Oxtail Recordings

06/12/2024

We’re stoked and honored to wind down our 10th year with our 70th release! Previously available only at our 10 Years of Oxtail shows, 10 Years of Oxtail Recordings Mixed by Gentleforce brings it all full circle. A truly chill-yet-trippy-yet-celebratory journey through the entire Oxtail catalog, mixed by one of the best selectors here in Sydney, Eli Murray aka Gentleforce. The cassette edition of the mix is dubbed, packed, and stamped at Oxtail HQ - just like the old days in Brooklyn 10 years ago. Read Eli’s words on the mix below and grip a cassette or digital on Bandcamp now.

We’ve decided to make it available online today, on the occasion of the last Bandcamp Friday of 2024, and we’d encourage you to grab a physical or digital copy for that reason. However, we’d like you to keep in mind that there’s never a bad time to support independent, underground, and local artists and labels - there’s no time like the present.

–

“When I think of the Oxtail sound I think of late night radio shows. I think of big noisy cities like New York but also small towns surrounded by nature and quieter environments. I think of long solo walks with just a pair of headphones as a companion. I imagine bedroom producers tinkering away on their home made sound machines. I hear the sound of radio static, tape noise and lush drones melting into field recordings.

“While it wasn’t possible to represent all artists onto a 60 minute mix, I do feel the end result celebrates everyone’s involvement with Oxtail over its wonderful 10 year existence. This mixtape is for you, us and them. Celebrating 10 years of Oxtail Recordings via a perfect sonic sunset - possibly one giant remix - viewed through pink tinged shades. Pour yourself a drink, tune in and zone out.”

Much love,
Eli Murray aka

11/11/2024

The Oxtail Recordings guest mix for Blue Sky Approach is now archived ☁️

To celebrate the label’s 10th anniversary, I started with a mix of tracks from 2013-2015, which includes lots of friends & fam and represents a lot of the early inspiration for Oxtail.

The second hour is the 10 Years of Oxtail Recordings mix by - an absolute masterclass of experimental DJing and a wonderful sampling of the label catalog.

Thank you to the legends and for hosting 🌐

03/10/2024

UK shows begin!

Stoked to link up with to present two nights of UK/US sonic cultural exchange with and of course .tttt

Tonight Oct. 3 - Spanners - London, UK
Tomorrow Oct. 4 - Queen Charlotte - Ramsgate, UK

See u there mate

25/09/2024

10 Years of Oxtail - NYC edition is tomorrow at ! Stoked to bring the noise back to where it all began, with an incredible all-label lineup featuring:

More Eaze
MF Clarke
Matthew Ryals
Matthew D. Gantt
Mike Nigro

Music at 8pm sharp, bring a friend, see you there! 🌐✨

12/09/2024

One week from today: Oxtail fam & friends gather in Charlottesville to celebrate 10 years of sound & community. Chatlottesvlle has been a second (third? fourth?) home for the label over the years - thanks to the support and friendship of folks like .salisbury .metronome and - so it’s a real treat to get to do a 10 year gig there.

Proceeds from the show will benefit where printed this incredible risograph flyer.

29/08/2024

Announcing: MF Clarke - Arrays 🌐
Available September 20

Melissa F. Clarke (MF Clarke)’s sound publication Arrays, on Oxtail Recordings, will be her first full length sound release. While she’s no stranger to the experimental performance scene in Brooklyn and beyond, her work has yet to be heard in a full publication until now.

Arrays includes data sonification material that began with her journey exploring geophysical data sets from the Hudson river, to similar material from Antarctica and the Arctic where she also traveled to capture field recordings along the coast of Greenland. The work also travels into the resonant glass instrumentation from her performances, and includes guitar, vocals and field recordings from the mid Atlantic region and cities of the American East Coast.

Altogether the album combines work spanning many facets of her experimental sonic lexicon and generative trajectory in an emotive yet structured journey of pieces. A listening journey through different threads, components, data sets, sounds and spaces. Arrays brings listeners into what Clarke describes as “a walk thru spaces of data + life.”

Design by MF Clarke
Mastered by

27/08/2024

Nice moments and great hangs at the 10 Years of Oxtail Sydney show, shot by 📷

11/08/2024

TODAZE THE DAY

Come thru to to celebrate 10 years of ambient noise and broken songs with an incredible lineup of Oxtail friends and fam. See you in the basement 🔊✨

4:00 Doors
4:30 Mike Nigro
5:15 Banana
6:00 JWPaton
6:45 Zoltan Fecso
7:45 The Mocassin Band

06/08/2024

This Sunday: Oxtail Recordings celebrates 10 years of ambient noise and broken songs with a showcase of label artists and DIY legends at our favorite Inner West noise bunker, .

Featuring:

Zoltan Fecso
Oxtail is thrilled to welcome back to Eora after his excellent “Other Air” launch performances here last year. A modern master of mediums and methods: expect anything from modular synthesis to guitar and piano to processed field recordings. Always thoughtful, curious and compelling.

The Mocassin Band
After releasing “Full Stop” on Oxtail earlier this year, set fire to his legendary Low Flung moniker and has re-emerged as Mocassin, presented here in collaborative form. Come watch the multi-headed phoenix rise.

JWPaton
Ancient futurism from one of NSW’s heaviest sonic wranglers . An expertly guided tour through the conceptual ouroboroi of nature and technology, rural and urban, past and present.

Banana
and join forces as the alchemical sound duo Banana. Conjuring field recordings, contact mics, and tape loops into a haze of sound-things with a smile and a wink.

Mike Nigro
Kosmische-inflected tones and zones from Oxtail Recordings head , drawing inspiration from the minimalists, early synthesizer pioneers, and contemporary experimental underground. Analog worship for the digital age.

Sunday, August 11
4-9 PM
The Petersham Bowling Club
$20

20/07/2024

1. Today is the 10th birthday of Oxtail Recordings, which has me thinking about the early days. I started the label in 2014 not long after moving to NYC from Delaware, and I was living with my friend who was crucial to getting the label off the ground. We were both high on the big city life and getting sucked into the new-to-us world of experimental and ambient music. We spent countless hours in the (windowless) living room of our apartment listening to records and tapes, trying to understand the transmissions and the people that were sending them.

2, 3, 4. Owen put together the original Oxtail logo based on my sketches and designed the first few batches of tapes. He taught me how to lay out artwork for printing and how to cut and score j-cards. The label might not have ever happened if it wasn’t for his friendship and support.

5, 6. Initially I assembled everything by hand and dubbed tapes on a daisy-chained stack of used cassette decks that all ran at different speeds which drove me insane.

7, 8, 9. I launched the label in coordination with the Mope Lounge tour I did with , and we recorded material for the third Oxtail release on that tour. Mope Lounge was self-releasing tapes and booking our own shows and I think that experience made me realize that I could, and should, start a project to turn the one-offs into a body of work.

10. The first Oxtail release was my just-moved-to-NYC meltdown tape Meeker, the name of the street (Interstate highway off-ramp, more accurately) directly outside my bedroom window, whose sounds are brick-walled into the recording, and whose soot settled into a gritty black layer on everything I owned until I learned to keep my windows closed.

11. So it makes some kind of weird full-circle sense that I release my latest album, Leaving/Returning, on the label’s 10th anniversary. This one trades the hyper-local concerns of Meeker for a much more expansive view, both sonically and conceptually. These days I live in Sydney, and much of the album was recorded during, and inspired by, long-haul air travel and the associated headspaces. “Oxtail Worldwide,” I suppose you could say.

19/07/2024

Out Now: Mike Nigro - Leaving/Returning 🔁

Oxtail Recordings head Mike Nigro celebrates the label's 10th birthday with the release of his latest album: Leaving/Returning is a soundtrack to going somewhere but being nowhere: continuous music inspired by the frictionless spaces of airport lounges, hotel lobbies and public transit.

Composed on airplanes, in airports, and at home in between flights during a period of extensive international travel, it’s the sound of staring out the window, drifting off, snapping back, and asking yourself “how did I get here?”

It’s also a piece that evokes having your mind in two places at once, never knowing if you’re coming or going; circular, repetitive, chiastic music that expresses the longing to return when you can never go home, in both form and feeling.

As always, stream and grip cassettes on Bandcamp.

Design and layout by Josh Paton
Mastered by OVRSCN

16/07/2024

11/07/2024

.randall is an incredibly thoughtful and articulate artist, which is made clear in her latest interview with 15 Questions. But these quotes specifically made me laugh (and think) so hard that I had to go ahead and post just the hot takes.

06/07/2024

Incredible review of .randall’s “Her Water Dream/Image of a Blue Thumbs-Up” now up on !

“by savoring that very ambiguity between mind trip and meaning, Ariadne Randall’s courageous release shares intimate insights into her personal processes of transition and empowerment; their epiphenomena and uncertainties, including the invitation to decode all manner of preconceptions – also in contemporary composition.”

21/06/2024

Announcing: Mike Nigro - Leaving/Returning 🔁
Available July 19

Leaving/Returning is a soundtrack to going somewhere but being nowhere: continuous music inspired by the frictionless spaces of airport lounges, hotel lobbies and public transit.

Composed on airplanes, in airports, and at home in between flights during a period of extensive international travel, it’s the sound of staring out the window, drifting off, snapping back, and asking yourself “how did I get here?”

It’s also a piece that evokes having your mind in two places at once, never knowing if you’re coming or going: circular, repetitive, chiastic music that expresses the longing to return when you can never go home, in both form and feeling.

Featuring design and layout by the legend Josh Paton.

13/06/2024

Ariadne Randall gets an A from SPIN, along with some heavy experimental music name-checks!

"Transfixing and beautiful, portraying not a struggle but an arrival"

Multimedia artist Ariadne Randall finds epiphanies on 'Her Water Dream/Image of a Blue Thumbs-Up.'

12/06/2024

"Since 2014" t-shirt now available for preorder. Super soft white t-shirts with Oxtail logo chest print and upper-back detail paying homage to a decade of ambient noise and broken songs.

Preorders close this Saturday Sept. 15, shipping in early July.

11/06/2024

Stylish embroidered Oxtail Recordings hats now available for preorder! Stay sun safe and let everyone in town know you’re a real “head" at the same time.

Preorders close this Saturday Sept. 15, shipping in early July.