HD 016

16.13 Listen to Excision

2009-01-31T12:05:00.000-08:00

I'm a couple weeks late with this but Excision did a mix for Rob and its a mind-blower. Heavy, nasty dubstep, the kind thats seemingly being phased out for the Burial style stuff. A move the Disk is firmly opposed to.

16.12 Broken Note on Electronic Explorations

2008-12-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

Been looking forward to this for a couple of weeks and it rules. Broken Note on Electronic Explorations. Heavy as fuck. For those not fucking with electronic music, now is a good time to start.

Electronic Explorations has become a staple for me over the last 2 months, and Rob's pre-mix selection is especially good here. Keeping a running tab of tracks that I need to cop from Gunjack, Bass Nectar, Somatic Response, Akira Kateshi, Stormfield, Ohmwork, and a non-jungle take on Buju Banton’s “Champion” from Kidnappa.

Listen here: http://electronicexplorations.org/the-show/051-broken-note/

16.11 Flying Lotus Drops Technical

2008-12-15T10:52:00.000-08:00

Flying Lotus in Mexico City. Image via Dotmotion @ Flickr.

New HD fave, LA beat mangler Flying Lotus comes through with an amazing mix for BBC Radio 1's Essential Mix. Listen to that shit now.

http://www.newmixes.com/flying_lotus-essential_mix-sat-11-29-2008.html

FlyLo recently showed up on Rinse FM as a guest of the almighty N-Type. Unfortunately, I can't find the link anymore. I think it was at the Dubstep Forum, but I had no luck. Definitely track it down though.

Here's an interview to read whilst you enjoy the mix.

16.10 Truth & Justice by Aaron Spectre

2008-11-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

For its 47th week (!), the excellent Electronic Explorations drops an exclusive Drumcorps mix “Truth & Justice”. Aaron Spectre is in top form, peep the playlist:

01 - Drumcorps - No Escape - [Unreleased]
02 - Nine Inch Nails - The Mark Has Been Made - [Nothing]
03 - Rotten sound - The Effects - [Spinefarm]
04 - Converge - Year Of The Swine / Conduit - [Equal Vision]
05 - Broken Note - war In The Making - [Ruff)
06 - Animosity - Terrorstorm - [Blackmarket)
07 - Animosity & Drumcorps - Mobs Over, Rob Me - [Manalive]
08 - Genghis Tron - The Feast (Drumcorps Remix) - [Unreleased test]
09 - Genghis Tron - Relief (Drumcorps remix) - [Relapse]
10 - This Will Destroy You - A Three-Legged Workhorse - [Magic Bullet]
11 - Nine Inch Nails - 2 Ghosts 1 - [The Null Corporation]

Host Rob Booth holds it down as well with jams from Bong-Ra, Converge, Botch (sounding like Unbroken meets June of '44 here), an amazing Nine Inch Nails song, Starkey and HD faves Soundmurderer & SK1.

Cop it here.

16.09 Cages CD's out now

2008-07-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

The Cages “1” CD and “2/3” 2xCDs are out now and available at HD 017.

The kid, Zach Richter, was kind enough to help me screen-print the “2/3” package a month or so ago, but I had only to gotten to print the “1” package more recently. I just wrapped up burning the black-bottom CD’s so we’re certified.

Cages is a project of mine using non-audio digital files and ripping them through MP3 encoders to create music with them. For a period of time, I was grabbing anything I could to see if something interesting could be created from it. The highlights made it onto these releases (and some future ones).

2' 51" from Cages “2/3”

The design stemmed from the desire to make something neutral and cold. Noise releases are so often wrapped up in all kinds of angst and emotion that I’m more interested in visuals that plumb other depths. Furthermore, I liked the idea of this minimalist direction for sounds that have minimal human involvement. The image of the laptop noise-dude hitting play and then checking his e-mail becomes the laptop dude that doesn’t even bother to hit play. The Cages songs are a kind of audio ready-made; I pick a source, play the game and decide whether to keep the results. Of course, the frustrating things is that when it works I couldn’t imagine being able to conjure these sounds on purpose.

You can buy the limited-edition CD releases now in a package deal, both for $12 with a free copy of the HD 019 poster, or download the jams at Cages’ Virb page.

16.08 Lost at sea

2008-07-09T22:18:00.000-07:00

Lest you thought, we was dead. We ain’t.

Things are bubbling to the surface. HD019 is printed up (as seen above) in a fine edition of 300 1-color prints, HD 014 is available here.

I'm sorry for the delays. This thing has been interrupting.

More missives shortly.

16.07 Ghost Call: cheap paper + tape version

2008-02-17T17:21:00.001-08:00

As most anyone who has worked with me can testify, I am not very detail-oriented. Not ideal for a designer. When I worked at Intermedia Arts, I would often skip making full-size mock-ups of the wall graphics for exhibitions, and then be horrified at huge letter-spacing gaps in words or monstrous leading between lines. None of which is noticeable on the surface to most people, but its definately something you can feel. In an effort to turn over a new leaf, I've been making mock-ups of my projects and the results have been much better. The SMS series that I screen-printed with Dan Black was one of the first projects I've done, where when it was finished there were no instances of finding some easy-to-overlook mistake and thinking “Oh, well, that’s not a big deal”. Its fairly disturbing to look over the last 5 years worth of work and feel like none of it is truly done. (Now, every artist and designer I know will say “No one’s ever 100% percent happy with their work,” to which I reply “True, but my batting average is like 60%, so 85 would be awesome.”)
But, I mocked-up the new Ghost Call sleeve on Friday and I’m psyched on the results. The new version has a fold-over flap to give it some more weight.
The interior has a full-inside print of one of Kim’s MonoWood images. Its great to finally be using her images on projects. I feel like these landscape images sync up perfectly with the vibe of “Ghost Call.” We were just discussing whether to use the image additionally for a t-shirt.
The thing I’m most excited about for this package is that it will have an actual spine. I’m aware of the fact that pretty much every 12" on the planet has a printed spine on the jacket, but when you are making things by hand, this more or less doubles (or triples) the production time on the record. Every fold on the jacket is done using a tool that looks like a guillotine or a paper cutter, and is done one at a time. So, on the first pressing, it was a simple fold-over for 300 covers. Therefore, 300 folds. This one has 2 spines, so each cover is hand-creased 4 times. So, 62 records will be 248 folds. I am a dumb ass. On the other hand, I feel like this really adds something intangible to the overall essence of the project. It wouldn’t have even occurred to me to do this, but I was helping Dan print the vinyl version of these and said “Wait, did you print a spine on these?”. This also speaks to the absurd lengths Dan Black will go for quality. Hopefully that is starting to rub off on me and me days of glossing over the fine print are behind me.

Also, if you want to listen to the Ghost Call record in its entirety visit our Virb page. The 3rd track gets a little too compressed but overall it sounds great.

Just got back from visiting an Apple Orchard in Jordan MN to stand around in 23° weather for an hour-and-a-half. Go here to find out why.

16.6 Sound Enforcer

2008-02-03T20:50:00.000-08:00

Taking a break from talking about myself...

SF/Boston DJ Kid Kameleon has turned me on to a ton of new music over the last couple of years so I'm excited to see that he's started blogging again.

Luckily, he's also posted some new mixes, including his two-part take on “outsider” Dubstep “Aim High/Aim Low”. Both are ridiculous and worth grabbing, and even if they don't showcase the “stars” of the Dubstep scene, they do show how much amazing music is coming out of it.

On a related note, “Aim High” is hosted by Boston beat-science label Mashit, who have a slew of sick mixes there, including a few from Converge-sampling ragga/junglist/breakcore genius Aaron Spectre. “Aim Low” lives at Spannered.org, a site that I hadn't seen until last week but now I'm pretty obsessed with. Great interviews and live sets from the aforementioned Spectre, plus Detroit junglist Soundmurderer and the absolutely amazing Goth Trad. I seriously don't understand how I've gone through life not hearing this shit. Post to the comments if you dig it.

16.5 Socially networking

2008-02-01T19:41:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what tennis elbow is, but I think I have it. Only I haven't been lucky enough to be on a tennis court. I've been tethered to a computer for weeks. Last week I thought I was going to get bed sores on my butt from sitting.

Anyway, I realized I should save my carpal tunnel for actual design work and so I hired my first employee: my youngest brother Nic. Kim was awesome enough to set up our Virb (HD 022) and MySpace (HD 023) pages, and now Nic is maintaining them. He did a bunch of updates at MySpace, getting it nice and monochromatic, posting some news, and getting our label MP3 player loaded with goods. Be our friend.

On a side note, our Virb page, while not being on-brand yet is loaded with the whole Ghost Call ep, plus a Cages jam. I can't reccommend Virb enough, its clean, easy to use, and has built-in customization. killer. Oh, and this thing loads automatically to it. sign up.

Just finished the outside of HD 007: Ghost Call overpress thing. Looks hot. Artwork is definately different and only 2 color, so if you want one of the original full-bleed four-color bangers, get it at www.hd017.com. I just counted and we've got 15 left.

16.4 HD 018: Terrorclops 1-sided 12"

2008-01-31T15:31:00.000-08:00

The dynamic duo of myself and Dan Black is once again on as we work together to make cash for corporations. Luckily this means we eat lunch together alot and are a 2-man idea factory.

Dan gives me a CD of Terrorclops live recordings for my birthday. They're all great. I'm listening to “Live at Harriet House; 10/26/05” and totally digging it, plus I remember that show. DB playing live to like 18 people in a living room a block from my house good stuff. I tell him that it sounds awesome, he concurs, I say we should do a 1-sided 12", he says awesome.

I think it over in the bathroom, sit down and do some math, and then say "let's send it out with the 7" master". really? "yes, really."

Hardisty-Disk in '08. Never not hustling.

Here's a live recording of Terrorclops, playing as part of Thank You! in 2006 (I believe). Nice sesh of low-end grumble swamp murk. Stream below

Update: Sorry this post was Comment disabled. No longer. Give DB a pat on the back.

016.3 Sunday night quickie

2008-01-20T20:26:00.000-08:00

Some brief news... I’ve just set up the Hardisty-Disk store over at Big Cartel. They seem like they’ve got a pretty rad operation over there—really simple, dynamic storefronts. Orders some stuff and let me know (hint, hint. This is known as a Call-to-Action statement, in case you were wondering).

I saw the homie Dan Black last night at me and JZK’s double-action 31st Birthday festivities. He says Every Bell and Whistle have copped a bunch of mics and are recording HD 020 in Mark’s basement and that I should hear the b-side for the Terrorclops 7" tomorrow! Radness abounds. Still gonna try to get the TC 7" out for March, and then hoping for the EB&W 12" to drop in June before the boys go on tour.

Action abounds all around. Peep Paper + Product, the MVA art + apparel site. Its a little quiet at the moment, but Dan dropped off my first poster series last night and we should be dropping some t's soon.

Should start seeing the Cages, John Wiese and I am Heaven designs soon, plus some Cages + Terrorclops downloads.

016.2 Block All-Stars, Vol. 1: Dan Black

2007-12-14T13:26:00.000-08:00

This is what it looks like when Dan Black (right) looks at Joe Rizzo when he’s saying something.

Block All-Stars is a series of posts about the various Hardisty-Disk collaborators. Dan Black is the proprietor of Say and Stay Said Records, brilliant designer of Landland, singer of Everybell and Whistle, Labour gang-ster and laptop wielder known as Terrorclops. He is also an MCAD ’03 homie and good dude.

I met Dan my first year at MCAD but we got our bond on more heavy when we both had the unfortunate idea to start record labels for our Senior Projects class. Because we mostly concerned with the actual releasing of records and design was only really about one or two sleeves and maybe some collateral, our projects were a little conceptually shaky for a semester-long portfolio building class. We ended up having to overly-conceptualize our projects and define them away from each other in order to keep working. Hardisty-Disk ended up being some intensely bizarre personal projects about defining my own aesthetics and produced a 12" and a few other things. I can’t remember what Dan’s rationale was but it didn't much matter because the stuff he produced (2 7" by his band, 1 being a split) was amazing. They were like the final word on the Gravity/mid-90's emo-aesthetic; both were screened in white on manila file-folders, with the Everybell 7" actually being sealed with a hand-made perforation being the only way to open it. The short of it being that Dan is kind of a genius.

He’s proven to be one of my biggest inspirations for Hardisty-Disk and has been indispensable for the re-launch. Whenever I visit him at his screen-printing studio I end up leaving with packaging concepts for HD nailed down. He’ll be contributing drawings for the I Am Heaven re-launch and his experimental cut-up/noise jam fuckery as Terrorclops is a big motivator for me to release music.

Lastly, I am extremely happy to announce he’s involved with HD 020, a 12" by his rock band Everybell and Whistle. I can’t think of a non-shitty sounding way to describe them, but all I can ever think is emo-prog. Sorry, guys. Everybell write 5–6 minute epics with constantly shifting dynamics and riffs and drum patterns that never repeat themselves. I’ve been harassing Dan to get them to write a one-riff long-ass jam for the last 2 years because a) every truly great band needs one of those songs, think Born Against’s “Well Fed Fuck”, Hoover’s “Electrolux” or the Monorchid’s “Bitch Test” and b) I’d like to hear one of the riffs for more than 3 seconds. I finally proposed that they do a 12" for me with one-side being a single-riff jam and the other being snippets, loops and outtakes. They’ve taken me up on the offer and the results look like it may be a kind of “Everybell and Whistle produced by Terrorclops” release. I couldn’t be more excited about this record and with any luck will be dropping it as part of the June ’08 release schedule. Here are 2 outtakes from a recent practice.

12.08.07 (0'58")
12.08.07-1 (1'37")

You can download Dan’s Terrorclops single for HD at his MySpace page. Or you can order one here.

Additional links:
Say-And-Stay-Said
Landland

016.1 Back in the Building

2007-12-01T14:41:00.001-08:00

With the first real snowstorm for the ‘07–‘08 winter season falling on Minneapolis right now, it seems like a good afternoon to hole up on the internet and get this Hardisty-Disk blog to pop off.

Hardisty-Disk Records was founded by myself, J. Namdev Hardisty in 2003 as my Senior Project in Graphic Design (kind of like a thesis) at Minneapolis College of Art + Design (MCAD) with the goal of designing and manufacturing a record, producing print collateral, handling distribution and generally, just getting a record label set up. In that regard, it was successful. I released a 12" EP entitled “Ghost Call” by John Wiese in an edition of 300 with four-color screenprinted covers. I produced a website, a small run of t-shirts, poster designs and a postcard. Through-out 2003 and into 2004, I distributed “Ghost Call” and built up a small mailorder by trading with like-minded record labels. Plans were made to release more music but aside from a single limited-edition CDR release, I simply couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to keep the ’Disk active. I never quit the label, I just indefinitely put off any activity.

HD 016 and HD 006 are the beginnings of Hardisty-Disk phase 2 in earnest. So, without any further ado or apology-making, I christen this post HD 016.1 and share with you our current projects.

Beginning in 2008, Hardisty-Disk will release new music, art and apparel four times a year. Each date will coincide with a Minneapolis release party featuring label artists and special guests.

The first batch of new releases (HD 007–15) is scheduled for 3/17/08 and includes:

HD 007 John Wiese “Ghost Call” re-package 12"
When I originally released “Ghost Call”, I had only planned for 300 covers and ended up with an over press of about 80. I will be re-packaging the remaining copies with new screen-printed artwork (though it should be noted, I’m not doing the five-color thing again).

HD 009 I Am Heaven deluxe 12"
Kim and I released the I Am Heaven 12" on July95 in an edition of 480 copies in 1997 and it was a disaster in every possible way. The original ended up shipping with only a black 12" single sleeve and a laser-printed insert. I’ve been hanging to most of the original pressing in order to do them justice. We will be re-packaging them with all new screen-printed artwork by midwest visual agency (myself and Kimberlee Whaley) and Landland using elements from the original packaging scheme to act as a homage to a band that I truly loved. There will be no more than 200 of these.

HD 011 Terrorclops 7"
This catalog number is being reserved for a Terrorclops 7", though if a master isn't done in time, we will push it to a June ’08 release.

HD 013 Cages 1 cdr
HD 014 Cages 2/3 2xbcard
Minneapolis laptop noise at its worst—no microphones, recording devices or audio signals of any kind were used in the creation of these disks. Both will be available in screen-printed sleeves and editions of 25–50.

HD 019 March 08 winter release party
A collaboration with Terrorclops/Dan Black’s Say-And-Stay-Said label the line-up tentatively includes Terrorclops, Cages and Thank You plus special guests. This will be updated when we have firm information.

The remaining catalog numbers are reserved for posters and t-shirts which will be post as they are finished or in production.