Epic Sweep Records

Rory Storm’s new album ‘Old Songs Sung In Wolves’ Tongue’ is out now. This mammoth creature is available on limited edition CDR for $12NZ. Check out the catalogue page for more detail.

Cookie Brooklyn and the Crumbs (featuring members of the Orchestra of Spheres) are helping celebrate independent record store day this Saturday at our record store of ‘choice’ Evil Genius. To help celebrate, Epic Sweep will be releasing a special Cookie Brooklyn and the Crumbs cassette EP available on the day. Come down and see for yourself the Crumbs unholy brand of wonky funk in the best tradition of ESG, Tom Tom Club and the Shaggs.

Dave MacRae in Robert Wyatt’s Matching Mole from 1972

Charles Tumahai in Bill Nelson’s Be Bop Deluxe from 1975

…and possibly the best busker in Dunedin ever…

It’s the time of year for looking back, and here at ES it’s been a relatively busy one especially with our first foray into vinyl with the release of Maxine Funke’s album and the Marineville single. But there’s been a lot of other great stuff too. Not sure what’s in store for next year, but hopefully a bit more of the same.

I love an end of year album list as much as the next nerd, but have been struggling to think of ones that have really rocked my boat in recent months. Parts of albums this year by Kendrick Lamar, Dan Melchior, Killer Mike, Shadow Ring and Flying Lotus were great. And there was some great albums released from our neighbours (Australia still seems to be the new black for the strange and disaffected guitar) by Degreaser, Sky Needle, and Lost Domain.  Closer to home I really enjoyed releases by Birdcatcher, Superbugger, Pumice, Futurians, Kraus, Tlaotlon (Dungeon Taxis deserves your attention) and Arc of Ascent. But this was my favourite of the year by a long stretch…

Various Artists – ‘Otoitu In Flood’

This is a massive collection of recordings taken from the Dunedin Studio Otoitu and put together by Forbes Williams, its in-house producer and alchemist. Over its 4 CDs (‘Classics’ Parts 1 and 2, ‘Curios’ and ‘Improvised Music’), there’s a huge range of brilliant music by the likes of Rob Sharma, Anji Sami, Rory Storm, St Leonards Rock n Roll Club, Stuey Mitchell, Ray Off, Kahu and many, many others. While parts of ‘Curios’ probably aren’t essential (‘Sorting the Stool’ literally by George Henderson for example), everything/anything somehow works under the overall aesthetic. Released in a beautifully packaged box with extensive and well written liner notes by Williams this collection deserves its place alongside ‘Killing Capitalism With Kindness’. Essential.

It’s a pre-Christmas flurry of releases here at the Epic Sweep manor with a new 10″ lathe from Baa Baa and The Black Sheep…for more details go to our catalogue page…

We’ve just released a brilliant new 7″ lathe from Rory Storm, the self-styled Richard Clayderman of noise…for more details go to our catalogue page…

Really looking forward to the Rising Tides Festival in Wellington from 5 – 8 December. It features an amazingly diverse line-up including Cartoon, Futurians, Dorkwind, Sunken, Bad Statistics, Greg Malcolm and Bill Direen. And that’s only some of the ‘locals’. See you there.