DUNCAN, JOHN & JOACHIM NORDWALL - Conventional Wisdom

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DUNCAN, JOHN & JOACHIM NORDWALL - Conventional Wisdom

Edition of 300. "Venerable avant-garde composer John Duncan follows his prized cycle of cover versions Bitter Earth (2016) with Conventional Wisdom; a truly beguiling new suite of original, stony avant-blooz songs produced in collaboration with iDEAL boss Joachim Nordwall, and marking another high point in both of their catalogues After coming out as a vocalist to memorably striking effect in 2016, Duncan compounds the effect with Conventional Wisdom, placing his original lyrics in stark arrangements ranging from shortwave radio-streaked dark ambient settings and Mika Vainio-esque isolationism, to deathly dubs driven by Nordwall's rugged rhythms in a style that heavily recalls Jay Glass Dubs' Epitaph LP (2019). An original and close associate of LAFMS co-founder Tom Recchion, and collaborator with everyone from Chris & Cosey to Asmus Tietchens, Merzbow, and Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio), Duncan is well versed in the art of fucking with music. Doing so since the '70s, it's only in recent years that more "typical" song structures have crept into his style with most transfixing effect, gathering the attention of many who previously weren't necessarily exposed to his music. Whether stemming from a perverse pleasure in twisting popular music, or a matter of changing with age (65), we're just not sure, but either way Duncan is now coming out with some of the most broadly appealing, yet incomparable work in his 50-year-wide catalog. Aided by Joachim Nordwall, the pair convene a set of songs every bit as fascinating, eerie as the cover image of a birdcage mask bound in barbed wire. The title track emphasizes the stark mystery with nothing more than meditative vocals, gamelan strikes and daubs of shortwave, before "Hard Swallow" catches him huskily channeling Lee "Scratch" Perry at a spooky distance, while the disembodied dub tropes of "Soft Eyes" come uncannily close to aspects of Jay Glass Dubs, and "Say No" says it in the bluntest, most bluesy terms. The most desiccated, strung-out material however is saved for the B-side, with the sferic resonance and stereo-strafing vocal of "The Joke" planning out into the cracked hush of "The Beautiful Attempt", before he and Nordwall effectively duet in the finale "The Red Hot Alternative", where Nordwall also supplies pranging percussion and Coil-esque synth abstraction. RIYL: Pere Ubu, Jay Glass Dubs, Coil, Pan Sonic, Scott Walker. Mastered at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin." - iDEAL.
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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.
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