The Hawkshead Bedroom Orchestra – Winterhacker

Winter Hacker was a special temporary release from The Hawkshead Bedroom Orchestra. The track was to have been included on their forthcoming debut album but was considered too long to fit the running time and reluctant to edit it. they decided upon releasing it as a, pay what you want digital release for just a few days on Was Ist Das?

A strange deep psychedelic sludge of a track but with faintly submerged musical motifs, it has the strange psychedelic cacophony of “In Menstral Night” era Current 93 cocooned in the final post-chord growl of a Sunn O))) concert.

Part of our agreement with The Hawkshead Bedroom Orchestra was that this track will be made private after the weekend. So while it will no longer be available to purchase after then, all who do purchase it will have it in their Bandcamp collection and be able to re-download it.

The artists have also asked that I don’t divulge their identities at this point, though when the debut album drops, all will be clear. In the meantime, you’re welcome to guess but I’m unable to comment..

WAS53

released February 4, 2022, it consisted of just one 15 minute track titled “There is music in the isle” and was available to purchase on Bandcamp for just 3 days.

WAS56

Josh Doss – Distant Memories

We have been quite in awe of Mr.Doss ever since getting the connection via James Jackson Toth. Josh is a exceptionally talented song writer and when he gets together with a band of cohorts, the sparks fly in a classic low-fi rock n roll way.

“Distant Memories” continues that same basement echo, outsider rock n roll session feel of his previous album for Was Ist Das? “Don’t Let Your Time Pass You By”.

You can feel it in the bass-playing, this gutsy rumble (even though two different players do the duties) that blows the dust out of your speakers.

The Lamp – False Memory

download version cover art

The first album by The Lamp was a limited edition of less than 15 and in accordance with the artist’s wishes, all masters were permanently deleted. For the follow up album, a download has been permitted but both download and tape were only on sale for one day (June 20th 2021). As a result, only four cassette copies are out in the wild.

in accordance with The Lamp’s “leave no trace” policy, no photos of the tapes were taken but this is a mock-up of what they looked like

The first album was simply a DJ set that got out of hand and accidentally became something else, but this is the first deliberate album. Side one a strange, scratchy ritual with weird rumbles and mumbles. Side two a stretched out synth symphony. Both tracks apparently have concepts behind them but the artist declines to share them.

WAS50

Nick Mitchell Maioto – Pino Carrasco

ONE ELEVEN HEAVY PRESENTS

Just like the Makoto album we put out recently, here is another artist caught in the lockdown and something exciting and unexpected happening, Nick’s ideas for the 3rd 111H album met the landscape of his relocated home of Spain and took a few surprise turns in his imagination. Sure, there’s that good time classic rock feel of the cream of 111H but look at the map, look how Africa and Spain almost touch like God and Adam’s fingertips in Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”? Something swept North over the Straits of Gibraltar and touched this record in a way the planned Nashville sessions couldn’t possibly have.Don’t take my word for it, though, listen to James Jackson Toth:

Oh, sure, it’s an outstanding record, one that will silence any doubts anyone might still have about this former psychedelic noisenik’s ability to write and perform rousing, classic-sounding rock and roll songs.

But, see, I’ve been hearing the sketches of these songs for almost an entire year. Because they were originally intended to be recorded for the third One Eleven Heavy album, to be made in Nashville this summer, Nick emailed these tunes to the band members to solicit our feedback and ideas. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and our transatlantic quintet (average bandmember commute: around 2500 miles) had to postpone our recording plans.

By now I’d listened to Nick’s demos a dozen times. I figured out a few cool guitar parts to play to accompany his, learned his arrangements by heart. I was wondering, with excitement, how we were going to pull off some of those crazy time changes and deep layers of percussion. So when Nick told me he was planning to release these songs on a solo album, I knew that I’d probably never get to sing the sweet harmonies on the breezy and exuberant “If I Were A Sawmill,” or get to chug along with the propulsive, crackling “City of Grit,” or jam on the heavy-lidded Doors-meets-Canned Heat choogle of “Ode To What.” In my mind, I’d already claimed these songs for One Eleven Heavy.

Maybe One Eleven Heavy will get to perform some of these tunes live at some point; I dunno. Nick will probably write twelve more just as good or better by the time the five of us finally reconvene to record our third album. But it won’t be these songs; songs that I have grown, over a short period of time, to know intimately, songs I have driven around listening to and singing along with, songs that set an intimidatingly high bar for my own contributions (as yet unwritten) to the One Eleven Heavy record-that-wasn’t. I don’t mind telling you that when Nick sings, on opener “If I Were A Sawmill,” “let’s get on the road tonight,” I get a little lump in my throat. Will we ever get to do this again?

Listen to Pino Carrasco if you must. My prediction is that it’ll be your favorite record of the year. It’s mine, too. But, you know, to hell with this guy. To hell with this insane, impetuous, mischievous, stubborn, charming, gentleman guitar wizard, and a pox on this beautiful and inspiring music that should have been One Eleven Heavy music.

The next time Nick and I have to share a bunk bed in some godforsaken “band hostel”—and I hope very much that we do—I’m totally gonna wait till he falls asleep and then hack his Twitter account and follow a bunch of Christian pop punk bands. Then I’m gonna draw a caricature of the Kool Aid Man on his face.That’ll teach him to make solo albums, the bastard.-James Toth, July 2020- 

Also, to celebrate we made 30 eco-friendly, fair-trade, high quality Belle Canvas t-shirts. Available bundled with the LP or just with a download of the album.

WAS46

Tote bag and a mix CD

and a sticker

Back in 2011 I made a mix CD to give away to advance ticket holders for Suzuki Junzo’s first ever Hebden Bridge visit (his first UK tour, London and Hebden Bridge). It was designed to open local ears to the sort of acts I was planning on bringing to the small town. I wrote a little intro and got my boss at the time, a keen thespian, to recite in an empty office and recorded it on my phone.

There was a great response to the CD, fast forward 9 years later and my friend Jonathan Dennis in California who I mailed a copy of it to back then reminds me he still has it and kindly does a rip for me as I no longer had one. It was like a sonic postcard from the past but everything was mixed from mp3s, some quite low res.

So, seen as how it was the a special anniversary year, I remade it using lossless formats. The same songs, better quality and mixed slightly differently. I hate nostalgia but this was just too seductive. After all, it is the 15th birthday of Was Ist Das? so there. I threw it in as a freebie with the tote bag.

WAS47.

The Lamp – Sentimental Journey

So, I wanted to make a DJ set where I mixed ambient drone music with vocals from some of my fave music that wouldn’t normally get associated with ambient drone. Then I began to think about what if I dubbed something ambient and spectral onto some old cassettes containing dubs of old country LPs that belonged to someone who had left this world? Would we get that phenomenon tapers dreaded the most, ghosts of the old recording coming through?

So what was initially planned as a DJ set evolved more into an entirely sample based album, the mix of drones songs instead replaced with time stretched samples plus some pertinent blends and the aforementioned acapellas. Then dubbed to ten aged tapes.

The sleeves have been customized in different ways: some have collages, some have been painted over, some have unique fake tracklists. Each has its own unique insert.So every copy looks and sounds different.

However, it seemed the tapes, despite their age, were of very high quality and no sound leaked through. So then different masters were made for each tape. Some tapes were allowed to keep their original content for a few seconds. Each one has different levels. Different lengths.

As it seemed like we were playing with sound and time, a further, final idea arrived. I would delete all the masters. No downloads, no repress, no listening again. My only experience of it will be my memories.

WAS48

Kawabata Makoto – The Infinity That Wasn’t

To me, there’s always been a world of difference between Kawabata Makoto’s solo work and his group work with Acid Mothers Temple. His solo works have always been minimalist, spiritual, energy accumulating and inward looking, whereas AMT is wild party music, a cosmic outgoing, a burst of great energy. His solo work is avant garde classical folk music whereas AMT are a rock n roll band from the end of the universe.

Then this landed in my inbox and burned that rule down. On “Infinity That Wasn’t” Makoto has become a band, multi tracking his own drums, keys, guitars and electronics. It goes far beyond any convention. The epic opener ending up furious guitar shreds dueling over hypnotic organ riffs like Can replaced Irmin with Philip Glass.

released July 3, 2020

Kawabata Makoto : acoustic & electric guitars, drums, hand clapper, drift box, electric organ

all music by Kawabata Makoto
recorded at Acid Mothers Temple, May – June 2020
produced, engineered and mixed by Kawabata Makoto
mastered by Andrew Liles
cover art by Sarah Coppen at Desert Moon Art

Special edition comes with t-shirt

WAS45

United Bible Studies – Three Barrows Round

We’ve had the pleasure of working with David Colohan on three of his solo releases so it’s a real pleasure to have him back with us a 4th time and this time as part of ever fluid United Bible Studies collective for a new cassette release.

Taking inspiration (and field recordings) from a visit to an old roman cemetery, this captures them at their most atmospheric. The band cite MR James’ classic tale “A View From A Hill” but for some reason “Red Shift” by Alan Garner is what plays in my mind as I listen to this. I guess both tales are about a strange coming together of past and present.

That’s precisely what happens on Side A of the tape. All the tracks on Side B are assembled together into one piece like a DJ set directed by psychogeography rather than beats. Side B [tracks 2 to 11 of your free download that comes with you pre-order] are the actual individual tracks.

WAS41

Bird People – Molting

the much delayed (our fault) WAS40 is here and for a special number like that we needed someone special so here is Bird People again with a stellar 5/6 piece line-up incluidng Eric Arn [Primordial Undermind] and some absolute drop to the floor slowburn psyche rock.

Forget all your troubles and surf the sunset slipstream of this one!

released June 5, 2020

Eric Arn – electric guitar
Roy Culbertson III – drums, percussion, trombone, voice and electric violin
Johanna Forster – electric guitar
Lucas Henao Serna – drums and percussion
Michaela Konrad – accordion
Stefanie Neuhuber – alto sax
Johannes Oberhuber – bass, voice
Ulrich Rois – electric guitar

Recorded April and May 2018 on Olympus LS11 at Studio 7, Vienna, Austria
Mastering by Ulrich Rois
Cover Photography and Layout by Ned Netherwood

WAS40

One Eleven Heavy – Live At Jam Castle

Kind of a big deal for us. One Eleven Heavy are the supergroup of Wooden Wand, Hans Chew, Dan Brown from Royal Trux, Nick Mitchell Maiato and Jake Morris (from Stephen Malkmus’ band). They’ve done two absolute killer albums but I could totally smell that they must be quite the jammers live, even though they haven’t played our my way yet.

Ages ago I said I’d love to put out a live album for them and here it is at last,
their first ever live album and I knew I was right – it’s a roaring gem. They explode those album tracks with amazing vivacity. And of course there’s some killer jam outs. Classic rock 2020 style. It’s the album in your collection that even your cool Uncle digs

You can order it right now on pro digipak CD or digital from here: