Tape
Stuart Chalmers – The Shadow
After blowing minds worldwide with his last tape for the label two years ago, Stuart is back once again with his swarmandal, some effects and a whole lot of imagination. Five new tracks plus a remix from Moroccan artist Sukitoa o Namau makes for another dazzling sonic journey to far off plains.
Limited edition of 40 special box tapes and 40 CDRs
WAS35
Josh Doss – Don’t Let Your Time Pass You By
Singer-songwriter Josh Doss is from Lexington, KY and has spent several years honing his craft and putting out his own CDRs and downloads. Recommended to me by the great James Jackson Toth (who is always right, be it about music shopping, artists or me needing to get glasses), Josh agreed to do a tape for me and put together a band for it. While his songwriting is in the great North American tradition, touching all the greats, his approach to music echoes through the more avant garde side of rock, recalling Velvet Undeground or those classic Spacemen 3 demos that Father Yod put out.
The three piece band sound amazing with a warm, fuzzy, tight sound. There’s some spectacular jammage on tracks like “Come With Me” and “Suspicious” that sounds like Malcolm Mooney-era Can covering California period Fleetwood Mac. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to put this out and I can guarantee you’re going to be hearing more from this guy in the future.
“hazed late-night gems tipping on a fulcrum of damped down boogie blues and sore-throated Americana” – Raven Sings The Blues
This is also WAS34. Its a good number.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Polygondwanaland
In what must probably be the most remarkable release methods of our time, the band decided to just put out the masters for this album on their website and declared it copyright-free for anyone to put out. What followed was a global spill of coloured vinyls from over a hundred labels. Yet initally, nobody seemed to be doing a tape version. Of course, by the time I finally got this one out (late March 2018, instead of the promised December/January release – sorry), there were a couple of others (and even an eight-track release!). Psychedelic rock melting into prog-pop with wild abandon.
This release marked a huge betrayal of our D.I.Y. roots by including a proper label. Its all downhill from here, we’ll be listed on the stock exchange and dead from decadence within 4 years.
WAS34
Limited edition of 30 on dark red tapes
Noel Meek – Southern Bleach
A delight to bring you the experimental sounds of New Zealand’s Noel Meek, boss of End of Alphabet records. Recorded in Wellington, mastered in Oslo and released in Arizona. An alleged limited edition of 50, I ran off the first batch early so as to be ready for Noel’s West Coast dates in the USA and still haven’t gotten around to finishing the run because life.
WAS33 [WAS32 got delayed, my fault]
La Danza Del Agua
After the roaring success of our previous collaborations with Pakapi Records (La Psicotropia and Industria Tropica), comes out third compilation co-release of the finest left-field sounds in South America right now. Less of a theme this time, just a collection of outstanding, leftfield electronic music from the other Americas south of Trumpland.
While it is mostly of the dancefloor persuasion, being full of mind-boggling cumbia n bass workouts, spaced-out reggaeton and 22nd century space Tropicália, there is the odd fully-immersed dip into the otherness such as the track from Anla Courtis (who has collaborated with an astonishing array of people from Pauline Oliveros to Sir Richard Bishop to Damo Suzuki). When you buy the tape, you get 2 songs to download now and with the tape is a download code for an even longer version of the album, extended from 24 to 38 tracks.
If you want to buy a download-only version, it will be available from pakapirecords.bandcamp.com in two parts very soon.
WAS30
buy from here
Delphine Dora & Sophie Cooper – Think Away
Delphine and Sophie’s first collaboration, 2015’s “Distance Future”, was one of our most popular releases, gaining even more plays on Soundcloud than Daphne Oram. So, we are naturally delighted to be bringing you their second, “Think Away”. While the first album was recording in a big church, this one has a small cellar feel, all intimate atmospheres and subtle details. It’s the night to the first albums day, with hints of melancholy and darkness, crossing points ranging from Charalambides and United Bible Studies to John Cage and Jerry Goldsmith.
Limited edition of 80 gold cassettes with artwork by Lucy Atherton.
WAS28
Orange Car Crash – Simple Music
Orange Car Crash is an astounding debut release. It’s the solo project of Andrea Davi from Italian psyche wonders the Lay Llamas and the more dark, intense Mamuthones and the aptly named The Beautiful Bunker.
As with so much of the underground music coming out of Italy right now, categories become blunt tools for attempting to describe the sounds. What is it? Jazz? Ethnological Forgery? Psychedelic? Minimalist electronics? Percussion jams? Prog? All of the above? At once? And that’s just the first track. It’s a killer album and makes my day with every play.
WAS26
Taking orders now from our bandcamp page
Hush Arbors – Albion Way
five tracks of beautiful, blissful American primitive guitar stylings out in time for your Autumn sunshine adventures. Hush Arbors is the project of Keith Woods who as well as releasing albums for seminal labels like Digitalis, Ecstatic Peace & Blackest Rainbow, has also found time to play with Thurston Moore, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Current 93 and Six Organs of Admittance. He’s about to play a few NW USA shows with Cass McCombs.
Available to order now from our bandcamp page
WAS25
Nihilist Spasm Band / Metabolismus – split album
Honoured to be releasing this very fine and very wild split tape, the brainchild of Klemen from It’s Psychedelic Baby magazine who has kindly contributed sleeve notes.
On side one, we have Nihilist Spasm Band. Formed in 1965, they made the infamous Nurse With Wound list in 1979 for their sterling work in breaking down musical rules and boundaries through their weekly jams and sporadic releases. So sporadic they even took 11 years between their first and second albums. It is a marvelous thing to have them out on Was Ist Das?
Over on side two are the musical collective Metabolismus from Stuttgart, Germany who have been putting out mind-altering blasts of other music since 1989. Their fluid line-up sometimes includes Samara Lubelski Taking their cues from the NSB, they’ve gone and built their own instruments too for this one and laid down some rambunctious improve of their own.
Artwork by Polish artist Dorota Jurczak
Limited edition cassette with a download code, available to order now from our bandcamp page
Stuart Chalmers – In The Heart of the Wilderness
I first came across the astonishing sound experiments of Stuart Chalmers in 2012 when he put out his “Myths and Beasts” tape on The Lows and The Highs Records. Stuart is both a musician and a sound manipulator, creating his own sounds for his experiments. For this album, the sounds were made using a Swarmandal prepared with objects, effect pedals, tape and Yamaha VSS200.
WAS23 – limited edition of 50 and comes with a download code. Buy from our bandcamp page
Recent Posts
- Stuart Chalmers – The Shadow
- Josh Doss – Don’t Let Your Time Pass You By
- Ciarán MacAoidh – A Palm To Rest My Cheek Upon
- King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Polygondwanaland
- Noel Meek – Southern Bleach
- Günter Schlienz – Collage Tristes
- La Danza Del Agua
- This Is WAS29
- Delphine Dora & Sophie Cooper – Think Away
- Lo Imp – Nosferatu
- Orange Car Crash – Simple Music
- Hush Arbors – Albion Way
- Nihilist Spasm Band / Metabolismus – split album
- Stuart Chalmers – In The Heart of the Wilderness
- Worship My Panther – This Is Scaldhouse
- These Feathers Have Plumes / Isnaj Dui
- David Colohan – Hill Of The Moon
- Various Artists – Noise In The Wood
- Gwendolen Osmond – The Mermaid
- Jake Blanchard – Shade