Phew - Vertigo KO
How to use the reserve function
If you'd like to purchase items from our site but want to save money on shipping costs, you can use our reserve function to combine your orders over an unlimited period of time, and ship them together for one combined shipping price when you are ready.
Just hit the 'reserve' button at the checkout page as your shipping option when you've finished making your order, and your order will automatically be held in reserve here until you are ready for us to ship everything to you.You can keep as many orders in reserve with us via our site as you like, until you are ready to ship. Just send us an email when you are ready to ship your reserve orders, and we will get in touch with the combined shipping price, or ship for free if you have exceeded the minimum order amount for free shipping to your address.
Can the reserve function be used to get free shipping? Yes - If your combined order total is more than £50 within the UK, over £150 within the EU, or over £225 worldwide, we'll ship your order to you via courier service, for free.
Here's a step by step guide to using it:
1. Click on the account icon to log into your account.
If you don't have an account, please click 'create account' to make one. If you had an account on the old RWDFWD site, please create a new one with the same email address used on the old site - this will ensure your previous orders are brought through to your new account.
2. Add records to your cart as normal.
3. When you're ready to check out, select 'ship'.
4. Then select 'Reserve items' on the shipping method list, then continue to payment.
5. Once payment is complete, your order will show in your account as 'unfulfilled'. We will have put all the products aside in reserve for you to combine with other orders and ship later in bulk.
6. When you're ready to ship all the items you have in reserve, email us on info@rwdfwd.com and we will calculate the shipping due and arrange for payment to be taken.
7. Sit tight and wait for your records to arrive in the post!
Free Shipping?
We offer free shipping on orders over a certain value
UK orders over £50
EU orders over £150
Worldwide over £225
This is automatically applied at checkout and reserve orders also count towards it.
EU Order info
Unfortunately, the UK is no longer part of the EU - This means that certain shipments sent to addresses there from us may be subject to tax and / or import duty - All orders sent from RWDWD are sent ‘DDU’ - That is, duty unpaid - any import tax and/or duty is the sole responsibility of the buyer.
If you would like to use our reserve function to group several orders into one large shipment, we can arrange for it to be sent tax and duty pre-paid so you don’t have to worry about it at a later date - Contact us for more information.
a culmination of unreleased material from the Light Sleep and Voice Hardcore sessions (if you know, you know!) -
“This album is an unconscious sound sketch. It was recorded in Japan from 2017 to 2019, a closed and obstructive time. It is not a presentation of a worldview, but a personal documentary music of the late 2010s. The hidden message of this album is: What a terrible world we live in, but let's survive.” - Phew
This quote from Phew herself paints the right kind of picture, we'd say.
Not just in terms of the sound of these recordings, which can range from bittersweet, to alluringly nightmarish drones and skeletal rhythm passages, through to past-midnight homezone vocal loops that will make the outside world fade into nothing momentarily, whilst you fall into her black-hole-soundworld of curiosity...
But also, to us, the fact that she doesn't try to over-explain her music or attach any grandiose, over-intellectualised concepts, points dearly towards the honesty of her music, especially these solo pieces here, which often feel totally improvised, full of raw emotion (wether in a reserved, almost 'shy' kind of stripped back, vaporous kind of way, or in her more brooding, provoking and punk-ish attitude... A good example of both moods, would be 'Let's Dance Let's Go' for example, which lets really quite beautiful blue vocal drones stretch out underneath red-lined voice injections. We're not sure what the japanese lyrics mean here, but we'd like to imagine some kind of uncomfortable stand off between the performer&activist and an ambient, yoga-type crowd that think the world will change if they sit down cross legged, eyes closed).
Either way, Phew's music is full of heart, channelled via machines and microphones, purposely steering-clear from over-anxious, over-polished production sheen and far-away from mass-pleasing pop-arrangements, in favour of pure, undiluted feeling, via sound.
Vertigo KO is a special thing, if you like to delve into the weird & wonderful.
It makes full sense on vinyl, with the stylus picking up all sorts of ghosts that add to the all important feeling here.
As if the music wasn't enough, this fine record here comes presented with a 20page zine designed by our very own Alex Digard aka Studio Tape-Echo, including photography from Masayuki Shioda and writing from both Disciples and Phew.
No excuses not to put away that phone for a while, and just sit and enjoy the experience.
Comes with DL code.
+ 20 page booklet zine.
Mastering: Stefan Betke
Photos: Masayuki Shioda
Sleevenotes: Selpic Sid, Phew
Design: Studio Tape-Echo
Video: Lisa Aoki
The Void
Let's Dance Let's Go
Midnight Awakening
All That Vertigo