Outer Sounds Vinyl Subscription

Rip_City

Rip_City

Well-Known Member
I know this was mentioned in the Ambient / Noise / Lowercase / Field Recordings / etc. thread, but I figured it would be best to create a dedicated hub to the releases from this unique subscription service. The website can be found here:
www.outersoundsvinyl.com

Outer Sounds Vinyl Subscription

www.outersoundsvinyl.com www.outersoundsvinyl.com

Greg Davis, the owner of Autumn Records (located in Vermont), is responsible for the curation of Outer Sounds. So far, two records were announced:

Nov '20: Ellen Fullman - Music For the Man Who Grew Common in Wisdom
Dec '20: Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love is a Stream

The rather loose genre focus on monthly selections includes (from the website): ambient, drone, dub, electronics (new & old), ethnographic, krautrock, minimalism, modern composition, new age, psychedelic, spiritual & free jazz and more.

The price for a 3-month subscription in the US is $105 ($90 for monthly records, $15 for individual shipping). Merch is also available in the form of tees and a tote (as of the creation of this thread).

Greg will provide additional content in the form of an interview with the artist. These are independent of the subscription, so anyone is free to view them. They will be posted on YouTube for accessibility.

It doesn't look like there is a "swap" feature that other clubs have. So, earlier selections might not be available. It should be noted that, so far, all of the selections are currently available on Bandcamp, if that helps. However, you can get a $30 (or less) record in Autumn Records' stock as your monthly record if you don't want that month's selection.

This subscription is certainly not for everyone and the genres being explored are very much the definition of an acquired taste. I will try to update this thread when new records/content are announced.
 
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Outer Sounds 003 - January '21 RotM Announcement​
Joshua Abrams - Represencing


Joshua Abrams - Represencing LP Aguirre - Stranded Records

  • mimimalism
  • spiritual jazz
  • ethnographic
From the website:

The selection for January 2021 is Joshua Abrams’ Represencing LP reissued by Aguirre Records, it was originally released in 2012 on Eremite Records.

After a number of years playing in the acoustic, minimalist, chamber folk group, Town & Country as well as being a fixture in the Chicago improvised music scene on bass, Abrams really started developing his own music on his first major solo album Natural Information (released on Eremite in 2010). This was the birth of a revolving ensemble of musicians that would become the Natural Information Society (aka NIS). The music is a direct progression from the Town & Country albums, but moving even deeper into world music, minimalism, trance, psychedelic & spiritual jazz zones (the band name is surely a nod to Don Cherry’s Organic Music Society which seems to be a major touchstone for the NIS music).

The main sonic element that anchors the music & makes NIS so distinctive is the gimbri, a 3 stringed lute from Morocco with a rattling, percussive bass tone primarily used in traditional Gnawa ritual / trance ceremonies. (We can trace a direct line back to the Moroccan karkabas used on the track "Blue Lotus Feet" on Town & Country’s final album from 2006, Up Above). Abrams first encountered the gimbri on a trip to Morocco in the late 90s. He centers the pulse, vibe and drive of the band with the gimbri and then weaves a rich tapestry of colors around it in various ways utilizing a wide array of instruments and players: bells, harmonium, autoharp, chimes, percussion, guitar, drums, vibes, organ, synths, winds, strings, etc.

While Natural Information was the genesis of the project, things really started to come together for this second album. Abrams recorded this album at home bringing in a who’s who of the Chicago music scene (Chad Taylor, David Boykin, Tomeka Reid, Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Michael Zerang and more) to contribute to his expanding compositions. On Represencing the gimbri becomes an even stronger foundation which would continue on the follow up albums Magnetoception (2015), Simultonality (2017) & Mandatory Reality (2019). Lisa Alvarado’s paintings adorn the covers of all of the NIS records and pull together the entire vibe with the perfect visual analog to the music (just like Moki Cherry defined the visual aesthetic of the Organic Music Society).

If you’re a fan of Popol Vuh, AACM, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Arnold Dreyblatt, Hamza El Din, Sandy Bull / Billy Higgins duos, Gnawa music and more, you’ll fall right into this timeless music with ease.


No links for individual purchase at the moment, but this Amazon link hints it will be made available soon.

EDIT: Interview with Joshua has been recently uploaded here:

 
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Rip_City said:
Sounds like a ringing endorsement! I will listen to this one soon.

I ordered the previous two RotMs on Bandcamp Friday this month; Fullman arrived yesterday, Cantu-Ledesma is still in USPS hell all the way in New York.

Wondering if I'll be a completionist in this club...
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It’s awesome that Represencing is being repressed! Eremite’s original pressing is limited and 💰💰💰. It is on Bandcamp, although electronic-only with limited tracks for free streaming.

With only a three-month commitment for this curation, it seems worth exploring. I’ll probably give it a shot.

 
Outer Sounds 004 - February '21 RotM Announcement​
Ashley Bellouin & Ben Bracken - String Songs


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  • minimalism
  • ambient
  • drone
  • modern composition
From the website:

The selection for February 2021 is Ashley Bellouin & Ben Bracken’s String Songs LP on Debacle Records.

Ashley Bellouin & Ben Bracken have been quietly making music for many years in the Bay Area (Ben has played with bands such as Saturday Looks Good To Me, Flashpapr & Date Palms as well as improvising with many notable musicians). Most of their work life (Dave Smith Instruments / Buchla / Cycling74) & music life has been in the realm of electronic music using synths & computers but the seed of String Songs began when Ashley & Ben worked under the tutelage of Daniel Schmidt at the Paul Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency Center in 2012. There they were able to get away from the electronic world a bit and focus on acoustic instrument building, specifically a monochord multi-string aeolian harp type of stringed instrument.

After many trials, tribulations and prototypes they developed a pair of five foot long instruments each with 35 strings, 11 of which are strung on a “javari” bridge that produce a buzzing tone like the tambura which is heard as the basis of Indian classical music. For several years, these instruments were mostly used for long form live performance & sound installations (including an early performance with Sarah Davachi, who wrote some liner notes for the album, and Tashi Wada). The live performances allowed them to experiment & amass many different techniques for playing the instruments which include plucking, bowing (with rosin strings a la Stephen Scott or John Cage), using ebows, hammering, strumming, etc. After about 7 years of performing with the instruments and refining their techniques, they made this album.

It starts with the spacious & clear drone piece, Sung Strings, which utilizes ebows & their various positions & placement along the strings of the instruments. Strummed Strings is a bit more “traditional” sounding with piano chords, plucked strings & synth arpeggios bringing to mind the music of Giusto Pio, Popol Vuh and JD Emmanuel. The sidelong track, Strung Strings, is an immersive buzzing drone piece utilizing a special bowing technique & various tunings in the zone of Ellen Fullman’s resonant & harmonically rich overtone music. And there are still some subtle synths & electronics embedded into these pieces as well.

All in all, Ashley & Ben created a beautiful, personal, concise & deep record that reveals the years of work they put into making & playing these unique homemade instruments.

Available for preorder on Bandcamp here ($20 + $5 shipping):

bellouinbracken.bandcamp.com

String Songs, by Ashley Bellouin & Ben Bracken

3 track album
bellouinbracken.bandcamp.com bellouinbracken.bandcamp.com

Interview with Ashley & Ben here:




EDIT: Bandcamp LP is sold out.
 
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Outer Sounds 005 - March '21 RotM Announcement​
Nuno Canavarro - Plux Quba

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  • ambient
  • modern composition
  • electronics
From the website:

The selection for March 2021 is Nuno Canavarro’s Plux Quba LP reissue on Drag City.

Plux Quba is such a mysterious, unique, timeless & singular album, we don’t know much about how it came into existence. After the fall of the Salazar regime in the mid 70s, a vital music scene started to bubble up in Portugal by the late 70s / early 80s as sounds and influences started trickling in and out of the country.

Nuno Canavarro was on the outskirts of this new Portugal Rock scene producing records & playing in bands such as Delfins and Street Kids. But Nuno left the scene and headed to the Netherlands for a couple of years where he would study electronic music at the esteemed Institute of Sonology in Utrecht. He returned to Portugal brimming with ideas and inspiration. Armed with a very simple set up: an Ensoniq Mirage sampler (one of the first!) and a Fostex 8 track tape machine, he would go about constructing this intimate & personal musical landscape. He utilized some tricks and techniques he learned in the Netherlands but instead of applying them to more academic structures and sounds, he decided to work with more immediate sound sources from his environment and a handful of sampled instruments, modified and transformed into the playful sonic tapestry we hear on Plux Quba.

Nuno premiered this new music at a musical contest/concert at the Instituto Franco-Português in the late 80s. João Peste was there to hear it and he loved the music immediately. He asked Nuno if he could release it on his label, Ama Romanta, which hadn’t really released any music like this before. (They would also release Toze Ferreira’s similarly fascinating Música De Baixa Fidelidade right around the same time). Ama Romanta pressed up 500 copies of the LP and while it was a well regarded album in the local music scene in Lisbon, it never made much of a splash beyond that. Fast forward to a few years later in 1991, Jim O’Rourke is hanging out in Koln with Christoph Heeman & the crew of Georg Odjik, Hans Jurgen, Jan St. Werner, C-Schulz & Ralph Dommert, etc. Christoph had gotten some copies of Plux Quba directly from Ama Romanta and he was selling & distributing them through DOM. Anyways, they all became quickly obsessed with this record.

A few years later Jim would meet Rafael Toral and he would track down the original master tapes and digitize them for the CD/LP reissue on Jim’s Moikai label (a subsidiary of Drag City) in 1998. This reissue captured the attention of many more people & made it more widely available. It also fit in nicely with some of the current glitch, experimental, electronic music coming out at the time like Nobukazu Takemura (and other Japanese electronic music) as well as the Koln scene: Mouse on Mars, Microstoria & Oval. Plux Quba would continue to make waves and reverberations throughout various music scenes for many years to come.

In 2015, Drag City repressed the LP (and made it available digitally) and again in 2021. It is so important that this record is available for everyone to hear & I’m glad it has found its proper place in the world.

Seeing as it has been repressed this year, stock should be available outside the subscription service in time.

Interview with Rafael Toral, a Portuguese musician involved with remastering this LP, linked here:




Wow...this is a very big get for this club. If you enjoy this brand of esoteric releases from the club so far, make sure to not pass on this one; it is probably the most critically lauded of them so far.
 
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Outer Sounds 006 - April '21 RotM Announcement​
Tim Story - Threads

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  • ambient
  • electronic
  • krautrock
  • minimalism
From the website:

The selection for April 2021 is Tim Story’s Threads LP reissue on Dais Records (Orange transparent vinyl in an edition of 400 copies).

Threads was supposed to be Tim Story’s debut album but it was never meant to be, its the classic story of a long lost album. Tim discovered the music of Cluster, Eno, Wyatt and more while working at Drome record store in Ohio with John Thompson (of Pere Ubu graphic design fame) and he was inspired to make some music of his own. Isolated from any scene and holed up in his parent’s basement in Whitehouse, OH with a makeshift collection of instruments (a piano, Les Paul guitar, Yamaha CS-30, homebuilt PAiA synth, salvaged vibraphone & misc. percussion) & a Tascam 4-track recorder. Only in his early 20s at the time, he spent a couple of years at the dawn of the 80s working on material that would become Threads. Once he had some tracks he was happy with, he dubbed off 6 copies of the album on cassette and sent them to a handful of European labels (including a copy to Klaus Schulze) that he thought would be sympathetic to his music.

One label, Atem, a French progressive label which featured the likes of Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, This Heat and more, took interest in his album and wanted to release it on their new sublabel for electronic / ambient music called Labyrinthes. A contract was drawn up and test pressings were made but unfortunately Atem/Labyrinthes went out of business before Threads was ever released. However, Klaus Schulze liked Tim’s music and played the tape for some friends & associates which resulted in him getting a record deal with the Norwegian label Uniton Records. By this time, Tim had already completed his next album In Another Country so that became his proper debut release after moving on from Threads. Threads remained unreleased until 1992 when it was released on CD by Eurock. And now, some 40 years later, it finally got its first proper release on vinyl by Dais records.

The music on Threads is minimal, repetitive, melodic and ambient with weaves and washes of synths, piano layers and electronics. It forms a cohesive whole and sits alongside the DIY ambience of K. Leimer’s music who was doing similar things at the time in Seattle. Inspired and influenced by the great music coming from Europe at the time, Cluster, Harmonia, Eno, Wyatt, Kraftwerk, etc, this is Tim’s own youthful and personal expression filtered through the lens of the working class Midwest of the late 70s.

Tim would go on to make many albums throughout the 80s & 90s (for labels such as Windham Hill & Hearts of Space) and he continues to make interesting and engaging music to this day, always wanting to explore new vistas and evolve his sonic palette. Things came full circle as he became long time friends with Moebius & Roedelius of Cluster and began working with both of them in more recent years. (His series of “Smudges” on Curious Music as well as The Roedelius Cells are recent highlights).

This is the first Outer Sounds selection that has multiple variants (with one sold out), but Outer Sounds is shipping out the translucent orange variant. There are some copies of this variant, a clear variant, as well as standard black on the record label here:
www.daisrecords.com

Threads

American ambient composer Tim Story's obscure and unheard first ambient album, originally intended for release in 1982, now available on vinyl for the first time ever. Story's compositional instincts skew subtle and sophisticated, carving gemstones of fluctuating radiance.
www.daisrecords.com www.daisrecords.com

Many copies available on Discogs. Also available on Bandcamp, but for ~$2 more.

EDIT: Interview with Tim has been recently uploaded here:

 
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Outer Sounds 007 - May '21 RotM Announcement​
Yoshi Wada - The Appointed Cloud

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  • minimalism
  • drone
  • modern composition
From the website:

The selection for May 2021 is Yoshi Wada’s The Appointed Cloud LP on Saltern (first released on CD in 2008 by EM Records / Edition Omega Point).

After moving to New York from Japan in the late 60s, Yoshi Wada became a part of the Fluxus movement there and worked with La Monte Young and studied with Pandit Pran Nath. Yoshi began building his own instruments such as horns, pipe organs, percussion and others in the 70s which led to a number of works such as Earth Horns with Electronic Drone, The Lament for the Rise and Fall of the Elephantine Crocodile, Off The Wall and more. His recorded output is sparse but magnificent.

During a residency in Berlin from 1983-84, he worked on the pipe organ system used for Off The Wall and it would culminate in The Appointed Cloud a few years later. After returning from Germany, Yoshi was feeling frustrated & limited by traditional performances and wanted to work on a long form sound installation. The Appointed Cloud was originally conceived as a sound installation built specifically for the acoustics of The New York Hall of Science, he began working on it in 1986. David Rayna would be instrumental in designing the primitive computer software used to control Yoshi’s instruments: the pipe organ, a giant sheet of metal, a siren and a pipe gong. This allowed Yoshi to program a score that would continuously play out over the course of the installation as well as allow for basic user input / interaction by visitors.

The music we hear on this record was from the opening night on November 8th, 1987. Yoshi supplemented the installation sounds with a score for 3 bagpipers and a percussionist (playing timpani and gong). This performance alternates beautifully between the droning and shimmering tones of the sound installation and the expansive & ecstatic bursts of color from the bagpipes and percussion, all captured in the massive resonant acoustics of the great hall.

While Yoshi Wada’s recorded output was sparse and difficult to track down for many years, this changed around 2008 when EM Records / Edition Omega Point started reissuing his albums on CD as well as issuing never before recorded works. This rediscovery and reevaluation of Yoshi’s music would heavily influence & inspire a younger generation of musicians and composers (myself included!).

Saltern, run by Tashi Wada, continues to present Yoshi’s work to new audiences & Tashi carries on his father’s legacy in his own music (father and son collaborated on the excellent album, Nue, from 2018 on RVNG Intl).

Available for preorder on Bandcamp here ($29 shipped excl. tax):



Interview with Tashi Wada on this album (and perhaps his father's discography) will be uploaded soon. Fun fact: Julia Holter is Tashi's girlfriend.

EDIT: Interview with Tashi available below.




EDIT 2: RIP Yoshi Wada :(
 
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Outer Sounds 008 - June '21 RotM Announcement​
Tongue Depressor - In the Quarter Column

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  • minimalism​
  • drone​
  • modern composition​
From the website:

The selection for June 2021 is Tongue Depressor’s In The Quarter Column LP on Red Scroll Records.

Tongue Depressor is the duo of Henry Birdsey & Zach Rowden from New Haven CT. They have mostly been releasing limited edition, self released cassettes since 2017 and this is their debut LP. Their music represents the next generation of noise, DIY, modern composition, drone & free improvisation (and even some nods to Early Music). Henry is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer originally from Vermont. Zach is a bassist, composer and improvisor from New Haven.

The music on In The Quarter Column feels like a crystallization of their sound and aesthetic to date. Everyone Was There on Side A works on a bed of woozy, droning, plucking tape loops of pedal / lap steel and introduces their approach to just intonation and alternate tunings. It reminds me of a more lo-fi, dissonant version of Oren Ambarchi’s early pointillistic guitar work. A Singing on Side B moves in a more horizontal drone space with microtonal pipe organ and long tone bowed bass layers. Dissonance and beating patterns emerge among the alternate tunings again. Both sides offer up an immersive listening space full of details that reward multiple spins.

This isn’t placid, background ambient music, its an enveloping & mildly dissonant world to explore that demands your attention not unlike the music of Alvin Lucier, Tony Conrad, Arnold Dreyblatt, La Monte Young, Phill Niblock, Charlemagne Palestine and more.

Apologies for late posting, as there were 10 copies on Bandcamp around the time of this being announced from their social media. Only a single copy left from Bandcamp, but I'm guessing some copies are still available from the service.




EDIT: Interview with the members of Tongue Depressor available below.

 
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avecigrec said:
Don't know that I'll be able to for a few months yet, but this looks most likely to be the next club I sign up for.
Thanks for this thread.
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You bet. I'll try to be more timely with updates in the future.
If you do sign up for a 3-month, please post the contents of the monthly package! I bought a T-shirt with logo from them and it came with a sticker + free shipping.
I have purchased all of the RotMs from (mostly) Bandcamp, and even found one at a local. Usually small runs for each selection, so YMMV for the latter.
 
Outer Sounds 009 - July '21 RotM Announcement​
Les Filles de Illighadad - At Pioneer Works

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  • ethnographic
  • minimalism
From the website:

The selection for July 2021 is Les Filles de Illighadad At Pioneer Works LP on Sahel Sounds.

Les Filles de Illighadad were founded in 2016 by solo guitarist Fatou Seidi Ghali and renowned vocalist Alamnou Akrouni. In 2017 they were joined by rhythm guitarist Amaria Hamadalher. Ghali is one of the few, maybe the only, female Tuareg guitar players. Usually women in their region were involved with the traditional Tende music of Niger, but Les Filles fuses these two styles & traditions into their own music.

Christopher Kirkley of Sahel Sounds discovered Ghali through his connections to the local music scene after spending time traveling throughout the area and recording musicians for one of the first Sahel Sounds releases Music From Saharan Cellphones. On a subsequent trip, Kirkley traveled to the remote village of Illighadad and recorded Ghali and company in the open air, this became their self-titled debut on Sahel Sounds in 2016. That album features Ghali’s mesmerizing acoustic guitar playing and vocals on Side 1 while an extended piece of Tende music of just vocals and hand drums fills out Side 2. Their debut album was well received and they began to tour around Europe and beyond. They recorded their followup album, Eghass Malan, shortly after. This album features Ghali on electric guitar and a more fleshed out full band sound. During their first US tour in 2019, Live at Pioneer Works was recorded in Brooklyn NY. Here we get an incredible document of a finely tuned band at the height of their touring career.

Les Filles music is hypnotic, minimal and transportive. Heavy echoes of American blues music mix with the polyrhythms of the Niger desert. This music is meant to be heard in a live performance, to feel the community presence and relaxed impromptu nature of the jam sessions back in Illighadad. This is maybe something a little different for Outer Sounds but also right in line with it too. Good music is good music.

Available as a preorder on Bandcamp for $18 ($5 shipping for US). The first world music selection, from what I can tell.



Interview with Christopher Kirkley of Sahel Sounds available below:

 
avecigrec said:
Way cool!

This is already one of my most anticipated albums for next month - awesome to see it show up in here.
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The available teaser tracks are fantastic and lively.

One of my favorite locals has a replenishable supply of small label records (LitA, Superior Viaduct, International Anthem, Sahel Sounds, and a few others), so I will likely wait until release date to get it there. I have seen records from this label priced as low as $12 for sealed copies at this store!
 
Rip_City said:
The available teaser tracks are fantastic and lively.

One of my favorite locals has a replenishable supply of small label records (LitA, Superior Viaduct, International Anthem, Sahel Sounds, and a few others), so I will likely wait until release date to get it there. I have seen records from this label priced as low as $12 for sealed copies at this store!
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My local is generally pretty good for those labels too, which has been glorious for a handful of releases. Typically running in the $25-30 CAD range though - still far cheaper than having an online order shipped here, but your local definitely sounds like a sweeter deal!

That said, I remember walking out of a Fred Meyer in Portland years ago with a litre and a half of red wine, 2 bombers of Pyramid IPA and a tall can 6-pack of Old German for less than the bottle of wine would cost here, so...
 
Outer Sounds 010 - August '21 RotM Announcement​
Florian Hecker / Okkyung Lee - Statistique synthétique / Teum (the Silvery Slit)

Hecker & Okkyung Lee: Statistique Synthétique / Teum (the Silvery Slit)

  • electronics​
  • modern composition​
From the website:

The selection for August 2021 is the Florian Hecker / Okkyung Lee split LP on Portraits GRM.

Unfortunately there won’t be an interview this month. I had some emails out to label founder Peter Rehberg about being interviewed for this selection and then he passed away suddenly, I am still shaken up about the news. Instead I’ll be writing some words about his music & the massive impact that his labels (Mego, ReGRM, Portraits GRM, etc) have had on the music world for years.

Sold out on Bandcamp, but appears to be available in some indie stores + Forced Exposure here ($23 + shipping):


I'll update the description soon when made available.
 
Outer Sounds 011 - September '21 RotM Announcement​
Francesco Cavaliere & Tomoko Sauvage - Viridescens

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  • electronics
  • ambient
  • minimalism
  • new age
From the website:

The selection for September 2021 is Francesco Cavaliere & Tomoko Sauvage Viridescens on Marionette.

Available on Bandcamp for $24 (+$15 shipping for those in the USA). Interesting electroacoustic music, but I'm hesitating at that shipped price for < 33min of audio. I'll try to find this at a local shop in a few weeks.

Email interview with Francesco and Tomoko available in the album hyperlink above. Cannot post here as it exceeds word count per post.
 
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