Lefthand Pressings is a microlabel set up and maintained by Alistair Crosbie to release his own solo and collaborative work. The catalogue between 2006 and 2009 runs to 19 titles. There are three new releases, issued August 2009 - please visit the Alistair Crosbie profile for information and sound samples as this page is not allowing me to upload new mp3 samples. If it's still broken in a week, this profile will be deleted.
2009 releases
LHP-17 - "The Last Day Of Summer" 3" CDR by Alistair Crosbie
Inspired by, but not musically related to "Summer's Over" by Susan Matthews, this is a 12 and a half minute piece for multiple guitars that is my attempt to somehow musically encapsulate that feeling I always used to get on the last day of those endless elongated summer holidays one enjoys in one's youth. So it's reflective, sad and maybe a bit apprehensive. It is the only survivor from an album called "Winter" that was otherwise scrapped and thus, this track had it's title changed from "One Light Left" - notebooks out plagiarists! (come on, not a difficult reference to crack, aye?) to something more blatant. Dedicated to Susan, of course. Keen not to over charge for what is, effectively a single...£2, I'll say.
LHP-18 - untitled CDR by Alistair Crosbie
This is 4 tracks, all untitled, running time of a little under 32 minutes so not an epic. This is an all electronic album with particularly spartan artwork. The lack of titles or credits is deliberate. This album feels like the logical fork-in-the-road that albums like "Map Dot Fingerprint", "My Shadows Are At War" and "Ashenground" have led to - dark, sparse, maybe even cold. Not easy listening but then, I never promised you easy listening. So, printed card foldover sleeve with "spider" to keep the disc in place (an idea I pinched from Kevin and Stuart of Smoke Jaguar/Nyali Recordings) inside a premium quality clear PVC oversleeve (of the sort I normally use). £4.
LHP-19 - "No Monsters" by Alec Cheer and Alistair Crosbie
Delighted to get this out at last, a second album from the duo occasionally known as AC/AC. To start this one, we reversed our roles from "Standard Procedure In The Hours Of Darkness" so I provided the initial sound material and passed it to Cheer for his attention. After going back and forth for just over a year, the album is now ready and I think it's even better than "Standard..." - acoustic guitars and pianos mix with field recordings and shortwave to create a haunted, colourful dreamscape - a sudden awakening is soothed with a lullaby and the dream starts again. I am confidently suggesting that this is one of the best things I've ever been involved with. Printed card foldover sleeve with photographic print affixed to the front and "spider" to keep the disc in place inside a premium quality clear PVC oversleeve (again, the usual type). £4.
POSTAGE AND PACKAGING
Yeah, I know, it sucks but it keeps going up so I've had to start charging again, sorry. Even the price of the padded envelopes has gone up at the supplier. I'll try to be as fair as I can.
UK - 50p for one disc, £1 for 2 or more.
Europe - 80p for one disc, £1.25 for 2 or more
US/RoW - £1.20 for one disc, £1.75 for 2 or more
This reflects my own costs at the post office as accurately as my recent receipts can allow with me knocking a little bit off because I'm that kind of person.
PAYMENT
Paypal is prefered - the address is lefthandpressings (at) btinternet (dot) com. If Paypal doesn't suit you, drop me a line and we'll try and sort something out.
2006 - 2008
Light (LHP-01) - a single, illuminated guitar drone, 42 mins - OUT OF PRINT
White Closed Eyes (LHP-02) - 9 tracks of tempered, processed feedback and equipment malfunction, 50 mins - OUT OF PRINT
musicfordrowning (LHP-03) - one track of lulling, sub-aqua sinewaves, 41 mins - OUT OF PRINT
My Shadows Are At War (LHP-04) - 3 tracks of percussive drift, drone, clatter and shimmer. 37 minutes. - OUT OF PRINT
Everything Around Me Has Somehow Broken (LHP-05) - 7 tracks of massed guitar, blasting your core for 40 minutes before applying a soothing balm for the closing 11. - OUT OF PRINT
The Last Refuge Of The Coward (Volume 1) by White Against This Sky (LHP-06) - 5 tracks of twin guitar rumble, clatter and fuzz from Alistair Crosbie and Lea Cummings. 40 minutes. OUT OF PRINT
A Dangerous But Necessary Corner by Andrew Paine & Alistair Crosbie (LHP-07)- 3 tracks of six-string substrates, slow-motion glass shatter, "feedback raptors and ghosts of microtonal disruption". - (Volcanic Tongue) OUT OF PRINT
This Quiet House (The Lonesome Age Of Mirrors Volume 1) (LHP-08) - 3 tracks of haunted space and long forgotten memories. - "Aspects of this seem so time and space specific that they resemble parts of Christoph Heemann's beautiful diaristic environment/sound works like Days Of The Eclipse and Aftersolstice, the same elegiac use of glissing string songs coupled with odd field-recorded detail and domestic-scale sonic intrigue....a singular, highly poignant work and another high-point in Crosbie's already dazzling back catalogue". - Volcanic Tongue
OUT OF PRINT
The Study Of Cycles The Lonesome Age Of Mirrors (Volume 2) (LHP-09) - 2 tracks, one of them in three parts, using vocal textures to explore faltering communication and the slow, gentle, inevitable end of everything. 37 minutes. Volcanic Tongue - Tip Of The Tongue 6th May 2007.OUT OF PRINT
EYE SHAKING KINGDOM - With Metal And Swordlight LP (LHP10 - Sick Head 10 - co-release with SICK HEAD)
Debut LP for this duo of Alistair Crosbie and Ruaraidh Sanachan (Nackt Insecten, KMVSNI, Sick Head supremo) exploring volatile canyons of spaceways feedback, indominable drone and casio distress. Aspects of Chris Corsano's Blood Pressure, Richard Youngs' "Alban Stands Here" and Sun Ra's most gloriously fucked astral fantasias combine with the kind of eviscerating amplifier destruction more associated with prime Dead C, Ascension and Skullflower for a side that matches electrified late-60s fire with whiplashed 21st century electricity. Excellent. - Volcanic Tongue. Hand-numbered edition of 209 copies in handsprayed sleeves. Seemed to take forever to get this out, seems we'll have them forever too! Really proud of this LP, took both of us somewhere else and increased my live schedule well beyond the normal boundaries too.
Standard Procedure In The Hours Of Darkness by Alec Cheer and Alistair Crosbie (LHP-11) - 5 tracks of fading autumn light, redrawn maps and warm organic drone form this new duo, sometimes known as AC/AC. 41 minutes. All copies in handmade card sleeve with one of two Cheer illustrations on the front and all come with a free AC/AC badge! (check the picture with the excerpt...) OUT OF PRINT
Disused by Alistair Crosbie and Brian Lavelle(LHP-12) - 2 lengthy explorations from the artists formerly known as Inversion, tracing the architecture of rust and the unavoidable decay of everything across 2 near-half hour pieces. All copies come in a handmade card sleeve with an original photographic print affixed to the front. OUT OF PRINT
How To Fall Without Hurting Yourself (The Lonesome Age Of Mirrors Volume 3) - final volume of this series, moving from gentle piano movements through insistant bass riffs, machine noise, guitar hum and slowly decaying echoes of everything. 4 tracks, 41 minutes. OUT OF PRINT
Ascension Ceremony (Epilogue to The Lonesome Age Of Mirrors) - closing movemnet of this series, a single 22 minute sunrise song of gentle low-end hum, insistant drone and the choral celebration of dawn. OUT OF PRINT
As I Remember Nothing, Nothing Happened" - a 39 minute exporation of the gap between inner and outer space, the point where a memory leaves your head for the the last time, never to be recalled. Numbered edition of 40 copies. OUT OF PRINT
"Lightwells" by Andrew Paine and Alistair Crosbie - Album number 4 from this psych/prog/tape/drone pairing, this time exploring a red sand landscape with only their guitars, some small keyboards and a shortwave radio or two for company. Dense buzzes combine with gentle waves of cloudsound to produce their most lush audio journey thus far. 7 tracks in just under 44 minutes. OUT OF PRINT
The ESK LP is 9GBP in the UK and £10 outside of the UK. INCLUSIVE OF POSTAGE AND PACKAGING
IMPORTANT INFORMATION - I always get proof of posting for my parcels but I cannot be held responsible for anything that goes missing in the mail - UK customers can add 85p onto the total cost for recorded delivery if they wish. Overseas customers who want insurance etc on their parcels, contact me in advance to arrange this.
Paypal is prefered - the address is lefthandpressings (at) btinternet (dot) com. This is also the address if you wish to make contact for any other reason or you can message me here. Volcanic Tongue still have a few copies of some CDR titles. Surely, you all know where to find them by now.
