This IPR XLV Anniversary event Gift Bag contains the IPR XLV 7” single (a limited letterpress-printed, numbered edition of 500), an IPR XLV 45 RPM adapter, and an IPR logo sticker. Created to celebrate Independent Project Records' 45th Anniversary celebration in Los Angeles in early November 2025.
It just feels right that to celebrate its 45th anniversary, beloved indie label Independent Project Records — an enterprise that was always run by artists, with unrestrained artistry as its top priority — would offer an immersive check in with its two owners.
It comes, of course, in the form of a 45 RPM single: founder Bruce Licher is on one side, once again offering transfixing cinematic soundscapes as one half of the beautifully named duo The Great Quiet (the other half being his partner in life and art, Karen Licher). These are the sonic seeds planted by all-time IPR favorites Scenic, blossoming into something more pensive and opalescent. Guitar-driven ambient for the minutes before the rain hits the desert.
If The Great Quiet's ‘Round Valley Walkabout’ seems born to soundtrack destination-free outings where the sun breaks through the clouds to show unexpected paths, then ‘Raven (Ascending)' is a spell to be savored in the still of the night. And who could possibly cast it if not Shiva Burlesque — the band formed in the middle of the '80s by Jeffrey Clark (who’d relaunch IPR together with Licher in 2020) and Grant-Lee Phillips. Peerless purveyors of the kind of post-punk practiced by Romantics with a guitar in one hand and a dog-eared chapbook in the other, the group are reunited and sounding better than ever: consider the song an invite to stroll down a dimly lit Hollywood with Verlaine leading the way (Paul or Tom — that’s entirely your choice).
Happy Birthday, IPR.
Track Listing:
Side A
SHIVA BURLESQUE - Raven (Ascending)
Side B
THE GREAT QUIET - Round Valley Walkabout
SHIVA BURLESQUE + THE GREAT QUIET - IPR XLV Anniversary Black Vinyl 7" Gift Bag
★★★★ "Originally given away at an L.A. show to celebrate 45 years of the bespoke, art-and-artists-first Independent Project Records, this lavishly packaged 45 features the label's two owners stepping up as musicians. Jeffrey Clark plays acoustic guitar and takes lead vocal on Shiva Burlesque's 'Raven (Ascending)", while Bruce Licher and his wife Karen both play electric guitar on the raga-like instrumental 'Round Valley Walkabout' by their band The Great Quiet. With Clark joined by Shiva Burlesque co-founder Grant Lee Phillips and Bauhaus/Love & Rockets bassist David J, 'Raven' suggests The Gun Club twisting U2's New Year's Day' into painfully beautiful new shapes, Clark shaman-speaking Southern Gothic poetry over the dark, twinkling spaces in-between. The Great Quiet's 'Round Valley Walkabout' is more contemplative but no less atmospheric, conjuring stop-motion images of clouds scudding across desert skies. It's an apt celebration of a unique label that continues to prioritise beauty over commerce."
—Ben Graham, Shindig!