Apologies to folks who've ordered Flowering over the past week or two... we're in the process of a huge move from Clifton Ranch to our new haven at Highland Ranch and label stock is currently in flux. All should be shipped by this weekend. 
 
As of right now we are currently sold out of Flowering; we may be getting a few more copies from the label in due time and will update again if and when we get em. Thanks to all who flocked to the Storefront to order! Proper L'animaux update in a month-or-so with a couple new LPs and tapes.

new in the shop: HERBCRAFT - "FLOWERING" cs

Hey all, we've got a very limited number of copies of the new full-length Herbcraft cassette Flowering, just released and out now on Julia Dream Recordings. Limited to 69 copies, we're down to just a handful ourselves! Comes with a free digital download of the whole album.

JDR-001: HERBCRAFT: FLOWERING

 FORMAT: CS [c43] + DIGITAL DOWNLOAD  //   EDITION: 69   //   RELEASED: 07.09.12  //  $9.00 + shipping

Very limited number of this first new Herbcraft release since last summer's Ashram To The Stars LP!
Full-length cassette includes a free digital download of the album.

"Flowering represents some of Herbcraft’s most expressive and exploratory work to date blending psychedelic pop melodies with some of the most trashed sounding sonic voyages exploring the arc from the US West Coast to the Tokyo underground. Minds were blown here at Julia Dream when we first heard Flowering and we are extremely excited that this is our inaugural release. Keep the crops flowering." - Julia Dream Recordings

"Mind-blowing tape from the Herbcraft cultus aka Matthew Lajoie of Cursillistas et al: Flowering was briefly non-available as an edition of only 12 copies cassette privately distributed amongst friends but the quality of the sonics so impressed noted Blues scholar and COM correspondent Andrew Ross that he started up his own deluxe tape imprint, Julia Dream Recordings, just to bring it to the world. Issued here in an edition of 69 copies with gorgeous pro-printed sleeves, Flowering represents the absolute apex of the Herbcraft saga thus far, devouring genres and regurgitating them as foggy out-of-focus paeans to oblivion via weeping single note blues delivered with alla the amplified overdrive of Rallizes or the Far Out. The whole deal starts off with a dosed/phased F/X vox and ashram vibes tone-float before tripping over into “Journey To The Center Of Your Hive”, a multi-dimensional transport that pushes the interstellar overdrive to the max. “Magic Carpet Ride Hallucination #4” kicks into a streamlined Krautrock groove before dissolving the whole thing via gate after gate of gloopy F/X while “Flowers Strewn” is a beautifully lucid take on six-string sorcery ala Ben Chasny’s most circuitous outings. But it’s “Psychic Spore Travellin’” that best takes your head off, a totally epic six-string amplifier-worshipping monolith that tears fuzz and confusion from wailing steel with all of the void gobbling force of your favourite Tokyo titan. Throw in a bunch of disconnected downs that sound like they’re beamed from Skip Spence’s weeping third eye and you have the most goddamn potent collection of trips und trauma this side of yesterday. Cassette issue of the year? No question. Comes with a free download. Very highly recommended. " - Volcanic Tongue

Pete Fosco's Vacationlanded cassette is now sold-out! The last few copies are available via DNT Records and soon via our newest distributor, IMPOSE!

Our next update will be coming this summer, with new limited edition full-length vinyl LPs from Concord Ballet Orchestra Players and Altered Gee available for pre-order in the coming months. More 45s and tapes soon, too, hold on!

MLJ

ORACLE OFFERING's HOWL'S ANGELS cassette is now sold out! Look for copies soon at Tomentosa...

02.02.2012
Groundhog's Fortune
[new Cursillistas LP]

 

 

Hey folks! A quick update this time to announce that the LONG-delayed, long-awaited final Cursillistas studio album is now available in a limited, one-time-only, vinyl-only pressing of 225 hand-numbered copies. Here's a little more about this LP:

Observe Ember Weeks is the final Cursillistas "studio" album, momentarily lost to time as Herbcraft took flight, now seeing a brief light-of-day. Written, recorded, and mixed concurrently with Wasp Stings (Digitalis), Joint Chiefs (Digitalis), and several small-run/tour-only releases between 2007-2009, O.E.W. touches on elements and styles of all these while also marking a return to a more song-based rural folk psychedelia. Nylon-string minor-key folk-pop commingles with naive noise experiments, breathless first-take improvisation, multi-tracked "full band" jams, wah'ed fuzz guitar abandon, electric slide glide, heavy tom-thumps & tambourine shakes, all presented with Cursillistas' trademark rich reverb treatment and multi-layered vocals. This is perhaps the peak Cursillistas experience in all its bedroom glory, the fitting final chapter to a project that never stayed still for too long, and the definitive collection of the tunes that made up much of Cursillistas' live set from 2007-2009. Deluxe 150-gram virgin black vinyl held in a 4-color, 5-layer silkscreened art paper jacket, with two-sided full-color pro-printed glossy heavy stock insert, hand-numbered to 225.

Many thanks to you heads who pre-ordered the vinyl... your copies are on their way as I type this. I want to note that the photos do not nearly do justice to the silkscreen work Emily Johnson (of Lightning strike Lightning) did on these jackets... in real life they are quite stunning and, as one customer put it, "more than subtly-psychedelic." Test drive the tunes at the Curs-Camp and head on over to the storefront to order!

Next update in Spring, with more new wax and tape... till then....

Planets Around the Sun and Jared Fairfield tapes are now sold-out. Update coming soon concerning the new Cursillistas LP! Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered the record.. your copies are on their way...

 

☮MLJ

ALTERED GEE has been receiving tons of love recently from folks like Foxy Digitalis (a perfect 10/10: "Really, you’re going to want everything you can get after having a small taste of “European Gees,” so the tape is essential. For whatever reason, this just seems to hit a sweet spot in the ears. This is one of those albums you’ll want to put on repeat and then make all your friends listen."), Cassette Gods (Favorite Tapes of 2011: "What a great surprise. This is a 19 year old kid making extreme chillout R&B/electro that completely tops every synth and drum machine album released this year."), and even local blog/zine Dispatch (Jakob Battick's Top 5 of 2011: "It’s like witnessing some self-taught keyboard virtuoso perform his own bizarre misinterpretation of The Chronic, while messed up on all sorts of supplements, and it’s just beautiful. You can listen to it over and over and over (and over) again but still be fascinated, and that’s the reason it takes my #1 spot.").

So it's no real surprise that the cassette we pressed a few months ago is now sold out. The last remaining copies are available locally (Portland, ME) at Moody Lords and Strange Maine, and worldwide via DNT Records. 

Also down to just a couple copies each of Planets Around the Sun's WE O WE and Jared Fairfield's Mysteries.

We're gettin close on the Cursillistas Observe Ember Weeks LP release, expect an update by the end of the month.

All orders that were placed during our holidaze sabbatical will ship this week; thank you for your patience! Thanks everyone for a killer 2011!