BIRDS BUILD NESTS UNDERGROUND & MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Gramofonu = Voice Of The Universe' LP (Love Nest / Opax)
The first meeting of two improv acts, Prague-based turntable & 8mm band Birds Build Nests Underground and Italian psychedelic troubadours My Cat Is An Alien. Two different approaches to music make a sound that takes both from the unknown realms of the outer space and from the somehow-well-known world of old cracking records and the music and sounds on them. BBNU provided some of their live improvisations, MCIAA then chose those close to their hearts and laced them with sounds of guitars, space toys & ray guns, wordless singing and alientronics. Never has music of the spheres crackled so nicely. As if the whole galaxy lies on a giant turntable. The record starts with an exciting, ecstatic and excellent improvised speech by a Czech avant-garde poet V�tezslav Nezval who sees the whole world through his glass and the glass in the window of a recording studio. Ltd x 300 copies in a pro-printed sleeve.
UK 13.00£
Europe 16.50£
World 20.00£
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BIRDS BUILD NESTS UNDERGROUND - 'So As' Enhanced CD (Lumberton Trading Company / Love Nest)
"So As" is the latest album by this prolific and inventive trio comprising of turntablists Petr Ferenc and Michal Brunclík and filmmaker Martin Ježek. Featuring four pieces and a film by Ježek lasting 10 minutes, this album witnesses BBNU not only honing the craft caught on their previous few releases and live sound but also pushing it into new places as well. The atmospherics and interstellar swirl of textures seen on their recent collaborative LP with My Cat Is An Alien serve as a great starting point to the quasi-dimensional blankets of abstract sound to be found at work here. Ltd x 300 copies in a digipak.
UK 11£
Europe 12£
World 13£
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CHRISTIAN MARCLAY / OKKYUNG LEE / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'From The Earth To The Spheres Vol. 6' CD (A Silent Place)
Reissue of the ultra limited eponymous LP from 2005. Performer / turntabilist Christian Marclay and cello improviser Okkyung Lee's track is the result of a live performance recorded at Tonic NYC in December 2003. Lee's powerful cello's stabs interact with Marclay's waves of screaming sounds creating a unique, stunning scenario. One of their heaviest conceptions to date, MCIAA's piece is built on electric guitars' strings moaning onto walls of space drones and electronics like ectoplasmic presences emerging from the brilliance of the Void. MCIAA's need of a non-finite "space music & art" aesthetics research has led them to etch a ghost track (instead of the final lock-groove you can find on the original vinyl) to un-seal the sounds from their actual support. Digisleeve.
UK 8£
Europe 9£
World 10£
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FAMILY UNDERGROUND / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Split' LP (Reverse Recordings)
My Cat Is An Alien's 20 minute track lingers in some beautiful static high end trance, with excursions into minimal percussion and space guitar. "Extraterrestrial Call" was recorded live at Cosmopolis Festival at Galerie Ze' des Bois, Lisbon, on October 4th, 2005. Family Underground's "Mysterious Invaders" trolls around in the usual muck; tonal blackout psychedelia. Ltd x 356 copies on clear vinyl in a hand-printed, silkscreened transparent sleeve with insert. Danish import.
UK 12.00£
Europe 15.50£
World 19.00£
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MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Mort Aux Vaches' CD (Mort Aux Vaches / Staalplaat)
The latest release in the Mort Aux Vaches series from Staalplaat. Space Rock, Noise and Experimental music from the Italian duo Maurizio and Roberto Opalio. Ltd x 500 copies in a fantastic 6-panel lenticular sleeve (i.e. 4 layered images which only appear at different angles).
UK 14£
Europe 15£
World 16£
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MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / KEIJI HAINO - 'Cosmic Debris Volume III' CD (A Silent Place)
CD re-issue of the third installment in the "Cosmic Debris" split ART-LP series set up by Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, aka My Cat Is An Alien, on their own Opax Records. The Vol.III sees the two space brothers from Torino, Italy, alongside Japanese cult musician and dark shaman Keiji Haino. Imagine a cosmic bomb exploding in your brain, and you'll have an approximate idea of this collaborative release. These two long tracks were recorded during live performances in their hometowns, respectively Torino and Tokyo. Haino's track is one of the highlights of his long career, and MCIAA's track is one of the brothers' most ass-kicking for sure! Digisleeve.
UK 8£
Europe 9£
World 10£
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MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / MATS GUSTAFSSON - 'Cosmic Debris Volume IV' CD (A Silent Place)
CD re-issue of the fourth volume in the ongoing "Cosmic Debris" series of split ART-LP releases set up by the Opalio brothers, aka My Cat Is An Alien, on their own Opax Records. This time the space improv duo from Torino, Italy, shares one side of the vinyl with Swedish radical saxophonist Mats Gustafsson. On his track 'I Have Not Set Any Time Limits For The Attempt' Gustafsson plays tenor and slide sax, weevil sax, and electronics. In MCIAA's 'Everything Burns Like Cosmic Debris' the space brothers play astral and cosmic guitars, vocals, mouth harmonica, space toys and burning percussions. Digisleeve.
UK 8£
Europe 9£
World 10£
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MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / STEVE RODEN - 'Cosmic Debris Volume II' CD (A Silent Place)
CD re-issue of the second installment in the "Cosmic Debris" split ART-LP series set up by Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, aka My Cat Is An Alien, on their own Opax Records. California visual / sound artist Steve Roden's contribution represents the unique experience of hearing him literally 'playing' guitar chords. MCIAA deliver another piece of 'cosmic debris', centered on multilayered echoes of voice, toy piano, space drones raising from a distant horizon, and their own physical gestures performed during the recording, which reproduce themselves through the air, re-play and give birth to echoes of real time that overcomes its own essence, becoming field recording itself, mirror and spectre of its immutability. Their track entitled also features Ramona Ponzini's Japanese bells contribution. Digisleeve.
UK 8£
Europe 9£
World 10£
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MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / TEXT OF LIGHT - 'Cosmic Debris Volume I' CD (A Silent Place)
CD re-issue of the first instalment in the "Cosmic Debris" split ART-LP series. This volume sees My Cat Is An Alien (Maurizio and Roberto Opalio) alongside Text Of Light (Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Alan Licht, DJ Olive, Ulrich Krieger and Tim Barnes). Text Of Light's track was recorded live at Centre Georges Pompidou in 2003 and mixed in dual mono by Ranaldo & Licht in NYC. MCIAA's piece is a conceptual ouverture to the whole series, performed in April 2006 at their secret recording space called Alien Zone, located up the Italian Western Alps. The CD comes in a textured digisleeve with reproductions of the original LP artwork. A Silent Place is a sub-division of Small Voices, Italy.
UK 8£
Europe 9£
World 10£
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PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST - 'Fallen Camellias' CD (A Silent Place)
Second full-length album from Italian brothers Maurizio & Roberto Opalio (My Cat Is An Alien) and vocalist Ramona Ponzini (Praxinoscope). 'Fallen Camellias' is a tribute to one of the greatest poetess ever, Japanese Yosano Akiko, whose work in literature in the early 1900's is considered as manifesto of the Japanese Romanticism. Imagine a Vashti Bunyan or a early Marianne Faithful singing sweet melodies in Japanese language, and you can have an idea of the musical and poetical universe of PPOPG. The songs of 'Fallen Camellias' are built on acoustic guitar melodies and are made of the same pure, melancholy of the legendary Nick Drake. Let 'Fallen Camellias' be your warm blanket, as well as the promise of a new future spring. 6-panel digipak.
UK 8£
Europe 9£
World 10£
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PRAXINOSCOPE - 'Praxinoscope' Picture Disc LP (A Silent Place)
Praxinoscope is a project which unites the duo Roberto Opalio (one-half of My Cat Is An Alien) and Ramona Ponzini. Here Ponzini plays little Japanese percussions and wind chimes, creating a resonant texture over Roberto's alien wordless vocals and space electronics. The material comes from a whole session recorded in a mysterious location of the Western Alps, directly transferred to CD using neither overdubs nor outtakes. For the entire length of its 40 minutes, the piece will stifle your breath because of its pure essence and intimate mood; a mystic, suffocated chant reminding the silence of ancient rituals, the ultimate exorcism to avert the Infinite Pain. Ltd x 500 copies on a full-colour picture disc with psychedelic artwork in a printed PVC sleeve.
UK 13.00£
Europe 16.50£
World 20.00£
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RAMONA PONZINI & Z'EV - 'Ankoku' CD (A Silent Place)
Ramona's personal touch is certainly her own particular Japanese chant, together with the use of traditional percussion, bells and cymbals from Japan. Z'EV, enchanted by all those elements, asked Ramona for this cooperation. "Ankoku" is a Japanese word which means "deep darkness". For this debut Ramona's voice and percussion was processed by My Cat Is An Alien in their mysterious studio, placed somewhere in Western Alps, adding some field recordings. Those recordings were then sent to Z'EV who has processed them with some of his typical percussion. Z'EV deconstructed the sweetness of Ramona's chants, enfolding the pieces with a darker atmosphere. 5 obscure tracks, structured on charming vocal melodies moving out from a "haunted house". Digifile.
UK 8£
Europe 9£
World 10£
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ROBERTO OPALIO - 'The Last Night Of The Angel Of Glass, Vol. I & II' 2 x CD (A Silent Place)
Reissue of the acclaimed "The Last Night Of The Angel Of Glass, Vol.I", original soundtrack to the omonimous film by Roberto Opalio, plus the previously unreleased "Vol.II", representing the second half of a unique recording session. "There is no other cosmic traveller like Roberto Opalio. Best known for his work with his brother as My Cat Is An Alien, this feline twin is slowly building an equally impressive body of solo works. Opalio is on another plane entirely with "The last night of the Angel of Glass." Bypassing the cosmos completely and directing his aim straight to heaven. Using nothing but his guitar and his voice, Opalio sears the stratosphere into orbit. As his voice floats like a ghost into the empty celestial crevices, his guitar falls from the sky like a melted star. This is haunting and magnificent. Roberto Opalio at his best" (Foxy Digitalis).
