volcanic tongue

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We're sad to hear about the closing of another great underground record shop, Angela Sawyer's Weirdo Records. We always appreciated Angela's encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm. Now's a good time to revisit a column she wrote for Volcanic Tongue back in the day on "The Weirdest Voices in the World": http://www.volcanictongue.com/columns/show/8

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We're excited to announce that Volcanic Tongue's web site will be fully archived by The British Library's UK Web Archive! http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/ A lot of people have asked us if there will one day be a book compiling the reviews and content on Volcanic Tongue's site, who knows what the future holds? The web site is still up and we're continuing to add and reduce stock, the recent arrivals page is the best place to check in frequently: http://www.volcanictongue.com/recent Hopefully the archived version of the site will also include reviews for the releases no longer in stock as well as special sections like events, end of year charts and contributor columns. Don't worry, before we shut completely and remove the live site from the web we'll make an official announcement.

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Volcanic Tongue Recollected In Tranquility by Alex Neilson: Full transcript of interview by Jennifer Lucy Allan for The Wire.  (pic: Alex and Tom Keenan building the original VT shop at 1129 Argyle Street)

“As a reflection of the abundance of its music scene, Glasgow has always boasted a healthy number of high quality record shops. Suffice to say none of these have ever had anything like the intensely focused aesthetic or the monomaniacal commitment to alternative culture and experimental art as Volcanic Tongue. I worked at VTHQ between 2004 and 2007 and, as a tender 22 year old with an obsession for free jazz and feral folk music, it was a first class back seat education which often felt like the equivalent of jet skiing behind a runaway train.  You really got the sense that you were in the very nerve center of an emerging international underground that was partially being defined by what came out on the weekly updates. There was a ground swell of people that were using the internet, cheap recording equipment and other emerging technologies to mobilize themselves and short-circuit the old industrialised ways of creating and disseminating art. Volcanic Tongue provided a platform for people to record and self-release their most personally conceived expressions with the knowledge that it would be discussed with intelligence, sensitivity and on it’s own peculiar terms, without the necessary obfuscations of a failing music industry. As the rusted wheels of the music industry struggled to figured out how to keep rolling into the 21st century, David and Heather Leigh demanded that we throw our bodies against it’s gears and build something new from the scrap. They guided us by plotting coordinates between all these superficially disparate freak traditions- ecstatic jazz, eviscerated rock, avant blues, skull-sizzling psychedelia, private press poetry, uncategorisable electronic composition, obscure z-movie Italian Giallo horror soundtracks. The three of us spent a lot of time trying to crystallize these various nefarious interests in musical projects like Taurpis Tula or Tight Meat. And if they couldn’t afford to buy it, it was evident that people were forming bands based upon the way that David would describe the music championed on VT. David’s writing is irresistibly persuasive. He has succeeded in minting a language that is as sensual, visceral, vivid and important as the music itself in ways that appeal to the pelvis as much as the pud. The updates themselves became like these hotly anticipated fanzines . Suddenly experimental music festivals would pop up all over the map pulling together the same groups that were raved about that month. Micro-industries sprang up in VT’s wake and some sub-cultural doyens achieved a wider public consciousness based in no small part from David and Heather Leigh’s cheer leading. This was testified in regular letters of disarming honesty and gratitude from artists, labels and fans from all over the world. Some of the toughest and most transgressive counter-cultural operators would be reduced to blubbering wrecks because their work was recognised in the wider world due to VT’s validation. Volcanic Tongue’s closure hasn’t just left a gaping hole in Glasgow’s cultural landscape, but that of the world. The 2 million+ words David and a few others have spilled while tirelessly championing experimental music of all stripes since 2004 is miraculous and it will be sorely missed. L'underground e morto. Viva l'underground!” – Alex Neilson. 

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The last ever photograph of Volcanic Tongue's shop taken by one of our lovely customers for her University photography show, thank you! We're continuing to add releases to the site at a staggering pace including a good mix of rarities, closeouts and markdowns across all formats. Check in frequently because stuff is getting snapped up quickly and we're not done yet! The most current listings are here: http://www.volcanictongue.com/recent Further releases are available if you search or browse the site: http://www.volcanictongue.com/catalogue http://www.volcanictongue.com/artists http://www.volcanictongue.com/labels Thanks everyone for your continued emails of support, we're still overwhelmed by the response and greatly appreciate it!

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Snuck out our final newsletter for 2014! The Spies LP on Siltbreeze was our favourite release of the year. VOLCANIC TONGUE’S BEST OF 2014 (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER) NO BUY BUTTONS/A LOT OF THESE ARE OUT OF STOCK/PURELY A CELEBRATION OF ALL THE GREAT MUSIC WE HEARD IN 2014! The Spies - The Battle Of Bosworth Terrace LP Siltbreeze Peter Brotzmann/Jason Adasiewicz - Mollie’s In The Mood LP Bro Records Village Of Spaces – Welcome In LP Turned Word Records Big Blood - Unlikely Mothers 2xLP Blackest Rainbow Mad Nanna – In Glasgow (Live At Volcanic Tongue) LP Golden Lab Records Tralala Blip - Aussie Dream LP Disembraining Fourth World Magazine Vol. 2 - Pinhead In Fantasia LP + Magazine Pacific City Sound Visions HR Giger's Studiolo 2xCass Pacific City Sound Visions Mark Alexander McIntyre – Grapes LP One Kind Favor Roy Montgomery - 324 E. 13th Street #7 2xLP Yellow Electric Samara Lubelski – String Cycle LP Ultra Eczema Fushitsusha - Nothing Changes/No One Can Change Anything/I Am Ever-Changing/Only You Can Change Yourself 3xCD Utech Alien City - Cathode Rays Are On OVERLOAD LP Les Rallizes Denudes - Electric Pure Land 2xLP MV & EE - Alpha Lyrae LP Child Of Microtones Eye – Winterwork LP Nyali Recordings Drowning Is Easy/Sarah Richards/The Chance/Ritchie Venus - The Christchurch Quartet LP + 12” + 10” + 7” + bonus 7” Unwucht Richard Youngs - Red Alphabet In The Snow LP Preserved Sound The Dead C - The Twelfth Spectacle 4xLP Grapefruit Nazoranai - The Most Painful Time Happens Only Once It Has Arrived Already...? Ideologic Organ Sanity Muffin cassettes – we loved them all! Arnold Dreyblatt – Choice LP Choose Records The Terminals - Singles And Sundries LP Ba Da Bing Records English Heretic - The Underworld Service CD + Book Hiiragi Fukuda - My Turntable Is Sloow LP Selection Records Sadahiro Yamada - OK To Exist Doing Nothing LP Selection Records Toilet Roll Dolls - Live At Real Bad CD-R Breakdance The Dawn Pretty much all the Superior Viaduct reissues, particularly Alice Coltrane, Crime, Peter Jefferies, Flesheaters and Mirror/Stalker Jojo Hiroshige/Tamio Shiraishi - Enka Mood Collection 10” 75 Dollar Bill - Olives In The Ears cassette Spacemen 3 - Live At The New Morning, Geneva, Switzerland, 18/5/89 LP Mental Groove Records Nord - NG Tapes LP PCP Records Bill Orcutt private press cassettes Cyclobe - Sulphur-Tarot-Garden LP/CD Phantomcode Angus MacLise - New York Electronic 1965 LP Sub Rosa The Pheromoans - Hearts Of Gold LP Upset The Rhythm Simon Finn - Pass The Distance LP Little Big Chief Records Charcoal Owls - Tin Roof LP Night School Matthew Shaw – Lamorna CD Apollolaan Recordings Jack Kerouac - The Northport Tapes Cassette Counter Culture Chronicles Timothy Leary - The Radicalization Of Timothy Leary Cassette Counter Culture Chronicles Sacred Product - s/t LP Heinous Anus Records Various Artists (The Chills, Sneaky Feelings, The Stones, Verlaines) - Dunedin Double 2xLP Flying Nun The Flexibles - Cities Of The Narrow Universe 7” Nyali Recordings La Morte Young - s/t LP Up Against The Wall Motherfucker! Orphan Fairytale - My Favourite Fairytale 2xLP Aguirre Records Matthew 'Doc' Dunn - All Is LP Cosmic Range Stone Angel - s/t LP Acme Small Cruel Party - Unroof The House Of The Fishes LP Harbinger Sound Kitchen Cynics private press CD-Rs Handful Of Dust - Topology Of A Phantom City Cassette Ba Da Bing Records Mary Millington - Come Play With Me & other tales 10” 10,000 Productions Heitkotter - Black Orckid 2xLP Now Again Records

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Tip of the Tongue: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tips Christina Carter Masque Femine Root Strata RS-093 LP Beautiful vinyl upgrade for what still stands as Christina Carter’s (Scorces/Charalambides) greatest solo side, originally self-released as a CD-R in 2008: the original edition of Masque Femine was a VT Tip Of The Tongue, prompting this deluxe revisiting. Masque Femine represents one of the most radically beautiful and confusing releases from Christina Carter to date. The music is all based around Christina's interpretations of a clutch of old-time standards and ballads, none of which she had actually heard at the time of the recording... Read the full review on our web site

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Volcanic Tongue Newsletter: http://www.volcanictongue.com/news Joe McPhee: Underground Spaceway

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Tip of the Tongue: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tips HR Giger's Studiolo s/t Pacific City Sound Visions No Cat 2xCassette New privately released three hour (!) double cassette (four albums that are 43 minutes in length) in a micro-edition of only 95 copies from Spencer Clark of Fourth World Magazine/Monopoly Child Star Searchers/Skaters et al: following on from Fourth World Magazine’s recent black mirror working Pinhead In Fantasia, this one goes deep into the fantasy sex magick and new body workings of HR Giger while reanimating the cenobites of the LP as underworld psychopomps... Read the full review on the web site: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tips

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Volcanic Tongue Newsletter: http://www.volcanictongue.com/news Cassis Cornuta: Euro Trance

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Tip of the Tongue: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tips Fourth World Magazine Vol. 2 Pinhead In Fantasia Pacific City Sound Visions LP + Magazine Incredible new set of occult/sci-fi/black mirror workings from Spencer Clark aka Monopoly Child Star Searchers/Fourth World Magazine et al: based around the theme of Pinhead In Fantasia, this set power visions metallic angelic life-forms from the future, cenobytes, alien face-huggers, Disney-fied magick and the nightside of Hollywood complete with a full-colour fully illustrated magazine with channelled articles and workings by AR Faust, Spencer Clark and David Keenan...

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Volcanic Tongue Newsletter: http://www.volcanictongue.com/news Itasca: L.A. Woman photograph by Sean McCann

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One Singer, One Song: David Keenan on Enka and Japanese psychedelic music http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/enka-and-japanese-psychedelic-music

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Tip of the Tongue: http://www.volcanictongue.com/tips Joshua Burkett Lifelesslost Golden Lab Records LP Limited to 100 copies

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Volcanic Tongue Newsletter: http://www.volcanictongue.com/news Volcanic Tongue: Shop stock goes online

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A poignant piece from Richard Youngs on This Long Century: http://www.thislongcentury.com/?p=6920&c=273

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Off The Page 2014: David Keenan: Crime Calls For Night available to listen to now on The Wire’s web site: http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/in-conversation/david-keenan-crime-calls-for-night

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Happy Birthday Bruce Russell! photographed by David Keenan in the original shed in Lyttelton