BASTION RECORDINGS

LATEST NEWS:
2023.05.24: "Let Me Feel" available for download and preorder now!
2023.05.02: Meowma - "Let Me Feel" single coming soon.
2021.03.14: We're back.

JUMP TO A RELEASE:
Matter of Planets: The Ballad of Baberaham | Meowma: "Let Me Feel" | Northern Beaches: Appendices | Northern Beaches: "Civil Floor Disobedience" | Northern Beaches: Music for Dying in Bars | Northern Beaches: September 28, 2012: Youngstown, Ohio | Northern Beaches: Song of the Coelacanth | Ram's Head: Last of the Lost | Red Sun: Werewolves on Mars

BAST011
MEOWMA: "Let Me Feel"
CASSETTE | June 14, 2023





Deep in 2020 - you know, that year - Kirsten Sunderman, who had never made music of her own before, told her husband that she felt like screaming. On tape. Fortunately, her husband had been recording and playing punk rock music for most of his life. These two songs are the result. A cathartic project.

A. Let Me Feel | B. Smile More

BAST010
MATTER OF PLANETS: The Ballad of Baberaham
CD | April 7, 2015





With their cascading, complex drums underpinning epic instrumentals characterized by spacey, twinned melodic guitars, Matter of Planets found the perfect description for their sound when they christened it "sci-fi post-prog metal." On this debut full-length, they follow the titular character through her first epic, but good-humored, adventure.

"[T]echnical, intricate and smashing" -Technical Music Review, 2018

1. Prologue | 2. Count Narsafar | 3. Baberaham Lincoln | 4. Heavy Is the Head | 5. Water Wolves | 6. Stress Fracture... And So On | 7. Denouement

BAST009
NORTHERN BEACHES: September 28, 2012: Youngstown, Ohio
DIGITAL | December 24, 2013

No longer available (sorry)

1. Secular Mystics | 2. Civil Floor Disobedience/Shorthand | 3. Odd Man Out | 4. Ebb and Flow | 5. Madhouse Rock | 6. Alexander | 7. March of Time | 8. The Heart of Understanding

BAST008
NORTHERN BEACHES: Appendices
DIGITAL | December 24, 2013





Showing their penchant for increasingly experimental sounds and live performances that use their recorded output as a starting point, not an end, Appendices captures the excitement, power, and originality of this band as they honed their sound in 2011 and 2012.

1. Odd Man Out (ZVS remix) | 2. Dub and Flow (ZVS remix) | 3. Secular Mysticism (ZVS remix) | 4. Dog in the Yard | 5. The Heart of Understanding | 6. Excerpt from "Impasse" | 7. Empty Vessel | 8. Secular Mystics | 9. Ebb and Flow | 10. Madhouse Rock | 11. Ruins | 12. Measure of Redemption | 13. Encore Solicitation | 14. Secular Mystics (composite)

BAST007
NORTHERN BEACHES: Music for Dying in Bars
LP | August 26, 2013





On Music for Dying in Bars, the ever-progressing Northern Beaches guides a journey through beauty and terror, sadness and inspiration, insightful commentary and pure expression. With influences from punk rock, dub, the avant-garde, jazz, electronica, and prog, N.B. veers from the melodic to the confrontational, from the simple to the intensely complex, and from the meticulously composed to the completely improvised. This is a one-of-a-kind album and an epic listening experience.

"ZACHARY SUNDERMAN's guitars are dust storm dense, DAN FRANKLAND's bass murky and muffled, and BRANDON MACE's drums angular and chaotic, while Sunderman's sporadic vocals are poetic yet peeved. ... [T]he eclectic album lurches and heaves like a sputtering, soot-spewing blast furnace." -Mark Suppanz, The Big Takeover No. 73

1. Civic Religion (An Orientation) | 2. Alexander | 3. Dog in the Yard | 4. Please | 5. Fallout | 6. Group Improvisation | 7. Someday I Won't Be Doing This | 8. Madhouse Rock | 9. March of Time | 10. Alexander (Reprise)

BAST006
RAM'S HEAD: Last of the Lost
LP | October 24, 2013





The first installment in Bastion's campaign to issue the experimental electronic pop music recorded by Karl Steffey before his untimely death at age 26, Last of the Lost is the perfect introduction to the idiosyncratic sounds Karl was making. Entirely automated, right down to the vocals, Last of the Lost is a sometimes humorous, sometimes harrowing journey through love and loss, dashed hopes and bitterness. Revealing influences from UK post-punk and industrial music, and overlapping considerably with the electronic indie movement that has grown since this music was made, this first offering from Ram's Head is a challenging, emotional, and entirely unique musical experience not to be missed. Moreover, it is the music of a man who poured every ounce of his existence into his work, and who now can finally share the vibrancy of that existence with the world.

End-of-year staff pick, Gotta Groove Records

1. Polishing the Ram's Knob | 2. January | 3. The Addiction | 4. Spiral | 5. The Starling | 6. Note to Self | 7. Never Again | 8. Hee Haw Hoo Haw Hee Haw Haw | 9. Love Will Fail | 10. Alone | 11. Last of the Lost | 12. The Cave

BAST005
NORTHERN BEACHES: "Civil Floor Disobedience"
7" | December 14, 2012

No longer available, but copies (in plain paper sleeve) come with orders of Music for Dying in Bars (BAST007).

Recorded mostly live at N.B.'s practice space to computer and cassette simultaneously, this 7" single follows up on the new paths the band has been hinting at, presenting two tracks of heavy, thick, political dub-rock. If you can't get enough of the "joyful sound" (as Mr. Marley called it) of "punky reggae," this 7" is for you!

A. Civil Floor Disobedience/Shorthand | B. Madhouse Rock (edit)

BAST003
NORTHERN BEACHES: Song of the Coelacanth
CD | August 21, 2011





The first release from the Midwestern band Northern Beaches showcases a guitar-driven indie-punk approach that treads the line between melodic song craft and heady experimentalism. 2011's Song of the Coelacanth explores pleasing grooves as well as sonic onslaughts, tight control as well as absolute abandon, directness as well as complexity; but never does it fail to integrate its multiple moods into a coherent whole.

1. The Heart of Understanding | 2. Odd Man Out | 3. Empty Vessel | 4. Secular Mystics | 5. Ebb and Flow | 6. Measure of Redemption | 7. World's End | 8. Ruins

BAST002
RED SUN: Werewolves on Mars
CD | August 14, 2010





Werewolves on Mars, the debut release from Columbus's Red Sun, is a concise and perfectly representative introduction to their multi-faceted, melodic doom-punk attack, finding the band gliding seamlessly between trippy rock, stripped-down punk, and outright apocalyptic sludge. Red Sun should be checked out by anyone who thinks the Stooges, Black Flag, Electric Wizard, Blue Cheer, Queens of the Stone Age, and Mastodon are equally vital.

Following this release, Red Sun went on to release a split 7" with Mockingbird and a live CD, and members formed Pillars, Matter of Planets, and other bands.

1. Kid Dynomite | 2. Two Way Mirror | 3. Ash from the Urn | 4. Speed Queen | 5. Bad Curve | 6. Tianamen