NNA060: Ryan Power “Identity Picks” LP

Over the last decade, Burlington, Vermont songwriter/producer Ryan Power has tirelessly embarked on the quest to write the definitive song-based music, full of accuracy, refinement, deliberation, and perfectly-placed shifting harmonic puzzles. Ryan’s latest “Identity Picks” for NNA Tapes is an eight track song cycle that dances through lush jazz pads, aquatic smooth jazz funk styles, and the sensitive side of progressive rock. These songs are long, shifting compositions, slowly unfolding and patiently circulating within a refreshing variety of stylistic modes. Throughout these colorful arrangements, Ryan creates a polyphonic choir with his own voice, adding symphonic embellishments to his calculated and catchy hooks. Ryan addresses contemporary issues in his subject matter, including the music industry, lust, self-evaluation, identity crisis, and the contemplation and acceptance of a world gone mad. Unlike the phobic, neurotic head spaces of 2012′s “I Don’t Want to Die”, “Identity Picks” is a life assessment, a meditation on putting yourself out there and the struggle to maintain integrity under scrutiny. The production is astonishingly hi-fi – recorded, engineered, mixed and performed entirely by Power himself, aside from the occasional guest appearance from members of his newly-formed live band. According to the artist, the songs on this album were written “to help give my life meaning” through the purity and timelessness of classic, addictive songwriting. In an era of technological A.D.D. and fleeting vogue, “Identity Picks” is a record to listen to over and over again, finding new meaning and appreciation with each revolution.

Digital download is included with the LP

PRE-ORDER – Ships June 25th, 2013

$16.50 USD

Non-USA Customers: For all orders of 5 cassettes or more, or vinyl + cassette combination orders, please contact us before ordering for a precise shipping rate.

NNA059: Nate Young-Regression “Blinding Confusion” LP

Over the past few years, iconic noise artist Nate Young has been carefully crafting his own signature solo sound, as evidenced through his progressive recordings and performances with American experimental music staples such as Wolf Eyes, Stare Case, Demons, and Moon Pool & Dead Band. After the completion of his recent Regression trilogy (part one being the self-titled disc on Ideal in 2009; 2011′s “Stay Asleep” LP on NNA as part two; and part three “Other Days” on Japanese label Rockatansky in 2012), Young begins a new chapter in his personal sound world, and it is perhaps his biggest leap forward musically thus far. Regression “Blinding Confusion” enters a new era, retaining the techniques and studies from his previous work and raising them to new levels. Intense compositional building and structure seep through each track, traversing new ground melodically while still upholding Nate’s patented over-bearing weight of dread and slow-burning darkness at all the right moments. Deep, percussive brutality and pulsing neurosis mesh with somber burial hymns, held together by Young’s technical prowess and mastery of his chosen gear. Each frequency is given it’s own unique role and characteristic voice, deeply chilled by the arid space of decay via tape manipulation/disintegration, howling its way through the grooves of the record like a cold wind of dead space that billows throughout, unrelenting. Atonal, morphing, and modulating bass lines pulse and plod their way through, like the unseen presence of the undead ascending a creaking stairway, leading upwards toward a nebulous void. This establishes a truly horrific atmosphere while honoring primitive technology, refined with a thick dose of originality. Self-recorded at Burning Log Studios and M.U.G. in Young’s native zone of Detroit, Michigan, combined with high definition mastering and cutting by Lupo at Calyx in Berlin, Germany, make “Blinding Confusion” the defining artifact by one of the United States’ most talented voices in noise and experimental music.

Digital download is included with the LP

PRE-ORDER – Ships June 25th, 2013

$16.50 USD

Non-USA Customers: For all orders of 5 cassettes or more, or vinyl + cassette combination orders, please contact us before ordering for a precise shipping rate.

NNA058: Justin Meyers “Albuterol Auteur”c21

“Albuterol Auteur” is the latest collection of synth pieces from Minneapolis-based sound and visual artist Justin Meyers. After multiple brilliant releases over the years, many of which on his own Tone Filth label, NNA is excited to bring forth these new works created and performed on Meyers’ own home-built modular synthesizer system, the TF50. Working from the ground up, Meyers displays a natural talent in the pure manipulation of raw current and electricity to form deeply expressive and colorful environments of electronic sound. These minimal yet perpetually shifting compositions seem to be aqueous in structure, seamlessly drifting between tones and phases, carving out a unique melodic terrain along the way. The expedition is documented in immaculate fidelity, engrossing the listener in a distinctive warmth. An original voice in electronic music at the hands of highest caliber craftsmanship.

$7.00 USD

Non-USA Customers: For all orders of 5 cassettes or more, or vinyl + cassette combination orders, please contact us before ordering for a precise shipping rate.

NNA057: Freddy Ruppert “Hangs A Shadow”c70 s/s

Following up 2012′s “Wait” EP on NNA, we’re proud to present “Hangs A Shadow”, the debut full-length from Prague-via-Los Angeles musician Freddy Ruppert. These very personal recordings meditate on the loss of a loved one, and the inward struggle to retain honest memories of that person. Ruppert strives to convey through sound what words fall short of explaining; frustrations with mortality, the limitations of the human organism, and it’s inevitable battle with it’s own consciousness. Electro-acoustic and musique concréte influences are prevalent, harnessing the power of silence to bridge the emptiness between snippets of percussion, field & domestic recordings, raw electronics, and the manipulation of collected improvisations. A cinematic narrative emerges through immaculate processing, editing, and the poignant use of space to cut into the tension of intimacy. Human voice, jagged sine waves, the movement of furniture, and fateful tones are all juxtaposed against themselves, breathing intense life into the mundane through complex sound work.

$7.00 USD

Non-USA Customers: For all orders of 5 cassettes or more, or vinyl + cassette combination orders, please contact us before ordering for a precise shipping rate.

NNA056: PHORK “Entertainment”c43

Los Angeles-based producer Neal Reinalda offers us his latest “Entertainment”, the anticipated follow-up to last year’s “Discrepancies” cassette on NNA. With this full-length, the People’s Higher Order further refines it’s sound, bringing forward new ideas and flavors into American techno. PHORK succeeds in injecting a warmth and humanity into a dance music framework that is wholly original, keeping a global influence in it’s sampling studies, while receiving guidance from the worlds of noise, hip-hop, ambient, and sound art. Reinalda’s Baltimore roots shine through in his informed conceptual framework, holding a mirror to daydreams of post-consumerism and dark ecology. Mood and atmosphere are established through ultra-tight production and focused composition, pulsing with life even in the absence of rhythm. The result reaches new depths in contemporary electronic music, gaining power and magnitude through sonic texture, repetition, and the matrimony of inhuman and organic worlds. Systems are questioned, interconnectedness is examined, and yet still nothing is as it seems.

$7.00 USD

Non-USA Customers: For all orders of 5 cassettes or more, or vinyl + cassette combination orders, please contact us before ordering for a precise shipping rate.

NNA055: Blanche Blanche Blanche “Wooden Ball” LP

Sarah Smith and Zach Phillips, better known as Blanche Blanche Blanche, live by the element of risk. This becomes clear upon listening to their latest full-length record “Wooden Ball”, where the unpredictability reaches palpable levels. These prolific young masters of harmony from Brattleboro, Vermont have spent the last couple years recording and releasing nearly 10 full-length records worth of brilliant and confounding musical quicksand. Describing it in words can be difficult, but make no mistake that these songs are both highly calculated, and drenched in paradox. Manic keyboard lines are pounded out with hyper chops, running circles around octopus basslines. Each progression is seemingly different from the last, showing a simultaneous reverence and destruction of the tonal study. Percussion pads are guided by ruthless polyphony at an intense, hummingbird-paced tempo, with lines and melodies colliding at every junction, clashing and crashing, like the most fluid and elegant car wreck you’ve never seen. The cutting, topical lyrics and deadpan, bare-bones vocal delivery are wholly original, while undoubtedly fueled by the eternal flame of the “punk” spirit and DIY ethics. Most importantly, at the heart of the all the technicality, lies the warmth of the human element. “Wooden Ball”, like most BBB, was lovingly recorded to four-track tape, so you can tangibly feel the intention of these spirited musicians. This taps into what seems to be an emerging Vermont-style, evident in other locals artists like Ryan Power, Son Of Salami, Chris Weisman, or Happy Jawbone Family Band – raw, no-rules songwriting, unattached to genre or principal. The revenge of the “small town” feel, where rock and roll is in the eye of the beholder. There must be something in the syrup…

Mastered and cut by Lupo at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

$16.50 USD

Non-USA Customers: For all orders of 5 cassettes or more, or vinyl + cassette combination orders, please contact us before ordering for a precise shipping rate.

Digital Version
Purchase From: iTunes | Boomkat | eMusic | Midheaven | Amazon

NNA054: Anthony Child “The Space Between People And Things” LP

NNA is honored to be releasing the latest full-length solo recording from Anthony Child, UK electronic music legend perhaps best known for his forward-thinking techno production as Surgeon. A native of Northamptonshire England, Child has been at the helm as a DJ, writer, and producer of electronic music for nearly 20 years, creating works for reputable labels such as Counterbalance, Tresor, and Downwards. Aside from dancefloor-commanding techno, Anthony has also been creating a private collection of tone-based experimental works over the years, much of which have become the backbone for his latest solo album. “The Space Between People And Things” finds Child revisiting his collection of unreleased experimental studies from the last 16 years, collaging them into an entirely new framework. Using a sound palette reminiscent to his techno works, Child focuses in on the molecules within the sonic textures and frequencies, delicately emphasizing the negative space that surrounds them. These sounds are then intensified to form vast new worlds, enveloping the listener with bright, crystalline detail and clarity. These two side-long pieces seem to exist and not exist simultaneously, filling the listening space as an almost physical presence, to a point where they blend harmoniously with the air that surrounds you. The brainchild of intense focus and exploration, this record serves as an artifact that gives the listener a very personal glimpse into the mind of one of electronic music’s most creative producers. According to Child himself, this record “consists of location recordings, tonal experiments, and thought-forms from many different positions in space and time. It is the sound of the space between people and things.”
Mastered and cut by Lupo at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

$16.50 USD

Non-USA Customers: For all orders of 5 cassettes or more, or vinyl + cassette combination orders, please contact us before ordering for a precise shipping rate.

Digital Version
Purchase From: iTunes | Boomkat | eMusic | Midheaven | Amazon

NNA053: Howard Stelzer “The Impossible Astronaut”c26

Few are more committed to the exploration of the cassette tape than Cambridge, MA’s Howard Stelzer. For years, Stelzer has been creating his own unique tape music both by himself and with a reputable cast of collaborators, much of which has been documented on his own Intransitive Recordings label. What separates Howard’s work from the bulk of traditional tape music is that he manipulates not only the phenomena of sound committed to magnetic tape, but goes deeper into the exploration of the physical mechanics and inner workings of the cassettes and players themselves, amplifying them in order to let the “instrument” become part of the music. The compositions on “The Impossible Astronaut” seem to create a void; a vacuum where trapped sounds are desperate to be released. Textural nuances and multi-dimensional field recordings are saturated beyond recognition, while lurching hiss and hum become anti-matter, simmering in tension. From subtle and quiet to loud and burning, sounds are presented in their raw form, and mixed to perfection.

Cassette edition – Discontinued

Digital Version
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NNA052: Belarisk “On Amorphous Dawn” c36

Belarisk is a project of Lee Edward Tindall, a fresh Providence, RI resident by way of Massachusetts. Lee has been steadily performing solo and with others over the years, with his various projects Zerfallt, Mutation In The Gryd, Aphid Palisades, Astronaut, and more. As Belarisk, Tindall taps into the more melodic side of experimental electronic music, applying his expert-level technical skills to digital and analog synthesizers and effects. The result is a bold, Americanized interpretation of German school electronics, that not merely repeats the past, but uses its essence to look forward. Belarisk paints with sound in the full spectrum of grey; forging overdriven frenetic malfunction with spacious, tonal glory. Sawtoothed synth lines are tessellated to reflect infinitely, where the sound of electrical current is dissected and manipulated in real-time. Mournful, dark formations of sound occasionally dissipate to reveal the radiant light of possibility. Original cover artwork by the artist.

$7.00 USD

Non-USA Customers: For all orders of 5 cassettes or more, or vinyl + cassette combination orders, please contact us before ordering for a precise shipping rate.

Digital Version
Purchase From: iTunes | Boomkat | eMusic | Midheaven | Amazon

NNA049: Decimus “Glass Tetany” c43

New tape from the solo project of NYC’s Pat Murano of No Neck Blues Band, aka Decimus. Pat has been hard at work the last few years crafting his series of self-titled epics on his own Kelippah imprint, and ‘Glass Tetany’ continues the legacy onto NNA. This release is a disorienting journey through the rolling dunes of far away desert, leaving the listener feeling isolated on unfamiliar terrain. Carrying the tradition of psychedelia into the next age, Decimus weaves dizzying melodies between synth and guitar, ranging from tender to gritty, creating a dense mass of multi-fidelity atmospheres that seem to score a tale of otherworldly travel. Chopped up alien beat work and bionic vocals cut through vapor, disembodying the mind from the physical form. Original cover artwork by the artist.

$7.00 USD

Non-USA Customers: For all orders of 5 cassettes or more, or vinyl + cassette combination orders, please contact us before ordering for a precise shipping rate.

Digital Version
Purchase From: iTunes | Boomkat | eMusic | Midheaven | Amazon