Pickled Egg CD Shop

The Pickled Egg CD Shop

	Chandeliers 'The Thrush' CD (Egg 71CD) Chandeliers are a Chicago-based quartet that represent a phenomenon of unclassifiable modern music. Comprised of multi-instumentalists from Chicago's blossoming young avant-rock scene, they have created a unique, and live, electronic sound. Adopting the collective spirit of krautrock bands like Can and Faust, the Chandeliers function as a unified whole, with no dominant members. This approach gives the band a more intuitive and unpredictable approach to composing. Chandeliers bring the energy of a super-live party to their cerebral synth interplay. An obvious reference is Kraftwerk, but with influences ranging from Burmese and Arabic melody, to the sonically dirty rhythmic propulsion of Konono no.1, and the crunked-out psychedelic hip-hop of J-Dilla, Chandeliers always keep the listener on their toes. The band is comprised of Chris Kalis, Dan Jugle, Harry Brenner, and Scott McGaughey, who collectively are also active members of Chicago groups Bronze, Michael Columbia, Icy Demons, Mandate, and Killer Whales. The sessions for The Thrush were overseen by Bablicon's Diminisher and Blue Hawaii at the Shape Shoppe and at Mahjongg's west-side studio in Chicago. Its nine songs feature guests musicians from Bablicon, Icy Demons, and Mahjongg and includes 3 videos by filmmaker TJ Hellmuth. Believing that colour can exist in harmony with timbre, the Chandeliers pride themselves on their synaesthetic live performances: a non-stop high-energy show, augmented with dual projections of Brakhage-esqe visual rhythm. An album with the flow of a mix-tape, the Thrush is at home bangin' in your trunk or hypnotizing on your headphones "Chandeliers use a strictly democratic form of collective improvisation to devise their music, which is best described as a kind of live-action electro. But The Thrush is so thumpingly immediate, you would never guess at any kind of committee decision making. The opening 20 seconds of Mr Electric flick between Ed Banger directness and a Kraftwerk-like neon lyricism. The remix of Body Double closes the albumin a furious hustle of Afrobeat drumming and rich Italo disco keyboards. In between, the synths mesh into arpeggios that seem as influenced by the post-punk end of the disco spectrum as Giorgio Moroder" [Sam Davies, The Wire] "Smooth, squeaky-clean swirls of synth bounce atop glassy percussion that sounds like gamelan from a can. It's pleasing to the ear, like Kraftwerk or Eno" [Monica Kendrick, Chicago Reader] ‘The Thrush is a recording of Chandeliers’ intuitive approach to creating songs. Bassist and keyboard player Chris Kalis describes it as “very spontaneous and based on improvisations that the band randomly does,” which is evident in both the live show and, surprisingly, the record as well. I was not expecting the record, which consists of nine songs all less than four minutes save for the closer, to be such an accurate sonic representation. Given that the energy and sheer loudness are difficult to produce on tape, the album is not a bad calling card for an indescribable sound that even the band members decline to attempt: “We’ve always had a hard time describing our sound and not in a pretentious way, but just, like, it’s not contrived. We all have different tastes. Some of us are more electronically inclined, some of us more into eastern music and, obviously, 70’s Kraut Rock. German and Italian electronic music is pretty much right up our alley. When I pressed them to do my job for me, Kalis replied, “Live-played electronic music”’ [Mitchell Bandur, www.livemusicblog.com] 'Mango Tree' (MP3) 'Big League' (MP3) Listen to The Thrush on Last.fm Watch the 'Bamboo' video on You Tube Watch the 'Mr Electric' video on You Tube	UK: £10.00 EU: €15.00 US: $18.00
	The Doozer 'Sheet Music' CD (Egg 69CD) The Doozer builds. He has previously built stone houses and wooden ships. He is currently building music. Raised around the Fenlands of Cambridgeshire, in the arse end of nowhere, the city drew closer and closer, the lights brighter and the time shorter. The city informs his music. His music informs the city. Songs evolve around watching and talking, buying and borrowing. Characters pass by, situations are imagined, colours are added and the resultant is a forming song. His debut album, ‘Sheet Music’, was recorded mainly on Saturday mornings, bright and early. The songs weren’t complete until the recordings were complete. The spaces always changed. Instruments and voices were layered. Pop music was the aim; pop music isn’t quite the result. Pop music is The Doozer’s music, only filtered through all of the colours and sounds you’ve imagined when walking through the street or down your lane or when your batteries died. 'The Light' (MP3) 'Burn the Tape' (MP3) Listen to Sheet Music on Last.fm Watch the 'Sheet Music' video on You Tube	UK: £10.00 EU: €15.00 US: $18.00
	a.P.A.t.T. 'Black & White Mass' CD (Egg 68CD) Exploring similar landscapes to Frank Zappa - minus the virtuoso elements - Liverpool-based a.P.A.t.T. are a bewildering and completely original two to seven piece band, utilising all available genres to create a daft and beautiful music. 'Black and White Mass' sets a new standard in home entertainment, featuring some of a.P.A.t.T.'s most accessible compositions to date, whilst still retaining an element of surprise. "aPAtT are the Willy Wonka of the musical world: part Gene Wilder, part Johnny Depp. And I am Veruca Salt, selfishly cramming every note into my brain as hard as possible, headphones stuck so far down my ear canal I'll have to crawl in to open the lock soon. There is no frequency left unturned, no genre left unwrapped or ignored. A confident, twisted skip through all that is good and fun, like an end-of-century review that leaves out all the crap bits. And so wondrously crafted! Each tinkling, each scrape of a cymbal, each deathly metal blast is crystallised and seemingly separated to ease the aural digestion. Indeed, to labour a lame analogy, they could well be the Heston Blumenthal of the modern music world, boiling down the elements and presenting us with twenty-seven small but exquisitely sensational courses to feast upon. a.P.A.t.T. is deft and skilful; talented and precocious. a.P.A.t.T. is Fun. Fun. Fun!" [Plan B] "Apatt engage in moments of freeform jazz assaults, light-hearted ritualistic wig flippers, mini progressive operas, music hall oddness, acid dipped shanties, sand dusted serenades, Soviet regality, noire-ish folk standards from the dark side, and white hot sonic meltdowns - the sounds trip out in unrelated fashion, causing you to teeter on the back foot, an impish lucky bag of sorts with the band doling out the occasional curveball just when you are beginning to think you have their measure. 'Black and White Mass' is THE first crucial full length of the year. Somehow I don't reckon it'll be topped in our affections - though be warned, it'll do your f**kin head in" [Mark Barton, Losing Today] "Oh I don't know, there are no words for this. a.P.A.t.T are so easy to listen to when they really shouldn't be; it should just be a mess. They're a band, don't go thinking this is some wise-ass cut-up studio nerd; a whole gang of them in masks and anti-radiation suits or something like that. Hey look, if you want something challenging, something beautiful, something different, something violent, something soothing, something like you never heard before then this is where you need to go this week" [Sean Organ, organ.com - Eclectic Music Magazine/webzine] "a.P.A.t.T. are a motherfucking experience. Probably the only UK band i can think of to come up with their vision of the dark, vicious and fuck me, rather scary vision of the ACID PUNK dropped onto us from the visions of Gibby from the Butthole Surfers. We love them. You need to hear this. It's insane" [Alan Mcgee - Creation/Poptones] 'Avajibber' (MP3) 'The Holy Toad' (MP3) Listen to Black and White Mass on Last.fm Watch 'The Stars Spell out your Name' video on You Tube Watch 'And She Wanted to Look at the Swan' video on You Tube	UK: £10.00 EU: €15.00 US: $18.00
	Suzy Mangion 'The Other Side of the Mountain' CD (Egg 67CD) When Suzy Mangion split-up the acclaimed duo George in 2006, she loaded her Yamaha keyboards onto her percussion trolley, and went over the mountain, to see what she could see. And all that she could see was... ... The Other Side Of The Mountain. A solo album of old-fashioned length and unfashionable feeling. Suzy has carried over her distinctively intimate production and melancholic song-writing, which charged the George albums The Magic Lantern (Pickled Egg, 2003) and A Week of Kindness (Pickled Egg, 2005), and created a record even more intense, even more charming. From the gospel-choir reverie of “Evenings at Home” to the stark, primitive folk-frenzy of “Ohio the Homeland”, from 50’s-tinged Italian dream-pop in “Il Mondo è Qui” to the restrained anger of simple piano prayer “The Deliverers of their Country”, Suzy’s songs drift from style to style, but always unified by her trademark haunting vocals and complex harmonies. Suzy pushes herself further vocally on this album than on any of her work to date, and the freedom of working solo has allowed even more experimentation with her sound and songs, a harmonious noise of electronics old and new mixing with the bricolage of beats, banjos and beat-up pianos. "Suzy Mangion possesses a rich and evocative voice, which she puts to good use on her solo album. Things get serious with the folk dance rhythm of ‘Ohio The Homeland’, a beautiful sung lament full of longing and sadness. On the extremely pretty ‘Many Happy Returns’, the spirit of Karen Carpenter is invoked, the vocal performance quite breathtaking, whilst On ‘The March Past’, a scratchy electronic pulse is overlaid with a droning chord and delicate vocals in the spirit of Vashti Bunyan. Over 40 minutes, this album never puts a foot wrong" [Ptolemaic Terrascope] "The Other Side of The Mountain burrows even further into Mangion’s nocturnal lo-fi world of skeletal Victorian spookiness, wartime balladry and Appalachian folk, with more defiant obliqueness than ever before" [Delusions of Adequacy] 'Ohio the Homeland' (MP3) 'Il Mondo e Qui' (MP3) Listen to The Other Side of the Mountain on Last.fm	UK: £10.00 EU: €15.00 US: $18.00
	Mass Shivers 'Ecstatic Eyes Glow Glossy' CD (Egg 70CD) Ecstatic Eyes Glow Glossy is the second record from Chicago-based Mass Shivers, though it’s the first to get an official UK/European release. Don't let anyone fool you, it's a rock album -- are there hints at MC5 or Beefheartian guitar stylings, beats not far from Jaki Liebeziet, spooge from Steven Tyler's 80's heyday? Perhaps; but most importantly, there are RIFFS here-in. Lava-hot face melters and groove shakers. This is driving music, sure to inflate your tyre. "Mutant blues, motorik rhythmathletics, early Eno whimsy and Stooges grindhouse riffage all rub their oily hips together like a deep-fried harmonic sex coven, and immaculately conceive a troubled but beautiful hot-chrome hybrid, we might just christen 'Captain Beef Can' if we're feeling asinine" [Plan B] "Mass Shivers' full-length debut is awfully, awfully good. This Chicago trio (which becomes a quartet with a second drummer at live shows) captures the spirit of the best out-rock of the 70s: Can's free-form tribal-Teutonic drums, Beefheart's stomping junkyard riffs and unhinged harmonic imagination, Faust's cerebral jams, Eno's expansive pop palette. In less capable hands, this kind of ambition often results in little more than a self-conscious statement about the band members' LP collections, but Mass Shivers skirt that pitfall with their discipline and devotion to detail. Standouts like 'Womanizing Metal Studs', 'Downwind of Amour', and 'Mossy Nethers' (with guest turns from both members of Michael Columbia) are dense and complex, with meticulously organized, counterintuitive guitar lines, but the substantial vocal melodies and playful backup harmonies make the tunes not only approachable but memorable" [Chicago Reader] "Together since 2003, the group mapped out a knotty post-punk direction on its 2005 debut full-length, before leaving it all behind for a sound more influenced by its members' shared love of the Stooges, Can and Fela Kuti. With a percussion-heavy twin-guitar attack, Mass Shivers lay on some heaping helpings of classic rock whomp, doing an electrifying job of engaging an audience more used to silently nodding along. The band sport some tightly arranged songs and honest-to-God tuneful vocals, but can still jam out with the best of them" [Time Out, Chicago] "Barely over 28 minutes long, 'Ecstatic Eyes Glow Glossy' is a concisely abrupt affair that leaves a lasting impression. Though barely any of the songs on the album exceed three minutes, they all feel epic due to the band's wildly ambitious approach. As their self-titled debut also displayed, Mass Shivers show no hesitation in creating a sound that is both wildly imaginative and hugely enjoyable. 'Ecstatic Eyes Glow Glossy' is highly accomplished both in terms of songwriting and diversity" [obscuresound.com] Ecstatic Eyes Glow Glossy is officially released on Monday 17th Sept, but is available now exclusively from Pickled Egg. 'Womanizing Metal Studs' (MP3) 'Mossy Nethers' (MP3) Listen to Ecstatic Eyes Glow Glossy on Last.fm	UK: £10.00 EU: €15.00 US: $18.00
	Marshmallow Coast 'Say it in Slang' CD (HHBTM 78CD) Pickled Egg have a limited supply of 'Say it in Slang', the new album from Marshmallow Coast, now known simply as M Coast. Expanded to a five-piece band, including former collaborator Derek Almstead and new vocalist Emily Growden, the album celebrates the group's shared love of 60's psyche-pop, together with more diverse influences, such as composers Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, and Ravel, the jazz of Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Eric Dolphy, and the funk of Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder, not to mention the more abstract pop songs of Brian Eno, The Moles, and Brian Wilson.	UK: £10.00 EU: €15.00 US: $18.00
	Fulborn Teversham 'Count Herbert II' CD (Egg 65CD) Fulborn Teversham are the mindblowing new group of Seb Rochford, the extraordinarily in-demand and prolific drummer/composer, leader of Mercury Music prize nominees Polar Bear, and winner of BBC Jazz award for Rising Star 2004. Fulborn Teversham pursue a more eclectic, and less overtly jazz direction than Polar Bear, or indeed Rochford’s other acclaimed group, Acoustic Ladyland, incorporating elements of electronica, Henry Cow-style prog and post punk. With clever balancing of cosmic and acoustic sounds, Seb Rochford (drums), Nick Ramm (Nord synthesizer), Pete Wareham (saxophones), and Alice Grant (vocals), set up an intimate and thrilling improvisational punk jazz chamber music for the future. "Alan Freeman used to play the most extraordinary music on BBC radio in the late 70's, once mixing the Slits with Henry Cow and classic rock cuts. He might have gone big on Fulborn Teversham, as they sound like a cross between these groups in places. Count Herbert II is fascinating and vital collection" [The Wire] "At times, Count Herbert II suggests a kind of downbeat British Mothers of Invention. Rochford and his F-IRE Collective partners are that original" [The Guardian] "Since his Mercury Music Prize nomination with Polar Bear in 2005, drummer and composer Seb Rochford has dragged jazz in ever-more diverse, inclusive directions. With his new band, Fulborn Teversham, Rochford sneaks like a cat burglar through generations and genres, stealing and fusing influences along the way. Versatile vocalist Alice Grant is spear-like and edgy one minute — "Off Song" sees her reveal, "There's just one thing that I would like to say / It starts with 'F' and ends in 'Off'" — then sensuous the next, as she entwines with the Pete Wareham's saxophone riffs on glowing laissez-faire masterpiece "Even If". Observing the pop-like discipline of length, "Beach Tune" screams a dishevelled anthem for hair-shaking late-night crazy cats, while the title track pit-fights mellow organ and grinding bass breaks. A punky debut of virtuoso performances, inspired by a madly engaging imagination" [Flavourpill] Although Pete Warham's F-IRE affiliated jazz/grindcore oufit, Acoustic Ladyland, have got all the media attention, they're a seeminly contrived outfit next to the genuinely playful, unself-conscious prog-skonk of Fulborn Teversham. Their new album, 'Count Herbert II' is a collection of unquanifiable pices which mix jazz's joyous experimentation with alt-rock's love of noisescapes and the tangential noodling of prog. Countless rock bands have been trying to pull off this same trick - of constructing melody from cut-up disonace - for as long as Tom Waits and Sonic Youth have been cool, but Fulborn actually have the chops to make it work" [Eddy Lawrence, Time Out] 'Beachtune' (MP3) 'Count Herbert II' (MP3) Download Count Herbert II from eMusic Listen to Count Herbert II on Last.fm	UK: £10.00 EU: €15.00 US: $18.00
	Dragon or Emperor 'Dragon or Emperor' CD (Egg 64CD) Dragon Or Emperor are the awesome two-piece lightning-bolt drum & bass assault of Aaron Moore (Volcano the Bear, Songs of Norway) on drums/vocals, and Stewart Brackley (Black Carrot, Songs of Norway) on bass guitar/vocals. Somewhat akin to a geeky Lightning Bolt in charity shop suits loosening up and playing jazz-metal, with additional manic Pere Ubu-style vocalisations, Moore beats absolute hell out of his drumkit, whilst Brackley embarks on daring fretless excursions to the absolute edges of what constitutes a rhythm. An enormous sound that marries their intense mixture of fun and chaos. "DoE are a bass and drums punk/jazz/metal powerhouse, with a spontaneous feel that frequently threatens to spill over into hysteria. This is partly down to Brackley’s monstrous distended fuzz bass riffs, but has more to do with his wild evocation of what it might sound like if Yamataka Eye found himself trapped inside the body of David Thomas" [The Wire] "You call it Lightning Bolt. I say I have no conception of what such tight-knit formation drumming mans, and go for older - the James Brown-insired yeh-yeh groove of The Make Up, given a metal makeover. Someone mutters 'math rock', but I flinch, indicate that no way are these frenetic twists and turns, these plum-in-mouth spasm vocals humourless. 'Formerly Volcano the Bear, you know', you smugly remark, 'and Songs of Norway'. I shrug, and rave about the way this enormous, near hallucinogenic duo remind me of prime '76 Pere Ubu, thus indicating my overbearing age once more. Sigh. Fucking seriously mighty" [Everett True, Plan B] "The thing that sets this collection aside from other Volcano the Bear related releases is the fact that it's immediate, actually engaging to a notional formulaic script of sorts. Note we did say of sorts. Each of these buckled beauties fester and lurch from the grooves as though bitten by some mutated shredded swamp-dragged jazz funk bug, over which Stewart Brackley’s vocals (think Pere Ubu’s David Thomas with DNA traces of Don Van Vliet and Jello Biafra) surge frantically between states of petrified panic, to the eerily grim foreboding death rattle of the chilled-to-the-bone unnatural black carnival of the tribalistic Tom Waits fronting a particularly pensive and doom laden Joy Division. Caustic it may be - but playfully so - at times sounding like some kind of anger management jam, with Moore pounding out a gripping floor rumbling underpin, that's blistered and pummelled in equal measures by Brackley's low slung curdling bass groove, onto which fragments of musical genres past and present are interwoven, cross referenced and dragged screaming from their safe native habits. Just think - how many times will you ever get to hear Zeppelin motifs fused with the Melvins glue wired into a lysergic Hendrix haze, of the like as found looming large on the opening 'Part of me says', or Mark E Smith being out-Falled, as on 'Your Success' - not very often I suspect. In a word stunning" [Mark Barton, The Sunday Experience] "This album is a deluge of drum and bass chaos coming on like the bastard son of Pere Ubu, Lightning Bolt and (for some reason) Family. Opening with the adrenaline rush of 'Part Of Me Says', the band turn everything up to eleven, fire up the distortion pedal and get down to some serious sonic destruction, the electricity literally crackling in the air. At almost eight minutes 'Slow Toms' allows the duo to slow the pace without losing the intensity, producing a classic piece of slow-burning paranoia, heavy and psychedelic, sounding like the Banshees covering an early Can epic. 'Never Know What To Say' rounds off the album with a glorious bass riff and some vocal posturing that Lux Interior would be proud of, the drums punctuating every word perfectly" [Simon Lewis, The Ptolemaic Terrascope] 'Part of Me Says' (MP3) 'Piano' (MP3) Download Dragon or Emperor from eMusic Listen to Dragon or Emperor on Last.fm	UK: £10.00 EU: €15.00 US: $18.00
	Now 'Frisbee Hot Pot' CD (Egg 62CD) Now have released numerous home-made CDR recordings, and have contributed tracks to several compilation albums, including Pickled Egg's 2005 sampler, 'Jar'. 'Frisbee Hot Pot' is their debut "proper" album. "My soul, my ears and my dancing shoes thank Now, who haven’t so much as made an album as created an antidote for musical apathy. This is a band that have played with Damo Suzuki and pulled it off. Yep, that good. And Frisbee Hot Pot is one of those albums that, if art-pop is a term coming back into fashion, would be somewhere between Pollock and Kandinsky – free-flowing yet structured, vivid yet soothing, bold yet with numerous untold hidden depths. Musically it’s all over the shop, of course, yet manages to steer clear of sounding like a mere mesh of disparate influences badly thrust together – seemingly because they not only have a great understanding of the rhythmical heart in everything (all music is dance music, etc), but can apply it to their own restless, driving sound. And as the whole album winds itself slowly to a halt, you know it is a journey colourful, perplexing and astounding enough to warrant many return trips. Inspired and inspiring" [Drowned in Sound] "Did you ever wish Stereolab would just stop with the wussy leopard-skin lounge exotica and get thoroughly stuck into the krauty riffage? If so, you probably have to hear Frisbee Hot Pot. There are grooves on here so deep that bathospheres have been lost exploring them, so repetitive that they're being considered as a cure for autism. This is no macho endurance test though: just listen to 'Little Bits Inside of You' and its cheeky Human League synth-funk and snooty girl-sneer. Opening track, 'Abominatrx,' is an eleven-minute journey from inept jerk-pop through a squelchy Brazilian robo-party, ending up in some kind of trombone comedy march. Elsewhere there are withered trumpets, fey breathings and heavy, heavy drum breaks. Ritalin pop, perhaps?" [Plan B] "Sleigh bells shickle like Mr T. in full tilt, and from there, through recorders, cyclical harmonies and synth hum, a locked-in, sweet and tender little groove develops, growing like ivy, capturing all sorts of other instruments and patterns as it spreads in all directions. Not a bad opener, then, and it is one of two 10 minute tracks that fully showcase their artistry and spin. All the other tracks are snippets by comparison, but equally visionary, e.g. ‘Excited Lobo Crown’ has a desert funk twinkle; ‘The In-Case’ clatters like a chainsaw through a back-alley bin; ‘Calanized’ clings onto a spy-drama wubble’; and ‘Pachinko’ is a juddery slink firing off an Atari electro-trickle. This record has free-jazz spirit, elements of twee, a post-rock stubbornness while it often swims with African guitars. A floating, gliding LP that is, nonetheless, perverse in outlook; soaring, dipping and jolting regularly" [The Vanity Project] 'The In-Case' (MP3) 'Ra' (MP3) Download Frisbee Hot Pot from eMusic Listen to Frisbee Hot Pot on Last.fm	UK: £10.00 EU: €15.00 US: $18.00
	Zukanican 'Horse Republic' CD (Egg 60CD) ‘Horse Republic’ is the debut full-length album from the Liverpool-based ensemble, and the follow up to 2004's 10", E5number (Egg 51). Zukanican have been described as an unholy hardcore collision between Can, The Soft Machine and Art Ensemble of Chicago. "The latest album by sonic manipulators Zukanican is a sprawling and dynamic work that builds on the atmosphere created by their "E 5number" EP, taking it one step further to produce a wholly satisfying and genre-defying collection of music that takes in elements of Sun Ra, Rollerball, Funkadelic, and early Gong, mixing all together in an exhilarating musical stew, full of goodness and incredibly tasty. Just as you start thinking "Can it get any Better?", it does, the outstanding "Where Are The Casualties?" distilling the perfect blend of Zukanican magic, including a wonderfully realised change of head space (about 5 minutes in ) that opens up space in the song creating a blissful sound that slowly disperses into nothing" [Ptolemaic Terrascope] "Areas of free form ectoplasm within shifting structures. Ghostly phosphorescent footsteps lead through darkened corridors of atomized attic space and hoot owl operatics. They want to be trippy; they liquefy the arboretum in return for gracious snakes and apparitions. The opening Bug Hunter is a moody free jazzy thing like an aroused Tower Recordings. Thingyo is tight woozy prog-pop with giddy female vocals sounding like a wailing outtake from latter day Slapp Happy. Trawling for Horses feels like an old Ken Nordine backing band tuning up in a haunted swamp with Moondog until dervishes start to dance g