Originally released in 1997 by JME/EL, this album documents Trumans Water as a three piece with the Branstetter brothers and Kevin Cascell on drums. It also includes sax work by Ryan Paulos on tracks 4, 5 and 7 and was recorded by Greg Paul and Trumans Water at the Herbert House. Includes a cover of Sun Ra’s “Rocket #9”.

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Originally released in 1996 by Runt Records, Action Ornaments was recorded by Brendan Bell with Luke Hollywood’s 8-track in various Portland basements, then later mixed by Greg Paul and Trumans Water at the Herbert House and mastered by Ryan Foster and Trumans Water at Super Digital. The album features Trumans Water as Kirk and Kevin Branstetter, Kevin Cascell and Paul Haines on bass. It also includes contributions from Azalia Snail (tracks 4 and 9), Gary Olsen (track 4 and 9), Danny Dick and Cyndy Chan’s aunt (track 9), Anne-Laure (track 11 and 12), and Chan Marshall (track 12).

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At the request of the legendary John Peel himself, this collection of songs were recorded in a variety of places and times and includes appearances of the various pantheon of Trumans Water drummers, Will Prentice on Bulgarian pipes, Dean Pritchard on exhaust pipe, and covers of Sun City Girls and Nation of Ulysses. Tracks 1-5 were recorded September 26, 1993, tracks 6-11 were recorded may 10, 1994, and tracks 12-16 were recorded may 11, 1995.

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William Ryan Fritch is a film composer, recordist, songwriter, and multi -instrumentalist living in Oakland, Ca. He records under the moniker Vieo Abiungo for Lost Tribe Sound Records, is a member of the trio Skyrider, the experimental post-hop outfit Sole and the Skyrider Band, and is a go to guy for a number of other recording artists and producers. Since 2008 he has scored nearly thirty films, several of which have premiered in film festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, Los Angeles and Copenhagen.

Music for Honey and Bile is an album of filmic works in which unfettered optimism is loomed out of spectral melancholy, and the unflattering ruddy of such sanguineness stands naked in the midst of the noxious ether.

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All pieces composed, performed, mixed and recorded by William Ryan Fritch.

William Fritch: Piano, organ, wurlitzer, pianet, guitars, pedal steel, drums, saxophone, percussion, marimba, cello, violin, viola, bass, contrabass, mandolin, banjo, hammered dulcimer, vibraphone, trumpet, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, programming, erhu, sarangi, and other various knick knacks

with the amazing help of –
Annie Lewandowski on track 8: chopstick prepared piano
James Diotte on track 13: vibraphone, jaguar organ, tape manipulation, and additional arrangement.

Comic Wow are sonic illustrators, alchemists, designers, dilettantes’, poets, teachers, Socialists, and outdoorsmen whose advocacy of affordable colored cod pieces helped influence the look of thirty-third century America. Incidentally, they’ve also released music as Feathers. All pieces composed, performed, mixed and recorded by Eddie Alonso, Eric Rasco, John McEntire, Chris O’Malley, Ken Champion, Roy Silverstein, Paul Mertens, Tim Iseler, Jeremy Lemos, and Matt Crum.

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Eddie Alonso: guitars, farfisa mini compact, wurlitzer ep 206, rmi rock-si-chord, suzuki omnichord, baldwin electric harpsichord, chickering 5” 11’ grand piano (re-built), percussion, marimba, banjo, vibraphone, cornet, electronics
Eric Rasco: bass, danelectro baritone, electronics, skeleton finger
John McEntire: drums, percussion, electronics, engineer
Chris O’Malley: drums
Ken Champion: pedal steel, dobro, guitar
Paul Mertens: flute
Tim Iseler: engineer
Jeremy Lemos: engineer
Roy Silverstein: guitar, engineer
Matt Crum: drums

The result is an album that is perhaps more vibrant, more primary, and more explicit than anything else he’s done before.

Asthmatic Kitty Records presents the fifth Half-handed Cloud full-length album: As Stowaways in Cabinets of Surf, We Live-out in Our Members a Kind of Rebirth, or Stowaways for short. Connected with the lyrical tradition of 19th Century American hymns such as “Shall We Gather at the River?” “Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?” and “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing,” these tunes splash about in cavernous spaces opened up by irregularly measured rhythms and pocket-orchestra arrangements integrated with creaky pianos, sound-loops, a tugboat of a church organ, guitars, and billowing banjos.

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Half-handed Cloud’s John Ringhofer recorded this album on his half-inch reel-to-reel tape machine in the sanctuary and custodial quarters of a church in Berkeley, California, where he’s lived and worked as a custodian for the past seven years. He played most of the parts himself, joined by friends on cello, clarinet, violin, trumpet, and flute. Brandon Buckner, one-third of Ringhofer’s former band, Wookieback, is behind the drum-kit for the duration of this record. The album was mixed with Daniel Smith (Danielson) at Familyre Studio in Clarksboro, New Jersey.

The Stowaways LP was partly informed by the connection between water and blood (which is 95% water), Brownian motion, the moon’s relationship with tides, Charles Ives’s Fourth Symphony, the mechanics of caisson engineering, Bruce Nauman’s 1960s process-advertising post-minimal artwork, the parallels between Lewis & Clark’s Corps of Discovery expedition and the Apollo Moon missions, Zamboni machines, biblical influences on Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, The Moles Instinct LP, the seascapes of Winslow Homer, bicycles as an initial step towards the space race, Jacques Cousteau’s book The Silent World, the life of 19th century blind traveler James Holman, Big Star’s Third/Sister Lover, Günter Grass’s novel Cat & Mouse, just-add-water instant food mixes, The Beatles White Album, the north-Pacific gyre, Tarkovsky’s film Stalker, writings of the Desert Fathers, and the Centigrade scale.

While creating the Stowaways album – not stowaways as in “secret”, but stowaways as in “hidden” – Ringhofer was also repeatedly struck by texts in the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures that identify God with water: over water the Spirit moved in the creation story, through water the children of the exodus traveled, in water believers are baptized. This album became a libation, where water serves as a surrogate body for God: a submerged, shadowy image, experienced and known but never pinned down. Stowaways’ songs can be playful, like clothes at a laundromat tumbling between wet and dry, and they attempt to get to the bottom of things, or pursue a sense of place, but the location they seek is inside a person – someone to begin with, empty into, and celebrate in the midst of both warm assurance and lingering terror.

O Zeta Zunis is a cohesive foursome ripping confidently, a few slowed-up passages helping to accentuate the melodic riff-drive of “Last Time” or the balls-out whizz-bang of “Greased Water,” the twitchy-catchy frolic of “5-7-10 Split” or the rubbery buzz-chug of “You Live Out Loud.” Nice.

It’s one of the first days of spring here in Montreal. The sun feels warm, and new green is imminent. There’s a buzz all around on days like these. The winter was cold and long, but it makes the spring sweeter. Shapes and Sizes settled here three years ago. I say “settled” because prior to their arrival here they kept a rigorous touring schedule. Touring with The National, Yeasayer, opening shows for the Silver Jews, Sufjan Stevens; too many shows to get into specifics. So when they arrived in Montreal, there was a feeling of resolution, maybe even hibernation. They carried out their daily chores: one sold books, another records, one studied music and perception while delivering groceries at night, and another never kept her eyes too far from the road.

But all this while, the band was quietly tinkering. You see deep down, Shapes and Sizes never really settle. Each record starts where the previous left off, and forays into new territory. The first album, which initially caught the attention of Asthmatic Kitty’s Sufjan Stevens, was really just a collection of crafted pop songs. The second was a glorious mess, jagged guitars matched with gentle banjo, as obnoxious as it was sensitive.

And the third? Well, it took long enough to drag out of them. After two years of writing songs, recording the album took another year. Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (A Silver Mt. Zion, Tim Hecker) recorded the album at the Hotel 2 Tango, and it was mixed at the Pines by David Bryant (Growing, Set Fire to Flames). Set-backs and indecision played their part, but the lengthy incubation period seems to suit the record: the songs are measured, paced. They are neither shouting in your face or wallowing in their own mood. Cohesive and reliable, this is the record where Shapes and Sizes becomes a band, not just a collection of songwriters. Some might talk about the album’s flirtation with modern soul, its darkness, its reverberant space, or argue over whether or not it is a rock album. But for me, this kind of talk has no importance. At the core of this record is a self-assuredness, a calm, consistent fire. And just like the promise of this beautiful spring day, this record is a new beginning, new life.

Asthmatic Kitty is proud to announce the re-press of Shannon Stephens’ self-titled debut (2000).  Produced by Stephens and her former Marzuki band-mates Sufjan Stevens and Matt Haseltine in 2000, this superb collection of Shannon’s own songs includes contributions by Marzuki cellist Jamie Kempkers, Kenny Hutson (Vigilantes of Love) on pedal steel guitar, Mews and Mews Too contributors Roman Bolks and Jason Brouwer, and folk mainstay Jason Harrod.  With new artwork and two previously unreleased bonus tracks, this release will delight newcomers and faithful fans.

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