Shop Siren Recordings

Lillian Allen, Gary Barwin, Gregory Betts - Muttertongue: What is a Word in Utter Space

SR-LP-002
Muttertongue: What is a Word in Utter Space by Lillian Allen (a dub poet, writer, and Juno Award winner), Gary Barwin (poet, writer, composer, multimedia artist, performer, and educator), and Gregory Betts (whose writing explores the boundaries between self, other, and alien – the radical other) is a collaborative collection that crackles in its exploration of land, language, and page space. Combining the intensity of Dub Poetry with the intricacies of experimental poetics, this album is the sonorous soundscape partner of the collection of the same name (Exile Editions, 2025).

Vinyl edition includes exclusive track: "What What What What".

All tracks are available via bandcamp and streaming services everywhere. A limited run of bespoke LPs is available via bandcamp.

Praise for Muttertongue: What is a Word in Utter Space:

“As Allen, Barwin and Betts make their case for the continued joyous consumption of the irrational and revelatory, we hear the voices of their individual cultural inheritances as they strip the accretions of colonialism and approved culture from the ancient roots they suspect have been packaged for respectability and profit, and if we allow ourselves, participate in the audible presence of chant and chorus as they reverberate around the room we have chosen for consumption. [. . .] One can only hope they will continue to perform their boundary burning to reveal that all limits are actually invisible, that the rational and irrational, fantasy and reality, order and chaos, conscious and unconscious, rhythm and stasis, the approved and the shadow banned, are in fact, dance partners in the giddy whirl of life as they waltz and shimmy in disreputable indulgence.“ - Gordon Phinn, Periodicities

“The sound poems mirror the text but are not identical, although some of the poems from the book are in the sound poems, too. They play with linearity in the same way as the text in the book: incorporation of all kinds of elements: saxophone, xylophones, harmonies, grunts, rhythms, repetition, echoes, drums. [ . . .] Muttertongue is a call to openness, play and collaboration, a joyous experiment, and a reminder of what language can do when stretched and made elastic and springy. - Amanda Earl, The Temz Review

“Muttertongue is the mother tongue, the muttering, and the uttering. It’s what comes before words; it’s the trace the words leave behind. It’s the poetry that’s outside of poetry, inside breath, simply breathing.” - Dawn MacDonald, The Seabord Review of Books

“It comes across that [the Muttertongue Trio] are “learning to talk to each other, across the slippage of language”. The LP is to be experienced as a whole rather than as distinct tracks to play, in order to piece them together and begin to make sense. Through this, we experience bass-heavy vocals that question the nature of language, with “mother sounds” connecting to the land. At other times, instead, we seem to be transported out of space, with futuristic, distorted sounds that feel somewhat alien.” - Carmina Masoliver, The Norwich Radical

“Woken and Unbroken (Remix)” featured in Radio Music Gallery 26 by Del Stephen

Album and collection featured in the New Books Network Podcast

“Suffice it to say that readers with an interest in the performance/sound/visual tradition in poetry will find this book and album of great interest, showing, as it does, that the tradition is still very much alive and kicking. “ - Billy Mills, Elliptical Movements

Order the LP and purchase a digital download here.

Anne Waldman - Your Devotee in Rags

SR-LP-001
Your Devotee in Rags is a missive to this age of patriarchal power. Its songs and poems are designed to specifically confront that power and hold it to account. Taking such activist inspiration from musicians like Lido Pimienta and Tanya Tagaq, musically YDIR blends acoustic and electronic genres, waltzes, laments and Pauls Boutique-era Beastie Boys mash-ups all with the intent of creating a new artistic headspace: sonic poetry. The cultural direction is forward, the earbuds open up the stereo field. Listening to YDIR is, in a word, empowering.

All tracks are available via streaming services everywhere. A limited run of bespoke LPs will begin shipping in mid-April. This is a collectible item from one of the great poets of the 20th century, showing that age can never slow her down.

Praise for Your Devotee in Rags:

“Waldman is always up front; Whiteman is always complementary, never edging her out of the spotlight. I don’t know if making Waldman “accessible” to plebes like me is Whiteman’s goal, but if so, then mission accomplished.

And so I urge you to strap headphones on and take Waldman’s advice: Mount the brooms, witches!” (Michael Barclay, That Night in Toronto)

“When Anne Waldman opens Your Devotee in Rags with the words “I ebb like the ocean” (on the track Hag of Beare), the legendary poet could well be describing the album itself, whose melodies and rhythms undulate keenly to entice the listener into its markedly dark soundscape, where we sit in intrigue through this compelling experiment in sonic poetry.

Waldman’s powerful wordsmithing is intuitively backed with diverse musical musings furnished by Andrew Whiteman of Broken Social Scene. Whiteman’s rolling percussion marches the eclectic music forward, thrusting Waldman’s bravely voiced poetry into the fore. Altogether, the album could be described as something of an artful manifesto, critiquing injustices across lands and ages, through to the present moment and place.” (Khodi Dill, The Grey Griot)

“As an album it is symbiotic. The sawtooth synthesizers bite in tandem with our protagonists’ chomping barbs. A familiar, telephone-like distortion frequently warms vocals and instruments alike. Drones and Sirens haunt from both ends of the frequency spectrum. It is a complete experience. A mature sense of structure skillfully coddles the raw chaos.

I predict the journey it takes each listener on will be totally unique, immeasurably useful and changing; thus, I would recommend this album to anyone.” (Luca de la Lune)

“The dissonant tracks are particularly powerful, with the anti-war cry of “Mount the Brooms, Witches!” and feminist mythography of the Kali piece feeling urgent, necessary, and a fitting adaptation of Second Wave and Beat imagery to a contemporary call to arms (…she…she…she…she…this is a FEMALE speaking). The haunting chant of the anthropocene deathwish song really hits, too: To never have enough, be enough, get enough… Preach, Anne, preach.” (Maria Cichosz)

Featured in the New Books Network Podcast

Order the LP and digital download here.