POX Ralph Records

http://ralphamerica.com/

Ralph America RIP
Jun/09/10 09:44 AM
Ralph America will be closing after 11 years on August 15, 2010.
Changes in the music business have made it very difficult for small
operations to exist as the world goes download. There are sites
where you can download all RA titles for free (RSD ones too) so
trying to stay in business no longer works very well. RSD will also
be pulling back on issuing music due to the free download sites.

EuroRalph faced a similar situation last year and also closed down.

Welcome to the new reality.

http://www.residents.com/historical/page85/page90/page91/page91.html
http://www.discogs.com/label/Ralph+Records

I mostly know The Residents stuff, which I burned out on and haven't come back to. So I can't really POX from that, although Not Available and Eskimo would be at the top probably.

Renaldo & The Loaf - Songs for Swinging Larvae was kind of good, wasn't it?

Shame about the label closing down.

Songs for Swinging Larvae was great!

Also the Potatoes comp - it says it's "volume 1" - was there ever a volume 2?

lots of classic stuff here: mx80, tuxedomoon, art bears, frith, snakefinger etc etc... always meant to hear the club foot stuff but never got around to it. kinda want to hear this too: http://www.discogs.com/Various--Penn-Jillette-Ralph-Records-10th-Anniversary-Radio-Special/release/606255

Wait, Ralph America has only been around for 11 years?

thats 11 residents years

Art Bears, Rhythm & Noise, Yello, Tuxedomoon, Snakefinger, MX-80... so many great records.

Freshly Wrapped Candies album is good too.

pox...

1. Rhythm & Noise - Chasms Accord - seriously great and underrated LP

2. Residents - Third Reich & Roll (a pinnacle of modern civilization)

3. Art Bears - Winter Songs

4. MX-80 - Crowd Control

5. MX-80 - Out Of The Tunnel (can't pick just one of these)

6. Residents - Duck Stab/Buster & Glen

7. Residents - Commercial Album

8. Snakefinger - Chewing Hides The Sound

9. Residents - Not Available

10. Yello - Solid Pleasure

also search the "Best Of Ralph" 2LP

1 - Various / Penn Jillette - Ralph Records 10th Anniversary Special - 'Ignorance of your culture is not considered cool' / 'Tap your foot to wind'
2 - Art Bears - Winter Songs
3 - The Residents - Not Available (Some questions receive a guarantee to shake you up!)
4 - Renaldo & The Loaf - Songs For Swinging Larvae
5 - Rhythm & Noise - Chasms Accord - best late-period Ralph album hands down, totally incredible though you need the original LP and not the weird compilation CD Naut put out years later with the same name, which throws together both R&N albums with a bunch of earlier unreleased stuff, kind of watering it down a bit but still good. But back in the mid-80's, there seemed to be a firm line drawn between the early industrial noise / cassette scene and the noisier / stranger electronic music by Xenakis, Bayle, Ferrari, Stockhausen, this Rhythm and Noise album just walked over that line and suggested you that you could have everything, messed up dangerous noise collage with extremely accomplished sound design
6 - Tuxedomoon - Desire (though Half-Mute is just as good)
7 - Yello - Solid Pleasure
8 - Fred Frith - Speechless (weirder than Gravity)
9 - Residents - Diskomo / Goosebumps 12"
10 - Subterranean Modern compilation (Chrome / MX-80 Sound / Residents / Tuxedomoon)

wish I had room for 'Greener Pastures', MX-80, and every single other album, single & EP the Residents put out from 1972-1982. In the mid-80's this was the first label that I learned to buy everything from on sight (which led me to the Art Bears which led me to Recommended Records). And it's just a nasty sign of the times that it's going under.

looks like we both got our brains scorched by that R&N LP. Diamanda Galas has a great guest spot on it. Also, they toured the US in '86 I think? It really influenced/inspired most everyone I knew who saw them play in Indianapolis (i.e. like 6 people).

I was initially very confused when I got that CD reissue, and once I figured it all out I was very glad that I still had both LPs.

Naut Humon went on to found Asphodel records & Recombinant Media Labs. Between RML & the old R&N studio out in Hunters' Point, he's brought more amazing shows to the Bay Area than I can count. Asphodel / RML went out of business & closed up shop a few years ago, he's shopping around for a new city to bring his equipment to but the odds of finding the funding for it anywhere in the US are fairly low

it's not like the extra stuff on the CD is terrible (one or two of the new 'songs' at the end maybe go too far), it's just that shoehorning three completely eras of material onto one 80 minute CD means that it becomes a choppy overview, while the original album just has that crazy flow to it

The Sombient Drones trilogy of compilations (Throne of Drones / Swarm of Drones / Storm of Drones) are crossfaded & sequenced out of Naut's favorite composers & RML collaborators, so they basically come across as extra R&N records made out of other people's sounds -- they're great, if not as noisy

Isn't Naut involved with the Gray Area Gallery in the Tenderloin -- doing stuff there?

a little bit -- that's definitely where a few of the critical RML staff landed. but they're hardly bringing in the same level of weird as we all got used to when RML was throwing 10-12 shows a year in 16-channel surround

I remember at the Yasunao Tone / Florian Hecker show at RML when they were just sending out 10-40 Hz standing waves, while I was standing on top of one of the subwoofer floor plates and taking sips from my bottle of water and feeling the water react to the bass, vibrating all the way down my throat in time to the pulsing of the low end drone. Kind of impossible to describe what it felt like to be in a body during that show -- hard not to miss RML

I never went there. :/