Recent mailbox arrivals from Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald, Sandy Bull, Vanishing Twin, and Ø.

Although the basic machinations that occur behind the scenes of the In Sheep’s Clothing Record Club are easy enough to understand, each month when the mail lady walks down the driveway with a perfectly packaged Twisterbox mailer, magic still seems like a key part of the process. As if enabled by some ISC HQ crystal ball, the two mystery records become obsessions, inspirations, go-tos, secret weapons, curatorial ammo. Each record is a portal into a scene or sound, and one of the infinite brooks that washes into the musical stream. Those who think they’ve heard it all haven’t even come close, the record club argues.

It’s happened again and again, far too many times to discount. Below, a glimpse into one subscriber’s recent additions.

Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald/Borderland – Transport

This 2015 collaboration for Berlin label Tresor, the sequel to a 2013 album, represents a powerful convergence between two of techno’s most influential figures: Detroit’s Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald, co-founder of the renowned Berlin dub techno project Basic Channel. I’m a freak for both, and completely missed their records as Borderland when they first came out. Von Oswald, trained as a classical percussionist, initially worked with Basic Channel co-founder Mark Ernestus on productions that explored bass, rhythm, and texture, which after Basic Channel ceased releasing stuff led to the formation of Rhythm & Sound. Atkins, one of the founding fathers of Detroit techno, combined influences from Kraftwerk, Parliament-Funkadelic, and Chicago house in the early 1980s to manifest a futuristic sound defined by mechanized rhythms. Akin to Mozart and Haydn getting together to create a pair of symphonies — sure, hyperbole — Borderland is a vast, minimalist meeting of geniuses featuring the kind of restraint earned through decades of track composition.

Sandy Bull – Still Valentine’s Day 1969

After the brilliant folk guitarist Sandy Bull went electric in the late 1960s, he landed at the Matrix in San Francisco for a series of performances captured on this double LP. The venue was a perfect platform for Bull and other experimental folkies in the 1960s, and Still Valentine’s Day 1969 captures Bull exploring the outer reaches of his electric guitar and oud improvs, which blended folk, jazz, and world music influences. Recently reissued by the great New York label No Quarter, this posthumous release features two sublimely meditative sets, the first of which features him on a recently purchased electric guitar, the second of him switching from guitar to an oud.

Ø – Ølento

Ø is Mika Vanio, one half of the Finnish duo Pan Sonic (with Ilpo Väisänen). Formed in 1993 as Panasonic — predictable corporate litigation forced them to drop an “a” — the pair built spacious, echoey pieces that felt as imposing as Richard Serra sculptures. Featuring heavy, distorted beats and sub-bass frequencies made on mostly custom-built analog synths and effects, Pan Sonic’s six albums across 15 years will push your system to its outer limits. As Ø, Vanio released Ølento in 1996, between Pan Sonic’s first and second albums. Opening track “Oleva” sets the tone as a kind of Zen koan: the sound of a stylus landing on a scratchy record begets an eerie music box melody that, after a few beguiling moments, is overcome by a mechanistic hum. The off-kilter bumps that propel “Throb-S” move like a drunk driver down windy residential corridor.

Vanishing Twin – The Age of Immunology

As someone who’s been on a Broadcast and Stereolab kick for the past few months, finally having the vinyl version of Vanishing Twin’s 2019 classic is a kind of comfort. ISC’s Phil Cho interviewed VT percussionist Valentina Magaletti earlier this year, which tipped me to her amazing world, but committing to vinyl hadn’t been a priority. That’s changed. “The aesthetic of Vanishing Twin has always been inspired by Fluxus, Dada, and Bauhaus. We’re suckers for that sort of thing, and it’s what we love,” Magaletti told us. The best news: Magaletti said more Vanishing Twin music is in the pipeline: “More albums and it’ll be more and more experimental.”

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