Volcano The Bear - 1999 - The Inhazer Decline

Genre: Avantgarde, Free Folk
Label: United Diaries (UK)

Similar Artists: Nurse With Wound

Krautrock, Freeform Folk, Freaky, Weird...

When Nurse With Wound's "A Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table.." was first released in 1979, the response was one of bafflement. Volcano The Bear's first album for NWW's United Dairies is just as baffling. Ostensibly following the 70s art-rock damage of Faust (especially 'Tapes') and the willfull eccentricity of The Shadow Ring, Volcano The Bear (Byram refuses to call them anything but BJ and the Bear) plods through disjointed percussive riffs with alien droning, incongruous guitar work, and a crystal clear production which wouldn't be out of place on Too Pure. It's not hard to see why Steven Stapleton sought this group out after their Pickled Egg debut for a United Dairies release. 

Tracklisting

1. Planetary Bethlehem 
   
2. Quarterstone 
   
3. Musima 
   
4. Bowl 
   
5. Ruth Da Moose 
   
6. Worse With Noun 
   
7. Giant Angels 
   
8. Vast Blanket 
   
9. Mung 
   
10. The Queen's Teeth 
    
11. Here Are The Bounds 
    
12. Planetary Bethlehem 
    

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Volcano The Bear - 2007 - Amidst The Noise And Twigs

Genre: Psychedelic, Free Folk
Label: Beta Lactam Ring Records (US)

Similar Artists: Grizzly Bear, but on a weird mushroom trip!, Hochenkeit

If all the * Bear bands are cuties and sweeties, this bear will abduct you in a cave inside really deep and dark woods. Volcano the Bear are from Lancaster UK and released on Steve Stapeltons Label United Diaries. That should give you a direction, if not, imagine dark folky soundscapes and surreal ritual music with flutes, horns, percussion and mutiple voices.

The Three Twins close the album and maybe this is your escape from that cave. Play Loud!

Who knew that amidst the noise and the twigs there was music…sweet, sweet music?! This world is Volcano the Bear’s womb. At last, the year that VTB gets a shot at Top Of The Pops, assuming the pops finally snaps out of its vapid trance and embraces the standards of Comus, 3 Hurel, early Residents and 12th century Arabo-Andalusian music. As usual, our heroes are found keeping things stripped to the bone trumpet, but dripping with a juicy, melodic marrow. The record pours slowly and resolutely like a folk-psych dream urn, loaded with full metal banjoes; crumhorns at 12 O’clock; and autoharps at defcon 5. The experimentalism is this time couched in shifting tides of self-spun acidic harvest ballads that noisily well up into proto-Kraut thrums and tribal night trips around the pyre. A rural, squelchy, DIY delicacy which stinks of occidental embouchure so crystal crisp that every skkrrrr, pphaaapph and brrruuuummmm resonates like a small, sound-specific god, intertwined with beautifully skewed notes, voices and rhythms. "Amidst The Noise And Twigs" plays like a recently discovered field recording of some obscured Celtic clan who accidentally stumbled onto psychedelia 600 years ahead of its time. These pipers truly rock the gates of dawn.

Tracklisting

1. The Sting Of Haste 
   
2. Before We Came To This Religion 
   
3. Larslovesnicks Farm 
   
4. Burnt Seer 
   
5. Cassettes Of Berlin 
   
6. Splendid Goose 
   
7. She Vang Moon 
   
8. One Hundred Years Of Infamy 
   
9. The Three Twins 

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A Broken Consort - The Shape Leaves (2006); Crow Autumn (2007)

Genre: Drone, Freefrom, Psych Folk
Label: Sustain-Release (UK)

Similar Artists: Thuja, TwinSisterMoon, Nature Snow Buildings

Shimmering freeform mantras on violin and sparkling guitar pickings. Very organic sound which make the time stands still. Checkout the labelwebsite to see the full beauty of his releases.

The music consists of long-spun acoustic soundscapes - drones and melodic repetitions, but with a great depth of sound. Most prominent are guitars, percussion, and various other bowed and strummed strings. The result is at the same time familiar, rooted in the earth, but also far from everyday experience. A wonderful musical depiction of the mystic depths contained in natural landscapes with only a hint of cultivation.

Tracklisting - The Shape Leaves

1. In The Hanged Air 
   
2. A Momentary Sun 
   
3. And All Their Silver & Gold 
   
4. For Nothing 
   
5. The Longing Day 
   
6. Untitled
   

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Tracklisting - Crow Autumn

1. Crow Autumn 

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Giddle & Boyd - Going Steady With Peggy Moffitt EP (2008)

Genre: Europop Noir, Easy Listening Noir, Lounge Noir
Label: Discriminate Audio

Similar Artists: Psychic TV

Beside his Noise-Attacks he sing along with Giddle Partridge and make some cool weird Lounge Pop.

Boyd Rice and Giddle Partridge, two of the most creative and respected artists of the 21st century have decided to team up and make beautiful music together. Drawing from a variety of influences including 60’s French Pop, Spy Films, Psychedelic & electro pop...

Tracklisting

1. Contact 
   
2. Sunset Strip SS 
   
3. Rocket USA 
   
4. Bubblegum New Forever 
   
5. Going Steady With Peggy Moffitt 
   
6. Bonnie & Clyde 
   
7. Warm Leatherette (Bonus) 
   

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Ashtray Navigations - Tristes Tropiques (1999)

Genre: Avantgarde, Freeform, Noise, Drone
Label: Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers, Blackbean And Placenta Tape Club, Rhizome

one-man-and-a-tape-machine-against-the-universe...

The highlight is about ten minutes in when some of the baddest-assed tabla playing I've ever heard comes down the pike with the expected (but still effective) space/drone heaven-rock accompaniment. (Blastitude 9)

Tracklisting

1. Reel (19:07)
2. <...Rail Between> (18:04)
3. Thier Heads Are Green And Their Hands Are Blue (6:26)
4. Bethesda Before The Rain (1:50)
5. Bethesda During The Rain (1:23)
6. Bethesda After The Rain (7:00)
7. <...It Sure Is> (8:23)
8. Theme From ''TRISTES TROPIQUES'' (3:11)

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Pruditsch / Rowenta - Orion und Kassiopeia (2006)

Genre: Avantgarde, Drone, Collage
Label: Jeans Records

Backward tapes, voices, sampled radio cuts and the unusual use of conventionally instruments are used for sound collages, which are more intimate and laid back.

Tracklisting:

1. Orion und Kassiopeia
2. Lakritzfischen
3. Auerhahn
4. Led Zep
5. Kabul und Kathmandu in Indien
6. Schwarze Raucher
7. Gut geschlafen?

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Christina Carter & Andrew MacGregor / My Cat Is An Alien - From The Earth To The Spheres Vol. 4 (2006)

Label: Very Friendly, Opax
Genre: Avantgarde, Free Folk, Noise

"Brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio split this forth release in the series with the American queen of psych-free-folk music Christina Carter (Charalambides, Scorces), here at her debut as the new duo-project together with Andrew MacGregor (Gown). Harsh yet warm plucking at the strings and her fascinating vocals, accompanied by Andrew’s bass guitar chords and singing, sound as if the listener was called to witness the secret dialogues between two distant lovers’ hearts. The title of MCIAA’s track, “The circle of life & death”, fits as ever before Roberto’s cover painting, where the dark imprints left by a white leaf on the acrylic-colored wooden surface create a circle-like representation of life and death. As the violet color recalls transcendence indeed, so do the opening floating-guitar tunes and Roberto’s wordless-vocal hymn." (label info)

Tracklisting

1. Christina Carter & Andrew MacGregor - We Know When We're Thinking About Each Other (19:30)
2. My Cat Is An Alien - The Circle Of Life & Death (21:50)

Try it - Buy it - MCIAA@last.fm - Christina Carter & Andrew MacGregor@last.fm