Feral Child Vinyl, CD & Tape 12 Items

Last release of a productive year for Feral Child sees a fabulous mini LP from London based, Japanese Psych band Barbican Estate. Six beguiling tracks of atmospheric, occasionally acid folk flavoured, melodic > freakout shifts, taking in tips of the hat to Popol Vuh (check Miri’s beautiful vox on “Angel”), Amon Duul and fellow countrymen Acid Mothers Temple and Kikagaku Moyo amongst others. Formed in 2019, this three-piece consists of Kazuki Toneri (guitar, sitar), Miri (bass, flute, vocals), and Koh Hamada (drums, percussion). Each member is well-versed in music, film, and various other arts, drawing inspiration not only from experimental, psychedelic rock, and noise music but also from art across the world, both past and present. Their music weaves solid, architectural elements with destruction into a dark and gloomy soundscape, is often described as "dark psychedelic." They released their first album, “Way Down East”, in 2021. In 2022, they relocated to London, where they performed on UK tours and at festivals. Having already played nearly 50 live shows, they are gaining attention in the local scene. Their latest EP, "Viscum" was released in June 2024. “Barbican City of Tokyo” is a compilation of tunes previously consigned to digital release only that label head, Dom had free rein to assemble an EP from, which luckily the band wholeheartedly agreed upon! …and all four tracks appear on vinyl here for the first time. This release hopefully cements a growing interest in the band’s fabulous music, and early reviews of both the LP here and their live shows are overwhelmingly positive.

Feral Child’s 50th release is an absolute gem; housed in a beautiful 70s styled disco bag- it sees a 12” collaboration between longterm label favourites, Studio Kosmische from the UK and Cloud Canyons from Italy. A killer double A side featuring a reworking by SK of “Under Neon Stars” (from Cloud Canyons’ great 2023 debut album “Dreaming Of Horses Running In Circles”) which adds to the original versions’ relentless motorik pulse, by adding a few parts and alchemically blending the original elements of the song; the slowbuilding ethereal female vocals, the multilayers of monophonic analogue synths- moulding a shrouding and lilting veil on the 9 minute long original. Side B features a brand new track, “Black Fruit”, which also sprung from the creative dialogue between the two bands and also clocks in at around 9 minutes, side-long. Born as an instrumental piece by Studio Kosmische, “Black Fruit” developed into a full song thanks to the vocal additions by Michelle Cristofori, Laura Storchi and Stella Baraldi (Cloud Canyons’ singers) and a rich yet minimalistic array of instrumental parts by Studio Kosmische’s Dom Keen, who ingeniously shaped the keys harmonies and rhythmic textures around the vocal lines. Accomplished by some subtle electronic treatment by Cloud Canyons’ Nicola Caleffi, “Black Fruit” ideally complements “Under Neon Stars” as a two-sided creature, hanging somewhere between krautrock and electronica.

Brand new on Feral Child, comes a sublime debut 45 from an incredible female electronic / performance duo Digital Roses. Following a chance meeting in a library and an overheard discussion about Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop- Dom FC was sent a bunch of demos and 2 of these fabulous pieces grace their first release on 7" here. The band describe themselves and their sound thus: “Digital Roses are two queer multidisciplinary arts based in London, whose sound has been described as “hyper-soul” meets “Nordic noir electronica”; a musical feast of experimental art pop, ambient noise, and wistful soul melodies. Rising from a multidimensional conceptual framework, Digital Roses avail contemporary visuals, computational forms, sound synthesis, and sound art, together with organic instrumentation and voice, to explore the emotional landscapes of the human condition. They aim to share their journey, observations, and musings with the same beautiful, painful, and sometimes aggressive nature that can be found everywhere there is humanity. ‘Waterfalls’ is a song inspired by the mysticism of the Toka Leya Waterfall tribes of Victoria Falls. The tribe’s name loosely translates to ‘those who crossed over to keep away from trouble’, and their drums are believed to hold supernatural powers. The song is the first stop in the imagined mystical journey the Digital Roses take us on. The aftermath of this musical exodus is where we encounter the mysterious and haunting lamentation that is the B-side track ‘Under the Sea’”. Beating off a mini label tug of war for the right to release the mighty “waterfalls”, Feral Child is thrilled to bring this debut release to the table. Icy cool, elegantly experimental electronica which -to these ears- is one of the year’s best singles so far…

Next up on Feral Child sees a reissue of a 45 that initially came and went in a day, last July. A beautiful pair of instrumental gems from two of label head Dom’s musical heroes; Will Sergeant and Paul Simpson. Released as a limited 7” clear vinyl repressing. Wills' “Toy Piano Mantra” is a beautifully meandering, slow building, multi layered piece- more melodic than some of his previous more experimental solo work; of its back story and creation, Will says: “I’m not really one for acoustic guitars, I have played them on Eatb records, but the electric guitar is my weapon of choice. So I set myself a little task -for no other reason than it being a bit of fun- and thought “Why don’t I make a collection of acoustic tunes, purely to see if I could?”. All my acoustic guitars are very cheap, which never stopped me using them. I had bought a Chinese pedal harmonium in London in the ’80s, and scrounged the use of a good ukelele, my Auto Harp was an obvious component, then I remembered the toy piano I had bought in a pop-up flea market in a vacant New York lot, back when New York still had vacant lots. Deliberately deciding against having any tunes ready, everything was set up and with the help of Andrea my engineer and pro tools wizard, we kept the good bits and expanded with these instruments until I felt it was finished. It was all off the top of my head and my fingers created music like some automatic drawing that Austin Osman Spare might have conjured up on one dark and ritualistic night. I added the toy piano and christened it “The Toy Piano Mantra”. Paul’s side features the previously unreleased “Ghosts of the Karelia Forest” recorded in 2006, a beautifully simple piano piece which again slowly builds, and distorts with added moog and so on. Paul says of the piece: “The higher harmonics of the tuned wine glasses used on this piece, sent the VU meters on the mixing desk at The Gossamer Dome studio into the red, but Producer Henry Priestman and I both liked what that distortion added to the atmosphere of the piece, so chose not to correct it. ….I await its use in a disturbing art house movie”. When the single was first released, both Will and Paul were embarking on next / first instalments of their books; Will’s “Echoes” and Paul’s “Revolutionary Spirit: a post punk exorcism”- both are now long since out, selling well and receiving rapturous reviews both here and overseas. Releasing this one is firmly in honour-to-do territory for the label, and initial copies are available from Feral Child HQ but mostly via shops courtesy of Forte Distribution.

The second of November’s Feral Child releases is another absolute beauty. A beautiful comeback record of sorts for Marc Rigelsford’s Magic ARM project. The 45 is a taster for his own privately released, and utterly fabulous “Dance Mania” full length, currently available via his bandcamp page. Recorded in isolation in a former whiskey distillery, “Dance Mania” is “Magic Arm whittling and distilling sound down to pure forms, a collage of songs, mood pieces, drones, found sounds and stirring instrumental passages”. The two tracks here are lifted from the album, with its A side, the majestic “Good Views Near North” having already attained 6music airplay. The songs’ treated piano opening offers no hint to the beautifully incessant, kinda’ motorik groove that then takes over- wonderfully skewed and quite otherworldly perhaps. The groove then changes tack again as it closes with cellos and strings aiding further it’s general ‘out there’ mood. It’s a beautiful piece and by releasing it on 45, one would hope to push Marc’s music out a wee bit further, certainly it’s a thrill for Feral Child to release it and it’s flip, the more electronic, and equally fabulous “432” is just great too.

Next up on Feral Child comes the debut vinyl release from Austin Tx psych outfit NEON LEMON. Having caught the eye of label head Dom on some cool looking, local Spacemen 3 themed nights’ posters; further digging revealed this incredible, richly melodic, yet deep psychedelic beauty with -seemingly- no home for a release on wax, so it was pretty easy to step in and offer to release it.

“Hypnagogic Visions” is a superb, fuzz n’ drone drenched 6 track 10” LP in a sleeve designed by the legendary Jim Franklin (a friend of the band) who famously designed beautiful posters, flyers and gig tickets for the Elevators, Shiva’s Headband and Canned Heat amongst others, in his role as owner of the Vulcan Gas Company, a revered 60s Austin psychedelic club and concert hall.

As Ben Siebert from the band explains: “This record was mostly written and recorded in a warehouse space outside of Austin (that no longer exists) called The Inner Chamber. We tried best to capture our live sound in this space, and with most band members in a state of constant turmoil at the time of its recording, this space offered a refuge from our personal lives and a place to transcend reality through creation of this music.”

Neon Lemon blends together mind altering psychedelic sounds of the 60's with transcendent space rock of the early 70's. Finding their own balance between free form psychedelia and a mainline of roots rock and roll.

Blue Vinyl.
Cover with seam split at upper edge.

Limited Edition. Oceanic Blue Splattered Vinyl.

Cover with seam split.
Record with tiny pressing inclusion on side 2.
Includes original PVC outersleeve.

Following the label’s 9 minute sell out of it’s recent Mark E. Smith BBC “football results” lathe cut, Feral Child return with a cracker. A split LP featuring two of mainland Europe’s finest experimental electronic artists, Germans Phantom Horse and Belgiums’ Innercity. 2 side long epics of rich exploratory, kraut tinged Electronica. Phantom Horse offer up “Pink Star”, a side long slowburner (with production by Kohn’s Jurgen de Blonde) built around opening drones and sporadic kosmische themed synth flourishes. We’ll mention Cluster again in a moment, but this has its head pointed firmly towards the legendary work of Moebius and Roedelius. A lovely track, kinda cleaner and more sonically polished than it’s flip, but that juxtaposition increases the records’ appeal here. For these ears, it’s Innercity’s epic “Ali” that steals the show here and is easily worth the proverbial price of admission on this one. A monumental, moody, side long piece of lo-fi drum machine enthused electronica recalling some imaginary dream collision of the very finest Conrad Schnitzler flavoured K/Cluster or first 2 LP Kraftwerk with latter day industrial, electronic pioneers of our own, early Cabs, Clock DVA, Throbbing Gristle, Robert Rental et al. Just magnificent and we don’t say “hike it right up” lightly…. Label head Dom has long had Hans Dens -and his Innercity project- pencilled in for releases on his previous labels Deep Distance and Polytechnic Youth which -for one reason or other- never materialized but their coming together here is exquisite and the track is a monster, my “new” track of the year thus far; talk about it being worth the wait…. A lovely record, in a limited one time pressing on vinyl through North London’s homespun Feral Child label.

Next full length up on Feral Child sees a welcome reunion for both label and artist; having teamed up lots in the past, James Toth and label head Dom, join forces for another beauty. This time round, 11 previously (and mostly- certainly in these forms) unreleased home recordings and demos from a 10 year period between 2012 and 2022. Titled “Demon Stations”, it’s a beautifully seamless collection, mercifully saved from the relative oblivion of bandcamp / digital only demos and released on vinyl this February. Many of course know James best from his Wooden Wand moniker, alongside his work with the likes of Michael Gira and Thurston Moore etc, then one would hope last years’ “Birthday Blues” 33 artist tribute / comp covering songs from various points of James’ career (feat Meg Baird, Lee Ranaldo, Six Organs of Admittance amongst others) will only have raised his star further…. On this collection, James says ““Demon Stations” is a compilation of songs from five different digital-only demo collections I released on Bandcamp between 2021 and 2023. I relied on the ears and judgment of my old friend Dom to curate this comp, allowing him to choose his favorites from over 60 songs. While I might have chosen an entirely different batch of tunes, I was happy to defer to Dom, as I’ve never had much perspective when it comes to assessing my own material. All of the songs were recorded at home, mostly on the same day they were written. Most are first takes, intended to provide a template for a theoretical band to follow if and when the songs were to be re-recorded “properly” at a later date. A few have since been re-recorded for studio records, and a few others remain in contention for future studio records.

New out on Feral Child is a super limited 7” EP from Italian Kosmische | Library artist Alessio Bosco, under his 30 Door KEY moniker. A wonderful 5 trk 45 heavy on Hauntology vibes, samples, nods to minimal electronica and kosmische. With one foot firmly within the “long lost ‘70s supernatural TV themes” camp, the record is superbly and consistently fresh and ambitious- and comes hugely recommended to devotees of all the above, Trunk records heads and minimal synth, electronica nuts. It looks as cool as it sounds too; screened black board sleeves, with inserts galore and hand numbered to 187 copies on black wax.

Next up on Feral Child (and the penultimate full length of the year for the label), sees the fabulous collaboration between Justin Wright (Expo 70) and Grant Corum (Million Brazilians, Timelash, Psychic Sounds Ensemble) Blazing Worlds. The duo’s self-titled full length was recorded during a week long Midwest summer scorcher, and expands and contracts with six heavily hallucinatory movements that only hellishly humid nights could induce. One that seasoned sonic psychonauts Justin Wright and Grant Corum could venture to manifest a deep phantasmagoric excursion through brilliant atmospheres in a seamless collection. The material on Blazing Worlds harkens back to Wright’s synth-driven ’Sorcerer of Sound’ full of cosmic tones and other worldliness aura, in tandem with Corum’s bent woodwind work and extraterrestrial sounding samples. Where this is certainly a departure from some of their previous work, the two seem to find equal navigation through their evolving compositions morphing into a singular melting chthonic mass, giving the listener an open-ended impression of mesmerizingly vast sonic topographies all gleaming with moments of both glimpses of gorgeousness and the grotesque. “Blazing Worlds” provides a wonderful, seamless spin from initial blast to the last. There are lots of strange instrumental textures and propellant pulsations, all pretty much within the confines of modernist electronic invention, and the whole shimmers with a very unusual kind of lambency, while still sounding deceptively discernible. While it can often seem tricky to keep up with Wright and Corum’s many releases and style shifts, it is constantly rewarding and this is another fine addition to their oeuvre.