Monday, September 7, 2009

Rope Cosmetology: Casement Ledges Where Moss Has Grown...

Hello Again,

Finally. After months of adjustments, the fourth Rope Cosmetology album, Spezial Gedankengefüge, has been completed. Orders will ship tomorrow.



Here's the revised running order:

Week 1

101 Visit When in Sympathy (10:12)

102 Hamletmaschine (5:42)

103 I Must Mourn (5:30)

104 Otherwise She Agreed (5:36)

105 Grateful, But Some Fur (20:05)

106 All Is Lead, Corporeal (9:46)

107 Jean Heap Came Off His Pen (composite) (5:02)

108 Third Symbol May Stumble (12:41)

Week 2

201 Set Rehearsal (7 Apr 09) (52:07)

202 Dirges One Ruined (5:16)

203 Visit When in Sympathy (10:46)

204 The Cortege (8:07)

205 Rope Cosmetology (2:21)

The third disc, a 45-minute DVD of various short videos shot during (and around) the April sessions, will also be included.

Thanks very much for waiting on us to finish the album. It's a collection of rehearsal recordings, so there are occasional flubs, errors, missed beats, blown notes, etc., but THIS GROUP DESTROYS and I don't think you'll mind the odd imperfect moment.

Yours Faithfully,

Tom, for Tim, Ryan, Feri, and Balazs.

Monday, August 17, 2009

KSV Post-Chiropractic Report...

Hello Again,

We've had to adjust our release schedule again, albeit just slightly. The Rope Cosmetology double disc and the Katje Fregatte album will both be available on Thursday, August 20. Set your cicadas accordingly...

Still a few copies left of the Maude and Female Reggae Showcase albums; the Alpha 66 release is almost gone, so if you were waiting, act!

(Wow... One of our neighbors is having an epic shouting match with her partner.)

An additional pair of releases (KSV 038 and 039) are in the post-production queue as well. You will receive ample warning.

All the Best,

Tom & Karl

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Los sobrevivientes demanda de acción! (New KSV!)

Hello Again,

Brian Cook's favorite unreleased TLASILA-related oddity was the 1998 album by Alpha 66, Pax Sovietica. Once on the Smack Shire shortlist (but sensibly scrubbed when my partner in the label, Gerard Klauder, reckoned it would return less than an nth of our investment), this paean to Cuban-American paranoia was hatched in Miami Beach during an impossibly muggy, appropriately ominous June afternoon by yours truly, and quickly filed away after an ex-girlfriend implored me to burn the tapes, lest I be murdered by anti-Castro extremists.

It's far less threatening an affair, if truth be pried from shattered molars. I merely plopped a cassette into a boombox, tuned the unit to a local AM station specializing in overdriven salsa and merengue, and edited the proceedings in real time. (I grant that it's extraordinarily fucked, however...)

Brian often privately expressed his delight with the results, and decried the cruelty of a marketplace gone far too pink and prickly to allow for Pax Sovietica's release. But, the marketplace is finished, and the old paradigms are wizened beyond resuscitation.

Time, then, for Alpha 66!

--

KSV 037 Alpha 66 - Pax Sovietica



--

Tom Smith - radio, real-time edits

Recorded June 25, 1998 in Miami Beach, Florida by TS on the Western Blot mobile.
Edited and mastered August 10, 2009 by TS at KSV HQ, Hannover.

01 Pax Sovietica (Pt. 1) (36:06)
02 Pax Sovietica (Pt. 2) (20:48)

--

Edition of 15.

For Brian...

--

Pricing:

€ 8.49 within the EU, €10 outside the EU.

Postage paid. Add € 1 for each additional album.

Send orders to: tlasila [at] gmail [dot] com.

Our sole distribution partner is Tochnit Aleph. Copies of selected out-of-print KSV albums may be found there...

--

Love to All,

Tomás

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Ordure with Confidence...

Two new releases from Karl Schmidt Verlag:

KSV 017 Female Reggae Showcase - Ascendance Surged Red (Distorted in Hegel)



Kid Traumgekrönt: Chris Grier
U-Hölderlin: Tom Smith

An hour of attenuated disregard.

Edition of 15.

--

KSV 036 Maude - York Year of Critical Will



Mark Morgan (Sightings, TLASILA, etc.) - guitar and voice
Tom Smith (Ohne, Rope Cosmetology, et al.) - voice and electronics

Recorded and mixed in NYC by Patrick Spurlock, 2007.
Remixed by TS at KSV HQ, Hannover, 2009.

An hour of abrupt regard.

Edition of 15.

--

Pricing:

€ 8.49 within the EU, €10 outside the EU.

Postage paid. Add € 1 for each additional album.

Send orders to: tlasila [at] gmail [dot] com.

Our sole distribution partner is Tochnit Aleph.


--

Hope everyone is well...

Love,

TS/KS

Thursday, July 30, 2009

KSV Updated Update!

Hi Again,

It's been a mad work week, and I've still one day to go. Exhaustion has become my fuel, and the darker circles around the sunken sockets of my once-sparkling orbs provide a beacon for wraiths and nightgaunts. I feel like a million Euros (that have been soaked in caustic lye)...

On to business: each of our previously issued releases is now SOLD OUT. We have a few copies of some of the more recent titles reserved for our distributor, Tochnit Aleph, but apart from those, everything is gone.

Many thanks to our regulars and occasional passersby for your very kind support.

Coming August 1: the debut album by Female Reggae Showcase (KSV 017), and (this is new, by the way), on August 5, the debut platter by Maude (KSV 036).

Thanks as always for your illuminating emails. The instant feedback is always appreciated!

Yours Faithfully,

Karl

Sunday, July 19, 2009

KSV Update...

Good Morning Lovelies,

Off to work in a few minutes, so while I'm murdering the fragile moments left before I bolt for the tram, I may as well give you the blood-flecked lowdown on the next raft of releases:

Careening toward you on August 1st, the long-delayed and much dithered-over Female Reggae Showcase album (Kid Traumgekrönt/U-Hölderlin Super-Clash!) will have mud all over its corsets, but will nonetheless be available. On August 15, you can finally get your mitts on the 2xCD Rope Cosmetology studio collection, Spezial: Gedankengefüge (Compound Thought). No need for hype on this one - those in the know know. Verstehen Sie? August 23 finds Katja Frigate's Coldplay Nancarrow Burzum Hines assemblage at last ready for public aring, and September 1 will mark the escape of our slightly delayed 25th disc (especially as we're already up to number 35!), the all-encompassing, all-knowing, all-deflecting mega-mix compilation Karl Schmidt Verlag: Was du nicht wissen wolltest? Also on this date, the 3xCD TLASILA set of recycled, re-positioned "hybrids," Die Fehde des Gemischs. We suggest you eat all your meds at once for that one...

As if all this weren't burden enough, on September 15 we'll begin our first, tentative steps into actual Verlag-ness with the publication of a new book of fellow traveler Tom Smith's photographs, and, on October 1, the release of Unpunished, an illustrated volume of TS's 2000-2001 reviews for the late, oh-so-great Bananafish.

Too pro for you? Well, many were reeling, swooning, coughing up clumps of bilious humors, nay, nearly dropping dead under the intense pace of releases. Engines have thus been reversed, and the gargantuan ship of state that is KSV GmbH will be steaming along - at least for the next few months - at a more regal clip.

SOLD OUT: Feinkost Lampe: 26. Februar (KSV 018); Tom Smith & Blue Sabbath Black Fiji - Ich werde nicht nackt sein (KSV 022); Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson & Tom Smith - Todesröcheln (KSV 026); Rope Cosmetology - Hinterzimmer-Apotheke (leibt) illegal Meztgerei (KSV 027); Silke Arp Bricht: 3. Juni (KSV 029); and Tom Smith - Hintergrundmusik (KSV 032). Many, many thanks.

ALMOST GONE: Three Resurrected Drunkards - Begriffsschrift (KSV 019) and Twenty Years of Sudden Infant: One Participant's Perspective (KSV 023). Get 'em while you can.

Coming later in 2009: 50 Karl Schmidt Fans Can't Have Jobs!?, a box containing all previously-issued KSV recordings and publications, two DVDs, three bonus CDs, and more, housed in a container ill-suited for stovepipe hat storage, ill-advised for casual perusal. A limited edition of ten units, and as each one will take a week or so to make, beware: the love will surely ooze forth...

Hope everyone is well.

Best,

Karl

Friday, July 17, 2009

New Release on KSV!

I've been trying to slow down the pace of research and development here at KSV HQ, but despite all efforts, this newest model fairly raced from the lab. Covers are printed, discs are burned. Orders received through 17:30 today (5:30 PM) will be mailed immediately. (Deutsche Post is just up the street from our flat.)

KSV 035 Karl Schmidt - Remediated and Decontextualized Field Recordings Vol. 2



Recorded July 2009 by KS at KSV HQ, Hannover.

01 Untitled (51:32)

Mixed and produced by TS for KSV.

Sleeve design by Michaela Föster.

Edition of 15.

Pricing as always. See recent entries for details.

--

Have a Great Weekend!

Best,

TS/KS/KSV