End of the year...

One last update before the ending of the year, special thanks to David at actsofsilence.com who listed two of our releases on his list of 100 notable netlabel releases of 2011 for Lee's Symphony for Monotron (I, II, III), and our Classicality of /'Zəeppə compilation. Thanks David!

We have some new music to come in 2012 already (wait for everything to slow down again), but right now here are a couple of very cool videos that use some of Lee's music from the Vimeo music store... and oddly enough, all three of them feature time-lapse photograph and all three feature music from The Ambient Baby! Perhaps we should start a new genre of music... slo-mo?







Thanks for downloading any of our releases this past year and here's to 2012...hopefully without solar flares.

new single: Origami Repetika

This is a debut release on Happy Puppy from Adam Sigmund, aka Origami Repetika, aka Agent 220 of Origami Republika (universal network of people who are interested in sharing expressions).

Origami Repetika has a number of releases on our close friends Adam Crammond's proc-records.net label, as well as the infamous 20kpbs and abulia concepts.

"These are two tracks I recently finished before taking a break for the rest of 2011 as my new wife and I are getting a place of our own right after christmas... I had a good time adding ambientish subtleties on top of my repetitive drums and bass."

The first track "one two 3 4" starts off as sounding like an experimental mic-in-track, the processed vocal textures and sweeping synths bounce all around your head; the b-side "love love what can you say love" is like a lost 80s remix (recommended if you're familiar with The Legends Facts and Figures album).  It's a groovy little single and we hope you enjoy it.

Download single | Stream single

Artwork by Jeremy Keith: Front

Tracks: (320 kbps)

1. one two 3 4

2. love love what can you say love

released November 5, 2011

Trick or Treat!

A stormy night pushes you to toward a huge and dark house belonging to the reclusive Dr. Slocum, a mysterious genius who converted a closed asylum into an evil labratory, where he hides from the world with his menage of monsters of science. But the ghosts that haunted the asylum are still there...

Once inside you hear ghostly pianos with no-one playing them, strange moans and cries of terror, floating spirits, dark and empty operating chambers, and more than one dungeon inhabited by abandoned 'experiments'...

You always see those "Sounds of Horror" CDs for sale in the shops during Halloween, and most of the time they are of the 'overdoing-it' variety in design. They are always more comical or cartoony, than actually scary.

So Lee Rosevere designed this nearly 45 minute spooky-suite of truly unsettling and disturbing sounds, free to use for all your Halloween purposes.

Listening on headphones will prove the most rewarding (and creepy) experience, but it's also great for putting in the front window of your house to add eerie ambience during the trick-or-treating hours.

It is intended for non-commercial personal use. If you are holding a charity event and would like to use it, please be our guest.

Happy haunting!

Artwork by Justus Hayes/Shoes on Wires (CC BY 2.0)

Tracks: (256 and 128 kbps)

1. Trick Or Treat 256 128 (44:40)

new single: Morgan Sadler "Go On"

Happy Puppy is proud to present a single release by Canadian singer/songwriter Morgan Sadler.

She describes her musical creations as beautiful disasters with thoughtful, yet sometimes obscure lyrics, sung with sincere emotion.

Morgan has been performing and writing for years, getting her start at The Merchant, in Kingston ONT.

Since then, she formed a trio and released her first EP called Turn, one of the tracks featured here "Go On" won a Toronto Independent Music Award for Best Song 2009-2010.

To find out more, you can hear more of her songs at her CBC Radio 3 page, or visit her website morgansadler.com

Download single | Stream single

Artwork: Front

Tracks: (160 kbps)

1. Go On

2. Going Nowhere

released September 17, 2011

Video for The Itchy Creeps "Gorilla Foot"!

Probably should wait to post this until Halloween but...

I just discovered the existence of this strange and very creepy video made by Mark and Ifraz for The Itchy Creeps "Gorilla Foot" - thanks guys!

Album review: The Classicality of /'Zəeppə/

Thanks to David Nemeth over at the actsofsilence website for the very nice review of the Classicality of /'Zəeppə/ album!

photo by Heinrich Klaffs (cc)

New release: The Classicality of /'Zəeppə/

Recently, I came across this commercial release and wondered if it would be possible to create a version using only tracks available for free download online (Creative Commons licensed tracks) since many of the original composers are no longer with us.

Turns out, it is possible!

Thanks to a variety of online classical search engines (and the gracious permission of all the ensembles and artists for allowing redistribution), I am very proud to present this collection, which I will refer to as The Classicality of /'Zəeppə/ (just to keep the lawyers happy).

The track lists are not completely identical, as the tracks here were chosen strictly by availability, quality of recording and performance. However, all of the composers and/or compositions were influential.

Even if you're not a fan of Mr. /'Zəeppə/, you can still download and enjoy this music for own its own merits.

Please visit the original artists sites and donate whatever you can for their generosity, and continued effort to keep the music alive.

Click here to download for free from Happy Puppy!

New release: LR's "The Devil is a Captcha"

Captcha's were already annoying, and lately they've gotten worse. The jumbled letters are so masked on website that they can be barely read, let alone retyped.

On a recent account signup, Google asked me to type something illegible. So I hit the "play" button so I could understand it. What I heard was even more disturbing (google "captcha" on youtube, others have discovered it too).

A mix of backwards and garbled voices with an anonymous robot reads random words at disjointed intervals. It sounds like digital ghosts have attacked your computer, much like those awful Hollywood EVP movies.

I was startled at first, then intriqued. What were the backwards voices saying? Not to mention the dadaist minimalist poetry that the robot spurted out.

So I downloaded the handy-dandy mp3 provided and make a collage of voices - the left channel features the forward robot with backward voices, and the right channel is backwards robot, with forward voices (which sound like they come from TV interviews)... for eleven minutes and 6 seconds (666 seconds).

Download it at the Free Music Archive or from the widget below.

BOAT!

Sirona Records compilation featuring new LR track

The netlabel Sirona Records, run by Arnaud Barbe aka Pollux (who just released an single on Happy Puppy) has only been in operating for a few months, but it already has over 125+ releases.

Recently they put out album #101 featuring 3 discs worth of lo-bitrate exclusive material from many artists, including Lee who donated a new track which you can download for free.

New release - Symphony For Monotron (movements 1-3)

In a new experience in 'content distribution', Lee recently composed a Symphony For Monotron.

It has three movements, and all three were released seperately on three different lo-bit netlabels: the 1st Movement is available at 8Ravens, the 2nd Movement is up at the legendary 20kbps, and the 3rd Movement is available at our good friends proc-records.

New single release by Pollux

New virtual double-pack single from Pollux has just been released: it's the debut release by Arnaud Barbe on our label, and it's a tribute-remix to artists he is a fan and a friend of including a track from a Graffiti Mechanism EP on Happy Puppy.

Rspct is now available for free download!

Attention Greg R. Roth of the Mizalites!

Hello friends... Lee R. here, looking to see if there is anyone out there who might know or be able to contact a Mr. Greg R. Roth, who once recorded under the band name The Mizalites from Winnipeg.

I have a cassette of this band that I would like to reissue on Happy Puppy (for free download of course), but I have no contact info for Greg. I found this tape in Winnipeg, at a Sam The Record Man (remember them?) around 1995/96. The date on the tape is 1993, Castle 1 Band Records.. it looks like this:



I've googled and googled, and even contacted the public library in Winnipeg for contact info, but they have nothing.

If you're reading this Greg R. Roth (or you are someone who knows him) please send me an email!

Even if you don't want Happy Puppy to re-release it, please email me anyway as I know there is a CD version of this music and I'd like to upgrade my tape - and I'd love to see the video for "Jet ride" (apparently it was on a DVD with the CD version).

There are 10 tracks:

1. Jet Ride
2. Summer Dreams
3. This little town
4. Take a chance
5. I wonder how
6. Please wait
7. Don't dial
8. Travelling through a bright nebula
9. Spring is here
10. If the Sun's still shining tomorrow

and here's a sample of "Jet Ride":



Thanks! Back to regularly scheduled announcements now.

Acid House Kings remixed by Lee

BREAKING NEWS!

We are terribly excited around here as Lee's bossa nova lounge remix of Acid House Kings latest single "Would You Say Stop" is included on their new EP!

You can listen to it below or download the original single for free!

Thanks to AHK! Proceeds from the sale of the EP go to Wateraid.

May updates!

Some of Lee's ambient tracks have been added to the playlist for the You Are Listening To... website - this is a neat site that plays random tracks via soundcloud and juxtaposes them with streaming audio from police radio scanners. You can choose difference cities like Chicago, LA, Montreal and our thanks to Eric, who runs the site for adding us.

Graffiti Mechanism returns to the label with a brand new release - Fueled By Emotion - consisting of spacy, electronic ambient sounds - this time with more dark textures.

Happy Puppy is very proud to release the first volume in the series King For A Day: a fan tribute to XTC! Originally these cover tunes were released on cassette in the mid-90s, and the first volume concentrates on the first tape from 1996. Also, you don't have to wait and purchase all 134 covers at once on a CD-R for really cheap!

More very very soon!

February and March updates

Hellooo... two new things to tell you aboot:



Happy Puppy is proud to announce a new group to the roster: Scarm.

This Russian-based group dropped this album on us out of the blue, and it's quite interesting.

A curious blend of atmospheric guitars and drums with a experimental and improvisational edge, emotional, darkly melodic noise ambient. This could easily appear on a soundtrack to an underground indie film, but also stands completely on its own. The band describe it as "a storyline about one uncommon day of an ordinary person. It starts at the midday and ends late at night. And the darker street comes the more heavy, terrible and noisy music turns."

Download it here...





I first discovered the music of Reggie Regan in 1990 while sifting through a box of 45s at my local Winnipeg University radio station - CDs were just becoming more common, and the station manager wanted to make room, so he said I could take whatever 45s I wanted. Wrong thing to say to me.

While digging through the milkcrates of neglected vinyl, I found this indie release entitled Reggie Regan's Greatest Hits Volume 1 (yes, he did it before the Rheostatics). I was intrigued, especially when one of the songs was "Burning Swedish Meatballs".

I listened to it at home and I was taken by it's quirky charm, a blend of new wave and slighty off-kilter pop. Who was this guy? No info available on the label, other than it was released in 1984. I looked him up in 1997 when I got online but there was nothing.

Fast-forward to early 2011, and going through some of my vinyl that I was transferring to CD I wanted to upgrade my copy and thought to look his name up online again.

This time, I discover a lot more about Reggie, mostly through his friends blog: Reggie lived in Winnipeg for a time doing the odd gig and released this one and only record (now a hit in cult circles).

He also knows how to fix transmissions, fixes up spare houses, he's an emergency flight-crew nurse, he's a medical legal consultant, and he spends alot of his time building bat houses in efforts to control mosquito populations - one of the unknown heroes from Canada (ok technically he's been in the States for a long time too).

And now with Reggie's kind permission, he is going to take over the interweb by re-releasing his only-ever record available for free download on Happy Puppy. He also generously donated a scan of the original vinyl sleeve art (mine didn't have one) so you can get the full Reggie experience. Click here to get it!

And as always, both of these are available at the Free Music Archive...

See you soon!