Latest News from Mayday Records
01.Apr.2018: Welcome to the updated Mayday Records website! You'll notice some
minor cosmetic and organizational changes, but the significant thing is that
underneath it's all completely rewritten. Whew.
We've been running special money-saving bundles for you since December 2017,
konwing that it would benefit us both: you get more holla for your dollah and we get
to show more sales at our monthly corporate meetings. We're gonna continue the
two current specials - SquidPack and SuperSquidPack - and add a third one: to
celebrate the twentieth anniversary of our first pressed CD release, Puer Aeternis,
you can now get that disc plus our most recent pressing Suspensions Of Belief, both
for the low low price of just $13. Normally you'd have to pay $18 to get both. We're
calling this deal YayBig20! So head over to the special sale page and get bargains
galore!
Last big thing to mention here is a super awesome freebie for you, dear lover of
weirdo sounds. We've collected all the tracks that Mayday artists have contributed to
online compilations since 2011, added some never-been-released-anywhere cuts,
and opened the curtains on this cabaret we call submit. Now you can entertain
yourself in the comfort of your own home just by downloading and unzipping that
thang. You're the boss of 28 tracks (that's an hour & 20 minutes) of free sonic
offerings that'll melt your cold heart and transmogrify your mushy mind. Importantly,
you'll also get links to the original releases these appeared on so you can go support
those fine netlabels. Without them, these tracks would not have been created.
01.Jan.2015: We're ba-ack! Happy New Year to all our friends out there! Mayday
Records is starting 2015 off the right way, with a brand new release from Infant
Mortality Rate!
While IMR is not know for their, shall we say, 'heroic' attention span, they did make a
New Years resolution to put out a full length CD with longer tracks -- and they
wasted no time in getting it to us. Only four cuts comprise this 72 minute release
IMR calls Suspensions of Belief. While the first track, a generally calming one
named A Call To Baryonic Prayer, might be considered 'dark ambient' by most, the
remaining ones present the listener with a challenging suite of drones, loops, and
religious deconstructions that engage the thoughtful mind in spacey and meditative
tension. Lyman-Alpha Buddha layers on the chants, while Rosario's Mistic Yerberia
puts modern religious commerce on the chopping block. The last track,
Congregational Lensing And The Einstein Cross, focuses its attention on the power
of the rural choir: in the end, there is no god, only noise.
The tracks on Suspensions are typically densely layered and often loud. This is
unmistakably IMR material that sucks you in and slaps your gray matter around, yet
continues developing the longer format IMR explored on the mini-release Sorrow Is
Always Black.
02.Dec.2013: It’s not like we have hourly updates that inundate you with annoying
trivia but HAVE YOU SEEN OUR FACEBOOK PAGE? Sorry we had to yell that, but
THE MAYDAY RECORDS FACEBOOK PAGE is updated in a more timely fashion
than this news page, so please go there and Like us. As for actual news, in October
we released a mini-CDR in celebration of Halloween called Sorrow Is Always Black
in a very special limited number of only 18 copies. Surprisingly there are still a tiny
number left! So to complete your Mayday Records collection please go to the linked
page, Sound Exchange, or Vinal Edge Records and buy one (they’re super
cheap!!!). On it you will find one long track by Infant Mortality Rate and one medium
track by frybrain, both based on the fable 'The Tale of a Mother' by Hans Christian
Andersen. If you want to hear a live version of the IMR track, go to our Soundcloud
page and give that a listen. The story is easier to follow on the studio version but
you’ll get the idea.
03.Feb.2013: Wow, you probably thought we were dead, right? Ha! Too busy
enjoying life to write silly updates to the news page, that's all. Really, it's not like your
life would be diminished any by our lack of updates. So we waited, crouched in the
tall grass, poised for the perfect moment to strike! Raaaaaar!
Today we proudly release Infant Mortality Rate's latest grand sonic offering,
Uncivilization. No, not the Biohazard album, though if we sold as many copies, we'd
be rather happy. Actually, this CDR is limited to 100 copies since merchandising is
not our strong point. Plus it proves to the world that we're not trying to get rich off of
all the unpermitted samples used throughout (as usual, we claim Fair Use clause).
We simply like doing this sort of thing, that's all. Why can't you just enjoy it? All your
friends do! It's full of thoughtful collages, dark ambience, noise, electronics, etc. And
best of all, you'll want to play it over and over again, because it's just that good.
As a bonus, we've reduced the price of Down in Waves of Ether, since that
awesome disc is no longer the latest. Jebus, you just can't afford NOT to buy these
two together! I know I would.
29.Apr.2012: And the comps keep coming! IMR is now featured on two more net-
label releases and a new batch of Exquisite Corpse Audio Chain Letters.
First up is The Chestnut Tree from Buddhist on Fire. This free download was put
together to celebrate the first anniversary of The Chestnut Tree being on the air at
90.1 FM KPFT Houston and includes over 60 tracks that will blow your mind. A truly
beautiful release which includes other Houston folks such as Charlie Naked, Night at
Noon, and downercow.
Next we invite you to download and listen to Coupe Of Negation Theorem As
Contact Trickery from our friends Brownian Motion. This is a collection of audio art
whose unifying theme is the contact mic, and IMR joins piezo-forces with 26 other
artists including Houston's own downercow and Ayn Morgan. A great heap of
experimentation from some very creative minds!
Lastly but not leastly, our pal Hal (that's McGee, not 9000) has put up a whole new
batch of Exquisite Corpse Audio Chain Letters. You can go to Volume 6 here, and
IMR graces letters 410, 415, 449, 458, 462, 463, 471, and 474! Momma mia! And
while your'e at it, feel free to check out the audio offerings of all the other letters :)
since a lot of people put a lot of effort into creating these great sounds for you to
enjoy.
11.Mar.2012: Hurray, another free comp with IMR on it! Net-label bent recs has
released Glitch/Bent, a data-bending comp featuring 15 artists messing with files on
their computers. The bent recs web page takes you to the archive.org site where you
can download all or some of the tracks. IMR's contribution is called Naked Urologist
Eats Germanium, Gets MRI (because that's what it sound like to us!). Please enjoy it
with all your magnetic resonating might.
05.Mar.2012: Silence here doesn't always mean inactivity. IMR has actually been
churning out some new material lately, most of it for other folks' compilations and
such. Here are a couple that have recently become available -- and they are both
free!
Firstly, if you've been around the experimental music block a few times, you ought to
know who Hal McGee is. If not, click the link and check him out. Anywayz, he
recently organized an audio chain letter of sorts, called the Exquisite Corpse Audio
Chain Letter. In this, Hal started with a 60 second audio piece that he then emailed
to 9 agreeable folks. Each of them (mostly blindly) tacked on another 60 seconds of
their music, and emailed the result to 9 more folks. This wildly permutating endeavor
eventually made its way back to Hal after 9 artists and 9 minutes and umteen zillion
tracks were completed. Then Hal put them all up on archive.org for you fans of good
weird experimental music to listen to, download, and enjoy.
Here are the links to song download pages with IMR contributions:
Volume 3 letters 193, 204, 237
Volume 4 letter 304
Volume 5 letters 340, 366, 384
IMR did 13 letters, but some apparently got lost! If they don't show up soon, we'll
post the IMR minutes ourselves.
Sorta-secondly, IMR will also be on a few other comps which will be released soon
and we'll let you know here and on the Mayday facebook page as well. The first one
to be completed is To Gain Is To FX Send, a collection of "no-input mixer" feedback
jams from a whole bunch of noise jammin artists. It's a name-your-price download
from the cool netlabel Muchausen Sound, so go for it! IMR used analog delay and
flanger in the effects loop, and there was very little post editing. Hope it makes you
tingle, my tingly little friends.
22.Jan.2012: Just a quick update on some free music from IMR. We've uploaded two
tracks originally recorded in June 1992 for an outdoor performance art event, the
details of which are lost to my memory banks. Also lost are the original mixes, so
they were remixed just yesterday for uploading purposes. The two tracks are called
Tension and Destruction, and you can find them on both Soundcloud (here), and on
Archive.org (Destruction, Tension) They're short pieces, so it won't hurt your busy
schedule to check them out.
ALSO, the show from 14 Pews is up for your free and joyful listening pleasure. You
can find that at the same Soundcloud page as above, and at this archive.org link.
03.Jul.2011: IMR's next live show will be on Sunday, July 31 at 14 Pews as part of
the Binarium Sound Series.