The first installment of the 2021 White Label Series is Joshua Virtue Jackie's House -- curated by Lala Lala's Lillie West.

We are pleased to present August's 2020 White Label Series selection Thelma, The Only Thing as chosen by Liz Pelly.

We are pleased to present July's 2020 White Label Series selection Beaver Sheppard, Downtown as chosen by Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint.

White Label Series - April 2020

We are pleased to present April's 2020 White Label Series selection Weasel Walter, Curses as chosen by Lydia Lunch.

Weasel Walter - Curses
(April 01, 2020)

1. Curse Against Humanity - 20:39
2. Cursed In Eternity - 20:06

"Weasel Walter has released hundreds of recordings, played thousands of shows, worked with an unbelievably diverse array of  musicians and refuses the confines of any one genre of music always bringing a ferocious intensity to whatever format he deems to create in. With Curses, a solo recording, he expands the boundaries he refuses to abide by once more... Mysterious, spooky. sexy. One for the ladies? Perhaps...if they like the idea that what waits in the basement ...waits patiently for them. Curses plays like a musical teaser to a creepy drive-in stalker film from a time and place that can not be named. As words alone fail to express the vast musical terrain this master has traversed, a simple paragraph alone will not describe the visions the listener may experience when seduced into the lush interior of this unique release."

If you are a White Label Subscriber, check the White Label Digital Downloads page to grab the digital: 

https://www.joyfulnoiserecordings.com/pages/wls-digital-downloads

Daaaaaaaang. I don't know how many of y'all have heard out us moving offices, but that took forever. Like, we have a large quantity of vinyl records that we have to keep stocked for orders and all but I had no idea how many we had. My oh my that was quite the ordeal. 

Anyway, this months WLS is curated by non-other than Thurston Moore. He has some wonderful things to say about his selection and we have to give a big shout out to Gotta Groove for getting this record pressed and ready so quickly. It really is amazing what they do and we are fortunate to work with them. 

"The Coolies are the best band in the world! Well, there's a lotta best bands in the world but for right now for my brain and heart and soul The Coolies are THEE BEST. Only because I just saw them come to town (that being London town on the wild island of the United Kingdom) and they totally sandblasted the place with sweet and strange guitar and bass action. I was not prepared! I actually went to see some other band who were on the bill but I did know that an old chum from New Zealand, Stefan Neville, was playing in this band The Coolies and that they were maybe putting a record out with another cat I know from Western Massachusetts and Stefan's always come hard with killer weirdo music but WHOA, The Coolies were a trio, two women, bass and guitar, and Stefan at the kit. Whoever, whatever they were all I can say is what I heard that eve was the most engaging, in-the-moment punk no-wave sonic heartstring buzzing clatter rock n roll I'd not come across for AGES. I went nutso and bought all the recordings I could find, which weren't too many but they were all choice and charmed (even the offshoot discs - check out the Piece War LP - it is killer diller (I need the lathe cut 10" (edition of 30 copies!!)(!))) so when Joyful Noise asked if I had any ideas for a special artist ("me") curated release I immediately told them to cut a path straight to South Auckland New Zealand where The Coolies reside and rule. This LP is early jams and is as boss as anything they've unleashed ain't no doubt about it and it is SERIOUSly the JAM! Tina Pihema and Sjionel Timu are great great song lights resonating the beauty of Maori awesomeness and you will thank the gods of rock n' roll when you enter their sonic universe. Love is the key."

- Thurston Moore

Coolies

South Auckland Girls in the Garage

A

yr so 1960's 

madonnas the bomb 

pimpmobile 

crushed 

nag 

we suck 

punk alert 

stereo baby 

B

throwaway 

holiday 

I salute u 

germs xmas 

kill the poor 

saba 

shoot this gun 



For our 2019 White Label Subscribers you can go to the WHITE LABEL DIGITAL DOWNLOAD page to download the digital.

We have a small amount of White Label Series subscriptions available at this time, but please check out Coolies on Bandcamp for a chance to purchase directly from them! 

-Jonathan Lee Horne

A New Year! A New White Label Series. To start off our new year we have an exciting White Label Series for you this month, the curator is Yonatan Gat with his choice of Gelbart, Egg Ray Test Hits Cow Action. 

"In the early 2000s my teenage punk band was invited to support the reunion of the biggest Israeli mainstream rock band. The lead singer’s punk rocker son was a fan of our music, which was enough to land us the strange gig.

They were the biggest band in Israel, reforming after 20 years apart, the kind of music my dad listened to. Locally, it was a big deal. And with nothing to lose (and for some bizarre reason) they decided to hire experimental acts to support their first ever reunion shows.

That put us second out of three, a strange punk band playing obscure 2 minute songs right before the headliner's crowd pleasing ballads and kitschy singalongs. Israeli audiences are not exactly known for their open mindedness, and I’ve probably never heard so much boo’ing in my life. Except when an electronic composer who went by the name of Gelbart, playing first out of three, opened the evening.

As he started his set to an already-hostile audience, Gelbart placed a puppet of an anteater on top of one of his synthesizers. His music was overwhelming and aggressive but also very melodic, freewheeling, playful, unpredictable. There was always something going on, and it was usually pretty wild. The intensifying audience heckling blended perfectly with the strange sound emanating from stage.

At some point Gelbart’s anteater puppet got knocked off of his synthesizer by the strong wind blowing on the outdoor festival-type stage. Gelbart's response was to stop the music to a halt, and to the audience’s deafening screams of discontent, he slowly leaned down to pick up the puppet, and—dead silence coming from the stage—calmly placed the anteater back on his synthesizer. When this ritual was done, he resumed his concert.

Always oblivious to the baffled audience, Gelbart was following his own instinct that day, and he has remained the same artist since, following nobody’s instinct but his own. He released an endless amount of music under different, often confusing, aliases. He taught himself to play tenor sax, upright bass, drums and clarinet and started adding these layers to his sound. He taught himself filmmaking and animation and directed a film, “Vermin”, which he also scored. He then taught himself how to write literature and published a fascinating novel called “Egglike” in 2018.

Always unpredictable, for a person who only ever follows his own instincts, Gelbart was surprisingly open to the idea of creating a compilation of some of the most captivating songs of his vast catalogue of 20 albums and EPs, giving me the pleasure of taking an archaeological dive into at least 250 of his inimitable compositions.

I therefore hope this compilation will serve as an impressive introduction to a musician who never tried to impress anyone. Nothing but time can help us assess music (if we ever need to do that in the first place) and despite of the strong reaction of a random Israeli audience one night when encountering Gelbart's breathtaking, singular sound for the first time unprepared – it seems likely these great compositions will be remembered long after his anteater has been knocked down by wind and picked up again, oblivious to the baffled audience."

− Yonatan Gat

Curator

Gelbart
Egg Ray Test Hits Cow Action

1. He Who Speaks Through Pyramids
2. Tekno
3. Waking Up The Cows (The Lonesomes cover)
4. Hilton Sewer
5. The Device
6. Spacetime Reverie
7. The Inverted Forest
8. World War I Hamster Diorama
9. Tokomon Rip-off Rip-off
10. Birthday With The Stars
11. Echo Valley
12. Nouvelle Planète Gelée

For our 2019 White Label Subscribers you can go to the WHITE LABEL DIGITAL DOWNLOAD page to download the digital. 

Our subscriptions are sold out, but Gelbart will be selling his copies of the album on his Bandcamp. 

If you like what you hear and are interested in more, Gelbart wrote his very first novel, entitled EGGLIKE which can be purchased on his website: http://www.gelbartcorp.com/egglike/

Hark! December is upon us!

We are bringing to you the last installment for the 2018 calendar year with a wild card. Due to unforeseen complications with curator picks, JNR Staff have banded together to be your curator this month and we present to you Mark Dippel, Mild Agoraphobia. Read our statement below:

"Mark Dippel is hands-down our weirdest co-worker at Joyful Noise. Mark started working as an unpaid intern way back in January of 2015. At the time, he had recently decided that he hated his regular job, so he up and quit - opting instead to spend his time working for free for a tiny indie label at the not-so-tender age of 37.

At some point the label had enough money to start paying Mark for all his hard work, and he eventually took over as Physical Operations Manager. Which means he's the guy who has been in charge of shipping all of your records for the last several years… which he usually packages before the sun is up, because for some reason he arrives at JNR around 6am.

Both as an artist and as an individual, Mark is incapable of pretense, and is impervious to the pressures of social norms. His favorite bands are Spin Doctors and Megadeth. He truly doesn't give a fuck... And even though listeners to his music will naturally draw the comparisons to other direct-from-the-heart artists like Jeff Mangum or Daniel Johnston, we shit you not - he has never even heard those guys (not even the Daniel Johnston track JNR released).

This spot in the 2018 White Label Series was originally supposed to be curated by Richard Edwards, but unfortunately he bowed out after he was informed that his initial pick didn't fit the concept of the series. So instead the JNR Staff has collectively taken on the role of curator to share the music of our insane and brilliant co-worker. We think Mark is a perfect fit for a series designed to prop-up the unsung heroes of the world."

xo, the JNR Staff

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If you are a Subscriber head over to the WHITE LABEL DIGITAL DOWNLOAD section to download the album.

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We are sold out of the 2018 White Label Series but you can support Mark directly through his Bandcamp, and also streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud and everywhere you stream!

Mild Agoraphobia

1. No
2. Observe The Destruction (Version One)
3. The Sorcerer's Office Supply Store
4. An Outdated Model
5. Hindsight Won't Help Me
6. 3-Toed Sloth
7. The Total Lack Of Suspense
8. It's Hard To Get Drunk In South Carolina
9. Headache: An Abridged List Of Things That I Don't Like
10. The Shed
11. Insomnia (Parts 1-3)

It's November, and as we journey onward through the year, we have a new White Label Series selection. This month's White Label Series comes to us from Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs with her pick of Chhoti Maa, Caldo de Hueso. Read Merrill's statement here:

"Listen to this voice. Listen to this music.

I won’t lie, I’m a white woman from Connecticut, and my Spanish is sub-par. So when I come to Chhoti’s music, I greet first the low, ancient growl, the multiple stratospheres her voice lives in, from soft pleading to battering-ram rhythmic rhymes, from mournful crooner to nasty, and scary. I do catch some words, like the “mala vibra” chorus of “Vibra” that will make a creepy cousin’s knees shake — bad vibes, man — as haunted as the nastiest ‘90s gangsta rap that some of this music takes its cue from.

I am grateful for the opportunity to amplify and uplift this voice and then get the fuck out of the way.

I first heard about Chhoti Maa through her work at Women’s Audio Mission, where she recorded this album as part of a grant awarded to her. I looked her up and couldn’t believe the voice I heard on Agua Corre, her album from 2016. The thing is, Chhoti looks young. Young and shining and bright and with all of her future ahead of her (which it is.) But her voice is OLD, gargling the ancient, the sound of layered generations of protective mothers. The song “dejame entrar,” pleading and grieving and insistent, made me want the world to hear and embrace these words and this woman whose work is so relevant to this moment in history, and so necessary for the future.

I’m writing this from my apartment in Oakland, California, and Chhoti’s music is swimming like the fog through these hazy-sun trees. CRAA CRAA. Biting, with the California soil under her feet, soil that used to be Mexico (”government sinners…” she sings.) I’d like to step aside and let Chhoti Maa lead."

Merrill Garbus

To access the digital downloads of this series go here: WHITE LABEL DIGITAL DOWNLOADS.

We are sold out of the current White Label Series 2018, Chhoti Maa will have her copies for sale soon on Bandcamp -> https://chhotimaa.bandcamp.com

October, a new and glorious month. As the summer gives way to colored fall foliage, also comes the newest installment of our White Label Series. 

This month's curator is Benjamin John Power of Blanck Mass / Fuck Buttons and his curation of Colin Potter, A Gain. Continue down the page to read his statement. 

"A good friend switched me onto Colin Potter's early tapes on ICR about 5 years ago or so. I was aware of his involvement in Nurse with Wound but hadn't any prior experience of these releases. When I was asked to choose a release for this series the A Gain tape instantly sprung to mind. "Rooftops" was the first track I had heard from the release and was instantly bowled over by how beautiful the track is. For such minimal components and lines the track holds a gripping movement which doesn't let up. The shifts are slight but full of meaning, and the understated production values only add to the overall charm. I see these tracks as 'workouts', instead of flooding the palette, Potter focuses on a few keys elements and stretches these as far as they can go. The lines are simple but perfect, even down to the introduction of subtle vibrato at the end of certain phrases. It's incredibly well constructed.

My other choice was maybe going to be another one of his ICR tapes The Scythe which is a very different sound and if you've not heard it I recommend it. It's closer to early gothic synth pop than A Gain but with similar production values, and features vocals. Go check it out.

I hope you enjoy this record as much as I do. I've got some pretty good milage out of this one and if you haven't heard it before I'm pleased to be able to present it to you." 

Benjamin John Power
Fuck Buttons / Blanck Mass

We are currently SOLD OUT of our White Label Series, but you can sign up for the wait list OR you can go to the artist direct. 

Colin Potter will have his limited amount for sale soon, buy direct from him at his Bandcamp https://icrdistribution.bandcamp.com! 

Are you a subscriber? Head this way to access your downloads --> WHITE LABEL DIGITAL DOWNLOADS.