Pseudoarcana

to briefly continue the music thread I thought I’d link to one of the most interesting record labels to have come out of New Zealand: pseudoarcana.

They specialize in the hinterlands of sound, where stray tramps with broken guitars record onto 4-tracks ‘cobbled together out of wire, branches and old tin cans’.

They release a lot of abstract soundscape stuff, and a lot of dirty broken-down rock, here’s a description of a couple of their albums:

·Armpit- 'Frenzy'.
Onehungas white trash urban hillbilly hip hop god Glen Frenzy remixes NZs dirtiest free-rock band. The resulting album sounds like a cross between CJAs 'Headache' and Simon Wickham Smiths '2 4 Dancin'. Amps are turned on, and turned on, and turned on, and turned on... Tape recorded feedback and hum is cut into small short loops that repeat for infinity before crashing into another loop. VERY minimal, and not for every one but I know that I've sure had some weird experiences through listening to this disk at catostrophic volumes...

Dialing In. -'Cows In Lye'.
Dialing In is the ecstatic roaring psychedelic drone project of Seattle based sound artist Reita Piecuch. Utilising the natural acoustics of a series of reverberant spaces she weaves together super saturated soundscapes by recording in one environment, playing back in another, and then re-recording this recording playing back in yet another environment (etc..).
On 'Cows in Lye' the original sound sources range from loops of field recordings from a trip to India, piano, and the shifting drones of a "Shruti Box" (electronic Tamboura). One track also features a long stream of consciousness vocal performance from avant-crooner 'Herb Diamante'..!
After a trek with recording gear through the caves, cathedrals and bunkers of Seattle these ingredients are transformed into huge and sublimely distorted quasi-melodic dreamscapes. The album lifts off with an ecstatic roar and the intensity doesn't let up until one is released exultant in the green flash of a setting sun...
CD NZ$20

6majik9. -'Weapons and Maps of Western Despondency'.
From out of the twig-clad back-blocks of Queensland and northern New South Wales arrives another ecstatically apocalyptic missive from the musicyourmindwillloveyou collective (home of Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood and Terracid, White Cobra et al...).
6majik9 is obstensibly the 'big band' manifestation of the collectives psychedelic enhanced group mind and features multiple guitrists, flautists, cellists and drummers and an irrepresible (and quite mad...) vocalist cum theremin stroker(!)
Ranging from propulsive driving drum reveries to lilting nuanced drones 'Weapons and Maps' catches the whole chaotic enterprise in charmed and glowing flight.
CDR NZ$15

Psuedoarcana is also one of the most prolific labels I’ve come across, and it’s all done out of the downstairs garage of one guy, Antony Milton, for love, not money. So if you’re going to spend you’re hard earned dollars (or if you’re MAPS your mums allowance) on music, why not give your ears a treat and give it to these guys?