Month: May 2013

Keeping up with tenzenmen – 31st May 2013

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Investment

So, last financial year tenzenmen made a loss of about $20,000.  I say a loss but that is just in business and financial terms.  Truth be told the correct wording should be that tenzenmen made a $20,000 investment – investment in the music that we love and wish to share.  Obviously this kind of investment is not sustainable so I’m here now asking for your help!  No crowd funding/sourcing type of help, not asking for handouts or donations (though I guess I might one day!).  All you have to do is purchase something!  If you scroll (hell, maybe even read) through to the end of this newsletter there’s a deal there to sweeten things for you!

In the pipeline: Golden Blonde, Ted Danson With Wolves, Kah Roh Shi, SMG/Terlarang split, Bone, Seahorse Divorce, Gravitsapa (from the Ukraine!), Black Wire double album, P.K. 14, Alpine Decline, Maybe Mars back catalogue vinyl releases (!),  Dear Eloise, Rice Corpse, The All Seeing Hand, Dead and more I’m forgetting!

Recent posts at tenzenmen.com

zhang shouwang on point
god bows to math australasian tour april 2013
long weekend with zoo
li daiguo 7″ special for record store day (april 20th 2013)

Seahorse Divorce (album launch)
all shows with Stockades

Friday 21 June – Sun Distortion, Brisbane AA
Saturday 22 June – Blackwire Records, Sydney AA
Sunday 23 June – Yours & Owls, Wollongong AA
Monday 24 June – Potbelly Bar, Canberra 18+
Tuesday 25 June – Evolution Lounge, Mildura 18+
Wednesday 26 June – The Metro, Adelaide 18+
Thursday 27 June – Footscray House Show, Melbourne AA
Friday 28 June – The Reverence, Melbourne 18+
Saturday 29 June – The Grand Poobah, Hobart

23rd Aug 2021 – Most of the items in the pipeline eventuated and I continued losing investing money for a while longer! Actually, even today.

What’s Cool and Unusual – 29th May 2013

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Thu 30

Lamps, 401, Hibernian House, 342 Elizabeth St
7pm $10 ALL AGES

Ears Have Ears, FBi Radio’s weekly experimental music program is launching a series of new live shows, which will bring together some of Australia’s most exciting musicians to perform in a range of unique venues across Sydney.

This show marks the first in the series with a dual-state lineup featuring primitive poppurveyors and hand-made ‘unstrument’ creators Sky Needle (QLD), featuring members of Kitchen’s Floor, Per Purpose, Unwar & OtherFilm.

Also on the lineup is Sydney’s Desert Luck, a duo made up of Anthony Guerra from the mesmerizing Love Chants / Black Petal label and Peter Blamey, who as a soloist primarily uses open electronics, previously performing at The NOW now, What Is Music? and Liquid 

Architecture festivals.

Third on the lineup is Sydney’s Exotic Dog, the solo project of Nic Warnock (R.I.P. Society, Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys, Model Citizen). A new(ish) act, Exotic Dog uses four tracks and answering machine cassettes to create disorientating soundscapes.

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Fri 31

MCA, 140 George Street, Sydney
7pm tickets: tickets.mca.com.au

Celebrate MCA ARTBAR driven by Audi first birthday this May as you experiment with the theme of weird science curated by Sydney artist Keg de Souza. From the 1985 teen sci-fi film classic by John Hughes to the literal meaning of weird science, Keg invites you to interpret the evening as you see fit. Create Kelly LeBrock out of a computer program, or ponder the vast meaning and strangeness of our modern scientific accomplishments.

Step inside an inflatable planetarium or take in some screenings from the infamous Mu Meson archives. Encounter Wade Marynowsky’s robots, Diego Bonetto’s test-tube gardens or Justice Yeldham’s unhealthy obsession with sheets of broken glass. For our very first birthday you can expect strange things to be happening in dark the corners of the MCA. Hypothesise on the sculpture terrace for one of the most magical views of Vivid in Sydney.

It’s art but not as you know it.

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Fri 31

Paragon Cafe (65 Katoomba St, Katoomba)
7pm

Sound Bites #10 @ Paragon Cafe (Katoomba)

A monthly performance forum of music, improvisation, poetry, spoken word and sound-art in Katoomba’s original Art-Deco Café featuring: *

Alex Salter banjo skin, guitar, mandolin
Alan Lucas poet
Sleepyhedz (Syd) exploratory clarinet & sax
WeiZen Ho voice & objects

* program line up may change

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Sat 1

Black Wire, 219 Parramatta Rd, Annandale
6pm $10-$15 ALL AGES

Black Wire Bday. CONATION, ETHER RAG, ACHE, CANINE, PALMAR GRASP.

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Sat 1

Repressed Records, Enmore Rd, Newtown
4pm free ALL AGES

Sky Needle, Mob

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Sun 2

Black Wire Records, 219 Parramatta Rd.
3pm start! (afternoon show!)

w/

SIMO SOO
http://www.simosoo.bandcamp.com
PS- its simos bday. BRING PRESENTS & CAKE!

MOONSIGN (sydney/newcastle)
http://moonsign.bandcamp.com/

LUNA LUK

BLACK VANILLA

Zines by Bitch Please!
http://www.facebook.com/transwomandistro

Vegan treats by Vegan Teahouse
http://www.facebook.com/TheVeganTeaHouse

CrushIN cassette/zine launch!!
http://crushinpunx.tumblr.com/ / http://facebook.com/crushinpunx

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Mon 3

LAMPS: 401 Hibernian House
$10/8 conc. 7pm BYO

Get there early to get a comfy sofa/arm chair.

featuring some fine people from the northern hemisphere and some equally fine people from the our fair city…

/// Ingar Zach (Norway) ///
Gran Casa and Percussion Solo

— Xavier Charles (France) and Laura Altman —
clarinet and clarinet

/// Ivar Grydeland (Norway) ///
Guitar and Banjo Solo

— Christian Wallumrød (Norway) / Clare Cooper / John Wilton —
prepared piano/harp/percussion

check out these european superstars in action here
http://www.facebook.com/events/194043447416585

Yes I’m Leaving – Mission Bulb – 22nd May 2013

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Cat #: 140TZM

Mission Bulb was recorded live over a period of 6 hours in a rehearsal room at Keynote Studios in Homebush West, a suburb of Sydney. Guitarist/Vocalist Billy Burke manned the 8 track recording machine and acted as engineer, placing microphones where they needed to go, often with unconventional microphone choices to capture the sound.

Many tracks had only been finalised a week or two before recording, and many were done with live vocals, leading to a truly raw and live sound being created. The energy and other various factors on the day of the recording captures a particular time and place that is entirely unique, and would be impossible to recreate exactly again.

The end product is ‘Mission Bulb’, an album that for the first time comes close to re-creating the true sound that is ‘Yes I’m Leaving’.

Dear Eloise – The Winter That Disappeared – 17th May 2013

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Cat #: 136TZM

Since their inception in 2008, Beijing alchemists Dear Eloise have issued a steady stream of releases from their home studio that have been well-received by fans and critics alike despite shying away from performing live (they do not) and courting the media (they do not do that, either), instead quietly giving flight to their indelible fuzz-soaked concoctions and letting them speak for themselves.

“The Winter That Disappeared,” the duo’s fourth 7” on tenzenmen (and seventh release overall), is a departure from the playful shoegaze-influenced pop purity of their earlier work, tacking down a darker path with two self-produced cuts pressed on emerald-green vinyl.

“Vanishing Winter,” the A-side, forcefully announces itself with multi-instrumentalist Yang Haisong’s rhythmic ice-brittle guitar anchored by a trotting bass. In the background, a second unleashed guitar taps out bright arpeggios and Sun Xia’s disembodied ethereal voice rises and falls—nowhere and everywhere. And that ever-present fuzz glows like banked coals.

Behind the omniscient crackling and hissing like crossed wires from a supernatural radio transmission, the simple chord progressions and ghostlike vocals of the B-side, “The Place in White Light,” attempt to penetrate the dissonant wall like green springtime shoots. But they don’t—the static thickens and grows increasingly anxious before the rhythm section, a dirgelike bassline and percussive fills, are abruptly swallowed and extinguished like a candle snuffed by an unworldly presence. 

The Dyne – Swim . Fly Roots – 14th May 2013

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Cat #: 144TZM

With it’s shimmering guitars and bubbling bassline structured by crisp percussion work, the instrumental “Swim” glides along like a hot rod on a starless night, seductive, deadly and ready to pounce.

On the flipside, “Fly Roots” showcases the pair’s theory that vocals are best used sparingly, in this case, as another tool in the duo’s melodic toolbox, one that neatly accentuates that atmospheric, cascading tremolo and abrupt tempo changes marked by crisp percussive work.

Recorded over a weekend in Nov 2012 with acclaimed Genjing Records producer Yang Haisong, Swim. Fly Roots triumphantly emphasizes that Beijing’s musicians are spearheading an East Asian creative renaissance. “We’re currently in the era of a new enlightenment,” guitarist/bassist Si Yunge cooly remarked from behind his trademark shades. “We hope that more and more people will learn more about what we’re doing here in China.”

Death To Giants – Blood Pours Out – 4th May 2013

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Cat #: 143TZM

Blood Pours Out is the debut album from Shanghai two-piece Death to Giants, and serves as an apt introduction to the band. The songs on the album arose largely organically, as drummer Ivan and bassist Dennis recorded a series of jams in practice studios around the city. They went on to choose the tastiest bits from those recordings, and stitched them together to form the songs present here. Contents are highly flammable — ingest with care.

Death to Giants is:
Ivan: Drums and Vocals
Nichols: Bass and Vocals

Recorded on Saturday, November 13th, 2012 at db Studios by Ryan Baird of iAmalam
Mixed and Mastered in December 2012 at Studio Poney by Laura Ingalls of The Horses/Acid Pony Club
Artwork and design by Ivan Belcic
Cover photo by Kaine Lyu of Astrofuck

All Songs written by Nichols and Ivan
“30 Extra Lives” is based on “The Knitting Song” by Boys Climbing Ropes (boysclimbingropes.bandcamp.com)