Tuesday, May 7, 2019

May 18th Portland Show






Well we're very excited about this show on many levels.  The other bands are rad, the space is rad,  and we are gearing up to play our first electric set in a few years....gonna be a full on Frippetronics setup:  2 tape machines, 4 amps,  mic'd banjo and electric guitar. 
Be there!

Monday, April 15, 2019

Show in Portland April 26th






We're pleased as punch to be playing in Portland April 26th with Mattress and Andy Cigarettes.

This will be fun.  We have performed amplified in at least a year (maybe more), and for this set we'll be doing a special dual guitar "Frippetronics" set with two tape machines and four amplifiers. 

Gonna be a good one!

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

More art for 9/21 show in Portland






Here's another poster for the show on 9/21........did I mention we're excited for this show? Yeah!!!

Monday, June 25, 2018

Show poster and video!




Here's a poster and short video from a huuuuge show that happened in Oly at Le Voyeur.

The bill was:
Kevin Shintaku / Coby Tamayo
Jean-Paul Jenkins
Hammer of Hathor
Grex
War Hippy
Malaikat Dan Singa
Sleepwalkers Local
godtease
Ergoeg

Monday, May 28, 2018

Interesting review of Corpse Pose

The following is from  https://cowsarejustfood.wordpress.com/

scene opens on the doulton fountain, soundtracked by post-summer shirtless dickerry; tar-lung yellowed bellowing from some east-end prolapse full of do it yrself tattoos, a gnarly invigoration of buckfast and sectarian odium.
(score fades in. hammer of hathor: via america / japan / scotland. hijikata tatsumi carouses with charles gocher; la monte young’s in costume; pärson sound nods off / out)
our rancorous protagonist atop, betwixt and almost pornographically inside this album. and it’s so fucking working.
i take a seat amongst the huddling, baffled travellers, their tourist chatter hushed, set on edge by the unanticipated advent of violence.
(the first track’s wandered into view, something approaching riff on something approaching guitar stumbles around, gestures spastic before it all klangs and clatters percussively down the bloody stairs)
he’s all sinew and strain, ectoplasmic with some random rage. butoh, detourned and random and alive and right in my goddamn face.
(it’s wheezing asthmatically into itself; a rubbery metronome, a fizz of thin reeds moulded into low rent ‘jazz’ and death throe noise. it starts, looking for a little lick or two but finishes with fists, a sweaty yuzna-like back ‘n’ forth shunt)
i’m waiting expectant for the third engorged act, a flail or swing at the ghosts in his head at his feet but this bastard, reduced to mutters, crouches and curls hisself all foetal.
(what feels like an interlude when i wanted climax, stillness when i wanted movement. there’s willing coaxing, ethnologically teasing one gentle jangle out as things bend and rattle. a minute meander, remaking/remodelling fourth world music and)
he contorts. coiling and uncoiling, flickering with nmda receptor antagonism.
(looping back through the crackle and hum of a bad connection to more loose string / percussion flaps)
he climbs to his knees now, gargantuan effort, buckled, garbled gabbling, the colour red, teeth and whatnots.
(the narrative arc’s all askew, as sun cut-throated sparks, huffing wildly too-late to life. let’s call it blooze, a splashing construction of re-de-tuned ur-rock. great clunks of noise, birthed and (s)played, obvious)
the people’s palace looms, menacing as the past and a historyless future can be. this is the afterbirth of fag-end sixties experiments and the mucked-out shed of the eighties. fifty pence for the electricity meter, alex harvey spitting out willie the pimp, bible john, bad speed cheap cider, neu! and knives knives knives…
(yes! heathen music! pagan music! jesus music! everything’s a / on show, a performance. fluxus jams till you want to do better yrself. and we’re reaching ecstasy too late, too soon as it whispers itself away. the ritual skree dies down, ears ringing)
no resolution, no explanation but yr man wanders waywards away innardly raging still. shirt tossed aside in dis-fucking-gust.
(emphasis on the wave in no-wave coz i stammer to my feet, seasick from absurdist warbles and atonal wobbles, crude scrapes against my lugholes. it ends, post-coital, lacking clarity, cohesion but i’m relieved, like i lived through something. this was corpse pose)
fade out.

frm-at / hammer of hathor

Thursday, May 10, 2018

May 18 Portland show


Well folks its our 1st Portland show in almost a year, happening on May 18th at the Waypost.  In a strange coincidence this also happens to be Mark's 40th birthday, woohoo!

We're excited as hell to play,  musical ideas have been flowing & we're both anxious to share some sounds with new and old friends.

Also wanted to mention I just uploaded our 10th album "Corpse Pose", which was released last year, to our WFMU page www.freemusicarchive.org/music/Hammer_of_Hathor

The next album which is #11, entitled "Threnody", is already recorded and we're fishing it around to labels (although we may end up releasing this on our own Wave White Wedded Words Tapes).

And finally,  with the acquisition of a new/old pro cassette field recorder we will be deepening our library of field recordings and on site live recordings.   We're hoping to record some sounds this summer at the abandoned Satsop Nuclear plant not far from here in Elma Washington....you can play/record in one of the old massive cooling towers!

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Not quite Hammer of Hathor, but almost!


I thought it would be cool to share this, not an official Hammer of Hathor show but almost!   Mark played with Jack Wright (and Evan Lipson and Greg Kelley) and Hathor played with Grrrlsxxx.   This was a fun night!
Stay tuned for a poster for the May 18th show in Portland, which also happens to be Mark's 40th birthday!! Woohoo!
Also we're hoping to have our 11th album, entitled "Threnody", ready for release in the next few months.  Its a real sonic treat.

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Show poster for Sept 29th

This happened last night,  and it was a blast!  Thanks to all who showed up.

Monday, May 15, 2017

Album #10, "Corpse Pose", released today!


Well we are very excited to announce the release today of our 10th album, entitled "Corpse Pose", available on a very limited cassette from the fine folks at F:rmat in Glasgow, Scotland.

Here's the bandcamp page:

https://frmat.bandcamp.com/

This is the first release of material recorded since living in Olympia, Washington...........stay tuned for more!  Things are brewing!

Saturday, May 13, 2017

All ages show tonight at Le Voyeur!



Happy to play this show tonight in support of our old pal Chadwick, who now lives in Spokane of all places.............


Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Show at Obisdian Oct 19th w/ Katrusa Yamauchi!!


We're very excited to be on this bill at Obsidian on October 19th! 
Katsura Yamauchi from Japan
Blood Moon Raga
Hammer of Hathor
All ages and 8pm sharp!!!!


Thursday, October 6, 2016

Performance this Friday for ArtsWalk

We're playing an early Olympia ArtsWalk show at the CoOp's downtown office this Friday October 7th at 5 o'clock sharp. 
We'll probably play for an hour or so.
Address is 608 Columbia St SW Olympia, its right across the street from Oly Supply. 
Please come by!!!!!!!!!

Saturday, September 24, 2016

House show this Friday Sept 30 in Olympia!



Howdy folks we're playing at ABC House this Friday September 30 in Olympia, show starts at 8 and we're on 1st so don't be late!  We'll be debuting two new compositions as well as some new gear.

Monday, June 6, 2016

Over 40,000 downloads & listens at the Free Music Archive!

That's right folks, we haven't been performing as much in the last year (which will be changing) and the next record isn't out yet (very soon) but we've still managed to pass the 40,000 download/listen mark at WFMU's Free Music Archive!


Not bad for a group as obscure and non self promoting as us!

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Album review of "Sphere"

Here's what David Nemeth said about us:


Sometimes when writing a review it’s difficult to not oversell with superlatives and adjectives such as blogs which seems to proliferate blog writing today. (For the record I am talking more about generalist blogs rather than music blogs.) That said, I believe that Hammer of Harthor’s self released Sphere is one damn fine album.
Hammer of Hathor is the duo Heather Vergotis and Mark Kaylor who now hail from Olympia, Washington but have spent time in Maine and Philadelphia. The eight tracks ofSphere venture from twisted versions of Japanese folk songs to percussion-laden improvisations to my favorite, a duet between a banjo and a guitar mimicking bamboo flutes. All of this is an over-simplification and most likely wrong, regardless this may be one of the best albums you will hear this year.
Here's the link to his site:
http://www.actsofsilence.com/album-review/divine-hammer/

NOTE:  "Sphere" is NOT self released, but made possible by the lovely folks of Don't Trust the Ruin.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Review of "Sphere"!!

This is from DMG in NYC:



Hammer Of Hathor is Heather Vergotis and Mark Kaylor.  Instrumentation is unlisted but sounds like out-of-tune guitar with flute, saxophone and percussion amongst other instruments.  The music I can only best describe as being a lo-fi No-Wave influenced insanity which ranges from angular freak outs to end-of-the-world doom dirges. Perhaps if you imagined Arto Lindsay recording guitar on Sun Ra's "Strange Strings" that would paint a more vivid picture. A lovely recording that will be revisited many times over!  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! -Chuck Bettis/DMG

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Holy cow downloads!

Well here are some interesting numbers!

Hammer of Hathor has now released 9 albums, typically of small run editions from 25-100 copies, most  
(but not all) of which are sold out.

I just checked the WFMU Free Music Archive where we have stuff available for download and much to my surprise we're almost at the 30,000 download mark!

Who are all these people downloading our music?  Who is listening to us right now?

Just wait, there's more to come!  Starting recording on Friday.....

Monday, February 23, 2015

Here are some words written about our latest release by the folks at Don't Trust The Ruin:

"Hammer of Hathor were only among us here in Maine for a few short years, but  in there wake they left us “Sphere”, and man albums don’t get much better than this! An epic album of organic ramblings, resulting in the most woozy and entrancing listen. Amazing fuzzed out electric guitar, pulsing intoxicating rhythms that would make Louis Hardin (Moondog) proud. A living, breathing album that softens even the backmost roads of the winter laden north.  "
This just in!  Our 9th album has hit the streets!

Entitled "Sphere" its available on cassette & CD.

Please email us if you want a hard copy.

Also available for perusal at:

www.freemusicarchive.org/music/Hammer_of _Hathor


Sunday, February 22, 2015

Here's a little writeup that escaped my notice, by Dylan of Field Hymns:

It’s not like we are not working or anything, we just are not sharing our daily thoughts at the moment! 2012 is going to be a big year for us at FH – we are relishing the quiet here for just a little bit longer…. On a somewhat related note – back from vacation was waiting for me the Goaty release ofHammer of Hathor’s The Ineluctable Modality of the Visible that was so kindly sent by Mark of said band. If you recall, HOH graced Field Hymns with an excellent album titled Vroom Psycho a while back and I was terribly excited to see what they had been up to in the meantime.Once again what strikes me about this band is how ethnically non-specific their music is – what I mean by that is I have no idea how to approach this album from my North American background.  It is an amalgamation, a synthesis of so many forms of music – I have no mental divider in my internal Rolodex in which to file this, which makes writing about it tricky. Hammer of Hathor are conversing in a musical language that excludes my understanding – I am fascinated by it but I cannot respond in turn, forever to be an outsider. And unlike many of their contemporaries it is always musical – even at it’s most un-hinged. It’s like a free-jazz Gamalen Kentucky minimalist banjo workshop in North Africa.  No, it’s like Sun Ra re-interpreting the score to Badlands.  See?  A better writer could explain this better. I feel like this is truly original piece of work and encourage you to seek out the rest of their catalog.Luckily Hammer of Hathor have just posted this album and a great deal of their work  at the Free Music Archive (which I seriously recommend checking out if have not before).  If you need the tape you can pick one up at the fabulous EGGY ( and I will always recommend the tape) and our release can be gotten here.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

We haven't recieved the tapes in the mail yet but you can go to WFMU's free music archive & check out our 9th album!!!

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Hammer_of_Hathor/Sphere/

Monday, February 9, 2015

Whoa, long time no post!

Haven't posted here in ages.

We live in Olympia Washington now!!

A big thanks to all those who made it out for the fantastic show at Obsidian last night.  We're still buzzing over the magical music that happened!

Stay tuned for our 9th release due out on Don't Trust The Ruin (Big Blood) any minute now!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

"Saw Isosceles" now uploaded to Free Music Archive!

Folks-

The last release on Phase is so limited that I went ahead and uploaded  a digital version of the album to our Free Music Archive account, go here:

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Hammer_of_Hathor

We promised physical copies of the cassette to a few folks and yes, we will mail those out, its just been super busy around these parts!

In other news we're playing a show at the wonderful Ro He Ge Magik Theater in Belfast on Aug 3 w/ Eggs, Eggs and other guests.

There's also a short Maine/New England tour in the works likely for October.

And hopefully recording this winter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xo

Mark/Hather/Sonny

Saturday, June 2, 2012

New cassette release on Phase is here, now!!!

Folks, here's some great news!

We now have in our hands the cassettes from Phase in Greece, these are super cool looking and very limited.

The music is mostly some things that were going to end up on an LP that fell through, twice, but we're super excited to work with Phase and hope to be in Greece the next year or two to play some music.  Its a mix of guitar/drums, tape manipulation, and dual synth Frippetronics psychedelic brain meltdown!

If you want a tape shoot us an email, $6 shipped, while they last!


Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Life in Maine, new music, house show!!!

Folks!!! Well, its been a little since anything has happened here. We've been busy! Maybe you already know but we up and moved from Philly to Maine just before April began. This is a huge move and I think its safe to say we've found a place that is just what we've been looking for! Heather works as a bakers assistant in Belfast and Mark works on a farm a few miles from our house. Sonny doesn't have a job yet. I attached a pic of us in front of a huge sugar maple in front of the property. We live in a very old Cape style farmhouse that is just smashing, there's pasture and woods, a huge barn, lots of fresh air and wildlife. We are planting things and building structures for animals to live in. But now to the point of this blog, music music music! We're very happy to announce that the very last of the recordings made in the Harmelodic Haus on Kerby St. in Portland Or. are finally being released, and on a fantastic Athens Greece label called Phase!! This will be a limited run cassette (of course) and features some of our favorite stuff. Alot of this material was recorded on the old Ampex 440 and some even pre dates the material that was released on the Goaty tape! We'll do an official post when we have the cassette in our hands for sale, but we just gave the okay for the art yesterday, it looks rad! Also we will be having a special house show/party/potluck here at our place for Mark's birthday, Friday May 18th! The show will be from 7-10 SHARP (gotta start early, most of the bands have kids!) Music will be in this order, throughout the house: C Section 8 (Drew rules, very neat synth/drum machine etc) Village of Spaces (Dan and Amy rule and they have a new band member to boot!!) Hammmer of Hathor (ever heard of 'em??) Tracey Trance (cool sounding stuff to be sure!) Potluck too, bring food, BYOB 196 Bryant Rd Unity Maine Although we really live in Freedom, our road intersects 137 at the Freedom Post Office, look for the old red house and barn when you see Raven Rd on the left. xoxo Heather/mark/sonny IMG_6282

Friday, February 10, 2012

Complete works available at WFMU Free Music Archive!!

Folks

We're in the process of digitizing our recorded output, much of which is out of print, and releasing it to anyone and everyone via WMFU's Free Archive Library! Its so cool to be onboard for this, its been interesting taking these analog artifacts and making them listenable to the digital world!

Here's the link:

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Hammer_of_Hathor/

Everything should be up in the next week.

Oh there are still copies of the LP left if you want one hit us up!!

Friday, January 13, 2012

NEWS

Folks

Its been awhile, things are busy as usual!

We're gearing up to release a bunch of material, new and old.

Stankhouse opted to not do this 12" with us so we're going to put it out ourselves, probably a run of 100-150 by spring, hand screen printed covers, yeah! This is material we recorded while still in Portland and mixed/mastered with Mike Lastra (Smegma). John Golden will do the mastering of course. This record is heavy! 3 electric guitar and drum tracks and as well as tape manipulation/deconstruction and a long dual synth piece that ends in a lock groove!

As well we've begun recording what will be the only Philadelphia material here at our place on Spring Garden St. We've been talking to this great label in Greece called Phase about doing a cassette, stay tuned!

Finally some of you may know this and others may not, but we're relocating to Maine as of the spring. We fell in love with the area and feel it will be a wonderful place to be close to nature, raise a child, and concentrate on creating more art and music!

xo

mark/hathor/sonny klook

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Link to live sounds on BSR Providence check it out!

Go here:

http://www.bsrlive.com/playlists/live-block/391375

We played live and it was fun, the recording quality isn't great but I think you'll get the point!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Tour thanks for folks who helped out!

We had a very nice time indeed in New England and would like to thank the Apohadion in Portland along with Ed and Dave, and thanks to the Hersey State house for having us even with loudmouth Sonny along, and HUGE thanks to Erika in Easthampton who's played our music on her radio show for years, it was great to meet and hang out with you, and Chris at the Flywheel too, a helpful fella, in Providence we have to thank all the peeps at Brown Radio, Tim, Eric, Dannie, John, and the West House who gave us a roof to sleep under, in Belfast a real big thanks to all the people, Dan, Amy, Olai, Eva, Troy, Rose, and of course the Ro He Ge barn.....oh and don't forget that cop who busted up the party.

Good times.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

New England tour!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes folks, we're making a visit to New England and playing some shows too. We're bringing our buddy and roommate Dann Pell along too.

Here's what's happening:

Sept 20th----Portland Maine @ the Apohadion Theater, w/Big Black Cloud and others, I heard this was the last show ever at this space!!!
Sept 21st--Easthampton, MA @ the Flywheel w/ Tongue Oven, Beek
Sept 22nd--Providence RI @ BSR (Brown U. Radio, live on the air)
Sept 25th--Belfast, Maine @ ro he ge Magikal Theater

Probably some other things will pop up too, this is a vacation as much as a tour, get some fresh air, wide open spaces, yeah!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

NOT a Portland duo!

Oh the Volcanic Tongue people said we were a Portland duo..........NOT!!

We WERE..........NOW we be a Philly duo, but folks, we're an OUTER SPACE duo!! Space is the place!

New Cassette new cassette NEW CASSETTE!!!





Hammer Of Hathor
The Ineluctable Modality Of The Visible
Goaty Tapes No Cat
Cassette
£6.99

New cassette from this psychedelic Portland duo who navigate their way between monochord/Parson Sound-style wipeout, ethno-tinged almost-AACM style percussive improvisation w/plenty of zonked fourth world detail and classic cultic flutes and bongo style levitations ala Kalacakra/Yatha Sidhra/Paivansade et al. “These veterans of instrumental psychedelia offer up a sundry set of new works, rotating between sparse single-instrument meditations, cyclical atmospherics, and some profoundly groovable full-scale jammers. This is Hammer of Hathor at their best, weaving imperceptibly between cool La Monte Young meditations and sweltering Wattstax commotion.” – GT.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

This was a few years a ago, touching isn't it?

The Hammer of Hathor family in front of the mothership......

Our son was born in that Airstream trailer.
We spent the winter in it. At one point during an ice storm i had to kick our door open in the morning, it iced shut. We ran two space heaters all winter long!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Oh boy, the new release on Goaty Tapes!!!

Hammer of Hathor - The Ineluctable Modality of the Visible $6



These veterans of instrumental psychedelia offer up a sundry set of new works, rotating between sparse single-instrument meditations, cyclical atmospherics, and some profoundly groovable full-scale jammers. This is Hammer of Hathor at their best, blurring the lines between cool La Monte Young paeans and sweltering Wattstax commotion.

IMG_4213



www.goatytapes.com

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Old sights and sound

Here's an old clip from back when we thought we could just play jazz and do whatever we wanted, Heather was very pregnant, we were in Tuscany at this point in the midst of 20 shows in 23 days all over Italy with dear Tiziano driving us around. Fantastic time. We don't play jazz anymore.












Another live snippet!!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Live in Philly ya'll!

It was a nice evening on Frankford Ave in the lovely city of Philadelphia June 13 2011.

We played and some other folks played like Jacob Felix Huele, Tony Dryer (they are also Basshaters), Jack Wright, and an ensemble of Philly out jazz folks.

Earlier in the day we had a wonderful time playing music in the Spring Garden house with Jacob, Tony, Jack, Kelvin Pittman, and a trombone player named Dan Blacksburg.

AND YESTERDAY! Yesterday we were blessed with having a FREE 6 hour performance of Morten Feldman's String Quartet #2 being performed at this amazing Episcopalian cathedral here in West Philly. We took turns watching Sonny outsdide and went in for what was a truly amazing sonic experience. Wow.

Its been a blurry day. So many things happened, here's the video snippet from our performance. It felt good. And Sonny had a good time running up and down the sidewalk and finding kids and empty lots to play in. yeah!


Friday, June 10, 2011

Our 1st Philly show!!

Yes lovely folks, whoever you are:

we're playing our 1st show in Philly after moving here on April 1st.

Its at the Highwire Gallery on Frankford Ave.

Its Monday June 13th. Its a Fire Museum event.

Also playing are Jack Wright and an ensemble called "Live Like a King". More info to follow.

We're on 1st I think. We have a set dreamed up that involves tape loops (of course, cassette and reel to reel), banjo, electric guitar, drums, xylophone, mbira, and drums. Some new things and some other things.

Yeah!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Hammer of Hathor in Brooklyn June 5th!!

See this folks: http://roulettenyc.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/roulette-musicircus-june-4th-5th/

We're playing as a part of Roulette's 2 day John Cage Circus piece, yeah!

Doing two versions of "For Guylene"

Check it out!!