A cold wind blows over the dunes. Guitars stretch the sands in every direction, a coyote howls at twin moons, and you’re miles from anywhere. You’re the Dust Commander, and you’ve just begun your descent with VERMA, the latest offering from Chicago’s Plustapes. A five-piece bent equally on bristling psychedelic squall and crusty kraut-rock, VERMA emerged in the wake of instrumental group A Company and monthly improvisational collective Remember the Maine. The result is a five-song psychedelic sandstorm recorded straight to tape for yer listenin’ pleasure. Indulge in the oasis of echoing drones and reverberating vocals. Indulge in VERMA. Features members of and people who have played for David Vandervelde, 1900’s, Officer Down, and Via Tania, to name just a few.

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“Verma are an exciting new Chicago psych rock band. This, their debut tape, is full of mostly instrumental (with some buried femme vocals scattered here and there). The A-side is tranced out, drone-y, repetitious, atmospheric psych with some Hawkwind-esque synth textures over the top. Dare we compare them to an instrumental hybrid fo Can and Hawkwind? We dare. The B-side toughens up a bit and gets more motorik and driving not terribly dissimilar from some of the earliest Cave “Jamz”. Fuckin’ A!” ~ Permanent Records

Price w/shipping

USA $6.00 Canada $7.00 World $10.00

“Outer Minds take the sounds of garage rock’s first wave—twangy, Brian Jones-y guitars, off-kilter vocal melodies—and filter them through enough reverb to give their songs a diaphanous, dreamlike quality, like a transistor radio playing oldies from across an empty warehouse.” ~Miles Raymer

“This band used to be called Sang Des Loups, a name you might recall from some degree of Victim of Time hype-spew in the past. A couple gals on tambourine, organ and back-ups, guitar player from Black Beauties, the legendary A-Ron on bass and none other than Sweet Ronnie Coz on the kit. Four-song EP of jangly and kinda dark Jones-Stones rocking, easy-on-the-ears garage-twang, lots of gang chorusing and harmonizing, a bit of Sixties-echo and drawl. Mature rock. Short and sweet, I’m sure they have a single coming out on HozAc at some point.” ~ Terminal Boredom

“Their tape has a twangy garage pop sound enhanced by multi-part nice boy / girl harmonies and melodies reminiscent of the Vivian Girls dueting with the Black Lips. ” ~Permanent Records

“Chicago’s Outer Minds (with Mary from The Runnies on keys) play 60’s garage pop with early Pink Floyd leanings. You know, before Floyd started employing saxophones and back-up singers and boring the shit out of me.” ~daily diversion

Price w/shipping

USA $6.00 Canada $7.00 World $10.00

PT40 – Sundancer – The Music And Language of Wolves
Limited edition of 76
Special edition of 24 house inside a taxidermied wolf head.
All hand painted unique, pro-dubbed.

Sundancer’s “Music and Language of Wolves” is an epic beast of a tape, and a spectacular art piece to boot. Each copy of the tape was hand painted and is completely unique. Sometimes we come up with some whacked out ideas, and for this tape, we decided to do part of the run as a special edition. And to us, there’s no better way to package a tape about wolves, than inside of an actual wolf. Yes that’s right, 24 of these bad boys will come wrapped inside of an actual taxidermied wolf face.

Price w/shipping

USA $6.00 Canada $7.00 World $10.00

Exile plays samples like instruments — stripping them down to the core and tapping out new melodies and rhythms. But there’s a twist: this album was sampled entirely from FM radio in Los Angeles. Commercials, jingles, call-ins, cheesy smooth jazz, late night battle raps, pop songs; they have all been artfully munged into catchy instrumental hip hop jams and interludes sometimes with a political or spiritual message. FM radio today is a strange corporate beast and this album exploits that beast, leaving no stone unturned. Originally released on Plug Research, now on Plustapes cassette!

Price w/shipping

USA $6.00 Canada $7.00 World $10.00

PT39 – Exile – AM/FM
limited edition of 200
pro-dubbed

The perfect companion piece to Exile’s “Radio”, “AM/FM” takes the chop shop aesthetic of its counter part to new levels. A cadre of guests artists, including Shafiq Husayn, Free The Robots, Aloe Blacc, Grouch and Eligh, Fashawn, and Clutch Hopkins reinterpret, reimagine and and reconstitute the original tracks, sometimes adding new vocals and instrumentation. The end result is nothing short of stunning.

Price w/shipping

USA $6.00 Canada $7.00 World $10.00

Exile Combo pack – buy both tapes and save on shipping!

Price w/shipping

USA $10.00 Canada $12.00 World $18.00

We’ve got a brand new tape by the band Distractions, and they’re going on a tour to the East coast. To kick it all off, they’re playing The Empty Bottle on June 3. Also on the bill are Bird Names, Zelienople, and Ken Camden, so it should be a really excellent night overall. Especially since it’s only $5. If you’re into getting tickets early, you can do that at The Empty Bottle’s website.

We’ll have the tapes available at the show

DISTRACTIONS TOUR

06/03 Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
06/04 Kalamazoo, MI – House Show
06/05 Toronto, ON – Teranga
06/07 Burlington, VT – Other Music Festival at North End Studios
06/08 Somerville, MA – PA’s Lounge
06/09 Philadelphia, PA – The Fire
06/10 Brooklyn, NY – Union Pool
06/11 New York, NY – Pianos NYC
06/12 Cleveland, OH – The Cool Ranch

People associate music with geography. Bands are often lumped with cities, and while some may argue this is solely because of a particular “hip scene”, Chicago’s Distractions actually portray the reality of Midwest big city living in their deep space tones, jangling chords, and thick vocals.

It’s not to say they aren’t part of a scene in the Windy City. Distractions have proven themselves to be an honest, creative, and downright innovative band, thus garnering respect and adoration across Chicagoland.

But here I must stop. It would be unfair to sing Distractions public praises not because they come unearned, but because the band’s real power and importance lies in the trenches of thoughtful song composition, powerful musicianship, total originality, and – of course – healthy Midwest mindsets.

Tom Owens, principal singer and songwriter, doesn’t fight to be different. Instead, he pushes towards an honesty in music that seems to have fallen short as of late. While their myspace claims an “R&B/Lounge/Surf” description, in actuality, Distractions drive towards a multitude of genres unabashedly and comfortably. A dash of British Invasion, a healthy dose of Brian Wilson, equal parts post-punk and 70’s pop rock all filtered through an outer space, Spector-esque wall of sound. Owens has assembled a group of sonic wizards behind his pleasingly bizarre sorcery, creating a completely original Chicago sound.

Take a song like “Please Slow Down,” off their self-titled debut. A song about aging, it builds with intense force, bouncing between frustration, joy, and sorrow with seamless ease. When the song springs into frenzy, Owens belts with conviction “Remember this when you’re older, everything used to be OK.” And you want to believe him, but the lyrics don’t ask to be believed. Instead “Please Slow Down” cracks open a truth about life that language can’t quite capture. – a truth bled through noisy guitars, 60’s psychedelics, and mature seamless song writing. It’s the whole package – the vocals and lyrics melt into the sonic landscape Distractions call Chicago. It’s something eerie, distinctive, and interesting: good music.

Price w/shipping

USA $6.00 Canada $7.00 World $10.00

Artist: N/A
Title: NETWORK ISSUE #1
Catalog #: HNNET1
Format: MAGAZINE
Label: HANSON
Edition: 50 copies

New magazine filled with nothing but advertisements of noise/industrial/experimental/avant bands/labels/distros/etc… from back in the \’pre-internet\’ days. 32 pages featuring 63 classic adverts culled from old issues of Unsound, Forced Exposure, Grok, Chemical Castration, Sound Choice and more… Includes a sick and totally obscene double sided centeRRRfold!!! Mag is full size 8-1/2 x 11 with cardstock covers… 100% xeroxed for maximum old school effect. First edition of 50 copies. More issues coming VERY SOON!

THE HATERS – WIND LICKED DIRT – CASS

Second release in the ‘HANSON RECORDS CLASSIC ALBUM REISSUE SERIES’! For the first time ever on cassette is this 1988 classic of true NOISE! THIS TAPE IS PLAYED BY RUBBING DIRT IN IT! No stereo is needed! Long out of print on LP and CD…now available again as a C-0 packaged in a plastic bag with real dirt!

When Blood Operatives came out in 2005 on the Sun City Girls own Abduction label, it was the first Alvarius B. full-length release in 7 years. It is a collection of songs seemingly based on actual, but unnamed, shady characters of the global underworld past and present. Regardless of intent, this is cryptic folk music of the highest order, with several tracks employing folk/rock/psych orchestrations featuring the talents of Eyvind Kang, Tim Young, Richard Bishop, Andrew McGinnis and Randall Dunn. Twisted Americana folklore breeds with baroque Italian cinematic pop, dark ballads, and vagrant story lines. Eleven unique and varied tracks and the most “produced” Alvarius B. record to date.

Originally released as a limited edition one-time pressing of 1000 vinyl LPs on Abduction this criminally out of print rarity is now presented on Plustapes for your cassette loving enjoyment.

Side A
1. Evil Next to Blue
2. Mr. 786
3. Slim 293
4. The Demon 360
5. Dracula Frizzi

Side B
1. Dirty Angels
2. Ballad of Colonel Fawcett
3. Sometimes Like a Man
4. Missy Undertaker
5. The Feel
6. Shenandoah

Press

The sounds on Blood Operatives of the Barium Sunset (Bishop’s second album under this moniker, and the first one he’s released in seven years) will be familiar to those who enjoy the outsider music of today, but it’s unlike any other record this year and most others. It’s not the only album to evoke isolation, deep emotion, unlit corners and general unease. But it is the only one that tamps down certain elements of the Girls’ music – in particular the histrionic screed-yelling hobo stonk conspiracy-theorist glare that surfaced on their Kaliflower and Jacks Creek albums, then never really went away – into a more listenable, thematic whole, while losing none of what made that music jarring and venomous in the first place. ~ Doug Mosurock, Dusted Magazine

It’s chaos around Plustapes/Addenda HQ. We’re up to our eyeballs in new releases, which is definitely not something we’re complaining about.

There’s three new plustapes releases at the plant as we speak, and they should be here soon! We’re just far too stoked not tell you what they are.

First up is a full length by Chicago’s Distractions

And then….breaking from our hot streak of Chicago artists, we are absolutely insanely excited to be able to present to you a cassette reissue of Alvarius B’s Blood Operatives of the Barium Sunset

And if you’re into the whole Chicago garage scene (and who isn’t?) then you’re going to absolutely love the new tracks by Outer Minds

As if all that wasn’t enough, later in the year we’ll be releasing two tapes by Exile

Also keep your grapes peeled for announcement of our next full length LP on Addenda!!!

We promise to tell you more about that soon. Hot Damn, 2010 is AMAZING!!!!