Ad Hoc Records

AD HOC RECORDS is a new label, administered by ReR USA. Our aim is to make
widely available both new works and re-issues of projects that we feel merit attention
in a marketplace that mostly ignores our aesthetics and (dare we say?) good taste.

Janet Feder & Fred Frith
::
The Work: Live in Japan • Rubber Cage • Slow Crimes
::
The Blitzoids
::
Avi Belleli
::
N.I.M.B.Y.

K-SPACE
::
Bob Drake
::
Louis Pernot
::
MCCB
::
Catherine Jauniaux with Tim Hodgkinson

Het
::
Woof Records
::
Andy Bole
::
Venus Handcuffs
::
Charming Hostess

Janet Feder & Fred Frith: "Ironic Universe" Dbl. (DVD + CD)

Janet Feder – Fred Frith On these disks, Denver-based acoustic guitarist Janet Feder furthers her exploration on the instrument, and teams up with another of the world's most respected guitarists, Mr. Fred Frith. A whole gamut of strange techniques, musical strategies, beautiful tunings and ambiences are employed; The outcome is sure bliss for fans of modern, instrumental music. Part avant-garde, part classical, part folk, in fairly equal proportions, this approach has never before been attempted with such striking success. The DVD portion is separated into 2 segments: Janet's videos were beautifully shot and edited by Hollywood film-maker David Quint, in a professional studio as she played live. Each track is presented in a different setting to embellish the diverse performances. Fred's video is one, longish improvised session from a recent concert in Boulder, Colorado, also professionally filmed and edited by Quint. Fred abandoned his electric guitar in lieu of his Taylor acoustic for the event, bringing his playing into a new realm, while still managing to put his many toys (bowls, chains, brushes, dowls etc.) to good use.

Listen to a sample of The Janet Feder-Fred Frith

Price: $29.95

The Work: "Slow Crimes"

Tim Hodgkinson – Bill Gilonis – Mick Hobbs – Rick Wilson Originally issued on vinyl in 1982, this music, along with that of compatriots This Heat and Unrest Work & Play, set the stage for a unique type of new British Invasion; one that seemed to absorb the complexity and slickness of Progressive Rock, whilst throwing its aesthetics to the dogs, in lieu of the energy and power of early Punk. THE WORK were amongst the first few to purposefully break their own mold in an attempt to break new ground, concomitantly creating music that seems more comfortable resting on a bed of nails than precious laurels. The drums are primal, and hold the entire band together in a polyrhythmic way that was, at the time, unheard-of in Punk music. The vocals are offered unapologetically, sometimes in semi-screams of anguish and insolence. The guitars & bass chug along, daring the listener to tap their foot in time to regain one's bearings. Over it all is the collective penchant to add experimental noise, to further a state of shock. The group worked tirelessly within these guidelines on the road for 2 years before disbanding, only to reform some seven years later, releasing two additional and equally excellent albums.

Listen to a sample of The Work

Price: $15.95

THE WORK: "Rubber Cage"

Tim Hodgkinson – Bill Gilonis – Mick Hobbs – Rick Wilson These are powerful recordings of the band's most densely composed material., musically akin to another of their classics, "Slow Crimes", but honed into even more mature fashion. (The band had broken up after a tour of Japan in 1982, and reformed for this record 7 years later. In the interim, each of the musicians' talents and compositional abilities had grown by leaps and bounds). This album was a new beginning for The Work, and set them off in a slightly different direction than they had previously employed: Much of the energy of this music came from the sheer "tenseness" of the compositions; they didn't need to bludgeon the ears to get the point across. Besides collecting what could arguably be their most finely crafted songs, this disk best displays the group's unusual sense of individual soloing: The singularly-plucked cello during "Dangerfish", and the free-form piano of "Jay", both seem to be the intrinsic opposite of the musical settings they embellish. Capturing such disparate approaches sets up a dichotomy of styling throughout this exceedingly intense album, offering startling (and usually brutal) results.

Listen to a sample of The Work

Price: $15.95

Avi Belleli: "Strawberry Cream And Gunpowder"

Avi Belleli Born in 1963, Avi Belleli is one of Israel's most notable and successful composers. He is best known as the leader, songwriter, vocalist and bass player for the Tel Aviv-based rock band, The Tractor's Revenge, who have made seven albums on Israeli labels, most of which have gone Gold. Despite massive success as a commercial personality, Belleli has never turned his back on the more artistic and progressive aspects of his endeavors. "Strawberry Cream and Gunpowder" is, by Israeli standards, a radical recording of music for a dance piece by the same name by the young choreographer, Yasmeen Goder. The performance, (which features Belelli playing live on stage amongst the dancers) has already enjoyed several critically acclaimed runs in Europe, Japan, Israel and New York. The project is influenced by recent events in the Middle East, and with regards to the global terror atmosphere in general, but in more of a psychological than political way: It questions the connections between power and fear, sex and control, gender issues and personal crisis, whilst examining ways by which individuals can learn to cope with sudden, radical (and sometimes horrifying) changes in their lives.

Listen to a sample of Avi Belleli

Price: $15.95

THE Blitzoids: "Stealing From Helpless Children + Look Up (Dbl. CD)"

Chris De Chiara – Jim Nichols – Amos - Steve De Chiara. Way back in 80's, before the term "Alternative" was hijacked to correspond with Seattle "Grunge", the genre was held in high-esteem for its "D.I.Y. / Low-Fi" ethic. The Blitzoids - along with The Residents, R. Stevie Moore and Eugene Chadbourne - epitomized this school of thought in the USA. From the headquarters of their native Chicago, Illinois compound (ie. The De Chiara brothers' record store, which was infamous for its somewhat crude but workable 8 Track recording studio conditions), The Blitzoids created songs that went well beyond normally written forms. Aside from the band's basic "rock" instrumentation, they exploited Musique' Concrete, found sounds and strange instrumentation to define their sonic palette. Different sections of music were seamlessly butted-up against one another to tell musical stories in sharp and clear detail, often giving way to rich, open passages of sound, only to be quickly countered by kitschy, pop-influenced stabs of humor. In the long run, the band's music was at once witty, whacky, artfully strange and wonderfully unique.

Listen to a sample of The Blitzoids

Price: $25.95

THE WORK: "Live In Japan"

Bill Gilonis – Tim Hodgkinson – Amos - Chris Cutler. By 1982 drummer Rick Wilson had left The Work to study Katakali in India, and bassist Mick Hobbs followed shortly afterwards over disagreements about what the group should be playing. The remainder of the band then asked Amos (bass) and Chris Cutler (drums) to join them for a tour of Japan that had already been scheduled before the breakup. Together with sound engineer Chris Gray, the group flew there in June to play three concerts in Tokyo and one in Osaka. The recording that became "Live in Japan" was taken at the Osaka concert, the only one on the tour that was recorded. A Japan-only release followed (on Recommended Records Japan), which has been out of print for over 20 years and is virtually impossible to find anywhere. This disc re-issues the concert for the first time, adding the extremely rare, red flexi-disc, live version of the classic, "I Hate America", as a bonus track.

Listen to a sample of The Work

Price: $15.95

N.I.M.B.Y.: "Songs For Adults"

James Grigsby – Bob Drake – Jerry Wheeler – Dave Kerman. Tired of hearing music designed for teenagers? Bored with all that revisionist jazz and self-indulgent art-noise? Here's something completely unexpected, from veterans of Motor Totemist Guild, Thinking Plague, 5UU's, and Giant Ant Farm. The result of this detour from their usual avant-gardism is a splendid recording, made mostly live in a barn in the south of France, of a 21st Century song-cycle representing a tongue-in-cheek manifesto for middle age in crisis. But this is not a collection of songs so much as a quiver of sonic arrows, each set in an extant style (ballad, shuffle, dirge, tango, bossa nova). Moreover, the NIMBY players possess the musical chops to make this a swingin' scene from start to finish: Jerry Wheeler (trombone), David Kerman (drums), Bob Drake (bass), and James Grigsby (guitar) rip into the sides on this recording like beetles entering bark. And Wheeler's voice is an on-key velvet granite, perfect to intone Grigsby's crafty melodies and wry lyrics.

Listen to a sample of N.I.M.B.Y.

Price: $15.95

K-SPACE: "Going Up"

Gendos Chamzyryn – Tim Hodgkinson – Ken Hyder
For "Going Up" these musicians have superimposed performances from different occasions and places, some dating back to Hyder and Hodgkinson's initial trip to Siberia in 1990, but also concerts staged in Western Europe. These recordings, with their disparate acoustic properties, are overlaid and overlapped to form dense sonic thickets alive with action and event, palpably embedded in the multi-idimensional flux of the world and lived social structures. Human voices conversing, footfalls on frozen ground, a blackbird singing, the sound of the wind or water, the crackling of wood in a fire, audience applause - sounds from specific sites with their own peculiar resonance and significance leak through the K-Space mesh into the listening present.

The crucial thing is to hear and feel it. It's made for those of us who want listening to remain a real adventure and an ongoing process of discovery."-Julian Cowley-WIRE MAGAZINE

Listen to a sample of K-Space

Price: $15.95

BOB DRAKE: "What Day Is It ?"

What Day Is It ? is the re-issue of Bob's very first solo disc (originally self-manufactured in art packaging – here tho, professionally packaged for mass market sales). It already exhibits Bob's characteristic traits: golden fingers, hi-wire vocals, eyebrow-raising country-picking, loose-but-right-in-the-pocket drums, eccentric chord inversions, and a bass-guitar sound to die for. Sitting happily with the fantasy 'Yes' Euro-progressive surface is the rather more substantial depth of a bluegrass and rooted-rock American culture; an almost unique combination and one hard to imitate (or even imagine, until you hear Bob do it). But then, Bob has always marched to the beat of a different drummer, manifestly careless of the fashion or of the easier, more superficial aspects of the music he has absorbed.

Listen to a sample of Drake's "What Day Is It"

Price: $15.95

LOUIS PERNOT: "Livre De Luth De Perrine (Lute Book, Circa 1680)"

Louis Pernot: Baroque Lute
This is the first recording of the seventeenth-century masterpiece, "The Book of Perrine". It comprises some of the most beautiful pieces exclusively written for baroque lute by Ennemond Gaultier, professor to the Queen of France, and his equally notable cousin, Denis. Much of the score was lost until quite recently, and the French, master lutenist, Louis Peron, has worked tirelessly for the past decade to perfect its performance. The historical importance of this disc to the world of classical music cannot be overstated. (Really, I'm not worthy ! – Dave K.). Maestro Pernot, a Protestant Minister who holds PHD's in both philosophy and engineering, was the star pupil of master lutenist, Antoine Geoffrey-Dechaume. He is also a lerned scholar of theology, Hebrew and Ancient Greek. Prior to this recording, EMI Records chose him to be the lute master for their box set, "A Treasury of Bach", and he was the featured artist on Universal's recording of Gaultier's "Devine Rhetoric", another historic, first recording.

Listen to a sample of Louis Pernot

Price: $15.95

MCCB: "Things From The Past"

This disk compiles the entire back catalog and previously unreleased recordings of the combined Dutch/English underground label, MCCB (1978-82), and marks the first time any of these works have been issued on compact disk. Great efforts were made to locate, restore & re-master the original tapes, and the entire process was personally overseen by MCCB's chief, the legendary musician/singer Geoff Leigh. Under the auspices of The Black Sheep, Kontakt Mikrophoon Orchestra and Red Balune, Geoff is joined by long-time affiliates Loek VanSaus, Colin McLure and Kathy Williams. This is "pop" music gone terribly right for a change, where imagery supersedes fashion, and sound knows no rules. Features cameo appearances by members of Henry Cow: Fred Frith, Tim Hodgkinson and Chris Cutler.

Listen to a sample of MCCB

Price: $15.95

CATHERINE JAUNIAUX with TIM HODGKINSON: "Fluvial"

This is the first digital issue of Belgian songsmith Catherine Jauniaux's classic recording from 1983. Her main co-conspirator is Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow, The Work, God, K-Space), himself a mainstay in the world of modern, experimental music.Together they perform a work which defies both categorization and genre labeling, offering up almost as many different styles of music as the instruments that played them. Besides capturing what could arguably be Catherine's most unique and auspicious vocal work, this disk also displays an amazing amount of baffling, scored percussion by Tim H. and some timeless and perfectly intonated performances by the late, great master cellist, Tom Cora. Other guests include Georgie Born (Henry Cow, I.O.U), Charles Bullen (This Heat), Lindsay Cooper (Henry Cow, Comus), Bill Gilonis (The Work, The Lowest Note) and Dominic Weeks (Het).

Listen to a sample of Fluvial

Price: $15.95

HET: "Let's Het"

This compact disk is the first CD issue of the long-out-of-print and highly coveted, "Let's Het". The band were co-led by Dominique Weeks and Cass Davies, two of the prime movers in London's underground music scene during the 80's, here joined by Catherine Jauniaux and Tim Hodgkinson . Though many fans have likened them to a melding of Harry Partch with The Residents, Het performed music which defies categorizing, other than to say that it was a unique and intense product of its time and place: Complex, highly percussive, primal, densely orchestrated, angst-ridden, artful, meticulously constructed and intense. This classic project is a monumental achievement of sound production, and was expertly recorded and mixed by Tim Hodgkinson (who is responsible for this digital reissue) at the legendary, "Cold Storage Studio".

Listen to a sample of HET

Price: $15.95

WOOF RECORDS: "Woof 7 Inches"

This CD comprises all four 7" releases by the British underground label, WOOF RECORDS, plus extra tracks by THE WORK and THE LOWEST NOTE. All tracks were originally released on vinyl between 1980 and 1985, but most have never before been issued on CD. This disk features a who's-who of the London art-rock scene from those years (Bill Gilonis, Mick HobbsTim Hodgkinson, Rick Wilson, Andy Bole, Trefor Goronwy, to name a few), plus the Belgian expressionist-singer, CATHERINE JAUNIAUX.
Disk Includes:
GILONIS / HODGKINSON - "I Do, I Do...I Don't, I Don't" (e.p.)
THE WORK - "I Hate America" ( 7") + "Houdini" (from Recommended Records Sampler)
THE LOWEST NOTE - "Lowest Note on the Organ" ( 7") + "Piggy Bank" ( 7")
BILLY REBEL AND BOLE - 2 From "Ramshackle Pier"
THE LOWEST NOTE - "Naiwabi" ( live recording from Ton-Zeit-Ton Festival, Basel, 1985)

Listen to a sample of Woof 7"s

Price: $15.95

ANDY BOLE: "Ramshackle Pier"

This is the first Compact Disk re-issue of RAMSHACKLE PIER, voted "ALBUM OF THE YEAR" by the prestigious FOLK ROOTS MAGAZINE in 1984. Herein Andy Bole performs some stunning acoustic guitar work, adding some electric passages here and there (for good measure and variety), which make the arrangements both richly engaging and hauntingly beautiful. Bole is a master of guitar techniques from the world over, and many are handsomely displayed here ( including an innovative plectrum style, belaying his love for the bouzouki and Greek Rembetika music). He's performed in Europe and N. America alongside members of both ELO and Fairport Convention, as well as Progressive Rock mainstays, Mike Oldfield and Dave Stewart. It is seldom that a musician following in the wake of such luminaries as Bert Jansch and John Renbourn will steer away from those influences enough to truly become a unique sort of "Troubadour" in his/her own right; But by means of a combined foray into the worlds of virtuosity and eclecticism, and by creating music so skillfully inventive in this sort of "candid" setting, Andy Bole has done exactly that.

Listen to a sample of Andy Bole

Price: $15.95

VENUS HANDCUFFS: "Venus Handcuffs"

Referred to as "a cross between Throbbing Gristle and Nick Cave" during the band's lifetime, VENUS HANDCUFFS (Susanne Lewis and Bob Drake) got their start in the ranks of Colorado's most far-reaching band, Thinking Plague, and went on to infamy after changing their band's name to HAIL. This disk is their debut duo recording, and well-encompasses an experimental direction which, while somewhat natural for the time in America, has since been sadly overlooked by those who have followed in their wake. This is the first time this classic, experimental-rock recording has been issued on CD; the former vinyl version has been long out-of-print and hungrily sought out by collectors for years. Pain staking-ly re-mastered by Bob Drake for optimum sound quality.

Listen to a sample of Venus Handcuffs

Price: $15.95

CHARMING HOSTESS: "Punch"

Charming Hostess hail from Oakland, California and are part of a the region's "Weird music scene" which also spawned such bands as Fibulator, Eskimo, Faun Fables, Japonize Elephants and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, three of whom - Nils Frykdahl, Carla Kihlstedt and Dan Rathbun - are also members of Charming Hostess.
Led by hyperactive troublemaker Jewlia Eisenberg (who made a fearsome impression with her Tzadik CD debut), the Hostesses here are an extraordinary 7 piece band: tight, a little rockish, comprising bass, drums, guitar, fiddle, various horns, accordion and other occasional instruments (singing saw, for instance) - but the work is distinguished by the amazing vocal arrangements (everyone sings, and exceptionally). Full of additive rhythms stretched harmonies and pinpoint playing, this is evolved material, executed with great skill - and great looseness. Some traditional pieces from Bulgaria, Palestine, Transylvania and Southern America appear in very personalised arrangements alongside original songs that lean on zydeco and traditional American folk music.

Listen to a sample of The Work

Price: $16.95