Store: Cassettes

FTAM-094
3xCS
Phoned Nil Trio- 11th Anniversary

In celebration of our first decade of being a band, Phoned Nil Trio accidentally missed the date and decided to release an album celebrating our 11th anniversary. Across three tapes, the trio of Dan Schierl (Dan of Earth), Neil Gravander (Lucky Bone), and Peter J. Woods, present a selection of unreleased music recorded between 2011 and 2022. Each tape was personally curated by one of the performers (and, in Neil's case, remixed/arranged), showcasing a slightly different side of the group. Or maybe not? Maybe we've always sounded exactly the same. Ah well. It's a bunch of weird and harsh and warbly sounds anyways, so if you like that here's a lot of it.

FTAM-093
c40
Warren Enström- Electrics

In a follow up to his 2020 album "acoustics," Warren Enström makes the leap from the analog to the digital with Electrics. Across these five tracks, Enström drags his fried electronics through a sonic kaleidoscope, crafting minimal yet deceptively complex computer music that feels like watching a motherboard burn in real time. Through clashing oscillators and blown out tones, Electrics asks you to plumb the depths of nuance and detail that evade a surface level listen. It's about patience with this one, but that patience is rewarded in the reoccurring discovery of minute and powerful gestures.

FTAM-092
c40
Normal Rituals- Double Gesture

Following on the heals of their debut physical release on Absurd Exposition, Double Gesture finds Normal Rituals (the duo of Eli Smith and Peter J. Woods) in a more exploratory mindset. Rather than focusing on the swift blasts of harsh noise and computer glitch, this new release allows space for the dynamics to slowly unfold as scrap metal, prepared guitar, and rudimentary synthesizers clash together and create a focused yet encompassing soundscape.

FTAM-091
c40
C. Vadi- Woodland Synthesis

Woodland Synthesis is Milwaukee drone/ambient artist C. Vadi taking the opportunity to get the hell out of the city. Each track was recorded on site at one of Wisconsin's state parks, blending the field recordings of the natural setting with the highly non-natural sounds of droning synthesizers. Together, it produces a perfect marriage of these two worlds, offering a highly soothing auditory balm to whatever ails you.

FTAM-090
c30
Territorial Gobbing- Hot Singles in Your Area

Fresh blood from the UK, bringing a barely held together chopped up mess of cluttered metal and destroyed samples. According to the artist, "This album began as an attempt at making pop singles. Doing off-kilter kinda rapping over locked groove beats. Wasted a whole summer trying and failing to get this to work. Eventually I fed all these into my reel-to-reel to slow them right down to have a swing at making a dub record."

FTAM-089
c32
Moth Bucket/Women of the Pore- Split

FTAM is proud to return to the cassette format with a split between two incredible proponents of free improvisation's weirder end of the pool. Side A features Moth Bucket, the Pennsylvania duo that draws influence from throughout the history of experimental music (broadly defined). Low lying drones and tape collage techniques sit effortlessly next to the creative music practices of free improvisation's early practitioners like the Art Ensemble of Chicago. On Side B, Women of the Pore take a murkier approach, shifting through heavy swells of sub-bass synths and rhythmic pulses that plod through the landscape. A pixelated take on the early 2000s Ann Arbor scene, perhaps? As a whole, the tape sits outside of a temporal lineage by enacting all of these references simultaneously, an entanglement of past and future that remains deeply rooted in the present.

FTAM-085
c40
Peter J. Woods- Shorter Flagpoles

Following in the footsteps of a highly productive 2018, Shorter Flagpoles continues the meta-political work of Peter J. Wood by critically responding to the current moment both at a structural and individual level. Aesthetically, the work fits right in with PJW's recent output: heavy drones, destroyed text, harsh blasts, and long silences fill both sides of this tape to create an unsettling affect. Includes studio versions of the sets performed during the 2018 tour with Gerritt Wittmer and the 2019 tour with Christopher Burns.

FTAM-084
c22
Eli Smith- Generation / Moon Inside

More fresh blood from Milwaukee. Eli Smith has been absolutely tearing up Milwaukee's experimental music underground lately. Recent sets have involved processed acoustic guitar that gets completely mangled and rearranged in Pure Data, pushing a level of technological wizardry that is more than supported by the sonic explorations forwarded by the local guitarist (one who appears in a number of groups including Cairns, Honeymooners, and more). Generation / Moon Inside captures Smith at this moment, distilling the gestures into one holistic and expanding work that demands multiple listens

FTAM-083
c46
C. Olivia Valenza- Noumena/Bruises

Fresh Milwaukee blood, bringing dense drones and free improvisations that flutter between heavy and delicate in equal parts. It's the sort of release that seems to cover more ground than it responsibly should, taking a kitchen sink approach that never seems overburdened or weighted down. Guest appearances from Nicholas Elert and Anthony D'Agostino to boot!

FTAM-082
c22
Pleasure Thief- Cthonios

Best known for her virtuosic and soulful vocal work in groups like No/No, Cat Ries normally brings a dark, soulful and occultist approach to elctro-R&B jams to her project Pleasure Thief. However, Cthonios finds Ries in a more meditative mode, droning out ambient sounds with barely there vocals mixed deep within the crevices of these two tracks. Deeply spiritual and cleansing. Let the sound wash over you as your mind wanders.

FTAM-081
2xCS
Murder in the Red Barn + Guns Blazing- Space Album/Smell Where the Real Power Is

It seems like a lot of people forgot about the early 2000's math rock scene that formed in Milwaukee and it's a damn shame. A whole group of people inspired by first wave post-rock, early screamo, Chicago-style math rock, and more got together and started a whole bunch of incredible bands. For my money, Murder in the Red Barn was the best of them. Brooding, dark, technical and terrifying, the group sounded like nothing else before or since. All of the bands the members started within that scene, including Guns Blazing, were also incredible. So when I heard that both of these bands hand unreleased albums, I jumped at the opportunity. The Guns Blazing material is the exact kind of ripping math rock you'd expect from those folks. Murder in the Red Barn's "Space Album" is a sci-fi concept album that birthed the Fuiguirnet group. A glimpse into what Milwaukee used to call home and it's remarkable.

FTAM-080
c10
Kyle Flanagan-
Mind Eraser

During the tour I did in the summer of 2018, I caught a lot of incredible acts but Kyle Flanagan's set in Richmond, VA was a stand out for me. The pacing, texture, dynamic and sense of composition all felt incredible fresh despite the tone being classic American harsh noise. On Mind Eraser, Flanagan comes in with a halting and stilted set of harsh vibes that throw the listener immediately off kilter. It's a short one, but the vibe is beyond strange. Enjoy the ride.

FTAM-078
c50
The Smudge + Bachelorette Party + Dan of Earth + Lucky Bone-
We Made Some Sounds

For whatever reason, the organizers of the Milwaukee Maker Faire decided that they wanted to have a noise show at the event. They asked me to set one up and I immediately agreed. Lodged between bumper cars, a gigantic fire breathing dragon, and a bunch of wacky bicycles, some of Milwaukee's best noise artists blazed through ripping sets. Highly diverse and individual, yet cohesive and powerful in it's own way. A great testament to the strength of Milwaukee's noise community at present. Bonus track includes field recordings of all the artists making different things. Enjoy.

FTAM-071
c51
Underwear
The Crusher

To describe Underwear as anything other than an otherworldly, out of body experience would undersell the project. Absolutely broken R&B rhythms slink underneath crooning vocals and glitched electronic bursts of white noise, creating the sense of an alternate timeline in which the broken technologies of a time recently past somehow became autonomous and captured a forgotten pop star. Moments of cohesion underscore the confusion. The lore around the project has already started to grow: stories of the time Underwear’s drum machine (his main instrument) broke but he kept playing for another ten minute swirl around the New Haven underground. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this project is weird and it’s the closest I’ll come to releasing a dance record ever so enjoy it while you can.

FTAM-072
c40
August Traeger
The Harbinger

Milwaukee’s own MaxMSP mangler busts out another slab of swirling weirdness, this time in the form of a post-industrial ode to ritualistic mysticism. Secrets seem abound on these recordings, a journey into the heart of a digital forest where ghosts of electricity take on a sinister tone. Heavy synth drones swirl and collapse into stereo exercises in early electronic music mayhem. There’s another world on the other side and this just may be a portal.

FTAM-074
c36
Bachelorette Party
Submission of Archival Sonic Documentation: Riverwest, WI 2017-2018

Two live recordings, both performed in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI between 2017 and 2018. Bachelorette Party is the duo of vocal/electronics improviser and composer Amanda Schoofs and harsh noise/performance artist Peter J. Woods. Together, the two artists create heavily saturated works of industrial-tinged noise that sway between textural explorations of metal object percussion to crushing walls of distortion. These discordant moments remain stitched together by Schoof’s vocal work which effortlessly transitions from highly polished operatic singing to guttural howls. It’s a dark place, one that won’t let you forget that fact.

FTAM-075
c50
Myrrh//Dinitrophenol//Bootslave
NWOMHN

The acronym says it all: these three artists unquestionably represent the new wave of Milwaukee harsh noise. Separated from the highly saturated low end sound of the mid-2000’s Milwaukee scene (think Custodian, early Climax Denial, Blessed Sacrifist, or Citizen 2-13), these three relatively new performers pull from a wide range of contemporary, historic, national, and global influences. Elements of black metal, early power electronics, lofi junk noise, and recent harsh noise revivalism all play into this tape, teasing each element to create a wholely new sound. Sexual Discipline, a brand new collaboration featuring all three members, seals the deal: this is the next phase of Milwaukee’s noise history and it crushes.

FTAM-068
c31
Raffle House
Collected Discography: 1983-2017

Mixing elements of first wave post-rock, math rock, noise rock and emo, Raffle House could very easily be considered a throwback to the midwest indie scene from the mid-90's. And that's ok, because they unabashedly define themselves as such anyways. Heavy, interlocking polyrhythms play against downtrodden melodies and sparse vocals to create intricately defined but surprisingly catchy songs (despite the odds). Featuring members of Galactic Cannibal, Statures, Living and Wrestling, Mountain Language, and others.

FTAM-067
c20
Dan of Earth
Thank you for the pickles- Lu

A few months back, my friend Dan Schierl (of Dan of Earth inventor of the Bibletron line of synths) posted a picture of a thank you note he got from his friend Lu. The note included a drawing of a capybara (one of Dan’s favorite animals) wearing a tie with the moon in the background, Dan of Earth in an off-kilter font, and the phrase “Thanks for the Pickles- Lu” written at the bottom. I told Dan that if he let me use that image I would put a tape out for him and here we are. Two slabs of static harsh noise created with unaffected bibletrons. Side A pulls from the tradition of HNW and Side B treads into a no input mixer aesthetic. Pretty classic “noise tape,” ya know?

FTAM-066
Single Sided c19
MUFF
GUNK

Put Slogun and Negativland on a spectrum. Yeah, I know. It doesn’t work. I don’t care. Put them on a spectrum. Now think about all of the space on that spectrum. Every single inch. If you can do that, you can start to imagine what MUFF, the newest weirdo from Buffalo (America’s most underrated noise scene, IMO), sounds/looks/feels like. Live sets run the gamut of sonic assaults and acts of insanity, from shaving heads and smashing accordions to pushing audience members only to hug them immediately afterwards and threatening to beat up touring musicians in the ring on sunday. And that’s one set. Nothing ever sits still and every turn in the fun house is unprecedented.

FTAM-065
c30
Crank Sturgeon
Sitting on Sandwiches / Folk & Gravel

The north east madman returns for another slab of pitch perfect weirdness. A selection of sounds instantly familiar for those in the know but somehow simultaneously separated from past (like every release, affixing the circle sturgeon style). Side A brings the heat with acoustics at the forefront, pushing reeds and words beyond the point of breaking and into a squealed alternate universe folk traditions. Flip it over and the crackled collage of broken tape electronics rubs the salt on. No question- the man/fish is a master of his craft, although I’m still not sure what that craft actually is.

FTAM-064
c30
A Bleaker Teen Lip
Downgraded Saved Arrows

Cymbals crack against chains and voices striving to overcorrect skipping records. However, the electricals are intent on trumpeting their own shortcomings, sputtering incoherent threats and veiled aspersions in the erupting din. Side two fantasizes about settling the score, but in striving for succinct extractions the message is only further stretched from the source. The debut release from this new trio consisting of Blake Edwards (Vertonen), Neil Gravander (Lucky Bone), and Peter J. Woods.

FTAM-062
c19
Plague Mother
I've Written Pages of Daggers to be Read by your Perfect Fucking Eyes

The king of misanthropic hatred in harsh noise. High pitched, unrelenting waves of electronic squalls that perfectly match the title in question, broken only by the occasional roar of low end rumble. All created with nothing more than a mixer and a loop pedal. Inspired by the short story “Don’t Read This or You MIght Get Poked in the Eye with a Dagger” by Darby Larson (available to read online here.

FTAM-061
c40
Justin Marc Lloyd
Elysium Cove Mirror

Another decidedly strange release from this Chicago noise slinger. Hiccuping lo-fi electronics and bizarre samples clash with a surprisingly strong sense of cohesiveness. JML consistently sets himself apart from other noise weirdos by combining an other worldly strangeness with an intricate and dedicated sense of composition and this release is no exception.

FTAM-058
c16
Peter J Woods Free Jazz Ensemble
The Foreman. The Woman. The Widow. The Beast.

More of the highly dynamic free jazz from this Milwaukee collective, but this time with a second drummer filling out the sound.

FTAM-057
c12
LOT
Have you experienced ultimate power? Have you wrapped your tiny fingers around the wheel?

Power electronics performed by two used car salesmen who only want to see you behind the wheel of that car. High end, feedback heavy fury about experiencing the power of the NIssan Altima and living for the deal. You aren't just here to look. You never are.

FTAM-056
c5
xALLxFORxTHISx
Bath Salts b/w Spice

A short burst of high end destruction from xAxFxTx. Easily the grossest sounding recording from the group, taking on a more lofi approach. Not for the faint of anything.

FTAM-055
c10
xALLxFORxTHISx
This Is The Disease You Chose

Vile hatred from the xAxFxTx crew, focusing on the internet rumors surrounding Amy Winhouse's death. Heavy, rhythmic PE with Woods' signature vocals crashing over the top.

FTAM-054
c32
Bridges of Königsberg
Fortifications

The trio of David Collins, Chris Burns and Peter J. Woods getting weird in both the digital and analogue realms. Swaths of sound stutter into the stereo field while slow drones build in the distance. A keen sense of texture tie all four pieces together.

FTAM-053
c41
Amanda Schoofs and Peter J. Woods
Early Works

A newly recorded collaboration of two very different Milwaukee free-improvisers. Schoofs utilizes operatic and experimental vocal techniques while Woods focuses on industrial percusion, turn tables and electronics to create a highly minimalistic and intriguing debut.

FTAM-052
c20
Being Ghosts of Reality

If you don't know the work of Being, the moniker of Dayton OH's Luke Tandy, then your missing out on one of the most consistently incredible and meticulously crafted harsh noise acts in the world. Pure sonic worship that pulls apart every single crackle and roar in order to reassemble the mayhem into the most abrasively beautiful mass one can find. Ghost of Reality hits like a sack of door knobs and doesn't back down until its over, bludgeoning with swells and walls of distorted glory. A truly devastating listening experience.

FTAM-048
c62
Dr Rhomboid Goatcabin
Slunt Vape

Over the past few years, Dr Rhomboid Goatcabin has quickly become One of the Midwest’s best kept secrets, a sentiment that anyone who has seen the man live, whether he’s obliterating a toilet or playing a prepared ladder, can attest to. Slunt Vape finds the good doctor at his droney best. Heavy, low end hums lay the foundation for curious scrapes and confusing blips that build and sway over the course of this long, but always engaging, release.

FTAM-046
c16
Invertabit
Bug Powder Junkie

One side of distorted degredation and one of psyche-infused drones. A short tape covering the entire industrial gamut. All created from manipulated insect samples.

FTAM-044
c15
Peter J Woods Free Jazz Ensemble
Unpublished Studies in Adulthood

Raucous blasts of free jazz fury paired with quiet meanderings and low hanging field recordings. Ramped it up and let it crash back down.

FTAM-042
c19
Phoned Nil Trio
Milwaukee Architecture: Vol. V

The final installment in Phoned NIl Trio’s celebration of the architectural achievements of Milwaukee, WI. To finish the series, PNT honors the inspiring buildings that house our two Home Depots. The group celebrates the north side Home Depot with a spastic collection of synth blips and tape hiss and the south side Home Depot with an all-synth drone hymn.

FTAM-041
c19
Phoned Nil Trio
Milwaukee Architecture: Vol. IV

The next installment in the increasingly weird Milwaukee Architecture series from Phoned Nil Trio. Low throbs, distant voices discussing meet ups at Applebees, and the every present repetitive tape loops that lodge themselves firmly in your head.

FTAM-040
c10
Phoned Nil Trio
Milwaukee Architecture: Vol III

The third installment in PNT’s five part tribute to the architecture of Milwaukee, this time honoring the best in Milwaukee murals. Aurally, the group presents two slabs of bizarre goodness, collaging together field recordings, tape hiss, synth bleeps and quiet industrial percussion textures reminiscent of Dilloway and Crank Sturgeon on a calm day (if he has those). A perfect way to honor doves who are struck by lightning while giving olive branches to eagles and cars that exist in both the second and third dimension.

FTAM-039
c19
Phoned Nil Trio
Milwaukee Architecture: Vol. 2

Part II of PNT's love letter to the amazing architecture found in Milwaukee. In this edition, we honor McCormick Hall and the Riverview Senior Citizens Village with harsh blasts and atmospheric waves.

FTAM-038
c20
Phoned Nil Trio
Milwaukee Architecture: Vol. 1

PNT's love letter to the amazing architecture found in Milwaukee. In this edition, we honor the Howard Ave. Water Purification Plant and the North Shore Pumping Station with murky drones and weird synths.

FTAM-036
Single Sided c26
An Extremely Loud Silence
Rockaby

A noise adaptation of the Samuel Beckett play "Rockaby." Heavy drones slowly die as the actor on stage takes their last breath.

FTAM-033
c26
Partly Zombish
August Cake and the Cardboard Sessions

A truly bizarre duo from Buffalo, playing minimal and spastic scrapings and screeches. Tape hiss, feedback, cardboard solos and a blatant disregard for the musical fourth wall combine to make a truly strange listening experience

FTAM-029
c60
Stumblesome
LOVEREVOLVER

The second installment on FTAM from Wes Tank. Highly bizarre and textural hip hop atmospheres.

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