Digitalis Recordings is the name of Foxy Digitalis's inhouse label, and the Foxglove series specializes in limited pressings of obscure noise purveyors from my backyard and all around the world. I've been an avid reader of Foxy D from the moment I checked in, but it took a while to get my ears around some of their music, which I had a sneaking suspicion was produced and marketed purely for the discerning music fan, ie one who values direct emotionality and artistic invention over anything else. Ultimately it's just stuff that turns Mr. Rose on, and by extension, myself.

Foxglove - Part 1

Futurians Radio Futurians CD-R - Hyper-insane wasteoid space garage avant stupidity that surges with a freaked out quality all too rare today. I'm not just slipping Sally laughing gas here - this young ensemble, lead by the raggedly corrosive, painfully arousing, vocal squeak and squall of Duckling and comprised of some of the most inspired musicians in the current NZ wacked noise scene (members of CJA, Claypipe, Armpit to name but a few), unleashes a primal, infectious space punk that in many ways defies description, not to mention transcends expectation. It's repetitious like Krautrock, disjointed like the finest Cleveland new wave, but totally unique - the kind of real punk Lester Bangs would've tripped over a crate of 'tussin to dance to.

Skullpture 4 CD-R - Perfectly named Finnish ensemble specializes in mind manipulation of the aural variety - a lumbering jazz scape crawls into screeching, seesawing drone rock that uses a great deal of space, populating the aural canvass with a variety of offkilter strokes and scribbles amounting to something that comes off a bit as a more fractured Thuja, but these lads' take on the whole free drone thing proves dynamic and undeniably Finnish across the span of these seven hypno-modules.

Grey Park Words Are Little Creatures That Work for the Black Sun 3" CD-R - Since we're up here so close to the top of the world, let us pay the intense electro windstorm of Grey Park a visit. These six short tracks offer utterly fascinating headphones alchemy that suggests an ancient industrial complex being rocked and slowly decimated by nature's fury. Haunting aural snapshots of the dark earth rendered from a variety of processed electronics, feedback, tapes(?).

Ming Mauve Stars CD-R - Birchville Cat Motel guy dives more deeply into his love of static drone with his own brand of merciful minimalism. Captivating, dark, dense tone clusters reverberate and oscillate with the gravity of a massive red giant whose core relentlessly emanates its cosmic pulse. Deep drone for extended immersion that works at any volume.

Hush Arbors Since We Have Fallen CD-R - This one's simply a knockout of fractured folk harmonies and odd cut-up production that reminds me of later Third Eye Foundation, but the electric noise sculpture meshes perfectly with fully realized outsider folk tunes that take me back to the golden age of Xpressway and Siltbreez, and yes the Tower Recordings. A sad, beautiful and slightly disturbed piece of noise/folk isolationism.

The North Sea Pass Porte 3"CD-R - Mr. Digitalis himself offers up six short and quite haunting instrumentals on piano, arriving successfully at the crossroads of reserved jazz improv and chamber music. Refreshingly austere and seemingly simple in execution, conveying emotions that are just as undeniably direct and spontaneous. A warm breeze gliding over the seething tide.