You could certainly call us pleased to announce the imminent release of Musique Fragile Volume 02, the second in our series of limited-edition, artwork-intensive box sets featuring three full-length albums by three different artists. (See here for a refresher on Volume 01.)

Contributors to Volume 02 are:

KANADA 70 • Vamp Ire
PACHA • Affaires Étrangères
HANGEDUP & TONY CONRAD • Transit Of Venus
 
The set will be available June 26 on heavyweight vinyl and as a digital bundle. The vinyl set will be limited to 500 hand-numbered copies, lovingly designed and hand-assembled, available for pre-order here:
 
3×180gLP • PRE-ORDER
 
Each LP comes in its own jacket accompanied by a pull-out poster, and all three albums are housed in a lovely screenprinted slipcover box (pictured above). Records are pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl and the box, jackets and posters are all screenprinted by Jesse Purcell at Repetitive Press.

Brief descriptions of the albums are included below; for the full run-down check our release page. Over the next three weeks we’ll be revealing album-specific artwork and some free MP3s, but for now check out this mixtape that features a half hour of music pulled from all three albums….
 
 

 
As always, thanks for listening.
 
 
Kanada 70 is the home-recording project of Toronto’s Craig Dunsmuir (known for his work as one half of Glissandro 70 (with Sandro Perri) and as an encyclopedic musicologist on staff at Toronto’s Soundscapes). Vamp Ire spans a wide range of influences, from abstract techno, industrial and noise music to prog-rock, African funk, no wave and metal, and opens a compelling window to Craig’s subtle, introverted and brilliant sensibility.

Pacha is the work of prolific percussionist and composer Pierre-Guy Blanchard, a fixture of Montreal’s various experimental and folk music communities, whose drumming has graced albums by Black Ox Orkestar and Sam Shalabi’s Land of Kush. Affaires Étrangères, a product of Pierre-Guy’s deep commitment to the development of his craft paired with frequent voyages abroad, features intensely satisfying rhythm-heavy instrumentals often propelled by fried, amped-up Middle-Eastern synth lines and sprinkled with guitar, bass and oud along with the odd looped field recording. Think early Trans Am if they had come out of Cairo or Beirut, or Oneida in their motorik mode and with an Arabic pop fixation.

Hangedup & Tony Conrad Transit Of Venus documents a fertile meeting of the legendary violin minimalist and one of the past decade’s finest instrumental punk bands. Tony Conrad needs no introduction, having made crucial contributions to avant-garde experimental film and sound since the 1960s. Hangedup – the Montréal duo of Eric Craven and Gen Heistek – released three searing albums of steam-engine percussion and layered, distorted, dive-bombing viola on Constellation in the early 2000s. Culled from recordings captured during various sessions as this trio prepared for a series of collaborative concerts in 2004, the album includes some enormous slabs of drone rock alongside more decomposed pieces and gorgeously gritty string duos.