the entertainment conglomerate that files and chimes

x

What we've done most recently is the Dark Beloved Cloud Singles Club--a series of 3-inch CD singles that you get for art, not money! (Kind of like Artist Trading Cards... but with extra music, and different dimensions.) Click for the whole story. And have a look at some of the artwork that other subscribers have done!

Got questions? Email us at cloud [at-sign] darkbelovedcloud.com.

x

MOST RECENTLY PRECIPITATED

DBC255 Fly Ashtray Doodnat Mahadeo mini-CD

Ten gyroscopically balanced songs in nineteen minutes by NYC's immortal (they've been at this for 25 years!), inimitable, incredible weirdo rockers. Features live favorite "Chrome Jefferson" and guest appearances by a horn section that appears to be several sheets to the wind. Only available to singles club subscribers! 

DBC253 Grace Braun's "The Soldier & The Lady" mini-CD

Two trad.-arr. wonders from the indelible voice of D.Q.E., "The Soldier & The Lady" and "The Fox." Just Grace and a guitar, recorded on location on Earth, the way these songs were intended to be. Only available to singles club subscribers!

x

ALSO AVAILABLE

DBC252 Melt-Banana/Fat Day Q./A. split mini-CD

Tokyo's scalding skronk-tornado Melt-Banana torch Devo's "Uncontrollable Urge"; Boston's mind-mangling Fat Day contribute their version of the same band's "Timing-X," then head out beyond the potato stratosphere with two original... sound-things. Only available to singles club subscribers! 

DBC250 The Cannanes' Grassy Flat mini-CD

An exquisite four-song EP by the magnificent, long-running Australian pop band: sinuous, insinuating, comfortably personal, graced with a solitary trumpet. Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC251 The Nanobot Auxiliary Ballet and the Museum of Modern Insect Art with the Office of Woodland Security, and the Evil House of Handshakes, Present: Tylanolandadida - The Deadly Ballerina - Featuring: The Chillbotslider, the Pushbuttonmaster, and the WhiteHotFunkBot - And Introducing: The Doodads of Doom and the Recipe Box of Spells' Thank You Very Much For Coming: A Concept Single about Small Things in 3 Parts with Lecture and Slideshow by Mr. Billy Mavreas mini-CD

Er... yes. Exactly. The Canadian "hand-cranked electronica" group that evolved from the legendary Pest 5000 have come up with a very high-concept EP with some fine bleepy-bloopy songs on it. Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC249 Ida's "Wait" mini-CD

Three rich, expansive and daydreamy songs from the New Yorkers with the tenderest three-part harmonies on the planet, recorded at the sessions for their Heart Like a River album. Only available to singles club subscribers! 

DBC248 The In Out's Fragmento mini-CD

A five-song EP by Boston's most knife-twisting garage-rock band, who've evolved into something stickier and slitherier, all brains and viscera. Includes a Jethro Tull cover, of all things. Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC247 Barbara Manning & the Go-Luckys!' "Deep Sea Diver" mini-CD

Three brief, serrated bursts of double-distilled bittersweetness from the amazing Californian songwriter and her faithful German band, Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC245 Franklin Bruno's Set of Pipes mini-CD

Seven songs (well, six, really) from the Nothing Painted Blue/Jenny Toomey songwriter, organized around the idea of voice, both literal and political. Includes an absolutely staggering cover of Brecht/Eisler's "Ballad of the Soldier." Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC244 ninetynine's "Receiving the Sounds of Science Fiction" mini-CD

Five new songs from Melbourne, Australia's Laura MacFarlane and company--everybody gets to write a song of his or her own this time, and everything swirls against the rocks and sends up spray. Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC242 Cordelia's Dad's "Jane" mini-CD

Two faces of this awesome, long-running trio with roots in music much older than they are: a bone-chilling trad. arr. acoustic epic about a terrible, terrible mistake, plus a pair of crest-and-crash electric monsoons. Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC241 Oedipus's "Hybrid Phase Yellow" mini-CD

Alig (from Family Fodder) and Ann-Marte Rygh collaborate on a delicately vertiginous 15-minute voice vortex. Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC239 Cantilever mini-CD

A celebration of ten years of Dark Beloved Cloud, with a whole bunch of artists intersecting each other's work. Hrvatski remixes God Is My Co-Pilot, Uncle Wiggly blazes full-on live, Azalia Snail reconfigures Spaceheads, Robert Scott overdubs Liz Bustamante, Alan Smithee covers the In Out, and Sinistre disintegrates pHoaming Edison. Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC238 Family Fodder's "Tender Words" mini-CD

A new wave song about making love not war, a twitchy bit of dub, two brief conversations about making a point, and a traditional chanson about making love not war (which was illegal to perform in France until the mid-'70s). Only available to singles club subscribers!

DBC237 DQE & Grace Braun's I'm Your Girl double-CD

Two albums' worth of Atlanta's most astonishing songwriter. Grace Braun is a kick-ass rockabilly singer/guitarist with a voice like nothing you've ever heard. She plays wild electric rock 'n' roll with her long-running trio DQE, and acoustic old-time country and folk music under her own name. I'm Your Girl is actually two albums with the same name, showing off both sides of Grace: one disc is a finely drawn acoustic pastoral, the other one a brawling, hollering electric hootenanny. 37 songs in all (well, 36--she tackles the title tune both ways), including covers of Nick Drake, the Carter Family, Daniel Johnston and, er, Robert Frost. And the whole thing is only $13 postpaid! Want to hear some MP3s first? There are four on Grace's own site, here.

DBC236 Fat Day's Fat Day IV CD

Boston's insane art-hardcore veterans Fat Day included an "Order Your Own Fat Day Song!" postcard with their album Burrega! This is the result of the postcards they got back: 21 songs written by 21 Fat Day fans. It's the accomplishment of their career, one of the most alien punk records ever made: they've taken a stylistic leap in all directions at once, and the result is pretty incredible. It took two years to make, culminating in a sewer-pipe rupture that covered their entire studio and all of their equipment in human feces. As they put it, "so Fat Day it hurts." You can see all the original postcards and other "scores" here--we recommend it very highly. $10 postpaid.

DBC234 Purple Ivy Shadows' Field Guide CD

Purple Ivy Shadows creep up on you. Their fifth album is the high point of over ten years of the Providence, RI quartet's search for the perfect drone through foggy shoegazer rock, heartbroken country, and the roaring buzz of the bayou. It's their warmest and darkest record to date, slow and rich, dense with detail and instrumental crosstalk. Field Guide includes devastating live favorites like "Oh My Word" and "Deepstep in a Baptist" that have never made it to a CD before, and it flows like molten glass--the perfect synthesis of "cosmic American music" and kosmische Krautbuzz. $10 postpaid.

DBC233 Dark Beloved Cloud Singing Catalogue II CD

A small present for you: a 3-inch CD with 17 brief new songs by dbc artists and friends: Franklin Bruno, Hrvatski, Jad Fair, Purple Ivy Shadows, Robert Scott, Azalia Snail, Greenpot Bluepot, pHoaming Edison, Grace Braun of DQE, Chris Knox, ORTHO, Oedipus, Sinistre, Tara Needham, Fly Ashtray, Family Fodder, and God Is My Co-Pilot. Specially engineered to make you want to buy stuff here! Want one gratis? Here's how: send a note to sing [at-sign] darkbelovedcloud.com, and tell us your name, your address, and (this is important) your happiest music-related memory.

DBC231 Azalia Snail's Brazen Arrows CD

Azalia's eleventh solo album is a major change for her--she's put down her guitar and picked up an Omnichord (the chiming autoharp-like keyboard favored by Chris Knox) and a new affection for the color of the sky at daybreak. Brazen Arrows is a different, abstractly expansive breed of juice-drizzled psychedelic whispering, warmed by the West Coast sun and inspired by clock chimes and 8-track-tape mirages. The sweetness is front and center; the pungent overtones buzz around it. $10 ppd.

DBC229 DQE's The Queen of Mean CD

Grace Braun returns to the rock with 19 songs that deserve to have appeared on Sun 45s--rockabilly, gospel and a Half Japanese cover--not just because they rock so rawly but because they shine so radiantly. As a bonus, if you order The Queen of Mean directly from DBC and mention this offer, we'll include a free copy of DQE's "Tell Me Why The Ivy Twines," a 1994 7-inch single on Colossal Records of which we located a stash. $10 ppd.

DBC228 Mass Producers' Performances for Large Saxophone Ensemble CD

The Mass Producers are Caroline Kraabel's twenty-woman saxophone ensemble; they surround their audience from every side, and ROAR. They've been playing all over Great Britain and Europe for the last few years, and they've finally recorded their repertoire: two very long, mind-expanding compositions by Kraabel. Robin Edgerton of Other Music writes: "As the overtones accumulate (think Terry Riley's 'In C'), so does the intensity -- you can just imagine some sort of massive energy being coming to life in the air above them, curling and yawning and stretching in a ravishing asymmetry." Couldn't have put it better ourselves. Also, in keeping with Caroline's tradition of including handmade elements with all her releases (see also Now We Are One Two, below), there's a different photograph on the cover of every copy of PLSE. $10 ppd.

DBC227 The In Out's A Living Memorial In Deutschland CD

Boston's hottest and harshest band, rocking like nobody has since Rough Trade 1981. The recorded document of the molten four-piece lineup that toured Europe with Sebadoh, and the third and final installment in the trilogy "Cosmosis of the Cosmopolites." The In Out would like to note that "a 'living' memorial is that which lives on in your DNA." $10 ppd.

DBC226 Family Fodder's Water Shed CD

The first new Family Fodder album in 17 years. Dominique Levillain (now a writer and teacher living in California) and Alig Fodder (lately recording as Johnny Human and living in London) got together to celebrate the release of Savoir Faire (see below), and ended up writing a big bunch of new songs. And here's the thing: they're great. Graceful, funny, catchy, deep--like they never went away. Original Fodder drummer Rick Wilson, bassist Martin Harrison and percussionist Cecile Rabhi jumped on the train; they recorded all over Europe for a couple of months, brought in some friends to play bass clarinet and Uillean pipes, and ultimately came up with the wonderful Water Shed. It pulses and leaps and purrs and dubs like nobody'd ever discovered boredom. $10 ppd.

DBC224 pHoaming Edison's Happy Nap Casino CD

The return of James Kavoussi, the man who's played on more Dark Beloved Cloud releases than anyone else (he's also in Fly Ashtray, Uncle Wiggly and the Hattifatteners), not to mention one of the most unusual songwriters and song-titlers we've ever heard. A whole bunch of chewy, twisty little new songs, a few pH classics upgraded with a full-on band, and some covers that now have amnesia about their former owners. One admirer has described it as "like Television playing early Boredoms," which is completely wrong but less completely wrong than some other descriptions we could imagine. $10 ppd.

DBC223 Fly Ashtray's Sawgrass Subligette CD

Formed in 1983, Fly Ashtray are the captains of a scene that's been bubbling ever since then--the Trouser Press Record Guide calls them "one of New York's most musically adventurous and rewarding bands," and they bridge the gap between the city's tradition of smart, tricky, wiry guitar bands and its new breed of twisted sound-sculptors. They've spent the last few years recording mountains of material and reworking and processing it in their infamous Brooklyn space Rubulad--sometimes into tense, whiplash-swift song forms, sometimes into abstract smears of sound, more often both at once. With songwriting and mix contributions from all four members (as well as a couple of bass alumni), Sawgrass Subligette is their richest disc to date, playing up both their non-obvious sense of humor and their dizzying sonic intensity. $10 ppd.

DBC222 The Magick Heads' Transvection CD

"Transvection" is the act of riding through the air on a stick or a broom, and The Magick Heads' glorious ride spanned almost a decade. Natives of Dunedin, New Zealand, driven by the songwriting prowess of Robert Scott (of the Bats and the Clean) and the throbbingly gorgeous singing of Jane Sinnott, they released two exquisite albums on Flying Nun and a couple of EPs. Before they called it a day, they assembled this collection of levitational performances from their entire career: studio recordings, live tracks, radio sessions and 4-track demos--13 never-heard songs and three radically different versions of Magick Heads classics. Delicious he sang/she sang harmonies, the savory friction of acoustic guitars against electrics, backing by members of the 3Ds--it's all here, and it's all exquisite. $10 ppd.

DBC221 Azalia Snail's Soft Bloom CD

Recorded in NYC and England, Soft Bloom has a happiness and openness that's new to Azalia's work; the stars shine for her in the daytime now, too, and they've shed a new light on her legendary taste for rare and sweet instrumental noises. The album has little bursts of pretty sound erupting everywhere, like tiny flowers blooming softly. Bits of it sound like the backwards whistling of microscopic birds, others like dream-logic neural patterns transplanted into Saturnian android bodies, and she sings with a gentle, spacy joy that's new to her. $10.

DBC220 Chris Knox's Almost CD

Ten new songs from the king of New Zealand rock. Written over the course of 10 years, blasted onto tape in a single day. Includes the international oughtta-be-a-hit "Don't Worry, B Major." Unremittingly catchy. $7--such a deal!

DBC219 World (of Dreams)'s Who Is Yahdoosh? CD

World (Of Dreams) is Wm. Berger, genius guitarist of Uncle Wiggly, DJ who spearheaded the Krautrock revival with his WFMU show "The Hip Bone," and occasional member of Smack Dab, the Gamma Rays and Princess Superstar. This is his homage to and fantasia on the sound he loves: the sound of Faust, Harmonia and Karuna Khyal, of steam-thick, mind-warping textures, prickly electronic drones and spidery psychedelic guitar. The first album in this series, World Without End, was a limited-edition LP that sold out almost instantly. Who Is Yahdoosh? is a series of five psychic phenomena manifested as extended audio dreams of the secret Autobahn exit in Brooklyn; it's also got three tracks from World Without End, and three more previously unreleased bonus tracks. Timeless and ecstatic, this album will pulse its way into your genes. $10.

DBC217 The Hattifatteners' Rabbit Rabbit CD

Occupying an aesthetic space exactly halfway between Can and the Shaggs, the Hattifatteners have had dozens of members wander through their ranks. The present disc involves several stray members of God Is My Co-Pilot, Chan (Cat Power) Marshall, Syd Straw, Alexa Firat (of the original Silver Jews), James Kavoussi (of Fly Ashtray), a 14-year-old violinist, and a number of people who only speak Finnish. With a whole bunch of new stuff as well as selections from their sought-after, long-out-of-print EPs Vogue Bambini and Constantly On The Move, Rabbit Rabbit is a testament to the power of positive peculiarity, love for Finnish children's books and what can happen when improvisation, songwriting and claw-hammer-style tape-splicing meet. $10.

DBC216 Uncle Wiggly's Farfetchedness CD

Uncle Wiggly's sixth full-length release and their masterpiece to date, a 74-minute instrumental CD that took three years to record, and a dazzlingly intricate, nuanced piece of on-the-cheap studio genius. Imagine if Henry Cow and the early-'80s Fall had collaborated on a wordless psychedelic album, or if The Faust Tapes had fermented for 25 years before poking its head up, and you'll be on the right track. Shivering guitar-rock sandstorms, tangly overdubbed/edited improvisations and sampladelic home recordings link arms and somersault forward in tandem, magically shaping forms out of the chaos and vice versa. We have been listening to this nonstop since Uncle Wiggly gave us the master recording, and we are thrilled to be releasing this deep, rich, mindbendingly great record. $10.

DBC214 Dreams Are Free (With Purchase) compilation CD

Otherwise unavailable songs from Attitude & Couture, Grace Braun, the Magick Heads, Spaceheads, Jad Fair, the Shock Exchange, pHoaming Edison, God Is My Co-Pilot, Dymaxion, Sarge, Alan Smithee, Uncle Wiggly, Marion Coutts & Caroline Kraabel, Purple Ivy Shadows, the Autumn Teen Sound, the In Out, Kleenex Girl Wonder, Azalia Snail, Fly Ashtray and World Without End. $10.

DBC212 Spaceheads' Ho! Fat Wallet CD

A reissue of their earliest cassette and singles from 1989 and 1990, back when this trumpet/drums/electronics duo was crisp, crazed and even kind of rock. $10. 

DBC210 God Is My Co-Pilot's Je Suis Trop Content CD EP

Recorded in a jiffy for their Euro-tour: 15 songs, 40 minutes, including covers of Spaceheads, France Gall, the Carter Family and Beausoleil. Lotsa fun. $7--not available anywhere else!

DBC209 Azalia Snail's Breaker Mortar CD

An hour of mostly instrumental raw delights from the Snail, plus a surprisingly wonderful trip-hop experiment (!). $10.

DBC207 Caroline Kraabel's Now We Are One Two CD

Honkies leader goes solo with a very out-there solo-saxophone-and-voice album. Imagine if Arthur Doyle were obsessed with Swell Maps. Incredible handmade cover. $10.

DBC206 Fly Ashtray's Flummoxed CD EP

Great, weird, veteran NYC band moves into a new studio and spikes its bizarro rock with smears of tapework and sampler-abstraction. Half an hour long, $7.

DBC205 DQE & Jad Fair's self-titled collaboration CD

A lovely sitting-on-the-back-porch-making-up-songs kind of album from this odd team. Includes new songs, a couple of traditional tunes, some improvised numbers and a musical game or two. $10.

DBC204 Spaceheads' self-titled CD

First full-length from this London-based trumpet/drum electro-acoustic dub-improv duo. Think Pram, Sun Ra, Tackhead, Dog Faced Hermans (whose Marion sings one track). Amazing, unique stuff. $10.

DBC203 phoaming Edison's Sold to the Second Highest Grady CD

An all-new collection of 36 brilliant pop/noise home recordings, including some surprising covers. Imagine if GBV drank less and did more unusual drugs. Beautiful letterpress package, too. Not to be confused with Sold to the Highest Grady (below), which is a totally different album. $10.

DBC202/TMOA020 God Is My Co-Pilot's Puss 02 CD

29 new songs, a cast of thousands of musicians, masterful, witty, original and startlingly fresh: music about girls becoming women and noise becoming organized sound. Their best album to date, we'd say. $10.

DBC037 World Without End's "World Without End III" 7"

A sequel to the long-since-sold-out LP: a long, pulsing drone-throb by the incomparable Wm. Berger. Gorgeous minimalism, in form and content. One-sided, lathe-cut in New Zealand, strictly limited to 100 copies, and individually hand-etched on the obverse by Laura Leila. $5 ppd.

DBC035 The In Out's CosmOsis LP

First full-length from this awesome and snarly Boston band of Fall fans. A co-release with Oblivion Recordings and Viscera-Versa. $10.

DBC028 Mr. Quark's Enjoy Nuoc-Mam With Mr. Quark 7" EP

We'd thought it was out of print, but then we found a small stash of this unforgettable mini-pop opera by four French teenagers about a superhero who pretends he's a postman and ends up getting killed by a pile of socks that turn into devils. Really. $3.

DBC027 pHoaming Edison Sold To The Highest Grady LP

30 amazing 4-track pop songs and noise creatures in 47 minutes by James Kavoussi of Fly Ashtray/Uncle Wiggly fame. Rich & crunchy. Not to be confused with Sold to the Second Highest Grady (above), which is a totally different album. $10.

DBC025 Sympathy For Count Pococurante, Vol. 1 7" EP

Infidelity from infidels. A six-course banquet from Napalm Parade, God Is My Co-Pilot, Flying Saucer, Princess Superstar, The Mad Scene and S!T!O!I!N!K!. $3.

DBC019 Fifth Column/Trailer Queen split single

Two songs dressed to the nines in the hip boots of your youth. The ultimate in kiss-off girl-pop. $3.

DBC017 God Is My Co-Pilot's "Su Vot Vot Esta Su Voz" 7"

Two songs, two minutes, two dollars. "...too cool!"--C. Flanagin. Yes, it's $2 postpaid.

DBC014 Uncle Wiggly's "Make You Crawl" 7"

Awesome bouncealong pop: more songs about doubt, and a pink elephant. $3.

DBC005 VPN's Penny 7" EP

Four or five songs on a very, very yellow record from the Very Pleasant Neighbor. Prepare to be snuck up on. $3.

x

plus, from THE MAKING OF AMERICANS' fine catalog (& friends)

The Abraham Lincolns' Standing By My Window Looking At The Rain 7" EP

The 1983 lineup of Half Japanese, more or less, plays the real folk blues. Four songs, six tracks, including a Nirvana cover. $3.

D.Q.E.'s Jump On In CD

18 new songs by the rough, beautiful, soulful duo of Grace Braun and Dugan Trodglen. Should have been on 78s. $10.

and several God Is My Co-Pilot things:

How To Be CD

Album #7. Sustained vision, artful production, 19 musicians, 23 songs, rocks, does many things besides "rock." Wow. $10.

Children Can Be So Cruel CD EP

An import on the Swiss label Miguel, an extension of the Puss 02 flip-out: eight songs, including traditional Javanese and Schwabisch tunes, a toy accordion solo, and lots of fun machines. $7.

x

All prices include postage in the U.S. If you're overseas, email first to find out what postage charges will be.

Payment these days is entirely through PayPal--best to email me the details of your order and your address.

and hey, thanks for asking again...

x

Check out links to our bands' pages elsewhere!.

Got any questions? Want to order something? Write to cloud [at-sign] darkbelovedcloud.com.

This page was last modified February 2, 2023