From Required Wreckers volume six - M Dwinell "Golden Ratio"
Released by: Amish Records/Required Wreckers
Release/catalogue number: AMI-036R/W

The sixth installment in the label’s Required Wreckers series, 'Golden Ratio' offers the only documentation of M Dwinell’s just intonation organ work, recorded between 2007-2008. [These pieces provide a pivotal shift away from Dwinell’s early Kraut-inspired rock-based improvisation with Boston’s BRIGHT in the direction of his recent electronic-based compositional work with Brooklyn’s FORMA. Unlike either of these projects, however,] 'Golden Ratio' focuses exclusively on a natural tuning system generated from the harmonic series. By precise control of his instrument's tuning, Dwinell sets into motion a dynamic musical system of pressure, intensity and calm. 'Golden Ratio' incorporates both static pulsing drones and heavily arpeggiated passages, culminating in melodic lines that epitomize Dwinell’s unique musical vocabulary as developed over the last twenty years.

M DWINELL - Ascend

From Required Wreckers volume six - Nick Forté - 'Primordial Forms'
Released by: Amish Records/Required Wreckers
Release/catalogue number: AMI-037R/W

Nick Forté’s 'Primordial Forms' LP (AMI-037R/W) on is the seventh installment in its Required Wreckers series. 

'Primordial Forms' is Forté’s most demanding and conceptual work to date. Forte has always been intrigued by the visual representation of sound on the computer screen. Editing software depicts sound as “waveforms” which can look like jagged landscapes or abstract geometric forms. For the five pieces that comprise the record, Forté created five one-second sounds on his computer based purely on the visual appeal of the waveform.  He made these waveforms with the speakers off. These visually appealing forms became the seeds for the pieces on the record. 

With the speakers turned back on, Forté then turned these discrete sound units into long form music through a slow and deliberate process of looping, editing, and manipulation. The entire record was made in a pirated version of Sound Forge from the late 90s.  No sequencers or multi-track programs were used and no real time playing occurred on these tracks. Forte’s compositional process can be likened to cartoon animation, or Muybridge’s photographic innovations capturing movement and motion.

Though these pieces began in the eye, they end in the gut.  Short sequences of tones and bursts of sound are embedded in rhythm and form. Throughout the album representational sound is confused with the non-representational and the end result, a combination of the computer-based and the organic, is a work of subtle power and dynamism

Amish Records: http://hyperurl.co/1ksekt


NICK FORTÉ  - Imperfect Birth

“Subtle Innuedos” is the second song from the The Lloyd Pack's "A Tribute" out Friday Sept 4th on LP and digital. The album infuses lo-fi tribal rhythms with post-punk dance in the spirit of early Adam Ant, Fun Boy Three and the Fall. Speaking of Adam Ant, “Subtle Innuendos” is a re-imagining of “Goody Two Shoes". 

The Lloyd Pack is Dan Melchior of The Broke Revue, Das Menace with a cast of 1,000’s (or maybe just over a half dozen) including  Graham Lambkin (Kye Records, The Shadow Ring), Preggy Peggy aka Angela Sawyer (Weirdo Records), Letha Rodman-Melchior, Sara Heines and more.

THE LLOYD PACK -  Subtle Innuendos

Arthur Doyle With His New Quiet Screamers
'First House' (AMI 048) Vinyl LP + Digital
Available Fall 2016

On what would have been his 72nd birthday, Amish is very proud to announce 'First House' (AMI 048), the final recordings from free jazz legend and Birmingham, Alabama native, Arthur Doyle.  

Recorded live at the Stone July 11, 2012, these six pieces are backed by His New Quiet Screamers, a Brooklyn-based ensemble adding muscle and movement to Doyle’s always already free, non-linear saxophone, flute and vocal lines.  

The live set collected on this LP slips outside those reductive categories that pit noise against melody, bop against free jazz, jazz standard against total improvisation (by way of evidence, listen to Doyle’s versions of “My Funny Valentine” and “Stormy Weather” on these recordings).  These pieces move with an improvisatory immediacy aiming to capture the impossible: ecstatic music at the very moment of its making.

His New Quiet Screamers consists of an acclaimed ensemble of musicians with a wide array of history and associations.  Members have played with and/or include: Sunwatchers, Dark Meat, NYMPH, Effie Briest, David First's Western Ennisphere, Matana Roberts, among others.  

This gatefold LP includes a commissioned essay from noted Jazz historian Clifford Allen who describes His New Quiet Screamers as “vault[ing] and envelop[ing] Doyle’s bursts” of sound to the point where Doyle “sounds positively invigorated.”  Doyle’s final recordings offer what Allen describes as a kind of “unfurling” of the free jazz lexicon, offering insights on “the spidery architecture of an obliquely-referenced standard” that characterizes this enigmatic artist’s entire career.  Standard and experimental improvisation alike, First House offers a window on Doyle’s last performances, an artist very much at the top of his playing and artistic form.

The LP is an edition of 300 copies and will include an exclusive digital download (ONLY AVAILABLE WITH LP PURCHASE) of Doyle performing with His New Quiet Screamers at Issue Project Room September 22, 2011.

- 

FIRST HOUSE 

(Live at the Stone July 11, 2012) LP tracklisting 

Side A
1. Spells (11:22)
2. My Funny Valentine (9:37)
3. Market Street to Make My Money (3:26)

Side B
1. Church House / The Thin Line 8:46)
2. Call Out (7:20)
3. Stormy Weather (7:20)

Total running time: 47:57

+

Live at Issue Project Room September 22, 2011 (bonus digital with LP) 

1. No Title (10:30)
2. First House (10:52)
3. Brother Michael (9:35)
4. Stormy Weather (10:24)

Total running time:  41:24



ARTHUR DOYLE With His New Quiet Screamers - Call Out

"Brother Michael" is the second track to be released from the "First House" album release. It comes off the bonus digital album which is included with LP purchase and is a live set recorded at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn on September 22, 2011. It is some of the final recordings from free jazz legend and Birmingham, Alabama native, Arthur Doyle along with the group His New Quiet Screamers.

The LP release is an edition of 300 copies and will include an exclusive digital download (ONLY AVAILABLE WITH LP PURCHASE)

ARTHUR DOYLE With His New Quiet Screamers
'First House' (AMI 048) Vinyl LP + Digital
Out Nov 25, 2016

-

FIRST HOUSE TRACKLISTING

(Live at the Stone July 11, 2012) LP 

Side A
1. Spells (11:22)
2. My Funny Valentine (9:37)
3. Market Street to Make My Money (3:26)

Side B
1. Church House / The Thin Line (8:46)
2. Call Out (7:20)
3. Stormy Weather (7:20)

Total running time: 47:57

+

Live at Issue Project Room September 22, 2011 (bonus digital album with LP)

1. No Title (10:30)
2. First House (10:52)
3. Brother Michael (9:35)
4. Stormy Weather (10:24)

Total running time: 41:24

First House (Bonus Set - Live at Issue Project Room)

ARTHUR DOYLE With His New Quiet Screamers - Brother Michael

'Hamish' is the first song off the self-titled debut album by North Brooklyn's GOSPEL OF MARS (AMI049) LP/DA. The trio consists of Aaron Moore (drums), Jef Brown (saxophone/guitar) and Bob Jones (double bass)who have played in bands such as Jackie O'Motherfucker, Volcano the Bear, Evolutionary Jass Band, Eaters, Eternal Tapestry, and more.

GOSPEL OF MARS Gospel of Mars LP/DA  is out Dec 1, 2017

Pre-order:
webstore: www.amishrecords.com/main_purchase.html
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/album/id1301756547

More info: 
www.amishrecords.com

Gospel of Mars

GOSPEL OF MARS - Hamish

Three Characters

SUNWATCHERS AND EUGENE CHADBOURNE featuring Mike Watt - Ghost Spiel

SUNWATCHERS AND EUGENE CHADBOURNE - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing

Byeek comes from Tim Barnes’ latest full-length: DE∆D-LOOP (AMI 038R/W), which is his first solo release since 2002’s All Acoustics.  DE∆D-LOOP offers another arm in Barnes’ wide-ranging body of music and work, as well as supplying an additional thread connecting the House, pop and sound art conversations the album engages.    

In many ways DE∆D-LOOP is House music that takes a sideways approach to the language of dance music.  As both a concept and a practice, Barnes aims to turn House on its side, reconsidering its structure and form.  The tracks on DE∆D-LOOP reflect Barnes’ status as a renowned percussionist, offering rhythms and textures that both draw the listener in and maintain a spatial and temporal distance/uncertainty.  This distance can best be heard on the quiet closing track “NAKU,” but also in the hyperactive and layered percussion of “AEMO” and “GUALA.”    This record isn’t all concept, however, as the lead off tracks “HORNA” and “KONQR” sound like something you might hear at rave, albeit standing outside the club in the middle of day after everyone has crashed.  The foggy celebration continues on this record, however; listen to “JAPE” and its play with language, cracking words open and hearing what comes out of the space between syllable and sound.    

Since 1995, Tim Barnes has been internationally acclaimed as a musician, having played with a range of artists including Tony Conrad, Ikue Mori, Sonic Youth, Glenn Kotche, P.G. Six, Mike Watt, Royal Trux, Stereolab, Jim O’Rourke, Beth Orton, among others.  Barnes has most recently become known for his radical site-specific sound art duo with Jeph Jerman (Erstwhile, IDEA Intermedia, Feeding Tube).  Working across both genre and instrumentation, Barnes’ singular history as a musician reflects his versatile ear and performance range.     

Barnes has also done important research and work as an archivist and engineer, most notably through his Quakebasket-imprint.  Quakebasket made available and distributed the work of artists like Henry Flynt, Pandit Pran Nath, Christopher Tree and, most notably, Angus MacLise.  In looking forward, Quakebasket released music by Michael J. Schumacher, Tetuzi Akiyama, Nick Hennies, and Valerio Tricoli, among many others.  

DE∆D-LOOP is the latest installment of Amish’s in-house label Required Wreckers, pairing music and sound art with visual artists who share a thematic or process-based methodology.  DE∆D LOOP features the work of American-born and French-based artist/filmmaker Erick Baudelaire’s Blind Walls series.

DE∆D-LOOP will be released digitally on 12/27/2019. LP will be released on 1/10/2020.

DE∆D-LOOP

TIM BARNES - Byeek

Amish is pleased to announce a May 1, 2020 release of SUNWATCHERS' Brave Rats EP (AMI 051), the band's third Amish-related release (also see: 3 Characters with Eugene Chadbourne and Arthur Doyle’s First House).  Quick on the heels of the band’s fourth full-length, Oh Yeah? (Trouble in Mind) coming April 10, 2020, Brave Rats celebrates Sunwatchers and the EP format, well after the moment of the latter’s extinction.  

The title track 'Brave Rats' delivers Sunwatchers’ most anthemic pop music to date, while the other five tracks mix the political with the punk, street toughs aligning with the avant-garde.  Guitarist Jim McHugh recounts the origins of both the title song and the EP itself:

"I was walking home very late at night from a short-lived bartending gig on the Lower East Side during a period when I had been reading books about the struggles of working-class people and immigrants and squatters in those neighborhoods. Coming across the Williamsburg Bridge, I decided to go by our old practice space on South 4th, across from Pies-N-Thighs—where I very briefly worked as a line cook.  This was the night the restaurant had reopened in their new location—and out front there was an enormous cadre of grease emboldened rats.  I kept thinking about the rats in relation to the new residents of the Lower East Side and North Brooklyn.  I hoped for those rats to be brazen and Brave in the face of the extermination efforts that they/we all face." 

Other tracks on the EP include: a hypnotic and vaguely psychedelic cover of Sonny Sharrock’s “Blind Willie” taken from Sunwatchers’ first recorded studio session in March 2015; an alternate version of “Everybody Play”; an esoteric and extended deep dive with “Saxz”; and a live version of Alice Coltrane’s “Ptah, The El Daoud,” recorded when Sunwatchers opened for Bill Callahan in Brooklyn June 2016.  The EP closes with “Pedal One,” an outtake from Sunwatchers’ score to Ian Olds’ film Burn Country (2016). 

Artist Joey Whiteley/Merz supplies the front and back cover art.  The EP is housed inside a 12” die-cut sleeve.

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