The month of May is here and with the blooming of spring comes the latest drop for our White Label Series. This month we have Cate Le Bon with her selection of Bitw, Bitw. 

Here is what she has to say about her selection:

"I fell for Gruff Ab Arwel’s idiosyncratic mind and music 10 years ago when, still at school, he was one half of surreal Welsh pop band, Eitha Tal Ffranco. They sung of part-time vegetarians and suicidal teachers. Cut from the same cloth as Welsh greats Euros Childs and Gruff Rhys but reared under a different moon. He went on to form 1/4 of the amazing Welsh Surf outfit, Y Niwl , and rediscovered a self-invented band from the 70’s in the eponymous film Bur Hoff Bai. This solo album under the moniker Bitw is an incredible continuation of the curiosity, mystery and casual surrealism that has imbued all of his work to date. It is sci-fi mountain music - songs that are equally familiar and uncanny. It is my absolute pleasure to shine a little light on this truly authentic artist and introduce you to the wonderful world of Bitw. "

- Cate Le Bon

 
Bitw

Bitw

1. Siom
2. Diolch Am Eich Sylwadau, David
3. Love is Happening!
4. Chwefror
5. Plentyn Oeddwn I
6. Honey Milk Salt Miracle
7. Poen Tyfiant
8. Don't Get Caught In The Rain
9. With You
10. Split Six

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

We are sold out of our subscription, but please follow Bitw on Bandcamp for a chance to purchase direct from the artist! 

https://bitwbitwbitw.bandcamp.com/

The month of April is here and with the first of the month comes the latest drop for our White Label Series. This month we have Haley Fohr with her selection of Jeremy Freeze, Breaking the Skin. 

Here is what she has to say about her selection:

"I met Jeremy Freeze in 2011 at a DIY festival in Chicago called “Bitchpork”.  At the time we were both on the now defunct De Stijl records, known for its mainstay in heady reissues & archival material generally laced with LSD or some nondescript mind expanding component of the like.  Hailing from Mississippi, Jeremy embodies a lifestyle and type of movement one would consider rare and hard to find in the hustling & bustling life of an inner city musician. Jeremy is cool & collected, complimented by an impressive work ethic but never showing sweat.  He is sweet and polite, and reveals his encyclopedic knowledge of rock n’ roll in modest quantities through heartfelt conversation. I remember thinking that his music was great, and how nice it was to connect to someone so closely upon first meeting.

 It wasn’t until Jan 1, 2017 that I was reconnected with Jeremy and his music.  Moving from Memphis, Tennessee, Jeremy became my roommate for a year and a half.  It was easy to bond with Jeremy. At the time we had both spent over a decade in the “weird-american underground” community and we had both sacrificed a big part of our lives for music.  With his relocation came the unpacking of a fresh start, an enormous feat for any creature. Over the course of a year I witnessed Jeremy go through a vivid transformation. The way Jeremy took full agency over his life filled me with admiration. I admire Jeremy for his discipline, his mindfulness, and his ability to stay true to himself. I admire his ability to focus and execute creative ideas. He has a spirit that soars for the purity of life.  The collection of songs in “Breaking The Skin” were written and recorded during his period of climbing that metaphorical mountain. The songs on this album recollect the mind of a person who has made great sacrifice, and has a deep understanding of life & music. I believe that Jeremy is the person in my life most deserving of this opportunity, and I am confident that the message other’s find in his music will breed good into the world.  The music is also catchy as hell - long live R n R."

XX,

Haley

 
Jeremy Freeze

Breaking the Skin

1. Arkabutla Dam
2. Over and Over
3. Visitor
4. Last of my Butterfly
5. Certain Things About Yourself
6. Terrified and Witless
7. Run to You
8. Sharps Collector

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 you can support Jeremy Freeze's music by purchasing a copy from them direct on Bandcamp.

We are absolutely overjoyed to announce our Artist In Residence for 2019: Thor Harris. 

Thor fully embodies the spirit of our Artist in Residence series. You may know Thor as the percussive polymath extraordinaire behind one of his many projects (Swans, Thor & Friends, Xiu Xiu, Bill Callahan, Amanda Palmer, Shearwater and many others including our own Dumb Numbers and Yonatan Gat's band). 

But if you're unfamiliar with Thor Harris, there is a reason for that. Thor is rarely a leading man. He's an artistic facilitator - going where he is needed in service to the greater good... He's a musician's musician. And we thought it was time for the dude to get the top-billing-treatment he deserves.

Thor has lined up an impressive list of collaborators to join him on this year-long residency. We aren't revealing the full list of artists just yet, but the initial round of collaborators includes:  

Alex Somers (producer, Sigur Rós)
Michael Gira & Norman Westberg (Swans)
Neko Case
Sharon Van Etten
Bill Callahan (Smog)
Ayse Hassan & Fay Milton (Savages)
Thierry Amar & Timothy Herzog (Godspeed You! Black Emperor)
Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel/A Hawk and a Hacksaw)
Heather Trost (A Hawk and a Hacksaw)
Andy Stack (Wye Oak)
Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu)
Margaret Chardiet (Pharmakon)
Lawrence English
Shahzad Ismaily
Sabrina Ellis (A Giant Dog/Sweet Spirit)
Greg Saunier & John Dietrich (Deerhoof)
Jasamine White-Gluz (No Joy)
Kid Millions (Oneida)
Yonatan Gat
Jad Fair (Half Japanese)
Sima Cunningham & Macie Stewart (Ohmme)
Marina Tadic (Eerie Wanda)
Adam Harding (Dumb Numbers)
C.J. Boyd
Daniel Smith (Danielson)

The vinyl box set will be limited to 666 copies on 6 colored vinyl records, packaged in a screen-printed wooden box set, which will be handmade by Thor himself. Yep, the dude is a woodworker. MP3 & WAV downloads of new music and bonus content will be sent every 6 weeks. Approximately 300 minutes of music in total...

ORDER HERE!

Here is a list of facts about Thor so you can get to know the man a little better:

• Thor is like a caveman. From the future. 
• He's at once terrifying and the most gentle soul ever... Incredibly empathetic, but he will punch a Nazi without hesitation.
• He ran for governor of Texas, "cause fuck this"
• He is one of the most self-aware and agile artists we have ever worked with. He has the musical curiosity of an uncorrupted child. 
• He makes crushingly honest videos about depression.
• His Twitter handle is @ThorHarris666, but your grandmother would still adore him. 
• He is inclusive to the extreme. As demonstrated by the fact that he spur-of-the-moment-contributed to nearly every track on our 2018 Holiday Sampler.
• From his home in Austin TX, he works as a plumber and woodworker. He helps to build homes for those in need, while combating runaway gentrification. He is a pillar of the Austin community. 
• Thor will be personally putting his woodworking skills to use by hand-crafting and screen-printing each of the boxes in this set. 
• Buying this box set makes you a friend to Thor. BEING a friend of Thor is like having a battle champion for life. If a dragon ever tries to get you, he will slay it.

We're really excited about this one... Hope y'all are too!
xo, JNR 

Greetings friends,

If you're a fan of the label, chances are you're already very familiar with our guy Kishi Bashi. Beginning with his 2012 album 151a and the subsequent albums Lighght and Sonderlust, Kishi Bashi is our resident label virtuoso. And today we are elated to announce Kishi Bashi's new album: Omoiyari. 

Omoiyari reflects the turbulent socio-political atmosphere of present day America, as viewed through the lens of Japanese-American internment camps in 1940s America. To find inspiration for the album, K visited former prison sites, listened to the stories of survivors, and explored the emotional lives of the innocent Japanese-Americans who were unjustly incarcerated in WWII America. 

Stepping away from his past loop-based production model, this is a less overtly-complex version of Kishi Bashi. The focus of Omoiyari is centered squarely on its songs. And these songs are amazing (and are surprisingly uplifting considering the tragic subject matter).

Omoiyari will be released on May 31, 2019 - with a corresponding documentary film, Omoiyari: A Songfilm to be released in 2020. 

This morning the first single has just premiered over at NPR.

Take a first listen to the song "Summer of '42" here.

ORDER HERE

About the cover art:

Cover photo: carved and painted scrap-wood bird pins by artists Himeo Fukuhara and Kazuko Matsumoto reprinted from - “The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946,” (2004, Ten Speed Press) with the permission of author Delphine Hirasuna, designer Kit Hinrichs, and photographer Terry Heffernan.

The month of March is here and with the first of the month comes the latest drop for our White Label Series. This month we have Sondre Lerche with his selection of House of Hiss, Sand Never Sets. 

Here is what he has to say about his selection:

"For many, many years the music of House Of Hiss was a well-kept secret among the musicians who recorded at Gjøa and Duper studios in Bergen, Norway at the turn of the century. It must’ve been around 1999 that I first got to hear some of these songs, by way of my guru and mentor at the time, the musical shaman, producer HP Gundersen. I was 16, recording what was to become my debut album, Faces Down, co-produced by HP and the wizard Jørgen Trœen at Duper Studio. Next-door, in Gjøa Studio, was the young producer Kato Ådland, my guitar player at the time, who since has served my music in many capacities, most recently as producer on my four latest albums. From these three peculiar characters I kept learning about a shy uncle from England who would occasionally come to visit our little town to record his bizarre and beautiful miniature songs and symphonies. Together these four made up the unlikely quartet that became House Of Hiss. Their first album No-Fi, from which many of the songs on this album originate, was never released. It was the most exquisite, luxurious little secret enjoyed by myself and a few lucky others over the years. It didn’t seem fair. When I heard the song Shang, sung by Sean O’Hagan from The High Llamas, my favorite band at the time, my world suddenly got a lot smaller, and my horizon a lot bigger.

Alisdair’s vast array of influences, and his low-key sensibility must’ve quietly expanded all of our horizons in various ways - certainly mine. In Kato, Jørgen and HP, Alisdair had connected with a trio of adventurous partners, up for the challenge of deconstructing and rebuilding his avant-garde easy listening ditties into House Of Hiss - with a little help from a cast of their favorite musical friends. It was perhaps Alisdair's intricate, yet affable songs, and the ambitious, playful recordings of House Of Hiss that best encapsulated the range of influences and sounds that informed much of the music that would result from this tiny musical scene for a few years into the new millennium. Which is why I’ve been hoping for an opportunity just like this to share the glorious music of House Of Hiss with the world beyond those studio walls."

Please enjoy,

Sondre Lerche

1. All The Things
2. Send
3. Shang
4. In The Rain
5. Helicopter Lands
6. Dim Sum Moon
7. Passing Game
8. Stetson Terrific
9. Ice Cream Blues
10. Skylab Revolver
11. Little Anglia
12. Folk From Nowhere
13. Almost
14. Sugar Shoop

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 you can support House of Hiss' music by purchasing a copy from them direct on Bandcamp.

Today we are beyond excited to announce the new, limited edition 3xLP Box Set from Son Lux, titled Reissues & Remnants.

Son Lux and JNR go way back. We first began working with the band in 2013 with the release of their seminal album Lanterns. Even though we are no longer their exclusive label, Son Lux were pretty foundational for us at JNR, and we still love collaborating with Ryan Lott and co. whenever we get the chance. We couldn't be more excited to release this incredible 3xLP box set.

Reissues & Remnants features limited edition pressings of the first two full-length Son Lux records At War With Walls & Mazes (2008) and We Are Rising (2011)--both of which were originally released on the amazing Anticon label, and are long out of print. The set also includes the brand new LP Remnants, a compelling collection of rare and previously unreleased recordings spanning from 2008 to 2017. Remnants is a beautiful and awe-inspiring album, and at this time we are only planning to release this LP as part of the 3xLP Box Set (i.e. do not count on this being sold individually).

Also included is a large amount of digital content, including WAV & MP3 downloads of all LP audio, plus 23 bonus tracks of instrumentals and outtakes.



Vinyl Specifics:

3xLPs housed in a matte-laminated box set with spot-gloss, limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.

At War With Walls & Mazes (2008)
- Marbled Blue & Black vinyl color configuration.
- 12" 150gm virgin vinyl, limited to 500.
- Reimagined cover art by Joshue Ott.
- Download of instrumental tracks of the full album.

We Are Rising (2011)
- Milky Clear with Magenta Smoke vinyl color configuration.
- 12" 150gm virgin vinyl, limited to 500.
- Download of instrumental tracks of the full album.

Remnants (2019)
- Electric Blue color vinyl.
- 12" 150gm virgin vinyl, limited to 500.
- Three bonus digital tracks.

ORDER HERE

WATCH / SHARE - Son Lux "Sleep" Official Mood Video:

It is the brutal month of February, when the icy winds do howl and the ground is frozen. The new month heralds a new White Label Series and this month our curator is Laura Gibson with her choice of Kele Goodwin, Hymns. 

"I first met Kele Goodwin in 2006. I was searching through racks for an eight-dollar dress in the secondhand store where he worked. It was spring, and a time in my life where everything felt like the beginning of something.

“I think we’re playing a show together,” came a voice from the flannel aisle, where a kind-eyed fellow was quietly arranging shirts. With barely more than a smile and wave, we were friends.

A week or so later, at a venue called Holocene, we indeed played a show together. Seated and still, his gaze fixed just beyond the crowd, Kele seemed to be staring into the abyss, discovering the words as he was singing them. Both immediate and infinite, it felt impossible that his songs could exist in any other moment than the exact moment I was hearing them. I don’t even remember playing that night. I only remember Kele’s set.

It would be a few years later when he finally recorded those songs, upstairs, in a drafty old Victorian house where I happened to live. The walls were thin and I would often fall asleep to the sound of Kele’s guitar. The record took a while. There were gaps and mishaps. Within the span of a few months, Kele saw the birth of a daughter, and suffered a near-fatal freak accident that left him with both renewed determination, and a scar in the crook of his picking arm.

Sean Ogilvie’s arrangements are both wise and tender. It feels strange to say he produced the record, rather, it seems he summoned the ghosts within it. They left space for the smallest sounds: a breath, the creak of a chair, a sigh, a songbird bird purring in the walnut tree out back. I must have heard those songs a thousand times. Still, when I listen back to Hymns, I am struck by the same feeling I had at that very first show: these songs bloomed into being the second I pressed play, and could cease to exist at any moment.

A voice that holds both joy and sorrow. Kele’s songs exist in the seam between loss and reconnection. There is so much care and devotion and reverence within this collection, Hymns is an apt title. It reminds me of the story of a man who searched for God, who journeyed far from home until he reached the edge of a cliff, where a great dark void stretched out before him.

“I am here!” the man shouted to the void.

“I am here!” a voice in the void shouted back. Satisfied, the man returned home, for it didn’t matter whether the voice was God’s, or his own voice echoing back. Either way, he found the kindness and the wisdom he’d been seeking.

It’s my profound pleasure to introduce you to Hymns, and to my dear friend Kele Goodwin, who sings of the journey and of the return, and of the ways we humans reach for one another, in brave acts and tiny gestures, in unsent letters and talismans, with gratitude and wonder."

− Laura Gibson

Curator

Kele Goodwin
Hymns

1. Hymns
2. Snow
3. A Kiss For Your Eyes
4. Free
5. Feathers
6. The Days of Debt
7. Red String
8. Cursive
9. Johanna
10. Goodbye Spider

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 you can support Kele's music by purchasing a copy from him direct on his Bandcamp.

Curator Laura Gibson and appointee Kele Goodwin will be playing a couple collaborative shows! Follow Kele on Facebook for more info.

March 21 - Sisters, OR @ Suttle Lodge - TICKETS

March 23 - Portland, OR @ The Old Church Concert Hall - TICKETS 

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/

Hi. Well it was a pretty stupid year. Here are some highlights:

1. Beto almost vanquished Ted Cruz from my stupid state of Texas in the U.S. Senate.

2. The new Low album - Double Negative. If you’re waiting to get it, why? This is a beautiful record and will mark an artistic breakthrough that the next occupants of earth will study for millennia to come.

3. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She and Beto are the future of our so-called democracy, if there is a future. Green New Deal or 6th great extinction. You choose.

4. William Basinski/Lawrence English - Selva Oscura. It is a mind altering trip you really must take. If you’ve stopped eating acid because you’re unsure how it will interact with your anti-depressants, this is the record for you (us).

5. Carol of the Tubular Bells - it’s a Christmas song that I recorded with David Yow, Ohmme and many other Joyful Noise greats. I can put my own music on here! Fuck y’all!

6. NOT! I REPEAT NOT child prisons on the Texas/Mexico border. This is truly a hideous chapter in our history that will have ramifications for decades to come. Yes, this is on us.

6 1/2. The viruses currently mutating that will wipe out our destructive species allowing the earth to heal. Like Angela from Xiu Xiu said, we don’t deserve this beautiful planet 🌎. Or the meteorite that is careening our way.

7. Everyone in The Resistance. You protested. You voted. Finally there are starting to be women and brown and black people in our goddam government. Good riddance Anglo scrotum hate bags.

8. The memories of my mom, Norma Ruth. She died in 2017. She was the greatest person ever. She taught me kindness to people and animals. She was a bit of a pushover. I had to learn toughness on my own. She was shrewd and skeptical, but never cruel. I have a lot of heroes living and dead, mostly women, but she is my number 1.

9. All the music that was made this year. With the exception of a few posers who would never get laid otherwise, music making is a truly high calling. All artists are non-profit. It’s the worst paying job in the world. If I don’t like your music, like Congelton said, that’s on me. If you are making the art that YOU would want to see, hear, taste, touch, read or fuck, it’s good.

10. Not! I repeat NOT the time I fed my thumb into the table saw. Although it didn’t really hurt. It happened so fast. It took months to heal.

This is what it looked like. Now it just looks like a thumb. Nature’s miracles never cease to amaze. How did my thumb remember how to grow back? I didn’t really even have to do anything. I just ate plants and with time my cells made it back into a thumb.

Thor Harris 

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

----

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

----

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)