*60 copies limited edition* Infinite Expanse follows up their first two LPs with a return to the cassette format, diving deep into the world of the underground cassette network with a focus on SoundImage, a label founded by Martin Franklin and active in Slough between 1989-91. Presented is a compilation of two compilations – Premonitions (1989) and Spiritual (1990) – featuring stalwarts from the scene, including The Vitamin B12, M.Nomized, Konrad Kraft and Hybryds, as well as a host of ungoogleable artists, such as The Happy Citizen, Omega Ensemble and The Time Flies. Birthed through the space provided by the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, a UK government initiative introduced in the mid-80s which assisted unemployed people who set up their own business, SoundImage set out to uncover and present new electronic music which captured a certain sense of magic and mystery. The label operated within the cassette network, though also sought to bring the music to local audiences and stage live events. This included Omega Onsemble, a set of improvisers from Southampton, performing in a small backstreet gallery during the Windsor Fringe Festival in 1990, as well as Richard Leake’s The Butterfly Effect and Peter Appleton, a creator of sonic sculptures, combining for a live show at the Windsor Arts Centre in September 1991. The label even helped them get a feature on Southern TV and connected them with some researchers at the nearby EMI R&D; lab in Hayes who recorded the performance with experimental 3D audio equipment. Distribution of SoundImage releases grew to a network of small mail order outlets and tape stalls, with duplication eventually handled by small-run commercial tape duplicators. Some of the artists who featured on releases also had their own outlets for sales, so between them they managed to form a self-contained sphere of underground production and distribution. Listening now, what distinguishes the music is that it sits at the cusp of the  DAW revolution, with the tracks made using the innovative Tascam 244, or similar 4-track cassette recorders, which had just revolutionised affordable music recording. The pumping hiss of its built-in noise reduction, in retrospect, becoming a distinctive feature of the productions. The music also pre-dates samplers, and whilst some of the music makes use of synthesisers, there is still a sense of performance and hand-made sound textures from tape loops, collages, effects and manipulated media, as well as traditional instruments. It sits at a point where abstract music still lived in our imaginations. There were no screens confining the compositions into lanes or grids, no software instruments. Instead, there were cables and cabinets, speakers and effect pedals, radio and tape….reels and reels of tape.

Music for Voilà was prepared for listening in 'Voilà' (@voila_tokyo) shop in Jiyugaoka, Tokyo by Rie Nakajima and David Toop

On our second cassette, released in 2014, Rick and I are already bringing friends into the mix. Sue Garner, Andrew Lafkas and Karen Waltuch join us on two tracks here, both recorded live at Troost, the Greenpoint watering hole that was so crucial to us as we were getting our thing together those first few years (see _Social Music at Troost, Vols 1-3_). Sue and Rick have been in bands together since the mid-80s, so it was just a matter of time before her multiple talents as singer and bass/rhythm player came into the fold. It’s always a treat when we can work some singing into our sets and, despite the low-fi nature of this recording, Sue’s vocal and maraca playing really shine on the Allen Toussaint/Pointer Sisters classic, “Yes We Can Can”. I had seen Karen and Andrew playing around town and admired their playing, and finally got to meet them while playing amplified strings in a Tony Conrad ensemble circa 2012, right around when Rick and I were starting to play together. They were probably the first people to come rehearse with us and appear here on what has become our most often played (and recorded song) “WZN#3”. The title of this album refers to another pal (and excellent slide guitar player), Zeke Healy who, when seated right next to Rick’s stack of broken cymbals at a gig at Troost, put olives in his ears in lieu of earplugs. The influence of my visit to Mauritania the previous year is starting to show here too, with the various “WZN” titles referencing wezin, the instrumental dance numbers played at Mauritanian weddings, where the guitar/tidinitt players get to show off and work the crowd while the singers rest their voices. I seriously doubt that any of our tunes would fly at a Mauritanian wedding, but it was a way of at least paying homage to the incredible music I got to experience there, in situ, and my crash course in Moorish modes and rhythms with the great Jeiche ould Chigaly. The remainder of the songs in this collection are “studio” tracks, recorded by Rick during our practice sessions in our old practice space in the Pencil Factory building, and then adulterated with close mic’d cardboard tubes, feedback effects and the occasional looped figure… - CC August 2023

As far as I can tell, our first cassette, originally released in 2013, was assembled from live recordings from the Manhattan Inn, the Greenpoint restaurant bar (part owned by my childhood friend Rolyn Hu) where we had our first show, and practice recordings from Rick and Sue’s old studio in the Pencil Factory Building. Listening to this album 10 years later, it’s apparent how important our first year as a band was in laying the ground work for what has come since (we repeat ourselves!). Our basic concept of playing variations within a pretty limited set of rhythmic and modal materials is already in place on the early, duo versions of “Every Last Coffee or Tea” (later to appear with expanded ensemble on _I Was Real_) and “Beni Said, Pt.2”. “Part 1” got an overhaul before the whole tune was given a similar ensemble arrangement on _W/M/P/P/R/R_ (as it happens, Rolyn turns up on a track on that record too). The other two tunes are ones that have never been “properly” recorded. “Water in the Lock”, at under four minutes, may have been our first attempt at a concise tune, and represents another tendency that’s stuck with us, which is tunes that have almost no variation or improvisation at all. My guitar riff repeats without variation pretty much the entire tune while Rick alternates between a driving 5/4 beat and its halftime foundation. When my guitar part finally breaks form it’s just to signal the end. As for the long track that takes up the whole first side of this tape, it was named in homage to Najeeb, a young Tunisian man with Down Syndrome I’d met a few years earlier while traveling in Kairouan, Islam’s 4th holiest city. Najeeb would hang out at the cafe all day and the other guys would buy him sodas while he’d crack them up with fantastical and occasionally lewd bits about physical love, flying airplanes and tourists. Never missing an opportunity for a send up of the local religious piety, he’d attempt to order a drink you couldn’t get at this cafe, or anywhere as far as I know, وسكي بالحبرورش or “Whiskey with Hail”. - CC August 2023

Reissue of 75 Dollar Bill's incredible 3rd cassette, originally released in 2015. Original liner notes: "STRINGS, HORNS, PERCUSSIONS, ULULATIONS: PLEASE CONSIDER 75 DOLLAR BILL FOR YOUR: WEDDINGS-DANCES-PROCESSIONS-FUNERALS-PROTESTS-PLEASUREMENTS. TENT MUSIC FOR TENT PEOPLE" Clocking in at nearly 70 minutes of music, this album features a selection of in-the-rough gems from our ever expanding archive. Track/Side one, "Southeaster" features a collage of phased out guitar & drum jams, spectral fiddle music and percussion/horn blowouts originally assembled for our 2015 South East tour CD-r. Beginning and ending sections feature some great guitar work by old friend and collaborator, Steve Maing. Track/Side two features a side-length performance of "Like Like Laundry". Often a part of our live set whenever we can get Andrew or Cheryl to sit in with us, this is the first recording of "Like Like Laundry" (not to be confused with "Like Laundry") we've made available. Andrew (upright bass) and Cheryl (bari sax) are both in top form here, fusing with Rick's box to create shifting rhythmic pockets in the lower registers to great effect. A half hour of variations on a single rhythmic vamp. - CC October 2015

C60 with on-body printing in jewel case and printed two-sided j-cardReturning to the Czech Republic for the next release with a reissue of Richter Band’s first album, Smetana (Czech for ‘Cream’), released originally in 1990. Pavel Richter gained a considerable reputation as a guitarist, playing in a number of Czech avant-garde rock groups, including Švehlík, Marno Union and Elektrobus, and became one of foremost figures of the Prague scene which opposed the socialist regime of the 70’s and 80’s. Towards the mid 80’s, he began to focus on calm music and subtle sound structures, playing a number of gigs channelling this energy wtih Oldřich Janota and Luboš Fidler, and eventually forming a new group alongside Štěpán Pečírka and Jaroslav Kořán. Smetana is one of the highlights of that creative period, characterised by a fusion of Richter’s gentle electric guitar alongside the fidlerophone, a unique percussive instrument, invented by Fidler, made of jars and struck by plastic strainers, and whose sound is similar in character to Tibetan bowls or Gamelan.Recorded in the spring of 1990 in the apartments of Štěpán Pečírka and Pavel Richter. Track 1 recorded in October 1988 at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. Overdubs and track 10 recorded in October 1988 in the apartment of Pavel Richter.

Beautful, post-punk infused beedroomy recordings by the London-based project by Sanctuary of Praise's Tom Bryant

begin form here... begin from here...our world lives when their world ceases to exist begin from here...with hopes, between silent skies, while world breathes again and the fever subsides begin from here...and to those who strike blows begin from here...while we keep going begin from here...while we mourn, we also fight We will be wherever the fires are lit! we will be wherever the fires are lit, a sort of sequel to Tashi’s first DC release Stateless, takes the torch and storms forward, with ten improvised acoustic guitar anthems. These musical thoughts are torn from the fabric of Tashi’s life and music. “Strumming in opposition to the towers” (as he puts it) is part of an existence that is always political, even in its most abstract iterations – a truth laid bare in these deep, raw performances.

A collage of recordings made between 2003-2017. Layers of time from different places in between obligations, sometimes for purpose, sometimes not. A re-assemblage of left behind sounds. 1. A march, in dub survival with vocal chaperone And the tread is sentient. Echo spills are a head turn but the machine-mulch keeps track and transit. Rest and be layered. And move again. To hear the analogue is to grab the finite to hold it and be dragged smiling through this cosmos. Collage as otherworld. Another world. picoFarad gifts time on a line, a corridor plus enticing rooms delights in each and delight to keep moving. 2. To a more monastic realm, voice stark and real upon minimal sonic detritus, lights a candle for playful navigation. A field more than recorded, the melodic harrow triggered by the rhythm of life. No walls Everything widens. Eyes open can now close on this To see more. “The cells of our selves will come first in line, the fight to be ended inside you.” “An impossible wage to be paid tithes no one's willing to waive for the good” - Kevin Hendrick

The nineties were full of changes and new energies in Prague. Concerts were organized in galleries, people listened with interest to emerging bands and new musical directions were followed. In this period, there was a growing interest in alternative art, and Richter Band, one of the leading alternative bands operating in the borders between ambient, new age and meditative music, was in its accession. After years of modest gigging in the late 80s, interest in seeing them perform live began to increase and the band started to tour not just the Czech regions but also ventured abroad.At the same time, Jaroslav Kořán, a fiddlerophone and percussion player, left the group and began to experiment with his own music. With him, he brought a range of musical experience from playing in the alternative rock group, Vyšší Populár, and the ambient outfit, Richter Band, as well as building and playing hand-made instruments. The fidlerophone, a unique instrument assembled using aluminium pots and mounted on sprung stands, formed the characteristic sound of Richter Band when played in unison with the subtle sounds of Pavel Richter’s electric guitar, and would later inspire Jaroslav to experiment in creating his own instruments. Although he already owned a sampler and played the piano, as a drummer, he was constantly seeking new percussive instruments and sounds, ranging from water glasses and pots to porcelain plates and salad bowls. In the summer of 1990, he experimented with nails hammered into wood in Šumava, a national park in the South Bohemian regions of the Czech Republic, and the first "Šumava (or village) kalimbas" were created. Together with his brother Michal, they refined the kalimbas, trying out repetitive melodies on them, which they would then record at home and supplement with loops from a sampler and slowed-down tapes.The newly recorded material, full of rhythms, pre-recorded loops and Michal Kořán's synthesizer, was presented for the first time in public in April 1990 at the Klarisky concert hall in Bratislava. Soon after, Jaroslav met Marek Hanzlík, a guitarist from another Prague-based band, Die Archa, leading to the formation of a new musical trio named Modrá (“Blue”). This led to a fundamental musical shift, with Marek’s prepared guitar bringing subtle harmonies and an unusual sound to the rhythmic structures, complemented by Jaroslav Kořán's slowed-down pre-recorded tapes, sampled loops and voices.Over November 1990 to June 1991, Modrá made a number of recordings in Jaroslav’s home studio. For “Bohemian Blue”, the most interesting pieces from this period were selected and supplemented with two compositions recorded live at a home concert in February 1991. Although the group was only short-lived, disbanding in the second half of 1991, it represents an important period of musical experimentation and marked the dawn of the nascent Orloj Snivců (“Horologe of Dreamers”), with whom Jaroslav Kořán still performs today. Modrá - Bohemian Blue CS 2024 [Infinite Expanse]C60 with on-body printing in jewel case and printed two-sided j-cardJaroslav Kořán: zither, sampler, percussion, plates, Mačický xylophone, tapes Marek Hanzlík: prepared electric guitar Michal Kořán: percussion, sampler, Mačický xylophone, village kalimba, plates cymbalsRecorded and mixed by Jaroslav Kořán, 1990-91, Pagoda Studio, Prague Remastered by Michal Kořán, 2018, Moon Studio, Prague 2024 issue under license via Blue Lizard

KEIRA FOX, SOPHIE SLEIGH-JOHNSON and VINDICATRIX present a new collaboration in Collapse: the soundtrack to an escalating 3-act play set across multiple timelines (BC, industrial, merchandised), drawing on a site-specific project originally commissioned by Cripta 747 Torino and presented at Saint Pietro in Vincoli Cemetery.‘The piece coalesces trans-temporal sites of city collapse from The Casa Delle Donne’s occupation of a historic women’s mental asylum, the Fiat Factory and the workers strikes of the 60s, to murderous 1970s shopping departments, and garage disappointments.’numbered + handmade in an edition of 50 copies with on-body screen print and eco-x slip; each copy contains three riso-printed cigarette cards Released: Purge.xxx - 2024

'Turning in Space,' a new cassette box set by Áine O’Dwyer, compiles a series of sonic choreographies conducted at the artist’s living and studio space in suburban East London. Since summer 2015, O’Dwyer has been a resident of the Lady Helen Seymour House, a former hospital, in a building-wide unit that gives the artist a stereophonic impression of the auditory surround. Inspired by the “natural musics” of the house’s structure (its acoustics, creaks, and room tone) and the community that holds it (sirens, bells, the weather, pedestrian murmurs), O’Dwyer live-mixes multiple vantage points—an extension of her search for Klangfarbenmelodie, a melody split between instruments, which “binds together both the intrinsic and extraneous in real-time.” These three tapes, recorded between 2019 and 2023, capture an array of post-collagist techniques, in which splicing, over-dubbing, and dissolving are performed live, and O’Dwyer’s subtle compositions for found-tune piano and synthesizer blend seamlessly with the environment, keeping true to her belief that listening is “both an instrument and a compositional element” in her work.

Ethereal and beautiful collection of lofi songs and jams from Argetinian artist Luciana Rizzo. Gentle but intense percussion combing with dreamy song structures that nods towards the likes of Stereolab.

Letterpress printed by Small Fires Press, Alabama. Green ink on ~60lb warm parchment stock.Duplicated by Cryptic Carousel, New York.Edition of 100

Amazing deadstock find of this rucial document of the late 70's / early 80s Czech avant-garde scene, privately issued by Black Point in 1991 Amalgam 1978-1981 features the recordings of a series of concerts of this project led by the Czech drummer and percussionist Vlastimil Marek, along with a variety of guests that range from renowned Czech progressive rock musicians and ethnomusicologists active in the country’s underground scene to a rare participation at that time of an international guest like Mohan Lal. The recording on the A-side of the tape stems from Amalgam’s participation at the Prague Jazz Days festival held at the Lucerna concert hall on the 19th may 1978. The occasion brought together Marek’s orientally inclined percussive music with the members of the progressive rock band Švehlík, which included Pavel Richter, Luboš Fidler and Alexandr Hajdovský along with the participation of the Indian tabla player Mohan Lal, one of the first foreign guests to play the festival. This first part depicts the inclination towards non-western musical traditions, in this case by Marek and its fusion with avant-garde rock bands like Švehlík, a style at that time already popularized in "the West" by musicians like John McLaughlin or bands like Tri Atma and Embryo for example. In a sense, such music is representative of a legacy of occidental musicians prone to experiment with oriental modes and percussion in order to escape from the constraining aspects of western music towards free and varied forms of music incorporating a clear tendency towards improvisation. The first half of the B-side was recorded at the sports hall Na Folimance in Prague a year later featuring Czech music-ethnologist and multi-instrumentalist Jiří Mazánekon on acoustic guitar and voice, and Milan Valenta on the violin. The second half was recorded at Baráčnická Rychta also in Prague and the liner notes only name Vlastimil Marek’s use of tapes and percussion along the participation of a series of unknown guests. While working on his solo percussion projects, Marek has also played with well known rock in opposition bands like MCH Band, Švehlík and Extempore, all of which have included Pavel Richter as a member. In this sense we may appreciate the diverse network of musicians of different genres which participated in the country’s underground scene, resulting in the creation of a fertile terrain for the development of non-conventional approaches towards a free music conception despite the ungoing political repression of the country at that time. The first side of this tape was released as the second half of the CD Švehlík & Amalgam – Lucerna 19. Května 1978 in 2017 by Galén, a book publisher and record label from Prague.  By Juan Vacas

Unplayed deadstock copies of the seminal Czech artists Irena & Vojtěch Havlovi's 1999 cassette 'Jako Motýl Na Tvé Dlani' straight from the original label's archive. Intermusic Productions, 1999

Jem Finer's album Hrdy-Grdy is the first physical release for Thanet Tape Centre:C52 blackberry purple cassettes with white, onbody printing on both sides, clear cases with two sided j-cards. Written, performed, recorded and produced by Jem Finer with a hurdy-gurdy and a small collection of electronic devices. & The Long Unbroken Short Now: A5 32 page full colour booklet with Essay by Jonathan P Watts and images by Benedict Drew

Conal Blake / Regan Bowering / Li SongMusic for Snare Drums and Portable Speakers credits released May 30, 2023Composed and performed by Conal Blake, Regan Bowering and Li Song.Side A: Live at Walthamstow Marshes, 21/07/2022Side B: Live at Cafe OTO, 21/01/2023