Limited Edition of 50 hand drawn covers by Starbage Hands
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El Ten Eleven
- These Promises are being Videotaped
2010 | NPR 22
Hand drawn LP of 50
8 tracks
| Track Listing:
Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
I Like Van Halen Because My Sister Says They Are Cool
Fat Gym Riot
Adam and Nathan Kick Ass
k10
Paranoid Android
Chino
Numb Tooth
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North Pole Records is honored to release a extremely limited edition run of the El Ten Eleven "These Promises are being Videotaped" LP. 50 hand drawn LP covers by Shane de Leon / Starbage Hands. Get them while you can.
Here's what the critics say
“Their third record, These Promises Are Being Videotaped, is packed full of danceable melodies that put Ratatat to shame.” Spin.com
“Once the record stops, you want more, and more, and more.” Filter
"Audience members (like myself) stare in amazement at the fury of Kristian’s fingers and feet… it makes the Polyphonic Spree seem like member-hoarding pussies." LA Alternative Press
“Your album hasn't left my CD player since last month.” Spiritualized
"Although El Ten Eleven haven't yet garnered the mainstream praise they deserve, their sophisticated sound earned them a prominent spot on the Helvetica (2007) soundtrack — and scores of new fans in the process.” Flavorpill
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PRE-ORDER and get name entered in drawing for signed test pressing. Ships March 16, 2010
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Miss Massive Snowflake
- Songs About Music
2009 | NPR 19
CD / LP w/ cd insert
10 tracks
| Track Listing:
Good Morning
Be Brave
I Do
An American
Two Guys
Happy Birthday
Shock and Awe
Knife Blade
Good Night
Encore
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Charismatic weird rockers, Miss Massive Snowflake, craft catchy and deceptively intricate pop songs that are lyrically engaging and musically adept, a politically charged mix of glammy rock and dynamic compositions. Piloted by the irrepressible Shane de Leon, whose strong voice and humorous wit, lead protest songs that come off like party anthems. Horns wail and punch screwed groove guitar riffs, while fat bass and polyrhythmic percussion combine with both female and male vocals to make beautiful, moving, and intellectually satisfying rock music.
This is Miss Massive Snowflake’s second full-length album following the 2008 electronic based, “Queen’s Headache” (NPR07). After 2 solo European and Stateside tours, where de Leon charmed audiences with multi-media theatrics armed with a laptop, projector, and acoustic guitar, he assembled a group featuring Bill Horist (Master Musicians of Bukake), Zacery Stanley (Dramady), and Jeanne Kennedy Crosby. “Songs About Music” was recorded by Gilles (Rollerball, The Pink Widower) and the sound is clean, full bodied, and sweet. The band will be touring Europe in April and domestically in summer 2010.
Miss Massive Snowflake makes music that is at once playful and overtly political with most tracks clocking in under 3 minutes. de Leon has left behind the sonic obtuseness of the decade he spent working with legendary Portland experimental rockers, Rollerball, for pointed lyrics and quirky rock sing alongs. A tasty Flaming Lips/ Bowie rock concotion mixed with Minutemen/Beck song structure blasts, and Marc Ribot angularity cooked down with Funkadelic’s civil disobedience.
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PRE-ORDER and get name entered in drawing for signed test pressing. Ships March 02, 2010
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Bill Horist
- Covalent Lodge
2009 | NPR 17
180 gm Vinyl w/cd | CD
9 tracks
| Track Listing:
In the House of the Specious Phylum
The Breath-Width Isthmus
Smeared Slate Gales Warped in Oozing Windows
Glen / Ganges
Affable Hauntings (cd only)
Requim for Endless Days
In the Arms of the Specious Phylum
Sod Webworm
The Imperatives of Subsequence
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Bill Horist’s newest album "Covalent Lodge" an intricately orchestrated master album featuring Horist’s haunting and deliberate finger pickings along with exquisite musicianship by Grammy recipient Matt Chamberlain on drums, Eyvind Kang (Zorn, Beck, Ribot) on viola, vocalist B.R.A.D. (ASVA,The Accused, MMOB) and jam-packed with other A-list musicians. Most of Horist’s solo albums consist of electric prepared guitar work, but Covalent Lodge is notable for it’s traditional acoustic qualities captured by engineer and producer Randall Dunn (Sunn o))), Boris, Kinski, Earth) at Aleph Studios. Dunn and Horist are both members of mystical dirge metal super group Master Musicians of Bukakke (Conspiracy Records).
Horist’s deft fingers pull extended and winding guitar lines through a soundscape populated by strange choral voices, lumbering drums, long tone electronic drones, a harmonically twisting string section, and beckoning horns from outposts in some open wild desert. Performed with stellar musicianship, the songs are precise and calmly accessible. It sounds like the reverberating ghost of some multi-cultural Morricone orchestra, or Jim O’Rourke doing weird world-beat ambient numbers under hypnosis. The ethereal qualities of the songs move with subdued tension. A familiar ghost in a haunted lodge, soothing and unsettling.
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Rollerball
- Two Feathers
2009 | NPR 16
180 gm Vinyl w/DVD/CD | CD/DVD
11 tracks
| Track Listing:
Aquapipe Netarts
Osicles
Rick Wright
Camera'd
Say It
Split Pea
The Sac
South Dakota
Horrible Madness
Cellophane Wing
Spool
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Fourteen albums in and fifteen years deep, Rollerball, bring their outward bound song structures laced with dark jazz and noise funk back to the US via Portland label, North Pole Records. A living / breathing recording ethic, five European tours, constant West Coast presence, and underground cred that can’t be beat, Rollerball, is an established institution influencing what bands sound like in Portland, Oregon and throughout the world. Two Feathers is Rollerball’s first domestic release since 2005’s Catholic Paws/Catholic Pause. The past two albums, Rollerball and Ahura were available only on avant super label, Wallace Records based in Italy, a country that has long championed Rollerball.
The rhythm section, Gilles on drums and Monte Trent Allen on bass, drop extended deep grooves and lock-step rhythm changes, anchoring Two Feathers‘ sound with wizened authority and practiced ability. Amidst layers of intriguing percussion, electronic murk, and the damp acoustic hollowness of Amanda Mason Wiles’ saxophone poetry, Mae Starr weaves intricate and inventive keyboard magic. Her fingers swallowed by rings that stream up and pounce down the keyboard, evoking powerful vocalists like PJ Harvey or June Tyson, and casting spells over a rapt audience.
Hard to describe and impossible to pin down, Rollerball, has been praised throughout their storied career by The Wire, Pitchfork, Brainwashed, Blow Up, Fake Jazz, The Oregonian, Terrascope, Mercury, Stranger, etc., and played on radio stations around the world. They have released music on Roadcone, Cochon, Silber, Jalopy Grotto, Nillacat, Pacific Wonderland, and Felina y magia in the States and Bar la muerte, Wallace, and Hysm in Italy. Rollerball has been compared to Sun Ra, New Order, Cereberus Shoal, JOMF, Califone, and Can.
Two Feathers is packaged as an LP with CD/DVD included or as a gatefold CD/DVD card wallet. The DVD includes music videos from the nineties and into the new millenium, as well as, The Three Brunos, a film by Starbage Hands featuring tour footage and performances by Rollerball, OVO, and Ronin in Italy and Slovenia in 2005. Long time saxophone collaborator, Jacopo Andreini (L’enfants Rouge, Squarcicatrici), performs throughout the DVD. The CD also features Scott Rosenberg (Pink Mountain) on saxophone.
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Tours:
-Bill Horist:
March / Japan
4th @ viva la musica, kyoto w/marron, dj shinya
5th @ indo-yo hofu, yamaguchi w/marron
6th @ astro lounge, kitakyusyu, fukuoka w/ marron, dj good happening
7th @ club fuji, omuta, fukuoka w/marron
8th @ ibizarte, fukuoka w/marron
10th @ mojo, tokorozawa, saitama w/marron,yamamoto tatsuhisa
11th @ zher the zoo, yoyogi,tokyo w/katsui yuji, dubdub
12th @ rag ＆ slow, okazaki, aichi, w/marron
13th ise, mie
-Bob Corn:
EUROPE
05.02 trento @ tilt
06.02 stuttgart (ger) @ f.f.u.s
07.02 utrecht (nl) @ db's w/ moi le voisin
08.02 munchen (ger) @ suedstadt
12.02 rotterdam (nl) @ de frikandel
13.02 offembach (ger) @ freedom soon will come
18.02 berlin (ger) @ schokoladen
24.02 praha (cz) @ tba
25.02 brno (cz) @ tba
26.02 wien (aut) @ subterrarium
28.02 ceske budejovice (cz) @ tba
05.03 premariaccio (ud) @ piccola trattoria da mauro
07.03 ferrara @ zuni
17.03 san benedetto del tronto @ pao
02.04 amstedam (nl) @ illuseum w/ miss massive snowflake
03.04 leiden (nl) @ festival
04.04 reims (fra) @ house show w/ miss massive snowflake
05.04 caen (fra) @ house show at pascal's w/ miss massive snowflake
11.04 piace la radieux (fra) @ moulin de blaireau
-Dramady:
Mar 20 The World Famous Kenton CLub Portland, Oregon
Mar 21 The Big Pink House Portland, Oregon
Mar 22The Voodoo Room Astoria, Oregon
Mar 23 The Barn Out On the Land Manzanita, Oregon
Mar 24 The Comet Tavern Seattle, Washington
Mar 27 Rhizome Vancouver, British Columbia
-Larry Yes:
Feb 6 Kenton Club, Portland, OR
-Miss Massive Snowflake:
Mar19 Music Millennium, Portland, OR all ages, 6 pm
Mar19 Backspace, Portland, OR all ages, 9 pm
Apr 2 Illuseum Amsterdam, NL
Apr 3 Emile Vache Metz FR
Apr 4 House Reims, FR
Apr 5 Pascal's Caen, FR
Apr 9 W71 Weikersheim DE
Apr 10 Madame Claudes Berlin DE
Apr 11 AZ Conni Dresden DE
Apr 15 ARCI BLOB, Arcore, IT
Apr 16 UFO, Brunico, IT
Apr 19 Fanfulla 101, Rome, IT
Apr 21 Extramante, Ricanati, IT
Apr 23 Macondo, Senigallia, IT
May 23 Fort George, Astoria, OR
July 2 Mon Ami, Vancouver, WA,
-The Pink Widower:
Feb 11 Ella St. Social Club, Portland, OR w/ Seacaves, Carcrashlander
Feb 19 The Woods w/ Hurt Bird, Portland, OR
-Rollerball:
Feb 18 The Woods w/ Tunnels, Portland, Oregon
Upcoming Releases / News:
-NPR 20 will be another split label release with towntone (japan), Palustre (Italy), and Brigadisco (Italy). Three songs on one split 7". One each by Mattia Coletti and Comaneci from Italy and another by Muffin from Japan. We are getting into this whole global era.
-NPR 21 will be yet another killer release from our label bad boy, Rainstick Cowbell. Vinyl anyone. You betcha.
-Larry Yes, Dramady, Rollerball, Bob Corn, Miss Massive Snowflake, and The Pink Widower have all been recording new albums. Keep your fingers crossed, support North Pole Records, and buy two of everything. The more you buy the higher we fly.
T SHIRTS!!!
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North Pole Records are available via download at Itunes, Lala, Rhapsody, and many more digital sites. For a physical copy buy direct from us or from these distinguished distributors:
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