new: Sun Ark Cassette Editions

Fuzz

News from the Sun Ark is always good news, and this time it comes in a bundle of goodies. In addition to new 7" on Monofonus, which includes a cover of Teenage Fanclub's "December," which I can happily say I never saw coming. In addition, Stallones is also teaming up with friend Barrett Avner for Hold The Phone:

HOLD THE PHONE is mustard and ketchup on a deviled egg.
HOLD THE PHONE is your dad whistling at a 16-year-old girl.
HOLD THE PHONE is yin all dressed up in yang clothes.
HOLD THE PHONE is Woodstock yelling at Snoopy.
HOLD THE PHONE is Cameron Stallones and Barret Avner.
HOLD THE PHONE is two boy's talkin'.

Hold The Phone- Yellow & Blue (excerpt)

On the other hand, Sadistic Candle (Barrett Avner) is some demonic sourcing, kick-out-the-fuzz-and-beam-into-the-internal/eternal-zone jams. As Sun Ark notes, it is "a statement of purpose."

Sadistic Candles- Dead Ones Cry No More
Sadistic Candle- A1

tour: Janka Nabay Goes to SXSW, Sabanoh tape

Bubu King!

If you search Bubu Music in Google, the first eight links are all about Janka Nabay. The ninth is the Wikipedia article on the traditional music of the Temne people from Sierra Leone, made with “old keyboards and by blowing on carburetor pipes and bamboo shoots,” and of which Janka Nabah is universally considered the King. Not only that, Janka was also the first to record Bubu music in Sierra Leone, and his music proved to unite war torn Sierra Leone over ebullient dance music, whose goal was to use the music to promote “peace, good governance and the empowerment of women.”

Janka has been in New York City, regularly playing all over the Manhattan and Brooklyn with a tour de force known as the Bubu Gang, which features members of Highlife, Skeletons, and a plethora of other Brooklyn based musicians helping to re-create Janka’s vision of Bubu with live instruments. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Janka play on more than a few occasions in Brooklyn and each time I leave with my feet sore, but my mind strong. (Bubu proves to be both cathartic and healthy workout.)

Yesterday I posted the A Side to a tape Janka recorded in Sierra Leonne on the Kickstarter blog. To follow up, here's the B-side to Sabanoh. Pledge to Janka's project on Kickstarter.

Download Janka Nabay- Sabanoh B-Side
Download the A-Side to Sabanoh here.

TCC016 | Airbird/Megafortress Split

SPLIT


Airbird/Megafortress C30 Split - TCC016
****art by Megazord****

Old skool buds team up to populate this C30 chromatic tape in various synthetic forms.

Airbird (aka Joel Ford of Games) brings big beats and piano house over transposed vox on jams like "Part of the Game" and "King for the Night", while "Somewhere in a Field" dwells in galactic gurgles and satellite field recordings. It's all encompassing, and I didn't even mention that he also tries on the Beach Boys "Surfer Girl." Airbird going H.A.M right now. #watchout

Listen to "Part of the Game"

Side B is a mythic region inhabited solely by Bill Gillim, the lone proprietor of the Megafortress. Over four movements, Gillim zones in on the internal chaos, harvesting tones from a DX-7 in the midst of the night. "Allelujah" is a hybrid journey into a prophetic digital gospel, while "Mega Fortress IV" showcases Gillim's way with an EWI and VE-20. Pretty much just waiting for Kanye to jack a Megafortress vox samp at this point. Oh yeah, and if you haven't seen his video for Freedom From Fear, watch it now. It's not on the tape, but it's striking, and an excellent example of where Megafortress is heading...I think?

TAPE

Domesitc $7.00 International $11.00 Mex/Can $9.00

TCC015 | Flower Orgy

Red Hook

Supremely damaged hippie folk from Redhook's Flower Orgy, a fried concoction blended to distressed warmth over a few months on the southern tip of BK. The 4-some retreated to the woods of VT this past autumn and tracked this off-handed tape– a travellogue from a lost (or…found?) weekend in the woods. First release by this shambolic singers who meandered out of Bennington, VT a 'lil while back, includes an outstretched cover of Exuma's "22nd Century."

Snag here.

tape: Various Deficiencies Vol.1

Sultan

A few months ago we posted the exceptional debut compilation from Blackburn Recordings. Originally the mix, which featured the likes of Big Troubles, Coasting, Sultan, Sore Eros, Campfires, Cursillistas, Sleep Over, Cloud Nothings and Lame Drivers, amongst a ton of others, was only available as a MediaFire download. Well, now our homeboy Jonathan at Blackburn has taken the mix to its rightful home; the cassette tape. This limited edition of 130 features the art of Molly Smith, who hand-colored each tape. (Nice job Molly!) Blackburn was nice enough to hook Bobka up with a couple copies for giveaway. Name your favorite spaghetti western in the comments for a chance to win.

Download Various Deficiencies Vol.1
Purchase the Various Deficiencies Vol.1 tape

TCC011| CHUCK PERSON'S ECCOJAMS VOLUME.1

Demerol
He's baaaaaaaaack. DL's been on a hot streak, apparently absorbing solar rays and radiaton waves during the hottest summer ever(?!?!) and using them as the basis for hyper-accelerated replication. His latest incarnation comes in the form of a collection of screwed & fucked re-edits from the latest DL persona, Chuck Person. In the same realm as the recent Spend the Night with Games mix, the first volume of the appropriately titled ECCOJAMS takes clear nods from its 16-bit predecessor and sounds as if Chuck Person is actually remixing popular tracks with a Sega controller. Imagine DJ Screw & Araab Musiz's super chill/funny cousin fucking up top 40 classics through Parapper the Rapper interface. For gripping here.

Chuck Persons- Information by The Report|TCC

Chuck Persons- Angel by The Report|TCC

new: Spermwhales

"Hissssssy Fits"

Originally conceived as a gateway to meditation, the swirling ambiance of Spermwhales doesn't feature any nature recordings, but the natural world is most definitely present. The debut from the Maryland-based ambient artist, available on The Curatorial Club, hints at the tropi-waves ridden by Ducktails and other sea-faring experimentalists, but veers left, trading surf dotted melodies for hyper-dimensional exploration. Recorded earlier this year, The Seven Openings of the Head is I-Dosing for kids who want to seep below the "Gates of Hades" and simply zone out on the visuals in their mind. Order the cassette here.

MP3: Spermwhales- Ears, Door to the Soul

In addition to his debut tape, Spermwhales also got together with videographer Winston Case and recorded a video for "Summer Grooves" in a field of mirrors and new age diaramas.

mix: Spend the Night With...Games

"Squeeze Me Tight"

Every summer has its banging mix of sensual classics and 2k10's (aka SUMMRUHLUV) is brought to you by Games. Childhood homeys Dan Lopatin and Joel Ford sit back and ride a .wav of sensual soul and slo-funk, screwing everything from Enya to Mobb Deep, leaving all the shawty's in short shorts wet in the wings. Spend the Night With...is a long drawn out affair that forgoes the trappings of hi-fi blends, cross-fades and mash-ups in favor of key, beat and vibe oriented transistions, a throw back to an era where adjusting the tempo and matching the beat weren't as easy as setting a loop in Ableton. Of course, that doesn't mean that Games don't go wild on it, as evidenced by their re-edit of Cool Notes "Spend the Night", which gets minced & baked, like some dancefloor garlic bread shit (huh?). Hot shit for a hawt wknd Amerika. A full color, double C60 tape edition is available for pre-gripping right now at The Curatorial Club. Epic cover at by Megazord.

Listen to the whole 2 hr mix below.

SPEND THE NIGHT WITH GAMES - Side A by Games

SPEND THE NIGHT WITH GAMES - SIDE B by Games

SPEND THE NIGHT WITH GAMES - Side C by Games

SPEND THE NIGHT WITH GAMES - Side D by Games

tape: The Savage Young Taterbug Boys of a Feather

"Free Your Head"

Wildly scampering through a cattle field after a rain storm, one young man is home. The iridescent sheen on untended grass glistens with pre-dawn sun, as the homeless man, whose home is everywhere, plops to his knees and begins ravaging cow pies. It's mushroom season. Within an hour, the young voyager has a trash bag full of moist post-manure boom booms. The sun is creeping up, and just as the explorer hops the chicken wire fence, a farmer comes rustling out of his cottage, shot gun in hand. Two blasts in the air and our feteful voyager is long gone, down the road, and, in all honesty, feeling pretty damn good as those fresh shrooms kicked in before he was half way over the fence, watching bullets pierce the morning sky. This is how I picture Taterbug in Iowa. Freewheeling and dealing, endlessly living, and laying down pitch shifted vocal soul in the mean time. The "Boys of the Feather" C20 on Night People captures his spirit in bursts that are as languid and boggling as they are true; a psychedelic warrior with the spirit of Daniel Johnston (or the Devil.)

The Savage Yougn Taterbug's Boys of a Feather is available from Night People, as are a handful of other Taterbug related tapes. Highly recommended.

The Savage Young Taterbug- Side A of Boys of a Feather

mp3: Pario Marty "I Will Be"

"Plymouth Rock Roll Over"
(Art by Brittany Botz)
Wild Animal Kingdom Records just reissued an early recording by former Olympia resident and current Real Estate front man Martin Courtney IV. Floating in a nostalgic dreamscape is the vibe on "I Will Be", an eerily tranquil soft excursion with nods to Taking Tiger Mountain-era Eno and Brian Wilson, who actually appears for a short moment during the outro. Check WAKR for more details soon.

In other news, WAKR head honcho Dana Jewell will be hitting the East Coast in a few weeks and will be playing the Bobka showcase at the Northside Festival. Highly recommend coming out for this very rare show by Mr. Jewell. Also on the bill; No Demons Here, WOOM, Big Troubles, Arches, Andrew Cedermark and Ducktails. Saturday June 26th at Shea Stadium. Come Early, stay late.

Pario Marty- I Will Be

tape: Cascaders "Skybridge"

"Don't Want It"

(ED Note: This week I will be debuting new releases on The Curatorial Club. Pre-orders are currently available and will ship beginning June 8th. Check The Curatorial Club for more information.)

High above careening cliffs and the crashing white river rolling beneath, a samurai must balance his qi. Mind and body must work together to cross the ravenous ravine. Once in the middle, the wooden footpath shaking beneath, it is impossible not to look down. The samurai doesn't look down. He looks forward. Eyes on the prize, before, slowly, making his way to the otherside.

Much is the same with Cascaders, a project that owes as much to patience as it does minimal synths and drums. Permeating from the depths of Slob City, Cascaders projects the buzz of a late night TV drone onto lucid dreams inspired by Iasos. The musical project of Jamie Granato (Men & Women, Co-Founder of Group Tightener) is a luminous meditation on modern living in urban society, where the space floating between fits of consciousness is more telling than the random bits & pieces of memories left scattered on concrete streets.

Cascaders debut is a 4-song, 2-sided adventure in submergence. Preview the entire release over at Cascaders MySpace. While the digital sounds are tight, nothing compares to how the hypno-ambiance play out over 25 minutes on analog tape.

Cascaders- Skybridge

Pre-order Cascaders contribution to The Curatorial Club (TCC004) below.

Shipping

Domesitc $6.50 International $8.50

tape: Sacred Harp Feast of the Green Corn Tape

When I first saw this on Mirror Universe, I knew I had to have it. A sucker for homespun celestial acoustics, Sacred Harp promised a similar vibe as Numero Group's Wayfaring Stranger: Guitar Soli compilation, a collection which, if you aren't familiar, I highly suggest you spend a few nights alone with, drinking amongst blankets. Cheesy, yeah, but seriously profound. Sacred Harp is quite similar. In an age of scuzzy pop, blistering psych and assualting noise, Sacred Harp plays just like it sounds. Sacred. The sounds of the Gods tinkering with the planet, tilted on its axis, singing to the beat of a star so far away we call it a Sun, and even then, we still don't know anything about it. It's primitive and pure, the sort of wondrous alchemy that could only be harvested by the most righteous of farmers (in this case, Mirror Universe). It's wondrous. I'll say that again. It's wondrous. Purchase a limited edition of Sacred Harp's Feast of the Green Corn tape from Mirror Universe, I swear it'll make the everyday bullshit weighing down on your shoulder feel more like fluff, the type that goes well with peanut butter on a sunny afternoon. (Ed Note: Digitized versions of these tracks do nothing for the way they sound on analog tape.)

Sacred Harp- Feast of the Green Corn

Sacred Harp- Dogwood

tapes: The Curatorial Club

[Ed Note: The Curatorial Club is a new project-based imprint founded by the founder(s) of Chocolate Bobka, which hopes to make available projects that were previously unavailable. We will be working with our favorite artists, labels, creators, etc to bring these little nuggets to life.]

That said, happy to announce the release of three new tapes by three of our favorite artists; Twin Sister, Alex Bleeker & Run DMT. All releases are limited and were created by loving hands at home. As Aquarium Drunkard touched on, Twin Sister's Alternates is a collection of demoes from their old EP, as well as a preview of the material from their soon-to-be-released Color Your Life. Download the A-Side right here. It's a gem.

TCC 002 is a C20 by Alex Bleeker. Mad Dog is an "audio sketch book" that spans a year of bedroom recording Alex did, mostly "lying on my back in bed." The cassette is an invitation to view the work in progress, to hear loose picking evolving into the skeletal framework for songs like "Summer," which Bleeker notes "was literally the first time i had played it." "The first thing ["Mad Dog"] was something I did randomly on Matt's 8-track while I was waiting for him to get ready to leave. Then I found the handheld in my closet a few days ago because I wanted to record the last 'song' on there...It spans from December '08 to now.

The third release in the first batch from The Curatorial Club is Run DMT's physical debut. This C60 collects his initial work, Bong Voyage & Get Ripped or Die Trying, which were initially intended to be released as a two-sided tape. In addition, to the instant classic mixes, the tape is speckled with unreleased, exclusive Run DMT magic dust. Individually designed j-cards by Run DMT himself. Limited run of 20.

Learn more about The Curatorial Club and order releases here.

mp3: Sleep Over "Fog Juice"

"The Key

Floating out of the darkness, amongst lost lightning bugs and cerebral dust, comes Sleep Over's "Fog Juice." A deeper, darker counterpoint to "Your World Is Night" that stands like a black pillar where pagan aesthetes worship on full & new moons. If the apes get a hold of this track, expect a lot of broken bones at the monolith during the dawn of the new age. More sensual gloom & doom from Sleep Over coming out soon on via Night People.

Sleepover- Fog Juice

tape: Holiday Shores "Air Glow"

"We Go"
Accompanying a cover of Arthur Russell's "Your Motion Says" on the Through The Thin Clouds tape, Holiday Shores "Air Glow" comes off as a treatise on Wild Combination, the haunting and riveting documentary about the experimental composer's life and times. For all its rousing movements, "Air Glow" often seems like it should be "Your Motion Says", a simple reworking of a tune so inherently complex it could never be fully understood in its own time. However, unlike Russell's native Iowa, "Air Glow" was produced on unsavory farm land, the type of place where only weeds and dreams grow. And yet, despite its trappings, it rises higher than any weeds or expectations could grow, sort of like an infinite bean stalk, on its way to a place where ideas are nurtured, blessed. Collected on the Through The Thin Clouds tape, if this is any indication of where Holiday Shores are headed, it'd be a good idea to make sure the stalk is watered daily and gets a lot of sunlight. The band was selling the Through the Thin Clouds tape on its Fall tour, however, a few copies still remain. Hit [pemberton.n at gmail.com] for a copy up if your looking for a taste of the future.

Holiday Shores- Air Glow

comp: Brasil Could Be Your Life

Wild Animal Kingdom, Indeed

Wild Animal Kingdom is one of my favorite upstart labels and they've been churning out a lot of choice material over the past few months. Recent releases include Pill Wonder's Jungle/Surf, which would definitely prove an apt score for this vid of dudes surfing the Amazon, and the first installment of the must purchase WAKR Monthly Mix-Tape Club. The latest WAKR issue finds the Olympia-based dudes mining the fruits of South America. Brasil Could Be Your Life was curated by Lilian De Munno, a friend of the WAK who resides in Brasil, so yeah, her take on the music of Sao Paolo and Rio is probably more authentic than yours. The new mix is simply described by the following: "Q: How endearing is it to hear Portuguese speakers sing about t-shirts and love in English? A: Very." Truth. An early standout has to be "e o sol brilhou sobre o verde" by Supercordas, a psych act from Sao Paulo whose upfront use of theremin and tape loops recalls Elephant 6 and Smile-outtakes, as well as tropicalia. Bearhug's "A Storm, A Night Out (edit)" is another doozy, fusing lo-fi pitterpat drum beats with skill saw melodies. It's defiantly lo-fi and charming. Highly recommended, especially if you aren't sick of fuzzy vocals.

Supercordas- e o sol brilhou sobre o verde
Bearhug- A Storm, A Night Out (edit)

tape: Arch-M "Mountain Tan"

In The Mountain
Dark, moody and loopy, Arch-M's Mountain Tan cassette is the soundtrack to R.E.M. hallucinations and fantastical nightmares. The snippets which comprise the Mountain Tan Commercial Cassette, the fore barer to Arch-M's forthcoming 12" Moon Tan, which bedroom provacatuer Corey Reid is still recording, amount to roughly 9 minutes of material, material that should be played on "repeat all" while trying to drunkenly conjure visions of the past, or simply weirding the shit out of your roommates. While the 12" release is still pending, in a recent interview with No Pain in Pop, Reid noted that this year he will be touring the States and releasing a few 7", which is nice for those of us who couldn't get our grimy little paws on the limited edition Mountain Tan cassette. Luckily for us, Reid is a cool guy and made it available a while back on Archive.org.

Download Arch-M's Mountain Tape.