Couldn’t quite believe it when the totally lovely Spenser Tomson decided to write a piece about Collapsing Drums for the 500th issue of @thewiremagazine !
I’m massively grateful to all the brilliant artists who’ve contributed to the label — it’s a joy and privilege.
Spenser writes about @paul_stan_nataraj & @masimbahwati , @exagentband@kingmramazingoffical , and about @54thegate , where I’m lucky to spend part of the week. I also talk a bit about Bristol 🧡
So much happening in the next couple of months! Announcements incoming 🌿🔥
New tape on Collapsing Shelf! Incidental Music O go H ((hot pink))’ is the collaborative project of artists @richardjphoenix (author of DIY as Privilege and Do Your Own Thing), Shepherd Manyika @shepadimusgotnopliers and Maria Marzaioli @youandthehorizon . The pieces here were recorded live at the @_aliceamati Gallery in London, and the @amici__art Gallery in Hastings. They combine turntable, spinners, violin, pedals, handmade piano-guitar and mixer. The resulting recordings form a kind of scratchy, looping improv-jazz — with occasional squeaks and scrapes that keep the brain on effervescent tenterhooks...
The cover art is derived from a painting by Richard (slide 3)
🔗 in Bio…
YES TO THIS! Just dropped on Collapsing Shelf — Hebejeebie’s @hebe.rusk debut audio release.
It is a wonderful lo-fi gem capturing a kind of dreamlike direct-to-tape vintage ‘casiocore’ (ok, it’s a Yamaha) synaesthesia that is completely essential. Cassette and digital on the Collapsing Shelf bandcamp — link in bio.
Hebe’s words here:
For my first crowd-facing musical performance at 10 years old, I chose to play Daisy Bell.
This song is also the first ever to be synthesised by computer speech.
An amalgamation of Field recordings and Home recordings made between the summers of 2024 and 2025, performed and edited by Hebe Rusk.
Instruments: Yamaha PSR-36, Cassette Recorder, Voice, Phone.
PRE ORDERS LIVE:
LISA is the deliriously propulsive sonic combination of language contortionist Anastasia Freygang @ragamash_sandybaum and Japanese experimental-pop shapeshifter Koichi Yamanoha (aka Grimm Grimm).
This mini-album is unlike anything the Collapsing HQ has ever set tinnital eardrum near: wild, bright and joyfully unhinged.
Machined beats collide with near-impossible vocal timbres in a release that feels like hyperkinetic ceremony refracted through a parallel-universe strain of EDM — all in honour of birthing the Yamaha Dog — who nuzzles their way in, spelling out ANUS SUN to mark her premiere... LISA materialised housing a complete set of organs in her very own ribcage...
Their work is playful, feral and discordantly euphoric.
This is a long, drawn out pre-order, but initial copies can be grabbed direct from the artists at their London show at Spanners on March 11th 2026... Link in Bio...
THREE DAYS TO GO! @spanners.club beckons!! Improvisation genius @kenichiiwasa will be joining @54thegate ’s Friday jam band which has been renamed Love Permanent - where Gate facilitators jam with gate members including Labake Sabbath @labakeanisere and @kingmramazingoffical … it’s gonna be a vibe!
Raising funds for a replacement cornet for Harry Furniss @improvsgreatesthits — the loss of his beloved instrument, which went missing from a bus a few weeks ago, has created a void in the bristol / London improv scenes… if anyone can spare a donation that would be ace… please repost if this moves you to… there’s a link in the tree… well done to Pablo Jimenez Moreno for setting up the fund… 🔗 in bio
Hey folks! February’s offering on the zine-like side project Collapsing Shelf is this masterpiece of a lo-fi gem recorded between 1993 and 1995 by Illusion-O when he was a teenager. Here is a pic of the lovely man on his birthday around the time he made this — which is also conceptually rigorous as it’s my birthday today =) =) =)
A grungy, post-punk vibe is encapsulated on these raw, in-the-room mono recordings made using the on-board mic of a cheap boom box. Still sounds incredibly fresh 31 years later... tape-to-tape-to-tape... enjoy... it slaps/// link in the tree eh...
Collapsing Shelf 02 out now! Continuing the zine-like sibling label with the raw, anti-perfectionist bent, this is a wonderful room recording of Imperceptible Clouds live at @improvsgreatesthits ’s show at Café Kino in Bristol last year…
Imperceptible clouds are a weather dependant improv collective riding the line between Bristol, Oxford and London. Their unpredictable live sets bring in elements of quantum physics, space appropriation, jazz electronica and freedom, wrapped as hypnotic and sometimes humorous always unique performances...
David Nii Kwartei Quartey:
Mbira, Clarinet, daisy chain o’pedals, words
Logan Kunaka:
Bass guitar
Pablo Jimenez-Moreno:
Trumpet, guitar
Recorded at Café Kino via a field recorder somewhere in the room, Saturday 11th October 2025
Happy new year folks and hope everyone is in a good enough place =)
Happy to announce the birth of COLLAPSING SHELF — the anti-perfectionist little sibling of Collapsing Drums! This new tape label allows for rough n’ ready experiments, lo-fi live recordings, a sense of humour and cheaper (£6!) home dubbed / recycled tapes that still have a collectable feel. Proudly unmastered, it’s open to submissions too!
The first release is new project by Bristol housemates Super Jenny x Caballo Perro — an unpolished and deeply unserious lo-fi gem recorded at home in East Bristol...
‘Of course!’ — DJ Marcelle
This is a joke-face no-fi clattercore project in two languages....
Super Jenny brings her distinct onamatopaeic vocal joy in sprinkled flourishes above the pottering and clanks of Caballo Perro (meaning Horse-Dog)
Seriously unserious, this is a risposte to the perfectionist tendencies that can arise in the members’ (Brenda Rosete, Pablo Jimenez-Moreno & Charlie Behrens) other creative practices...
There’s also a guest appearance from Collapsing Daughter / fashion icon @frillseekerr@jimenezmorenopablo@vinnie.jr_the_cat
Grab a tape from the link in bio if it floats ya boat!
