Indierock | Alternative Vinyl 479 Items

Formed around the undeniable talent of the Tsutaki brothers in 1977, the genre-defying music of Totsuzen Danball was introduced to the world in 1981 with the release of their first album, Can I? With a name translating to Suddenly Cardboard, the band’s trademark sense of humor is on full display. Whether it’s the sardonic anti-bossa of their cover of “A Girl From Ipanema”, or experimental tape manipulation on “ゆっくり立つ　ゆっくり座る” (lit. stand up slowly sit down slowly), you can’t help but be amazed at the band’s ability to communicate so much through their music. Can I? quickly became notorious overseas, with high praise from both Lol Coxhill and Fred Frith (ex. Henry Cow); who would later collaborate with the band! (Keep an eye out for reissues of those recordings!) Reissued on vinyl for the first time ever, this limited edition pressing comes with one of our obi-strips! Get Totsuzen Danball’s Can I? only from P-vine Records!

Originally released on Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis Dome Records in 1981, Desmond Simmons’s Alone on Penguin Island stands in splendid isolation. Rereleased on Rafftt records with the permission of Desmond’s estate it has been re-mastered from the original tapes by Denis Blackham, the artwork has been re- imagined by the original designer Slim Smith with extensive liner notes on gatefold vinyl rounding out the project.

The year before the Wire pair had initiated Dome: a project where the duo privileged process over the end product. They would often commence recording with little or no material, using the studio itself to create raw instrumentation. After the release of their first Dome album, they then invited Simmons to record an album for the Dome label. Simmons had played bass on Colin Newman’s recently released debut solo album A-Z and he and the Wire frontman were lifelong friends.

His original demos suggested a kinship with the psychedelic guitar pop he’d played on Newman’s A-Z. However, the versions on Alone on Penguin Island enter a very different realm. With Gilbert and Lewis as producers, Simmons’s compositions are abstracted, inverted and warped. It was a bold move on their part to suggest such an approach, yet a far bolder one for Simmons to accept this experimental mindset. Even if the recording sessions were often far from harmonious. Intriguing arrangements, sprightly verses and mournful melodies the album is one that spans many moods, Lewis referring to it as “fragile, mysterious, melancholic” From shimmering electronics and jittery synths to wistful guitar driven post punk. On the unforgettable ‘By Air Or By Sea’ the breathless Simmons vocal was not some incidental effect: the producers instructed the singer to run around the block, then dart back into the studio and record the vocal, before he had a chance to get his breath back. Another of the albums highlights the deeply psychedelic ‘Pathenon’ and the churning rhythms of ‘Man The Lifeboats’ is another of the album’s strongest tracks.

For all Simmons’s Wire connections, Alone on Penguin Island shouldn’t be considered a Wire side project. It’s a fully formed work in its own right, with Simmons’s strangely slanted song writing at its heart. It was produced just at the time a number of post punk’s brightest stars were about to dive into the mainstream. Simmons however, was headed in the opposite direction: creating an album that sounds as unique and challenging as the day it was first released. It is a bleached out coda: chilly and curious. It sounds less like a composition, more like its ghostly remains. Consequently, as the album concludes, the listener is left in an icy, lopsided lacuna.

Joanna Brouk's most ambitious recording, Sounds of the Sea is a concept album full of mystery and eroticism. A conch shell bookends this journey into the deep, going down and down and down further, never reaching bottom. Drawing inspiration from various legends of mermaids and sailors, Brouk weaves circling flutes, vocals, drones and whale songs to describe a sense of unfathomable longing more clearly than words could ever express. Sounds of the Sea is a hypnotic and profound achievement by one of new age's greatest composers.

Joanna Brouk's most ambitious recording, Sounds of the Sea is a concept album full of mystery and eroticism. A conch shell bookends this journey into the deep, going down and down and down further, never reaching bottom. Drawing inspiration from various legends of mermaids and sailors, Brouk weaves circling flutes, vocals, drones and whale songs to describe a sense of unfathomable longing more clearly than words could ever express. Sounds of the Sea is a hypnotic and profound achievement by one of new age's greatest composers.

Adrian Borland and Graham Bailey might be better known as members of legendary post-punk group The Sound, but the two were childhood friends and had been playing together even earlier in The Outsiders, and continued their deep musical rapport as a duo, creating these intense and engaging songs as Second Layer at the same time as their higher profile band output. Following the release of Courts Or Wars, combining their early material, 1972 reissues their only full length album, »World Of Rubber«.

1981. I write for the Friulian anarcho-punk fanzine “Nuova Fahrenheit”. That’s the beginning of my short antagonistic season (I had neither the balls nor perhaps the necessary conviction to declare war to the system, and in fact time has proved it). I listen to Discharge and Dead Kennedys, meanwhile I broadcast Disorder and Anti-Pasti on the radio, but also a lot of post-punk, the one that couldn’t find a place on “Nuova Fahrenheit’’ because not apocalyptic enough. 1981 is also when “Why”, the first EP from Discharge, was released, and for me it was like the “Pillars of Hercules”: you can’t go further than that. hyper-fast hardcore and vomited vocals, everything makes that record a cornerstone that redefines the genre. Its sequel, the monumental “Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing”, puts an end to that chapter: when such extreme music becomes “mature” you need to stop and reflect and maybe start looking somewhere else. Just a few months between one record and another in which I extinguish my warlike spirits. I’m looking for solutions that could merge nuclear catastrophes and introspection, blind fury and structured sounds. Unconsciously I was thinking of an already existing album, it’s Italian and I discover it thanks to a review in “Mucchio Selvaggio” magazine. That record is “Challenge”. “Challenge” was released in 1981 on Bootleg, a record label born inside a record store in Pavia with the same name. “Challenge” keeps the original and uncompromising punk attitude alive. 3 groups: No Suicide (from the Udine province), Mercenary God (from Gemona), No Submission (from Treviso), all sick children of the industrious, rich and Christian Democratic north-eastern part of Italy. I read about them in “New Fahrenheit” (a controversial article about local rivalries, common backgrounds and eventually separate roads.) but I don’t know their music. Something tells me that “Challenge” is the record I was looking for, perhaps because of its very powerful cover with no slogans, and a circled “A”. I send the money in a sealed envelope and wait. When the package arrives, I open it, I put the record on the turntable and let the needle go. The first listen is enough to realize that this is a crucial release, a real “challenge”. The challenge is against an indifferent market. The instrument is a sound that is already changing skin. No Suicide, Mercenary God and No Submission have nothing to do with Great Complotto, they are the other face of the northeastern underground. Punk is their background, (read “hardcore” for No Suicide) but for all of them there is a progressive detachment from the original material, including a common attitude towards the caustic sound coming from the harshest side of British wave. A classic example of “work in progress” able to generate great songs like “The Degraded Men” by No Submission (the band that later evolved into Wax Heroes), one of the peaks of Italian post-punk. Mercenary God will give birth to The Sex, while No Suicide with their tight hypnotic hardcore will disbanded soon. It’s 1981 when the rain clouds on the “Challenge” front cover seem to remind us that the wind is going to change soon. 3 bands, 11 songs, an unearthed piece of history 43 years after its first release. Thanks to this reissue, “Challenge” is now back on track. A different disc, today as then. (Luca Frazzi)

Joanna Brouk's most ambitious recording, Sounds of the Sea is a concept album full of mystery and eroticism. A conch shell bookends this journey into the deep, going down and down and down further, never reaching bottom. Drawing inspiration from various legends of mermaids and sailors, Brouk weaves circling flutes, vocals, drones and whale songs to describe a sense of unfathomable longing more clearly than words could ever express. Sounds of the Sea is a hypnotic and profound achievement by one of new age's greatest composers.

Official reissue of Dortmund's self-released single from 1981. For those in the know a sought-after gem, for everybody else the single you didn't know you need in your life! Comes in picture sleeve with the original artwork. Limited edition. 'Titanic' - quite self-explanatory - is about the queen of the ocean and her sinking as a ship believed as unsinkable. Starting off with its morse code-like sounds it evolves into a heavy grooving mélange of alternative rock, funk, new wave and synth pop. The B-Side 'The Deep' explores depths you didn't know about. This instrumental jazz boogie funk fusion piece takes you on a five minute journey that will be your life-saver on any day. In the early 1980s the scene of the Ruhr area was alive and kicking but still under the radar. Musicians played in different bands and projects of various styles. Three guys gathered simply under their city name "Dortmund" and did their own thing which led to this conceptual single - their only release.

Before that Elmar Krohn (keyboards) and Thomas Meyer (vocals, bass, guitar, keyboards) were part of the "Mardi Gras Band", a funk and soul band with a great reputation for their live shows. They were also involved in writing 'Blame It On The Boogie' which got performed by "The Jacksons" in 1978 but that is another story. On the drums they were joined by Siegfried Hermes who also played in the band "Die Salinos".

First ever reissue of one of the most sought after collector's items in the entire Glenn Danzig catalog - the notorious, non-album 1981 single "Who Killed Marilyn?"! Recorded during Danzig's tenure with horror punk icons The Misfits, this song was released as a solo single but backed with an unreleased Misfit's track, Spook City USA! Side A contains the original mixes of both songs while Side B contains all new remixed versions of both tracks by Glenn Danzig & metal producer/engineer Chris Rakestraw!

The Scientists' 1981 wild debut bewildered Perth, Australia's punters with its charging anthems centered on themes of young love and alienation. Obvious in its rebellion yet more pop than punk, the self-titled "Pink Album" deftly embodied the tough-yet-danceable outsider aura of The Ramones, and its unheard of, feverish clip shook the shores of the geographically confined Swan Coastal Plain of down under. Recorded just as the lineup of guitarist-vocalist Kim Salmon (The Cheap Nasties), drummer James Baker (The Victims) and bassist Ian Sharples were breaking up, the album stands as a testament to the contagious chops of Perth's swelling pool of musical talent, and to the promise of Salmon's unwavering vision that would become one of the most celebrated acts of the Aussie underground.

180 gram gatefold cover double vinyl reissue incl. 8 bonus tracks!

140 gram reissue!

Zru Vogue is a two man post punk avant-pop group from Palo Alto, California, combining the talents of Andrew Finkle and Rick Cuevas. The band began in 1980 as a four member group: Rick, Andy, Tom Sanders and Nancy Miller. Tom and Nancy left the group shortly after the first single, "Nakweda Dream", was released by independent San Francisco label Adolescent Records in February 1981. Inspired by rave reviews and heavy airplay on alternative radio stations, Andy and Rick went back into the studio, now as a duo, to record some new ZRU tracks. The self-tilted LP was released on the band's Zero Risk Records in 1982. It contains eight compositions blending African tribal and Middle Eastern rhythms, avant-garde rock, minimal electronics, and funk-rock guitars. The duo's sound is inspired by the art and anti-art movements of Dada and Surrealism. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. Each copy is housed in a replica of the original jacket, which features artwork by the group members, and includes the original 2-sided lyric sheet.

Formed in Sheffield in 1978 and originally known as just "The", Artery is a band that saw several changes in the line-up throughout the '80s. Supported by John Peel and often compared to Joy Division their music incorporates various fundamental elements of the British post-punk aesthetic. Originally released in 1982 on Red Flame records, "Oceans" was Artery's debut mini-LP including some absolute gems such as "into the Garden" and "Afterwards" infectious anthemic tracks of the post-punk era.