Important Records - Mai Veröffentlichungen

PIANO MAGIC - "Part Monster"



imprec151 | CD
$ 11.99

Labelinfo:
7th "proper" album from esoteric Anglo-French, London-based "ghost-rock" group that ranges from brittle folkish introspection to dynamic all-out noise intensity. Produced by Guy Fixsen of Laika (engineer to the likes of My Bloody Valentine, The Pixies, The Breeders, Stereolab).
"Part Monster", Piano Magic's 7th "proper" album (excluding compilations) easily lives up to it's title. Though Piano Magic are generally tarred with the brushes of "ambient," "coldwave" or even "ghostrock," Part-Monster has it's fill of all-out, near brutal, dynamic intensity. Indeed, anyone who's witnessed PM live over the past 2 years or so will testify that the shadowy introspection of their records is camouflage for a beast of many teeth. Bringing in Guy Fixsen, of the group, Laika, as producer, clearly marked the band's intention for a rawer, more powerful sound. Fixsen has taken the production and/or engineer chair for such luminaries as The Pixies, Moonshake, The Breeders, Joy Zipper, Stereolab, Lush and most notably for My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.
That's not to say that Piano Magic have entirely turned the amps up to 11. Part-Monster gracefully manages to balance this cathartic noise with romantic paeans to their favourite subject - the more cruel, tragic side of their home city, London and most notably tips a hat to perhaps the most graceful of it's outcasts, Joseph Carey Merrick (The Elephant Man). In this, the 10th year of their existence, Piano Magic can look back on a varied and accomplished discography most bands wouldn't manage in a lifetime of trying. Records for 4AD, Darla, Morr Music, Important and many more, mark their way, as well as the soundtrack to Bigas Luna's Son De Mar movie (2001) and performances at some of the biggest festivals in Europe (Benicassim, Primavera, BAM).
Though based in London, Piano Magic is a living model of the Entente Cordiale - 3 of it's 5 members are French (6, if you include regular chanteuse, Angele). Even so, since it's conception, in 1996, the group has drunk heavily from the glass of British musical inspiration - most notably, The Smiths, Joy Division, New Order, as well as the selective 80's output of 4AD, Factory and Rough Trade Records. Though they operate somewhat beneath the radar in a fashion-obsessed Britain, Piano Magic have amassed a huge, devout following in Europe and regularly tour the likes of France, Spain, Italy to sold-out halls.
Though the group is their main obsession, singer Glen Johnson also maintains a solo project of leftfield electronica under the guise of Textile Ranch (album, Bird Heart In Wool, Very Friendly, 2005). Along with keyboard player, Cedric Pin, his Future Conditional project will release their debut album, We Don't Just Disappear on LTM Recordings this April - a label most notable for the re-issue of many Factory Records' "classic" albums.

Hörproben:
The Last Engineer
Soldier's Song


XXL (XIU XIU & LARSEN) - "Spicchiology?"



imprec130 | CD
$11.99

Allen direkten Mailorder-Bestellungen des Albums wird eine Bonus-CD mit improvisiertem XXL-Material beiliegen. 

Labelinfo:
Spicchiology? is the sophomore release from the supergroup XXL comprising all members of Xiu Xiu and Larsen. Recorded in late 2006 in Torino Italy Spicchiologi? is the result of a profoundly creative friendship translated into music and spanning the globe.
“It is hard as an American, if of a somewhat borish,middle class suburban, albeit freakishly desperate artistically inclined background, to really present without being excessivly prosaic as to what it could mean to have, for the second time in ones life, two weeks to spend in a sublime foreign city with the only premeditated task at hand being, with good friends, to make a record about sadness and violence and history. Well prosacism cannot be denied, it was, by God, in Italy.
Blood Oranges, the wrapper of being spicchio. The concerted study of being Spicchiology?.
As I type this I am watching an Italian film about terrosism in Italy in the late 1970s. I did not know anything about this time until the men of Larsen told Caralee and me about it over wine.Now in America it is all that Washington says: "terror.' But they already knew and were ready to push past and through it again, holding our historyless hands.
Everyday before recording we walked by a tower that in the1300's the town executioner occupied and the bones of the people he was paid with taxes to behead were buried around it. The Oakland police department? Please! Warehouse shows? Barf! The souls of unbaptised infants live in the black painted and burned cathedral cum gallery where one of the three XXL guitarist curates art music shows. Not to say that Europe knows all but it has hurt itself for 2000 years and in America we have only just begun.
If the last XXL record was romanitc and fun , this one is broken and superior. Look at yourself! Your matress is embarassed that you give it a job.
The farfisa is a real one, not a sampler. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!”

Hörproben:
Kings Of Koalas 
Last In The Society


ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O. - "Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under The Stars"



imprec146/imprec147 | CD/LP
$ 11.99 / $ 12.99

Labelinfo:
Brand new full length album from the Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO featuring their recent addition, female vocalist Kitagawa Hao. Recorded over a period of four months at The Acid Mothers Temple this is a very clean sounding and polished AMT. Kawabata Makoto admitted, only half joking, that this has the “cleanest sound in AMT history!“
More controlled than many of their speaker destroying fuzz blasted speed guru jams, Crystal Rainbow Pyramid is focused on mystic ambient passages leading into Kawabata's head-heavy echo-riffs. Crystal Rainbow Pyramid is clearly one of the new classic AMT recordings. Prepare to have your mind blown slowly with evolving heavyweight jams and climactic peaks of exquisit ecstacy. Artwork by Seldon Hunt.
Limited tour vinyl edition available while supplies last.

Hörproben:
Crustal Rainbow Pyramid