I may have mentioned Magmatic Septum to some of you away from Obner but most of you won't know what it is. Actually, I'll start by saying what it isn't. It's not a ridiculously insular and incestuous indie record store located in Glasgow. No, it's more like a ridiculously insular and incestuous avant garde record store located in Glasgow.

I'm guesstimating with some abandon here but I reckon they have maybe sold about 78 LPs in the last 10 years and yet this place remains resilient. I've never seen anyone else in it, go into it or come out it. When every other record store is closing down Magmatic Septum goes from strength to strength by somehow circumnavigating capitalist ideas like turning a profit, paying rent or stocking merchandise that there's a demand for. This place is like one big "fuck you" to Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, inventor of modern economics, and funnily enough also of Glasgow.

Anyway the reason I am mentioning them is because someone at Magmatic Septum writes the greatest LP blurbs I've ever read. They are beyond pastiche. It's like Spinal Tap goes to art school.

So let's take a look.

Cassis Cornuta- Krampen Voor Beginners
Label: Ultra Eczema No Cat - LP - £21.99

MAGMATIC SEPTUM SAYS Tiny private edition of only 100 copies LP from Belgium’s legendary Cassis Cornuta: this is a great new collection of cracked electronics and oddball art action with sonics that run the gamut of rewired avant cassette manipulation, feedback crackles, cut-up percussive electro, totally abstruse radio noise, broken instruments, hallucinatory exotica... the sound is somewhere between the Scientific American appeal of the early LAFMS sides, the pause button pleasures of Decaer Pinga/Blood Stereo and that classic oddball/real people appeal of the Belgian fringe. Tiny run, make it fast, limited supply obviously!

Why obviously!? I think you do down the appeal of Mr. Cassis Cornuta! Having said that I don't know about you but when I think of legends Cassis Cornuta isn't one I think of straight off the bat. Mainly because I've never heard of him. I do like the use of the colon though. The references to early LAFMS sides, the pause button pleasures of Decaer Pinga and the oddball/real people appeal of the Belgian fringe really got me interested though. What could be better than that!

Here's 'legendary' Cornuta in action with a sound somewhere between early LAFMS sides, the pause button pleasures of...you get the idea. You might skip over actually playing the video but I really can't urge you enough : (<--- colon use) you really must play this. YOU MUST. I MEAN IT. YOU MUST. Honestly, if you pass over this you have made a very big mistake.



Next!

Enema Syringe - Bögens Massage Institut
Label : Ultra Eczema #34 - LP - £19.99

MAGMATIC SEPTUM SAYS Collection of kindergarten-primitive basement noise, jarring single-note brut, cut-up walkie-talkie compositions, doofy beats and goof-offs on Euro-Industrial DIY oppression from the late Enema Syringe, formed in 1985 by Kai Parviainen and Mats Lundberg. Somewhere between Pianosaurus, German New Wave doom and early TG with a sound based around toy casio synths, rhythm boxes, vocals, tape deck, drummachine and cheap microphones. All tracks rare and unreleased, fully remastered. Cool artwork by Tyfus, complete with liners/discography by Parviainen. Edition of 400 copies. OOP.

Well first of all I feel slightly let down by this blurb because I've actually heard of Pianosaurus. I can't say for sure but I think I probably heard them in 1988 listening to John Peel at 11.47pm on a Thursday evening while drinking a stolen half bottle of Bicardi that I kept hidden in my school bag and playing computer chess on an Amiga with coffee rings all over it. However, unreleased tracks by Enema Syringe more than makes up for that initial disappointment of actually having heard of one of the references. Also 'doofy beats and goof-offs on Euro-Industrial DIY oppression', what's not to like?

Here's Enema Syringe, remember a snip at a penny off £20 for the vinyl!



Onwards and upwards!

Spectre Flux - s/t
Label : Black Velvet Fuckere - C45 Cassette - £7.99

MAGMATIC SEPTUM SAYS We were all pretty much blown away by the Spectre Flux cassettes we stocked at MS last summer and this is another mesmerising set. An album of intense electronic spaceways gush from Mr Pete Nolan (GHQ/Magik Markers/Virgin Eye Blood Brothers/Vanishing Voice), one of his wildest/noisiest to date. A massive sleet of shortwave mindbeams and brain-bombing lo-fi threat. Edition of 100, each wrapped in one of a kind art work rendered by Sproston Abplanalp, age 4.

First of all, what kind of massive prick would put out a record with kids art work? Eh? EH? Hey, I'm only joshing Todd! I'm a funny joker man! Anyway your kids aren't anywhere near that badly named. Fucking Sproston Abplanalp? Just let that sink in for a second. Fuck. Sake. Anyway, accentuate the positive. Putting a superfluous 'e' on the end of Fucker is a master stroke. A fuckereing master stroke. And we were all pretty much blown away by those cassettes, weren't we? All of us. Every man jack of us. The fact that I can't find a single thing about Spectre Flux on YouTube just goes to show how under rated they really are. Sigh. Oh world, when will you catch up? I feel sorry for them. Bovine masses with their mainstream bullshit Happy Flowers records. I pity them.

I could go on and on but I'm sure you had your share a while back and at Magmatic Septum, the blurbs never end.

How much sharper than a serpent's tooth! Foul enough! Begone!

Great work here.

I've been needing to get my pause button pleasure fix.

IF YOU LIKED CASSIUS CORNUTIA, ENEMA SYRINGE, SPECTRE FLUX, YOU MAY LIKE THESE.

Various Artists -Super Street 7: How To Make Brains
Fag Tapes FT-052 - C60 Cassette - £4.99

MAGMATIC SEPTUM SAYS The Fag Tapes cultus staggers mindlessly on with a classy Roger Corman-style exploito compilation of supremely degraded live filth from a bucket full of contemporary actionists: Luasa Raelon (stars of that great Hive Mind collab), Odd Clouds, Taliban, Fe-Mail and the always killing Charlie Draheim. Comes with a blob of goo on the inside fer a change, so yr collection has a better chance of staying intact. Highly recommended as ever. Edition of 77 copies.

For £4.99 you get a tape and a blob of goo? Madness, I tell you. Must be a loss leader. Big stores do this sometimes to get people in.

Steve Baczkowski - Tone Arm
Cae-Sur-A 002 - Cassette £8.99

Hand-numbered edition of 100 copies set of radical tonal freak from saxophonist Steve Baczkowski: a radical departure for Steve, with a torrential accumulation of fucked turntable tectonics, prepared vinyl, tone arm, bells, implements, flutes, vibratube and that colossal baritone attack. Massive.

Vibratube you say?

Mats Gustafsson - Mat G Plays Duke E
Qbico Epsilon - One-Sided Art Edition LP - £29.99

One-sided art edition LP in a run of 99 copies, because of the handmade nature the corners are slightly dented. This one presents a bunch of disparate – and often barely recognisable - approaches to the work of Duke Ellington by powerhouse saxophonist Mats Gustafsson that range from soft, melodic re-thinks that squeeze spectral nuance from elastic melodic fragments through overloaded electronic assaults, the sound of syncopated valves and all-our grunt/thunder aggression. Gustafsson plays tenor sax and live electronics.

Oh Magmatic Septum! Silly! I think I can live with a few dented corners when the LP in question has elastic melodic fragments.

Colorguard & Ashley Paul - Secr's Lip/The Places
Male Bonding #1 - Cassette - £8.99

Hand-numbered edition of only 50 copies split cassette: all female flip, with weirdo sound art/frail pop instants from Paul and prepared turntables, loops and junk hypnosis from Kryssi Battalene.

Just 50 copies? Do you think that will be enough?

Chalaque - Switching Center
Golden Lab Records ROWF-44 - LP - £16.99

Blazing edition of only 100 copies ultra-crude basement scuzz summit from Nick Mitchell’s amazing UK power trio w/silkscreened sleeves: joined by Dylan Hughes on bass and Pascal Nichols (Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides) on drums, Mitchell leads the group through the kind of dissolving steel string heavens that would render a Siltbreeze-scale destructo re-think on the kind of primal ecstasies of Sonny Sharrock circa Black Women or even an unholy Groundhogs take on the opening moments of “All Tomorrow’s Parties” modelled on Harry Pussy’s demolition of Kraftwerk’s “Showroom Dummies”. Two sidelong tracks – “I’ve Got The Control Room At The Teatro Della Pergola” and “I’ve Got The Father Of The Modern Synthesizer” – both recorded direct to Mitchell’s phone (!) make it sound like they have the father of the modern synthesizer kidnapped and secreted in a windowless room while they set out to single-handedly destroy the concept of the non-guitar-based future of rock and roll. Some great smears of wah wah here and Mitchell’s tone has an even bluesier feel – even a touch of country honk - thanks to the no-count fidelity, at points spilling over into the drooling sheets of sound feel of a John Coltrane>John McLaughlin while Nichols gains a little of Denis Charles’s loose, pugilistic style. Hughes derails and redirects the music at will with sudden bass nudges and key changes that reflect on Motorhead as much as Fushitsusha, which almost makes this the insane Motorhead/Peter Brotzmann free music face-off that Bill Laswell attempted but failed to orchestrate back in the day. No one is doing more for the future of the guitar as sonic reducer in the UK than Nick Mitchell and this is another thrilling finger in the eye to tabletop ‘performance’. Make your move – very highly recommended!

Maybe you missed it in that maelstrom of words but they "have the father of the modern synthesizer kidnapped and secreted in a windowless room while they set out to single-handedly destroy the concept of the non-guitar based future of rock and roll." Hey, Chalaque, if you don't quite manage that at least try and put Kasabian out of business. If you do, I will personally suck every one of your cocks.