mind will split open unleashing the helium rug from within. Screenprinted covers. Artwork by Zachary Fleming.

“Edition of 299 copies limited edition LP w/screenprinted covers from these Danish heads, driving a spike through the sound of post-Velvets fuzz-dosed oblivion and levitating a whole warehouse full of singing drone via electronics, guitar and tunnels of subterranean wow. Heavy Kosmiche-via-UK bedroom vibe to this which is extremely sticky.” -volcanic tongue

“The best thing to come out of Denmark other than pastries is are droners Family Underground (Phil would argue bacon too but I don’t dig on swine). So the Family have a top one sided LP on DNT. ‘Helium Rug’ comes in a mouth watering silk screened sleeves. One side of the record has been sprayed with spray paint and the other has some way out psychedelic shit going off. They take it way beyond the drone with swirling harmonics and super freaky furry alien sounds. Pretty damn sweet…” (norman records)

“Spindly, tense drone from the Family, rattling with a mechanical anxiety throughout one side of a 12” record. The piece takes a little while to reach its full impact, but is fairly busy and interesting once it gets there, as guitar-based tones give way to pit yowling and a semblance of rhythm beating against the walls of the silo that holds it. 299 numbered copies, silkscreened sleeve, painted B-side; ultimately one more patch for the many holes in your life.” -dusted

“Denmark dronesters Family Underground are an elusive bunch, but their consistently dazed fields of industrial lurch are prominent enough. With releases all over the map (Not Not Fun, Weird Forest, all over really…) the group has a way with dense, thickly metallic drone works that manage to boil the mind right over.Helium Rug is a single-sided effort for DNT that especially hits the mark as far as these folks are concerned. This is rich and vibrant stuff that manages to both sound mechanic and utterly organic at the same time. Mixing thick, silver drones with rattling maraca, steady hand drum, and vocal moans, the side manages to pull of the same sort of time-bent delirium that some of MV/EE’s stuff does, only through utterly disparate means. The percussive backbone, to which the drones and vocals seem to pay no mind, gives the track a kind of tribal vibe despite its imagery conjuring something closer to stealth jets cruising overhead. The Skaters-y vocal yalps, heavily effected, mesh beautifully as the piece slowly bends itself into less propulsive territory. The whole thing actually morphs into a pretty messy cosmic stew, burning away in total delirium. Everything is off here, the percussion playing among themselves while shelves of drone melt across each other over top and odd cat calls blend into some alternate space the likes of which few drone artists are able to carve out for themselves.Walloping organ drones start to fill the mix, initiating a new slant for the side that starts to sound a bit like James Ferraro covering the Fugs. Weird stuff, but these guys sure have a grip on what they’re doing. Absolutely beautiful screened cover art too, some of DNT’s best, not to mention the pink spray job on side 2. Sure to get your money’s worth too, as this single side is looong so’s you can get lost in it right proper. Well worth finding.” -ear conditioned nightmare

“I hadn’t heard anything for a little while from Copenhagen’s Family Underground, certainly one my favorite drone acts ever, so it was good to see what these three have been up to. The first sound that jumps out of Helium Rug is a very metallic flickering of frequencies. I don’t know it for a fact but this sounds like live-style Family Underground—heavy vibrations and a non-drum but percussive presence (usually a guitar). I really like the percussive element here, there’s a looped pattern of hollow-sounding noises as well as a slashing metallic clanging which sounds to me like what a home-made hi-hat would sound like. After a minute or two the layers and layers of drones lock in with the groove and further, vocal-sounding layers are added. At some point the record hits a locked groove in middle, though I’m not sure if that’s intentional or not.
I’ve always liked that the Family use varying sound sources—guitars, pedals, vocals, other—and pull out very analogous, complementing sounds that all combine in a sweltering feast of noise. Most of their recent stuff I’m recalling had a pretty dense, round low-end tunneling quality but this piece has a bright tonal quality with a lot of rough edges. It’s like a garage drone band or something. Towards the end a pulsing bit of electronics pushes things along nicely and the piece has a rather modest but significant conclusion. This record is worth checking out if only for the documentation of this phase of their sound. They still sound undoubtedly “Family Underground” but this represents a contrast to the vibe of a lot of their other works in my opinion.
Helium Rug came out in an edition 299 and is sold out at source but I’m sure you could still scrounge up a copy somewhere with a little bit of effort. The art is great, and fitting for Family Underground, the cover is a screen printed clusterfuck of lines and the back has minimal info stamped in smeared metallic gold ink. Also the non-playable side of the LP is spray painted with neon crop circles or something.” -auxillary out

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DNT041 – Ducktails/Mudboy “Summer of Saucers” split cassette
Well the summer is coming to an end now and I can’t think of a better way to end it than with this tape, “Summer of Saucers”. The A-Side is Providence’s Raphael Lyon, better known as Mudboy. The side starts off by the lakeside, and you can hear frogs and geese nearby. It slowly builds up with keyboards coming into the picture before fading back to where it started. Lazy day at the river. It is also part one of his “Impossible Duets” series of songs. The flipside is New Jersey’s Matt Mondanile aka Ducktails. Ducktails has been described by someone as “ectoplasmic and cartoonishly cosmic bliss” and with song titles such as “Chill Jam” and “Sun Out My Window” you’ll be apt to agree. Colourful conehead artwork by George W. Myers of Grey Skull/Breaking World Records. In an edition of 100 pro-dubbed blue tapes.

“Very odd pairing here, but it’s the unexpected that you come to expect from DNT. Mudboy does his typical best to confuse his listeners, starting off what sounds to be field recordings of perhaps himself lost in some sort of swamp (though it’s understood that this environment is indeed his “collaborator”), setting up the backdrop for what later develops on this tape, of which I can only call “swamp ambient.” Chattering, chirping, electronic frog drone and pulsing hum load up his side. On the flip, we have some fairly worthwhile composition from Ducktails, more of the dreamy electro-drone-pop with the hypnotic effects that they have come to popularize amongst contemporaries like Emeralds and Pocahaunted. No new ground is broken here, but some good jams no less.” -Dusted “Still Single” Vol.5 No.9 (http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/843)

“Just got the latest batch in from DNT-meister Tynan, featuring an LP from Black Pus and Foot Village as well as a Bobb Bruno tape. First in my deck was this one though, judging from the last Mudboy 7” I heard as well as all the hype (and killer myspace tracks) from Ducktails’ Matt Mondanile. It’s a New England lounge delight, providing two different takes on kicking back and calling it a day.

The Mudboy side opts for the more contemplative back porch brewsky approach. Opening with some low murmur and a bunch of nature samples–birds, frogs, crickets–they all mix together before electronic murmurs start to zip around, thickening things up a bit. This nice bass growl keeps a steady pace to the whole work as it drifts–or rather, crawls–along, sounds panning all over with rich stretching and long delays. Nothing like that remix 7″ at all, much more pensive and earthly, though hardly without its own droning playfulness. Rather than pulling from the new age angle for its beauty, like so many artists are wont to do lately, Mudboy opts to keep things skittering and hushed, like a soundtrack for some vegetable garden late at night when all the snails and crickets and slugs really have at those morsels under the moon. Or it could be one small cross section of a rain forest floor, an investigation of each little creature and plant that comes to inhabit the area underneath some star-lit palm leaf. Much smaller than the journeyman, Heart of Darkness jungle vibe more commonly presented. As the track drifts off we here the crunching of footsteps in the woods, a fitting close to this lonesome trek.

Ducktails is Matt Mondanile, also of Predator Vision, a Hampshire grad with a typically west coast, sun-drenched tropical take on the whole sound. Here, fitting in quite nicely with Mudboy’s side, Mondanile starts with a bassy, navy colored sprawl before synthesized washes of notes glide their way across building themselves up into trance inducing rhythmic motives that ride, just brightly enough to see, across the looping bass sky. Departing from the Corona-in-hand approach of the Breaking World Records 7″, Ducktails shifts the setting from day-lit, shades on chill-out to sandy night time ship watching. Cliffs of rhythms build, swaying along as more and more textures are added–a flute now, 80s electronic piano–before, out of nowhere, the whole thing is cut off in favor of a more beat oriented tropical meltdown that still can’t remove itself from the cool summer night atmosphere of the previous track. Maybe this is the soundtrack to the end of some all night coming of age movie. Of course that too must end, in favor of a much more contemplative Miami detective soundtrack, drifting along and losing its bearings as the scenes overtake the matter at hand. Or dig the solo guitar work of the next track, somehow meshing right in with it all.

It’s another super release from DNT, featuring some of the better work I’ve heard from these two, though I confess my experience is limited. Still, it’s unusual for a split tape to work s well as a whole, but both these dudes manage to keep the summer breeze alive as October comes to a close and the leaves start falling. Beautiful work from a label that only gets better. Nice work all around.” -ear conditioned nightmare
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DNT040 – “Caked Paradise” zine/compilation cdr SOLD OUT
Guess what everybody? DNT has now been around for two years! This is the compilation to celebrate it! Who wants cake? Totally (not really) in the making since last year’s birthday comp. This one tops it for certain. Drone cake batter by Warmth & Quilts. Psychedelic icing by Moonmilk. The socks that grandma always gives you by German. Stringed folk-balloons by The North Sea & Nomen Dubium. Pink the tail on the donkey by Plankton Wat. Melted ice cream by The Mighty Acts of God. Art by: Puff & Magic, Dean Sullivan, Zach McCraw of Night Wound fame, Matt Maceda, and Zach Fleming. Writing by DJ Rick (Art for Spastics), Eric Hesson (maan), Matt Maceda, and Jon Isaac plus reviews of the past years releases, by Z-Gun, Animal Psi, Britt Brown of Cassette Gods & more. Plus then it’s like, flip to the back bro and pop in the disk (remember when ‘disc’ was spelled with a k? what changed that?). Anyway, full-color art for some of it, black ink-colored paper for the rest of it. In a ‘dvd’ case with birthday stencils and invisible cake. Hand numbered out of 150. Eat up!
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DNT039 – Tad “Path to the Dutchie” cassingle
Golden neural pathways spark up with the debut cassingle by Tad. Not to be confused with the grunge band from the 90s, this Tad is closer to King Tubby. Dubby daycare of animals breaking loose from the zoo. Perfect tape for zoning out to and thinking that it is still summer. Pro-dubbed tapes, shrink-wrapped with artwork by Matt Lock (puffandmagic.com), edition of 100.

“Tad (not the local grunge mofos) is the musical moniker of Tynan Krakoff, perhaps better known as the CEO of DNT Records. His debut Path to the Dutchie is dub through and through. And I don’t been “dubby,” lots of bands are that but this tape is creatively and faithfully dub.
The first side is the title track which blinks to a start with synth blips and some groovy-ass organ. Krakoff unleashes one of the most monster motherfucking grooves I’ve heard in a while. The melody is straight-up infectious and Krakoff couches it in an ever-shifting sound world of heavily effected keyboards, guitar and drum programming and also plenty of oddities (I swear there is a sample from NFL Blitz in here.) It’s flat out amazing and gets out of yr hair quickly. This would be sad except the flip side “Version” is probably an even better rendition. Making good use of a reverb-laden melodica, this side takes the previous side’s infectious melody and turns it inside out. While the melody holds down the jam, Krakoff sets about, in true dub fashion, to live delay pedal knob twiddling of percussion samples, trumpeting elephants, cackling dolphins and, I don’t know, some insane monkeys or something. Totally out of left field and yet totally loveable.
This thing is about the perfect cassingle. Not just because the music is great but because the two tracks sound so great looped back to back over and over. Vinyl ain’t gonna do that for you. Having to flip the record over constantly would make it a chore, and I’m pretty sure Tad would come out fiercely against chores. This tape has been out for two months and I ain’t sick of this bad boy yet; I am starting to doubt I ever will be. Absolutely recommended.” – http://auxiliaryout.blogspot.com/2011/02/tad-path-to-dutchie-dntal.html
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DNT038 – Nomen Dubium “The Bering Sea” cassette
Nomen Dubium (aka Zachary Fleming) and I have been sharing music for quite some time now. And although I’ve always enjoyed his music, it’s never quite fit in to the DNT-framework, but I’ve always been waiting for something that did. So when he sent me this song, I was excited and eagerly awaiting more. Well, now this tape is complete and ready for the world! He did the artwork too! Black cassettes with labels also designed by him. Limited to 50.

“Apparently this is one of Tynan’s friends, and the dude’s first tape. It’s not bad. Reminds me a lot of that Pillars of Heaven CS from several reviews back. Woozy one-man loop-scapes…lots of echo, oscillating tones, loosely new age hazy electronics beauty. Never gets too intense or purposeful, but I guess it’s less wishy-washy than some stuff in this genre.”- Cassette Gods (http://cassettegods.blogspot.com/)
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DNT037 – Super Minerals “The Piss” cassette
New cassette by Long Beach’s Super Minerals, which is Phil and William from psych band Magic Lanterns. “The Piss” takes a different route than ML using murky drones and faint cries for help. Heavily influenced by old zombie films. Limited to 75 hand numbered copies on piss yellow cassettes with gross hairy label art. Red fishy cover art with yellow splatter.

Ear Condtioned Nightmare Review (too long to post here)

“Disposing of theme, if not the maritime for their subsequent release and first cassette, the pair begin ‘The Piss’ through something of a transition, with fishbone cover art and the rocking docks of “Viral Cycles” suggesting a excursion landed in fetid water. The looping rhythm of the track reveals itself as mechanical in nature on “Sativa Dungeon” – really a greasy oscillation of noise like brute Futurism – but all around this stinking vessel we hear the stagnant sounds of gaseous swamp and thick, howling air. As the oscillation grows older, it inscribes itself into each track as the reels of the cassette turn. The self-referential pairing “They Said It Couldn’t Be Done” and “Done” appear as grafts of live jam, with flutes, bass skronk, and vocal passages sequenced in a motley and gap-toothed procession, as though only player could make one sound at a time. Wishy-washes of processed sound grow louder and with a lazy chimed accompaniment, serve to envelope what remains of the final two tracks, a true head-scratching psychedelia. Side B begins with the tomahawk percussion of “Reuptake”, what could be a current Excepter out-take with shambles of white tribalism and deep beatnik vocals. The guitar squalls of “High Spear Trial” are the first of its kind for this tape – a blistering episode blended nicely into a babbling procession of blistered oscillation – hopefully to be more employed on future releases. As a cassette claiming 14 tracks in 30 minutes, and with little duty to defined boundaries, it’s difficult to label the entries of spacious, whistling feedback of amp adjustment, the jogging séance of our two vocalists, or the bleating wire-tap of over-fed cables without pick-ups; given titles like “Futurelife”, “Slaughter & Loss”, and “Descended Swarm of the Undead”, it is clear the boys intend these brief expressions to remain just that, a folder of sketches. Compared to the (illusory?) more developed tracks of the front end, these and the final, self-titled track seem to trail away in a counter-intuitive move, lacing alone elements of the previous pieces with greater spacing, until nothing but the mechanical churn remains. On piss-colored tapes with labels, spattered cases, insert and color art – hand-numbered to 75.” -animal psi
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DNT036 – Moonmilk “Hidden Speech” cassette SOLD OUT
Lia Tsamoglou and Kell Derrig-Hall make up this Australian drone duo. Umm..tape effects and dronescapes. partial field recordings? If I were good at writing descriptions I’d write like 10 pages on how good this tape is..but uh, yeah.. Anyway, crazy swirly intricate black and white cover art design by Zachary Fleming (who also comprises 100% of the project Nomen Dubium) in a DIY shrinkwrapped case with label-maker labels and red cassettes. Hand-numbered and limited to 100 copies. ‘Poof!

“Moonmilk is Lia and Kell and they find frequencies they like and let them oscillate in muted stasis for several minutes, then add a high-pitched whine, or an extra layer of radio static, or a stereo-panned air conditioning unit, then fade out. Despite the name, there’s very little lunar or milky about the proceedings here. More of a numb, mechanistic sleepwalking vibe to these recordings, like a field recording of an electronics reply shop in the Valley after midnight…just one or 2 tired individuals slowly dealing with dusty machinery. The B side is twice as loud and ten times more new age (well, the first half is anyway…then the rotating turbines get turned back on), so I prefer it on principle.”- Cassette Gods (http://cassettegods.blogspot.com/)
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DNT035 – Mudboy “MuDMuX Volume One” 7″
This is the first installment of a series of 7″‘s to be released by
various labels. Each record contains a single track on each side
by a different band- produced, mixed, orchestrated, destroyed,
mutilated and brought back to life by the dark dreams of Mr. mudboy.
Side A of this first edition features an unearthed file by the
Extreme Animals resurrected as a tribute to “Lil John Carpenter.”
Percussion by Jeremy Lazy “animal” Magnet Harris.
Side B is a devastating whirlpool cliff walk based on a song written
and sung by the DarkDarkDark band. Backup fingers by Alec K Redfearn
of the Eyesores fame.
Cover art is a hand made blue and gold 4 pass silkscreen by R Lyon in collaboration with Kevin Hooyman. Limited to
535.

“Garbled remixes of material recorded by Extreme Animals and Dark Dark Dark, committed by a typically jumpy Providence based polymath. The packaging is a goddamn riot of colours and textures. As to the music, well the A side is the most spunked-out cartoon soundtrack around, and the flip is dolorously recut accordian blues.” (September 2008 Issue of Wire Magazine)

“Eccentrics seem to gravitate to the organ. From the straightlaced
dudes romping on movie house pipe organs to soul masters like Timmy
Thomas to underground heroes like Quintron, the keys off an odd home.
Mudboy is the name now burbling about the organ underworld. His album
on Not Not Fun is a great mind blitz. Here he embarks on what is to be
the beginning of a series of him screwing around with other people’s
songs. On Mudmux he remixes or adds to or something songs by the
Extreme Animals and DarkDarkDark for one eerie ballad of sorts and a
tune that resembles an outtake from a soundtrack of odd movie music.” -SS (Z-Gun)

“You gotta check this Mudboy sleeve. It’s all lovely and hand made and painted with lovely metallic paint and everything. It seems Mudboy have a habit of having records in wicked sleeves. ‘MuDmUX’ is just kicking in with its intense drums and lovely John Carpenter synth sound that does the business for me as i love John Carpenter. There’s clattering moments and then gentle breakdowns with trippy electronics This is way cool and you so need a piece of it.” -(norman records)

“Resuscitated remixes by organ grinder Mudboy of Extreme Animals and DarkDarkDark. To say he makes an improvement on either is modest; that he may have found the key within his own keys to make these pieces more meaningful than they’d be on their own is more like it. Doesn’t take too many left turns, but instead focuses on the inherent spookiness of the tracks themselves, and builds on their very present “circus just left town” motif. 535 copies, blue vinyl, impressive silkscreened sleeves. Other labels have committed to releasing future installments of these remixes.” -dusted

“The first in an ongoing series of remixes, arrangements and demolitions of other peoples’ tracks, MUDMUX was the first I’d heard of Mudboy. As far as I can tell, Mudboy’s based out of the lively Providence scene, but this is hardly Lightning Bolt material. Rather, Mudboy plays the organ, whether it be old school Wurlitzer style (he hunkered down to the most epicly ornate organ I’ve ever seen at a free show at the Providence Performing Arts Center) or his own contraption, the “Mudboy Minnie,” which is basically a small organ hooked up to a Yamaha FM synth. He’ll even make you one for a cool grand if you want. Actually worth checking out his little website, it seems to give a bit of insight into his unique approach.

As I said though, this is the first in a planned series, each one released by a different label with a different color scheme. I should start by saying that Tynan over at DNT did a great job with the packaging here. I mean look at that cover, it’s super intricate. I guess he enlisted the apparently substantial screen printing talents of R Lyon and Kevin Hooyman so cheers to them. The blue vinyl only adds to it.

As for the sounds, the first side is a remix of some Extreme Animals midi file called “RockRapPopRocks,” which Mudboy claims was originally recorded onto a floppy disc! The remix is retitled “Lil John Carpenter Tribute Song.” I don’t know who Lil John Carpenter is, but this is some tribute. Starting off with a kind of pseudo-techno bass beat, the thing builds itself into real midi mayhem. It’s pretty dancey stuff on the surface, but given that I have no idea which sounds are coming from Extreme Animals and which aren’t, I don’t really know who’s doing what here. It’s like some glitched out video game score, with the clattering and, well, muddy drums of–dig this name–Jeremy Lazy Animal Magnet Harris adding a weird sort of dementia to the whole thing. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say that all of the odd electronics in the background, lurching around like some manic circus sideshow score, are Mudboy making what once had to be a pretty grooving number a weird disfigured freak of the hipster dance party.

The B side is another cover from a band I had only heard of to this point, DarkDarkDark. The original track was called “Come Home,” and it seems the new one is too, though who knows why he would rename one and not the other. Consisancy is over-rated I guess. That said, this one’s super weird. Odd little girl vocals a la Joanna Newsom are meshed with the accordion additions of Nona Marie Dark to create a super weird street performance diddy. The whole thing keeps slowing down and getting more and more looming, eventually warping from sun-shiny Shirley Temple stylings into a dark little sea chanty as sung by the captain’s crippled daughter. The voice, despite the subtle background textures and increasingly warped accordion lines, maintains some semblance of it’s cutesy delivery, cutting through the murk no matter how slow it gets until the very end, when everything is broken down to such a degree that the digital signals start to reveal themselves–a grim fade out indeed. The “backup fingers,” whatever that means, are provided by Alec K Redfearn of the Eyesores.

It’s all very beautifully mixed and Mudboy clearly has a talent for putting his own touches on things without completely destroying the integrity of the songs themselves. Though the originals sound like they probably aren’t exactly my bag, Mudboy keeps it interesting and intensely oddball–this is clearly someone with a grasp on their aesthetic. The next edition of the series will be orange and called Dub This! which sounds a little more like my style. Given what he did with this material, I’d love to see where he takes that one.” -Ear Conditioned Nightmare

spanish review

“This is another single I got a little confused at what speed it’s meant to be heard…it’s certainly frantic enough at 45, but 33 sounds just a little too slow, so 45 is what I’m sticking with…..it’s more bent elecronic-y.
Immediately this is really creating some kind of 90’s horror movie theme tension, like any good John Carpenter soundtrack…. combined with all kinds of clipped and cut up beats behind panning back and forth. Quiet sinister wind howling, breathy noises and I think there’s a conversation …or some kind of human voices somewhere in the mix.
Apparently this was an old midi file unearthed on a floppy from what I’m getting was a previous project from mudboy called Extreme Animals(?). Or maybe he just knew them to get permission to use this? This track originally entitled ‘Raprockpoprocks’ now dubbed ‘Lil John Carpenter Tribute Song’, which leads me to believe there’s some lil’ John samples/influence in there somewhere, along with the mixed in metal clanging, and cymbal crashing which pokes out over the synth line every few measures.
It increasingly gets electronic and glitchy and takes you out back where it started on slow deliberate synth bassline.
The B-side takes you in a completely different direction…originally by the DarkDarkDark band called ‘Come Home’…it’s all accordion and slow vocals from Nona Marie Dark. Another ominous track Mudboy devolves into tempo bending slowness by the end, drawing out a single word for seconds, turning them spectral. The voice turned ghostly entity who is asking you to come home…but probably by now means come home to die. The vocals are two different takes layered across channels with real huge separation. I’m getting the feeling Mudboy tends to take things on a dark path, and gravitates towards working this kind of thing.
The DNT packaging as always is amazing…this is no exception…the printed sleeve is ultra thick ink and almost seeps through the other side…real handmade and one of a kind.” -7inches blog

“I’ll start by saying that this 7inch is absolutely phenomenal in every way. The music, the art/packaging—all top notch. Now that is out of the way, I can get to the music. Side A is titled “Lil John Carpenter Tribute Song” which is a pretty great name because it describes the song perfectly. Eerie organ/electric piano riffs but with a major groove. The pristinely constructed keyboard parts are offset by trashcan percussion rumblings courtesy of someone called Jeremy Lazy Animal Magnet Harris. If that person is also Lazy Magnet then I saw him play a long time ago, if not then I don’t know who he is. That’s beside the point though. This track is somehow a resurrection of a MIDI file of an Extreme Animals’ song “RockRapPopRocks” that was recorded onto a floppy disk. I’m not familiar with Extreme Animals, but somehow I feel that even if I was I would have no idea how the whole MIDI floppy disk thing translated into this. This track is amazing. It’s moody and catchy as hell and through the 100 times I’ve probably played it’s never gotten old. Things start with a grouping of keyboard lines and the track just builds through its duration piling on more and more warbly, grooving keys, weird electronic sounds, cut up percussion, the works. Totally brilliant. The flipside is “Come Home”, which is based on a song by a band called DarkDarkDark. Vocals and main accordion are credited to Nona Marie Dark, so I’m guessing this isn’t a “remix” and she recorded her part specifically for this piece. This song is much different than the A-side but just as great. First of all, this appears to be a wonderfully well-written song so credit to Dark for that. She has a beautiful, expressive voice and the loping, smoky accordion is a perfect accompaniment to her voice. Mudboy plays it very minimally to his credit here. He places the vox/accordion front and center and then places little details throughout the track and subtly manipulates the voice and accordion. The track vacillates between folk/pop song structure and extended, almost drone-like passages. It all culminates with Dark’s electronically colored vocals over pulsing electronic loops. Another brilliant piece that, after all the times I’ve listened to it, is always fresh and inspiring and gorgeous. One of the best releases of the year. MUDMUX Vol. 1 has a foldout 4 pass silkscreen cover by R. Lyon and Kevin Hooyman with a radiant, fitting color scheme and it comes with a very informative insert. The 7inch itself is crystal blue with cool silver/graphite grey labels. Utterly fantastic, and only 5.50 postpaid. Mudboy really inspires the best in labels I guess.” -auxiliary out

“Raphael Lyon outta Providence, RI.???? He does odd electronics & such using his own hand crafted organ.?? This 7??? is experimental & strangely beautiful.?? Let???s start shall we?…

Put a popcorn popper on overload & grind on an 8-bit organ.?? Don???t push it too far.?? Just let those buttery kernels explode over the crash cymbals & plodding organ rhythms.?? Throw in a bit of melodic riffs, simple electronics & give it a sense of danger.?? That oughtta do the trick for SIDE A.

SIDE B is a little more wacky??? uh, make that drugged out Bruce Haack & Miss Nelson kiddie time weirdo wacky.?? Cutesy little kids singing about happiness tainted by bittersweet sadness & longing.?? Lonely accordion bellows draw out the melancholy.?? These tykes hazy voices grow increasingly lethargic & drowsier as the music warps, slowly stretches & turns groggy.?? These little bastards are sick on opium & might be eerily close to being snuffed out.?? Bizarre.” -KFJC http://spidey.kfjc.org/?p=3398

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DNT034 – Plankton Wat “Alchemy Of Darkness” cassette
Solo project of Dewey Mahood of Eternal Tapestry. “Plankton Wat is a beautiful, graceful thing of looped and picked acoustic guitar, following a wander-glimmer-drone structure that psych fans in Portland should be well aquainted with. With barely any of the cacophony or aggression Eternal Tapestry sometimes builds to…[this album] beckons us to fall back into our own head. Not the busy part–the worry and chaos cortex–but, the part that I’ve had a hell of a time finding lately, the pocket where our thoughts go when we’re perfectly happy to just drift and stare.” (Willamette Week description of PW). Edition of 100 on pro-dubbed red tapes, with art by Dewey Mahood.

“Plankton Wat is Dewey from Eternal Tapestry’s solo guise where he sits in a chair, oils up his wah pedal, and goes to fucking town. Total one-man instrumental space-drift raga-blues with an emphasis on delay (reverse and regular), wah, and brain-ooze. One could make the claim that there’s a lot of this kinda stuff flying around out there on the information superhighway but in truth you could really say that about anything, so that doesn’t hold much water for me. To my ears, this is the best Plankton outing I’ve yet heard, great grey mood rings flashing with shadows of color and layers of refracted light, gently picked strings, bursts of hypnotizing distortion, falling leaves of echo and hush. Would be nice to lay on yr back on a fucked up rug and have Dewey serenade you with these blissed, blue ballads. Could use a pillow too, as long as we’re dreaming.” -bb (Cassette Gods)

“On Alchemy of Darkness, Dewey Mahood of Eternal Tapestry takes us on a sloshy, interstellar ride filled with waves of wah-ed out electric guitar. Bringing to mind some of the acid-bluesy explorations of Matt Valentine and the electric ripples of Tom Carter, Mahood has crafted an album that is as simple as it is otherworldly.The first side starts slowly with tentative, measured guitar figures that are slowly bathed in reverb, becoming more and more prolonged as they begin to overlap. These gorgeous overlapping ripples begin to take on an edge, with a slight bite of distortion keeping the whole mess from drifting off into the ether. Continuously refracting into gorgeous peaks and valleys, this wonderfully long first side is finished off with more steel string guitar bathed in ambience. As the jams on the second side of Alchemy of Darkness rock and sway in the waves trailing from Mahood’s ever-spacey guitar, the dreamy mood that makes this tape so wonderful becomes comforting and warm. With such gorgeous execution and flow, Alchemy of Darkness becomes one massive, droning meditation that won’t be leaving my tape deck for a good while.” -c60 radio (http://c60radio.wordpress.com/)
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DNT033 – Bobb Bruno “Clown’s Castle” cassette
I first saw Bobb Bruno about two years ago at The Smell in downtown LA. I had heard of him prior to the show (he also plays in Goliath Bird Eater and Knit Witch, among others) but didn’t really know what to expect from him by himself, and live. He came out wearing a full bunny costume, head and all and sat down playing the coolest electronic drum pad I’ve ever seen. Some of his past releases have been dreamy pop, others have been heavy as nails. This tape falls somewhere in between. One minute there’s beautiful synthscapes and the next it’s heavy bass and pounding drums. Hand-numbered edition of 79 on purple cassettes with full-color piggie artwork by Bobb Bruno.

“Goliath Bird Eater member and frequent Pocahaunted, Robedoor and Upsilon Acrux collaborator, Bobb Bruno is clearly a regular man about town, albeit one adorned in some kind of easter bunny costume with over-sized head. Bruno brings his cartoonishly psychedelic visual approach to this DNT release, but be warned: it’s not just cutesy fun on this cassette. Opening with the slow synth jaunt “Snail’s Pace,” Bruno begins with dark chordal patterns working and reworking themselves underneath fuzzed out rhythmic bits. The piece stays fairly motionless for some time, brooding in a sort of spaced out, underbelly of the mind kind of way until drum machine enters and it takes a decidedly more industrial slant as fed through break beat weirdnesses. As soon as that beat drops out it’s an endless tunnel descent, Alice in Wonderland style, before this plodding drum beat comes in that gives the whole thing a form all its own. Some soundtrack to neon induced LA life-binges or something, slow-mo as all hell, a real head nodder for the mind rotter. The synth work is layed on deep here, maintaining its dark, organ(ic) riffage–it’s the Phantom of the Opera remix, he all hunched over in his castle weaving some crazy arpeggiation while Bruno and company are hunkered down behind him, bunny costume adorned, partying it out. The record’s called “Clown’s Castle” after all… When the beat drops out its all guitar fraying and synth rides. Super reverbed out stuff here, whose muddy bass runs and clearer, less blown out high synth runs do bring to mind something not totally un-Skaters like, albeit with a more formalized structure and slightly dancier take on the whole thing–given that dancey is defined as “potentially bringing to mind movement in a club setting” rather than some sort of beat oriented toe-tapper. This would be one dark club, and surely few would be shaking it. The album titled second side starts off with some heavy metal Sunn O))) riffage, not far off from the sounds of Bruno’s Goliath Bird Eater. Buzzing comes into play as the guitar slows itself down and rides it out. The beast keeps building as choral vocals sweep across and the beat drops, making the whole thing as heavy as concrete feet over San Francisco Bay. Really heavy duty stuff that just rides and glides, the beat dropping in and out as it emits itself toward eternity. It’s a real soul crusher, so don’t be fooled by the blue pig and the cute pines on the cover. Limited to 79 and sold out at the label, but I’m sure Tomentosa and other like-minded distributers will have it soon. Beautiful. ” -ear conditioned nightmare

“I was really pumped when this release came in the mail. Not only does DNT always put out high-quality stuff, but Bobb Bruno is the man. The A Side, “Snail’s Pace,” unveils an amazing terrace of shifting drones that could easily be the soundtrack to epic ariel footage of the Andes. After being slowly brought down to earth with jittery percussion, the whole thing gels into a swirling amalgamation of synths and digital effects, with Bruno’s steady drum work consistently churning the mixture. The clear-toned synths, now coated in distorted effects, finish off the side, completing a varied and incredibly strong track. “Clown’s Castle,” seems to take an oppositional approach. Instead of scenic synth tones, the track begins with the repetition of a ridiculously sludgy two-chord guitar riff. Calling to mind Boris or Sun O))), the riff is heavy and relentless, even as it is attacked from all sides by piercing feedback and electronics. After a prolonged build-up, Bruno finally comes in with his pounding drums – locking the track into a steady, menacing groove. All of sudden, everything drops away, leaving only a bed of melodic, marimba-like tones. The pattern is as ethereal as the sludge guitar was dirty, making for a surprising, but effective, juxtaposition of sound. The way Bruno can switch up his style not only between sides, but within the tracks themselves, speaks to his musical talent as well as his vision. While most artists find a signature sound and stick with it, it’s great to see someone constantly mining new sonic territory.” c-60 radio (http://c60radio.wordpress.com/)

“FAR OUT BOBB BRUNO! What sort of plastic revelation is this, all molten and loving? You creep up in the night, make the sun go up and down in the window a little bit, reading from these tomes with yr lazer beam eyes and melted wax nostrils.” -rose quartz (http://rosequartz.blogspot.com)

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DNT032 – James Fella/Nomen Dubium split 3″ cdr
James Fella is a busy guy. He plays in Tent City & Soft Shoulder, plus he runs the label Gilgongo Records. Some of his past solo outputs have been beautiful soft intricate works, others have been loud blissful guitar pedal’d pieces. Total brain-fried intensity for this one. The 3″ finishes with Nomen Dubium from Berkeley, CA. Nomen Dubium create incredibly beautiful (some will say new-age, but c’mon!) guitar pieces, run through a zillion and one pedals. Think My Bloody Valentine or something.
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DNT031 – German/Red Needled Sea split 3″ cdr
Glad to do another release for the finger-piano kings German. On this one they expand out to many other instruments too. Red Needled Sea are Athens, Greece, and that’s about all I know about them. They make murky drone you’d expect from a band from Greece.
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DNT030 – Apple Snails/Treetops split 3″ cdr
Some of you might remember Apple Snails from his split CS with The Mighty Acts of God (DNT012). Well since then he’s been busy doing releases on some awesome labels, including Digitalis/Foxglove. He makes dark ambient stuff. Perfect for the fall. Treetops is Mike Pollard of the ridiculously awesome label Arbor. Bedroom guitar loop/fuzz awesome. He just did a tape on Ecstatic Peace, so watch out!
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DNT029 – Oh Home/Mythical Beast split 3″ cdr
Oh Home are from Redondo Beach (ex member of Le Joshua) and make really beatiful epic guitar/pedals/drums music. Also:2012. They share the 3″ with Mythical Beast, who use their basses to create some moderately heavy riffing, but gentle too. umm..

“Does DNT really stand for “Doris Nodric Tribute” or could it
change from release to release “Demand New Tunes” or “Death
Nicely Transcended”? Evidentyl label-runner Tynan Krakoff has
fought off lymphoma, and hopefully can continue to deliver
wonder WTF sounds via DNT. Let’s start with part two of this
nice 3″ homemade split. MYTHICAL BEAST feature whale-speak
guitar (maybe crossed with a tambura buzz) and synth that then
serve for the as a slow swirly bed for the marbles-in-the-mouth,
yodel-till-your-soul-echoes voice of Corinne Sweeney. I like
her voice, sort of Faun Fables in a very foggy canyon but her
histrionics will likely split folks. The lead-off cut from
Redondo Beach’s OH HOME sure covers a lot of turf on one track.
Oddball tape twister, new No-Wave galloping dance party stops on
a cymbal, goes through a found percussion clang gang then with
3.5 minutes left, they get struck by a Lightning Bolt out of
the blue for an energy fission giving way to a falsetto glam
prance. Then more cassette capture, now over a hummy cathedral
drone…and a little drummy jam flourish for 13 seconds to end.
Fascinating, while impossible to fasten much of a label to them.
Pretty compelling contrast in the chaotic fracas of OH HOME
versus the consistent focus of MYTHICAL BEAST.”
-Thurston Hunger (http://spidey.kfjc.org/?p=3077)
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DNT028 – Tent City/Horse Head split 3″ cdr
Tent City from Tempe, AZ are a group of five people and use everything around them such as pots and pans and toy instruments and looped guitars to make blissed out music along the lines of Raccoo-oo-oon. Horse Head from OC, CA make teenage drone. past releases on arbor, nnf, friendly biceps, etc.
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DNT027 – Monitors/KK Rampage split 3″ cdr
“March’s battle of Monitors v. KK Rampage provides nine tracks of experimental, yes, but totally premeditated and practiced RnR. Of like mind, Missouri’s Monitors and Chicago’s KK Rampage give-up four and five tracks, perfect 7” EPs of jagged post-punk familiar to GSL, 31G, and related rosters of Southern California noise-makers. Monitors’ wordless approach is dominated by Polvo guitar and tom-tom racing on complete tracks like “Tycho Brahe” and the six-minute jam “Demophon”, a bit of keyboard added to the latter’s airy lead-in, and with more grind-and-lurk on the opposing tracks. The VSS grind of “Dark Desire” links both bands as the trebly, discordant replies of the band to the pained pleas of KK Rampage vocalist Johnny Rampage recall many the AmRep band, particularly Hammerhead, and late-90s California like early Rapture; “A Fading Moment” is so sincere it could be a cover for all I know, and “Teeth Like a Knife” is a fine, Factory-style closer with dance bass-line and entrenched vocals before a group sing-along among the downpour of crashing cymbals. Rad! Two full bands of 2xgtr/bass/drum formation, they may prove to be the only classic rockers in the series.” (review by Animal Psi)
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DNT026 – Acre/Haunted Castle split 3″ cdr
“For February, Acre of Portland channels one ballsy, 10-minute monochromatic drone: microtonal to the extreme, this beast doesn’t move, it errods. On the flip-side we enjoy some gapped-tooth electronics by Haunted Castle, the first non-Portland contributors to the series. Overtaking a pillaged soundtrack of adult-contemporary radio, this duo from Detroit address “Crumbling Kalamazoo” with a sharp feedback hiss which whips and snaps like a snake, punching holes all along the muffled bass of their gagged hostage.” (review by Animal Psi)
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DNT025 – Tunnels/Bird Costumes split 3″ cdr
“The pairing of Bird Costumes and Tunnels has proven quite apt: sharing a common backyard in sunny Portland, Oregon, the two artists also share a similar ominous, human-absent approach to composition – though from opposite sides of the spectrum, with Bird Costumes taking a more mechanical approach to compliment Tunnels’ more textural drones. Stepping up for tracks one and two, Bird Costumes (Daniel Osborne) begins his half of the split with metered strafes of what sound like strings played beyond the fret-board or from within a piano; sparks of high-vibration which evoke the New antics Cowell or Partch. Natural-harmonic tones emerge from behind these pulses of sound, gaining in volume with each release until they fill both channels with a torrent of skillfully layered distortion. Track two is another exercise in guitar virtuosity, this time over a canvas of hand-muted guitar, with noodles and slides layered vertically in various states of distortion. At five and three minutes, these two tracks work well on their own as sketches, but could do equally well as seeds for larger movements. Tunnels (Nicholas Samuel Bindeman) takes to task the last track: at 10 1/2 minutes, the untitled piece (all three tracks are suitably untitled) oscillates quickly in a cresting mid-range helicopter drone, behind which tonal drones glint and shift with a rare narrative quality found only in the works of masters like Stars of the Lid. All three tracks are brilliant, well-executed, and far larger than this tiny disc would elude.” (review by Animal Psi)
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DNT024 – Gay Beast “Disrobics” LP
Somebody give me some dope. (Just kidding mom) DNT has finally entered the LP realm–and all this time you thought we were only going to release cdrs and cassettes. “Disrobics” was originally self-released on CD by the band, but I felt it needed to be heard on vinyl. Gay Beast are a skronky neo-wave group of kiddos from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Silk screened covers and black vinyl. Hand numbered pressing of 500.

“Gay Beast are from Minneapolis and claim a “neo-wave” which is about a decade and a few hundred miles removed from Chicago’s now wave “explosion”, and they use that time and distance to their advantage. While I can quibble with some of the prog moments here (which come dangerously close to math rock), as a whole, Disrobics is an exciting record. At times I am reminded of Karate Party, Devo, Brianiac, Lovely Little Girls, and Lake of Dracula, but that recall comes in tiny pieces, small chunks in a bigger platter. And all that is good, and better that Gay Beast studiously avoids aural polish. There is a nice film of filth on this recording. If this is how they sound live: Wow!” -SS (Z-Gun http://z-gun.org)

“Like their first foray into vinyl for the Shearing Pinx 7” of DNT no. 3, the label saves their most definitive statements for wax debut, the latest from Gay Beast truly a statement of what may very well become the “DNT sound”. At the moment, they have left to conquer Lovepump United for this particular genre tract, an electro-heavy, integrated nor wave of the sort French Kiss would have liked to emit had they less promo bills to pay and proto-yuppies to feed. Sympathetic to labelmates HEALTH with a healthier attention-span, within the lineage ‘Disrobics’ leans decidedly toward a DNA sensibility with more macrobiotic flavor of Ex Models and Love Life (en particular their second, ‘Here is Night, Brothers’), though toward a more indulgent sing-song than the former and more reliable shine than the latter. The band denies the rigid kraftworks of electric keys with the many quivering bleats of a weak current (how much of this is due to my dying turntable motor, I cannot say), aggravating this by the all-to-human spontaneity of overanxious percussion. The sound is of regular irregularity such that, on the indiscriminate plane of the vinyl side (the gaps inter-song are no match for the intra-song), the songs flow into a homogeneous party like a house band, or better yet, a house record of skittled beats (particularly true of my second side, unfortunately warped to a thousand single grooves); the tracks only significantly differentiated when, at uneven intervals, new verses emerge to express an altered melodic pattern. In this sense, the instrumentation doesn’t always agree with the verses, and in fact more often crowds out the singer’s voice – my biggest gripe – though he manages to hold his own within the sirocco, the charming croon of damaged vocals emerging at odd signature. We meet in earnest on third track and ‘NOW That’s What I Call Music!’-worthy “Mama, Wrap My Coffin in the AIDS Quilt Cuz It’s Cold in Hell”, the devastating hook coming on like the waft of a pie on a sill following a non-committal build-up of channel surfing bleepbloop and Devo scat-lines, the chorus accompanied by interchange of rattled percussion and electrified guitar rubbings. The bratty exchange of “Good Government” recalls the Monorchid, and through the intense, full-band pummeling appears as the closest coalescence of players thusfar. “Cry” continues this evolution as the band continually tightens, brightening notes and inserting a more regular vocal presence to narrate the dance party, bleeding into the most overtly-hostile track, the title-track and closer “Disrobics”, a final call to bare arms. I know nothing of the band, but given the explicit-enough subtext of the band, I desire the lead at least to embody the gay beast – and here I picture a queer Zen Guerilla or a seven foot no wave Mukilteo Fairies. I want head-dresses and a sexually-aggressive stage presence. Make it so. Sleeve has two, three-color screen-jobs on fancy paper, with a sharp looking insert printed on gold stock. Black vinyl, limited to 500 moveable units. Get one!” (Animalpsi.com)

“There are too many bands out there futzing around with progressive rock, with “no wave”/”now wave” tropes, with neon-colored wackiness; bands that aren’t putting the music out front; bands that have slid down the slope of being “off” (a slope which descends into Mike Patton’s open mouth). Gay Beast, a guitar/synth/drums trio from Minneapolis, is not one of these bands, yet they play with all those parts in full swing, a real platespinning act of dynamics, abrasion, and genuine melodic innovation. All mistakes are studiously avoided and pratfalls are timed for maximum effect. All comedic qualities of the band are insular and intrinsic. Their attack is vicious and weird, processing their robotic fortunes under sheets of electronic duress, but their balance is impeccable. Bands like Gay Beast used to get me excited, but none have had such a gloriously bent and creative batch of songs to match up with the innovation. If handled correctly, Gay beast should tap into, then later usurp, the whacking off of outfits like Hella or Lightning Bolt or Deerhoof, or at least play in the same league. Very, very exciting stuff here, which hides its hand with masterful skill, and which plays down that which could easily wreck a less-capable band. Vinyl edition of 500 numbered copies in a silkscreened sleeve.” (Dusted)

“Gay Beast is a trio of guitar, synthesizer, drums of Minneapolis. Music therefore gay. But to play the mad service, unsure whether the ideal soundtrack. Or very big crazy neurotic. Top meaning of abstraction. It would end 70 in New York, it is taxed no-wave. However, the wave, there a. From broken, the spray. It is hysterical, anti-melodic, it’ll happen over by cutting slices is not far from having neither head nor tail. A packed for a music tapette. Each gives the impression of playing his score alone in his corner. It becomes almost trash the Flying Luttenbachers on Pairs of eye. But singing tampered not change the situation poorly, referring to a nonsense continued to Devo or Brainiac while Danimal Mal (the nickname of the singer) randomly its poor keyboard. It is vicious, strange, with a red wire not obvious to follow. Gay beast loves péter between your hands, elusive, thirty-six neon lighting in a torrid fireworks. Prepare your high heels and your postiches, it will be your birthday tonight.” (translated from french..poor translation probably) (http://www.perteetfracas.org/zine/kros2007/kros_g/gaybeast.htm)

“Gay Beast hails from Minnesota and is a trio of drums, keyboard and guitar I believe. “What You Want” sets the tone for the rest of the record. Gay Beast play very angularly, almost mathy. Though the mathiness doesn’t sound “prog” at all, it’s more akin to a band like Ex Models where songs are complex rhythmically but come off as seeming tightly crafted rather than showy. “What You Want” is one of the better tracks on the album and is a great example of what I like about Gay Beast, that is they know how to hit the sweet spot. After a frenetic flailabout the guys lock in and play a really fantastically melodic chorus. One of things I like is when they hit their choruses it doesn’t feel like a different song. Instead of something like “let’s play a jerky verse and then play a pop song chorus” where the result seems awkwardly mismatched, Gay Beast’s tracks always remain consistent and authentic no matter what sorts of musical tricks they pull. Anyway, sorry for the digression. “Cock” has been in a head to head battle with “Good Government” (which I’ll get to in a minute) for favorite track on the album, and it probably has the edge. “Cock” has a stronger bass presence than the other tracks which really works, the pairing of the guitar’s and keyboard’s lead lines is perfect and there’s a rad chorus that’s catchy as hell. It’s a fantastic song, and at under two minutes it never ceases to leave me wanting more. “Mama, Wrap My Coffin in the A.I.D.S. Quilt Cuz It’s Cold in Hell” is another standout but in a much different way than “Cock”. It’s probably the weirdest track on the album to me because the arrangement and rhythms are quite off-kilter and all the directions the track goes in are hard to follow but, inexplicably, Gay Beast pulls you along making the lack of hooks totally catchy. “Good Government” closes out the A side and is, for sure, one of the best tracks on the record. It takes about 20 seconds or so to cast its spell but after that, man, am I hooked. Keyboard and guitar play unison lines to great effect before an absolutely beautiful keyboard lead jumps out and grabs you by the head. They then proceed to deconstruct their track, before giving the fan’s what they want and sneaking in a quick chorus before the groove runs its course.
“Cyclops” opens the second side and it’s a jittery affair anchored by a guitar arpeggio in the track’s second half. “3 Pairs of Eyes: Brown, Brown, Blue” would almost seem bouncy if it didn’t obliterate my brain. There’s a great guitar parts in here but none of them seem to last for more than a few seconds. “I.D. Politic” is a relatively straightforward track and Gay Beast sound awesome playing the role of the straight man (no pun intended). Regardless of all the changes the track moves through, it’s just a strong, well composed rock song at heart. The same could be said for the next song “Cry” though it barely lasts long enough to write something down about it. The title-track closes the record in frantic fashion. That reminds me, “Disrobics” is the perfect title for this record because it’s relentlessly on the move but only in a way adverbs starting with “dis…” can describe i.e. “disjointedly”, “discombobulated-ly” etc. It’s a cool record, and definitely one that sinks its claws in you a little deeper each listen. The Gay Beast record has fantastic artwork/screenprintwork (I dig the sparkling gold) and comes with an insert and LP labels, Tynan did an excellent job with his first LP.” -auxillary out blog

“Confident panic from this Minneapolonian 3-piece. After their
stellar split with Twin, I was ready for *TEN* times “Two
Borgs For Every Borg.” This vinyl full-length has a lot of
that same surprisingly catchy sound, despite its absolute
awkwardness, maybe like watching giraffes have sex? Oh and I
guess homosexual sex at that, although the politics of the
body here surface in song titles, they often get scrambled out
in the tweaked frequencies of singer/keyboardist Dan Luedtke’s
raygun auctioneer vox processor. Kinda reminds me of early
Quintron; Bulb label fans will click on this band, no dobut.
Anyways the tension alone of his singing style surely guides the
intentions of the lyrics. Angela Gerend on drums is a maniac,
her style is akin to crossing a freeway moving past the limit.
Guitarist Isaac Rotto reminds me of how inventive Deerhoof
can be in a not-so-showy way. Rotto drops a potluck of Jackscon
Pollock swaths and six-string spatters. Again you come back to
these songs and hear how well they work. Luedtke’s keys made
me think happily of Get Hustle. Very promising band that if
their palette expands will rule some serious underground air.

-Thurston Hunger” -KFJC

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DNT023 – Shepherds “Bush Babies” 7″
Vinyl debut by Brooklyn’s Shepherds. Originally this was going to be used for the DNT 3″ series, but it was far too long to be used for a 3″ split, so we decided to upgrade it to a 7″! The best way to describe them would be free-form psych-drone, with different tape effects thrown in their too. Members of Woods, Non-Horse, Wooden Wand and others. Pro-printed full-color glue pocket sleeves. Pressing of 700. 200 on Black. 100 on Gold. 400 on White.

“Ahhhh here is a record one hopes to stumble upon: A totally satisfying, even inspiring, piece of out sound. Shepards on this disk is a duo and that is a mindfuck of a revelation once the music starts. Primitive yet sonically deep free jazz which grows with each listen, “Bush Babies” is one long song split over two sides. Using tapes, Shepherds create layers of horns which fade in and out of the mix, as well as guitar squalls and random noises which puncture and build. Somewhere there is a piano or a tape of a piano slowly decomposing. On top of these sheets lurk the drums, which slowly move and churn with restlessness but never break wild ‘n loud. The drummer’s restraint and the layering of the horns so that they sound like they were recorded in a distant room is either dumb luck or shows that these guys have considerable smarts when it comes to how to make a great free jazz record. More often than not the indoid dabblers of free jazz fail to grasp subtly, sonic depth, that tension and energy can be created by restraint, and that less is more. Shepherds seem to have caught on, at least for this record. A+.” -SS (Z-Gun http://z-gun.org)

“Aw man! Brooklyn’s finest group of multi-project/same band members finally debuts a 7”. This time in duo formation of just G. Lucas Crane (Non-Horse/The Vanishing Voice/Time-Life) and Jermey Earl (Woods/Meneguar) lay down something that sounds a whole lot bigger than just two dudes. Totally different from their entire body of work thus far, “Bush Babies” is a ten minute long track stretched across both sides with a fade out/fade in separation(maybe the only bummer about this jam!). Skronk sax opens the void where tribal unwavering percussion joins in. Sax is looped and a guitar is picked up free-shredding/fret-fucking ensues and the drums just keep going and going. Such a rad jam has me stuck in the groove. As I said before, Shepherds turn their murked guitar psych sludge in for a totally rocking get on your feet slab of epic percussion and glorious guitar/sax/tape undercurrent.” -Mike Pollard/Foxy Digitalis

“G. Lucas Crane and Jeremy Earl (participants in the Vanishing Voice, Non-Horse, Woods and Meneguar between them), after a brief warm-up, lock into tribal drumming and a ghost orchestra of reeds, drone, and delay. No vocals or anything that dicks up the purity of the concept at stake. Could have come out as some NYC-based art loft 12” (actually huffs the same Holland Tunnel fumes as imPLOG, methinks) and would qualify as really, really leftfield disco. Pretty goddamn rad l’il record. 500 copies, sold out, repress forthcoming.” (Dusted)

“The cryptic disc art may designate sides, in which case what I believe to be the first of both untitled tracks descends upon a motley flock of brassy overtures and deep, hollow percussion warm-ups in a lurching psychedelic of metal and wood. With each clattery pass of an unidentifiable mercury, the bedlam becomes more rhythmic – a beaty tempo and minimalist loop of notes – the percussion, horns, and effects gathering in unison so as to subvert this with embellished, reserved freedom. An unexpected Zornism, this sentiment continues through the ecstatic tribalism of the reverse, a tom-heavy rite agreed to by gullish bursts of horn, distorted in a guttural cry; assailed by heavenly drones like sunburst, the grief subsides momentarily as the brew congeals in spots with new textures and a solemn melody wafting in sincere farewell. Second pressing on white vinyl with insert and sticker art by Earl, and in a heavy, full-color pro sleeve featuring a faux-Lomo of non-sequitur fotos. Recommended, and definitely worth the extended pressing.” -Animal Psi

“…Their Ltd white wax ‘Bush Babies’ seven incher has some tumbling tribal drums pounding over weird electronics that sound like some mysterious drug trip ritual. There’s a slight free-jazz edge. The flipside is seriously good, again the percussion is the foundation reminding me of recent Boredoms but more Lo-Fi.” (norman records)

another review (too large to post here)

“Despite the greatness of the duo on paper I’ve always been a little on the fence about them but Bush Babies has firmly swung me to the pro-Shepherds side of aisle. I think I remember reading that this piece of primal aggression and beauty was supposed to be part of DNT’s split 3” cdr series but it was too long/awesome Tynan (DNT’s head honcho) rightly decided the world needed 700 copies of this sucker. “Side A” starts with a driving, tribal drum workout. I’m guessing this is Earl. When Crane’s contributions finally poke their heads out things go momentarily apeshit. There are friendlier smoother sounds clashing with rougher distorted ones with the drums in the eye of the storm. At one point a trumpet (99% sure) suddenly appears, I’m wondering if this is a sample from Crane’s bag of tapes or what cause it sounds live but there is definitely other manipulation and whatnot going on so I think it’s impossible. Meanwhile, Earl is just pounding the shit out of the drums and I’m loving it. Then on a dime, the drums sputter out and a morose wash of brass seeps in.
The b-sides takes up “Bush Babies” where the a-side left off, seeing the brass get more active/jazzy with the drums following suit. A nice little jam ensues, particularly nice for the appearance of a backbeat in the midst of the freejammin’. The track really hits its stride here, locking the listener into its hypnotics. I’m curious to know what exactly Crane was up to here (if it’s all tapes) because there is a grinding distorted violin-type sound amongst the spurts of brass and rounder keyboard-esque tones. A impressively broad mix of sounds while keeping up such a fiery improv attitude.” -auxillary out

“Shepherds, who I’ve heard now on a few Bored Fortress offerings offer up more jazz (?) weirdness on DNT. This might even have been released before the Not Not Fun club stuff and it’s a nice change from the noise assault I wouldn’t put past this duo from meneguar and vanishing voice heritage.
I don’t claim to know too much about free jazz, or this kind of improvised tape experimental area. It wanes in and out of my consciousness, being this whole subgenre that just seems a little daunting. I know it’s a whole world in and of itself but it’s the kind of thing I’m turning over and over and I’m not so alienated I can’t find an entry point. I guess it could fall into a neo-psyche area…it doesn’t have the pointed direction of all out drug induced, but it definitely doesn’t hurt. It continues to get better after a few drinks.
In fact I’m losing track of which side started what after a few listens, it’s part of the same session originally destined for a 3″ CDR, which, let’s face it, doesn’t hold a candle to the 7″ format, the crackling and pops add to the timelessness. But I’m a little biased of course and it does make me wonder what had to be trimmed out of this piece or how they decided on a breaking point for the B-side.
It’s really controlled for seeming improvisation, the drums fade in and out of structure and the played loops or live organic horns and haunting samples keep working outside of any typical systems. It works slowly from deconstruction and chaos into a drum trance.

Thankfully the speed (33) and side are etched into the gutter so I’m not playing it at the wrong speed, although this piece lends itself to your own sort of manipulation.
It’s a nice expansive track and rightfully pressed in a few editions by now. I got the white one and there are still copies available at DNT, who can be counted on for challenging work like this. Literally this is the new music of the 21st century composers. I don’t know what David Del Tredici is doing these days, but he could learn a thing or two from this new wave of sincerly pushing genre’s and boundaries.” –7inches blog

“Shepherds on this are a two piece featuring Jeremy Earl (drums)
from Meneguar and Gabriel Lucas Crane (tapes) from the
Vanishing Voice. The tape strafing includes a forlorn trumpet
soundling like a far-off mastodon stuck in a tar pit. It is
more prominent on the A-side, although recurs on the B-side
which is just the split of one long piece it seems. That
trumpet sample really builds the pillar that this is build
on. Drummer Earl keeps a pounding charge going, so he’s the
contrasting stampede to the stuck mastodon. For some reason
I was hoping this actually had a live trumpeteer doing the
honors, not sure that it matters. For an improv approach,
these two are not far off the !!! recesses of the disco
thanks to Earl’s skin crumpling, It’s got a beat and it’s
got a bent thanks to Crane’s cassette crumplets dropped on
top. ” -thurston hunger (KFJC 89.7 FM)

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DNT Shirt Version 1 SOLD OUT
New tshirt just in time for my tour with Night Wounds. Psychedelic design by Tony Fauci (ex-member of Hot Girls Cool Guys). Tie-dyed and silk-screened madness. All shirts are different colors/color combinations. Some are v-neck, some are “normal”. youth large, small, and medium. Some are less tie-dye than others if that matters to you. there are only 30 of these puppies, so get yours now!
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DNT022- Bonecloud “Drawing Spirits Into Crystals” cdr
“Drawing Spirits into Crystals” after a few listens sounds like perhaps it should have been titled “Carving Spirits Out of Crystals” because that’s exactly what they do here. It’s known that when light passes through crystals, it produces a wonderful spectrum of colors. This cdr somehow makes that true of sound passing through crystals too. Beyond the melodic drones, somewhere in the distance, you can hear a mechanical gear that sounds like the spirits inching their way closer and closer. Very immersive textures. One long 40-minute track. Edition of 100.

“Bonecloud are one of many shambolic drone collectives popping up all over the world with alarming frequency. Dublin is where this particular manifestation occurs, although it could have come from Finland, New Zealand, Brooklyn, or anywhere on the US West Coast. Groups like Bonecloud fortify the ever growing international communion for muffled mantras of shimmered frequency and sustained ululations, even if their output is nearly interchangeable with anything on Yarn Lazer, Students of Decay or Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. On Drawing Spirits In Crystals, they offer a 50 minute snippet of lo-fi ritualism with polyrhythmic vibrations of agitated guitars spiralling in chorus with dusted vocalisations, which give way to a hallowed blur of amplifer distortion dappled with occasional jingling handbells and a wooden flute.” -Wire Magazine July, 2007

“Drawing Spirals into Crystals’ is a 40-minute epic by Irish couple Bonecloud, from my vantage their best work to date. Front to back the track is veiled behind the static of disintegrating tape reminiscent Basinki’s ‘Disintegration Loops’, though with spacious improvised drone/spirituals replacing those tightly wound little loops. Accompanying a shifting array of metallic instrumental-weaponry, a vast howling mediates each leg of this track with regional vernaculars to identify the terrain like a map. Whether spooked or stoned from this way-out voyage, the high notes of the track’s last quarter begin to resemble horns playing some dust-laced jazz with the growling menace of electric guitar beneath the heavy fog leading to the question, where am I? Well, that’s what love songs often do. Sprayed and stamped CDr comes bagged with nice paper insert. Limited to 100 copies.” -Animal Psi (animalpsi.com)
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DNT021 – HEALTH “HEALTH” cassette SOLD OUT
HEALTH’s first full-length! 11 songs in just over 30 minutes, this album blazes by and is over before you know it. Ex-Models/Liars-influenced sound waves you’re used to plus new dancy songs you aren’t..unless you’ve seen them live recently. If you haven’t, you can! Because they’re about to embark on a 40 day US tour!! Full-color cardstock j-card covers in plastic case, on solid yellow cassettes and pro-dubbed/pro-imprinted cassettes. Limited to 200 copies. “Triceratops” MP3

“This is the cassette version of Health’s debut album on Lovepump United. Unlike The Mae Shi, who I inappropriately attacked in an earlier column, Health did this one right. Perhaps they are still close enough to the underground from which their exploded to be counted as honorary members of it. They haven’t yet forgotten their roots—we’ll see what happens in a few years when they’re headlining Lollapalooza, or something, but for now, these guys have the respect for the scene to put out a tape, and for it to be cool. If you want to know what they sound like, just read Spin, or Pitchfork, or Fader or some other shit, I don’t know. They’re really damned good, they work really damned hard, and they’ve started to earn the praise they deserve. What a novel fucking idea.” -cassette gods
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DNT020 – “Mash Mansum” cassette
The time is now! It’s summer and here’s the year-in-the-making (delays) now-wave tape compilation “Mash Mansum”. Some of these bands have broken up since giving their songs, but believe me, all the bands on this tape are ALIVE. While Hunting Lodge wait patiently for the bus, Neck Hold attack each other with their drums. Shearing Pinx stay put in the forest. The Sticks try to work it out. Gay Beast approach middle-age. Deaf! Deaf! aren’t so hungry anymore, and Twin Crystals umm..well they’ve been eaten alive. Pro manufactured tapes in green shell with the DNT logo on the tape. Artwork and screen printed covers by Danimal (of Gay Beast). Edition of 100.

“This is a really diverse compilation of DNT artists with everything from the tangles of Shearing Pinks free-jazz chaneling “Trusting the Forest” to the scuzzy chug of Hunting Lodge’s “Waiting for the Bus.” While the emphasis of the compilation seems to be on bands with pounding tribal rhythms, some of the more interesting contributions are short bursts of straightforward garage rock like the barely minute long “Aerobic Fuck” from a seemingly a unknown band called The Sticks. The highlight of this tape for me though, are the two tracks contributed by Neck Hold. Coming out of nowhere with funky, distorted tribal drums and blown-out saxophone skronk, I was immediately reminded of the rawness and intensity of Black Eyes side-project Mi Ami. This is a killer, succinct compilation that hipped me to several bands that I need to find more stuff by quickly!” -c60 radio (http://c60radio.wordpress.com/)

“As DNT continues to shape its sound, opting towards a kind of proto no wave rock slant (now wave they’re calling it I guess), it only made sense for Tynan to release this, a compilation showcasing seven different bands takes on this sound. It works too, serving its purpose of presenting bands who may or may not ever see more releases than this (some are already now defunct it seems…) while definitely fulfilling the DNT mission statement and existing as an album as a whole.

Side one kicks off with Hunting Lodge’s “Waiting for the Bus.” I’m assuming this isn’t the Hunting Lodge of the 80s and 90s, though who the hell knows? Could be some revamped version of that group’s industrial slant, only this is some riffy, thudding stuff, scuzzed out and pummeling, all forward motion mayhem. The guitars, in true no wave form, sound like icicles dragged across the torsos of tiny birds while the muffled vocals are the stuff of yore, crying out in frustrated, suburban dementia as the whole thing crumbles in on itself. Nice headless drum beats too, and a pretty tight unit from the sounds of it. The end of the track could be a poorly mic’d Stooges cover into some Northampton Wools feedback fuckery.

Tracks two and three are both by some unit menacingly called Neck Hold. “Oh God; You Devil” opens with some weird ass drum beat on wood blocks and cardboard while some vocalist calls out in a similarly fashioned, muffled ass chant thing. This is a little less standard rocking than Hunting Lodge’s brand, weird enough to give the band its own distinct take. “Sibling Rivalry” is a similar approach, all drums in the beginning along with the anthemic chanting vocals (Popul Vuh style, without the production value). Sounds like a pretty stripped down take on the whole thing, with some amateur sax squelching to boot! Shearing Pinx (or Shearing Pinks as they’re billed here) close the first side with “Trusting the Forest,” lunging their guitars in fits while the drums patter around. Nice angular guitar work, all energy and convulsions across the strings, but they really pull it off. Some of this stuff gets genuinely heavy without the need for cranking the volume any higher. It’s all just rhythmic fits and starts, splooging on the strings like some blow up doll. If the forest sounds like this I don’t trust it for a second, though maybe I should. I’m not sure what defines now wave as opposed to no wave but this is definitely in the latter category as far as I’m concerned.

Side two opens with The Sticks’ “Aerobic Fuck,” killer title for a jaunt this explosively weird. Sounds like fuckin Link Wray or something, twanging away with the volume turned up to Mt. Zion. Good old fashion instrumental riffage, heavy on the nowhere slant for the minute it exists.

Gay Beast, who just released a full length on DNT, follow with “Exploding Knee.” The guitars here are all over the map, splashing about wildly before going into a Liliput style dance punk thing, weird and bleepy and full of (is that two?) vocalists yelping about. Pretty tight construction on the song here in the spirit of those smart/art funk/punk rock of Delta 5 etc. The singer definitely listened to his fair share of On-U Ari Up records. Really tightly wound and jerky stuff full of energy. Tight guitar lines too. Deaf! Deaf follows with Loss of Appetite, another Riot Grrrl style thing with some James Chance vocal stuff. Real crude and nice for some slamming around dance party style. Twin Crystals closes the tape with “Live in Olympia.” I’ve heard a lot about these guys recently and their breed of chugging guitar walls and off beat electro-quarks is pretty compelling for this type of material. At points it starts to sound like a rave party on planet hip, with even the gap between songs and the crowd chatter fitting right in (notice how the bottle cap fits so nicely in the whole vibe…). The second track is even more pulsating and dancey. Nice stuff to close off yet another winner from DNT–some of these bands are weird enough to snag up right away while others I’m sure will be around for quite some time and make a splash in the broader scheme of things. For my money, the whacked out stuff is where it’s at.

I think there’s a few left at the label so move quick if you so desire, it’s limited to 100.”-ear conditioned nightmare

“First off, one of the sweetest screenprint inserts I’ve seen in a while. Big props to DNML for the art. This comp. is on the edge of the hot shit art/garage/no wave thing going on. The fidelity of the cassette is exceptional. The music is a bit of a mixed bag, for my taste. 7 bands, my favorites being Hunting Lodge, who kick things off with a garage/hardcore collage that ends in a brief cover of ‘Down On The Street’, and Neck Hold. Neither of these bands seem to be represented online. So, if you are down with Arab on Radar, Mika Miko, or any other affected, ramshackle outfits you will be quite pleased with this cassette. Strangely, the last segment by Twin Crystals, “Live in Olympia”, sounds like a basement Nine Inch Nails jam, which is weird but true. ” -the grand hotel (http://theegrandhotel.blogspot.com/)

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DNT019- Warmth/Yellow Swans split 7″
Wowie Zowie! This one is sure to rip your mind apart. [Insert deep abstract description here]. Crazy artwork by the crazy (in the good sense of the word) Belgium artist Jelle Crama. Listen to the record, take three hits of acid, and you’ll understand the music & artwork fully. Inksplot band logos on the 7″ label, on American-dream White Vinyl. Limited to 300. Go!

“I’m pretty sure this one is untitled as well but there is a giant (intentional?) blotch of screenprinting ink over the info so who really knows. Not I, that’s for sure. This track isn’t quite as monolithic as the other Yellow Swans 7inchers but it features some real nice guitarwork courtesy of Gabe. Lots and lots and lots ecstatic ringing notes. Pete cooks up some real nice whirring and whooshing in his electronics kitchen as well. My big complaint is that the track feels way too short. It’s poised for a sonic implosion/explosion but instead tapers off. It’s still a nice track though, it just means I’ll have to give it a few repeat spins to get my fill, which doesn’t sound bad at all now that I think of it.
On the flip comes a track by Warmth a.k.a. Steev, a former Jean Poliseman. It may have a title but I’m not in the mood to squint my eyes to death to make it through that deep endless blue. I’m not actually sure what Steev uses to construct his brand of musics, synth or a sampler maybe? There are what sounds like vocal clips and Vietnam movie helicopter sound effects, which makes me think “Sampler?” Anyway, that’s not really too important. The track begins with about half: short repetitive loops and half: sounds trickling in and out. The first part of the track is alright but doesn’t totally impress me, however about halfway through there is a shift where a subtle but thick synth loop takes over and rides the track to it’s end. It sounds sort of like early Excepter (“Vacation” maybe?) minus the constant machinebeats and I like it a lot. Overall, it’s a nice outing and I’m interested to hear more from the Warmth moniker. …features involved double-sided (nice) fold out artwork by Belgian crazyman Jelle Crama. I have no idea what’s going on on the sleeve but I like it. It also has cool inkblot logos for each side, I really dig the Wu-Tang by way of Batman label on the Warmth side.” – Auxillary Out (http://auxiliaryout.blogspot.com/)

“Another blast of Yellow Swans, this time splitting a 7” with the appropriately monickered outfit Warmth. Yellow Swans here are on the noisy side, but even at their noisiest, there is much going on below the surface that keeps their sound from devolving into mere ‘noise’. A crumbling and gritty distorted lowend soundscape, noisy and blown out, but murky and muddy with thick synthy swells and surprisingly sweet melodies buried under the roiling clouds of damaged guitars and fried electronics. Harsh and heavy, but also quite subtly dreamy.
Warmth take the opposite path, offering up almost nothing at first, just the sound of tape hiss, and bits of found sound, like a field recording, before eventually bits of rumble and whir and static and crackle begin to surface, as do distant high end creaks and haunting swells of barely there drone, the whole thing very murky and mysterious. Near the end, some very strange Star Trek like FX are introduced, sort of alien and angular, giving the Warmth track a bit of a sci-fi vibe. Cool stuff.” -Aquarius Records
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DNT018 – The Pope “Do You Wanna Boogie?” cassette
The duo of Paul Kneejie and Brian Watson are American popular musicians known collectively as The Pope. They met in elementary school in 1953, when they both appeared in the school play Alice in Wonderland (Kneejie as the Dodo, Watson as Dweedle Dum). They formed the group Tom and Jerry in 1957, and had their first taste of success with the minor hit “Hey Schoolgirl… Boogie”. As The Pope, the duo rose to fame in 1965 backed by the hit single “The Sound of Silence Boogie Woogie”. Their music was almost featured on the landmark film Star Wars, propelling them further into the public consciousness. They are well known for their close harmonies and sometimes unstable relationship. Their last album, Boogie Over Troubled Water, was marked with several delays caused by artistic differences. Kneejie and Watson were among the most popular recording artists of the 1960s, and are perhaps best known for their songs “The Sound of Silence Boogie”, “Mrs. Robinson Boogie”, “Boogie over Troubled Water” and “The Boxer Boogie”. They have almost received several Grammys and are hoping to be inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2007). In 2004, Rolling Stoned ranked The Pope #420 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Boogie. Hand-numbered edition of 40 on blue cassettes. Cover photo by Macklin Vietor
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DNT017- Jazzfinger “Wixxon Flag Bearer” cdr
Jazzfinger, from the UK, have been making music for quite some time now. The main thing that I’ve noticed about them, is that they never stay put with just one sound. Their sound can change from song to song even. The first song on this cdr has a keyboard (or is it a melodica?) drone, changing chords a few times, with a guitar or other screeching sound over it. The second song continues right where the first one left off, this one is a quarter of an hour long. This time, it builts up in substance, with some drumming from cans and various toys. The next few tracks continue the calmness, and five songs in a piano joins the mix, with pots-and-pans drumming. Water-color splashes over a weird drawing of heads. Edition of 100 MP3

“New Jazzfinger album that skirts the very edges of known sound with some unlikely melodica/guitar/scrape moves that are intensely melancholy giving way to what sounds like synthesizer hymns played deep underwater. One of the stand-out recordings of the recent Jazzfinger run.” -Volcanic Tongue review

“Another long sold-out DNT from across the Atlantic, Jazzfinger’s ‘Wixxon Flag Bearer’ is 64 minutes of the English duo’s particular concoction of miniature melodies dwarfed by the group’s uniquely-pointed noise flurry. The damn-near pleasant “Birth of the Knife” pits a simple harmonium tune against long daggers of shrill metallic feedback, a duet in the vein of Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood which leads seamlessly into the 15 minute “Autumn Leaf Call” which tempers the noise and introduces clattering, arrhythmic percussion, half-human vocals, and a near-eastern string and wind dance number fractured by each errant burst of treble. Two deep, droning meditations transition into the fantastically-titled “The Machine That Turned Off Mars”, a playful piece of improv scattering various metallic gamelan over a repetitious piano song as the soundtrack to some 1940’s science fiction throw-away. The 24 minute “Caves” is a relatively abrasive test of stamina, discharging a plethora of mid-range feedback while rendering moot whatever complexities lay beneath. The degraded quality of this recording becomes most evident in the undying noise this and of final track “The Arrangement”: a murkiness which shaves of the group’s distinctive yet subtle perks, leaving a decent back-end of little dissimilarity from many of their No Fun-type cohort. And this is certainly nothing to gripe about. Sprayed, stamped disc comes with full-color paper sleeve and insert. Limited to 100 copies.” -Animal Psi (animalpsi.com)

“It’s been a little while since we’ve heard from UK duo Jazzfinger, we’ve got a split lp that will be reviewed on the next list, and we found a few of these hiding out on the shelves, another cd-r from last year that we’re only getting around to reviewing now. It was limited to 100 copies, we have less than ten, but sure there are way more then 10 of you out there who never got your hands on this.
Jazzfinger are always all over the map and it’s no different here, from wheezing melodica, slathered in distortion and feedback, to strange percussive junkyard lope, swirling tendrils of high pitched shimmer, to haunting laughter draped over ominous church organ whir and metallic creaks, abstract detuned folk strum over more wheezing warble, and then there’s the 24 minute “Caves”, a noisy workout that slips between corrosive crunch, dreamy drone, fucked up confusional soft noise and ever possible combination of the three.
Bizarre, and unpredictable and sort of pretty and definitely cracked, exactly what every Jazzfinger fan expects and desires. ” -aquarius records review

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DNT016 – Deaf/Deaf cassette
Originally intended for a Deaf Deaf/Silver Daggers split 10″, but then SD broke up and the unused Deaf Deaf songs just sat there. So now they finally see the light of day, on this cassette, plus some bonus live tracks to round it out. Deaf Deaf are from Australia and play an interpretation of no wave/goth. Micro-edition blue C10 with cut up xerox art/insert.
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DNT015 – Mudboy “Livish 2007” cdr
Beware of Mudboy, it creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor..right through the door and all around the wall a splotch, a blotch. Be careful of Mudboy! Crazy full-color artwork by Matt Lock (puffandmagic.com) plus a giant green cardstock monster insert! Enhanced cdr, put in your computer for videos! Limited to 50 copies! 7″ coming soon!
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DNT014- Non-Horse “Drone Moral” cassette
Non-Horse, a.k.a. Gabriel Lucas Crane is my hero. It’s clear from every release of his I’ve heard that he’s been doing this for awhile. For those of you unfamiliar to him, he collects sounds. What do I mean by that? Exactly that. The way I picture it, is he goes around with a tape recorder trying to document the (un)familiar world. I’ve never met him, but I imagine this house is covered from floor to ceiling, and wall-to-wall with cassettes. Non-Horse uses field recordings, tape loops, tape manipulation, circuit bending, and all sorts of other amazing things that most of us only wish we could do. This tape is blue, with a light mist of spraypaint in a purple case with cover art by NH himself. Same music on both sides of tape. Insight on this recording on the insert.. Edition of 100.

“Cinematic mechanized soundscapes/soundtrack for an emotional documentary on a run-down appliance repair shop in east Brooklyn? Esoteric, but strangely moving. Gabriel Lucas Crane’s solo tape hiss enterprise forgoes the circuitry vignettes of Haraam, The Circle of Flame and Rigor Lore in favor of a single 23 (symbolic like the Jim Carrey movie?!!?!) minute disembodied drifter. Warbling murk loops, echo clatter, stuttering tape delay…Non-Horse speaks the language of sound effects. And, on Drone Moral, he seems to be saying something pretty deep.”- Cassette Gods (http://cassettegods.blogspot.com/)

“With the ascent of James Toth’s solo career, Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice have gone on indefinite hiatus. Since the band was little more than a collective in the first place—expanding and contracting with line-up changes—this new arrangement doesn’t at all prevent the sonic endeavors of the remaining members of WWVV. Beyond the relatively high-profile Vanishing Voice releases that have appeared on Important and Gypsy Sphynx, a few interesting side projects have cropped up as well, the most cryptic of which is Non Horse, the long-running, long-dormant project of G. Lucas Crane, one of the founding members of the Vanishing Voice. While the more psychotropic moments of the Vanishing Voice may have toyed with the esoteric, Non Horse is willfully and delightfully impenetrable, a multi-layered stew of manipulated tape loops, electronic tones, mangled recordings, and other sonic debris. While Drone Moral is far more accessible than the earlier Rigor Lore, it veers far from folk, even the freakiest niches that WWVV inhabit.
What keeps Drone Moral from lapsing into the opacity that burdened Rigor Lore is an emphasis on a few key sounds—a man saying “Pardon Me,” old dusty slide-steel scrapes, and seabird screeches. These basic layers are twisted and multiply recontextualized, paired with electro-cave-dweller reverberations and dubbed-out aquatics. The effect is narcotizing and vaguely worshipful, a chopped and screwed version of a chopped and screwed version of a spooky spoken-word-and-organ cassette; codeine syrup for the Christian soul. The sludgy whole is so jaw-slackening I listened to the tape a couple times over before realizing that the A and B side were identical.
Perhaps the decline of WWVV is not such a bad thing, as the release schedule for Non Horse (not to mention Time Life, a duo of Crane and Heidi Diehl) has been accelerating in the old band’s wake. With the sheer variety of sounds gathered for each of his first two cassettes, the future promises to be beyond eclectic.” – Stylus Magazine (http://www.stylusmagazine.com/)
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DNT013- Errol Flynn “s/t” cassette
The “real” Errol Flynn is most remembered as playing the swashbuckler role is many movies in the first half of the 20th century. Well this cassette will show you the REAL Errol Flynn, and not just the roles that he played. De-tuned keyboards and almost-not-there guitars underneath field recordings and fuzzy left-of-the-dial mexican radio. Wrenches and tin cans and all sort of tape loops will help you to discover Mr. E.F. Green cassettes housed in a plastic case with a photo of Errol Flynn holding a shrunken bon-fire he stole from the rich to give to the poor. Edition of 50.
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DNT012- Apple Snails/The Mighty Acts Of God split cassette
Those of you lucky enough to have heard Not Not Fun’s “Free Beasts” cassette compilation may remember Apple Snails from it. That’s all I had to hear from them to know that I wanted more! Apple Snails cover the first side and are about as close as you can get to folk drone (is that possible?). Lots of slide guitars and dark drones that will leave you with an amnesia induced trip. Side B belongs to The Mighty Acts of God, which is a lovely lady, Niwi. Electric guitar is the main instrument used, with others guitars and keyboards(?) soaking through that create this very vibrant transcendent feeling, that honestly, the first time I heard, left me speechless. Red cassettes with ‘grid’ labels, and fabulous artwork by the even more fabulous Jeremy Earl of Fuck it Tapes. Edition of 100.

“What we have here is an interesting case of “tape splitting”. It’s fronted by Apple Snails and The Mighty Acts of God brings up the rear and despite not really sounding a whole lot like each other they actually complement each other pretty well. I don’t know a whole lot about Apple Snails other than they had a nice track on Not Not Fun’s Free Beasts compilation and they have a recently released cd-r on Foxglove. I tried the internet but wading through all the real Apple Snails sites is kinda taking too long. Oh well. TMAoG is Vanessa Niwi Rossetto, Foxy Digitalis contributor, painter and, um, musician. She has put two other releases out this year, one on the excellent Music Your Mind Will Love You label and the other on the also excellent Ruralfaune label. I also spoke to her briefly on soulseek about a James Ferraro tape… I can tell this intro isn’t really going anywhere special, heh, so I’m gonna get to the music now.
The Snails go first as previously mentioned, and hit you with an odd amalgam of creepy drones and slide guitar and organ-type sounds. The track, “Wind Presses Against Stubborn Beams”, is kind of like sleepwalking through a haunted house. The atmosphere, though pretty placid and drowsy, is also that of unease. There is a real nice part at the end where the slide guitar becomes clearly revealed and takes the song out on a brief solo. “Blood Rain Falls No Matter” follows, indulging itself in the drone before it’s broken up by an electric guitar. The elements introduced in the previous tracks cohere in “Ten Mile Circle of Fog and Thundr”, guitar and drones are more seamlessly integrated in a peculiar but pretty piece of music. It moves at a nice steady pace, ambling along through eternity. I kinda wish it was a bit longer, though I suppose that’s a good thing. Lastly we have the most Cormac McCarthyish titled “Death’s Seed Runs From Her Thighs”. It is the longest and features the broadest arrangement, organ and piano show up along with a host scattered sounds, including, what sounds like, a ‘voice’ patch on a keyboard. The track’s quiet chaos is actually really intricately woven. Like the soundtrack to some fucked up psychedelic western where the anti-hero is wandering through desert deliriously, hallucinating and probably high on mescaline and eventually curling up in the shadow of a craggy rock formation. I don’t know, that’s what it makes me think of anyway. I really like how each track gets better/more refined as the side rolls along.
Going second is The Mighty Acts of God, and it’s quite a change of pace. Where Apple Snails were really heavy on the drone dread, TMAoG is, well, not. The first track “Song of the South” is loops of various strummed and plucked instruments, it also sounds like there is some sort of chord organ/harmonium in there too but maybe it’s just a keyboard. While at first the elements sound pretty disparate by the end they coalesce into a lightly churning quilt. “Words are Spelled” follows much more minimally. Again it’s a stringed instrument(s?) of some sort. But there is only one track (perhaps two), so the result is a starkly beautiful bit of playing and nothing else to distract you from that. “Vegetable Lamb of Tartary” (hmm, wonder what that is) is the longest and builds very slowly. A good portion of it is mostly autoharp but with some casio-type sounds and whatnot in there too. At some point the track goes nuts with looped vocal babble and a flute and bells and new age keyboards and percussive loops. Definitely the weirdest most abstract track on the side, pretty interesting as well. “This Toiler in Light” is similar to “Words are Spelled” in that it is short and sounds like it’s coming from one instrument. Though, instead of the starkness, there is lots of looping and manipulating and so on, creating a real nicely cascading shimmer for the original instrument to work it’s magic against. Maybe my favorite track on the side.
DNT did a pretty nice job putting the release together (except the tape was dubbed pretty quietly). There is some really rad psychedelic b-ball hoop artwork on a foldout paper insert by Jeremy Earl of the Fuck It Tapes crew (how many are in that crew anyway? 1?). The music comes on red cassettes with neat, though sloppily applied, graph labels too. So pats on the back all around.” -Auxillary Out (http://auxiliaryout.blogspot.com/)

“Oh great, just what the world needs: two random acts thrown together on a red C40. Just kidding! That IS what the world needs. Apple Snails’ side is pretty freaky. Muffled nothingness oozing into waves of hissy tar. Haha…what a phrase! I can’t imagine that helps much. Ok, it’s basically four obscure pieces of dark ambience, edited on a computer and layered with scary/gothy sound effects. The M.A.o.G. is apparently a lady from Austin I believe, and her stuff is on the folkier end of the spectrum, lots of acoustic stringed things being plucked and fucked with. It sounds like there’s autoharp playing on most songs…plenty of flute and shakers too. Could be confused with a few of those Finnish folk-drone bands from back when. Or not. Some nice sparkling meadow-lolling vibes that would be cool stretched across her own full-length. Cover has a sweet Jeremy Earl drawing of what looks like a basketball backboard-and-hoop ringed by feathers.”- Cassette Gods (http://cassettegods.blogspot.com/)
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DNT011- Hide And Seek “Tales From The Fourteenth Dimension” 2xcdr
I unfortunetly found out about this band a little too late; they had already broken up. This band is from North Carolina although listening to them they sound like they might come from D.C. A friend of mine said they sound like “black eyes if black eyes were FUN”. And I definetly agree. The band is three people, one is a girl, and all of them sing at different parts in different songs. There are keyboards and drums. And a cow-bell. This release is a two disc discography of this dancey punk-funtacular band. Housed in a thin, white dvd case with a full-color cover, art by Zach the keymaestro, and spray-painted cdrs and cases. Edition of 100. MP3
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DNT010- “DNT Is One Year Old” Compilation cdr
This compilation is PACKED! If I had an otter-pop for every band on here I’d have like….13 otter pops! (13 green ones for sure…mmm…). For those of you who missed out on the first compilation, don’t feel bad, this one’s totally better. This time around you get to hear bands from three different countries (Australia, Canada, and America respectively). This cdr is what punk rock would be if the ninties never existed! This is to celebrate DNT being a year old, and what’s the best way to celebrate a birthday? You guessed it, with a birthday card! (uhh..) This comp comes in a “birthday card” in full color, on fancy cardstock (I maxed out my card printing these) with a foam-peg-thingy holding in the cd, and the cds have freed-from-the-zoo animal stencils on ’em to keep you interested. Break off the top of your boombox so you can Lenny the Lizard chase his tail!

Bands on this swell comp:

Hips

Pretty Thigh

Channels 3×4

HEALTH

Party Fowl

Soft Shoulder

African Greys

Naked on the Vague

Ikebana

Shearing Pinx

Twin Crystals

The Pope
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DNT 009- HEALTH “Live//Smell” cassette
This tape is from a live recording of them at The Smell in Los Angeles back in May. It captures uhh…their sound? HEALTH (not to be confused with the shitty lower-cased health from the east coast) are the leading noise-rock experimental band of Los Angeles..says me, and everybody else I’ve talked to. The bassist/electronics dude John has like, two suitcases full of pedals and effects, including these weird electronic drum pads, that he assures me are very expensive and delicate. Some songs feature two drummers! Every time I see the drummer he just refers to me as “DNT” which, I’m not sure is a good thing? The tapes are transparent-dark green, with label-maker labels and are housed in a plastic case with six different versions of the covers. (bright green, bright orange, fushia, baby blue, and a orangish-red). First edition of 100 on green tape. Second edition of 100 on purple tape

“Total lo-fi, weird noise-rock eclecticism here. The mood goes from tribal to spastic never really sure what’s coming next. For a live recording on cassette the sound is clear enough to have a vague idea of what’s going on and still leaving a few mysteries to be solved along the way. Nice to know stuff like Health and Night Wounds are keepin the west alive.” – Swingset Magazine ( http://www.swingsetmagazine.com )

“‘Live//Smell’ is a fine introduction to HEALTH, a slightly schizophrenic noise-rock band from Los Angeles. The tape’s five or six tracks (it’s hard to tell) are at their best when they resemble the new math-rock of Battles, particularly the opening track, suggesting that band’s brilliant forthcoming LP, sure to be one of the year’s best; subsequent tracks are a bit more heavy-handed, rock-smart like Neptune, and then a bit thrash like a Dmonstrations or Arab on Radar. Despite the live recording (at The Smell, thus the title) and rock and roll formation, the EP sounds pretty good – if at times drum-heavy – and the tracks a solid survey of the band’s repertoire.” -Animal Psi ( http://www.animalpsi.com )

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DNT008- German “German” cdr
Who knew that Germany had such lush thumb-piano players! This project is called German, although every thing about it is distinctly not German. The drums sound like an African tribe ritual on congo drums teleported deep into the Amazon. While the (Russian?) Thumb Piano is run through so many pedals the electricity may have caused them to travel back in time to the days of the Scythians. (What the hell is that supposed to mean?!?!?!?) MP3

“We know nothing about this release except that it’s not German. And that it’s an awesome slab of tripped out tribal psychedelia. Apparently there’s a thumb piano being played but it’s doused in FX so it sounds more like strange buzzing insectoid melodies, all wrapped around a propulsive tribal drum jam. No Neck and Sun Burned Hand are the obvious references, and anyone who likes either of those groups will no doubt dig this. Lots of buzz, and shimmering ambience, the drums are a continuous presence, a never ending, far out, outer space drum jam, not over the top, just steady, and subtly intricate, a solid framework for the various strange sonic goings on draped over the top. Thick swaths of flanged buzz drift over soft streaks of high end feedback, vocals are garbled and looped, all surrounding a core of trance-y disembodied skeletal krautrock. Killer stuff for sure.” -aquarius records review

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DNT007- Quintana Roo/Quilts “White Bone Snake” split cassette
“Two Q-band units panhandle for spirit contact. Quintana Roo unearth another pit of holy bones and Aztec ash, classic “rumbling tombs” style drone-spelunking with post-straight edge summertime Josh Feola guesting on the drum throne. Communal seance zoning. Quilts’ “Pink Hotel” rents a room/suite of space heater fuzz fog and falls asleep. Enough muffled murk-moans and endless echo to earn lucrative sponsorship from at least 4 of the 5 major US delay pedal companies. Heavy WARMTH. With fucked-up-and-photocopied covers of burial dirt. Hand-numbered edition of 100.” -bb

“There’s a weird psychology to splits such that, when two bands share a tape or record which have two sides and are therefore oppositional, that they are on some level competing; on the other hand, when splitting a side or a format free from sides such as a CD, this aggression is greatly reduced or absent altogether. In reality, there are few gestures from one artist to another more endearing than creating a split together. If anything, shared sides should appear more rivalrous as they create a chronological hierarchy which places one artist apart from the other. Despite this awareness, listening to the split ‘White Bone Snake’ (‘Black Snake Moan’?), I cannot shake the sense of competition between the two bands, and then the need to award the prize to Quilts over Quintana Roo (though the race was very close). Both bands are in top shape for this cassette, working within their ideal 15 minute parameters. Though the sides of the tape have been effectively masked by spray-paint, the insert lists Quintana Roo first, and the tape is wound to begin on this side, so they go first: as the original vehicle for today’s megastars Robedoor, Pocahaunted, Changeling (and all their babies), Quintana Roo is still very much its own band, only tangentially suggesting these unique projects through its own free-doom metal. “River Obsidian” comes from a session last summer – surely a dark day – during which these three miscreants (with the help of an unholy guest-drummer) summon with an extraordinarily wicked selfish indifference a sonic demon of coal soot and dark soil with freeform drones, human howls, stretched strings, and schizophrenic percussion of high and low. The track moves at its own unrest through the murk, lulling itself back down to the hard-packed floor. Quilts don’t quite fill out their side (ending a minute or two early – the Quilts M.O.?), which though unfortunate for a cassette release, I take as a sign of wellness as the band does not conform to their adversary, and vice-versa. Like a distortion-free Skaters, “Pink Hotel” begins as a duet of manipulated voices over a steady synth note, a second keyboard set to “chimes” riffing alongside and against the voices with ghostly reverb smearing streaks across the track; tambourine and flute are used sparingly; the keyboard effect calls to mind ‘The First Power’ or some similar neurotic horror, while the distended vocals evoke the L.A./Lou Diamond-menace of Ariel Pink. Texture and (fucked-up) narrative are both achieved, and the track a smashing success.”- Animal Psi (animalpsi.com)
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DNT006 – Grime Hut “Live at Il Corral” cassette
This band is so good they don’t have to practice. So good they don’t have to record in studios. So good they don’t have to be booked to play shows. Grime Hut is an improvisational experimental act..wannabe metal? Featuring members of Night Wounds, Shearing Pinx, Pretty Thigh, and Hide and Seek. They hardly ever play shows. This is one of their shows. From a show at the Il Corral in Los Angeles on July…27th, 2006 I believe..some time that week.. Some members were “inspired” before the set. ahem. what? Recorded live. Unmastered copies on home boombox to recycled tapes salvaged from the sewers where Grime Hut belong anyway. Limited to the amount of tapes in the limited amount of shoeboxes full of tapes I have.
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DNT005 – Gang Wizard “I Remember You From the Party in Long Beach” 7″
This was supposed to come out awhile back, but who cares, because now it’s out. I’m bad at describing music, so here’s a description of them: “…an angelic force, delivering a unique thrash-bliss sound to the world. Sparkeling synths and homemade glitter electronics are combined with whirlwind drums, screaming vocals, and aluminum spring guitars. A fantasy of blindness cycling through your lungs.” members of foot village, rose for bohdan, and many other bands. Edition of 300 on black vinyl with minimalist cover.

“This Gang Wizard ‘I Remember You From The Party In Long Beach’ is a totally wonky record that sounds like a detuned guitar is being played with a cat instead of a plectrum. Gang wizard are cool and did stuff way back on Black bean and Placenta and more recently Load…WOW I’ve just noticed the sticker attached to the weird fibre glass sleeve and it has a tiny picture of an old E.T stuffed toy hugging a cat. I bet it’s the same cat that was used to play the guitar. If that doesn’t make you want tio buy this mighty record then you don’t deserve your ears.” -(norman records)

“Beginning with the end of another song, lead off track “Lemonade Folly” easily, immediately stakes its claim as my favorite track here. With a super catchy, slippery/sloppy slide guitar riff leading the pack, the rest of the band gets the message and follows with their own ramshackle pounding and whirring, resulting in a deliciously pseudo-atonal, pseudo-arrhythmic treat. The title-track is a brasher affair. I’m digging the clanging guitarkeyboarddrum brew but the Magik Markers-esque female vocals kill my buzz a bit. The track doesn’t get very far before the cut but “I Remember You From the Party in Long Beach” continues with “I Remember You From the Party in Long Beach (cont)” on the b-side. There’s an excellent breakdown with sustaining feedback, plinking keyboard hits and a drum solo where things really come together for a while dissipating into extended coughing(??). However, things pickup again for the finale with another drum solo this time mainly dueling with a squealing oscillator.” -auxillary out

“Brian Miller (Foot Village, Death Bomb Arc head) plus Kevin Shields & others make sour lemonade that really doesn???t need more sugar.?? So long as the party???s rockin??? no one???s gonna mind the bitter taste. ??Side A has you sip down a concoction where the ingredients include wailing strangled experimental guitars & plodding drum beats in a warped tempo.?? The Lemonade Folly is by no means the last gulp.?? It also gives the first spiked swig & almost drunken revelation of I Remember You From The Party At Long Beach where drums spazz out & inebriated off key singing & shrieking spiral out of control & instruments get annihilated & then gets cuts short abruptly.?? Flip to Side B & continue the off kilter feed backing smashing & crashing organ mashing voice trashing sequence.?? They seem to tire themselves to a crawl but still have some fight left before dropping into coughing, moaning, dry heaving, laughter & then squeaking, rumbling, fumbling, and shorted out rattling.” – KFJC http://spidey.kfjc.org/?p=3404
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DNT004- “Musisica Moche” VHS 3-way with Shearing Pinx/Soft Shoulder/Lord Galvar
“Musisica Moche” was originally supposed to come out in June of last year, but between bands breaking up (Hot Girls Cool Guys) and bands not being able to complete their videos (Party Fowl, Mikaela’s Fiend), this release has been far delayed, and has seen many line-up changes.With that said, this video is going to light your hair on fire (in a good way). This isn’t just some live footage type thing. These are actual messed up ARTworks, with tons of vibrant colors and twirls and all sorts of psychedelic headspinners. Each video is different, and each one is very far out. Dolphin-skin teal tapes with warped looking labels and bumpy spine in a spraypainted cardboard case with huge DNT logo on the back. Edition of 50
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DNT 003- Shearing Pinx “Caves” 7″
Oh-oh-oh! Yes! Yes! This is what I’ve been waiting for for so long: a band I love enough to release vinyl by. And this is that band, Shearing Pinx They’re sort of like, a no-wave influenced, totally shred-tastic group of three bandits from Vancouver, British Columbia. I was lucking enough to see them not once, but TWICE last week in Los Angeles, which, unfortunetly was not the release show, due to delays at the plant. But here it is: A four-song 7″ at 33rpm on transparent-green vinyl with green labels in silk-screened covers, artwork by the Pinks themselves. It’s a limited edition, of 400, hand-numbered. Git ’em while they’re hot, because nearly half are already gone, thanks to some sweet stores and distros. Enjoy!

“Make way for the specific and somewhat imposing presence of Vancouver’s Shearing Pinx, cutting ties with all music since Sonic Youth in ’83 and kicking up a mighty cloud of clattery guitar racket. Displaying quite a bit of punk-alley abandon and anti-heroic anthem to go with the Thurston/Lee soundclash, the trio bashes away at these mostly longer songs with patient precision, muddled by a lo-fi, redline quality to dirty things up.” – Dusted Magazine

“For 7 inches, Shearing Pinx play an energetic no-wave with loudspeaker vocals and jangly-as-hell guitars, each side of the record featuring one full song and a shorter, more abstract noise piece made of feedback: “Caves” on side A recalls the smart-alecky post-punk of The Monorchid though more melodic, with singer Nic huffing well below Chris Thomson’s piercing decibel; on the reverse, “Chaos Patent” leans toward the tangled surf-rock of mid-era Sonic Youth, then switches into a chugging rhythm with staggered guitars like a grungier version of late-90s indie-boppers Tanner or Mocket. Both tracks are rousing and well-executed, as are their brief appendices; to great nostalgia, DNT presents ‘Caves’ in classic indie form, even including a flyer for one of the band’s shows (now long past). Transparent-green vinyl comes in a three-color screened sleeve with inserts, 400 copies made. Very nice!” – Animal Psi (animalpsi.com)
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DNT002 – Mantut “Mantut” cdr
Mantut features members of both The Pope and Books and Tape…well it features all the members of both bands. (Right?) So I guess it’s more of a collaboration than a side project. During the time I was waiting for the master, one of the members kept saying “we’re having fun” “just have fun” and other sentences involving the word fun. Hm. Seems it took six months for them to get “inspired”. Hehehe. The one time I saw The Pope play the bassist had all these crazy sounds going, and then he took his hands off the bass and drank some water. He’s magic!! Just like the REAL Mantut. I think Mantut is also a city in Egypt. This cdr is limited to 50 copies, so don’t wait any longer! You should already have it! Listen to an MP3
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DNT 001- “DNT Record…Compilation” comp. cdr
Ah. It is finally made. A couple months ago when I came up with the idea for a compilation, I had no idea that dealing with ten bands would be so difficult..that being saidYES! it’s done! If I wasn’t sitting down right now, I’d most definetly be jumping up and down. I’m not very good at giving reviews….these bands make music. They play shows. I have their records in my distribution. I have many copies, but I’d like to have zero copies. Help me out! These cds were burned, painted, and put into a handmade sleeve made of construction paper. Five different colors, and each one has a different drawing, hand-numbered out of 100. Yes!

Here are all the bands on this delightful compilation:
Child Pornography
The Pope
Forbici
Rose for Bohdan
Dead/Bird
Hot Girls Cool Guys
Lacoste
Groovy Cave Paintings
Robedoor
Haunted Castle
Gang Wizard

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