You are clearly in perversion by Dorian Wood & Thor Harris out now on Astral Editions

Dorian Wood (Los Angeles, California) and Thor Harris (Austin, Texas) have collaborated to create an album of stately intensity that coils, unfurls, and pulses like a thing alive. Wood wields her voice with electrifying elegance and poetic, laser beam focus, sending it soaring above, diving beneath, and stalking across the bed of hypnotic drones and percussive oscillations that she and Harris, as well as Stereolab's Xavi Muños, have cultivated with guitars, hand drums, and various auxiliary instruments and electronics. Also featuring a who's who of guests including Carla Bozulich, Heather Trost, Jarboe, Patrick Shiroishi, and more. 

The results of their efforts are uniquely captivating. The album drives, with exacting movements, a spade of observation through the sediments of personal past, questions of identity, spirituality, carnality, love, and human history, until it strikes upon something sharp and flashing, obsidian, bright and searing, a spark, that winks wordlessly and fiercely in the swathing, cavernous darkness that blankets and infuses all things. -jp, March 2023

Available on cassette and digital download via Astral Editions.

Announcing Doom Dub II: Cassette & Zine Available Everywhere 7/22/22

What is Doom Dub?

It begins with a doomed beat. Atonal harmonies are expertly layered in, forming an alternate offering to the warm, sunny sound that history knows as Dub. Calling on his legion of wildly talented friends and artists - Zola Jesus, Lawrence English, Dorain Wood, Marissa Nadler just to name a few - the album charms you with haunting howls, while a steady, lingering drum beat creates the illusion of safety. Don’t get too comfortable. It’s a strange world - eerie but enticing. Thor shared:

Almost every music geek and musician loves late 70s Dub. This made it easy for me to involve many of my friends in the making of this record. This zine is full of their faces. If you tell anyone you need help making a Dub record, they will beg to be part of it.

This is my humble homage to the original practitioners of the form. Dub. Your servant, Thor Harris

Pre-order the cassette and a limited run zine by Thor today. Out everywhere 7/22/22.

NEW VIDEO: “LONELY DEE”

"Lonely Dee" from the album, Thor & Friends '3' out on Joyful Noise Recordings out Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. Video by Ryan Hover.

"This is the first ever Thor & Friends song. It is named after a lady named Dee who rides her bike around our neighborhood, asking to do work. She is very nice. The idea of the piece is a factory where machines go in and out of sync. Like the Terry Riley piece “In C” there is a consistent hammering of a middle D. It works great live, but I hated this recording until Jeremy Barnes processed the fuck out of it and added that high organ thing. Ryan Hover made this terrifying video, which I think expresses the frustration we are all feeling. Here to make your stay in hell a little better” - Thor

NEW VIDEO: “DIES IN PARIS”

Thor & Friends "Dies In Paris" featuring Bill Callahan. From the album, Thor & Friends '4' out on Joyful Noise Recordings Friday, Sept. 4.

Here are some fun facts about the recording of this piece : I don’t know who says “ it’s so itchy” at the beginning. Perhaps one of the string players. I just liked it, so I asked Craig Ross, the producer, to leave it in. The heavily tremoloed voice in this song is my dear friend Bill Callahan. The main rhythms are played on wooden tongue drums. The ascending vibraphone line is by Goat. She’s the musical one in the group . -Thor

ANNOUNCING THOR & FRIENDS 3 AND 4: PRE-ORDER TODAY

Thor & Friends’ third and fourth studio albums, aptly named 3 & 4, are available for pre-order today via Joyful Noise Recordings, a la carte or as a discounted bundle. Each pre-order comes with a different track for immediate download. Initially released as part of Joyful Noise Recordings’ 2019 Artist in Residence, 3 & 4 will be available worldwide September 4, 2020 on CD, vinyl, and digital download.

Musicians on 3 include Jennifer Wasner, Soriah, Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost of A Hawk and a Hacksaw, John Dieterich from Deerhoof, Thierry Amar and Tim Herzog from Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Adam Torres, Michael Gira, Jarboe, Stine Janvin Motland, John Congleton and many others.

4 features Craig Ross, Alan and Mimi from Low, Bill Callahan, Jolie Holland, Mollie Fischer, Travis Weller, Lindsey Verrill, Andrea Calderón, Nino Soberon, Jeff Johnston, Christopher Cundy, Andrea Belfi, and Adam Harding.

NEW SONG WITH LOW & JOLIE HOLLAND

On June 19, 2020, Thor & Friends released a new song and accompanying music video - “Mystery Train (Lower Remix)” feat. Low and Jolie Holland on Joyful Noise Recordings. All proceeds on Juneteenth 2020 went to NAACP Justice Fund and Black Lives Matter. The video was directed by Sarah La Puerta and Adam Harding, it was filmed and edited by Adam Harding.

Download the song here, stream it here.

INTRODUCING DOOM DUB

As a part of his Joyful Noise box set (which is sold out but available for digital download), Thor collaborated with one of his close friends, Jordan Geiger (Hospital Ships, Minus Story, Shearwater) to craft a dub record…of sorts.

You might be pondering: why dub? why doom? why now?

Thor said: “Dub Reggae is one of those music forms like 20th century minimalism that almost all musicians adore. Find me a musician who does not love King Tubby and Lee Scratch Perry and I will say ‘this person has no soul’.”

“Why Doom? - It’s not looking likely that we humans are going to last much longer. We are all gone and the world is healing from our toxic mess. We actually have the technology to stop destroying our home.” Read more… 

THOR HARRIS IS THE
2019 ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
JOYFUL NOISE RECORDS

From Joyful Noise: We are absolutely overjoyed to announce our Artist In Residence for 2019: Thor Harris. 

Thor fully embodies the spirit of our Artist in Residence series. You may know Thor as the percussive polymath extraordinaire behind one of his many projects (Swans, Thor & Friends, Xiu Xiu, Bill Callahan, Amanda Palmer, Shearwater and many others including our own Dumb Numbers and Yonatan Gat's band). 

But if you're unfamiliar with Thor Harris, there is a reason for that. Thor is rarely a leading man... That's just not his style. He's an artistic facilitator - going where he is needed in service to the greater good... He's a musician's musician. And we thought it was time for the dude to get the top-billing-treatment he deserves.