If you're wondering why this news page is so rarely updated, it's because there are more regular updates on the Acute Records Blog page, because that's what blogs are for! We've started sending out promos of our upcoming release, Memory Span by The Lines, and people are starting to visit this site, so I figured I should mention something here. Memory Span will be released on May 27th. There will be more updates on the blog and a full release page for the CD shortly. You can find out when by reading the blog. Have you heard about our blog? I also wanted to mention that there will be a radio show this Thursday dedicated to Acute Records on KXLU care of PART TIME PUNKS. Read about it here, on the blog, naturally.
Very happy to tell you that our latest CD, ACU009, Hungry Beat by the Fire Engines, is out today! This one was a long-time coming and it's finally here, but it should be there, in your lap, so make sure you buy a copy today. The Fire Engines were one of the truly unique and great Post-Punk bands, the bastard child of the Contortions and Television on one side, and the Pop Group and Subway Sect on the other and if there were more sides, I'd probably reference all kinds of dub, noise, skronk, funk and who knows what else. You can check out some more advertorial descriptions, as well as press, photos, sounds, fliers, sleeves and whatnot at the Hungy Beat page here, which will include more info in the coming weeks, and for more background on the CD, check out the blog. We're very excited about this release and hope you check it out.
6/28/07
Hello. Is it me your looking for? I've been here the whole time, working and stuff. This is a quick update, but an important one. First, I wanted to introduce you to the Acute Records Blog, because, apparently, I don't have enough ways to waste my time when I really should be doing something important like reissuing music or making money. You can learn all about the blog in its first post...these updates will still be here for the occasional important update, but the blog will be updated weekly if not more. Please check it out and enjoy.
And for a quick release update...Hungry Beat, the Fire Engines compilation, featuring all of their studio recordings, should be out in late September. This music has been out of print for years and has never been released on CD in the United States. It's all newly remastered, and features an awesome booklet. There will be a Fire Engines page on this site some time before the actual release.
After that, we'll be releasing the first of our Lines CDs, Memory Span. It will feature all of the Lines singles, a-sides and b-sides, as well as a few never-released tracks. There has been a cult waiting patiently for this for years and years, a cult that has been slowly growing. The Lines never had the profile of some of the better-known bands of the post-punk period, but their music has a strange subtle charm that often takes a while to grow on people, something that was noted as far back as their press in the early 80s. But when it clicks, it's really something else and I think a lot of people are going to be blown away...a lot of "where were these guys all my life???". I made a myspace page for them here and I suggest you check out their songs. We hope to release this not long after the Fire Engines CD, and follow it up with a second CD compiling the Lines two LPs, then a digital release of all this amazing unreleased "third album" material where they moved further into electronics with incredible results.
After that? Who knows, suggestions always welcome, get in touch, check out the blog, stay cool(both in the "air conditioning" sense and the "Fonzie" sense), and stay tuned.
3/9/07
Hello. We finally have a website with more than one page! Acute Records started as a Geocities website in 99 or so, a few years before our first CD. It had little essays I wrote about some of my favorite bands like the Homosexuals, the Desperate Bicycles, the Distractions and the Lines. At the time our first actual CD came out in 2002, we replaced it with a simple one page information site and a little teasing note...new site soon. Well soon is here! Sort of...we're working on the Acute Blog which I hope to be a major component of the site, and the official site launch will be announced then. We'll also be adding all kinds of features, interviews, essays, photos over time. Untill then, check out all the info about our releases, including some great free downloads (including unreleased Theoretical Girls and Ike Yard material). Everything is, as always, a work in progress, and I'm working on adding even more info to the specific release pages, so stay tuned for that as well. In the meantime, sign up for our mailing list, get in touch if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, and purchase all our CDs!
3/3/07
Hey! The Nightingales are in town! And by town, I mean America! Check out the tour dates at their myspace page. And for those of you in Acute's hometown of New York City, check them out Tuesday at the Cake Shop with our friends The Affair, and Thursday at Union Hall with the Victoria Lucas + Christy & Emily.
1/27/07
And again! This time Ike Yard plays some new stuff LIVE on the radio. Tune into WFMU monday night, January 29th at 11pm. I'll be there playing some records, hanging out, and exploring WFMU's collection of tapes from the early 80s. Tune in all you long-time listeners/first-time callers!
1/15/07
We're doing it again...The guys from Ike Yard are joining me at my monthly record listening party, Dazzle Ships this wednesday the 17th. Come by, listen to some cool records like Judy Nylon and Jeff and Jane Hudson and hang out for a few hours.
11/30/06
If you're in the NYC area, Ike Yard will be selecting records at Other Music's party at APT tuesday night. DJ High Priest will be DJing and he will be joined by Michael and Stuart from Ike Yard in a tribute to the Mudd Club. Stuart just curated the excellent 3rd volume of Soul Jazz's New York Noise series, so expect some of those sounds, as well as a cool cross-section of punk, new wave, hip-hop, disco and other sounds that made the downtown scene in the early 80s. They will be joined by Scott Mou, Duane Harriott and Gerald Hammill, 3 excellent DJs from Other, and I will join them on the decks at some point as well, because it's not a party if there's only 6 DJs! I'll bring like, 2 records, but they'll be really good.
Tues. Dec.5th 2006 @ APT. 419 W.13th St. NYC
10pm onwards
Ike Yard dj around 1130
FREE!
see you there,
Dan Selzer
8/21/06
We finally have a new (old) release for you. Ike Yard's "Collected 1980-82" came out this week! Ike Yard were an experimental post-punk band from New York who had the privilege of being the first American band signed to Factory Records. Stuart Argabright of Ike Yard later went on to produce the legendary dance hit “The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight” as well as found the underground hip hop outfit Death Comet Crew. You can download an mp3 from the release and read a nice review at Paper Thin Walls. So far Ike Yard has received very favorable press from Uncut, XLR8R, URB, Junkmedia, and Dusted. Please visit our online shop to pick up a copy, and check back here soon for much more info as we finish updating the website.
OLD
Hey, remember how it said "NEW SITE SOON!" on the Acute page for that last 5 or so years? Well now we mean it. The site's gonna have all the information about our releases you could ever want, tons of great features and resources, and eventually the awesome Acute Digital Downloads! Sign up for our mailing list to be notified when the site is put up and to stay informed of major news. News like this:
New old stuff! After a little break Acute is back. First up is the complete discography of early 80s electro-acoustic innovators Ike Yard, including their releases on Factory and Crepuscule, some unreleased tracks and some live stuff. Their sound is hard to define, fitting somewhere between the NYC no-wave scene they followed and the german avant-electronics of the Neue Deutch Welle. You just have to hear it.
Also coming up, we have 2+ full CDs of music from The Lines. Talk about cult followings, not too many people remember this London-based post-punk/new wave band, but those that do have been anxiously awaiting something like this for years. We hope to introduce a whole new generation of cultish music hipsters to what we think was one of the finest bands of the era, from subtle power-pop charm, to angular post-punk angst to dubbed out rhythmic bliss.
More soon...
