among the other great records on aquarium drunkard's "unranked sprawl of records that stuck with us" 2010-2019 list is joshua abrams & natural information society's simultonality (2017, mte-68). the second LP edition of simultonality is available right here.

the second edition of mandatory reality, the critically acclaimed 2019 double album by joshua abrams & natural information society, is now available from the eremite records mail order department. second edition of 650 copies: clear vinyl, metallic silver ink on matte white paper inside gatefold. first edition: black vinyl, brown ink on textured cream wraps inside gatefold. both second & first edition LPs pressed on premium audiophile-quality vinyl by RTI, with heavyweight stoughton 'laserdisc' gatefold jackets, retro-audiophile dust sleeves & record labels hand screenprinted by alan sherry at siwa studios, northern new mexico. stores, please inquire with our esteemed distributor forced exposure. mandatory reality double CD available here, lossless digital files available from bandcamp. photos of 1st edition & 2nd edition LPs here.

composer ben vida, fellow member of the band town & county with joshua abrams back in the day, wrote about mandatory reality for bomb magazine. "Form evaporates & one is left to scan the sound, to play with perception & explore the granular. It is through duration that performance can morph into ceremony. & it is in ceremony that we find durational music at its most functional & epic. When people gather to make music collectively, with the heartfelt intention of producing that space of ceremony, something ecstatic happens." 

eremite is happy to announce that both peter broetzmann & joshua abrams & natural information society will perform as part of the 2020 big ears festival, taking place march 26-29 in knoxville, tn. peter broetzmann will play twice --solo, & in duo with andrew cyrille. tickets 

in august 2018 eremite records finally established a social media presence, @eremiterecords on instagram.

dig this review of mandatory reality by stuart boomer for pointofdeparture.org. "Abrams is exploring a musical zone with tremendous potential, one focussed directly on the impact of insistent sound, repetition & rhythm on consciousness. Like traditional trance musics (Africa, India & Persia), it's illuminating work, seemingly eroding barriers between self & other, creating a kind of bliss."