May 2nd Newsletter

    No products in the cart.

Torn Light Records
1855 N Milwaukee
Chicago, IL 60647
312.955.0614
Open Everyday
10AM-7PM

FILTERS

Filter by

Filter by

Filter by

  • Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith
    Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith
    $31.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “The Harry Smith resurgence is upon us.” – Jack He was an anthropologist, filmmaker, painter, folklorist, mystic, and walking encyclopedia. He taught [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Folk / Country, Non-Fiction
  • Noel Meek & Mattin – Homage to Annea Lockwood Book + CD
    Noel Meek & Mattin – Homage to Annea Lockwood Book + CD
    $21.00 | ,

    Recital presents a book and CD homage to the New Zealand-born American composer Annea Lockwood (b. 1939). The unique concept for this album was conceived by artists Noel Meek (New […]

    GENRE: Experimental / Noise
  • A Mammal’s Notebook: The Writings of Erik Satie
    A Mammal’s Notebook: The Writings of Erik Satie
    $32.00 | ,

    This is the largest selection, in any language, of the writings of Erik Satie (1866-1925). Although once dismissed as an eccentric, Satie has come to be seen as a key […]

    GENRE: Modern Composition / Musique Concrete / Electronic, Non-Fiction
  • Pierre Clastres – Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians
    Pierre Clastres – Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians
    $22.00 | ,

    Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians is Pierre Clastres’s account of his 1963–64 encounter with this small Paraguayan tribe, a precise and detailed recording of the history, ritual, myths, and [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Maggot Brain #12
    Maggot Brain #12
    $12.00 | ,

    Crazy Doberman ? Erick’s Bradshaw delivers an epic, well-illustrated tour diary of a brief jaunt with these noise greats. Composer TAYONDAI BRAXTON by Katy Henricksen! A meaty, beautiful [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Ahmad Shamlou – Born Upon the Dark Spear
    Ahmad Shamlou – Born Upon the Dark Spear
    $13.00 | ,

    Chasm. Mist. Dark Song. Hour of Execution. Behind the Wall. These are just some of the poetic titles of Ahmad Shamlu (1925-2000) that together form the cipher to one of […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Giovanni Intra – Clinic of Phantasms: Writings 1994-2002
    Giovanni Intra – Clinic of Phantasms: Writings 1994-2002
    $13.00 | ,

    Artist, gallerist, and writer Giovanni Intra’s inventive approach to art writing provides a guide to the New Zealand and Los Angeles art scenes of his era. Everything you read about […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Non-Fiction
  • Ishmael Reed – Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
    Ishmael Reed – Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
    $17.00 | ,

    Ishmael Reed’s classic Neo-HooDoo Western, a classic from the Dalkey catalog, is presented here in a long-awaited republication with a new introduction.

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Anselm Hollo – The Tortoise of History
    Anselm Hollo – The Tortoise of History
    $8.00 | ,

    Anselm Hollo (1934–2013) authored more than forty books and was an award-winning translator. Born in Helsinki, Finland, he was fluent in German, Swedish, Finnish, and English by age ten. Hollo [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Try to Tell a Fish about Water: The Art, Music, and Third Life of Norma Tenega
    Try to Tell a Fish about Water: The Art, Music, and Third Life of Norm…
    $15.00 | ,

    In addition to her accomplishments as a gifted musician and songwriter, Norma Tanega was a noted gallerist, teacher, and a central figure in the vibrant and homegrown creative scene of […]

    GENRE: Folk / Country, Non-Fiction
  • Elfriede Jelinek – The Piano Teacher
    Elfriede Jelinek – The Piano Teacher
    $18.00 | ,

    The most popular work from provocative Austrian Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher is a searing portrait of a woman bound between a repressive society and her darkest desires. [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • George Melly – Don’t Tell Sybil: A Libidinous Memoir of the Unusual Impresario of English Surrealism
    George Melly – Don’t Tell Sybil: A Libidinous Memoir of th…
    $14.00 | ,

    Don’t Tell Sybil is a libidinous memoir by a master raconteur. George Melly (1926-2007) was impossible to ignore in London cultural circles between the 1950s and 90s. He first came […]

    GENRE: Memoir
  • Ibn Khald?n – The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History
    Ibn Khald?n – The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History
    $25.00 | ,

    The Muqaddimah, often translated as “Introduction” or “Prolegomenon,” is the most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Boris Vian – Blues for a Black Cat & Other Stories
    Boris Vian – Blues for a Black Cat & Other Stories
    $15.00 | ,

    “[This collection] displays Vian’s range from gallows humor to verbal fireworks, and happily serves to give visibility to this important writer.”- Publishers Weekly. [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • The 12th Annual International Sound Poetry Festival – Boxset & Book
    The 12th Annual International Sound Poetry Festival – Boxset �…
    $85.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “Almost 5 hours of recordings from the 12th Annual International Sound Poetry Festival on 4 cassettes and including a lovely 240 page book documenting […]

    GENRE: Experimental / Noise
  • Joseph Kessel – Army Of Shadows
    Joseph Kessel – Army Of Shadows
    $10.00 | ,

    Originally published in Algiers in 1943, Joseph Kessel’s Army of Shadows is one of the first books to have been written about the French Resistance. Now available in paperback, Contra […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Ann Quin – Tripticks
    Ann Quin – Tripticks
    $18.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “A joyful & experimental deathtrip of a science fiction novel” – Cleo First published in 1972, Ann Quin’s fourth and final novel was a […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Simone Weil – Anthology
    Simone Weil – Anthology
    $19.00 | ,

    Philosopher, theologian, critic, sociologist, political activist — Simone Weil was among the foremost thinkers of our time. Best known in this country for her theological writing, Weil [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by Dick Higgins
    Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by …
    $35.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “Fun book on one of the centers of the Fluxus movement. At the very least the one who helped create a written documentation of […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Greil Marcus – Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (Anniversary)
    Greil Marcus – Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentiet…
    $20.00 | ,

    Greil Marcus, author of Mystery Train, widely acclaimed as the best book ever written about America as seen through its music, began work on this new book out of a […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction, Post-Punk / Goth / Darkwave / Minimal Synth / Neofolk, Punk / Hardcore
  • Eileen Ormsby – The Darkest Web: Drugs, Death and Destroyed Lives . . . the Inside Story of the Internet’s Evil Twin
    Eileen Ormsby – The Darkest Web: Drugs, Death and Destroyed Live…
    $12.00 | ,

    Dark… A kingpin willing to murder to protect his dark web drug empire. A corrupt government official determined to avoid exposure. The death of a dark web drugs czar in […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction, True Crime
  • Arkady & Boris Strugatsky – Roadside Picnic
    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky – Roadside Picnic
    $17.00 | ,

    Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that […]

    GENRE: Weird Fiction/Sci-Fi/Unexplained Phenomena
  • Maggot Brain – Issue #9
    Maggot Brain – Issue #9
    $12.00 | ,

    WELCOME TO MAGGOT BRAIN #9 – RAYMOND PETTIBON ON THE COVER! RAYMOND PETTIBON: IN CONVERSATION WITH ADAM WOODHEAD JOHN BRANNON: NEGATIVE APPROACH HONCHO UNLOADS JOHN WATERS: THE RETURN OF THE […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive, Indie / Alternative
  • Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation
    Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation
    $30.00 | ,

    This is the first cultural history of the world’s most common sexual practice: masturbation. At a time when almost any victimless practice has its public advocates and almost every sexual […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette
    The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette
    $20.00 | ,

    The Wicked Queen is not a biography of one of the most infamous queens in history. Rather, Chantal Thomas presents the history of the verbal and visual representations of Marie-Antoinette, […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Djuna Barnes – Nightwood
    Djuna Barnes – Nightwood
    $15.00 | ,

    The fiery and enigmatic masterpiece―one of the greatest novels of the Modernist era. Nightwood, Djuna Barnes’ strange and sinuous tour de force, “belongs to that small class of books [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Céline – Journey to the End of the Night
    Céline – Journey to the End of the Night
    $18.00 | ,

    Céline’s masterpiece―colloquial, polemic, hyper-realistic, boiling over with black humor Céline’s masterpiece―colloquial, polemic, hyper realistic―boils over with bitter humor and revulsion at [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Roberto Bolaño – 2666
    Roberto Bolaño – 2666
    $29.00 | ,

    Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño’s life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • William T Vollmann – Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means
    William T Vollmann – Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on…
    $21.00 | ,

    Twenty-three years in the making, Rising Up and Rising Down (the original, published by McSweeney’s in October 2003, spans seven volumes) is a rich amalgam of historical analysis, [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • David McGowan – Programmed To Kill: The Politics Of Serial Murder
    David McGowan – Programmed To Kill: The Politics Of Serial Murde…
    $26.00 | ,

    The specter of the marauding serial killer has become a relatively common feature on the American landscape. Reactions to these modern-day monsters range from revulsion to morbid [...]

    GENRE: True Crime
  • Fangoria Vol 2 #14 (January 2022)
    Fangoria Vol 2 #14 (January 2022)
    $19.00 | ,

    2022 is upon us! FANGORIA #14 rings in the new year with the one you’ve been waiting for… and one you’ll have to wait a little longer for. Here’s what […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Horror Fiction
  • Jean Genet – Funeral Rites
    Jean Genet – Funeral Rites
    $17.00 | ,

    Genet’s sensual and brutal portrait of World War II unfolds between the poles of his grief for his lover Jean, killed in the Resistance during the liberation of Paris, and […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Sol Yurick – The Warriors
    Sol Yurick – The Warriors
    $17.00 | ,

    The basis for the cult-classic film The Warriors chronicles one New York City gang’s nocturnal journey through the seedy, dangerous subways and city streets of the 1960s. Every gang in […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Dream Dance: The Art Of Ed Emshwiller
    Dream Dance: The Art Of Ed Emshwiller
    $30.00 | ,

    Dream Dance: The Art of Ed Emshwiller is a catalog released in conjunction with the artist’s first major monographic exhibition at Lightbox Film Center and the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery in [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Paul Nouge – The Subversion Of Images
    Paul Nouge – The Subversion Of Images
    $15.00 | ,

    This classic surrealist photobook pioneered the imagery of the domestic uncanny First edited and published by Marcel Marien in 1968 in a limited edition of 230 copies, half a year […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Salvador Dali – Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution: Writings 1927-1933
    Salvador Dali – Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution: Writings …
    $14.00 | ,

    Dalí’s meditations on art and the paranoid-critical method, plus poems and more Salvador Dalí’s writings from the period in which he was most closely allied with the Surrealists have [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • James Purdy – In A Shallow Grave
    James Purdy – In A Shallow Grave
    $15.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “James Purdy is one of the most underrated american writers of the last 100 years. His writing is grotesque, funny and heartbreaking, often in […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Discreet Music Mag #2
    Discreet Music Mag #2
    $7.00 | ,

    Second issue of Discreet Music Mag, featuring interviews with Greymouth and Jon Collin and a long piece on IDDB 001-044. Full colour, written in English. Discreet Music, 2021

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Ryann Donnelly – Justify My Love
    Ryann Donnelly – Justify My Love
    $9.00 | ,

    An analysis of sex and gender in music videos, covering everyone from Beyonce to Madonna, Nine Inch Nails to Mykki Blanco. In Justify My Love, Ryann Donnelly explores sex and […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Joan Lindsay – Picnic at Hanging Rock
    Joan Lindsay – Picnic at Hanging Rock
    $16.00 | ,

    A 50th-anniversary edition of the haunting novel about the disappearance of three boarding school girls that inspired the acclaimed film It was a cloudless summer day in the year 1900. […]

    GENRE: Weird Fiction/Sci-Fi/Unexplained Phenomena
  • Nancy Barile – I’m Not Holding Your Coat
    Nancy Barile – I’m Not Holding Your Coat
    $9.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “Awesome memoir about being a part of the Philly hardcore scene in the 80s. Barile’s story is deeply personal while also steeped in punk […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Punk / Hardcore
  • Nigel Ayers – Electronic Resistance
    Nigel Ayers – Electronic Resistance
    $70.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “A fantastically displayed retrospective of work by Nigel Ayers, including his ‘mail art, collages, assemblages, flyers, slides, video stills, ephemera, [...]

    GENRE: Industrial / Power Electronics
  • Mata – No Drums No DJs No Saturdays
    Mata – No Drums No DJs No Saturdays
    $15.00 | ,

    Soft cover, perfect bound 64 pages, 6.5 × 9-inch Edition of 500 Release date: October 1, 2016 MATA was a gallery located at 3709 West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Kate Hall – I Did But I Don’t Anymore
    Kate Hall – I Did But I Don’t Anymore
    $15.00 | ,

    Soft cover, perfect bound 64 pages, 6.5 × 9-inch Edition of 500 Kate Hall is a Los Angeles based artist. I Did But I Don’t Anymore is a compilation of […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Michael Dopp – Swizzle
    Michael Dopp – Swizzle
    $15.00 | ,

    Soft cover, perfect bound 64 pages, 6.5 × 9-inch Edition of 500 Release date: March 1, 2017 Michael Dopp is a Los Angeles based artist. Swizzle is a collection of […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Sarah Rara – Earth Breakup
    Sarah Rara – Earth Breakup
    $15.00 | ,

    Soft cover, perfect bound 64 pages, 6.5 × 9-inch Edition of 500 Release date: October 1, 2015 Sarah Rara is a Los Angeles based artist. Earth Breakup is a collection […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Simone Forti – On An Iron Post
    Simone Forti – On An Iron Post
    $25.00 | ,

    Soft cover, perfect bound 64 pages, 6.5 × 9-inch Edition of 500 Release date: October 1, 2017 Simone Forti is a dancer, artist and writer based in Los Angeles. The […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Matt Lifson – Sleep With Me And A Ghost
    Matt Lifson – Sleep With Me And A Ghost
    $25.00 | ,

    Soft cover, perfect bound 64 pages, 6.5 × 9-inch Edition of 500 Release date: October 1, 2016 Matt Lifson is a Los Angeles based artist. “Sleep With Me And A […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Emily Joyce – A Cigar Caught In The Lilies
    Emily Joyce – A Cigar Caught In The Lilies
    $15.00 | ,

    Soft cover, perfect bound 64 pages, 6.5 × 9-inch Edition of 500 Release date: April 1, 2019 A Cigar Caught In The Lilies is a book of visual concrete poetry […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Paul McCarthy/Damon McCarthy – Aftermath
    Paul McCarthy/Damon McCarthy – Aftermath
    $15.00 | ,

    Soft cover, perfect bound 64 pages, 6.5 × 9-inch Edition of 500 Release date: April 1, 2019 Aftermath is collection of photographs of all the inanimate objects in the Saloon, […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography