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Sold outInverted LP version on white vinyl with different black and white artwork. Limited to 250 copies.Visit product page →
Container is the project of American noise veteran Ren Schofield, originally from Providence, Rhode Island, and now based in London. Container first appeared at the turn of the decade with a slew of freakish tapes for various small labels.
In wake of these releases, Editions Mego offshoot Spectrum Spools - run by old friend John Elliott of the band Emeralds - took the punt to release his debut LP, a collection of mutated Techno tracks simply titled LP'.
The record gained attention quickly in the Electronic music scene largely thanks to Schofield's unique production style that separates him from forms of conventional dance music. Whilst the music of Container sits perfectly fine within the genre and is functional enough to blow apart the walls of any club, years on the US noise circuit have given Schofield's brand of techno a rawness and direct intensity that stands out in the club and crosses over into other sub-sections of the underground.
His modest set up of Roland MC-909, a four-track porta studio and an array of pedals allowed him to hone his scuzzy and bewildering beat music over the years, leading to three more well received, and literally titled, LP's.
Over this time period Container also released some EPs on Morphine, Liberation Technologies and Diagonal, did a variety of remixes for acts like Four Tet, The Body, Panda Bear and Fucked Up plus maintained a healthy touring schedule that reached over every continent.
His exhilarating live show has hit pretty much every major electronic music festival and club in Europe, as well as tours and gigs with a diverse range of acts such as Wolf Eyes, Zola Jesus, Daughters, Pharmakon and Ryley Walker.Almost a decade since his debut, Container arrives on ALTER with his first non-'LP' titled album called Scramblers'. The title taken from both a Baltimore street drug and a Rhode Island Diner he used to eat at with his father.
Schofield elaborates:
'The juxtaposition between these two Scramblers is a great one. I wanted to pay homage to a nice name that lends itself to both depraved and wholesome contexts and do my part to carry on the tradition.'
The eight tracks have their origins in live performance and a more high-octane delivery is noticeable when compared with previous Container albums. Mottle'sits in a mysterious zone between the productions of EVOL and early Ruff Sqwad. Fierce electro cuts like Trench'and Nozzle'work alongside the nauseous slink of Duster', which in typical Container fashion morphs into a frenzy in no time.
A frenzy which may be linked cosmically to the fact that Scramblers'was recorded, mixed and mastered in one day, reinforcing further his unorthodox and fun approach to club music.
Release Date: 03/04/2020 -
Visit product page →Ren Schofield’s long running electronic project Container returns with his first release since the Creamer EP in 2021. Rolling straight out of the pandemic Schofield has since played a large number of live shows all over the planet, rilling up audiences with a heady mix of method and mania. Now is the time to unleash a new studio offering.
Yacker presents what is undoubtedly an electronic record but one imbued with a spirit more aligned with rock music. Always hijacking the electronic music scene for his own unique and twisted path here we see a further extrapolation on his original blueprint for DIY noise techno adding a more physical and muscular edge to the standard hysterical proceedings. The drums retain an almost human, somewhat muscular feel with a sweaty and suggestive ‘real drums’ feeling.
Schofield cites inspiration on Yacker as the Nirvana song ‘Oh, The Guilt’, the Mindflayer album ‘It’s Always 1999’, and the Rah Bras song ‘Sooop Toe Pump Girls’. Container has always danced the absurd space between serious and stupid, with Yacker all elements are turned up to eleven as he delivers a pristine field guide to furious frenzied fun.
Yacker strikes an even balance between heavy, relentless, joyful, silly, and sloppy. Think Lollapalooza 1996 held at Berghain 2006 and you are somewhere on the way to formulating this fresh new insanity from one of the contemporary electronic music scene's more playful pioneers.
Tracklisting:
1. Abrasion
2. Eraser
3. Spray
4. Aerator
5. Drooper
6. Yacker
7. Cone
8. Bonkers
9. Onion
10. Spritzer -
Justin K Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, JK Flesh) breathes new life into his FINAL project for an album on Helm's ALTER label. Formed in 1984 out of an obsession with the industrial, noise & power electronics acts of the early eighties, FINAL made its public debut at the legendary Mermaid pub in Birmingham when Broadrick was just 14 years old.Visit product page →
A string of cassette releases via his Post Mortem Rekordings label established the name within the underground noise scene of the time until increased activity with his various groups (Napalm Death, Head of David and later Godflesh) meant that FINAL naturally fell by the wayside before the end of the decade. Broadrick reactivated the project in 1993 during the British ambient "isolationism" period and FINAL's sound became focussed more on texture, producing beatless ambient work with a number of albums for labels like Sentrax, Utech, No Quarter and Neurot. 'It Comes To Us All' is the first FINAL album to appear on vinyl since 2015's 'Black Dollars' on Downwards and continues to explore the textural nature of Broadrick's ambient work - this time through a filter of blown-out harmonic noise that reconnects the project with its harsher roots.
Rather than channelling the angst of early power-electronics, the noise here rumbles along blissfully through 8 untitled tracks, sombre in tone and at times beautiful. Melodies sampled from pop music are put through a process of decay, stripped of their form and worn down with a rusty, melancholic afterglow.
Reducing all its parts to slow-motion shadows of their former selves, 'It Comes To Us All' is an exploration of the decay of all living things that we face collectively, day after day.
Tracklisting:
1. Untitled
2. Untitled
3. Untitled
4. Untitled
5. Untitled
6. Untitled
7. Untitled
8. Untitled -
Coming out of London and the South West of England, Hey Colossus are one of Europe's great live bands. Since 2003 the 6-piece has been driving around the continent with their 'pirate ship' backline of broken amps and triple-guitar drang, elevating audiences in every type of venue imaginable; a doctor's waiting room in Salford, an industrial unit in Liege and a vast field next to a river in Portugal. Wherever they may roam.Visit product page →
Four Bibles is their twelfth studio album and the first to be released by London label ALTER, whose sole proprietor (the electronic producer Helm) encountered the group at their first gig in 2003. Recorded by Ben Turner at Space Wolf Studios in Somerset, it's their most direct album yet and follows a well-documented trajectory of evolution that began (in the truest sense) with 2011's RRR for Riot Season and continued across three albums for Rocket Recordings.
Lead vocalist Paul Sykes sounds more in focus than before, dialling down the effects and using reverb / delay to carry his lyrics rather than smother. The band has also fine-tuned to leave some room for extra depth. Piano, electronics and violin (by Daniel O'Sullivan of This is not This Heat / Grumbling Fur) all find a way in amongst a familiar mesh of interlacing guitars, wrapped round a taut rhythm section. Like every other Hey Colossus record before, the line-up has altered and the sounds reflect this.
From the weight of 'Memory Gore', to the subtlety and swag of 'It's a Low', via the sonic extremes of 'Palm Hex/Arndale Chins' this is exactly as the band are live; raging & rail-roading but somehow in control. Grooves for those who want to dance or for those who want to hug a wall and nod...bleak dystopian imagery submerged in relentless rhythms and low-end rattle. The songs breath life and soul - Hey Colossus have never sounded fresher or more on point.
There is a book release to coincide with the album written by bass player (and founding member) Joe Thompson. It's part of a new series called 'Sleevenotes' by Pomona Publishing and the first four are out this year. Joe's book sits alongside other contributions by Bob Stanley (St Etienne), Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees/Solo), David Gedge (The Wedding Present) and contains a diary of the years leading up to the release of this record.
Touring with bands Sumac and Grey Hairs through Europe, recording the album, line-up changes, the band's history and the big question is answered: Why?
Tracklisting:
1. Bees Around The Lime Tree
2. Memory Gore
3. Confession Bay
4. It's A Low
5. (Decompression)
6. Carcass
7. The Golden Bough
8. Palm Hex / Arndale Chins
9. Babes Of The Plague
10. Four Bibles
Release Date: 17/05/2019 -
"However you might try to find the words for it, Total Control's caustic charm is stunning and oblique. A sensible account of the band typically focuses on its parts'the associated groups, the touring configurations, etc.'as if finding ways by which Total Control is divisible gleans critical information for breaking through their cryptic sheen. With tonic, wry twists, and forever employing aphoristic brevity for the comic/cosmic dynamite that it is best reserved for, the band seems to indulge this with each new release, or tour, or whatever's put on the counter.Visit product page →
The band's European tour tape from 2015 was a sure reminder of this. Their new 12", 'Laughing At The System,' is a succinct statement, but it feels like the sharpest thing they've ever assembled. Written and recorded over the past couple of years in various lounge rooms, bedrooms, and rehearsal studios, across Melbourne, regional Victoria, and Western Australia, Al Montfort, Daniel Stewart, James Vinciguerra, Mikey Young, and Zephyr Pavey are'for the record'all accounted for in the process. 'Laughing At The System' is bookended by a title track in two parts.
The scattered mania of the opener is an unsettling beginning, with cascading madhouse-riffs somehow finding a ricocheting unison. The closing part has the familiar head-charge of Total Control's most gnashing moments, with the guitars balancing the equation between running-too-fast and drinking-too-fast in one queasy commitment. With a brilliantly acerbic wit, we're implored to gather that there's some equivalences here. And it's this kind of impulse that's kept up throughout the 12". Drizzled with Vinciguerra's fraught fills, which have the rare quality of being unmistakably his in both electronic and acoustic form, this punctuation comes in and out of focus between elegiac moments and breezy experimentation, the latter including the elated instrumental 'Cathie and Marg.'
Throughout, Stewart scripts a tumultuous wake for a flatlining reality, forever nudging the listener to second-guess themselves about the sincerity and intent. Far from cynical, but earnestly neurotic, the potency of the atmosphere that Total Control has mustered across 'Laughing At The System' registers as a deeply commanding, though bleak, psychedelicism for the future."
Tracklisting:
1. Laughing At The System 1
2. Future Crème
3. Vanity
4. Vote Cops
5. Her Majesty, Budgie
6. Luxury Vacuum
7. Cathie and Marg
8. Laughing At The System 2
Release Date: 08/12/2017
