If you’d like to read some more about the album and sample a few tracks from the Complete Sessions (available as a download with the CD — almost 6 hours of music) you can do so here on Pitchfork, Exclaim, and The Post Rock (Deutsch).

And here are some photos highlighting Matt Smith‘s delightful illustrations:

In other release news, my (other) new solo album Closure Axioms is now available from Miskatonic Sound Lab and Nadja‘s The Bungled & The Botched has been newly re-issued on CD by Consouling Sounds (it’ll be in our webstore later this week).

And lastly some tourdates:

Nadja will be heading off to Japan in a few weeks for a few shows with our Important Records labelmates, Vampillia:

28-01-12: Shibuya O-Nest, Tokyo
29-01-12: Unagidani Sunsui, Osaka
01-02-12: Club Quatro, Hiroshima
02-02-12: Voodoo Lounge, Fukuoka
03-02-12: Wakayama, Rub Luck Cafe
05-02-12: Soup, Tokyo (AB solo show only)

More info and tickets here.

And in February, I will be doing a solo tour with the UK trio A-Sun Amissa:

15-02-12: West Germany, Berlin, DE
16-02-12: Astrostube, Hamburg, DE
17-02-12: Christuskirke, Bochum, DE
18-02-12: (H)ear, Heerlen, NL
19-02-12: DB’s, Utrecht, NL
20-02-12: Waggon, Offenbach, DE
21-02-12: Komma, Esslingen, DE
22-02-12: tba
23-02-12: L’inventaire, Le Mans, FR
24-02-12: L’espace B, Paris, FR
25-02-12: Le Plané Ari Home, Wanquetin, FR

Exclaim
Pitchfork
The Post Rock

And in the meantime, here’s something to tide you over while you’re waiting for The Spectrum of Distraction to come out:

Mac McNeily (The Jesus Lizard), Ted Parsons (Swans, Godflesh, Jesu, Prong, & many others), David Dunnett (Ca Va Mal), Brandon Valdivia (Picastro), Richard Baker (ARC), Victor Cirone, Jakob Thiesen (Whisper Room, Nadja), Thor Harris (The Angels of Light, Shearwater, Swans), Geoff Summers (Batillus), Alessandro Curvaia (Shora), Simon Scott (Slowdive), Steven Hess (Locrian, Panamerican), Bruno Dorella (OvO), H. Walker (Kerretta), Andrew Crawshaw, Kevin Micka (Animal Hospital), Phil Petrocelli (Jesu, Great Falls, Grey Machine), & myself.

The album is available for pre-order from Robotic Empire here. The 2CD also comes with a download card for the complete, unedited sessions that made up this album — almost 6 hours of music! You can stream the ‘first’ track from the album, “At War With The Evil Power Master” (drums by Phil Petrocelli), here on my Bandcamp page:

(Obviously, these tracks should flow seamlessly together, which they don’t in the stream, but hopefully it’ll give you an idea what to expect)

The artwork for the album is by Matt Smith, whose work you may recognize from Nadja’s covers album, When I See The Sun Always Shines On TV.

09-11-11: Six Dogs, Athens, GR
10-11-11: Stage Performances, Larissa, GR
11-11-11: 1ος Όροφος, Thessaloniki, GR
12-11-11: La Kaña, Skopje, MK
13-11-11: CK13, Novi-Sad, SRB
14-11-11: Irish & Music Pub, Cluj-Napoca, RO
15-11-11: Trafik Klub, Budapest, HU
16-11-11: Tvornica Kulture, Zagreb, CR
17-11-11: Menza Pri Koritu, Ljubljana, SL

And then back to Berlin for a show with fellow Canadian ex-pat, [sic]:

23-11-11: Marie Antoinette’s, Berlin, DE

And finally off to a festival on an island out in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal:

02-12-11: Madeiradig Festival, Madeira, PT

Nadja:
19-10-11: Revolver, Oslo, Norway
30-10-11: Propoganda, Vilnius, Lithuania

Aidan Baker:
20-20-11: Brugata, Oslo, Norway
28-10-11: Zemlika Festival, Durbe, Latvia

I will be performing my composition Liminoid at the Zemlika Festival with the Sinfonietta Riga String Quartet and The Burning Kulba. You can stream the piece at the above link (although of course this performance might sound completely different, since it will be an entirely different group of players [apart from me, of course]).

Also, my new lp Plague of Fantasies and live cd Green Figures (w/ Kevin Micka aka Animal Hospital on drums) are now available in our webstore (and digitally at above links).

05-10-11: Nice & Sleazy, Glasgow, UK (AB)
06-10-11: Islington Mill, Manchester, UK (AB)
07-10-11: Chameleon, Notthingham, UK (AB)
09-10-11: The Prince Albert, Brighton, UK (AB)
10-10-11: The Hare & The Hound, Birmingham, UK (N)
11-10-11: Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester, UK (N)
12-10-11: Cafe Oto, London, UK (N)

And in release new, there are three new AB releases:

From Treue Um Treue, Bach Eingeschaltet – Vierter Band, a 7″ featuring guitar interpretations of two of Bach’s pieces for solo cello.

From Blackest Rainbow, Plague of Fantasies, a 12″ of ambient/drone/collage.

And from Basses Frequences, Green Figures, a cd featuring a live performance at Casa del Popolo in Montreal, featuring Kevin Micka (aka Animal Hospital) on drums.

I will have these releases available on my upcoming shows. Once we are back from touring, they will be up in the webstore. Though if you can’t wait, you can get them digitally at my Bandcamp page, or direct from the labels of course…

As incentive, here’s a free downloadable 2-track EP of techno/electronica-ish music (living in Berlin is rubbing off):

The Drone Compendium is a 6LP series (7 for subscribers) featuring music by me &/or various musical projects with which I am or have been involved. You can read more about it in this earlier post here, in case you missed it.

& you can stream &/or download Pure Drone here:

“In einem perfekten, tief texturierten, bassbetonten Sound; körperlich, fast greifbar. So, dass man sich wünscht, die Platte würde nie aufhören. Egal, welche der beiden Seiten.”
– ThePostRock

This cd reissue was remastered by James Plotkin & features brand new artwork by Kevin Gan Yuen. The release is available both in a regular edition & a special, limited handmade box edition, which includes artwork & a bonus disc of previously unreleased AB demos & recordings from the early 1990s:

Both versions of the album are currently available from Essence Music or from the Broken Spine webstore. The album can be streamed &/or downloaded (lossless or mp3) here:

“I would not advise this record to someone who can be easily affected. A great release, then – but only if you’re trained in keeping coolness when the brain suggests strange things: for many, the noise of silence is unbearable. That’s when they start doing damage.”
- Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes