Collective Jyrk R.I.P.

This to announce once and for all and most clearly that the recording arms of the Collective Jyrk octopus is no more.

E*Rock and GMS came to the decision to put their energies elsewhere around the same time, and shortly after Pete Swanson folded his stakes in the label in favor of a new venture. Glamorous Pat, who would illicitly use the Jyrk tag on some of his releases has also moved on to bigger and better.

You can now find these folks releasing music and related materials elsewhere:

E*Rock: Audio Dregs; Fryk Beat
GMS: Diadem; Bootylegs
Pete Swanson: Freedom to Spend
Glamorous Pat: Cherried Out Merch

Thanks for all your support, everyone. One final request would be for people to contribute to a Collective Jyrk Discography. I will begin one soon on this site, and anyone who can help me recall lost and loved releases is welcome to post a response. Thanks!

{{{peace}}}

Gabriel Mindel Saloman

BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY

After many delays, we have finally dropped our latest collection of musical resistors...

GHOSTING - "Why Not Be Utterly Changed into Fire?" - cdr
MAGGOTED - cdr
OF - "The Awful Cloud" - cdr

and the first installment in our new series of music and video dvdrs

JRP - 3"dvdr

All of these are super limited and all of them are already sold out at our end of things... they are available (or will be in the next short while) at the usual suspects...

RRR
Aquarius Records
Fusetron
Eclipse
Erstwhile
Naninani
Release The Bats
Second Layer
Volcanic Tongue
and possibly a few other here and theres...

Here is the lowdown from the mouth of Pete...

"Of" "The Awful Cloud" CDR

I think I've mentioned previously that we decided a bit ago to invite a few more established folks to drop some of their own particular breed of trouble under the JYRK moniker.. We got to drop that Spiderwebs deal awhile back and now... we've got OF.. A.K.A. Loren Chasse.. I don't know if anyone else spent last year being haunted by this dude, but both "the Air In The Sand" and Thuja's "Pine Cone Temples" spent serious time in my disc player and on my brain. I HAD to ask Loren to kick something down.. So.. We have The Awful Cloud.. possibly the darkest piece of music I've heard from Loren.. It's all instruments... organs, guitar, bells and field recordings collaged into one beautiful and dark cloud. edition of 150

Ghosting "Why Not Be Utterly Changed Into Fire?" CDR

Last time we moved cities, we immediately stumbled onto Axolotl, Thuja and The Skaters.. Now that we're back in Portland, there's a lot of familiar faces making totally new sounds.. it's not quite the exciting discovery that the totally unknown bay had going for it, but it's been great seeing old buddies exploring new territory and to meet new folks who have really made this city their own... Ghosting, along with Ilyas Amhed and Pulse Emitter have all totally got our blood pumping in all sorts of weird ways.. Ghosting drop HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY drones that are extremely dense and constantly evolving at glacial paces, then.. every once in awhile, they'll drop a serious bomb and the piece will take off in all sorts of blissed and baffling directions.. These dudes are practically owning this town right now and this release finds them in TOP form. I can't really recommend this one highly enough. edition of 150

Maggoted CDR

Aside from Gabe and Liz, I've probably spent as much time with Robert Mayson from Grey Daturas in the last year as I have with anyone. I feel totally honored to have had time with the dude.... I can't think of a better dude to be trapped in a sweaty van with or out exploring odd aussie beach towns... No matter where you're at with the dude, he's always down for whatever trouble needs to happen. So.. when he and I were both camping at the old Huffin House in Oakland, where I was at the end of one tour, and he was at the beginning of his, we decided that we would form a band... Now.. there ARE plans for us to record in the future, I'm not sure if it'll be later this year or in ten years, I don't really care... that's all besides the point.. what does matter is that we slammed our skulls together for just about 30 minutes and dropped this egg out of the cracks... This is the entire recording history of the group thus far. the music is totally dense, repetitive and dark.. I think we were both listening to mirror a lot around then, but I can also hear heaps of early MAIN in there too.. Anyway, I felt great during this sesh and I'm always stoked to listen to this thing.. I hope ya'll are too. edition of 150

JYRK VID:

JRP DVDR

Yeah.. NEW SERIES OF RELEASES.. all 3" DVDRs.. the first one is the inspiration for the series.. we've got TONS of stuff lined up.. probably will be Eric Ostrowski next and then william sabiston or something... anyway.. I set up a show for BONUS at ATA in SF awhile back and Jamie Potter from Bonus scraped together this vid before their show.. all concertgoers were absolutely stunned by their piece of totally unflinching pristine minimalism... The DVD is an AMAZING work of video feedback.. Basically, the visuals are this constantly evolving feedback mandala..... it rolls on and on for 20 minutes and is totally alive. Jamie's soundtrack is equally stunning and not dissimilar to his work in Bonus, except possibly slowed down... This one's perfect for a night of cough syrup and tons of weed.. I can't even verbalize how stoked I am on this film. absolutely top notch work from Mr. Potter. Edition of 90

Jyrk Alive

Jyrk is still alive... just deceptively dormant.

We have a huge batch just waiting to drop... give it time. Right now about 5 discs are waiting for artwork to be finished and then they are ready to ship... and there should be another batch hot on those heels.

In no particular order the rest of the year should see the arrival of cdrs by Ghosting, Of, Noggin, Bonus, Sixes, Illyas Ahmed and heaps of other under the radar west coast weirdos.

We are also in the process of putting together a Yellow Swans CD with the help of PacRec out of LA. It is a collection of various cassette sides that Yellow Swans have released, including the much appreciated and impossible to find contribution to Humming Lattice Flowers, their split with Skaters.

Speaking of whom, Skaters and Axolotl have just released an awesome split LP, and Inca Ore has just released a major album on 5RC. Check them out...

Speaking of whom, Skaters, Axolotl, and Inca Ore just finished up an epic crawl accross Europe. Joined by fellow traveller Jan Andersen, they pretty much layed down the gauntlet of New Weird etc...

Not suprisingly, Europe was psyched and confused. Italian music magazine BLOW UP put together an article on Skaters, Axolotl, and Yellow Swans under the heading California Haters. If I can find a translation, I promise to post it.

In other news, there are quite a few adventures in the works with summer and fall tours by Spiderwebs, Yellow Swans, Grouper, GOD, and more. More info to follow

GOD & Axolotl interviews + LASTFM

GOD speaks!

http://www.belowpdx.com/god.html

so does AXOLOTL

http://www.mashnote.net/index2.php?page=1

There are some people listening here... note Bobby B's the top dog... er.. bird. Whut?

http://www.last.fm/group/COLLECTIVE+JYRK

Recent Releases..!

All of these releases (with the exception of the GOD cd) are sold out at our end of things, but a good share of them are available at these fine Distributers and Stores...

Aquarius Records
Volcanic Tongue
RRR
Fusetron
and more...
as always email pswans@gmail.com for availability and other ordering info.


THE DEAD WHITE CD-R (jyrk)
"We met Andy when we were on tour with our buddy Spencer.. Andy lives in San Diego and grew up seeing The Skaters and shows at Voltaire..... Totally awesome teen.. I dunno how old he was when I met him.. But I know he's still in high school RIGHT NOW and I met him a few years back... He was doing this project called, "Death Stab" back then... Now he's "The Dead White." I got to see him play for the first time on the Jyrk Jamboree tour in December and his set was totally stunning... I asked him about releasing something and he suggested that I take the tracks from his two CDRs and put togehter one CDR.. so I dug in and I decided to pick all of these tracks of his that were more rock heavy... Lots of guitars on this one.. His whole disc reminds me of Main and the Velvet Underground, The Skaters and fully harsh noise... tons of repetitive riffs, falsetto vocals and total harsh skree..... I wish I was doing this shit in high school... (100 copies)"

IN/FLUX - CRYPTIC CLOAK CD-R (jyrk)
"The first time I met these dudes, we were playing a show in Vancouver, B.C. and this girl that had been doing yoga on the floor rolled up to me and handed me a CDR with an old pinup playing card sewn to the cover... she said 'she's for you... from back when boobs were real....' and then she just rolled off... Shit was totally mysterious.... and the next day, Gabe pulls out his copy of the CDR with this naked dude on it and we put it on... Both of us were totally stunned.. Basically.. it was this CDR by In/Flux called "Hoc-Age." It's total outsider noise if there ever was such a thing.. totally lo-fi and disjointed yelps, guitar skree, lots of unidentifiable things happening... Similar murk to those like The Skaters and Dead C, but the actual identifiable sounds are way different.. maybe something like if the dead C self-titled double disc from a few years back was way more lo-fi and they were super young genderfuckers from canada with a hell of a lot of inspiration and piles of totally shitty gear. "Cryptic Cloak" is a reissue of "Hoc-Age" with additional tracks from the "Metalguests" CDR... (100 copies)"

SPIDERWEBS CD-R (jyrk)
"Tom Carter is one of my favorite dudes in the bay.. totally baffling head on this dude.. intensive skills on his singular guitar vision... Unbelievably kind and humble jammer too.. Awhile back, Gabe and I were talking about putting out stuff for our buddies that aren't the most obscure bands on the west and Tom was the first on the list.. right up there with Damion Romero, Open City, Loren Chasse... Total Killers... Tom's a killer..... Umm.. Here he's paired up with Sally from Weird Weeds.. She's playing guitar too.. and the disc is a totally dense psychic zone out.. probably the heaviest thing from either of these two for ages.. super full and dense guitar bombs. CDRs getting dropped just in time for Tom to hit Terrastock... (200 copies)"

STARVING WEIRDOS - SELF-HYPNOSIS CD-R (jyrk)
"What the fuck are these dudes doing in Vice? I fucking hate that mag! AGH.. Anyway.. these dudes are from NOWHERE.. we played at their pad awhile back and it's amazing.. Huge victorian house in Samoa, ca with crazy woodwork and right on the beach... Total paradise on the road... Anyway.. These dudes dropped a self-released CDR thru Aquarius awhile back and floored just about everyone I know.... then the Root Strata double... but THIS ONE.. I got the stack of CDRs from these dudes that Andee and Jefre snagged and I went thru the whole thing... I got hung up on a few tracks but I wanted to work with bryan Weirdos a bit on em.. so we bounced around some ideas and this is what came of that.. a total monster of a record.. I think it's the best thing I've heard from them... Total murk and gloom from these psychic trekkers. (200 copies of this one)"

+

GOD - ANTI-SEX ANTI-WIRETAPPING CD (jyrk)
"Strange and mutated electroacoustic work from the Portland based Eubanks, here away from his alto and soprano sax work improvising with frequent collaborator percussionist Sundstrom from Super Unity Group. Both are busy musicians, playing under their own names across the country in improvising and electronic festivals. Eubanks in particular is noted for self-designed electronics, feedback machines and tape manipulation. Despite the name the sounds move languildly across unusual terrain, not beating the listener with shrill or defiant tones but rather scratching at the ears while developing curious environments."

NEW RECORDINGS SITE IS UP!!!

Collective Jyrk is pleased to announce a new site where information about current, past, and upcoming JYRK releases will be posted. Over the last few years interest and support for JYRK has developed faster than we were able to anticipate. Not having the means to keep up with the constant releases and quick dissappearance of our stock, we've decided to keep this blog to help get the word out and maintain some kind of archive. We hope it's useful! Please continue to visit www.jyrk.com for updates of our art, videos, and writing.

Thanks,

Gabriel