Header Banner Made with MyBannerMaker.com! Click here to make your own! Make your own banner at MyBannerMaker.com!Sonic Oyster Records was set up in April 2006 by Andrew Paine.
Recent Discography
2009
The Great Level (SOR24) Richard Youngs & Andrew Paine
New limited collaborative album from Youngs and Paine, on Paine’s own Sonic Oyster imprint. This set is a little more subtle than previous installments, with two short tracks based around flickering vocals, delicate electronic melodies and puffs of flute giving way to a long piano/fuzz guitar instrumental that would reconcile Mazzacane-style overdriven string action with lugubrious single note melodies. (Volcanic Tongue)."
Panegyric Territories: Volume 1 (SOR23) ILK
"Hand-numbered edition of 100 copies: new album from the psych/prog rock project of Richard Youngs and Andrew Paine. This one blasts into life with an incredible noise guitar solo from Richard that explodes the whole Sharrock/Haino school of electric satori before fading into a beautiful, acoustic arpeggio-led acid folk hymn illuminated by keyboard drones and penny whistle that would have sat perfectly on the second Ghost album. Second track features oracular spoken word over bass dooms and chaos percussion before fading into a droning, dead-air broadcast with more disembodied vox. I still rate “The Point Of Heaven†as the single greatest Ilk performance but this might be their most fully realized album. Highly recommended (Volcanic Tongue)."
2008
Third Day of Ragg (SOR22) Andrew Paine - OUT OF PRINT
Collodion Positives: Volume 4 (SOR21) Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs
"New limited CD-R on Sonic Oyster from Youngs and Paine, the fourth instalment in their on-going Collodion Positives series. This one forsakes the whole electrified 70s Miles feel of the earlier instalments for a tougher, heavier more overtly ‘progressive’ stance. Each track is named after one of the players’ ‘favourite’ prog/rock groups while attempting to tie the particular vibration to the mode of the dedicatee’s music. That the dedications run through Utopia, Journey, UFO, Dire Straits, REO Speedwagon, Mountain, Focus and Heart is as terrifying as it is confusing. Features a guest appearance by synth wunderkind Sorley Youngs. (Volcanic Tongue)"
English Channel (SOR20) Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs
"Brand new pitch-black live séance style from the duo of Richard Youngs and Andrew Paine. Recorded with an armoury of unknown instrumentation sprawled around a room in the dark and then overdubbed with vocals without reference to the first recordings, this one combines the logic of the classic Durian Durian side with a much creepier, low-level ritualistic atmosphere featuring Paine and Youngs gargling wordless chants like electrified monks while bells, small instruments and thick, hovering silence builds to a crescendo of black-on-black. Very psychedelic. (Volcanic Tongue)"
Snapshots of Rural England (SOR19) Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs
"Bizarre new limited release from the duo of Richard Youngs and Andrew Paine: Snapshots… has little to do with English traditional music, as the title might suggest, but rather follows on from the weird dystopian/Industrial sci-fi environs of the previous Roman Concrete, with vocals like numbers stations, Nurse With Wound-style barren drone environs, submerged environmental recordings and concrete sine wave hypnosis. Features voice, electric guitar, harmonica, ring modulator, sine and square waves. One of the most disturbed and disturbing releases in the Youngs catalogue for sure. (Volcanic Tongue)"
Hot Canyon Butter (SOR18) Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs
"New limited collaboration CD on Paine’s own imprint from Richard Youngs and Andrew Paine. Nothing like anything these two have done before, this one crosses drum machines, wah-bass, stylophone, harmonica, percussion, guitar and keyboards to birth an odd electro-punk upstart, with aspects of UK DIY outfits like Storm Bugs et al alongside punk takes on 70s Miles, skewed auto-destructive keyboard shuffles and insistent minimalist motifs. (Volcanic Tongue)"
Language of the Court (SOR17) Ilk
"Language Of The Court is the third full-length from the duo of Richard Youngs and Andrew Paine. Ilk functions as the pair’s ‘tribute’ to progressive rock but it more than transcends any notion of pastiche or send-up due to the quality of the song-writing and the punk-primitive execution. Ilk has long been the repository for some of Youngs’ most fully-realised experiments in songform and Language Of The Court features some of his most beautiful works. Most tracks situate Richard’s vocals way up front, with his boisterous singing style supported by fuzz guitar, drones, 12 string acoustic, keyboards, penny whistle, electric bass, percussion and – of course – narration. They really succeed in capturing that mythical never-land feel of the most ostentatiously progressive concept albums while keeping things deeply DIY, with ragged live jams serving as the basis of most tracks. But it’s the songs and the vocals that will keep you coming back, with some of Richard’s most affecting performances to date. Highly recommended."(VT)
Collodion Positives: Volume 3 (SOR16) Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs
"New 2008 third volume of this on-going collaboration series between Youngs and fellow Ilk member Andrew Paine, released in a limited run on Paine’s own Sonic Oyster Records. The sound here seems focussed more towards late-60s/early-70s electric jazz, with keyboards pushed to the fore and basslines rendered with the kind of squonk quotient that sounds most like On The Corner-era Miles Davis or some of the wiggier, plugged in Sun Ra material. Richard plays shakuhachi, electric bass guitar, percussion and keyboards. Andrew plays electric guitar, electric bass guitar and keyboards. (VT)."
2007
A Glasgow Wassail (SOR15) - Various Artists - OUT of PRINT
Treenails (SOR14) - Andrew Paine & Alistair Crosbie
"Very beautiful limited release from two of Glasgow’s premier bedroom avantists, the best of their collaborations to date. Sounding quite unlike anything these two have done before, Treenails is a beautiful, lugubrious setting of melancholy piano works that sounds somewhere between the lost-afternoon feel of solo Matt Krefting and Christina Carter and the lonesome atmospherics of the Vikki Jackman/Andrew Chalk material. There are glissing single notes so irradiated with subtle F/X that they almost sound transparent and little honeyed, awkward Feldman/Partch-esque melodies that appear to hang suspended in mid-air somewhere deep within the most subliminal aspects of the mix. It’s a very beautiful creation and a landmark UK primitive/drone record in much the same way that John Clyde Evans’s [For: ht/rp/j&s] was all those years ago." (VT)
Collodion Positives: Volume 2 (SOR13) - Richard Youngs & Andrew Paine
"This one picks up on the more abstract fourth world free jazz and improvisation style of volume one, with Paine on acoustic guitar, electric bass, piano and keyboards and Youngs on shakuhachi, percussion, harmonica and glockenspiel. There’s still a touch of The Sea Ensemble to the way breath and small single tones are combined in subtly psychedelic patterns and some of Youngs’ shakuhachi work touches on the exploratory moves of Sabu Orimo but it’s all pretty singular, with stately, slow moving pieces that have a nicely stoned/hallucinatory Gamelan feel." (VT)
Mekonium Reaktor(SOR12) - Andrew Paine
"Excellent new solo guitar album from frequent Richard Youngs collaborator Andrew Paine. This is one huge laminal guitar construct that takes off on a vaguely Keith Rowe-esque tangent of bowed/e-bowed guitar strings before the sizzle of lead guitar and the gravity of overloaded pick-ups fixes the whole thing to the ceiling in a mass of competing fuzz architectures. Definitely a touch of Matthew Bower to the delirious high-end shots at heaven feel of the more rock-informed passages but there are also hints of Keiji Haino, Mazzacane Connors and even the flashing Industrial stasis of MEV." (VT)
Rock Traveller(SOR11) - Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs
"Electrocuting bass/guitar psych monoliths that are as fuzz-fixated as Sound Of Confusion-era Spacemen 3, Skullflower-esque hurricane rhythms and extended trance-inducing feedback/electronic hoverings."(VT)
The Starling Post (SOR10) - Andrew Paine
"Looks back to his first ever release with a set of traditional folk songs given a psychedelic overhaul using shortwave radio, harmonica, singing bowl, kazoo and electric guitar. Features deep, tranced takes on material like "God Bless The Master", "The Unquiet Grave", "The Whitby Lad", "Bonny Cuckoo" and more."(VT)
Blue Fires(SOR09) - Andrew Paine - OUT of PRINT
Roman Concrete: Volume I (SOR08) - Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs
"Here the duo use vocals, guitar, keyboards and programming to launch a series of eight intensely detailed paranoiac sci-fi fantasies that sound somewhere between early Nurse With Wound (with the combination of cut-up malevolent vocals and deep-field drones evoking work circa Homotopy To Marie in particular), the more electronic prog stylings of Ilk, early Youngs vocal pieces like the Train Tickets/Postage Stamps series, Creel Pone-esque experiments in concrete sound, Steve Reich’s Different Trains, Throbbing Gristle, harsh power tone and nightmarish, almost Disinformation-styled electronic hypnosis. Easily one of the darkest, evocative and plain weird releases from Youngs and Paine to date."(VT)
After Solstice Days (SOR07) - Andrew Paine
"Some very heavy proto-Japanese string fluxing here, from stinging acid-peak leads through watery, sub-aqueous tones and full-on amp humping, this is a thrilling ride from start to finish."(VT)
2006
The Memory Plain (SORO6) – Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs - OUT of PRINT
Forest of Swords (SOR05) – Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs - OUT OF PRINT
Phosphorous (SOR04) – Andrew Paine & Alistair Crosbie - OUT of PRINT
1958 (SOR03) – Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs - OUT OF PRINT
Santos (SOR02) – Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs - OUT OF PRINT
Collodion Positives: Volume 1 (SOR01) – Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs - OUT OF PRINT
All titles available from Volcanic Tongue (volcanictongue.com), Fusetron Records (fustronsound.com),Monorail Music(www.monorailmusic.com), Time-Lag Records (www.time-lagrecords.com) and eclipse-records(www.eclipse-records.com)
Zenith - ILK (NO FANS)
First ILK album, released in 1998 on Richard Youngs No Fans label. Available through SOR for £4.00.This album was conceived whilst journeying through and across the West Coast of Scotland, Summer 1997.All titles written by Paine / Youngs.Richard plays bass guitars, classical guitar, flute, keyboard, sleighbells, violin and voice.No mellotrons were harmed during the recording of this album.
Coming Next
Earth Rod - Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs (SOR24)
PAYPAL
The CDR releases cost 4GBP each.
IMPORTANT - as CDRs can be copied very easily, SOR does not offer a money-back guarantee but we will, of course, replace faulty product. NEW POSTAGE & PAYPAL INFORMATION - CDRS - In the UK, please add 50p towards p&p for one disc, £1 for 2 or more. Outside the UK, please add £1 towards p&p for one disc, £2 for 2 or more.
I always get proof of posting for my parcels but I cannot be held responsible for anything that goes missing in the mail - UK customers can add 85p onto the total cost for recorded delivery if they wish. Overseas customer’s who want insurance etc on their parcels, contact me in advance to arrange this. If you require a quantity of any title(s), please contact me.
Paypal is preferred - the address is sonicoysterrecords (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk. This is also the address if you wish to make contact for any other reason or you can message me here.
