"Oriors Elevation 7" was released in 1979 and is one of the records that Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker of Demdike Stare shared an obsession over around the time they started working together 30 years later. Spurred on by rumors of an unreleased LP, Demdike were determined to track them down but had scant information to go on, just the names "Clip and Phil" credited on the 7", and an out of date contact for the obscure label Crystal Groove. After some detective work, and with a little help from Frank at Vinyl On Demand, they managed to get a postal address for Clip that was ten years old and sent a note over. Fortuitously, a letter was returned in reply from a Jeff Sharp (Clip) who was extremely surprised to be asked about recordings he had long forgotten about. This started a rewarding process: the master tapes were found in Jeffs loft, but were in poor condition so were passed on to Andy Popplewell at AMR to bake and transfer. As Miles Whittaker explains: "The day I went to AMR to collect the masters, before I'd even listened to anything, the engineer Andy Popplewell told me there was pure gold on those tapes. He said it was an absolute joy to listen as the tapes were being recorded, so our anticipation was through the roof..." The material is indeed special, in some respects typical of the era -- lots of experimental drum machine experiments and so on, but also possessed of a totally unexpected character: there are moments that recall the dense atmospheric pieces of Angelo Badalamenti, others that evoke classic Vangelis, or indeed the eerie soundscapes of Leyland Kirby. There are passages that bring to mind Bruce Gilberts Dome project, and parallels can be drawn with the Fourth World ambience of Jon Hassel and Brian Eno, as well as early Coil. In short -- its a revelatory set of recordings that, were it not for some resourcefulness and an awful lot of good luck, would have just rotted away in an attic somewhere in South East England. Lucky for us, we can now hear it in all its expansive glory, spread across two meticulously curated LPs on this wonderful label." - Demdike Stare.
After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.
This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).
Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.
Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.
Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
