Search results for "compositions"
"compositions" entries in albums descriptions
| Artist |
Album |
Format |
Description |
Year |
Price (incl. 19% VAT) |
|
| ABRAHAMS, CHRIS |
Play Scar |
CD |
solo-album of NECKS pianist CHRIS ABRAHAMS, using organ sounds, guitars & much more to create impossible to categorize compositions between musique concrete, electronic and experimental Jazz....
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
 |
| |
Memory Night |
CD |
the following solo-album to the great "Play Scar" by the NECKS-pianist, four ultra dense and innovative drone-based compositions mainly based on hardly recognizable instrumental sounds, very experimental and beautiful, our highest praise !!
|
2013 |
€14.00 |
|
| AHTI, MARJA |
Still Lives |
LP |
the promising female Finnish sound artist with her third LP of "liminal", very focused experimental collages and ambience, pieces like vanitas paintings or shrines... - "AHTI forges vivid electroacoustic environments from field recordings, analog synthesizers, acoustic feedback, magnetic tape and digital processing, resulting in a set of articulate, prickly, and surprising compositions." - ed. of 300 copies
|
2021 |
€20.00 |
|
| ALFEO, PIER |
Works 2016-2018 |
LP (one-sided) |
PIER ALFEO = DUBIT (who had an excellent CD before on Backwards) - with three electro-acoustic compositions, revealing great details and lots of very "near" crackling sounds, sudden breaks and changes, and more calm passages, between tension - dynamism and spheric relaxation, there are wide fields to explore.... / art edition LP (one-sided, white vinyl, poster cover 60 x 90 cm with mathematical graphics , and vellum paper A4 inlay) - ed. of 300
|
2019 |
€18.00 |
|
| ALIO DIE & DIRK SERRIES |
The Chapters of the Eclipse |
CD |
many years after the last VIDNA OBMANA / ALIO DIE collaboration "Echo Passage" both ambient legends from Belgium & Italy release a new album, years in the works, of extreme immersive and meditative nature...- "three compositions in a suspended airy, majestic succession. These liquid soundscapes create an elegy of pure sonic beauty.. " - lim. 500
|
2022 |
€15.00 |
|
| ALVA NOTO |
This Stolen Country of Mine |
CD |
soundtrack to the documentary film THIS STOLEN COUNTRY OF MINE from MARC WIESE, dealing with ECUADOR and the exploitation of the country through foreign investors..
- *Alva Noto's music subtly accompanies the struggle of a mountain village, immersing you into the film's narrative and pathos. Across nineteen compositions, the music exposes and holds back when the images and statements of the protagonists speak for themselves, reflecting the dark shadows and the glares of hope of communal resistance.* - oversized 8 panel fold out cover |
2023 |
€17.50 |
|
| AMACHER, MARYANNE |
Petra |
LP |
known for her great sound art installations (CDs on Tzadik), here are two so far unpublished compositions from 1991, performed in 2017 in a church in New York City: "Written for two pianos, the piece is a unique example of Amacher’s late work, a direct extension of her working methodologies for electronic composition taken into an acoustic realm.....Weighing tranquilizing passages of glacially-paced serenity against stretches of dilapidated, jagged dissonance.."
|
2019 |
€28.00 |
|
| ART ZOYD |
Musique pour l'Odyssee |
LP |
re-issue of their 2nd album from 1979, now with additional band-members reaching an eve more dynamic sound - suspenseful compositions with beautiful dark & subtle parts, very cinematic and always on the edge to break out.. lim. 250 white vinyl (total re-edition 500 copies)
|
2013 |
€20.00 |
|
| ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE (AMT) |
Synkronika |
CD |
six exciting & complex new AMT pieces based mainly on animal voices & sounds, recorded on various locations around the earth, like South Africa, Amazon, Basque Country and Ireland, - listen to frogs, insects, amphibians, dogs, underwater creatures, but also ice particles, boiling oil, etc... forming astonishing, multilayered compositions of concrete material..... lim. 300, 78+ min.
|
2015 |
€12.00 |
|
| ASHTORETH |
Rites III & IV |
CD |
the successor of "Rites I & II" from 2019 now out! - ritualistic compositions based on guitar sounds.. "
Minimal, meditative ambient drones with layers of meandering guitars and voices mixing elements of doom, drone and ambient experimentation. Rites III & IV expand on the shamanic and animistic path, an ongoing journey through flesh, sound and spirit."
|
2021 |
€13.00 |
|
| BAKER, AIDAN WITH CLAIRE BRENTNALL |
Delirious Things |
LP |
first collaboration of AIDAN BAKER with CLAIRE BRENTNALL from Manchester, UK, singer of SHIELD PATTERNS... "The duo of Baker and Brentnall is one made in heaven....Baker’s compositions move from ambient brilliance to dark-wave decadence, changing the backdrop to Brentnall’s angelic, ethereal, and otherworldly vocals throughout." [Somewherecold]
|
2017 |
€16.00 |
|
| BECUZZI, GIANLUCA |
Trax to Trax |
do-CD |
collection of very experiMENTAL material rec. 2006-2011 and mostly taken from now deleted releases, feat. many guest-musicians like NIGEL AYERS (NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS), FABIO ORSI, PIETRO RIPARBELLI (K11), etc.. very suggestive & dense compositions with an amazing variety (lots of vocal material), pointing to unconscious realms & inner worlds...
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| BEGG, MICHAEL / MELENCHON BREVE |
One true Vine |
CD |
first collaboration by MICHAEL BEGG ( = HUMAN GREED) with the so far unknown MELENCHON BREVE, on 11 high-class ensemble compositions a melancholic / nostalgic neo-classic and droning, waving beauty is slowly unfolding, the whole material was recorded in a church ( L’Eglise Ste. Kacey, Samöens, France), transporting wonderful spiritual timbres... "the work comprises 16th century melancholy, 19th century romance and 21st century longing"
|
2017 |
€13.00 |
|
| BLACKSHAW, JAMES |
Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death |
CD |
ninth studio-album; very intimate and more song-oriented compositions as before, based on piano, acoustic guitar & vibraphone, feat. vocals by GENEVIEVE BEAULIEU (MENACE RUINE) on one piece
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| BOKANOWSKI, MICHELE |
La Plague |
LP (one-sided) |
a so far unpublished piece composed 1991 for the short film "La Plague" by PATRICK BOKANOWSKI, by the French electro acoustic createur who studied with ELIANE RADIGUE and is known for some phantastic albums; this one-sided mini LP comes in four different editions w. embossed cover and insert, lim. 300 - "...It is pure liquid abstraction in sounds. It is one of those rare compositions really out of time and space..."
|
2019 |
€16.00 |
|
| |
Musique de Courts Metrages |
do-CD |
*This 2 x CD edition collects all the original music composed by Michele Bokanowski for the short films of her husband, Patrick Bokanowski...her sounds are visionary, sometimes disturbing and grotesque, sometimes ecstatic. Some compositions are suites of grim musique concrete, an obscure ambient perhaps like never heard before, others are liquid abstractions of "expanded" music where it is easy to lose the ordinary awareness of one's senses... * material from 1972-2019 (!), 6 panel digisleeve, 2nd ed.
|
2021 |
€18.00 |
|
| BORGA, ASCANIO |
Raw Science |
CD |
ASCIANO BORGA from Rome has build a nice collection of works in the last 10 years, this new album "Raw Science" must be his most sophisticated so far: experimental / industrial ambient / 'archaic drone' compositions with many layers and sounds used, inspired by alchemical and medieval esoterism (HIERONYMOUS BOSCH on cover), very dense and heavily processed... absolutely to discover! 4 long tracks, 59+ min, 6 panel digipack 100 copies made
|
2016 |
€10.00 |
|
| BOSETTI, ALESSANDRO |
Il Fiore della Bocca |
CD |
text-sound compositions using exclusively voices / tunes of physically & mentally handicapped people; recorded 2002-2003 for Deutschlandradio Kultur, centered on certain themes like "Musik", "Stimme", "Komiker", the vocal sounds are arranged in complex layers, or very pure... - "somewhere between an experimental radio play and an extended, powerfully voice driven, noise composition..." - comes in special oversized cardboard pack / bag, special offer !
|
2006 |
€6.00 |
|
| BRUNO ŚWIATŁOCIEŃ |
Czern / Ciern |
CD |
debut album by this project of painter & musician BRONISLAW EHRLICH, post-punk/dark wave/ambient compositions that have been compared to JOY DIVISION & WOLFGANG PRESS; truly 80's stuff with drum-machine & an atmosphere of hopelessness..
|
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
| BRUYNDONCKX, JAN |
Rails and other Tracks |
LP |
early material by this rather unknown Belgian composer, created 1958 - 1965 (!): very obscure electronic / musique concrete stuff made for short films or documentaries, as well as autonomous compositions and sound poetry.... 300 copies => "a 100% must-check for early electronics heads, from HENRY and SchAEFFER at the GRMC, to TOD DICKSTADER in Hollywood." [Boomkat]
|
2022 |
€22.00 |
|
| BURT, WARREN |
The Animation of Lists and the Archytan Transpositions |
do-CD |
compositions for tuning forks, very minimal, meditative, pure... reminds on works of CHRISTINA KUBISCH, etc.. ... BACK IN STOCK !
|
2006 |
€15.00 |
|
| B°TONG / EMERGE / IF BWANA / GERALD FIEBIG |
Thing |
CD-R |
starting release in the new series named "THING", based on the concept of physicality and the "meeting-place" for artists - this collects the two deleted split LPs by B'TONG & EMERGE, as well as IF BWANA and G. FIEBIG - morphing & moving dronescapes from B*TONG, more slow & contemplative, eerie metallic rumblings by EMERGE; refined & almost elegant drone compositions by FIEBIG IF BWANA.. lim. 100
|
2022 |
€8.00 |
|
| CASAS, CARLOS |
MMXX-19: 1883 (Sound Model I) |
LP |
19th release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => CARLOS CASAS (Barcelona) is a new name for us, he worked out a phantastic "trance / transcension" piece based on field recordings made in Indonesia and Philippines..
|
2021 |
€23.00 |
|
| CELER & DIRK SERRIES |
Background Curtain |
CD |
first ever collaboration between CELER and DIRK SERRIES (VIDNA OBMANA, FEAR FALLS BURNING) who exchanged files through several years and created two long ambient compositions that are interconnected as they are based on the same source material... softly biting guitar-rays, shimmering / flickering drone-clouds, undulating in an enchanting way.... the perfect music for the early morning air! Lim. 300
|
2016 |
€12.00 |
|
| CHATHAM, RHYS |
Outdoor Spell |
CD |
four new compositions of the legendary US underground minimalist
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| CINDYTALK |
touchedRAWKISSEDsour |
CD |
new studio album to the 30th (!) anniversary of his famous 'Camouflage Heart' album => quite massive and sinister, highly idiosyncratic, abstract ambient compositions with a somehow elevating effect, often filled with powerful digital distortion and waving field recordings, but there are also wonderful moments of yearning and romanticism...
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
| COLECLOUGH, JONATHAN / BASS COMMUNION / COLIN POTTER |
same |
do-CD |
finally another repress available of this multi collaboration / remix BASS COMMUNION release from 2003, feat. five compositions in different combinations, the second CD has one 74 long BASS COMMUNION / COLECLOUGH piece.. - \" Gurus of the meditative and sublime, crafting from seemingly thin air the most delicate and shattering of sounds. Every track has a heaviness or a weight that can feel paranoid or transcendental.\" [Brainwashed] - lim. 500 gatefold \'mini LP style\' digisleeve, oversized format
|
2022 |
€19.50 |
|
| CORRAL SHUT / RESIDUAL / TYHJÄ PÄÄ / HAUDAT |
same |
CD |
"Magnetic Tape Lullaby": four projects from the new wave of Finnish (harsh) noise artists on one CD, on the amazing label SATATUHATTA, known as a platform for non-standard, more handmade and object-based compositions, or unusual noise sounds.. - *On top of everything, on this split they've found a common thread to make this release feel like a proper album, a rarely achieved feat with splits or compilations..*
|
2023 |
€12.50 |
|
| CORTINI, ALESSANDRO |
Forse |
4 x CD BOX |
first CD re-issue of CORTINI's "Forse" series (Vol. 1-3, 2013-2015), all performed on a rare "Buchla Music Easel" machine, with additional unpublished bonus live recording on CD 4, all re-mastered by STEPHAN MATHIEU and comes in sturdy cardboard box... "..long, romantic compositions full of voluminous, bombastic tones and dripping with thick timbre..."
|
2021 |
€39.00 |
|
| COURTIS, ANLA |
Tape Works |
CD |
a collection of great tape-work compositions rec. 1991-1998 all on 4-track reel to reel tape recorder, combining musique concrete techniques with the surrealism of REYNOLS, using kitchen doors or water sounds or weird material found on old tapes....always unusual, obscure, otherworldy, challenging... incl. long liner notes on the REYNOLS & COURTIS - phenomenon by DAN WARBURTON and JIM HAYNES (HELEN SCARSDALE); BACK IN STOCK
|
2006 |
€15.00 |
|
| CRESHEVSKY, NOAH |
Rounded with a Sleep |
CD |
first full-length album by this daring US-composer with 7 compositions from 2006-2011; really unusual stuff based on instrumental and voice sources; to discover
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| DAUBY, YANNICK |
Tai-pak thia sa pian |
CD |
three sound compositions based on environmental recordings made in Taipeh = three ways of listening to the urban soundscape of Taiwan's capital; comes in very nice oversized gatefold cover with embossing; "This makes that these three pieces differ quite a lot from eachother, each bringing out a certain aspect of city sounds and make this a highly varied work. Excellent work of composed field recordings." [FdW/Vital Weekly] - BACK IN STOCK last copies!
|
2011 |
€15.00 |
|
|
一流水 tsi̍t lâu tsuí (Penghu Experimental Sound Studio Vol. 1) |
LP |
two side-long compositions based mainly field recordings and arranged object sounds while staying in a certain region of TAIWAN: sounds from the seashores, sellers in the village, rituals of a temple nearby, underwater plants, harbours, funeral music, radio snippets, improvations on objects found at the beach and analog electronics.... very detailed & complex musique concrete / nature sound collages; lim. 300
|
2015 |
€18.00 |
|
| |
Vescagne, Salèse |
CD |
recordings from the Mediterranean Alpes in France served as source material for two long compositions, inspired by a mineral called "Lignite" (Brown Coal) that was extracted in the mine of Vescagne...with additional 'in-site' improvisations, these sound figurations evolve between the concrete and the flowing into mysterious, whispering atmospheres... lim. 250 copies
|
2015 |
€12.00 |
|
| DAVACHI, SARAH |
Long Gradus : Arrangements |
4 x CD BOX |
"Harmonic Observances In Four Parts" - extremely minimal longform chamber drone compositions for "any ensemble of four similar instruments": each CD has 4 long movements for STRINGS, WOODWINDS, BRASS / ORGAN, and CHOIR + ELECTRONICS, comes in cardboard box with four separate gatefold sleeves and 16 page booklet with score, performance notes, and essay
|
2023 |
€52.00 |
|
| DE FILIPPIS, ALAIN |
Musicien Improbable |
LP |
compositions from 1983-2005 (11 pieces) by the French composer from Nantes who died in 2010 (known from the Metamkine mCD) - if "WEIRD" is not yet weird enough for you, you should listen to this LP, obscure and dadaistic pieces based on simple electronics, field recordings, poetry, tape drones, musique concrete collages... think of D.D.A.A., LAURENT PETITGAND, and other early French underground experimentalists....
|
2017 |
€18.00 |
|
| DE JAER, BAUDOUIN |
4 Geomungo Sanjo Vol. II |
CD |
BAUDOUIN DE JAER is known through his compositions for ancient Korean instruments, and the encoding of ADOLF WÖLFLI's scores (see "The Heavenly Ladder" book/CD from 2011); here are five new pieces performed on the "Geomungo", a kind of table-zither.. " an improbable association of wood and tense strings, with sounds in turn soft, brutal, limpid, rough, mute, and light. It is the voice that imposes itself and guides us through the worlds..."
|
2018 |
€13.00 |
|
| DE WAARD, FRANS / MARTIJN COMES |
Various Weights |
CD |
two long form experimental drone compositions for the complete "Mind-Drift", on this Dutch first time collaboration (both working on each other's materials) - "COMES focuses on deep sonorities and harmonics, developing his materials into a mind-expanding drone zone. DE WAARD’s 'There are no two pianos' is more subdued, hovering mysteriously at the cusp of acousmatic research and sonic minimalism." [Tobias Fischer] - lim. 150 copies only
|
2020 |
€12.00 |
|
| DEATHPROD |
Sow Your Gold in the White Foliated Earth |
LP |
compositions for HARRY PARTCH self-designed, most special "just intonation" instruments (using up to 43 intervals instead of 12), used and performed on concerts 2015-2018 by Cologne's ENSEMBLE MUSIKFABRIEK, with the backing 'audio score' recorded by DEATHPROD himself.. => nine movements of waving acoustic dronations, very pure, accentuated and focused, bringing the mind into a different harmonic system.. vinyl version comes with 4 page 12" x 12 inlay
|
2022 |
€26.50 |
|
| |
Sow Your Gold in the White Foliated Earth |
CD |
compositions for HARRY PARTCH self-designed, most special "just intonation" instruments (using up to 43 intervals instead of 12), used and performed on concerts 2015-2018 by Cologne's ENSEMBLE MUSIKFABRIEK, with the backing 'audio score' recorded by DEATHPROD himself.. => nine movements of waving acoustic dronations, very pure, accentuated and focused, bringing the mind into a different harmonic system.. CD version
|
2022 |
€15.00 |
|
| DEISON & LASSE MARHAUG |
33 Minutes of your Life |
maxi-CD |
[re]discovery of this rather unknown collaboration gem from 2003 - on 5 tracks (33 minutes) DEISON and LASSE MARHAUG create compositions made from humming static and hissing vinyl loops, from found sound ambient drones and shredded tones, wired voices and strange creakings... very peculiar music that always stays on the subtle and mysterious side.. - full colour paper cover with inlay
|
2003 |
€8.00 |
|
| DIETER MÜH (DIETER MUH) |
Cari Saluti |
CD |
the third album by the British (post) industrialists appeared in 2000 (CD-R, EE Tapes), only two years later the TESCO sublabel Functional issued it on a proper CD; very appealing ambient noise compositions, swirling drones with lots of electronic effects mixed together in an interesting way, never too noisy, never too lush, this is quite powerful ambient Industrial! BACK IN STOCK FOR SPECIAL PRICE !
|
2002 |
€8.00 |
|
| DINEL, KARBE |
MMXX-09: Ouroboros |
LP |
9th release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => KARBEL DINEL is a sound artist from Belgium, his sublime piece drones through all kinds of overtones and resonances, but also incorporates more concrete sounds, dense & slow & otherwordly...
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| DRYGIANAKIS, COSTIS |
Chondros and Katsiani on the Mountain (Ο Χονδρός Και Η Κατσιάνη Στο Βουνό) |
CD + BOOK |
a "radio opera" that was created in 1998 with the help of THANASIS CHONDROS and ALEXANDRA KATSIANI - pretty unique in its peculiarity, very silent / soft parts interchange with extreme ones, lots of spoken word material, but also found stuff from other music, object sounds, psychodramatic formations, very special stuff comparable to dramatic 'earplay' compositions from L. MARCHETTI i.e. a real audio JOURNEY with tons of surprising moments and beautiful moods.. incl. 48 page book Greek/English
|
2019 |
€16.00 |
|
| DUNCAN, JOHN |
MMXX-02: Panic @ 11000 Feet |
LP |
2nd release in the new MMXX series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => JOHN DUNCAN returns to experimental soundscapes based on shortwave frequencies and mysterious sonics, going through various stages...
|
2020 |
€24.00 |
|
| DZIADOSZ, BARTOSZ & TOMASZ MRENCA |
Black Lake |
LP |
the Polish duo (known for their works as PLEQ, FROZEN VAULTS and as curator for the DRONARIVM label) with a strong ambient album, reminding on (i.e.) HUMAN GREED... - "This is a slightly dark, ghostly, and nearly religious noir-fi, full of orchestral progressions, field recordings, gloomy soundscapes, and shuffling noise. The eight compositions are of cinematic quality, evoking nocturnal whispers which echo their nostalgic cries." [Headphonecommute] - lim. 150 copies on black vinyl, luxurious cover art
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| |
Black Lake |
CD |
the Polish duo (known for their works as PLEQ, FROZEN VAULTS and as curator for the DRONARIVM label) with a strong ambient album, reminding on (i.e.) HUMAN GREED... - "This is a slightly dark, ghostly, and nearly religious noir-fi, full of orchestral progressions, field recordings, gloomy soundscapes, and shuffling noise. The eight compositions are of cinematic quality, evoking nocturnal whispers which echo their nostalgic cries." [Headphonecommute] - CD version - 6 panel digipak, different cover
|
2017 |
€13.00 |
|
| EBTEKAR, ATA & THE IRANIAN ORCHESTRA FOR NEW MUSIC |
performing works of Alireza Mashayekhi: Ornamentalism |
CD |
follow up album to "Persian Electronic Music" (SR277); compositions from MASHAYEKHI performed by EBTEKAR aka SOTE and a whole orchestra
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| EINHEIT, FM / ANDREAS AMMER |
Hammerschlag |
CD |
stunning, intense 'audio drama' or 'oratorio' with lots of vocal and percussive material about the writings and life of the highly interesting Russian futurist A.K. GASTEV (1882-1939), who wanted to destroy literature... true "machine music : chains, scraping, coiled springs, objects, noise, experimental electronics and provocative musical compositions familiar to the ears of Neubauten fans" - this spectaculous version was rec. at a festival in Perm, RUS, May 2019
|
2020 |
€12.00 |
|
| ELOY, JEAN-CLAUDE |
Erkos / Galaxies (Chants pour l'autre Moitie du Ciel Part III & IV) |
do-CD |
pieces 3 & 4 (ERKOS & GALAXIES) from the "Songs for the other Half of the Sky" cycle (1986-1996); electro-acoustic compositions with a strong Eastern/Asian influence, using Sanskrit language and many Japanese instruments.... first world publication!
|
2012 |
€22.00 |
|
| EMDE, GABRIELE |
Die Natur der Klänge - Neue Musik für Harfe |
CD |
this masterful harp player from Darmstadt, Germany, performs pieces from JOHN CAGE ("In a Landscape for Harp" - 1948), HANS OTTE ("Wassermann-Musik für Harfe" - 1984 - 40+ min. long!) and LOU HARRISSON ("Music for Harp" - 1978); this shows the high beauty of an instrument rarely used for New Music compositions.. very nice digipak editon with extensive booklet
|
2015 |
€16.00 |
|
| ENGEL, CLARA |
Tender |
LP |
Canadian singer/songwriter creating expressive compositions full of passion & soul => "from visionary atmospheres à la David Lynch to raging blues of the Mississipi Delta, till gloomy sceneries that seem to come from Nick Cave's pen, Clara can combine Chrissie Hynde, Howlin' Wolf and Diamanda Galas into a single artistic creature"; lim. 300
|
2012 |
€15.00 |
|
| ERCETIN, TURGUT |
Panopticon Specularities |
CD |
four ambitious New Music compositions by this Turkish composer (*1983, Istanbul) who lives now in Berlin - "Erçetin's works engage with issues of sound, not as colors but as sonic entities that interface with time and space. Most of his works, therefore, are involved with acoustics and psychoacoustics as well as computer aided compositional processes." - debut CD with 32 p. booklet and label-catalogue in gatefold slipcase
|
2019 |
€15.50 |
|
| ERIK M (eRikm) |
Transfall |
CD |
collection of six works by the highly idiosyncratic french musique concrete composer, incl. the epic AUSTRAL; very challenging & demanding compositions, dense & suspenseful, using ensemble/instrumental sounds & field recordings
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| EVANS, GRANT |
Brittle |
MC |
two side-long pieces between noise & multi-layered ambience on this new C-32 in the nice Helen Scarsdale cassette-series; the compositions slowly morph from one state to another figuration with almost no recognizable sound source present... "Brittle is capable of opening vast worlds to its audience" [Heathen Harvest]
|
2015 |
€9.50 |
|
| FELL, MARK |
Manitutshu |
do-LP |
highly experimental purely synthetic & abstract sound compositions; comes with A1 poster & gatefold-cover
|
2011 |
€18.50 |
|
| FERRARI, BRUNHILD |
Exterieur-Jour |
LP |
two unreleased pieces, "Movies for the Ears" with cinematic qualities, electroacoustic compositions with a great share of environmental field recording sources...
- "It comes across as a meditation on the loss and reappearance of memory and silence." - on C. HEEMANN's label
|
2024 |
€33.00 |
|
| FERRARI, LUC & BRUNHILD FERRARI |
Contes Sentimentaux |
4 x CD-BOX |
this 4 CD box contains 11 pieces made by the couple for Südwestfunk (German Radio) from 1989-1994, a wonderful sensitive melange of experiences from their lives, field recordings and music; BRUNHILD MEYER-FERRARI is translating everything into German, LUC FERARRI talks about his compositions and curious details... this has a very meditative charackter, we could listen for this for hours non-stop!! Comes with 44 p. booklet with many photos, etc..
|
2013 |
€45.00 |
|
| |
Programme Commun |
do-CD |
after the passing of LUC FERRARI his wife BRUNHILD curated this release: three (rare) compositions from LUC, plus three new works by BRUNHILD using his rich archive of field recordings and other 'sketches'...- "Derivatif" (2008), "Brumes du reveil" (2009) and "Tranquilles Impatiences" (2010), forming a trilogy on reconstruction from a memory that is still quite alive. These works are new bricks in the erection of a liberating oeuvre." - LAST COPIES in stock !
|
2021 |
€16.00 |
|
| FESHAREKI, SHIVA |
MMXX-20: Nebula |
LP |
20th and final release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => SHIVA FESHAREKI is a British-Iranian sound artist and turntablist with a Doctorate in Music Composition - "Nebula" confronts us with strange loops and voice experiments in a spacey background...
|
2021 |
€23.00 |
|
| FIEBIG, GERALD |
Gasworks |
CD |
GERALD FIEBIG, one of the heads behind the Augsburg-based label DIY label ATTENUATION CIRCUIT, is presenting a true "industrial narrative" with 5 compositions related to the former Gasworks plant in his hometown (which existed from 1915-2001), "processed recordings of the sounds of gas and industrial machinery, stories told by a former gasworks employee, and live improvisations in the echo chamber of the large gas tank." - incl. a radio piece for Czech Radio Vitava, lim. 500
|
2019 |
€13.00 |
|
| FIRST, DAVID |
Privacy Issues (droneworks 1996-2009) |
3 x CD |
overview of 9 dronework-compositions from 1996-2009 by this US composer who has been called "a bizarre cross between HENDRIX and LA MONTE YOUNG"
|
2010 |
€23.00 |
|
| FOSSIL AEROSOL MINING PROJECT [FAMP] |
August 53rd |
LP |
the wondrous/wonderful/mysterious FAMP project with new LP using low-fi tape loops and samples from old physical media only, thus creating a sound as coming from an ancient culture... "Down-pitched, disquieting rumbles form the foundations for much of Fossil Aerosol’s compositions, which mutate the fractured, crumbled, and mildewed artifacts into patterned yet shifting phrases. The result seems like hybrid, time-compressed mimicry of the evolution of our media-driven language."
|
2018 |
€23.00 |
|
| FOVEA HEX |
The Salt Garden III |
10inch + CD |
third and last part of the 'Salt Garden' trilogy by the project around CLODAGH SIMONDS, feat. COLIN POTTER, MICHAEL BEGG (HUMAN GREED) and various other guest musicians, co-released by STEVEN WILSON's Headphone Dust label and DIE STADT... the lyrical "ambient drone folk" compositions have been compared to THIS MORTAL COIL or RICHARD SKELTON and seem to shine from the very inner core...
|
2019 |
€17.50 |
|
| |
The Salt Garden III |
CD-EP |
third and last part of the 'Salt Garden' trilogy by the project around CLODAGH SIMONDS, feat. COLIN POTTER, MICHAEL BEGG (HUMAN GREED) and various other guest musicians, co-released by STEVEN WILSON's Headphone Dust label and DIE STADT... the lyrical "ambient drone folk" compositions have been compared to THIS MORTAL COIL or RICHARD SKELTON and seem to shine from the very inner core...
|
2019 |
€10.00 |
|
| FRAJERMAN, DENIS |
Herbes & Golems |
CD |
NEW album by the French avantgardist, who released in his early stages on the legendary NOISE MUSEUM label; "Herbes & Golem" is inspired by a book of same name from MANUELA DRAEGER, a 'post-exotic' author; compositions are derived from many sources, often based on electric organ and beat box, with spoken lyrics, field recordings, other instruments, maybe like a softer form of D.D.A.A....
|
2018 |
€12.00 |
|
| GABER, HARLEY |
Indra's Net |
CD |
"Sovereign of the Center" (1972-1974) & "The Realm of Indra‘s Net" (1974); minimal, metaphysic compositions for violins; comes as usual with extensive booklet
|
2010 |
€15.50 |
|
| GENETIC TRANSMISSION |
Last |
CD |
last volume in the IYHHH-series (presenting Polish newcomers and discoveries) and this is an absolute highlight we think: "lost" recordings by the pretty radical Polish project, these are demanding musique concrete compositions, formed together in an industrial way.... many layers of almost unregnoziable & processed sounds build very dynamic, hyper-challenging pieces... lim. 444 copies. highly recommdended !!
|
2015 |
€12.00 |
|
| GILLIS, ANNE |
Vhoysee |
CD |
the six tracks from her first cassette-only release "Angebigue" (1983), a true collector's item, plus 4 new re-mixed / re-worked compositions made up from the same minimal synth sources, imagine D.D,A,A, mixed with electronic chansons and incredible intimate singing...- lim. 200, Japan import
|
2023 |
€16.00 |
|
| GREENHAM, LILY |
Lingual Music |
do-CD |
Wide collection of pieces by this sound poetrist (dating from 1968-1984) who was a member of the "Wiener Gruppe" in the 50's and of the "Groupe de Recherche d'art Visuel" in the 60's, before she developed her own text-based compositions and her specific "lingual music"
|
2007 |
€16.00 |
|
| GUILLET, MICHEL |
Behind nothing |
CD |
refined noise-compositions by this french (?) visual artists and musician, very dynamic & with lots of details & cut-ups, to discover
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| HAMNSKIFTE |
Födzlepijan |
CD |
the only album so far by a mysterious (black metal inspired) anonymous Swedish duo who mix medieval folk music with ambient and drone metal guitars... as a whole rather restrained compositions with a focus on acoustic folk guitar work and ethereal drones...
|
2012 |
€12.00 |
|
| HECKER, TIM |
The North Water (Original Score) |
LP |
selected compositions (enhanced mix) from the soundtrack to "The North Water" (deutsch: "Nordwasser") series, created in Montreal in 2020 with several guest musicians, merging instruments (Cello, Piano, Guitar) and electronics, on 15 tracks...- "a doomed arctic journey that charts a trajectory from hardened optimism into abject futility..." ; - 180gr. black vinyl with insert and download code
|
2022 |
€29.50 |
|
| HENNIES, NICK |
Work |
CD |
two compositions by minimalist composer and vibraphone player NICK HENNIES, one for solo vibraphone and one for a classic ensemble.... he creates overtunic, dropping resonances with his instrument, evoking a very meditative mood; when in the 40 min long 'Expenditures' other players join in a wonderful complex, jazzy but still very focused music enfolds... to discover !
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
| HENNIX, CATHERINE CHRISTER |
Unbegrenzt |
LP |
archive recordings from 1974, performing "Unbegrenzt" from "Aus den Sieben Tagen" by KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN, feat. C.C.HENNIX (recitation, percussion, electronics) and HANS ISGREN (bowed gong)... - "Hennix’s alternative realization of the 'Unbegrenzt' score’s instructions to 'play a sound with the certainty that you have an infinite amount of time and space' is based on her concept of Infinitary Compositions, the trademark of her ensemble The Deontic Miracle.."- thick covers, inlay w. interview, liner notes
|
2020 |
€27.50 |
|
| HOLOTROP |
Dead Bird Calling |
CD |
promising debut album for this German dark electronic / ritual industrial project with an apocalyptic approach, combining sharp pulses and repetitive samples with field recordings and instrumental sources.. "In his compositions, drones mixed with ritual sounds result in tremendously powerful tracks which evoke the feeling of desolation which throws us back onto the essence of mere human existence"
|
2018 |
€13.00 |
|
| HUNT, JERRY |
Phalba |
CD |
four compositions by this unique US composer ("and modern day shaman") who died already in 1993 - these are pieces written for different line ups and electronics, performed by THE BARTON WORKSHOP in 2000 & 2003... central is the very long "Cantegral Segment No. 19" (31+ min.)...."Includes an extended piece for trombone and electronics, two colorful compositions for ensemble and a charming minimalist piece for violin and piano" .
|
2004 |
€16.50 |
|
| HYBRYDS |
The Ritual of the Rave |
do-CD |
the sixth part in the re-issue series is this album from 1995, which saw THE HYBRYDS going more into a technoid direction.." lectronica with strong ambient and ethnic music influences locked in six long, slowly developing compositions."; the bonus CD contains unpublished live recordings plus 3 rare studio tracks
|
2017 |
€15.00 |
|
| ICHIYANAGI, TOSHI |
Computer Space |
CD |
two early sound compositions from the archive of the legendary Japanese sound artist, published for the first time: "Computer Space" (1970), using a very early computer, creating very strange sounds, "Sound Materials for Metastasis" (1971), music for a short film, along with processed bird sounds used by the Sogetsu Foundation, and "For String # 2 + Stanzas" which dates back to 1961.. - rare Japan import
|
2019 |
€21.50 |
|
| IELASI, GIUSEPPE |
MMXX-10: Untitled |
LP |
10th release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => Italy's prolific composer GIUSEPPE IEALASI formed a piece with many microscopic / delicate sounds and noises (of probably instrumental sources), building weird and beautiful patterns and moments...
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| IF, BWANA / GERALD FIEBIG |
split |
LP |
the second release in the A.C. vinyl split series is by IF, BWANA (AL MARGOLIS) and GERALD FIEBIG who used each others instrumental (e.g. organ) sounds for their refined & almost elegant drone compositions... lim. 100, white vinyl, inlay, handpainted cover !!
|
2013 |
€23.00 |
|
| IVERSON AND WALTERS |
First Collection |
LP |
ambient/folk collector's item from 1984, JON IVERSON + TOM WALTERS on 12-string guitar, mandolin, analog synths=> "bright, weightless, diverse compositions where electronic experiments mix with ethnic rhythms, sweeping through inspired folk reminiscent of the work of WILLIAM ACKERMAN, JOHN FAHEY, MASTER WILBURN BURCHETTE... to homemade pastoral space folk exuding sophisticated, pale, lunar sonic moods that somehow might remind of the work of ROEDELIUS from the early 80s.." re-mastered + bonus material !
|
2022 |
€23.00 |
|
| JULIUS, ROLF |
Music for a Distance |
CD |
kind of farewell-release from this German sound-art & installation artist well known for his microcospic minimal ambience compositions, who died January 2011
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| KASSEL JAEGER |
MMXX-13: Vol Sombre |
LP |
13th release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => Drone Records fave artist KASSEL JAEGER unfurls slowly pacing instrumental drones / drops, circuiting each other like in a timeless slow-motion dance, harmonic and dense..
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| KENNEY, JESSIKA |
Atria |
LP |
known for the beautiful albums with EYVIND KANG, this seems to be JESSIKA KENNEYs first full solo-album, performing seven of her own compositions (written between 2007-2013) with traditional Eastern (Persian?) folk influences together with various Gamelan ensembles, always guided by her great voice... lim. 300 copies, comes with an oversized 12 page booklet containing compositional notes and drawings....
|
2016 |
€30.00 |
|
| KENNEY, JESSIKA & EYVIND KANG |
Reverse Tree |
LP |
viola player EYVIND KANG and singer / composer JESSIKA KENNEY have teamed up again for two side-long tracks, this time working with a chamber group of guest-musicians: HILDUR GUDNADOTTIR, OREN AMBARCHI, STEPHEN O'MALLEY and the GAMELAN PACIFICA ensemble amongst others => unique compositions merging Asian influences and poems with 20th Century western music...
|
2016 |
€17.50 |
|
| KENT, JULIA |
Asperities |
CD |
the fourth album of JULIA KENT - extremely subtle & emotional compositions for multi-layered, looped Cello, with a cautious use of electronic effects that add tension & drama... "The cello swirls in clouds of reverb, dancing around the stereo stage, temperamental, volatile and glum. Like the early dark clouds of an autumn downpour, the sonic whirlwind slowly gathers among the textured washes of its aural weather..." [Headphone Commute]
|
2015 |
€15.50 |
|
| KESZLER, ELI |
Stadium |
do-LP |
innovative, playful, percussion driven compositions merging jazz and an experimental atmospheric framework, performed on various acoustic instruments (farfisa, mellotron, piano, glockenspiel) and with guest musicians on bagpipes, cello, trombone, vocals... absolutely unique! - "For all the complexity of Stadium, its true genius lies in understatement and how a thousand small sounds build into a larger vision." [Pitchfork] - BLACK vinyl edition
|
2018 |
€26.50 |
|
| KOSK, PATRICK |
Mondweiß |
CD |
*This is an assemblage of works by Finnish electroacoustic composer Patrick Kosk. Recordings from the Elektronic Studio at the TU Berlin, the Studio of the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, and the artist's studio.* - amazing organic and breathing sounding stuff, tiniest micro details, field recordings in a new context.. highly recommended overlooked release, 6 compositions, over 70 min playtime, gatefold digipak + 12 page booklet
|
2009 |
€15.00 |
|
| KREBS, K.M. |
Alchymy |
CD-R |
KEVIN KREBS convinces with 9 pieces (55 minutes) of electro-acoustic drone-soundscapes, using field recordings and more "played" concrete elements from instruments or objects at the same time, for a stunning result where one can focus the attention totally. Sometimes the compositions seem to float and stream, at times they appear to be more collaged... lim. 60 special cardboard-box with inlay / numbered ed.
|
2007 |
€5.00 |
|
| KUBISCH, CHRISTINA |
Five Electrical Walks |
CD |
her first collection of compositions utilizing material recorded during Electrical Walks, working with electrical induction sounds in realtime !!
|
2007 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Mono Fluido |
CD |
two previously unreleased compositions from the early 80's, entirely acoustic stuff !!
|
2011 |
€15.00 |
|
| KÜPPER, LEO |
Ways of the Voice |
CD |
four challenging compositions (created 1984-1998) by the Belgian componist, using the female voice (of Brazilian singer ANNA MARIA KIEFFER) as the only sound-source, along with 'tropical' field recordings... Beautiful, suspenseful, exhausting music.. very unique and stunning stuff !! Finally back in stock!! - comes with 28 page booklet
|
1999 |
€14.00 |
|
| L'ENSEMBLE VOLTA |
Les Nuages de Magellan (Works by Tristan Murail) |
CD |
French ensemble performing all pieces of spectralist TRISTAN MURAIL which were composed by him for the 'Onde Martenot', this very early electronic instrument (invented 1928) => in these compositions the 'pure' electronic sounds merge with classical instruments (piano, etc.) with amazingly dense & dynamic effects...
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
| LA CASA, ERIC & JEAN-LUC GUIONNET |
Inscape. Lille-Flandres |
CD |
site-specific sound compositions based on the INSCAPE-concept
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| LA STPO (SOCIETE DES TIMIDES A LA PARADE DES OISEAUX) |
Tranches de temps jete (Slices of thrown time) |
LP |
the French masters of highly expressive, unusual, surprising, theatrical, bewildering "(Avant / Post / Uncategorizable) Rock" compositions "especially for those of you who like their music challenging, alternatingly dense and spacy and most of all - uncontainably inventive" [Prog Archives]
vinyl version / lim. 325 copies ! / Volume 3 in the RECORDS ARE NOT FOR BAKING-series !! |
2006 |
€17.00 |
|
| LADIK, KATALIN |
Water Angels |
LP |
second collection of unreleased muscial works by this Serbo-Hungarian avantgarde artist (*1942), working with radio, theatre, film, sound poetry and as performance / body artist... 5 impressive compositions (1989-2019) with the central "Water Angel", comining field recordings, instrumental noises and vocal experiments... - lim. 300, printed inner sleeves
|
2021 |
€22.00 |
|
| LANZA, MAURO |
MMXX-14: Fully Automated Luxury Communism |
LP |
14th release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => MAURO LANZA is a composer from Venice (IT), his eerie electro-acoustic drone piece is full of tension and crescending tones..
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| LE GALL, PASCAL |
Landscapes |
10inch |
this sound-artist from Tours, France, creates quiet acoustic landscapes by playing records on 6 rpm, using BACH and SCHUBERT compositions but also unknown sources, evoking a very special, unreal atmosphere between somber harmonic phrases and droning winds... a very nice 10" EP with wonderful cover artwork & mastering by MATHIAS DELPLANQUE, a true "secret tip" and very much recommended!
|
2017 |
€17.00 |
|
| LEJEUNE, JACQUES |
Early Works 1969-1970 |
LP |
three of the earliest compositions by the influential French musique concrete composer, one piece is previously unpublished on vinyl: "D'une Multitude En Fete" (1969), "Geodes" (1970, concert version), and the incredible "Petite Suite" collage reminding on the weirder NURSE WITH WOUND pieces (1970)! [all of this material has NOT been included on the recent 'Parages and other Electroacoustic Works' 3 CD]
|
2015 |
€26.50 |
|
| LIGETI, GYÖRGY |
Lux Aeterna. Three Fantasies after Hölderlin |
CD |
a collection of pieces by GYÖRGY LIGETY including the famous "Lux Aeterna" (1966) used for KUBRICK's film "2001: A Space Odyssey", but this contains also diverse other compositions (such as the "Drei Phantasien nach Friedrich Hölderlin"), plus the "Im Gestein" cycle by ROBERT HEPPENER (a cycle of six choral songs on poems by PAUL CELAN); performed by "Capella Amsterdam" orchestra, comes in nice cardboard box with extensive booklet in english, francais & deutsch
|
2016 |
€15.00 |
|
| LILLIOS, ELAINIE |
Entre Espaces |
CD |
debut-CD for this US American electro-acoustic composer, presenting 7 works realized from 1998-2007; ELAINIE LILLIOS manages it to explore the blind spots of our minds & imagination, with great care for sonic details & thoughtful concepts behind the compositions; a real discovery !
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| LOPEZ, FRANCISCO |
Sonic Fields Vlieland |
USB card |
six compositions made out of field recordings from VLIELAND, one of the West Frisian Islands (North Sea) of Nord-Holland , no cars are allowed... a map shows where these recordings have been made (forest, dune crater, beach, polders..), a truly captivating "new virtual sonic reality" of the Island with so many natural sounds of wind, sand, water, rain, animals, arranged in a new, typical LOPEZian way ("transfigured and dramatically evolved..").. - lim. 300. 3 hour playtime(!), printed USB card, signed
|
2018 |
€33.00 |
|
| LOPEZ, FRANCISCO & NOVI_SAD |
Titans |
CD |
both artists used the same field recordings (made in the Ancient Olympia region of Greece) for two 30+ min. long compositions, presented for the first time during the International Olympia Festival in June 2010; very good experimental 'transcension drones' from two different artistic perspectives... lim. 500
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| LOPEZ, FRANCISCO / AERNOUDT JACOBS |
Lith |
do-CD |
four collaboration pieces spread on two CDs using each others original recordings => great microsound drone compositions full of contrasts, dynamics, surprises... for the heart of hearing ! Lim. 500
|
2013 |
€16.00 |
|
| LOSCIL |
Clara |
CD |
latest full LOSCIL album on Kranky, special concept:: *a stunning meditation on light, shade, and decay, sourced from a single three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece string orchestra in Budapest ... Despite their limited palette, the compositions summon a sense of the infinite, swelling and swimming through luminous depths. Certain tracks percolate over narcoleptic metronomes while others slowdive in shimmering shadowplay, sounding at times like some noir music of the spheres.*
|
2021 |
€18.00 |
|
| |
Clara |
do-LP |
latest full LOSCIL album on Kranky, lim. vinyl version! - *a stunning meditation on light, shade, and decay, sourced from a single three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece string orchestra in Budapest ... Despite their limited palette, the compositions summon a sense of the infinite, swelling and swimming through luminous depths. Certain tracks percolate over narcoleptic metronomes while others slowdive in shimmering shadowplay, sounding at times like some noir music of the spheres.*
|
2021 |
€32.50 |
|
| LUNAR ABYSS DEUS ORGANUM |
 Atanimonni Aitnatsbus |
10inch |
the fantastic experimental drone/ethno/trance project from St. Petersburg, Russia, with two long tracks (total 23+ min.) of stunning multi-layered compositions, using lots of detail-sounds from animals, analogue synths, female eastern voices/singings, subtle (neo) classic harmonies, bells & gongs... hyper-dense & fluid; both tracks end up in endless grooves (of water & fire), to symbolize the connection to timeless energies; lim. 500 with artwork by ARTYOM OSTAPCHUK, comes on sky-blue & white mixed vinyl
|
2012 |
€12.00 |
|
| M.B.[MAURIZIO BIANCHI] + [P. ANDERSSON / NORDVARGR / JARL] |
S.F.A.G. / S.F.A.G. - De-Composed |
do-CD |
re-issue of old MB MC "SFAG 1981" from 1983 (Broken Flag), re-mastered & now with bonus CD containing three de-compositions by HENRIK NORDVARGR BJÖRKK, ERIK JARL, & PETER ANDERSSON (RAISON D'ETRE, etc.)
|
2010 |
€18.00 |
|
| MACHINEFABRIEK |
Drum Solos |
LP |
wonderful subtle tunes based on solo drum treatments and acoustic explorations of the 'material' (created with sticks, mallets, bow and tuning forks) - this doesn't sound like a "usual" drum-kit at all, it's more like a very atmospheric & slow version of JON MUELLERs electro-acoustic drum compositions... lim. 300
|
2014 |
€12.50 |
|
| MARCHETTI, LIONEL |
Alpha Z Centauris |
MC |
three older compositions on this C-30, lim. 250, professional edition & duplication, import from Malaysia (!)
|
2011 |
€9.00 |
|
| MAROS, MIKLOS |
Maros at EMS. 1970-1979 |
Fylkingen Records FYCD 1025 |
eight electroacoustic compositions realized at the EMS (Stockholm Electronic Music Studio) from 1970-1979 by this Hungarian-Swedish pioneer; evocative stuff combining weird analog electronic sounds & instruments, drones and vocal work...sounds still fresh & unusual, to discover
|
2012 |
€12.50 |
|
| MARUTTI, ANDREA |
Sleepless Nights / Lysergic Mornings |
mCD-R |
ANDREA MARUTTI (aka AMON) started the ever amazing TAALEM series in 2001, and he got now the honour for a second release: the two compositions (based on a special concept to work with "errors", hiss and glitches) show his skills to create pulsing and radiating (dark) ambient with great development, tension and a certain rawness, integrating field recordings and found sounds... 21+ min. of best drone ambient around !
|
2019 |
€5.50 |
|
| MCDOWALL, DREW |
The Third Helix |
LP |
third album for McDOWALL on DAIS and this could be his most experimental, mind-challenging but also fascinating release so far.... "Unnerving, trancelike anthems for nervous meditation and anxious relaxation. Fans of Coil will immediately connect and immerse, while the complex compositions are a welcome listen for drone and ambient enthusiasts." - standard ed. BLACK vinyl
|
2018 |
€22.00 |
|
| MEIXNER, STEPHEN |
Between the Lines |
CD |
four dark compositions inspired by the symbolic architecture of DANIEL LIBESKIND for the Jewish museum in Berlin, moving between electro-acoustic and experimental ambience... very emotional and challenging at the same time, the first solo album by the CONTRASTATE-member from U.K.
|
2003 |
€13.00 |
|
| MENCHE, DANIEL |
MMXX-05: 4424 |
LP |
5th release in the new MMXX series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => DANIEL MENCHE's piece is based on long sustained "Zither-like" tones and deep & slow percussion, morphing into other dimensions..
|
2020 |
€24.00 |
|
| MOHAMMAD (MMMD) |
Som Sakrifis |
CD |
Greek chamber music trio feat. ILIOS, harmonic low end cello/contrabass/oscillator-dronescape compositions with occasional chants, very heavy, deep bassy & slow... we love it! Cd re-issue of the LP from 2013, comes with unreleased bonus track, lim. 300 !
|
2015 |
€13.00 |
|
| MOHNE, ACHIM |
Accelerated Standstill |
LP |
two side long compositions made entirely of carefully assembled 'locked grooves' (caused by dirt, etc.) found on various mainstream vinyl records - a curious LP full of rhythmic structures and musique concrete drones that are constantly shifting by this German multimedia artist, playable at any speed - a must for fans of PHILIP JECK and Plunderphonics; lim. 300 / Nr. 7 in Touchs white label series; excellent record !
|
2014 |
€14.00 |
|
| MONTEIRO, ALFREDO COSTA |
Anatomy of Inner Place |
CD |
compositions made from "daily noises" recorded at MONTEIRO's home, another example for the ability of music to 'liquify' the reality, to present the known and expectable under a new perspective |
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| MORI, IKUE / MAJA S.K. RATKJE |
Scrumptious Sabotage |
CD |
extreme improvisation music with fast changing high speed noise attacks and 'quietly growing tension' by these two gifted performers in collaboration, recorded at two live performances...*The most astonishing element of this superb performance is the realization that even though the compositions are entirely intuitive, created without any previous planning, guidelines or negotations, the listener can sense a nearly palpable sense of deep connection and understanding between the artists* - digipak ed.
|
2013 |
€13.00 |
|
| MOUCHOIR ETANCHE (=BLACK TO COMM) |
Kommunique Zero |
pic-12inch |
a very special release is this first one from a new project of MARC RICHTER / BLACK TO COMM => a one-sided pic-12" (one side black and playable, other side picture, unplayable) = a "hybryd" format we haven't seen before, with strong 'constructed' music, different from BTC... "Influences are ranging from (French) classical and opera to the anecdotical compositions of Luc Ferrari, Chinese opera, sacred music, collage, and free improvisation" ; ed. of 165 copies only
|
2020 |
€16.50 |
|
| MURCOF |
The Versailles Sessions |
CD |
6 compositions "Watermusic" from 17th Century, performed for the "Les Grandes Eaux Nocturnes"-festival in Paris
|
2008 |
€12.00 |
|
| MURMER |
What are the Roots that clutch |
CD |
finally a new full-length album by Drone Records artist (DR-85, 2007) MURMER aka PATRICK Mc. GINLEY, who lives in Estonia since a while & is still very active with the great FRAMEWORK radioprogramme dedicated to field recordings...the always subtle compositions are based on field recordings & found object sounds, sometimes very pure & concrete, sometimes processed... another drone-highlight with a very own character.. lim. 400 letterpress-cover
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| NEHIL, SETH |
Knives |
LP |
six compositions, feat. MATT MARBLE; transparent vinyl, numbered ed. 180 copies only LAST COPY!
|
2010 |
€25.00 |
|
| |
Bounds |
LP |
SETH NEHIL continues his journey into unknown / new territories of ingenious transformed SOUND - on BOUNDS he uses percussion materials (drums, gongs, cymbals, vibraphones, etc.) and treats them often in a way you can hardly recognize the source, connecting them to 11 breathtaking compositions, where very concrete acoustic objects erupt and vanish in strange patterns & textures... great album again! Lim. 300
|
2014 |
€18.00 |
|
| NIBLOCK, PHILL |
MMXX-12: Browner |
LP |
12th release in the series that presents 20 artists from the exp. sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. 500 copies => PHILL NIBLOCK presents a new piece that uses the instrumental drone sounds from 4 players / instruments: 2 x cello, flute, bassoon to create a rich, full-scaled and dense drone expansion with micro movements inside..
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| |
Boston/Tenor/Index |
LP |
earliest works, never released before, feat. RHYS CHATHAM, MARTIN BOUCH, GREGROY REEVE (flute, voice, guitar, sax, viola) - *Alga Marghen returns with what might just be their most historically significant release to date, “Boston Tenor Index”, comprising three, never before released compositions - “Index”, from 1969; and “Tenor” and “Boston III”, both from 1972 - by Phill Niblock, that represent some the earliest works in his catalogue to have ever appeared..* [Soundohm]
|
2023 |
€22.50 |
|
| O'MALLEY, STEPHEN |
MMXX-11: Ost-Väst Sommaren |
LP |
11th release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => STEPHEN O'MALLEY created a dense drone piece based on field / insect recordings and organ sounds...
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| O'ROURKE, JIM |
To Magnetize Money and Catch a Roving Eye |
4 x CD BOX |
impressive new four hour work (four long parts on four CDs) that follows (and widens) his early ambient compositions from the 90's... - "Detailed and delicate electronic layers, processed instruments, and ambiguous field recordings come together in a slow-moving, fascinating kaleidoscope with multiple reflections and wrong turns, always in constant state of flux. The finely crafted art of subterfuge." - comes in sturdy cardboard box, each CD in its own cover
|
2019 |
€32.00 |
|
| |
MMXX-07: In all due Deference |
LP |
seventh release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => on of the highlights in the series is this new piece by JIM O'ROURKE, complex entities of ebbing and flowing sound-clouds evolve slowly, strangely harmonic, into magic spiralling..
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| OCCHIO QUARTET |
Momente 2 |
CD |
three very free & powerful compositions by this quartet with LIMPE FUCHS playing percussion & violin; feat. also ZORO BABEL (drums), ELMA GUANTES (bass), HANS WOLF (piano); rec. at Atelier Neuaubing in 2008
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| ONODERA, YUI |
Entropy |
CD |
re-edition of his first CDR from 2005, comes in nice oversized cardboard folder - "A new project from Tokyo with minimal concrete & drone-compositions....extremely nice & dense......hyper-subtle stuff.... ..derived from field recordings, guitar-sounds, electronics. Definitely Recommended!"
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| ORGANUM ELECTRONICS |
Stilness |
CD |
2nd album of the new ORGANUM incarnation named ORGANUM ELECTRONICS, with a much more raw, unpolished drone noise sound that seems to sweep away everything... lim. 500 - "Wild vibrations touch our most innermost core and perception - Organum Electronics exists in the clear moment of the present - But its mysterious compositions lay hidden in a timeless past - Modulating oscillations mirror our most fundamental sense of being.."
|
2020 |
€14.00 |
|
| ORSI, FABIO |
Sterminato Piano |
LP |
similar to the just released "Uncharted Waters" CD on ZOHARUM, FABIO ORSI is here now fully engaged into minimal analogue "cosmic" sequencer compositions with a fine hypnotic quality, slowly evolving into something else, with remarkable effect... the black vinyl ed. is lim. to 100 copies
|
2019 |
€18.00 |
|
| PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE |
Bells Studies |
LP |
five recordings / "compositions" from PALESTINE's legendary bell / carillon playing in the tower of a church in New York City, on which he performed almost daily from 1963-1970! Lovely metallic /harmonic drones & overtones; lim. 400
|
2015 |
€20.00 |
|
| |
MMXX-06: Vvvoooodddoooo Ddddooooodddddooooo |
LP |
sixth release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => C. PALESTINE created a multi-layered drone wave piece, performed on analog synths, with lots of cosmic dirt dispersed...
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| PANIS, RAPHAEL |
Meta |
CD |
'Pieces pour Polivisions & Metamorphoses - Elements 1-4' and 'META - Strates 1-6' are the titles of two highly interesting compositions by the French electronic composer, consisting of 20 shorter pieces, originally created for an exhibition in Cachan (France); => highly abstract pure electronic sounds, drones, white noises, suspenseful arranged for carefully listening... recommended if you like pure experimental electronics with much variation and details!!
|
2012 |
€10.00 |
|
| PARSONS, DAVID |
Puja |
CD |
the long active composer from New Zealand with his second album on Gterma => he creates strong ethno-ambient compositions with old Asian influences and dark monolithic drone passages..."Consciously or unconsciously you can feel that something has changed in the environment. That a touch of mystique has penetrated into your regular day like any other day." - 7 long tracks, 73+ min., full colour booklet
|
2016 |
€13.00 |
|
| PATERAS, ANTHONY |
Collected Works Vol. II (2005-2018) |
5 x CD |
second CD box collection (incl. a 24 page booklet) on PATERAS label feat. various works and compositions (26 tracks, 5 1/2 hours of music) from the past almost 15 years: long form improvising ensemble and trio pieces and various solo pieces for instruments and electronics... = a great overview on this prolific Australian composer, who often combines instrumental & electronic sounds in a most atmospheric and challenging way... ed. of 500 / silver cardboard box
|
2018 |
€55.00 |
|
| PENDERECKI, KRZYSZTOF |
Kosmogonia |
CD |
re-issue of LP from 1974 with four of PENDERECKI's early orchester works: most intense, atonal, choir-filled, suspenseful compositions: KOSMOGONIA (1970) - originally composed for the 25th anniversary of the United Nations (!), ANAKLASIS (1960), FLOURESCENCES (1962), DE NATURA SONORIS II (1971) "...with aggressive barrages from brass and percussion, dissonant woodwind chords, spoken and hissing sounds, fervent strings, swirling organ, climactic choral and solo vocals."
|
2017 |
€12.00 |
|
| PIERMATTEI, EZIO |
From Afar It Looks Like An Oriflamme |
MC |
wondrous musique concrete based on often voice-based field recordings, by this Italian underground artist => "Detailed narratives are mixed with a big variety of field recordings, object and instrument sounds, as well as tapes. Ezio Piermattei delivers us two long compositions, with a cinematic point of view, humour and sound detail." - lim. numbered ed. 80 copies, prof. duplication and cover art.
|
2021 |
€9.00 |
|
| PILIA, STEFANO |
Spiralis Aurea |
do-LP |
luxurious vinyl issue of PILIA's masterpiece, 12 truly evocative, sad harmonic "drone" pieces that are mainly based on acoustic sources (Cello, Violin, Organ, Horns), feat. various guest musicians, the compositions were inspired by a visit to the Italian "Futa Pass Cemetary", a large war cemetary for German soldiers killed in WWII, holding the remains of about 31.000 soldiers.. - "a place crossed by thoughts about the landscape, history, symbols, rituals.. " - lim. black vinyl 6 panel gatefold, letterpressed
|
2022 |
€45.00 |
|
| PITRE, DUANE |
Bridges |
CD |
two compositions for instruments (cello, sax, mandolin, etc.) & electronics by this interesting & prolific "just intonation" composer, merging Eastern & Western influences..
|
2013 |
€14.50 |
|
| RADIGUE, ELIANE |
Occam Ocean 3 |
CD |
three more compositions in the series of collaboration pieces, here performed by the three string players DEBORAH WALKER, SILVIA TAROZZI and JULIA ECKHARDT, these drones arise from a very special creative concept (almost no written notes, using water-based forms, etc..) and were recorded at a monastery in the mountains of Italy; comes in special package with 32 p. booklet - "This is music that resists remembering.... only an indelible atmosphere of sonic transformation."
|
2021 |
€25.00 |
|
| REED, RICK |
The Way Things go |
do-LP |
a collection of evocative drone-compositions rec. 2001-2010 by this interesting US American artist also working as a painter; comes in gatefold cover displaying a square landscapes of his paintings; edition of 515 copies + download card
|
2011 |
€25.00 |
|
| REICH, STEVE / ENSEMBLE AVANTGARDE |
Four Organs / Phase Patterns / Pendulum |
LP |
three early compositions (1968-1970) including the fascinating "Phase Patterns" by one of the fathers of "minimal music" (repetitive elements, continuous patterns, tiny changes over long periods), performed by the Leipzig based "Ensemble Avantgarde"; gatefold cover with extensive liner notes by TOBIAS FISCHER (known from FEU FOLLET), lim. 750 copies
|
2014 |
€17.50 |
|
| RILEY, TERRY |
The 3 Generations Trio |
CD |
TERRY RILEY, GYAN RILEY, TRACY SILVERMAN, on Synths, Piano, Voice, Harmonizer, Guitars, E-Violin: 77+ min. of high quality material (6 long tracks) recorded during two days at the AngelicA festival in Modena, Italy, in May 2013, a mixture of his meditative/minimal Raga-music style and more song-based Jazz / Folk / Progrock compositions and improvisations...
|
2015 |
€14.00 |
|
| RIVET, JEAN-MICHEL |
A fleur de quai |
CD |
Seven dynamic compositions by this composer from Bordeaux, using one "daily life"-sound source for each of his tracks, building intense quasi-narrative structures, true "cinema for the ears", lots of stunning micro-details !
|
2009 |
€12.00 |
|
| RLW |
The Pleasure of burning down Churches |
CD |
dark, disturbing, almost misantrophic sound collages; musique concrete doom?; 4 masterful solo compositions using many field recordings & found sounds
|
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
Flurry of Delusion |
CD |
"Nothing is quite what it seems to be" is the maxim of this new RLW-album, as usual it's difficult to describe or classify these compositions as they seem to exist between or beyond all known genres, but always keep a challenging and surprising experimental character; this is somehow chopped and scrambled music, consisting of strange sounds from instruments, objects, machines or electronics....
|
2016 |
€13.00 |
|
| RLW / RICHARD FRANCIS |
R |
CD |
many years ago RICHARD FRANCIS (ew Zealand) released as ESO STEEL a fine EP in our 7" series (DR-49, 2001) with amorphous, mysterious dronings, only 22 years later this collaboration with RLW sees the daylight, based on sessions they did in 2013 when R. FRANCIS had a scholarship in WORPSWEDE, northern Germany.. => analog and digital sounds merge, guding you through minimal landscapes of micro-noises; from two masters of 'sidetone awareness' compositions..
|
2023 |
€13.00 |
|
| ROIGK, STEFAN |
De-Composed |
BOOK + 2 x CD |
phantastic 144 pages full colour art book presenting STEFAN ROIGKs works 2005 to 2023 => acousmatic compositions, sound installations, musical graphics and sound poetry works, photos, texts and drawings.. " A piece of music for the eyes" - the book comes with two audio CDs, incl. 33 tracks / 141 min. of extraordinary sounds and audio poetry, a great survey of the almost unique creative approach of the Berlin based sound artist..
|
2023 |
€28.00 |
|
| ROZMANN, AKOS |
Mass / Massa |
7 x CD BOX |
first time release of this epic, 7 hour work that was created between 1989 and 2004 at the EMS in Stockholm, consisting of 12 electro-acoustic compositions that sound like nothing else with their religious references, vocal material from liturgys, chants, organ sounds and electronic noises, building a complex collage that seems to be in a constant movement of arching and warping... - 7 CDs in sturdy box with two booklets
|
2022 |
€50.50 |
|
| SAKELLARIOU, YIORGIS |
Klaipeda |
CD |
two long subtle field recording compositions, with audio sources catched from a city & its surroundings in Lithuania, direct at the Baltic Sea, where SAKELLARIOU (also known as MECHA/ORGA) recorded not only the nature (water, hissing, plants, animals) but also the city, factories and rural life to construct 'a profound sonic world'... this combination of nature & industrial sounds works well and makes 'Klaipeda' very special! lim. 200
|
2015 |
€14.00 |
|
| SAMARTZIS, PHILIP |
Unheard Spaces |
CD |
two long soundart compositions by this Australian experimentator and ex member of GUM: "Absence and Presence" (2006) for five musicians and four loudspeakers, "Unheard Spaces" (2006) - based on field recordings made in Venice; special offer now !
|
2006 |
€8.00 |
|
| SANTOS SILVA, SUSANA |
MMXX-08: Sometimes it's raining a lot |
LP |
8th release in the new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => Portugesian trumpet player S.S.SILVA (more known in the impro & Jazz scene) mixes instrumental sounds, electronics, voice and field rec. for a dronish experimental journey, very nice..
|
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| SCHLIENZ, GÜNTER |
Autumn |
CD |
three long meditative tracks of modular / analogue synthesizer music, with additional French horn and cymbals, dedicated to the three months of autumn.. "So is also the number of compositions that slowly whisk ahead, like brown leaves falling from the trees." lim. 250 copies, cover art by RUTGER ZUYDERVELT aka MACHINEFABRIEK
|
2016 |
€12.00 |
|
| SCHUMACHER, MICHAEL J. |
Five Sound Installations |
DVD |
..contains 5 sound compositions generated in real time by a computer algorithm, must be installed on a computer to be heard; each time you play it it will sound different! Comes in DVD box
|
2008 |
€15.00 |
|
| SCHWARZ, JEAN |
The Sea Maid's Music |
CD |
last copies of this classic JEAN SCHWARZ work, all five compositions originate from the voice material of singer ELISE CARON: her spoken words, breaths, whisperings, sighs, classical and other styled vocalizations (related to SHAKESPEARE's "Midnight Summer Dream") were processed and transformed by the SYTER computer / synth system, leading to both poetic and radical challenging results with no boring second..
|
1992 |
€16.00 |
|
| SCHWARZ, ROBERT |
Double Negative |
LP |
second LP of this promising soundartist from Vienna for Gruenrekorder - again, 7 pieces are grounded with unfocused field recordings from different places, conflating with strange modular synth tones and noises, for a stunning effect, dark and captivating! "Nature and electronics merge to compositions that reveal uncanniness and strangeness in the heart of the world as well as in ourselves." lim. 300, contains postcard
|
2017 |
€16.00 |
|
| SEETYCA |
Zwischenwelten |
CD |
this release shows SEETYCA further exploring and enhancing romantic 'intermediate worlds', for the nine compositions diverse guest-musicians (THOM YEESLAND, JULIAN ECKSTEIN, KRIS CAELIS) helped and many 'real' instruments were used (ocarina, zither, acoustic guitar, trombone), forming gracious, deeply multi-layered drones full of beauty and width, with tiny sounds and micro harmonies appearing.... definitely one of his masterpieces, 79+ min. playtime
|
2016 |
€13.00 |
|
| SEWER ELECTION |
Kassettmusik |
LP |
"Moments captured and repeated in raw mono. No hiding... feel the disease... feel life... feel me." - long operating noise project from Gothenburg, Sweden (= DAN JOHANNSSON, who is also a part of ENHET FÖR FRI MUSIK) with re-issue of CD from 2008.. - "Crude cassette loops of sparse electronics and body sounds with the fidelity of the disintegrated magnetic tape becoming an important piece of the two side-long compositions." - lim. 500, new liner notes
|
2022 |
€18.00 |
|
| SIJ |
Way to Dream |
CD |
romantic oceanic/nautic ambience, inspired by endless nature landscapes, very harmonic (piano sounds) and with subtle field recordings from ocean waves, birds, etc.. "Born somewhere between the sky and sea, in silent evening dialogue of elements, melodies of this album are lining up in compositions like a guiding stars, so everyone could find its own 'Way to Dream'." - comes in incredible handmade cloth-bag with lighthouse stitched on, very lim. ed.
|
2015 |
€13.00 |
|
| SINGER, CLAIRE M. |
Trian: Recent Works |
do-LP |
this nicely designed vinyl release (full colour gatefold cover) presents CLAIRE SINGERs two recent CD releases "Solas" (without "The Molendinar") and "Fairge" - her beautiful, elevating 'instrumental drone' compositions based on electronics, organ, cello, etc. remind on HILDUR GUDNADOTTIR but also more experimental works and build a class of her own... ed. of 500 copies
|
2019 |
€20.00 |
|
| SOLTAU, THORSTEN |
Gewächse im Zwielicht |
CD |
This Friesian multi media artist with two works on one CD: his compositions combine drone-ambient and electro-acoustic elements in a wonderful (sometimes spheric, sometimes bizarre, sometimes melancholic) way, various instrumental and electronic sources are building a hypnotic and poetic web, very complex and with many unexpected twists and surprises in the mix.. this CD is like a little wonder! Lim. 250 copies, 6 panel digisleeve
|
2022 |
€13.00 |
|
| STRAFE F.R. (STRAFE FÜR REBELLION) |
The Bird was stolen |
CD |
the Düsseldorf-based conceptual project (with roots back to the very early 'Ratinger Hof' New Wave and Punk scene explosion in Germany in 1979) were never easy to classify, their third album "Santa Maria" was already released on TOUCH (1986): their surprising return to TOUCH underlines their avantgardish approach, using "all instruments of the world we can find" for their multi-layered, abstract compositions made entirely of strange and almost undecipherable sounds, effects and mysterious noises.. great !!
|
2018 |
€15.00 |
|
| TARAB |
Take all the Ships from the Harbour, and sail them straight to Hell |
CD |
early CD by the Australian "non-music" or "more than music" field recording artist, using far away sounds but also very near objects for his often incomprehensible compositions; "The sounds become signifiers of desolation, solitude, a creeping sense of life that has no human presence. This metaphorical approach moves the result into fictive, often surreal territory, but, like G*Park, Sprod’s recording method is austere but meticulous.." [Dusted Mag] BACK IN STOCK!
|
2009 |
€14.00 |
|
|
An incomplete yet fixed Idea |
LP |
the beloved Australian field recording transformer EAMON SPROUD with his first LP! "Tarab explores re-contextualised collected sounds and tactile gestures formed into dynamic, psycho-geographical compositions inspired by discarded things, found things, crawling around in the dirt, junk, the ground, rocks, dust, wind, walking aimlessly, scratchy things, decay and most if not all the things he hears and sees." lim. 300, download code
|
2017 |
€21.00 |
|
| |
Rooms |
CD |
Australian sound artist EARMON SPROUD aka TARAB surprises with every release = inside "Rooms", similar to ERIC LA CASA, he explores the aural qualities of certain places, but focuses more of the "processes" going on there....- "Re-contextualised collected sounds and tactile gestures formed into dynamic, psycho-geographic compositions; half narratives, visceral sensation, false leads and heightened awareness.." - lim. 200 copies
|
2022 |
€13.00 |
|
| TEARDO, TEHO & BLIXA BARGELD |
Spring |
12inch |
this 5 track EP appeared after their very successful first album "Still Smiling" - again on TEHO TEARDO's own label, has three cover versions of classic songs (by CAETANO VELOSO and TOMMY JAMES) and two new compositions; lim. 1000 copies + download code
|
2014 |
€22.50 |
|
| TIETCHENS, ASMUS & ROLF ZANDER |
Tarpenbek |
CD & 12inch BOX |
collectors item! LP-box with 12 high quality prints of etchings (+ some more inlays) by visual artist ROLF ZANDER ~ for each of the 12 tracks on the CD ~ inspired many years ago by the structures of the small north-german river TARPENBEK, the visuals were used by TIETCHENS as grounding for his hyper minimal & subtle compositions ~ very nice project comining "real nature" topography, visual & acoustic art; lim. 300
|
2012 |
€45.00 |
|
| TO / THOMAS TILLY |
Le Cebron / Statics and Sowers |
LP |
THOMAS TILLY aka Tô shows his skills again to record unusual enviromental sounds for his compositions => intriguing sounds of (crushed) ICE on the frozen lake Cebron (France) [Side A], recordings of beehives and electric circuits from a mixing board [Side B] - dedicated to Z. KARKOWSKI... explore thee outlandish sounds! Lim. 300, clear vinyl
|
2014 |
€20.00 |
|
| TORBA |
Musique Inconcrete |
LP |
absolutely mesmerizing album by this Italian project, with first full length on vinyl, relating conceptually on the "Unfinished" [INCOMPIUTO], it consists of sketches of field and object recordings plus few tape- & oscillator-sounds, with stunning and hardly describable result..."a macro cut-up of sound-screens reorganized as quasi-organic narration: Fragments of unfinished compositions, roughly assembled according to a mere aesthetic criteria." lim. 300 copies
|
2019 |
€18.00 |
|
| TOY BIZARRE |
KDI DCTB 49 / 23 (SOLD OUT) |
7inch |
lim. 250, handmade wrapping-paper cover; pure nature-compositions, the nature as an instrument |
1998 |
€ |
|
| TRICOLI, VALERIO |
Clonic Earth |
do-LP |
after his great "Misery Lares" do-LP on the same label VALERIO TRICOLI is back with five long new compositions => experimental transcension drones with breathtaking streams of mind-absorbing microsounds flowing magnetically through the space, often voice material is processed, and there also weird collages with field recordings and silent interruptions... so abstract, surrealistic, mysterious and unique!
|
2016 |
€27.50 |
|
| TZESNE |
Asimilacionismo |
LP |
12 years after the "Huffduff" 7" on our own label (DR-74) the first LP by the favored Basque project: field recordings and vintage synth drones+tones+pulses+sequences serve as basis for the mysterious, somehow drone-based compositions, which use lots of unrecognizable sounds, there are flickering passages, synthetic scrawls and glittering environmentals, all carefully constructed for a wonderfully inspiring brain-ride... lim. 200 copies only, on white vinyl, finally BACK IN STOCK !
|
2016 |
€20.00 |
|
| ULHER, BIRGIT / BÜTTNER, GREGORY |
Tehricks |
mCD-R |
compositions for computer & trumpet sounds based on a special concept; lim. 100 photo cover |
2010 |
€6.00 |
|
| UN/SOUNDING THE SELF |
A PORTRAIT |
DVD + book |
a film by CHRISTOPH COLLENBERG (60 min) with accompanying 120 page booklet about "silent composing": inspired by H.D.THOREAU and JOHN CAGE the filmed artists start composing only after hours of silent walking through the landscape, "Silent walking as a means of heightening the senses, inflowing sounds become the basis for compositions..."
|
2020 |
€18.00 |
|
| UNDER THE SNOW |
Popsongs |
CD + BOOK |
new release feat. a book with collages and texts by various artists, by the project of STEFANO GENTILE (the man behind SILENTES) and GIANLUCA FAVARON, surely one of Italian best experimental working ambient projects.... "A collection of thoughts and sounds about pop. The CD with 33 minutes of abstract, electronic compositions is attached to a 40 pages 8" booklet" ed. of 280 copies - STILL TO DISCOVER !
|
2017 |
€20.00 |
|
| V.A. (VARIOUS ARTISTS) (COMPILATIONS) |
A tasty Swarm of small Signals |
DVD-Audio |
sound-art project curated by FRANCISCO LOPEZ, collecting 91 x 2 minute micro-compositions from different sound-artists, feat. JAMES WEBB, LAWRENCE ENGLISH, ASMUS TIETCHENS, LOUIS DUFORT, ALAN COURTIS (REYNOLS!), Z. KARKOWSKI, and the master himself, FRANCISCO LOPEZ; 3 hours playtime, DVD-audio (24 bit) playable in any DVD player or computer
|
2010 |
€18.00 |
|
|
Six Winners: The Stockholm Electronic Arts Award 1991-1996 |
CD |
outstanding electroacoustic compositions from: RAY GUILETTE, MARK WINGATE, AKE PARMERUD, GILLES GOBEIL, MATHEW ADKINS, JOHN YOUNG - these were the winners of the "Stockholm Electronic Arts Award" from 1991-1996; complex & dynamic NEW music to discover !! Comes with booklet.
|
1999 |
€12.50 |
|
|
Tensions at the Vanguard: New Music from Peru (1948-1979) |
do-CD |
amazing collection of early experimental / electronic music from Peru, you won't know the names of these composers but this "wild" mixture of tape compositions, electronic experiments & 'new music' in classical formations with acoustic instruments; curated by LUIS ALVARADO, comes with 24p. booklet in Spain & English; for explorers of exotic electronics !
|
2012 |
€18.50 |
|
|
Institute of Sonology 1959-1969 |
do-LP |
first vinyl issue of this collection with rather incredible, pioneering electronic compositions created at the "Instituut Voor Sonologie" in Utrecht, Netherlands, by: DICK RAAIJMAKERS, FRITS WEILAND, TON BRUYNEL, and very long pieces by KONRAD BOEHMER, GOTTFRIED MICHAEL KOENIG and RAINER RIEHN..- "a music produced by machines designed to construct the new." - liner notes by KONRAD BOEHMER
|
2019 |
€19.50 |
|
|
PRSNT (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Pascal Comelade, Laurie Spiegel, Lyra Pramuk, Chassol, Nicolas Godin, Pierre Rousseau, Pedro Vian, Pierre Bastien, Visible Cloaks, Kelman Duran, Refree, Lucrecia Dalt, Lafawndah) |
LP + BOOK |
collector's item / ambitious art project with writings and artworks from diverse artists, plus original compositions which are all 32 seconds long, based on the fact that digital online platforms usually only play the first 30 seconds of a track (which truly shortens our attention spans); - gatefold cover with full-colour booklet (32 pages), white vinyl, one-sided (the B-Side has a 32 sec. "Silence" track by R. SAKAMOTO)
|
2021 |
€55.00 |
|
| |
Soundscape-Komposition. Aktuelle Positionen |
CD |
stunning compilation with "Soundscape" - compositions, based on the concept of MURRAY R. SCHÄFER => a new piece from HILDEGARD WESTERKAMP remixing her own archive material, JAVIER ALEJANDRO GARAVIGLIA; SABINE SCHÄFER, JAN JACOB HOFMANN, etc. etc. - lots of new sounds and interesting approaches from rather unknown composers...
|
2022 |
€13.00 |
|
| VAN HOUDT, REINIER |
MMXX-04: Les Champs Lissajous |
LP |
4th release in the new MMXX series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => REINIER VAN HOUDT created a cloudy, amorph, dreamlike soundtrack for TAKASHI MAKINO's film "Memento Stella" (2018)
|
2020 |
€24.00 |
|
| VAN WISSEM, JOZEF |
The Joy that never ends |
LP |
new material by the "sublime master of the lute", minimal repetitive compositions feat. film-maker JIM JARMUSCH (!), and vocalist JEANNE MADIC. Vinyl-version limited to 500 copies
|
2011 |
€16.00 |
|
| VEPRISUICIDA |
Heavy Metal Cyclothymia / Science Friction |
CD |
recordings from 1996 and 1999, "Heavy Metal Cyclothimia" was originally released on a split-tape with CISFINITUM, "Science Friction" as ULTRA U32 (split with COMFORTER) - these noise compositions are filled with machine-like samples, raw found sounds and more collage-like eruptions, all assembled to a fast changing stream of low fi industrial noise that you can hardly find these days....
|
2018 |
€12.50 |
|
| VETROPHONIA |
Formula of War |
CD |
RUSSIAN INDUSTRIAL / EXPERIMENTAL LEGENDS! The project of A. LEBEDEV-FRONTOV (LINIJA MASS) and NICK SUDNICK (ZGA) that is completely dedicated to Futurism, features original compositions from F.B. PRATELLA & MARINETTI who wrote manifests about Futurist composing & music; comes in A5 folder with 5 postcards
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| VIGROUX, FRANCK |
MMXX-01: Tension 24 |
LP |
first release in a new series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => FRANCK VIGROUX starts the series with an awesome,multi-layered overwhelming drone piece that slowly develops into something else, complex and surprising to follow in its development... highly recommdended !!
|
2020 |
€24.00 |
|
| |
Atotal |
CD |
the audiopart of VIGROUXs latest audiovisual performance, developed with ANTOINE SCHMITT: massive electronic music focused on the question of a "deterministic universe" (NEWTON, LAPLACE), with relation to HEISENBERG, SCHRÖDINGER and GÖDEL the 'unexplainable', 'irrational' science insights deliver the foil for the forceful and at times heavily rhythmic compositions..
|
2021 |
€13.00 |
|
| VIZ MICHAEL KREMIETZ |
SUIZEN |
CD |
pure & beautiful meditation recordings on the SHAKUHACHI, the Japanese Zen-flute, by the South-German artist and performer VIZ MICHAEL KREMIETZ, recorded during his stay in the monastery of Koyasan and Ekoin temple in the mountains of Japan => main part of the CD consists of his interpretation of the "Honkyoku", a traditional piece of Zen-Buddhism, but there are also own compositions and a long (23:23 min) collage with voice & violin, as a hommage to COIL; comes with full colour booklet
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| VON HAUSSWOLFF, C.M. (CARL MICHAEL) |
MMXX-03: For Marietta |
LP |
3rd release in the new MMXX series that presents 20 artists from the experimental sound-art scene with very nice design / concept => dedicated to the year 2020 there will be 20 x 20 min. compositions on one-sided clear vinyl, with laser engraved artwork by the artist on the B-Side, lim. to 500 copies => CM VON HAUSSWOLFF trudges with you through a dense but mellow / somehow harmonic drone-fog that changes its 'Gestalt' gradually and suspends the passaging of time (for at least 20 minutes;)...
|
2020 |
€24.00 |
|
| VOUDOURIS, DIMITRI |
NPFAI.1/PALMOS/NPFAI.3/PRAXIS |
CD |
four exciting compositions from this Greek composer (living in South Africa), who uses lots of processed speech-material (pre-linguistic expressions mainly) to produce unsettling computer-synthesis tracks that sound like nothing else...
|
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| WASM [= JOS SMOLDERS AND FRANS DE WAARD] |
Een |
CD |
FRANS DE WAARD and JOS SMOLDERS have united for another musical project - written "WaSm" - (after the legendy THU20, etc.), following a "flexible score" for each of the five compositions: various electronic sound forms that shift and morph into different shapes, more like audio sculptures, with a good portion of analogue ingredients coming from cassettes, walkman and radio sources... very skillful and fresh!! edition of 300 copies
|
2016 |
€12.00 |
|
| WATSON, DAVID |
Fingering an Idea |
do-CD |
back in stock this impressive release with a full CD of eight genius BAGPIPE drone compositions, rec. in parts with a whole ensemble! - "In verschiedensten Harmonie- und Obertonvariationen bewegen sich die hyper-organisch klingenden Dudelsäcke, manchmal sehr dynamisch & schillernd, dann mit Entwicklungen die an HAFLER TRIO's Drone-Werke denken lassen.... unsere besondere Empfehlung!" - CD 2 holds compositions for electric & acoustic guitar; comes w. fold out booklet
|
2007 |
€16.00 |
|
| WEIS, MIKE |
Don't know, just Walk |
LP |
the percussionist of Chicago's ambient drone post-rock band ZELIENOPLE with second solo album - recorded when he went through an existenial health crisis => three very contemplative, slow pulsing compositions... "Using loops of field-recordings, gongs, radios, home-made instruments, drums and traditional Korean percussion, WEIS pieced together an album that is as reflective as it is mesmerizing" lim. 500
|
2014 |
€18.50 |
|
| WESTERKAMP, HILDEGARD |
Transformations |
CD |
five fascinating works (1977-1992) by the Canadian-German acoustic design artist, who uses for her floating, poetic compositions all kinds of field and environmental sounds from urban spaces, fog horns, fabric sirens, crickets, ravens, etc... which are later re-processed and reworked in the studio; incl. 40 page booklet; "One can transform through listening as she has." [PAULINE OLIVEROS] |
1996 |
€15.00 |
|
| WHETHAM, SIMON |
Never so Alone |
CD |
during an extended stay in Lisbon, Portugal, the British artist captured sounds from the city with various (contact) microphones and hydrophones, to especially record vibrating and droning sources that build the basis for the 7 compositions here => a very different kind of city portrait, dense and ghostly drones are mixed with "small sounds", resonances, hisses... " Very delicate, very refined indeed. Maybe the best thing I heard from him so far." [FdW /Vital Weekly]
|
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
| WIESE, NICOLAS |
Unrelated |
LP |
second solo-LP for this German artist under his real name (once known as [-HYPH-] ) who works in the field of gallery sound-art, taking samples from various sound sources to treat them "live" with his technique of 'modulated feedbacks' => challenging collages in various shapes, from fast changing, overloaded craziness to abstract drone-scaping, these are highly sophisticated compositions full of microscopic details... comes on clear vinyl, lim. 200 copies
|
2018 |
€22.50 |
|
| WILKEN, ANSGAR |
The dark Inches |
7inch |
two pieces for Cello, handplayed percussion and loops => dark acoustic / chamber-music compositions with very unusual Cello-sounds... great EP by this Berlin based musician, film-maker and graphic artist, recorded at the legendary "Studio Nord" in Bremen; lim. 77 copies only !!
|
2015 |
€10.00 |
|
| WISHART, TREVOR |
The secret Resonance of Things |
CD + BOOKLET |
three abstract / microscopic noise compositions derived from 'scientific data' (Supernova explosions, chaotic processes, 'models of imaginary instruments'- for other planets) by the ever interesting concept artist from UK.. " ranging from intense, almost old-school contemporary electronic/musique concrete to percussive interludes to wild simulated impossible brass instruments." - comes with highly interesting / mathematic booklet explaining the incredible working methods - really mindblowing stuff!!!
|
2017 |
€23.00 |
|
| WOLFARTH, CHRISTIAN |
Acoustic Solo Percussion - Vol. 1 |
7inch |
two compositions for solo percussion by this Swiss musician, with unusual drum tunes => droning overtunes / resonances and trance-inducing drum rolls; first in a series of four 7"es, comes on red vinyl
|
2009 |
€7.50 |
|
| WOLFF, CHRISTIAN |
Kompositionen 1950-1972 |
do-CD |
collection of various compositions recorded 1950-1972 by this US-composer using the "undeterminate notation"; feat. players like CORNELIUS CARDEW, DAVID TUDOR, and KEITH ROWE. Comes with extensive 24 p booklet
|
2011 |
€22.50 |
|
| WYNESS, JAMES |
Objects wrapped in Objects wrapped in Objects |
mCDR |
two compositions by this interesting Scottish sound artist, inspired by architecture and materiality, using material / sounds of "opened and closed hearths" and a tin foil/speaker arrangament: this is pure & very concrete object "material" noise...
|
2014 |
€5.00 |
|
| ZAFFIRI, ENORE |
La Voce ed il Sintetizzatore |
CD |
vintage analog electronics created on an ARP 2600 plus the recitating and singing voice of ELLEN KAPPEL (texts from JACK KEROUAC, SHAKESPEARE, T.S.ELIOT, PHILIP LAMANTIA, STEFAN GEORGE) form the basis for these extraordinary avantgarde pieces (rec. 1973-1981) by the Italian electronic music pioneer , who tried to structure his compositions after Euclidean Geometrics... it still sounds so strange & surreal and almost "unlistenable" after more than 40 years! SPECIAL OFFER
|
2005 |
€6.00 |
|
| 3/4HADBEENELIMINATED |
Speak to me |
LP |
"Black Truffle present Speak To Me, the sixth full-length release from 3/4HadBeenEliminated, the Italian trio of Stefano Pilia, Claudio Rocchetti and Valerio Tricoli. Based on source material recorded in Bologna and Berlin over the course of several years, the album is made up of two side-long pieces meticulously constructed in post-production by Tricoli in his singularly dense and unpredictable style. Although their live performances have always been entirely improvised, in their recorded work the group focuses on using improvised recordings as source material for compositions built up through layering, editing and analog manipulation, extending the practices of Teo Macero, Faust and This Heat. Melancholic instrumental ruminations sit alongside cracked electronics, concrete sounds and Tricoli's whispered vocals, drawn together into dense assemblages animated by gradual transformations and sudden jump cuts. Beginning from the abstractions of their self-titled debut release in 2004, the group embarked on a trajectory that saw them move toward near-song structures, Tricoli's voice becoming a dominant element amid an increasingly dense and layered production style. On Speak To Me, however, the listener feels confronted by the ghost of music, sonic memories echoing across a psychedelic expanse. Evacuated of any clear structure, the music becomes a reverb-saturated morass, from which crystalline details momentarily emerge: shimmering echoed guitar, bowed double bass, tactile hand percussion, skittering electronics. Suffused with a darkly pensive atmosphere, Speak To Me is an elegant summation of the distinctive blend of electroacoustic techniques, instrumental improvisation and contemporary psychedelia pioneered by 3/4HadBeenEliminated over the last decade. LP design by Stephen O'Malley with striking artwork by Stefano Pilia. Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin."
www.blacktrufflerecords.com
|
2016 |
€17.50 |
|
| A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN |
same |
CD |
"Debüt des gemeinsamen Projekts der Neoklassiker Adam Wiltzie und Dustin O’Halloran.
A Winged Victory For The Sullen sind Adam Wiltzie (Stars Of The Lid) und der amerikanische Komponist Dustin O’Halloran. Mit verschiedenen Klavieren und Droneklängen experimentierten die beiden auf ihrem selbst betitelten Debüt in extrem tiefen Frequenzbereichen. Aber auch traditionelle Instrumente wie Waldhorn, Fagott und Streicher sind zu hören, immer durchdrungen allerdings von Gitarrenmelodien. Die Aufnahmen begannen mit einer nächtlichen Session auf einem alten Bösendorfer-Imperial-Klavier in der berühmten Grunewaldkirche in Berlin. Die Streicheraufnahmen stammen aus den Ostberliner Räumen des einstigen DDR-Radios. Eine letzte Session gab es auf einem handgemachten Fazioli-Flügel in einem Privatstudio in Italien. Das Ergebnis sind sieben Klanglandschaften harmonischer Wiederkehr, Late-Night-Music, von der man immer geträumt hat. Zu den Gastmusikern gehören die isländische Cellistin Hildur Gudnadottir sowie Erased-Tapes-Labelkamerad Peter Broderick an der Violine. Die Vinylversion erscheint mit einem Download-Code.
//
A Winged Victory for the Sullen is the first installment of the new collaboration between Stars of the Lid member Adam Wiltzie and composer Dustin O'Halloran. The duo agreed to leave their normal home studio comfort zone and develop the recordings with the help of large acoustic spaces, and to hunt down a selection of 9ft grand pianos that had the ability to deliver extreme sonic low end. Other traditional instrumentation was used including string quartet, French horn, and bassoon, but always juxtaposed is the sound of drifting guitar washed melodies. The recordings began in one late night session in the famed Grunewald Church in West Berlin on a 1950s imperial Boesendorfer piano and strings were added in the historic East Berlin DDR radio studios along the River Spree. One last final session in a private studio deep in the northern cusp of Italy on a handmade Fazioli piano, and the final mixes took place in a 17th century villa near Ferrara, Italy, with the assistance of Francesco Donadello. All songs were processed completely analogue straight to magnetic tape. Their secret to harvesting new melodic structures from the thin air of existence was for the duo to push themselves to live dangerously, realizing that clear thinking at the wrong moment could stifle the compositions. The final result is seven landscapes of harmonic replicating ingemination. In 'Requiem for the Static King Part 1' (created in memory of the untimely passing of Mark Linkous) they have taken the age old idea of a string quartet and then shot it out a cannon to reveal exquisite new levels of mellow bliss. Of the 13 minute track 'Symphony Pathetique,' Wiltzie says 'after almost 20 years of struggling to create interesting ambient drone music, I feel like I have finally figured out what I am doing.' Notable guest musicians include Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, and violinist Peter Broderick. A Winged Victory for the Sullen is not a side project. This is the future of the late night record you have always dreamed of." [label info]
www.brainwashed.com/kranky
|
2011 |
€14.00 |
|
| A.G. (AGHIS GIANNOULIS) |
Colours in Black & White : 2017-2018 |
DVD |
Colours In Black & White (DVD / HD AV), consists of five parts, is the new audiovisual artwork by A.G created from 2017 to 2018. This project is an approach of - Digital Visual Music - in linear process, intersecting the aesthetics of new media art and post-minimal composition, as well as experimenting with the bounds of static and moving imagery next to the music in slow motion. The visuals were developed by the transformation and multiplication of a single video signal through digital post-production, resulting into an abstract black & white video synthesis.
Titles :
Colours In Black & White I : 2017 (Duration 25:00)
Colours In Black & White II : 2017 (Duration 30:15)
Colours In Black & White III : 2018 (Duration 25:33)
Colours In Black & White IV : 2018 (Duration 28:15)
Colours In Black & White V : 2018 (Duration 18:50) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A.G is a media artist based in Athens & Paris. He has released studio albums and audiovisual works under the names of ANIKA and A.G. In 2015 he reinterpreted three compositions of Erik Satie in the 3CD compilation ERIK SATIE ET LES NOUVEAUX JEUNES 2 (incl. Max Richter, Peter Broderick, Sylvain Chauveau, Rachel Grimes & Dustin O'Halloran), released by french label Arbouse Recordings. He has participated in various collective exhibitions where he presented audiovisual artworks and has collaborated with Free103Point9 Transmission Arts organization for Noise!2009 Festival (Ontological Hysteric Theater) in New York.
A.G Works :
2005 ANIKA:A:0304 (MLP)
2008 ANIKA:A:0507 (LP/CD)
2009 ANIKA: 33 RECORDING SESSIONS, NOT INCLUDED IN A:0507 (CD-R)
2010 A.G:POLYGON:08 (CD)
2014 A.G:VIDEOS:2003-2013 (DVD-R)
2015 ERIK SATIE ET LES NOUVEAUX JEUNES 2 (3CD Compilation)
2018 A.G:COLOURS IN BLACK AND WHITE:2017-2018 (DVD-R)
Videos :
Colours In Black & White I (25:00) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhf0LEUunfU
Colours In Black & White II (30:15) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8DK3WZgGts
Colours In Black & White III (25:33) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs6VaQjEL0k
Colours In Black & White IV (28:15) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25dV70HXzJY
Colours In Black & White V (18:50) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztCprALWI3Q&t=336s
Links :
A.G:POLYGON:08 http://agpolygon08.blogspot.com
ANIKA:A:0507 http://anika-a0507.blogspot.com
A.G:VIDEOS:2003-2013 http://ag-videos2003-2013.blogspot.com
A.G:LIVE AT FENAILLE MUSEUM. RODEZ:20.05.17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLRD4yPV0J4
FREE 103 POINT 9 / TRANSMISSION ARTS https://wavefarm.org/ta/artists/xnc29y
RE:VOIR http://re-voir.com/shop/en/film-revoir-experiemental-film-dvd/786-ag-videos-2003-2013.html
_
|
2018 |
€12.00 |
|
| AF URSIN |
Trois Memoires Discretes |
LP |
"Three introspective instrumental (English horn, flute, percussion, double bass, Hammond organ) compositions performed, recorded and mixed by Timo van Luijk during 2010-2012. Edition of 400 copies." [label info]
www.lasciedoree.be
"When he has his solo hat on, Timo van Luijk calls himself Af Ursin and his favorite format of release is the LP too. His covers are beautiful, just like the In Camera releases actually, but do not contain an awful lot of information, just like the In Camera releases actually. Af Ursin's music is less based on electronics, but more along the lines of acoustic instruments. Van Luijk uses a relatively small palette of sounds and works with them. I believe not in an analogue manner, but through the use of the computer. The a-side has the side long piece 'Sylphide', which seems to be build from a trombone or trumpet sound. A simple tune, repeated over and over again, with some pauses in between. Say the way Brian Eno did his early ambient pieces of loops of varying length, but then even more stripped down, reduced, minimal and perhaps also more classical. 'Taciturne', the first piece on the b-side is with flute sounds, but also with some highly obscured field recordings of objects moving in the far distant. 'Elegie' is then another piece for another instrument. It seems an organ of some kind, like a children's organ, or a harmonium, but perhaps pitched up a bit. I am not sure, but here to we have the same layered aspects as we had on the other side and yet at the same time this layering doesn't mean it's crowded. It has that same wonderful tranquil character as the other two pieces, or, in fact the two In Camera records. I play all of this music when I got up this autumn morning, mainly playing music and watching clouds pass outside, making darkness and sunlight change all the time, in a similar slow motion. This is just perfect. I should take a day off, play all Af Ursin records, In Camera's other two records and all of the Mirror releases. Sadly that can't be." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€20.00 |
|
| AGUILAR, LUIS DAVID |
Ayahuasca: Musica Para Cine de Luis David Aguilar 1978-1983 |
LP |
"Ayahuasca: Music for Film, by Luis David Aguilar (1978-1983)" compiles works by Luis David Aguilar, one of the most prolific composers of film scores in Peru. It shows the great versatility and avant-garde style that has distinguished his work.
Luis David Aguilar (Arequipa, 1950) occupies a fundamental place in the history of film music in Peru, not only because of the prolific nature of his work (which also includes music for television and advertising), but because of the singular, experimental style found in many of his scores. Aguilar's music blends modern academic composition with the use of native instruments, synthesizers, sound collages and a diversity of resources, which identify him as a key figure to understand a period of Peruvian music marked by the imprint of the avant-garde and the use of native sounds, which developed during the late 70's and the early 80's.
Aguilar belongs to the so called “Generation of the 70's”, along with Peruvian composers such as Walter Casas, Seiji Asato and Aurelio Tello, who were then immersed in the languages of contemporary classical music. But he also shares the spirit of renewal of a generation of musicians who came from the world of jazz and electronic experimentation such as Manongo Mujica and Arturo Ruiz del Pozo.
After his graduation from the National Music Conservatory, Luis David Aguilar studied at the Instituto Nacional de Teleducación, starting from 1976, which proved to be decisive. It allowed him to start a career as a composer of music for radio and television, and drove him away from the classical scene. With this experience in hand, he was then able to produce film music and to work in many recording studios in Lima. He also set up his own studio and, as a result, he is the owner of a large archive of recordings, which has been maintained without being published. “During those years I composed a lot of music: children's songs, jingles for various radio shows, as well as music for television series, etc.”, says Aguilar. “The great attraction for me was that all of the music I created was recorded immediately, and because of my academic training, I was able to write scores for symphonic orchestra. My purpose was to introduce the sounds of classical instruments in the auditory memory of a vast audience. I had never experienced this possibility before. As an academic composer, I created works that were rarely performed. Most of them gathered dust in different places or, because of my lack of order and frequent relocations, they simply got lost. But during this period, all of the music I wrote came to life. I was also able to work with different recording studios and use their fantastic technical resources. In addition, this situation allowed me to create job opportunities for classically trained musicians (who at that time were very poorly paid). Over any other consideration, this had a clear social function, and the experience was totally worthy for me. In large measure, this is why I stopped working in academic settings.”
Ayahuasca is an album that collects pieces from 1978 to 1983 and offers an overview of the different musical paths that Aguilar followed during his career as a soundtrack composer. The album opens with music from the film El viento del ayahuasca [The Wind of Ayahuasca] (1983), by director Nora de Izcue, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra and Choir of Cuba under the baton of Luis David Aguilar, with Chucho Valdés on piano. Recorded at the ICAIC studios (Cuba), it is an ambitious orchestral and vocal composition, in which you can hear the beginning of the famous melody popularized by the Amazonian cumbia group Juaneco y su Combo, which serves as an introduction to the sound world of the jungle, a dense and hypnotic atmosphere that, without a doubt, places this work as one of the most important compositions of the author's repertoire.
The next track is the music for the documentary Anónimo cotidiano [Anonymous Everyday] (1979), by director Jorge Rey, a unique experimental piece for synthesizers (played by Aguilar), drums and percussion (played by Manongo Mujica), with the addition of various Andean instruments (panpipes, charango, among others). It is a clear example of fusion of sound experimentation and timbres from the Andean world.
And finally Los constructores [The Builders] (1978), by director José Carlos Huayhuaca, a salsa which incorporates unusual sounds of tubular bells and prepared pianos.
About this diversity of genres, the composer says: “Creating film music gave me a wide perspective, because of the possibility of using all the composition techniques that I studied, both traditional and avant-garde, and even inventing some of my own, in addition to giving me the versatile craft that is needed”.
Ayahuasca: Music for Film by Luis David Aguilar (1978-1983) is the second album by Aguilar released by Buh Records, following the celebrated Hombres de Viento/Venas de la Tierra (1978-1982), appeared in 2015. The album is published in vinyl format, in a limited edition of 300 copies, as part of the Essentials Sounds collection. It includes a booklet with notes by Luis David Aguilar. The audio has been remastered from the original reel tapes by Aldo Montalvo. The artwork and design is by About Studio.
This project was awarded with the Economic Stimulus for Culture 2021 of the Ministry of Culture of Peru.
https://buhrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ayahuasca-m-sica-para-cine-de-luis-david-aguilar-1978-1983-essential-sounds-collection |
2022 |
€25.00 |
|
| AJNA |
Inevitable Mortality |
do-CD |
Previously, "Inevitable Mortality" was released in a microprint of just 50 CDR copies thanks to Reverse Alignment.
This edition of the 2 CD contains the same material, extended by another 6 hitherto unpublished compositions, created in the same period. Chris Sigdell (B°TONG) again handled the mastering. Thanks to this, the album sounds coherent and is a great complement to the discography with a position that has been difficult to obtain until now. For fans of the AJNA project, it is an absolute "must have". Its qualities will also be appreciated by listeners who like to lose themselves listening to dark ambient music of the highest quality. "Inevitable Mortality" was created in a rather interesting and publishing period of the American musician, when his project was becoming more and more recognizable among fans of the genre. A moment later, the double "Black Monolith" is released, recorded in collaboration with Dronny Darko, with which both artists have established their position on this scene. So far, AJNA has cooperated, apart from the aforementioned Reverse Alignment, with e.g. Winter-Light, Cryo Chamber, or Cyclic Law.
Edition on 2CDs in a 6-panel eco-pack with a new graphic design. Edition of 300 copies.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/inevitable-mortality-extended-edit
|
2023 |
€16.50 |
|
| AKATOMBO |
Sometime, never |
CD |
Following on from his critically acclaimed False Positives and Editions Mego collaborations with E.G. Lewis of Wire / Dome, ex-pat Scotsman and long-time resident of Hiroshima Paul Thomsen Kirk delivers his fourth album—ten tracks full of atmospheric, powerful, beat-driven, electronic-based compositions. From the persuasively percussive-led to dark ambient soundscapes to sleazy, wide-screen, full-on, bass-bin rumblings, Sometime, Never has it all… just because. “[A] meld of post-punk toxic ambient angst (à la Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire) with contemporary rhythmic models…. Akatombo is big on alienation and … generally conveys a feeling of being close-up to events and places while at the same time feeling disconnected and uncomprehending of them…. [A] brilliantly compelling, adrenalin-soaked antidote to the tranquil hedonism into which electronica has been too apt to lapse in recent years.” —David Stubbs, Resident Advisor “[Paul Kirk’s] beatscapes hearken back to the industrial pioneers of the mid-’80s, but his sound is decidedly contemporary, a mix of drums, bass, bleached tones and samples that veer from dub to club…. The best tracks display more than mood; they reverberate with sass.” —Richard Allen, A Closer Listen “A killer collection of programmed beats, layered samples, dark atmospheres, thick guitars, and droney-ambience, sounding at times like Muslimgauze, or like a more chill Necro Deathmort, or one of those bands who might have shared a compilation with Techno Animal or Sidewinder back in the day. The vibe is definitely on the isolationist tip, murky and claustrophobic, the beats are crunchy and caustic, more often lurching and lumbering than skittering or shuffling, and those beats are set amidst thick swells of grim sinister ambience, and blackened late-night atmospheres….. A sort of dubbed out downtempo dance music that’s not so much for dancing, but lurking, hanging out in the shadows, in empty clubs in empty cities, everything crumbling and decayed, a seriously dystopic soundtrack for some wasted scorched earth future.” —Aquarius
|
2015 |
€13.00 |
|
| AKIYAMA, MITCHELL |
If night is a weed and day grows legs |
CD |
Sehr poetische und tagträumerische piano & violin-ambience, mit digitalen Effekten durchsetzt, minimal und fliessend, manchmal versinkt alles in grobkörnigem Rauschen....aber auch fragmentarischerer, spärlicher klingende tracks......sphärische FENNESZ oder TIM HECKER sind hier oft wirklich nicht weit.....
“Recorded in Montréal, Canada, If Night Is A Weed And Day Grows Less, the 4th solo cd by Mitchell Akiyama, marks a more concerted return to Akiyama's classical roots. ll eight pieces grew out of four piano compositions that were torn apart and reassembled - fragments of one piece contaminating another - reordered melodies, hidden references, obscured refrains. It is weeds fighting the hegemony of the lawn, it is the possibility of anarchy resulting
in fleeting orders of beauty, it is the progeny of Steve Reich, Michel Foucault and Marcel Duchamp.
The clear melodic beauty of Christian Fennesz but with a piano…
The slow growing form of Akiyama Mitchell Akiyama's career in the arts has followed a reasonably circuitous path. A student of creative writing and literature before switching to interdisciplinary studies,
Akiyama's work as a composer of electronic music and video artist has come to incorporate disparate disciplines, aesthetics and theoretical traditions. He has beenbased in Montreal since 1998 and has thoroughly absorbed the currents of electroacoustics, visual art and modern dance for which the city has always been famous. Akiyama's musical output began with his debut album, intr_verse which he released himself on his nascient intr_version imprint in 1999. A warm, complex work of beat-driven electronica, the record received several glowing reviews and managed to find its way into a few year end lists despite its small run and limited availability.
A 2001 follow-up was released on Canadian label Alien8's sublabel, Substractif. It was met with near unanimous acclaim from critics and propelled Akiyama to prominence in the Canadian experimental electronic music scene. He recently released a collaborative work with Cincinnati musician Joshua Treble. The project, Désormais marks a more organic, compositional direction for Akiyama. Brimming with deconstructed guitars, pianos and field recordings, it is a lush and sometimes jarring work. His third solo full length, Temporary Music, was recently released by renowned German label Raster-Noton.
Akiyama has performed extensively in Canada, Japan, The USA and Europe at festivals (such as Montreal's Mutek and Barcelona's Sonar), art galleries and clubs. Video once seemed like an unlikely milieu for Akiyama. Upon taking a class in video production and history he had no background in film, video or photography. He was inspired by the interface of the still reasonably new phenomenon of digital non-linear editing which he found similar to his digital
music working environment. Three videos emerged - re:sound, the argument and the static industry - all of which played extensively at film and video festivals in Canada. He has since been involved mainly in creating "video paintings" which accompany him whenever he performs musically. Recently these two disciplines, music and video, along with graphic design (which is one of the many way through which Akiyama earns a living) have been collapsing in on each other. Videomusic performances, multimedia cd-roms and an altered way of seeing and hearing have come out of this fusion. With the locus of Akiyama's work being the computer and the inter-relatedness and similarity of sound, video and design software, these fusions are sure to yield strange new fruit.” [press release]
|
2004 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Mort aux vaches |
CD |
Wieder ein kleines Verpackungswunder in der MORT AUX VACHES-Serie: glänzendes, 2fach gefaltetes Kupferblech mit Prägung, sieht einfach genial aus! Und auch musikalisch ist dies ein Schmuckstück: Ein one-tracker (43+ min.) mit äusserst zarten, stimmungsvollen Gitarren-Drones, die digital aufbereitet tänzeln und feinste innerliche Resonanzen spürbar werden lassen....
“Packaging comes in embossed copper (no printing). Akiyama's contribution to the Mort Aux Vaches series is an unedited improvisation recorded for VPRO radio in April, 2004. Consisting of guitar washes and digital interruptions, the set was recorded without any use of samples or prepared material. In keeping with Akiyama's ethic of spontaneous composition this recording is a document of a moment. Akiyama's music is a study in fiction and texture. He records compositions and improvisations for piano, strings, and other instruments, and restructures them in his studio in a post-facto montage. Playing on the distortions in causality that recording technology can effect, Akiyama creates music that lays claim to a moment of creation that never happened. Imperfections - fingers scraping strings, breaths and other signs of humanity - are underscored resulting in a digital simulacrum of performance. Located somewhere in the interstices of classical, electronic composition and post-rock, his works vacillate between delicate melodies and confrontational bursts of noise.” [press release]
www.staalplaat.com
|
2004 |
€14.50 |
|
| ALE HOP |
The Life of Insects |
LP |
Ale Hop is an artist, researcher, and experimental instrumentalist. She composes electronic and electroacoustic music, by blending strains of noise, pop, avant-garde, ambient and a complex repertoire of extended techniques for electric guitar and real-time sampling devices which she uses as her sound vocabulary to craft a performance of astonishing physical intensity, saturated of layers of distortion and stunning atmospheres.
Her body of work includes immersive multichannel installations, live performances, sound sculptures, video, 3D, composition and sound design for theater, dance and film, releases, academic publications, and workshops. The Life of Insects is her fourth studio album.
The composer began to craft the album The Life of Insects after spending one month living with different types of insects in her home studio, which she bought from a local insect dealer in Berlin and built little terrariums to record them for the sound design of a film she was working on.
Nonetheless, the album is not comprised of compositions based specifically on sound recordings of the insects, but it unfolds as an imagined world recomposed through speculated narrative and abstract elements that seek to portray their lives, assembling sounding stories that could be re-constructed in the mind of the active listener.
For this purpose, the artist came up with a musical language that could hold this fictional universe, comprised principally of several layers and textures of guitars that mimic environmental and atmospheric sounds.
The Life of Insects will be released October 23 on Buh Records
Watch the psychedelic video for the album opener 'La procesión' below.
Listen & Watch: Ale Hop - La procesión (Official Music Video)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v4Tqm8wk8E&feature=youtu.be
Side A
1 La procesión
2 The Life of Insects
3 Pollinators
Side B
4 The Way to the Ocean
5 Someday We'll Dance Again
6 The Pearl Diver
7 Jungle Depredation
Supported by Initiative Musik gGmbH with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media
All music composed, recorded and produced by Ale Hop
Mastered by Manmade Mastering, Berlin, Germany.
Mastering Engineer: Tim Xavier
Artwork by Ale Hop
https://buhrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-life-of-insects
|
2020 |
€21.50 |
|
| ALIO DIE |
Deconsecrated and Pure |
CD |
"Deconsecrated and Pure is an evocative liturgy from the realm where electronic music meets acoustic drones, found objects, sacral voices and field recordings.
Italian ambient-acoustic sonic sculptor Stefano Musso returns for his first solo Alio Die release on Projekt in 20 years. Don't get the idea he's been on vacation, however! Since 1992 he has released 37 collaborative CDs and 19 solo CDs; this makes Deconsecrated and Pure Alio Die's 20th solo release! Welcome back!
The processed traditional instruments and natural textures float alongside rich electro-organic drones, creating a perfect introspective soundtrack with a medieval and sacral atmosphere. Serene and meditative textures combine in a chorus of circular and interwoven sounds, reflecting the harmony of the cosmos as an opus of inner stillness.
Processed and layered into the mix are vocal pieces by Claudio Merulo. The work of this 16th century Venetian Renaissance composer was performed by Paolo Tognon and Quoniam Ensemble di Dulciane and De Labyrintho Ensemble Della Rinascenza, creating the essence of a historical religious feel. The gradual evolution of the arrangements create a strong impression that the listener has been carried across time and space. Elements such as sonically-tampered Middle East horns (The dulciana, a sort of early basoon/oboe), solemn atmospheres of the courts of the Italian Renaissance, and evocative soundscapes cosmic and ethereal combine for holiness and trascendence.
To create this work, Stefano selected fragments of sessions recorded with the acoustic instruments, modifying them through multi-layered loops. Pitch and frequencies changed, effects were added, other sound objects were played and processed into the mix. This was further augmented with the electronics and field recordings adding more layers metamorphosizing the whole atmosphere into a deep trance mood. What makes Alio Die's compositions glow is the attention to detail and fluidity; something from the background floats to the foreground as it is slowly modified, or perhaps it's the gentle addition of a bagpipe or stringed instruments. It all intertwines through constant modulation, addition of atmospheric sounds, and re-contextualization.
Marvelously floating and hauntingly expressive, Deconsecrated and Pure feels like a liturgical poem within an archaic mausoleum distorted by time." [label info]
www.projekt.com
|
2012 |
€15.00 |
|
| ALIO DIE & MARTINA GALVAGNI |
Eleusian Lullaby |
CD |
"Oasen-Ambient" auf dieser Zusammenarbeit von ALIO DIE mit der italienischen Sängerin MARTINA GALVAGNI, hell klingend & klar, eine paradiesische Schönheit und Geborgenheit heraufbeschwörend, zärtlich, warm & sinnlich. ALIO DIE benutzt wieder diverse Instrumente wie Zither & Sitar und field recordings, die er auf seine typische Art und Weise verwebt...
"Eleusian Lullaby is a sensual ethereal-ambient collaboration between Italian soundsculptor Stefano Musso (aka Alio Die) and Italian singer Martina Galvagni. It is the third release in Projekt's series of Alio Die's vocal collaborations following 2001's Apsaras (with Amelia Cuni) and 2005's Mei-Jyu (with Jack or Jive). Eleusian Lullaby blends the natural, warm and earthy ambient compositions of Alio Die with the elegant, neo-classical voice of Martina, merging notes and silence into an expanded dreamscape. This is lullaby music like an aural caress from darkness into the light. The combination of the vocal melodies with the abstract qualities of the loops and instruments creates a suspended near-dream space, intimate and sensual at the same time.
The opening track, 'The Oniroid Sleep,' displays a foggy atmosphere where the voices wash beneath the acoustic layers of the cithara, sitar, kalimba and field recordings. On the second track, 'A Drone Song for Alienor,' the voice is clearer and more upfront with all its powerful beauty apparent creating an intense and fragile song with a neo-classical approach. The third song, 'Eleusian Lullaby,' was created as a totally free improvisation of psaltery and voice; the text is sung in a dialect of the Engadina language (Switzerland). Drones and loops were added later from the original recordings.
60 minutes of music, composed by acoustical improvisations with voice, psaltery, zither, cithara, bells, metals and field recordings. The original recordings were made in locations in the woods and in ancient medieval places then processed and layered by Alio Die at Temple Studio in 2005-2006.
Listen to this trance music in the dark and be lead to a tranquil earthly garden. Like in the best lullabies, you are caressed as you are transported to a mysterious parallel soundworld of peace and harmony." [label notes]
"Three elongated tracks making up a full length album of arty, filmic experimental soundscaping. Delicate and subtle, yet slightly discordant, melodies from archaic stringed instruments interweave with ambient drones, tinkling bells, and wordless vocals with Middle Eastern, medieval and folk touches, as well as sophisticated and evocative neoclassical vocals that are used as more of a focus of the track rather than the other styles that put in briefer appearances. Less song-oriented than many Projekt releases, but its ethereal nature, coupled with the slightly dark take on folk/world/classical music, fits right in with much of the label's other output. Combining elements familiar from the ambient/drone/experimental genre with creative, intellectual ideas of their own, the album is relaxing yet slightly unsettling at times, and goes beyond music and into the realms of aural art." [Bliss / Aquamarine]
www.projekt.com
|
2008 |
€14.50 |
|
| ALIO DIE & SAFFRON WOOD |
The Sleep of Seeds |
CD |
Sehr entspannte Drone-Improvisationen praktisch ohne elektronische Sounds.. eine weitere neue VÖ von ALIO DIE, hier in Zusammenarbeit mit SAFFRON WOOD.
“ The title is also the opening track of this macroscopic journey into a world which spontaneously engages us when we travel through it. A link between life and earth, a passageway between time and change. A melodius itinerary in which a time hourglass often makes no sense but only the sound of articulated and fragmentary notes...50 minutes between a seed and a grain of soil to wander into an infinite space while listening to a far away earth longing sound. Recorded in Savona Italy august 2002, with different flutes, tubes, accordion, various objects, rattles, shells, bells... Drones and loops, effects, editing and mastering on Pro-tools, at Temple studio Milano spring 2003. All the Cds comes in a special artwork compositions with tissues leaves, seeds...” [label description]
|
2003 |
€14.00 |
|
| ALIO DIE & ZEIT |
Sunja |
CD |
Die erste der gleich DREI neuen HSL / ALIO DIE – Veröffentlichungen Ende 2003 ist SUNJA, die wohl zum harmonischten und entspannendsten gehört, was STEFANO MUSSO bisher produziert hat. Positiv und warme Sphären werden hier imaginiert, die an eine friedliche, paradiesische Oase denken lassen. Esoteric Ambience in its truest sense !
”Magic has blown its precious spores in the air. A human rite, humble and quiet, has evoked a red hot globe that gently illuminates the path toward the borders of Sunja, the dream place where all vibrations start. Sometimes the light comes down from the sky, clear like a crystal. Sometimes it climbs slowly from the earth's depths, but it's always comforting. Crossing the thresholds of Sunja is like landing on an uncontaminated island, furrow its white sea-shores lapped by tepid foamy waters, been inebriated with wide floral smells and saltiness in secret places of the inland and in caves dug from time, gain the top of the plateau from which it is possible to see
beyond...Sunja is creative strength enclosed in two long tracks of incredible intensity, rich in levels of knowledge, pure enchantment and beauty. The deep sound has an extraordinary symbolic and evocative power and it has arrived to a supreme purification owing to millenial percolations across the rock. Music shines, beholds, resounds at the bottom of ourselves, lives and spreads out. We realize, in listening, that a light warmth closes in upon us, everything loses its own original sense, the gates open...the road is beaten!
Basic acoustic recordings were improvised during a warm night in late summer 2002 at Lunae studio,Tuscany. Edited and mixed in spring 2003 at Temple studio, Milano.
Stefano Musso: zither, samples and loops, buzzer , fields recordings. Tommaso Cimo': khen(mouth-organ), accordion,rattles, bird calls, bells. All the Cds comes in a special artwork numbered compositions with collages and handmade prints.” [label description]
|
2003 |
€14.00 |
|
| ALIO DIE / M. GRASSOW |
Praha Meditations |
CD |
"After the concert in Prague last year in may, we followed the proposal of friends to play some acoustic instruments spontaneously on top of the hill, in Troja, into a circle of stones installations.
Zithers, Tubes, Bells, Rattle and Shells, Flutes..the sessions were inspired from the special place and the spring's vibes in the wind. The recordings that are a blueprint of the spirit of that day, were edited in studio by Alio Die, then Mathias Grassow added his electronic drones to expand the point of view and enrich the flow and layers of the compositions. The result in eight tracks, show how mostly static and repetitive balanced sounds can interact with our perception during the listening time, bringing us into an active and intimate quiet mood, softly absorbing us into some dreams-like and time-opening experience." [label info]
www.aliodie.com
|
2010 |
€14.50 |
|
| ALIO DIE / PARALLEL WORLDS |
Circo Divino |
LP |
"This is the first collaboration by ambient master Alio Die with soundscape creator Parallel Worlds. the unique sound achieved could be described as a hybrid sonic world, made out of bouncing electrons and air vibrations. the modular machines of Parallel Worlds are merged with the acoustic instrumentation and drones of Alio Die, joined by the ethereal voice of the Polish vocalist/composer India Czajkowska, resulting in a surreal, yet down to earth, listening experience. The compositions, being, at times, minimal and calm and, at other times, full of mystical darkness and microsound elements,
take the listener into a place were mental and physical boundaries have no need to exist.
The beautiful Digipack artwork is by the painter Romanie Sanchez.
Tracks:
1 Lost Fractales
2 Circo Divino
3 Nuvole di Palissandro
4 Sorinel
5 Electrostatic Forest
6 Slide of Grace
All tracks composed and produced by Bakis Sirros and Stefano Musso (BMI) between 2008 and 2009, in Milan, Italy and Athens, Greece.
Parallel Worlds : Doepfer A100, Serge, AS Integrator, Metalbox/CGS modulars, 4-Voice, VCS3, String machines, Tape Echoes, Tone & CV generators, wave shapers and modifiers.
Alio Die: Drones and Loops, Zither, Carillon, Effects and Treatments.
Voice and effects on tracks 1,3,4 by India Czajkowska recorded in Verezzi, Italy." [label info]
www.aliodie.com
|
2010 |
€16.50 |
|
| |
Circo Divino |
CD |
"This is the first collaboration by ambient master Alio Die with soundscape creator Parallel Worlds. The unique sound achieved could be described as a hybrid sonic world, made out of bouncing electrons and air vibrations. The modular machines of Parallel Worlds are merged with the acoustic instrumentation and drones of Alio Die, joined by the ethereal voice of the Polish vocalist/composer India Czajkowska, resulting in a surreal, yet down to earth, listening experience. The compositions, being, at times, minimal and calm and, at other times, full of mystical darkness and microsound elements, take the listener into a place were mental and physical boundaries have no need to exist.
The beautiful Digipack artwork is by the painter Romanie Sanchez.
Tracks:
1 Lost Fractales
2 Circo Divino
3 Nuvole di Palissandro
4 Sorinel
5 Electrostatic Forest
6 Slide of Grace
All tracks composed and produced by Bakis Sirros and Stefano Musso
(BMI) between 2008 and 2009, in Milan, Italy and Athens, Greece.
Parallel Worlds : Doepfer A100 modular, Serge Modular Music System, AS Integrator modular, Metalbox/CGS modular, modified Oberheim 4-Voice, modified EMS VCS3, String machines, Tape Echoes, Tone & CV generators, wave shapers and modifiers.
Alio Die: Drones and Loops, Zither, Carillon, Effects and Treatments.
Voice and effects on tracks 1,3,4 by India Czajkowska recorded in Verezzi, Italy.
Mastering by Stefano Musso at Temple Studio, Milan.
Cover pictures by Romanie Sanchez
www.romanie.net" [label info]
www.aliodie.com
|
2010 |
€15.00 |
|
| ALTIERI, CORRADO / GIANLUCA FAVARON |
The System of Objects |
CD |
"Silentes presents a new collaborative effort between two prominent artists of Italy's electronic and experimental scene, Corrado Altieri (Candor Chasma, Monosonik, Uncodified) and Gianluca Favaron (ab'she, Under The Snow, Z'been). Inspired by Jean Baudrillard's essay of the same name, "The System of Objects" offers seven compositions combining field recordings, analogue textures, computer music and concrète sounds. Altieri e Favaron dig deep in the unconscious of the french philosopher, devising a hypothetical music score of his manifesto on the relations between objects universe and consumer society ideologies: drones and digital pulses, processed tapes and multi-layered frequencies make for a voyage to the borders of ambient, noise and radical experiments." [label info]
www.silentes.net
"Releases on Silentes are getting a bit more sparse these days, perhaps because of the economic tide etc, but I am also happy to note that they do more and more LPs. However the first new one is a CD with Gianluca Favaron on computer and one Corrado Altieri, who gets credit for electronics and tapes. Favaron is a man whose work appeared a lot on Silentes (as we'll see here too), and I never heard of Altieri. The eight tracks on 'The System Of Objects' are relatively short: the whole album doesn't last more than thirty-five minutes and it's inspired by the book of the same name by Jean Baudrillard. In much of Favaron's work ambient and drones play an important role, even when they are created with the use of the computer. In this particular work however we find him in a somewhat more noisy role, owing more to musique concrete than to ambience. The whole thing has some heavily treated acoustic feel to it, creating seven quite densely knitted pieces of electronic music. Be this field recordings, be this acoustic sounds created with contact microphones, or whatever else, it's treated into great monolithic blocks of sound. In only a few pieces this kind of minimalism is left behind and more things happen at the same time, such as in the opening piece 'Objects And Time 1'. An excellent release of highly vibrant electronic music. Quite raw and intense, exactly the kind of noise I like. Not meaningless and pointless carrying on forever, but seven sharp, contrasting blasts." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
|
Decomposed Days |
CD |
"Decomposed Days" is the new collaborative effort by Corrado Altieri (Candor Chasma, Monosonik, Uncodified) and Gianluca Favaron (Ab'she, Under The Snow, Zbeen), two major artist in the experimental electronic scene.
Released one year after "The System of Objects", a tribute to Jean Baudrillard, "Decomposed Days" relates to the possible connections between space, time and memory, making reference to imaginary movies as well as existing ones (like Peter Greenaway's "Vertical Features").
The album's five compositions are built with a crosspollination between musique concrete, abstract noise textures, radical computer music and techno splinters, leading to surreal territories.
"Decomposed Days" is available in three different editions:
- a standard edition of 225 copies;
- a limited edition of 20 copies which contain a photographic reproduction of the five Polaroids used for the cover;
- an extra limited edition of 5 copies which contain the aforementioned photographic reproduction and one of the five original Polaroids used for the cover." [label info]
13.silentes.it
|
2014 |
€14.00 |
|
|
Decomposed Days |
CD |
"Decomposed Days" is the new collaborative effort by Corrado Altieri (Candor Chasma, Monosonik, Uncodified) and Gianluca Favaron (Ab'she, Under The Snow, Zbeen), two major artist in the experimental electronic scene.
Released one year after "The System of Objects", a tribute to Jean Baudrillard, "Decomposed Days" relates to the possible connections between space, time and memory, making reference to imaginary movies as well as existing ones (like Peter Greenaway's "Vertical Features").
The album's five compositions are built with a crosspollination between musique concrete, abstract noise textures, radical computer music and techno splinters, leading to surreal territories.
"Decomposed Days" is available in three different editions:
- a standard edition of 225 copies;
- a limited edition of 20 copies which contain a photographic reproduction of the five Polaroids used for the cover;
- an extra limited edition of 5 copies which contain the aforementioned photographic reproduction and one of the five original Polaroids used for the cover." [label info]
13.silentes.it
"Here's the follow-up to the CD 'The System Of Objects' by Corrado Altieri (synthesizers, electronics, tapes) and Gianluca Favaron (microphones, loops, effects, computer) - see also Vital Weekly 904. Just like that previous release, this is a rather short album (thirty-two minutes), but the tracks being a bit longer, with 'Vertical Features' even being twelve minutes. This work has less an ambient feel to it, and more a musique concrete/electro-acoustic feel. There are again the heavily treated field recordings and sounds from objects and fewer synthesizers. I might be wrong though. There is an overall sense of experiment here. More noise without being noise, if you get my drift. It's not loud per se, or rather, not at all, but to say this ambient would also not be the point. Throughout the music didn't seem very loud (or maybe I just turned down the volume?), but quite intense at this level; maybe it's just this early morning listening session that makes my judgement a bit clouded;
maybe I am not awake yet? Lots of obscure sounds from all these sources are melted down into this obscured drone music of a highly experimental nature. I quite enjoyed the radical nature of this somehow lo-fi sounding experimental noise. Lots of crackling and rust between the notes. This is, I may repeat myself, the noise I like very much." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
To Found |
CD |
Experimental. To find again sequences, sounds and samples, previously elaborated for other works and live performances, decontextualizing all of them to create new original material. These are the starting points for "To Found", the third release by Corrado Altieri and Gianluca Favaron on a Silentes label, devoted to all-round experimentation and stylistic contamination through the multiple languages of electronic sound. Drone music, post-Techno rhythmic disintegrations, suggestions of the old Industrial school, field recording, abstract echoes and noise pulsations, for eight hypnotic compositions created between Cagliari and Treviso, with the precious collaboration of Anacleto Vitolo. [label info]
https://13silentes.bandcamp.com/album/to-found
"Corrado Altieri and Gianluca Favaron deliver with ‘To Found’ their third album, following ‘The System Of Objects’ (Vital Weekly 904) and ‘Decomposed days’ (Vital Weekly 945). Altieri is responsible for ‘electronics, tapes and programming’ while Favaron plays computer and percussion. The two men have quite a history when it comes to experimental music in all its various incarnations, ambient mostly, but also noise-based and in their duo work they add the element of rhythm. It is difficult to say something about the way they work. It could work either way; either this is all improvised and only comes to us via editing the best bits and pieces, or they sit down and meticulously compose this. Somehow I tend to think it is the first. The pieces they edit together are short and to the point, like the whole album is, being thirty-two minutes long. The lessons learned from Pan Sonic are used quite well in these eight pieces. The bass sound is a strong presence, stomping occasionally away like on a techno record. Yet this does not result in dance music. Whatever else Favaron and Altieri add to the mix are noises, crumbled radio waves, sine waves, feedback, field recordings and highly obscured sounds, all of which is working quite well. By keeping these pieces between three and five minutes and in which there is quite a bit happening, they make sure there is quite a bit of energy in the music, not the least thanks to those rhythms that they slipped in. I think this is their best album together so far." [Vital Weekly] |
2020 |
€12.00 |
|
| ALVA NOTO |
HYbr:ID I |
LP |
HYbr:ID Vol. 1 is the first installment of a new series of Alva Noto’s works bringing together heterogeneous composition methods.
HYbr:ID Vol. 1 captures the music commissioned for the score of ‘Oval’, the choreographic piece directed by Richard Siegal and performed by the Staatsballett Berlin at the Berlin State Opera in 2019.
The process of creating HYbr:ID Vol. 1 was defined by the search for a form to bind astrophysics phenomena, fiction, and performance movements.
Its narrative is inspired by cinematic visual techniques and static images portraying scientific events which also inspired the titles of the nine compositions.
The music possesses a dilated rhythmic base contributing to the images of gravity and spatiality. At points static is used with an ornate, delicate intricacy. The album’s sonic spectrum builds with deep sub-bass, gloomy sonics, spacious sound design, and inorganic ambiance that is gently coerced with artistic finesse.
The nine compositions are accompanied by graphic notations informed by the album’s sonic and acoustic codes.
HYbr:ID Vol. 1 will be released digitally as well as a limited edition vinyl and CD.
https://noton.info/product/n-056/
|
2021 |
€27.00 |
|
|
Kinder der Sonne |
do-LP |
"NOTON is pleased to announce the release of Kinder der Sonne, the new album by Alva Noto featuring music composed for the score of the theater piece Komplizen by Simon Stone.
The title comes from Maxim Gorky’s play Children of the Sun, written in the context of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Simon Stone wrote the new play for the Burgtheater ensemble based on this drama.
The single Die Untergründigen unveils a romantic space, charting a sublime path with a new depth of harmonics and vibrant color. Piano phrases, extant yet ghostly, intersect layers upon layers of confluent warmth and cold digital sounds towering and mysterious despite their wispy forms. Intricately arranged, these textures fill the space at any time, fittingly evoking flux as if they were conceived and recorded on a slow ride across the ocean.
Across fourteen compositions, Alva Noto’s Kinder der Sonne takes the listener into a sonic journey of emotional tension and release, revealing a particular kind of sci-fi lust fused with a suite of modern, minimalist ambient classical."
|
2023 |
€27.50 |
|
|
Kinder der Sonne |
CD |
"NOTON is pleased to announce the release of Kinder der Sonne, the new album by Alva Noto featuring music composed for the score of the theater piece Komplizen by Simon Stone.
The title comes from Maxim Gorky’s play Children of the Sun, written in the context of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Simon Stone wrote the new play for the Burgtheater ensemble based on this drama.
The single Die Untergründigen unveils a romantic space, charting a sublime path with a new depth of harmonics and vibrant color. Piano phrases, extant yet ghostly, intersect layers upon layers of confluent warmth and cold digital sounds towering and mysterious despite their wispy forms. Intricately arranged, these textures fill the space at any time, fittingly evoking flux as if they were conceived and recorded on a slow ride across the ocean.
Across fourteen compositions, Alva Noto’s Kinder der Sonne takes the listener into a sonic journey of emotional tension and release, revealing a particular kind of sci-fi lust fused with a suite of modern, minimalist ambient classical."
|
2023 |
€17.50 |
|
| |
HYbr:ID II |
do-LP |
HYbr:ID Vol. 2 is the second installment of Alva Noto's HYbr:ID series initiated in 2021. The new album captures the music commissioned to score Richard Siegal's Ectopia performed in 2021 by Tanztheater Pina Bausch with Shooting into the Corner (2008-09) by Anish Kapoor. Building upon the captivating blend of immersive dub and electronica from the first installment, HYbr:ID Vol. 2 takes the listener on a journey into the realm of intricately manipulated digital production. These ten compositions delve into infinity, drawing inspiration from resonance and elasticity, concepts rooted in Minkowski's four-dimensional spacetime model. Throughout the album, Carsten Nicolai summons precise rhythmic patterns that gracefully hover, reminiscent of celestial bodies orbiting in perfect cosmic unison. The sonic landscape gradually unfolds with somber and brooding tones, incorporating spacious sound design, ethereal atmospheres, and cascading metallic percussions. These elements are delicately crafted with artistic finesse, set against a backdrop of expansive dub textures. At times, the music takes unforeseen turns, as melancholic chords skitter and meander through a digital haze, evoking an atmosphere of introspection and emotion. The ten compositions are accompanied by graphic notations informed by the album's sonic and acoustic codes. Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai / Nibo Mastering by Bo @ Calyx. |
2023 |
€28.50 |
|
| AMINI, SIAVASH & EUGENE THACKER |
Songs for Sad Poets |
do-LP |
Composer and sound artist Siavash Amini collaborates with author Eugene Thacker on »Songs for Sad Poets.« The collection of eight pieces draws its inspiration from the legacy of the so-called cursed poets (»poètes maudits«) as well as the German-language tradition of song cycles and expands the structure of the classic art song through a process of lyric abstraction. Amini is no stranger to interdisciplinary collaboration, as seen in »A Mimesis of Nothingness,« his 2020 collaboration with photographer Nooshin Shafiee, also released through the Swiss Hallow Ground label. But whereas in Amini’s previous collaborations music and other media are set in dialogue, with »Songs for Sad Poets«, Thacker’s poems and Amini’s soundscapes are deeply enmeshed with each other. In fact, none of the words printed in the record’s booklet are being said out loud on this double LP, but rather made tangible through the use of sound. Poetry and music do not so much correspond with each other as they conspire together—as songs without words, words without song.
»Songs for Sad Poets« was born out of a mutual admiration of each other’s work and it is easy to see how the musician and the writer could relate to one another artistically. The Tehran-based Amini has released over 20 albums in the past decade—among them »TAR« and »FORAS« on Hallow Ground—that probe the physical world but also search for something beyond it. His compositions draw on field recordings as well as acoustic and electronic sounds, blurring the lines between what is conventionally perceived as real or authentic and the abstract or otherworldly. The New York-based Thacker on the other hand is known as a writer whose philosophical works like »Infinite Resignation« read like poetry while his poetry and other literary writing is inherently philosophically charged. What unites them on this project is an interest in the idea of the fragility of the human being set against the vast horizon of climate, planet, and the cosmos that produces a »sadness without cause.« The pieces on »Songs for Sad Poets« translate this nearly inexpressible ambient melancholy into dense and sometimes claustrophobic pieces that are marked by internal tensions and slowly unfolding dynamics.
The eight poems are neither only the starting points nor just the byproduct of the compositions, or vice versa. Instead, the entire record is one single result of a coherent creative process. Thacker’s writing—dedicated to the poètes maudits Gérard de Nerval, Chūya Nakahara, Sadeq Hedayat, Alejandra Pizarnik, Giacomo Leopardi, Mário de Sá-Carneiro, Zhu Shuzhen and Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo—is marked by a stunning formal rigour, but also a wide-reaching evocativeness. All it needs to conjure up an all encompassing sense of cosmic sorrow is a few lines with even fewer words in them. The rhythmic character of the poems is reflected in Amini’s music which puts an emphasis on tone and mood, but also on movement and density. All of this makes »Songs for Sad Poets« a work of art that directly addresses its listeners’ affects, expressing an underlying melancholy while evoking an air of dread by transcending the borders between music and literature.
https://hallowground.bandcamp.com/album/siavash-amini-eugene-thacker-songs-for-sad-poets |
2022 |
€32.50 |
|
| ANDEL, LAURA / ELECTRIC PERCUSSIVE ORCHESTRA |
In::tension:. |
CD |
Since a very young age, I have always been attracted to journeys and traveling to places not known to me. Last year, I watched a film from Mongolia about a dog. Once the dog dies, its soul is free to travel and wonder through landscapes and memories as a disembodied spirit. Each part of I n : : t e n s i o n : . is part of a longer journey, where you can hear, sense and discover different memories that a wandering soul revisits. Percussive, intimate, visceral, ritualistic and electrically charged, I n : : t e n s i o n : . explores tension points and internal pulses, glimpses and gestures in a non-narrative world.
Composer Laura Andel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After living and working in her native Buenos Aires and for several years in Boston, Ms. Andel moved to New York City in 2000, where she currently resides. She has conducted her music in New York, Boston, Berlin, Caracas, Buenos Aires and other cities. One of Andel's strengths is her ability to assemble large ensembles to play her compositions. She enjoys exploring diverse combinations of instruments and formats for her orchestras, as well as working with musicians from different musical and cultural backgrounds. Currently, she leads the Laura Andel Orchestra in several formations. Among the most recent are the 14-piece SomnambulisT Orchestra and the 10-piece Electric Percussive Orchestra. SomnambulisT, her previous extended work, was released by Red Toucan Records (RT9322) in 2003.
Thanks to:
Roulette, Jerome Foundation, Sacatar Foundation, Yaddo Artist Colony, Valparaiso Foundation, Jim Staley, Elliott Sharp, and all the musicians of the Laura Andel Electric Percussive Orchestra. Additional thanks to Sofía, Saúl, Hernán, and Carlos.
I n : : t e n s i o n : . was commissioned in 2004 by Roulette with funds from the Jerome Foundation.
All music composed and conducted by Laura Andel (BMI ©2004)
Recorded live by Mario Diaz de León at The Roulette Concert Series at Location One in New York City on December 4, 2004.
Mixed and mastered by Elliott Sharp at studio zOaR in New York City.
Performed by the Laura Andel Electric Percussive Orchestra:
Kyoko Kitamura voice & electronics
Taylor Ho Bynum cornet
Carl Maguire prepared fender rhodes & accordion
Ursel Schlicht piano & prepared piano
Kenta Nagai electric fretless guitar & electronics
Joel Harrison electric guitar & electronics
Khabu Young electric baritone guitar & electronics
David Simons theremin & percussion
Andrew Drury percussion
Harvey Wirht drums
Laura Andel composer & conductor
www.rossbin.com/rs022.htm |
2005 |
€6.00 |
|
| ANGELI, PAOLO |
Tessuti |
CD |
"Es ist wirklich kaum zu glauben, dass PAOLO ANGELI Tessuti (ReR PA3) ohne Overdubs eingespielt hat. Dabei ist seine verblüffend
polyphone Virtuosität auf der präparierten und elektrisch verstärkten sardischen Gitarre noch der geringere Anlass zur Verwunderung. Was ist
schon Virtuosität? Noch erstaunlicher sind das Material und die Arrangierkunst, die Richtung, in die Angeli strebt. Neben Eigenkompositionen
spielt er Björk und Fred Frith. Dem dabei der Geist von Tom Cora über die Schulter blickt.
Nicht nur bei Skeleton Crews ‚The Hand That Bites‘, auch bei ‚Ahead in the Sand‘ und ‚Navajo‘ von Speechless oder dem miniaturisierten ‚Lelekovice‘, Friths
String Quartet #1 (auf Quartets, RecRec, 1994, und, neu interpretiert vom Arditti String Quartet, auf Eleventh Hour, W & W, 2005). Der Cora-Touch rührt wohl daher, dass Angeli seine
Gitarre zwischen den Knien hauptsächlich arco wie ein Cello spielt. Bei seinen Interpretationen hebt Angeli neben dem
experimentellen Aspekt der trickreichen Mehrstimmigkeit auch das Frith-typische Substrat
der Imaginären Folklore hervor bis hin zu Anklängen an Spielformen der Renaissance.
Von Björk erklingen ‚Unravel‘ (von Homogenic), ‚Desired Constellation‘ (von Medúlla),‚One day‘ (von Debut) und ‚Hyper-ballad‘ (von Post). Dabei
gelingen Angeli ebenfalls erstaunliche Rückbindungen des Pathos und der verstiegenen
Poesie der Isländerin an die manieristische Tradition (minus des ‚Angeschossenes Reh‘-Timbres, das mir Björk verleidet).
Die zart angeraute Sanglichkeit der sardischen Gitarre ist durchwegs bestechend schön.
Wie Angeli dazu die perkussiven Spuren zaubert, sirrende Vibrationen und geklopfte Beats, das
ist der alte Skeleton-Crew-Zauber." [Bad Alchemy]
"The latest from Paolo on which he plays compositions by Fred Frith and Bjork - solo (though when you hear it, you definitely won’t believe it) on his highly customised and extended, electrified, giant Sardinian guitar. A tour de force of technique and a musical pleasure. There is so much subtlety and so much attention to the minutiae of sound, and so much going on at any given time that it is difficult to relate what you hear to just one person playing. Very concentrated, it rewards listening to a few songs at a time. Though strangely, you could probably also dance to it." [label info]
www.rermegacorp.com
|
2007 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Tibi |
CD/DVD (dualdisc) |
"This disc will play in stereo on a CD player and with film and 5.1 surround sound (or stereo) on a DVD player or computer. The music, as always, is prodigious, sounding like a small band, but played by one person in real time (as the film attests). In this format, you can also see the instrument -- close to a highly rebuilt and extended giant Sardinian guitar -- with many sympathetic and extra strings, motor-driven hurdy gurdy wheels, whirling strings, springs and other appendages, played like a cello, vertically, with bow, fingers, plectra and machines. However Heath Robinson it may appear, it is clearly under Paulo's hands, a highly serious and extraordinarily flexible beast that requires and has given rise to new playing techniques. The programme of compositions here navigates through highly-organized additive rhythms, freer Frith-like pointillism and some seemingly impossible mini-orchestrations. The film, professionally made, follows the performance, occasionally interpolating abstract passages and processed images. A remarkable player with a unique instrument, playing a music entirely his own."
[label info]
www.rermegacorp.com
|
2010 |
€15.00 |
|
| ANTLERS MULM |
Of Withered Sparks |
CD |
"Our hopes, our flesh, our tears... are draped like dead birds in the skies"... Different from most other LOKI-artists, ANTLERS MULM appears to be much more song-oriented, doing a kind of dark electronic pop-music, but very refined, minimal, deeply melancholic & quiet. Reminds us a bit on TWICE A MAN or TOR LUNDVALL at times, but with a much darker singing..
"The third album of ANTLERS MULM opts for deep resonating tones that are harmonious and hypnotic with a greater emphasis on percussion, and the massive foray into song based structures. Dark Beats and phantasmagorial Melodies are melting into an intense atmosphere guided by the outstanding voice of the father of shadows Hans Johm. Throbbing samples enriches this compositions to a homogenic masterpiece. These 10 songs are catching the mood of the warm feeling of being at home and creating a landscape of a coruscant kingdom that lies deep within the lyrical and musical expression. These tracks building melancholy on the most song based LOKI release ever - take a deep breath and get lost in this aural world of ANTLERS MULM. Limited digipack and vinyl version (222 copies) released in January 2008." [label info]
www.loki-found.de
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
Of Withered Sparks |
LP |
"Our hopes, our flesh, our tears... are draped like dead birds in the skies"... Different from most other LOKI-artists, ANTLERS MULM appears to be much more song-oriented, doing a kind of dark electronic pop-music, but very refined, minimal, deeply melancholic & quiet. Reminds us a bit on TWICE A MAN or TOR LUNDVALL at times, but with a much darker singing..
"The third album of ANTLERS MULM opts for deep resonating tones that are harmonious and hypnotic with a greater emphasis on percussion, and the massive foray into song based structures. Dark Beats and phantasmagorial Melodies are melting into an intense atmosphere guided by the outstanding voice of the father of shadows Hans Johm. Throbbing samples enriches this compositions to a homogenic masterpiece. These 10 songs are catching the mood of the warm feeling of being at home and creating a landscape of a coruscant kingdom that lies deep within the lyrical and musical expression. These tracks building melancholy on the most song based LOKI release ever - take a deep breath and get lost in this aural world of ANTLERS MULM. Limited digipack and vinyl version (222 copies) released in January 2008." [label info]
www.loki-found.de
|
2008 |
€15.00 |
|
| ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS |
The Crying Light |
CD |
Drei Platten die wir auch mit Drone anbieten wurden vom PITCHFORK Magazin (zur Zeit wohl DIE Referenz im Alternativ-Bereich) zu den "besten Platten des Jahres 2009" erkoren: SUNN O)))s "Monoliths & Dimensions", JIM O'ROURKE - "The Visitor", und "The Crying Light".
Zurecht, denn dies ist das Meisterstück des aussergewöhnlichen Sängers mit der fragilen Stimme und den herzzereissenden Arrangements!
"Mit seinem dritten Album "The Crying Light" setzt der Songschreiber, dessen empathisch emotionaler Kopfgesang kein Geschlecht kennt, aber dafür die Tiefe menschlicher Gefühle, einen intimeren Fokus. Im Interview mit der britischen Musikzeitschrift "Wire" spricht Antony von einem "inneren Garten", dessen Mauern er nun überwinden möchte, weil es dahinter ja noch viel mehr zu entdecken gibt - "the landscape beyond my inner landscape". Es ist eine Meditation über das Paradies, das für Antony viel mit der Entfaltung der Natur und ihrem Formenreichtum zu tun hat. 30 Songs hat er in den letzten sieben Jahren für das enorm geschlossen wirkende "The Crying Light" geschrieben - und schließlich trotzdem nur zehn davon verwendet. Ein Prozess der Verfeinerung. Auch bei den Arrangements wurde alles Überflüssige gestrichen. "Dust And Water" klingt deshalb so pur wie schwebender Morgennebel, und hinter dem gesamten Album steht offensichtlich mehr eine suchende Zen-Haltung als ein exaltiertes Pop-Ego. "Her Eyes Are Underneath The Ground", der erste Song des Albums, weckt Erinnerungen an Schubert und das deutsche Kunstlied. Da ist vor allem Antonys Stimme, dazu ein sacht ertastetes Klavier und eine Ahnung von Violinen und Cello im Hintergrund. Erst ganz zum Schluss drängen sich harsche Bässe in den Vordergrund, wie Gewitterwolken an einem heiteren Nachmittag. "Epilepsy Is Dancing" tänzelt hoffnungsvoll und verspielt "One Dove" schält sich ganz langsam aus dem Nichts, wie viele Stücke hier. Später setzten Dissonanzen ein, mehr und mehr Instrumente tauchen auf und verschwinden wieder, bis nur noch seltsame Tierstimmen zu hören sind. "Kiss My Name" schwelgt dagegen in einem orchestralen Klang- und Melodie-Reichtum, der fast schon an Freund Rufus erinnert.
Der Höhepunkt, "Another World", ist ein hellhäutiger Blues und ein banges Abschiedslied auf die Welt: "I need another place, will there be peace? I need another world, this one is nearly gone." Es folgt eine Liste der Dinge, die der Sänger in einer anderen Welt vermissen würde: die Bäume, das Meer, den Schnee, die Bienen und überhaupt alles, was wächst - "I'm gonna miss you all". "Aeon" mit seiner rauen Gitarre ist dagegen fast schon ein Rocksong, aber eben nur fast. Zu "The Crying Light" kann man nicht tanzen, und das Album gehört auch nicht zu den Platten, die einem mit packenden Refrains durchs eigene Leben helfen. Die Schönheit dieses bisher reifsten Antony & The Johnsons-Werks liegt darin, dass es nach der Seele sucht, wo andere nur in den Spiegel blicken. Ein Meisterwerk, eine andere Welt und ein Refugium für alle, die es zu schätzen wissen." [Jürgen Ziemer, Rolling Stone]
"Zeitlos und doch aktuell: das lang ersehnte dritte Album.
"The Crying Light" heißt das lang ersehnte dritte Album von Antony and The Johnsons. Auf "The Crying Light" legt Antony seinen Fokus auf ein neues Thema und gibt uns einen Einblick in seine Beziehung zur Umwelt. Der Album-Opener "Her Eyes Are Underneath The Ground" ist ein liebevolles Zwiegespräch mit Mutter Natur und Ausdruck des Wunsches, dass sie am Ende über ihre Zerstörung siegen wird - "no one can stop you now!" Darauf folgen der schwindelerregende Walzer "Epilepsy Is Dancing" und das herzzerreißende "One Dove", dessen detailreiche Instrumentierung Antonys Stimme - bildlich gesprochen - regelrecht umarmt. Mit "The Crying Light" ist Antony and The Johnsons ein zeitloses Meisterwerk gelungen, das uns die folgenschweren Entwicklungen in der Welt und unsere Rolle darin ins Bewusstsein ruft. Es kann zum Sinnbild dieser turbulenten Zeit werden; eine Momentaufnahme und ein Anstoß für uns alle, Courage zu besitzen und uns sowohl in unserem persönlichen Kosmos als auch in der Welt als Ganzes rücksichtsvoller zu bewegen."
[Indigo]
"ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS' breakthrough second album "I Am a Bird Now" won the UK's prestigious Mercury Prize in 2005. The success that followed introduced many to a pioneering soul singer unafraid to explore themes that traversed darkness and light, life and death, male and female. Antony's inimitable voice sparked the interest of artists ranging from Bjork to Hercules and Love Affair, resulting in a series of critically acclaimed collaborations. "The Crying Light" is the highly anticipated full-length follow-up to "I Am a Bird Now". Here, Antony shifts the thematic focus and explores his relationship with the natural world. The intimacy of the Johnsons' sound is enveloped by avant-classical composer Nico Muhly's symphonic arrangements. The record's centerpiece, "Another World" traces the singer's dispair in the face of a vanishing landscape. Antony and the Johnsons' music bridges the gap between avant-classical music and the blues, and the band's sold out performances have resulted in standing ovations from Carnegie Hall to the Apollo. "The Crying Light" is a soul-stirring new work with its daring compositions and captivating vocal performances. Antony and the Johnsons have created a subtle and timely work that brings a magical and yet changing world to the forefront of our consciousness." [press release]
|
2009 |
€16.00 |
|
| APOLOGIST |
We're on Vapour Cougar |
CD-R |
"Beautiful ambient-droney music by Apologist (aka Philip Doak.) A release that spans continuously over 3 well balanced tracks: minimal compositions, subtle guitar and voices, a splendid journey for about 40 minutes. (Was the third release in the "Cosmoaudiography" series in 2009. First 10 came with A3 size poster.)" [label info]
www.essentiamundi.com
|
2010 |
€8.50 |
|
| AQUAVOICE |
Grey |
CD |
"The first AQUAVOICE album on Zoharum label. "Grey", the eighth album in the project's discography, contains 10 compositions covering musical territories than before. It's pure electronics, but a bit more experimental than simply ambient or Berlin school, as previosly associated with AQUAVOICE." [label info]
"Life from other space is still a massive source of musical inspiration, perhaps because we have no clue about it. Here we have Polish musician Tadeusz Luczejko, who calls himself Aquavoice, and his microphone is up in the sky, with the opening piece 'S.E.T.I. Project'. The search for extraterrestrial life goes on, and hopefully I will not be accused of laziness when I compare this music with that of Andrew Lagowski, who sometimes works as S.E.T.I., but let's not forget SETI either, who released an album on Instinct Ambient in 1995. There are similarities in the use of the name, but also in musical approach. Lots of analogue synthesizer sounds, which are set to 'long sustain', and 'heavenly atmosphere' - both of them near the push button that says 'cosmic settings' - and we have a lift-off. Aquavoice takes us up for trip to 'Terra Incognita', to the 'Invisible World' and we see the 'Child Of The Moon' and an 'Air Sanctuary'. Holding court on earth are the sadly passed away Pete Namlook and Biosphere to see if the controls are set for the sun, and they are. Auqavoice plays text book ambient music and there is nothing wrong with that. There isn't a single moment where one could think that Aquavoice does something you haven't encountered before - especially on those mid 90s ambient/house waves - but he does it with great care for sonic detail and these ten pieces are a delight to hear. What more could you want? Every era needs it's own chill out music." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
www.zoharum.com
|
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Nocturne |
CD |
" 'Nocturne', the second AQUAVOICE offering on Zoharum, is a successor to well-received last year's "Grey." The material for both albums was created around the same time and was divided according to the following key: "Grey" - more experimental and coarse compositions; "Nocturne" - more dreamy, low-key and soothing ambient textures. The new album includes 11 new songs clocking in at 50 minutes, songs a bit darker and colder than before where one can find inspirations taken from Scandinavian art.
This 3-panel ecopak release is strictly limited to 500 copies." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
"Things in Poland seem to be booming, for quite some time actually. Monotype is a very active label, when it comes to releases, and Zoharum follows neatly. Zoharum is a label that specializes in anything that is dark and atmospheric, but not without beats. We start this particular journey with the second release by Aquavoice, the musical project of Tadeusz Luczejko, whose debut was reviewed in Vital Weekly 896. Here Aquavoice further explores the boundaries of starry nights, of nocturnal soundtracks, with dreamy synthesizer sounds, mild sequenced rhythm - more ticking than beating - an occasional voice well placed here and there. Exactly the same references as last time pass by: S.E.T.I., Biosphere, Pete Namlook and no doubt you could add many others from the field of ambient music that comes with a bit of rhythm. I don't think Aquavoice had a re-thought of what he was doing after 'Grey', but simply decided to carry on what he was doing so well already. Maybe the addition of 'real' instruments - piano, violin - is something that is new around here? Maybe not. So, perhaps nothing much new, and then what? There is nothing wrong with that. Luczejko simply explores further what he does best, what is in a tradition from Eno, via ambient house, to microsound and he delivers another fifty minutes of some excellent music. I very much enjoyed this nocturnal, cosmic ride." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€12.00 |
|
| AROVANE & PORYA HATAMI |
C.H.R.O.N.O.S. |
LP |
https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/organism-evolution
On “C.H.R.O.N.O.S”, their 3rd album on KARL, AROVANE and PORYA HATAMI deliver five delicate ambient pieces, rich in textures and zen-like atmospheres. Available as 180gr LP and DL.
After “Organism” (2017) and the musique concrete influenced “Organism_evolution” (2018) UWE ZAHN alias AROVANE and PORYA HATAMI continue their sonic explorations with “C.H.R.O.N.O.S.”, the fifth collaborational album by the German electronic producer and the Iranian sound artist. While the duo’s last album was a collection of 23 mostly short tracks, each an acribic examination of sounds that treated by techniques like modular synthesis, granular synthesis, spectral processing, granular synthesis, resynthesis and resonator / modal synthesis, ““C.H.R.O.N.O.S.” consists of five longer compositions that focus on creating a contemplative, zen-like atmosphere of subtle beauty. Rich in details, carefully sound-designed, AROVANE and PORYA HATAMI prove once more their top notch skills when it’s about creating state of the art contemporary ambient.
Quotes on previous albums:
# Organism (2017)
“an album of fleet, subtle beauty.” The Wire
“some of the subtlest, elusive material in either’s catalogue.” Boomkat
“a dark, mysterious, but extremely detailed sound – as alive and moving as nature’s finest organisms.” Ambientblog.net
#################
"My good friend and partner in crime [you will find out soon enough what I mean by that], Uwe Zahn, has been prolific these years with collaborations [hint, hint], explorations, and trials. His most successful among these, in my humble opinion, is the partnership with the Iranian ambient sound artist, Porya Hatami. Together, they have already released numerous albums: Resonance (Éter Editions, 2015), Kaziwa (Time Released Sound, 2016), and Organism (Karlrecords, 2017). This year, the pair returns to Thomas Herbst's "outlet for experimental music" with C.H.R.O.N.O.S. - a five-piece statement "rich in textures and zen-like atmospheres." This music is a culmination of the interchangeable sonic language, which is reduced in grammar or words but is simply understood. Fans of intricate designs and loosely-structured aural fabrics will find themselves drowning in the expansive architecture of sound, synthesized via granular, modular, and spectral machines, each with a thick layer of resonating fabric. Like a never-ending zoom-in on a delicate textile, up until the point where the fibre becomes the forest and a universe of its own, C.H.R.O.N.O.S. takes the listener into a complex compound of delicate blankets, which they will peel apart long after the last tones have gone. Highly recommended with a sophisticated pair of headphones or precision-tuned bookshelf speakers, playing from a 180g vinyl, or a lossless digital source. Fans of Ian Hawgood, Celer, Tomasz Bednarczyk, Christopher Bissonnette, and Taylor Deupree will agree." [Headphone Commute]
|
2019 |
€18.00 |
|
| ART BEARS |
Hopes & Fears |
CD |
"New digipak reissue of the first Art Bears album, originally issued by Recommended in 1978. Fred Frith : guitars, keyboards, bass, violin; Dagmar Krause: voice; Chris Cutler: percussion. With: Tim Hodgkinson: keyboards, woodwinds; Georgie Born: Bass, cello; Lindsay Cooper: bassoon, oboe, soprano sax, recorders. "Originally recorded as a Henry Cow album (but eventually assigned to the trio of Art Bears), during the late 70's this grouping made one of the most powerful statements yet in the world of Art-Rock. Whereas Henry Cow showed an inclination to write long-ish compositions interspersed with improvisational aspects, Art Bears' approach combined a more lyrical display, with shorter, extended-song forms. Typically, the word-strong poetry of drummer Chris Cutler was the impetus for the group's recordings. Once written, it was set to music by multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith, (often in a spur-of-the-moment fashion) and was then extrapolated upon and built up by the group during the recording/mixing process in a way that usually validated the lyrical intent.
Hopes And Fears shows the group at its most formidable stage in terms of composition. The pieces are often highly complex, with ideas that zig-zag through a maze of musical imagery, highlighting the group at their peak of virtuosity. Dagmar Krause's vocal prowess is stunningly effective, and the recording itself was edited in a sequence where repeating themes and studio wizardry present the album as a cycle of related, 'songs'. Of the best and most bizarre of the old school of Art-Rock." [press release]
|
2003 |
€14.00 |
|
| ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE (AMT) |
Paradox of Paradox / Interception I |
do-CDR |
"Over the course of more than two decades, Slavek Kwi aka Artificial Memory Trace has developed a body of work that encompasses live performance, sound installations, music and sound workshops with autistic children, and of course a large number of recordings published by small labels around the globe. This double CD in Attenuation Circuit’s Reissues series makes available again two albums originally published in 2004 that are characteristic for Artificial Memory Trace’s style of electroacoustic music that is characterised by a very elegant use of field recordings.
As the project name says, Artificial Memory Trace is always conscious of the fact that field recordings from nature are never natural in themselves, but become artificial in the very process of recording. Thus, even the toads that can be heard on “Paradox of Paradox” are not simply left to speak for themselves or “nature” per se, as in many pieces of “acoustic ecology” recordings. Instead, the recordings are subtly arranged to make an abstract compositional statement. Other sound sources include Christmas carols, a dysfunctional piano, and, on “Interception”, a dialogue of whistles between Kwi and an autistic child. One theme of both albums then seems to be an investigation into the ways that communities of different species, from amphibians to humans, make sense of their condition through sound. Philosophical considerations apart, the musical attractiveness of these works is based on the treatment of the field recordings which always retain just enough crispness to be recognisable as ambient noises, keeping the listener’s ears pricked up trying to find out their possible origins, while at the same time constantly being on the verge of vanishing into singing oceans of frequencies at times reminiscent of the later phases of Alvin Lucier’s “I am sitting in a room”." [label info]
www.wix.com/attenuationcircuit/attenuation-circuit
"Planktone Unlimited Editions was the label by Slawek Kwi, better known as Artificial Memory Trace. I must admit I didn't know this, so I have no idea why he is no longer working as such. Two of the works released on that label find now their way on a double CDR by Germany's Attenuation Circuit. Like much of his work, if not all, here too we have field recordings at the very foundation of the compositions. Compositions, because its Kwi's idea to use field recordings, alter them a little bit, and put them together, and not present them as pure phenomena of sound. Its music that one doesn't take too easily. There are lots of moments when sound drops to a low volume and for some time stays there, with just the sound of chirping insects. But then it cuts with a loud sound/event into something new and then a whole new world opens up. Its not easy to say what kind of techniques are used, but my best guess would be that its simply the result of layering various sound events together and then find the right compositional balance with these sounds, through editing, cutting and fading. Throughout, the music of Artificial Memory Trace isn't very loud so one has to keep full attention to this. Which makes these two discs, one that lasts seventy-six minutes and one that lasts fifty-eight, not something one would digest in one go easily, unless you either fully concentrate or 'use' it as ambient music: let it come as it comes. Either way of perceiving this music I think is pretty valid. It contains lots of beauty, poetic beauty actually, like the some what cryptic notes on the cover. Long in duration, massive in beauty." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€12.50 |
|
| ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE / GERALD FIEBIG / EMERGE / PBK |
Fiction Circuit |
LP |
Artificial Memory Trace aka Slavek Kwi and PBK aka Phillip B. Klingler have been pillars of the global DIY experimental music culture for decades. Both of them have released work on attenuation circuit before. Here, they team up with label owner EMERGE aka Sascha Stadlmeier and his colleague Gerald Fiebig. Each one of the four artists contributes one track of about 10 minutes to the album. But while the four-way split LP is a common format in the global sound culture scene, “fiction circuit” is more than just a compilation.
All of the artists on this album share a love of creating electroacoustic music from field recordings or found sounds. Therefore, label manager Stadlmeier invited Artificial Memory Trace (AMT) and PBK to supply source sounds from their archives. These were then used as the basis for the compositions. Leaving the source material identifiable was not the task – it was to be used as raw material to be sculpted, very much in the spirit of acousmatic musique concrète. On the AMT side, we find the tracks by PBK and Gerald Fiebig. They both used AMT's source material to create their tracks. PBK delivers a dense, rather rhythmic track with a decidedly “industrial” feel. Fiebig's track, on the contrary, uses the front cover artwork – a digital collage by EMERGE of visual works by Kwi and Klingler, with other works by them reproduced on the lavishly printed LP insert – as a graphic score for realising a rather harmonic ambient piece. On the PBK side, Artificial Memory Trace and EMERGE “play” the source sounds supplied by PBK. The piece by Artificial Memory Trace qualifies as exuberant rhythm noise, while EMERGE goes all the way into rather meditative laminar lower-case drone minimalism. Therefore, regardless of which side of the record one plays first (“AMT” and “PBK” are engraved on the vinyl itself to guide the listener), one will experience, thoroughout the whole album, a change between very different sonic textures and temperaments that showcase the wide range of expressive possibilities of electroacoustic music. This is not the product of good luck, but of planned collective composition: AMT and PBK, as the “guests” on the label, were invited to create whatever they liked without any formal restrictions. As it turned out, both of their works were rather intense and direct in character. Therefore, EMERGE and Fiebig both made an effort to complement each side with a more subdued, quiet piece.
File under: Electroacoustic music, musique concrète
https://emerge.bandcamp.com/album/fiction-circuit
|
2019 |
€18.00 |
|
| ASTRID & RACHEL GRIMES |
Through the Sparkle |
LP |
"Through the Sparkle is a collaboration between French ensemble astrïd and American pianist and composer Rachel Grimes.
Rachel Grimes is best known for her chamber music project Rachel’s, a hugely influential group formed in 1991 in Louisville, Kentucky, releasing six studio albums between 1995 and 2005. She has also released a string of contemporary classical works in recent years on labels such as Temporary Residence. astrïd is a collective of four musicians based in Nantes, releasing records on Rune Grammofon and Home Normal.
After years of mail and email back and forth over the ocean, from Nantes to Kentucky, astrïd invited Rachel to come for a residency to make music together and play shows in France. They gathered for a few days, here and there, in 2012 and 2013 to write songs in Cyril and Vanina's home studio in the countryside.
The compositions found on Through the Sparkle glow with a unique, connected energy and a pure, instinctive musical understanding. Considered contributions from all sides allow the pieces to unfurl naturally. Each note and phrase feels like it simply couldn’t be placed anywhere else in the album.
Charming, gentle and cinematic sounds are found here in abundance. Melodies circle and reveal themselves without force, allowing the listener to focus and explore the depths of what is on offer. Musically, Through the Sparkle is an expansive and evocative album. There is a presence to be felt throughout, from Cyril Secq’s emotive tremelo’d guitars of M5 to the darker, more haunting mood of The Theme, to the tension in Mossgrove & Seaweed. Strings and woodwind coalesce around intricate piano and guitar movements creating a wealth of harmony and melancholy.
Through the Sparkle is a record of miniature symphonies, of elegant restraint. A gracious and generous offering from a group of musicians at one with each other and at the top of their game."
www.gizehrecords.com
https://gizehrecords.bandcamp.com/album/through-the-sparkle
"Man, that’s devastating! If the reverb-drenched guitar on this record’s second track doesn’t move you to tremble with tears, then the soaring strings on “M1” surely will.
Pianist/composer Rachel Grimes follows up her best-of-2015 The Clearing solo outing with the magnificent Through The Sparkle, a seven-song collaboration with the French chamber ensemble Astrïd, out today digitally, on CD and on vinyl through U.K.-based Gizeh Records. This thing’s gotta be heard to be believed.
Striking, again, with some of her finest work, Grimes’ piano flashes more contemporary flourishes than the heart-wrenching Romanticism of her landmark years with Rachel’s, everyone’s favorite post-classical ensemble. While there are still gentle, lulling notes – I’m looking to the album-closing “Le Petit Salon” and, again, the epic “M1” – Grimes’ metronomic figures on “The Herald en Masse” and “Mossgrove & Seaweed” positively pulsate with life, lending a record laced with restraint loads of emotional force.
This says nothing of Astrïd multi-instrumentalist Vanina Andreani, whose violin wraps its fingers around Grimes’ ephemeral melodies in much the way Christian Frederickson’s viola did in Rachel’s. Guillaume Wickel is brilliant on bass clarinet, drummer/percussionist Yvan Ros does a fine job anchoring the melancholy, and didn’t I already mention the eerie repercussions of Cyril Secq’s guitar? This ensemble, featuring Grimes, seems to have a beautiful way of making even the most composed moment seem instinctive, lending a gentle humanity to the proceedings.
There are less “classical” and more “post-classical” moments on the record, too, like the haunted “The Theme,” which starts with an emotive bass clarinet figure and kalimba, and expands, more often through the space between notes than the notes themselves, with an electric guitar right out of Hotel2Tango in Montreal. Or there’s “Hollis,” which punctuates Grimes’ refrains with more kalimba, subtle bass, and a shuffling, jazzy backbeat before descending into a field of mathy beeps that could be summoned from piano and, maybe, a Fender Rhodes.
The whole record is breathtaking gossamer – definite year-end-list material." [Justin Vellucci/Popdose]
|
2017 |
€20.00 |
|
| ASUNTA |
Landscapes |
CD |
"Landscapes enthält Klarinettenkompostionen von Slawomir Golaszewski, Begründer und Mastermind von Asunta, der hier von Wojciech Karwacki auf dem Harmonium begleitet wird. Aufgenommen und produziert wurden die faszinierende Mischung von Ethno drones, Ambient-Psychedelia und slawischer New Age in Warschau von Alik Dziki (http://dziki.net), dem ehemaligen Bassisten der polnischen Reggae-Legenden Kultura und Izrael sowie in der Frühphase Mitglied bei den Mystik-Punks von Armia. Die Erstveröffentlichung in Polen war 1996 lediglich eine Kassette-Edition beim Label "Fly Music", der 2001 eine limitierte Cdr-Version beim polnischen "Nefryt"-Label folgte. Diese Wiederveröffentlichung auf Lollipoppe Shoppe stellt insofern die erste internationale Würdigung des außergewöhnlichen Asunta-Sounds von Landscapesdar.
Slawomir Golaszewski ist eine legendäre Figur der polnischen Off-Kultur: Er gehörte 1985 zu den Mitbegründern der mit transzendentaler Wucht und mystischer Poesie agierenden Hardcore Punk- Institution "Armia", auf deren Platten er mehrfach unter dem Pseudonym Merlin mitwirkte, und war zu dieser Zeit zugleich aktiv im Umfeld des sich auflösenden "Teatr Laboratorium" (http://www.grotowski.net) des großen Theatererneuerers Jerzy Grotowskis in Wroc³aw/Breslau (zu seinen Lehrern zählten hier Zbigniew Cynkutis, Zygmunt Molik und Ludwik Flaszen). Grotkowskis Forschungen zum psychophysiologischen Einfluß ritueller Gesänge und die Anwendung auf die experimentlle Theaterarbeit haben Go³aszewskis Arbeit geprägt.
Seit den frühen 1980er Jahren ist Go³aszewski außerdem als Radiomoderator, Journalist und Autor tätig; er hat unter anderem früh die Verbreitung von Reggae- und Rastafari-Kultur in Polen betrieben und mehrere Generation des polski Reggae geprägt. Darüberhinaus war der "musizierende Philosoph" (Alexander Pehlemann, "Zonic" http://www.zonic-online.de) selber künstlerisch in der Szene aktiv. Die Liste seiner Kollaborationen wie auch seiner publizistischen Beiträge ist unüberschaubar.
Über Go³aszewskis künstlerische und esoterische Interessen erklärt sich letztlich auch die Zusammenarbeit mit den ebenso legendären "Atman", einer seit den Mitt-Siebzigern aktive Gruppe von Musikern, die erfolgreich die Integration von Klangkunst und Ökologie betrieben und deren Label "Fly Music" das Album Landscapes 1996 als Kassette veröffenlichte und Asunta im folgenden Jahr auf ihrem "Festival in der Landschaft" (Muzyka w krajobrazie http://pathman.republika.pl) im mittelpolnischen Inow³ódz präsentierten. Mit diesem völlig akustischem Konzert in einer romanischen Kapelle manifestierte sich endgültig die Reputation des Projekts in der alternativen Musikszene Polens.
Nach einer lebensbedrohlichen Gehirnoperation 2010 und Rekonvaleszenz meldet sich Go³aszewski nun zurück: 2012 wurde seine Graphic Novel "Moja Terapia" (mit Zeichnung von Szawe³ P³óciennik, Central Europe Comics Art, http://centrala.org.pl) veröffentlicht und eine erweiterte, 400 Seiten starke und um ein Audiobook ergänzte Neuauflage von Go³aszewskis Schriften zu Reggae und seiner spezifischen Rezeption in Polen von dem Label und Verlag "Manufaktura Legenda" besorgt, das federführend ist bei der Aufarbeitung von polnischer Subkultur ("Reggae Rastafarie - Regementarz" http://manufaktura-legenda.pl).
This release contains clarinet compositions by S³awomir Go³aszewski, founder and master-mind of the project, and harmonium works by Wojciech "Kaktus" Karwacki. Landscapes was recorded and produced by Alik Dziki, former bass player of the Polish Reggae legends Izrael and Kultura, as well as an early member of the mystic punk group Armia. The album was released on tape in Poland in 1996 under project name Asunta on the "Fly Music" label and in 2001 released in a limited edition on Cdr by the "Nefryt" label. Landscapes features a fascinating blend of ritual ethno drones, ambient psychedelia and Slavonic New Age. The cover painting by Lithuanian artist Linas Domarackas was designed for the original release.
S³awomir Go³aszewski is a legendary figure of Polish off- and counter culture. In 1984/85 he co-founded the seminal punk rock group Armia and contributed to their albums under pseudonym Merlin. At the same time he was active in the shadow of Jerzy Grotowskis's dissolving "Teatr Laboratorium" in Wroclaw/Breslau (Zbigniew Cynkutis, Zygmunt Molik, and Ludwik Flaszen being his teachers). Grotowskis's research on rituals, its psychophysiological impact, and his expanded concept of theater has coined Go³aszewski's artistic work.
Since the late 1980's, Go³aszewski is active as a radio presenter, journalist and author; among other things he was crucial for the early popularisation of Reggae music and Rastafarian culture in Poland and thus influencing an entire generation of fans and musicians alike. His contributions both artistic and publicistical to the Polish alternative music scene are numerous. His artistic and esoteric quest also lead to the collaboration with the legendary Atman group, a collective of musicians dealing with the integration of sound and ecology. The group's self-managed label "Fly Music" released Landscapes in 1996 on cassette. In the following year, Atman also invited Go³aszewski to present his project at their Music in the Landscape Festival [Muzyka w krajobrazie] in Inow³ódz, a small medieval village in central Poland. This entirely acoustic performance in the Romanesque St. Giles church in Inow³ódz in July 1997 brought Asunta lasting reputation among Poland's alternative music circuit.
After a life-threatening brain surgery in 2010 and a period of convalescence Go³aszewski is back and active again: 2012 saw the publication of his graphic novel "Moja Terapia" (with drawings by Szawe³ P³óciennik, Central Europe Comics Art) as well as a 400-page volume of his collected writings on Reggae music and Rastafari culture published by "Manufaktura Legenda", the leading label and publisher for the reappraisal of the legacy of Polish subculture." [label info]
www.lollipopshop.de
|
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
| ATKINSON, FELICIA |
Hand in Hand |
do-LP |
Félicia Atkinson's new full length album ‘Hand In Hand’ is an expanded development of her musical compositions started with the highly-acclaimed 'A Readymade Ceremony' released on Shelter Press in 2015, and follows her collaborative effort with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma 'Comme Un Seul Narcisse' (Shelter Press, 2016).
Composed over the year of 2016 at EMS during a snow storm and at home in Brittany, Hand in Hand could be considered as the most ambitious body of work recorded by the French musician and artist.
Doubt and Optimism are the two sides of a same coin. Hand in Hand is arid and warm in its whole synchrony and opposition. Days are burning and nights are made of ice. Coyotes are exchanging sounds with rattles snakes while bunnies are hiding. Strident modular sounds are tearing apart minimal beats and drones. The stories told by A Voice to the auditor are no longer fictions and become slowly reality.
Electric waves transmitted by living creatures and machines seem to deliver special sounds and frequencies that only non-human can hear. They grow and vibrate despite of the walls and interdictions. Therefore, the human who is listening to this record might find in it a particular kind of emotion a way to take space in silence, and frame a certain vision of thinking while losing a certain notion of time, acknowledging step by step its universal environment. Plants, galaxies, animals, machines, Hand in Hand.
This record is meant to be a moment of common thinking and listening in its diversity and abstraction. In the same way a sci-fi novel by Philip K. Dick or a sculpture by Guy Mees can be percieved: trivial, sensitive and mysterious at the same time.
The opening track, I’m Following You is a bleached romantic ballad for Fender Rhodes that could be the ending title of a Martian love story, whereas Visnaga praises the resources of a desert plant through asmr voices, field recordings and evasive chords. A House A Dance A Poem is a feminist hymn composed as a pyramidal structure, referring in the same time to the A-frame houses, the yoga position of the triangle, the first letter of the roman alphabet and the feminine sex. In the closing song, No Fear But Anticipation, Atkinson offers an open hearted plea about the existentialist necessity of finding desire even when the times seem too dark to think about it. A telepathic and non-scholastic anthem for Don Delillo, Joan Didion and Jean Paul Sartre. The final Buchla sounds that close the record seem to deliver an unspeakable message that only birds and aliens could transcript.
The echo of the 80’s sci-fi anxious aethetics resonates with today’s transparency of digital sounds in the whole record. The cohabitation of simple midi textures and historical Serge and Buchla signals are convoked and confronted together by A Voice. The human instrument appears here as the epicenter of the recordings, giving to the others instruments a gravitational point.
Joan La Barbara, Robert Ashley or Delia Derbyshire are the main influences of Atkinson in their own way of inviting fiction, composition and abstraction as the essential materials of composition. For Hand In Hand, Félicia Atkinson used different sources for the lyrics and scores of her tracks: house plant instruction books, Desert Magazine old issues, architecture manuals, JG Ballard and K. Dick’s books, as well as her own poetry.
https://shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/hand-in-hand
|
2017 |
€25.00 |
|
|
The Flower and the Vessel |
do-LP |
French poet and ASMR auteur Félicia Atkinson has frequently fixated on the elusive interwoven relationship between microcosms and macrocosms – how even the quietest creative act ripples outward in unforeseen ways, a whisper with no fixed meaning. Her latest work pursues this notion in a more literal and lasting fashion, as it was crafted while pregnant on tour, in impersonal hotel rooms in foreign cities. She describes it as “a record not about being pregnant but a record made with pregnancy.” Each day and night, finding herself far from home, she asked herself “What am I doing here? How can I connect myself to the world?” The answer gradually revealed itself: “With small gestures: recording my voice, recording birds, a simple melody.”
In truth there is nothing simple about The Flower & The Vessel. The album’s 11 songs span a vast pantheon of whispering textures, opaque moods, and surreal spoken word, leading the listener through a mirrored hall of beguiling mirages. Atkinson cites a trio of French classical compositions from her childhood as formative influences on this particular collection: Maurice Ravel’s “L’enfant et les sortilèges” (“a scary opera for kids”), Debussy’s “La Mer” (for its union of narration and music) and Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédies” (as an exercise in negative space, irony without cynicism, and “melody with doubt”). There’s certainly a shade of classicism woven within these tracks, however veiled, abstracted, or unorthodox. Melancholic piano motifs repeat then retreat into a radiant frost of shivering frequencies; processed voices recite cut-up poems and interviews over delay-refracted Rhodes and Wurlitzer; iPad gamelan patterns flutter from meditative to melancholic and back again, offset by pointillist patches of delicate software synesthesia.
Although much of Atkinson’s past discography is shaped by speech and the lyricism of language, The Flower & The Vessel ventures farther into silence, absence, and voiceless wilderness. Among her sources of inspiration were “women who wonder, dream, and create vacant spaces in their art,” as well as Ikebana flower arrangements, which reflect her own relationship with listening: “structure combined with everyday noises, selecting them to make a sparse music bouquet.” Field recordings from Tasmania and the Mojave Desert murmur beneath hushed reverberations of gong, vibraphone, marimba, softly processed into an elegant emptiness, alternately eerie and serene.
Her mode of minimalism has long been one of reduction, riddles, and curation, but here Atkinson’s synergy feels close to apotheosis, emotive but ambivalent, a ceremony of expectation and invisible forces. The 19-minute closing collaboration with SUNN O))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley, “Des Pierres,” is one of the album’s few pieces tracked in a proper studio (Music Unit in Montreuil, France) but it broods and burns with the same subliminal majesty as the rest of The Flower & The Vessel: an ember in amber, seeds planted in shifting sands. Atkinson’s voice flickers like a flame, framed by slabs of shadowy feedback. Her process may be personal is but its impact ripples to the edges of existence: “How does the act of creation connect us, not only to history, but to the cosmic? It’s a process of taking, and then giving back. It makes us belong to the world.”
The Flower and The Vessel features original artwork by Julien Carreyn, and is mastered by Rashad Becker at D+M.
https://shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/the-flower-and-the-vessel-2
|
2019 |
€29.00 |
|
| |
The Flower and the Vessel |
CD |
French poet and ASMR auteur Félicia Atkinson has frequently fixated on the elusive interwoven relationship between microcosms and macrocosms – how even the quietest creative act ripples outward in unforeseen ways, a whisper with no fixed meaning. Her latest work pursues this notion in a more literal and lasting fashion, as it was crafted while pregnant on tour, in impersonal hotel rooms in foreign cities. She describes it as “a record not about being pregnant but a record made with pregnancy.” Each day and night, finding herself far from home, she asked herself “What am I doing here? How can I connect myself to the world?” The answer gradually revealed itself: “With small gestures: recording my voice, recording birds, a simple melody.”
In truth there is nothing simple about The Flower & The Vessel. The album’s 11 songs span a vast pantheon of whispering textures, opaque moods, and surreal spoken word, leading the listener through a mirrored hall of beguiling mirages. Atkinson cites a trio of French classical compositions from her childhood as formative influences on this particular collection: Maurice Ravel’s “L’enfant et les sortilèges” (“a scary opera for kids”), Debussy’s “La Mer” (for its union of narration and music) and Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédies” (as an exercise in negative space, irony without cynicism, and “melody with doubt”). There’s certainly a shade of classicism woven within these tracks, however veiled, abstracted, or unorthodox. Melancholic piano motifs repeat then retreat into a radiant frost of shivering frequencies; processed voices recite cut-up poems and interviews over delay-refracted Rhodes and Wurlitzer; iPad gamelan patterns flutter from meditative to melancholic and back again, offset by pointillist patches of delicate software synesthesia.
Although much of Atkinson’s past discography is shaped by speech and the lyricism of language, The Flower & The Vessel ventures farther into silence, absence, and voiceless wilderness. Among her sources of inspiration were “women who wonder, dream, and create vacant spaces in their art,” as well as Ikebana flower arrangements, which reflect her own relationship with listening: “structure combined with everyday noises, selecting them to make a sparse music bouquet.” Field recordings from Tasmania and the Mojave Desert murmur beneath hushed reverberations of gong, vibraphone, marimba, softly processed into an elegant emptiness, alternately eerie and serene.
Her mode of minimalism has long been one of reduction, riddles, and curation, but here Atkinson’s synergy feels close to apotheosis, emotive but ambivalent, a ceremony of expectation and invisible forces. The 19-minute closing collaboration with SUNN O))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley, “Des Pierres,” is one of the album’s few pieces tracked in a proper studio (Music Unit in Montreuil, France) but it broods and burns with the same subliminal majesty as the rest of The Flower & The Vessel: an ember in amber, seeds planted in shifting sands. Atkinson’s voice flickers like a flame, framed by slabs of shadowy feedback. Her process may be personal is but its impact ripples to the edges of existence: “How does the act of creation connect us, not only to history, but to the cosmic? It’s a process of taking, and then giving back. It makes us belong to the world.”
The Flower and The Vessel features original artwork by Julien Carreyn, and is mastered by Rashad Becker at D+M.
https://shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/the-flower-and-the-vessel-2 |
2019 |
€16.00 |
|
| BAD SECTOR |
Transponder |
CD |
"science experiment as pagan ritual...
Who needs representation for Bad Sector? Certainly almost no one. Since 95 year, each new album of this project it's event which is awaited by every second listener of industrial music. And now - long-awaited, CD the version, one of the most interesting albums of Italian master Massimo Magrini! First time Transponder was released as CD-r on Blade Records in 99, now the album is again accessible, in a new format and with additional, exclusive compositions of that period - "Yst" and "Waal"!
More than 60 minutes dark, deep, meditative, structured noise-ambient, in the best traditions of Dolmen Factory and Ampos..." [label info]
www.infinitefog.ru
|
2011 |
€12.50 |
|
| BAKER, AIDAN |
Only Stories |
LP |
"Only Stories is Aidan’s second release on The Kora Records. The album continues in the “drone folk” style first heard on his (nearly out of print) Kora release, Scalpel. All of the sounds on the record were created by voice and 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars. Aidan penned the three long compositions featured on Only Stories a long time ago, but they were never properly recorded until the fall of 2009, and Kora is ecstatic to release them now in a beautiful fold out letterpress vinyl release limited to 500 copies." [label info]
www.thekorarecords.com
|
2011 |
€18.50 |
|
| |
Triptychs: Variations on a Melody |
CD |
"Aidan Baker's (Nadja) Triptychs takes inspiration from Erik Satie's compositions Gymnopédies and his notion of 'furniture music,' which many consider a precursor to contemporary ambient music. Each 'triptych' is based around a simple, slow moving melodic line, which repeats three times with the addition of an harmonic line upon each repetition, culminating in a three part harmony. Various musicians from different ensembles and musical backgrounds -- Peter Broderick, Julia Kent, Leah Buckareff (of Nadja), Aki Yakamoto (of Vampillia), and Baker himself -- were invited to record their interpretations of these compositions." [label info]
www.importantrecords.com
|
2014 |
€15.00 |
|
| BAKER, AIDAN & THE INFANT CYCLE |
Rural Sprawl |
CD-R |
Eine der ganz frühen Releases (CDR auf Blade Records von 2002) von AIDAN BAKER war diese Zusammenarbeit mit dem damals schon seit langer Zeit in der experimentellen Szene aktiven JIM DE JONG aka THE INFANT CYCLE. Inzwischen gehört AIDAN als eine Hälfte von NADJA zu einem der bekanntesten "Drone"-Musiker der heutigen Zeit, während INFANT CYCLE immer noch einen absoluten Geheimtip darstellt. Hiess die Original-CDR noch "Rural" und enthielt nur 2 Stücke, so wurde "Rural Sprawl" durch 2 weitere Stücke ergänzt, um die Idee eines jahreszeitlichen Zyklus zu untermauern. Hier ergänzen sich die etwas herben loops & samples mit sanften Gitarrenklängen & bassigen Pulsen, schon damals waren wir begeistert und notierten: "Gerade erst entdeckt, schon gibt es eine kanadische Zusammenarbeit von AIDAN BAKER mit den langjährig bestehenden INFANT CYCLE auf Blade Records. Statische, „stehende“ Drones verbergen darunterliegende perkussiv-basslastige Strukturen (das erinnert an DRONAEMENTsches Schaffen), zwei lange Stücke, die Atmosphären einfangen und vermitteln sollen („Summer“) („Temperature Drop“)...zarte, subtile, emotionale Klänge: Musik die die Welt braucht! Very emotional Canadian collaboration, subtle drones conceal percussive-bassy structures underneath, two long pieces of shimmering and soft dreamscape-sounds: music that this world needs!"
"Canadian musicians Aidan Baker and Jim DeJong (aka The Infant Cycle) have used the "gentleman's kit" of modern experimenters for creating the compositions of this disk: guitar, bass, tapes, samples, feedback generator, playouts and thumb piano. Four album tracks correspond with four seasons, four states of the soul...
Summer - repetitive loops become overgrown with the juicy flesh of atonal sound and transform into sampled rhythms flown over by a soft guitar tune. Autumn - the rhythm is reduced to a hardly evident monotonous shroud, the atmosphere becomes more melodic and melancholic and in the end turns into a heart-piercing guitar solo. Winter - time for sleep and detachment: icy ringing, the slow breath of bass impulses, the rustling of electronics and sluggish drones painting vast snowy soundscapes. And finally spring - the drone ambient nature unfolds large as life, majestic sonic waves sweep accompanied by a swarm of tiny sounds awoken to life again.
The first two tracks were recorded in 2001 (and released on CD-R by the Italian label Blade Records in 2002 in a very limited edition), two others were recorded in 2005 and thus completed the natural cycle of this album." [label info]
http://zhb.radionoise.ru/
|
2008 |
€8.00 |
|
| BALDRUIN |
Die halluzinierte Welt |
MC |
"Anbruch eines neuen Tages.
Die Natur wird in ein magisches Licht getaucht.
Es verändert die Warnehmung der Dinge
und erzeugt eine entrückte Atmosphäre.
Etwas nicht greifbares schwebt über den Köpfen.
Ein Übergang von intensiv erlebten Gefühlszuständen in eine halluzinierte imaginäre Realität.
Eine erweiterte Wirklichkeitsauffassung kommt zum Vorschein.
Ängste, Hoffnungen und Sehnsüchte einer nicht (mehr) greifbaren Welt, die sich als surreale Visionen materialisieren.
Individuell real Erlebtes verformt sich und wird transformiert zu fantasierten Erinnerungen,
zu denen immer wieder zurückgekehrt werden kann.
Impressionistische musikalische Skizzen als Ausdruck innerer Sehnsuchtsbilder.
---------
Dawn of a new day, nature is immersed in a magical light.
The aura is raptured by this illumination and the atmosphere is ecstatic.
A transition occurs from an intense emotional state to a hallucinated reality, revealed by expanded perceptions.
Emerging from surreal visions, fears, hopes and desires materialize.
Authentic experiences morph, before transforming back into fleeting memories that return with time again.
Sonic sketches of impressions and internal imagery.
released June 6, 2020
All tracks recorded 2019 and 2020 in Wiesbaden, Germany by Johannes Schebler
https://lullabiesforinsomniacslabel.bandcamp.com/album/die-halluzinierte-welt
"Since 2009 Johannes Scheblers has began mapping out his surreal sonic topography.
Shortly after releasing his first experimental compositions on the homegrown DIY SicSic-Label together with Daniel Voigt, his albums began circulating on labels all over Europe as well as in the USA and Japan. He grew up in a small Bavarian village, where his family had moved to for his fathers work as a pastoral officer. Here they lived in the rectory attached to the church where the loud resonance of the bells, lush organ sounds and chorales of singing churchgoers where constantly present in Johannes childhood. The alluring atmospheres enticed him and he spent several years serving as a altar boy. These early spiritual experiences are a foundation for Baldruin’s sound. In his teenage years, he was exposed to transcendental and dreamlike visions in surreal and avant-garde films which he obsessed over. The unique artistic styles of Švankmajer, Buñuel, Jodorowsky, Cronenberg and Lynch have heavily informed his sonic palette.
Schebler’s compositions offer reinterpretations of dark and mystic mythologies, a chance meeting with strange beings from unknown depths conjured in his imagination where he gives free rein to the fantastic and surreal. Besides his Baldruin project he collaborates with Jani Hirvonen (Uton) on the project Grykë Pyje and is joined by Brannten Schnüre together as Diamantener Oberhof."
|
2020 |
€11.00 |
|
| BARDOSENETICCUBE / LT. CARAMEL |
Silence Submarine |
CD |
"This is the mail collaboration realized after Lt.C's trip to Russia few years ago. In St-Petersbourg, he was sharing the stage with the local project Bardoseneticcube, which is one of the most important and long running experimental music outfit in Russia. After returning to France, Lt.C and Igor Bardo/BSC found common interests in soundwork, sending the files to each other and re-processing them. The result was this collaborative CD, released by Studio Forum and distributed by Monochrome Vision." [label info]
www.studioforum.net
"Last week we reviewed in these pages a CD by Igor Potsukaylo, who is otherwise known as Bardoseneticcube. His works can be easily classified as drone music, so its quite a surprise to find a CD of him together with Philippe Blanchard, otherwise known as Lieutenant Caramel. Perhaps not the most active composer in the field of musique concrete, but with a distinct style of his own. Long sustaining sounds versus cut-up: how does that work out? Actually quite nice. I had my doubts about it, despite liking what both do in their own field, but these nine compositions tie both ends together in a nice way. Its hard to say who does what here, which I guess is a compliment. There are lots of electro-acoustic sounds, from either field recordings as well as objects, which are chopped up, but also looped around to retain that sustaining drone like character. I must admit that my attention faded a bit after a while. I thought that seventy-two minutes of this kind of demanding musique concrete was all a bit too much to take in at once. The whole second piece, track nine on the CD, lasting twenty-four minutes is were I dropped out. Otherwise, in smaller doses, a great CD." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2011 |
€12.00 |
|
| BARONI, CLAUDIO F. & DARIO CALDERONE |
Ursae Minoris |
CD |
A constellation is a construct of perspective. Unfathomable fireballs ripping apart and reconstituting atoms, separated by millions of light years in all directions, are flattened into two dimensions by the human eye. From the slightest suggestion of line and form, the mind gathers them together into objects, seeing in them figurative outlines or distinct cultural reference points. Depending on one’s geographic location and culture, these groupings and their associated imagery can vary wildly. Despite being completely outside of human time and dimension, the stars are minimized and abstracted by distance and then reconstituted by social construct. This act of mental agility serves to make some small sense of the darkness around us and to serve as a memory aid so as to keep a grip on our place in the world.
As musical beings we might also wonder: What does a constellation sound like? Would we also find some meaning or a sense of place in this sound? How does a change in our observation change our reality?
With his Ursae Minoris, Claudio F. Baroni does not strive to give us direct answers to these questions. He begins to employ this process of perspective transformation, aurally converting a two dimensional abstraction of stars into points on a grid and then using this ‘data’ to generate the music, which leaves the final step of recontextualizing to the performer and the audience.
The title refers to the constellation Ursa Minor, which was ‘created’ by the Greeks around 600 BCE out of a portion of another constellation. In Latin and in the colloquial names in many European languages it means Lesser or Little Bear. It is commonly referred to as the Little Dipper in North America. Pointing the way to the North Star, this is one of the most important and well known constellations in the Northern Hemisphere.
Ursae Minoris, meaning ‘of Ursa Minor’, is the title of this work because in this album we encounter this constellation not as a singular instance but as an evolution of multiple perspectives to ruminate upon. As our view of the stars changes with time and place, the three movements of this piece each offer a different aural interpretation.
While working on his string quartet Perpetuo Motum, Baroni happened upon the diaries of Ciriaco d’Ancona (1391-1455), an Italian humanist, textile trader, and antiquarian. Within these diaries are maps of constellations that d’Ancona used to navigate at sea. He is sometimes called the ‘father of archaeology’ as he was one of the first Europeans to collect objects from ancient cultures systematically. Driven by his curiosity, he decided to depart from southern Italy across the Mediterranean to Egypt, Greece and throughout the Aegean Sea. D’Ancona relied upon Ursa Minor to locate the North Star in these travels.
The score of Ursae Minoris is based upon a celestial map centered around Ursa Minor. Using a similar process to one he used in writing Perpetuo Motum, the musical material was determined by a direct ‘transcription’ of the points on this map into predefined variables such as pitch and volume, transforming the stars into musical ‘events’. With the pitch material settled, Baroni explored other musical aspects.
Each movement focuses upon a specific technique of sound production. The first consists of short percussive sounds, especially those produced by tapping the metal end of the bow (called the screw) upon one of the strings. Constantly adjusting the placement of the screw and the length of the string, we are treated to a richly nuanced catalog of these tiny explosions. In the second movement, constant slow glissandi (pitch-sliding along the string) are played up and down on one of the strings as if orbiting around the gravitational pull of its neighboring string, which holds steady to one pitch. The last movement is entirely constructed of one long and shifting bowed tremolo (a shaking of the bow) resembling a trembling comet appearing out of silent space, grazing the ears with a roaring distance and disappearing back into the void.
While his single-minded use of instrumental technique can be uncompromising, Baroni leaves room for spontaneity in other aspects. Continuing the journey metaphor, the score consists of variable paths from which the performer can choose whichever routes and sidetracks they fancy in the moment, rendering each performance unique. Also striking is Baroni’s use of electronics as a way to deepen and refract the natural sounds of the instrument. The subtle use of a loop station gives rise to many layers of the already existing acoustic sound world, expanding it without injecting outside influences. This leaves one quite often wondering if there is just one bassist making all that sound or if there is a sky full of them.
Baroni has spent the last 10 years sounding out the depths of personal instrumental expression with his SoLo compositions. Ursae Minoris is the seventh piece in this ongoing series, each of which focuses on the unique qualities of a different instrument. Central to his process in this series is an extended collaboration with the performer to discover distinctive sounds from the instrument. He is not interested in fresh instrumental techniques for their own sake, simply to sound new or shocking, but because this is the terrain where there are more layers still to be explored. Baroni worked extensively with bassist Dario Calderone over a long period, taking time to form each movement of Ursae Minoris. Calderone’s complete commitment to this kind of music is evident in the intensity and detail of his playing. For example, in order to endure the brutal, endless tremolo of the 3rd movement, Calderone had to reinvent his bowing technique. Throughout the piece he latches onto the essence of the music and gives it a constant drive.
Forget for a moment the title and all of this background information. One doesn’t need to know anything about this composition’s connection to the stars to hear the force of the music or to feel the determined searching of the exposed performer. Baroni studiously avoids making specific aesthetic or cultural references in his music. He creates a closed sound universe with its own scale and physics wherein we can surrender to being propelled through this singular abstraction.
In the end we may be left to wonder: Where are the lines between natural phenomena, sound as sound, fragile and situated perception, and conscious interpretation? How much does each of us feel the urge to find some recognizable form and meaning in the sounds of these little points on a graph? Or we may just go along for the journey, leaving our mind’s universe behind.
https://contemporaryseries.bandcamp.com/album/ursae-
minoris
|
2021 |
€12.00 |
|
| BASINSKI, WILLIAM |
A Shadow in Time |
CD |
"World-renowned as one of experimental music's most vital and impressionistic composers of the past few decades, William Basinski’s tape loop works have been especially influential, particularly on the historic series, The Disintegration Loops, where distorted, orchestral tape samples burrow deep into the listener's psyche through meditative repetition. On his new album, A Shadow In Time, Basinski plunges deeper than ever for the plaintive, solitary eulogy to David Bowie, aptly titled “For David Robert Jones.” Conversely, the title track, “A Shadow In Time,” is a subtle, celestial escalation of melody and drone. The result is one of the most truly transcendent pieces of music he has ever committed to – or wrung from – tape." [press release]
"Basinski's new album A Shadow in Time contains some of his strongest work since The Disintegration Loops introduced him to the world at large.
In the fifteen years since William Basinski released the debut installment of his Disintegration Loops series he has been rapidly, and rightly, lionized. But for two decades prior to that, he was just another eccentric artist in New York, a tinkerer who built his own instruments, ran a venue and experimented insatiably with tape loops. He would tune in to the easy listening piped out by CBS and record snippets of it, creating a massive archive of schmaltz that, through the alchemy of sampling, could be transfigured into something infinitely more haunting. “I would set up loops, get them going, put on the tape recorder and let it go for the length of the cassette because if it was going, it captured this eternal moment,” he told The Quietus in 2012. That eternal-moment is quintessential Basinski; his work has been uniquely fixated on time and loss, his compositions heaving with longing, melancholy and a sense of impenetrable mystery.
At its best, Basinski’s music inspires the sort of rapturous testimony usually reserved for peak experiences, cult leaders and the dead. When it’s not working as well, it can feel not unlike so-called “ruin porn” or the photography of Edward Burtynsky: lovely aestheticizations of late-capitalist collapse that comfort more than they confront. Thankfully, his new album A Shadow in Time contains some of his strongest work since The Disintegration Loops introduced the world to the artist.
The two pieces on A Shadow in Time offer contrasting entry points into his work. The title track is a richly layered composition for the archaic Voyetra 8 synthesizer that was a year in the making and showcases Basinski at the height of his compositional powers. David Bowie tribute “For David Robert Jones,” on the other hand, is an off-the-cuff tape loop piece commissioned by LA’s Volume gallery in the weeks after the artist’s death. Built with re-purposed tape fragments that had been chewed up by a former roommate's cat (“this big, fat motherfucker,” he called it) “For David” exemplifies the entropic decay he’s most known for while adding specific, Bowie-riffing details.
As with all Basinski’s work, there’s a tantalizing juxtaposition between chance and intention (the Voyetra 8 wasn’t even guaranteed to turn on, and when it did, it “was already doing some weird shit so we used it and more”). But on “A Shadow in Time” this tension plays more of a supporting role than a lead. The piece opens with a slow-motion cascade of shimmering high harmonies and murky, shifting lower tones. In its austere beauty, it calls to mind Pauline Oliveros’ landmark Deep Listening, but with an added dash of dread. Clocking in at just shy of 23 minutes, “Shadow” spends its first half stretching towards infinity and its second collapsing on itself.
Around the seven minute mark (amazingly it only feels like three), the piece begins to hollow out. Gradually those glassy high notes drift away like the dust tail of a comet, and tape hiss overtakes the piece. The sense of deterioration is palpable, made more dramatic by distant synth moans and weird bursts of chirping noise that poke through just as “Shadow” drifts into silence. It’s the kind of ending that makes one feel less like a listener and more like a witness.
In the wake of the A-side’s descent, “For David Robert Jones” feels like a cool down for the audience and a victory lap for Basinski. An orchestral clip that could easily be a Disintegration Loops outtake opens, circling around itself and never quite resolving. We’re on more familiar footing here, and the emotional tenor of the the piece, though engaging, is less arrestingly in-your-face than “Shadow.” Six minutes in, a gnarled saxophone juts through rudely, throwing the chilled out transcendence pleasingly off balance. A nod to Bowie’s own saxophone honking on “Subterraneans,” it’s an amusingly punk bit of sabotage, but it fails to develop into something more. Over fourteen more minutes the tension dissipates and “For David” runs out of steam.
Discussing The Disintegration Loops in 2012, Basinski told the Quietus “Over the period of the hour, that melody just decayed right in front of my ears… and eyes… I remember thinking, 'This is not about you.’” While this sense of riveting discovery isn’t fully achieved on “For David,” the album nonetheless offers a stunning journey into a vast, ink-black void." [Pitchfork]
|
2017 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
92982 |
CD |
"This reissue of William Basinski's 2009 album finds the composer doing what he does best, creating haunting loops and drones that have a way of burrowing into your life.
When you travel to 351 Jay Street on Google Maps you’re greeted with the image of a nondescript office building. On its ground floor is an art supply store. The rest of the scene is anonymous. Much of Downtown Brooklyn looks like 351 Jay: brutalist buildings of medium height that evoke industry and bureaucracy. Thirty-six years ago, in this building, William Basinski lived in a loft space that he called the Music Laboratories. He moved in at the beginning of the 1980s with his partner, the artist James Elaine.
Most of the work Basinski released in the 2000s consisted of remixed, reworked, and wonderfully garbled homages to the archive he started to build in the Music Laboratories. While there he made hundred of tape loops, organizing the ribbons of magnetic tape on a tree branch he kept near his mixing desk. The loops were a combination of recordings of his own compositions and incidental noise that seemed to come his way from the whirl of urban life outside his window or from the whisper of radio broadcasts seeding themselves into his recording equipment. He didn’t release his experiments at the time, choosing to record, finagle, connect. The impulse was a natural reaction to the time and place, as he later said: “I was getting all this great stuff. It was just coming from the sky.”
One day in September of 1982 he was experimenting on the fly, collecting fragments, and maybe hours later the backbone of a piece was made. He called it 92982, a clinical name designating the date of the composition, as if it was just a file to be tucked away. He released the recordings for the first time in 2009, long after he garnered widespread acclaim for his monumental 9/11 elegy The Disintegration Loops. Seven years after its initial release, 92982 has been remastered and reissued as 2xLP set of startlingly crisp and veritably haunted music.
92982 is over an hour long, and the original improvisation makes up the first two tracks, while the back half of the album includes an extended rework of a piano-based piece from Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive and another loop constructed from the 1982 material. Given the sources, the tracks present in 92982 seem almost unstuck from time, floating between dates and points of inspiration. The continual cutting up, editing, and processing of a tape loop was something closer to necromancy than normal composition. It’s a quality that actually infects the overall feeling of the music, creating an environment for free-floating listening.
The album’s opening track, “92982.1,” drifts, separates, grows quiet, and then rumbles loudly. The wash of noises is teeming with potential, a quality that defines the inner workings of 92982. All four tracks are open canvases, they invite the rest of the world’s sounds to participate in making the experience of listening different each time. The sound of a helicopter whirling in the atmosphere and the Doppler splatter of a police car’s siren on “92982.2” mix into the sounds of banal moments, like laying in bed, listening to the buzz of an air conditioner, the honking of cars, the rustle of leaves, the drip of an open faucet. The drifting of “92982.4”’s piano loops hang like flickering presences hovering above a room. Overall, a disembodying and strange thing slowly happens as this album keeps playing: it sucks the noises of your environment into the loop. What’s contained here is sometimes not exactly a piece of music but an experiential filter.
Basinski’s music is constantly toying with the idea that rote moments in life can be engulfed with emotion, and it has a way of burrowing into your life. As his perpetual loops drift across the surface of experience, they are incredibly porous, and invite a listener to complete them by taking a walk around their block or just go about their day. 92982 accomplishes this more successfully than much of Basinski’s work; compared to The Disintegration Loops, it’s more open to interpretation and devoid of the same weight of history or narrative. It is an extremely plastic and pliant piece of music, an eternally empty vessel that gets filled up from listen to listen." [Pitchfork]
"These 4 tracks, built upon signature William Basinksi loops date back to September 29, 1982 (hence the title), and like so many of his recent releases of archival material, they ask the question, "why did it take you so long?" The answer may not be as interesting as the
question itself, but the nostalgic look back for Basinski to his own past certainly resonates beyond any notions of solipsism and speaks to something downright universal: an optimism of a half-remembered past. Unlike the masterpiece of the Disintegration Loops, the tracks on 92982 don't crackle and crumble apart as the pieces move forward; but the dust, hiss, and fuzz that have been the trademarks of Basinski loops are all present. The first track centers on a loop of a spacious piano waltzing out of the softened drones of accumulated hiss and soft focus white noise pushed deep into the shadows. The second is a graceful swoon of a composition with delayed rhythmic pock that phases against a swelling ambient loop and occasional interjections of police sirens and helicopters, presumably recorded directly out of Basinski's open window. Another piano loop grounds the third track; this one painfully sad and lilting and made more so by the patina of tape hiss, soft static, and degradation of the source material. An elegant two note loop with a hallowed drone of floating dust completes yet another fantastic William Basinski record. Fans will not be disappointed!" [Aquarius Records review]
|
2016 |
€16.00 |
|
| BASINSKI, WILLIAM & LAWRENCE ENGLISH |
Selva Oscura |
LP |
"Limited edition Opaque Grey Colored Vinyl, edition of 1,000. For over half a decade, William Basinski and Lawrence English have been in regular contact with one another. During that time their paths have crossed repeatedly in various cities; Zagreb, Los Angeles, Hobart and more, in a variety situations. It was from these chance encounters - and the strange familiar of lives lived in transit - that their first collaboration, Selva Oscura, was seeded. The phrase Selva Oscura draws its root from Dante's Inferno. Literally translated as "twilight forest," it metaphorically speaks to both those who find themselves on the unfamiliar path and more explicitly the nature of losing one's way in place and time. Each of the extended pieces on this record maps an acoustic topography that draws on the concept of drifting into the strange familiar. The works each dwell in an ever shifting, yet fundamentally constant state of unfolding. As one sound fades away, another is revealed in its place, creating a sense of an eternal reveal. Selva Oscura was recorded in Brisbane and Los Angeles simultaneously. The compositions were each created through a process of iteration and rearrangement that inverted the micro and macro characteristics of the raw sonic materials. Dynamics and density were chiseled with restraint and at other times intensely reductionist approaches to create a limitlessly deep, but open sound field - as rich as the suggested place from which its title is drawn."
williambasinski.bandcamp.com/album/selva-oscura |
2018 |
€21.00 |
|
| |
Selva Oscura |
CD |
For over half a decade, William Basinski and Lawrence English have been in regular contact with one another. During that time their paths have crossed repeatedly in various cities; Zagreb, Los Angeles, Hobart and more, in a variety situations. It was from these chance encounters - and the strange familiar of lives lived in transit - that their first collaboration, Selva Oscura, was seeded. The phrase Selva Oscura draws its root from Dante's Inferno. Literally translated as "twilight forest," it metaphorically speaks to both those who find themselves on the unfamiliar path and more explicitly the nature of losing one's way in place and time. Each of the extended pieces on this record maps an acoustic topography that draws on the concept of drifting into the strange familiar. The works each dwell in an ever shifting, yet fundamentally constant state of unfolding. As one sound fades away, another is revealed in its place, creating a sense of an eternal reveal. Selva Oscura was recorded in Brisbane and Los Angeles simultaneously. The compositions were each created through a process of iteration and rearrangement that inverted the micro and macro characteristics of the raw sonic materials. Dynamics and density were chiseled with restraint and at other times intensely reductionist approaches to create a limitlessly deep, but open sound field - as rich as the suggested place from which its title is drawn.
williambasinski.bandcamp.com/album/selva-oscura
|
2018 |
€14.00 |
|
| BATCHELOR, PETER |
Kaleidoscope |
CD & DVD-R |
"This release of electroacoustic music by composer Peter Batchelor contains the original (and preferred) 8 channel versions of the works (DVD-ROM) along with stereo versions (CD) for easier/speedier listening.
The idea for the Kaleidoscope works came from the composers? memories of playing with the prismatic toy of the same name as a child. The toy, of course, consists of colored beads in a tube of mirrors, whose reflections generate complex symmetrical patterns that change dramatically in density and texture as the tube is turned. With these pieces the aim was to emulate such dynamic spatial activity through sound, distributing fragmentary materials in space and immersing the listener in a rich and ever-changing sonic environment. They have been composed for an eight-channel listening environment, the speakers arranged equally in a circle surrounding the audience, and the spatial language consists of peripheral, rotational, oppositional and envelopment activities and relationships (in contrast to left/right and back/front as in stereo works and traditional concert diffusion). The works should therefore be spatially and musically coherent irrespective of audience position or orientation, and listeners should receive similar subjective weightings (relative levels) of front, sides and rear wherever they happen to be situated (even if the positions and trajectories of spatial gestures are perceived differently by each).
Peter Batchelor is a composer and sound artist living in Birmingham, UK. He has studied with Jonty Harrison and Andrew Lewis and lectures at De Montfort University, Leicester. Predominantly working with fixed-media, his output ranges from two-channel 'tape' compositions for concert diffusion to large-scale multi-channel installation work."
[label info]
www.pogus.com
"..The DVD has the original 8-channel piece of 'Kaleidoscope', but I don't have the playback for such a thing, so I am stuck with the stereo version. I never heard of Batchelor, who is a composer from Birmingham, UK and who studied with Jonti Harrison and Andrew Lewis. He works 'predominantly with fixed-media, his output ranges from two-channel 'tape' composition for concert diffusion to large-scale multi-channel installation work'. Playing with a prismatic toy as a kid inspired ‘Kaleidoscope’ and perhaps it's not difficult to see that relating to the music piece. Just like light makes different colours of different intensities, so that this music move back and forth, from front to back and back, top to bottom, left to right. I can surely imagine how this sounds on an 8-channel set-up: even better than it does on a stereo version, I imagine. This is from the world of serious electronic composing, say the world of Canada's Empreintes Digitales, but whereas works released over there are not always to my liking, I surely liked this one a lot. The gliding of tones, the processed white noise, the overall vibrancy of the pieces, the constant motion of the sounds used. This is all in the world of computerized sounds, I would think, and whatever went in to generate this sound material is something we not longer can hear. And perhaps it's also something that one should not care about? It's the result that matters and that result is great." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
| BATES, MARTYN |
Imagination feels like poison |
CD |
„Einigen Dark-Ambient-Freunden könnte M.BATES von seiner Zusammenarbeit mit M.J.HARRIS (LULL) ("Murder Ballads") bekannt sein. Schon seit vielen Jahren ist er aber auch als Solo-Artist und mit EYELESS IN GAZA aktiv, und produziert dabei eine Art Sphären-Songwriter-Folk, verbindet hier seinen unnachahmlichen Gesang, Banjo, "Pump Organ", Flöten und "Autoharp" Percussion zu tief sehnsüchtig-melancholischen Stücken, wobei stets eine experimentell-atmosphärische Note vorhanden ist und auch instrumentale "pure Sound" -Zwischenspiele nicht zu kurz kommen. Die Kompositionen werden teils sehr kraftvoll umgesetzt, und Martyn's Stimme kann man wohl nur hassen oder lieben. Für mich eine der emotionalsten & intimsten Musiken der Welt. Check it out!“ [Barakah, 2001]
For us one of the best singer/songwriters of the last two decades, MARTYN BATES is active since the early 80’s with EYELESS IN GAZA, and with solo-works. He produces a kind of spheric songwriter-folk, where he links his absolutely unique voice/singing with banjo, guitars, flutes, percussion and electronics for a blend of deeply yearnful & melancholic pieces, with an ever existing experimental-atmospheric ground and short “pure sound” – interplays in between.. The compositions are often of a very powerful & ambigous nature, here we find expressions of the most sensible & poetic emotions that appear at the same time as a nearly manic outcry of yearning & loss. One of the most emotional and intimate music on this planet!
|
1998 |
€13.50 |
|
| BAYLE, FRANCOIS |
Les Couleurs de la Nuit |
CD |
"The complete version, as premiered in 1982, of one of the François Bayle's masterpieces.
François Bayle studied with Stockhausen and Messiaen. He joined the ORTF Groupe de Musique Concrète in 1960. He later led the group when it became the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1966. Most of his compositions are electronic, and his first important work, 'Espaces inhabitables' (1967) is suggestive of an imaginary world in which nature is distorted in a dream-like fashion. He later utilized natural and synthetic sounds in his compositions, such as the recorded sounds made in a Lebanese cave. He has stated that his purpose as a composer is to enable the listener to feel the motion and vibration of energy in the universe.
François Bayle characterizes his art like this:
"...my purpose was always the same: to compose with only 'images-de-sons' (sound images); to show how, through pure listening in an acousmatic situation, these sound images move like butterflies through audible space and project a colored twinkling on the listener. Out of frame, this is a world proved by itself... Les couleurs de la nuit was created for "tapes and computer". [label info]
www.subrosa.net
|
2013 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
Les Couleurs de la Nuit |
LP |
"The complete version, as premiered in 1982, of one of the François Bayle's masterpieces.
François Bayle studied with Stockhausen and Messiaen. He joined the ORTF Groupe de Musique Concrète in 1960. He later led the group when it became the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1966. Most of his compositions are electronic, and his first important work, 'Espaces inhabitables' (1967) is suggestive of an imaginary world in which nature is distorted in a dream-like fashion. He later utilized natural and synthetic sounds in his compositions, such as the recorded sounds made in a Lebanese cave. He has stated that his purpose as a composer is to enable the listener to feel the motion and vibration of energy in the universe.
François Bayle characterizes his art like this:
"...my purpose was always the same: to compose with only 'images-de-sons' (sound images); to show how, through pure listening in an acousmatic situation, these sound images move like butterflies through audible space and project a colored twinkling on the listener. Out of frame, this is a world proved by itself... Les couleurs de la nuit was created for "tapes and computer"." [label info]
www.subrosa.net
|
2013 |
€20.00 |
|
| BECUZZI, GIANLUCA |
Nothing is what it seems |
CD |
"Almost 70 minutes of music, nine pieces of a sonic mosaic full of ideas and inventions? More structured compositions places side by side with more abstract numbers, built with a wide range of sounds, extremely variegated both in timbre and origin. Elaborated electronic treatments applied to sounds and noises of a concrete nature, field-recordings, drones, electronic hisses, shaked metals, cracklings, human and animal guttural cries, synthetic pads, ethereal and undecipherable voices, mechanical loops, noises from the everyday life? An incredibile and unpredictable sound universe without borders and without time..." [label info]
www.silentes.net
"Gianluca Becuzzi already established himself as the man behind Kinetix, before leaving that name behind and started again under his own name. Its not easy to note the differences between the two projects. Maybe the name change was just to establish himself as a more serious composer, without wanting to change his music very much. A lot of what Becuzzi does is from the world of computers, electronics and, perhaps, analogue synthesizers, along with a bit of field recordings and electro-acoustics. If a change took place then its most likely in that his recent work is less cold and clinical, perhaps also less calculated and more musical, explanatory in a way. If we take the title in mind, are we then sure about those train sounds in 'Portraits Of Indifference'? Maybe its not? That might be more or less the narrative aspect of this release - nothing is what it seems and somehow it might be that this is explained track by track (a leftover from the more conceptual days?): to have a few sounds which may transport the listener to a particular setting which he can relate to (actually train stations is the one I was thinking of in various pieces, but also the zoo), but you never know if it is really sounds from trains (or any such like, whatever the listener imagines, I guess). Becuzzi cleverly processed his sounds to sound like something which may or may not be related. Quite drone like obviously, and the effect of a drum machine in 'In A Filthy Nursery' may destroy that (and also seems a bit out of place, I think), but through this is quite an interesting release of imaginary soundtracks for the ears." [Vital Weekly] |
2011 |
€12.00 |
|
| BECUZZI, GIANLUCA & FABIO ORSI |
Soundpostcards |
CD |
Das Cover dieser CD sieht wirklich wie eine "Klangpostkarte" aus, mit verschiedenen atmosphärischen Klangfeldern der Natur darauf. Das melancholische Duo entwirft auf 11 Stücken äusserst fragile, nostalgische, minimal instrumentierte Soundlandschaften, meist auf analogen Synth/Keyboard basierend, aber auch mit sanften field recordings durchsetzt. "Soundpostcards" ist ihre erste Zusammenarbeit von 2004 & 2005, die bisher nur als MP3 erschien...
"Sound Postcards is a sound representation of determinated time-space, of its moods and atmospheres, it's a sort of soundpostcard in which the artists portray a familiar and hypothetical landscape. The listener is induced to ''identify'' the represented subjects through interpretative processes which directly compare sound suggestions with subjective/collective imagination. A semanthic game of mirrors reflecting forms in perpetual transition between auditive dimension and symbolic/mnemonic one. "Soundpostcards" is the first collaboration of this two artist, originally releasesd (2004) in two different mp3 work, now reissue for the first time in CD after a been REWORKED and added with an unreleased track. The Sounds is really inmost and peacefully melancholy. Lost and naked melodies (some times near to the feeling of the most dilatated post rock other time much more near to the aesthetics sounds of the avant folk music) on a soft background of field recordings and drones.] *** Since 2004 the italian compositors Gianluca Becuzzi and Fabio Orsi are a strong and stable duo. Gianluca Becuzzi is a very well known character of the Italian experimental scene since the '80s, under many different alias. Fabio Orsi is a young and unexpected talent. After his first album, "Osci", produced by Gianluca Becuzzi, he got a lot of positive feedbacks, worldwide, by the most important international media. The unexpected uncounter between different forces, experiences and visions of this two artists is prefectly melted in their intense and fascinating productions made of guitars, old keyboards, field recordings and sound objects. Compositions where everything plays with big emotions: visionary soundscapes, deep drones and sudden noises." [label info]
www.centreofwood.com
|
2009 |
€12.00 |
|
| BECUZZI, GIANLUCA & LUIGI TURRA |
In Winter |
CD |
"One more new Gianluca Becuzzi release on Silentes, this time in collaboration with Luigi Turra. Composer of musique concrete and graphic designer whose main interest is the musical balance between silence and the tactile perception of sound, Turra’s works were published by labels such as and/OAR, Unfathomless, Non Visual Objects, Smallvoices and many others. A lot has already been written about Becuzzi, here we would just like to remember his historic Darkwave / Industrial project Limbo, his more recent Kinetix and Noise Trade Company incarnations, and the long collaboration he carried on with Fabio Orsi. "In Winter" was recorded between 2008 and 2010, with Becuzzi mostly taking care of field recordings and programming, and Turra giving his own contribution playing acoustic guitar and piano. Light as the snowflakes that entitle them, these nine compositions offer dreamy atmospheres that rely on minimal structures and evoke visions of lonely and lazily wintry landscapes. Music for the heart and the mind, delicate representations of quiet moods translated into harmonic sequences that combine environmental synthesis with influences of a refined sophistication." [label info]
www.silentes.net
|
2012 |
€12.00 |
|
| BEEQUEEN |
Aughton |
LP |
“The queen of all honeys nourishes its hive with a sweet sustenance of archival sweetness. Aughton represents a cadre of organic drone/concrete pieces. Softly cavernous and compact compositions that occasionally become musical by suggestion only. It's a bit like being underwater while someone is playing loud church music out a car window as a train screeches by. It's that fugue state induced by the ever more apparent overtones of a nearby engine. It is quiet and disquieting. The several pieces together add up to something of a subtonal symphony, though the parts are quite distinct. A great, steely and dark space-out, whose horse runs happily astride 80's Zoviet France or in some respects, Harry Bertoia." [press release]
www.blrrecords.com
"This new LP on Beta-Lactam makes an interesting companion piece to Beequeen's recent Important Records album. Where The Bodyshop was a milestone for the work of Freek Kinkelaar and Frans de Waard with its unexpected emphasis on melody, structure and songcraft, Aughton—The Patient Books is much more familiar Beequeen territory—organic drones, submerged loops and moody atmospherics. This seemed like an unexpected return to form until I checked the liner notes and discovered that these pieces were, in fact, recorded from 1993 to 1995. To anyone familiar with the work of the duo from this period, the sounds on this LP will be very familiar. Beequeen have always been extraordinarily good at creating dusty, low-fidelity machine drones that have a grainy, organic resonance in which one can hear all manner of buried and obscured melodies. Their textures have a distinctly antiquated feel to them, like the penetrating buzz of a sodium streetlamp on an Amsterdam street corner in the late-1800s. On many of these pieces, Freek and Frans take advantage of the substance of tape itself, building pieces from the rhythms produced by a slowly queuing cassette tape, or using the fundamental technical limitations of magnetic tape to intensify the lived-in, archival feel of much of this material. Even the name of the album conjured images of a long-neglected psychiatric hospital archive, full of disintegrating reel-to-reel tapes of long-forgotten significance. "I'm Searching For Field Character" is the perfect soundtrack to an Orwellian Room 101: a distorted voice with the weighty tone of a Soviet social engineer reads aloud a block of text meant to reprogram us with revolutionary propaganda. All the while the clock ticks loudly and distant air raid sirens blare. It has the effect of a frightening Cold War radio drama pulled into near-total abstraction. With interest I've tuned into the current wave of heavily hyped New Weird American drone artists like Double Leopards and Dredd Foole, but this brief LP by Beequeen comprised of material more than a decade old seems fresher and more adventurous by far. Beequeen are careful not to stray too far from theme, mood and substance, so their work is always enriched by the myriad symbolic associations that each listener brings to the experience. The same cannot be said of the aforementioned artists, who often prefer to just play the same tone as loud as they can for over an hour, as if endurance alone could prove the merit of their work. Aughton is a refreshing antidote to this kind of amateurish noodling, and I highly recommend it to any who have found themselves disappointed by this sort of thing in the past." [Jonathan Dean / Brainwashed]
|
2004 |
€17.00 |
|
| BEGG, MICHAEL |
A Moon that Lights Itself |
CD |
During the 1870s, Charles François Daubigny, in the last years of his life, took increasingly to painting nocturnal scenes en plain air from his boat studio, Le Bottin. This was a period in time when the idea of the musical nocturne had progressed from being an indication of what point during the evening a particular piece of music should be played, towards becoming an articulation of the unique atmosphere and emotion occasioned by moonlight.
Elsewhere in France, Edouard-Lean Scott de Martinville conceived and produced the phonautogragh. This device, appearing years before Edison’s phonograph, enabled sound, for the first time, to be captured. Unlike Edison, however, de Martinville neglected - or saw no need - to provide the means to playback the recording. Rather, a visual representation was captured on a lamp black cylinder.
It wasn’t until 2008 when researchers at Berkley University used digital technology to recover the audio. The recording, the first ever made, was of a human voice singing Au Clair De La Lune.
Written and produced by Michael Begg
Mixed and mastered at Captains Quarters, East Lothian
A Moon That Lights Itself was premiered at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh on September 16th 2016, with cello accompaniment from Clea Friend
The work was commissioned by National Galleries Scotland, in conjunction with the major exhibition, Inspiring Impressionism: Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh, and was completed with the generous support of the Hope Scott Trust.
https://omnempathy.bandcamp.com/album/a-moon-that-lights-itself
REVIEW:
"A Moon That Lights Itself was commissioned by the Scottish National Galleries as part of the Inspiring Impressionism exhibition, focussing on the works of Charles François Daubigny, Claude Monet, and Vincent van Gogh. On September 16th 2016, Michael Begg (of Human Greed / Fovea Hex) performed the work, amidst the exhibition space, in the auspicious surroundings of the Royal Scottish Academy situated on the Mound in Edinburgh.
Drawing on the works of French landscape artist Charles François Daubigny, Begg's commission was described as a "work for electronics, strings and moonlight". I must confess that of the three artists featured in the exhibition I wasn't at all familiar with Daubigny. Consider Begg's work with Human Greed where their first release Consolation featured a moonface in Deryk Thomas's artwork on the cover; Black Hill: Midnight At The Blighted Star, the title of a later album which included 'Dalkeith Night' speaks for itself; and even Dirt On Earth featured a blackened nightscape on the cover it's perhaps particularly apt that Begg focusses on Daubigny's later work and specifically the twilight and nocturnal scenes of his later years, from which he painted while ensconced on a studio boat on the Oise. A Moon That Lights Itself is set in the context of mid to late 19th century France, and the cusp of impressionism, modernism, together with the earliest known sound recordings by Edouard-Lean Scott de Martinville and his phonautograph invention.
A Moon That Lights Itself moves from dusk to dawn in the course of its 9 tracks. From tranquil drones overlaid with tumbling piano notes and solemn cello movements the opening track 'Le Crepuscule' moves into drifting drones before 'Moonrise' which like many of the tracks on A Moon That Lights Itself blends location recordings into the compositions. Here water in the form of lapping waves and crashing waves, bird chatter and the quack of ducks - ducks were a recurring motif within Daubigny's impressionist landscapes - are found amidst passages of glistening drone and moments of sombre piano and cello swell. Still and serene, glinting flourishes merge with stirring movements, its lapping waves resembling the tidal pull, and backward spinning electronics. 'Moonlight' bathes in the glow of light glistening sound textures set against deep reverberating rumbles and piercing glassy shrieks. Bells ring out before it moves into quieter echoed atmospherics.
Daubigny often painted from his floating studio on a boat on the River Oise, and 'Le Bottin' aptly illustrates this with watery ripples dappled with tender piano notes and broader sound shudders, flowing into an end section comprising elegiac strings and melancholic synths.
With its rippling metallic sounds, harsher noise elements and sluggish voice recordings 'The Birth Of Modernism' is much more abstract in composition. Those voices, taken from the 1860 phonautograms of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, like modernism are almost blown in on a wind like drone. Scott de Martinville's recordings, sensitively mixed as another layer of sound here, were never intended for playback but recent research managed to transform these into playable sound files, discovering a male voice, probably of Scott de Martinville, singing a partial segment of the French folk song 'Au clair de la lune', which fits nicely here as in English it translates to 'In the Moonlight'. Elsewhere on 'The Birth Of Modernism' voices and bird calls are rendered as electronic squiggles, reflecting the movement away from realism to abstraction, perhaps.
Begg returns to his palette of location sounds on 'Daubigny's Reverie' where lapping water and duck quack augment the shimmering sound spans. The drone filled atmospherics create a sense of melancholy; a captivating dreamspace only broken by the call and sing of birds in flight. Those flying birds could be seen as sound metaphor for the transition from Daubigny's impressionism to a new world of abstract representations, something furthered on 'Between Two Movements' which unfurls to a two pronged approach where undulating drones and glassy shrill frequencies are cast against evocative classical strings. It could even be electronics, Begg has an uncanny ability to sidestep the listener with his use of instrumentation that sound like something else.
'A Last Dance Under The Moon' moves to doleful cello sweeps and forlorn nocturnal electronics, achieving a graceful and mournful presence, largely due to the Clea Friend's cello score. A Moon That Lights Itself closes with the arrival of 'Dawn', a classy ensemble piece of piano score and cello, contrasting sombre cello movements with more optimistic and joyful piano notes, and as the sounds coalesce it seems to herald the new whilst paying homage to the past.
Begg referred to this in a blog for his performance at the Royal Scottish Academy as being a "pochade", a sketch, "for Daubigny, for the moon, and for an extraordinary time in the development of European culture, when our sense of capturing the world around us and within us took extraordinarily bold, though markedly sensitive, steps forward." Recorded immediately after the performance, Begg once again proves himself to be a superlative composer, with a suite of evocative atmospherics using electronics, classical strings and location recordings to evoke the nocturnal workings of Daubigny. A Moon That Lights Itself is bathed in a liminal essence; a quality that defines all his work. From the Human Greed releases Black Hill: Midnight At The Blighted Star, Fortress Longing, World Fair to the Fragile Pitches collaboration with Colin Potter, Michael Begg has been behind a number of great releases. A Moon That Lights Itself now sits alongside those titles as one of his finest solo offerings in a release that is sombre, inventive and utterly captivating." [Compulsion Online] |
2016 |
€13.00 |
|
| BEGG, MICHAEL / HUMAN GREED |
Let the cold Stove sing |
CD |
"These recordings comprise work conceived for theatre, gallery and installation contexts. They are concerned with defined and definite spaces, places and absences. These places arise both from nature and through construction. In turn, the construction may be natural or virtual.
They are informed by the great divorce of music and context occasioned by the birth of recording, and by the 20 year fermata occurring after the invention of recording and before the discovery of the means of affecting playback. This was, by definition, the period where we began to conceive of the need to listen repeatedly, in the way an archaeologist brushes repeatedly at the desert, for clues, details, and, possibly, reason." [label info]
www.omnempathy.com
"East Lothian based composer Michael Begg has quietly but steadfastly released (in this listener's humble opinion) some of the finest and most affecting albums of the last decade, such as 2008's dark and yearning 'Black Hill: Midnight At The Blighted Star', 2011's melancholic masterpiece 'Fortress Longing' and 2014's career best 'World Fair'. Along the way many noted and esteemed collaborators have added their voice or presence to proceedings such as Julia Kent (Antony And The Johnsons), David Tibet (Current 93), Chris Connelly (Ministry) and Clodagh Simonds (Mellow Candle, Fovea Hex). Working in the realm of drones, electronica and modern experimental composition to create vast, atmospheric and hugely evocative pieces of sound and melody, Begg has little in the way of contemporaries although aficionados of the windswept work of Richard Skelton, 'On Land'-era Eno, the dark soundscapes of Andrew Lilies and the classic recordings of Reich, Glass and Popol Vuh will find much to fall in love with here. Referencing both, according to Begg, 'gallery, theatre and installation works, as well as my preoccupation with defining space, place and time with sound' this is an essential and crucial work that needs to be heard and experienced.
The album begins with 'Hopetoun Tower Before The Harvest', named after a forbidding and lonely construction that stands defiantly on a hill near Begg's Captain's Quarters recording studio. As befits its namesake, the track rumbles with exposure to some building and growing winds as snakelike electronics creep and wisp into view. A beautiful and tentative string section enters, trembling emotively as bowed strings and bowls resonate. It feels sacred, like a storm has suddenly and dramatically silenced leaving a hushed and perceptible sense of being in the universe. The title track follows, piano and droned strings echoing out into darkness, both tangibly lonely and filled with a gorgeous sadness. There is something deeply existential about this work, one feels small in the face of the space and sounds that evoke the surrounding skies and landscape. 'The Children Will Wet The Academy Floor' adds some truly lovely chamber strings that reverberate and haunt, a spectral symphony of lamentation and grief whilst 'Paris is Closing' is a field recording of chatter and metro sounds that are pleasingly though disturbingly disorientating. Next, 'Pendrachin Wood: Pollen And Frost' is a frozen and glacial layered piece of orchestral electronica, reminiscent of Bowie's Berlin experiments; this literally lifts the hairs of one's arms and neck as it swells and recedes with visions of snow covered pines in the darkening Scottish winter afternoons. Human Greed are no simple drone or electronic act; these are carefully wrought and constructed compositions that evoke and emote in an almost avant classical sense. They are almost unique in working in this field and are creating pieces of heartbreaking genius that this listener implores you to discover and fall in love with; it is criminal that Begg is not more revered outside of the underground as the pioneer and composer that he is.
'Francis Bacon; A Room' is as complex and unsettling as the British artist himself, a corrosive drone and buzz hovering over the mutter of voices whist a sister song 'Louise Bourgeois: A Cell' allows chimes and electronic hums to flutter and slither malevolently throughout. 'Leisure In F' glides majestically into being, epic and choral strings ebbing and flowing until ominous notes and birdsong float into focus; reminiscent of charcoal skies passing by overhead with the threat of snowfall as nature and animal life reacts accordingly this is an incredibly moving and transportive piece. 'Made And Unmade In Europe' rasps and buzzes as a bird's lonesome call cries out against the imperious landscape, an unforgiving wind suddenly giving way to a soprano song and weeping strings in a genuinely breathtaking moment. 'Cunny For Thine Mountain Penne' almost silently emerges on delicate notes and drone sounds, distant percussion and mournful brass reminding this listener of Gorecki's 'Sorrowful Songs'. Stately, graceful and melancholic this regal and funereal piece stays with the listener long after the album has finished playing. Next, 'Intermission For Blisters And Russian Weddings' is driven along on wary and eerie violin bursts, a solar echo resonating and unfurling slowly and perceptibly whilst gentle bass notes hold anchor. This is music to play when the sky is huge, dark and forbidding, to watch the stars blink on and off with cosmic indifference to us watching.
'Studies In Space And Density' is equally massive in scale and suggestion; a cold, sad throb through the universe that becomes increasingly distorted and growling before returning to an icy, repeating refrain of solar wind. A sudden warmth enters with 'Let The Cold Stove Sing Within Reason' as a bass throb and beautiful melody grows and layers over a distant electronic howl and circling strings. Hugely affecting, there is an integral human component at the heart of everything Human Greed or Begg does, this is music about the human condition, about what it is to be in this casually cruel and beautiful universe. 'Whiteadder Water After The Harvest' brings us full circle and close the album with the burble of streams and rivers, metallic and windswept notes sweeping overhead.
I cannot recommend this album highly enough. There is more detail, more arresting and heart-rending moments, more creativity on this album than there is in some other artist's entire oeuvres. One for those lonely, late night listens or for accompaniment of solitary walks and dérives, 'Let The Cold Stove Sing' is a heartbreakingly beautiful and important album, perhaps quite easily already my album of the year. The cold stove is singing, now one must listen." [Grey Malkin/The Active Listener blogspot]
active-listener.blogspot.de/2016/06/michael-begg-human-greed-let-cold-stove.html
|
2016 |
€13.00 |
|
| BEHRENS, MARC |
Architectural Commentaries |
CD |
Architektonischer Noise? Aurale Geometrie? MARC BEHRENS versieht sein Cover mit Fotos von dreidimensionalen Gebilden & Gebäuden und scheint auch soundmäßig neuartige Räume ausloten zu wollen. Hermetischer Minimal-Ambient zwischen Geräusch, Drone und dem Nichts, veröffentlicht auf dem inzwischen von 20CITY in CMR unbenannten ESO STEEL – Label aus Neuseeland. Etwas für spitze Ohren.
“ German composer and sound artist Marc Behrens has put forth a beautiful installment of sound work for CMR's second CD release, entitled Architectural Commentaries. Marc has been working with sound (in one form or another) since 1986 and is probably most recognised for his digitally re-worked field material and composition. With a long history of installation work and live performance, he has exhibited alone and in group exhibitions; and performed live internationally in locations such as Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, and the UK. He has completed tours with fellow sound artists Francisco Lopez, Bernhard Gunter and John Duncan and has had notable CD releases on Gunter's label Trente Oiseaux (Germany), Digital Narcis (Japan), Raster Music (Germany) and Intransitive Recordings (USA).
Architectural Commentaries is comprised of five tracks. The first three pieces, entitled 'Architectural Commentaries 1-3', are some of Marc's most recent compositions arranged in 2001 using basic material recorded from 1990-2000 in various global locations. Taking title, sleeve images and sound together we are left with new audible environments for architectural structures; jets of forced air and amplified nothing, distant machinery and tiny bites of frequency, faded and cut together to create beautifully atmospheric soundscapes. Track 4 was previously released on RLW's 'Tulpas' 5 CD set (Selektion 024) and was constructed using source material from Ralf Wehowsky. Track 5 was composed in 1992 as a soundtrack to accompany the video Der Raum by Torsten Grosch - stills of which feature on the CD sleeve. The album permits a smooth flow between Marc's earlier and more recent work and shows the artists' continuing exploration into the depth and dimensions of sound recording.” [press release]
|
2002 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Architectural Commentaries 4 & 5 |
CD |
“An Architectural Commentary is a form of ‘reviewing’ architecture in which functional, symbolic and aesthetic aspects of a building or
a bigger architectural structure are analysed. Inspiration for this cycle of compositions is drawn from architectural criticism, structures,
buildings, involuntary cityscapes ‘architecture without architects’)and technological noise within buildings.
One special recording session took place at Resonance FM, the London-based radio station, in June 2004. Patrick McGinley of Resonance FM
and I recorded the studio equipment itself, the drive noises, ventilation, vibrations in the machines, the studio’s air conditioning, doors…
This particular array of sound forms the sole and exclusive basic material for Architectural Commentary 5: Some Models for Resonant Behaviour
and links the cycle to earlier music pieces I constructed with sounds from computer labs. This part was commissioned by Resonance FM.
In Architectural Commentaries I composed some structures (mainly in parts 4 and 5) loosely based on Luigi Nono’s idea of ‘isole musicali’.
This means that encyclopaedic variations of themes are generated and often highlighted by silent breaks, like islands, between the individual parts, all different in form and size, but topologically similar.”
Frankfurt-based Behrens is presently best described as a ‘sound artist’, working across performance, installation and audio-visual recorded media. He also creates photographic works, designs record sleeves, and has even produced a bottle of white wine...
First edition of 300 copies." [label notes]
"There are sounds like stone on stone, for example, large stones. To the extent they offer images of cityscapes, they do so in a de Chirico sense, one of empty concrete canyons and long shadows. There’s a brief bustle or two, a sudden flurry of traffic, but then it’s back to the urban desolation. A short track separates the two main pieces; though it’s entirely of a piece with them, its concision serves to orient the listener with regard to the others. The first half of Commentary 5 is even emptier than its predecessor, a place of drips, vague, distant echoes of machinery, the occasional low thrum of some subterranean engine. Midway through, an eerie, silvery drone emerges accompanied by quasi-musical pings, backwards tape swatches and gurgles. It’s kind of like coming upon a barely functioning outpost in the ruins. It dissipates after a few minutes, bringing us back into the ozone-tinged vacuum. Behrens has created some evocative work, very effective and accomplished of its kind." [Brian Olewnick / Bagatellen]
www.entracte.co.uk
|
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| BEKAERT, JACQUES |
Jacques Bekaert |
LP |
Originally released in 1981 on the Belgian Igloo label this reissue comes with the same sleeve as originally designed by Alain Géronnez. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"A Late Lunch\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" is the soundtrack to Akiko Iimura\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s eponymous movie realized in 1978. It is based on acoustic instruments and field recordings, brilliantly reconfigured and mixed by Bekaert to create a surreal, immersive soundscape. The technique used includes superposition and speed change of recordings, radical sound effects, and juxtaposition of sounds. The players were prominent musicians of the 1970s, including Maggi Payne, George Lewis, David Rosenboom, and Blue Gene Tyranny. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"A Summer Day at Stony Point\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" was composed in 1969, with participation of David Behrman, Shigeko Kubota, and Charlotte Warren. The piece was commissioned by English composer Hugh Davies who presented it at the Harrogate festival the same year. Stony Point is a small village in New York State where John Cage co-owned a small pseudo-commune art resort where like-minded artists gathered. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"A Summer Day at Stony Point\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" is nothing more than a page of a journal, a fragment of a notebook that utilizes a series of sound sources recorded at Stony Point on one beautiful day in the summer of 1968. Other electronic sound sources were recorded at the Brandeis University where Alvin Lucier was professor. The final realization of the piece was done at Henri Pousseur\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s APELAC Studio in Brussels, 1969. The soundtrack for Akiko Iimura\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Mon Petit Album was composed on the basis of a simple description of the technique of the film and its time span. It includes David Behrman on alto, from an outdoor recording at Stony Point, plus excerpts from a Transition concert in London, the band Bekaert formed in 1971 with Michel Herr, Takehisa Kosugi, and Ryo Koike, both members of the Taj Mahal Travelers. The atmosphere is quiet and pastoral throughout with a very dreamlike flavor. Edition of 500.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"... Gentle threads of instrumental and electronic sounds are mixed with outdoor rural field recordings and occasional voices of his friends speaking, whistling or singing. Bekaert creates a warm environment within which we can hear subtle individual voices of good musicians who are relating to his loosely-notated scores and verbal instructions...\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" --David Behrman
https://metaphon2.bandcamp.com/album/jacques-bekaert
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"In a truly great moment for reissues, Metaphon delivers one of the best of the year: the first ever vinyl reissue of Jacques Bekaert\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s monumental self-titled LP for Igloo from 1981. An unprecedented window into a singular creative mind, including contributions by Takehisa Kosugi, David Behrman, David Rosenboom, Maggi Payne, Georges Lewis, and numerous others, it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s a masterstroke of electroacoustic composition that achieved nothing short of holy grail status for collectors over the years, which manages to entirely recalibrate the listener\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s mind.
Working at a slow, meticulous pace, for a decade and half, Metaphon - the Brussels based imprint run by Timo Van Luijk - has continuously illuminated fascinating trajectories within a number of historically neglected contexts of electronic music and sound art. Primary focused on work produced in Belgium - with their own criteria of personal taste guiding them well - they’ve produced an incredibly important body of albums that endeavour to respect and supports the music and those who make it. In the midst of an incredible run - having recently released important works by Jan Bruyndonckx, Johannes Fritsch, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Michael Ranta, and Takehisa Kosugi’s - they’re back with the first ever vinyl reissue of Jacques Bekaert’s astounding self-titled LP, originally issued by the seminal Igloo imprint in 1981.
A long-standing holy grail for countless experimental music fans, its two sides gather three astounding compositions, created in collaboration with some of the most important voices in 20th Century sound: Takehisa Kosugi, David Behrman, David Rosenboom, Maggi Payne, Georges Lewis, and numerous others. Absolutely incredible and not to be missed. A truly legendary album - issued in a very limited edition of 500 copies on vinyl - has finally returned to our hands.
[By Bradford Bailey, 16 December 2022]
|
2022 |
€24.00 |
|
| BENEATH THE LAKE |
Silent Uprising |
CD |
Zweites Album vom Projekt um NICOLAS LAMPERT, der eine Hälfte der Monumental-Noise-Droner von NOISEGATE war! Ausgefeilter dark ambient mit
vielen Details und melancholischen Passagen...
“A truly stunning follow up to their debut 2002 "Inside Passage" offering! "Silent Uprising" features five flowing & meditative compositions clocking in at 70+ minutes. A demanding engagement from drifting drone composers Nicolas Lampert & Dave Canterbury. An alchemical mixture of lulling musical melodies & dense cinematic environments. BENEATH THE LAKE embrace a forlorn melancholia of haunting, whispering memories & organic soundscapes. A beautiful album with a distant hope, forged through nature's sadness...
“....Beneath The Lake is a project based on creating soundscapes combining minimal ambient music and found sounds, with an emphasis on composing the music to compliment the sounds instead of just using the sounds as a backdrop. Where their first record focused more on nature, Silent Uprising shifts the focus a bit more toward the increasing influence of the urban landscape as cities continue to encroach on nature and change the balance forever. The record begins with the clatter of trains rushing past, the receding sound of the train is soon joined by a simple strident guitar riff, accompanied by a mournful wooden recorder. The two drift and shift and slowly build in intensity. Very reminiscent of Neurosis at their most mellow, surprisingly enough. The riff shifts and twists, shadowed by the recorders melodies eventually being joined by the sound of another train and eventually being drowned out by the roar of the wheels on the tracks. The second track is a simple, gorgeously melancholy guitar melody, slowly and deliberately picked, over a bed of crackly static that could be either the sound of rain falling or the crackle of a fire, or both. The sound on Silent Uprising is much more musical than on Inside The Passage with the drone being relegated to just one of many instruments / approaches as opposed to the very dark and slow shifting all encompassing drone of the earlier record. Here, it's -that- guitar, all dark and shimmering and reverberant, and the brooding slow building melodies that creep across the sonic landscape. It sometimes almost sounds like the slow core of Low being performed in a steel mill or a rail yard, the band struggling to be heard over the sound of rain and wind and trains and passing cars. Strangely powerful and poignant. Packaged in a gorgeous oversized sleeve with breathtaking images of winter foliage and urban landscapes, printed in all muted browns and tans. So lovely.“ [Aquarius]
|
2005 |
€13.00 |
|
| BERG, CHRISTOPH |
Conversations |
LP |
"Following his critically acclaimed Paraphrases album from 2012 and the more electronic based recordings as Field Rotation, Christoph Berg joins Sonic Pieces with the first new material under his own name in over four years.
Conversations essentially expresses contemplation, consciousness and the urge for retreat from the sometimes overwhelming present times. The musician’s genuine approach to minimal chamber music acts as a fading scenario of nostalgia and memory to rely on, similar to an affecting dialogue with somebody close to you. A manifold violin carries us through the transformation of time and its perception, expanded by humming double bass, the discreet use of piano and subtle percussive structures – all acoustically recorded and only scarcely processed by minor digital manipulation. Christoph hereby creates a fragile and comforting score to a scenic film. The result is an elegant framework from Prologue to Epilogue that guides us through gradually developing melancholy in its most genial understanding. It’s an exceedingly comprehensive, detailed reminder of music as an intimate art form, crafted by an unusually patient and perspicacious performer.
Like a washed out black and white photograph you hang on your wall to remember, these Conversations will keep you valued company. If it’s solace, seclusion or encouragement you’re seeking – you’ll find empathy in these compositions." [label info]
"Typically sublime chamber works issued by Sonic Pieces with all the attention to detail you'd expect from this impeccable label. It’s a deeply contemplative affair rendered through layered strings and found sounds that will hugely appeal to anyone enamoured with the work of Richard Skelton or Max Richter.
The violin is at the core of these pieces, flanked by the low hum of double bass, piano and quiet percussive flourishes; all acoustically recorded with minimal digital processing. Berg does that thing of creating huge widescreen vistas with the most intimate of components; which is essentially what the Sonic Pieces label is all about.
It’s an exceedingly comprehensive, detailed reminder of music as an intimate art form, crafted by an unusually patient and perspicacious performer that by the sounds of it will soon be joining the likes of Johann Johannsson, Ben Frost, Max Richter and Cliff Martinez at the upper tier of artists who have emerged from the corners of this scene and gone on to establish a huge presence in the world of commercial, big budget film scoring.
If you’ve spent any time with Max Richter’s groundbreaking The Blue Notebooks, this one comes hugely recommended." [Bommkat]
|
2017 |
€28.00 |
|
| |
Tape Anthology Vol. 1 |
LP |
"With his new record Tape Anthology Vol. 1 Christoph Berg kicks off an album series mainly focusing on works based on Tape manipulation. At the same time it marks the inaugural release of his own imprint Monochrome Editions.
Christoph is a classically trained piano and violin player whose curiosity and cultural interest are by no means bound to that category, or any others for that matter. For the past few years he has also been broadening his approach to composition by researching and experimenting with tape machines and reels of field recordings — and directing sounds into physically immediate shapes and atmospheres. Through an initially improvised approach to sources and his analogue assembly of the emerging recordings afterwards, he is methodically avoiding predictable conditions.
The raw, extensive material became subject to meticulous organisation and arrangement: Tapes have been cut, manipulated, destroyed, fixed, and reshaped into a treasury of experiences. The overall process is, in many ways, similar to the way Christoph travels and absorbs situations: curious, spontaneous, attentive, and modest. His work is less about destination than about the journey, and these compositions magically manage to capture a history of sounds, embedded in one’s own (temporary and partial) perception of them.
While most pieces on the album are dominated by field recordings and tape manipulation, they are occasionally accompanied by an array of instruments — most prominent in the three movements of the “Concertino for Tape and Violin” — including an amalgamation of violin, upright bass, organ, found objects, and synthesizer contribution by Midori Hirano on two of the album’s compositions, all of which are effectively molding chance encounters into individual and intentional entities.
However, the greatest idiosyncrasy of the album might also be the most subtle and, probably, irritating: The collages of things, places, people and events deliberately renounce conclusions, by which Tape Anthology Vol. 1 also evades any obvious stagnation. Even when themes are appearing, everything stays in constant movement, away from, towards or around you. The few palpable aspects welcome you and immediately drag you in, but without releasing you in the expected or a familiar location. It is a captivating voyage through an ever-changing landscape that — through abstention of any predictability — is not only the core of improvisation, but a philosophical approach to both traveling and being in general.
By never succumbing to tradition, expectation or comfort, Tape Anthology Vol. 1 is continuously reaching out for the capture of our surrounding — and our agency within it. Herewith the record embodies the ever intriguing cor-relation of spontaneity and subsequent mapping.
https://christophberg.bandcamp.com/album/tape-anthology-vol-1-2
|
2019 |
€22.50 |
|
| BERRY, KEITH |
The Cartesian Plane |
pic-LP |
"Elevator Bath's ongoing series of picture disc LPs (each record being adorned with full-color artwork by the recording artist) continues with Keith Berry's debut appearance on vinyl: An absolutely mesmerizing cycle of deep, meditative tranquility inextricably linked to Berry's otherworldly painting which appears behind the record's grooves.
The soundscapes along The Cartesian Plane are beautifully absorbing, heavy with the slow unraveling of emotions, almost beyond belief. There is an immense weight to these recordings, the richness of which belies the careful subtlety of the compositions. The sound is expansive and unreal, a perfect complement to the record's visual aspects which seem to describe a kind of alternate existence. Like bookends, the colorful images house a wealth of experiences, wonderful and frightening. As you gaze upon the rotating colors and Keith Berry's dense dream-sounds pour out of the speakers, total immersion in The Cartesian Plane is more than probable, it is certain.
Five years have passed since Keith Berry's masterful The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish, a disc that was something of a revelation for the lucky few who were able to obtain a copy of the original release. Since that time Berry's reputation has steadily grown, even though his discography has not. Aside from a few compilation appearances (including Elevator Bath's A Cleansing Ascension), he has remained silent. The release of The Cartesian Plane then truly calls for celebration, as it is precisely the record those of us who admire Berry's work have longed for.
Keith Berry's music has been released by such labels as Trente Oiseaux, Twenty Hertz, and Crouton. He resides in London.
This picture disc LP has been released in an edition of 233 copies.
Total running time: 47 minutes" [label info]
www.elevatorbath.com
|
2010 |
€17.50 |
|
| BERTONCINI, MARIO |
Arpe Eolie |
LP |
"Format: LP, Limited Edition of 400 copies. Deluxe silver cover with silver foil design, custom inner sleeve and 4-page booklet in English and Italian.
First ever vinyl release of the works by Italian maestro Mario Bertoncini, relentless experimental composer, philosopher, artist and builder of sounds. The LP presents a selection of his compositions for aeolian constructions: in the early 70s he started to produce sound aggregates, true 'sound sculptures' based on the Aeolian sound principle. Amongst his more spectacular installations there were Vele, a massive Aeolian harp (more than 7 meters high); Venti (winds), for 20 Aeolian sound generators and 40 performers; and Chanson pour Instruments à Vent, an assemblage for Aeolian harps, Aeolian gongs, and one performer.
By their very nature these sound objects ("sound sculptures" that liberate the concept of sound form from time development) convey a sense of natural sounds beyond the grasp of composition and musician. Bertoncini self-built harps and gongs are excited by blows of compressed air, or by the composer's own breath, resulting in a musical blueprint that takes minimalist drone to a massive scale: the music unleashes itself. There's no sense of a composer's hand present. If at superficial levels they may sound like electronic music (long drones and swooshes of otherworldly sounds), at a close listening they reveal the intensity of a pure sound of air, far removed from both any artificial or measurable principle as well as from any casual or chance method of composition." [label info]
www.die-schachtel.com
|
2016 |
€26.00 |
|
| BERTONI, MARCO (CONFUSIONAL QUARTET) |
Live in Trentville |
CD |
sps2251
MARCO BERTONI
LIVE IN TRENTVILLE
CD, trifold 15x15cm sleeve
Unlike the distant "18/8/81" or the more recent "Wrong Ninna Nanna", this new solo work contains no piano or other instrumental parts.
In this release, which occurred like all truly welcome things in an unexpected and unsought way, I have collected some of my own compositions created only from sound material recorded around or taken from other recorded music.
Such material has been mutated with various sound processings, and assembled by multiplying layers in both digital and analog environments.
The time passing in this music is the result of a search for sensory fulfillment and expressive freedom. - Marco Bertoni
Marco Bertoni is a composer, musician and producer born in Bologna (Italy). He began as a teenager by founding the seminal avant-garde rock band Confusional Quartet in 1977 (with which he is still active), then working as an arranger and producer for various pop music publications.
He has composed soundtracks for film (Bigas Luna, Michele Placido), for ballet (Enzo Cosimi) and for theater (Magazzini).
In parallel to all this he has always created and experimented in the areas of electronic and contemporary music.
We recall his first record "18/8/81", "New Machine Voice" made together with Enrico Serotti with the voices of Carmelo Bene, Demetrio Stratos and Kathy Berberian, and the more recent "Wrong Ninna Nanna" with texts by Franco Bifo Berardi for the voices of Lydia Lunch and Bobby Gillespie.
13.silentes.it/private_sounds/sps2251_marco_bertoni.htm |
2022 |
€13.00 |
|
| BESTIA CENTAURI |
Teratogenesis |
CD |
oversized digipack
Bedrohlich klaustrophobische Welten beschwört "Teratogenesis" herauf, einengend nah und intensiv scheinen elektronische Drones & Sounds wie Waffen anzugreifen, wie eine Psycho-Geisterbahn der völlig derangierten, morphenden Art... kein typischer dark ambient, eher düster-industrielle Elektro-Akustik !
"Bestia Centauri is a solo electronic music project begun in 1999. "Teratogenesis" is its fourth release after "Ubbo-Sathla" (Somnambulant Corpse Recordings, 2002), "The Antideluvian Earth" (Afe, 2003) and "The Self Immolation Rite" (Somnambulant Corpse Recordings, 2004).
The aim of Bestia Centauri is to create sonic landscapes that convey a sense of the numinous, the horrific, and the extra-human. Its sounds have much in common with those of electroacoustic music, but the compositional structures generally display a much greater sense of flow. Although Bestia Centauri's music is (to put it mildly) very different, the early releases of Tangerine Dream (circa 1972-1975) remain a tremendous source of inspiration for the composer, along with the orchestral, choral, and organ works of the composers Gyorgy Ligeti (Atmospheres; Lux Aeterna; Lontano) and Giacinto Scelsi.
Older works of electroacoustic or tape music, such as the compositions of Basil Kirchin, Tod Dockstader, and Iannis Xenakis, offer the listener another frame of reference. With the new release, "Teratogenesis", Bestia Centauri defies once and for all the persistent mischaracterizations of its sound as belonging to the "Dark Ambient ghetto". Electroacoustic and computer music elements come brazenly to the foreground, and contribute even more so to the flow of "crawling chaos" that has always characterized and inspired Bestia Centauri’s compositions. The genesis and development of a monstrosity is the theme of this new work, which charts a course from mutated unicellular sonic DNA to the resultant life-form that reaches "from the jaws of the dragon, from the depths of the abyss". With "X" and its deranged rhythmic outbursts, which suggest a creation gone radically wrong, with "Nebular Embryo", a microtonal and minimalist homage to the work of Giacinto Scelsi, and with "E Faucibus Draconis, E Profundis Barathri", a pure electroacoustic work of epic scope, Bestia Centauri demonstrates a new-found range and mastery in its work.
Four years in the making, "Teratogenesis" represents Bestia Centauri's most mature mating to date of flowing soundscapes and electroacoustic sound design. It also represents a point of departure for even more radical works, to come.
This albums comes as an Eibon Records / Afe co-production whose artwork was designed by Chris Donovan of Somnambulant." [label description]
www.eibonrecords.com / www.aferecords.com
|
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| BIANCHI, MAURIZIO & RYAN MARTIN |
As strong as Death is |
do-LP |
Backwards is very happy to announce the Maurizio Bianchi & Ryan Martin "As Strong As Death Is" double vinyl LP.
For roughly the past 40 years, the cryptic tally of works by Maurizio Bianchi has formulated a somewhat religious rite of passage, a communion of tone and definition based around his various devotional phases in his life. Coming to the forefront of industrial music and noise composition in the late 1970’s, just as the world was recovering from the jarring wake left behind by groups such as Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse, Bianchi was bundled within the zeitgeist of extreme experimentation due to the use of provocative subject matter and sonic assault. Though by 1983, Maurizio Bianchi seemed to have “disappeared” after conflicting releases and disappointing acceptance amongst his peers. It was not until the mid-90’s when Maurizio Bianchi resurfaced, now with a focus on spiritual guidance and restraint, that he released varied recordings of his newly sculpted ambient works and re-visitations of his now classic albums from the previous decade. Up until present day, Bianchi has enjoyed a renaissance of interest in part due to his expansive reissues of previous works and his dedication to new recordings, which state that Bianchi is still a zenith in the world of the experimental electronic music.
Around 2008, New York City based artist / musician Ryan Martin, of industrial outfit York Factory Complaint and Copley Medal, started correspondence with Bianchi about the reissue of his mechanically clinical ambient masterpiece, Endometrio, for release on Martin’s co-founded imprint, Dais Records. During this time, Martin was forming his own solo label to release private edition works under the title Robert & Leopold and asked Bianchi to present his recent exploratory violin compositions as the label’s debut release. Since that time, Bianchi and Martin have collaborated in various forms including the release of Bianchi’s recent exploration, Arkeomene, and the featuring of Martin’s artwork on the cover of Bianchi’s contentious single, Amentest. Most notably however was the complex and deliberate musical collaboration between the two entitled “As Strong As Death Is”.
Spanning the course of two years to create, legendary Italian noise composer Maurizio Bianchi and artist Ryan Martin (York Factory Complaint / Copley Medal / Dais Records) took on the pilgrimage of scoring the abstract concept of marriage based on the biblical Song of Solomon. Employing prepared electronics with accompanying strings and tape, this ambient religious collaboration seeks to flesh out the union, to understand the universal desire to be one. Constricted lullabies walk down the aisle to create a consortium of moving, ghost-like consolidation. Mixed ad edited by Anthony Mangicapra (Hoor-paar-Kraat) and mastered by Kris Lapke (Alberich / Hospital Productions). Recorded in both New York City and Opera, Italy between 2010 and 2012, this release was originally released in 2013 as a limited double cassette on Martin's own Robert & Leopold imprint in a edition of 100 copies, which quickly went out of print.
The release comes with a lavish jacket, in two editions: ltd.100 copies on white vinyl and ltd.400 copies on standard black vinyl.
Comes with a coupon for a free digital download.
www.backwards.it
|
2016 |
€20.00 |
|
| BIANCHI, MAURIZIO (M.B.) & CRIA CUERVOS |
Azazel |
CD |
"Three long and “majestic” tracks where Maurizio Bianchi’s typical deep and reverberated sonorities, full of crepuscular melodies and subtle dissonances, get enriched by more electronic elements and fascinating elaborations, sophisticated manipulations and strong dynamic interventions operated by Crìa Cuervos… Three touching compositions built on progressive “crescendos” and a raging of slow sonic stratifications that lead to real “explosions” of sounds, drones, pulsations, frequencies, vibrations… A new, magnificent and very successful collaborative experience." [label info]
www.silentes.net
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| BIRDS BUILD NESTS UNDERGROUND |
So As |
CD |
"So As is Birds Build Nests Underground’s first studio album after three years. It features four songs/compositions created exclusively with turntables and prepared vinyl records. The first of them, 'Sintordin,' is BBNU’s attempt to add something to the “jazz from hell” niche. And the idea of clashing marching bands... 'Ossifying Tongues' started, as the name implies, as a sonic description of the ossification of the mouth: the human voice material was slowly changing into white rhythmic and repetitive skeletons. However, over the years, the song has changed into a different kind of a monster and can be read as a comment on BBNU’s industrial/ambient past. 'Axe Loop' is a rock song – intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, instrumental break, chorus… somehow it is sixteen minutes long – after the band decided to leave out one verse. And finally there is 'Smoking Sun', a short interpretation of the band’s long-lost loop. New Romance meets clarinets on a nicely decorated dissecting table with some flowers in the pot. The fifth is a video track – a 10 minute part of BBNU’s performance from the autumn 2011, the day Freddie Mercury died. Martin Jezek shows his skills of 16mm improvisation here while Petr Ferenc and Michael Brunclík are locked in their favourite groove. The release arrives in a digipak and is limited. It is joint-released by BBNU's own Love Nest imprint." [label info]
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| BLACK OX ORKESTAR |
Ver Tanzt ? |
LP |
Wer auf „osteuropäische“ Harmonien steht, muss hier zugreifen !! Das BLACK OX ORKESTAR ist ein Bandprojekt mit Musikern der Montrealer Szene von SILVER MOUNT ZION, GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPOROR und SACKVILLE, das seit 1999 besteht und osteuopäische & jüdische Klezmer-Musik mit Indie-Rock und FreeJazz-Einflüssen verbindet. Lyrics werden auf Jiddisch gesungen. Melancholische Leidenschaft pur!
“Black Ox Orkestar is a Montreal based quartet formed in 1999
The band features:
* Thierry Amar (double-bass) (Silver Mount Zion/ Godspeed You! Black Emperor/ Molasses)
* Jessica Moss (Violin, bass clarinet) (Silver Mount Zion/ Frankie Sparo)
* Gabe Levine (clarinet, guitar) (Sackville)
* Scott Levine Gilmore (vocals, mandolin, cymbalon, drums, ecc)
(Silver Mount Zion)
The Black Ox Orkestar songs filter the traditional Klezmer tunes through punk rock and free jazz, borrowing turkish/balkan/greek idioms. They are a hypnotic blend of Eastern European songbooks along with some traditional klezmer compositions. Scott Levine Gilmore and Gabe Levine also perform in "Le Petit Theatre de l'Absolu" a political theatre and puppet show. They have toured in occupied territories and have performed in Canada and in USA, France and Spain. Nowadays Klezmer music transcends its Jewish folk roots: Balkans and blues, ancient Jewish culture and prayer and history, spirit, punk rock, and jazz all mixed together and enjoyed by people of all cultures. (Klezmer in english means "instrument of song").
The lyrics are in Yiddish and concern past and current political issues. Yiddish was the language that the Eastern European Jews brought with them when they emigrated to America. At the beginning of the 20th century there were many Yiddish language newspapers and an important Yiddish tradition in theatre. Today it's hardly used as an everyday language but has left its impact on on the speech of the American Jews.
The lyrics of the song "Toyte Goyes in Shineln" are by the poet Itzik
Feffer who belonged to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) and was murdered by Stalin's decree in 1952.
The album is available on CD and 180g vinyl formats, each in lovely
chipboard packaging and both featuring an 8-page booklet. The front cover artwork is an ancient kabbalistic icon and the back cover is original art by Scott Levine Gilmore.
The booklet contains historical and original images, and translation f
the lyrics "Ver Tanzt?" ("Who's dancing?"). On the back of the booklet is a prophetic message from Gershom Schol (one of the most famous researchers of the Jewish mystical tradition and the Kabbala) to Franz Rosenzweig (most influential figure of 20th century European and North American Judaism) dated 26 December 1926.” [press release]
|
2004 |
€16.50 |
|
| |
Ver Tanzt ? |
CD |
Wer auf „osteuropäische“ Harmonien steht, muss hier zugreifen !!
Das BLACK OX ORKESTAR ist ein Bandprojekt mit Musikern der Montrealer Szene von SILVER MOUNT ZION, GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPOROR und SACKVILLE, das seit 1999 besteht und osteuopäische & jüdische Klezmer-Musik mit Indie-Rock und FreeJazz-Einflüssen verbindet. Lyrics werden auf Jiddisch gesungen. Melancholische Leidenschaft pur!
“Black Ox Orkestar is a Montreal based quartet formed in 1999
The band features:
* Thierry Amar (double-bass) (Silver Mount Zion/ Godspeed You! Black Emperor/ Molasses)
* Jessica Moss (Violin, bass clarinet) (Silver Mount Zion/ Frankie Sparo)
* Gabe Levine (clarinet, guitar) (Sackville)
* Scott Levine Gilmore (vocals, mandolin, cymbalon, drums, ecc)
(Silver Mount Zion)
The Black Ox Orkestar songs filter the traditional Klezmer tunes through punk rock and free jazz, borrowing turkish/balkan/greek idioms. They are a hypnotic blend of Eastern European songbooks along with some traditional klezmer compositions. Scott Levine Gilmore and Gabe Levine also perform in "Le Petit Theatre de l'Absolu" a political theatre and puppet show. They have toured in occupied territories and have performed in Canada and in USA, France and Spain. Nowadays Klezmer music transcends its Jewish folk roots: Balkans and blues, ancient Jewish culture and prayer and history, spirit, punk rock, and jazz all mixed together and enjoyed by people of all cultures. (Klezmer in english means "instrument of song").
The lyrics are in Yiddish and concern past and current political issues. Yiddish was the language that the Eastern European Jews brought with them when they emigrated to America. At the beginning of the 20th century there were many Yiddish language newspapers and an important Yiddish tradition in theatre. Today it's hardly used as an everyday language but has left its impact on on the speech of the American Jews.
The lyrics of the song "Toyte Goyes in Shineln" are by the poet Itzik
Feffer who belonged to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) and was murdered by Stalin's decree in 1952.
The album is available on CD and 180g vinyl formats, each in lovely
chipboard packaging and both featuring an 8-page booklet. The front cover artwork is an ancient kabbalistic icon and the back cover is original art by Scott Levine Gilmore.
The booklet contains historical and original images, and translation for the lyrics "Ver Tanzt?" ("Who's dancing?"). On the back of the booklet is a prophetic message from Gershom Schol (one of the most famous researchers of the Jewish mystical tradition and the Kabbala) to Franz Rosenzweig (most influential figure of 20th century European and North American Judaism) dated 26 December 1926.” [press release]
|
2004 |
€16.00 |
|
| BLACK TO COMM |
Alphabet 1968 |
CD |
"Marc Richter alias Black To Comm ist kein Newcomer auf dem Feld der elektronischen Musik. Als Kopf des in Hamburg ansässigen Labels Dekorder hat der Musiker und Designer die Musikfans schon mit zahllosen Kuriositäten beglückt, mit seinen eigenen Kompositionen machte er allerdings am meisten Furore. Richter ist ein Pionier auf seinem Gebiet: Mit Bandschleifen, alten Orgeln und einer Flut zufällig gefundener Sounds schuf er einen ganz eigenen, organischen Drone-Sound. Mit "Alphabet 1968" indes bewegt sich Richter eher hin zu klassischen Mustern, hin zu Songs (in Ermangelung eines besseren Begriffs). Kurze Stücke, die für ihn Meilensteine repräsentieren, die ihn wiederum an seine Lieblingsplatten erinnern. So entstanden zehn
atemberaubende Songs, die über 45 Minuten Weltmusik, Techno, Noise, Avantgarde, Ambient und sogar Exotica streifen, die Reverenzen reichen dabei von Moondog über Basic Channel bis zum Soundtrackkomponisten Bernard Herrmann. Jedes Stück ist mit elektrostatischem Radiorauschen unterlegt, das einen durch das Album wie auf einer alten Senderskala wandern lässt. // A sprawling epic of a record from Hamburg's omnipresent Marc Richter.
Marc Richter (aka Black to Comm) is no newcomer to the experimental music scene. As the figurehead of the Hamburg-based Dekorder label, the musician and designer has brought countless oddities to the attention of rabid music fans in the last few years, but it is with his own compositions that he has made the biggest splash. Releasing for a plethora of labels including Digitalis, Trensmat and of course his own imprint, he has pioneered a new, organic drone sub-genre using tape loops, vintage organs and an inexhaustible swamp of found sounds. With this latest album however, it was Richter’s intention to move away from the epic drones he had made his own and into something more ‘classic’.
The mission statement for ‘Alphabet 1968’ was to write an album of ‘songs’ for want of a better word. Short tracks which represented genre points, the milestones which stuck in Richter’s mind when he thought back to his favourite records. What we arrive at is an breathtaking ten track album which, over the course of forty-five minutes, explores world music, techno, noise, avant-garde, ambient music and even exotica. Each track is linked with a loose thread of radio static or environmental sound, dragging you through the album as if tuning in to a stray broadcast or a particularly adventurous mix.
Richter has pieced the album together from hours of recordings made at his studio with home made gamelan, small instruments and loops gathered from a collection of ancient vinyl and 78 records. The scope of the album is admirable but ignoring this it is simply a shockingly arresting collection of experimental oddities, with references ranging from Moondog to Basic Channel by way of the Bernard Herrmann. It’s not hard to fall in love with ‘Alphabet 1968’, far harder would be to place exactly where the record should fit into your collection." [label info]
www.typerecords.com
|
2009 |
€15.00 |
|
| |
Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens |
LP |
"The music of Black To Comm is as powerfully intoxicating as it is subtly unnerving. The solo project of shapeshifting German producer and sound artist Marc Richter, his mastery of sonic manipulation is matched only by his astounding clarity of vision. Oocyte Oil and Stolen Androgens applies Richter's wild imagination to an exploration of the human voice, standing as some of his most immediate and affecting music to date. Each of his phantasmagoric works is meticulously constructed from an omnivorous array of smudged samples and other sonic detritus, painstakingly collected by Richter from across the history of recorded music or his immediate environment and altered into beguiling new shapes. Sound sources seem tantalizingly familiar and yet often just out of reach, flickering at the edges of the subconscious. Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens compiles new evolutions of pieces written for site-specific installations alongside original works. Taken as a suite, it offers a transfixing survey of the full sonic potential of the voice while honing in on its emotional and human qualities. Remarkably, considering their origin as art installations, the five tracks compiled on Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens stand as some of Richter's most concise and immediate work. In reimagining the pieces for release, Ritcher explains that he "wanted to break away from the notion that pieces for art have to be atonal, or abstract, or difficult". It stands as a testament to the evocative power of his work that even removed from their original context, Richter's synaesthetic compositions alone give a vivid sense of three-dimensional space and narrative. Like psychoactive chemicals blossoming in the stomach, pieces burst and bloom from the recordings into physical space, grounded in the familiar but drifting through alternate realities and higher states of consciousness. In resampling and re-working his own material, Richter actively embraces the inherently liminal and temporal nature of music, each piece existing in a state of constant flux that shifts and bends to suit the myriad contexts in which it is experienced."
https://blacktocomm.bandcamp.com/album/oocyte-oil-stolen-androgens
|
2020 |
€26.00 |
|
| BLOCK, OLIVIA |
Mobius Fuse |
CD |
“Sedimental’s release of the second cd from Chicago based electro-acoustic composer Olivia Block titled Mobius Fuse. This much anticipated follow up to her critically acclaimed debut Pure Gaze(sed cd028) continues her rich and unique exploration of both acoustic and electronic sounds reaching a depth and level of emotional intensity rarely heard in the field.
Olivia Block is a contemporary composer who combines field recordings, scored segments for acoustic instruments, and electronically generated sound. Her recorded work seeks to introduce, set at play, and ultimately reconcile nature with artifice in the realms of music and sound. In the process, "organic" sound becomes subtly processed, digitized and abstracted; "inorganic" sound becomes self-replicating and animate; and "musical" elements such as chamber instruments are de familiarized from their traditional associations, freeing them to participate in the larger aesthetic possibilities of sound. Her pieces are composed over long periods of time in numerous stages. She often prepares elaborate tape installations in natural sites for field recording sessions which she later integrates into her recorded compositions. In live performance, Block introduces additional elements of paradox and tension: chamber musicians perform scores which accompany pre-prepared tape material, and improvisers (often including herself) interact with "lo-fi" speaker installations and digital recordings.
Since its release, her debut solo CD, Pure Gaze (Sedimental, 1998) has been consistently included on radio play lists throughout America and Europe. It was included in Blow-Up magazine's "Top Releases" of 1999 and The Wire magazine's top ten section, "Charts"; and Julian Cowley, in the latter publication, described her as "a composer who demands serious attention." Another of her works, Piece for Scrubbing Tile, was featured in the Modern Museum of Lyon, France in 1998, as part of the Collage Jukebox installation and festival (curator: Jerome Joy). Her recorded works have been used as source material recently by Achim Wollscheid, in his Shifts release (Ritornell/Evolution). Her soundtrack work for Natalia Castro's short video piece, Fire-Fly, helped earn the project the undergraduate video award at the School for the Art Institute of Chicago in 1997. She has recorded with such artists as Jim O'Rourke and Jeb Bishop, and has performed with artists including Pauline Oliveros and Fred Lonberg-Holm. Her radio appearances include WKCR's Live Constructions (Columbia University), WLUW's Something Else (Loyola University), and others. She was a visiting lecturer at DePaul University. She has toured extensively in Japan and has Europe.
Olivia Block is self-taught. She started her musical career in Austin, Texas, in the experimental rock scene in which she played electric guitar and trumpet, sang, and created abstract tapes for play during live performances in several bands. Such tape work led her to her next trio, Alial Straa, an electro-acoustic and improvisational group including Seth Nehil ("Tracing the Skins of Clouds," Kaon records), and John Grznich ("Stomach of the sky," Staalplaat; "Absurd Evidence," Bobby J.) Alial Straa's CD, "Tunnels/Stairwell" is currently out on Alluvial records.
At present, Olivia Block lives in Chicago. Her next collaborative release, Oil and Water, an electronic composition with Petra Klusmeyer, will be released on Boxmedia records." [label info]
www.sedimental.com
|
2001 |
€13.50 |
|
|
Pure Gaze |
CD |
"Block is an electro-acoustic and modern instrumental composer whose recorded compositions combine layered, processed wind and string instruments with processed sound from sections of field recordings she has collected from various natural landscapes. Her performances include minimalistic scored musical sections played live by a quintet accompanied by taped material, often sounds of field recordings, or the same quintet previously recorded and electronically manipulated. Block herself 'plays' found objects and instruments (trumpet). The resulting surrealistic sonic landscapes and the contrast between elements create a paradoxical element to her work. In all of her recent works she emphasizes comparisons between organic or 'real' sounds and electronic ones, and she demonstrates how electronic technology imitates natural evolution using similar sounds from both worlds. She also explores the difference between 'sound' and 'music' and the creation of experience through emotional, subjective or intellectual, objective means." [label info]
www.sedimental.com
|
1999 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Karren |
LP |
"Ltd Edition 500 copies. Karren is a two-movement electroacoustic-orchestral composition. The first movement, Foramen Magnum, is an electroacoustic/concrète piece created from heavily processed field recordings taken from orchestral rehearsals and various public locations, including museums and zoos. The second movement, Opening Night, is a layered orchestral score performed by the Chicago Composer’s Orchestra, with whom I recorded and worked for several years in order to complete this project.
Thematically, Karren includes several personal interests and areas of study, including my recent work in anthropology and sociology. Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor described in The Presentation of Self in Every Day Life is a lens through which the entire composition, presented on vinyl, might be viewed as a metaphor for the self. The act of turning the vinyl disc over to play one side or another highlights the binary quality of the metaphor. Side one of the record plays the chaotic, angular and unsettling “back stage” sounds of Foramen Magnum, while the other side plays the smooth “front stage” sounds-the orchestral layers of Opening Night.
The term “foramen magnum” literally means “large hole” or “large opening” in Latin. In anthropological terms, it is the name of the opening in the base of the human skull that allows the spine to connect with the brain. The position of the human foramen magnum is crucial to the evolution of bipedalism. The titles frame the composition with images of openings-an opening into a human skull on one side of the record and an opening into night on the other side.
Olivia Block creates original sound compositions for concerts, site-specific multi-speaker installations, live cinema, and performance. In a recent feature article in the April 2011 issue of The Wire magazine, Julian Cowley describes Block’s compositions as “finely nuanced textures of environmental material and occasional surges of sonic power blended with an elegant instrumental architecture.” Her compositions often include field recordings, scored segments for chamber instruments, and electronic textures. Additionally, she performs her own partially improvised compositions for inside piano and electronics.
She has performed throughout Europe, America, and Japan in tours and festivals including Sonic Light, Dissonanze, Archipel, Angelica, Sunoni per il Popolo, Outer Ear, and many others. Her works have premiered at La Biennale di Venezia 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music, and she has completed residencies and premiered works at Mills College of Music and The Berklee College of Music. She has taught master classes at several additional universities.
Block has created sound installations for public sites and exhibition spaces including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the library at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, the Lincoln Conservatory Fern Room in Chicago, and at the “Echoes Through the Mountains” exhibit at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.
Her 2008 DVD release with expanded cinema artists Sandra Leah Gibson and Luis Recoder, Untitled, on SOS editions, has been screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and the Expanded Cinema symposium at the Tate Modern in London. Her release Mobius Fuse was voted one of the best albums of the decade by Pitchfork.
Block has published recordings through Sedimental, either/OAR, and Cut, among other labels." [label info]
sedimental.com
|
2013 |
€19.00 |
|
| BLONDE REDHEAD |
Misery is a Butterfly |
CD |
Wonderful album by one of the best spheric / emotional and genre-breaking / transcending “Pop/Rock”-bands of this planet, now on the cult-label from the 80’s / early 90’s, 4AD, and working with strings (i.e. played by EYVIND KANG) !
“Freed from all constraints, Blonde Redhead are beautifully reborn on Misery Is a Butterfly. True, feelings of loss, insecurity, and outright alienation do factor heavily into the record's thematic vision (this butterfly isn't called "Misery" for nothing), but the band's sense of assuredness surrounds the album's themes of vulnerability. Misery Is a Butterfly was recorded before being shopped to a label, but judging by the sound of the album, its eventual release on 4AD seems to have been an inevitability. From track one, the record is lacy and moody, perfectly suited to the one-time home of the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil. The word "lush" doesn't quite capture the fluttering whirls of strings, keyboards, and delicately plucked guitar that open "Elephant Woman"; I'd go so far as to label such enveloping richness of instrumentation "baroque," perhaps even "rococo." For Blonde Redhead's latest incarnation, the softer production simply serves as polish for tarnished, tired guitar, drums and keyboards. Here, the bristling energy that once held would-be sympathizers at bay has been turned inward, resulting in an unprecedented illusion of warmth. "Anticipation", for example, ventures into completely foreign territory for the band; it's vulnerable, yet remains emotionally available, and is breathtaking even in comparison to the band's most typically pretty compositions. Never before have Makino's gentle whispers seemed so genuine or close at hand. The psychedelia-inflected title track and the fractured desolation of "Falling Man" also offer inviting hints of the underlying humanity Blonde Redhead had, until now, been so reluctant to display. Of course, even now, that humanity may be little more than an apparition. Their tales of heartache and desperation have cast Makino and Amadeo Pace-- the emotional heart of the band-- as tragically misunderstood, tortured poets who pin misery on their sleeves, never conceding that anyone else could be capable of understanding their pain. And despite the more inviting nature of Misery's music and production, they remain insular and distant here, as well. Only on "Anticipation" are Makino's vocals as beckoning as their musical surroundings; elsewhere, Blonde Redhead remain as they've always been: beautiful and vacant......”
|
2004 |
€15.00 |
|
| BOCA RATON |
Mansdoof |
CD-R |
Bearbeitete field recordings vom MIXER-Labelbetreiber Martijn Tellinga aka BOCA RATON. Spannungsreiche, nebulöse Soundlandschaften sind hier entstanden, durchdrungen von kaum zu identifizierbaren Konkret- und Geräuschklängen.
“Two new releases on one of the finest CDR labels around, and still going strong. Boca Raton, you are no doubt aware is a city in Florida, but it's also the musical project of Mr. Mixer Martijn Tellinga. After his 7" for his own label, he now releases on Absurd. The release was delayed but it enabled Boca Raton to rework the material according to new working methods learned at his Sonology training in The Hague, The Netherlands. Boca Raton is the man running around with a microphone and a minidisc - taping sounds from the environment. Then he returns to his studio and started treating the sounds electronically. A very traditional way of working of course, but in Boca Raton's instance he comes up with ten delicate nice compositions. What sets him aside from so many others is the fact that he is not interested in making the material 'silent' or 'inaudible' or 'noisy' and 'louder'. He simply crafts ten small pieces of sound. Off hand I could think of one other band that did so, albeit in the past. Much of the work of Boca Raton dwells on the ideas of THU20, a Dutch electro-acoustic group. They too treated their sound with great care and what interested them, and now Boca Raton, was the composition they could make out of it. Everything is well-balanced and placed in the mix, which makes this a truely nice work to hear. Joyful. Skillfull. Two things that aren't always around.” [fdw, Vital Weekly]
|
2004 |
€8.00 |
|
| BORGA, ASCANIO |
Xenomorphic |
CD-R |
"... It seems to me that his music has made a nice step forward. Until now it was all mainly non-rhythmic ambient music in the best Hypnos tradition of heavily treated guitar works, here he adds percussion, windchimes, Japanese carillon, frog guiro, samples, found sounds and objects. Three long pieces and one shorter coda 'Raw Ground' at the end of the release. The music is still largely in the ambient sector, with the addition of pseudo ethnic drumming and careful percussion. Somewhere towards the end of 'Apnea' e-bow guitars come in, adding an extra texture of seventies cosmic music. Still there is nothing new under the sun for Borga, but these new pieces mark an important step forward, the deepening of the sound of Borga. It makes a fuller, richer sound, still with all things beautiful. Borga wants to lull you to sleep, late at night and he does a very fine job at that. " [FdW / Vital Weekly]
"Ascanio Borga is an italian guitarist, electronic musician and independent composer. After years of piano lessons attended during his childhood, he decided to leave formal musical studies to become a self-taught guitarist. He approached rock music and computers, learning to use the famous Amiga 500 Soundtracker. He began to play in various noise-rock bands and to record instrumental pieces for guitar, piano, and sampler, progressively approaching experimental music. In 1997, at the time when he was a student at the Faculty of Cinema, he released a cassette of "lo-fi" electronics entitled "Music For Non-Airports". Soon afterwards he left University to attend a professional course of recording techniques and digital audio, continuing to play in various rock bands for some more time. Later he began to create electronic suites for synthesizers and treated instruments, introducing more personal elements in his compositions, and at the same time he undertook the study of Mathematics. In 2001 he started to publish his music in the form of self-released CD-R albums credited to his own name. In the meantime, having completed his studies, he began to work as a programmer/consultant in the software industry. As an audio technician, besides mixing and mastering his own music, he did mastering work for several other musical productions, and also produced sound effects for various stage plays. Ascanio Borga is also an occasional writer and his personal website includes various movie, music, art reviews and essay about science and philosophy. Among his recently self-released albums we'd like to mention "Inner Geometry" (2001), "Liquid Symmetries" (2002), "Bad Ground" (2006) and "Peripheral Vision" (2007). "Xenomorphic", Ascanio's latest offering on Afe, literally evokes something "with a strange form", something unfamiliar that appears alien to us, defying our logic comprehension, and therefore generating tension, disquietude and even anguish in us, but it represents something terribly vital and dynamic at the same time, something whose possibilities are still unknown. Mixing guitars, bass, synthesizers, samples, percussions, objects, field-recording and even more sources, "Xenomorphic" is probably Ascanio's most evoluted work. With its feet in Ambient territory, the album features a wide range of musical solutions, showcasing the author's will to create a work where appearently distant elements converge and experimentation is put into a more accessible form." [label info]
|
2008 |
€12.00 |
|
| BORIS WITH MERZBOW |
Gensho |
do-CD |
"Renowned Japanese innovators BORIS WITH MERZBOW have teamed up with Relapse for their new collaborative 2xCD/4xLP Gensho, one of the artists' most daring works to date. Named after the Japanese word for "phenomenon", Gensho is a unique release featuring over 150 minutes of new music spread across two CDs and four LPs, available as two separate double LP sets or a deluxe 4xLP edition. The BORIS songs are completely new, percussion-less reinventions of classic tracks from the band's storied catalog, while MERZBOW's songs are entirely new compositions. The two sets are intended to be played at the same time at varying volumes so that the listener can experience their own "gensho/phenomenon" every time. As with every BORIS WITH MERZBOW release, the only thing to expect is the unexpected, lending the album near-infinite potential for aural discovery and encouraging direct interactivity with the listener rarely found in such unconventional music. An untouchable paroxysm of noisy, droning experimentation!"
www relapse.com
|
2016 |
€17.50 |
|
| BORISOV, ALEXEI / OLGA NOSOVA / DAVE PHILLIPS |
Borinosophil |
CD |
listen: https://dave-phillips.bandcamp.com/album/--2
Alexei Borisov - Guitar, Electronics, Voice
Olga Nosova - Drums, Electronics, Objects
Dave Phillips - Bass, Electronics, Voice, Field Recordings
released by Monotype Records, Warsaw in an 'Ecopack' sleeve. artwork by dp.
source material recorded in Moscow in the summer of 2009. most was improvised in alexei's living-room on tiny speakers with an assemblage of instruments and objects. one track was recorded in a studio with drums, guitar, bass and vocals. the resulting hours of recorded material were analysed - most of it was dismissed - the remains were taken apart and reassembled into 5 distinctive and epic sound-compositions. loud intimate music.
arranged 2010/2011 & mastered May 2011 in Zürich by dp.
REVIEW courtesy of Frans De Waard/Vital Weekly # 839 (July 2012)
This disc has the regular performing duo of Russia's finest, Alexei Borisov and Olga Nosova. Together they traveled the world, playing together but also performing with others, such as Anton Nikkila, Matthieu Werchowski, Dora Bleu, Thomas Buckner, Tom Smith, Jandek, Anton Mobin and a_spirale and somewhere along the lines they bumped into Dave Phillips, who is best known for his radical approach to noise, silence, performance and video. This trio worked together in june 2009 in Moscow and the recordings were later on edited by Phillips. It combines the energy unleashed by Borisov/Nosova together with the more continuous sound world of Phillips and occasional rapid editing from him. It seems to me that all three go off their usual path a bit. Its not as loud as I would expect from Phillips (but maybe I am not listening in the same volume as he plays live… actually I am sure of it) and perhaps also less object based as I would expect and it seems less improvised for the duo, although I am not sure. But that leads however to music that is quite good. Densely orchestrated electronics, in which the voice of Nosova is there, but pushed away it seems, and throughout the music has a hypnotic, psychedelic feeling to it. Great stuff.
Includes unlimited streaming of БОРИНОСОФИЛ via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. less |
2012 |
€12.00 |
|
| BOUCHARD, CHRISTIAN |
Fractures |
CD |
"Following the completion of his college studies in guitar, he makes his first recording in 1995, Factotum, devoted to the prepared guitar. At around the same time, he collaborates on the production of radio programs where he performs his first electroacoustic attempts. A year later, these compositions will grant him access to the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. There he completes his master’s degree under Yves Daoust and receives the Prize in Electroacoustic Composition. He receives several prizes in composition: the SOCAN Young Composers Competition (Canada, 1998); the Canadian Electroacoustic Community’s competition Jeu de temps / Times Play (CEC, Canada, 2000); the biennial acousmatic composition competition Métamorphoses 2002 (Brussels, Belgium). His music has been broadcasted in Canada and abroad, but it can also be heard on film and in installations. Christian Bouchard also works as a soundman and sound designer for film and video.
“Angle mort” (2001-02), “Trois miniatures en suite” (1997), “Parcelles 1” (2002-03), “Parcelles 2” (2003)." [label info]
www.empreintesdigitales.com
|
2004 |
€12.00 |
|
| BRETHREN OF THE FREE SPIRIT |
The Wolf shall also dwell with the Lamb |
CD |
"Brethren of the Free Spirit are guitarist/composer James Blackshaw and lutenist/composer Jozef van Wissem. Named after a cult of 13th-century Northern European religious heretics, this duo play with an appropriately zealous intensity. Brethren of the Free Spirit debuted in New York and went on a crusade through the Lowlands, Belgium, Spain, Ireland and London even appearing On the Dutch National VPRO TV show 'Vrije Geluiden.' Intricate phrases circle and spiral in on themselves, and in the end, it's the subtle shifts in rhythm and tonal coloration that provide a kind of transcendence in a sea of repetition. The Wolf Shall Also Dwell With The Lamb was recorded at Locksley Hall, Amsterdam in April 2008. It consists of 4 long circular compositions in which the duo employ all methods of contemporary performance styles to free the lute and merge the two instruments. Intentionally recorded in mono, it's occasionally impossible to tell the two instruments apart. Perhaps that's just what makes this duo so successful -- the players and the instruments become unified in historical references to the musics of both the ancient lute & contemporary acoustic guitar. For example, 'Into The Dust Of The Earth' is based on a classical baroque lute prelude from 1650 by an anonymous composer. The theme is mirrored midway, turning the piece into a palindrome, updating the material in the process. Blackshaw weaves his 12-string tapestry, hypnotically intertwining the lute and the guitar into one modern piece of ancient tunage, bringing the lute into the present day. The drawings on the cover by Belgian brethren Wouter Van Haelemeesch reference Greek myths as well as medieval alchemical emblems by the likes of Michael Maier." [label info]
www.importantrecords.com
|
2008 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb |
LP |
"Brethren of the Free Spirit are guitarist/composer James Blackshaw and lutenist/composer Jozef van Wissem. Named after a cult of 13th-century Northern European religious heretics, this duo play with an appropriately zealous intensity. It consists of 4 long circular compositions in which the duo employ all methods of contemporary performance styles to free the lute and merge the two instruments. Intentionally recorded in mono, it's occasionally impossible to tell the two instruments apart. Perhaps that's just what makes this duo so successful -- the players and the instruments become unified in historical references to the musics of both the ancient lute & contemporary acoustic guitar." [label info]
www.importantrecords.com
|
2008 |
€23.50 |
|
| BRIGHTER DEATH NOW |
Breaking down Nihil-Live |
do-CD |
"Der Angriff and Indiestate Distribution proudly present a very special 2CD release of one of the most influential and famous power electronics projects in the world, a favourite child of Cold Meat Industry mastermind Roger Karmanik - Brighter Death Now. Recorded live during short Russian tour made in September 2009, it is unique since the lineup was made of Russian artists and only Roger himself was a part of the common European live incarnation of BDN. The persons behind Anthesteria and LamiaVox have joined him in Moscow while the guys from Bardoseneticube and 414 were together with him on stage in St.Petersburg. The basic parts of the tracks have been sent to them all in advance, so they have prepared their own vision of this material, thus it was nothing like a spontaneous improvisation or jam-session, but pure conceived and well-organized collaboration. Both shows have been recorded on a multi-channel devices, then carefully mixed and mastered, so the final quality is close to the studio one without losing any bit of the raw energy of live performance. The result is a very fresh and unexpected look on the well-known BDN compositions such as "Innerwar", “PayDay” and “Testing” which should be interested not only for devoted followers of the project but for the wider audience of power electronics / death industrial fans. The real gem in our roster, not to be missed! The release is limited to 450 copies and comes in a special embossed foldout envelope with cardboard inner sleeves.
CD 1: MOSCOW (24-09-2009): Innerwar / Oh what a night / Payday / I wanna die / Destroy / I hate you
CD 2: SAINT-PETERSBURG (28-09-2009): First floor / Testing / Leave me alone / Dödsambient / There is nothing left in this world / Female blood" [label info]
|
2011 |
€18.00 |
|
| BROWN, HANNIS |
Severe Insomnia |
CD |
"Severe Insomnia, the second release by New York-based experimental composer Hannis Brown and his first album for Lumberton Trading Company, is a spine-chilling and unpredictable rollercoaster-ride of a listen. The 11 instrumental tracks run the gamut from musique-concrete tape collages and electroacoustic composition to works for chamber ensembles, orchestra, and solo prepared guitar. Inspired by the meandering and disjunct images that manifest themselves on the backs of eyelids during bouts of insomnia, the music is charged with an instability marked by atonal explosions of saxophones, sedate interludes of electronic and orchestral textures, and nightmarish climaxes of tone clusters. Each piece creates a unique sonic space while contributing to an overarching theme of somnipathy—the anguished screams of “Face Down At Twilight,” the chopped found sounds of “Alice’s Attic,” the churning orchestral textures of “Furies.” Incorporating the microtonal orchestrations of Pendereki and Ligeti with the electro-acoustic spatial compositions of Edgar Varese and frenzied free jazz of Charles Mingus, Severe Insomnia is colored with unorthodox textures and orchestrations. Violins gliss through streams of broken harmonics; tapped beer bottles, spinning coins, and metal garbage cans scraped with paper clips serve as percussion behind the sounds of children’s voices and spiraling woodwind clusters. Strings oscillate slowly in and out of phase with one another; hyperventilating breathing exercises cloaks muddled trumpet and flute.The result is a unique and unsettling suite of compositions: a textural concept work that pushes you to the depths of your subconscious and hold you there. Limited to 500, with the first 25 copies in special hand-painted glass packaging (only available via retail directly from LTCo). Out on 31/01/11." [label info]
www.lumberton-trading.com
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| BUDD, HAROLD / AKIRA RABELAIS |
Avalon Sutra |
do-CD |
"Harold Budd at his very best, coupled with an extra disc featuring a 70 minute re-working by Akira Rabelais. A timeless classic on David Sylvian's Samdhisound label.
It's hard to over-estimate the contribution Harold Budd has made to modern music, his seemingly effortless take on minimalism and ambience imbuing this often academic genre with all the warmth and humility so often missing from the work of his contemporaries. Best known for his collaborations with Brian Eno and the Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, Budd here delivers 14 immensely moving pieces, strewn with Piano cascades and panoramic soundscapes, drifting off into sublime, almost unbearable reflection.
It's a theme that's further developed with the second of the two cd's here, featuring a 70 minute re-working of Budd's work by the remarkable Akira Rabelais: a breathless, beautiful tapestry of midnight strings and echoes of lost piano taking time to unravel, eventually displaying all the warmth and intimacy Budd has spent a musical lifetime striving to perfect."
"On learning that Avalon Sutra will be Harold Budd’s last ever recording, I didn’t know whether to treat this release with a
sensation of happiness or gloom . It seems hard to believe that after 30 years of composing and releasing CD’s, this demi-god
of ambient music will no longer be enlightening us with more of his beautifully crafted pearls; one can only hope that Budd will
reconsider sharing his considerable talent for us all to appreciate.
Armed with this knowledge, it would be easy to write a review that strings superlative after superlative together in Budd's
honour, but the fact is, after you’ve spent a week listening to Avalon Sutra, there is little more you can do except truthfully
recognise what is staring you plum in the face; that from the day Budd released Pavilion Of Dreams in 1978, he never lost his
touch.
Still, there can be no more fitting an epilogue to Budd’s career than Avalon Sutra - 14 tracks of contemplative, blissful, ambient,
melancholy beauty, with a bonus disc, titled As Long As I Can Hold My Breath, that features an hour-long arrangement of
Budd’s work from LA-based composer Akira Rabelais - with additional production from David Sylvian.
From the haunting synthesized opening of Arabesque, featuring John Gibson’s Sopranino sax and Budd’s trademark piano
sprinkles, to the heartbreaking beauty of Budd’s own final piano-treated legacy – the closing As Long As I Can Hold My Breath,
this album is nothing short of phenomenal, and without doubt one of his greatest works to date.
Other than the sumptuous, meditative warmth of the opening track, as soon as the following It’s Steeper Near The Roses (for
David Sylvian) opens, you realise you’re in for a treat, as the painfully bittersweet violin and string arrangements envelope you in
a warmly secular cocoon. Budd then forges his way through a stunning collection of Autumnal compositions, featuring a variety
of moods that range from the achingly sad, to the medatively reflective and upliftingly beautiful, aided by a string of session
musicians (John Gibson, James Sitterly, Peter Kent, John Acevedo, Marston Smith) on saxophone, violin and cello.
Most artists end the career on a low, virtually none will end it on anything as highly creative as this. Don’t miss Budd at his best,
on stunning ambient tracks such as Little Heart and Chrysalis Nu, even his song titles carry emotion – A Walk In The Park With
Nancy (In Memory). I could go on and on trying to describe this album, but words cannot always accurately do justice to music
of such quality and depth. All I will say is that there isn’t a single wasted note on Avalon Sutra.
In a world where backslapping acclaim is over-congratulatively thrown around like breadcrumbs to pidgeons, Budd stands alone
as a class act that truly merits every plaudit handed to him. His music will be missed - in the same way that we miss the autumn
in summer and the spring in winter." [Barcode Review] |
2018 |
€18.00 |
|
| BURNING STAR CORE |
Blood Lightning 2007 |
CD |
"Creeping drones, strange mutilated vocal incursions, and compositions full of unidentifiable sounds both acoustic and electronic. Another classic in sound exploration from the mind of Mr. C. Spencer Yeh. This is the sound of humanity looking into the depth of their soul searching for a reason to continue fighting the daily maze of homo sapien life. The three sisters on the front cover of this album all have the "mark of the devil. Like all No Fun Productions cd's comes in the deluxe classic mini-gatefold style no fun CD case." [label notes]
www.nofunfest.com/nofunprod.html
|
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| BUT I'M NOT (PAWEL GRABOWSKI) |
DAEMON TRANCES I-VI |
CD |
This album is about trauma and PTSD.
The music portrays the emotional loop...
the continuous reminiscing about the traumatic event
the never-ending anxiety and
paralyzing panic attacks...
... from which a traumatized person simply cannot escape.
I call this state the daemon trance
(and, unfortunately, I know it far too well...)
Recorded between January and May 2021 at SINE studio, Ireland.
but I'm not is Pawel Grabowski (processed live instruments, field recordings, objects.)
Mastering - Colin Potter at IC Studio, August 2021
Cover photo: Artur Mieczkowski (www.instagram.com/anxious_93/)
https://silenceisnotempty.bandcamp.com/album/daemon-trances-i-vi
"It's been a long time since I heard music by Pawel Grabowski (check Vital Weekly 414, 424, 492 and 508, but following that flurry of releases, it all went quiet for him. That was "mostly due to family, and life in general". Now he has a new moniker and a new label. The new name is But I'm Not (lower case, except for 'I'), and on 'Daemon Traces I-IV' he wanted to compose that captures that unique state is known only to people suffering from the
aftermath of a traumatic event". According to the cover, it is something that he is "unfortunately all too familiar with". "Each of the six compositions portrays different aspects of what a traumatized person goes through, often every day - the continuous reminiscing about the traumatic event". This is one of those things of which I think "had I not known this, would I have heard it?". I guess not, but my personal view towards music is a very 'absolute' one. Music is never about anything. Anything attached to music to make it about something is not music; they are words used, descriptions, images (a record cover), that kind of thing. Grabowski explains the nature of the trauma for none of these six pieces, which leaves something to imagine, I guess, but also a hole in our knowledge (why not go all the way). Grabowski uses "processed live instruments, field recordings and objects". It is a pity that these live instruments are not specified. I hear a piano on quite a bit on the pieces,
solemnly slow bangs on the keys, Gregorian voices in the first one (which I think that Grabowski went all gothic, but, good news, he didn't), a fair bit of synthesizers and sound effects and the samples of marbles in a bowl (also in the opener). Some of the other sounds are harder to define. Throughout the music solemn, slow and very moody. A bipolar disorder, with some extreme darkness and extreme happiness, is not to be found here. Grabowski reminded me what I thought of his older releases in a private letter, but they are so far away in the past that I don't remember them. Therefore it is not easy for me to say to what extent this new one is different from his previous releases. I think this is a solid album, a severe one, and while the subject is not very well spend on me, I can see that he's serious in creating music that paints a picture of those suffering from trauma and PTSD. [FdW / Vital Weekly]
FULL PRESS RELEASE:
About daemon trances
“Daemon trances I-VI tells a story about experiences of living with trauma and PTSD.
My objective when composing this music was to capture that unique state known only to people suffering from the aftermath of a traumatic event.
And so, each of the six compositions portrays different aspects of what a traumatized person
goes through, often every day – the continuous reminiscing about the traumatic event, the
never-ending anxiety, paralyzing panic attacks...
For my use, I refer to this state as the “daemon trance,” and the music on this album perfectly
represents what I often struggle with in life.”
About Pawel Grabowski
Pawel Grabowski (b. 1977) – composer specializing in writing deeply personal electroacoustic and drone music.
Grabowski uses prepared instruments, field recordings, and objects to create meditative and
hypnotic compositions to convey emotions and create unique atmospheres.
He refers to his music as Imaginism.
Background:
● Although he doesn’t have a formal music education, between 1998 – 2001, Grabowski
studied double bass with a famous Polish jazz bassist, Janusz Mackiewicz.
● He also took private tuition in classical composition between 2000 - 2002, first with prof.
Krzysztof Olczak, then with prof. Eugeniusz Glowski
● He also participated in international composition workshops at the Academy of Music in
Gdansk, Poland, in 2002.
● In 2002, he was selected as one of the artists representing his home city, Gdansk, at the
Art Biennale - “ArtGenda” in Hamburg. He wrote music commissioned for various
projects of the biennale.
● In the same year, he composed a piece commissioned by the Baltic Cultural Centre in
Gdansk, showcased during a presentation of composition students of the Academy of
Music.
Career:
● Grabowski founded a chamber trio, Miasto Nie Spalo, in 1998 and recorded two albums
with the band: Festspielhaus (1998) and Piesni Zalobne I-VII/Threnodies I-VII (2000 -
released on the famous polish label, Obuh recs.)
● Between 2001 – 2006, Grabowski recorded solo, publishing his music on such labels as
Drone records, Laub records, Cronica, Mystery Sea, Dark Winter, and more.
● Since 2020, Grabowski performs as but I’m not and runs a small, independent record
label, Silence Is Not Empty.
|
2021 |
€12.00 |
|
| BUTZMANN / KAPIELSKI |
WAR PUR WAR |
LP |
"Komponist, Hörspielautor und Performancekünstler Frieder Butzmann begann bereits Ende der 1960er Jahre im Bereich experimenteller Musik zu forschen. Butzmann wird zu den Pionieren des deutschen Industrial und als Teil der Genialen Dilettanten Bewegung gezählt. Neben zahlreichen Soloveröffentlichungen kollaborierte Butzmann auch immer wieder mit anderen Künstlern wie Genesis P-Orridge, Blixa Bargeld oder Santrra Oxyd. Mit Autor und Künstler Thomas Kapielski arbeitete Frieder Butzmann seit den frühen 1980er Jahren zusammen. Die gemeinsamen Kompositionen sind zumeist minimalistische Stücke, durchsetzt von Alltagsgeräuschen und Sprachversatzstücken. So zu hören auf ihrem Album "WAR PUR WAR", das 1987 auf Zensor erstveröffentlicht wurde und mit seiner einwilligen Mischung aus verschrobenem Electro-Pop und skurrilen Klangcollagen ein gänzlich einzigartiges Werk ist und über die Jahre zu einer gesuchten Rarität wurde. Ergänzt um zwei Bonustracks, liebevoll remastert, mit aufgearbeitetem Artwork und versehen mit unveröffentlichten Fotos und Linernotes von Frieder Butzmann, erscheint "WAR PUR WAR" nun als Neuauflage auf LP und CD bei Bureau B.
Composer, radio dramatist and performance artist Frieder Butzmann began exploring experimental music in the late 1960s. One of the pioneers of German industrial music and a member of the Geniale Dilettanten movement, Butzmann has collaborated with artists such as Genesis P-Orridge, Blixa Bargeld, and Santrra Oxyd, as well as releasing numerous solo works. Frieder Butzmann joined forces with author and artist Thomas Kapielski in the early 1980s. Most of their compositions are minimalist tracks interspersed with everyday noises and fragments of speech, as can be heard on their WAR PUR WAR album, first released on Zensor in 1987. This utterly unique work is an idiosyncratic mix of eccentric electro-pop and bizarre sonic collages and has gone on to become a sought-after collector’s item. Now lovingly remastered, with refreshed artwork and two bonus tracks, WAR PUR WAR is being reissued on LP and CD on Bureau B, complete with previously unpublished photos and liner notes by Frieder Butzmann."
https://butzmannkapielski.bandcamp.com/album/war-pur-war
|
2020 |
€20.50 |
|
| CAGE, JOHN |
Complete Song Books |
do-LP |
“ … to consider the Song Books as a work of art is nearly impossible. Who would dare? It resembles a brothel, doesn’t it?” John Cage. Volume 3 in the Perihel series on Karlrecords is dedicated to one of the most iconic composers of 20th century: John Cage. All 92 pieces of the “Song Books” in stunning interpretations by Reinhold Friedl, recorded at Rashad Becker’s Clunk Studio who also contributed live electronics.
John Cage (1912-1992) is one of the most important composers in modern music: with more than 250 compositions, many of which are considered key works of New Music, and theoretical essays on composition he significantly changed the way we think about and perceive music today. But Cage not only left a major impact in the academic world, he is also cited as an important inspiration by a wide range of diverse musicians from a younger generation, be it electronic producers, experimentalists or noise artists. His “Song Books”, published 1970 in three volumes, is a collection of open works that contains not only songs but a strange hybrid collection of compositions, graphic scores, meditation rules, experimental settings, absurd musical instructions, performance settings, musical references, and Fluxus-inspired actions such as eating fruits or drinking cognac (Cage loved whiskey and cognac)… - When Reinhold Friedl (director of the ensemble Zeitkratzer) entered the Clunk Studio to record the whole cycle with Rashad Becker (who handled the feedback cabinet and live electronics), the idea was quite simple: to approach each single piece in an informal way but to do all 92 pieces in the right order. What came out in the end is a kaleidoscopic lecture and interpretation of the compositions with the help of a strange mixture of ancient and modern tools: new electronics, old and special microphones, self-built instruments, arbitrary garbage sounds, sophisticated live-electronics devices, quotes… “Complete Song Books” turns out to be an early hymn for sonic freedom, a sonic promenade full of beautiful references.
All music composed by John Cage. Constructed by Reinhold Friedl. Performed by Reinhold Friedl: voice, toys, wooden games, metal objects, complex objects, microphones, garbage… Rashad Becker: feedback cabinet, live electronics. Mastered & cut at D&M, Berlin. Artwork by Lillevan."
|
2016 |
€26.50 |
|
| CAO KELLER SIEDL |
Modulus of Resilience |
CD |
"The title of this debut release by the Swiss-Austrian-Vietnamese trio of Beat Keller on a customised feedbacker guitar, Gregor Siedl on clarinet and electronics, and Cao Thanh Lan on electronics and prepared zither is absolutely programmatic. (By the way, the fact that Lan also calls her instrument “marxophone” does not necessarily have political implications, in fact it was named after instrument builder Henry Charles Marx.) “The modulus of resilience is defined as the maximum energy that can be absorbed per unit volume without creating a permanent distortion” (Wikipedia), and in the three to nine minute real-time compositions on this album, recorded at various live concerts and in studios in Austria and Switzerland in 2018, the trio is constantly testing ways to approach this level of maximum energy.
That does not mean, however, that they are always aiming straight for the noisy breaking-point of high-volume power play, although they repeatedly show that they are perfectly capable of that, high-pitched dissonance between the metallic zither strings and the surging guitar feedbacks included. For Cao Keller Siedl, “energy” means “intensity,” and of course musical intensity can be at its maximum in the quietest moments. Pulsating patterns of high-frequency beats, suddenly emerging dreamy chords, then again deep growls of feedback that come rising up from the lower registers are only a very few of the varied, but never arbitrary, structural devices of this music. The way in which the players manage to craft suspenseful dramaturgy even within only a few minutes' time proves that they have already developed an elaborate shared musical language, and gives this debut album a decidedly mature feel in the best sense of the word. Creating beauty from harsh and tender materials alike, their music certainly has a redeeming quality in facing some of the ugliness of the human condition. So perhaps the title could eventually be programmatic on another level as well, because in psychology, “resilience is the ability to cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly.” (Wikipedia).
www.attenuationcircuit.de/releases/32/cao-keller-siedl-modulus-of-resilience
|
2019 |
€12.00 |
|
| CAPELLE, MIREILLE |
Anello. Naga. Sunyata |
3 x CD |
" “...The Sonic Architecture pieces are constructed geometrically according to a mathematical scheme which is based on the symbolism of numbers. On the basis of whatever drives my senses, I gather together a great mass of recorded sounds from everyday life: the street, the wind, streams, the noise of cars, of conversations, of birds, of singing... accompanied by everything that resonates around them...” — Mireille Capelle
3 Sonic Architectures. Each Sonic Architecture consists of two compositions. Each composition can be played separately. From the moment they are played together and allowed to resonate via 2 CD players and 4 audio speakers, the Sonic Architecture becomes one composition. These pieces make a journey of several hours, or days, before they refind the point of their beginning. The CDs in this box are 3 Simulations. Each CD is a fragment of one of the 3 Sonic Architecture compositions. Anello, Naga & Sunyata were presented repectively at the Axel Vervoordt exhibitions Artempo, Academia & In-finitum.
Mireille Capelle appears in various films and plays, as well as singing a number of different operatic roles. She interprets baroque works with Jos Van Immerseel, sings numerous recitals of melodies throughout Europe and Japan, and she is a singer in the HERMESensemble. Capelle is a Professor at the Conservatory of Ghent, where she is also in charge of the singing department.
Anello • Naga • Sunyata is a production of Inspiratum vzw." [label info]
www.audiomer.org
|
2009 |
€25.00 |
|
| CAPPAROS, OLIVIER & LIONEL MARCHETTI |
Equus |
CD |
"Please Note: This is a 33 minute CD.
Equus is a collaborative work of musique concrète recorded in 2001-02 on a commission from the INA GRM It is truly a delight for Pogus to add this title to our catalog. As Capparos notes: "Equus guides us through human memory and history. It may sound a bit strange that sound & music would appear as a "vehicle", or as we had cast a lead into a labyrinth. This brings us to the question of whether we are alive or not; travelling the path throughout these soundings would drive us down and up our consciousness and our listening, not to mention that we are dead or alive."
Olivier Capparos is an instrumental and electro-acoustic composer whose work encompasses philosophy and literature as well as music. Many of his compositions are focused on voice and its interpretation through loudspeakers. Capparos was composer in residence at the INA-GRM in Paris (2001), the Studio National des Arts Contemporains du Fresnoy (20023), and at the Argos Center in Bruxelles (2004). He has composed and conducted works for chamber orchestra, voice (soprano), violin, and piano, and has co-produced many other recordings and radio broadcasts with Lionel Marchetti throughout their long association.
Lionel Marchetti was born in France in 1967. His interest in music resides in the qualities of sound. He started to experiment by himself and later discovered the rich French corpus of musique concrète through Xavier Garcia. He is one of a handful of artists who in the mid- to-late 1990s took electro-acoustic music out of academic studios and into the free improvisation ring. A scholar who worked at the CFMI (Lyon) and INA-GRM studios and published a book on acousmatic composer Michel Chion, Marchetti developed a set-up of microphones and loudspeakers he uses on stage along with tape recorders, prepared CDs, motors and radios. He often refers to his instruments as an Œelectro-acoustic contraption¹. His musique concrète studio work incorporates sound collage and academic electro-acoustic composition, though the level of poetry and refusal of genre boundaries in his music puts him closer to Kristoff K. Roll and Luc Ferrari than Pierre Henry or Bernard Parmegiani. Following his encounter with Metamkine label owner and fellow sound experimentalist Jérôme Noetinger in the early 1990s, a series of live and improvisation-based projects would run parallel to his more academic career. The Marchetti-Noetinger duo was the first of such projects and remains the longest lasting one. They are also involved in the audio- visual project Le Cube. In addition, Marchetti performs with the influential improv collective Archipel (with Emmanuel Petit, Sophie Agnel, Fabrice Charles, Pascal Bathus, and Werchowski)." [label description]
www.pogus.com
"So mögen wir es: kurz und knackig und mit vielen Generalpausen. Lionel Marchetti und Olivier Capparos sind zwei Akteure, die mit elektroakustischen Klängen die Domäne der spinnert-verklausulierenden Raumklangforscher verlassen und ihr Werkeln und Forschen an allgemein ästhetische und fast schon philosophische Fragen koppeln. Equus, eine Reise durch flockiges Geknister, prutzelnde Plirrgeräusche, fauchend-hüstelndes Tongebäck und vieles mehr, dauert nur eine halbe Stunde. In dieser Zeitspanne nehmen sich die beiden Komponisten – benutzen wir das Wort doch ruhig hier! – nichts weniger vor, als in Klang der Frage nachzugehen, was es ausmacht, am Leben zu sein! Wow! Bitte Alexander Kluge nach ‘ner gescheiten Rezi fragen und mich das Ding weiter auf Köpfhörer liegen lassen. Supertolle Sounddusche!" [Zipo / Auf Abwegen] |
2009 |
€12.50 |
|
| CARR, KATE |
The Story surrounds us |
MC |
"Kate Carr melds the exquisite details of her field recordings with an ephemeral approach to the song. This Australian has relocated herself to London after many trips around the globe. With each orbiting journey, she has collected innumerable sounds from the urbane to the aqueous and from the frenetic to the sublime, contextualizing all of these into compositions rippling with primordial melodies through guitar, piano, and electronics. The Story Surrounds Us follows her highly acclaimed albums I Had Myself A Nuclear Spring (first released on her own Flaming Pines imprint in 2015) and Carr's debut for Helen Scarsdale in 2016, It Was A Time Of Laboured Metaphors.
Emblematic of her work is a gentle dislocation between the environmental sounds and her drone-dub ellipses of somnambulant melody. The clatter of a frozen dock or a vibrational shimmer from rustled objects or the unintelligible whispers displaces the sense of self amidst a sea of disparate symbols and coded thought. More a travelogue in and out of one's own body than to any particular place. Carr suggests "In a way, it is about restlessness, an uncomfortable tossing and turning in all these many different places, a struggle somehow to forge a connection between my own internal world and all these places and persons I have encountered. I think this holds a sense of unease and strain, with both beautiful and failed moments of intimacy and connection which are made either possible or impossible in the difficult and distorted context of being away. It is quite sad, really." Look to Carla dal Forno, Alan Lamb and those moments of clarity in the shapeshifting ethos from Jewelled Antler for neighboring sounds to Kate Carr's chimerical compositions."
www.helenscarsdale.com
"A rather fast follow-up to her last tape (It Was a Time of Laboured Metaphors, also on Helen Scarsdale), Australian sound artist Kate Carr's latest work is another entry in a rapidly growing discography that blends elements of both traditional composition and the unpredictable nature of field recordings. She does this and merges them together seamlessly, coming together as a beautiful set of sounds and moods from across the globe, yet still unified as a part of the human experience.
Elements of The Story Surrounds Us were recorded during Carr’s travels to Iceland, Mexico, Sweden, and Spain, all of which clearly had an influence on the work; most obviously in the natural recordings she utilizes throughout. The tape is bookended by two sets of untreated field recordings from Ólafsfjörður, Iceland that perfectly capture the juxtaposition of her work. The first, "The Creaking Door Of The Abandoned Concrete Factory" is half a minute of just that: creaking sounds of post-industrial decay, capturing the emptiness of what surely was once part of a thriving industry. The end is “Water Lapping at Ice on Melting Lake”: the sound of wet and watery nature decaying, no doubt exacerbated by the same industry.
Between these two most obvious field recordings lay eight songs that are never truly a-musical, but never become overly conventional either. "Things That Stubbornly And Resiliently Subsist Without Leave" features a lot of sparse, delicate guitar playing, but the musicality is broken up by mysterious, more synthetic-like passages that never become unpleasant. This combination also features heavily in "I Didn't Get A Lot of Sleep in Mexico", with light floating tones melded with processed guitar-like sounds, peppered with incidental found recordings and hints of music throughout.
A brilliant pairing of compositions is the untreated recordings of "Communication Wires In Tropical Storm, Si'an Kaan, Mexico", and their appearance in the more compositionally based "We Were The Pulse Of A Wire Pulled Tightly". The former recordings are simply the sound of undulating metallic cables whipped about in heavy winds, taking on an odd beauty that contrasts their significantly more frightening pedigree. On "We Were The Pulse…" they reappear as overt pulses and jittery echoes resonating within electronic swarms and insinuations of percussion. The final product is moody and expansive, but concludes on a much lighter, drifting note compared to its more menacing moments.
Other moments of this tape showcase Carr’s more conventional musical tendencies as well. Gentle melodies are the initial focus on "There Was a Lot of Whispering Involved", with a bit of plucked string being counterbalanced by the heavier subterranean rumble. On the whole it sounds much more traditional, but no less gripping. On the other hand, "1001 (Missed Connections)" begins with crackling voices on a PA system and ugly buzzing noises, but soon is realigned into sustained, yet chilly melodic moments. What even resembles a traditional 4/4 bass drum comes in, but just a bit too briefly.
Conceptually, The Story Surrounds Us continues Kate Carr's focus on studying the sounds of specific locations, as well as the effects of social decay and its inevitable renewal. However, the music is captivating on its own as well: a wonderful blend of composed sound blended with the incidental, ephemeral sounds that surround us at all times, culminating in a strange, sometimes almost alien, but never mundane experience." [Brainwashed]
|
2017 |
€10.00 |
|
| CASAS, CARLOS |
Mutia (special ed.) |
3 x LP |
"While developing my last film about the elephant graveyard myth, I tried to imagine what that jungle and landscape that protected it might sound like. To do this, I created a series of soundscapes, atmospheres to help me understand that park, to imagine it; I tried to place it in the near future, around 2046. All the sounds that make up those sound compositions come from my references throughout the project, and from the atmospheres and radiofrequencies captured during the filming in Sri Lanka; the deep jungles and magical places that helped me undertake that journey. When I finally finished editing the film itself, I decided to rework those sessions, to create an album that would recap that entire imaginary world I had created. The album is a way of inviting audiences to undertake that journey."
Sound compositions, field recordings and radio frequencies by Carlos Casas
Additional sound captured in location by Marc Parazon
Mastering and cut by Frédéric Alstadt at Ångström studio, Brussels
3LP LIMITED ARTIST EDITION 200 COPIES - RED VINYL
GATEFOLD COVER & PRINTED INNER SLEEVES
INCLUDED HANDNUMBERED BONUS VINYL IN TRANSPARENT SLEEVE
INCLUDED ART PRINT
INCLUDED DOWNLOAD CODE FOR AN EXCLUSIVE 99" BONUS TRACK
https://carlos-casas.bandcamp.com/album/mutia
|
2019 |
€45.00 |
|
| CHAOS AS SHELTER |
Dead Air Broadcasts |
CD |
Dunkler Radiowellenäthernoise, der ein faszinierendes Dickicht von blubbernden, verrauschten Radiosinustönen offenbart, in denen sich mitunter verzerrte Stimmen wiederfinden, wie Botschaften aus einer fremden Galaxie. Very succesful new CAS release, totally different from other works but still so dark and menacing..
„This release combines drones with distorted overtones and hints of blip and glitch. Grinding mechanical sounds also add to the mix assaulting the ears with brutal yet melodic power electronic compositions. In addition the album harbors a few tracks that lend themselves more to the dark ambient side of experimental music with the same source materials as the above only with less aggression.” [press release]
|
2002 |
€11.00 |
|
| CHAOTALION |
Tannenholzrauch |
CD |
"Dark fir woods and weird pentagram-esque runes on the cover: How can the contents of this album not be a clichéd, possibly black-metal influenced rendition of the idiotic “stay true to the soil” creed? Well, Alexander Marco has succeeded in tricking us all. His music on this album under the Chaotalion moniker is a vast expanse of breathing, pulsating ambient dreamscapes, cleverly evoking certain black metal genre elements, but totally eliding its ideology.
Marco uses guitar and electronics to create the music on this album, but his textural approach owes a good deal to his work with not-so-musical sounds. A regular participant in the Noise Factory sessions hosted by Y-Ton-G, Marco is also schooled in musique concrète and assemblage of found sounds, and this rather constructivist approach gives this release a refreshingly sober, clear, kitsch-free touch. Actually, the album, with all its packaging and teutonic titles, might well be a conceptual ‘joke’ on certain ‘black’ aesthetics, but the music is too well-crafted to allow for an easy interpretation as a simple parody.
File under: ambient" [label info]
www.attenuationcircuit.de
"Attenuation Circuit Records have been rumbling around for a while. It’s mindblowing how much effort Sascha puts up into his releases, shows, tours, and his activism on the contemporary avant-garde scene skyrocketed the label to the top. It’s no wonder why this is the case considering the number of releases Attenuation Circuit has managed to publish in previous years. The numbers speak for themselves. Tannenholdrauch by Chaotalion is just a tiny particle in the label’s vast universe, but the significant gear on the modern dark ambient scene. The album comprises of nine cleverly layered dark ambient numbers that burst with eerie atmospherics. These eerie atmospherics consist of a wide array of spacey sounds, subtle synthetic drones, occasional guitar experimentations, and delicate non-organic noises. Chaotalion uses calm tones as overtures for his compositions, perpetuated by simplistic ambient keys. The situation becomes complex when the artist includes the mentioned elements to enhance the overall listening experience. The transitions between monotone and polytone sequences are nicely composed, so Tannenholdrauch keeps attention thought complete sessions. There’s a certain accentuation of composite darkness showcased through loads of assorted half-tones. However, Chaotalion maintains a dosage of melody that sounds intentionally odd, but pleasant to the listening apparatus. The artist has also included pulsing sequences at some points to retain listeners’ attention during the exhausting monotone segments. Still, these monotone segments are incorporated to maintain a dark, depressive, obscure ambiance that lurks around throughout the complete album. If that was the intention of the Chaotalion, than the artist unquestionably nailed in his intent to depict macabre imagery through Tannenholdrauch. The album comes with minimalistic photography of the woods, characteristic for depressive black metal bands, and it includes stylized pentagram logo, which serves as a Chaotalion’s symbol. Tannenholdrauch carries the dosage of depressiveness characteristic for the vast majority of dark ambient works, but this particular one provides a more eerie atmosphere than the other artists. Tannenholdrauch has come as a compact disc, and it can be purchased at the Attenuation Circuit Bandcamp page." [Thoughts Words Action] |
2015 |
€8.00 |
|
| CHARTIER, RICHARD |
Continue |
CD |
With his new album “Continue” Richard Chartier presents four minimalist compositions with a focus on deep drones and apparent silences. The music is subtle, delicate and at moments fragile. Full, with details, like delicate patterns that unfold like ripples on water.
With a keen eye on details the compositions reflect Chartier’s earlier work, but also asks new questions.
When is the creative process done? Is art ever finished or does it continue to develop? And how does the listener participate in this? Will they give it full attention using a headphone to hear the smallest detail, or will it be played in the background? How will they perceive the work?
Richard Chartier’s words on Continue:
Over the past few years I’ve been revisiting materials for several long form works: recomposing, restructuring, re-editing, re-evaluating…until they started to break down into separate pieces and segments.
All the while I wonder for each, “Is this done? Is this complete? Why can I not allow this to be finished?” and what is it that draws me back into them.
What determines the completion of sound, of composition, of experience? What determines when it fades—when it’s pressed onto a substrate?
One of the most constant forces in our lives, the sun, is always shifting, undulating, sending forth energy. To us on the ground, it might look basically the same every day, but we don’t notice the subtle changes to its surface. It has no true completion of form.
Upon release, I wonder if these are completed forms. I already feel I need to rework them. Aren’t we unfinished forms, too? Even the forms of recorded aural experience continue to shift as the listener re-interprets and re-contextualizes them in their environments and playback.
The four movements on ‘Continue’ present four variations on the idea of completion.
https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/album/continue
|
2020 |
€12.50 |
|
| CHAUVEAU, SYLVAIN |
Kogetsudai |
LP |
"Kogetsudai is Sylvain Chauveau's 10th album, the second in a trilogy initiated by Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (2010), where the song structure is dismantled and reconstructed on the fringe of silence. Whereas Singular Forms found inspiration from Abstract Painting, Kogetsudai is influenced by Zen rock gardens found in Japan Ñ also the location where the album was conceived (for the most part) Ñ and from which the album borrows its title. Layers of minimal electronic sounds and filtered field recordings meet Sylvain's rich baritone voice, with ghosts of piano. Sylvain Chauveau has made solo records on labels such as FatCat, Type, Les Disques du Soleil et de l'Acier, and Brocoli: very minimal compositions for acoustic instruments, electronics and vocals. He has played live around the world (Europe, America, Asia), performed in museums and art galleries, and was artist in residence at the Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto 2011), Fundacao Serralves (Porto 2011), and Lieu Unique (Nantes 2004). He runs the labels Onement, whose aim is to release one-copy vinyl records (www.onement-label.com) and I Will Play This Song Once Again Records where musicians re-record their songs for each buyer. He has composed a piece titled You Will Leave No Mark on the Winter Snow whose duration is seven years, with extremely long silences inside (www.7yearsofsilence.com). He has made soundtracks for long feature films and dance shows. Sylvain Chauveau also plays with 0 (with Joël Merah and Stéphane Garin), Arca (with Joan Cambon) and On (with Steven Hess). He was born in 1971 in Bayonne (France) and lives in Brussels, Belgium. Kogetsudai is the third album featuring Sylvain Chauveau published by Brocoli, following ON's Second Souffle (with Steven Hess and Pierre-Yves Macé), and the 7 inches The Absence (with Rainier Lericolais)." [label info]
www.brocoli.org
|
2013 |
€15.00 |
|
| CHORE IA |
Postscriptum |
do-CD |
It's a new album by Jacek Wanat aka CHORE IA, released in cooperation with Antenna Non Grata. "Postscriptum" brings five long compositions, which are an extension of the style that was outlined on previous publications. It is a resultant of drone, ambient with elements of experimental electronics. The album, although it sounds very fresh, is kept in the spirit of music from Obuh Rec. We are dealing here with compositions with a slightly poetic character, building a contemplative atmosphere, sometimes taking on a slightly somnabulistic, even ethereal form. This edition has been enriched with the second disc "Neogolizmowa", containing material from both cassettes and a few bonuses from the same period. 2CD edition in a 6-panel eco-pack with artwork, based on Jacek Wanat's graphics and paintings.
credits
released September 12, 2023
Recorded at Studio Czad
Bass, Cello, Voice, Electronics, Other sound objects by Jacek Wanat
Cover artworks by Jacek Wanat
Design by Maciej Mehring
Music & lyrics by Jacek Wanat
"Postscriptum" was recorded at home in Konin
"Neogolizmowa" was recorded by Sławek Mizerkiewicz in Studio CZAD, Swarzędz, October 19, 1994 (cassette released by OBUH Records in 1995)
CD2 contains also 2 additional tracks from 1995 and 3 bonus tracks recorded in the twenties of this century.
cooperation coordination :) Marcin Olejniczak
|
2023 |
€16.00 |
|
| CHROME |
Ghost Machine |
CD |
Chrome was founded in San Francisco in 1975. Their sound wasn't easy to label - being ahead of their time, Helios Creed and Damon Edge created music that featured heavy elements of feedback and distortion.They experimented in mixing synthesized noise with rock instrumentation, therefore they are now seen as part of the post punk movement (even when punk was still in full flow at that time). Their breakthrough came in 1977 with their second album Alien Soundtracks. The band largely abandoned conventional rock compositions, instead employing cut-up and collage techniques and heavily processed sound to create a kind of sci-fi punk style. The album was given 4 out of 5 stars in the UK music paper Sounds, and Chrome began gradually to gain a cult reputation in the UK and in Europe. In the 1980s Damon Edge released several rather electronic records under the Chrome name, but Helios Creed had by that time left the band. He pursued a solo career but picked up the name Chrome again after Damon Edge died in Paris. The album Ghost Machine came out in 2002 on the German Dossier label. It is an often overlooked gem in the band's discography and has been out of print for over a decade. Creed reinstalled all the Chrome trademark sounds mixing electronics with his distinct guitar sound, and unusal production and mixing methods. This new edition comes in a digipack and with remastered sound.
www.klanggalerie.com
|
2017 |
€14.50 |
|
| CHRYSAKIS, THANOS |
Magma |
CD |
" 'Magma' is nearly half hour long electroacoustic piece, recorded in 2011 and presenting one of the best compositions by the artist. For this work, he extensively uses electronic devices, acoustic sounds and field recordings.
Release date is 27th December 2011. Limited edition of 500 copies in jewelcase." [label info]
www.monochromevision.ru
|
2011 |
€12.00 |
|
| CINDYTALK |
The Crackle of my Soul |
CD |
"Written and recorded by gordon sharp at belmont shore (ca), mid-levels (hk) & kobe (japan) 2001-2009. mastered at piethopraxis, july 2009. dedicated to matt kinnison (1965-2008).
Cindytalk have been active since 1982, which we won’t go into here (a quick Google search will satisfy that need). During the 80s and 90s their sound was defined by broken down rock structures and abstract piano ambience. A third side to their coin emerged at the dawn of the 21st Century with a turn towards obscure computer usage pushing all resemblance of melody and conventual texture to the outer edges.
‘The Crackle Of My Soul’ is the first full length to come from this new direction, starting in 2001 and now finally ready for release. Its also the first Cindytalk album since the 1995 release of ‘Wappinschaw’. Although very abstract in nature these 10 tracks still echo the vocal brilliance and subtle beauty that they become known for, as well as pushing back the boundaries making this an essential listen regardless if you are aware of the back catalogue or not.
This is the first in a series of already finished releases, which will see the light of day throughout 2010." [label info]
www.editionsmego.com
"Cindytalk on Mego? It was a shock to see that pairing. Cindytalk has been the sporadic project of Gordon Sharp with a shifting ensemble over the past two and half decades. At first, Sharp's abject post-punk took a gritty, almost industrial growling to the ethereally dark tunes of the Cocteau Twins. Sharp's voice in many ways is the masculine equivalent to Liz Fraser's, just as beautiful and haunting; and the two had paired up on a few tracks through This Mortal Coil and the Cocteau Twins. Cindytalk's two releases in the '80s - Camoflage Heart and In This World - have been secret gems to all those who had uncovered that work, with Cindytalk only emerging a few times since. There was the impressionist Ambient piano record The Wind Is Strong and 1994's underwhelming Wappinschaw. Then, a decade of
silence followed by a limited edition single from 2003 and a brilliant one-sided 10" of drone-rock beauty in 2008. So, it was hard to know what to expect with a 2009 full album from Cindytalk, especially from the digi-centric label Mego.
Here, Cindytalk is just the work of Gordon Sharp; and The Crackle Of My Soul certainly sounds like a Mego record on par with the likes of Pita, Kevin Drumm, and BJ Nilsen, as shards of digital noise are looped and phased into building compositions that glow with a very intense high-end piercing. Not quite Whitehouse territory, it's actually far more glacial and icy in tone. Nevertheless, Sharp's electronics have a way of drilling into your skull. Voice and piano occasionally creep into the mix, but not to the extent that you would hear on any of the earlier records, even the aforementioned album The Wind Is Strong. We have to admit that we didn't love this record as much as Camoflage Heart and In This World; but it's sort of a different beast, and there's a lot of very strong electro-acoustic renderings to be found here..." [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2009 |
€13.50 |
|
| CISFINITUM & THE [LAW-RAH] COLLECTIVE |
[ANS]werk |
CD |
"Russian one-man outfit Cisfinitum and Dutch duo The [Law-Rah] Collective are both dark ambient masters. They dedicated this split and common work to one of the very first synthesizers in the world, the ANS. The ANS, created by Russian engineer E. Murzin from 1937 to 1957, is an incredible response to the synesthesia theories (the letters ANS stand for Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin who linked tones to colours). The ANS synthesizer (only one copy exists and is kept in Moscow) generates special frequencies from drawings ("it plays what you have drawn") and in the opposite it can also create a visible image of a sound frequency. Artists such as Coil, Edward Artemiev (for Tarkovsky's Solaris soundtrack) and Alfred Schnittke used the ANS in their compositions.
For this album, The [Law-Rah] Collective and Cisfinitum based their music on original sounds from the ANS as well as additional recordings of various analog synths, fractal and granular synthesis, voice, violin, field recordings.
They give birth to an intense cold and grey music upon which fly ghosts of melodies, archaic or yet to come...
* Track listing :
* 1. the [law-rah] collective - broken gl[A]ss (9:12)
* 2. the [law-rah] collective - broke[N] mirrors (7:38)
* 3. the [law-rah] collective - broken dream[S] (9:08)
* 4. cisfinitum - tr[ANS] (22:52)
* 5. cisfinitum / the [law-rah] collective - [ANS]werk (7:02)" [label info]
www.feardrop.net/fario
"Fario is not quick with releasing their series of split/collaborative works, but they are usually something to watch out for. There are original tracks by each of the two groups involved and a collaborative piece. At the core of this new release stands the ANS synthesizer, of which only one exist, in Moscow. It was developed by E. Murzin from 1937 to 1957 stands for Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, the crazy composer with synesthesia problems. The synth translates drawings into sound, and was used by the likes of Coil, Edward Artemiev (in the 'Solaris' soundtrack) and Alfred Schnittke. I am not sure, but I don't think that Eugene Voronovsky, a.k.a. Cisfinitum and the Dutch duo The [Law-Rah] Collective actually used the ANS, but they use sounds from the machine, as well as voices, polivoks, violin, field recordings (in Cisfinitum's case) and analog synthesizers and electronics (in the Collective case). Cisfinitum's piece lasts almost twenty-three minutes of utter dark textured ambient
bliss. Dark haunting, like a couple of mad monks chanting in the desolated abyss, before going out on a murder spree. Excellent dark trip. In their collaborative piece things sound slightly less dark and more conventional, in a sort of serious avant-garde way, the sort of Planet Of The Apes soundtrack. In the three pieces by The [Law-Rah] Collective things go under again, into the undercurrent of the styx with dazzling sizzling buzzing and ringing sounds of the analogue domain. Though their pieces are less of monolithic block of drones than Cisfinitum, The [Law-Rah] Collective have a somewhat more open sound, grey rather than black. Not really the type of music to be played alone in the dark. Keep candles burning until the end. An excellent display of the darker world of sonic depth." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| CLUB OF ROME |
Grosse Statik |
CD |
Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self taught or learning by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. Club of Rome was a pseudonym for Asmus Tietchens used on this cassette only release on ADN Records, 1985.
https://www.klanggalerie.com/gg447 /
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NM7Hh0UwHc
|
2023 |
€15.00 |
|
| COH |
Radiant Faults |
CD |
listen:
https://coh-official.bandcamp.com/album/radiant-faults
Ivan Pavlov aka CoH characterizes his latest solo work, 'Radiant Faults', as “the recording of a dialogue,” rather than a set of compositions. Crafted using a rare new synthesizer, the Silhouette Eins, Pavlov’s first encounter with the instrument across a long, late night session resulted in a continuous set of textures, patterns, and subliminal melodies. At some point during the process, he realized he was not alone: “It was as if something was speaking to me through the gear – the feeling was very intense. No matter how determined and specific I attempted to be, the results were something else. They felt like 'responses.’ This instantly reminded me of ELpH.”
ELpH is the name coined by Coil for a “celestial entity” that emanates from electronic equipment at mysterious moments, altering the creative process in unforeseen ways. They devised the term during studio sessions back in 1994, during which sustained software accidents ultimately seemed possessed of supernatural intelligence, spawning its own mythos. As a longtime member of Coil’s inner circle, Pavlov is steeped in ELpH’s ideology and influence – and highly qualified to identify an encounter of his own. Radiant Faults offers a compelling addition to the ELpH canon, at the threshold of music and manifestation, embracing the “divine quality of error.”
The Silhouette Eins is a unique instrument combining the 1920's concept of an "optical soundtrack" with a hardware synth interface to Pure Data: a visual programming language for producing interactive music, using real- time video signal in its synthesis of sound. Pavlov’s attempted manipulations were answered by indecipherable transmissions from some distant, unknowable place. Stark waveforms drone and bend against skeletal metronomes; murmured pulses flicker down empty corridors; high fluorescent tones gleam and glitch in zero gravity – the mood throughout is one of generative whispers, hidden sentience, and ghosts in the machinery. A post-human terrain of scaffolding, shadows, and semi-conscious circuitry, rippling with veiled energies.
Authorship aside, Pavlov’s process is transformative: “What we perceive as an error or mistake could very well be a message coming through. And while we are not able to decipher the message, sometimes – just like from a crack in a surface, or a tear in fabric – a light unexpectedly seeps through.”
https://coh-official.bandcamp.com/album/radiant-faults
|
2023 |
€15.00 |
|
| COIL |
Queens of the Circulating Library (transparent blue) |
LP |
Queens Of The Circulating Library stands alongside Time Machines and Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy For Lilith as a post-industrial pinnacle of sensory-warping long-form drone. Crafted by the distilled duo of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance, the 49-minute piece unfurls in swirling, cyclical waves, tidal as much as textural, channeling the spirit of levitational minimalism pioneered by La Monte Young. Touted as the first part in "a continually mutating series of circulating musickal compositions" upon its initial release in 2000, the album remains a compelling case study in Coil's exceptional capacity for mutation and extremes. The theatrical introductory monologue delivered by Thighpaulsandra's mother - a career opera singer, in her 80's at the time of recording - sets the stage for a grandiose ascension. Written by Balance, the text is declamatory but dreamlike, refracted through megaphone echo: "Return the book of knowledge / Return the marble index / File under "Paradox" / The forest is a college, each tree a university." As her voice fades, the lulling synthetic infinity deepens, congealing into transient crests of volume and haze, like slow-motion surf misting in moonlight. Thighpaulsandra describes their aesthetic intention as a "bliss out," static but shape-shifting, an amniotic drift towards an eternal vanishing point. A supreme sonic embodiment of the slogan on the sleeve of Time Machines, two years prior: "Persistence is all."
https://coilofficial.bandcamp.com/album/queens-of-the-circulating-library
|
2023 |
€25.00 |
|
| |
Queens of the Circulating Library |
CD |
Queens Of The Circulating Library stands alongside Time Machines and Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy For Lilith as a post-industrial pinnacle of sensory-warping long-form drone. Crafted by the distilled duo of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance, the 49-minute piece unfurls in swirling, cyclical waves, tidal as much as textural, channeling the spirit of levitational minimalism pioneered by La Monte Young. Touted as the first part in "a continually mutating series of circulating musickal compositions" upon its initial release in 2000, the album remains a compelling case study in Coil's exceptional capacity for mutation and extremes. The theatrical introductory monologue delivered by Thighpaulsandra's mother - a career opera singer, in her 80's at the time of recording - sets the stage for a grandiose ascension. Written by Balance, the text is declamatory but dreamlike, refracted through megaphone echo: "Return the book of knowledge / Return the marble index / File under "Paradox" / The forest is a college, each tree a university." As her voice fades, the lulling synthetic infinity deepens, congealing into transient crests of volume and haze, like slow-motion surf misting in moonlight. Thighpaulsandra describes their aesthetic intention as a "bliss out," static but shape-shifting, an amniotic drift towards an eternal vanishing point. A supreme sonic embodiment of the slogan on the sleeve of Time Machines, two years prior: "Persistence is all."
https://coilofficial.bandcamp.com/album/queens-of-the-circulating-library |
2023 |
€15.00 |
|
| COLD BODY RADIATION |
The longest Shadows ever cast |
7inch |
"So hard to categorise, CBR is becoming a fiercely original reference in the so called postbm shoegaze movement. Cold Body Radiation pervasive melancholic sound structures are the marriage between trascendence and power of nature.
The two-track vinyl is about the death of the summer, when the light changes and the shadows become very long…
This amazing release is presented as 7” ep hard vinyl limited to 500 copies featuring exclusive brand new compositions for your inner conceptual meditation." [label info]
www.greytone.eu
|
2013 |
€7.00 |
|
| COLLEY, JOE |
Acting As If |
10inch |
"When Joe Colley speaks about his work and even about his life, he shrugs in an awkward attempt to stave off an existential frustration that not only his work addresses but also seems to consume his identity. There are numerous metaphors through his titles that allude to endless failures and a nihilism full of contempt, but Colley also implores a desperate urgency to express these poetics no matter how painful they may be. For three decades now, Colley has been a central and persistent figure in the California noise community. First recording under the moniker Crawl Unit and running the short-lived Povertech label, Colley presented a preternaturally strong acumen of electro-acoustic techniques and abstraction through a vast language of blistered textures, atonal noise, and gnarled drone. By 2000, he dropped the Crawl Unit moniker in favor of his own name with an ongoing discography of damaged yet exploratory electronics.
Colley returns to Drone Records for this 10" on the Substantia Innominata series, many years after his Crawl Unit "Tuscon Mon Amour" 7." In describing "Acting As If," Colley offers a vague series of descriptors: unheimlich, terror of the familiar, and no faith in what is "real." Within the sustained movements of scrabbling textures, motorized abrasions, and uncomfortable harmonics, such conditions are made manifest and Colley amplifies them into something eeriely sublime. All of that held within a self-contained logic that works within and against his deep knowledge of drone-on minimalism, musique concrete dynamics, and the explosiveness of noise culture. His swarming masses, throttled rumbling, and smoldering tension are all encircling and folding in on themselves. Rhizomes of sound that speak poison. Drink up, if it doesn't kill you, it will only make you stronger."
[Jim Haynes / Northern California, 2023]
listen to various CRAWL UNIT + JOE COLLEY tracks here:
https://aftersilencepodcast.bandcamp.com/album/as-31-from-crawl-unit-to-joe-colley
https://www.last.fm/music/Joe+Colley
"MECHANICAL RITUALS: 23 years after his EP for Drone Records (DR-28, as CRAWL UNIT) we are proud to release another / new work of conceptual / minimal / object drone artist JOE COLLEY from California.
We think JOE COLLEY (*1972) is a master of using mechanical object sounds and electronic static, but also strange low fi found sources and field recordings, creating alienating, surrealistic effects, similar to the likes of SMALL CRUEL PARTY, JIM HAYNES, DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE or even the more experimental side of ZOVIET FRANCE...
His newer compositions seem always to be filled with electro-magnetic hummings, strange hissing and the pourings of metallic objects as a basis, but you never find the use real instruments, synths, or masses of effect procession. Thus a very own scent of mystery appears, as all of these radiations are not really from this planet, without any "cosmic" connotations..
For the creator, these sounds are connected with unreal emotions of "Being Lost", a mistrust in what may be called reality, and a general feeling of alienation... - you can only wonder how this can result in such beautiful droning expanses..
Presented here are over 30 minutes of very best new COLLEY material (entitled "Limit / Limit" und "Always I / Always II") => through these drones of strangeness the mind is thrown inside an unrecognizable and confusing realm of broken electricity and something like audible-made atmospheric pressure..
Lim. 300 copies with artwork by dutch designer and micro label hero MEEUW, using a special silver print (on reverse board), BLACK vinyl. glossy black inner sleeves." [press release]
"I don't keep up with Joe Colley's recent releases for reasons I am unsure of myself. Not that there are many of them, but I only heard a few. Maybe his work is these days within installation work or performing? This new record shows Colley as I know him best. He is a man with an ear to the ground or wall; he hears stuff we don't. I believe he uses very few 'real' instruments, and for convenience, I include all things synthesizer (modular, digital, analogue). With his equipment, he records the unwanted sounds from our world. Buzzing, whirring, near broken cables and other forms of electric debris. It's never clear whether his recording devices are great or lo-fi. It could go either way, I think.
Maybe you need great some great electro-magnetic devices to pick up these sounds, but at the same time, when they are relatively low-key, they might have another attractive quality. Get my drift here? We live in a world with many sounds, at least many of us. I like to think I live in a quiet street, but here too, there is a lot of noise pollution. This pollution, so I believe, is Colley's playground. He collects and collates this material into pieces of dystopian nightmare. Coley's music sounds like I imagine the sound of a leaking nuclear power plant, the last breath of a machine park, and the death rattle of our post-industrial society. Unlike some of the other work I heard from Colley, this new work is relatively 'smooth', I must say. There aren't many hard cuts to indicate the final breath of a sound (but they are also not entirely absent), but Colley, this time, uses smoother transitions in the music. Many fragments are slowly cross-faded into the next section, revealing a less brutal element in his work. Or, perhaps, one could say, it makes his music all the more gentle? Or even more musical? Colley applies all the techniques from musique concrète here but keeps much of his source material in what seems to be a pretty rough state anyway. It's dark; it's real, scary, weird, haunting and haunted and, ultimately, beautiful music." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2022 |
€18.00 |
|
| COMES, MARTIJN |
Interrogation of the Crystalline Sublime |
do-CD |
Martijn Comes - Interrogation Of The Crystalline Sublime
"The human being knows himself only insofar as he knows the world; he perceives the
world only in himself, and himself only in the world. Every new object, clearly seen,
opens up a new organ of perception in us."
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I hear atmospheres, sound shapes, gestural narratives, spectral trajectories, stochastic rhythms and phasic space when I encounter an environment rich in sonic phenomena.
But in order to be open to this meta-sensory information, I must first get my ears out of the way. I don't listen with my ears but with an inner sensory apparatus, what Goethe called "organs of perception," that I have developed over the years.
Once opened to this world sound becomes something very different—it's as if one could previously only see in black and white and suddenly were able to see in color. One becomes a witness to a full range of qualities and events that were previously inaccessible.
The drone is not a steady-state sound but a constellation of sound objects that lie hidden beneath a simple surface. The listener can penetrate this surface when they allow time to exist in a space where the past and future collapse into an infinitesimal, yet infinite, moment.
Once inside this space the drone serves as a conduit to other planes of existence and explains why spiritualized cultures around the world have used the drone in their worship for millennia.
The drone integrates us with the supernal, a synesthesia takes place, all of our senses become a singular super-sense: there is no longer a distinction between sound and sight, or taste and touch.
When we experience the world in this way we see the vast web of interconnections and how we deprive ourselves when we divide the world into the narrow-band regions of our senses. It is by transcending these boundaries that we become more fully human and open to the richness the world has to offer us.
Kim Cascone - San Francisco, Nov 20 2015
https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/album/interrogation-of-the-crystalline-sublime
"Martijn Comes is a Dutch composer specialising in new media, sound design and electro-acoustic composition. His hour-long deep-drone piece Interrogation of the Crystalline Sublime was published on the spectacular Drone Cinema 2015 Raspberry Pi (!) release – the kind of gem every dronehead will probably dream of, but with a price tag only few can afford.
So it’s a good thing that the Moving Furniture label decided to reissue this piece in a 2-CD version (ánd digital download of course): CD1 containing the hour-long Interrogation by Martijn Comes, and CD2 containing 8 remixes of that piece by Scant Intone, Mitchell Akiyama, Zeno van den Broek, Alberto Boccardi, Haarvöl, Juan Antonio Nieto, Giulio Aldinucci and Orphax.
Comes describes his work as ‘livingroom music’ (possibly distinguishing itself slightly from Erik Satie’s ‘Musique d’Ameublement’ (Furniture Music), which was meant to be played by live performers).
He set out to “write a piece that is equally meditative as it is harmonious and melodic, or at least it would hint at large subtle progressions of harmony, in a way that is magnetic to the imaginations, while the body remains in a meditative, relaxing state.”
It’s an immersive drone, with hints of a shore in the background, that gradually grows intense and inescapable in its first half and then gradually recedes again.
It is not often that drone material like this gets remix treatments by different artists, so it’s interesting to hear what other artists do with sonic material like this.
Some of the remixers focus on the drone aspect, emphasizing different frequencies thus altering the overall feel. Others filter out artefacts (which can hardly be heard in the original), or add their own material to create abstract electro-acoustic compositions that hardly seem related to the original. Some focus on emotional aspects, others take a more analytic approach. Most of them venture into sonic extremes, thus losing some of the ‘livingroom’ aspect of the original.
But each one of these remixes sound completely different – like if they were original compositions in the first place." [Ambientblog]
|
2017 |
€16.00 |
|
| CONIGLIO, ENRICO |
Teredo Navalis |
CD |
"This work represents a further step into my on-going research on the Venetian Lagoon. I was interested to keep an ecological perspective while focussing on a precise aesthetic. In fact, I considered field-recording practice as a tool for critically investigating the territory. The album is based on sounds recorded via electromagnetic sensors, binaural microphones, hydrophones, contact and condenser microphones. It combines compositions where the sound of water, in itself, is almost left behind. All sounds where gathered during night time in the north side of the lagoon, between the islands of Murano, Burano, Sant’Erasmo and their surrounding sandbanks. Here it is possible to find, on the one hand, aquatic spawning grounds for crabbers, high-tide roosts for gulls and native terns; on the other, boats for the public transportation are moving along the main navigation channels. The result is not a sonic postcard, rather a research process documenting through sounds those marginal areas of the lagoon facing a fragile balance between natural environment and man-made actions."
https://www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=18209
|
2020 |
€13.00 |
|
| CONTAGIOUS ORGASM + KADAVER |
A Tragedy without a Border Line |
CD |
"Collaboration between Hiroshi Hashimoto from already legendary Contagious Orgasm and Michael Zolotov from Israeli power electronics and noise band Kadaver. "A tragedy without a border line" is a mixture of ambient, PE and noisy sounds. Consists of 3 long pieces of musick without frontiers... Bubbling drones, sampled voices, crashes and hums. All packed in a 6 panel digipack. Format: CD digipack. Total time: 55:21"
www.wrotycz.com
"Just so is stated up front, I will admit that I am not intimately familiar with the musical outputs of either of these contributing projects. However I am at least aware that the Israeli project Kadaver works within a broad power electronics and death industrial sound, whilst the long active Contagious Orgasm from Japan has traversed many sounds across experimental, noise, industrial and ambient spheres over the last 25 years.
For this collaborative album, three lengthy tracks are presented spanning between 17 and 21 minutes each. However in actuality the three tracks give the impression of being part of a singular and much larger album length piece, which spans aspects of experimental industrial, noise, and ambient. Given the sprawling nature of the tracks the relatively loose and freeform nature of the compositions is openly displayed, which flow and evolve through multiple segments, rather than adhering to a more focused and composed structure. As such some diverse sonic elements are utilised, ranging from flaying noise, micro-tonal field recordings, humming synth textures, spoken vocals samples, sampled and treated string quartet/ piano samples, pulsing distortion, hazy ambience and droning soundscapes etc. Likewise with the loose combination elements it achieves a hallucinogenic aspect to the bizarrely tinged atmospheres. Effectively the album’s success is in its ability to evokes a dreamlike state, where tracks veer from the intensively nightmarish to the outright weird without being jarring or disjointed.
With my lack of familiarity with both projects I can’t really say which aspects of this may lean towards each individual project, however this may be a moot point as this album has certainly been a surprising and unexpectedly challenging listen. Given the ‘out there’ aspects, clearly this would be an album suited for the more sonically adventurous, rather than for those wanting their fix of a particular genre." [Noise Receptor]
|
2011 |
€12.00 |
|
| CORNER, PHILIP |
Italian Air: Wind, Water & Metal |
LP |
"RICERCA SONORA proudly presents, as its first release (RS1), a new PHILIP CORNER album titled "Italian Air: Wind, Water & Metal (Aria Italiana: Vento, Acqua & Metallo)".
Philip Corner (b. 1933) studied composition with Henry Cowell and Otto Luening and musical analysis with Oliver Messiaen. During the 1960s and 70s he was an active member of Fluxus, a founder (along with James Tenney and Malcolm Goldstein) of the Tone Roads Chamber ensemble, the resident musician and composer for the Judson Dance Theatre, and co-founder of Gamelan Son Of Lion (with Barbara Benary and Daniel Goode).
"Italian Air: Wind, Water & Metal" presents three previously unpublished compositions by Philip Corner recorded in various locations.
On side 1 "Ear Wave" (Venice, October 1994) is a long piece for Korean cymbal in water: an ecstatic composition recorded and played outdoor by Phil Corner; acousmatic interjections of metallic resonances and subtle water sounds; you can listen the distant sound of the midnight bell of San Marco in Venice. On the second side the track "Gong/Ear" recorded in June 1990 (S.Andrea di Rovereto, Italy) Phil Corner plays gong together with rain and thunder for an abstracted and strongly emotional track. Followed by "I Respiri/The Breaths" an avant-garde composition for alphorn and gong recorded in 1992 (at Teatro Scandicci).
In very few words, Philip Corner is one of the most important figure in the American avant-garde." [label info]
www.ricercasonora.com
|
2012 |
€18.50 |
|
| COSEY FANNI TUTTI |
Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes |
LP |
Cosey Fanni Tutti has announced details of a new album, Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes, her original soundtrack recordings for Caroline Catz's acclaimed film about Derbyshire. In 2018, Cosey Fanni Tutti was commissioned to write the soundtrack to director and actor Caroline Catz's acclaimed, intimate portrayal of the composer, musician, and sonic experimentalist, Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001). Best known for her groundbreaking work on the 1963 Doctor Who theme tune, Derbyshire was instrumental in giving easy access to and rewiring a nation's attitudes towards electronic music. Working within the often-stifling confines of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, her experimentalism -- which saw her manipulating magnetic tape, found sounds and electronics -- is only now being given full credit for the immeasurable impact it has had on the way we hear the world. The new album includes the audio explorations and experiments that lead Cosey Fanni Tutti to the final soundtrack for Catz's film. From the four-minute long "Cornet Lament" to the humorous "Snuff Chorus" (which references an addiction that Derbyshire had for snuff), the album is a journey through both Delia and Cosey's practise -- Fanni Tutti spent time researching Derbyshire's archives (both musical and the more personal ephemera of her life) to create an audio world for Catz's depiction of the artist to inhabit. Fanni Tutti explains, "The compositions are inspired by my research of the Delia Derbyshire audio archive, Delia's original compositional notes and techniques which in combination with my admiration and love of Delia's work provided a way to integrate her style and approach to music with my own. An alliance of our sensibilities." The new album follows the release of Cosey Fanni Tutti's new book, RE-SISTERS: The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe and Cosey Fanni Tutti. The music was composed, performed and produced by Cosey Fanni Tutti in Twickenham Studio 3, London and Studio 47 in Norfork, with vocals by Cosey Fanni Tutti and Caroline Catz, alongside the voice of Delia Derbyshire.
Musician, artist, and author Cosey Fanni Tutti has continually challenged boundaries and conventions for four decades. As a founding member of the hugely influential avant-garde band Throbbing Gristle, as one half of electronic pioneers Chris and Cosey, and as an artist channeling her experience in pornographic modelling and striptease, her work on the margins has come to reshape the mainstream. Her first solo album, Time To Tell (1983) was followed by 2019's Tutti and her debut book, Art Sex Music, was published in 2017.
|
2022 |
€30.00 |
|
| |
Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes |
CD |
Cosey Fanni Tutti has announced details of a new album, Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes, her original soundtrack recordings for Caroline Catz's acclaimed film about Derbyshire. In 2018, Cosey Fanni Tutti was commissioned to write the soundtrack to director and actor Caroline Catz's acclaimed, intimate portrayal of the composer, musician, and sonic experimentalist, Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001). Best known for her groundbreaking work on the 1963 Doctor Who theme tune, Derbyshire was instrumental in giving easy access to and rewiring a nation's attitudes towards electronic music. Working within the often-stifling confines of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, her experimentalism -- which saw her manipulating magnetic tape, found sounds and electronics -- is only now being given full credit for the immeasurable impact it has had on the way we hear the world. The new album includes the audio explorations and experiments that lead Cosey Fanni Tutti to the final soundtrack for Catz's film. From the four-minute long "Cornet Lament" to the humorous "Snuff Chorus" (which references an addiction that Derbyshire had for snuff), the album is a journey through both Delia and Cosey's practise -- Fanni Tutti spent time researching Derbyshire's archives (both musical and the more personal ephemera of her life) to create an audio world for Catz's depiction of the artist to inhabit. Fanni Tutti explains, "The compositions are inspired by my research of the Delia Derbyshire audio archive, Delia's original compositional notes and techniques which in combination with my admiration and love of Delia's work provided a way to integrate her style and approach to music with my own. An alliance of our sensibilities." The new album follows the release of Cosey Fanni Tutti's new book, RE-SISTERS: The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe and Cosey Fanni Tutti. The music was composed, performed and produced by Cosey Fanni Tutti in Twickenham Studio 3, London and Studio 47 in Norfork, with vocals by Cosey Fanni Tutti and Caroline Catz, alongside the voice of Delia Derbyshire.
Musician, artist, and author Cosey Fanni Tutti has continually challenged boundaries and conventions for four decades. As a founding member of the hugely influential avant-garde band Throbbing Gristle, as one half of electronic pioneers Chris and Cosey, and as an artist channeling her experience in pornographic modelling and striptease, her work on the margins has come to reshape the mainstream. Her first solo album, Time To Tell (1983) was followed by 2019's Tutti and her debut book, Art Sex Music, was published in 2017.
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2022 |
€15.00 |
|
| CRESHEVSKY, NOAH / IF, BWANA |
Favorite Encores |
CD |
Split-Album mit vier Stücken von NOAH CRESHEVSKY und seiner HYPERREALISM-Musik, dazu 3 Stücke vom POGUS-Label Betreiber und experimentellen Urgestein IF, BWANA. Anspruchsvolle & aufregende Neue Experimentalmusik, basierend auf instrumentalen & vokalen Klangquellen..
"A split cd of works by Noah Creshevsky (4 tracks) and If, Bwana (3 tracks). While on the face of it this may seem a somewhat odd pairing, the pieces recorded here comment on and highlight each other. And as the above quotes suggest, an aural adventure is indeed in the offing.
Trained in composition by Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Luciano Berio at Juilliard, Noah Creshevsky has taught at Juilliard, Princeton University, and Brooklyn College. He was director of the Center for Computer Music (1994-2000) and is currently Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. His musical vocabulary consists largely of familiar bits of words, songs, and instrumental music that are edited but rarely subjected to electronic processing. The result is a music that obscures the boundaries of real and imaginary ensembles though the fusion of opposites: music and noise, comprehensible and incomprehensible vocal sources, human and superhuman vocal and instrumental capacities. Creshevsky's most recent hyperrealist compositions explore the fragmentation and reconstruction of pre-existing music in combination with original synthetic and acoustic materials. Moments suggest musical environments of indeterminate ethnicity--simultaneously Western and non-Western, ancient and modern, familiar and unfamiliar.
Hyperrealism is an electroacoustic musical language constructed from sounds that are recognizable parts of our shared environment ("realism"), handled in ways that are exaggerated or excessive ("hyper"). Hyperrealist music exists in two basic genres. The first uses the sounds of traditional instruments that are pushed beyond the capacities of human performers in order to create superperformers--hypothetical virtuosos who transcend the limitations of individual performance capabilities (e.g., Mari Kimura Redux, Intrada, Favorite Encores). Hyperrealism of the second genre aims to integrate vast and diverse sonic elements to produce an expressive and versatile musical language. Its vocabulary is an inclusive, limitless sonic compendium, free of ethnic and national particularity (e.g., Shadow of a Doubt). Hyperrealism celebrates bounty, either by the extravagant treatment of limited sound palettes or by the assembling and manipulating of substantially extended palettes.
Al Margolis has been working under the musical pseudonym If, Bwana since New Year's Day 1984. There are often collaborators in this project‹both knowingly and unknowingly. Both are represented on this recording. Xyloxings was a concept-based work that in the end had the concept discarded for compositional considerations. Lisa Barnard's vocals were recorded with her direct knowledge. Scraping Scrafide uses a portion of Tony Scafide's piano part from a prior work of mine‹3 Out of 4 Ain't Bad‹and processes it. Cicada #4: Barnard Mix is part of my "discipline" series‹an open set of works‹and uses Barnard's vocals from other sessions to create one of many possible versions of this work." [press release]
"... Creshevsy choose the term 'hyperrealis' for the typical electro-acoustical music he developed. In three compositions on this cd ('Mari Kimura Redux'‚ 'Intrada' and 'Favorite Encores') Creshevsky "uses the sounds of traditional instruments that are pushed beyond the limitations of individual performance capabilities". Creshevsky is a master in the field of audio-collage and plunderphonic-like procedures and leaves us with many questions. For example we often hear violins in his work, playing in a style that we are used from normal classical music. But I'm not sure whether he takes samples from already existing (violin)works by others, or whether he composes pieces for violin first to be used consequently by him in his collage work. Comparable to how Biota works. His compositions make the impression of staying close to classical musical structures, but transcended to unknown heights through his virtuoso manipulation work. The music has an enormous speed and drive, combined with an enormous flexibility and maneuverability. In each piece we are constantly exposed to an intensity and complexity that we don't often find in music. His works open dazzling dimensions and perspectives. On the other hand the music remains fluent and accessible, very lively and of an appealing dramatic. Great work! 'Intrada' is of special interest because of the use of (samples of) the fantastic voicework by Chris Mann.
If, Bwana is the pseudonym Al Margolis uses already since 1984 for his musical output. As a guest he was present on Creshevsky's 'To know and not to know'. Between the highly informed and complex music of Creshvesky, the works of If Bwana offers us some rest. His pieces develop in a slower pace and are built from a smaller set of soundmaterial. In 'Xyloxings' and 'Cicada # 4; Version Barnard', the voice of Lisa Bernard plays a prominent role. For 'Scraping Scrafide' If, Bwana makes uses of the piano playing of Tony Scafide, taking from an earlier composition by If, Bwana. In comparison to maximalistic efforts of Creshesky, the works If Bwana are more of a minimalistic approach." [DM / Vital Weekly]
www.pogus.com
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
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| CUNI, AMELIA |
Parampara Festival 13.3.1992 |
LP |
Black Truffle is pleased to announce Parampara Festival 13.3.1992, a stunning performance by Amelia Cuni captured live in Berlin almost thirty years ago. Milanese by birth and resident in Berlin for many years, Cuni lived in India for over a decade, studying the classical vocal style of dhrupad under masters of the form. Though perhaps known to many listeners primarily through her performances of the vocal music of John Cage and collaborations with Werner Durand and Terry Riley, she is recognised internationally as one of the great contemporary proponents of traditional dhrupad singing. These recordings document her performance at the 1992 Parampara Festival at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, a landmark event celebrating the global spread of Indian classical music, bringing together Indian teachers with their international students.
Accompanied by Gianni Ricchizzi on vichitra vina (a plucked zither played with a glass ball slide) and her own tanpura, Cuni stretches out for a languorous side-long performance of the late night Raag Bageshri, the limpid tones of her vocal improvisations illuminating the droning strings like flashes of the moon revealed by rushing clouds. Initially working patiently through a series of subtle dialogues between Cuni’s melodic extemporisations and phrases in response from Richizzi’s vichitra vina, the performance builds to a series of strikingly beautiful, virtuosic held notes from Cuni at the beginning of its second half, before picking up some brisker rhythmic articulation on the way to its conclusion.
On Devino Amor, Cuni presents her own composition, a setting of mystical texts by the 13th century Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi, elaborated through various traditional raags. Like the words used for most dhrupad compositions, the text Cuni has selected from da Todi praises divine love, thus linking her otherwise unorthodox use of Italian text to the dhrupad tradition. The result is a performance of a yearning intensity that communicates across any language barrier. On the final performance, Cuni and Ricchizzi are joined by Helmut Waibl on the two-headed pakhawaj drum for a piece using a 14 beat rhythmic pattern that sets in motion a cycle of tension and release, metrical dissolution and resolution, possessing a subtle grandeur.
Illustrated with archival images of the performance and accompanied by new liner notes from Peter Pannke and Lars-Christian Koch, Parampara Festival 13.3.1992 invites listeners to lose themselves in Amelia Cuni’s unique approach to ancient tradition.
https://cunidurand.bandcamp.com/album/parampara-festival-1331992 |
2021 |
€21.50 |
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| CUTLER, CHRIS |
Twice around the Earth. An Experiment in listening |
CD |
Ein Hör-Experiment vom Recommended Records-Betreiber, diese Produktion fürs ORF Kunstradio (www.kunstradio.at/2003A/cutler).
Eine unglaubliche Fülle von field recordings werden quasi als „Reise um die Welt“ verarbeitet: ein Versuch, die Subjektivität und Voreingenommenheit beim Hören zu überwinden...
„Out of the Blue Radio ist eine Radiosendung, die in London täglich zwischen 23.30 Uhr und Mitternacht auf Resonance FM (http://www.resonancefm.com), einem unabhängigen Sender für Radiokunst, ausgestrahlt wird. Gestartet wurde das einjährige, budgetlose Projekt im Juli 2002.
Meine Idee für diese Sendung war es, den HörerInnen das Ohr einer anderen Person für jeweils eine halbe Stunde zu "leihen"; ein Fenster zu einer anderen Geräuschkulisse zu öffnen - entfernt oder nah -, die nicht ident mit der eigenen akustischen Umgebung ist. Die AutorInnen, die uns ihre Ohren zur Verfügung stellen, gestalten durchgehende, ungeschnittene halbstündige Aufnahmen von einem Ort ihrer Wahl, aufgenommen zwischen 23.30 Uhr und Mitternacht Londoner Ortszeit; d.h. halb vier Uhr nachmittags in Vancouver, 7.30 Uhr morgens in Peking oder 00.30 Uhr in Wien. Sie schicken diese unbearbeiteten Aufnahmen dann nach London, wo sie wie sie sind gesendet werden.
Ein wichtiger Aspekt des Projekts ist es, ganze Zeitblöcke in ihrer Entfaltung einzufangen; sie nicht zu verbessern oder umzumodellieren zu versuchen; sie nicht den Vorstellungen eines Produzenten, was gut klingt oder ästhetisch wertvoll ist, anzupassen, sondern einfach nur diese Momente einzufrieren. Ort und Tätigkeit sind gewählt, der Rest sich selbst überlassen. Dies sind allerdings nicht Schnappschüsse aus dem Leben, sondern Hörobjekte: Geräusche, die eingefangen werden und in fremden Kontexten reproduziert werden; Sounds, die gerahmt und objektiviert und unabhängig wiedergegeben werden.
Es scheint mir, dass die Beiträge mit ihrer rohen Beschaffenheit, am "Mangel" an Bearbeitung überhaupt nicht leiden - ganz im Gegenteil: sie entwickeln dadurch eine unglaubliche Kraft. Von allen anderen sinnlichen Wahrnehmungen und von ihren lebenden Quellen getrennt, enthüllen sie, was durch die Zwänge des Alltags, durch das wir eilen, unbedacht überhört wird. Geräusche, die instinktiv ignoriert, in Objekten aufgelöst oder absichtlich unterdrückt werden, können durch ihre unmittelbare Irrelevanz und die Gleichgültigkeit von Maschinen, die keine Subjektivität besitzen, zu neuem Leben erwachen.
Selbstverständlich "klingen" diese Geräusche, doch das ist nicht deren "Bekenntnis". Sie verlangen nicht, als reiner Sound gehört zu werden. Sie sind, was sie sind: Autos, Hämmer, Atmosphären - zugleich vertraut und rätselhaft. Und - wie Geräusche, die durch ein offenes Fenster dringen - können sie Beachtung finden oder ignoriert werden. Sie können lediglich eine Atmosphäre tönen - oder die Aufmerksamkeit auf sich ziehen und unser ästhetisches, analytisches und sogar narratives Auffassungsvermögen in Gang setzen.
Als ich gebeten wurde, diese Kompilation zu machen, wollte ich natürlich die Aspekte des Zufälligen und des Unmittelbaren, die so wichtig für das Projekt sind, bewahren. So, anstatt eine Auswahl der "best of" zu treffen oder besonders "interessante" Sounds herauszusuchen, entschied ich, mich von Geografie und Zeit leiten zu lassen. Ich plante eine akustische Reise zweimal um die Welt, wofür 43 der bislang 230 Aufnahmen verwendet werden. Geografische Angaben bestimmten die Reihenfolge der Stücke; der Zeitfluß welche Abschnitte/Orte innerhalb dieser geographischen Zonen gewählt wurden. D.h. ich nahm die ersten 55 Sekunden von der ersten Aufnahme, dann eine Strecke von ca. 0.55 bis etwa 1.50 Minuten von der nächsten usf. durch die Arbeit hindurch. Ich dies aber nicht so genau und entschied beim Anhören erst, wieviel ich von jedem 55-Sekunden-Abschnitt schlußendlich nahm und wo und wie ich die Übergänge gestalten wollte. Anders als die Überblendungen verweilen die "reisenden" Ohren allerdings immer an einem Ort nach dem anderen. Keine der Sounds wurde bearbeitet oder verändert.
Diese freeze-frame Ausgabe von Out of the Blue Radio, die sich eigentlich ähnlich einer Diaschau entwickelt, kann natürlich weder die Ganzheit des Programms noch den kumulativen Effekt, jeden Tag eine andere Welt zu betreten, transportieren; doch ich habe mich an die Priorität des Hörens gehalten, wilde Landschaften zu nehmen, bevor sie gejätet, bepflanzt und verbessert werden. Die täglichen Sendungen, sogar diese Montage, tragen nur leicht die Handschrift von menschlichen Entscheidungen oder Absichten. Der Rest ist, wie er ist.
So wie ich das Stück geschnitten habe, passiert alles, was man hört, während John Scott am Londoner Themseufer entlang läuft, in Hörweite des Big Ben. Das Stück geht John Scott los, der seinen Lauf beginnt, holt ihn bei der ersten Umrundung des Globus ein und kehrt wieder zu ihm zurück als er kurz vor Mitternacht seine Aufnahme beendet. Zwischenzeitlich reisen wir mit virtuellen 49.803 Meilen/Stunde (79.500 km/Sek.) in Quantensprüngen von Ort zu Ort.“ [Chris Cutler]
“An experiment in listening. These compositions are an offshoot of the daily soundscape programme I ran for Resonance FM radio between July 2001-2002, which consisted of commissioned real-time recordings made all around the world between 23.30 and midnight GMT (the time of the broadcast). This CD begins with material from these broadcasts confecting, as it were, two composites of the Earth and a few of its inhabitants, somewhat analogous to what an impossible satellite ear with pinpoint acuity might hear in transit - plus one ear-cleaning stretch between them, taken from a single hear-point. I have tried to make these pieces both open and to work on parallel levels: not only do they have their own narrative and aesthetic qualities, but I hope they also offer a meditation on listening and not listening, interpretation and structure, chance and microphonics. The list of ears around the world who supplied basic material is too long to print here, but it includes many names familiar from these catalogues, and many from the still young soundscape and phonograpic community. Full details of people and places are given in the booklet, along with artwork and thorough notes. You have to trust me on this, it's a really engaging record. Sometimes unbelieveable. I don't think you'll regret giving it a chance.” [ReR]
|
2003 |
€14.00 |
|
| D'INCISE |
Rivages sur l'Antipode |
LP |
"Laurent Peter has produced and released electronic music under the d'incise moniker since 2002, from dub to electronica, gradually opening those styles to electroacoustic experimentations. With his projects Diatribes (an open formation with drummer Cyril Bondi) and Karst (quartet with Bondi, Luc Muller and Abstral Compost), he is also involved in free improvisation, for which he is using his laptop, live treatments and various contact miked objects. These projects have included musicians such as Barry Guy, Keith Row, Jason Kahn, Christian Weber, Norbert Moslang, Hernani Faustino, Joao Pedro Viegas, Tzii and many more. Finally, besides coordinating the insubordination netlabel, dedicated to improvised music, and being a member of the audiactiviste netlabel, Laurent Peter is also active as a graphic designer. Composed on a special request from ini.itu, “Rivages sur l'antipode” (shores on the opposite side of the earth) is his first vinyl LP and is based on similar archival material as the one used by Francisco López in his stunning “untitled #228”. Nonetheless, d'incise has achieved radically different results, combining digitally-processed textures, microsamples and humming harmonics rippling out over broken rhythms. He has collaged the least obvious bits of gamelan, many grainy soundbytes from Jakarta, Makassar, Bandung and Yogjakarta into a kaleidoscopic reinterpretation of these shattered fragments. Sudden transitions, alinear progressions and melancholic, sprawling, autumnal atmospheres reveal a very personal soundworld. This LP could evoke Kim Hiorthoy on sedatives under moist tropics, or an alter-ego of Burial in a futuristic decaying Jakarta won back by the jungle, with hints of digital crispiness from Kid606 période Mille Plateaux; a touch of the microsampling of Akufen, all of this marinated into the experiments in folk deterritorialisation made by some Ritornell artists such as Random_Inc / Sebastian Meissner. Icing on the cake, this LP was mastered by James Plotkin in Philadelphia. 250 copies, hand numbered. Some copies come with a serigraphy made by Laurent Peter himself." [label info]
www.iniitu.net
"On an entirely different nature is the album by Laurent Peter, finally we have a name for D'Incise from Switzerland, who received slighty similar sound material as Francisco Lopez did for his album for this label (see Vital Weekly 711), but Peter does something completely different with it. His main method is sampling the hell out of anything. It perhaps also reveals a bit more what Lopez used, as that was rather a mystery back then. Percussive sounds from Indonesia for instance, which D'Incise explores these for the lowest, grainy textures, chopped up to form new rhythms, cut from 'real' sound and the hiss between. Ini.itu compares this with some of the older and more experimental releases on Mille Plateaux/Ritornell, and I can see that. It shares that somewhat crude approach to sampling, the click 'n cut approach musicians like Random Inc and Kid606 had back then, but D'Incise never comes close to playing any 'dance' related music. The textures are sometimes pretty 'vague', shimmering perhaps, but I think that kind of adds nicely to the record. Its probably the best record by D'Incise I heard so far. The compositions are worked out better, and never seem to take more time than necessary. Very nice." [FdW/Vital Weekly] |
2010 |
€12.50 |
|
| DANIELL, DAVID |
Coastal |
CD |
Erstes (?) Solo-Album des RHYS CHATHAM-Bandleaders DAVID DANIELL, der natürlich auch Gitarrist ist, hier aber auch noch per Analog-Synth generierte Drones, Beckenklänge, leicht Perkussives, und field recordings geschickt verwebt, so dass fliessend-einnehmende "experimental Drone"-Stücke entstehen, aber auch erstklassige hypnotische Gitarrenbasierte Minimalismen. Exquisit !! 58+ minutes, 4 tracks...
"Wenn man jemals das rohe, minimale Heulen gehört hat, das von den nächtlichen Lagerfeuern im Labelcamp von Table Of The Elements aufsteigt, dann hat man auch von DAVID DANIELL gehört, auch wenn man den Namen nicht zuordnen kann. DANIELL ist sowohl der Bandleader des Ensembles von RHYS CHATHAM, als auch Gitarrist für FEBRUARY, die Band von Jonathan Kane. Dazu kommen regelmäßige Auftritte mit Doug McCombs von TORTOISE, Kollaborationen mit Tim Barnes, Thurston Moore und Loren Conners und die Arbeit mit seiner eigenen Band SAN AGUSTIN. Nach einer langen Pause steht nun mit "Coastal" die zweite Soloplatte des Umtriebigen ins Haus, die eine perfekte Synthese aller Einflüsse von David Grubbs bis FAUST destilliert. Verwurzelt im Blues, dem amerikanischen Minimalismus und den Ideologien des Punk spricht DANIELLs Gitarre schon allein wahre Bände, während ihre Fusion mit den elektroakustischen Kompositionen einem den Atem raubt. // Have you heard the raw, minimal howl that rises from the late-night, backwoods campfires at Table Of The Elements? If so, you know the work of David Daniell -- even if you don't yet recognize the name. Daniell is the head of both of composer Rhys Chatham's current ensembles; he's the lead guitarist in Jonathan Kane's rollicking band, February; he performs regularly in a duo with Tortoise's Doug McCombs; he has collaborated with the who's who of today's finest, including Tim Barnes, Thurston Moore and Loren Connors; and his guitar work with his own band, San Agustin, is the stuff of which fleeting blues-drone dreams are made. Following a long break after his debut solo release, Daniell now returns with Coastal. In all its variety, this record is a focused synthesis of influences. Tracks like 'Sunfish' and 'Glasswort' use acoustic guitar reminiscent of work by David Grubbs and Mountains, while the thick psychedelic morass of deep electric guitar, synth drone and scattered tribal percussion of 'Whelk' brings to mind early Faust, and the long-form tone poem 'Palmetto' is pure swirling electronic glacial beauty. Rooted in the blues, American minimalism and post-punk ideologies, Daniell's guitar playing is always inspired; when fused with his intricate electroacoustic compositions, the results are breathtaking." [press release]
www.tableoftheelements.com |
2006 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
I-IV-V-I |
LP |
Ein kleines Meisterk der dronigen Gitarrenkunst ist die achte 12" in der Guitar Series von TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS geworden! Auf gleich vier Stücken schafft DAVID DANIELL (ehemaliges Mitglied von SAN AUGUSTIN) symphonisch-betörende Flächenpolydrones, mal ganz subtil mit tollen Echo-Effekten, mal mit geschichteten Akustik-Gitarren, dann unter Einsatz von E-bows oder Steel Guitars.. vier sehr verschiedene Stücke, alle mit den gleichen Soundquellen geschaffen.
"...The opening track is a monstrous slab of tectonic buzz, layers of rumbling and crumbling distorted guitar, blurred into a Niblockian drift, warm and wavery, smeared and dreamy, but suitably tense and dramatic. Which is followed by a sort of looped Appalachia, steel string guitar, locked into a mantra like progression, the main figure locked into endless repetition, while in the background, a second (and maybe third) guitar offer up pretty little counterpoint and extra steel string buzz, texture and melody that seems to swirl beneath that hypnotic main riff.
"V" is all new age-y drift, another bit of soft dronemusic, laced with subtle layers of hiss and crackle, the melody a distant swell, which all gives way to a sweet melancholy guitar line that is processed into a layer of warm buzzing dreaminess, and finally the record finishes with a mournful, almost funereal sounding steel string buzzscape, that sounds almost like bluegrass, if it was stretched way out into long streaks of metallic shimmer, but Daniell drapes some playful major key melodies over the top, and the two, while seemingly at odds, mesh into something both haunting and mysterious, soft and weirdly pretty. Pressed on super thick, swirled green, yellow and white vinyl. One sided, the other side features an etching by Savage Pencil, housed in a thick PVC sleeve, and as always, VERY LIMITED!" [Aquarius Records review]
"8th installment in the Guitar Series Vols. 3 & 4. Daniell leads the troops in RHYS CHATHAM's guitar armies; he was a member of Jonathan Kane's rollicking band FEBRUARY; he performs regularly in a duo with Tortoise's Doug McCombs; & his guitar work with his own band SAN AGUSTIN, is the stuff of which fleeting blues-drone dreams are made. With influences rooted in blues, American minimalism, & post-punk ideologies, his guitar playing is always inspired, when fused with his intricate electro-acoustic compositions, the results are breathtaking." [label info]
www.tableoftheelements.com
|
2008 |
€17.00 |
|
| DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE |
Casual Praise of Domestic Calamities |
CD |
"Another attempt to dissolve any kind of structures from DSM, something like micro-concrete Noise, very small bits and pieces are put together in fast sequences, sometimes it climaxes in harsh outbursts, radiowaves are appearing as well..... comes in nice box on our favourite British anti-music label." [Drone Rec. info 2005]
"Edition of 500. All compositions by Guido Huebner, created between 1999 and 2004 in Caen, France and Berlin, Germany. Sections of track 6 recorded in the studio for electro acoustic music at the arts academy of Berlin. Field recordings for track 8 and 9 were carried out at the harbour of Hamburg, Germany, as well as at the shores of Lower Normandy and in the countryside around Caen, especially the bridges trespassing the canal between Caen and the sea." [label info]
„Guido Hübner, Ex-Berliner und seit über zwei Jahrzehnten ununterbrochener Noisebastler, kommt tatsächlich mit einem neuen Album auf richtig fertiger CD und obendrein auf dem Label, das uns bisher lediglich bzw. fett selbstbewußt ein Album der New Blockaders auftischen konnte. Neulich kamen schon mir leider unbekannte DSM-Kompositionen auf Vinyl-On-Demand, die CD aber, soviel läßt sich sagen, knüpft definitiv an DSMs frühere Versuche an, Form völlig aufzulösen, bevor sie sich als greifbar und folglich interpretierbar entblößt. All die tausend kleinen, dreckigen noises passen ganz sicher auf eine CD, das steht fest. Aber Hübners einzigartige Anordnung dieser Unjuwelen an sound (eine Anordung übrigens, die offenbar ohne Wiederholung auskommen will) übertrifft ganz sicher alle banalen Versuche, die Harmonie zwischen diesen unvereinbaren Geräuschen auszumachen. Form ist immer Harmonie und somit Mittelmaß. Vielleicht ist es genau dieser Gedanke, den DSM in uns wachrütteln wollen; und natürlich gelingt es ihnen perfekt.“ [Ed Benndorf , de:bug]
|
2005 |
€13.00 |
|
| DAUBY, YANNICK |
La Riviere Penchee |
LP |
Faszinierende, sanfte Flusslandschafts - field recordings from “magic acoustic reality” – Meister YANNICK DAUBY ! Stark limiertiertes Vinyl-Album.
"Yannick may be best known for his collaborative work with mnortham and Thomas Köner. La rivière penchée is located near his home in Lyon. From what he has told me, there is a rock shelter-like structure on one of the banks of the river where he decided to collect these recordings. We have the pleasure of hearing richly textural compositions made up of recordings taken at the rivers' banks, the manipulation of found objects, and some electronic elements. As one might expect, the record reflects a snapshot of a place -- running water, stones, soil, metallic timbres, wind, rain, and even bats -- all electronically altered so the sounds become something recognizable, but different. He has woven these sounds together into six pieces that span about 40 minutes. For some reason, we felt that the music found here is best suited for vinyl. Perhaps it is the organic quality of what Yannick does. Strictly limited edition to 280 copies." [label press release]
“Yannick Dauby succeeded in producing a more than excellent LP, which fit a small but strong tradition.” [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2004 |
€15.00 |
|
| DEATH AMBIENT (HIDEKI, KATO / IKUE MORI / FRED FRITH) |
Synaesthesia |
CD |
"Death Ambient's (Ikue Mori, Kato Hideki, Fred Frith) eponymous debut CD was released in 1995 to great critical acclaim and continues to be one of Tzadik's best sellers. Synaesthesia is the long awaited follow --up and it finds them exploring new territory. Thirteen powerful new compositions blending vivid colors and complicated textures both electric and acoustic. Dark moods, minimal beauty and exquisite noise from three of the world's leading instrumental innovators." [label info]
www.tzadik.com |
1999 |
€15.00 |
|
| DEISON |
Substrata |
10inch |
"Italy's Cristiano DEISON enriches the experimental sound and noise art community with his releases and various collaborations (lately with JOHN DUNCAN, GIANLUCA BECUZZI and K.K.NULL) for more than 20 years, but seems to be still undiscovered by too many listeners. "Substrata" collects three extremely crystalline and immersive drone pieces based on prepared tapes, metals, strings, wires and electronics... imagine a forest glade in moon-light with cold white sonic radiations, half-frozen calyx are clanging at each other, liquid metallic forms appear and disappear, hypnotic slow motion pulses suck you into.. "something"... these are incredible strong, deep and complex drone compositions, drones with the spirit of the "Noise Culture" - using "fragmentation, collage, arrangement and layers", as Germano-Chinese philosoph Lutz Schridde puts it.
Sounds of elementary transformations, metamorphosis, and overcoming the usual sense of time: "..where sounds are conceived as they are “excavated” from the earth beneath our feet “Terra Firma” (erosion) and then taking to the light (awakening); it describes its interior solid surface (“Prima Materia”), the
primitive formless base of all matter similar to chaos, the quintessence or aether." [Cristiano Deison]
ed. of 300 copies pressed on transparent green vinyl, artwork Cristiano Deison, 32. min playtime
https://soundcloud.com/drone-records/deison-substrata-side-a |
2020 |
€15.00 |
|
| DEL POZO, ARTURO RUIZ |
Composiciones Nativas |
LP |
BUH RECORDS IS PLEASED TO PRESENT A MASTERPIECE OF PERUVIAN AVANT GARDE MUSIC "COMPOSICIONES NATIVAS" (1978) BY ARTURO RUIZ DEL POZO - LP REISSUE
By the end of the 1970s, a new generation of musicians who brought together ancestral and forefront, became visible in Lima as they searched for native sounds and the new tools of technology. Amongst them, we find Arturo Ruiz Del Pozo, composer who studied with Edgar Valcárcel. After studying at the National Conservatory in Lima he traveled to London in 1976 to register himself at the Royal College of Music where he took a master's degree in electronic composition. Ruiz Del Pozo had left Lima with a bag full of Peruvian native instruments with the idea of utilizing them in his future compositions. In London he was taught by Lawrence Casserly, one the prominent figures of Britain's electro acoustic composition; a musician who was fascinated by the interaction of instruments and electronic media way back from the times of his fundamental audiovisual experimentation group Hydra. Ruiz del Pozo utilized a series of concrete music resources learnt from Casserly. Based on sounds that came from native instruments and diverse manipulations to which these sounds were subject of, he obtained textures and sonorities, which, at the same time they invoked rituals, they opened a new field of experimentation; a collage of sounds of Andean reminiscence, echoes and abstractions, which will entrance you an unprecedented sound universe. These recordings were named Native Compositions (Composiciones Nativas) and they were released in a cassette tape format in 1984 by the author himself. More than 30 years later Buh Records rescued these recordings to inaugurate its Essential Sounds Collection, dedicated to publishing strange and fascinating artifacts of Peruvian experimental music of this period, in a CD edition (2015), which was quickly sold out. Now the label presents its first release on vinyl.
https://buhrecords.bandcamp.com/album/br66-arturo-ruiz-del-pozo-composiciones-nativas-1978-sounds-essentials-collection-vol-1
|
2018 |
€21.50 |
|
| DELPHIUM |
Snowhill X (SOLD OUT) |
7inch |
a strange and unique blend of ambient Industrial with sometimes even dub-rhytmical-tunes; low-fi and very deeply frequenced... reminds on SCORN or early COIL sometimes! A very own style...
first edition
250 copies, clear vinyl,
handmade cover art with printed
linoleum finishing/center piece
released May 1997
"This outfit from berkshire, uk, has gained some attention through the releases of several self-produced 7"es in the past few years, which showed a great variety and mixture of influences, all combined in an experimental
manner to reach unknown fields of musical creation. One can find elements of industrial, techno & ambient & even rock in the songs of Delphium, that are mixed and varied into a kind of "low-fi" homerecording-style that is sometimes dark & melancholic, sometimes rhythmically pulsating and even danceable. As this is really hard to describe we recommend this 7" to everyone who is able to confront him/herself with a musical style that can't be sticked into a musical drawer, that is always surprising and shifting (some people even
compared it with early-coil!). This e.p. contains 4 tracks of a darker nature,
spheric electronics, noises and guitars with a very cineastic character... [label info]]
"This group proceeds from the british school of guitar-noise groups (such as their friends and colleagues Splintered), combining experimental
music elements within the rock format. However Delphium are strangely different from this. Having appeared near 4 years back and having written currently a variety of works on the small independent labels (mainly 7" singles;
the long awaited CD "How Can You Hide from What Never Goes Away?" has seen the light of day only recently through Outsider), they continue dubbed bass studies in combinations with sampled technological rhythms and guitar.
Their sounding is a strange and unique mixture of ambient-industrial, dub-rhythmic tonality, low- and exceedingly deeply frequencies of low-fi-darkness, harmonics, repetitive noise-feedbacks, industrial drones and voices, riffs
and gloomy electronic depths, melancholies and more active rhythmic beat-pulsations,
reminding a strange dance on the edge of trance and claustrophobia, freely based on the firm foundation of their creative ideas. Written in the style of homerecording, their work reminds Scorn or even early Coil in places, but their own style is individual.
The recording of four compositions for "Snowhill-X" was made in 1995, but mixed only recently, having present getting dark sullen fall in tones of spherical electronics play "Unforgiven", polished extremities with thick
striking sounding of title composition, finishing with massive wall of guitar sounding, oppressive drone-philosophies of internal sample cogitations of "Stringsong 1" and strange keyboard canto with knocking time and again on background gloomy spheres of "Lie to Me". Manual design on the linoleum, best work."
[Achtung Baby!]
SELECTED WORKS:
Delphium/Lull (7", split, Aquese, 1994)
Delphium/Husk (7", split, Aquese, 1994)
Delphium/Sheephead (7", split, Alleysweeper, 1995)
Breeding Bad Blood (7", Outsider, 1996)
Delphium/Big City Orchestra (7", split, Aquese, 1997)
How Can You Hide from What Never Goes Away? (CD, Outsider, 1997)
|
1997 |
€ |
|
| DELPLANQUE, MATHIAS |
La Plinthe |
CD |
Empfehlenswerte CD dieses Komponisten aus Nantes, LA PLINTHE bewegt sich zwischen digitaler microwave-ambience und spannender Electronica. Bedächtig, elegant, intelligent gemacht..
“La Plinthe” opens with crackling and sizzling noises, then settles into a rhythm of subdued explosions, which leave prismic debris in their wake before fading into the void. Instead of introducing a philosophical analysis of the relation between sound and silence, the first track serves as a sort of meditation, guiding the listener into the core of the album and shutting out uninvited outside noises. Even the glistening drone of the second part is merely a messenger, before a delayed bass and rustily breathing ambiances create the illusion of safety in an entirely alien territory.
It is here, in the middle section of the work, that Delplanque truly unpacks his talent. Comforting hiss, consoling crackles and flirring chordal fenlights are held together by the power of deep, resonating bass vibrations, as tracks settle into the groove of strangely consoling wordless Dream Dub. By locking the body in subtle movement, he is able to caress the sweetly drugged mind with brushstrokes of abstract noises. Even though the record descends into a dark cave towards the end, the grand, eight minute finale picks the listener up again, shining a path through the darkness with a majestic piece made of nothing but a stoically hit piano key over an undulating continuum of swelling hums, a warm impulse drone and the suggestion of rhythm by means of evolving patterns made from grating and gravelling timbres. [label info]
"It has taken some time, but a new generation of experimental musicians, respecting these demands intentionally or by instinct, is making itself heard. Delplanque is one of a few select players who stand a serious chance of reaching beyond the outer edges of a small niche. While his contribution to international trio project The Missing Ensemble may be more pronounced, almost aggressive even in its translation of inorganic sources into emotive compositions, his solo work is fueled by a personal approach capable of touching the listener in the sentive area of his heart. If “Le Pavillon Témoin” (from previous year) sounded as though he were trying to achieve this by means of allowing acoustic instruments and hints of melody and harmony into his oeuvre, “La Plinthe” does away with these luxuries and sheds whatever notion of the old world there might have been. The real aim of this radicality is neither benevolent shock nor progress for progress’ sake, but rather attaining a sense of coherency and of interrelatedness between the album’s building blocks. In an orchestra, there is no intrinsic connection whatsoever between a piano and violin. In Delplanque’s symphonies, however, their faintly shimmering echoes are like brother and sister. “La Plinthe” opens with crackling and sizzling noises, then settles into a rhythm of subdued explosions, which leave prismic debris in their wake before fading into the void. Instead of introducing a philosophical analysis of the relation between sound and silence, the first track serves as a sort of meditation, guiding the listener into the core of the album and shutting out uninvited outside noises. Even the glistening drone of the second part is merely a messenger, before a delayed bass and rustily breathing ambiances create the illusion of safety in an entirely alien territory. It is here, in the middle section of the work, that Delplanque truly unpacks his talent. Comforting hiss, consoling crackles and flirring chordal fenlights are held together by the power of deep, resonating bass vibrations, as tracks settle into the groove of strangely consoling wordless Dream Dub. By locking the body in subtle movement, he is able to caress the sweetly drugged mind with brushstrokes of abstract noises. Even though the record descends into a dark cave towards the end, the grand, eight minute finale picks the listener up again, shining a path through the darkness with a majestic piece made of nothing but a stoically hit piano key over an undulating continuum of swelling hums, a warm impulse drone and the suggestion of rhythm by means of evolving patterns made from grating and gravelling timbres. You need to like these sounds, these delicate crackles and the fireplace-metaphorics they evoke in order to enjoy the album as a whole. It is no longer possible denying their aesthetics by hiding behind a smart concept, simply because there is none. On the other hand, that is exactly why “La Plinthe” works in such a magnetic and rich way: Even though it offers a depth of structures Pop and Rock could never muster, it forces the listener to either hate or love it. Whatever your pick: Kissing your lover to a piece of sound art, no longer seems like a ridiculous thought.." [Tobias Fischer, Tokafi]
|
2008 |
€15.00 |
|
|
Drachen |
LP |
"News from Ici D'Ailleurs Mind Travels Series: Mathias Delplanque is an artist from Nantes who was born in Burkina Faso and has close links with the ambient, electronic, electro-acoustic and concrete musical spheres as well as dub and field recordings. His approach is therefore intimately intertwined with the creation of sound. Sound in the physical sense of the term, sound which goes through your body modifying your perception without ever giving into the academism which can sometimes be found in music in the field of pure musical sound research. There is no question of theorization here - rather questioning all the possibilities which enable an artistic vision to be pushed to reach its pinnacle. Mathias has been perfecting this approach to music for 15 years name under his own name or different pseudonyms (Bidlo, Lena). However, the premising underpinning the album we are discussing today is slightly different from that of his other productions. Normally Mathias takes his time to finely and obsessively sculpt his work down to the smallest detail but here Drachen (Dragons in German) reveals itself to be a much more direct and incisive album. Taking the idea that impurities can also give life to music as a starting point, he set himself a constant working rhythm and the aim of adding interference rather than the sublime going so far as to create actual interference with his mobile phone to disturb the rhythm and harmony of his compositions. By his own admission, he works urgently to induce mistakes or accidents to liberate himself from his own automatic reflexes. Drachen is therefore a dangerous album both for its author and for listeners. However the result remains impressive because, even though questioning accepted ideas is an essential facet of the record, there is an intact sensibi lity which provokes emotion. All sorts of instruments (guitar, bass, melodica, kora, synths etc.) are run through live electronic processing and he manages to bring a beautiful melancholy - even a certain tenderness - out of this sonic mass despite the roughness of the overall sound. The record is made up of 7 highly distinct pieces which nevertheless fit together as a coherent whole. Although instrumental, Drachen is a largely narrative album which recounts its own story. It is a necessary reminder that just sound and consequently silence are fantastic vectors for communication. At the end of the record, an eighth track makes an appearance to prolong the story and provide a conclusion for the album. The track is introduced by 2008 field recordings from the village of Gandefabou in northern Burkina Faso and offers a calm environment full of humanity.
It is heavy with meaning given the current situation of this region of the world struggling with jihadism. "Vielleicht sind alle Drachen unseres Lebens Prinzessinnen, die nur darauf warten uns einmal schön und mutig zu sehen".
"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage." RAINER MARIA RILKE, Letters to a Young Poet " [label info]
www.icidailleurs.com
|
2015 |
€16.00 |
|
| |
Chutes |
CD |
"What a pleasure it is to see an artist develop, mature, and produce his best album yet – and, even better, for Baskaru! After 14 years of activity as a composer, Mathias Delplanque has refined his art to the point where, at age 39, he delivers a true masterpiece called Chutes.
After several years spent creating highly conceptualized sound installations and electroacoustic compositions (Ma chambre quand je n'y suis pas being one of many highlights), Delplanque has designed for himself a work station that allows him to step away from a studio's logic to record, transform, edit and mix sound sources all at once in a live setting. Using real objects, instrument samples and computer, he spontaneously builds aural gems that hide a frantic level of activity under their occasionally serene looks. And that frenzy is not fake, since all the tracks on this album are edited from live solo performances (recorded between 2010 and 2012), with no overdubs.
Mathias Delplanque is active in several new music spheres, as a composer, an improviser, a performer, a music reviewer, and a teacher. He is known in electronica circles under the monikers Lena, Bidlo, and Stensil. In the field of sound art, he makes sound installations, electroacoustic compositions, field recordings, and more recently electronic improvisations. He owns the Bruit Clair label."
www.baskaru.com
|
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
| DI CROCE, NICOLA |
Clinamen |
12inch + artwork |
download + handmade artwork curated by Caterina Gabelli, ltd. 111 copies
The concept of "clinamen" derives from Lucretius's "On the Nature of the Universe", and describes the swerve of the atoms from their original straight course. Such deviation generates collisions, and allows changes in the relationship between elements. By using the metaphor of clinamen, the album narrates the process of inventing by diverting from any usual methodology, thus encountering unpredictable solutions. The music combines different commissioned sound works together with field recordings from various mediterranean cities, and the unique timbre of Gabriele Mitelli's trumpet.
Compositions and recordings: Nicola Di Croce
Featuring. Gabriele Mitelli
Mastering: Anacleto Vitolo
Cover: Caterina Gabelli
13.silentes.it/private_sounds/sps1826_nicola_di_croce_clinamen.htm
|
2018 |
€24.00 |
|
| DI SCIPIO, AGOSTINO |
Hörbare Ökosysteme |
CD |
" “Das komplexe Gefüge von Einflüssen, denen Schall auf seinem Weg von der Quelle zum Ohr unterworfen ist (...) ist das Aktionsfeld der Musik von Agostino Di Scipio.“ (Linernotes) Seine Kompositionen entstehen auf der Basis sich selbst steuernder und regulierender Systeme. In den live-elektronischen Studien „Hörbare Ökosysteme“ „dienen einfachste Schallsignale oder gar nur der Geräuschhintergrund des die Mikrophone beherbergenden Raumes als Input für autopoietische Prozesse, in deren Verlauf die Parameter der digitalen Signalverarbeitung sich stets weiter den resultierenden Klangformen anpassen (...).“ Zwischen knisternden Inseln Ryoji Ikedaischer Digitalsounds entstehen punktuell oder fließend gesetzte Rückkopplungen, die kontrolliert tastenden Erkundungen der Klangmöglichkeiten durchführen. Ebenso arbeiten die Interpreten in den gemischt Instrumental/live-elektronischen Stücken. Sie lauschen ihren, von der Elektronik zurückgeworfenen Klängen und passen ihr weiteres Spiel den veränderten Sounds an. In steter Umarmung mit der signalverarbeitenden Software und in Abhängigkeit vom Raumverhalten setzen Bassflöte, Bassklarinette, Violine, Violoncello, Klavier und Vibraphon forschende Instrumentalbewegungen, welche die Konzentration der Zuhörerin/ des Zuhörers reichlich belohnen.
„Sounds making ist way from the source to the ear is subjected to a complex nexus of influences. This is the operation field for the music of Agostino Di Scipio.“ (linernotes) His compositions are built up on the basis of complicated cybernetic procedures. The newer studies „Hörbare Ökosysteme“ are purely live-electronic. „In these works the most simple sound signals, or even the background noise of the space housing the microphones, provide input for autopoetic processes which continously adjust the parameters of their digital sound synthesis and transforming processes to the resulting sound shapes.“ Between crackling islands of Ryoji Ikeda-like digital sounds you hear particular pointed or flowing feedbacks carrying out the possibilities of sound in a controlled tentativ research. Also the players of the combined instrumental/ live-electronic pieces are working in this way. Listening very closely to the transformed sounds resounding from back from the sound system, they adjust their actual sound production to those transformations. Caught up in the system of sound processing software and the spaces aural signature, bass flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano and vibraphone searchable put together instrumental movements which amply reward the listeners concentration.” [Peter Schlewinski for Drone Records]
|
2005 |
€16.00 |
|
| DIDKOVSKY, NICK |
Tube Mouth Bow String |
CD |
Fünf Stücke des Impro-Gitarristen & Komponisten NICK DIDKOVSKY (bekannt von DOCTOR NERVE & Zusammenarbeiten mit FRED FRITH, er spielte aber auch mit KEITH ROWE, ERHART HIRT, etc..), der mit einem Streicherquartett zusammenarbeitet und konzeptuell auch Computersoftware einsetzt. Fette Drones, Violinen, recht abseitig und rauh, Polydrones mit noisigen Ausbrüchen, sehr intensiv & klasse arrangiert, definitiver Drone-Tip !
"....These pieces are about the details of musical evolution that emerge from rule-based compositional systems. Using electric guitar, string quartet, electronics, and computer software, we explored territories held together by systems of agreements, forms specified in software, real-time musical choices, and notation.
Two of the compositions here, She Closes Her Sister With Heavy Bones and What Sheep Herd, are process pieces whose scores fit very economically on one page. Each score specifies melodic material and a short set of rules. The music precipitates from the interaction between the score¹s specifications and the decisions that the musicians make during performance. By contrast, Tube Mouth Bow String is a through-composed piece which notates foot pedal movements, vocal behavior, and bowed string performance, overflowing very uneconomically onto many pages which we pasted onto large poster boards and set before each player. Though this piece leaves no real-time performance decisions to the ensemble, Tube Mouth is a process piece in a very real sense, as the process was first specified, executed, and auditioned in software, and finally transcribed to common music notation for live performers. Improvisation (simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult of all real-time process pieces to perform) is included here as well, with a solo MachineCore performance providing a bridge between She Closes and Tube Mouth. Closing the CD, Just a Voice That Bothered Him sounds like it could have been composed systematically but evades rules instead, being composed intuitively by ear. The piece emerged in opposition to one vividly frustrating weekend of fruitless systematic composition, and for that, gets the last word." [credit notes]
www.pogus.com
|
2006 |
€13.00 |
|
| DIE ANARCHISTISCHE ABENDUNTERHALTUNG |
#1 |
LP |
LP version. Marbled vinyl. In 1995 the self-titled full-length debut of Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung (DAAU) was released. The band consisted of four young, "classically derailed" musicians who played their own compositions exclusively with their with acoustic instruments such as violin, cello, clarinet and accordion. Their work contained influences from Roma music, Eastern European folk, klezmer and jazz, and was performed with energy and true punk spirit. DAAU was part of the fertile Antwerp scene, which also produced dEUS, Zita Swoon, and Kiss My Jazz, and soon signed an international record deal with Sony Classical. The group's influential first record, which has been out of print for a while, is now finally being released again and is available on vinyl for the very first time.
https://subrosalabel.bandcamp.com/album/1
In those early days, DAAU consisted of four young, classically trained musicians who tackled their instrumental compositions with a true punk spirit. 'If we'd had guitars, bass or drums at that time, we would probably have been just another rock band', says accordionist Roel Van Camp, who, together with his schoolmates Buni Lenski on violin, the latter's brother Simon on cello and Han Stubbe on clarinet made up the Antwerp quartet. 'With our acoustic instruments we tried to create our own version of the music we loved listening to, from sixties rock and prog to new wave.'
The quartet, which initially played in streets and cafes, appealed to a diverse audience and sometimes joked that they were a classically trained unit that had 'gone off the rails'. 'As befits teenagers, we wanted to shake things up', Stubbe remembers, 'even though we always kept cherishing our classical backgrounds.' Van Camp: 'Our education was never supposed to feel like a straitjacket. We were free-spirited enough to ignore the laws and regulations of the music academy and to create our own sound. Our compositions were
open to influences from Roma music, Eastern European folk, klezmer and jazz'. 'That eclecticism was a direct result of the zeitgeist', Han Stubbe adds. 'We loved different styles and happily mixed them together'.
The monniker Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung was derived from Steppenwolf, a novel by German writer Hermann Hesse about a character who was outside society. 'In the book, the narrator talks of a theatre', Van Camp explains. 'And at the entrance there is a warning sign sign that says: if you go in here, you are guaranteed to lose your mind. That was an apt description of the way our music worked'.
Almost all tracks on DAAU's first album were 'Drieslagstelsels' (or 'three-course rotations'). The term referred to an agricultural method of the early Middle Ages, but also to the fact that each song of the group consisted of three major movements. Van Camp: 'The titles of those pieces referred to our method of writing. We piled up a huge bunch of ideas, because we wanted to tell more than just one story. With each composition, we took the listener for a ride'.
|
2023 |
€17.00 |
|
| DMT |
Ultimatum |
CD |
"DMT “Ultimatum” is the second album in “Die Zeichen” series run by kultFRONT and ZHELEZOBETON labels. The first part was released in 2013 - Sal Solaris “Die Scherben 2004-2010”. The new album is a tribute to Dmitriy Tolmatskiy who unexpectedly left us in 2009. Dmitriy was one of the few journalists who popularized the alternative culture in Russia. In late 90-ies he created the web portal RWCDAX and his famous “Industrial Culture Extended FAQ” which unveiled previously unknown layers of post-industrial art for many Russians.
“Ultimatum” shows the varied musical and stylistical planes of DMT. It mainly consists of compositions never officially released before, taken from CDRs which Dmitriy gave to his friends. There are also a few tracks from the compilations he had time to participate. Unfortunately not always were there notes and years of recordings. One track was digitized from an untitled audiocassette kept by the musician’s friends in his native city of Saratov. The album provides a glimpse into various periods of DMT’s sonic experiments from 1999 to 2008. It also features fragments of a live performance together with Alexei Borisov in St. Petersburg in December 2005.
For bandcamp users there is a bonus archive of three compositions. One remix by DMT of the Species Of Fishes track. One remix of DMT track by the Ghost Reflection project. And an extended version of the title track from the unreleased album “Cold Autumn in Belgrade” recorded in 2000." [label info]
kultfront.bandcamp.com
|
2015 |
€12.00 |
|
| DONIS |
Без Гражданства (No Citizenship) |
LP |
This long-planned LP is dedicated to a very close man of the author – his grandfather. Based on the story of his life, it reflects the post-war Lithuanian near border residents’ fates. Some were killed, others exiled or remained in the occupied territory of the Soviet system, which is an equivalent to the internal deportation or capitulation and surrender, hypocrisy. However, it turns out that even in such circumstances there’s possible a silent one person's resistance against the entire system. In the dark Soviet times album’s hero dared to defy the executive instructions of their actions on the grounds that he was not a citizen of this country. In the events of turmoil, it can be considered a miracle that the latter had survived, but had not been exiled to the northern camps. He was issued an identity document “БЕЗ ГРАЖДАНСТВА” (in Russian, “No citizenship”).
Album compositions encode the post-war era’s symbols from child’s memory while listening to the stories of relatives. "So called Wolf's children – children wandering alone in East Prussia, which were protected by good people. "Flowering Gardens" – a generous harvest greeting exiles that returned home. "Cult servant" – a multi-layered and complicated personality and social status. "GEBURTSORT: SZINDAITSCHEN" – inscription in grandfather's personal documents indicating the place of birth, current Žindaičiai town. "1977” – the symbolic year in which the album’s hero died, and a few months later, LP’s author was born.
The record is done using only acoustic instruments and ambient sounds of the authentic grandfather's life places: the remaining houses, attics with old craftsman’s tools, native whistling winds of Žindaičiai and chirping birds, church, yellow rusted documents and photographs, squeaky steps in Jurbarkas’ town cemetery...
"БЕЗ ГРАЖДАНСТВА" is a melancholic, atmospheric instrumental ambient album for the human condition, when you become a stranger in your own homeland, imprisoned in a trap and a hard choice: to flee or to stay.
www.autarkeia.org
|
2016 |
€23.00 |
|
| DORELLA, BRUNO |
Paradiso |
CD |
Italian musician and producer Bruno Dorella guides us to \"Paradiso\", his new solo album, with the music for the homonymous choreographic project of gruppo nanou, to be released on CD and digital on November 25th, 2022 by the independent label 13 / Silentes.
\"Paradiso\" was born for the choreography of the new show by gruppo nanou, a contemporary dance and performing arts company, founded by Marco Valerio Amico, Rhuena Bracci and Roberto Rettura. The collaboration between Dorella and the company has started almost a decade ago and over time has also involved Ronin and OvO, the main bands of the Ravenna-based musician - OvO were on stage in 2021 for Canto Primo: Miasma | Arsura, an encounter between sounds and infernal images, with Dante\'s recurring reference.
But there is more than this. \"Paradiso\" is also the first electronic music album made by Dorella who, during the lockdown period, focused himself more and more on softwares. The tracks are composed according to the bodies and the choreography of the show. Dorella says: \"The composition took a long time. The choreographic needs, and the effect of music on the bodies, often led me to think with a broader perspective. Me and the members of gruppo nanou started the work from mutual suggestions and gradually we understood each other faster and faster. We defined a common conception of rhythm, deciding to work on apparently \'off-grid\' rhythms, creating the illusion of something wrong together but perfectly timed. In reality, these rhythms are parallel planes that travel in time with each other, even if out of phase.\"
\"Saturno\" is the first single taken from \"Paradiso\" and contains the fundamental elements of the entire work. That is, parallel, overlapping, sinuous rhythms, apparently out of phase but which \"turn\" together. In addition to abstract guitars and breath as the only source of voice.
According to gruppo nanou: \"Bruno has composed a choreographic work. We have verified together how sound can accommodate the body and be in dialogue with the scenic action. It was a transitive operation between scene and sound, bodies and the material density of sounds, vibrations and motion. The beauty of this musical work is that it is concrete matter and at the same time it is a precise thought. All the rules and limitations that we set for the creation of the show - regarding choreography, sound, lights and scene - have managed to be assimilated to become creative resources and therefore to become exact viscera.\"
The journey of \"Paradiso\" is articulated into thirteen tracks and ends with the title track, which is also the brand new single from the album and the only episode that can be assimilated to an \"alien\" song-form, featuring Francesca Amati (Comaneci) on vocals. Dorella speaking: \"We always thought that, at a certain point, we needed a \'song\'. With Francesca there is a long-standing collaboration and gruppo nanou loves her tone of voice, so it has always been clear that she would be the one to sing the song. But she had to do it in a non-existent and unidentifiable language. So, I broke down the syllables of what Francesca had sung, recomposing them with a new result.\"
In Dorella\'s long and eclectic career, \"Paradiso\" is only his second solo record, following \"Concerto per chitarra solitaria\", created for a contemporary classical music festival and released in 2019 by Bronson Recordings. \"I always thought of ensemble music, never really in the solo dimension, and I always imagined that if I ever made a record on my own and with my name on it, it would be related to pure composition\", Dorella explains. Active since the late 90s, Bruno Dorella is also known under the pseudonym Jack Cannon and was a member of Wolfango, as well as founder of OvO, Ronin and Bachi da Pietra, and more recently of Tiresia and the GDG Modern Trio, as well as an element of Sigillum S. \"Paradiso\" is the first record that testifies his experience in the field of theater music, developed through collaboration with various theater and dance companies.
\"Paradiso\" is a collective effort among the contemporary research dance company gruppo nanou and the artist Alfredo Pirri. Its path begins in 2021 and continues until July 2022 through appointments, called sketches, intended as the progressive deepening and development of research and tests for the construction of a performative process that removes the concept of the beginning and end of a performance, as well as its front use.
The space is intended as an active place in which to immerse oneself, creating an impromptu community that accesses the performance as it happens in a museum exhibition. \"Paradiso\" is the beginning of a common journey starting from the Third Canticle of Dante Alighieri’s Commedia; as a paradise, it is an elsewhere space, inhabited by light and evanescent figures; a long cinematic shot in which to immerse yourself thanks to the music of Bruno Dorella. The stage space consists of a mirrored dance floor obtained by combining different layers of silver and gold carpets where reverberating spaces and territories, intertwined and choreographed by gruppo nanou. Indirect lighting allows the carpet to reflect the surrounding space, welcoming it inside visually and creating a floating perception and making the floor like a pond where the bodies in movement flake with evanescent contours. The place determines each time the use and arrangement of the scene created by Pirri; the space, as well as the bodies and the light, is reflected by the mirrored surface of the carpets, redesigning the geometry of the space itself. For this identity of relationship between place and scene, each Paradise is unique and unrepeatable, thus finding the impossibility of describing a Paradise uniquely, as Dante wrote in the beginning of the Third Canticle.
The gestures lose all trace of naturalism to turn into an abstract choreography, whose meaning is in the desire to bridge the distance between the gaze (of the viewer) and the bodies in action. The limit of the backgrounds is forced, torn, deteriorated by the body that attacks it with its choreographic action. The choreographic images are produced “accidentally”, and the bodies are immediately pulverized thanks to the process of abstraction that produces pure plasticity that surpasses all other instances. The evidence of every research step or residency is called sketch and, even if is still a studio form, it shows how the performative device works on the space, its architecture or lack of it, recreating and rethinking both the stage and how the audience interact with it. As it will be in his final form, every sketch is different from the others; not a step forward but a step in deep the research. In each different spaces there will be different sets and choreographic compositions. A difficult experience to tell.
Album credits:
Music composed, played, recorded and mixed by Bruno Dorella
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
Vocals on 6 & 13 by Francesca Amati
Vocals 4, 9 & 10 by Elisabetta Da Rold
Voices treatment on 1 by Bruno Dorella & Giovanni Lami, 5 includes parts of Old Vogue Dancer by Bruno Dorella, 11 includes a sample by Stefano Ghittoni
Layout and artwork by Marco Valerio Amico
Photos by Daniele Casadio
Project credits:
Project: gruppo nanou, Alfredo Pirri, Bruno Dorella
Choreography: Marco Valerio Amico, Rhuena Bracci
Scenic space: Alfredo Pirri
Music: Bruno Dorella
Lights: Marco Valerio Amico
Colors: Marco Valerio Amico, Alfredo Pirri
Costumes: Rhuena Bracci
With Carolina Amoretti, Marina Bertoni, Vera Borghini, Rhuena Bracci, Francesca Dibiase, Andrea Dionisi, Agnese Gabrielli, Marco Maretti, Emanuel Santos, Sofia Pazzocco, Michele Scappa
And the graduates (2019) of the Post Diploma – Dance Course of the Civica Scuola di Teatro “Paolo Grassi” of Milan: Livia Bartolucci, Alessandra Cozzi, Elisabetta Da Rold, Agnese Gabrielli, Nicolò Giorgini, Simone Mazzanti, Camilla Neri, Francesca Rinaldi, Pablo Ezequiel Rizzo, Bruna Romano
Production: Nanou Associazione Culturale, Ravenna Festival
Contributon: MIC, Regione Emilia-Romagna, Comune di Ravenna, Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna
Collaboration: Civica Scuola di Teatro “Paolo Grassi” di Milano
Support: Centro di Residenza della Toscana (Armunia-CapoTrave/Kilowatt), E Production, ATCL Circuito Multidisciplinare del Lazio per Spazio Rossellini Polo Culturale Multidisciplinare della Regione Lazio, C.U.R.A. Centro Umbro Residenze Artistiche, Spazio ZUT!, Indisciplinarte, La Mama Umbria International
https://brunodorella.bandcamp.com/album/paradiso
13.silentes.it/private_sounds/sps2258_bruno_dorella.htm
|
2022 |
€12.00 |
|
| DOYLE, ROGER |
Chalant - Memento Mori |
CD |
"The latest album by the godfather of Irish electronica is surely the artist’s finest moment. Roger dusts down his old answer machine messages from his parents, son and close friends and skillfully blends these with his trademark piano & string arrangements.
After the haunting narrative tale of Cool Steel Army in 2009, Psychonavigation Records is proud to present the latest project by Ireland’s Godfather of Electronica Roger Doyle. When speaking about the project recently Roger said “I have composed music around telephone answering machine messages left on my machine from the late 1980s: from my now-deceased parents, my son when he was ten (he is now a father himself), Jonathan Philbin Bowman, and the morning after the opening night of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé at the Gate Theatre, for which I composed a 2 hour onstage piano score. There’s a presence, an atmosphere of nostalgia around these messages. Perhaps it is something to do with irretrievable time and the distance of 24 years that has passed since they were left.”
These intimate verbal time capsules have been interspersed with instrumental compositions evoking a world of an ancient race memory, giving a hint of exotic imagined cultures. Both ideas are forms of time signatures.
In 2011 The NOVA programme presented by Bernard Clarke on Lyric FM broadcast a one hour profile of these new works of Doyle. The programme which is built around Chalant was then chosen as one of the Top 5 winners in the prestigious Prix Europa awards in Berlin.
Album Of The Week in The Irish Times (30 March 2012), the digital copy of this album can be bought via our Bandcamp site here." [label info]
www.psychonavigation.com
|
2012 |
€15.00 |
|
| DUKE, ANDREW / AKUMU |
Organic |
CD-R |
Two new unknown names for us on John Gore's (KIRCHENKAMPF) label: ANDREW DUKE has 10 shorter pieces with delayed object-noises, nicely effected roaring drone-waves, weird electronic sounds, and glitchy rumbling granulation-fields, many details & ideas here, every piece is different... AKUMU presents three permeating sonorous drones with lots of micro-sounds... great CDR, much recommended!
"two Canadian sound artists: Andrew Duke of Cognition Audioworks of Nova Scotia presenting his cutup glitch compositions and Akumu (aka Deane Hughes) three tracks of deep drone - limited to 100 copies"
"I always appreciate Cohort’s will to present non-commercial electronic music from all over the world, even at the price of a few minor releases. But the good ones are REALLY good, and this is one of them. Andrew Duke, who is a renowned composer active in many different media, is here represented by a series of relatively dark tracks which feature quite a lot of spontaneous instrumental generation, in addition to Andrew’s obvious technical skills. Deceitful patterns and clashing reverberations release inexhaustible, mind-dislocating clouds of frequencies that contrast – or get married to – hypnotic vicious circles in an unpredictable kinship with hypothetical altered states of mind. Headphones are recommended to catch every minute detail, as Duke works at the margins of the audio spectrum to deliver his brand of electronica from any preconceived interpretation, virtualizing events with the equidistant calm of a neutral observer. Dean Hughes (Akumu) is even more obscure, entrancing and – contrarily to what the titles might suggest – organic. His three tracks are long explorations of the psyche through a mass of extremely resonant low drones that suggest no other behavior than a total relinquishment of our will to penetrate their structure (no pun intended). For my own taste, this is the best half of this split album, bringing memories of current masters of the genre (Frans De Waard’s Shifts and Freiband projects come to mind) through a masterful modulation of our sensitive apparata. But the whole CD is excellent, and it would be unjust on my behalf dividing the artists’ merits." [Touching Extremes]
|
2006 |
€9.00 |
|
| DUNCAN, JOHN |
The Nazca Transmissions |
LP |
"On Christmas Eve, 2004, John Duncan received a mysterious email from an archaeologist working at the site of the Nazca Lines in Peru. He claimed to have discovered, and over time recorded, a variety of sounds actually generated by the enigmatic lines themselves. Familiar with Duncan's 'Infrasound-Tidal', composed from source recordings taken from tides, seismic activity and barometric data from the Australian coastline, he suggested to Duncan the composition of a piece with these sources. All of the sources were modified in the studio of John Duncan, some radically, to bring out an unsettling, haunting quality. In mid-June 2005, the glorious 5-track piece was finally ready. John Duncan sent several messages to the archaeologist, none of them ever answered or returned. A hard disk crash effectively destroyed all of the email correspondence between them. What remains are the notes he sent that ostensibly describe the details of sites and times for the source recordings. Those notes have been reproduced on the insert included in this edition, also presenting John Duncan liner notes. First pressing limited to 380 copies, with embossed total-black cover, insert and full-color inner sleeve with wonderful space images of the Nazca Lines." [label info / credits]
"The sound constructs of John Duncan almost exist as a residue of his own personal research into esoteric realms of knowledge, existential bouts of continuous questioning, and transgressive acts against himself and society at large. Here was a man who claimed to have sex with a corpse as a performance piece entitled Blind Date, whereby he planted his last seed in a dead body before undergoing a
vasectomy. That event presumably took place nearly 30 years ago, when Duncan was emerging as an artist in Los Angeles alongside Paul
McCarthy, Jim Shaw, and Mike Kelley. Blind Date has become a piece of infamy that blossomed beyond his already highly transgressive context, but he's always been an artist who is very deft at framing particular works through the process and through the context of said piece. The Nazca Transmissions is one such piece.
A few years back, Duncan received an email from a German archaeologist working at the site of the Nazca Lines in Peru. These
are the massive drawings carved into an arid plateau some 2000 years ago by the ancient Nazca people. Some of these figures are
representation, some are not, and some get as large of 200 yards in size, all posing the question: who was supposed to be seeing these
figures, and to what end? Now, this archaeologist claimed to have been able to record sounds from those line drawings; and he presented the raw material to Duncan, having been familiar with his transmutational pieces of digital data and shortwave. Duncan was suitably perplexed and intrigued by the sounds that were presented to him, proceeding to
work on a series of compositions through that material. Unfortunately, this archaeologist ceased all communications, leading Duncan to wonder if it was all a big hoax.
Eerie ringings pocked with scrabbled textures almost like clipped VLF recordings open the album set against a gaping chasm of
quietness. While Duncan's penchant for abrasive noise and jarring juxtaposition is well documented, you won't find that here. By the end of the side, the textures take on an unsettled rhythm that almost resembles human speech garbled through the process. Very compelling, very unsettled. The second side begins with an interlocking series of modulated and muffled Shepherd Tones, these are the audio equivalent of a barber's pole with the tones giving the appearance of being in constant ascension or descension. It's a common artifact found throughout the shortwave bands, harkening back to one of his preferred sound sources; and Duncan puts them to excellent use amidst a sea of low end rumblings. Soon after, pierced tones push to the foreground as those low end rumblings mutate into grotesquely deformed growlings only to fade against a hushed coda of grey noise. This is limited to less than 300 copies, and it remains to be seen if we'll be able to get more than the handful we have now. Recommended no matter how you look at it." [Aquarius Records]
|
2009 |
€20.00 |
|
| |
Klaar |
LP |
"Sonic provocateur John Duncan has made a career through leaps into the unknown. During the heyday of Los Angeles performance art (i.e. Chris Burden, Paul McCarthey, etc.), Duncan conceived of a number of projects that deliberately antagonized his audience through perceived violence and shattered taboos. At the same time, he began exploring the empty channels on shortwave radio where unsettling noise, silence and crackle could propagate. He was particularly intrigued by the psychological colorings of the sounds that often reflected dread, anxiety and paranoia - themes that were commonplace in his performance pieces.
Duncan's first works were published in conjunction with the Los Angeles Free Music Society, with whom he performed on occasion in various ensembles. His work began to really blossom upon a decision around 1981 to leave America for Japan, a place where he knew no one and where he knew nothing of the language. His work with radio began in earnest both as a source material and as a platform for pirate radio broadcasts. By the end of the decade, he relocated once again, this time to Amsterdam to begin a fruitful series of collaborations with Andrew McKenzie (a.k.a. The Hafler Trio). Shortwave radio was still prominent, with his compositions becoming more complex and nuanced.
Klaar was first published on the Australian imprint Extreme in 1990. The aforementioned McKenzie contributes various field recordings, with Duncan lacing those amidst long-form collages of blank static, distant signals detuned into smeared vibration and swells of electric noise. The relative calm of the album's proceedings belie the implied threat within Klaar. Duncan actively seeks to reflect a psychic, subliminal violence within society through the unintended artifacts of commonplace technologies. Here, the existentially nihilist agenda is to spook through the haunted radio. Klaar, along with much of his catalogue that spans three decades, remains a remarkable work of spectral electro-acoustics.
And for the first time, Klaar is pressed on vinyl. Highest recommendation." [Stranded Rec.]
|
2017 |
€17.50 |
|
| DUNCAN, JOHN & PAOLO PARISI |
Conservatory (San Sebastiano) |
BOOK & CD |
Ein weiterer Ausstellungs-/Installationskatalog mit Audio-CD von JOHN DUNCAN, diesmal in Zusammenarbeit mit PAOLO PARISI. Alle Klänge basieren auf “human voice only”...
"Full color 64 pp. paperbound catalogue with installation audio CD mounted in separate cover, both inserted in paper box.
Catalogue : Texts (English/Italiano) by Daniela Cascella, Pietro Gaglianò, Giovanni Iovane, & Sergio Risaliti.
Audio CD : John Duncan : shortwave, processing.
Catalogue and CD cover produced by Maschietto Editore. CD produced by Allquestions." [label notes]
„The work of John Duncan should need no introduction, as he has long been one of Aquarius' favorite sound artists; however, Paolo Parisi is something of a mystery to us. An Italian sculptor, painter, and installation artist, Parisi commissioned Duncan to compose a sound component for one of Parisi's installation. The themes behind Parisi's installation for plastic tubes and eviscerated cardboard sentry houses are far too convoluted to recount within this review; but in a shocking display of Aquarian restraint, we'll merely mention that the Panopticon, Hitchcock, Deleuze, and Duchamp all get name checked throughout the book's text celebrating Parisi's installation. The CD is all Duncan; and it's well worth the price of admission. Duncan has long been known for his use of shortwave radio sounds as the springboard for his psychologically intense compositions; but slowly, he has been introducing the human voice into his pantheon of sound sources. For Conservatory, voice is the only source he is using, in particular he's amplifying and stretching the gasps, wheezes, and hisses that occur during the act of breathing. Through his manipulation of these sounds, Duncan cultivates a vast network of gaping blasts of air that collectively build into a ghastly, frigid drone emanating from a unscrupulous cryrogenics laboratory. Another epochal release from Mr. Duncan!“ [Aquarius Records]
|
2006 |
€35.00 |
|
| EBTEKAR, ATA & THE IRANIAN ORCHESTRA FOR NEW MUSIC |
Ornamental |
do-LP |
Subtitled: Ata Ebtekar and the Iranian Orchestra for New Music Performing Works of Alireza Mashayekhi.
"An ambitious, extremely complex, and sonically rich project that gives us an immense pleasure to release. An incredible collaboration between Ebtekar and Alireza Mashayekhi's Iranian Orchestra for New Music in Tehran, Iran involving dozens of trained musicians. Ebtekar has recently returned to the Bay Area from his three year stay in Iran where he closely worked with legendary composer Alireza Mashayekhi. The album spans 50 minutes, crystallizing acoustic instruments and electronic music composition with ten tracks fully realized by Ebtekar and Mashayekhi's orchestra. Ata Ebtekar (b. 1972, Hamburg Germany) aka Sote is an Iranian-American electronic composer and sound artist. His compositions are sonic tales synchronously decoding and regenerating customary patterns of thought in nature; aural designs of crisis and harmony where contempo meets folklore, orchestrating an artificial saga with a variety of illuminations and analysis. Presented here is a full-length album involving dozens of trained musicians performing works written by legendary Iranian classical and electronic music composer Alireza Mashayekhi in which Ebtekar was granted freedom by Mashayekhi himself to arrange and transform these compositions into fully realized pieces using his techniques of synthesis and electronic manipulation. Ornamental continues to explore even further than that which was presented in Sub Rosa's 2007 anthology, Persian Electronic Music (Yesterday and Today 1966-2006). The album also continues the radical experimental departure from his early electronic music work as Sote in the 12"'s published by Dielectric and Warp Records. Ebtekar's work continues to be painfully singular and shines bright in its ability to eliminate barriers the world over between noise, silence and modern electronic music composition. All music recorded in Tehran, Iran. Limited to 500 copies on black vinyl on full color spot-varnish matte jackets. Mastered by Thomas Dimuzio at Gench Studios in San Francisco, CA. Artwork and design by Brandon Nickell." [label info]
"....The sounds are varied and wondrous, from fantastical flurries of wild freaked out electronic flecked free form soft noise, to delicate tinklings and hushed moonlit drift, spacey metallic shimmers to haunting alien music box like lullabyes, Eastern sounding folk fragments drifting in soft swirls of rumble and hiss, long stretches of barely there melody and wispy streaks of distant rumble. Really quite mysterious and beautiful, whether you're into modern classical, electronic music, abstract dronemusic, or all of the above. ESPECIALLY all of the above.
Beautiful screened sleeves, with a printed insert, detailing the project, as well as the various performers and composers." [Aquarius Records review]
www.isounderscore.com
|
2008 |
€22.50 |
|
| EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN |
Lament |
do-LP |
»Lament« heißt das brandneue Meisterwerk der Berliner Kultband Einstürzende Neubauten, geschrieben für die 100-jährigen Gedenkfeierlichkeiten des Beginns des Ersten Weltkrieges.
Die flämische Stadt Diksmuide beauftrage die Einstürzenden Neubauten im Rahmen der 100-jährigen Gedenkfeierlichkeiten des Beginns des Ersten Weltkrieges zu den Arbeiten an »Lament«, dem neuen Album der 1980 in Westberlin gegründeten Band. Die Einstürzenden Neubauten verstehen »Lament« nicht als reines Studioalbum, sondern als eine Dokumentation der Geschichte der Stadt Diksmuide, wo das Werk im November 2014 uraufgeführt wird, bevor sie damit auf Tour gehen werden.
»Lament« enthält viele bereits bestehende Elemente wie die beiden Prejazz-Songs der Marschkapelle The Harlem Hellfighters, die die US-Regierung als erste afroamerikanische Einheit in die Schlacht schickte. Das Album thematisiert zwei Texte des belgischen Autors Paul van den Broeck sowie ein Stück des weniger bekannten deutschen Schriftstellers Joseph Plauts, der die Geschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs aus Sicht eines Tieres erzählt. Des Weiteren singt Blixa Bargeld die deutsche Version von Pete Seegers Antikriegslied »Where Have All The Flowers Gone«, die Marlene Dietrich mit »Sag mir wo die Blumen sind« weltberühmt machen sollte. Die Band erweckte außerdem eine Nationalhymnne wieder zum Leben, die einst von Kriegsteilnehmerländern wie Deutschland, Großbritannien und Kanada gleichermaßen verwendet wurde. Schließlich folgt der dreigeteilte Titeltrack »Lament«, der eine Reihe historischer Wachszylinderaufnahmen enthält. Diese wurden damals von Sprachforschern deutscher Gefangenenlager aufgenommen, die ihre Insassen dazu zwangen, die Bibelstelle des »verschwenderischen Sohns« in ihrer eigenen Sprache zu rezitieren, von denen viele inzwischen ausgestorben sind.
Über all dem schwebt die drastisch verlangsamte Version des Motetts des Komponisten Jacob Clemens non Papa, der im Diksmuide des 16. Jahrhundert lebte.
//
LAMENT the new album by Einstürzende Neubauten is released Friday 07 November 2014 on BMG Records.
LAMENT should be heard as a studio reconstruction of a work primarily designed to be performed live, rather than an official new Einstürzende Neubauten LP proper.
In truth, the piece can only be fully realised, as well as best experienced, in its physical embodiment, performed on or by founding member Andrew Unruh’s gigantic instruments and noise generating devices that visually evoke the horrors the work describes or embeds in the sounds they conjure from the filth and terror of the industrialised 20th century world at war with itself.
But in fulfilling what at first appears to be a surprise commission for such a formidable longtime outsider group, Einstürzende Neubauten transformed the earthy, idiosyncratic contents they mined from academic, state, music hall and internet archives with the help of their two researchers into a richly complex cycle of original and cover songs and performance pieces.
The music often originated in LAMENT’s storytelling needs, be it in terms of sounds used or compositions structured along First World War flow charts or scored from calendars of the involvement of the 20 plus countries embroiled in it.
The way LAMENT plays off pre-existing and composed materials, pieces clipped together from historical records next to direct cover interpretations, or indeed their Frankenstein like construction of an ur-anthem/national hymn delivers a differently angled history of the war.
Finally, LAMENT opens Bargeld’s case that the First World War never ended - the interwar and postwar periods being essentially pauses for breath as the great military powers carry on their conflict at some remove in faraway wars fought by proxy." [label / website info]
|
2014 |
€22.00 |
|
| EKIN FIL |
Inflame OST |
MC |
Istanbul's drone-pop producer ekin fil turns her sites to the big screen for the first soundtrack in her impressive catalogue of recordings. inflame (2017) is a psychological thriller laced with paranoia and nightmares, directed by ceylan özgün özçelik and was showcased at the berlin international film festival and the sxsw film festival, amongst others.
in making her cinematic debut, ekil fil turns synths and electronics, in building the score that in part is brimming with tension and claustrophobia through out all the blank spaces. always known for her restrained compositions that float amidst ethereal pools of drone and whorl, ekin fil sets forth haunting minor-key melodies, monotone arppegiations and plenty of seance-fiction dread. scattered bits of the film's sound design flicker at the edges of these tracks, as an aural hallucination that dissolves as quickly as it becomes evident. dubbed electro rhythms creep through the recursive leitmotifs and variations on themes always cast in a dim, crepuscular light.
less informed by the retro-garde aesthetics of carpenter and argento, the spectral electronics of inflame's soundtack finds its neighbors in the skeletal sprawl of raime and the darker ambient propositions sponsored by posh isolation.
|
2017 |
€10.00 |
|
| |
Maps |
LP |
Ekin Fil continues her quietly complex dream-pop oeuvre on Maps. For many years now, this Istanbul musician has been writing mysterious and haunting songs, rich in heavy-reverb effects and an introspective torpor. With each successive album, her songwriting has blossomed through broader instrumentation and more intricate melodic phrasing, though the somber atmospherics and ghostly manifestations remain a judicious constant. Minor-key, tear-stained notes of piano, organ, and guitar veer along elliptical orbits as a soft-whisper lilt of Ekin’s voice narrates more by emotive decree than by literary couplet.
Maps addresses the distance and dislocation of the self from the bustling center of Istanbul, where Ekin FIl (neé Ekin Üzeltüzenci) had once called her home. Having spent her first winter on a relatively quiet island in the Sea of Marmara (while still in the greater metropolitan umbrella of Istanbul), Maps is “lonely, different, kind of isolated,” according to Ekin, who also noted that the island had “too much silence around. There is no other choice but to concentrate, I guess.” Her poetics of silence on her previous recordings had been noted as an antidote or a dream capsule of sound in response to Istanbul’s cauldron of politics, culture, and philosophy that has been boiling almost since the beginning of civilization. Maps bends that maritime silence into wind-swept smudges that complement her already spacious compositions.
The saddest songs of The Durutti Column excised of rhythm and those few plunges into sorrow by Harold Budd make for apt comparisons to Maps, in addition to the drone-on classics of Grouper, Slowdive, and Sarah Davachi.
|
2018 |
€19.00 |
|
| ELECTRIC SEWER AGE |
Bad white Corpuscule |
CD |
"Electric sewer age was thought up in 2006 by a man called John Deek (r.i.p). The original idea was for likeminded souls, amongst particularly the coil fraternity, too compose music, which would be released, with no credits to the creators.
This would allow the listener to listen, and not have a preconceived bias, as to which song they liked best, based on their favourite composer etc.
While in Bangkok 2006, I talked with Peter Christopherson (r.i.p) about the project and he jumped aboard. He supplied many loops which made their way to Texas and onto the UK.
These segments might or might not be used in here, you explore.
Danny Hyde continues his fantastical journey in sound with this second release under the ESA name and completely moves beyond expectations.
Disproving the doubters, this EP is pretty much just him in his studio wrenching new creations out of his equipment; the trainspotters amongst us will no doubt pick out some of the shards he pulls from his past.
But he doesn't make them the focus of what is going on here, they are there merely to accent, to add a bit of depth and help illuminate how many years he's been at this.
Does he follow a muse?
If so, it must not be one that operates in the traditional sense. Perhaps it is more of a compulsion to create and then endlessly refine what you've done down to the most primal of elements.
There are ghosts all over this thing, you can feel the weight of their absence and at some points you swear you can actually hear them.
Tricks of the sound field, the mirror casting back shadows. If anyone else is on here, they have come out of the ether to make an appearance. Don't be afraid, put on your headphones and immerse yourself into a symphony that Hyde terms "an ode to loss".
He'd know.
We can all see from the outside what happened over the last decade but for him, it was all right there. Up close and personal. Through the usage of heavily processed vocals and arcane terrestrial instrumentation, Hyde lives up to his reputation for creating amazingly detailed yet extremely dark electronic compositions.
The symbiosis of organic and synthetic influences would be his forte and he's not holding anything back this time out, believe me, there's a feel to what is on here that isn't easily conceived. To just sit down and begin knocking out what 'Bad White Corpuscle' contains I don't think could be done unless you had planned and plotted out every last possible contingency down to the millisecond.
I've played this a lot but by comparison he's probably got mixes and additional versions of what's on here that could fill terabytes of hard drive space without batting an eye.
Electric Sewer Age exist between two worlds: the one of now and an older, more disturbing place which with the passage of time only becomes more savage and terrifying to visit.
As it appears he's chosen to put Aural Rage to bed, we have these excursions to look forward to; every few years Mr. Hyde will come out of seclusion to reveal where he's at and where he's going.
Clearly, this project is a form of therapy for the guy and having researched precisely what a bad white corpuscle is there's an uneasy feeling that foreshadowing is being employed here.
I'm not privy to whom this refers, I can only hope they know what they're doing.
This is so intense, so unflinchingly expressive that I come away completely drained.
Up by Sunday.
Peter.
Very elegant electronica, as you are used from best Coil's albums.
Dreamy and doped muzak for the real dreamer.
Tracklist :
01. Grey corpuscle 3.56
02. Corpuscular corpuscle 5.11
03. Amber corpuscle 5.12
04. Rising corpuscle 8.40
05. Bad white corpuscle 6.27
06. Black corpuscle 5.20 " [label info]
www.oldeuropacafe.com
|
2014 |
€16.00 |
|
| ELECTRIC URANUS / X-NAVI:ET |
Voices of the Cosmos II |
CD |
"Project "VOICES OF THE COSMOS" is an educational-artistic initiative created by two artists from Kujawsko-Pomorskie: Rafał Iwański (X-NAVI:ET) and Wojciech Zięba (ELECTRIC URANUS). Both of them have lot of experience in creating experimental and electroacoustic music. In recordings of this album original extraterrestrial sounds captured from space by radio-telescopes.
The „Voices of the Cosmos II” is the continuation of the previous album. In this case the radio signals related to the activity of the Sun became the main source of inspiration. The record was being created during the 2013 solar maximum (activity cycle no. 24). In the compositions, a whole range of signals, accompanying the aurora borealis can be heard. They originate in bombarding the Earth’s magnetosphere with charged solar wind particles. While listening to these pieces we realize fully the permanent interaction between the Sun and the Earth.
The "Voices of the Cosmos II" is released by Beast Of Prey and Eter Records in a three panel digipack. Project partially financed from resources the Scholarship of the Grudziadz City in the sphere of the Culture and Art." [label info]
www.beastofprey.com
|
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
| ELODIE (TIMO VAN LUIJK & ANDREW CHALK) |
Echos Pastoraux |
LP |
"Live performances by Andrew Chalk are incredibly rare. The man just doesn't seem to like to travel; but earlier in 2011, Chalk ventured to Paris for a collaborative concert with Timo Van Luijk, a likeminded Belgian composer crafting similarly spectral drones and impressionist soundscapes. While we were not so lucky to have been in Paris for that show, the collaboration between the two must have been fruitful, as they recorded this set of lilting instrumentals, hushed psychedelic ragas, and softened minimalism under the moniker Elodie. Echos Pastoraux seems to lean more towards Chalk's sound, especially after his recent push towards quietly rendered improvisations blossoming from his signature dronemuzik on Ghost Of Nakhodka and Violin By Night. Gentle plucks on a koto or an acoustic guitar meander through field recordings of birds and rain, giving way to more harmonic pieces of interwoven melody that sounds like french horn (or maybe an oboe, or maybe an analogue synth, or maybe a harmonium, or maybe some combination) whose overtones shimmer and flutter into quietly hypnotic clouds of soft buzz and thrum. Any number of these tracks could have been extracted from a private ritual performed by Chalk and Van Luijk; and while such could be said for any of the Jewelled Antler releases or any of the ancillary projects of Kemialliset Ystavat, Elodie's quiet drones, acoustic impression, smoke, shadow, and maudlin atmospheres are hardly anywhere near the 'freak folk' camp. This is much closer to what Akio Suzuki has done, although there are plenty of flourishes in the production that gives evidence of the hands of Andrew Chalk being at work. As a result, it's still spellbinding, like pretty much everything that Chalk has ever touched." [Aquarius Records]
www.lasciedoree.be
"Since splitting up with Christoph Heeman as Mirror, I haven't followed the recent work of Andrew Chalk. It simply seems to be moving outside my view. Heeman started a collaboration as In Camera with Timo van Luijk and now its the turn of Chalk to also work with Van Luijk as Elodie. This might be their first record together and what is odd, knowing the work of either of them, is that this is not one of those 'one drone per side' kind of LPs. This LP has no less than thirteen tracks, which perhaps sees them moving into something which is less drone oriented and something that is altogether more acoustic in approach. Van Luijk's curious collection of small acoustic objects and wind instruments and Chalk's sparse guitar playing. The record opens with a layered piece of various wind instruments and as such may count as a drone piece, but other pieces are more of an open spaced improvised nature of rattling bells, small metallic sounds, and Chalk's watery electric guitar, along with charming field recordings. The pieces are more like open ended sketches then fully realized compositions, which adds the charm of the record. Throughout a fine record of shimmering, small melodies, rusty percussion, bird calls and a gentle mood. The perfect early spring record: open your windows, let outdoor sounds in and simply enjoy the good life." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2011 |
€19.50 |
|
| |
La Porte Ouverte |
LP |
La Porte Ouverte was recorded by Timo van Luijk, Andrew Chalk and Tom James Scott and was cut by Noel Summerville at 33/45 in London.
Available in a standard only edition and cut at 45 RPM for higher fidelity.
350 copies pressed.
Sleeve is printed in reverse board with poly-lined inner sleeve.
Any orders are always shipped vinyl out of main sleeve to prevent seam ripping.
'An open door...
an exit... an entrance...
a new horizon
we never know where we are...
as long as the door remains open
there will be light...'
www.farawaypress.info
"Few musical artists have explored the notion of quietness as a virtue — and, let’s face it, as a reaction to the fetishization of high volumes in rock music — with as much rigor as Andrew Chalk and Timo van Luijk do in their Elodie duo. Performing live in about 2012 or so, opening for Eyvind Kang and Jessika Kenney, they held the audience in rapt silence, Chalk gently — barely — caressing the strings of his acoustic guitar and van Luijk only occasionally whistling with unbelievable restraint into his flute, was remarkable. Not to mention bold. It’s a potentially risky approach, but the control van Luijk and Chalk have in their interactions (not to mention their musical skill) means they have consistently been able to evince new forms of minimalism.
For La Porte Ouverte, originally issued in 2016 on cassette, the duo is joined by Liberez pianist Tom James Scott, and his keys, added to subtly applied textures from other instruments, lead to a slight change in the overall aesthetic of Elodie. There was always a difference between Elodie live and their studio output, but on this album they shake off the shackles of lowercase altogether, removing the constraints of that genre’s formalism and delving into a delicate, moonlit realm somewhere between barroom jazz and modern minimalism.
On most tracks, Tom Scott’s piano acts like a semi-regular metronome: emerging gradually but with confidence, delineating the atmosphere with patient, slow-building clusters of notes, arranged like outlines. Within — and even without — the resulting canvasses, Timo van Luijk and Andrew Chalk have the space to reflectively dab their own considered shades, reacting both to the piano and each other. “Matin de Marbre” shimmers like light on a marble statue, a thread-like keyboard note drifting anxiously in and out of tremulous piano notes. There are hints of Angelo Badalamenti’s compositions for David Lynch, especially the Straight Story soundtrack, in the aching tone of the instruments; it’s equally easy to imagine a lot of the tracks on La Porte Ouverte forming the backing track for a song sung by Isabella Rosselini in Blue Velvet. “La Marche” is more austere, with piano notes struck almost angrily by Scott only to find no echo in van Luijk and Chalk’s unflinching keyboard drone. Somewhere deep in the mix, van Luijk’s flute seems to echo like a defeated cry, but that could just be my ears finding textures that aren’t there. Or maybe they are, it’s hard to tell. As an entire album, La Porte Ouverte can have that effect, especially on the longer tracks.
On average, the tracks on the first half are most minimal and quiet, borrowing most noticeably from lowercase traditions in the sparseness of the piano notes and barely audible flourishes on flute or guitar. Scott’s playing will instantly appeal to fans of Morton Feldman or Michael Nyman, whilst the keyboard arrangements evoke the ambient works of Fennesz or David Sylvian’s mid-1980s work (sans the vocals, of course). “Le Jardin Onirique” is the side’s longest work, and also the most abstract, fittingly given the title. A dreamlike quality drifts through much of the entire album, the earthiest moment coming with the emergence of Andrew Chalk’s guitar on “Par la Main,” as he sketches out a gentle series of scales to dance hesitantly with Scott’s piano motif, rewarding listeners with the most intimate piece on the album.
In contrast, the second side features synths and keyboards more prominently, although don’t go thinking the results are lush or dense. Elodie make a virtue of stillness and calm, and the lengthier tracks (of eight, only three feature on side B) somewhat paradoxically underline this further. The title track drifts on a curtain of synthetic strings into which piano notes drop like rain into a pond. It’s a profoundly moving and melancholic piece, its apparent simplicity hiding a range of depths. Tom James Scott really shines, delicately deploying his notes only when necessary, and the synth arrangement is positively haunting. I’m not sure what the title, which translates as “The Open Door,” means, beyond maybe a sense of welcome, which this track certainly carries in abundance. The organ-drenched “Lumen” is possibly the loudest Elodie has ever got, the venerable church instrument building a foundation over which piano and vibraphone notes swirl like motes of dust caught in a shaft of light. Again, I find myself reaching for Badalamenti, but in truth that’s a lazy shorthand for music that is both emotionally-resonant and cinematic in scope. Elodie have jazz and minimalism in their bones, and feeling in their hearts, and by broadening their palette so effectively on La Porte Ouverte they have created an album as close to unique as you can get in 2016." [Joseph Burnett/Dusted Mag]
"Utterly sublime ambient jazz from consummate, lower case collaborators, Timo Van Lujik and Andrew Chalk, joined here on piano by Tom James Scott (Charcoal Owls, Liberez) in a subtly breathtaking LP of melting romantic gestures and spectral electronics. Big recommendation if you're into David Lynch, Bohren Und Der Club of Gore, Af Ursin, Oren Ambarchi...
Their 8th album - alternately released like all previous Elodie LPs since 2011 on the duo's respective labels, La Scie Dorée and Faraway Press - they navigate thee finest line of anticipatory tension and vaporous release, resulting in some of the most tender, unshowy yet arresting musical expressions that we’ve heard in years.
In eight parts they expand, contract and drift off on shafts of moonlight, oscillating shorter vignettes which appear like magnetically suspended bonsai trees - as with the hyaline delicacy of Matin de Marbre or the latinate acoustic guitar that slides between the silken ambient tones and Feldman-meets-Sakamoto keys of Par La Main - with longer sections such as the midnight stroller Le Jardin Onirique and the B-side’s sail-away suite of three pieces, including the unmissable title track, afford teasingly intangible visions of a sound which we’re sure everyone can agree, is some of the most beautiful music imaginable.
We were lucky enough to catch the duo in this record’s line-up with Tom James Scott at Salford’s Islington Mill in 2016, where we witnessed them totally silence the room with an almighty, barely-there demonstration of how to enchant a crowd. As with everyone else in the room, we were duly pinned to our seat for the duration, with incidental creaking chairs and refrigerator hum only heightening the sublime tension whilst waiting for the trio’s next, curious jazz chord in sequence, or when attempting to follow their chromatic gasses off into the ether.
Like the weeks after seeing their show last year, you just kinda want to make sure everyone in earshot knows about or can at least get a glimpse of this music. It just seems to reset everything..." [Boomkat] |
2017 |
€16.50 |
|
| ELOY, JEAN-CLAUDE |
Etats-Limites ou les cris de Petra |
CD |
" 'Borderlines or Petra's shouts. Songs for the other half of the sky N°VII' (2013). After some reissues or first edition of old compositions, here's a brand new composition from Jean-Claude Eloy. Made mostly with voice, bells and synthetic sounds this piece works like an electroacoustic lightning. 'A kind of salutary madness." [label info]
"In the early nineties French composer Jean-Claude Eloy worked on a commission for the German radio, and recorded a bunch of female voices, reciting texts by his favourite female German writers and decided he also needed some 'vocal material', like sighing, shouting, rustles, whispers and for that he recorded one afternoon the voice of Petra Meinel-Winkelbach. That recording he kept and was found last year again and used for this piece, 'Borderlines' (which is incidentally also the name of his label, as he's fascinated with borderline individuals), which makes this a very recent piece, as opposed to some of the older pieces he has been releasing in recent times. It lasts almost eighty minutes and at its foundation is the voice material as well as his set of cowbells, all of them from his own collection. Miss Meinel-Winkelbach died a few years ago and this work is in her memory. It's a great work; starting out loud with pitched bell sounds, stretched voice material and then in the
middle it's all very quiet and spooky. Buzzing, sparkling, glissandi, sustaining and broken up: all those ingredients of a fine musique concrete piece are in here. It seems to be always on the move however, never staying any long in a particular place, but something new comes in and changes the form of the piece over and over again. This is one to those pieces, at least, that's how it worked for me best, and to sit back and simply let it roll out, all over you. Don't spend too much time thinking about it; just close your eyes and enjoy." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€16.00 |
|
| ELPH VS. COIL |
Worship the Glitch |
CD |
"Bei ELpH vs Coil handelt es sich mitnichten um zwei Bands, die "gegeneinander" antreten. Vielmehr bezeichneten Coil mit ELpH die Gesamtheit an Sounds, die aus Versehen, ungewollt oder zufällig aus ihrem
elektronischen Equipment herausflossen: Brummen, Zischen, Stottern, Knirschen, Fiepen usw. All das verarbeiteten Coil auf ihrem 1995 veröffentlichten Album "Worship The Glitch" zu - im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes - verstörenden Klanggebilden, die vielfach für offene Münder sorgten. Nicht nur, weil die Produktion
weit weg war von allem, was die Formation bislang herausgebracht hatte. Vor allem waren die meisten Musikhörer Mitte der 90er mit ästhetisch radikalen Stilen wie Glitch (dt. "Störung"), Click & Cuts oder IDM schlicht überfordert: keine Rhythmen, keine Beats, keine Harmonien. Stattdessen sperrige elektroakustische Fragmente, die bei Coil zudem gewohnt düster ausfielen, und alles andere als komfortablen Musikgenuss versprachen. Die von Josh Bonati remasterte und Coil-Mitglied Drew McDowall überwachte Wiederveröffentlichung von "Worship The Glitch" erscheint bei Dais Records."
"Unexplainable" may well be the best explanation for the members of the UK based electronic outfit COIL. Making a radical shift from intentional accessibility, by means of traditional pop songwriting, to abstract happenstance, Coil had entered into a new phase in their career...uncharted waters utilizing what was then the newest computer technology, digital and analog synthesis and the newly formed ideas that something outside of themselves was steering the ship.
During the studio sessions that developed into what would become “Worship the Glitch”. Coil became aware of random compositions emitting from their gear, and were at odds with constant ?”accidents” that were perpetually plaguing the recordings. The band called these unintentional emissions "ELpH": a conceptual being that is one part physical equipment, one part celestial being...constantly playing the role of trickster, throwing a wrench into Coil’s methodology. Eventually, these accidents and mistakes were embraced by the band, and the process of misusing audio software to create intentional "errors" was adopted as a musical technique. The acceptance of the "mistake", and the use of discovered mistakes as intentional elements slowly became the drive and concept behind the album, thus birthing the title “Worship the Glitch”.
Originally released in 1995 on Coil’s in-house imprint Eskaton, Worship the Glitch was Coil’s first proper album-length attempt at conceptual ambient composition, with a radical focus on chance. Seamless vignettes of shattered electronics (though ebbing softly and in delicate balance with each other) provide an underlying uncertainty and discomfort to the listener.
Dais Records presents the official reissue of "ELpH vs Coil - Worship the Glitch". Remastered by engineer Josh Bonati and supervised by Coil's Drew McDowall, the vinyl release is pressed onto double 12" LP vinyl (from the original 10" release), and is packaged in a gorgeous 24pt stock matte gatefold LP with sticker and vellum track listing insert. Comes on black vinyl and a limited edition on translucent yellow vinyl. Also available on digipack CD."
|
2018 |
€16.50 |
|
| |
Worship the Glitch (coloured v.) |
do-LP |
"Unexplainable" may well be the best explanation for the members of the UK based electronic outfit COIL. Making a radical shift from intentional accessibility, by means of traditional pop songwriting, to abstract happenstance, Coil had entered into a new phase in their career...uncharted waters utilizing what was then the newest computer technology, digital and analog synthesis and the newly formed ideas that something outside of themselves was steering the ship.
During the studio sessions that developed into what would become “Worship the Glitch”. Coil became aware of random compositions emitting from their gear, and were at odds with constant ?”accidents” that were perpetually plaguing the recordings. The band called these unintentional emissions "ELpH": a conceptual being that is one part physical equipment, one part celestial being...constantly playing the role of trickster, throwing a wrench into Coil’s methodology. Eventually, these accidents and mistakes were embraced by the band, and the process of misusing audio software to create intentional "errors" was adopted as a musical technique. The acceptance of the "mistake", and the use of discovered mistakes as intentional elements slowly became the drive and concept behind the album, thus birthing the title “Worship the Glitch”.
Originally released in 1995 on Coil’s in-house imprint Eskaton, Worship the Glitch was Coil’s first proper album-length attempt at conceptual ambient composition, with a radical focus on chance. Seamless vignettes of shattered electronics (though ebbing softly and in delicate balance with each other) provide an underlying uncertainty and discomfort to the listener.
Dais Records presents the official reissue of "ELpH vs Coil - Worship the Glitch". Remastered by engineer Josh Bonati and supervised by Coil's Drew McDowall, the vinyl release is pressed onto double 12" LP vinyl (from the original 10" release), and is packaged in a gorgeous 24pt stock matte gatefold LP with sticker and vellum track listing insert. Comes on black vinyl and a limited edition on translucent yellow vinyl. Also available on digipack CD.
|
2018 |
€34.00 |
|
| EMERGE |
Contrition |
mCDR-box |
"On the two 10-minute pieces that make up this release, EMERGE uses samples from bass guitar (track 1) and prepared electric guitar (track 2) to create reverberating sonic environments that combine his characteristic dark drones with chords and melodic fragments that lend these compositions an unusually warm, acoustic sound.
EMERGE aka Sascha Stadlmeier is the founder and curator of the Attenuation Circuit label. Underlining the label’s collaborative spirit, EMERGE has invited label artists Eazy and Gerhard Zander, with whom he also collaborates in live improvisations (see “Betrachtung”, ACC 1001), to contribute snippets of their playing the bass guitar and prepared electric guitar. While most of EMERGE’s earlier works process their source materials way beyond any possibility of recognition, the two compositions on this disc are markedly different. Not only does the processing sometimes enhance the acoustic, analogue, and rather delicate feel of the source instruments, instead of sculpting the source materials into massive, bass-heavy blocks of sound. What also adds a new dimension to EMERGE’s catalogue of austere, abstract dronescapes is the fact that the two pieces, especially track 2, use a varied palette of seemingly rather referential sounds, conjuring up associations that range from the zoomorphic to the oriental." [label info]
www.wix.com/attenuationcircuit/attenuation-circuit
"The final release is by Emerge, the project of Sascha Stadlmeier, who is also the man behind the Attentuation Circuit label. Knowing his previous releases, its not a surprise that on this new one he explores the edges of sampling
through the use of a single sound source, in this case the bass guitar (track one) and prepared electric guitar (track two). These new pieces see him move away from his earlier work, going more into a collage like style of sounds,
pieced together into compositions stemming from the world of musique concrete and making connections to the world of people like Marc Behrens or Roel Meelkop. Moving away from the more densely layered works with less variation, into a much richer field of music, at least that's what I think. A major leap forward for
Emerge." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2011 |
€6.50 |
|
|
Oneirism |
10inch |
"Two untitled tracks of 12 minutes each make up EMERGE’s first release in the 10” format. Both showcase the “dark ambient” aspects of EMERGE’s work in its purest form to date. “Oneirism” hints to the world of dreams, and while one side can be considered a cinematic rendering of a nightmare set in dark and glacial surroundings, the other is replete with immersive drones that are mysterious yet beautiful in an otherworldly way, literally making this release the dream of every dark ambient fan.
This release is a new departure in EMERGE’s work in various ways. While deep, dark drones have always been an important feature of his compositions, they have always been contrasted with other timbres. Here, EMERGE goes more minimal and more bass-heavy at the same time and lets the deep microtones do all the work of enveloping the listener and sucking him or her into the dream world of the music. The lack of any information on the sound sources used, otherwise meticulously supplied with every EMERGE release, heightens the sense of mystery evoked by the sound itself. Listeners are invited to create their own associations inside their own heads. An intense and beautiful listening experience, not only for dark ambient buffs, but for anyone who is interested in spaced-out, psychedelic kinds of ambient and other electronic music. For EMERGE fans this release is a must, as it is the artist’s third vinyl outing after a 7” on Drone Records, long sold out, and the hand-painted split LP with B°tong on attenuation circuit." [label info]
www.attenuation-circuit.de
|
2013 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
Frown |
CD |
"The three tracks on this album distill the essence from EMERGE’s musical endeavours of the past decade or so and form the perfect
starting point for exploring his vast body of work. Between 15 and 20 minutes in length, each track showcases different aspects of EMERGE’s
musical personality, from contemplative to unrelenting. With a minimum of timbres, he still creates varied and well-paced compositions that stand up to comparison with masters like Asmus Tietchens.
EMERGE has always been a minimalist, but not in the sense of any musical school, but simply in that he restricts himself to the use of a very limited set of found sounds which he then treats and edits to create his compositions. Almost puritanical in his refusal to synthesise sounds, he only occasionally uses samples from like-minded musicians, such as the very subdued drum loop by elektrojudas on the second track of this triptych. The results could be characterised as musique concrète, drone, dark ambient, lowercase, or sometimes even noise, but eventually refuse to be pigeonholed so easily. The “frown” of the title may easily be that on the faces of critics trying to pin
EMERGE down to one particular style. The uniquely consistent three tracks on the album manage to integrate the different facets of
EMERGE’s work into an electroacoustic symphony of austere sparseness which reveals a surprising wealth of beautiful sonic detail to the careful listener, like patterns of colourful pebbles in an endless stretch of grey industrial dust." [label info]
www.attenuationcircuit.de
|
2014 |
€10.00 |
|
| EMMANUEL, J.D. |
Echoes from ancient Caves |
LP |
"Probably one of the most underestimate artist of electronic of the early ‘80, has been lately rediscover. Expert modulator of electronic and natural sounds, with this work Emmanuel seems to recall and reflect exstensively on that poetics of the cyclic and mantric sound investigated by other pioneers as Terry Riley and La Monte Young. The micro-tonal pattners of the compositions are animated by dense and minimum pulses that amplify the hypnotic and meditative dimension and can be coloured by tibetan suggestions or guitar glissandi of nocturnal taste. In this way the "Echoes from ancient caves", originally appeared only on tape in 1981, is ideally connected to the previous experimentations of "Rain Forest Music (1981) and Wizards (1982).
500 copies on black vinyl + download link for digital edition." [label info]
www.blacksweatrecords.com
|
2014 |
€20.00 |
|
| EN |
op.10218 v1.2 |
CD |
"Das Lissaboner Label SIRR Records entwickelt sich zu einer guten Adresse für abstrakte, minimale Geräusch-Neutöner. Hinter EN verbirgt sich Pal Toth aus Budapest, der schon lange Jahre Radiosendungen macht und hier mit einem Konzept arbeitet, daß an ACHIM WOLLSCHEID erinnert, dabei aber weitaus isolationistischer und minimaler klingt..." [Drone Rec.info 2003]
“Pal Toth alias én is a Hungarian sound artist and radio producer, living in Budapest. In the frame of his radio programme, we can regularly hear what he calls "ether concerts", compositions made to the medium itself and comprising an improvised (real-time) method of editing, Pal Toth confronts the listener with an evolving sense of time and duration that transcend questions of musical form to focus in the idea of shape, in the potentialities of a sound representation as stream of consciousness.” [press release]
“... On the air he edits his works, removing and erasing sounds and bare, naked sound residue remains. Entirely along the lines of Roel Meelkop, Bernard Gunther or Richard Chartier, with this exception that Pal Toth has a more bleak and empty sounding music. Hums from various sources, occassionally time stretched are interwoven and some vague metallic rumbling are the main sources. It remains at all times distant and cold... “ [Vital Weekly]
www.sirr-ecords.com |
2003 |
€13.00 |
|
| ENCOMIAST / THE COPPER THIEVES |
139 Nevada |
do-CDR-box |
"In 2004, a group of musicians and curiosity-seekers went to the Belvidere Theatre in Central City, CO because it was rumored to be one of the most haunted buildings in the state. Our initial goal was to attempt to record Electromagnetic Voice Phenomena, but the project eventually took on a much different cast. We never succeeded in capturing any ghostly voices, but we reassembled the recordings into new compositions that captured the haunted spaciousness of the theatre.
That’s where 139 Nevada began
We returned to record in the theatre two more times while making these two records. Even if the spirits never raised their voices, we hope they were entertained by our presence.
139 Nevada consists of two discs - Encomiast ‘s “Masked Mirror” and "Slam Your Doors In Golden Silence" by The Copper Thieves, a coalition including members of Encomiast and the group Mandible Chatter. Both collections mine the rich sonic bed of the Belvidere Theatre - located at 139 Nevada, Central City, CO - but each one takes its own clear path.
Limited to only 200 copies, 139 Nevada is a double CDR release containing two discs in sleeves, with two insert postcards packaged in a textured cardboard box.
Packaging: Textured box w/Two Pro CDR's and two insert postcards
Release Date: June 23, 2009
Running Time: Disc 1 - 57:12, Disc 2 - 44:40 " [full label website info]
www.lensrecords.com
"Eine geheimnisvolle Veröffentlichung in einer schmucken kleinen Pappschachtel mit zwei CDRs und zwei Postkärtchen, denen wir folgende Geschichte entnehmen können. Die Projekte Ecomiast & The Copper Thieves (fast personell identisch) erhielten Zugang zu einem verfallenen Provinztheater in einem kleinen Städtchen. Von dem Theatergebäude hieß es, dass hier Geister hausen würden. Die Musiker machten mit diversen Gästen Aufnahmen vor allem am Klavier im verlassenen Geisterauditorium und bearbeiteten diese Aufnahmen im Studio. Sie kehrten zwei Mal an den Ort des Geschehens zurück und fanden es irgendwie unheimlich aber auch spannend. Den Hörer erwarten zerpflückte und hallige Pianotupfer, manchmal kammerpoppig verdichtete Arrangements und viel verwaschene Atmosphärik. Der ganze Release wirkt irgendwie literarisch, wir können dies auch nicht näher begründen. Es bleibt etwas unwirkliches an den Klängen haften, obwohl sie nur milde experimentell sind." [Zipo / Auf Abwegen]
|
2010 |
€16.00 |
|
| ENGLISH, LAWRENCE |
Lonely Womens Club |
LP |
"Beautiful new work from Lawrence English. Pressed in an edition of 500 copies. Lawrence English is composer, media artist and curator based in Australia.
Working across an eclectic array of aesthetic investigations, English's work prompts questions of field, perception and memory.
English utilises a variety of approaches including live performance and installation to create works that ponder subtle transformations of space and ask audiences to become aware of that which exists at the edge of perception.
Over the past decade, English's sonic investigations have traversed a divergent path through which musical languages and environmental sources are granted equal focus.
His work calls into question the established relationships of sound and structure. English's sound work is evocative and invites the listener to explore their own narratives and impressions informed by personal histories and experiences.
Published widely on respected imprints including Touch, 12K and Winds Measure, English's work is sculpted and overwhelmingly intricate.
As a producer, English has completed numerous projects with artists including Tujiko Noriko (U, Blurred In My Mirror), Ben Frost (Theory Of Machines) and Tenniscoats (Totemo Aimasho, Temporacha).
He has also completed commissioned compositions for acclaimed performance troupe Circa and other contemporary dance ensembles and has worked as a sound designer on video installations in collaboration with artists including Australian visualist Craig Walsh.
His music has also been used in a number of films including a commission from Makino Takashi to create a composition for The Low Storm in 2009." [label info]
www.importantrecords.com
|
2012 |
€16.50 |
|
|
Observation of Breath |
LP |
Do you remember the last time you were breathing consciously? Either way, you are likely doing it now. On his new album »Observation of Breath« for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground label, Lawrence English worked exclusively with an organ for four compositions that are exercises in »maximal minimalism,« as their creator himself notes in a nod to Charlemagne Palestine, who coined this term. While it seems somewhat fitting that those four pieces based on a steady flow of air were conceived and recorded in a situation of accelerated standstill caused by a respiratory disease, the Room40 founder is not so much concerned with capturing the zeitgeist than rather incorporating the spirit of time itself. »It is a record about presence and patience,« he explains. Exploring the unique sonic affordances of a singular instrument, »Observation of Breath« is not only devoted to the durability of sound but also to its density. That it marks his debut on Hallow Ground after having shaped its sound by mastering most of the label’s releases in recent years is just as fitting then as its release following albums by Kali Malone and FUJI|||||||||||TA, whose innovative work with organ instruments have facilitated a rediscovery of their possibilities.
English’s compositions however are neither directly indebted nor responding to these musicians. His exploration of the organ’s many facets started a decade ago when the composer was given access to an instrument built in 1889 that is presently housed at The Old Museum in Brisbane. After it had already played a crucial role on his seminal albums »Wilderness Of Mirrors« and »Cruel Optimism,« last year’s self-released »Lassitude« was the first record that English entirely composed and recorded with that instrument. »During the soft lockdowns, I spent many days playing to an empty concert hall, recording the pieces that became ›Lassitude‹ and then, this album,« says English in regards to an unfortunate situation that fortunately provided him with time and space—two major themes but also key qualities of the four new compositions. In this sense, he goes on, »Observation of Breath« resolves a number of the questions originally raised by »Lassitude.«
»The organ is an exercise in the observation of breath,« English explains the album’s title. »It is a physical breath, one that manifests both audible and inaudible waves of vibrations. The sheer scale of the instrument, its weight and the physical length of the pipes involved in producing the sounds we experience is nothing short of mind-boggling.« More importantly, the sound artist is fascinated by the organ’s ability to produce frequencies that exist at the sensory limits of human awareness—it’s at the edges of these limits that fascination can be found, he argues. »The particular organ that I work with comprises four manuals and 45 speaking stops and it has a tubular-pneumatic action,« he explains. »It’s the stops that are the focus of my interest. They are very specific and when manipulated in certain ways and in certain combinations, create a unique set of unsteady timbres that make it a remarkably intoxicating instrument to collaborate with.«
Collaboration is indeed the key word here. The pieces of »Observation of Breath« were recorded in one take in recognition of the co-existence and co-dependence of the human body and mind when brought in unison while working with such a complex instrument. The end results are thus not only marked by longevity but also gripping dynamics. While the six minute-long »A Binding« and the album’s title track explore the sonic qualities of different frequency spectra with long sustained drones, opener »A Torso« and the aptly titled »And a Twist,« only two minutes and 42 seconds long, work with rhythmic elements that create intense moments of structural instability. »The music's power lies in its density, in the stacking of exhales all breathing in unison and then, at some point, failing to breathe further,« says English. »In these moments a wavering unsteadiness of tone arrives with an elegant uncertainty.« It is precisely this quality that makes »Observation of Breath« such a masterful exploration of the multifold relationships between space and time as well as the body and the mind—it’s a conscious meditation on unconscious processes.
https://hallowground.bandcamp.com/album/lawrence-english-observation-of-breath
|
2021 |
€21.50 |
|
| |
Viento |
CD + BOOK |
In 2010, Lawrence English made field recordings in Patagonia. You can hear abandoned buildings, lone trees folded over in fields of tundra-like grasses, quivering road signs, wailing fences and other objects shaken into life by the wind. In the booklet, the sounds are accompanied by pictures.
Artist statement: "In the summer of 2010 I had the opportunity to visit Antarctica through an invitation extended by the Argentine Antarctic Division. It was nothing short of life-altering, as I am sure anyone would suspect. Upon departing from Buenos Aires for the iced continent the Hercules transport aircraft, under direction of the Argentine military, made a routine stop at an airbase outside Rio Gallegos.
What was meant to be a few hours layover turned into several days as, on landing, a strong wind storm blew in unexpectedly. Conditions exceeded expectations, and before long it was clear the transport could not take off. The situation was only compounded by adverse weather along the Antarctic Peninsula.
Whilst the scientists and military personnel we were travelling with bunkered down in their quarters, I found myself drawn outside into the howling air. The wind in Patagonia is, well, breathtaking. Literally, there were moments where it was so physical, that it was difficult to catch my breath. Across three days I recorded abandoned buildings, lone trees folded over in fields of tundra-like grasses, quivering road signs, wailing fences and other objects shaken into life by the wind. It wasn't a comfortable experience by any means, but the multiplicity of sounds I was able to capture, I hope, speak for themselves.
The Antarctic recordings were made during two blizzards at Marambio and Esperanza bases. During the blizzard in Marambio, the temperature dropped to -40 degrees centigrade (with wind chill) which made recording particularly challenging. The wind battered the base’s structures and telecommunications equipment, making a range of unsettling, phasing choral drones and deep low frequency vibrations that resonated inside the base itself. The blizzard at Esperanza was mild by comparison, but still strong enough to coat penguins in layer of snow as they huddled together during the worst of the storm.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of completing these compositions and since that time, I have had the pleasure to diffuse them on numerous occasions. With those experiences in mind, as well as the format on which these works are now being made available, I have revisited them and completely remixed and remastered the pieces.
Listening back to these recordings I am struck by the sheer physicality of the wind. It's rare that you feel physically reduced by the motion of air, but in both Patagonia and Antarctica that is just how I felt. A small speck of organic dust in a howling storm."
https://lawrenceenglish.bandcamp.com/album/viento
|
2022 |
€23.00 |
|
| ENSTRÖM, ROLF |
TNT |
LP |
Rolf Enström can look back on a fifteen year period as a composer. His list of works includes a number of very carefully crafted compositions of high artistic quality. Several of his works have become "classics"; one thinks especially of "Directions" (1979) and "Final Curses" (1981).
Rolf Enström is a composer who unceasingly seeks new artistic paths and new means of expression and this is something which has led him to combine music with other art forms, primarily the visual arts and literature. On this record, we meet Enström as a composer of pure electroacoustic music. The three works Dagbrott, Sekvens i blått and TNT span a period of eight years.
"Dagbrott"
"Sekvens i blått"
"TNT - Tònal - Nagual - Tsentsaks"
- FYLP 1031, 1986
www.fylkingen.se
|
1986 |
€18.00 |
|
| ERIK M (eRikm) |
Sixperiodes |
CD |
Kollektion von sechs sehr unterschiedlichen Stücken für Tanz, Theater und Kino (2001-2004) von dem aussergewöhnlichen französischen Komponisten & Klangkünstler, der mit Computern, Turntables, Objekten & was auch immer arbeitet. Feinste konkrete Mikro-Sounds wirbeln hier herum und bilden doch kohärente Klangmuster, ob Drones, Pianotupfer, elektronische Sounds, konkrete cut-ups, ERIK M erschafft eine musikalische Sprache für die es noch keinen Namen gibt, die dynamisch-aggressiv aber auch sehr poetisch und surreal-zart sein kann. Für Sound-Explorer !
"sixpériodes departs from composed and improvised fragments of different media from dance or theatre performances, silent films or dance-conferences. far from standard soundtrack music, each creation here is accomplished using diverse approaches and techniques that demonstrate the most personal skills of erikm in combining different material - digital and acoustic sounds, field recordings and vinyl manipulations - in a unique way. his primary aim is no longer simply to quote his system of references but to create for himself a bank of singular material to compose without referring to other works, thus approaching a subtle abstraction and a sense of pause within contemporary sonic agitation. erikm has collaborated with the likes of fennesz, otomo yoshihide, musique concrète composer luc ferrari and avant turntablist christian marclay. he has released on such labels as hathut, for4ear, asphodel, metamkine, sonoris and others." (label info)
“Described as a "display of ErikM compositions for dance, theatre and cinema between 2001 and 2004", this album is a charming alternative in the congested field of laptop/acousmatics, being imbued with a determined research for a sonic biology whose purpose goes far beyond the "soundtrack" definition. ErikM's target appears to be the action of freezing what moves into aural snapshots: he reduces his perceptions to the bare minimum, using fragments of intuition and sampled snippets to find a connection with the functions of the body, which most of this music seems to represent in an almost graphic manner. It feels like there is a strong correlation with the automatic reactions of our nervous system, most sounds zapping around like a stimulated grasshopper, therefore effectively fulfilling their scope of demarcating choreographic schemes and underlining images. This music is indeed extremely visual, yet absolutely suggestive when taken as pure electroacoustic circumstance, completely original and honestly transcendental but at the same time very substantial.” [Massimo Richi / Touching Extremes]
“....It's hard to tell what is on those records and tapes, but throughout everything jumps and skips around like crazy, creating things to be very vibrant and lively. Most of the times rhythmical in a sort of non-linear way (even when it's a dance record!), combined with elements of noise and musique concrete, this also jumps stylistically all over the place, moving from strict improvised parts, such as the opening 'Les Paesines' to the more straight forward, almost industrialized rhythms
'Paris Qui Dort'. But that keeps the adrenaline of this disc going round and round. I enjoyed many of his collaborative works already, but as a first introduction to his solo work, I am even more impressed. Very good material...” [Vital Weekly]
|
2006 |
€15.00 |
|
| ERLANDSSON, MATS |
Minnesmärke |
LP |
Mats Erlandsson makes his debut on the Swiss label Hallow Ground with »Minnesmärke,« at once a nuanced sonic exploration of the industrial and political history of his native Sweden and a deeply personal album. One of the key figures of the Stockholm drone scene, the prolific composer worked with The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s Hillary Jeffery, violinist and long-time friend Gaianeh Pilossian as well as sound artist and frequent collaborator Yair Elazar Glotman for a two-part composition built around tuned sustained tones performed by electronic and acoustic instruments that were combined with field recordings in order to evoke a psychedelic state of reflection, a dream-like elegy for the acoustic properties of the former iron ore mine Ställbergs Gruva where the music has been conceived and recorded. Following up on releases on labels such as Hallow Ground label mates Kali Malone and Maria W Horn’s XKatedral imprint, »Minnesmärke« is Erlandsson's most accomplished work yet.
Originally a commissioned work by the Non Existent Center for a month-long artist residency in Ställbergs Gruva last Summer, »Minnesmärke« conceptually picks up on the socio-political and economic history of the Bergslagen region where the mine is situated. After mining operations had been on-going for decades prior, in the Industrial Age iron became one of the country’s largest exports, making the mining industry an integral part of the country’s progression towards a socialdemocratic welfare state in the years after World War II. With the rise of neoliberalism and the simultaneous erosion of the welfare state however, the mines around the region started closing, which resulted in the surrounding community losing its relative prosperity. Erlandsson’s interest in this story though does not exclusively stem from the historical significance of the mine, that has been re-opened in 2012 as a centre for cultural activities and critical thought. In fact, his grandfather was born and raised in the vicinity of it and thus his life - and, by extension, his grandson’s - was inextricably linked to its fate and the ebbs and flows of the industrial development in the area.
It’s no surprise then that the two parts of »Minnesmärke,« which translates to »memorial« or »monument,« is marked by a sense of dislocation and dissociation. »Working in Ställberg was a somewhat surreal experience from the point of view of a musician some one hundred years later,« says the artist. »Being in that environment makes you view time from the side - since the place remains the same it accentuates the deep chasm that separates my perspective from those of my relatives, while at the same time providing a form of intimacy with them.« This naturally shaped the recording process, which saw Erlandsson create an interaction between the acoustic and the electronic, the human and the machinic as well as the natural environment and the technology that has shaped it as much as it has been shaped by it. A combination of synthetic and recorded sound sources was processed by reamping it in various rooms of the vast mining complex. The resulting hybrid field recordings were transferred to tape and have then been treated extensively. An arrangement for Pilossian’s violin, Jeffery’s tuba and trombone playing as well as Glotman’s parts on double bass were recorded separately and similarly manipulated to create an expanded chamber ensemble with a wider range and an ability to transcend the usual temporal bounds of the instruments.
The outcome of this intricate working process calls to mind Phill Niblock’s most dense compositions, the iconic yet subtle work of Pauline Oliveros in the field of deep listening or even Jóhann Jóhannsson’s evocative examination of similarly politically charged topics on the »The Miners’ Hymns« OST amongst others. While Erlandsson shows his knack for creating emotive dynamics by bringing the acoustic recordings into a pulsating flow, the manipulated field recordings are used as a counterpoint throughout both parts of the composition, commenting on and fostering the ever-shifting dramaturgy of the record. Most importantly though, the 41 minutes are marked by a continuous tension that almost feels tangible. It’s the looming shadow of history, materialising in the form of a monument, a memorial for the past generations that have etched their hopes and aspirations into the walls of Ställbergs Gruva.
Hilary Jeffery - Trombone, Tuba
Gaianeh Pilossian - Violin
Yair Elazar Glotman - Double Bass
Mats Erlandsson - Everything Else
Mastering by Andreas Lupo Lubich
Artwork by Marijn Degenaar
https://hallowground.bandcamp.com/album/mats-erlandsson-minnesm-rke
|
2020 |
€21.50 |
|
| ESMERINE |
Lost Voices |
LP |
Montréal chamber rock ensemble Esmerine return with the new full-length album Lost Voices, the most dynamic and incendiary record of the group’s career, following its highly-acclaimed and Juno award-winning 2013 release Dalmak. Led by co-founders Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) on various mallet instruments and Rebecca Foon (Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Saltland) on cello, Esmerine also includes drummer/percussionist Jamie Thompson (The Unicorns, Islands, Little Scream) and multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson.
Lost Voices is the result of multiple recording sessions led by Vid Cousins (Kid Koala, Amon Tobin, Colin Stetson) and was mixed/produced by Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes) at his Breakglass Studio in Montréal. The album features several tracks that are hands down among the band’s most rocking, making newfound use of electric guitars (courtesy a variety of guest players) alongside the group’s nucleus of marimba, strings and percussion. Expanding from Dalmak’s core quartet, Esmerine also welcomes bassist Jeremi Roy (who began touring with the group in 2013) as an official member; his contrabass work adds potent low-end to the heavier and more muscular jams on the new album. Lost Voices is equally notable for the appearance of GY!BE/Silver Mt. Zion violinist Sophie Trudeau as a featured guest; her intense and incomparable string sounds/styles elevate the potency of the record’s most soaring and high-octane pieces, particularly on opener “The Neighborhoods Rise”, “19/14” and the centerpiece track of Side Two, “Funambule”. Thompson’s drumming comes to the fore on these pieces too, and on the rock-steady minimalism of “A River Runs Through This City”, which satisfyingly harkens back to the likes of Tied & Tickled Trio, June Of 44, Shipping News and Lungfish.
Lost Voices can fairly be called Esmerine’s “rock” album, expanding upon the band’s celebrated prowess at deploying structure and dynamic, balancing melodic expression against methodical restraint through a diversity of stylistic touchstones (minimalism, post-rock, math-rock, desert rock) while allowing for explosive crescendos of exuberant density and maximalism that most notably distinguishes this record from previous work. The album nonetheless includes several instances of more spacious, searching and/or tender compositions – not only in some of the opening sections of the rock songs, but in stand-alone marimba-and-string-led pieces like “Pas Trop Pas Tropes” and “My Mamma Pinned A Rose On Me” and in the two piano-and-string minuets that close each side of the record.
Lost Voices is a deeply satisfying and evocative journey and another brilliant iteration of Esmerine’s distinctive instrumental chamber rock; cerebral and visceral, controlled and volatile, and wholly cinematic in scope throughout.
Thanks for listening.
PERSONNEL
Rebecca Foon: Cello, harmonium, piano, voice
Bruce Cawdron: Marimba, bowed marimba, glockenspiel, vibraphone
Jamie Thompson: Drums, marimba, glockenspiel
Brian Sanderson: Violin, ekonting, cavalry cornet, f horn, sarod, bass guitar
Jérémi Roy: Contrabass, bass guitar
GUESTS
James Hakan Dedeoglu: Guitar (tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 7)
Sophie Trudeau: Violin (tracks 1, 5, 7, 9)
Jace Lasek: Guitar (tracks 1, 7), synth (track 6)
Pierre-Guy Blanchard: Darbuka, riq, glockenspiel (track 7)
Ian Ilavsky: Guitar (track 4)
Vid Cousins: Piano (track 5)
Colin Stetson: EVI (track 8)
Recorded by Vid Cousins at Mixart and Six Saint V in Montreal.
Mixed by Jace Lasek and Ian Ilavsky at Breakglass in Montreal.
Mastered by Ryan Morey.
https://esmerine.bandcamp.com/album/lost-voices
|
2015 |
€22.50 |
|
| ESSEIVA, KIKO C. |
Sous les Etoiles |
CD |
Für Klang-Abenteurer genau das richtige, das zweite Album dieses uns bisher unbekannten Soundtüftlers auf dem Schweizer Label. ESSEIVA kreiert hochdynamische Geräuschmusik mit vielen breaks & cut-ups und meist instrumentellen & konkreten Klängen, en detail quasi unbeschreibbar da zu komplex (zum Glück aber gibt es Rigobert Dittmann), von der Machart an alte NWW oder spannende Elektro-Akustik erinnernd. Empfehlung !
"Sous Les Etoiles (HINT04) ist nach Musiques pour haut-parleurs (Music For Loudspeakers) und Improvisations / Bricolages I-IV im Split mit Eric Boros (1000+1 Tilt) eine weitere Manifestation der Kreativität von KIKO C. ESSEIVA in Lausanne. Es ist ein komplexes Werk, in Szene gesetzt als experimentelles Cinema pour l‘oreille, mit einem ‚Prélude‘, 8 Episoden und einer ‚Fanfare de fin‘. Hervorstechend ist dabei die Plastizität der Klänge, ob knackiger Apfelbiss, knurrige Drones oder windspielerisches Klimpern. Das erinnert an Hanna Hartmanns Bildprägnanz, geht aber eigene, geräuschhaftere Wege. Ein weiteres auffälliges Ingredienz sind Stimmen, als gutturale Vokalisation, dann ein Frauenmund, der den Titel ansagt. Aber auch andere Klänge scheinen per Mund erzeugt zu sein, wenn auch verfremdet bis zur Unkenntlichkeit zu perkussivem Rippeln, zu Knarren oder Fauchen. ‚En rêve‘ wirkt wie alte Streichmusik, wobei der Geigenbogen jede Rauheit der Saite übertrieben ausreizt. Aus vielen Fugen flattert, knarrt und knarzt es, ein Metalldeckel eiert, Wasser gluckert, Dulcimersaiten flickern. Keine Landschaft tut sich auf, alles ist hier konkreter, detaillierter, informeller, in plastischer Nahsicht vor das Tagtraumauge gerückt. ‚Sous les étoiles toujours‘ überrascht mit einem Piano, dumpfen Glockendongs, wooshenden Drones, fragilem Klingklang. Zum Finale erklingt keine Fanfare, sondern kaskadierendes Tamtam, Cymbalschläge, Scherenschnippen, eine quäkende Hupe, Posaunengeblubber, alles Teil eines surrealen Orchesters der Dinge. Ich drücke gleich mal auf repeat." [Bad Alchemy]
"We are proud to release - four years after his first longplayer on Canadian imprint 'Manufracture' - Kiko C. Esseiva's second album 'Sous les étoiles'. The electro-acoustic-musique conrète compositions he has constructed during the past years are brilliant soundpieces that remind sometimes on Luc Ferraris electro-acoustic works but also the very narrative nature of some older Nurse With Wound albums. The way he mixes (almost) melodic elements into a complex structure of well arranged sounds and noises is simply beautiful. 'Sous Les Etoiles' goes even a step further than Esseiva's debut 'Musiques pour haut-parleurs', the tracks being audibly held together by leitmotifs, making it one big opus instead of being just a collection of tracks." [label info]
www.hinterzimmer-records.com
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| ETIENNE, YVAN |
Twist |
CD |
listen: https://label-aposiopese.bandcamp.com/album/twist
YVAN ETIENNE
TWIST
A1 : Cinq réflectances inversées - 21:38
B1 : L’énergie du non - 18:59
_
Composed and recorded by Yvan Etienne.
Serge Modular, Field recordings.
CD : Mastered by Yvan Etienne / LP : Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
Cut by Mike Grinser at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
Artwork by Gregory Weiss / Design : Yvan Etienne.
Produced by Aposiopèse.
Artiste / activiste, commissaire d\\\'exposition, directeur de la collection Ohcetecho aux Presses du réel, Yvan Etienne élabore des installations intermédia, des dispositifs de diffusions scénographiques, des concerts. Conçus comme des espaces à expérimenter, ses travaux sont généralement liés aux contextes, aux spécificités in situ, acoustiques et architecturales des espaces investis. Ses projets explorent les propriétés immersives, invisibles, mouvantes et fugaces du son, pour rejouer nos appréhensions et construire un dialogue en écho avec des corps résonnants (visiteurs, architectures, contextes). Réalisés à partir de sculptures, de phonographies, de compositions instrumentales, électroniques, ses expériences convoquent réflexions intuitives et questionnement des stéréotypes de la perception.
En tant que musicien, il compose et joue des pièces utilisant la vielle à roue, les synthétiseurs analogiques, la phonographie et l\\\'électronique. Ses recherches questionnent la perception des corps résonants. Il a joué avec avec Phill Niblock, Yann Gourdon, Richard Glover, Brice Jeannin, Patrice Grente, Julien Ottavi, Robert Poss, Paul Panhuysen, Marie Verry, Joachim Montessuis.
En continuité de ses pratiques il œuvre à la diffusion des pratiques sonores et intermédia comme programmateur et commissaire d\\\'expositions indépendant. En tant que commissaire, il a organisé les expositions de Paul Panhuysen, Brandon Labelle, Christof Migone, Maxime Vernier, Phill Niblock, Henri Chopin, Feed me with your kiss au Consortium de Dijon, Resonant Bodies à l\\\'ISBA de Besançon et programmé les festivals Oh cet echo et Architectone (Salines royales d\\\'Arc et Senans), NYC Sound au CAPC de Bordeaux, ainsi que divers concerts.
|
2019 |
€12.00 |
|
| EVAPORI |
Rehearsals for Objects |
CD |
"1000füsslers industriell gefertigte Releases erreichen einen neuen Maßstab. Neben Tietchens und der sehr schön angelegten Heizungs-CD ist Evaporis Beitrag zum CD-Labelkatalog ein weiteres ungewohnt klingendes Zeugnis Neuer Musik. Völlig losgelöst vom Digitalkrach oder jedweder PlugIn-Klangmasse erscheinen die hier versammelten Stücke wie alte Schneidetischexzesse eines digital aufgemöbelten Walter Ruttmanns. Die raumklangtechnisch ausgesteuerten Klänge und Geräusche werden mittels ihrer Aufnahmeposition verfremdet und steuern damit gegen den sonst allgegenwärtigen digitalen Verfremdungsprozess. Klanglich angesiedelt zwischen einer ausziselierten Kapotte Muziek Komposition und einer Esseiva Etude passiert im zeitlichen Rahmen dieser CD anfangs eine Menge: feine Schleifklänge wechseln teils in rapiden Wechseln ihre Soundzustände, lösen sich auf und bilden feine Schnittkanten, an deren teils gratfreien Oberflächen allerlei konkretes Material sich ansammelt, ehe es mit einem schnellen Schnitt in andere Ebenen gehoben wird. Der zweite Satz zeigt die stärkste Dekonstruktion mittels Audioschnitt und Collaging, weicht doch der geschickte Einsatz der Stille teilweise radikalen Rückwärtsrichtungen des Quellmaterials, ehe der letzte Akt der CD in teilweise recht droniges Basisbrummen gleitet und etwas schlüpfrig den Weg aus der Komposition weist. Evaporis Ansatz einer völlig raumklangbezogenen Kompositionsweise macht vor allem dann Sinn, wenn die ohnehin sehr liquiden und scharf gestellten (Rest)geräusche in teilweise verzweifelt wirkender Flucht ihre Plätze suchen. Die in endloser Rotation wiederholten Brummschleifen unter den gestreuten Sounds macht es fast schon wieder interessant, mal selber die Lautsprecher um einige Zoll im Raum zu verschieben und den damit verbundenen Akustiksituationen zu lauschen. Ganz schön interaktives Material." [Thorsten Soltau, AEMAG]
"The aim while composing was to create a sound landscape that is exclusively made up of recordings which are not processed by computer effects (so-called plug-ins). The sounds are influenced by the way they are recorded, e.g. by the positions of the microphone and the sound source in a room. The resulting sonic situations are the basis of the the composition. The sounds – most of them of an everyday nature – were transformed using computer editing only, in order to leave the recognizability of the sounds untouched, create tension and to arouse the listener‘s curiosity through different atmospheric cadences.
Recordings were made at Rauchhaus / Berlin, Fundbureau and Christianskirche / Hamburg
Mastering by Guy Saldanha
Artwork by Nicolas Wiese
Thanks to Celia Herrero and Christoph Lohse"
[label info / credits]
www.tausend-fuessler.de
"Das nenn ich doch mal eine Produktinformation: „Die größtenteils aus dem Alltag stammenden Klänge wurden am Computer ausschließlich durch Schnitttechnik verfremdet, um die Erkennbarkeit der Klangquellen offen zu halten, Spannung aufzubauen und durch verschiedene Stimmungsbögen bei dem Hörer Neugier zu wecken.“ Das hat man nicht oft, dass ein Geräuschkunstmacher auch mal an seine (potentiellen) Hörer denkt und dass er das Ziel seiner Bemühungen angibt - Stimmung, Spannung, Neugier. Oliver Peters ist in BA schon bekannt als AIC-Macher und, obwohl in Berlin aktiv, für seine guten Verbindungen zur Hamburger Szene, zur Hörbar, zu Guy Saldanha (Knistern), der hier das Mastering besorgte, zu Uli Rehbergs Walter Ulbricht Schallfolien, wo zuletzt seine LP Fumes (2007) herauskam, zu Gregory Büttner, der ihm auf 1000füssler bereits zum zweiten Mal ein Forum bietet. Was hier die Neugier weckt, sind Übungen, Turn- oder Tanzübungen von Gegenständen in einem menschenleeren Raum. Nur die vermeintliche Abwesenheit von Beobachtern oder Lauschern ermöglicht diese leicht gespenstischen, zumindest ominösen und odradekhaften Verspieltheiten. Es huscht, trappelt, kullert, von ganz feinen Drones umspielt. Vielgliedrig tockt, ratscht, schabt und klickt Holz an Holz, Metall an Metall, Was? an Was? -kreuz und quer durch den Raum, an Wänden und an der Decke. Odradek-Hockey? Odradek-Mikado oder -Kampfsport? Ein ‚interlude‘ zwischen ‚rehearsal I & II‘ lässt keine Atempause, sondern verdichtet sogar die Aktionen, mit fast menschlichen Zischlauten. Das hat nichts ‚Ambientes‘, sondern eine spielerische Dramaturgie, die allerdings ihr Geheimnis - wer sind die Spieler und was proben sie? - nicht Preis gibt, denn wir sehen nichts, wir können nur lauschen und rätseln." [Bad Alchemy]
"Oliver Peters, the man behind the AIC label and the musical project Evapori, likes his sounds to be free of computer plug ins. Take an object, place a microphone and record the object. The placing of the microphone is essential as it alters the sound. Take a whole bunch of objects, record them and then make a CD out of these recordings. The computer is merely a recording device, where, in good musique concrete tradition, cuts can be made, stereo adjustment and balancing the various sounds. That is most commendable, I think, as most computer plug ins do tend to sound too similar. What Peters does here, is not done a lot. Using natural space to create reverb, he carefully touches his objects and makes a very intense sound collage out of it. One that requires full attention. At times I was reminded of the live sound of Kapotte Muziek, but then multi-layered and with more concentration - but then of course the computer here can cut out all the unwanted sounds, which live is more difficult. By adding machine hum towards the end of 'Rehearsal 1', he manages to sound like drone music too. I think this is a great CD, but there is one thing I don't understand: why call this rehearsals? Rehearsal for what? It gives the impression that this is unfinished business, unless Peters wants us to cut further in this material, but somehow I don't think that this the case here. Why not go full on and state that these are 'compositions'? " [FdW / Vital Weekly]
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| EVIDENCE |
Iris |
CD & DVD |
EVIDENCE ist der Projektname eines Duos von SCOTT SMALLWOOD und STEPHAN MOORE, dies die zweite Veröffentlichung mit 11 Stücken, die auf der DVD von verschiedenen Videokünstlern visuell "begleitet" wurden. Auf "Iris" dominieren flächige und loopige Arrangements, die wohl grösstenteils auf Feldaufnahmen basieren. Es ergeben sich mitunter rhythmische Muster, dröhnminimalistische (Anti)-Statik fusioniert mit field recordings...
"Iris, the second CD release from the duo Evidence (Stephan Moore and Scott Smallwood) on the Deep Listening label, is also their first video release. The DVD has the same sonic material as the music on the CD, but it features video pieces by the duo's favorite live-video performers, including Benton-C Bainbridge, Betsey Biggs, Fi$h2000, Madeleine Gallagher, Dawn Haleta, David Lublin, Jonathan Lee Marcus, Olivia Robinson, skfl, Diana Reed Slattery, Jack Turner and Walter Wright. These pieces emphasize the spontaneity of the artists' live performances, the practice of using 'found' materials, and suggest the emergence of a regional aesthetic stemming from the recent hotbed of media performance centered around Troy, New York. Stephan Moore is a composer, improviser, audio artist, sound designer and software programmer from Marquette, Michigan, currently based in New York City. His work is grounded in the collection and investigation of environmental sound recordings and a fascination with the perception and properties of acoustic environments. Scott Smallwood deals with real and abstracted soundscapes based on a practice of listening, improvisation, and phonography. Ranging from sonic photographs, studio compositions, instrumental pieces, and improvisations, the resulting pieces are often textural, always mindful of space and subtlety." [lable info]
www.deeplistening.org
|
2007 |
€18.00 |
|
| EXPO 70 (EXPO SEVENTY) |
Mother Universe has birthed her last Cosmos |
do-CD |
A collection of rare recordings from 2008-2010, previously released only on two mini CDRs and two cassettes. They contain some of the finest tracks in the Expo '70 history, reminiscent of Ashra and early Amon Düül II. This composition and 'Ostara', which make up the first CD, are the beginnings of a trio version of the project, known as Expo Seventy (in contrast to the solo recordings as Expo 70). The second CD is filled with an hour from Justin Wright's solo sessions. In addition to traditional guitar sounds, he explores the possibilities of the Moog synthesizer. These compositions perfectly complement the material from the first disc. Ltd x 500 copies in an ecopak.
|
2018 |
€15.00 |
|
| FAGASCHINSKI, KAI & BERHARD GAL |
Going round in Serpentines |
CD |
"In going round in serpentines, Bernhard Gal's re-contexturalized field recordings merge with the sonic characteristics of Kai Fagaschinski's idiosyncratic clarinet playing. Gal opens up new acoustic spaces, while Fagaschinski sculpts air with his clarinet in various ways. Based on clarinet samples, they also build up microtonal clusters with drone-like qualities. In their music they create an ambivalent musical situation between concrete and abstract listening. During a focused rehearsal period in winter 03 04, Fagaschinski and Gal developed open compositions where preconceived musical structures are combined with the specific energy of improvisation. Done in Berlin-Friedenau, January-February 2004'
Kai Fagaschinski: clarinet. Bernhard Gal: computer." [press release]
"....two of berlin's improv. musicians came together to release a lovely album. kai fagaschinski plays clarinet, whereas barnard gál makes use of a computer. the soundscape they produce together is a wonderful journey in which concrete sounds and the experimental use of the clarinet make up for a rich and detailed scenery. the music follows a certain route, leading the listener in imagineable worlds where each single sound is of utmost importance. minimalism with a realistic touch, also due to the breathing during kai fagaschinski's clarinet play. playing pool goes along with the hiss of a wind instrument, strange little activities are mixed with abstract electronic noises. "shut up and listen, dumb ass!" is written in the booklet as well, and that's what the music is all about, concentrate and let the music lead you to unknown worlds never heard before." [Paul Bijlsma, Phosphor mag]
|
2005 |
€10.00 |
|
| FAGES, FERRAN |
A cavall entre dos cavalls |
CD |
"Ferran Fages, electric guitar. Self-tought musician, started playing guitar in the rock scene, but in 1998 stopped for re-thinking the instrument and the music made with it. In 2002 starts from zero, a process where music allows harmony to circulate without being dependent of itself, where time is the reason for exposed materials, always as compositions, never closed, where space is enough for permanent changes, everytime it is played. 'a cavall entre dos cavalls' is a exemple of that. The record process took 2 years, where different ideas have been compressed, mixed and amplified. It's hard to see the way that each composition took because of the different changes everytime the pieces were played. But I think that the recording made in June, documents at some extent, a moment of the undergoing process, it shows the basic lines where I move when it concerns guitar playing. The sound of the instrument had a very big importance for the process. The guitar is tuned 2 octaves lower than what I normally use in the bass amplifier." [label info]
www.creativesourcesrec.com
|
2004 |
€13.00 |
|
| FATHER MURPHY |
Lamentations |
10inch |
"The release of 'Lamentations', presented on 10-inch vinyl, completes Father Murphy's 2015 'Trilogy Of The Cross'. Inspired by a far from orthodox reading of the Book of Jeremiah and by the tradition of the Holy Week Lamentations, the Italian duo recorded two long compositions that feel like classic Father Murphy, but at the same time reveal a substantial enrichment of the band's usually spare sonic palette. For this project core members Rev. Murphy and Chiara Lee teamed up with producer Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo (Larsen)." [label info]
www.backwards.it
|
2015 |
€13.00 |
|
| FAVARON, GIANLUCA |
Surfaces |
LP |
"Gianluca Favaron returns on Silentes with the second release in the prestigious “Private Sounds” series. Besides having published some solo works, Favaron is part of Under The Snow along with Stefano Gentile and collaborates with Ennio Mazzon on the Zbeen project. In the past he has released music as Ab'she and was part of Lasik Surgery along with Pierpaolo Zoppo. Among his most recent releases we remember his collaboration with Corrado Altieri entitled "The System of Objects". "Surfaces" is a modern electronic composition that was inspired by a series of Polaroids pictures taken by Favaron himself, whose basic idea is to create some patterns based on the repetition of small sound particles obtained with the fewest possible sources. The six parts of “Surfaces” were created recording the sounds of individual objects (... paper, scissors, stones, kitchen items, etc.), which were subsequently treated - mainly with two delay machines - and then assembled in the computer domain. A few digital sounds were added for good measure, but always trying to use the fewest number of sound sources in every part of the composition. The finished result is a series of particular sonic events that keep on chasing each other and give life to a microcosm populated with slowly evolving rhythmic loops that lull the listener into a sort of pleasant inner dance.
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, "Surfaces" is a single-sided 12" record released in a standard edition of 86 copies. A special "Art Edition" is also available: the 13 copies of this edition contain a 30x30cm print reproduction from the Polaroid series that inspired the audio work, and the corresponding Polaroid picture." [label info]
http://13.silentes.it
"And then, finally, a solo work of Favaron, also on an one sided LP - both of these LPs are highly limited to less then 100 copies and are pressed on grey vinyl. Skip what I said about drone/ambient in Favaron's work, as on his solo LP he's taking the work he did with Corrado Altieri to another level. Here we have clearly acoustic sounds, which the cover describes as 'objects', and 'effects'. It seems to me these objects are being strummed, hit or banged and then sampled and fed through a bunch of effects. Here too we are dealing with the more louder areas of musique concrete, but unlike the CD with Altieri, the pieces are shorter here, almost in a sketch like fashion, going all over the acoustic spectrum, cutting in and out with the electronic transformations there of. The objects are used clear and dry, even when not revealing what these objects are, but in the process of mixing, all sorts of transformations are used to make a nice vibrant mix of all stages of the transformation
process. Not always very noisy, such as in the fourth (and longest) piece, but it's a fine mixture of loud and quiet, through some highly intelligent compositions/improvisations (hard to make up my mind here). I thought it was fine that Under The Snow was a single sided record, but here I wouldn't have minded a second side with more music. This all sounded great." [FdW / Vital Weekly] |
2014 |
€18.00 |
|
|
Equivalent XI |
CD |
"Following the publication of the extremely limited single-sided 12" record “Surfaces”, which occurred just a few months ago and is now hopelessly sold-out, Gianluca Favaron returns on 13 with a new solo work released in the prestigious "Private Sounds" series.
Besides having published a few solo works, Favaron is part of Under The Snow along with Stefano Gentile and collaborates with Ennio Mazzon on the Zbeen project. In the past he has released music as Ab'she and was part of Lasik Surgery along with Pierpaolo Zoppo. Among his most recent releases we remember his collaboration with Corrado Altieri entitled "The System of Objects".
"Equivalent XI" continues the path undertaken with "Surfaces", also benefiting from some excerpts that were already included in the aforementioned work, which are proposed again on this new CD.
Starting from simple recordings of sounds produced by everyday objects (…such as paper, scissors, kitchen stuff etc.), treated mainly with two delay machines, Favaron has collected eleven compositions. The idea behind this new release is to create some patterns based on the repetition of small sound particles obtained from a single source.
In the eleven tracks on the album, mostly of short duration, we witness the proliferation of particular sound events that, sometimes wandering alone or sometimes by congregating into small throbbing and vital lumps, generate a vibrant microcosm characterized by short loops, slowly but constantly evolving. In some cases, as for example in the more long-lasting closing number, the simplicity of the construct and the infinitesimal tonal progressions are appreciated for their intrinsic hypnotic quality.
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, "Equivalent XI" is released in a limited edition of 250 copies that stands out for its essential graphics; the first 50 copies of the CD contain a real hand-numbered photograph." [label info]
13.silentes.it
|
2014 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Equivalent XI |
CD |
"Following the publication of the extremely limited single-sided 12" record “Surfaces”, which occurred just a few months ago and is now hopelessly sold-out, Gianluca Favaron returns on 13 with a new solo work released in the prestigious "Private Sounds" series.
Besides having published a few solo works, Favaron is part of Under The Snow along with Stefano Gentile and collaborates with Ennio Mazzon on the Zbeen project. In the past he has released music as Ab'she and was part of Lasik Surgery along with Pierpaolo Zoppo. Among his most recent releases we remember his collaboration with Corrado Altieri entitled "The System of Objects".
"Equivalent XI" continues the path undertaken with "Surfaces", also benefiting from some excerpts that were already included in the aforementioned work, which are proposed again on this new CD.
Starting from simple recordings of sounds produced by everyday objects (…such as paper, scissors, kitchen stuff etc.), treated mainly with two delay machines, Favaron has collected eleven compositions. The idea behind this new release is to create some patterns based on the repetition of small sound particles obtained from a single source.
In the eleven tracks on the album, mostly of short duration, we witness the proliferation of particular sound events that, sometimes wandering alone or sometimes by congregating into small throbbing and vital lumps, generate a vibrant microcosm characterized by short loops, slowly but constantly evolving. In some cases, as for example in the more long-lasting closing number, the simplicity of the construct and the infinitesimal tonal progressions are appreciated for their intrinsic hypnotic quality.
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, "Equivalent XI" is released in a limited edition of 250 copies that stands out for its essential graphics; the first 50 copies of the CD contain a real hand-numbered photograph." [label info]
13.silentes.it
"On this new work he continues what he started on his previous record, 'Surfaces', a limited piece of vinyl which we didn't review (or hear), but which apparently deals with every day sounds - songs from the kitchen sink? - such as paper, scissors, kitchen stuff, which are treated with two delay machines and the result is eleven short pieces, from less than a minute up to five minutes. This is a most strange release, and if you know me, strange is not a word I use easily. This music has a certain naivety, or perhaps something rather 'simple' with the objects being played with relatively ease, but then captured or locked into a system of living electronics, bending and moving these 'easy' sounds around. Maybe it's all done in a very simple and direct way, much like it is suggested. And there is nothing 'wrong' with that. In the end it's the result that counts and that is result is something I like very much. It's very quiet music, almost accidental, 'I couldn't help it, it just happened', but of the variety that is usually associated with the label and the styles we know it for, ambient and drone." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€12.00 |
|
| FAVARON, GIANLUCA / ANACLETO VITOLO |
Zolfo |
CD |
"Zolfo" is born by the collaboration between Gianluca Favaron and Anacleto Vitolo. Both involved in many projects and music collaborations - Favaron with Corrado Altieri, Deison and in groups like Lasik Surgery, Maribor, Zbeen and Under The Snow; Vitolo with Doublebass player Francesco Galatro, Viola player Michela Coppola, Domenico Stellavatecascio (Internos) and many other.
The album was composed, recorded, and mixed between January and May 2016 and is a mix of several music elements and techniques, such as tape loops, cymbals, microphonic works and live electronic processing. The result is a combination of musique concrète, noise and drone music.
Gianluca Favaron:
As electroacoustic musician, his work focuses on the processing of concrete sounds using software made on purpose. Field-recordings, drones: an approach that uses different music languages, to elaborate, merge or transform sounds made by everyday objects into something different, both taking them out of context and/or processing and modifying them with various effects. .
In 2015 he has released the CD albums "Entretien" on 13/Silentes and "Forget About Any Non-Gray" on MFU /Concrete
Anacleto Vitolo:
Anacleto Vitolo A.K.A. AV-K / K.lust / Kletus.K part of several collectives such as X(i)NEON, Internos and Algebra del Bisogno, born August 2, 1985 in Battipaglia (SA), Italy.In 2010 and 2014 took part in “FLUSSI” festival sharing the same stage with some of the most important musicians of the contemporary electronic scene as Murcof, Thomas Fehlmann, Vladislav Delay, Retina.it, Emanuele Errante, Mokira, Mount Kimbie, etc. In 2013 signs a contract as Publishing Artist with FatCat. In 2015 takes part to MiRA festival in Barcelona with Andy Stott, Ben Frost, Richard Devine, Prefuse 73, Nosaj Thing and many others. He's the CO-Director of Manyfeetunder label, alongside with Vincenzo Nava ( dramavinile, UHVA) and Cogwheel Press Rec. Active with a lot of collaborations and releases.
credits
mfu/c 010 | sps1616
Gianluca Favaron : tapes, objects, microphones, analog and digital effects
Anacleto Vitolo: live electronics, cymbals, laptop, objects
"Crispy, crunchy, and crackly ~ these are the sounds of Zolfo. In real life, we hear such sounds in crumpling paper and leaves underfoot. In the electronic realm, they surface in cellphones, computers and amplifier feedback. Blend organic and electronic, as Gianluca Favaron and Anacleto Vitolo have done, and one will hear a padded melange, thicker than the timbres one is accustomed to hearing outside of a factory setting. So yes, that may be a church bell in the title track, stuttered and looped ~ but it may be the imitation of a church bell, the mind struggling to define and categorize what it is hearing.
To prepare this album, the artists used a wide variety of sources, from cymbals to laptops, along with the vague term “objects”. Favaron in particular is enamored with decontextualization. Just because something sounds like a singing bowl (“Infrasound”) doesn’t mean it is a singing bowl; and if it is, Favaron and Vitolo have found a new purpose for its thrum. And all the while, drones and hums intrude, eager to colonize the sonic field, while glitches and pops decorate the drones like sparkling debris in a raging river.
This is the thicker, busier end of the electroacoustic spectrum, a genre that lacks distinguishing tags, simply because there is so little of it. I call it particle accelerator music (PAM), as it sounds like agitated atoms. “Oblivion” highlights a scuttling sound, like that of the crablike creature racing across the floor in the medical lab of Aliens. Because the sonic field is constantly in motion, it’s hard to get a handle on the heart of these compositions; one drinks them like carbonation. On “Fold-in”, a welcome warmth is added by bells and horns, although the title makes one think of an egg dropped in batter. Thankfully, the metaphor fits. “Reflection” seems to contain power tools, sirens and broken glass, intimating a shattered mirror, or by extension, a shattered sense of self. Only in the album’s closing seconds does humanity make an appearance: pleasant banter and laughter, the lab coats packed away, the atoms free to collide, no longer performing under watchful eyes." [Richard Allen/A closer listen]
https://manyfeetunderconcrete.bandcamp.com/album/zolfo |
2016 |
€10.00 |
|
| FEINE TRINKERS BEI PINKELS DAHEIM (F.T.B.P.D.) |
A Bug's Life |
CD |
"Jürgen Eberhard aka Feine Trinkers Bei Pinkels Daheim celebrates 25 years of his artistic activity with the first full-length album on Zoharum entitled "A Bug's Life". keen observers of our activity certainly know his name, for instance from a common vinyl 7-incher entitled "Both Sides of The Looking Glass" shared with Bisclaveret duo or from the composition "Enigmatic Visions", which appeared on a commemorative compilation "07|100|15".
"A Bug's Life" is the tenth full-length album in the discography of Feine Trinkers Bei Pinkels Daheim. It was being created, like the previous ones, for several years and is another conscious artistic statement. Seven compositions included here are of a collage nature and combine echoes of post-industrial ambient, drone music, musique concrete, field recordings and even plunderphonics. On his first studio album since "Die Legende vom Heiligen Trinker" from 2011, Jürgen Eberhard consciously continues his sonic quest on a depleted terrain and he manages to avoid traps of empty experiments. "A Bug's Life" is at the same time an atmospheric, and even accessible, album, and sonically elaborate and demanding of the listener." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
"FEINE TRINKERS BEI PINKELS DAHEIM ist ein Projekt, das ja eher unregelmäßig in der Musiklandschaft auftaucht, dabei aber bereits recht langlebig ist. Das letzte reguläre Album von JÜRGEN EBERHARD unter diesem Banner erschien 2011. „A Bug’s Life“ – so hieß übrigens auch der Pixar-Film „Das große Krabbeln“ im Original – widmet sich dem Namen entsprechend den Geräuschen von Insekten, die Grundlage für die Soundgestaltung des Albums gewesen sein sollen. Hierbei sollte man aber kein dauerndes, möglichst naturnahes Gezirpe oder Gesirre im Kopf haben – quasi ein Field-Recording-Overkill, sondern Klänge, die extrem stark bearbeitet und verfremdet wurden, wobei am Ende dennoch der Charakter von Sounds, die von Insekten erzeugt werden – auch knisternde, schabende Geräusche –, erhalten bleibt.
Tatsächlich ist der Sound auf „A Bug’s Life“ aber relativ vielschichtig, teils auch wuchtig und massiv oder mit Drones durchsetzt, sodass das Ganze recht gut funktioniert und eben nicht an einen Abend auf der Terrasse erinnert. Auch Stimmen werden – verfremdet oder nicht – eingesetzt und Abwechslung kommt zusätzlich durch Stücke ins Spiel, die mit weiblichen Gesangslinien, die quasi als Zusatzinstrument fungieren, ausgestattet sind. Hier wäre wohl auch der Punkt, an dem man die Unterstützung von diversen Gästen wie u.a. MISS POLYESTER, FRL. LINIENTREU oder GENEVIÈVE PASQUIER erwähnen könnte. Das Klangspektrum reicht letztendlich von orientalisch angehauchten Sounds inklusive Rhythmus („Metallifekuwagamon“) bis hin zu düsteren Soundcollagen, die auch aufgrund der Bilder, die im Kopf entstehen, Unruhe auslösen können. Somit ist „A Bug’s Life“ eine spannende Sache für Freunde des Ambient oder der experimentellen Elektronik. Idee und Ausführung passen in jedem Fall hervorragend zueinander und die Qualität stimmt hier sowieso."
[Tony F. für nonpop.de]
"In der Geräuschmusik und überall sonst, wo mit Samples gearbeitet wird, sind Tiergeräusche eine beliebte Soundquelle, und zu den gefragtesten Geräuschproduzenten zählen seit jeher Insekten – was wäre ein sommerliches Kitschkolorit ohne das Zirpen von Grillen und Zikaden, und dass man aus dem Summen fliegender Insekten Noise und elektroakustiche Musik machen kann, ist hinlänglich bekannt.
Beliebt sind Feldaufnahmen, bei denen die Sounds weitgehend naturbelassen bleiben und nur gelegentlich etwas Struktur eingebracht wird wie bei Dave Phillips’ und Hasegawa Hiroshis “Insect Apocalypse” oder “The Progeny of Flies” von Daniel Manche und Andrew Liles. Seltener sind Aufnahmen, bei denen die Sounds so stark verfremdet sind, dass man ohne Hintergrundwissen die Quelle kaum erkennen kann. Etwas derartiges hat der feine Pinkel, ähm: Trinker Jürgen Eberhard vor Kurzem unter dem Titel “A Bug’s Life” zustande gebracht.
Die komplette CD wirkt wie ein Zoom, bei dem die Kamera dem lebenden Objekt so nah auf den Panzer rückt, dass man nur noch kleinteilige Strukturen in Übergröße erkennt, während größere Zusammenhänge nur noch zu erahnen sind. Vieles klingt wie ins Monströße vergrößert: Maschinell klingendes Summen, dass zeitweise in Noisewände übergeht, Detonationen, verursacht von einem enormen Insekt, das gegen eine überdimensionierte Scheibe knallt. Zirpen und Flattern, das eher nach einem Vogel klingt, und dem Tier, dessen rhythmischer Flügenschlag gegen Ende zu hören ist, möchte ich nicht im Dunkeln begegnen. So furchteinflößend es hier zugeht, hat die bizarre Szenerie auch irrsinnig Komisches zu bieten.
Neben all dem gibt es zahlreiche Stellen, an denen kaum zu erkennen ist, ob die Aufnahmen ganz unkenntlich gemacht wurden oder anderen, z.B. elektronischen Ursprungs sind. Dies gilt für geschliffenen Ambientsound und zirkushafte Melodien ebenso wie für den entspannten Ethnosound, der irgendwann ganz überraschend eine Sängerin begleitet (die meisten Stimmbeiträge von Geneviève Pasquier, Allseits vs Troum, Frl. Linientreu und Joke Lanz sind spoken words). Ebenso gilt dies für monströses Brüllen, dass hoffentlich von einem Wirbeltier stammt.
Aber warum eigentlich? Im Unterschied zu naturbelassenen Insektensounds lassen die Aufnahmen hier die Tiere enorm groß erscheinen und brechen so mit gänigen Wahrnehmungsgewohnheiten. Die nachhaltige, über den bloßen Schock weit hinausgehende Wirkung, kann im besten Fall in einem veränderten Blick auf das Tierreich münden." [J.G./U.S./African Paper] |
2016 |
€12.00 |
|
| FELIX KUBIN & ENSEMBLE INTEGRALES |
Echohaus |
CD |
"this latest project by the musician, composer and futurist felix kubin is a collaboration with the contemporary music chamber group, ensemble intégrales, and the reknowned german underground pop producer and sound engineer, tobias levin. echohaus was recorded in and around levin's electric avenue studio in the basement of westwerk in hamburg. a special recording technique was developed for the project whereby the musicians played simultaneously in separate rooms, connected to one and other only by headphones. this was done in order to achieve a lively,"cinematic" sound that made use of the particular dynamics of the rooms and amplified mechanical details. the rooms, each of which had a different acoustic character, were used as natural echo chambers. kubin and the composer burkhard friedrich provided the musicians with simple graphic scores or basic descriptions of the compositions; all subsequent material was developed on the fly. kubin was in the mixing room giving instructions and suggestions, while the musicians played and improvised, adding their own ideas to the project. no artificial reverb or effects were added to the recordings. the different types of rooms and microphones, noises inside and outside of the studio, as well as the unusual interrelationship between the physically isolated players became part of the process. after a five-day recording session kubin and levin created various mixes which kubin then edited over a period of several months. the final results mark yet another radical departure from kubin's trademark sci-fi pop sound, blending the aesthetics of academic contemporary music, film soundtracks and improvised music with a strong focus on room-specific natural acoustics." [label info]
www.dekorder.com
|
2010 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Echohaus |
do-LP |
"This latest project by the Hamburg-based musician, composer, and futurist, Felix Kubin, (his second release on Dekorder) is a collaboration with the contemporary music chamber group, ensemble Intégrales, and the reknowned German underground pop producer and sound engineer, Tobias Levin.
Echohaus was recorded in and around Levin's Electric Avenue studio in the basement of WESTWERK, a former squat and cultural centre for non-commercial art and music in Hamburg. A special recording technique was developed for the project whereby the musicians played simultaneously in separate rooms, connected to one and other only by headphones. This was done in order to achieve a lively,“cinematic" sound that made use of the particular dynamics of the rooms and amplified mechanical details. The rooms, each of which had a different acoustic character, were used as natural echo chambers. Kubin and the composer Burkhard Friedrich, former member of ensemble Intégrales, provided the musicians with simple graphic scores or basic descriptions of the compositions; all subsequent material was developed on the fly. Kubin was in the mixing room giving instructions and suggestions, while the musicians played and improvised, adding their own ideas to the project.
No artificial reverb or effects were added to the recordings. The different types of rooms and microphones, noises inside and outside of the studio, as well as the unusual interrelationship between the physically isolated players became part of the process. All the tracks were recorded in one take without any additional layers or track-by-track recordings. After a five-day recording session Kubin and Levin created various mixes which Kubin then edited over a period of several months.
The final results mark yet another radical departure from Kubin's trademark Sci-Fi Pop sound, blending the aesthetics of academic contemporary music, film soundtracks and improvised music with a strong focus on room-specific natural acoustics." [label info]
www.dekorder.com
"Branching out into conceptual composition with Ensemble Intégrales, Felix Kubin acted as a sort of central engineer/conductor for this piece, with each instrument recorded live with no overdubs in separate rooms at the Westwerk cultural centre in Hamburg under Kubin’s supervision, and the results edited by him down into the resulting album. As a result, each room sound is almost as important as the tones recorded for the instruments concerned, and the results certainly resonate with the nuances of each space in the final mix, especially when listened to on headphones – which is probably the best way to appreciate the textures of the recording.
It’s also perhaps inevitable that the terms electro-acoustic and musique concrète will crop as reference points when describing both the techniques and sounds of Echohaus – and justifiably too. There’s plenty of scraping, creaking, twisting and plinking, honking, squittering electronics and keening breaths, mournful drones and pizzicato strings among the synthesized interventions, in between the electro-mechanical susurrus and thumping among gentler ripples on piano and violin, with vaporous electronic reflections trickling subtly or otherwise across the dissociated (but not disembodied) studio space. The improv is strong here, quite happy to let rip into spine-tingling moments very close indeed to the fingernail/blackboard interface.
So drumkits give their best falling down the stairs impressions (though it frequently does seem like that baskets full of household good are being given a good thrashing ), and there are moments where stereo-panned strings rise in counterpointed waves which could quite possibly drag the listener into a state of panicked delirium. What is particularly enjoyable are those moments where the music moves through space as Kubin manipulates the mix, with deep bass throbs and high-pitched whines circling the clatter of percussive motion across the soundscape he creates with the Ensemble’s sounds. Is that the sound of one room bleeding and/or receding into another, or is it just the natural echo? Who can tell, and does it matter too much?
To keep calling this sort of music avantgarde is perhaps to hang onto a term which sometimes seems to be almost backward-looking, given the decades in which this modernist form has developed (or otherwise) – but even so, the recording technique is, if not at the advance guard, at least experimental in some form or other. But so much for labels – this is largely a fine piece of work where dissonance and discordance, horripilation and disconcerted listening teeter into sometimes quavering moments of reflexive beauty. Echohaus engages the senses fully, and the way in which it was recorded and produced being ultimately secondary to the results, which, while often difficult – or flat-out challenging – listening, are certainly none the worse for that." [Freq.org] |
2010 |
€18.50 |
|
| FENNESZ |
17.02.12 |
BOX |
"LTD box set 500 copies (gatefold 2LP, CD of the album, DVD, 12 p. photo book) Christian Fennesz is an Austrian electronic musician, active since the late nineties, and influenced by artists like the Fripp & Eno of the 1970s and guitar-synth pioneer Chuck Hammer.
Fennesz uses guitar and laptops "to make multilayered compositions that blend melody and conventional musical instruments with harsh, irregular glitch-influenced sounds and washes of white noise." Over the years, Fennesz has played and collaborated with a number of artists including Mike Patton, Jim O'Rourke, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Keith Rowe, Peter Rehberg, Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and David Sylvain.
In 2012 Fennesz also wrote the OST to the independent Austrian film, Aun, directed by Edgar Honetschläger, and based on the writings of Claude Levi-Strauss.
On this double LP Fennesz can be heard performing to a live audience at a concert held at the Museo Marini in Florence, Italy in February 2012.
The deluxe box set version includes, in addition to the 2LP, a CD of the performance, a 12 page photographic book, and a DVD featuring a 1927 silent film by German filmmaker Walter Ruttmann Berlin called Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Symphony of a Great City)." [label info]
|
2013 |
€111.00 |
|
| |
17.02.12 |
do-LP |
"Christian Fennesz is an Austrian electronic musician, active since the late nineties, and influenced by artists like the Fripp & Eno of the 1970s and guitar-synth pioneer Chuck Hammer.
Fennesz uses guitar and laptops "to make multilayered compositions that blend melody and conventional musical instruments with harsh, irregular glitch-influenced sounds and washes of white noise." Over the years, Fennesz has played and collaborated with a number of artists including Mike Patton, Jim O'Rourke, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Keith Rowe, Peter Rehberg, Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and David Sylvain.
On this double LP Fennesz can be heard performing to a live audience at a concert held at the Museo Marini in Florence, Italy in February 2012, backed by the images of the 1927 silent film by German filmmaker Walter Ruttmann Berlin called Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Symphony of a Great City)." [label info] |
2013 |
€29.00 |
|
| FERRARI, LUC |
Son memorise |
CD |
„In Entwicklung zum ersten P.R. von 1970, dessen einzigartige Aura ja schon beinahe schmerzt, scheint das ‚beinahe nichts‘ des Presque Rien #4 einem ‚allmählich alles‘ gewichen zu sein. Luc Ferrari hat allerdings von P.R. zu P.R. den Erinnerungen immer mehr Pinselstriche hinzugefügt, und ist auch selbst immer mehr Bestandteil der Hörbilder geworden. Wird also beinahe nichts mehr weggelassen? Zögerlich ist nach eigenem Bekunden Ferraris kompositorische Herangehensweise. So brauchte es zur Realisation des Presque rien #4 ¬ La remontée du village 8 Jahre. 1998 vollendet, spannt es nun als „opener“ den Bogen der vorliegenden CD zu einer Studie über die Wirklichkeit von Erinnerung und wie sie sich im Nachhinein als immer verfremdet darstellt. So erzählt „Promenade symphonique dans un paysage
musical ou un jour de fète à el qued en 1976“ (1976-1978) von einem Spaziergang in eine Stadt. Ein Mann stimmt einen erotischen Gesang an, auf dem Marktplatz beginnt eine Trommelgruppe zu spielen, Passanten kommen zusammen, Schüsse knallen, zum Abend hin kündigen Frauenrufe den Auftritt der Hochzeitsbraut an. Die Party steigt bis die Trommelgruppe tanzend in den zur Nacht vergehenden Abend verschwindet. Durch Hervorhebungen einzelner Passagen und der behutsamen Bearbeitung der Klänge insgesamt, offenbart Ferrari das Nichtreale der Tonbandaufnahme. Die illusorische Vorstellung einer objektiven Realität wird dem Hörer unterschwellig, fast unheimlich (schön) offenbart, wenn Ferrari mit subtilem Feingefühl in weiser Lässigkeit auf den Grenzlinien zur Manipulation spazieren geht. „Saliceburry Coctail“ (2002) ist ein ebenfalls ca. 1/2stündiges Werk. Wie in einem Cocktail die Zutaten so eingerichtet sind, das Aromen sowohl verstärkt als auch ausgeblendet werden können, wurden hier realistische sowie synthetische Sounds vermischt, geschichtet, transformiert. Was es mit diesem Stück genauer auf sich hat und warum es sich charakterlich von den vorhergehenden unterscheidet, ist aus den beiliegenden Kommentaren des Komponisten zu erfahren.
Presque Rien #4 seems to be ‚about everything‘ instead of the ‚almost nothing‘ from 1970. However, Ferrari has developed his „Presque Rien“ pieces in a more and more extensive way. There has always been hesitation on his part before releasing a „Presque Rien“. To release the fourth one took nine years. Now it’s the opener of this CD starting a study about the reality of memory and the problem of it’s transfigured portrayal afterwards. So „Promenade symphonique dans un paysage musical ou un jour de fète à el qued en 1976“ (1976-1978) tells about a walk in a nearby city. A man starts an erotic singing, on the market place a drum ensemble is playing, passerby are crowding around them, shooting armguns, in the night woman are announcing the wedding bride. The party is rising until the drum ensemble disappears in the night still dancing. Through empasize of special parts
and the carefully processing of sounds, Ferrari reveals that there is nothing real, it’s just a tape recording. „Saliceburry Coctail“ (2002) is also a 30minutes work. Just as in a cocktail the incredients are used to intensify or to tone down the flavour of the drink, real and synthetical sounds have been mixed, layered and transformed.” [Peter Schlewinski for Drone Records]
“This is the second of three Sub Rosa releases of instrumental works by this important artist. Luc Ferrari is considered one of the most legendary musical figures of the twentieth century, whose work and aesthetic continues to influence several generations of contemporary composers. Director of the Groupe de Recherche Musicales which he established with Pierre Schaeffer in Paris from 1958-1966, he is also one of the masters of musique concrète who influenced and expanded the genre with electro-acoustic instrumentation. Right from the start, the idea had been to release three very different CDs: one hörspiel, one of concrete music (new and older pieces) and one CD of instrumental works. Les Anecdotiques was the first step: a vast sound-film of more than an hour that explores in 15 steps the intensity of re-composed sounds from his continual travel around the world, with electronic additional structures. This album is the second step -- one that offers a retrospective -- the previously unreleased \"Promenade Symphonique dans un Paysage Musical\" from 1976-78, the final \"Presque Rien #4\" and a fresh reflection dating from the last months of 2002, \"Saliceburry Cocktail,\" a large-scale composition exploring the idea of hideout, scrambled listening -- a tortuous entanglement of concrète and electronic. The forthcoming third and final release will be three recent instrumental compositions for electronics, piano and viola which were recorded under Luc\'s supervision -- the last works he ever recorded, as he passed away in August 2005.” [press release]
|
2005 |
€13.00 |
|
| FERREYRA, BEATRIZ / CHRISTINE GROULT |
Nahash |
CD |
L’aventure a commencé en 2011, Christian Zanesi directeur artistique de l’INA-GRM a eu l’idée saugrenue de commander à Beatriz Ferreyra et Christine Groult un duo improvisé avec des magnétophones dans le cadre d’un Week-end « retro actif » à la Gaité lyrique de Paris. Beatriz Ferreyra a ressorti son vieux studio analogique des années 70 avec quatre magnétophones Revox, augmentés d’une matrice analogique et d’une boite de synchronisation avec variateurs de vitesse conçues à sa demande. L’utilisation de la bande magnétique est très manuelle, elle met en relation énergétique directe le mouvement du corps avec le son qu’on façonne. Christine Groult, a eu envie de retravailler avec des échantillonneurs mais numériques cette fois ci et de tester les interfaces bon marché actuelles (plusieurs claviers, 2 pads, faders, potentiomètres, pavé tactile X-Y). L’utilisation de l’échantillonneur, outil incontournable des années 90, est très particulière et ludique, elle a tendance à être abandonnée. Or elle permet l’usage du son enregistré avec sa palette sonore singulière et personnelle.
L’interaction entre ces deux technologies très différentes a plu à ces deux compositrices et les a stimulé. Mais elles cherchent avant tout l’expression musicale. Elles ont donc travaillé ensemble à l’élaboration de l’improvisation. Une thématique commune et des images porteuses de sens les guident ensuite à la recherche des corps sonores et vers une configuration des outils de jeu.
Pourquoi deux versions ?
Il leur semblait intéressant de proposer à l’auditeur une expérience : deux improvisations différentes sont proposées à partir donc des mêmes sons, des mêmes dispositifs et de la même thématique mais en permutant les différents moments de la structure et en ajoutant des nouveaux complexes sonores. Qu’en est-il de la perception de ces différences en électroacoustique ?
Beatriz Ferreyra : studio analogique des années 70, quatre magnétophones Revox augmentés d’une matrice analogique et d’une boîte de synchronisation avec variateurs de vitesse conçues à sa demande.
Christine Groult : échantillonneurs, interfaces, claviers, pads, faders, potentiomètres, pavé tactile X-Y.
https://tracelabel.bandcamp.com/album/nahash
"Her latest release, in collaboration with French composer Christin Groult (to whom 'Un fil invisible' was dedicated) continues the sensory parade through changing states, this time seeming to focus on modes of physical movement, as opposed to chemistry. Improvisations for Ferreyra's four Revox tape recorders and Groult's multi-triggered samplers, the two tracks are different versions of the same piece that are equal in effect, so can feel a bit duplicative, but go some way to prove the aleatoric nature of the order of the events. Both works take its listener through a busy, erratic parade of modes of movement - smooth snake-like slithers, fussy butterfly flutters, splashing, trickling, galloping, zooming that combine to form tidal waves of sound that defy the laws of physics. Restlessly oscillating between recognisable natural sounds (water, kids’ voices, horses’ hooves, car engines) and synthetic ones, Nahash is best described as a somewhat literal embodiment of para-normal or super-natural where normality and nature are examined in a new light and found to be far beyond our understanding. But, descriptions in words of work such as this can feel a poor way to negotiate its transformative power. Liked Reinhold Friedl’s Golden Quinces…, Ferreyra and Groult's Nahash need not be aligned or exposed to other contexts, their compositions can work purely as enquiries into sound - where it can go, how it can change, and how it feels as it does so - where the best route to its comprehension is to listen." [The Quietus] |
2015 |
€14.50 |
|
| FIRST LAW |
Chaos Structure |
CD |
“The 5th full-time album of FIR§T LAW surprises once again with a huge amount of stylistic variety and proofs that he is the ultimate cosmonaut of the inner spheres. "Chaos Structure" is a hallucinetic maelstrom, every note and sound tells a different story and guide the listener to a journey through unseen areas of modulation and alienated reality where the time stands still. The hieroglyphic soundforms are structuring an audible world of an acoustic language. All compositions are cautious built to create a majestic flowing of a soundworld full of structures and outstanding melodies layered with percussion tracks. FIR§T LAW's music implicates inner spheres to build a new vision of a structured chaos with very intense and irresistible sounds. The complete release melts into an organic symbiotically ensemble and the world is shivering from beyond - Aural Innovasions at it's best!” [label description]
|
2006 |
€13.00 |
|
|
Velochrome |
CD |
...symphonic dark ambient with more neo-classical elements.
“The second full length album is the continuation of the Velochrome recordings that have been started with the Saturn Gnosis contribution of First Law. Voices from the edge of hearing, whispering ambient soundscapes and symphonic elements building deep organic compositions that blend beautifully into a grand enigmatic atmosphere of winding darkness blowing through controlled cycles. Music for connoisseurs!” [label press release]
label: www.loki-found.de |
|
€14.00 |
|
| |
Terrorforming |
CD |
"The 6th full-length album of FIRST LAW is setting real moments of artificial and creative substance. Intermittent bass and percussive elements as well as thrilling sound structures arrange a wide aural spectrum from ambient to drones through analogue modulations to complex compositions with outstanding vocals on top. Conceptually don't get it wrong, this album is not about religious airheads getting their way. This is not about the threat terrorist attacks impose on any of us, nor has it the intention to proliferate violence as a viable way to change the status quo. At the least, as long your opinion stands against the opinion of the majority, you are pretty much out of luck. No, this album is about leverage; it is about deception and opportunity, by accident or by design; it is about resignation and self-delusion; but most of all, this album is about fear." [label info]
www.loki-found.de
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| FIVE ELEMENTS MUSIC |
VarunaGhat |
CD-R |
"To the food industry, water is increasingly turning into a lifestyle product. For Russian artist Sergey, it is source of great purity which should be treated thoughtfully and with respect. On “Nameless Droplet”, his recently released and already all but sold-out Mystery Sea debut with his main project Exit in Grey, the metaphors were still covered by dark clouds and hidden in musical metaphors. The album represented a shoreless sea slowly being sucked down a vast and increasingly vociferous vortex. Under his “Five Elements Music” disguise, however, the metaphors are facing themselves in a Kirlian mirror, their souls exposed and their true nature revealed.
Samples of various water recordings, therefore, are at the heart of “VarunaGhat”. For an artist who holds the traditional drone ethos even higher in his solo work than in his collaborational activities (which, on “Nameless Droplet” allowed for diversifications such as sombre guitar figures), this can hardly come as a surprise.
With its complexly vivid inner pulsation and a constant outward frequency, after all, the sound of water is essentially a drone itself and compliments the suspended harmonies of the genre perfectly. On the other hand, Sergey is not content travelling to the same places others have already visited. Just like Exit in Grey caused minor erruptions by fluently shaping their intangible compositions into very concrete textures, Five Elements Music finds a niche between a traditional and a progressive use of its field recordings.
Rhythm especially plays a vital role in this concept. There is a very simple logic behind this thought, as water in itself is silent and only becomes audible through movement. Whether it isparkles from a fountain, rushes through a ravine, gallops like fugitive horses or murmurs peacefully, Sergey concentrates on its pulse as well as its irregular gravitational centre. He doesn’t need all too many exterior extrapolations to achieve this effect and instead choses to leave most of the natural emmissions intact. His work lies rather in developping the samples through timbre and by allowing different sources to overlap and form new patterns.
Simultaneously, he contrasts these waterscapes with the expansions of his drones. The vast, twentytwo minute long opening track takes this to extremes, as a single recording is awarded emotions ranging from aggression to tranquil zeal, while the sky is increasingly covered by black cumuli and distant lightning flashes.
On the second untitled track, a sinus tone is softly stretched, forming a tender, wooly surface. Here, the basic technique is most apparent, as organic and surgically dissected material are brought together, while immobile frequencies clash with the underlying stillness.
One has to see this as a decided step against the arbitrary use of water in electronic music. Many recent releases have both shown the great effect it can still have, as well as the danger of ending up a cliche. On “VarunaGhat”, no drop of water is carelessly spilt. It relies on the beauty of its path through nature, yet changes its course whenever this offers a chance for creating new sensations. You need to listen closely to this album to actually become aware of this seemingly insignificant but really quite important shift. If you do, however, there are great rewards lurking underneath its surface." [ By Tobias Fischer / Tokafi ]
"Russian project Five Elements Music is a shoot coming from exit in grey's rich compost of sound experiments, and also Sergey's solo highly organic vehicle... the name comes from a vedic concept of "Five Elements" (ETHER, Air, Fire, Water, Earth) needed to have a global approach of reality, one that goes beyond appearances, words and consciousness for an enhanced experience of Life both on an emotional, physical & spiritual level... ETHER is the central element of this bouquet, holding all forms & colors, and the human body is the perceptual tool...
Five Elements Music paints a sound canvas, trying to reach a sort of supra-awareness through the manipulation of chosen sensible sonic fragments coming from some essential elemental sources...
-
On "VarunaGhat" we share a common mystery
with a pool of trembling water,
being both in a dormant state,
waiting to bloom while listening to its nocturnal flow...
an imperturbable stream
in phase with the world
we speak as a river,
our voices among stones, singing into the liquid
like a choral of fluctuating micro-energies...
In all those elements lies a detailed universe
Drink its traces, slip into its convolutions, sense its immanent drift
till your awakening..." [label info]
www.mysterysea.net
|
2007 |
€12.00 |
|
| FIVE ELEMENTS MUSIC / JIM HAYNES / ANDREA MARUTTI |
Tri-Ton |
CD |
"Three drone-centric artists from three different parts of the world... Five Elements Music is a Russian isolationist / ambient project spawned by one of the members of the similarly minded Exit In Grey; Andrea Marutti is an Italian dark ambient practitioner with a number of occultish recordings under the moniker Amon; and Jim Haynes is a Bay Area artist who "rusts things" and also happens to work here at aQuarius. Both Marutti's and Haynes' compositions are responses to the piece made by Five Elements Music. A massive tectonic rumble emerges from the onset of the Russian track, as if the resonant echo from a meteor striking the heart of Siberia were captured through the felling of a million trees. Out of these frequencies, Five Elements Music evolves this sound into a growling dissonance more dialed into those rasping drones that Oren Ambarchi or Birchville Cat Motel might broadcast from time to time. Over the 23 minutes, this track becomes steadily more placid and inviting, eschewing the desolate horror at the beginning for something beautifully introspective. Marutti builds from the bleak horror where Five Elements Music began, producing cavernous hues of black and grey on amorphous clouds of mist and fog. Marutti's work parallels those blackened static movements of Yen Pox and Inade. For Haynes' part, the theatrical cloak and dagger of Thomas Koner's isolationism comes to mind in his response to the Five Elements Music track, albeit constructed from his distressed textures and fluttering shortwave radio manipulation. Easily the most dynamic piece of this triptych, Haynes deftly transitions pools of nocturnal drones into snarling crescendos of volatile motors, turbines, and Kevin Drumm-esque guitar dissonance which morph into an evocative movement of super-slow-motion heartbeat rhythm and radio frequencies detuned into sweeping, ghostly sinewaves, captured from within one of those WWII era bunkers that dot the California coast. Haynes presented a version of this at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in a collaborative, expanded cinema piece involving a massive diorama, lots of old scientific gear, a couple of surveillance cameras, and a toy train. Alas, there's little video documentation of that performance, but the audio here works amazingly well on its own." [label info]
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| FIVE THOUSAND SPIRITS |
Melchiazek |
CD |
"The fourth chapter of the series, has long announced, is finally out. Melchiazek offers us 'music for imaginary movies' that Raffaele Serra has devoted much of his compositions .. here in the more obscure and dramatic vein, magnetic and mysterious.
Alio Die adds field recordings, loops, effects and edited the whole work.
An incredible machine of sounds, a great album for visions lovers and for fans of electronic music e dark ambient.
Prepared to see your reality shattered IV!!!
Wonderful artwork printed brown and bronze..
The cd comes in an elegant 3 sides digipack, LTD 300 copies." [label info]
www.aliodie.com
|
2014 |
€15.00 |
|
| FORCUCCI, LUCA |
Fog Horns |
CD |
"Luca Forcucci is a binational Swiss and Italian composer and artist. His work observes the perceptive properties/relations of sound and space (and vice versa) through sound installations, visuals, compositions and performances. In order to explore the field of possibilities for sound in a context of music and art as experience, the works converge with dance, digital performance, poetry, architecture and neuroscience. In this context, he is interested by perceptionand consciousness.
His compositions have spanned through the years from electronic music, which was produced by Al Comet from The Young Gods, to field recordings collected around the world in urban contexts like Sao Paulo, Shanghai, San Francisco and natural ones like the Amazon forest or the Swiss Alps to name a few." [label info]
www.subrosa.net
"Sub Rosa is busy presenting new and young composers and here have a release by Luca Forcucci. "His work observes the perception of sound through an architectural approach in the relation of sound and space". He studied in Berlin, Paris (at GRM) and the Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland. I am not sure if he has other releases available, but this is the first time I hear his music. The three pieces on this release are inspired by the fog horns he heard when he landed in San Francisco in Spring 2011. Obviously he recorded those and uses them as source material on these pieces. On the title piece he gets help from Goo Le Gooster on turntables, scratch, cuts and echoplex and in 'Winds' it's the cello of Michael Kott. When I visited San Francisco, a long time ago, I didn't hear fog horns, but I can imagine what they would sound like. the long sustaining and slowly shifting sounds of the horns over big distance, would already be enough to be music by itself, but Forcucci's treatments to the material enhance the mood further. Quite dark and desolate - like recorded from below the sea surface where metallic objects softly touch upon the microphone - in 'Winds' and hazy, fog like, not entirely clear for all to see in in 'L'Ecume Des Jours'. The title piece is the place in which happens most. Here the fog horns form a web behind a collage of field recordings - people talking and walking, bird calls and a bit of scratch like sounds. Oddly enough (but why?), I thought this was the least interesting piece of these three. Maybe the whole marriage of field recordings with a bit scratching just didn't work well; maybe it gave me an uneasy sense of being forcefully 'hip' to some extend? I don't know. But the other two pieces are really good." [FdW/Vital Weekly] |
2013 |
€13.00 |
|
| FORSYTH, KEELEY |
Debris (gold) |
LP |
"The songs comprising Keeley Forsyth’s debut are, she states simply, “like blocks of metal that drop from the sky.”
With its minimal arrangements placing her recollections and dissections of sometimes harrowing experiences front and centre, Debris showcases her elemental voice and an outpouring of candid, haunting lyrics detailing the seismic ruptures which take place behind closed doors. “There was a lot going on in my life that was heavy and hard,” she adds. “Songs were made under that moment.”
Born and raised in Oldham, Forsyth first made her name as an actor, and while the creation of music has been a constant feature in her life, she’s taken the long road to its release. A deeply intuitive and singular musician, she began writing several years ago, accompanying herself on harmonium and accordion.
“I came up with lots of songs in a very short space of time,” Forsyth recalls. “Most songs were written in the time it took to sing them. But I held them close, and often thought I needed to do something with them. It never felt right to go out and look for it. I felt like I needed to wait and move when I felt inspired.”
That inspiration struck one evening while listening to the radio, where she first encountered pianist and composer Matthew Bourne’s work. “I heard his music and suddenly I could hear them both together,” she says of her songs and his compositions. “I felt compelled to write to him. He got straight back and said he loved what I was doing.” What followed were quick and instinctive collaborations with Bourne and producer and musician Sam Hobbs, with the initial burst of momentum Forsyth felt when writing carried through into the studio, preserving the intricacies and accidents that make an album human.
Keeley Forsyth - voice
Sam Hobbs - Fender Rhodes, synthesisers, drums & percussion, programming
Mark Creswell - guitar, bass
Matthew Bourne - piano, harmonium, LAMM Memorymoog, cello
https://keeleyforsyth.bandcamp.com/album/debris |
2020 |
€23.00 |
|
| FRANCIS, RICHARD (ESO STEEL) |
Together alone, together apart |
CD |
Tief wummernder microwave / field recording-drone des Neuseeländers RICHARD FRANCIS (aka ESO STEEL), der hier herrlich rauschig & undurchdringbar tönt, v.a. in den mittleren Frequenzbereichen offenbaren sich feinste Details, ein Genuss! Filed under: mysterious drones opening mysterious ways!
"Tracks 1 and 2 recorded 2006-2007, track 3 recorded 2003 and previously released on V-A "Audible New Frontiers" CD (Physics Room-Radio NZ). Sound sources: field recordings of indoor and outdoor spaces; handling of fabric, wood and plastic; self noise of home stereo amplifiers, loudspeakers and record players." [label info]
"Sound artists like Matt Shoemaker, Loren Chasse, and Steve Roden are some of the very few who are successful in turning found objects and field recordings into thoroughly engaging compositions that don't rely upon the flashiness of techniques to make their work successful. Add New Zealand's Richard Francis to that gaggle as well.
It's been a while since any solo work has been available from Francis, who has previously recorded under the moniker Eso Steel; and more recently, he's been entertaining many a collaboration with his fellow NZ noiseniks such as Campbell Kneale and Michael Morley.
On Together Alone, Together Apart, Francis turns to the miniscule events of daily life whose peculiar sounds capture his imagination. It could be a crackle from rain falling or the distant surf of the Pacific Ocean or a creaking electric radiator or the hissing static from television snow. It's these small sounds which Francis has recorded and stretched into relatively longer compositions. These rattling, crackling streams of softened white noise move in a synchronous fashion, much like the way that a huge flock of starlings can gracefully circle in the sky without bumping into each other, all moving organically in three dimensions. Think Loren Chasse, as if he were reworking any of Bernhard Gunter's compositions, making them rougher, in line with Chasse's Hedge Of Nerves disc. Headphones are certainly recommended for this album, as the last track is awfully quiet... at least, it is when there's a record store full of people. Very well done!" [Aquarius Records review]
www.cmr.co.nz
|
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| FREIBAND |
Stainless Steel |
LP |
"ini.itu is releasing a new vinyl only LP, the 8th of its catalogue, composed by Freiband
• Freiband is one of the long lasting projects of Frans de Waard, who is making music since more than 25 years under many aliases and in different line-ups, the most well-known being Kapotte Muziek ( with Roel Meelkop and Peter
Duimelinks ), Goem ( same team, different tools ), THU20 ( same, augmented by Jac van Bussel and Jos Smolders ), Beequeen ( w/ Freek Kinkelaar ), and more recently Wieman ( formerly known as Zèbra ) ( w/ Roel Meelkop ),
Ezdanitoff ( w/ Wouter Jaspers ) and Tobacconists ( w/ Scott Foust from Idea Fire Company ). Solo he has been active under his own name, Shifts and of course Freiband. His other activities include : editor and writer for Vital Weekly, programmer at Geluidswerkplaats in Nijmegen, organizer of the residencies Brombrom and director of the
labels Korm Plastics, Moll and Plinkety Plonk.
• the name Freiband itself is picked from Asmus Tietchens' album Daseinsverfehlung, on which he explored sounds created by rubbing tape freely on magnetic heads. Frans de Waard transferred the concept to the digital field and now mostly uses that name for his computer-based pieces.
What Freiband proposes here is 2 sides of radically reworked gamelan :
• Side A seems to progress through an acid bath and take the magnifying glass to enhance the digital decays, evoking various stages of textural corrosions. Through these aggressive and irreverent treatments, the naturally metallic harmonics are by twist and turns abruptly dismantled and fractured into crunchy, dense and fuzzy fireworks. Despite the stop & go transitions this hard-edged and raw piece still holds a nice unity across the digital errs and disturbances.
• on side B, through some arcane wirings, some machines end up spitting out shifting binary patterns with a somewhat alienating feeling. Proof that electronic music can be minimal and eschew the 4/4 dance floor pattern, in favour of
some dry and uncompromising “Unerforschtes Gebiet” between minimal beats and Steve Reich’ early tape compositions.
this LP further expands the horizon of ini.itu, successfully interrogating the link between south-east asian instruments and electronic contemporary music. Maybe something to file along Hecker, Pita, Mika Vaino, Fennesz or Alva Noto's Xerrox LPs.
p.s. Frans de Waard will also simultaneously release a companion 3” on his Moll imprint, with a totally different track from the
same sessions that couldn’t be included on the LP. That track is a spectral exploration of the higher frequencies, followed by a pile-up of gamelan sounds." [label info]
www.iniitu.net
"The LP thus both presents the quality of the gamelan style in its pure origin and 21st electronic avantgarde by one of Holland's finest sound artists. A superb ode to the importance of the gamelan music for the modern sound experimentations of the Western world." [NM/Vital Weekly]
|
2011 |
€12.50 |
|
| FRÖBERG, DAN |
15 Songs (down at Jinxey's) |
CD |
"A lone thumb piano, a singing woman, children at play, howling and crackling electricity, chirping birds, tones from a toy organ, sounds of traffic - Dan Fröberg´s remarkable compositions are intersections of shapes, environments, times, places and wildly disparate contexts.
As a listener you may recognize individual sonic fragments and create pictures and scenarios through private associations - like an inner movie running parallel to the works - but still the sound environments appear so curious and raise so many questions in our minds.
What are these shapes, milieus and tales that Dan Fröberg illustrates for us, and what do they want to convey? Traveling Dan Fröberg´s soundscapes renders you the feeling of a cloud passing freely between various geographical, temporal and cultural settings and contexts.
Occasionally a dream appears. A folk music ensemble commences to play nearby, some giggling children run by, an orchestra of traffic looms large, and rustling leaves fall. The cloud hovers on, through walls, mountains and a brook, suddenly appearing in another time, in another place, where other figures tell their stories.
In the world of Dan Fröberg everything is inspired: people, animals, places, sound, shadows, memories. Even though the sounds appear crystal clear in their purity, they convey many remarkable stories, while simultaneously leaving the field open for the listener´s fantasy. Dan Fröberg´s compositions and sound recordings are as clean as can be. No post-production processing of the sounds has been applied. Dan Fröberg works with a kind of sound magic. Nothing is left to arbitrary randomness. Each sound is chosen with care.
When Dan Fröberg composes his pieces, each small detail of the soundscape is rendered vitality and significance. The significations are gradually transformed and new tales emerge as the different sound worlds are confronted with each other. As a listener you are transferred somewhere else just as your questions have began to formulate themselves - into a new world, quite familiar, albeit with something completely new and alien totell.
The properties of time and space are always shifting in these pieces where figures, occurrences and reflections approach, materialize, convey something only to drift by or dissolve - as something novel appears, something else through the journey. Dan Fröberg prefers to brand his acoustic works folk music, rather than musique concrète, field recordings, sound art or something else that would be convenient. The compositions on this CD, or the journeys, if you like, take shape through 15 songs, wherein the shapes, environments and events constitute the voices that sing and establish this folk music that sounds like nothing else, in the borderland between here and now."
[Daniel Rozenhall, Executive producer, Fylkingen Records.]
"Also from Stockholm and sometimes connected to Firework is Fylkingen, a place for concerts, art, work and much more. A fine place to be. Their releases are less arty and conceptual and more musical. The name Dan Fröberg rings a bell, but my memory is such a condition that I don't remember. It seems to me he works with found sound: people talking, street sounds, the luna park, birds and electrical currents. He puts these together in a great way, a dream-like state of music. Strongly reminding me of Dominique Petitgand, but less telling a tale than he did in his music. With Petitgand somebody would tell a story, sing a song and he would add found sound, whereas Fröberg places the sound in the central position and lets the listener think of a story. This is 'close your eyes and dream away' music, but not in a new age sense of the word, but cinematic: true cinema for the ears. Great one." [Fdw/Vital Weekly]
|
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| GAMIL, SOLIMAN |
Ankh |
LP |
"This is the 2nd release for Touch by Soliman Gamil, after The Egyptian Music. Ankh is the Egyptian symbol of life, of fertility and of growth. From the rich tonality of 'Dance of Ka' to the exuberant 'Clown Dance', Soliman Gamil draws on ancient Egyptian culture to create soundscapes that transcend the stereotypes handed down from films like Cleopatra; in the process they also challenge the shrink-wrapped mentality of 'world music'. On Ankh, Soliman Gamil plays 17 different instruments on 15 new compositions written and recorded since the 1960s. The cover comes complete with full color artwork that features a painting by Panni Charrington." [label info]
www.touchmusic.org.uk
|
1990 |
€15.00 |
|
| GAMMELSAETER & MARHAUG |
Higgs Boson |
LP |
Runhild Gammelsæter and Lasse Marhaug are two Norwegian musicians/sound artists. Both started in the early 1990s music underground and have worked in many constellations with a wide range of collaborators. Despite knowing each other for a long time, Gammelsæter and Marhaug's first collaborative work was the Quantum Entanglement LP in 2014. The project lay dormant until Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson invited them to open for Sunn O))) for a special gig in the St. James Church of Culture in Oslo in 2019. The two gathered for a long series of rehearsals, and after the successful performance, it was clear that it was time to start working on new compositions and recordings. That process initiated in late 2019 and continued to early 2021, before and after the lockdown. The result of this long development to be heard accumulated upon their new album Higgs Boson on Ideologic Organ. Marhaug drew inspiration from concepts informed by the structuralist experimental cinema of Japanese directors Takashi Ito and Toshio Matsumoto, futurist worlds of French comic book artists Philippe Druillet and Jean Moebius Giraud, landscape photography of Fay Godwin, Kåre Kivijärvi, and Tamiko Nishimura, amongst others. It became a metaphysical juxtaposition involving Gammelsaeter's research and lyrical ideas based on several seemingly unrelated principles. A process of association inspired by The Glass Bead Game (1943) by Herman Hesse. The discovery of the Higgs Boson as a confirmation of the physical universe. The work of Ernst Schrödinger on the uncertainty principle. The four forces of physics. The Force. Helplessness under armed forces -- as the war sailors in World War II. The influence of magic as expressed in tarot. Gammelsæter experiments with a boundary involving the thresholds amongst various states of focus and legibility by forensic experimentation with techniques such as exclusive expression of consonants, syllabic repetition, retrograde text vocalizations and multi-lingual layering. Her vocal inspirational sources include Sidsel Endresen, Diamanda Galas, Natacha Atlas, the choral works of Rachmaninov, and the bands Carcass and Grave. Two worlds coming together, making the music special. Mixing hard facts with science fiction helps create a kaleidoscopic cross point between the complex realities of the past and a possible future. Across eight parts, the two artists brought a broad palette of instrumentation and sound on Higgs Boson. Electronic and acoustic, objects and field recordings, and pipe organ define the structures of which the center is Gammelsæter's magnificent voice. She In the mix, Lasse approached the instrumental elements like landscapes, then Runhild's vocals as characters that inhabit those worlds. Often, Gammelsæter multiple characters fused with the landscape. As an album, Higgs Boson is direct and focused, drawing on song structures. Within these tracks are vast strata of sound, an immersive multi-dimensional depth of music.
A1. The Stark Effect (2:52)
A2. The Magus (4:44)
A3. Static Case (3:56)
A4. Ondes De Fase (4:00)
A5. Forces (5:50)
B1. Propeller Arc (6:46)
B2. Hadron Collider (5:35)
B3. These Questions (9:55)
"Two totemic Norwegian artists bombard and fizz the senses with a powerful invocation of metal and noise energies on a new album for Stephen O’Malley’s radical Ideologic Organ imprint.
The thrilling complex of ’Higgs Boson’ furthers Runhild Gammelsæter & Lasse Marhaug’s fascination with the field of physics following 2014’s ‘Quantum Entanglement’ with Milwaukee’s uncompromising Utech Records. Gammelsæter, a one-time vocalist for O’Malley & Greg Anderson’s legendary pre-Sunn 0))) band, Thorr’s Hammer, and regular contributor to O’Malley’s subsequent projects, is also a professional biologist with a PhD in cell physiology. Marhaug is the prolific, multifarious figurehead of Scandinavian experimental music who surely needs little introduction on these pages. The duo collapse a spectrum of non-musical influences into an immensely compelling sound that, as their LP’s title suggests, strives to confirm the meta- and physical presence of the universe thru opposing forces, and the unquantifiable, uncertain energies produced therein.
Gammelsæter’s vocals are evidently a big attraction on ‘Higg’s Boson’, naturally drawing on 30 years of extended works to project a range of unearthly inflections and affective tonal colour unmistakably forged in the belly of radical metal. As her relatively short but perfectly realised catalogue with Thorr’s Hammer, Khlyst, Sunn 0))) (notably ‘Gates of Ballard’!), proves, few can match her might.
Summoning structural concepts from the Japanese experimental cinema of Toshio Matsumoto, french comic book futurism of Phillippe Druillet and Jean Moebius Giraud, and landscape photography of Fay Godwin, Kåre Kivijärvi, and Tamiko Nishimura, Marhaug, in turn, galvanises the personalities of Gammelsæter’s voice to extraordinary degrees, conjugating their mutual spirits in vast, electro-acoustic and illusively noumenal space with frankly shit-the-bed results comparable with everyone from Diamanda Galas’ tempered rage to the catharsis of Carcass and Rachmaninov’s choral arrangements.
A genuinely unsettling summoning of dark energy." [Boomkat]
https://ideologicorgan.bandcamp.com/album/higgs-boson
|
2022 |
€24.00 |
|
| GARLAND, PETER |
Three strange Angels |
CD |
"This historic release presents the first recordings of the early music of Peter Garland, one of the most personal voices in the second generation of West Coast minimalists. Drawing inspiration from Native American and Mexican ritual music, Peter creates beautiful and lyrical sonic portraits. This long out-of-print masterpiece, considered by many to be Peter's greatest recording, was originally released in 1989 on WhatNext? as Border Music and is supplemented here by rare live recordings from the same period. Featuring new expanded notes by the composer and rare photos from the period, this is the definitive document of an American experimental classic." [label info]
www.tzadik.com
"An excellent compilation of small compositions which are evoking peace and attention in the listeners mind. Sometimes very similar to the later Musci/Venosta: "A Noise A Sound", ReR, 1992 but with much more native american influences. The collection works also as a concept album. Memorizing are the minimal flute melodies, the drumming and the recordings of buzzing wood pieces. Ritual music for untroubled thoughts. The perfect soundtrack for Antonin Artauds "Tarahumaras" or Carlos Castanedas "Teachings of Don Juan". Thanks for this." [TestPieYoming]
|
2008 |
€16.00 |
|
| GEINS'T NAIT & L. PETITGAND |
Like This Maybe or This |
LP |
Five years after the release of "Je vous dis" in 2018, Geins't Naït and L.Petitgand's second album from the "Mind Travel" and "Make Dogs Sing" collection on the German label "Offen", the duo are now writing a new chapter in their story with this fascinating poetic tale. The same mysterious and heady atmosphere which characterises the two musicians is present in this new work but clearly they have never ceased refining and polishing their sounds to give their compositions even more power and depth. Geins't Naït and L.Petitgand here offer twelve new tracks with names as enigmatic as the title "Like this maybe or This" itself and the record's whole universe. In reality, these mysterious names lead us to let ourselves be taken to the deep meaning of their creation. The subject matter is certainly difficult to grasp and invites us on an inner journey while leading us to doubt and question ourselves incessantly. There is a perfect alchemy between these two artists though this was far from self-evident as they come from two very different schools. Thierry Merigout, who is now the only representative left from the late 80's experimental project Geins't Naït in Nancy, comes from the post-industrial scene. As for Laurent Petitgand, he is a pure melodist who is best known for his work as a composer of music for films and live shows and has collaborated with Wim Wenders and Paul Auster in particular.
https://mindtravels.bandcamp.com/album/like-this-maybe-or-this
|
2021 |
€18.00 |
|
| GENETIC TRANSMISSION |
Genetic Transmission |
CD |
It is hard to imagine the history of Polish industrial scene without noticing the activities of GENETIC TRANSMISSION – a project that might be considered legendary or having a cult status among quite a few, and the one that certainly has left a lot of its influence on the activity of many other artists in our country, and also inspired others to the activities in the field of urban, post-industrial music. The history of Genetic Transmission began when Tomasz Twardawa closed his earlier incarnations, working alone or in groups Zilch, Ładne Kwiatki, Godzilla. Although each of these groups left behind many interesting sessions, released earlier on tapes and CDRs, we have undertaken the release of the most important albums of the project Genetic Transmission, as the most active one of Tomasz Twardawa, and thus the richest part of his discography.
As the first one in GT Archive Series, we release the debut material entitled simply “Genetic Transmission” released earlier on an OBUH tape in 1997.
Now enriched and mastered by Tomasz Twardawa. It has been 20 years since its first release, but the recordings of sonic search still sound fresh and intriguing. We will find here compositions kept in the characteristic style of GT: harsh, metallic sounds, a mechanical structure, brut collages created using only analog sources and recorded in exactly the same manner – without the use of computers. In these dense structures, the artist concluded his entire manifesto, a declaration of his own research which has been developed consistently through his next sessions. “Genetic Transmission 1” is the starting point of your adventure with this project.
This reissue is strictly limited to 200 copies.
www.zoharum.com
|
2016 |
€12.00 |
|
|
Chrzaszcz Brzmi W Trzcinie |
CD |
"The second in GT Series Archive is the album entitled "Chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie" (A beetle buzzes in the reed - a Polish tounge twister), originally published on a CDR on Tochnit Aleph in 2006. In a short time it was sold out and practically until today the material has not been available in any other form. "Chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie" is a recording of the session based on the most primal sound sources which are only arranged in a suitable structures so that they form a concise material; however, they remained unchanged and no post-production was applied to them. The album consists of 6 compositions, about 60 minutes of industrial sound space characteristic of the work of Genetic Transmission.
This reissue is strictly limited to 200 copies." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
|
2016 |
€12.00 |
|
|
Strychnina |
CD |
It has become a sort of tradition that every year during first days of autumn we release at least one part out of GT Archive Series. Keeping this tradition alive we present you seventh instalment of this series that is “Strychnina”.
“Strychnina” being one of the most important albums in vast Genetic Transmission discography, originally was released in 2005 as CD-R via his own imprint Die Schöne Blumen Musik Werk. It consists of 2 compositions about 20 min each which suits perfectly vinyl format. Wax version of this release has been discussed for a long time and for a number of reasons couldn’t work out. Until now.
We are proud to inform you that “Strychnina” will be available in two strictly limited versions: LP limited to 100 copies and CD limited to 200 copies.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/strychnina
|
2020 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Strychnina |
LP |
"It has become a sort of tradition that every year during first days of autumn we release at least one part out of GT Archive Series. Keeping this tradition alive we present you seventh instalment of this series that is “Strychnina”.
“Strychnina” being one of the most important albums in vast Genetic Transmission discography, originally was released in 2005 as CD-R via his own imprint Die Schöne Blumen Musik Werk. It consists of 2 compositions about 20 min each which suits perfectly vinyl format. Wax version of this release has been discussed for a long time and for a number of reasons couldn’t work out. Until now.
We are proud to inform you that “Strychnina” will be available in two strictly limited versions: LP limited to 100 copies and CD limited to 200 copies."
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/strychnina
|
2020 |
€18.00 |
|
| GIFFONI, CARLOS |
Eternal Noise |
CD |
Vier Stücke mit hyper-minimalen Analog-Drones, zwischen rauh-knarzigen Texturen und sanften Wellen a la ELEH.
"Carlos Giffoni knows no mercy. Of all the noise terrorists on the loose today, Giffoni causes the most upheaval. We know he specialises in brutal and invincible noise collages, but there is so much more to it than that. There is always a glimmer of hope that shines through the dense clouds of noise. His noise lives, broods and swings. His latest album for Bottrop-Boy is a true revelation in this respect, not just for the listener, but also for the artist himself. After all, the Venezuelan artist, who is based in New York, has conceded that this is a new style for him. With Eternal Noise Carlos Giffoni enters the holiest of holies, his noise nirvana. Even though Giffoni’s earlier works already sounded impressively organic, with Eternal Noise he is heading for new heights. His customary thick layers of noise sound more subtle than ever before. The four-part suite maintains physical impact, but all faces are turned to heaven, towards eternity. Rather than a noise exercise that sounds like a wrestling match in the dirt, this recording represents ascension towards the sun and open heavens. At times you will find yourself almost drowning in the feedback splashing against you, at other times you will find yourself breathlessly captivated by the peregrinations, whirls and swells of sinus tones. Giffoni is genuinely inspired by the avant-garde music of the 20th century and the results are miraculous.
How Giffoni creates his compositions is of no importance. This is all about their effect on your mood, the spectacle of your ravished soul. You find yourself asking how it is possible that such loud and intense music can be so tranquil and meditative at the same time.
Eternal Noise reconfirms Giffoni’s status as the uncrowned king of contemporary noise. Bottrop-Boy is proud to release this key work in Giffoni’s oeuvre." [label info]
".... The eternal is the easier word to parse. Giffoni here deals exclusively with shape-shifting drones, mostly around the lower partials of the overtone series. Each of the four tracks doesn’t evolve so much as amorphously change emphasis at a geologic or tectonic pace, almost a history of the Earth heard from the inside or the sound of individual molecules vibrating, a kind of nano-counterpoint. Even where there is a pulse within the drone, it serves not as a driving teleological force but rather as a mere marker of the passing time, alluding to the stasis of the most ambient of krautrock tracks. On top of that, Giffoni seems to be evoking a kind of throat singing where the vocal chords have been replaced by charged wires that crackle, buzz, and distort as they vibrate. Each overtone has its own individual color of noise, so the composite is like the gradual color shifts of oil on water or of a dissolving Gobstopper.
Were those flavors of noise not so harsh around the edges, this album could almost be meditative. It is fitting that the liner notes are mostly pictures of Japanese temples, since their serenity is clearly behind almost every sound here, even the harsh ones. And when each track cuts off suddenly, it feels as if you're being unwillingly wrested back into reality." [Dan Rucchia / Dusted Mag]
www.bottrop-boy.com
|
2008 |
€12.50 |
|
| GOBEIL, GILLES |
Dans le Silence da la Nuit |
CD |
"“Derrière la porte la plus éloignée…” (1998), “Projet Proust” (1995-2001), “Point de passage” (1997), “Nuit cendre” (1995).
“… one of the most talented and sensitive jugglers of sounds we’ve heard” (Sonoloco Record Reviews, Sweden). “Since its release, Gilles Gobeil’s new disc, … dans le silence de la nuit…, attracts a lot of praises and attention. Dark and fascinating, his sonic universe routs bias and produces extraordinary sonic depth. Inspired by both readings (Proust, HG Wells, Verne) and travels (Venice), Gobeil’s compositions leaves the listener breathless with its moving images and secret atmospheres. 50 minutes expressly remastered for this edition, illustrated by Luc Beauchemin.” " [label info]
www.empreintesdigitales.com
|
2001 |
€14.00 |
|
| GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPOROR! [GYBE] |
Lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven |
do-LP |
\"Das neue, phänomenale Album der innovativen Post-Rock-Band ! Vier lange, ausufernde Stücke die nur noch manchmal entfernt an gängige „Rock“-Strukturen erinnern, vielmehr entwickeln sich zarte Anfänge aus z.B. Guitars, Streichern, Bläsern & Bass hin zu monumentalen Instrumental-Stücken; voller Harmonien und unterschwelliger Kraft, die manchmal fast explodiert.. es gibt auch atmosphärische Zwischenparts mit piano, field recordings, etc.. hier treffen sich GLENN BRANCA, RACHEL’S, und LABRADFORD. Intense !\" [Drone Records info 2000]
\"...like Antennas to Heaven After two years of constant touring and near-unanimous critical acclaim, Godspeed You Black Emperor! assembled a collection of new recordings that charted the creative evolution of the band as well as its literal physical movement on the road, criss-crossing North America and Europe.
Five expansive full-band compositions are framed by various field recordings, tape manipulations and ensemble pieces in a return to the narrative sonic collage techniques that marked their 1997 debut (F#A#8).
Four seamless sides of vinyl unfold a world of aching sadness and beauty, with musical quotes ranging from heartland americana to mitteleuropa folkways, all distilled through the unique sonic filters of Godspeed\'s pedal-crazy orchestral rock instrumentation.
Harrowing guitars, plaintive strings, pulsing basses and explosive drums combine with glockenspiels, horns and tape drones to form an overwhelming palette of sounds, always driven by fierce melodic momentum and intense emotional resonance.
GYBE! continued to paint on an impossibly large canvas, with an uncanny blend of world-weariness and naive exuberance that spoke volumes about the conflicts and contradictions permeating our political and cultural life.
The tension between humility and hubris conjured an epic scope and a raw hope that such sweeping gestures might survive with some semblance of substance.\" [label info]
www.cstrecords.com
|
2000 |
€26.00 |
|
|
Allelujah! Don't bend! Ascend! |
LP + 7inch |
"We are proud to announce the first new recordings by Godspeed You! Black Emperor in a decade. Featuring two twenty-minute slabs of epic instrumental rock music and two six-and-a-half minute drones, ‘ALLELUJAH! DON’T BEND! ASCEND! provides soaring, shining proof of the band’s powerful return to form.
Having emerged from hiatus at the end of 2010, GYBE picked up right where they left off, immediately re-capturing the sound and material that had fallen dormant in 2003 and driving it forward with every show of their extensive touring over the last 18 months. The new album presents the fruits of that labour: evolved and definitive versions of two huge compositions previously known to fans as “Albanian” and “Gamelan”, now properly titled as “MLADIC” and “WE DRIFT LIKE WORRIED FIRE” respectively. Accompanied by the new drones (stitched into the album sequence on CD; cut separately on their own 7″ for the LP version), GYBE have offered up a fifth album that we feel is as absolutely vital, virulent, honest and heavy as anything in their discography.
We don’t have much time for mythology, but we’d be lying if we said the return of Godspeed You! Black Emperor in 2010 didn’t signify a whole lot to us as a marker from which to look back on the past decade, to reflect on what’s been gained or lost within the confines of independent music culture and what’s been gained or lost in the socio-political landscape writ large. Godspeed’s music will do that to you. It is music that bears witness to, channels and transforms this predominantly terrible, infuriating, venal and nihilistically sad story we’re all living, sharing, resisting, protesting, deconstructing and trying to change for the better. We think GYBE has once again provided a uniquely moving and compelling soundtrack for these acts of analysis, defiance and ascension.
* * *
Hard to believe a full decade has passed since the release of Yanqui U.X.O., the last album by GYBE. Never a band to care for conventional industry wisdom, Yanqui was released shortly before xmas 2003 with little publicity and no press availability, no marketing plans or cross-promotions or brand synergies, with back cover artwork tracing the inextricable links between major music labels and the military-industrial complex. Driven by word-of-mouth from a passionate and committed fanbase galvanized by the group's sonic vision and its dedication to unmediated, unsullied musical communication, the album found it's rightful audience.
To suggest that such simple principles and goals have become harder to maintain and enact a decade later is an understatement. For all the contents and discontents – for all the "content" – of our present cultural moment, the idea of circumventing the glare of exposure, the massaging of media cycles and the calculus of identity management appears quaint, if not futile.
But Godspeed is looking to try all the same. The band wants people to care about this new album, without telling people they should or talking about themselves. They want to hold on to some part of that energy that comes with the thrill of anonymous discovery and unmediated transmission, knowing full well that these days, anti-strategy risks being tagged as a strategy, non-marketing framed as its opposite, and deeply held principles they consider fundamental to health as likely to be interpreted as just another form of stealth.
Truly, thanks for being open to hearing it.
Release date: 15 October 2012 (Europe), 16 October 2012 (rest of world)
Running time: 53:09
LP is pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl at Optimal (Germany) and comes in a tipped-on heavyweight gatefold jacket printed in full-colour process plus a spot metallic ink and spot matte varnish. LP dust sleeve is also 4-colour print. Package includes a 7 inch in printed dust sleeve (same audio appears in a different sequence on the CD) and a 12"x48" pull-out poster (printed full colour on both sides) featuring a collage of film stills specially-photographed and captured from the GYBE live 16mm projections." [label info]
www.cstrecords.com
"Viel ist passiert in den letzten 10 Jahren und für Mythologien bleibt weder Zeit noch Kapazität, aber eines ist doch offenbar: wir würden lügen, wenn wir nicht zugeben würden, dass die Rückkehr von GY!BE im Jahre 2010 eine Zäsur, ein Punkt der Rückschau gewesen ist. Wie kaum eine andere Band haben die Kanadier uns in den letzten Jahren begleitet, und das ohne musikalisch wirklich sichtbar zu sein. Ihre Geschichte ist eng mit dem Label Constellation verknüpft und die gesamte Attitüde, der Kontext, in dem sich Constellation und damit auch GY!BE bewegen, haben einen nicht zu unterschätzenden Einfluss auf die Independent Musikkultur weltweit ausgeübt. Und so regt dieses neue Album von GY!BE eine Rückschau an, eine Auseinandersetzung, was Independentkultur und Selbstverständnis heute noch bedeuten und wohin sich die soziokulturellen Komponenten unserer Gesellschaft entwickelt haben und noch weiter entwickeln werden. Auf diese Weise wird ,'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!" mit einer Bedeutung aufgeladen, wie sie schwerer kaum wiegen kann - und auf die weder Band noch Album direkt einen Einfluss haben - eine künstlerische Äußerung, die Bedeutung durch ihre bloße Existenz erlangt - da haben wir ihn doch, den Mythos, ohne dass wir es wollten. Und wir können es nur akzeptieren - dass dieses wunderbare Stück Musik (und das ist sie wahrlich, diese Platte - musikalisch ein Meisterwerk) schon jetzt ein Begleiter unseres Selbstverständnisses geworden ist, ein Moment des Innehaltens, des Reflektierens und damit Zeuge unserer eigenen Transformation, in der wir versuchen, das Kapitel unserer eigenen Biographie in diesem Buch aus überwiegend furchtbaren, korrupten, komplizierten und nihilistischen Geschichten neu zu schreiben und irgendwie in Hoffnung zu verwandeln. GY!BE haben es wieder einmal geschafft, einen Soundtrack für dieses Wechselspiel aus Analyse, Trotz und Befreiung zu liefern. Die Vinylversion von ,'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!" besteht aus einer LP und einer 7". Die 7" enthält zwei Drones, die auf der CD in den Album-Kontext eingebunden sind, auf Vinyl aber separat vorliegen, um eine gute Qualität der Pressung zu erreichen. Die beiden Songs ,Mladic" und ,We Drift Like Worried Fire" sind final ausformulierte Versionen der beiden von den den Konzerten der Band bereits bekannten Tracks ,Albanian" und ,Gamelan". Die beiden Tracks wurden von Howard Bilerman im legendären Hotel2Tango Studio aufgenommen, während die Drones von der Band selbst aufgenommen und gemixt wurden. Alle wurden gemastert von Harris Newman/ Greymarket. Musikalisch knüpft ,'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!" an das ziemlich exakt vor 10 Jahren im Herbst 2002 veröffentlichte, letzte Album ,Yanqui U.X.O." an und greift seine klangliche Ästhetik ebenso auf wie seinen Kontext.
Die Vinylversion von ,'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!" besteht aus einer LP und einer 7". Die 7" enthält zwei Drones, die auf der CD in den Album-Kontext eingebunden sind, auf Vinyl aber separat vorliegen, um eine gute Qualität der Pressung zu erreichen. 180gLP IN TIPPED-ON GATEFOLD JACKET. INCLUDES 7" VINYL + 12"x 48" PULL-OUT POSTER!" [label info- Cargo translation]
|
2012 |
€25.00 |
|
| |
Allelujah! Don't bend! Ascend! |
CD |
"We are proud to announce the first new recordings by Godspeed You! Black Emperor in a decade. Featuring two twenty-minute slabs of epic instrumental rock music and two six-and-a-half minute drones, ‘ALLELUJAH! DON’T BEND! ASCEND! provides soaring, shining proof of the band’s powerful return to form.
Having emerged from hiatus at the end of 2010, GYBE picked up right where they left off, immediately re-capturing the sound and material that had fallen dormant in 2003 and driving it forward with every show of their extensive touring over the last 18 months. The new album presents the fruits of that labour: evolved and definitive versions of two huge compositions previously known to fans as “Albanian” and “Gamelan”, now properly titled as “MLADIC” and “WE DRIFT LIKE WORRIED FIRE” respectively. Accompanied by the new drones (stitched into the album sequence on CD; cut separately on their own 7″ for the LP version), GYBE have offered up a fifth album that we feel is as absolutely vital, virulent, honest and heavy as anything in their discography.
We don’t have much time for mythology, but we’d be lying if we said the return of Godspeed You! Black Emperor in 2010 didn’t signify a whole lot to us as a marker from which to look back on the past decade, to reflect on what’s been gained or lost within the confines of independent music culture and what’s been gained or lost in the socio-political landscape writ large. Godspeed’s music will do that to you. It is music that bears witness to, channels and transforms this predominantly terrible, infuriating, venal and nihilistically sad story we’re all living, sharing, resisting, protesting, deconstructing and trying to change for the better. We think GYBE has once again provided a uniquely moving and compelling soundtrack for these acts of analysis, defiance and ascension.
* * *
Hard to believe a full decade has passed since the release of Yanqui U.X.O., the last album by GYBE. Never a band to care for conventional industry wisdom, Yanqui was released shortly before xmas 2003 with little publicity and no press availability, no marketing plans or cross-promotions or brand synergies, with back cover artwork tracing the inextricable links between major music labels and the military-industrial complex. Driven by word-of-mouth from a passionate and committed fanbase galvanized by the group's sonic vision and its dedication to unmediated, unsullied musical communication, the album found it's rightful audience.
To suggest that such simple principles and goals have become harder to maintain and enact a decade later is an understatement. For all the contents and discontents – for all the "content" – of our present cultural moment, the idea of circumventing the glare of exposure, the massaging of media cycles and the calculus of identity management appears quaint, if not futile.
But Godspeed is looking to try all the same. The band wants people to care about this new album, without telling people they should or talking about themselves. They want to hold on to some part of that energy that comes with the thrill of anonymous discovery and unmediated transmission, knowing full well that these days, anti-strategy risks being tagged as a strategy, non-marketing framed as its opposite, and deeply held principles they consider fundamental to health as likely to be interpreted as just another form of stealth.
Truly, thanks for being open to hearing it.
Release date: 15 October 2012 (Europe), 16 October 2012 (rest of world)
Running time: 53:09
LP is pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl at Optimal (Germany) and comes in a tipped-on heavyweight gatefold jacket printed in full-colour process plus a spot metallic ink and spot matte varnish. LP dust sleeve is also 4-colour print. Package includes a 7 inch in printed dust sleeve (same audio appears in a different sequence on the CD) and a 12"x48" pull-out poster (printed full colour on both sides) featuring a collage of film stills specially-photographed and captured from the GYBE live 16mm projections." [label info]
www.cstrecords.com |
2012 |
€14.50 |
|
| GOLOWIN, SERGIUS |
Lord Krishna von Goloka |
LP |
"In 1973, Rolf Ulrich Kaiser's visionary powers acted as a catalyst for an authentic combination of acid, music and spirituality: the mystical LSD-fueled musical project Lord Krishna Von Goloka. For this adventure into Indian and Oriental mythologies and legends, Kaiser asked esoteric Swiss artist (he was a friend of Giger's), poet, specialist on Alpine folklore, and friend of Timothy Leary, Sergius Golowin, to join a group of musicians including Klaus Schulze and members of Wallenstein and Witthüser + Westrupp. It was perhaps mere coincidence that Golowin's classic treatise on witches, herbs, and magic mushrooms was published that same year (Magie Der Verbotenen Märchen); the book was fast becoming a cult item -- iit was secretly xeroxed in what was then-Communist East Germany, and later distributed in the hippie-underground there. Sergius Golowin's intellectual and spiritual world of occultism, popular legends, and shamanism were the foundation for the project. He was responsible for the lyrics, which consisted of incantatory recitations in German over the multi-textural compositions." [label info]
www.zyx.de
|
2013 |
€16.00 |
|
| GREEN KINGDOM |
same |
CD |
Erste Veröffentlichung auf diesem neuen Pariser Label, GREEN KINGDOM entwirft hier gediegen melancholische, FilmSoundtrack-artige Electronica wie sie auch auf TYPE hätte erscheinen können.. SEHR ruhig & soft & warm..
"With The Green Kingdom LP, compositions blur the lines between soundscape and structure while keeping a sharp focus on melody with the guitar playing a central role, the album manipulated acoustic and electronic sources, sampled textures, noise and field recordings. Imbued with a sense of "optimistic nostalgia", Mike Cottone soundworlds encourage introspective explorations and provide an escape from our sometimes hectic lives.
The Green Kingdom LP is the natural continuity of the highly acclaimed EP "Lucky Bamboo" released for free on EKO netlabel (IOD) in June 2006.
June 2007 - CD Digipack printed to 500 copies."
[label info]
www.semlabel.com
|
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| GRUBBS, DAVID |
Two Soundtracks for Angela Bulloch |
CD |
Zwei sehr experimentelle Collagen-artige Stücke vom Ur-Gestein DAVID GRUBBS, die als Installations-Material für Filme der kanadischen (Klang)-Künstlerin ANGELA BULLOCH dienen.
"David Grubbs (Bastro, Gastr Del Sol) has a long-standing history of collaboration and interest in contemporary visual arts. This new mini-album features two compositions commissioned by Angela Bulloch for two of her installation pieces. The two pieces on this CD accompany the works 'Z Point' and 'Horizontal Technicolour,' two major works that make use of - or, rather, are connected to -Antonioni's Zabriskie Point. 'Z Point' is based on original film material of the famous desert explosion from the final scenes, whereas 'Horizontal Technicolour' uses material filmed by the artist herself at Death Valley, a setting similar to the one used in the final scenes from Antonioni's film. The two pieces by David Grubbs are beautiful and intricate works in which the original Antonioni soundtrack, the translations of the film in other languages, and his own sound palette come together. They show yet another different approach to his diverse musical capacities and are maybe closest in spirit to his Thirty-Minute Raven mini-album on Rectangle. The CD comes with a 12-page booklet with previously unpublished stills from the Death Valley desert taken by Angela Bulloch." [label description]
www.bottrop-boy.com
|
2005 |
€13.00 |
|
| GRÖHN, COSTA |
2+1 |
mCD-R |
"Während Asmus Tietchens nur manchmal dafür gehalten wird, ist COSTA GRÖHN tatsächlich ein Mann der Kirche, nämlich Pastor von St. Johannis-Harvestehude. Weit davon entfernt, ein heimliches Laster zu sein, ist sein offenes Ohr für die Dinge des Lebens um ihn herum eine Tugend, der man weitere Verbreitung wünscht. 2 + 1 (1000füssler 016, 3“ mCD-R) hat Grillen und Vögel erlauscht, Schritte, Stimmen, brausenden Wind, auch eine maunzende Katze, knisterndes Feuer. Draußen, daheim. Alles zart und geheimnisvoll genug, um unter die Rubrik ‚Ohrenblicke der Schöpfung‘ zu fallen (so hieß 2003 ein Projekt in der Hamburger Petruskirche, an dem Gröhn mitgewirkt hatte). Der Alltagsklang ist nicht allein collagiert, er ist detailreich bearbeitet, mit Vinyl-Samples beschichtet, mit fein schwebendem Feedback durchfädelt und durchwellt. ‚Discounterbeat‘ mischt das typische Piepen einer Supermarktkasse mit Drummachine und einem Hauch von Chor. Das hat seine eigene Art von Frömmigkeit. Weltfremd ist es definitiv nicht." [Rigobert Dittmann, Bad Alchemy]
"Costa Gröhn makes field recordings on the road, at home, in the city or in the forest. On "2+1" he processed recordings from his archive and added feedbacks and vinyl record samples to 2 and 1 soundscape compositions.
[P] January 2009.
1. Chirring calls at home 8'25
2. Within a circle of fire (disrupted playback) 3‘10
3. Discounterbeat 3‘44
About the Artist:
Costa Gröhn was born 1976 in Bad Segeberg (northern Germany). He is a pastor at the St. Johannis Church in Hamburg. He has been composing soundscapes and doing performances since 2000. Besides tracks for compilations and remix-projects, he has also released two full length CD-R albums "Im Gehölz" and "Bouboukas" on the Gruenrekorder label." [label info]
|
2010 |
€6.00 |
|
| GURUN GURUN |
Uzu Oto |
LP |
The Czech group Gurun Gurun is made up of Tarnovski, Tomáš Knoflíček, Federsel, and Ondřej Ježek. who took their name from the fictional planet in the old school Slovak children’s TV show She Came Out of the Blue Sky. Uzu Oto is his first album for the Peruvian label Buh Records.
Since the beginning, it has been clear that apprehending their working and reflecting it would be a tough nut to crack. Is this even a band? Do they play compositions or is it all improvised? On the stage, you see four men hunched over tables overflowing with strange objects, hard-to-identify electronic devices, musical and non-musical instruments, and a chaotic tangle of cables, producing slow, constantly developing melodies and a hypnotic atmosphere that works a little like falling through a strange wormhole full of sounds, noises, and soft female vocals, mercilessly sucking you in, forcing you to collapse into yourself and enter a parallel universe.
They have played concerts across Europe, including London’s Café Oto, as well as successfully touring Japan. They have shared the stage with artists including Michael Gira, Tim Hecker, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (Lichens), Keith Fullerton Whitman, Kate Carr, and Lichens.
This new album, Uzu Oto, was also created in concert – each track at a different show. Despite this fact, GG do not consider it a traditional live album. And as this group generally exists independently of our common conception of time, the history of the new recording reaches back to before theird previous record, Kon B. Uzu Oto features the Kyoto-based singer Cuushe and Asuna, a sound artist from Kanazawa. The LP cover is by Czech artist, inventor, and sonic anarchist Petr Válek.
Attending a Gurun Gurun concert is like taking part in an expedition by a pack of monkeys to explore the wreckage of a spaceship that was shipwrecked a long time ago. Their improvised live sets are a mix of post-club-music deconstruction, metamorphosed acoustic and electronic sounds, generative music, and musique concrète. This is also the spirit of Uzu Oto. No, this is not music to play while you wash the dishes. Or perhaps it is, but you have to factor in the fact that the dishes will become a tangle of roots, threads, ropes, lianas, and spider webs. And that your entire kitchen may well catch on fire.
https://buhrecords.bandcamp.com/album/uzu-oto
|
2022 |
€22.00 |
|
| HAARVÖL |
Seeking the Intimacy of Silence |
CD |
One of the things the pandemic brought us was an eerie silence: imposed, artificial.
Together with the silence, it brought a concomitant isolation. It left its mark on all of us, in different ways, but a distinct mark which still remains today.
This new release which we bring you now, holds, at its core, this recent experience.
That is why we wanted to address what we decided to call a kind of intimacy with silence. Above all, it is a question of highlighting the difference between the previous artificiality and imposition by another relationship: now free, now real. To be intimate with silence is to recognise its existence and importance (as CAGE taught us many decades ago) and thus to attempt an approximation to try to bring reality into the sounds we have built. A part of that reality, at least, the one that is detached from anaesthesia; the one whose silence is active.
The pandemic and the forced isolation brought us another need: to be with others again, to share life and reality (without screens or other devices to disguise the distance).
That\'s also why this record was built in a different logic from all our previous ones: in face-to-face sessions, in which the tracks were being built in a live environment that we had never tried before. What is heard has been played and experienced in a continuous sound dialogue, and yet without a safety net. Perhaps the pandemic has brought us closer together and more eager to enjoy the present.
It was, therefore, the sounds that approached and brought us closer to this longed-for conviviality with the idea of silence.
Togetherness extended to the collaborations we love so much. To collaborate is to enhance sharing. On this record, we can hear Martijn Comes\'s guitar or Xoán-Xil López\'s cello in a crossing of intentionalities and sounds that feed our desired approach.
A few words, too, for the importance of words.
On this album, we built the track titles as if they were a poem. It was a deliberate choice to preserve its unity, its whole. This is an album that refuses the fragmentary, but rather is made of fragments. Fragments of a whole. And that whole is the result of this kind of poetic metaphor that is embodied in its title.
May the approach to silence thus be an allegory of a time and reality that are ours and with which we want to interact intensely, even if we interfere in its most intimate moments, or in other words, its silences...
Indeed, CAGE again, or memory as a device to nullify distance.
All compositions by FJP, JF. Martijn Comes, guitar (1); Xoán-Xil López, cello (3). Haarvöl are Fernando José Pereira, JoÃo Faria (music) and Rui Manuel Vieira (images).
Artwork by José Carneiro
Mastered by Jos Smolders at EARLabs
https://haarvol.bandcamp.com/album/seeking-the-intimacy-of-silence
|
2023 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Indite |
CD |
Haarvöl, a collective project based in Portugal with three permanent members, has been active in the field of experimental music since the end of 2012.
Haarvöl’s music is conceptually developed in the exploration of the properties of sounds in order to achieve cinematic and imaging environments. The sounds are not restricted to their medial origins: both digital and analogue sources are used and mixed in intricate compositions with special attention to detail.
The emphasis on non-illustrative interaction of sounds with images is evident in the videos purposely prepared for certain compositions. They can be viewed on the Vimeo page of the project (vimeo.com/haarvol).
In 2014 Haarvöl released their first album, “Hebetude”, at PAD - Easy Pieces label, where it is possible to hear the first attempts to embody all the premises the group want for their music.
"Indite" is Haarvöl’s new album and was composed during 2014. It is the second release, and so there are endemic links with the previous affirmation of their own sound. However, there is an effort towards obtaining a singularity in the new compositions. The tracks of the album try to form a homogeneous but not monolithic body of work to produce a diverse set of sounds with resonant similarities which do not repeat themselves, though. We find again the wide-ranging compositional structure already present in the previous album, that is, the use of non-hierarchical of analogue sounds as well as their electronic and digital counterparts in a joint effort to build the themes. The cinematic intentionality of the music attempts to reveal in detail the relationship with reality – here embodied by the intense use of field recordings as important components in the compositional process.
In Old English, "Indite" refers to the creative process of composing. This is perhaps one of the most relevant features of this new album: rather than the sonic intensity or wide experimentation, it is on the complex and dense composition of the themes that the rigorous structure, which decisively affirms the album, is built.
https://haarvol.bandcamp.com/album/indite
|
2015 |
€12.00 |
|
| HAARVÖL + XOAN-XIL LOPEZ |
Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey |
CD |
Haarvöl’s three permanent members — Fernando José Pereira, João Faria, and Rui Manuel Vieira — collaborate with Xoán-Xil López, a Galician sound artistic working on field recording and experimental music.
Haarvöl develops cinematic soundscapes, with analogue or digital sound sources weaved in complex and detailed compositions. They have been active since 2012 and have thus far released albums at PAD and Moving Furniture Records, presenting now their first release in Crónica, "Unwritten Rules for a Ceaseless Journey".
This album documents three pieces composed for dance, commissioned by Ballet Teatro for the play "Revoluções" (Revolutions) by choreographer Né Barros. The work is divided in three parts, embodying formal idealisations of the three decisive layers of time — past, present, and future.
First moment: Something’s Missing (Utopian)
Theodor Adorno and Ernst Bloch discussed the problem of utopia as a possibility in a heated debate they produced in 1964 and later published in the book The Utopian Function of Art and Literature. It is in this context that Bloch launches the notion of “something's missing”, to seek to configure the utopian possibility. It is also from this notion of Bloch that the possibility of thinking and forming forms the whole utopian revolutionary essence that presides over emancipatory developments. This "before" is decisive for the understanding of the idea of revolution. It is here that the necessary possibilities are produced and, above all, the utopian aspirations of fracture and change. The Blochian “something’s missing” leads to the emancipatory idea from that place without place that is utopia. Or, putting it another way, it powers the immensity of thought without limitations. The revolutionary effervescence of the before is, perhaps, the most essential condition in the approach to the idea of revolution. Exactly because it does not come across any limit, because it is located in this place without place. But it is from this realisation that we can deal with the power of free thought, with the immense intentionality of this missing something which, being above all a naturally porous and cloudy thing, offers itself to the immense beauty of total openness. It will be there, in the dematerialised embodiment of free thought, that the whole process develops and is also in the possibility of art as a place of freedom (another place with no place that exists only between the artist and his work in a utopian dimension) it has its approximate representation.
Second moment: Pulsating Waves (Reality)
Pulse tone waves are frequencies embodied in a pulsar that is at the same time decisive for all humans and, metaphorically, for the revolution. Feeling the pulse of events, of agitation, of breaking, is essential for the revolutionary moment. It is this kind of continuous auscultation that determines success or, rather, the inversion of the whole emancipatory movement in the process of pragmatic transfiguration which, by obvious ineffectiveness, becomes implosive. The pulsations of events thus assert themselves as a decisive engine, and yet, in the face of the weakening of the utopian drive in its inevitable collision with reality, everything changes. The passage from one moment to the other brings with it the presence of the now and the consequent structural modifications that the utopian impossibility needs to maintain itself as an emancipatory impulse. It will then be in the programmatic transfiguration of the revolutionary event that its pulsation is played, more or less strong, but never absent. The decisive clash also affirms the reality, stripped of all the romantic drive that forms the revolutionary utopia. The fracture induces realism, and this is never the dreamed face of emancipation. We are told in the last book of the Invisible Committee that “All the reasons for making a revolution are there. There is none missing. The wreck of politics, the arrogance of the powerful, the reign of the false, the vulgarity of the rich, the cataclysms of industry, rampant misery, naked exploitation, the ecological apocalypse ... do not deprive us of anything, not even being informed of this. ‘Climate: 2016 beats record of heat’ says Le Monde in its main title, now already like almost every year. All the reasons are met, but not the reasons that make revolutions; are the bodies. And the bodies are in front of the screens.” Right.
Third moment: Don’t Look Back, Run (Trauma)
Says Hal Foster in his seminal book The Return of the Real: “An event is only recorded through another that recodes it; we become what we are only as deferred action (Nachträglichkeit). This is the analogy that I want to emphasize for the modernist studies of this end of the century: historical and neo-vanguard vanguards are similarly constituted as a continuous process of protension and retention, a complex retransmission of anticipated and reconstructed futures-that is, in a deferred action that abandons any simplified scheme of a before and after, cause and effect, origin and repetition.” The same scheme of thought can be used to analyse the revolutionary event in its complex structuring and temporality. An emancipatory event can only be constituted if it recodes traumatically past past events which will obviously mean a learning that will bring you the possibility of introducing the necessary changes to be made. That is to say, still according to Foster, that the emancipatory events are, therefore, less new and more deferred. Suppressed in part, they will return and continue to return, and yet they will return from the future, such is the paradoxical temporality of utopia.
Note: At a certain point in Giorgio Agamben's book The State of Exception, he refers to a determinant question: the point of view that, in this context, is determined by a legal order that requires recognition by another that opposes it. Quoting Italian jurist Santi Romano, he says: "... after having recognized the anti-legal nature of the revolutionary forces, he adds that this only works in this way in relation to the positive law of the State against which it is directed, but this does not it means that, from a very different point of view, from which they define themselves, it is not a movement ordered and regulated by its own right. This also means that it is an order that must be classified in the category of originating legal systems, in the sense that is attributed to this expression. In this sense and within the limits that have been indicated one can therefore speak of a right of revolution." That is to say, still in Agamben's view, that the idea of state legal ordering is the only one, by effectively opposing what is usually called chaos, is first and foremost reductive and fallacious. One thing, however, is correct: all the mental structuring concerning the duality exclusion vs. inclusion simply depends on the point of view. And this is perhaps the most important point to make clear the relationship that is intrinsic and impossible to conceal, first of all, because it is also the source of the essentiality of the politician, that is, the necessary verification of antagonism. It is, therefore, the place where we want to be.
https://cronica.bandcamp.com/album/unwritten-rules-of-a-ceaseless-journey |
2019 |
€13.00 |
|
| HAIGH, ROBERT |
Strange and Secret Things |
CD |
"Dritter Release der Piano-Solo-Trilogie von Robert Haigh auf dem japanischen Imprint Siren. Wer gerne, von Saties Piano Works ausgehend, einem wahrlich inspirierten Nachfolger auf die Spur kommen möchte, dem sei dies, trotz aller überstrapazierten satieesken Spielereien der letzten Jahre, wärmstens ans Herz gelegt. “Strange And Secret Things” beinhaltet sehr emotionale und pointiert bilderreich gesetzte Improvisationen – Haigh scheut sich nicht, klischeegefährdete Untiefen der stark in unser Unterbewusstes eingedrungenen Kompositionen neuer französischer Klaviermusik des verehrten Originals zu durchwaten, um mit irritierender Leichtigkeit, ganz im Sinne des satieschen Nouveau Esprit, in eigenen Sphären zu landen. Überraschung und Wirkung, so die Aussage Saties, sei die Wiederaufnahme klassischer Formgestaltung vom Standpunkt eines modernen Kunstbegriffes. So fährt die Zeitschiene auf bezaubernde Weise vor und zurück, ganz so, wie es sein sollte. Die beiden ersten Teile der Trilogie sind unter dem Moniker SEMA auf des Künstlers eigenem Label Le Rey Records zu erwerben." [Raabenstein / de:bug]
"Strange and Secret Things' is the third and final part of Robert Haigh’s piano solo trilogy for Siren Records that started with 'Notes and Crossings' (2009) and 'Anonymous Lights' (2010). In his quest to expand his solo piano expression, Robert employs two distinct yet complimentary approaches to piano composition. The first is based on shifting patterns - repetitive structures with minimal development. The second is a more organic approach which evolves out of unmediated improvisation. Along the way, Robert has created compositions that are vital, exposed, melancholic, minimal and open-ended that never stray too far away from a unique melodic sensibility. 'Strange and Secret Things', comprised of 17 tracks, is a further continuation of the journey explored in the first two parts. It is the most intimate and powerful of the trilogy - with a wider palette of light and shade, emotion, texture and atmosphere. This album is a must for anyone who has enjoyed the first two parts of the trilogy and his older legendary recordings on Le Rey Records. It will appeal to those who have an affinity with the piano language of Satie, Glass, Budd, Cage, Max Richter etc. The album was mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering. As with the first two parts the CD comes with a limited edition hand-made miniature jacket sleeve.." [label info]
|
2011 |
€16.00 |
|
| HALL OF MIRRORS |
Reflections on black |
CD |
Italienische dark ambient supergroup, ein Kollaborations-Projekt von AMON, NEFELHEIM und NIMH !! Dunkel, melancholisch, aber auch ausschweifend ausserweltlich & geräuschhaft..
eine perfekte Synthese der drei Projekte, exzellent!
"Recorded during the summer of 2005 by NEFELHEIM and DANIELA GHERARDI. "Reflections in Black" was the predecessor to the "HALL OF MIRRORS" project (a dark transmission from the hearts and minds of AMON and NIMH). Instruments used to make these sounds were constant companions of the artists for days-on-end. This document utilizes an immense range of synthesizers and obscure electronic equipment. Complex compositions created with various sequencers, backing tapes, field recordings, electric guitar, and masterful audio processing techniques, combined with expert assembly (mixing/digital editing). With "Reflections in Black", AMON and NIMH redefines the genera of dark ambient music. A definite buy for fans of Lustmord and darker/gothic atmosphere. Isolationistic music for midnight rituals. Post-millennium soundscapes. Intensely foreboding... like watching storm coluds gather on a late summer night. Darkest beauty personified." [label info]
label: www.silentes.net
|
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| HAMPSON, ROBERT |
Vectors |
CD |
"Robert Hampson (geb. 1965 in UK) ist Gründungsmitglied der Bands "Loop" (1985-90) und "Main" (1990 -96). Nach dem Ende der Band "Loop", konzentrierte siche Hampson im Rahmen der neuen Band "Main" darauf, den charakteristischen Sound der Gitarre für sich neu zu interpretieren und umzuformen in dem er sich im Detail mit dem Stil des Instrumentes beschäfitgte. Er kreierte so neue und abstrakte Sounds. Je mehr sich die Band "Main" entwicktelte, desto mehr lösten sie sich von dem eigentlichen Sound der Gitarre und kamen ihrem eigenen revolutionären Stil nahe. Mittlerweile komponiert und spielt Hampson unter seinen eigenen Namen. Er widmete sich nun mehr und mehr der Akusmatik, einer Weiterentwicklung von natürlichen Klängen, aufgehend in einer Kombination dieser mit synthetischen Klängen. In einer gleichberechtigen Zusammensetzung dieser, gelang es ihm völlig neue Sounds und Ideen umzusetzen.Umbra :Das Phänomen der "Umbra" - des Kernschattens, ist es was die Arbeit an diesem Stück inspirieren sollte: Geräusche die in den Schatten anderer eingefangen zu sein scheinen, die immer mehr Form annehmen, sich entfalten und materialisieren bis sie selbst einen Schatten werfen.Ahead -Only The Stars (2007) beauftragt vom Label "Vibrö" für eine Performance im Planetarium de Poitiers in 7.1. Surround Ratio.Inspiriert von dem ,Austronauts of the NASA Mercury Missions" Programm und dem wohl größten Piloten aller Zeiten: Chuck Yeager. Ihm ist dieses Stück auch gewidmet.Nach einer Einführung der überwältigenden und beeindruckenden Jets-Sounds, ist das Stück durchsetzt mit Radio-Transmissionen, die den künstlerischen Rahmen dieses Werkes bilden.Dans le Lointain (2008) - Geräusche kurzwelliger Funktöne, aufgenommen von Hampson in den frühen 80er Jahren und neulich auf einer Kassette wiederentdeckt, wurden neu auf klassische Art und Weise bearbeitet und digital neu interpretiert. Der Titel des Werkes bezieht sich auf die Distanzen, die Radiowellen fähig sind zu meistern, so aber auch soll es die Zeitspanne darstellen, beginnend mit der Aufnahme auf Kassetten Anfang der 80er bis in die jetzige Neuzeit der High Technologies."
[label info / Cargo]
www.myspace.com/roberthampson
"A long time I met Robert Hampson and talked with him about the movie '24 Hour Party People'. What I didn't knew is that Hampson and his band Loop toured with the Happy Mondays, so he shed some extra light on those scenes involving the Mondays. I was thinking of the curious career of Hampson when listening to 'Vectors'. The rock days of Loop merging into the ambience of Main to the electro acoustic of Hampson, who no longer uses the name Main anymore. I liked Loop, I truly loved Main and sometimes I found myself thinking 'what is Robert Hampson doing these days?'. Its been some years since his last Main release, but apparently his into France these days. All three pieces here were recorded for things in France, festivals, commissions of INA GRM. Indeed a curious career. Robert Hampson - serious composer. Who would have guessed? One could see it coming I guess, as the last Main releases forecasted the music on 'Vectors': computer manipulated electro-acoustic music, brought to you in the form of an audio collage. If you need to compare it with something, then the whole microsound posse comes to mind, but Roel Meelkop in particular. Hampson shares the same sensibility of creating intense audio compositions, with slow curves, occasional rapid change and a keen ear for atmospherics. Crackling, ambient, computer treatments of acoustic objects. Well crafted compositions, that never seem to leap into the doodling that some of the 'real' (what is real anyway?) acousmatic composers in this scene seem to be doing. Challenging music of the highest order. Its only a pity that there is not so much of that from Hampson. Let's hope the next one is not three years away." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
"... On Vectors, Hampson teases with repetitions of astronaut bleeps, electrical warblings, digitally vaporous static, and wisps of sound design that could build into something off of Hydra-Calm or Motion Pool, but
don't. Many folks (including some here) have been frustrated by Hampson's work after Motion Pool, and that sentiment probably won't be changed with Vectors. The three lengthy pieces on Vectors are all commissions with lofty goals of avant electronics; and two of the commissions came by way of the legendary GRM studio in France. In this context as opposed to the Loop / Main axis, Vectors turns out to be a smoldering musique concrete album with acousmatic allusions to the work of Michel Chion and Luc Ferrari." [Aquarius Records review]
|
2009 |
€15.00 |
|
| HANSEN, LARS LUNDEHAVE |
Terminal Velocity |
LP |
"Lars Lundehave Hansen has for many years distinguished himself as one of the most visionary Danish sound artists. Not least, he has been a key name on the Danish scene of noise and drone as part of Noisejihad and as part of the duo Wäldchengarten. He has also distinguished himself through a series of solo releases and sound-installations, both in Denmark and internationally.This time "Terminal Velocity" shows his excellent ability to build a sonic space which is both dreamy yet physical.
Work on the album took place at the legendary EMS / Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm and resulted in no less than 21 vignettes that are included on the vinyl record.
"During my stay I tried to rethink the ways to reate atmospheric ambient and tried to incorporate this genre into a classic pop rock format, which, if anything, can be said to be in stark contrast to elongated ambient. The result is a series of electronic drones that without sacrificing the formal structures such as lead-in, motif, ascension/descension and climax, will be conducted in 3 minutes or less. The songs hold melodic scales, the noise is in tune and some of it can even be considered a kind of compositional style exercises disguised as music."
Over the years, the musical work of Lars Lundehave Hansen has focused on challenging compositions and an exploration of the spaces between tone and noise running parallel to music in the usual sense.
It may be a peculiar niche but has until now been extremely rewarding in terms of recognition, awards and prices at home and abroad, including the Danish Arts Foundation and Honorary Mention in 'Digital Music and Arts' category at Ars Electronica in 2011.
Lars Lundehave Hansen has performed worldwide, from Brazil, Japan and China to India and all across Europe. Recent Danish performance was as supporting act to the legendary William Basinski in front of a sold-out hall at Jazzhouse." [credits]
www.larslundehavehansen.dk
www.larslundehavehansen.dk |
2016 |
€18.00 |
|
| HARTH, ALFRED 23 & WOLFGANG SEIDEL |
Five Eyes |
CD |
"Credits:
reeds, trombone, key, misc: Alfred 23 Harth
drums, percussion, misc: Wolfgang Seidel
vocals: Nicole van den Plas, Bill Shute (04),
Boris Stout (06), A23H (08)
compositions:
Alfred 23 Harth, Wolfgang Seidel-Meissner
recorded in Berlin and Seoul
produced & mastered by A23H at LaubhuetteStudio Moonsun, Korea, 2014
cover drawing: Wolf Pehlke
cover: Robert Schalinski
Thanks to Bill Shute from Kendra Steiner Editions for triggering this album.
Five Eyes Long Distance Call
Seoul und Berlin – das ist weit voneinander entfernt. Bei heutiger Musikproduktion sind geografische Entfernungen kein Hindernis. Und die beiden Komponisten von Five Eyes sind sich zugleich nah und fern, gibt es doch in unseren Biografien trotz unterschiedlicher Wege und Orte immer wieder Punkte, wo wir aus unterschiedlichen Richtungen kommend zu gleichen künstlerischen Fragestellungen gelangt sind. Alfred Harth ist in der Nähe von Frankfurt/Main geboren, wo man in der Philosophie und Kunst nach Westen, nach Frankreich und über den Atlantik blickte. Ich bin im selben Jahr in West-Berlin geboren, das damals eine mit viel Subventionen künstlich am Leben erhaltene Geisterstadt, der Hinterhof der westlichen Welt war. Für Alfred war Jazz die klangliche Verheißung, dass es etwas anderes geben muss, als das verdruckste Nachkriegsdeutschland. Für mich als Hinterhofgöre und in einer Stadt, die keine nennenswerte Jazz-Szene hatte, erfüllte Rock n’ Roll die gleiche Funktion. Für Alfred führte der Weg in die freie Improvisation, seine Gruppe Just Music verkündete Ende der 60er in einem Flyer als Konzept ein „Modell für annähernd herrschaftsfreie Kommunikation und Interaktion“ sein zu wollen. Zur selben Zeit passierte eine ähnliche Entwicklung bei denen, die von der Rockmusik her kamen. In der experimentierfreudigen Phase des Psychedelic Rock lösten sich vorgegebene Strukturen auf. Das brachte uns das erste Mal am gleichen Ort zusammen, in Conrad Schnitzlers Zodiak Free Arts Lab, wo sich für ein knappes Jahr Free Jazz, Happening und das, was später mal Krautrock genannt werden sollte, mischte. Die Sessions mit Conrad Schnitzler, die in eine langjährige Zusammenarbeit mündeten, waren meine erste Begegnung – wie es ein Flyer verkündete – mit „Total freie[r] Musik“. Schnitzler, ein Beuys-Schüler, bezeichnete sich als Intermedia-Künstler, um bewusst alle Kategorisierung und alle Begrenzung auf ein Medium zu vermeiden. Auch wenn Alfred diesen Begriff nie verwendete, würde er auf ihn passen als jemandem, der gleichermaßen in der Musik, Literatur und den visuellen Künsten unterwegs ist. Für beide war Fluxus und die Begegnung mit Künstlern wie Nam June Paik eine Weichenstellung.
Den nächsten Schritt vollzogen Alfred und ich von unterschiedlichen Ausgangspositionen in dieselbe Richtung – hin zum gesprochenen oder gesungenen Wort. Ich schloss mich einer Lehrlingstheatergruppe an, aus der dann die Band Ton Steine Scherben hervorging, die Rockmusik und radikale, auf Deutsch gesungene Texte zusammenbrachte und auf deren erster Platte auch ein Stück von Hanns Eisler zu hören ist. Mit dessen Musik und der Verbindung von Musik und Poesie jenseits des Jazz und Lyrik-Klischees beschäftigte sich auch Alfred zusammen mit Heiner Goebbels. Während die Scherben das Straßentheater bald zugunsten der Rock-Bühne hinter sich ließen, gehörten die beiden zu den Mitbegründern des Sogenannten linksradikalen Blasorchesters, das die Musik auf die Straße brachte. Der nächste Schub kam durch Punk und vor allem durch die in dessen Windschatten blühenden Experimente, die Stilmittel der musikalischen Avantgarde, Collage- und Montagetechniken mit der Energie von Rock zusammenbrachte. Für Alfred war das dann unter anderem die Band Cassiber zusammen mit Chris Cutler, Christoph Anders und Heiner Goebbels. Für mich war das in Berlin die Gruppe Populäre Mechanik, die noch als reine Gitarrenband in der Rocktradition begann und sich mehr und mehr Elektronik, als auch durch die Erweiterung mit Bläsern Jazzeinflüssen hin öffnete. Diesmal bewegte sich Alfreds und mein musikalischer Weg so weit aufeinander zu, dass es tatsächlich 1983 zu einem gemeinsamen Konzert kam.
Ein Ausschnitt aus diesem Konzert fand dann seinen Weg auf Alfreds Platte Sweet Paris, einer 1990 erschienenen Text- und Musikcollage – ein multimediales Tagebuch, in dem Alfred seinen Briefwechsel mit dem damals in Paris lebenden Maler Wolf Pehlke – er machte die 5E-Coverzeichnung - umsetzte und in das Solos, Fieldrecordings und Ausschnitte aus zahlreichen musikalischen Begegnungen einflossen. Zu Cut-up mit seiner Eröffnung neuer Zusammenhänge und zu Collage, mit der man Realität in die Komposition holen konnte, hatte Alfred vor allem auch über Literatur, über Brinkmann und Burroughs, und seine Arbeit als visueller Künstler gefunden. Die Entwicklung des Samplers machten die vorher ans Studio gebundenen, geduldigen Techniken der Musique Concrète musikalisch handhabbarer und zu einem Ausweg aus einem linearen Zeitbegriff, der sich mit seinem Versprechen einer höheren Ordnung in der Musik immer weniger durchhalten ließ.
Für mich führte der Weg von der noch von diesem Heilsversprechen angetriebenen Musik der Scherben, über die Auflösung der Zeit in psychedelischen Krautrock-Erfahrungen in die Fluxus-inspirierte Zusammenarbeit mit Conrad Schnitzler, der Ende der 1970er mehr als ein Dutzend Kassettenrecorder stapelte, mit denen er eigenes und gefundenes Material bei Konzerten mischte.
Mit Five Eyes, für die wir monatelang Tracks her- und hinschickten, auseinandernahmen und neu zusammensetzten, konnten wir den Faden wieder aufnehmen – denn nach der Session, die auf Sweet Paris dokumentiert ist, trennten sich die Wege erst einmal wieder. Für mich gab es Ende der 80er mit dem Untergang des alten Westberlins auch persönlich eine Umbruchzeit, die dazu führte, dass die Musik erst einmal weitgehend Pause machte. Als ich dann wieder anfing, aktiv zu werden, sah man sich als Musiker einer veränderten Situation gegenüber. Eine Musik, die sich mehr oder weniger gradlinig auf ein Ziel bewegt, war endgültig obsolet geworden. Die Durchsetzung von There-Is-No-Alternative als herrschender Ideologie brauchte ebenfalls eine musikalische Antwort. Dazu kommt die durch die Digitalisierung gigantisch beschleunigte Bilderflut, in deren Geflicker alle Konflikte dieser Welt gleich aussehen. Die Frage nach Gut und Böse reduziert sich da auf die Frage, welche Seite die emotionaleren Bilder liefern kann, die dann am effektivsten wirken, wenn sie an vorhandenes Ressentiment andocken können. Als dann beim Anschlag auf das World Trade Center etliche Antiimperialisten im Anblick der Katastrophe applaudierten, wurde klar, dass man noch einmal neu nachdenken muss.
Alfred zog es nach Südkorea, das in den letzen 100 Jahren von der Geschichte nicht gut behandelt wurde. Japanische Besetzung, Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung, dann der Koreakrieg, in dem das Land nur Figur auf dem Schachbrett des Konfliktes zwischen Ost und West war. Jetzt ist das Land eingezwängt zwischen dem autoritären Nordkorea und dem wirtschaftlich dominierenden Japan, das nie eine Debatte über seine gewalttätige Vergangenheit geführt hat. Ich dagegen brauchte keinen Ortswechsel vorzunehmen. In Berlin wechselte sich der Ort in rasantem Tempo selber aus – zumal aus der Sicht des Westberliners. Aus der verschlafenen Nische wurde eine Wir-sind-wieder-wer-Hauptstadt eines Landes, das ziemlich schnell an seine alten Hegemonialansprüche anzuknüpfen begann. Nach außen wie innen wurde dies zunehmend aggressiv durchgesetzt, begleitet und gefeiert von einem Kulturbetrieb, der mehr und mehr nationales Pathos produziert.
Vor ein paar Jahren kam über den inzwischen verstorbenen Conrad Schnitzler der Kontakt zwischen Alfred und mir wieder zustande. Dabei stellten wir fest, dass wir von den beiden Enden der Welt, an denen wir inzwischen gelandet waren, zu ähnlichen Überlegungen gekommen waren. Zumal die Enden der Welt sich immer ähnlicher werden. War in den 60ern ein Lied, dass man gerne sang, Break on through to the other side, ist man heute damit konfrontiert, dass es auf der anderen Seite genauso oder schlimmer aussieht. Die Propaganda für das Bestehende funktioniert heute nicht mehr durch Lügen. Man gibt alle Kritik zu, um dann darauf zu verweisen, dass alles andere schlimmer ist, was durch den tatsächlich stattfindenden Angriff der Barbarei auf das Bisschen erreichten Fortschritts eine fatale Komplizenschaft erzeugt. Wie positioniert man sich als Musiker in einer Welt, die sich gleichzeitig in zwei nur scheinbar entgegengesetzten Richtungen entwickelt? Auf der einen Seite eine fast unendliche individuelle Freiheit, die keine Emanzipation von gesellschaftlichen Zwängen ist, sondern bloßes Selbstunternehmertum in einem Dog-eats-dog-Kapitalismus. Parallel dazu entwickelt sich der Staat, den die neoliberalen Apologeten angeblich mindestens verschlanken, am liebsten aber abschaffen wollen, zu einer immer perfekteren Kontroll- und Repressionsmaschine.
Mittlerweile ist eine Generation herangewachsen, die gar keine persönliche Erinnerung mehr daran hat, dass irgendwann einmal etwas Anderes war. Dabei war das Andere nicht automatisch besser, aber allein durch seine Existenz machte es klar, dass die Beschaffenheit der Gesellschaft, in der wir leben, verhandelbar ist. „Herrschaftsfreie Musik“ ist nach wie vor eine mögliche Antwort. Wobei das nicht nur heißt, frei von einer vorgegebenen Komposition oder einer Führungsfigur zu sein. Herrschaft maskiert sich heute vor allem als Sachzwang. Dagegen steht eine Musik, in der die Musiker stets die freie Entscheidung über die Musik und ihre Weiterentwicklung haben, als eine ständige, für den Hörer nachvollziehbare Verhandlung. Die andere Antwort ist das Hereinnehmen und Rekontextualisieren von ausgewählten Klangsplittern als Spuren von Realität, Zitate, Field-Recordings, um das abstrakte Medium Musik mal assoziativ, mal verwirrend und zum Neudenken auffordernd an die umgebende Wirklichkeit anzubinden. Beides kann zu einer Entdeckungsreise werden.
Wolfgang Seidel, 23.10.2014" [credits & liner notes] |
2014 |
€15.00 |
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| |
Malcha |
CD |
Harth/Seidel/Spera/Van Den Plas: Malcha
Format: CD
Country: Korea, Italy & Germany
Released: 01.10.2016
Tracklist
01 Gate 2 Not
02 Ceremony Behind Buddha’s Garden
03 Begum Of Oudh
04 Resilient Cup Of Crushed Diamonds
05 Send A Revolver The Night Before The
00 Interview
06 Delhi Green Mousse
Musicians
Alfred 23 Harth – ts, ss, dojirak, voice
Wolfgang Seidel – buchla music easel, prepared guitar, perc, vibes
Fabrizio Spera – dr, perc
Nicole van den Plas – voice, piano, zither, balalaika, kalimba, whistling
Credits
Compositions by Alfred Harth, Wolfgang Seidel-Meissner, Fabrizio Spera
Recorded by Wolfgang Seidel at Exrotaprint Studio, Berlin, 2015.11.13
Production, arrangement, mix & premastering by A23H at LaubhuetteStudio Moonsun, Korea
Mastering by Wolfgang Seidel at Exrotaprint Studio, Berlin, 2016
MALCHA
Berlin, November 2015. In einem Café in Mitte, in der Auguststrasse, sitzen Alfred Harth (seit 15 Jahren auch in Seoul), Fabrizio Spera (Rom), Elliott Sharp (New York) und ich – Wolfgang Seidel (Berlin). Am Abend vorher hatten Alfred, Fabrizio und Elliott ganz in der Nähe gespielt, zusammen mit Kazuhisa Uchihashi (Tokio) und Clayton Thomas (Sydney), die nun schon unterwegs waren zu ihren nächsten Konzerten. Mit beiden wäre die Runde noch globaler gewesen, was in der Improvisierten Musik allerdings nichts besonderes ist. Das grosse „I“ bei Improvisierter Musik ist Absicht. Improvisierte Musik als eigenes musikalisches Genre – so wie die Neue Musik. Improvisierte Musik als Genre, dass sich von lokalen Traditionen emanzipiert hat und in der Musiker aus aller Welt miteinander spielen. Wäre der Vorsatz „post“ nicht so inflationär an alles mögliche geklebt, würde ich diese Musik postnational nennen. Im alten West-Berlin hatte ich einen Bogen gemacht um die Jazz-Szene. Die war mir zu bürgerlich und von einem altbackenden Handwerker-Ethos mit strikten Regeln, was man denn geübt haben müsse, ehe man es sich erlauben dürfe zu improvisieren. Da passte ich mit meiner Psychedelic Rock-Sozialisation nicht hinein. Anfang der 80er, im Windschatten von Punk, wurden Genregrenzen für einige Zeit durchlässig. In diese Zeit fällt dann auch das bisher einzige gemeinsame Konzert mit Alfred und meiner damaligen Band Populäre Mechanik. Dann war erst mal wieder Pause, die erst zu Ende ging, als sich ab der Jahrtausendwende die Szene Improvisierter Musik entwickelte, die in Berlin unter dem Label Echtzeitmusik agiert.
Als einzigem "Eingeborenen" fiel mir der Part zu, zu erzählen, wie sich die Gegend in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten verändert hat. Eingeborener stimmt auch nur halb - als Westberliner habe ich diesen im Zentrum der „Hauptstadt der DDR“ gelegenen Teil der Stadt erst 1989 kennengelernt. Da war das Scheunenviertel genannte Areal hinter dem Hackeschen Markt grau und düster von verwahrlosten Häusern mit abbröckelndem Putz und leeren Wohnungen. Mich erinnerten die Straßen an das Westberlin meiner Kindheit, als die Spuren des Krieges noch überall sichtbar und die vorherrschende Farbe grau war. Das urbane Vakuum im Scheunenviertel füllte sich nach 1989 ganz schnell mit neuem Leben. In den leeren Läden entstanden Clubs und Galerien, bis die Gentrifizierung dem fröhlichen Experimentieren ein Ende setzte. Die Fassaden sind renoviert, die Läden elegant und teuer und die Galerien bieten Dekoratives für die obere Einkommensklasse.
Ein paar tausend Kilometer weiter östlich in Korea, ist die Welt noch geteilt. Im Schatten der euphemistisch DMZ – Demilitarized Zone – benannten Grenze zwischen Nord- und Südkorea, befindet sich Alfreds LaubhuetteStudio. Es klingt idyllisch, wenn er schreibt, dass Rehe dort herumstreunen und auf Fotos von seinen Exkursionen sieht er aus wie ein Botaniker auf der Jagd nach seltenen Schmetterlingen. Irgendwie erinnert mich das auch an die trägen Sommertage im ehemaligen Westberlin, wo man im Schatten der Mauer sein Bier trank. Solche dem Verwertungsdruck entzogenen Areale scheinen auf geheimnisvolle Weise der Kreativität besonders zuträglich sein.
Nach dem Frühstücksmeeting gingen wir drei – Alfred, Fabrizio und ich – dahin, wo die Stadt nur arm und kein bisschen sexy ist – in den Stadtteil Wedding. Dessen Wandlung vom Arbeiterbezirk zum deindustrialisierten Arbeitslosenbezirk hat viel leerstehenden Gewerberaum hinterlassen. In einer dieser ehemaligen Fabriken war ich mit meinem Studio eingezogen. Zwei Stunden später konnte ich zufrieden auf den Aus-Knopf der Aufnahmeapparatur drücken. Wohin diese musikalischen „Gespräche“ ohne jede Vorgabe oder Planung letztlich führen, ist immer wieder eine Überraschung. Begonnen hatte es vor fast fünfzig Jahren mit „herrschaftsfreier Musik“ – so das Konzept von Alfreds Gruppe Just Music. Ich spielte zur selben Zeit mit dem Beuys-Schüler Conrad Schnitzler "Total freie Musik". So stand es auf einem Poster. Über Conrad Schnitzler, der leider 2012 verstarb, hatten Alfred und ich uns näher kennengelernt.
Auf dem „Total freie Musik“-Plakat stand außerdem: jeder kann mitmachen. Bei anderer Gelegenheit war das Publikum aufgefordert, Transistorradios mitzubringen und während der Performance eifrig am Sendersuchlauf zu drehen. Die Verwendung von aussermusikalischen Geräuschen und die Technik der Collage sind für Alfred und mich früh zur Arbeitsweise geworden. Unsere CD Five Eyes ist so entstanden, als Collage aus Tracks, die wir uns um den halben Erdball schickten. Und nach Beendigung unserer Trio-Session im Wedding, war das noch nicht das fertige Werk. Zurück in Korea, ergänzte Alfred noch Passagen mit seinem Sopransaxophon aus dem 70er Archiv. Hinzu kamen gefakte Field-Recordings aus Indien. Nicole van den Plas schickte Gesangs- und Instrumentalaufnahmen (Voice & Bells, 40° Celsius und If Any, drei ihrer jüngsten CDRs) die sich wunderbar in das Gewebe von Klängen, das Alfred in seiner Laubhütte schuf, einfügten. Dieses Gewebe ist so dicht, dass ich erst nach mehrmaligem Anhören entdeckte, dass auch ein Track Eingang gefunden hatte, den ich ihm schon vor längerer Zeit geschickt hatte, in dem, als Erinnerung an unsere erste Westberliner Begegnung, die Sendekennung des RIAS (Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor) zu hören ist. Genau das ist es, was den Spass an diesen Aufnahmen ausmacht. Man macht immer wieder noch Entdeckungen im Dickicht der Klänge.
Am Schluss wartet eine Aufgabe, um die ich mich gerne drücke. Eine Veröffentlichung muss einen Namen haben, die Tracks darauf auch. Bei Songs ist das ja einfach. Aber wir haben keine weitere Geschichte, die wir zur Musik erzählen. Bei uns ist die Musik die Geschichte. Wir machen abstrakte Musik und keine Programm- oder Illustrationsmusik. Wir denken beim Spielen an nichts ausser an die Klänge, die wir produzieren und wie diese sich mit den Sounds der Mitspieler verflechten. Conrad Schnitzler löste für sich das Problem, indem er irgendwann seine Kompositionen nur noch nummerierte. Er kam damit bis 830. Alfred löste das Problem, in dem er zunächst an unsere Café-Frühstücksrunde anknüpfte. Latte Macchiato? Nein „Malcha“. Er berichtete, dass das koreanische Getränk, mit dem man sich munter macht, Malcha heißt – ein grüner Tee, zu Pulver zerstampft und mit Bambusbesen wie Cappuchino aufgeschäumt. Da koreanische Restaurants gerade die neue Gründerwelle in Berlin sind, ist es nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis Malcha zum neuen Hipster-Getränk wird.
Damit war ein Titel für die CD gefunden. Es fehlten noch die Titel für die einzelnen Stücke. Ueber Indien war Alfred auf eine andere Bedeutung von Malcha gestossen: Malcha Mahal – ein 600 Jahre alter, verfallender Palast in Delhi. In ihm leben zwei Geschwister, ein Prinz und eine Prinzessin, isoliert von der Umwelt. Prinz Ali Raza und Prinzessin Sakina sind die letzten Nachfahren einer aus Persien stammenden Dynastie, die bis Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts über das Königreich Oudh herrschte. Nach vergeblichem Aufstand gegen die britische Kolonialmacht wurde Oudh besetzt und die Herrscherfamilie befand sich auf der Flucht, da sie sich weder den Briten noch dem unabhängig gewordenen Indien unterwerfen wollte. Die letzte Begum von Oudh fand mit ihren Kindern schliesslich Zuflucht im Malcha Mahal, wo sie 1983 auf wahrhaft fürstliche Art Selbstmord beging. Sie trank ein Pulver aus den Splittern ihres Diamantringes. Ihre Kinder leben seitdem von der Aussenwelt isoliert im Dickicht des Malcha Mahal Parks. Das klingt nach exotischem Liebesromanstoff, in dem sich die britische Begeisterung für Spukgeschichten mit der mindestens ebenso grossen indischen Begeisterung für Geistergeschichten mischen, auf der Folie einer Reminizenz an Extremaussenseiter, die aus aristokratischem Stolz ein Leben lang in einer Gegenwelt verharren. Spätestens jetzt war unser anfänglicher Berlinausflug definitiv über andere Assoziationsebenen auf Reisen geraten.
Wolfgang Seidel, 2016.5.31
www.molokoplusrecords.de
|
2016 |
€15.00 |
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| HARTMAN, HANNA |
Färjesänger |
CD |
Fährensongs! Ausgefeilte Elektro-Akustik basierend auf field recordings von der schwedischen Komponistin, 3 Stücke die für schwedische & deutsche Radioprogramme aufgenommen wurden.
"Having developed her very own language, the Swedish sound artist hanna hartman creates compositions that are exclusively made up from authentic sounds which she has recorded around the world. Sounds are taken out of their original context and thus perceived in their purity. Hanna Hartman seeks to reveal hidden correspondences between the most diverse auditive impressions and in new constellations she creates extraordinary worlds of sound." [label info]
Ferrysongs :
Färjesänger (20:55) commissioned by Radioteatern Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, 2002
Cikoria (35:42) commissioned by DeuschlandRadioBerlin, 2000
Die Schrauben, die die Welt zusammenhalten (16:34) commissioned by Sender Freies Berlin, 2001.
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2003 |
€13.50 |
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Longitude / Cratere |
CD |
Zwei grossartige drone-artige musique-concrete Stücke der Schwedin HANNA HARTMAN, bei „Longitude“ mit beeindruckendem Klang-Material aufgenommen auf Segelbooten, bei Cratere bestehend aus (u.a.) : Atmen, Rauschen, Donnern, Vulcan-Granular-Sounds.... to discover !! (Sie bekam übrigens 2005 den Karl-Sczuka-Preis für eine andere Komposition, als Nachfolgerin von u.a. ASMUS TIETCHENS!)
“The second release of the year on the Komplott label is two pieces by sound artist Hanna Hartman. Until now the two compositions of the album,/ Longitude 013° 26' E / and / Cratere,/ which were originally commissioned pieces for the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation and DeutschlandRadioBerlin, have only been available to the public as radio broadcasts. The music is not dependent on the medium of radio however, but consists of concrete sounds composed as independent pieces. The material of the piece Cratere partly consists of recordings of the Italian volcano Etna, whereas much of the material on Longitude 013° 26' E - a longitude which runs through Berlin, Kap Arkona and the Baltic Sea - was recorded on sailing boats. The album cover is to be interpreted as a commentary between map and terrain, an abstraction which points to the difference between the origin of the sounds and its musical form. The terrain can be conceived through the map, the map through the knowledge and experiences which arise from the relation between the two. Hanna Hartman has received several awards for her music such as the recent Svenska Författarförbundet Radiopris (Swedish Writer Associations Radio Award) 2004 and the Karl-Sczuka Prize 2005. She will be presenting a sound installation at the GAS Festival (Göteborg Art Sounds, 1-8 October 2005). Longitude / Cratere will be released on September 23.“ [label description]
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2005 |
€14.50 |
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Ailanthus |
CD |
Vier neue Stücke des schwedischen Geräuschmusikwunderkinds, so intensiv dynamisch und konkret & nah wie irgendwas prasseln hier bannende Klänge aus den Lautsprechern; vor allem das Quietschen, Knirschen & Knarzen der Dingwelt scheint es ihr angetan zu haben, aber auch auf menschliche & tierische vokale Aktivitäten wird ein Fokus gesetzt, wobei sich als quasi Zeitlupen-Collage ständig neuartige Kontexte ergeben. Manchmal ergeben sich ruckartige Klangmuster, die jedoch auch immer wieder aufgebrochen werden ... eine eigenartige, neuartige, aufregende Klangsprache ist das!
"Von HANNA HARTMAN, Karl-Sczuka-Preisträgerin 2005 aus Uppsala, die zuerst von BAs Radar erfasst wurde mit dem Elektron-Release ihrer Arbeiten von 2000-2002 und dann mit dem Komplott-Vorgänger Longitude/Cratere, liegt nun mit Ailanthus (escudre09) ihre Elektroakustik der Jahre 2003-2006 vor. Als erstes erklingen mit ‚Att Fälla Grova Träd Är Förknippat Med Risker‘ gleich die 8:35, die die Jury des SWR so beeindruckt hatten. Nachvollziehbar, denn ‚Das Fällen hoher Bäume ist mit Risiken verbunden‘ umknarrt und umfetzt die Ohren so plastisch, dass man wie ein aufgeschreckter Vogel zur Seite flattert. Mittendrin, statt bloß dabei, dieser Werbespruch trifft hier Punkt und Nerv. Jede reißende Faser und jeden krachenden Ast glaubt man am eigenen Körper zu spüren. ‚Wespen Vesper‘ (2005) wechselt kaum den Schauplatz, wir sind noch in Wald und Wiese, aber mehr bei Fauna statt Flora, unter summenden Insekten und ‚Schmetterlingen der Sprache‘. Fragmentarische Sprachsamples, kürzeste Haspel- und Lippenlaute, mischen sich unter muhende Kühe, größer als Elefanten, und unter geflügelte Sechsbeiner, die wie Mopeds vorbei surren. Mit der Sopranstimme, die den Schlusssegen einer Abendandacht anstimmt, erklärt sich, wortspielerisch, dann auch noch die zweite Hälfte des Titels. ‚Plåtmås‘ mischt einen herzhaften Apfelbiss, einen schrillen Falkenschrei und ungrad gebrochene Rhythmik zu prallen 3 Minuten. Die ‚Musik För Dansstycket Jag Glömmer Bort‘ entstand 2006 für eine Choreographie von Gunilla Heilborn. Simmfetzen, Apfelbiss und knarzige Percussion kehren hier wieder und fungieren wie Leitmotive, die dem Stück Struktur geben. Der noisig-perkussive Akzent ist stärker ausgeprägt, ein Hühnergackern macht komischen Effekt und überhaupt ist die vierdimensionale Plastizität der Sounds atemberaubend. Schwedische Elektroakustik wird hier ihrem Ruf als Markenartikel voll gerecht." [Bad Alchemy]
"Having developed her very own language, the Swedish sound artist Hanna Hartman creates compositions that are exclusively made up from authentic sounds which she has recorded around the world. Sounds are taken out of their original context and thus perceived in their purity. Hanna Hartman seeks to reveal hidden correspondences between the most diverse auditive impressions, and in new constellations she creates extraordinary worlds of sound. The album is built out of four shorter pieces composed during 2003-2006. Compared to the large compositions of her earlier albums this music shows another side of Hanna Hartman's work. The album opens with 'Att flla grova trd r förkippat med risker' that was commissioned by Rikskonserter and which received several prizes, first and foremost the prestigious Karl Sczuka Prize in 2005. Hanna Hartman is also working with installations and sound performances and is currently Composer in Residence at Sveriges Radio 2007-2008." [label info ]
"... Hartman is a pure concrete composer. She hardly uses electronic sound processing, but almost entirely on focussing on concrete sound collages to craft her pieces of music. All around the world she has captured sounds of human doing something. Like a fence being strummed, voices, eating, but of course also birds in the harbor. Unlike some of the older garde in the musique concrete scene, she uses repetition to quite some extent, which connects her music to the world of 'pop' music, but the actual result has nothing to do with it. No doubt many hours of editing went into these four pieces, which are very soundtrack like. Perhaps a bit of short release, but the four pieces are great. Very impressive stuff here, once again." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
www.komplott.com
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2007 |
€15.00 |
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| HATI |
KA |
CD |
If you ever saw HATI live you know how intelligently contrived their compositions are - their vast array of ethnic instruments (mainly gongs & other metallic ones, but not solely) is controlled by them in a very professional way; and the dynamics between between softer and more spheric gong or metal parts and more rhythmic & ecstatic ones are perfectly set. These are studio-recordings made in August in Torun, Poland, their hometown. On eight pieces their totally handmade instrumental sound is spread far to create very versatile material. Seen as contemplative ritual music or focusing just on the beautiful sounds of real instruments, this is a perfect start to enter the HATI-universe if you don't know them yet!!
"... Ka is a much more varied, more sensual and, to my mind, more rewarding album than Works For Scrap Metal, a lot of which had the stern, austere feeling of ‘Industrial Régime’. The addition of harmonium in particular really extends Hati’s palette, and ‘Trans Muzik’ is easily the funkiest thing I've heard from this band. I wonder whether it isn’t time for Hati to try using the human voice – not lyrics and singing, but wordless chanting or humming? As far as I'm aware, they’ve never used voices. It’s just a suggestion. Anyway, Hati are playing in Britain for the first time next month, in London on June 12 with Z’EV and Raymond Salvatore Harmon, as part of the Equinox Festival, and I for one am very excited about the prospect of seeing them play, having admired them from afar for years.
The packaging of Ka is very nice, consisting of a cruciform cardboard envelope, rather like the sleeves favoured by the Finnish ambient label Aural Hypnox, with black-on-silver artwork." [Simon Collins / JudasKiss]
"... Primary sound source on the album is acoustic metal-percussions counting among others gongs of various kinds, steel barrels, metal discs and aluminum plates just to mention a few of the applied tools. The band itself terms their style as Trance-Gong - a quite hitting stylish term since the trio use the metallic percussive sounds to create this trance-inducing atmosphere that first of all draws associations towards the Gamelan-style of the Javanese territories. Apart from the sound pallets of metal percussion other important sound sources count bells of various kinds. Stylistic the music of the band are best termed as something in-between gamelan, ambient and ethnic minimalism. A quite fascinating and unusual album that probably won't find its fans on the dancefloor, but more likely demands for some horizontal listening." [NM, Vital Weekly]
www.myspace.com/hatitah
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| HATTIFNATTER |
Barometrizm |
CD |
"Hattifnatter is a collaboration project by Evgeniy Savenko (Lunar Abyss, etc.) and M.M. (Kryptogen Rundfunk) formed in 2007 for free-form exploration of the psychoactive electroacoustic ambience and only now matured enough for this first full-length studio album. The material has been recorded in 2007-2013, infused and distilled, redefined and again sent to distillation and transformation to finally form into six compositions full of weird oneiric images.
Through the clouds of omnifarious rustles, hisses and crackles one can see the landscape built by analogue pulsations and multiplied echoed acoustic percussion clatter. Swarming in the bush of field recordings and random sound combinations are the little voices of the unknown creatures. The air of atonal guitar drones is soaked in melodic tunes, feedbacks and colourful multi-layered effects... Just like the doctor prescribed... Soulful mastering by Kshatriy (http://kshatriy.pro).
The physical manifestation of this release is made as a CD in a 4-panel cardboard digisleeve and as an audio cassette. The digital version can be bought on bandcamp, CDBaby and iTunes." [label info]
http://zhb.radionoise.ru/
|
2015 |
€12.00 |
|
| HAUSER, FRITZ |
Deep Time |
do-CD |
FRITZ HAUSER ist ein Schlagzeuger und Komponist aus Basel. Seine Komposition DEEP TIME, die viele extra hergestellte „Klangsteine“ und verschiedenste Uhren-Sounds verwendet, dient hier PAULINE OLIVEROS, DAVID GAMBER, URS LEIMGRUBER und FRITZ HAUSER selbst als Vorlage, um darüber mit accordion, saxophone, percussion und „expanded instrument system electronics“ zu improvisieren (Oktober 1994 in NYC). Zwei verschiedene Versionen sind so entstanden, in denen die Performer behutsame Impro-Drone-Tonkunst produzieren: jeder Ton, jedes Geräusch hat seinen Platz & seine Berechtigung, eine Art komplexe Reduziertheit wird hier etabliert...
„Pauline Oliveros, accordion & Expanded Instrument System; David Gamper, Expanded Instrument System electronics, misc. small instruments; Urs Leimgruber, soprano & tenor saxophones; Fritz Hauser, percussion
DEEP TIME is a tape composition commissioned in 1991 by the
Pauline Oliveros Foundation for Deep Listening Band. Fritz Hauser's tape features recordings of sounding stones (manufactured by Arthur Schneiter) and various watches and clocks (thanks to the Bucher family in Switzerland for permission to record that family clock!). The performers improvise with the tape. On October 26, 1994 Pauline Oliveros, David Gamper, Urs Leimgruber and Fritz Hauser recorded 2 versions of DEEP TIME. Both of these 32 minute recordings are included here.
Fritz Hauser is a drummer and composer from Basel, Switzerland. He has developed his sound language in varied ways. From solo concerts, in diverse ensembles, through multi-media projects (theater dance film radio) and many recordings, he has contributed to the development of the drumset from a mere timekeeper to an instrument in its own right.
Known internationally as a composer, accordionist and teacher, Pauline Oliveros's work in improvisation, electronic techniques, teaching methods, myth and ritual, and meditative and physical consciousness raising has changed the course of American music. She left the University of California at San Diego in 1981, at the rank of full professor, in order to support her ideas, creative projects and collaborations. All of her work emphasizes attentional strategies, musicianship and improvisational skills. Oliveros' compositions have been performed worldwide.
Composer/performer David Gamper is especially concerned with music performance electronics. He received a BA in mathematics in 1967 from Bowdoin College, and returned there in 1969 to study composition with Elliott Schwartz and establish their electronic music studio. He then went on to the University of California at San Diego where he studied composition with Pauline Oliveros and Roger Reynolds and received his MA in music. Since moving to New York in 1989 he has been working primarily with Pauline Oliveros. He is director of development for the Expanded Instrument System (a project of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation) and performs and records around the world with Oliveros and as a member of Deep Listening Band.
Urs Leimgruber has been active for many years in the areas of contemporary improvisation, composition, jazz and new music. One of his earliest associations was as a member of the electric jazz/free music group 'Om' with Christy Doran, Fredy Study and Bobbi Burri, and he later formed the 'Reflexionen' quartet with Don Friedman and Bobby Burri in New York. His own projects have included 'Ensemble Bleu', 'Xylem', e_a.sonata 02 with the ARTE saxophone quartet, as well as a long association with Fritz Hauser: as a duo with the ongoing Music for saxophone and percussion; in the Leimgruber/Roidinger/Hauser trio; a trio with Joëlle Léandre; and a trio with Marilyn Crispell. More recently he formed 'quartet noir' with Marilyn Crispell, Joëlle Léandre and Fritz Hauser and a trio with Jacques Demierre and Barre Phillips.” [label description & liner notes]
|
2005 |
€16.00 |
|
| HECKER, TIM |
Ravedeath, 1972 |
CD |
"Tim Hecker's latest work approaches a form of secular musical transcendentalism from within the battered temple of spirituality. Recorded in a church in Reykjavik, Iceland and using a pipe organ as the primary sound source, this new piece is essentially a live recording. In reality, it exists in a nether world between captured live performance and meticulous studio work, melding the two approaches to sonic artifice as a unity. It is in parts a document of air circulating within a wooden room, and also a pagan work of physical resonance within a space once reserved for the hallowed breath of the divine. While the title of the piece 'Hatred of Music' might be a clue, the album is also partly an attempt to confront a pervasive negativity surrounding music. Historical rituals of destroying pianos, mountains of pirated CDRs pushed by bulldozers in Eastern Europe, or the melancholy of the digital music era began as sideline motifs which quickly informed the work on this record. They also really didn't at all. Despite that the context is wide open in such a form of musical abstraction, the substance of these immersive compositions showcases Hecker's continued mastery of organizing sound into a visceral near entity. It is an almost physical presence that the listener feels as much as hears. This work is a significant contribution to Hecker's oeuvre, one which spans over ten years of musical production. Ravedeath is an enigmatic document of beauty and force. The album was recorded mostly over the period of one day in July of 2010. Iceland-based musician Ben Frost assisted with the engineering and performs on this recording." [label info]
www.brainwashed.com/kranky
|
2011 |
€14.50 |
|
|
Dropped Pianos |
LP |
"This new Tim Hecker release is composed of sketch pieces recorded in 2010 in preparation for what would become the Ravedeath, 1972 album. All of the compositions are piano driven and minimal in nature.
This is not a new Tim Hecker album, but rather a peek behind the curtains into the working process. That these pieces stand on their own as compelling soundworks is a testament to the fact that Tim Hecker is at the absolute top of his game at the moment." [label info]
www.brainwashed.com/kranky
|
2011 |
€17.00 |
|
|
Dropped Pianos |
CD |
"This new Tim Hecker release is composed of sketch pieces recorded in 2010 in preparation for what would become the Ravedeath, 1972 album. All of the compositions are piano driven and minimal in nature.
This is not a new Tim Hecker album, but rather a peek behind the curtains into the working process. That these pieces stand on their own as compelling soundworks is a testament to the fact that Tim Hecker is at the absolute top of his game at the moment." [label info]
www.brainwashed.com/kranky
|
2011 |
€12.50 |
|
|
Love Streams |
do-LP |
"Zwischen Noise, Ambient und Minimal: Elektronische Musik, die in keine Schublade passt.
Für die Werke des Kanadiers Tim Hecker, der als einer der wichtigsten Musiker in der E-Musik-Szene gilt, eine Schublade zu finden, gleicht einer Herausforderung. Er selbst nennt seine Ergebnisse »fake church music« oder »neo metal drone«. Tatsächlich verbinden seine Sounds an der Schnittstelle von Melodie, Dissonanz und Lärm so ziemlich alles, was - vielleicht? - nicht zusammengehört, aber dennoch gut klingt.
Mal sind das Kirchenorgeln, mal Samples von Streichern, Pianos oder elektroakustischen Komponenten, die in eine rauschend-ozeanische Klangwelt ausufern: tiefgründig, majestätisch und eine Brücke zwischen Noise, Ambient und Minimal schlagend. »Love Streams« entstand Ende 2015, nachdem sich Hecker für längere Zeit nach Los Angeles bzw. zusammen mit Johan Johanssen und Ben Frost ins isländische Greenhouse Studio zurückgezogen hatte.
Das Album ist das vielleicht ambitionierteste Werk in der mittlerweile fünfzehnjährigen Schaffenszeit Heckers sowie ein konsequente Weiterentwicklung seiner Schlüsselwerke »Radio Amor«, »Harmony In Ultraviolet« und »Virgins«, die in den Jahren ihrer Veröffentlichung sowohl von Kritikern wie auch Fans jeweils in allerlei Bestenlisten gewählt wurden." [label info]
www.4ad.com
"Ah, Tim Hecker signs to 4AD. The modern-day maestro of digital etherealism recording for a label that was once defined by the siren-song haunt from Liz Frazer's voice and Robin Guthrie's guitar, with many a 4AD act through the '80s consciously or otherwise paralleling that aesthetic. Hecker's "power ambient" luminosity and the scope of his music continue to be very much his own, and this album seems all the more baroque and exaggerated than his previous spirals of pixelated noise and dusted drone. Much of the source material for Love Streams originated with the vocals from an Icelandic choir, whose melodies were arranged by Johann Johannsson. The content of the choir's plainsong may have begun with a 15th century score, with the lyrics reversed from the original Latin and then wholly obliterated into mere phonemes of language by Hecker. So, yeah, there's voice... but a voice that utters only its connection to humanity and not any philosophical musings. That task is for Tim Hecker and Tim Hecker alone, whose romantic crescendos of manipulated, re-manipulated, and lushly re-drafted electronic smear and pointillist melody is wrapped up in the tapestry of detail and a magnificent luxury of his surface. The compositions bluster and quiver as semi-gelatinous chunks of sound, rippling with somewhat extemporaneous electro-glockenspiel melody and Icelandic vocal deconstruction, all self-aware of their shimmering beauty." [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2016 |
€27.50 |
|
| |
Love Streams |
CD |
"Zwischen Noise, Ambient und Minimal: Elektronische Musik, die in keine Schublade passt.
Für die Werke des Kanadiers Tim Hecker, der als einer der wichtigsten Musiker in der E-Musik-Szene gilt, eine Schublade zu finden, gleicht einer Herausforderung. Er selbst nennt seine Ergebnisse »fake church music« oder »neo metal drone«. Tatsächlich verbinden seine Sounds an der Schnittstelle von Melodie, Dissonanz und Lärm so ziemlich alles, was - vielleicht? - nicht zusammengehört, aber dennoch gut klingt.
Mal sind das Kirchenorgeln, mal Samples von Streichern, Pianos oder elektroakustischen Komponenten, die in eine rauschend-ozeanische Klangwelt ausufern: tiefgründig, majestätisch und eine Brücke zwischen Noise, Ambient und Minimal schlagend. »Love Streams« entstand Ende 2015, nachdem sich Hecker für längere Zeit nach Los Angeles bzw. zusammen mit Johan Johanssen und Ben Frost ins isländische Greenhouse Studio zurückgezogen hatte.
Das Album ist das vielleicht ambitionierteste Werk in der mittlerweile fünfzehnjährigen Schaffenszeit Heckers sowie ein konsequente Weiterentwicklung seiner Schlüsselwerke »Radio Amor«, »Harmony In Ultraviolet« und »Virgins«, die in den Jahren ihrer Veröffentlichung sowohl von Kritikern wie auch Fans jeweils in allerlei Bestenlisten gewählt wurden." [label info]
www.4ad.com
"Ah, Tim Hecker signs to 4AD. The modern-day maestro of digital etherealism recording for a label that was once defined by the siren-song haunt from Liz Frazer's voice and Robin Guthrie's guitar, with many a 4AD act through the '80s consciously or otherwise paralleling that aesthetic. Hecker's "power ambient" luminosity and the scope of his music continue to be very much his own, and this album seems all the more baroque and exaggerated than his previous spirals of pixelated noise and dusted drone. Much of the source material for Love Streams originated with the vocals from an Icelandic choir, whose melodies were arranged by Johann Johannsson. The content of the choir's plainsong may have begun with a 15th century score, with the lyrics reversed from the original Latin and then wholly obliterated into mere phonemes of language by Hecker. So, yeah, there's voice... but a voice that utters only its connection to humanity and not any philosophical musings. That task is for Tim Hecker and Tim Hecker alone, whose romantic crescendos of manipulated, re-manipulated, and lushly re-drafted electronic smear and pointillist melody is wrapped up in the tapestry of detail and a magnificent luxury of his surface. The compositions bluster and quiver as semi-gelatinous chunks of sound, rippling with somewhat extemporaneous electro-glockenspiel melody and Icelandic vocal deconstruction, all self-aware of their shimmering beauty." [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2016 |
€13.00 |
|
| HELL, RENE |
The Terminal Symphony |
LP + CD |
"Latest & possibly greatest moniker of U.S. noisenik Jeff Witscher (IMPREGNABLE, SECRET ABUSE, MARBLE SKY). Synthesized kosmiche sounds - but unlike many of his contemporaries, instead of delving into nostalgia, there is something decidedly modern about Witscher's compositions. The bubbling, effervescent synthesizer sequences & percussive patterns seem to twist & turn over each other with a near-techno precision. This is pure electronic music - songs created with analog circuits & half-baked patch cables, dusty cassette tapes & greased-up potentiometers. Ltd vinyl edition comes with a full-length bonus CD entitled Rogue Camera." [label info]
www.typerecords.com
|
2011 |
€21.00 |
|
| HELVACIOGLU, ERDEM |
Altered Realities |
CD |
"Meine erste Post aus Istanbul macht mich bekannt mit einem mehrfach preisgekrönten Elektroakustiker mit weltweiten Performance- und Installationserfahrungen, mit einem breiten Fächer an Sounddesigns für Film, Theater, Tanz, an Produktions- und Sessionjobs, an Auftrags-kompositionen, Kollaborationen (etwa mit Kazuya Ishigami von Neus-318) und Kompilationbeiträgen. Bei seinem Beitrag Kicking Memories zum Projekt Audio Elf beim ScoreCologne-Festival zur letzten Fußball-WM zeigte er polyglotte Fußballerinnerungen als global gemeinsamen Nenner. In seiner Performance Living in Istanbul zur Ausstellung BLUT & HONIG - Zukunft ist am Balkan (2003) operierte er u.a. mit Soundtracks populärer türkischer B-Movies und, ähnlich wie bei seinem CDDebut A Walk Through The Bazaar 2003, mit Straßenmusik und dem Alltagslärm von Istanbul, den er zusätzlich elektronisch abwandelt. Trash und Mischmasch ist das einzig ‚Folkloristische’ und ‚Balkan-spezifische’ dabei. Abwandeln, to alter, scheint Helvacioglus Leitmotiv zu sein - wo Blut [türkisch kan] war, soll Honig [türkisch bal] werden. Seinen neuen Arbeiten gab er Namen wie ‘bridge to horizon’, ‘sliding on a glacier’, ‘dreaming on a blind saddle’ oder ‘pearl border’. Sie entsprechen vollkommen dem impressionistischen, träumerischen,
eskapistischen Charakter der Klänge, die er mit einer akustischen Ovation Custom Legend 1869-Gitarre erzeugte und gleichzeitig liveelektronisch mit Multieffektprozessor, Midi foot controller und Audiomulch-Software so modulierte, dass Wohlklang betont schwerelos und frei veränderlich sich entfaltet. Der folkloristische, mehr kosmo-politische als rein orientalische Aspekt des Saitenspiels wird transferiert durch ein Hightechmorphing, das ungeniert Wohlfühlsignale ausstrahlt, Entspannung jenseits so erdenschwerer Trivialitäten wie EU-Beitrittsverhandlungen, unbewältigtem ‚Armenierproblem’ und ‚Beleidigung des Türkentums’. Ohne Scheu vor Kitschverdacht lässt Helvacioglu seine Gitarre harmonieverliebt und zart blinken und all seine virtuosen elektronischen Manipulationen scheinen das Ziel zu haben, zuckersüßen Tee zur Entspannung zu servieren und spielerisch Veränderlichkeit zu realisieren. Einfacher sagte es Ishigami: "Ich fliehe in den Klang, es ist die Flucht aus einer kleinen Welt in eine große." " [Bad Alchemy]
"Altered Realities is an album of solo acoustic guitar and live electronics. All of the compositions were recorded in real-time, directly to DAT (Digital Audio Tape) without any overdubs, mixing, editing, post-processing, or the use of previously recorded material. All of the textures were created based only on the acoustic guitar signal with no other sound source used during the recording. Within these textures, there are long sustaining single notes, beautiful shimmering chords and rhythmic clusters.
During the making of this album, Ovation Custom Legend 1869 acoustic guitar, TC Electronic Fireworx multi effects processor, Behringer FCB1010 midi foot controller and the software Audiomulch were used.
With no post-processing, no editing and no use of previously recorded material, the moment that is recorded is the moment that we hear on the cd." [label info]
www.newalbion.com
|
2006 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Timeless Waves |
CD |
"NEW SERIES FRAMEWORK: An extension of our CONCRETE ELECTRONICS NOISE, a brand new mix-up of unusual conceptions of sound material by young unknown composers, well known not-so-young composers and old but clever composers.
Timeless Waves originally composed for a 47 channel / 53 speaker diffusion system running on The Morning Line, is a sonic work based on six basic human emotions. The CD is a stereo version of this multichannel work. The piece has been inspired by W. Gerrod Parrott's book "Emotions in Social Psychology" and has been commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (T-BA 21) for The Morning Line - an interdisciplinary art project by Matthew Ritchie, Aranda/Lasch and Arup AGU - and premiered in May 2010, when the project was exhibited at Eminonu Square in Istanbul. Sonically, Timeless Waves is based on the timbres of Togaman GuitarViol, Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, sine waves, various analog pedals and hardware fx processors. The music combines elements from genres such as electroacoustic, drone, noise, contemporary music blended with minimal melodies.
Erdem Helvacioglu was born in Bursa, Turkey in 1975. He is one of the most renowned 'contemporary electronic music' composers of his generation in Turkey. His music has been broadcast on national radios such as BBC, ABC, WDR and Radio France, among others. He has received commissions from the 2006 World Soccer Championship, TBA 21 The Morning Line, Borusan Center for Culture & Arts, Arter "Space for Art", The Association for the Art of the Harp, Novelum Contemporary Music Festival, International Istanbul Biennial(IKSV) and the world famous new music ensemble Bang on a Can-All Stars.
His sound installations have been included at museums and galleries such as 10th International Istanbul Biennial, Los Angeles Track 16, Indonesia Soemardja, Köln Museum für Angewandte Kunst, London Menier Gallery. His film music has been heard at Cannes, Sarajevo, Locarno, Seoul, Sao Paulo, and Sydney film festivals and he received the 'Best Original Soundtrack' award in the 2006 Mostramundo Film Festival. He has received prizes for his electroacoustic compositions from the Luigi Russolo, MUSICA NOVA and Insulae Electronicae
Electroacoustic Music Competitions.
Erdem Helvacioglu has collaborated with artists such as Mick Karn, Jacob Young, Elliott Sharp, Kevin Moore, Luo Chao-yun, Robert Scott Thompson, Stuart Gerber, Craig Green, Bill Walker, Nathan Larson, Nina Persson, Todd Reynolds, Kinan Azmeh, Jeffrey Roden, Ros Bandt, Stefan Ostersjo, Per Boysen, Sirin Pancaroglu and Saadet Turkoz.
Erdem Helvacioglu's music has been released on labels such as Locustmusic, New Albion, Aucourant, Quiet Design, chmafu nocords, Pozitif, Sargasso. His solo and duo albums have been included in the 'best album of the year' lists on All About Jazz, Textura, Cyclic Defrost, Blogcritics, Culture Catch, Perfect Sound Forever and Guitar Player magazines.
www.erdemhelvacioglu.com" [label info]
www.subrosa.net
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| HENNIX, CATHERINE CHRISTER |
Solo for Tamburium |
do-LP |
The fourth release in Blank Forms Editions’s initiative to chart the ever-expanding musical practice of Catherine Christer Hennix, Solo for Tamburium captures the composer’s most recent major work. Hennix plays an instrument of her own creation, a keyboard interface controlling a suite of eighty-eight recordings of precision-tuned tambura, creating a sweeping and continuous flow of rich harmonic interplay. This piece, documented in Berlin at MaerzMusik 2017, carefully draws upon the fundamental perceptual effects of sound, forming an exacting and cathartic electronic drone. Densely-layered timbral textures and continuous overtone collisions create a maze-like sonic landscape, thrusting the listener into what Hennix calls divine equilibrium or a distinctionless state of being.
Since the late 1960s, Hennix has created a massive and innovative body of work spanning minimal music, computer programming, poetry, sculpture, and light art—pushing the technical and conceptual boundaries of these media toward singular ends. She was part of the downtown music school in New York and has worked extensively with some of its key figures, including Henry Flynt and La Monte Young. In the ’70s, Hennix studied the nature and use of harmonic sound as a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath, a master of the Kirana tradition of classical Hindustani music. The exceptionally designed tamburas of Pran Nath were central to her intensive investigations, as was the devotional practice of carefully tuning and sounding the instruments in a continuous and even flow—both have guided her work with sound ever since.
In 1976, at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, Hennix presented a pair of groundbreaking works that came to define her ensuing practice. With the Deontic Miracle—a group composed of Hennix, her brother Peter, and the Swedish percussionist Hans Isgren—she performed a series of modal compositions for Renaissance oboes, sheng, and harmonic feedback distortion. On this same occasion she premiered an equally significant body of solo work for keyboard, including the only public presentation of The Electric Harpsichord (1976), a piece that marks the beginning of Hennix’s characteristic style of playing, where dense sonic textures gradually emerge from the multilayered interplay of harmonic construction and dissolution.
Solo for Tamburium represents a pointed revisitation of her endeavor to map the non-gravitational harmonics of modal musics—among them raga, maqam, and the blues—onto a tuned keyboard. Since the debut of this piece in 2017 she has continued to develop the work, reshaping and presenting it in a variety of contexts, including at Blank Forms in New York and the Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection in Paris in 2022. For Hennix, to approach modality as a dynamic process is ultimately a contemplative practice. Through it, embodied attunement to harmonic vibration gives rise to epistemically transformative states, opening new ways of knowing and being.
https://blankformseditions.bandcamp.com/album/solo-for-tamburium
https://blankformseditions.bandcamp.com/album/solo-for-tamburium
|
2023 |
€38.50 |
|
| |
Solo for Tamburium |
CD |
The fourth release in Blank Forms Editions’s initiative to chart the ever-expanding musical practice of Catherine Christer Hennix, Solo for Tamburium captures the composer’s most recent major work. Hennix plays an instrument of her own creation, a keyboard interface controlling a suite of eighty-eight recordings of precision-tuned tambura, creating a sweeping and continuous flow of rich harmonic interplay. This piece, documented in Berlin at MaerzMusik 2017, carefully draws upon the fundamental perceptual effects of sound, forming an exacting and cathartic electronic drone. Densely-layered timbral textures and continuous overtone collisions create a maze-like sonic landscape, thrusting the listener into what Hennix calls divine equilibrium or a distinctionless state of being.
Since the late 1960s, Hennix has created a massive and innovative body of work spanning minimal music, computer programming, poetry, sculpture, and light art—pushing the technical and conceptual boundaries of these media toward singular ends. She was part of the downtown music school in New York and has worked extensively with some of its key figures, including Henry Flynt and La Monte Young. In the ’70s, Hennix studied the nature and use of harmonic sound as a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath, a master of the Kirana tradition of classical Hindustani music. The exceptionally designed tamburas of Pran Nath were central to her intensive investigations, as was the devotional practice of carefully tuning and sounding the instruments in a continuous and even flow—both have guided her work with sound ever since.
In 1976, at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, Hennix presented a pair of groundbreaking works that came to define her ensuing practice. With the Deontic Miracle—a group composed of Hennix, her brother Peter, and the Swedish percussionist Hans Isgren—she performed a series of modal compositions for Renaissance oboes, sheng, and harmonic feedback distortion. On this same occasion she premiered an equally significant body of solo work for keyboard, including the only public presentation of The Electric Harpsichord (1976), a piece that marks the beginning of Hennix’s characteristic style of playing, where dense sonic textures gradually emerge from the multilayered interplay of harmonic construction and dissolution.
Solo for Tamburium represents a pointed revisitation of her endeavor to map the non-gravitational harmonics of modal musics—among them raga, maqam, and the blues—onto a tuned keyboard. Since the debut of this piece in 2017 she has continued to develop the work, reshaping and presenting it in a variety of contexts, including at Blank Forms in New York and the Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection in Paris in 2022. For Hennix, to approach modality as a dynamic process is ultimately a contemplative practice. Through it, embodied attunement to harmonic vibration gives rise to epistemically transformative states, opening new ways of knowing and being.
https://blankformseditions.bandcamp.com/album/solo-for-tamburium
|
2023 |
€16.50 |
|
| HENRY COW |
Stockholm & Göteborg |
CD |
"The first new release for 30 years from this legendary audience-splitting British group, and the first featuring Georgina Born, the group’s bassist between 1976-78. Remixed and re-mastered from the original Swedish radio tapes.
‘Henry Cow, me favourite band in the world’ [Robert Wyatt, 1973]
Henry Cow were never going to fit in. Their compositions were way too composed and their improvising was way too improvised - a tendency that only got more extreme as time went on, as these recordings from 1976 and 1977 demonstrate. Stockholm and Goteborg fills in some of the missing history between In Praise of Learning (1975) and Western Culture (1978) and offers music that has not been heard on record until now. First is Tim Hodgkinson’s late and fiendishly complicated epic composition ‘Erk Gah’ (a working title), that took many months of sweat to learn and resolutely eschews any hint of riff, solo or modular assembly. At the other extreme are the two wide-ranging improvisations built around heady extended instrumental techniques, aleatorics, quotations, more-or-less randomly inserted prepared materials and a blithe disregard for genre rules. Between, constantly shifting ground, are a straight-ahead version of Phil Ochs’ No more Songs (one of only two covers ever performed by the band), an unreleased composition by Fred Frith, and a version of the Ottawa Song: a typical live set from that period. Finally, Stockholm is a snapshot of a band of exceptional talents having fun. And it reflects what the studio albums could not – that Henry Cow’s natural habitat was the stage - and the real-time pressure of public performance - because it was there that the music could live and breathe. And evolve.
Stockholm and Goteborg is the first volume of a 9 CD and one DVD set of unreleased material commemorating the band’s 40th anniversary.
Georgina Born. fretless bass, cello
Lindsay Cooper. bassoon, flute, recorder, sopranino sax, piano
Chris Cutler. drums, electrification (13) and piano
Fred Frith. guitar, xylophone, piano
John Greaves bass, voice
Tim Hodgkinson. organ, alto saxophone
Dagmar Krause. singing. "
[label info]
|
2008 |
€14.00 |
|
| HERAUD, JULIEN |
Hidden Parasites |
CD |
Hidden parasites is a collection of electronic pieces pretty minimal and simple for those I tried to conserve the intensity of harsh and abrasive noise and the subtlety and narrativity of electroacoustic compositions.
Hidden Parasites is an immersive work into subtle high feedbacks, destroyed samples, bass drones and weird raw recordings. It’s not meditative, but all the tracks explore modulation and change into a range of long durations where I tried to create organic landscapes and a contemplative narration form. [Julien Heraud]
https://fernsrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/hidden-parasites
|
2021 |
€12.00 |
|
| HERR LOUNGE CORPS + CADAVEROUS CONDITION |
The Breath of a Bird |
CD |
"Death In June collaborator Miro Snejdr aka Herr Lounge Corps teamed up with Death Metal weirdos Cadaverous Condition to create an epic, haunting piece of dark mood music cast into rather accessible songs. A soundtrack to dreams and even more so, nightmares.
The album also features a massive horror synthwave remix by GosT." [Bandcamp info]
Breath Of A Bird CD music contains a single disc. Cadaverous Condition used to be an extreme metal band from Austria. Their style ranges from old school death metal to acoustic guitar songs with typical death metal growl vocals the band themselves describe as "Death Folk" In recent years, the band have concentrated on collaborations, this new one combining their sound with the piano and electronic compositions by Herr Lounge Corps. Breath Of A Bird album for sale by Herr Lounge Corps & Cadaverous Condition was released Jun 08, 2018 on the Klanggalerie label.
|
2018 |
€14.00 |
|
| HIGASHI, YOKO & LIONEL MARCHETTI |
Okura 73°N-42°E |
CD |
“Musica Genera presents another album from French musique concrète composer Lionel Marchetti (in 2005 MG had released the CD “Docteur Kramer (you are not you)” by Lionel Marchetti and Emmanuel Petit), this time realised together with his artistic partner Yôko Higashi, Japanese performer, dancer and vocalist. The album contains three compositions of musique concrète, one by Marchetti, one by Higashi and a collaborative work by both artists. Each of the tracks is an elaborate sound construction of individual characteristics and unique sound aura. “Pétrole 73” is the artistic fruit of Marchetti’s stay at the “Stubnitz” trawler, the one of a kind ship rebuilt as a floating cultural centre. Analogue drones, radio voices and mechanical sounds of working hull create the atmosphere that contrasts with next composition. “Okura” was realised by Higashi basing on the sound material gathered in Mozambique. Field recordings of African nature and surprising electronic interventions interweave with fragments of ethnic music, leading the listener towards the final, collaborative track. “Pétrole 42” captivates with it’s sonic depth and uncanny, ethereal aura created by delicate synthesiser passages, distant, unearthly voices, chants, breaths, punctuated with disturbing, aggressive concrète sounds.”
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| HILTON, CRAIG / TOMAS PHILLIPS |
Le gout de neant |
CD |
"Craig Hilton (guzheng, laptop). Tomas Phillips (laptop). Recorded at gouche studios 2009/2010. Hand printed screen print gouache on cardboard Cover 20x7in foldetd to 7inch. Ltd. & numbered edition to 500 copies. The collaboration between Tomas Phillips and Craig Hilton runs a fine line between composition and improvisation and digital and acoustic properties. Utilizing a series of low frequencies, isolated microsounds and processed guzheng improvisation, their work attempts to generate an immersive sound environment that allows space for the listener to be an active participant in the music, thus inviting a particular quality of engagement beyond the confines of casual listening. The opening track, “Sans mouvement I,” is a studio recording for solo guzheng; the following compositions utilize this material and continue adding layers while paradoxically stripping the compositional field to a minimalist tapestry of sonic events. Le Goût du néant marks their first joint effort. While not necessarily following the hopeless sensibility of Baudelaire’s poem – from which the music takes its name – this collection of tracks does exercise a certain austerity. And it is within such an atmosphere of “nothingness” (néant), the music might suggest, where “je contemple d’en haut le globe en sa roundeur” (“from heights I contemplate the roundness of the world”) – a deceptively simple goal." [label info]
www.absinthrecords.com
"On the improvised music label Absinth a rather unusual collaboration of two guys on a laptop, Craig Hilton and Tomas Phillips. I must add that Hilton also plays the guzheng and the whole first track is him playing that instrument solo. That ten minute recording is used in the subsequent three pieces. The guzheng is played to make beautiful sustaining sounds, and then these sustaining sounds are slowly expanded in the next three pieces. Phillips and Hilton know how to create a wonderful, rich sound from the basic source, and at times, I believe they add new layers of guzheng playing to the music. Curiously enough what you expect is what you don't get, at least my assumptions were wrong. I expected some glitch like drone/ambient music highly inside the world of digital music. That's not the case. These two men create music that is highly organic, with carefully layered constructions of real time events, a bit of loops hopping around, sustaining sounds from the addition of sound effects and three excellent atmospheric pieces of music arise majestically from a no-man's land. It all hardly sounds improvised, but more thoroughly composed, which perhaps makes it an odd ball for this label, but also a true beauty." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2011 |
€16.50 |
|
| HINSIDAN |
Shapeshifter Blues |
CD-R |
New Drone-discovery from Denmark! HINSIDAN produce a power-drone you can not resist, with slow changes, fat & esoteric drone-walls, waving and drowning, subtle pounding pulsations from deep underneath... this has a very nice "mystic" quality, really stunning'!
Hinsidan translates from Swedish as 'The Here After' and with 'Shapeshifter Blues' the Danish duo of Atish Pare and Superjus have incorporated the exaggerated minutia of the title of their earlier 'God is in the Details' into the majestic drone of simultaneous presence and absence reflected in the group's namesake. Embodied too, is the usefulness of a name constantly translated, as it sets the listener up for the intertwined cycles of shuffling space and metallic flutter that permeate the compositions. While 'God is the Details' called attention to small brash cracks and slips that skated the surface of mesmerizing atmospherics, on 'Shapeshifter Blues' those scratches have been bound and compressed into a heady, churning static that sounds of questions. The cover art announces as much, spackled circles overlap and colors move from very light to very dark, aiding and transcending each other. Voices, however, occasionally drift up to answer the resounding tones. On 'outnumbered by sound' the fragmented, mutilated echoes of children mutate the rhythmic cascade of stomping volume. Sound might outnumber the voices of those who taunted during recess, now, but the power of an angry army of kids sustains; that the piece alternates between sound and numbers reveals a syncretic relationship between objects working together and undermining each other. The following track, 'a second in the mind, a day in the life', provides a response to the children as the pitches drift seamlessly up higher and higher, climbing into the vibrant, rising female voice that they might one day become - or that might just be gliding sound untied to identifiable sources. Hinsidan unfurl this mysterious logic throughout 'Shapeshifter Blues', moving from pitch to idea to pitch in conjunction with a steady backing arch that never breaks drone." [Heathen Harvest]
"Packaging craziness here: for whatever unknown reason, this release was smeared with shampoo, maybe to indicate we deal with nice music here? Hinsidan is a duo of Supertius and Atish Pare, and 'Shapeshifter Blues' is their second CDR release, while a 10" on Ant-Zen is forthcoming. That's about the extend of information to be given as we don't know anything else. 'Mastered by Lasse Marhaug' it says on the cover, but don't be fooled by that: Hinsidan doesn't produce noise music, although their machine like drone sometimes comes very close. In each of the seven pieces they enroll a drone that is omni present, enlarged and enhanced by sound effects to make it thicker and fatter, but also more of a menace. Only in one track, 'A Second In The Mind, A Day in The Life' they approach noise very close and it happens to be the weakest link here. The other six pieces are beautiful drone within the well-defined area of course and it makes a very solid release. I wouldn't be too surprised if they will have a release on Mystery Sea on day too. Very nice." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
www.suggestion-records.de
|
2007 |
€9.00 |
|
| HIS DIVINE GRACE |
Le Grand Secret |
CD |
Auf dem Schwesterlabel von TREUE UM TREUE erscheint dieses hochmelancholische und philosophische Werk des französisches Projekts, dass uns in seiner "sad ambient" - Melodiosität an frühe REUTOFF erinnert hat...
"Inspired by the works of the Traditionalists and the lives and deaths of Sekens Murdock and Leontin V. Abilgaard, Moonchild Erik’s fourth CD album “Le Grand Secret” (The Great Secret) takes the shape of a metaphysical reflection on the deceptions of human language, in which Murdock and Abilgaard saw the main cause for the world of confusion we live in. Musically more accessible than “Eurydice” or “Reverse Aleph”, this very diverse new opus is the worthy successor of “Die Schlangenkönigin”, hovering from emotional soundscapes and spacey dub rhythms into gloomy, awe-inspiring drones with even noisy elements. An initiation through pure sound." [label info]
"...Tackling literary philosophical surrealism is a rather daunting task yet His Divine Grace has successfully extracted the subtle nuances of this newest muse and has distilled the rudimentary literary aesthetic into a long audio voyage filled with mystery and esoteric darkness. The album explores a wide array of carefully constructed dark ambient and experimental soundscapes as it leads the listener through imaginative and stimulating sonic worlds that shimmer like mirages. Dark ambient drones and electronic sounds are contorted into breathtaking monuments of sound that lay long shadows across barren wastelands of uninhabitable terrain. Like titans fighting battles long forgotten each track makes a definitive and powerful statement as His Divine Grace unfolds contemplative compositions that inspire and demand reflection.
The CD is spilt into three definitive chapters. Chapter one titled “These – Sekens Murdock” showcases the musical tribute to Murdock and establishes the musical introduction. Track one tilted “Les chevaux de feu” begins the album with an epic dark ambient anthem that combines churning industrial strength noise with interlacing drones and thunderous industrial sounds. Elusive samples of organ and choir enhance the experience lending a humanist emotional depth to the somber apocalyptic decimation established the industrial side of the music. Track two titled “Les gardiens du grand secret” features a shift in sound as His Divine Grace sheds the tormented confines of dark ambient music and steers the listner into ethereal ambience. Using a simple collection of finely articulated electronic sounds His Divine Grace sculpts a luminous song that elevates the spirit as it transports the listner into a sonic domain of alternating tones of purity. Track four titled “Verbum, lux et vita” unfolds with an element of suspense and an unknown presence dominating the tentative atmosphere as if invisible dwellers rove beyond the perimeter of the senses. Track four titled “Le voile levé” concludes the first chapter of the CD with a lonely and lengthy composition that combines delicate sonorous tones with tamed industrial rhythms and tuba like notes that resonate from the depths. “Le voile levé” is reminiscent of the organic ambient flow once achieved by O Yuki Conjugate though slightly darker and freed from the constrains of any ethnic influence.
Chapter two titled “Antithèse - Leontin Voigt Abilgaard” features five compositions themed around Abilgaard. The chapter begins with song five titled “De la nécessité de se taire.” “De la nécessité de se taire” leads the listner once again into yet another independent composition whose identity is only tenuously connected to its peers. The song begins with ominous drone music that is paired with voice samples and recorded sounds of water. As the song progresses the atmosphere darkens significantly as a threatening tone is established. Feelings of loneliness and isolation begin to creep up on the listner as His Divine Grace conjures forth an experimental ambient ballad that breathes with an uneasy rasp as it guides you through reflections of emotional carnage and fragility. Track six titled “Frayeurs initiatiques” continues the journey of isolation though the subterranean depths of the previous song seem somewhat further away. Using simple electronic tones and drones His Divine Grace subdues the listner with a hypnotic assault of suffering ambience. Track seven titled “Pourquoi... toujours pourquoi” sees light beginning to pierce the darkness as a slowly churning palate of voice samples dances with steadily growing waves of electronic sounds that drift awash in a delicate tapestry of sound. Like hope rising from the ashes of defeat the music gently stirs the listeners spirit to remember what has been lost and to react and reclaim. “L’opposition tacite” retreats once again into another suspenseful ambient narrative filled with dark ambience and ritualistic overtones that combine to offer a song filled with primal elements and an esoteric darkness that is tangible. “Le quatre-heure de crystal” ends the Abilgaard chapter of the CD on an experimental note as His Divine Grace abandons the listner to musical surrealism with a strong mind bending psychedelic tinge. Like witnessing events from the perspective of a heavily tranquilized yet conscious person the music washes across the listner like fragmented waves of conscious thought disarrayed and decaying.
Synthese et Syncretisme is the third and final chapter of the Le Grand Secret CD and it features a single song titled “Le Principe immuable.” ‘Le Principe immuable” is the most contemplative of all the tracks on the album and it lasts for more than sixteen minutes allowing for total submersion in the music. The finale does not end with a bang but rather on a very gentle note as His Divine Grace coaxes an incredible amount of sentiment, reflection and emotion from some of the simplest musical elements ever applied. Oscillating notes tepidly induce a spell that closes the album with brilliance and delicacy.
His Divine Grace is the type of electronic music that I covet. Grounded in industrial and ambient music His Divine Grace expertly melds his industrial musicl foundation with the openness of experimental composition. Each song is like a living entity, some transcendent and others primal and raw. Le Grand Secret sees His Divine Grace come to full fruition as he seizes upon literary figures deserving of his creativity. Le Grand Secret is an awesome display of imagination and musical surrealism and I highly recommend the album to those seeking to revel in previously undiscovered musical domains. Those who like bands like Propergol, Tordoih, Dusk Of Hope, and other promising dark filmic ambient music are encouraged to check out Le Grand Secret." [Malahki Thorn / Heathen Harvest]
|
2006 |
€6.00 |
|
| HODGKINSON, TIM |
Pragma |
CD |
"Wer sich für experimentellen Rock interessiert, der sollte den sympathischen Engländer Tim Hodgkinson kennen, ist er doch schon seit den späten sechziger Jahren aktiv. Einst bei den vielgelobten Henry Cow mit von der Partie, machte Tim in den Achtzigern und Neunzigern mit Bands wie The Work (immer unterschätzt, doch eine grandiose Gruppe!) oder Momes oder mit dem Jazz-Core-Projekt Godd (den englischen) weiter. Nebenher bringt der Saxofonist und Komponist auch immer wieder Platten unter dem eigenen Namen heraus. "Pragma" schöpft sowohl aus seiner Erfahrung als Improvisationsmusiker als auch aus seinem Interesse für zeitgenösische Klassik. Wir hören sechs durchaus strenge (nicht anstrengende) Kompositionen für "taped voices" ("SHHH") oder für "Klarinette, E-Gitarre, Brass Instruments und Percussion" ("Repulsion"). Bizarr und wie immer bei Hodgkinson, nicht ohne Humor." [Łeeson]
" Tim is best known as a founding member of the legendary avant rock group Henry Cow [1968-1978]. Pragma is an intense fusion of contemporary classical music and rock energy. There are six substantial compositions focusing on horns, violins, percussion, voices, & small orchestral ensembles." Includes: "SHHH" (for taped voices, including fragments of Ana-Maria Avram's 'Archae'); "For Looking Inside" (for 3 prepared violas) & 4 others." [label info]
www.rermegacorp.com
|
1998 |
€14.00 |
|
| HOFFMAN, KAY |
Floret Silva |
LP |
"Wiederveröffentlichung einer raren LP von 1985 (bereits 1977 aufgenommen) dieser Schweizerin, die inzwischen als Tanz- & Trance-Therapeutin in München tätig ist (www.kayhoffman.de). FLORET SILVA benutzt Texte der „Carmina Burana“, jener Gedichtsammlung aus dem 12.Jahrhundert, und bettet diese in mittalalterliche Folk-Melodien und ein „progressives“ Gerüst ein, gesungen meist von JACQUELINE DARBY. Eine avantgardistische Hippie-Platte mit meditativ-mystischer Ausrichtung und wunderschönem Gesang." [Drone Rec. info]
"Sounding at times like Vashti Bunyan fronting Sunforest, "Floret Silva" is a haunting mix of medieval music and progressive / psych / folk with Latin lyrics straight from the Carmina Burana book.
The "Floret Silva" project was born when minimalist composer Kay Hoffman went to Italy in the mid–70s. Once there, she met with welsh soprano Jacqueline Darby, who had recently been working with the Italian avant–prog band Pierrot Lunaire. Jaqueline was working on new compositions with RCA producer Vincento Miccocci in Rome and she asked Kay if she was interested in getting involved in a new project. Kay agreed and Gaio Chiochio and Arturo Stalteri of Pierrot Lunaire also joined them on this new venture. Gaio travelled from Rome to play the guitar and other friends of Jacqueline also offered their collaboration.
In a short time, Kay wrote all the material, inspired by the Carmina Burana book and her love of Medieval and Renaissance music. Kay also contributed vocals, clavinet and piano and together with Jacqueline Darby – on haunting vocals – plus an impressive cast of jazz/rock/progressive musicians, they recorded "Floret Silva" during 1977–78, under the guidance of Vicento Micocci.
Sadly, RCA backed off and the album went unreleased until a copy of the masters found their way to Japan, where the great Belle Antique label put out the first vinyl edition of "Floret Silva" in 1985. In 2006, US label Robot Records resurrected it again for the first CD release.
After many years out of print on vinyl, we present a new edition of this lost piece from the 70s Italian underground scene. A visionary album which anticipated the sound practiced by many neo–folk bands some decades later.
RIYL: Jan Dukes de Grey, Vashti Bunyan, Sunforest, Wicker Man, Pierrot Lunaire, Opus Avantra, Current 93, Nico, Gal Costa, Wooden O, Giles Farnaby’s Dream Band…
Master tape sound
4–page insert with detailed liner notes by Richard Allen and photos.
"This album is like the prettier, more elegant companion piece to Nico’s somber medieval explorations on The Marble Index" – Brainwashed.com
"This should appeal to experimental psych–folk fans for sure, even if this unique treasure is really something outside almost any genre designation you’d care to come up with!" – Aquarius Records
"…An almost perfect fusion of styles that when combined with the archaic language is both haunting and entrancing reminiscent perhaps of the otherworldly atmosphere created by Bo Hansson on his Lord of the Rings album." – Richard Allen
Iste Mundus – Floret Silva – Exorcismus – Intermezzo (Chume, Chume) – Ich Will Truren – Rondo – Mai Tanz – Quot Sunt Horae – Tot – Sonus Dulcis Lyrae – Ouverture – Zum Fest – Intermezzo (Fagott Sommer Nacht Promenade) – Tempus Instat – Langueo (Vacillantis) – Chume, Chume – Nummus – Post Communio Sancti Cyrilli "
www.guerssen.com
"We've had the cd reissue of this gem before, but now for the very first time it's been reissued on vinyl, too! What does Floret Silva sound like, you ask? How about RennFaire gone Rock In Opposition? Italian prog meets medieval madrigals?? We're still puzzling about how to describe this wonderful, wonderful disc, a reissue of a rare lp which was recorded by composer Kay Hoffman in Florence, Italy in 1977, though not released until 1985, on vinyl in Japan only!
Hoffman and her collaborators, including members of the very excellent and arty Italian prog band Pierrot Lunaire, took a trove of medieval Latin poetry known as the Carmina Burana - poems written by anonymous authors around 1200 AD that are both religious in nature as well as very earthy and real, about such subjects as love and money - and set them to music. The settings are diverse (as befits the variety of these texts), and the results are often eerie and pretty and even a little bit groovy, with quirky chamber ensemble/prog rock backing and even the use of field recordings. Utterly magical for the most part, most especially due to the delicate vocals of Jacquline Darby. One song reminds us strongly of Stereolab, others call to mind (rather more obscurely) that Flamen Dialis album we've raved about before. This should appeal to experimental psych-folk fans for sure, even if this unique treasure is really something outside almost any genre designation you'd care to come up with!" [Aquarius Rec.]
“1977 avant/folk progressive masterpiece from minimalist composer Kay Hoffman. Includes collaborative performances from Jacqueline Darby and Gaio Chiocchio--members of the legendary, Italian progressive group Pierrot Lunaire. Originally slated for release on RCA/IT (Italy) in ‘78, the album was later rejected due to recording deadlines, release schedules, and requests by RCA for other artistic/musical considerations. However, many years later, Floret Silva did end up surfacing on a very different shore. Copies of the masters found their way to the highly eclectic Japanese label Belle Antique, whose musical director had heard rumors about the early project in the mid-1980’s. As a result, Floret Silva was finally released eight years after the completed sessions in 1985 as a small edition, but very well received LP (Belle Antique 8502, Japan). Apparently, not many copies of the record were exported outside Japan. This merely created even more mystery surrounding the recordings as well as rumors associated with a Pierrot Lunaire-related project. The recordings were based on the Carmina Burana--a collection of medieval poetry written by various authors of which little is known. Floret Silva was an attempt to find a voice for these anonymous authors in the late 1970’s in Florence. Now, nearly 30 years after the completed sessions, Floret Silva blooms again….this time in the US. Available for the first time on CD with remastered sound, including a 12-page booklet with full lyrics and English translations. A lost (but now reclaimed) gem from the Italian progressive underground.” [label info for the CD release]
|
2016 |
€22.00 |
|
| HOHMANN, MARTIJN |
The Hohmann Transfer |
CD |
Released on De Fabriek Records and Tapes: FABPROD 25.
A free association between the various forms of leaving earth like traveling to the moon, losing one's consciousness or the end of life itself, with the Hohmann family name as a starting point and guiding theme.
All compositions by Martijn Hohmann
Mastered by Jos Smolders at EARLabs Studios
Released by De Fabriek records and tapes in 2020 - FABPROD 25
All sounds recorded 2017 - 2019.
except: track 4: “Apollo cockpit recordings” recorded 1969 by NASA, digitized by the Houston Audio Control Room. track 5 and 8: “sea and wind sounds” recorded late 20th century by Wim van Holstein.
track 8: “Au claire de la lune” recorded 1860 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, restored by First Sounds.
In memory of Piet Hohmann who died of Alzheimer’s disease on New Year’s eve 2017.
Special thanks to: Richard van Dellen and Marc Heijmans.
https://universaalkunst.bandcamp.com/album/the-hohmann-transfer
|
2020 |
€13.00 |
|
| HOLTERBACH, MANU & JULIA ECKHARDT |
Do-Undo (in g maze) |
CD |
"Do-Undo is a project that emerged out of Q-O2 Werkplaats, a sound-art laboratory of sorts based in Brussels. Julia Eckhardt, one of the artistic directors of this workspace, has been building an archive of recordings, comprised of long-form viola pieces played exclusively in G. This archive, in turn, has been passed on to various musicians, who can use those recordings as they see fit. Enter Manu Holterbach, a French sound-artist, field recordist, and ingenious instrument builder, who had taken part in several Q-O2 residencies; and it was there that he met Eckhardt and was presented with part of the archive of those minimalist viola recordings to use as source material. Eckhardt's recordings seek the rich, if occasionally dissonant, overtones that have been central to the minimalist works of Tony Conrad, Phill Niblock, Eliane Radigue, and Ellen Fullman. And in his reconstitution of her recordings, Holterbach populates his compositions with field recordings whose turbulent textures and bristling movements sympathetically weave amidst the rasping drones from the viola. On a rather technical level, Holterbach's field recordings on his composition 'Two Stasis Made Out of Electricity' -- an arc lamp, the sounds of Parisian subways, an electric power plant -- all naturally buzz with the same G of Eckhardt's viola, without the benefit of digital pitch shifting. The resulting drones transcend any conceits of conceptualism and strategic intent, instead seeing no difference between the sounds of the environment (man-made or otherwise) and the sounds of the academy. As such, Do-Undo (In G Maze) will undoubtedly please those with an ear for the aforementioned Phill Niblock as well as the controlled impressionism of Andrew Chalk. A letter-pressed edition of a mere 300 copies." [label info]
www.helenscarsdale.com
"In Brussels we find a sound-art laboratory called Q-O2 Werkplaats which is run by, among others Julia Eckhardt, who is also a performing musician herself. Over the years she has build an archive of viola recordings played exclusively in G. People who visited the Q-O2 Werkplaats could use these recordings. One of them is Manu Holterbach, who works primarily inside field recordings. He brings to the table recordings of an arc lamp, the sounds of Parisian subways and an electric powerplant - all of which happen to be in G. too. All of this is combined in 'Do-Undo (In G Maze)' which is a lovely work of acoustic drones and field recordings. Quite an intense piece of work actually, that, despite the fact that this is all acoustic and field recordings alike, sound pretty much 'electric', rather than 'electronic'. A big buzzing, ringing enters your environment, with some excellent changes that add a further vibrancy to the material. Cut into two pieces, the first one seems to draw the attention to the acoustic side, while the second is more about the electrically charged sound. Think a refined meeting between Phill Niblock and Alvin Lucier and you get my drift. Limited to just 300 copies, so grab it while you can." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| HORIST, B. / K.K.NULL |
Interstellar Chemistry |
CD |
Unusual and undescribable wild surroundings on this collaborative effort with great guitar-sounds which reveal a deeper beauty after a while.. ! And every track is different !
“ No laptop music here! Real instruments played by real musicians. Ah, the flowers of romance. In this instance, as it turns out, Bill is Horistaculturalist to Null's garden of unearthly delights. Boom Shankar: Null plants the seed, Bill grows the seed, and we EAT the seed. What in Hell's name am I going on about? Well, it's like this: Null provided sonic source material which Horist then organised, manipulated and added on to. So what happened? Scrumptious musical confectionaries with surprise flavour centers! Much of it is like IDM with the boring removed. More deep and less bleep. The drum machinations pound out strains reminiscent of Ikue More (ala Death Praxis) or latter day Bruce Gilbert with a bit of controlled early Nurse With Wound wail thrown in as if this amalgamation were the soundtrack to an old Atari video game (see also Haruomi Hosono). And then comes the second track! Horists' guitar techniques are exciting, weird, rhythmic, Harry Partch-like ('Luminous Lullaby'), indescribable, explosive, ugly and beautiful. And just when it gets nuts, a melancholy paean to Boards Of Canada cuts through the noisy silt to round the experience out. Tietchensian insect jitters skitter throughout the tracks, no two of which can be said to be quite the same. And this is the wonder of the whole thing; Bill has crafted a cohesive statement out of all these musical explorations which, in many ways, smells of the tectonics of "OG" electro-experimental records of the early 80's and late 70's. There is both a bold adventurousness and a wonderful simplicity to the compositions that is like re-embracing that pivotal moment when noise first made sense and all the Zeppelin records went into the bin. And then you needed a pack of cigarettes and had to fish through the bin to sell the Zeppelin records. It's like that! “ [press release]
label:
www.blrrecords.com |
2002 |
€12.00 |
|
| HORN, MARIA W: / MATS ERLANDSSON |
Celestial Shores |
LP |
Through ebb and flow we drift
Infinite mountains in their twisted stratas
Sinews of wounded beasts solidified
In this theater of geologic fervor we rest
A ship lost in the polar sea
The heavenly eye of the ocean has seen the origins of this landscape
Its inclined angles and vertiginous depths
A primal dance of chaos
Dry crackle from frozen wood
Suspended calm in endless torment
Time inverted
Adrift towards the diamond abyss
–––––
The music heard on this album was originally the result of a commission to score the second half of the film 'Nico/Nico Crying' made by Andy Warhol in 1966. The commission was made by Art Cinema OFFoff in collaboration with B.A.A.D.M for a screening of the film together with a live presentation of the score in September 2021 at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. The recording presented here was made in the last week of that year and mixed soon after in January 2022. These recordings are essentially live-recordings performed by the composers together in the same room and recorded in a manner reminiscent of the record making process as it was in the late 1960s. The instrumentation used to make the sounds on this album consists of modular synthesis, zither, voice, contaminated field recordings and metal percussion.
Mats Erlandsson is a composer and musician part of the vibrantly re-emerging field of drone music in Stockholm, Sweden, and is associated with practices characterized by the extensive use of sustained sound. Erlandsson presents his work both as a solo artist and in collaborations, most notably together with Yair Elazar Glotman and Maria W Horn. Recent releases include 'Gyttjans Topografi' on XKatedral, 'Minnesmärke' on Hallow Ground and the collaboration 'Emanate' made with Yair Elazar Glotman on the label 13070. In addition to his own artistic practice Erlandsson holds a position as studio technician and was temporarily, from October 2022 to September 2023, the acting studio director at Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm.
The compositions of Maria W Horn implement synthetic sound, electroacoustic and acoustic instruments and audiovisual components, often devicing generative and algorithmic processes to control timbre, tuning and texture. She employs a varied instrumentation ranging from analog synthesizers to choir, string instruments, pipe organ and various chamber music formats. Acoustic instruments are often paired with digital synthesis techniques, in order to extend the instruments timbral capacities. Often based on minimalist structures, her music explores the inherent spectral properties of sound and their ability to transcend time and space, reality and dream.
Maria W Horn – modular synthesizer, sound treatments, percussion, textures and vocals
Mats Erlandsson – zithers, synthesis, percussion, vocals, textures and tape treatments
Written by Maria W Horn & Mats Erlandsson in response to a commission by Art Cinema OFFoff
Mixed by Mats Erlandsson / Mastered by Johannes Ahlberg at Saintpid mastering
Album design by Mathieu Serruys & Joris Verdoodt
Released in 2023 / Edition of 300 copies with download code / www.baadm.org
Thanks to Joris Verdoodt, Mathieu Serruys, Linus Hillborg and Christa Päffgen
https://baadm.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-shores
|
2023 |
€26.00 |
|
| HORTOBAGYI, LASZLO |
Transociety Relics |
do-LP |
László Hortobágyi is an electron released in the current world sound system galaxy.
His sound art is simultaneously an expanded ethnography of an invented folklore and a way to preserve his acoustic environments for future generations. They are compositions of both terrestrial and spatial sound that present a rich auditory ecology and trace the path from the past to the future. Ancient and futuristic environments interconnected by invisible historical complexities and inhabited by guardians of tradition.
Hortobágyi's music, conceptually fascinating, reveals a unique and transitory world of sound carried out in a singular work form that opens as a portal to another musical dimension.
“Transociety Relics”, his latest opus, compiles previously unreleased archive material spanning the period 1974 / 2019. Each side of this two-LP set reproduces a specific impulse in László Hortobágyi's long and influential career.
SIDE A - “Sygnus Synth Seasons 1974” collects pieces of the 1974-1978 period composed designed and played on the modular synth Sygnus, invented and constructed by Péter Radványi at the Department of Phonetics of the ELTE University.
“My friend Peter Radványi (of the Phoenetics Department of ELTE, Bp.) began the construction of his own modular instrument following the principle of more serious modular synthesizers or the portable EMS Synthi VCS3-AKS 1969-1971 (eg:Whitenoise) at the same time...
"These early electronic music were born in the world of the realized socialism. Not in the West, where thanks to the industrial revolution, by way of original and free accumulation of capital, that is, through exploitation of distant countries and continents, the exotic properties and various genres of musics have become available on the shelves of shopping centers.”
(read more in the downloable “Transociety Relics Supplement 2022”)
SIDE B – “Earthlingua-dub 2010-2016”
“The classic "psydub", however beautified, is nothing more than a modern traditional musical distillate of collective human misery. It is the music of the shattered consciousness that, due to the man-made uninhabitability of the world, wants to leave this reality with the help of music and drugs and seeks another world where it builds a collective culture.The natural evolution of dub is in sync with the misery of the
world’s societies…”
(read more in the downloable “Transociety Relics Supplement 2022”)
SIDE C – “Gandharva Sangeet 2019”
“I would like to outline with personal motivation that the 5 pcs tracks here have come together as the conclusion of my private mythology. A progenitor of this is the Gáyan Uttejak Mandali - Society (at the foot of Malábár Hill, now Mumbái) at the turn of the last century and one of its founders, a certain Visnu Náráyan Bhátkhándé, who wrote a 4-volume summary entitled Gandharva Sangeet Paddhati, (ca. "Heavenly Musicmethod"). - and this was published by krámika pustak máliká, that is, in a series of books. In this series of books…”
(read more in the downloable “Transociety Relics Supplement 2022”)
SIDE D - “Transociety-prána 2013”
“In the year of 2010 a new civilization has emerged, with relics, memorials and the wreckage of Noah’s Ark among its ruins, full of memories of the future and, among others, an incomplete ethnomusicologic collection that would be catalogued in
subsequent eras as “Transociety Relics “ Later, the "subliminal sociostasis" change of consciousness led to the Ars Guothica Nova movement, whose primary aim was to process the Relics Collection. The restored material has entered the common knowledge as an “Entransociety Live” chapter of eL-Horto’s concert repertoire.”
https://amarxe.bandcamp.com/album/transociety-relics
|
2022 |
€29.50 |
|
| HUMAN GREED |
Hivernant |
CD |
"Michael Begg : After releasing World Fair (Omnempathy, 2014) I became a sketchbook. I had a few creases and the best way of smoothing them out was to take a swift, light touch and make marks on paper. I documented the landscape in East Lothian, and the watercolours were nothing more than the evidence of time spent looking. And that was enough. I sketched notes about silence, about space and place, music and recording. I took one step to the side and listened to the time rush by. I applied the same light touch to the studio. I sketched. It was enough. I somehow, briefly, removed ambition and purpose and found, in the winter, a moment of repose.
I now feel like some little winter animal, a hivernant, arising from sleep." [label info]
www.omnempathy.com
"A very English sounding record, this Hivernant, oozing with dramatic dronescaping and cinematically empty ambience. In previous recordings and collaborations, Michael Begg has found himself in very good company alongside the likes of David Tibet, Colin Potter, Brian Eno, and Clodagh Simonds (amongst others), all of whom share a similar sense of melancholy and portent and resignation, as if it oozed out of the British sod and into their souls. Begg himself has stated that this album is the equivalent of watercolor sketches of a particular portion of Britain (East Lothian, to be exact), capturing the mood and psychic malaise which haunts that land through his darkened, impressionist compositions. Yet, these are most definitely not ephemeral vignettes. Begg carefully crafts the somber spaces with orchestrations of organ, piano, psalter, oboe, etc. that unfurl in and out of an electronic fog that has little in the way of the shoegazing reverberation of, say, Stars Of The Lid, though the arranged formalism and nocturnal pacing could find parallel there. His shimmering layers of sound will evolve into pure sonic forms of harmonically clashing drones only to dissolve into pools of melodic piano reminiscent of Eno's Thursday Afternoon or into a Tim Hecker-like tonal suspension of stained-glass sorrow, with the rather dramatic climax to be found on "Nana" that explodes with a sparse yet booming drumcorps. Hivernant is beautiful, haunting, languid, beguiling. Begg posits this a political album, though he admits an inability to articulate any specifics of these ideas. Yet, in the construct of an album that digs at the poetics of a very British sentiment without sinking into chest-thumping nationalism, his politics speak through the act of creation and not the polemics of division." [Aquarius Rec.] |
2015 |
€13.00 |
|
| HUNT, JERRY |
Five Mechanic Convention Streams |
do-LP |
The final album released by the composer-performer Jerry Hunt before his death, Ground: Five Mechanic Convention Streams is a rare and foundational audio document of Hunt’s compositional process. The record collects five pieces from the artist’s “Ground” series, translating his characteristically variable and spatial scores into “recorded fixtures of activity using mechanic musical instrument arrays,” to eerie and mesmerizing results. Originally released by experimental label OODiscs in 1992, it is now available on vinyl for the first time from Blank Forms Editions. Its tracks are dense and unpredictable, a miscellany of arrhythmic bursts, fragments of spoken and whispered words, soft then fevered rattles and shaking, and a rare return to pianoforte for the virtuoso player. On “Talk (slice): double” a nervous, warped dialogue unfolds between Hunt and composer Rod Stasick, their voices alternately measured and monstrous. In “Transform (stream): monopole,” breathy whistles build against a shimmering stream of bells, rattles, and shakers in a fantastical cascade of percussion. Hunt revisits the piano in “Lattice (stream): ordinal” and “Bitom (stream): link,” oscillating between gentle, almost classical phrases and frantic, seemingly random play. His collaboration with violinist Jane Henry, “Chimanazzi (Olun): core,” extends similarly unorthodox playing techniques to the violin, involving the scraping, plucking, and playing of its strings. The unstable quality of these tracks belies the rigor of Hunt’s procedures; each of Ground’s five pieces, their “common ground core,” is derived from the angelic tables of sixteenth century English philosopher and occultist John Dee, adapted by Hunt as frameworks to layer, adapt, and renew in his compositions. With a complex arrangement of sensors and equipment, which the artist called “interrelated electronic, mechanic, and social sound-sight interactive transactional systems,” Hunt realized these derivative systems in the techno-shamanic performances for which he is best known. Ground distills these procedures into fixed songs, producing a vital and critical record of Hunt’s singular approach to composition.
Ground: Five Mechanic Convention Streams is released as part of Blank Forms’s extensive program dedicated to Jerry Hunt. This program includes the first institutional exhibition of the artist’s videos and sculptures, Jerry Hunt: Transmissions from the Pleroma, presented at Blank Forms from February 16th to June 11th, 2022; the publication of Partners, a memoir-cum-biography by the artist’s long-time romantic partner Stephen Housewright; the forthcoming anthology Blank Forms 08: Transmissions from the Pleroma; and Irida Records: Hybrid Musics from Texas and Beyond, 1979–1986, a deluxe LP boxed set and reader on Hunt’s briefly-lived independent label.
https://blankformseditions.bandcamp.com/album/ground-five-mechanic-convention-streams
|
2022 |
€37.50 |
|
| HYBRYDS |
Ritual Anthology |
CD |
Aufnahmen von 1986-1993 von der belgischen Ethno / Ritual / Industrial-Band, welche eindrucksvoll ihren mal verträumt-mysteriösen, mal magisch-beschwörenden, meist perkussiven Stil präsentiert. Über die Hälfte der Stücke ist unveröffentlicht. Ziel dieser Musik ist die Erzeugung von Trance, welche den Zugang zu im Alltag schwer zugänglichen Bewusstseinszuständen möglich macht. Kommt im edlen schwarz-gold bedruckten Papp-Ausklapp-Cover.
"With this CD Aquarellist is proud to present the anthology of early ritual works of this fabulous Belgian project. This music immerses the listener into the space of RITUAL - the magical action aimed to reach the goals beyond the borders of the ordinary world. An action evoking deeper layers of consciousness, deeper memories not active in our everyday life. An action that helps to reveal our potential as powerful and miraculous creatures.
Hybryds present their visions of rituals in the form of rhythmical compositions built on repetitive percussive loops crowned with layers of numerous archaic instruments, aided by vocal spells and atmospheric soundscapes with minor electronic additions.
This material was recorded in 1986-1993 by Magthea & Yasnaia with the help of their friends: Ah Cama Sotz, Djen Ajakan Shean, Vidna Obmana, Clive Richards, Irae Deprofundo and Bobby Colombo. Three tracks from this CD were previously released on "The Rhythm Of The Ritual" CD (Charnel Music, 1994), one track was released as "The Ritual Should Be Kept Alive - Part 1" CD EP (3RIOART, 1991), and three other tracks are released here for the first time.
CD, limited edition of 600 in digipak from a corrugated cardboard, picture it is executed by a method of silk-screen printing
1- For the Nameless one
2- El Caballo
3- Je suis la premiere
4- Call for the Touareg
5- Fallen Angels
6- The ritual should be kept alive - part 1
7- The ritual should be kept alive - part 3
Recorded between 1986 and 1993.
Digital re-mastered 2009 by 3RIOART vzw from original material recorded on 4 track cassette and recordings live to DAT.
Credits:
Magthea,
Yasnaia,
Ah Cama Sotz,
Djen Ajakan S,
Vidna Obmana,
Clive Richards,
Irae Deprofundo,
Bobby Colombo.
Visit:
http://www.hybryds.com
http://users.telenet.be/3rioart/
Reviews:
http://maeror3.livejournal.com/80596.html"
[label info]
www.aquarellist.ru
|
2009 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Music for Rituals |
do-CD |
"Sandy Nys says about the album: "'Music For Rituals' was first released in a hand-made pouch, on the German label ARTWARE. The music was like the first tape release, made in different places with different people on a 4-track Tascam cassette recorder. I also started making mail art music with musicians from far away in the world (no internet back then) sending basic music on cassette which I used in the compositions. In this music, Yasnaia and her cello and voice became prominent as we started working together." CD 2 contains rarities and unreleased tracks: 1: Hybryds & Alpha project (previously unreleased)
2: From 3RIOTAPES cassette compilation 3 & 4: sax by Barry Edgar Pilcher, from 3RIOTAPES cassette release: Saxapulation 1984 5: Koto build by Michel. Played by Michel and Magthea. Soundsamples from 'Dabide No Hoshi: Bishôjo-Gari' ('Star Of David: Beautiful Girl Hunter' a strange S/M movie from Japan 1979) (previously unreleased). This 2CD album is packaged in a digipak and limited to 500 copies." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
"Belgian electronic-ritualists The Hybryds began producing their exotic, sensual mesmerism and ethnographic forgeries in the mid '80s, after ringleader Sandy Nys (aka Magthea) transitioned from the minimalist EBM of The Klinik into the far more supple forms of tape loops and ritualized performance. Their iconography was one that was very much a precursor to the modern primitive bacchanal of Burning Man and paralleled the philosophical fascination with Crowley that came out of the whole Psychic TV and Current 93 circle. As such, Hybryds were a project with one foot very clearly in the ancient and the other firmly adhering to the technological advances. The slow, gyrating rhythms interlace the patter from hand-drummed percussion on wood, skin, bone, and metal with the electronic structures from MIDI-driven samples draped with reverberantly sustained synth drones. Nys along with co-conspirator Leen Smets (aka Yasnaia) also wove this tapestry with wordless vocals, processed violin, phasing tape loops, and the sublimely eerie buzzing of Egyptian reeds. Music For Rituals was the band's first album beyond a couple of limited cassette releases, featuring input from fellow Belgian transcendentalist Vidna Obmana who like Nys had shifted from a hard-bodied industrialist into a liquid melange of ritualized ambience and gnostic mysticism. This album originally came out on the seminal German label Artware in 1992, has been remastered from the 4-track tapes, and is now fleshed out with an extra cd's worth of bonus material. Zoviet France, O Yuki Conjugate, Zero Kama, and even the more introspective albums from Coil would all be worthy comrades in arms with Hybryds." [Aquarius Records]
|
2014 |
€15.00 |
|
| HYIOS |
Consuetudines |
CD |
"The alluring debut from Leipzig Germany’s Hyios, Consuetudines offers 7 lengthy compositions of cold ritual drones, arching trajectories, and visceral descents into subterranean caverns, where rich, kinetic textures and deep resonant tones move and morph in a fluid, serpentine fashion, sprinkled with the debris of an ancient culture and something more otherworldly and primordial. Leipzig has historically proven to be fertile ground for dark ambient and Consquetudines continues in the fine tradition set forth by such notable acts as Inade and Herbst9. In 6 panel digipak, mastered by Secret Lab. A great new discovery." [label info]
www.malignantrecords.com
|
2009 |
€12.00 |
|
| I.CORAX |
Kuilu |
CD |
"Kuilu' by I.corax, originally limited to only 40 copies is the last album released by Blue Sector in 2004. The album is finally available through our Stellar Mansion series. 'Kuilu' is a live recording of I.corax's first live performance held in NuKu, Oulu, Finland on 2nd of March 2002. These four slowly evolving compositions bring forth a mesmerizing and ethereal atmosphere; swirling analogue synthesizer, subliminal electronic-triggers, monotone yet dynamic rhythmic elements are accompanied with haunting un-organic textures, human words and field-recordings captured on tape in the woods under a crescent moon. All in all the material on this album is simpler and more straight forward than on the other I.corax releases. It presents a stimulating historical overview of the duos past practises; numinous passings through the chasms into and beyond the abyss. The album is enclosed inside a newly designed and silk-screen printed cardboard covers including three offset printed insert cards and a four panel booklet. Limited to 500 copies. AURAL HYPNOX [AHSM06]" [label info]
www.auralhypnox.com
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
The Cadaver Pulse II: Mothelix Liquescent |
CD |
"The second official release of the Oulu based experimental music and sound art duo I.corax, originally released in 2003 is now also available through our Stellar Mansion series. 'The Cadaver Pulse II', running over 60 minutes is an etheric, bright and dreamlike sequel to the oozy 'TCP I'. The six helical compositions bring forth a unique analogue and organic atmosphere. Most of the material on this album was received, composed and recorded during intense three-day live sessions held in the Blue Vortex in March 2003 by using analogue synthesizers, samplers, human voice and a selection of wind and bowed instruments. The material was mixed and finalised in September 2003. The album is enclosed inside a newly designed and silk-screen printed cardboard covers including six offset printed insert cards and a four panel booklet." [label info]
www.auralhypnox.com
"Second release for I.CORAX on Blue Sector, the second part of “THE CADAVER PULSE”... analogue sounding dark ambience, very waving & gloomy harmonic, with very interesting higher sounds & effects which give it a very trancy & secret atmosphere.. RECOMMENDED for noisy dark ambient lovers!" [Drone Rec. 2003]
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
| IELASI, GIUSEPPE & HOWARD STELZER |
Night Life |
CD |
Sehr fruchtbare Zusammenarbeit in der Brombron-Serie: GIUSEPPE IELASI, Impro-Gitarrist aus Italien der auch das FRINGES Label betreibt, und der US-Amerikaner HOWARD STELZER, bekannt für seine "schwierigen" Tapemanipulationen und field recordings und ebenfalls Labelbetreiber (INTRANSITIVE RECORDS), kamen für einige Tage in Nijmegen im Extrapool-Studio zusammen.... so entstand "Night Life, wo low-fi noises der seltsamsten Art mit ruhigen Gitarren-pickings kontrastieren, oft bewegt sich die Musik im pulsierend-atmosphärischen Bereich aber mit stetiger Veränderung, cut-ups & nicht-alltägliche Konkret-sounds tauchen auf, sowie immer wieder Giuseppes ungewöhnliche Gitarrenarbeit, die sich kaum beschreiben lässt.....
"I am not sure wether the title of this disc refers to the time of recording, but if so the last track's title says it all: Losing our taste for the night life. I know for a fact that a Brombron project can mess up your daily rhythm pretty bad and that ending it feels almost as good as starting it. This disc by Ielasi and Stelzer has obviously had exactly the right amount of night time anyway. I have known and admired Howard Stelzer's work as tape jockey for quite some time now (aside of his activity as boss of the wonderful Intransitive Recordings), but Giuseppe Ielasi was a new name for me. He is a contemporary guitarist, using this instrument in all possible ways, but with a strong bias towards electronic manipulations. The result of this collaboration is absolutely fascinating: on one hand there are the harsh and explosive eruptions of Stelzer's tapes and on the other hand there are the more gentle and melodic guitar manipulations of Ielasi. This combination is truly excellent and invigorating. It has certainly been a while since I heard something this refreshing and exciting. I am not sure why this is; the use of sounds, the compositions, the tension, somehow everything just fits together so well that I am lost for words really. Simply beautiful and an absolute must!!!" [MR / Vital Weekly]
|
2006 |
€13.00 |
|
| IF, BWANA |
Tripping India |
CD |
IF, BWANA ist seit langer Zeit das musikalische Betätigungsfeld von Al Margolis, der in den 80er das SOUND OF PIG – Label betrieb (eines der größten Cassettenlabel für experimentelle Sounds ever!), und jetzt hinter POGUS PROD. steckt. "Tripping India" enthält drei konzeptuell & elektro-akustisch geprägte Stücke, in welchen mit Piano-Sounds, grummelnden Geräuschen, effektierter Percussion und field recordings hantiert.
www.pogus.com
"Consisting of 3 compositions, TRIPPING INDIA is the 3rd IF, BWANA release on Pogus. On this recording If, Bwana is joined by, among others, Paul Marotta (Styrenes/Electric Eels/Mirrors) on 3 Out of 4 Ain't Bad, a conceptual work for 3 different pianists, playing 3 different pianos at 3 different times to the same tape. The final version is for 3 pianists, no tape. PR-DR is an electroacoustic work for processed/manipulated percussion. The title piece combines audio "snapshots" of a wandering through India with multiple tracks of manipulated and processed drums and percussion. The end result is an "audio travelogue for 2 (highly) manipulated percussionists." [label info]
|
1997 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
Assemble.Age! |
CD |
"Modern classical music meets industrial meets musique concrete.
The music of If, Bwana (Al Margolis) represents a vigorous, original and informed continuation of the experimental traditions of American music, responding as it does to the sounds and materials of late 20th and early 21st century American life with a keenly sensitive ear and a marvelous feeling for form, balance, and texture in music.
The five works on this recording all utilize and reprocess the performances (both studio and live) of the musicians and vocalists. Their work has been processed, edited, selected and assembled into strange and mutated pieces which in many cases are quite some way removed from the realms of the familiar.
Active since 1984 under the If, Bwana name, Al Margolis has been making music that has swung between fairly spontaneous studio constructions and more process-oriented compositions. He ran the cassette label Sound of Pig Music in the 1980s and co-founded and continues to run the experimental music label Pogus. Margolis plays bass guitar in the long-lasting, legendary punk/post-punk band The Styrenes. Recordings of his work have been released on the Tellus, Anckarstrom, Ants, Absurd, GD Stereo, Odradek, Monochrome Vision, and Pogus labels. Recent projects have included a sound art commission by WDR Koln, collaborations with video artist Katherine Liberovskaya on "Take-off", "Rant Dance". and "Frogfield", all of which have been shown internationally, and the premiere of "Three Songs in Search of a Voice", a "nohtopera" with MutaMYTHeatre - music by Margolis and text and voice, Lisa Barnard Kelley." [label info]
www.mutablemusic.com
"Al Margolis career as If, Bwana has been going strong for more than twenty-five years now and it has making strange turns. Originally, to put it crudely, If, Bwana was an industrial group, using raw sound collage/montage techniques, but it has grown over the years in a way that not many others do. While many of his peers took the route to more musique concrete, Margolis went into the serious avant-garde direction. Working with small ensembles and soloists with various instruments, he now composes that are seriously modern and, at other times, sounding improvised. The role of Margolis is that of the conductor. Not in the traditional sense, raising a baton, but the organizer. He tapes the music and then fiddles it about using the computer. Maybe the 'organizer' is a better word, or 'assembler', to stay in tune with the title of the CD. Sometimes he receives sound material, such as by Trio Scordatura, which he then organizes into a piece of music, such as the nicely woven drone like sounds of 'Ringing The Bell', and sometimes they all team up to play live, as in 'Cicada #1: EHG Version'. Its here that the music sounds more improvised, an 'real' instruments (voice, trombone, flute) collide with a nord modular and computer. In 'Six Minus 6' and 'DTTO' it seems we are dealing with a composed piece of music and its hard to say what the role of Margolis is. His working method seems to differ within each piece he does and that's something that is surely great as it makes a very release. Different approaches to a similar working ground. A fine work, yet again, of various interests (composed music, improvisation, musique concrete techniques) merging together. Quite a unique voice in this music." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| IGOR BARDO |
My Sweet Nightmare |
CD |
"Igor Bardo is a Russian musician and sound artist, best known from Bardoseneticcube, one of the leading experimental/post-industrial groups from Russia.
My Sweet Nightmare is Igor Bardo’s debut solo album, containing about one hour of first class psychedelic electronic listening music. The surrealist soundscapes will be instantly embraced by fans of Bardoseneticcube, yet the artist manages to conquer heaps of new ground at the same time, and takes us on an adventurous journey deep down into the rabbit hole. Themes such as religion, psychedelia, sleep paralysis etc. are explored with eerie atmospheres, bliss-inducing frequencies and cutting edge studio experiments." [label info]
www.someplaceelse.net
"Some Place Else is a label based in Finland. My Sweet Nightmare is the debutalbum of the Russian soundartist and musician Igor Bardo. He is member of Bardoseneticube, an experimental/post-industrial group from Russia and is formed in 1998. This band released a lot of albums all over the world and they are wellknown as a powerful audiovisual live-performance act. The band ended in 2010. Bardo describes his album "My Sweet Nightmare" as a surrealistic album. The album is well composed and most compositions have a mix of recognizable sounds of musical structures like jazzy drums, religions chants or militaristic marches. He combines lots of different elements of music and sounds. Some tracks have an ambient noise style. The mixing between highly electronic sounds and fresh field-recordings and natural sound is well chosen. Old recordings of folk songs are mixed with ongoing electronic soundwaves and he creates a new old world. ?The end of the end? is a track with the shouting voice of Adolf Hitler. He samples his terrifying voice who evokes to destroy all Jews in the great German Reich with bombastic beats and chords. The song becomes more and more abstract and personal. But for me this song has nothing to do with a sweet nightmare. The track grabs my by the throat and my stomach starts turning. Real physical music, no more, no less. Highly recommended and real surprise for experimental ears and people with a strong stomach." [JKH/Vital Weekly]
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| IKEDA, KEN |
Kosame |
CD |
"For the past few years, I've been approaching the idea of taking sine waves (which is eminent in techno and ambient music) into the inner side of human thought, reinterpreting the circulating harmonic overtones within the vagueness of the word "Yuragi (=fluctuation)". But under the global economy, techno or so-called ambient music were standardized to a somewhat convenient product, and there seems to be no room left for the vagueness. But again, these sounds took birth by sampling and simulating pre-existing music. At the time, there were at least some critical elements left. Around the last album, I felt the limit of using techno-ish sine waves. I decided to go on a venture listening closely and touching the sounds surrounded in personal daily life, to re-recognize "time" and "space" as a sound artist from the point where the sounds evolve and fade away. Raindrops on the window, a squeaking pillar, an opened door, stairs, boiling water in the kitchen.... There were Yuragi everywhere. I couldn't help myself being fascinated by the subtle, yet dense frequencies within the nature such as the shore, and mountain trees. It was not just by sampling this myriad of sounds, but the challenge of how distant I could get from the conventional ideas and sense of values of music, by taking it as a movement of myself as an individual.
This time again, I used the handmade wood & rubber instrument (SD404) to form an opposite relationship between "performer" and "nature" (or "captured sounds" versus "unable-to-capture sounds"). When you actually play it, you can feel the Yuragi within the instrument itself. The shades of the effects like "cutoff" and "resonance" essentially becomes closer to the beauty of nature. "Kosame" is an experiment to set the sounds free from pre-existing frames, by overlapping the randomly listed nature sounds and the improvisational elements of an individual. Yuragi arises from these two unique movements without going against each other."
[Ken Ikeda]
www.spekk.net
"The work of Ken Ikeda is always outside the norm of any classification, here revealing his most experimental work yet. Kosame is at once a physical work of beautiful noise as it is one that vacillates in its own improv juices. The compositions are jagged and oblique, but fun to listen to over time, restless as it becomes especially on Kiro | Return (帰路). The title track with its tongue-play whispers doesn’t fail at being under the radar just enough to seem ultimately ambiguous alongside jangly keys and an atonal, anxious string strumming throughout. Mikazuki | Crecent (三日月) samples the airy sounds of a balloon being blown somewhat comically and digital water trickling. But the liner notes say something about drinking champagne, so imbibe away! Kosame has several distorted futuristic sounds and on Seijaku | Stillness (静寂) this is very evident, mixed with an awkward blend of random traditional Japanese themes deeply laden. Some of this is processed, some is from prepared quena, shamisen, charango and a host of other numbered instruments. On Stillness, Ikeda (a graduate of Berklee’s College of Music) infuses the sounds of boiling water with just the right amount of jitter off the teapot’s top. His music is of science, of longing and of expecting the unexpected." [TJ Norris, Toneshift]
|
2010 |
€16.00 |
|
| IKEDA, RYOJI |
Ultratronics |
CD |
A decade after the release of ‘supercodex,’ NOTON is thrilled to welcome back Japanese artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda with his latest long-player, ‘ultratronics,’ out on December 2nd 2022.
Featuring audio material recorded between 1989 and 1999 and compositions created between 2013 and 2022, ’ultratronics’ explores sound’s arithmetical and computational essence and renders them into the propulsive auditory experience that constitutes Ikeda’s sound signature.
Ryoji Ikeda has created numerous immersive works that dynamically combine technology, light, and sound to electrify the audience’s senses. Since 2000 Ikeda has pursued the theme of data, with a particular interest in the fields of genetics, quantum physics, and astronomy, which he has incorporated into works that present new ways of perceiving the world in numerical terms. To be experienced visually and aurally, the album transports the listeners in a world composed of large amounts of data that usually go unnoticed.
‘ultratronics’ will be available worldwide on CD and digitally. A Japanese edition of the CD will be available on Ryoji Ikeda’s codex | edition. Pre-orders of both editions will start on October 7th, 2022.
‘ultratronics [live set]’ will premiere at Tokyo’s WWW X in Shibuya on October 15, and will be presented as part of MUTEK.JP 2022 at Line Cube Shibuya (渋谷公会堂) on December 7th.
Born in 1966 in Gifu, Ikeda currently lives and works in Paris and Kyoto. While rooted in electronic music, the internationally active composer and artist also produces art as experimentation. Ikeda’s immersive live performances and installations employ elaborate orchestration of sounds, visuals, maler, physical phenomena, and mathematical concepts. In 2022, Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art presented his first major solo exhibi^on in Japan since 2009. Ikeda has received the Prix Ars Electronica Collide at CERN in 2014, and the 70th Japanese Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts, Media Arts Division in 2020.
|
2022 |
€17.50 |
|
| ILLUSION OF SAFETY |
In Session |
CD |
Neues Material des Projektes von DAN BURKE - als eher elektronisch arbeitende Industrial-Band fing man an, aber die verschiedenen Metamorphosen in der nunmehr 25jährigen Geschichte führten über Geräuschobjekt-Improvisationen und eher collagigen musique concrete Werken bis hin zum dark ambient und drone-basierender Musik.
IN SESSION führt einiges davon zusammen, besitzt Anteile von verschiedenen Stilen, spannungeladen & sirrend, wellig, dronig, dicht, wieder ein kleines Meisterwerk.
Geräuschmusik wie sie intensiver kaum vorstellbar ist.
"Illusion Of Safety is one of the oldest post-industrial acts in the Americal musical underground, and in my opinion, of the most interesting projects ever. During 25 years of existence IOS have recorded a lot of various albums and their music has been changing a lot. Having passed through all the circles of industrial hell, Dan Burke has lost almost all his companions and remained alone. He hasn't released too many albums recently, and "In Session" released in 2008 has become a real surprise for me. I mean of course the fact of the release, because the highest quality of musical material and huge amount of pleasure while listening to it is guaranteed by any of IOS albums. "In Session" was recorded in 2007, the mastering was made by Thomas Dimuzio at Gench Music Studio. This is a very thorough and delicate work, an abstract performance in which synthetic and natural sounds mix in the most unusual combinations, when you really hold your breath to wait what's gonna be further. In 6 tracks of the album there are a lot of quiet microscopic sounds which whirl in front of the eyes like thoughts without rational content. They change into the smooth waves of melodic ambient, then to insane sampled collages which don't make you feeling relaxed keeping the constant tension. This shortening of the distance between contemplativeness and neural spasms has always been the trademark of IOS - it's interesting to watch how the musical structure transforms under the emotional passion hiding after each second of the track time, but not always going out. Separate compliments should be given to the artwork designer - you can observe the cover for a really long time being astounded by it's beauty. [Dmitry Vasilyev, Monochrome Vision]
"One of my favorite post industrial bands ever. Period. Since more than twenty years I am a fan and every new release is awaited with eager anticipation. This highly limited release from Russia, in a gorgeous package, is no different. These days, since many years actually, Illusion Of Safety is reduced one person, following a free floating membership that included Thyme Jones and Jim O'Rourke to mention just two, which is Dan Burke. He plays 'sound generating devices and random objects that deliberately provoke, mesmerize and even affront listeners'. I deliberately use the term 'post industrial' and not say 'electro-acoustic' or 'musique concrete', which could also easily be applied to the music of Illusion Of Safety. When they started they were firmly rooted in the world of industrial music, and later on elements of musique concrete came along, but if you listen to 'In Session' the elements of industrial music are still there. Heavy, steel walls of drone music pierce your ears and are as easily replaced by soft drones, crackling sounds of hand held objects and contact microphones. I wouldn't be surprised if Burke plays all of this 'in session', live at home so to speak. I saw him a lot of times playing concerts which capture the equal beauty that is captured here. Ranging from sheer noise to near silence and there is always an element of surprise lurking around the corner. An abrupt, full stop or start and it bring the piece in a new territory. Illusion Of Safety's music can be compared with the likes of Roel Meelkop or Toy Bizarre, but is less bound to rules of composition and more free and joyous (well, that's probably not the right away) than those of the microsound/musique concrete posse that inhabits the world of Vital Weekly so frequently. That alone makes a great band and another great CD. Very fine concentrated bursts of sound." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
"The first proper record from Illusion Of Safety in well over 5 years emerges from the Russian label Waystyx, meaning that this will
not be around for long and will not be easy for us to track down once these are gone. Just a caveat before we launch into the, um, virtues
of this exercise in muscular electronics and brainmelting dronescaping. Illusion Of Safety began well over two decades ago, firmly embracing the death factory imagery and psychological tension that came through the work of Throbbing Gristle, John Duncan, and The Hafler Trio. While the grizzly subjects of torture and sexual violence have dissolved over time, Illusion Of Safety's interest in unsettled soundscapes, collages, and electronic walls of noise remain as powerful as ever. Illusion Of Safety has always been a revolving door project centered around Chicago's Dan Burke; and In Session finds Burke alone at the helms of Illusion Of Safety, concocting a dizzying series of arcing electroshock compositions filled with intense dynamics and rapid crescendos of incremental noise quickly nosediving into subharmonic tones and microtonal squiggles, with plenty of slow
building elements in between. The piercing drones that dominate the Illusion Of Safety palette are matched with crumbled textures from electronic circuits on the verge of collapse (see Wolf Eyes, Carlos Giffoni) and contact microphone agitation (see Tarab, Eric La Casa,
Loren Chasse, etc.). There's one track of grim psychedelic arpeggiations which sounds as if Prurient were attempting a Terry Riley piece, with bad intentions running through the phase shifting loops. Totally fantastic, if not totally disquieting!" [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
New Rules, Same Game, Less Instruction |
CD |
Chicago's post- / ambient industrial legend is back with a work that combines electronic sounds and field recordings:
microscopic audio events, loops, heavily processed material of all kinds form seven multi-layered collages
that seem to be full of electro-magnetic static, morphing and transforming like a hallucinogenic object in every second and in all possible directions...
in all it's subtleness this is far away from the shock treatment noises of the early IOS times.
'New Rules, Same Game, Less Instruction' is the first release of new IOS compositions since 'Surrender' in 2015.
Featuring extensive synthesizer source material as well as other now familiar electro-acoustic techniques
it is conceived as a follow up to the 1995 3” CD release of 'Rules Of The Game', alluding to the social, political,
and psychological games humans engage in for validation, survival, or dominance. New Rules, same game, less instruction, harsher penalty.
Illusion Of Safety now more than ever.
Mastering: THOMAS DIMUZIO / Artwork: DAN BURKE
listen to one track from the album:
https://soundcloud.com/drone-records/illusion-of-safety-malicious-intent
order:
https://www.dronerecords.de/album.view.html?album=20793
|
2021 |
€13.00 |
|
| INFANT CYCLE |
Drop-Out Center |
CD |
" 'Drop-out Center' is the anniversary album of The Infant Cycle project celebrating 20 years of the personal creative journey of the Canadian musician Jim DeJong which began in November 1992 after leaving the band Mind Skelp-cher. During this time Jim has recorded and released a massive amount of material both on his own label The Ceiling and on other respectable underground labels such as EE Tapes, Drone Records, Afe Records, etc. and this is his second full-length album on CD after "The Sand Rays" (Diophantine Discs, 2009).
The album includes nine abstract compositions recorded with Jim's trademark approach. Using such sound sources as shortwave radio, vinyl surface, videotape, bird cage and also more "normal" instruments (bass guitar, electric mandolin, Korg Poly-800 synthesizer) he creates slowly drifting multilayered textures with sometimes unexpected stops and narration twists. Sharp crispy foreground sound is set off by gentle background waves of resonating feedbacks forming intelligent electroacoustic glitch / drone with scratchy tangibility, meditativeness and even a sort of romanticism. This is music that evokes imagination and easily paints images in the listener's mind... 'Turn on!' " [label info]
http://zhb.radionoise.ru
"Jim DeJong from Canada celebrates twenty years of activities as The Infant Cycle, during which he released a whole bunch of CDRs, net releases, a bit of vinyl and one 'real' CD on Diohantine Discs (see Vital Weekly 695), and now his second on Russia's Zhelezobeton, a home which sheltered also some previous releases by DeJong. All the pieces here are from April 2011 and further explore the sound world we know from DeJong over the past years. The cover explains the nature of sound sources, which makes a great read. On one side we have 'vinyl playout groove', 'video record', bird cage and shortwave, while on the other hand we have an electric guitar, electric mandolin, bass, poly 800 but also field recordings. Plenty to choose from, and he does put his options to good use. The varied options for sound creation lead to a varied sound, but with one constant factor: atmospherics play an important role in all of these pieces. He layers a whole bunch of sounds together and then carefully mixes these. But it not necessarily leads to mere drone music. In 'Shiny Venus Part 2' for instance he loops the strumming of a bass-guitar a few times and then other sounds (mandolin, bird cage, field recordings) drop in and out of the mix. When he uses the 'playout' grooves (which are those grooves at the end of a piece of vinyl), it becomes more rhythmical obviously but spiced up with electronics and sometimes remain short, these pieces act more like interludes, except for 'Pipe', which is considerable longer. These moody tunes are indeed much more than just drone pieces. It's the sheer variation, the exploration of sounds to create these atmospheric tunes that make this perhaps the most mature record I heard from The Infant Cycle so far. Excellent stuff indeed." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€12.00 |
|
| INGENTING KOLLEKTIVA |
An Anatomy of Melancholy |
LP |
"Recordings revolving around the atmosphere of George Büchner's Lenz and various melancholies provoked by Robert Burton, the recordings of Krzysztof Penderecki and the idea of Lontano (as from a distance / distant), the textures of Jordi Savall (La Guirnalda de Rosas inspired by a fragment from Saval's Mare Nostrum) and Ingmar Bergman. Recorded 2010-2015. May pain be my reward.
released November 19, 2015
Edited and constructed by Matthew Swiezynski
Artwork by Mathias Fludd
Design by Matthew Swiezynski
Mastered by Taylor Deupree
Electric guitar on Religious Melancholy in Defect by James Hamilton
Acoustic guitar on Lenz Two. Büchner guitar solo by Johannes d'Église
Field recordings by Tarrl Lightowler & Matthew Swiezynski
All tracks recorded in Arthur de Eriomém's rural library Casa di Memoria
Instruments :
64' jazzmaster, 72' telecaster, jazzmaster japonesque, twin reverb, vibro champ, pedals, samples, harmonium, bells, strings, and lp feedback" [label info & credits]
ingentingkollektiva.bandcamp.com/album/an-anatomy-of-melancholy
"An impressive literary, cinematic, and musical knowledge base is at the root of the Ingenting Kollektiva's inspiration for crafting their hauntological compositions of spectral minimalism. "May pain be my reward" is a line of text taken from an incomplete 1836 play by Georg Buchner, later adapted by Herzog in 1979 for film and various theater groups over the centuries; and that text becomes the central tenant to the Kollektiva's An Anatomy Of Melancholy, that mines the dissonance of Penderecki through the lens of the guitar-n-pedal, buzzsaw blur of Maeror Tri, Mirror, and even some of the less low-end centered works of SUNNO))). The backmasked incantation and the snippets of dialogue further the shadowy references to an occluded and arcane ritual of an otherworldly mysticism. Beautiful, spiritual, and haunted all at once!" [Aquarius Records]
|
2015 |
€18.00 |
|
| INNER VISION LABORATORY |
Continuum |
CD |
Karol Skrzypiec returns with a new album to the Zoharum fold. This artist, consistently following the path chosen by himself, discovers new areas with every new recording. In his compositions, synthetic structures increasingly give way to acoustic instruments. Not only does it give a different quality to his music, but also affects a completely different reception of it. Nowadays it is more spatial, has richer arrangement and boldly goes beyond the former structures that have been associated with the INNER VISION LABORATORY project. It would be difficult to describe this album as dark ambient. Although it is impossible to deny a composer the skill of building the right atmosphere, he is far from pathos or dark aura. You can find a note of melancholy, thoughtfulness, a space for reflection, but with light seen from a distance. Who knows - maybe it is an attempt to reconcile with the inevitable, with the thought that all that touches us serves the purpose of going further? To sum up, "Continuum" is an album of many sounds, colours, moving not only by the richness of sounds, but also encouraging reflection and bringing solace.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/continuum
"It begins with Alan Watts’ sampled quote, from his “The Sense Of Nonsense” lecture. These words briefly introduce you to the idea of the album, while the titles and the music itself are following it in the most evocative way. I feel this is the album about our vegetation, not existence, but vegetation. Dull, monotonous, with automatically repeated daily actions and movements. Waking up, taking a shit, going to work, getting drunk, having sex, going to sleep. And for what, as our final purpose is withering and eventually death.
Lucky for us, there are people like Karol on this planet, who can forge this not quite optimistic worldview into the music we can in a certain way identify with. As Orson Welles once said: “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone”. I would extend this quote with art. Music in this particular case. “Continuum” makes me think that you are alone, but at the same time you’re not. That there are people who feel alike, who suffer alike, who will die alone, but during this road to the eternal non-being will share these few brief moments of a strange bond with the other folks who are on the same wavelength, so to speak. Even though you listen to the music alone and it’s even better when you listen to it alone. Such a weird paradox of “Continuum” and ambient music in general.
As for the music, it is a straight follow-up to my beloved “Anywhere Out Of This World”. “Continuum” is made of deep drones and textures, melancholic, but strangely warm and soothing. Painting this aural image to the introducing words, but also giving you comfort and the feeling of detaching from this mundane world. The delicate guitars and piano also do their job, some fragments remind me a little bit of the Japanese soundtrack masters, Yamaoka or Hisaishi (“Forsaken”, “Ended”)… In the end, I believe this is his best effort since “Anywhere Out Of This World”, perhaps because this less dark face of Inner Vision Laboratory” simply suits me better. Music to drown in." [Santa Sangre] |
2019 |
€12.00 |
|
| INNER VISION LABORATORY VS. NEPENTHE |
Ambit |
CD |
"Two years after well-received "Perpetua" album, INNER VISION LABORATORY returns to Zoharum with their new album entitled "Ambit". Not a solo venture, but a collaborative effort with young, but promising NEPENTHE project. The album was 3 years in the making when they were searching for a common language and fiddling with sonic matter using the Internet in this respect, they have created a monolith - a very cohesive, yet symbiotic world. It might be easily labelled as "ambient", yet they break the patterns of that style.
"Ambit" is composed of 7 compositions, clocking in at 50 minutes. It is composed of beautiful, yet unsettling melodies, for those who are fascinated with sounds coming from Cyclic Law and Loki Foundation labels, but also for new-comers to the genre. For those open-minded for something new and touching, a kind of music painted with the whole palette of colours and sounds." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
|
2014 |
€12.00 |
|
| INTERNAL FUSION |
Tribute to Hastia |
CD |
Die allererste "fabrikgepresste" CD aus dem Hause Taalem markiert neben der limitierten CDR die "Rückkehr" von diesem beliebten französischen Ethno-Elektronik Projekt, jetzt stärker dark ambientig und dronig ausgeprägt...
"we are very proud to present our very first
CD, the latest disc from INTERNAL FUSION.
active for almost twenty years, I.F. has only released a handful of productions: first two tapes on désaccord majeur's label, then "om vaira satta hum" a CD on staalplaat in 1996 marketed by the label as "a mix between lustmord, rapoon and muslimgauze". it was followed by a collaborative work with désaccord majeur (the tlon üqbar "la bola perdida" CD on staalplaat in 1999). a second CD was ready to be issued but for various reasons, it wasn't. it was eventually released later in two parts, first as a 3"cdr on taâlem in 2002 and a cdr (with two additional tracks) on Kokeshidisk in 2005. after some years of silence, INTERNAL FUSION came back to life in 2008. "tribute to hastia" shows his evolution: gone are the ethnic/tribal influences and the comparisons with rapoon/muslimgauze, the latest compositions are still evolutive & captivating, yet darker & more minimal, perfect mix between minimal dark ambient & experimental... his strongest work ever!" [label info]
www.taalem.com/lucioleditions
|
2009 |
€12.00 |
|
| IOLINI, ROBERT |
Songs from Hurt |
CD |
„ROBERT IOLINIs ‚Silent Motion‘, der erste Teil von Songs From Hurt (ReR RI2), ist ein Stück für actor, besser Sprecherin (Virginia Baxter), sampled film projectors, pianos and 1927 fotoplayer und setzt sich auseinander mit einer aus widersprüchlichen Texten über (Stumm)Filmmusik collagierten Theorie derselben. Fast kniggemäßig wird ein Katolog von Empfehlungen, Gebrauchsanweisungen und Warnungen verlesen, das Repertoire von Lautmalerei, Phantasie-handläufen und Stimmungstriggering - Grotesque, Mysteriouso, Sinister, Religiouso etc., das Leitmotiv wird eher verdammt, der heutige Usus, Gefühle durch bekannte Hits mit bereits eingeimpften Assoziationsreflexen zu gängeln, sowieso. Iolinis eigener ‚Silent Motion‘-Soundtrack, der mit seinem ‚Funiculì, funiculà‘-Auftakt gleich ungeniert in eines des Fettnäpfchen tritt, ist wie Stummfilm ohne Bild, ein Cowboy ohne Pferd, das er verkehrtrum sattelt. Abstrakt und ironisch wird die emotionale Magie von Stummfilmmusik demonstriert, mal mit, mal gegen den Text. Mit den Songs zu Phillip Crawfords Doku Hurt und mit ‚Black Sheep‘ geht der 1960 geborene Australier, der mit seinem Beitrag ‚Hong Kong: City in Between‘ zur Soundscapes Be)for(e 2000-Compilation schon einmal in BA auftauchte, dann den Schritt von formalen Fragen zu praktischen Verknüpfungen von Form und Inhalt. Bei ‚Songs from Hurt‘ for voices and rock band kommen jugendliche Misfits zu Wort. Ihr O-Ton vom alltäglichen Horror, von Drogen, schlagenden Vätern, Müttern und Polizisten skizziert lakonisch und im Zeitraffer, wie sie im Jugendknast landeten und fungieren 1:1 als ‚Lyrics‘. Iolinis Versuch, in einer falschen und kaputten Wirklichkeit als Künstler realistisch zu werden, collagiert bei ‚Black Sheep‘ erneut ausschließlich O-Ton von Insassen, aktuellen, ehemaligen und potentiellen (sic!), des Don Dale Detention Centre in - ausgerechnet - Darwin, Australien, gemischt mit Aussagen von Sozialarbeitern und Experten für Jugenddelinquenz. Als musikalischer Fond dient minimale Elektronik aus Fieldrecordings, die Jugendliche im Umfeld des Gefängnisses aufgenommen haben. Iolinis schwer zu kategorisierende Audio-Art, „part music, part documentary and part drama“, zeigt verwandte Züge mit Arbeiten von Gregory Whitehead, Jon Rose oder Bob Ostertag, deren Radiophonien Fact & Fiction, Form & Function, Was & Wie so neu justieren wie Raymond Chandler einst den Kriminalroman. Und das mit einer Credibility, die das Maulheldentum des Rap krampfhaft sucht.“ [Rigobert Dittman, Bad Alchemy # 47]
“Robert Iolini is a composer who transcends the divisions between music, documentary and radio art, mixing investigative journalism, sound ecology, storyboarding and conventional notated composition -- using songs, spoken word, field recording, improvisation and electroacoustic manipulation to make complex audio works that might equally be music, documentary or fiction. He works, initially, like a radio journalist: researching, collecting materials, conducting interviews. The bulk of Songs From Hurt have been constructed in this way, around the extraordinary testimonies of aboriginal teenagers, prisoners, shadow communities and witnesses to a world in which the interviewees are continually told that they are surplus to requirements. Then this raw data is organised, transformed and integrated into complex musical compositions, becoming itself musical in the process -- its pitches no longer simply prosaic, its rhythms driving the structure of its setting while remaining intact -- not looped or pressured into becoming servants to the overall organisation of an aesthetic fiction. The witnesses and sounds converse and conspire in Iolini's work, but never give way to one another. It is rare for conventional and electronic compositions to remain so respectful of voices and what they have to say, and this plain matter of fact-ness makes most rap sound like bluster, and most opera sound like history." [press release]
|
2005 |
€14.00 |
|
| IRISARRI, RAFAEL ANTON |
Peripeteia |
CD |
Over the years, American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri has become ubiquitous within the spheres of ambient, drone and electronic music. Whether it's through Irisarri's celestial long-form albums or his lauded audio engineering credentials for countless artists and labels, Irisarri's consistent dedication to his craft never wavers from the forefront. While Irisarri's compositions typically field an array of modern ambient overtones threaded through oceanic symphonies with tape loops, bowed electric guitar and vast washes of overdriven sound, his recent debut album for Dais Records, "Peripeteia, portrays these common themes giving way to metal and classical influences that emphasizes Irisarri's melancholic tendencies. These unique overtures, coupled with his signature layering of distortion and bleached-out textures, fabricate an audible environment that would seemingly be at odds with, yet gracefully complement each other. In Irisarri's own words, "My previous works internalize any exterior forces or circumstances, while trying to make sense of the world. Peripeteia reverses that approach, focusing on the personal in order to tell a wider human story." The emotional depth found throughout Peripeteia is impeccably on display with the track, Mellified. A collaboration with Spanish composer Yamila, the choral arrangements bring to mind the sacred music of Arvo Pärt, while her voice combines the Andalusian "Cante jondo" style with medieval modes, almost drowning in layers of octave fuzz distortion and dystopian synths patterns. On Arduous Clarity, the bright arpeggiating melody that churns throughout, offers the initial glimmer of optimism in an otherwise decaying tale of personal turmoil. This encouraging glimpse is short lived however, as the song Refuge/Refuse seemingly plummets into the mourning depths of somber despair. A chorus of voices steadily crawls from its desolate terrain - a sea of broken spirits, eternally resigned to strain and bellow their final lament. Fright and Control, a piece which is equally soul churning, seems to possess a satisfying resolve, as if after years of searching, one's very salvation has been laid to rest through the acceptance of mortality and the enlightenment in death. Irisarri's complexity is utilized to a forcible success, slowly pulsing throughout the foreground of his audience, further emphasizing the impending dread of resolve."
https://irisarri.bandcamp.com/album/peripeteia
|
2020 |
€15.00 |
|
|
Agitas Al Sol |
LP |
Rafael Anton Irisarri's works from Room40 have always dwelled in a place of pressure. His low frequency excursions have charted out a unique voyage into a territory in which texture and density are equally matched to create a visceral, but ultimately comforting zone of entanglement. At the same time as completing his Solastalgia edition (RM 4105LP), Irisarri recorded Agitas Al Sol. Like its sibling work, this album is an enveloping sonic drift that traces across the unsteady topographies of the Anthropocene. It moves in deep exhales, drawing from within and pressing outward into a sound vista that is effortlessly deep.
From Rafael Anton Irisarri: "It's sometimes hard to go back and speak to work that was made in the past. Things change, but they also stay the same in some ways. I feel this strongly coming back to these pieces. Agitas Al So was a companion suite of materials that was composed alongside my album Solastalgia. For those with a keen eye for wordplay, they might notice each title is an anagram of the other. In some respects, this is actually a very fitting sonic analogy too for the pieces from the two records. They mirror each other in various ways, harmonically in the very least, but they also share the same deep sense of pressure that forged them so acutely. To come back to these pieces, I was struck by how much they expand on the ideas contained in Solastalgia. Where as Solastalgia might have been me breathing in, this set of pieces is a deep, deep exhale. Remember to breath."
Rafael Anton Irisarri is a composer, record producer, and mastering engineer living in New York. Irisarri's compositions field an array of modern ambient overtones threaded through oceanic symphonies with tape loops, bowed electric guitar and vast washes of overdriven sound. His most recent album for dais records, peripeteia, portray these common themes giving way to metal and classical influences that emphasizes Irisarri's melancholic tendencies. These unique overtures, coupled with his signature layering of distortion and bleached-out textures, fabricate an audible environment that would seemingly be at odds with, yet gracefully complement each other.
https://room40.bandcamp.com/album/agitas-al-sol
|
2022 |
€27.50 |
|
| |
Peripeteia (clear) |
LP |
Over the years, American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri has become ubiquitous within the spheres of ambient, drone and electronic music. Whether it's through Irisarri's celestial long-form albums or his lauded audio engineering credentials for countless artists and labels, Irisarri's consistent dedication to his craft never wavers from the forefront. While Irisarri's compositions typically field an array of modern ambient overtones threaded through oceanic symphonies with tape loops, bowed electric guitar and vast washes of overdriven sound, his recent debut album for Dais Records, "Peripeteia, portrays these common themes giving way to metal and classical influences that emphasizes Irisarri's melancholic tendencies. These unique overtures, coupled with his signature layering of distortion and bleached-out textures, fabricate an audible environment that would seemingly be at odds with, yet gracefully complement each other. In Irisarri's own words, "My previous works internalize any exterior forces or circumstances, while trying to make sense of the world. Peripeteia reverses that approach, focusing on the personal in order to tell a wider human story." The emotional depth found throughout Peripeteia is impeccably on display with the track, Mellified. A collaboration with Spanish composer Yamila, the choral arrangements bring to mind the sacred music of Arvo Pärt, while her voice combines the Andalusian "Cante jondo" style with medieval modes, almost drowning in layers of octave fuzz distortion and dystopian synths patterns. On Arduous Clarity, the bright arpeggiating melody that churns throughout, offers the initial glimmer of optimism in an otherwise decaying tale of personal turmoil. This encouraging glimpse is short lived however, as the song Refuge/Refuse seemingly plummets into the mourning depths of somber despair. A chorus of voices steadily crawls from its desolate terrain - a sea of broken spirits, eternally resigned to strain and bellow their final lament. Fright and Control, a piece which is equally soul churning, seems to possess a satisfying resolve, as if after years of searching, one's very salvation has been laid to rest through the acceptance of mortality and the enlightenment in death. Irisarri's complexity is utilized to a forcible success, slowly pulsing throughout the foreground of his audience, further emphasizing the impending dread of resolve."
https://irisarri.bandcamp.com/album/peripeteia
|
2020 |
€24.00 |
|
| JACKMAN, DAVID (=ORGANUM) |
Up from Zero |
CD |
“Originally released in 1982 on cassette (Aeroplane Records AR3, UK), Up From Zero was David Jackman’s third album of compositions. Integrating tapes, loops, shortwave radio signals, guitar tones, voice and a host of percussion elements, each piece accumulates into a complex collage of cycles that create a haunting set of “movements” and bizarre spatial relationships. These are the most sought after of Jackman’s first, solo recordings. The proto-
Organum sound. Also included is Offshore, (1980). This track, recorded with the assistance of Philip Sanderson (of Stormbugs/
Snatch Tapes/Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey fame), is Jackman’s earliest piece to appear on CD to date. Fluttering tones along with sustained slabs of bowed guitar create a droning crest and a fitting “outro” for these essential gems from the vault. Expertly restored from the original master tapes by Robert Hampson (of Main). Packaged in a card mini-jacket in an edition of 700 copies.” [press release]
|
2003 |
€14.00 |
|
| JARL |
Negative Rotation / Intensive Fracture |
do-CD |
"After the critically acclaimed (and almost sold-out) collaborative album with Evenomist, Jarl returns to Zoharum fold with the next release. It is the first in the series of albums collecting rare works of Erik Jarl known for his involvement with IRM and Skin Area apart from his solo work. His own compositions are an exquisite mix of static ambient with strong influence of drone, noise or post-industrial electronica in general.
This double CD is a reissue of two cassettes originally released by Abisko. They were recorded on a Fostex 8-track recorder. Both tapes sound very different. ”Negative Rotation” is cold and monotonous, but with some changes in sounds that repeats themselves, while ”Intensive Fracture” is improvised psychedelic floating noise. Both recordings were done with analogue synthesizers and analogue effects. This double CD also contains five bonus tracks from different compilations.
The CD are housed in an ecopak sleeve and is strictly limited to 250 copies. The cover picture and design was made by Karolina Urbaniak (responsible for the lastest covers Jarl, IRM and Skin Area albums and widely known for here photographic work.) The album was remastered by Łukasz Miernik. The whole production process was overseen by Michał Porwet."
|
2017 |
€15.00 |
|
| JEAN, MONIQUE |
L'adieu au S.O.S. |
CD |
In faszinierende akusmatische Welten entführt die aus Montreal stammende kanadische Komponistin, wobei sie sehr dunkle & dynamische Stimmungen erzeugt, die z.B. auf Themen von „Hilflosigkeit und Verwirrung angesichts der Zerstörung des Individuellen“ , „Entzeitlichung“ & Fragen des Menschlichen basieren.. Dicht, spannend, in den Bann ziehend.. hier sind elektro-akustische Meisterwerke entstanden!
MONIQUE JEAN war Schülerin von FRANCIS DHOMONT und arbeitet auch im Bereich Experimentalfilm, Video, Tanz...
„Monique Jean lives and works in Montreal. She studied electroacoustic composition at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Francis Dhomont. In addition to her acousmatic compositions, her work is also regularly associated with video and experimental films, with dance and with installations. Her harbour symphony “L’Appel des machines soufflantes” (The Call of Blowing Machines), a commission of Radio–Canada, was premiered in March 1998 at the Port of Montreal and in 1999 she was an invited composer during the “Rien à voir (5)” concert series produced by Réseaux (Montreal). Finalist in the Ciber@rt (Valencia, Spain, 1999), Musica Nova (Prague, Czech Republic, 2001) and Bourges (France, 2002) competitions, her works are regularly performed and broadcast during numerous national and international concerts and festivals. [Translation: Sean Furgeson, xii-02]“ [website-info]
|
2003 |
€13.00 |
|
| JENSEN, CLARICE |
Drone Studies |
LP |
"In the past few years, Clarice Jensen has forged her own path. Recently, her focus has shifted to film scoring, successfully recording work for three feature films between 2020 and 2021. At the same time, Clarice continues to serve as artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, while continually collaborating with an impressive array of musicians, such as Max Richter, Björk and Stars of the Lid, to name a few.
That being said, it was her 2019 tape release on Geographic North, Drone Studies, that initially caught the attention of a wider audience, with the work showcasing a compelling assembly of deeply immersive drones, and elegantly orchestrated compositions, in which neoclassical elements collide with electric density.
Three years later, the work has lost none of its innovative character and appeal. It also documents a turning point in Clarice's career, one where her classically trained background started to converged and overlap with her interests in improvisational electronics and drone music. As a result, the aptly titled Drone Studies shows Clarice at her most exploratory, introspective, and daring, channeling her areas of interest into a collage of richly textured timbers, and cello movements of sublime tension.
Now for the first time, the original album can be experienced through an expanded vinyl reissue, mastered by Rafael Anton Irissari, and carefully adjusted for vinyl by Ian Hawgood. The new reissue also features an additional track by Clarice called Platonic Solids 2, which was originally conceived around the same time as Drone Studies, and which has now been made available exclusively for the vinyl edition and on the Vaagner Bandcamp.
We hope that this new reissue will aid in introducing Clarice's groundbreaking Drone Studies to a new crowd of listeners through this expanded edition."
https://vaagner.bandcamp.com/album/drone-studies
|
2022 |
€18.50 |
|
| JESU |
Why are we not perfect? |
maxi-CD |
"... Why Are We Not Perfect completes Broadrick’s transformation from atmosphere-obsessed drone metallurgist to neo-shoegaze aesthete. There’s heaviness of a very different sort oozing from the two-chord vamp “Farewell” -- it’s the kind of heaviness that derives from depth of production and emotional resonance, rather than piles of distorted guitar. You could easily fall into the cracks between those Björk-like fuzz bass hits on the title track. Its final lyric (“Why are we not perfect/ When we can’t live forever?”) is just one of the many simple profundities you’ll find buried deep within if you do... ] [Prefix mag]
"5 track EP (2 songs of which originally appeared on the vinyl only split 12" with Eluvium). JUSTIN BROADRICK has set aside the heavy foundation of pounding guitars prevalent in past recordings & brought to the fore elements of texture & melody that previously hovered at the periphery of his monolithic compositions. While this may prove frustrating to metal idealists, those with a greater sense of adventure will find the results both illuminating & heart rending." [label info]
"Not a brand new Jesu record, instead, this ep collects the three tracks from Jesu's split lp with Eluvium from last year, and adds two alternate versions to flesh it out a bit. Folks who missed out on that now out of print 12", or those amongst you who remain turntableless, will for sure want to pick this up, and Jesu fanatics, might just find this worth it for the two extra alternate takes. First the songs proper: Three new songs from Jesu, and as if we didn't already see Broadrick and Co. heading in this direction, they've almost entirely
jettisoned the heaviness, in favor of a blissy new wave-y drift. Really! No massive sludge, no blissed out crunch, in fact, most of this sounds like Jesu doing the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, all drift and croon and no crunch and pummel, but it's really nice, and pretty, and still suitably Jesu-like.
Imagine Simple Minds or the Cure but raised on Slowdive and Chapterhouse and Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine, doing the theme song for Sixteen Candles 2008 (which if our calculations are correct would be more like Forty Candles). The first song would be a massive hit, sort of melancholy and romantic, dark and dreamy, but still sort of catchy and hopeful, like sunbeams barely making it through grey storm clouds. The final track sounds like it could be from that last scene in Sixteen Candles 2008, the one
where the boy and the girl finally make it to the dance after all of the crazy mishaps and misunderstandings and are finally sharing that
slow dance... lugubrious and fuzzy, and soft focus and so great actually. It's weird, and a bit unexpected, but as much as we love the
glacial crush of past Jesu discs, this new-wave-y drift really suits them, which is a good thing, since they seem to be heading even more and more in that direction with each new release.
The two extra tracks are definitely not -drastically- different, but different enough certainly to make them worth having.
"Farewell" gets even more washed out, the whole thing muted and over saturated, the chugging guitars, disembodied and more textural than
heavy, the whole song suffused with chiming harmonics and sun dappled soaring bittersweet melodies. "Why Are We Not Perfect", the above
mentioned Sixteen Candles 2008 closer, hews closely to the original, the change more in timbre and texture than anything, the vocals still weary and woozy, the beat a loping skittery shuffle, surrounded by shimmering clouds of effervescent streaks of warm buzz, swirls of backwards melody, all whirling softly and dreamily.
Beautifully packaged in a super thick oversized Japanese style mini lp cd jacket, with a thick printed inner sleeve." [Aquarius Records]
www.hydrahead.com
|
2008 |
€11.00 |
|
| JOHANNA LIEBHART |
Damals |
10inch |
Mysterious and long-forgotten electro-wave diva of the early 80s, JOHANNA LIEBHART (occasionally credited as “ANNA”) disappeared in largely unknown circumstances back in 1999, leaving behind several unreleased albums. Even if her name is not familiar, some of you will already know her style from ICH WOLLTE ICH KÖNNTE’s first album, released on T.U.T. a couple of years ago, which was inspired by, and largely based on some of her compositions. The tracks on this 10” are all taken from Anna’s early tape recordings, and probably represent some of her most emotional and intimate works, as simple and modest in their beauty as the personality of their creator was facetious. Seven neo-romantic analogue-synth pieces, entirely instrumental. Sacral, minimal and utterly desperate, like the disclosing of someone’s secret chapel, or the hidden garden of a run-down doll-house.
10-inch LP, black vinyl - in special fold-out sleeve + inserts - lim. edition of 277 hand-numbered copies
www.tutrur.com/tutrur_html/tut013.html
|
2009 |
€8.00 |
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| JOHANNSSON, JOHANN |
Orphee |
LP |
"Der Komponist Jóhann Jóhannsson, Golden Globe-Preisträger sowie für den Oscar, BAFTA und Grammy nominiert, veröffentlicht sein erstes Album für die Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft: es ist eine Meditation über die Schönheit und den künstlerischen Schaffensprozess. Jóhannsson ist eine Galionsfigur in einer dynamisch wachsenden Szene von Komponisten, die sich frei und einfallsreich zwischen Filmmusik, klassischem Minimalismus, Ambient und elektronischer Musik bewegen.
Orphée schildert einen Weg von der Dunkelheit ins Licht, inspiriert durch die verschiedenen Versionen des antiken Orpheus-Mythos, von Ovid bis Cocteau. Die vielschichtige Erzählung über Tod, Wiedergeburt, Wandel und die Kurzlebigkeit der Erinnerung lässt sich auch als Metapher für künstlerische Kreativität deuten.
Orphée bietet eine vielseitige Klangpalette: Es gibt akustische Instrumente solistisch oder im Ensemble kombiniert mit Elektronik und den geheimnisvollen Lauten der »Nummernsender« auf Kurzwelle. Sie ist angelehnt an viele Facetten seiner vorangehenden Werke und bindet Musik für Solocello, Orgel, Streichquartett, Streichorchester und A-cappella-Gesang mit ein." [label info]
"Based loosely on Ovid’s interpretation of the Orpheus myth, the Icelandic composer’s latest work reveals the grandeur of his music outside of scoring films.
Orphée, the latest album by the Icelandic composer and filmmaker Jóhann Jóhannsson is billed as his first studio album in six years since the somber and excellent The Miners’ Hymns**. But during that time Jóhannsson has released eight records—three of which were scores to major films (including Sicario & The Theory of Everything) and the rest music for smaller film projects, one of which Jóhannsson directed himself. But with even The Miners’ Hymns itself serving as a score to a film, the particular criteria for which Jóhannsson deems a record to be a “studio album” as opposed to a “film score” is somewhat unclear. What is clear is that after years of albums on 4AD and small post-classical labels such as Fat Cat’s 130701, in moving to Deutsche Grammophon—the oldest and most significant classical music label left standing—Jóhannsson wants Orphée to be seen as a work of music propped up by nothing but itself and its own deserved grandeur.
Loosely themed around Ovid's version of the Orpheus myth, Orphée’s grandeur is made clear within seconds. Using only a few repeated parts of piano, violin, and some crackling sound treatments, opener “Flight from the City” takes off. It feels like film music in a way that most of Orphée does not; you could easily imagine it playing over credits, or an opening scene, or in a mid-film montage. But the palette, tone, and structure of Orphée vary greatly and much of it embraces a compositional approach akin to ’90s chamber experimentalists the Rachel’s and others in the post-classical mold on 130701 or Erased Tapes. “A Song for Europa” features more of those crackling sound treatments as well as a recurring spectral vocal sample, while the stately “A Deal With Chaos” or “The Radiant City” would be at home on the Rachel’s Music for Egon Schiele.
Apart from “Flight from the City,” the most unforgettable tracks on Orphée are where Jóhannsson adds more experimental textures, particularly in the penultimate diptych of “Good Morning, Midnight” and “Good Night, Day.” In a way, these two tracks play out the climax of the Orpheus myth: The former begins with dreamy slow-waltz strings and burbling sound effects that connote the gait of a person heading toward destiny unknown, before giving way to a close-mic'd solo piano piece that sounds like the ruminative thoughts of man by way of Satie-style impressionism. The latter, “Good Night, Day,” begins with repeated string warnings that plays as a realization of chased dreams lost, with a cello melody serving as an elegiac narrative counterpoint. On each, the blend of early 20th-century modalities and experimental recording approaches make them archetypal post-classical tracks.
Boldest of all is Orphée’s a capella closer “Orphic Hymn,” which features a breathtaking choral vocal performance by Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices of text from Ovid’s The Metamorphoses. Sung vocals are rarely found in Jóhannsson’s work, but the angelic arrangement makes you wish that he had found more opportunities to integrate vocals into the rest of the record. “Orphic Hymn” also brings Jóhannsson back full circle to British post-classical elder statesman Michael Nyman. The piece strongly recalls the longing of “Miserere” from The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, a great example of how Nyman’s scores work as independent music woven into a film rather than applied to the surface of scenes.
It’s exciting to hear the freedom of Jóhannsson’s compositions in autonomous music, and with Orphée he’s reasserted himself as not a just an elegiac film score guy. As good as his cinema work has been, the act of telling someone else’s story puts limits on both an artist’s freedom to work and the impact of how they might be received, and Jóhannsson likely isn’t looking to become known as “the Next Thomas Newman.” The voice he uses on Orphée says otherwise, and provides a clear blast attestation that Jóhannsson is among the brightest lights of any member of the loosely grouped post-classical genre. [Pitchfork]
"Sometimes, some records, and I along with them, fall into this first-class trap, this uppermost attic, this top-notch shelf, where this reside, and then I fail to cover them in time. These are records, like this one, that are just too good, and so I blunder on my task to ‘seek them out’ for you, to provide the filtering of all the noise, and then to spread the good ol’ sermon of their beauty. Surely you have found this simply on your own. Of course, you are already a huge fan of Jóhann Jóhannsson, and automatically grab every single record he puts out, including the latest pressed by Deutsche Grammophon. Right? No wonder Orphée appears at the top of HC’s Reader’s Poll Results for best records of 2016. So why even bother covering it, you know? Yet, here I am, unable to resist the urge to give this wonder all the words that it deserves.
Jóhannsson has been pretty busy these past few years, working mostly on film scores and soundtracks. Even his last studio album, The Miners’ Hymns (130701, 2011) was a soundtrack of sorts. In fact, whether they were imaginary scores, like the one for Fordlandia (4AD, 2008) and IBM 1401, A User’s Manual (4AD, 2006), or real ones for independent films, like Copenhagen Dreams (NTOV, 2012) and McCanick (Milan, 2014), or full-blown Hollywood productions, like Prisoners OST (WaterTower Music, 2013), The Theory Of Everything OST (Blacklot, 2014) and, most recently, Arrival OST (Deutsche Grammophon, 2016), it’s easy to make a statement that Jóhannsson’s modern classical productions are indeed cinematic in nature. Painting these imaginary landscapes with his music is in his soul… it’s what he does.
Orphée, of course, is no exception. From the very first note and subsequent chord progression, we hear the music of Jóhannsson at his best. Full strings are at the center of the stage, dancing the slow waltz in a haze of melancholy, minor heartbreak, and remorse. Baroque and classical elements appear throughout the album, in the form of a pipe organ, symphonic themes, and orchestral accompaniment (AIR Lyndhurst String Orchestra). The work is concluded with the Theatre of Voices singing the lines from Ovid. The minimal pieces are complemented by fundamental electronic treatments, minor field recordings, and sounds of shortwave radio from the “numbers stations”. The atmospherics are resplendent with space and texture, structurally stitched in all the critical thematic places, driven forth by a coherent motif, carried further by the forlorn piano or the anguished cello at its heart (with Clarice Jensen of ACME and Hildur Guðnadóttir).
Orphée traces a path from darkness into light, inspired by the various re-tellings of the ancient tale of the poet Orpheus, from Ovid’s to Jean Cocteau’s. A many-layered story about death, rebirth, change and the ephemeral nature of memory, the myth can also be read as a metaphor for artistic creation, dealing with the elusive nature of beauty and its relationship to the artist, as well as the idea that art is created through transgression – by the poet defying the gods who have forbidden him to turn back towards his beloved as he leaves the Underworld.
Unlike Jóhannsson’s previous albums, Orphée did not start out with a conceptual narrative. Yet, at the root of the album is a theme of change that Jóhannsson has been dealing with in the last six years. He has left Copenhagen to build a new life in Berlin, absorbing the city with all of its new offerings, relationships, and inspirations. “Perhaps this is one of the reasons I was drawn to the Orpheus myth, which is fundamentally about change, mutability, death, rebirth, the elusive nature of beauty and its sometimes thorny relation to the artist,” explains Jóhann. “This album, my first solo record for six years, is an oblique reflection on personal change.” We’re all familiar with all this change and our struggle and final acceptance of some endings and new beginnings. Perhaps these sounds will accompany your journeys. A true modern classical composition which will surely withstand the test of time." [Headphone Commute]
|
2016 |
€25.50 |
|
| JULIUS, ROLF |
(halb)schwarz |
CD |
„Rolf Julius wonderful world of small sounds“ – great drone-album with seven floating pieces of hiss, buzz- & whine-sounds. On a microtonal level this world is full of small & smallest strange little details & happenings. Liner notes explain the notion “Small Sounds”, a concept by JOHN CAGE....reminds on works by ANDREW DEUTSCH, RICHARD CHARTIER, ASMUS TIETCHENS... on the PODEWIL-Label from Berlin!" [Drone Rec. info]
„Six electronic compositions
für die erde fast schwarz vier schwarze rechtecke
seestück musik für den blick nach oben tanz auf takashima island 1“ [website info]
|
2001 |
€15.50 |
|
|
Music for the Ears |
CD |
"For a long time I've been thinking about how to create spaces into which one can retreat, where one can find quiet, where one can see, hear, where one is able to concentrate, where one is isolated from the world around but still is able to participate in itby means of art or Music or both' Rolf Julius, 1987. 'Futurism and Dadaism both made use of the synthesis of audio and visual arts to create a singular experience greater than the sum of its parts. This idea was further advanced by the Fluxus and Minimalism movements. Born in 1939 in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, Rolf Julius was profoundly influenced and inspired by these movements while he studied art in Bremen and Berlin. YEars later, after immersing himself in Musical works by artists like Morton Feldman, John Cage, and La Monte Young, Julius began to shift his focus from visual art to the synthesis of sound and visual art and nature, exploring the relationships between sounds and objects and environments. Julius soon discovered how sounds can influence vision, creating simple tones to be presented in conjunction with his early photographic work. Such experiments culminated in the creation of his pioneering work 'Dike Line' (1979), which combined visual images with texture-inducing tones. This piece was presented at the ground breaking exhibition 'Fur Augen Und Ohren' in 1980. Mythical in scope, this was the first major European exhibition attempted to map international research by artists exploring relations between sound and visual art, bringing together work by John Cage, Luigi Russolo, Nam June Paik, Joe Jones, Bill Fontana, Milan Knizak, Harry Bertoia, David Tudor and Rolf Julius. Over the next 30 yEars Julius went on to create some of the most meaningful and moving works in the grey area between Music and art, between sound and silence. Alongside Takehisa Kosugi, Terry Fox, and Akio Suzuki, he has emerged as one of the most important and influential sound artists of our time. Since the early 1980's Julius has referred to his compositions as Small Music, receiving international acclaim from those in the fields of contemporary art and Music for calling the origins of sound and vision into question. Small Music not only describes Julius' approach to composition (soft and compelling sounds from simple instruments and nature), but also a way in which to view his works and ultimately the world. Art historian Bernd Schulz once wrote 'if one recalls John Cage's central theme of 'silence' then Rolf Julius is the contemporary artist who approaches him most closely'. Julius' Small Music has the distinct ability to heighten our perception such that 'silence' becomes a positive quality of a place and a situation, and not just an absence of sound. Whether using photographs, ink drawings, audio compositions, or subtle and sometimes almost hidden outdoor installations, Rolf Julius' works serve as catalyst, increasing our awareness of the great beauty of the world that surrounds us. Western Vinyl is proud to release 'Music for the Ears' the first in a series of Small Music releases by Rolf Julius. With a goal of creating solitary sound environments, the Small Music series will culminate into a boxed edition of seminal works by this master sound artist. 'Music for the Ears' is comprised of two long tracks of gently weaving tones exploring the possibilities of spatial experience. The cover image depicts Julius' sound installation in a bamboo forest in Kyoto, Japan where his Music is placed high in the air, by speakers hanging freely from the branches of the trees. As the Music suspends itself in the air, the tones sway in the wind floating ever so gently, caressing the Ears, the trees, the light, and clouds." [label info]
www.westernvinyl.com
"Now here's someone who is perhaps world famous in the world of sound art, yet hardly ever appears in Vital Weekly. Its, among other reasons, because he didn't release that music, but also because his music is usually heard in museums and galleries and not always on record. But the good news is that Western Vinyl will re-release eight of his old works, starting with 'Music For The Ears', which comes with the subtitle 'small music no. 1' and small music it is. 'Song From The Past', the first of the two pieces on this album sounds like one long tape loop of bamboo flute being played. Every now and then it stops and then it starts again. Music that is very undemanding - an environmental piece to fill your ambience. Or perhaps music to meditate by - if only I ever did that. The second piece 'Music On Two High Poles' is different. It might be played on a small, children's organ or a harmonium, cut into two loops of a varying length. Its a bit louder, or perhaps it just appears so: I turned
up the volume quite a bit for the first piece, so this one comes in louder. I think both pieces are designed to do the same thing: create a sonic environment. What I especially liked about it, and that's something you can only hear when the volume is quite a bit, is all the extra sounds that come along: the static hiss from the used analogue tapes that creates a nice additional sonic layer to the music. And which doesn't seem to make the music static but very much alive and vibrant. Excellent music. This is the earliest Rolf Julius recording, from 1979 and the start of a great career. Can't wait for the other seven releases." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Raining |
CD |
" "Raining" ist der dritte Teil einer kleinen Musikserie und die erste Veröffentlichung, die nach dem Tod von ROLF JULIUS erscheint. Das Titelstück ,Raining" erschien ursprünglich als Teil der Installation ,Drawing (Dot)" von 2007. Spielt man das Stück mit großer Lautstärke ab, steht der Hörer mitten in einer Welt aus dichtem Regen, windgeschüttelten Bäumen und durchnässten Wiesen voller Leben. Wenn man das Stück jedoch durch den kleinen, flachen Lautsprecher abspielt, den JULIUS für die Installation benutzte, werden die Sounds zu sanften, zyklischen Mustern, wie eine üppige Landschaft, auf die man vom Flugzeug aus herabsieht. Das zweite Stück ,Weitflächig" ist ein Beispiel dessen, was JULIUS ,Musik für eine weite Ebene" nannte - aus einem kleinen Sound eine weite Soundlandschaft zu erschaffen. ,Music For A Glimpse Inward" tauchte ursprünglich 2005 als Teil einer Installation auf. Kleine Lautsprecher wurden am Rand eines sehr großen, leeren Raumes platziert. Die Musik erklang leise und vermittelte dem Betrachter so einen noch stärkeren Eindruck von Raum und Leere. Die Arbeiten von ROLF JULIUS wurden in wichtigen Museen auf der ganzen Welt gezeigt: im PS1 in New York (1983), 1985 auf der Pariser Biennale, auf der 8. Doucmenta in Kassel, im Hamburger Bahnhof, in Berlin (1998), in der Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh 2001, im Pariser Centre Pompidou (2004), in Japan und in den verschiedensten Galerien auf der ganzen Welt.
###########################################
Raining is the third installment in the small music series and the first posthumous Rolf Julius release. The title piece “Raining” originally appeared as part of the 2007 installation “Drawing (Dot)". When played on room speakers the piece engulfs the listener in a dense world of rain, wind rattled trees, and soaked pastures full of life. However, when played in the context of the small flat speaker which Julius originally chose for the installation, the sounds become soft and cyclical patterns, similar to a lush landscape being viewed from a plane many miles above. The second piece, “Weitflächig”, is an example of what Julius called “Musik für eine weite Ebene” (Music for a Wide Plain) - a method of "sketching" which allows small sounds to flourish into vast landscapes. “Music for a Glimpse Inward” originally appeared in a 2005 installation. With small speakers placed along the edge of very large empty room, the music played softly, heightening the listener's perception of space and stillness."
[label info]
www.westernvinyl.com
"Western Vinyl occupy themselves with the release of the archive of Rolf Julius. They started doing so when he was alive and continue doing so after his death, last year. This is the first release since then, from his archive. Julius is a man of 'small sounds', making 'small music' in mostly empty spaces with a minimum of equipment. His work could either be installations or compositions. Small speakers in small or large rooms, or even outdoors, using field recordings of say rain, such as the almost fifty-four title piece on this CD. Its very minimal music, of rain sounds and 'something else' which I found very hard to define, but it gives that electronic texture to the piece. That something which I think also very much defines music by Julius. More water like field recordings can be heard in 'Weitflachig' - music for a wide plain. Here too we hear insect like sounds, over water sounds. Are they tape loops, real time recordings? Its hard to say. 'Music For A Glimpse Inward' has insect and bird sounds and was originally a piece for small speakers in a large room. All of these pieces are very minimal, and show hardly any development. But that's hardly the point of Rolf Julius' music. Its more about perceiving space and silence and it works best when played softly in your space. Open up windows - if you are in a quiet surrounding I should think - and have this on repeat for a long time. It will definitely alter your perception of space and time. An excellent release - once again, and hopefully with more to follow." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| JUNK DNA |
Kopk Kopa |
2 x MC |
junk dna is the newly christened project from brian pyle, a man of many ongoing pursuits including ensemble economique, the starving weirdos, and rv paintings. born and raised in wilds of california, pyle has recently been splitting his time in vilnius, lithuania, with his junk dna debut kopk kopa contemplating his time and place within lithuania. it is true that much of pyle’s works is reflective about the human condition responding to a particular environment. the slow burn of humboldt fog, in particular, weighs heavy on much of the atmospheric compositions in his previous works, with his impassioned noir electronics deftly navigating references to giallo film scores, the classic 4ad ethos, shoegazing drift, and even overt nods to spandau ballet and the sisters of mercy.
kopk kopa translates from lithuanian as a directive to “climb the dune,” and come from one who has resided on the dunes of manilla beach in humboldt county, california, it is an apt metaphor as almost a tarkovskian pursuit of a beleaguered existential goal. as junk dna, pyle conjures a radiantly dark hypnosis of eerie tones that rasp, buzz, and shimmer within vertiginous orbits and arching crescendos. obscured instrumentation and rupturing samples dilate and stretch towards an unattainable event horizon beyond the waters, beyond the sun, beyond the stars. klaus schulze seems an distant reference, especially the wagnerian overtures within cyborg, though pyle has always followed his own courses of action. cinematic in scope and bleeding with a somber, yet vaguely hopeful moodiness, kopk kopa is another mighty and majestic album from brian pyle.
https://helenscarsdale.bandcamp.com/album/kopk-kopa
|
2022 |
€19.50 |
|
| JUPITTER-LARSEN, GX |
Expanded Slam |
10inch |
" "Expanded Slam" and "Extended Slam", two new compositions by one of America's most consistently explorative and radical artists. Presented in a blazing gatefold package designed by Jupitter-Larsen, including an essay on the permawave, the polywave and the hoopla. Utterly delightful.
GX Jupitter-Larsen is an media artist, based in Hollywood, California, who has been active in a number of underground art scenes since the late 1970s. He has been involved in punk rock, mail art, cassette culture, the noise music scene, and zine culture. During the 1990s he was the sound designer for the performances of Mark Pauline's Survival Research Laboratories. His best known work is as the founder of the noise act The Haters, who have performed all over the world, and appear on over 300 CD & record releases.
Mastered and cut at D+M, Berlin
Edition of 500, vinyl only " [label info]
www.hronir.de
www.jupitter-larsen.com
"Hronir is a small German label, who released two things in the late nineties and five new items only this year. This 10″ is the latest release and is a noise record from G.X. Jupitter-Larsen. I have no idea why its released under his own name, and not by The Haters. Maybe it has to do with profiling as a composer? Maybe a wholly different reason. Two side long pieces here, ‘Expanded Slam’ and ‘Extended Slam’, which may or may not be extensions of eachother. Two sides of loud noise. The scraping of an object onto a surface perhaps, but then within a full distortion package. Loud, vicious noise music. Probably, if you have been paying attention, you would imagine that this is the kind of noise I don’t like, and you are probably right. But over the last twenty-five years I learned to appreciate The Haters quite a lot, and I think the sheer minimal noise of The Haters is great. It is loud and distorted, but also totally captivating. It also fits perfectly into whatever else Jupitter-Larsen does, in his performances and internet work, so unlike youngs boys fiddling with two distortion boxes in their bedroom, this is all encapsulating. Not just a record, but a statement." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€16.00 |
|
| JUPITTER-LARSEN, GX & ACE FARREN FORD / LA SCRAMBLED DEBUTANTE FEAT. EMERGE |
Untitled |
LP |
"With this release, attenuation circuit goes one step further in its project of uniting diverse practitioners of the global noise/experimental underground in collaborative projects. In this case, the result is a remarkably cohesive album of finely spun drone music that works both at high and lower volumes, rather contemplative and quite removed from the noisier sides of the featured artists.
“Vertigone” by GX Jupitter-Larsen & Ace Farren Ford is composed of long tones in shifting higher frequencies, but not in the piercing CM von Hauswolff range. While relying on synthetic sounds, the microtonal richness is comparable to compositions based on acoustic instruments, as by composers such as Phill Niblock or If,Bwana. The magisterial calmness with which this strangely harmonic piece unfolds will certainly come as a surprise to those who associate GX Jupitter-Larsen’s name primarily with his noise work under the Haters moniker.
“Electric Jackass” by Le Scrambled Debutante featuring EMERGE is a fitting counterpiece for its flipside. While often into hectic cut-up collages, this time the plunderphonic collective fronted by Allan Zane, based in North Carolina, have decanted the material from an improvised session to distill the most introspective, even melancholic bits, such as some wistful accordion passages. The sound material supplied to the mix by their trans-Atlantic collaborator EMERGE introduces some more rhythmic elements that sometimes evoke the ghost of a deboned, yet partly revived drum’n’bass track.
File under: drone, ambient" [label info]
www.attenuationcircuit.de
|
2015 |
€17.00 |
|
| KALLABRIS |
Red Circle |
LP |
On “Red Circle”: Though severely cut, Red Circle doesn't exactly sweep along. It has a deliberate pace as Kallabris sets up the score of thirteen chance acquaintances who plan and carry out the sacking of our acoustic consciousness... Understatement is the method of these compositions for a small modular synthesizer. If there ever was something like heist music, this here surely is. (Vincent Canby, with a few minor changes and adaptions)
https://aufabwegen.bandcamp.com/album/red-circle
"A few other projects came in the slipstream of Germany's Cranioclast, such as ABGS, Core, and Kallabris. That was in the late 80s and early 90s. I always assumed they were just different names for the same people making music together. At one point, much later, I realized this was an independent project and only connected through the CoC label. Behind Kallabris is Michael Anacker, and since the mid-80s, there has been a string of releases and even the odd concert, so there is hardly much mystery. As I play 'Red Circle', I think Kallabris embraced the modular synthesizer community. The eleven pieces have that modern electronic feel of carefully constructed tones and fragmented cracks. Much to my surprise, I read in the information that "technical and compositional innovation is not at the core the group's work but the active engagement with the limitations and the objects of everyday life". Plus, Kallabris "has persistently neglected any usage of advanced recording technology", which doesn't exclude the use of modular synthesis, but I found it at least remarkable. The press information calls his set a "small modular synthesizer", which, last time I looked, seemed out of my financial league. I found these pieces to be most enjoyable, even when it is all a bit abstract and distant. There are a few sounds here and there, but it never completely shuts off. On a first encounter, the music had an aleatoric feeling, but after some repeated playing, it turns out that there is order in this madness; or, maybe, I recognized order in what remained chaos? Hard to tell, but every time I heard it, it grew further on me. Interesting album!" [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2023 |
€18.50 |
|
| KANG, EYVIND |
Plainlight |
LP |
"A gorgeous set of new tracks by the brilliant composer and multi-instrumentalist Eyvind Kang. It took him a decade and a half to revisit the vibe concocted on his masterpiece from 2001, Live Low To The Earth In The Iron Age, but the wait was worth it. It features an array of spiritually intoxicating instrumentation: tamboura, electric guitar, organ, trumpet, oboe, trombone, and Korean traditional instruments. Eyvind Kang on Plainlight: "In 2002 I wanted to make a kind of sequel to my first solo record on Abduction, Live Low To The Earth In The Iron Age. I found that the 'weight' of sounds seemed to evaporate the compositions. The last thing I wanted to make was a traditional shoegaze recording. 15 years later, I had a strange dream: a voice said 'Because a plainlight has fallen in Heaven, heartbreak would cease.' This statement then became a kind of guiding image and method. Thus, with Korean traditional instruments playing the ostinato and drone, things fell into place. I would like to thank all the musicians, Randall Dunn, Alan Bishop, and each and every listener." Limited edition, one-time pressing; Edition of 400."
|
2017 |
€23.00 |
|
| KARINI / PALADINO / SIMON FISHER TURNER |
Ghosts of Industrial Sunday |
CD + DVD |
"Here comes a new welcome entry in the ‘private sounds’ series of the now growing 13 catalogue. "Ghosts of Industrial Sunday" is a short film by Maria Assunta Karini and Francesco Paolo Paladino, whose music were composed by Simon Fisher Turner. This release consists of a video DVD, which contains the film, and a audio CD that features the original soundtrack and other compositions inspired by this project that Turner created on purpose; they are accompanied by an oversize 20 pages booklet that offers some images taken from the film and delves more into the concept behind it.
As a film, “Ghosts of Industrial Sunday” portrays those places attended by human beings in order to carry out their profession, while they are empty, for a limited period of time, during a break, on a Saturday or Sunday. These are places where the human presence, fatigue, pain, hope are palpable presences, where silence seizes the humble labor objects almost by magic and where things talk and expose without having to necessarily utter any words. The path chosen by the directors relates to a sort of secular “via crucis”, it is an objective progress through the human work’s granted moment of interruption in order to analyze it, to describe it and to underscore its dramatic sense, through the exclusive aid of inanimate objects.
The music created by Turner as a soundtrack to the film expresses a delicate tranquillity through notes of piano which are just mottled by the electronic elements in the background, while an unspoken sense of drama hovers in the air and the circular motion of the composition gradually absorbs the listener. Among the remaining tracks, is worth mentioning the evocative and intense soliloquy of "Piano For Double Lesson" and the hanging drones of the first part of "Some Lost Music".
Maria Assunta Karini, sculptor, photographer, writer and director, has shown her works in several major Museums, in Korea, Brazil and the United States. She has produced several short and medium length films, that have participated in the Cannes Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, MACBA Museum of Contemporary art Barcelona, MADC Costa Rica, and has been awarded numerous prizes at art and cinema festivals.
Francesco Paolo Paladino, script writer, musician and director, has received an award by F.E.D:I:C: at the 66th Festival of Venice. He has participated more than once in the Cannes Film Festival (Short Corner) and he has won the Houston’s World Film Festival and the New York Independent Film Festival.
Simon Fisher Turner has composed music for Derek Jerman, David Lynch, Mike Hodges, Michael Almareyda and several others authors. His recent soundtrack for “The Epic of Everest”, a film made in 1924, was nominated “Soundtrack of the Year” for 2013 by Mojo magazine. His CDs have been published all over the world." [label info]
http://13.silentes.it
www.silentes.net
|
2014 |
€15.00 |
|
| KARL BÖSMANN |
Euphoria Mitte |
CD |
"With the whole bunch of very limited edition releases on such labels as Tosom, Domestic Violence Recordings, Verato Project and the luxurious LP made by Youdonthavetocallitmusic, the name of German musician Karl Bösmann is emerging since 2003. This is his second real CD after Unton (2005, Badbeatz Records) and includes several new compositions, showing the maturity and intensity of his prolific talent. Karl Bösmann irritates. His name alone, which reminds of Kafka's wayfarer to America, Karl Roßmann, is ambiguous. A mixture of sinister and typical german, where you can think of one of Alexander Kluge's Lebenslufe, which show in protocolar dryness the deceitfulness of fate. In fact did his debut Das Kind in der Küche (2004) exactly met this impression. The soundscapes between programmed music and abstraction - in more prosaic words, Bösmann constructs, in the good old tradition of electroacoustic music, with instruments played by himself, and completely without the fashionable chic of a laptop: minimal repetitive passages, especially drones that vibrate in themselves, that flash, shimmer and take a character and 3D-quality of its own. Phill Niblock and Ligeti could come to the back of your mind, a resonance that is an honour to both sides. Other musical influences ranges from AMM and Aube through Nurse With Wound and Organum to Ghédalia Tazartès and Xenakis and so sets his ambitions way over eye-level." [label info]
www.monochromevision.ru
"Karl Bosmann is a German post-industrial / electro-acoustic tactician who seems to from the Conrad Schnitzler mold of continuous
experimentation with his equipment in pushing it to expressive means, no matter how atemporal or atonal the resulting sounds might be. Our
previous experience with Bosmann had been through monolith drone- fields that swelled from electronics and possibly cymbals into
discordant dissonant crescendos somewhere between SUNNO))) and Sunroof! Here, Bosmann showcases a wide array of electronic circuity,
whose home-built, tone-bent aesthetics take after the sound poems of early electronic music coupled with the nondestructive strategies from the likes of Nautical Almanac. His electronic insectoid blips, click, and blorps percolate through live-wire electrical fields and the
humming cycles akin to fluorescent bulbs. Many of these tracks begin rather charmingly similar to something by Dan Deacon or Black Dice,
but Bosmann twists the demeanor of his electronics through anxiety- riddled tones that glow as if a background radiation, with all of the clicks then standing in for Geiger counter pulses to allude to the neutrino bath that he's unleashed through his electronics. The pierced
feedback mantra "Around The Sun" is a great recapitulation of what Arcane Device and Nurse With Wound have done with similar material.
Dotted through the experiments, Bosmann interjects collages of industrial-space field recordings coupled with overlapping male /
female spoken word bits, whose content and context are smeared to the point of abstraction following the Hafler Trio's many demonstrations of information overload." [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2010 |
€12.50 |
|
| KINETIX |
Gestaltsystem 01: Possible Forms |
do-CD |
Interessanter Installations- / Konzeptkunst-Release dieses italienischen SoundArt-Projekts auf dem russischen Monochrome Vision-Label, in dessen äussere Audioform man interaktiv eingreifen kann GESTALTSYSTEM 01: POSSIBLE FORMS besteht aus 2 CDs mit exakt gleicher Länge (42:42 min) und exakt gleichlangen 8 Tracks (5:20 min). Beide sollen gleichzeitig abgespielt werden, wobei Lautstärke und Reihenfolge variiert werden können. Die schwarze CD enthält „metrische“ Ton-Elemente, die weisse CD „noise drones“, es entstehen fliessende digitalelektronisch-mathematische Soundscapes, die z.B. an IKEDA denken lassen... perfekt für die eigene Home-KlangInstallation.
“This release is a totally reworked version of "Possible Forms" previously produced as CDR in edition of 100 copies by Nova Ars Digitandi, and it's a part of "Gestaltsystem" installation.
It has unique conception of everchanging soundsculpture, composed by randomly juxtaposed audio fragments of the specially designed structure. This is the best digital sound art piece we ever heard, and it should appeal to all minimal electronic music admirers.” [label info]
"POSSIBLE FORMS is not a double-CD album, but it’s an audio-set composed by two CDs planned to be played simultaneously. It includes sixteen electronic compositions of identical length (5’ 20”) for a total time of 42’ 42” for each CD.
This work is conceived in order that every track of each record could play as second layer on every track of the other one. For this reason, the tracks hasn’t neither title nor a pre-arranged sequential order.
Macrostructure: the Black CD includes 8 tracks with metrical-tonal elements, while the White CD contains 8 tracks of only noise drones. Both CDs have the same peak level (0dB), so the listener can choose the respective volume of each CD. These recordings contain ultra/sub sonic frequencies; for this reason the author advices the listener not to play the CDs at high volume.
Microstructure: all the tracks are obtained from a special combination of forty different audio fragments, previously selected and extracted from various digital sources. The minimal form of the entire work was specifically created to facilitate the listening in combined modality, establishing this way a precise relationship between sign and function.
Vertical audio system: using two CD players (or CD-ROM/DVD players) in Random / Shuffle and Repeat modes, both players have to be started simultaneously. So, the two records can be played together ad libitum, generating sounds and sequences in continuous movement.
POSSIBLE FORMS uses sound strategies based on the calculation of auditive times and spaces in order to create a different kind of audio-logic design. In this sense this work can be intended as a device able to expand the ordinary possibilities of domestic listening." - liner notes
Composed 2001-2002.
Originally released as Kinetix (2) - Possible Forms on CDrs and limited to 100 copies.
Re-worked 2004-2005. This edition is limited to 500 copies.
|
2006 |
€8.50 |
|
| KIRKEGAARD, JACOB & NIELS LYHNE LOKKEGARD |
Descending |
LP |
Descending is a composition consisting of two movements for room resonance, triangles, shakers and horns. The recording was made in August 2015, performed by the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra. Descending is Løkkegaard's and Kirkegaard's first collaboration.
About the composers:
The sound artists and composers Jacob Kirkegaard and Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard are both renowned for their ability to convert sound into a form with the character of an artwork and a bodily dimension that can be experienced by more than the ears alone. In his art, Jacob Kirkegaard uses acoustic phenomena that are usually either overheard or inaudible to the human ear. Using a range of sensors and recording methods, the material unfolds in compositions and spatial, visual and sound works. Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard's art focuses on the multiplication of sound, extending it beyond its usual boundaries to re-emerge in new forms, as well as on the creation of imaginary musical works that the listener has to envisage before their inner ear.
Jacob Kirkegaard (b. 1975) graduated from the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne in 2006. His sound works are published by Touch (UK), Posh Isolation (DK), Von Archives (F) and Important Records (USA). Kirkegaard's works have been presented at a wide range of renowned exhibition platforms, festivals and conferences worldwide, including MoMA and Issue Project Room & The Stone in NYC, KW & Transmediale in Berlin, Mori Art Museum and Aichi Triennale in Japan, as well as Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Denmark.
Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard (b. 1979) studied at Denmark's Rhythmic Music Conservatory and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts' School of Architecture. He has created a wide range of works operating at the intersection of experimental music and sound art, including the soundtrack for MoMA's René Magritte exhibition The Mystery of the Ordinary in 2013. More recently he has created the critically acclaimed series SOUND X SOUND. Lyhne Løkkegaard is also the founder of the curatorial non-event Curatorium – a sound festival that never takes place.
************************************************************************************************************
Composed, arranged and mixed by Kirkegaard and Løkkegaard, 2015 - 2016
Performed by Aarhus Jazz Orchestra and recorded by John Fomsgaard live at Dokk1 in Aarhus, 2015.
Front cover: Detail from Robert Fludd's Macrocosm Microcosm (1617-24)
Supported by The Danish Arts Foundation & The Danish Conductors Association
Jacob Kirkegaard: www.fonik.dk
Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard: www.nielsloekkegaard.dk
importantrecords.com/imprec/imprec447
"Presenting two compelling works composed by Danish sound artists Jacob Kirkegaard & Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard and performed by the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra, Descending is a powerful exposition of extended acoustic technique used to bend the ear in fascinating ways.
Revolving two pieces for room resonance, triangles, shakers and horns, the recorded results of Descending transcend the sum of their parts in gripping style. In Movement 1 they conduct a breathless transition from the polymetric interplay of triangles, sounding like a distant alarm bell, calving off into thinnest, cirrus timbres and reemerging as a mesmerising display of sustained, quivering, bittersweet horn dissonance culminating a stunning, keening finale. Movement 2 opens with those horns at a lower, sustained pitch, rolling across the stereo field with an uncanny precision that you would normally expect from electronic music, glacially growing in density to sound like an incoming Stuka formation, precipitating a nerve-biting swell of discord before returning, almost palindromic, to the polymetric rustle of shakers.
Of course, the magick of the piece is much harder to describe, though. It lies somewhere in the relationship between the knowledge of the composers, the players’ incredible skill, and their recording space, whose unique characteristics are crucial to its success in keeping us enthralled from start to finish. It lies in the way they slide the sound around the sphere of perception, purposefully generating and controlling the resonant feedback until it becomes a part of the work itself, generating a lingering harmonic aura to the sounds which gels them in smoothly contoured transitions between each tightly disciplined cluster of pitches with a near-enough metaphysical structure.
Stunning work. A rare treat for the lugs, especially if you’re into Eliane Radigue, Eleh, Harley Gaber, Harry Bertoia." [Boomkat] |
2017 |
€24.00 |
|
| KISSY SUZUKI |
Exploring the Seas of Consciousness |
mCDR |
"this is the first physical release for kissy suzuki, the drone-based side-project of french artist david teboul also known as linear bells (releases on twice removed, subterranean tide or his own soft recordings imprint).
"exploring the seas of consciousness" contains two deep and rich drone-based multi-layered compositions full of details... let yourself immerse in the seas of conscisousness..." [label info]
www.taalem.com
|
2015 |
€5.00 |
|
| KLEISTWAHR |
For the Lives Once Lived |
CD |
"Several years ago, Gary Mundy of Ramleh/Broken Flag (and far more besides) declared to me that he wished to do one new Kleistwahr album every year until he's no longer able to do them. Fourth Dimension Records has subsequently fulfilled a promise to honor this plan as much as possible and is managing to keep up so far. How Gary manages to keep pulling new ideas out of the proverbial hat at this rate is anybody's guess, but the latest album, For the Lives Once Lived illustrates very clearly that the wellspring he draws from has far from dried up. If you have been paying attention to the albums that have been released by Fourth Dimension Records during recent years, you should understand that his solo music has retained the molten intensity it has always been propelled by since Kleistwahr was founded in the early 1980s. While the work occasionally seems as though it draws from the same dusty religious setting as some of Messiaen's wonderful organ compositions, there's still an all-encompassing blanket of ravaged psychedelia firmly laced with blood-flecked barbs to help counter this. When Kleistwahr's music seems poised to elevate the atmospheric gestures towards the sublime and elegiac, there's always a gaping maw lined with razor-edged teeth lurking nearby to help keep all those lofty hopes and expectations from getting above themselves. For the Lives Once Lived may also surprise many with its opening song, "Rotten Boroughs," which both stands out from the rest of the album yet makes sense as part of it. This is another fantastic album from the unstoppable force that is Gary Mundy's Kleistwahr. Long may it continue. For the Lives Once Lived appears packaged in a Broken Flag-style sleeve featuring photos by Chris Low, design by Puppy38, and mastering by Sion Orgon."
https://garymundykleistwahr.bandcamp.com/album/for-the-lives-once-lived
|
2023 |
€13.00 |
|
| KLOOD |
Retraction |
CD-R |
Zum letzten Mal gibt es einen Schwung neuer VÖs auf dem italienischen Handwerker-Label BLADE Records – wie immer in besonders aufwendig handgemachter, aber klobiger Coververpackung: Zwei quadratische Holzplatten wurden verschiedenfarbig mit einer Schablone besprüht und aneindergeschraubt, innen wartet ein schönes full-colour Cover.
Aber auch musikalisch kommt man hier auf seine Kosten: Nach langer Zeit (& fast zeitgleich mit der „Aversion“ auf EE Tapes) neues Material vom französischen Drone-Projekt aus Armentieres. Auf „Retraction“ sind 6 soft-dronige und gitarrig hell-schwingende Stücke versammelt, aufgenommen zwischen 1996-2003, zeitlos schön.. 65 min.
The last ever batch of Blade Records-releases brings us new material of the french drone-project KLOOD, timeless drone-compositions .. comes in special painted & screwed wood covers.
|
2004 |
€15.00 |
|
| KMRU |
Stupor |
LP |
https://otherpower.bandcamp.com/album/stupor
Nairobi-born Berlin-based sound artist Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, shares his new work Stupor on the new Helsinki-based label Other Power. Commissioned by the Helsinki curatorial and commissioning agency PUBLICS, Stupor is comprised of three original long form tracks. The tracks on the album are speculative notes to social architectures and environments the artist has traversed.
As Bhavisha Panchia, a curator and researcher, writes in her liner notes:
“A musical alchemist, KMRU places his listeners’ ear into a sonic-spatial matrix in which he transmutes his trans-local experience of place into elevated sonic dimensions that demand a kind of listening that you need to surrender to. If listening positions you inside an event – into a relational, social and cultural act that also positions us in the world – then listening to this album projects you inside an indeterminate unfolding, thick with tensions of movement and transitions.
The artist’s pursuit of sounding out and responding to the world is undertaken through a creative mode of listening, recording and production, in which his ‘voice’ reverberates in his compositional arrangements – that mediate, translate, imagine and re-encode. As he engages with the environments he encounters, KMRU ‘renders sound negotiable, thinkable’.
His signature emerges through electro-acoustic forms as he configures spatial and temporal imaginaries still tethered to the experiences of the places his ear encountered. The tracks on this album, Stupor, are speculative notes to social architectures and environments the artist has traversed. His orchestrated compositions and arrangements levitate us and turn our ears towards places and times beyond our reach, propelling us into a future anticipated but ungraspable. It is exactly the physical and psychological space that KMRU forges from his recordings and digital processes that stretch and transform them into prolific sound ‘events’.
We could think of Nairobi and Berlin as instruments in KMRU’s compositions, where the east African city is the place from which KMRU’s listening has been nurtured, while the west European is the city to which his ear has been attuned. The artist’s relationship with Nairobi’s diverse neighbourhoods – from Kariokor flats in the Eastlands where he grew up, to the suburbs in Rongai – has shaped his approach. His ongoing recordings of the city are crucial to his process of working and become historical records that capture it in time. They could be thought of as aural archives of a postcolonial place, undergoing numerous planned and unplanned infrastructural as well as economic changes. He treats these sonic documents of a rapidly expanding postcolonial environment – alongside globalisation, hyper-capitalism and increasing economic disparity across the globe – as the foundations from which he creates.
Stupor reminds us that we are intrinsically spatial and temporal beings who contribute to the social construction of our worlds. Importantly, this album is a reminder of the capability of sound to carve out space and its potential to open spatial and temporal dimensions. Sound is movement. Sound is space. As Brandon LaBelle points out, “sound is both a thing of the past and a signal of the future”, pulling us forwards and pointing us back. The signals KMRU points us towards are indefinite, indeterminate and uncertain. They lean towards a future, yet never fully arrive there.
For Joseph Kamaru, sound is a sensorial medium through which social, material and conceptual interpretations are manifested in his works. KMRU carries with him a repository of listening experiences from Nairobi and beyond expanding his sonic practices, bringing an awareness of surroundings through creative compositions, installations and performances. KMRU has carved out a serious and definitive space on the list of essential authors in ambient experimental music - one of the most prolific and innovative artists in his field.
Composed by Joseph Kamaru
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwenbung Mastering
Original photos & artwork by Joseph Kamaru
OBI Design (Publics identity presence) by Valerio Di Lucente
Design by Matti Nives
Black vinyl LP edition of "Stupor". Inside out sleeve complete with OBI and printed inner sleeve with liner notes by Bavisha Panchia. Original photography and artwork by KMRU.
|
2023 |
€26.00 |
|
| KNIZAK, MILAN |
Broken Music |
LP |
"Black vinyl in a gatefold sleeve.
Original design + extra text.
Milan Knizak 1979's masterpiece never re-released before.
Milan Knizak (born 19 April 1940) is a Czech performance artist, sculptor, musician, installation artist, dissident, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art. Before everyone else - Christian Marclay, Philip Jeck, eRikm, Martin Tétreault, Otomo Yoshihide - there was Milan Knizak. In 1964, Milan Knizak, a member of Fluxus from behind the Iron Curtain, sat down on a sidewalk near the Charles Bridge in Prague, laid down a paper carpet right into the street, and starts tearing pages out of books and burning them... Around the same time, he began to create music from defective, worn, damaged or broken LP's. These Broken Music compositions, his classic collages of noises created during performances and happenings, are widely regarded as important sound art documents on record." [label info]
www.subrosa.net
"We had a cd reissue of this years and years ago, that's long out of print, but now here's a nice vinyl reissue of this pioneering 'turntablist' experiment from the '60s...
The Czech artist Milan Knizak began his art career without much success, getting himself thrown out of Pedagogic Uni Prague, Preliminary Art School Prague, and Art Academy Prague in quick succession. But during the mid '60s, Knizak affiliated himself with Fluxus and began experimenting with turntables, tape recorders, and the surfaces of vinyl in order to make a 'broken music,' predating the damaged turntable 'n' vinyl experiments of Christian Marclay by almost two decades! Originally he would just slow down and speed up his records to change to quality of the intrinsic music. But by 1965, he started to scratch the records, punch holes in them, sticking tape to the surfaces, dumping paint over whole record, burning them, literally cutting the records apart and gluing them back together. These would then be played on his turntable, and inevitably destroy the needle and often wreck the turntable itself! The collages that Knizak arrived at are nerve-wracking clattering works in which snippets of the original would emerge amidst erratic skips and asynchronous warbling. Certainly for those adventurous fans of Philip Jeck, "Metal Machine Music," and Marclay." [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2015 |
€16.00 |
|
|
Broken Music |
CD |
"Milan Knizak 1979's masterpiece never re-released before.
Milan Knizak (born 19 April 1940) is a Czech performance artist, sculptor, musician, installation artist, dissident, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art. Before everyone else - Christian Marclay, Philip Jeck, eRikm, Martin Tétreault, Otomo Yoshihide - there was Milan Knizak. In 1964, Milan Knizak, a member of Fluxus from behind the Iron Curtain, sat down on a sidewalk near the Charles Bridge in Prague, laid down a paper carpet right into the street, and starts tearing pages out of books and burning them... Around the same time, he began to create music from defective, worn, damaged or broken LP's. These Broken Music compositions, his classic collages of noises created during performances and happenings, are widely regarded as important sound art documents on record." [label info]
www.subrosa.net |
2015 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
Aktual Univerzita |
CD |
Milan Knízak canonical text Aktual University, dating from 1967, contains ten short lectures outlining the university's character - On Conflict, On Dreams, On Revolutions, On Love, On Belief, On Art, etc.
These lectures were to serve as inspirational schemes for lectures, seminars and discussions held at an ideal university.
In the first piece, Aktual University, Milan Knízak reads his own text, with Opening Performance Orchestra providing the musical accompaniment. It was performed live in October 2019 at the Movement-Sound-Space festival in Opava, where this recording was made.
The second track, titled Broken Suite, is a studio remix, in which Opening Performance Orchestra used fragments and quotations from Milan Knizák's compositions, conceived over the past fifty years, applying the "broken" method. The majority of them are made public for the very first time in the newly created Broken Suite.
The booklet features English translations of ten Aktual University lectures, as well as Milan Knizak's contemporary initiation text."
https://subrosalabel.bandcamp.com/album/aktual-univerzita
"...On the other hand, ‘Broken Suite’ is a “studio remix” of the preceding madness, drawing on his “broken” method to realise a sweltering, omnidirectional mass of fragments and quotations from Knízak’s compositions, conceived over the past 50 years. The result will make NWW and Merzbow fiends weep with pleasure as its monstrous flux comes to resemble an orchestra tuning up in the depths of Beelzebub’s workshop. It takes on a very uncanny nature in 2022 when considering that Knízak’s work was a direct response to, and extension of, his political stance against the communist regime." [Boomkat review] |
2021 |
€13.00 |
|
| KODJABASHIA, NIKOLA |
Explosion of a Memory |
CD |
"Performed by the Macedonian Symphony Orchestra with Balkan electro legend Kiril Dzajkovski, Chris Cutler (percussion), Nikola Kodjbashia (prepared piano), Patric Driver and Valere Novarina (readers). Text fragments are by Heiner Muller and Valere Novarina.
A four-dimensional explosion in which stretches of Baroque, folk themes and Byzantine liturgy exist contemporaneously with modern and post-modern materials - much as strata emerge where tectonic plates fold one time over another – settling eventually into long, beautiful, tonal stretches, lighter than air, that drift and attenuate to reveal, dreamily, the old simplicities. Immersive, timeless and unmistakably new, this music respects but definitively breaks with existing schools to explore instead its own geographically unique influences and contradictions.
‘Explosion of a Memory’ is a homage to my literary heroes: James Joyce, Heiner Muller, Valere Novarina, William Gibson, Euripides and Colin Teevan; it’s also a deeply personal epic about the complex relationship between childhood myths, history and perpetual homecoming’. NK
NIKOLA KODJABASHIA is one of the Balkan’s most respected and award winning composers. Born into a musical family in Skopje in 1970, he pursued his compositional studies with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Anatol Vieru, György Kurtág, and Rolf Gehlhaar. In the UK, he has scored and conducted music for numerous plays, including Sir Peter Hall’s Bacchae at the National Theatre, Walter Meieryohann’s Internationally acclaimed Kafka’s Monkey at London’s Young Vic, Wedding Day of the Cromagnons for the Soho Theatre, Helter Skelter/Land of the Dead and Monsier Ibrahim and the flowers of the Qu’ran for the Bush Theatre, and Jonathan Kent’s award winning Hecuba at the Donmar warehouse, Covent Garden. He is responsible for the music and sound-design for various BBC TV documentaries and his film compositions include Damianovski’s Dance with Me and Green Pages (Chicago Film Festival Award, UK première at Glastonbury Film stage, 2007).
His earlier ReR release, ‘Reveries of the Solitary Walker’ was hailed by John Walters in The Guardian as “…probably the best record of the year”." [full label press release]
www.rermegacorp.com
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| KORBER, THOMAS / RALF WEHOWSKY |
Walküren am Dornenbaum |
CD |
"This three year-long collaboration begun in 2006 when Korber and Wehowsky embarked on intense recording sessions in Eggenstein, where the latter resides, lasting several days. The output from these sessions forms the basis of this work, augmented by additional field recordings and various electronic manipulations. Korber and Wehowsky used the same software which allowed them to exchange the pieces at any stage of the compositional process, so that every detail of the music could be shaped in a truly collaborative manner. The result obliterates the borders between improvisation and composition, spontaneity and careful planning. Tomas Korber (Zurich, 1979) received a basic training in clarinet and music theory alongside guitar lessons. He discontinued these studies after five years, shortly thereafter teaching himself to play electric guitar and use the computer and other electronic devices for music making. Korber has written compositions and played improvised music since the early 1990s. He is a prolific solo artist and performer; his work includes film scores and music for dance and theatre, as well as numerous collaborations. In 2009 he was awarded an artist residency in New York City by the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Zurich. Ralf Wehowsky founded the group P.D. (later renamed P16.D4) in 1981 and the label Wahrnehmungen in 1980, which was renamed Selektion in 1982. P16.D4 was a highly influential and experimental group. Their concept of materialaustausch (material exchange) was developed long before the term Ôremix' was coined. They performed at punk and No Wave festivals as well as at the bastions of academic avant garde such as Ferientage Neuer Musik in Darmstadt. In the early 1990s Wehowsky adopted his RLW moniker. His quiet, highly complex style of composition is based on artifacts of instrumental and electronic lateral noises. First edition of 300 copies." [label info]
www.entracte.co.uk
"Nur mit einigen Schwierigkeiten konnte ich diese laminierte Musik aus ihrer Verschweißung pulen. Aber wer würde bei dem Titel erwarten, dass einem da etwas leicht gemacht werden soll? Der Zürcher Bruitist ist durch Releases auf Cut und For4Ears, mit Mersault und dem Signal Quintet, ein seit 2003 wiederkehrender Name in der Noise Culture. Aka RLW reitet bereits seit 1980 ohne Furcht und Tadel auf den steinigen, dornigen Pfaden der Musique concrète und der experimentellen Klanggestaltung. Wobei ich immer schon lieber Spiel als Experiment dazu gesagt habe. Was die beiden da miteinander spielen, zielt, durch die Anweisung PLAY LOUD! forciert, auf das Hör-, nicht auf das Sprachzentrum. Wie es also in Worte fassen? Vinylglissandos und entsprechend verzerrte Samples, manchmal wie von gurgelnden Stimmen, mischen sich mit sirrendem Bohren, rau holpernden, rauschenden Verschleifungen, granularer Körnigkeit, zittrigem Mikrobeben, zischendem Brausen, streuenden Pixeln, aufwallendem und verhallendem Gedröhn zu durchwegs plastischen Eindrücken. ‚Leben in roter Landschaft‘ könnte auch ein Informel- Gemälde heißen, von Schumacher oder Tàpies. Die Ohren tasten über wulstige, körnige, löchrige Oberflächen, voller Grus und mit splittrigen, strohigen Einschlüssen. Als wären das Braillezeilen für brobdignagsche Fingerkuppen, oder eben Vinylauslaufrillen im Riesenformat. ‚Abstieg der Geisterseher‘ fiept zage, plinkt und flattert dazu drahtig. Tropfen hageln und prasseln, aus Liliputperspektive wird diese Perkussion zum katastrophalen Steinschlag. Zuletzt prasselt und knurscht noch einmal eine rote Landschaft, mit Effekten, als würde ein Tonband rückwärts gespult. Das ist nicht der Stoff, aus dem die Träume sind, sondern Reibungsflächen und Strahlungsimpulse des Materiellen." [Rigobert Dittmann, Bad Alchemy]
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| KOUW, MATTHIJS & GAGI PETROVIC |
Recalcitrance |
do-CD |
After their track on the Moving Music compilation, 'Recalcitrance' is the second collaboration and first full-length release by Matthijs Kouw & Gagi Petrovic. This album will be released as Double CD and digital on April 16th, 2021.
"Philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers has studied the operations of states and their mobilization of technical practices to serve a presupposed general interest, which involves the production of rules and norms. Such rules and norms are blind to forms of knowledge that are denigrated as ‘local’ and ‘traditional’, and feature the correlative elimination of what does not conform and cannot be standardized – in other words, what is recalcitrant to objective evaluation. Anything that resists subsumption to technical rationality is seen as a threat to public order (Isabelle Stengers, In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism, pp.73-4).
The eight tracks on ‘Recalcitrance’ examine abstract topics that range from metaphysical speculation and psychological investigation to reflections on the process of creation itself. Taking a shared set of source sounds as their starting point, Matthijs Kouw and Gagi Petrovic invite listeners to trace the common sources of their pieces and to become recalcitrant themselves by experiencing the compositions in ways that defy what Stengers describes as technical rationality. Recalcitrant subjects ask new questions, thereby allowing the currently dominant reductionist mindset obsessed with productivity to be unsettled by space for reflection and quiet contemplation.
The album comes in beautiful artwork by Zeno van den Broek and Rutger Zuydervelt and is mastered by Jos Smolders.
https://gagi-petrovic.bandcamp.com/album/recalcitrance?label=13328016&tab=music
|
2021 |
€15.50 |
|
| KOVAC, BORIS / NEW RITUAL GROUP |
The Path |
CD |
"What’s remarkable about Boris is that he has carved out a musical form that transcends genre or even musical content; it’s a music of depth and feeling; and that’s what you hear beyond the notes or style. And he has gathered, over time, musicians who can realize that quality. This, for Boris, is a small group, only five people, so they can be looser, more personal than the larger ensembles. Though informed by chamber music, Serbian, Romanian and Hungarian folk music, and jazz, you can’t file this record in any of those categories. Lyrical and ostensibly simple, these exquisitely coloured and beautifully recorded compositions float, occasionally changing density, but always solid enough to be clear about what they are. The drums are especially subtle in this regard, more touch than motor, but they make themselves expressive, even forceful, when they need to. For the rest, the music moves as a sinuous wave, the parts distinct but not separated. It’s autumnal, that I could say." [label notes]
"Mit „The Path“ veröffentlicht der Jugoslawische Komponist und Multiinstrumentalist BORIS KOVAC ein Album, das eine gefühlvolle Verschmelzung von Chamber Music, osteuropäischem Folk und Jazz bietet. Die CD erscheint als Digipack via RECOMMENDED.
Mehr als 20 Alben hat der 1955 in der damals unabhängigen Region Vojvodina am Rande von Jugoslawien geborene BORIS KOVAC bislang veröffentlicht. Und obwohl seine Wurzeln in traditioneller Musik, Improvisation und Jazz verhaftet sind, verschrieb er sich doch auch der musikalischen Arbeit für Filme und Theaterstücke, für die er bereits mehrfach ausgezeichnet wurde. Mit seinen World- und Jazz-Ensembles RITUAL NOVA, LADAABA ORCHEST und dem LA CAMPANELLA ORCHESTRA spielte er mehr als 500 Konzerte in 30 verschiedenen Ländern. In den vier Instrumentalisten seiner NEW RITUAL GROUP fand er nun die idealen Partner um den acht Kompositionen seines neuen Albums „The Path“ auf knapp 50 Minuten zu einer nachdenklichen, zerbrechlich anmutenden Grundstimmung zu verhelfen. Hauptsächlich mit Kontrabass, Piano, Saxophon und Percussions instrumentiert, scheinen die vordergründig einfach gehaltenen Kompositionen durch den Raum zu schweben,
mal düster, mal gefühlvoll verspielt, aber immer kristallklar. Durch ruhige Klänge - so schreibt KOVAC im Booklet - will er dem Hörer ein Ausbrechen aus dem turbulenten Alltag erleichtern und der Natur und deren Ruhe ein Stückchen näher bringen. Ein wunderbarer Gedanke, der mit „The Path“ ideal umgesetzt wird."
|
2016 |
€13.00 |
|
| KOWALSKY, GREGG |
Tape Chants |
CD |
"From GREGG KOWALSKY: “After my first album for Kranky, I was eager to adapt a new method of composing and performing as a way to distance myself from the digital realm. I felt limited by the unlimited possibilities of digital production, and I had spent the previous 5 years composing with the computer as my main instrument. In an effort to push myself I spent two years experimenting with tape loops, cassette players and recorders, analog synths, sine oscillators, mixer feedback, contact mics and various acoustic sound sources. Through these experiments I developed a series entitled Tape Chants, which is made up of performances and compositions using tapes as the main source material, as well as the mono speakers of various cassette players for the piece’s amplification. All of the cassettes are tuned to each other using the pitch control and halfspeed playback devices located on the Sony TCM 200DV cassette recorder. All of the compositions are constructed with tuned sinewaves as the starting point and the pieces are built using sources such as shruti box, percussion, gongs, etc. During the construction of the studio version of Tape Chants, I was interested in adding rhythmic textures to the once static drone compositions. The recorded version of Tape Chants does not try to replicate the surround sound component of the live performances, but there is a variety of different acoustic spaces located in the source material. Many of the same cassettes that were used in the several editions of the series were used to record this album." [label info]
www.brainwashed.com/kranky
|
2009 |
€14.50 |
|
| KRAUSBAUER, JOHN & R KEENAN LAWLER |
Spectre of Radiants |
CD |
R Keenan Lawler & John Krausbauer's “Spectre of radiants” is a droning, everlasting buzz of strings, gently undulating and intersecting.
Unconventionally played, as usual, the resonator guitars and the banjos, builds the perfect stream of sound to accompany your longest days.
Fitting in the ultraminimalist/drone panorama, this acoustic gem follow the lineage draw by authours like Phill Niblock, Tony Conrad or Elaine Radigue, mixing and confonting it with the direct attitude toward sound of people like Jim O'Rourke to finally build another chapter in the investigation on acoustic and physics that underline the very musical spirit of the authors.
R Keenan Lawler is a Louisville, Kentucky based multi-instrumentalist, improviser, composer, and sound artist. Influenced and obsessed by post-punk, jazz, free improvisation, ancient and modern classical music, blues, nature, non-western music and a philosophy of "transcendence through sound." He is best known for developing a highly focused idiosyncratic language on the metal-bodied resonator guitar, extending its timbral and harmonic range far outside the usual role in bluegrass and blues.
Lawler has performed solo in the US and Europe, and has worked with a wide range of diverse artists including Matmos, Pelt, Rhys Chatham, My Morning Jacket, John Butcher, Susan Alcorn, Tatsuya Nakatani , Helena Espvall, Lukas Ligeti, Ignaz Schick, Phillip Samartzis, Jack Wright, Tim Barnes and John Krausbauer. His sound art has been presented in Moma/PS1, Brooklyn, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, and in collaboration with artists Thaniel Ion Lee, Sandra Gibson, Valerie Sutherland Fuchs, and Russell Hulsey. He has shared stages with artists as diverse as John Fahey, Widespread Panic, Sudden Infant, Jim Carroll, and Vieux Farka Toure. He is presently performing solo, with various collaborators, and as a member of music collectives WET, Limited Hangout and Seismic Corruption Band.
John Krausbauer is a composer/multi-instrumentalist/improviser based in Oakland, CA and co-founder of the Los Angeles publishing label, Besom Presse.
A long time purveyor of the ur-drone and trance-psychedelia, his work involves audio transmissions for TOTAL/immersive sensory experience. Transcendence through repetition,
duration, alternate tunings, maximum volumes, and stroboscopic lighting.
He's performed and presented his music across N America, Europe, and Japan in a multitude of settings - from basements, sidewalks, and rock clubs to colleges, churches, and art museums. Over 20 recordings of his have been released on independent labels in the US, Europe, and Japan.
His group and solo music can be found on Important, Beta-Lactam Ring, ANTS, Fabrica, Debacle, Autumn, Thin Wrist (upcoming), and a number of other international labels.
His current music projects include the Ecstatic Music Band (a 10+ member-collective of strings players); solo music forvoice, violin, and synth; his collaboration with partner, Kaori Suzuki, with bells, voices, strings, tape; the Minimalist psych-punk group Night Collectors; his systems-based phase compositions; and ongoing duo collaborations with Kentuckian steel bodied resonator guitar player R. Keenan Lawler, NYC bagpipe player David Watson, and Tokyo based guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama.
R Keenan Lawler: National Steel resonator guitars
John Krausbauer: banjos
https://ants4.bandcamp.com/album/spectre-of-radiants
|
2020 |
€13.00 |
|
| KREJCI, DAVID |
The Cleophone |
CD |
DAVID KREJCI ist ein US-amerikanischer Sound-Artist, der ein "Drone-Instrument" namens "The Cleophone" gebaut hat. Es besteht aus 12 Piano-Saiten die über einen Holzkorpus gespannt werden, wobei jede Saiten mit eigenem Pickup reguliert werden kann. Das Cleophone lässt sich mit verschiedenen Utensilien bespielen, es können auch rhythmische Muster entstehen. Hier verewigt wurde eine 33minütige ,virtuos-improvisatorische Session ohne spätere overdubs oder Effekte ; der Klang ist dronig und dynamisch, reich an Obertönen & Vibrato, leicht verzerrt & stereo-phasig aufgeteilt. For Drone / Minimal-Fans!
"Dave Krejci's earliest memory of music is that of trailing his mother while she vacuumed. Krejci would hum along with the vacuum's drone sliding in and out of pitch to create vibrations in his chest. This attraction to the visceral and hypnotic characteristics of sound has fed Krejci's fire for more than 25 years. His adulthood obsession with organs, Leslies, the Cleophone and pianos is nothing more than an adult extension of his vacuum-chasing days. Krejci grew out of Austin, Minnesota, a small hog-slaughtering town curiously full of musicians. "Classically trained" on the piano, Krejci spent the majority of his musical time writing his own compositions and playing piano in bands. In 1987, Krejci escaped the miserable town and fled to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota. In the late 1980s and early 90s, Krejci played Hammond organ for TwinTone/Prospective recording artist GREEN MACHINE, a psychedelic trio that produced several full-length CDs and 45RPMs. In the Spring of 2005, built the CLEOPHONE, an electronic stringed instrument built out of heavy piano strings, Rhodes electromagnetic pick-ups and a microphonic copper stand. The instrument is played through two Leslie Speakers and manipulated with piano hammers, bows, sticks, bones, brushes and ball-bearings." [label description]
|
2006 |
€12.00 |
|
| KRENG |
Selfed (SOLD OUT) |
do-10inch |
"Starting with soundtracks for the Belgian theatre-company 'Abbatoir Fermé' in 2007, PEPIJN CAUDRON aka KRENG has since then created an impressive catalogue of work, submerging deeply into a cinematic musical world, often built on 'classic' instrumental sounds, expressing a fascination for "the secrets of our culture, the roots of our collective fears and the hidden wounds, phantasies and rituals of our time" (as 'Abbatoir Fermé' denotes their own programmation). KRENGs compositions share a rare intensity and originality, immersing the listener into gloomy and surealistic atmospheres. SELFED is a work for a dance choreography by KEVIN TRAPPENIERS, a piece for a single dancer that relates to the phenomenon of 'Self-Pollination' in Biology. SELFED is seen as a metaphor to overcome mental and physical barriers of the self and society, by "investigating the notion of the energy of self and self-sacrifice". The three pieces suck you in with their spiraling sounds from the very first minute, ending in an early claustrophobic climax, from which structure and beauty is
regained ... An interplay of circling dynamics.
This 2 x10" vinyl (45 rpm) comes in a full colour double-gatefold cover, each record pressed in a different colour (blue-black / red-black), the fourth side contains an etching of all credit information. First ed. of 498 copies. Artwork design by TILMANN BENNINGHAUS. Mastering: PETER ANDERSSON." [press release]
Words by the director about the concept of SELFED: "In botany, selfing causes an animal or plant to breed with or fertilise one of the same hybrid origin or strain, thus causing the organism to self-pollinate or self-fertilise. The cover pictures refer to ultrasonic pictures of a self-replicating cyberpunk/biopunk unborn being in its early stage, to repetitive oscillator sounds and cyclic lifeforms.
In SELFED, the performance, as well as the score and the sound design, explore methods to adapt the body to mental and physical barriers and how to overcome those obstacles or gain control over them. The dance performance incorporates both the philosophy and techniques of Parkour within contemporary dance. We investigate the notion of the energy of self and self-sacrifice. The self meant as an aid and a tool for introspection and reflexion, for demolition and construct of the borders of the self - of the body and the mind. Accordingly, the performance and music reflects on the positioning of mankind towards individual and social power structures." [KEVIN TRAPPENIERS]
(In 2014, Kevin Trappeniers was artist in residence TAKT Dommelhof (BE) to create the dance performance SELFED, that premiered at Plesni Teater Ljubljana (Slovenia). After this choreographic debut, which consisted of an outside and an inside part made for the specific locations in Slovenia, Trappeniers reworked the inside part to physical theatre.)
credits:
selfed
concept, direction, choreography, scenography: Kevin Trappeniers
dance & performance: Dagmar Dachauer
music & sound design: Kreng
light design: Laurence Halloy, Kevin Trappeniers
in collaboration with: Luka Avguštin, Enej Progar, Jan Ulčar, Sebastjan Zupanc (SloMotion, Slovenian Parkour Family)
dramaturgy & mentorship: Andreja Kopač
coaching & distribution advice: Vincent Company
producer: Živa Brecelj
production: Plesni Teater Ljubljana (SI) - Choreographic Debut PTL 2014
co-production: TAKT Dommelhof (Neerpelt, BE)
in collaboration with: Muzej in Galerije Mesta Ljubljane (MGML)
artwork & photography: Kevin Trappeniers
thanks to: Vincent Van den Bossche, Blaze Urban Academy (BE), Šolski Center Ljubljana (SI)
"Substantia Innominata est la 10ème Série de vinyles de Drone Records et a pour but de présenter des travaux inspirés par l’inconnu, autour de nous ou parmi nous.
Commençant avec les bandes sons pour la compagnie de théâtre belge \ Abattoir Fermé\ en 2007, Pepijn Caudron alias Kreng a depuis créé un impressionnant catalogue, plongeant profondément dans monde musical cinématique, souvent construit à partir de sons instrumentaux « classiques », exprimant une fascination pour \ les secrets de notre culture, les racines de nos peurs collectives et les blessures cachées, phantasmes et rituels de notre temps\ (comme \ Abattoir Fermé\ désigne leur propre programmation).
Les compositions de Kreng partagent une rare intensité et originalité, immergeant l’auditeur dans des atmosphères sombres et surréalistes. Des bruits de bateaux sous marins suggèrent en effet l’immersion inquiétante raclant, puis un saxo sirène orientale, et ça se calme en hélico dans un essai d’envol des flots, des résonances lointaines et un sonar ou celui d’un dauphin ou baleine construisent cet univers sonore immersif, un peu comme si on était pris dans un U-Boot.
Selfed est un travail pour une chorégraphie de danse de Kevin Trappeniers, une pièce pour danseur seul relatant le phénomène de \ Pollinisation Atomatique\ en Biologie. Selfed est à voir comme une métaphore les barrières physiques et mentales de soi et de la société, en \ investissant la notion d’énergie propre et de sacrifice de soi\ . Les trois pièces vous sucent par leurs sons en spirale dès la première minute, se terminant dans un climat de début de claustrophobie, dans lequel beauté et structure sont retrouvés.... Une réciprocité de dynamiques circulaires.
On y entend des voix, puis des rythmes secs et rapides de peaux élastiques mixés avec des voix pour montrer cette Auto Pollinisation de musiques concrètes et électroniques par les voix. Comme dans la « Pollinisation Automatique », les éléments humains et industriels se mêlent et se confondent.
Ce vinyle 2 x10\ (45 rpm) est livré dans une pochette double-gatefold, chaque disque est pressé dans une couleur différente (bleur-noire / rouge-noire), le quatre titres contient une gravure première édition pressée 498 copies par Tilmann Benninghaus. Mastering - Peter Andersson. Sortie - Avril 2016" [translation by Flow / Le Bokal]
|
2016 |
€25.00 |
|
| KRISTUS KUT |
Butterfly King |
CD |
"MInd Flare Media's first official release from Kristus Kut. Butterfly King showcases Kut's most recent advancements in his sound. Branching off from his earlier, more noise-influenced work, he enters a realm of voodoo-worshipping, highly sexual, dark, ritualistic ambient. Known for his elaborate performances, this work features a story revolving around sexual development and liberation. The album features seven tracks ranging from trance-inducing soundscapes to pulsing rituals of sound." [label info]
www.mindflaremedia.com
"Kristus Kut (dutch for Christ Cunt) was founded in 2008 and is inspired by rituals like voodoo, cantomble, santeria and lukumi. The band works with bass-guitars, bamboo, broomsticks, vocals and effects to create ritualistic, dark and esoteric energy. Every performance is an event on its own, a spontaneous moment which are sexual, wild and tough. For now Kristus Kut plays together with Jabu Warrior, who plays a berimbau, a single-string percussion instrument. Butterfly King is the first release at the label Mind Flare Media situated in the USA. The CD contains seven tracks. The first track is highly erotic by the voice of a screaming woman and dark tones and abstract beats. The second and third track refers to music like Zoviet France. Minimal beats on the berimbau and other percussion instruments with delay and echo. Nice subtile trance-creating compositions. "The Transformation of Love Honey for the Queen" has also a high ritual atmosphere with a repeating chants, beats and noise. Nice track as well, especially of lovers of the early Current 93 music. The second transformation track is more abstract and a nice mix of electronics and acoustic sounds, but also in the same atmosphere as before. The last track "Vagina Libertatis" starts with a voice repeating the word Kristus Kut and goes on for 21 minutes long and music elements are added with dark soundlayers, noise and beats on the berimbau. Twenty minutes stands for the period of Zen-meditation, but the words Kristus Kut are just words and not like a chant to get into a trance. Too bad, cause the rest of the album has this potential." [JKH/Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€12.00 |
|
| KRYPTOGEN RUNDFUNK |
Elusive Trajectories 2003-2006 |
CD |
"The series of archive recordings "Znaki / Die Zeichen" continues! The labels kultFRONT and ZHELEZOBETON present its fourth installment – the collection of compositions of the St. Petersburg-based noise project Kryptogen Rundfunk, recorded in 2003-2006. Most of these tracks were released on small-edition compilations of the same time, but some of them remained unpublished until now.
This album offers a fresh look at the early period of Kryptogen Rundfunk’s sound in all its diversity. Sharp injections of digital glitches are polished by dense electronic drone and radio noises, raw sound of Soviet analogue synthesizers pervades the space with low-frequency vibrations, drum machines rumble in a slow industrial dance with a sampler used instead of a vocalist... The textures of the tracks vary from dark abstract drone ambient to edgy dashing noise, sometimes passing the stage of funny delusional rhythmic sketches. Each composition here is a separate short story, from a 12-minute immersion into the depths of radio waves on a psychedelic submarine to a 1-second collage made of several found sounds.
Traditionally for the "Znaki" series the artwork was created by the media artist Oleg Paschenko (humanimalien.ru). Based on the cover design, a small edition of Kryptogen Rundfunk’s t-shirts has also been printed. The t-shirts are made of premium quality “penye” fabric and are available in all sizes between XS and XXL."
|
2019 |
€13.00 |
|
|
To Dream Is To Destroy |
CD |
This is the fourth studio album of Kryptogen Rundfunk, and the first one since the project moved from Russia to the Netherlands. Six lengthy tracks full of weird trademark radio noises and interceptions, heavy bass drones and piercing high frequencies, abstract electronic signals and quirky samples. These layered compositions slowly build up, creating thick mesmerizing walls of sound, yet at the same time leaving room for a bit of flippancy. An uneasy ride for a restless mind, but quite exciting for an attentive one! 44 mins. Ltd x 103 copies CD-proper in a gatefold matt-laminate digisleeve.
https://kryptogen.bandcamp.com/album/to-dream-is-to-destroy
|
2023 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
To Dream is to Destroy |
MC |
This is the fourth studio album of Kryptogen Rundfunk and the first one since the project moved from Russia to the Netherlands. Six tracks full of weird trademark radio noises and interceptions, heavy bass drones and piercing high frequencies, abstract electronic signals and quirky samples. These layered compositions are slowly building up, creating thick mesmerizing walls of sound, yet at the same time leaving room for a bit of flippancy. An uneasy ride for a restless mind, but quite exciting for an attentive one!
Sources: Degen DE1103, Rokton, Korg Volca FM, ExWr Oranj, Moog Mother-32, electric guitar, field recordings and found sounds.
Treatment: Behringer DSP2024P Virtualizer Pro, Yamaha EMP100, Digitech DF-7, Mooer Reecho Pro, Mooer Reverie Reverb, various software filters and processors.
Initial recordings made in 2014-2018 in Russia, Norway and Greece. Vivisected and reassembled in February-March 2023 at Base Station, Amstelveen, The Netherlands.
Released by Base Station, distributed by Fonodroom.
https://kryptogen.bandcamp.com/album/to-dream-is-to-destroy
|
2023 |
€8.50 |
|
| KSHATRIY |
Transforming Galaxy |
CD |
" "Transforming Galaxy" is the second full-length album of Sergey Bulychyov (aka Uak-Kib) from Vsevolozhsk, Russia - an imprint of direct experience of the Universe. The album is dedicated to the end of Kali-Yuga - the age of technocratic lack of spirituality and moral decay - and to the attainment of human awareness of the Unity.
Eight hasteless compositions of psychedelic drone ambient combine a light atmosphere with deep multilayerness, crystal clear sound transparency with mild and sometimes uneasy melodies. Soft organic tracks full of plangent drones, noises and natural recordings neighbor with dense and saturated hymns to Hindu goddess Kali. The disk is closed by a beautiful lyrical composition reminding us that the best way to overcome ignorance and realize unity is Love.
The album is released in a glossy 6-panel digipak with front cover by Sergey Ilchuk (Siyanie, ex-Vetvei & Vresnit Art).
First 30 copies are designed by the author as special collector's edition: hand-crafted bag made of brown velvet containing art printed on a thick wooden plate 28 x 30 cm, and also an additional CD-R with a live recording of Kshatriy's performance in Moscow-based cultural center "DOM" on October 23, 2010." [label info]
http://zhb.radionoise.ru/eng/releases.html#mv
"....Lots of synthesized ambient scapes, perhaps made with real synthesizers, no doubt with lots of field recordings, much electronic processing and all such like, but the good news is that this doesn't lead to abstract drone patterns, but in each of the pieces there seems to be the shimmering of small melodies humming along, making the whole thing more 'musical' than y'r average drone record, which I guess is nice. Each of the eight pieces takes a considerable time to develop, as all of these pieces are easily between eight and thirteen minutes. That makes it quite a long album, but its one that can hold the attention quite well. Kshatriy moves along various patterns, ideas, motions and emotions and it makes a highly varied and mostly enjoyable record." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
"There's a deep cosmology at work in the recordings of Sergey Uak-Kib, the Russian dronescapist who uses the Sanskrit for 'warrior', Kshatriy, as his nom de plume. This album, his second, is equally as spectral and bleak in its content as his 2009 debut Slepok Soznaniya; and it stands as a harbinger to the end of the Kali-Yuga - the final stage in the four-part cycle for the material world, as mapped out in the various Hindu scriptures. Uak-Kib identifies this prediction through the ongoing "technocratic lack of spirituality and moral decay" - ignominious traits that unfortunately shape the future for much of the world's population. Yet, he also maintains a considerable optimism that the cycle of life will also produce an "attainment of human awareness of the Unity." Transforming Galaxy is about a literal as one could get with the processional unveiling of this album's ambient tapestries, beginning with the darkest passages and gradually lightening the chromatics without diffusing the overall potency of these radiant droneworks. Isolationist undercurrents of black ice floes accrete with teeth-clenching sawtooth electronics at the front of the end record, ominously giving way to stormy drone recordings strafed with the unnerving choruses of ravens; and steadily, the ambience slips away from these endtimes allusions and towards full-bodied swirling miasma of cosmic synth drones. Altogether, it's very much on par with the last recordings made by Maeror Tri of industrial impressionism and hypnogogic echo." [Aquarius Records]
|
2012 |
€12.50 |
|
| KUBISCH, CHRISTINA & ANNEA LOCKWOOD |
The Secret Life of the Inaudible |
do-CD |
About our collaboration.
Annea and I first met in New York in 1975. I was writing an article about the experimental music scene in New York for an Italian magazine. We soon found out that we had a lot of common interests and ideas. In 1979 she came to Italy and together we performed her piece „World Rhythms“ at a festival in Como. I was deeply impressed by how Annea combined technical skills with intuitive performance.
Sound for her always has been more than just material to bring into a compositional form. It was more than raw material, it had a complex structure of its own and was transporting energy. Annea translated and communicated this energy to the listener and she does this with unusual intensity until today.
Over the years we followed each other’s works but unfortunately did not meet as often as we would have liked. During her stay in Berlin earlier this year we had another chance to discuss our works, materials, researches, concepts, doubts and future projects. The idea of a collaboration was a natural consequence of this exchange. We both investigate soundworlds which normally are not audible. Annea questions how the forces of nature influence us, I question how manmade electromagnetic fields have an impact on our lives. And we both love field recording, especially exploring underwater sounds with hydrophones.
We decided to exchange sound materials and left it open to the other what to choose and how to mix it into a new composition. The two new pieces which were created by this exchange are different but at the same time seem to belong together somehow. Annea sent me extracts from recordings of VLF chorus waves, solar oscillations, earthquakes, gas vents etc. while I transmitted to her a collection of recordings of electromagnetic waves which I had made audible and recorded with special custom designed induction headphones. Annea’s sound material was coming from sonic ultra and infra ranges and was speeded up or shifted down in order to become audible, my recordings are analog and were made directly on site in different cities. The sounds we use are all strange and powerful and they go together as if they were especially made for this collaboration. Until now what kind of influence the sources of these normally hidden waves have on us is not much explored. It is up to the listener to find out more about it.
Thanks to Gruenrekorder who supported our project from the beginning. — Christina Kubisch, November 2017
CD 1 – Annea Lockwood
WILD ENERGY | 2016 (with Bob Bielecki)
Wild Energy gives access to the inaudible, vibrations in the ultra sound and infra sound ranges emanating from sources which affect us fundamentally, but which are beyond our normal audio perception, many of which are creating our planet’s environment: the sun, the troposphere and ionosphere, the earth’s crust and core, the oxygen-generating trees – everything deeply integrated, forming an inaudible web in which we move, through which we live and on which we depend. It is our sense that through these sounds one can feel the energies generated, not as concepts but as energy-fields moving through one’s body. Here they have been shifted up (infrasound) or down (ultrasound) to bring them into the human audio range.
Wild Energy begins with solar oscillations (acoustical pressure waves) recorded by the SOHO spacecraft – 40 days of solar oscillations sped up 42,000 times, and ends with ultrasound recorded from the interior of a Scots pine tree.
Recordings made available to Annea Lockwood by scientists at the universities of Hawaii, Stanford, Iowa, Columbia (USA) and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research.
Sound sources:
The sun, acoustical pressure waves – recording courtesy of Alexander Kosovichev, Solar Oscillations Investigation team, Stanford University
Gas vents and tremors, Mt Kilauea – recordings courtesy of Milton Garces, the Infrasound Laboratory, University of Hawaii
VLF Chorus waves and Whistlers; Auroral Kilometric Radiation radio waves –recordings courtesy of Craig Kletzing, Radio and Plasma Wave Group, University of Iowa
Sei whale – recording courtesy of Arthur Newhall, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
Earthquakes – recordings courtesy of the U.S.G.S; Ben Holtzman, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University and Jason Moran
Trees, cavitation events and ultrasound emissions – recordings courtesy of Melvin Tyree; Roman Zweifel , Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL and Marcus Maeder, Zurich University of the Arts, Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology
Hydrothermal vents – recording courtesy of Timothy Crone, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
Bats: pipistrelle, California myotis, silver-haired bats, Shockwave-Sound.com; big brown bat and Grote’s tiger moth recording courtesy of Aaron Corcoran, Wake Forest University
CD 1 – Annea Lockwood
STREAMING, SWIRLING, CONVERGING | 2017
Composing with combined sound files and sources, six from each of us, has been a unique experience for me, and a deep pleasure. I have long found Christina’s explorations of the electromagnetic fields within which we live now revelatory and essential – beautiful in their sonic detail and powerful in their effects on my body. And there is satisfying sense of complementarity here: Human-created sounds from Christina’s electromagnetic world, a world which she has been hugely instrumental in revealing to us, and non-human sounds and vibrations from the geophysical, atmospheric and mammalian spheres which are my sources.
Her sounds were a delight to work with, often with a clear pitch element and, while fluctuating in their details and flow, essentially stable. This contrasts well with the event-driven, more turbulent rhythms and noise content of my materials. It was fascinating to play with these differences and discover how easily our sounds blend as if drawn together magnetically into layered textures. I am most grateful to Christina for suggesting this collaboration.
Sound sources:
Annea Lockwood: Tremors and a bench collapse on Mt Kilauea, Hawaii, VLF whistlers, earthquakes in Sumatra and Honshu, Japan, ultrasonic sounds from a Scots pine tree, the Mid-Ocean Ridge Black Smoker hydrothermal vent, solar oscillations.
Christina Kubisch: electromagnetic waves recorded in a subway station, a server room, an underground tunnel, a power station, shopping centers and in the countryside during a thunderstorm after electricity had broken down.
CD 2 – Christina Kubisch
NINE MAGNETIC PLACES | 2017
Nine magnetic places is a journey without knowing where to go, what to find, how long to stay or what will come next. It is a discovery of a hidden world, a dreamlike trip by which the traveller encounters unexpected juxtapositions and sequences of electromagnetic waves. The piece was inspired by the first book using the technique of automatic writing, „Les champs magnétiques“ by André Breton and Philippe Soupault, published in Paris (1920).
The electromagnetic recordings were made in or traveling to: Las Vegas, Gdansk, Ystad, Kosice, Montreal, Bordeaux, Manchester, Dortmund, San Francisco, Paris, Ekaterinburg, Lagos, Venice, Bratislava, Bangkok and other places.
CD 2 – Christina Kubisch
BELOW BEHIND ABOVE | 2017
When I was about to finish this piece two powerful storms, called Xavier and Herwart, swept through northern Germany and Central Europe following each other within three weeks. The storms produced hurricane winds and left a path of destruction knocking down trees, power lines and buildings and caused widespread travel chaos.
I was working in my studio during both storms, looking at the shaking trees in front of my house while I was listening to sounds from vulcanos, solar oscillations, earthquakes and the intense vibrations of electromagnetic fields.
The experience of the two storms had a strong impact on my work. The piece became a kind of encounter of different energies and vibrations which meet in unforeseen ways.
Sound sources:
Annea Lockwood: Volcanic gas vents, VLF chorus waves and whistlers, earthquakes, solar oscillations and ultrasonic tree sounds.
Christina Kubisch: electromagnetic recordings from light systems, seismic research centers,transmitter systems and others. Hydrophone recordings from the river Rhein.
www.gruenrekorder.de
"A cause of extreme disgruntlement for this writer is the passive awareness that the bulk of a lifetime was splurged on issues and people not belonging to a sphere of intuitions and considerations even marginally correlatable with his own. If one inaugurates the process of growth by being predominantly attracted by non-vocal emissions, it is foreseeable that – quite soon – attention will not be given anymore to individuals imparting sagacity via mere words, typically instilling some kind of dismay in the potential victim. In that sense, imagine the (adult) quotidian disheartenment for not having a chance to remain within essential acoustic domains when the calls comes; silence is mandatory to do that, and silence is by now a rare commodity. Finally, try to explain all of the above to someone blathering non-stop because convinced – possibly via previous trauma – or out-and-out pretending of living outside his/her body, then get back to me for a good laugh together.
But we do get privileged whenever communicating – remotely but, by the grace of heavens, through sounds – with truly developed beings such as Christina Kubisch and Annea Lockwood, themselves linked by a long-time friendship and artistic consanguinity that never had resulted in a tangible collaboration. Until today.
Narrating yet again what these women have been doing throughout their histories of sonic researchers would be pathetic (but if you still think there is a need to, a peep to the presentation notes of this release will help explicating the kernel of the matter). This double CD encloses four handsome compositions derived from the manipulation of swapped materials; the common denominator is the attempt of turning invisible energies and inaudible frequencies into physically perceivable substances destined to increase one’s congenital acumen. Kubisch and Lockwood operate at levels of intuitive interiority unconceivable by the average gatherer of location recordings and electronics. We can literally “feel inside” the gradual effect of sources reconfigured in various types of aural concretization. They emerge as penetrating hums of radiophonic descent, or may resemble marine currents inhabited by a somewhat alien fauna attempting new forms of signal transmission. The ordinary becomes unconventional; the voice of nature and its private tumults get disfigured by deforming lenses that, rather amazingly, emphasize the gravity of each single event.
That these pieces ultimately can stand proudly amidst the finest electroacoustic musics of the last few decades is obviously a plus. However, what really counts is the implicit message: communication does happen at every stage of physical existence, including the supposedly inanimate. In times when most humans are bamboozled by things that do not exist particularized by brains that do not work, what we have to do is raising the aerials way up. Consequences – if there is sufficient emotional fuel in your personal tank – will inevitably materialize." [Touching Extremes]
|
2018 |
€16.00 |
|
| KYMATIK |
Dar-as-sulh vol. 1 |
CD |
Nach einem mini-Album jetzt die erste CD eines vielversprechenden Experimental-Projekts aus England, welche 3 Jahre Soundforschung zusammenfasst. Hinter KYMATICs Musik stehen hochinteressante physikalische Konzepte und Experimente (das erinnert an früher HAFLER TRIO-Arbeiten),so bezieht sich der Projektname auf grch. KYMA - ein Begriff, den der Schweizer Physiker Hans Jenny für seine Akustikexperimente einführte. „the musical styles range from the use of dense rhythmic patterns to subtle shimmerings and a pure tone piece that sounds like nothing I’ve heard before. The short environmental recordings are spaced between the compositions and offer some light relief from the intensity of these works..”[Clive Graham, Paradigm]. A great sound-research-album, definitely one of the highlights of this year!! Nice digipack with lots of infos..
PARADIGM
|
2001 |
€13.50 |
|
| LA CASA, ERIC |
W2 (1998-2008) |
do-CD |
"A collection of previous released compositions and longtime sold out made between 1998 and 2008 and gather under two main theme, Water and Wind. + a few unreleased pieces. A geographic inventory, a sonic journal, a living alchemy, the pulsing of the world. With Les pierres du seuil, S'ombre, Spirale, Les oscillations, L'Inspir du rivage, Dans le feuillage du lointain, la clameur d'un bruissement, Quelque chose de cela, le désert, L'air au fond rouge, Les aubes sont navrantes." [label info]
www.herbalinternational.tk
"Essential compilation of now hard to find material from sound artist Eric La Casa, thematically separated onto two CDs around the themes of wind and water. These pieces are just as much shaped by geography as by time itself, with each track's vocabulary varying according to what was recorded then and there.
As always La Casa masterfully crafts compelling sound stories with these two elements, emphasizing narration over some purely static documentary exercise. The sound of breezes, flowing rivers, wind tunnels, rain drops and other storms are structured but never denatured, retaining all of their organic depth and beauty. Absolutely recommended, especially to those appreciative of G*Park." [Mechanoise Labs]
|
2010 |
€20.00 |
|
| LA MONTE YOUNG & MARIAN ZAZEELA |
31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM / 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta |
LP |
"La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day.
Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as "The Black Record" due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with the composer's liner notes in elegant hand-lettered script.
Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath.
Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes explain that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity.
“La Monte Young is the daddy of us all.” — Brian Eno"
[press release]
"Just wanted to tell a little story about gongs… As the reader may know it, the B-side of La Monte Young’s Black record is filled up until its very end with some low-down rumbling noise which seems to be eternally reinforcing itself and at the same time voiding its own space. This peculiar track is called “The Volga Delta” and features La Monte Young and his wife on bowed gong. The story tells that it was around 1964 that the Fluxus sculptor Bob Morris gave out to La Monte a large gong and, as this instrument is (to my humble knowledge) the only one that contains all the upper tones possible for each single strike of it, the gong was soon to be one of La Monte ‘s favorite instrument. Now, get it on bang a gong is okay, but if you ever wonder how you can bow a gong, this is what you would need. A standard violin bow, a single contact mike applied to the gong’s surface, an amplification system, a pair of loudspeakers and you’ll be ready to start rubbing it so softly that the gong is gonna start purring like a cat.
Six years ago, I found on the Internet Archives, a 1965 performance of “X for Henry Flynt” by Peter Winkler. This performance piece was one of La Monte’s early proto-fluxus composition and Peter Winkler decided to do it with 42 gong strikes at irregular intervals, distant each other of about 12-15 seconds. I suddenly decided, upon downloading the piece, for a little aural tribute for both Henry Flynt and La Monte Young as I do regard their musical output as standing stones on silver sand beaches.
The Winkler’s piece was 16 minutes long and I did play it back on my media player (repeat function enabled) for 42 hours continuously. No kidding. That is approximately 7896 gong bangs. I remember the days, I remember the nights and I have the feeling that I always will. It was on October 7th-8th-9th 2009. Maybe you would like to experience it too, one day, because it’s a kind of sound immersion initiatory ritual beyond any comparison. I wanted to know what it sounded like to be immersed in continuous sound for days, as I did read many stories about this peculiar La Monte Young’s life aspect.
It is not easy at all. You pass through different humoral and mental states that come and go back again like a cyclic pattern. In a way, your head too is following the gong. At times, it seems so unnerving you want to destroy your complete hi-fi system. An hour after, you are in deep self-analysis wondering how the human mind can be so ever changing and that maybe the real mindset for happiness is to become constant as the gong. Some hours later, you are in a state of grace. Never did a drug cause any similar effect on you. The gong bangs are like written pages of an unknown manuscript you are now deciphering. None of them is exactly the same. They do all sound different. Then you wonder why the gong sounds so different while your mindset is now so pretty constant.
Past the middle of the experience, all your life is connected to the gong. All your fears, your goals, your worries cannot stand on it. They do desintegrate. The radiant coda of the gong, endlessly drifting through space blow them away. Its pulse is the only thing that matter. You realize you’ve been hanging on to it. It makes you smile thinking that three hours ago you want to stop everything.
Its pulse is now your entire life. You live in between it. Like the soul of a raga lives in between the notes, your body and breath is a whole completion of gong bangs. I tried to stay awake as long as I could but yet in my sleep I did hear it. It had become my inner clock ticking. It had liberated me from the tyrannic and stressfull second that ruins everyone’s life at some point. I had entered a body of space where the natural time flow had been expanded. I had entered the land of the giant-step seconds. It was my new time. I had for the first time the deep sensation of having the time to live my life. A new gong life." [REV from a review comment]
|
2023 |
€29.50 |
|
| |
31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM / 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 - 3:11 AM The Volga Delta |
CD |
La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day.
Seeing reissue for the first time since its initial 1969 release, Young and Zazeela's first full-length album is often referred to as "The Black Record" due to Zazeela's stunning cover design, complete with the composer's liner notes in elegant hand-lettered script.
Side one was recorded in 1969 (on the date and time indicated by the title) at the gallery of Heiner Friedrich in Munich, where Young and Zazeela premiered their Dream House sound and light installation. Featuring Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone, the recording is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). According to Young, the raga-like melodic phrases of his voice were heavily influenced by his future teacher, the Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath.
Side two, recorded in Young and Zazeela's NYC studio in 1964, is a section of the longer composition Studies in the Bowed Disc. This composition is an extended, highly abstract noise piece for bowed gong (gifted by sculptor Robert Morris). The liner notes explain that the live performance can be heard at 33 and 1/3 RPM, but may also be played at any slower speed down to 8 and 1/3 RPM for turntables with this capacity.
“La Monte Young is the daddy of us all.” — Brian Eno
https://www.superiorviaduct.com/products/la-monte-young-marian-zazeela-31-vii-69-10-26-10-49-pm-23-viii-64-2-50-45-3-11-am-the-volga-delta-cd
"The father of drone, the man himself. Someting very very special for my lucky readers today.
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.
Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is especially known for his development of drone music. Both his proto-Fluxus and “minimal” compositions question the nature and definition of music and often stress elements of performance art. He is commonly seen as one of the four most celebrated leaders of the minimalist school, along with Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley, despite having little in common formally with Glass and Reich.
In 1962 Young wrote The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer. One of The Four Dreams of China, the piece is based on four pitches, which he later gave as the frequency ratios: 36-35-32-24 (G, C, +C#, D), and limits as to which may be combined with any other. Most of his pieces after this point are based on select pitches, played continuously, and a group of long held pitches to be improvised upon. For The Four Dreams of China Young began to plan the “Dream House”, a light and sound installation where musicians would live and create music twenty-four hours a day. He formed the Theatre of Eternal Music to realize “Dream House” and other pieces. The group initially included Marian Zazeela (who has provided the light work The Ornamental Lightyears Tracery for all performances since 1965), Angus MacLise, and Billy Name. In 1964 the ensemble comprised Young and Zazeela; John Cale and Tony Conrad, a former Harvard mathematics major, and sometimes Terry Riley (voices). Since 1966 the group has seen many permutations and has included Garrett List, Jon Hassell, Alex Dea, and many others, including members of the 60s groups. Young has realized the “Theatre of Eternal Music” only intermittently, as it requires expensive and exceptional demands of rehearsal and mounting time.
Most realizations of the piece have long titles, such as The Tortoise Recalling the Drone of the Holy Numbers as they were Revealed in the Dreams of the Whirlwind and the Obsidian Gong, Illuminated by the Sawmill, the Green Sawtooth Ocelot and the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer. His works are often extreme in length, conceived by Young as having no beginning and no end, existing before and after any particular performance. In their daily lives, too, Young and Zazeela practice an extended sleep-waking schedule—with “days” longer than twenty-four hours.
Young made The Black Record during this period with Marian Zazeela, his wife. Zazeela also did the cover art for the album. The music is filled with moments of a seamless sudden liftoff from a place of linear accumulation and synthetic realisations, that the listener discovers are organized according to completely different principles. What sounds like a drone is actually a “stack”. The complex organisation of various modalities, musical and other, layered each upon the other, reaching always toward a higher wisdom or science toward which we all stumble. Within this music is both the journey and the arrival, each appealing to the other within the context of itself. These deceptively simple methods we might refer to as “drone” are layer up on layer of complex responses to the various stratagems I have highlighed above. The listening experience has the opportunity to reflect this intensity. In other words, this music is an appeal to the listeners freedom. You ae invited to wander inside its halls and come up with your own arrival.
This album is an essential for anyone interested in Avant Garde music. Personally – I adore it!" [Lisa Thatcher]
|
2023 |
€18.50 |
|
| LA STPO (La Société des Timides à la Parade des Oiseaux) |
Wir schwitzen Blumen / La STPO in Concerts |
LP |
"IF you’re shy, you especially need to pay attention in not too much exposing yourself!
Our illustrious society - the best-kept secret of the experimental musics in Rennes ! - skips away continuously for almost 30 years behind folding screens in the shape of sea horses, pieces deceiving the hearing and other fancies fruits of their harmonious inventiveness. The oblique, kinematic and double - bottomed compositions of the STPO join just as much the lineage of a certain 'rock in opposition' over-subtle and deserving the legacy of Albert Marcoeur and Etron Fou Leloublan for the texts and the odd atmospheres, as for the overexcited energy of the post-punk, like The Pop Group, or for the vocal eccentricities à la David Thomas from Pere Ubu!
This anthology of tracks, live recorded by KdB between 2006 and 2009 during three memorable concerts, because yes! our Shy society members are really great performers, reveal their capacity of this combo from Rennes to transform these long and over-subtle pieces in real playlets in which every musician embodies various roles, under the leadership of Pascal Godjikian, polymorphic storyteller who perspires of beautiful intensity. "Wir Schwitzen Blumen" presents five live pieces taken from the recent concert set of La STPO. "I Cuento Blumen" and "The Sound Of The City Seems Not To Disappear" come both from the album " Tranches de Temps Jeté / Slices of Thrown) time " released in 2005 on the american label Beta-Lactam Ring Records. The piece " Le Minisme " was recorded in 2009 for the compilation CD of the french label In-Poly-Sons " We All Believe in Utopia " ;; " La Vallée des Empreintes / The Valley of Imprints " a live track from the same period engraved here for the first time on a record, to our bigger satisfaction ! As for " Le Femme Immortel ", funny miniature between glossolalias and Dada choral singing, immortalized for the first time on a now impossible to find maxiCD, it is a vestige of their stage set of the 80s which they go on playing from time to time. So immerse yourself without further delay in the fantasy of this densely populated micro-society and rather than get lost in trying to raise the current direction of these river like compositions, let yourself be carried by the lush sonic textures and the inventiveness of the orchestrations of La STPO that function like lines of flight. Following the conclusion of the good doctor Faustroll: "What, however, should attract the attention of the naturalist, are some unexpected gaps, in no doubt spontaneous, of the bird to escape the net: here there is certainly an atavistic revival, and perhaps a return to wild instincts." [label info]
kdbrecords.free.fr
|
2013 |
€15.00 |
|
| LAINHART, RICHARD |
Ten Thousand Shades of Blue |
do-CD |
meditative drone compositions from this US composer, to discover !
“ Lainhart¹s music rings true to the spirit of possibility that once defined electronic music. It brings with it a sense of past, present and future that transcends time, technology and cultural assumptions. It¹s a music that is beholden to no one, yet informed by a diverse sphere of appreciations, rich in both intellectual and emotional interest, at once distant and interior, actual and implied. The works on this disc are for (variously): multitracked, processed bowed tam-tam; multitracked, processed bowed Japanese temple bells; multitracked, processed voice; realtime interactive computer music system with bowed and struck vibraphone; and vibraphone.” [label info]
Experimental Intermedia website: www.xirecords.org
|
2001 |
€16.00 |
|
| LANDING |
Brocade |
CD |
Psychedelisch-droniger Wohlklang, ein Meer von e-bow Gitarren, slowed down und etwas drogen-schwanger, Anklänge an SLOWDIVE, FLYING SAUCER ATTACK, SPACEMEN 3....
“Reverting inward after some of their sunny travels into headspace, Brocade touches on early Krautrock rhythms while delving into traditional psychedelic ambient music. Barring a few instrumental overdubs, Brocade was performed live in the studio, resulting in an airy sort of freedom not felt since the gauzy bliss-out improvisation captured on Fade In/Fade Out or moments from their second album Oceanless. In every manifestation, it is a tour-de-force of minimalism, utilizing repeating patters that slowly and steadily develop shape as they float in and out of a barbiturate fog. In the early moments of the album, as fireballs of feedback and effects unfurl into the exquisitely Faust-like drum and bass repetitions of opener "Loft", it would seem that rock and roll would prevail even as the tune winds through increasingly lush terrain, swelling in size as more instrumental streams enter the flow. Placid waters emerge, however, as the drums drop out and Brocade turns into a study in atmospherics with the swelling pulse-and-drone of "Yon" and the shimmering, wispy ripples of "Spiral Arms". After the hazy overdrive of "How to Be Clear", Landing immerse themselves in sparse ambience as conjured by Eno's On Land or Harold Budd's glistening works, floating away with the aptly-named closer "Music For Three Synthesizer". With five compositions stretching out to form 54 minutes of music, Brocade is an elegiac lament for Landing's past, and an introspective yearning towards a glistening new phase in their career.” [press release]
|
2005 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
Third Sight |
LP |
Connecticut's Landing have specialized in a mild and rural kind of psychedelia over the course of nearly two decades. Recent releases have seen them closer to post-punk and shoegaze territory than ever, but Third Sight – recorded specifically for El Paraiso Records’ Impetus series – builds on the hallucinatory soundscapes of the band's earliest days.
There's a unique sense of motoric drift to these four long pieces, and an organic blend of rock instrumentation and analog electronics that brings to mind Eno's best collaborations in the 1970s. But the group's flair for fuzzy drones and new weirdsy commune-folk also betrays their affiliation with the experimental American east coast scene –these guys have played shows with their friends in Bardo Pond, releasing a split EP with Windy & Carl and playing numerous Terrastocks throughout their existence.
And despite releasing one brilliant album after another the band remains appalingly under-appreciated. Perhaps because the tryyps Landing take are rooted in self-exploration. As trends in krautrock, drone, folk, and psychedelia ebb and flow, Landing remain unfazed. The door to Landing’s world is open, but there isn’t a flashing neon sign above it. These guys are far removed from the hustle and bustle of geographic cultural bubbles, both physically and spiritually.
Listening through this LP is likely to stimulate mental images of rural winds blowing across vast American fields of grass, bonfires, blue rivers and power lines sailing through rolling hills. Landing's psychedelia possesses a rare timelessness. We are proud to present this offering from the band in the El Paraiso catalog!
”the whipper snappers these days, trafficking in similar sounds, have NOTHING on their sonic elders. Dreamy, droney, poppy, psychedelic, electronic perfection!”
-Aqaurius Records
”Connecticut's Landing inhabits that amorphous space where time itself expands and contracts according to a delay pedal setting, and dream pop blurs into dream proper. Groups like Stars of the Lid and E.A.R. have wandered this same misty plane in search of the perfect drone, but Landing incorporates Bardo Pond's jam aesthetic into the journey, imparting a welcome communal feel to their lengthy, meandering compositions.”
-Mark Richardson, Pitchfork
"They’ve got integrity to spare and their career, though already spanning more than a decade already, seems to be just getting started."
-Grant Purdum, Tinymixtapes
"Some of the best avant-prog and lo-fi space rock around"
-Mojo
"If you're not yet familiar with Landing, I encourage you to fill up the peace pipe and figure it the fuck out." -Kenny Bloggins, Adhoc
landing.bandcamp.com/album/third-sight |
2016 |
€23.00 |
|
| LANE, CATHY |
The Hebrides Suite |
CD |
"How does history – past lives and past events- leave sonic traces and how can we hear them?
The Hebrides Suite is the result of an attempt to answer this question and the culmination of composer Cathy Lane’s three decade long engagement with the Outer Hebrides.
The Outer Hebrides form a 130-mile long archipelago about 40 miles off the north-west coast of Scotland. There are more than 200 islands but only a few are now inhabited. In the 2001 census the total population of the islands was 26,502. The best known of these islands are Barra (1078), Benbecula (1219), Berneray (136), North (1271), South Uist (1818) and Harris and Lewis (combined population 19,918). There has been an overall slow population decline in the islands over the last two hundred years, with peaks and troughs caused by economic and political fluctuations. In the 1840s poverty and famine lead to whole villages being evicted by landowners, often brutally, to make way for the higher profits of sheep farming. During these forced clearances many people took assisted passages to Canada and Australia and as far away as Patagonia and the Falkland Islands. In the twentieth and twenty first centuries much of the island lands are still owned by absentee landlords and the islanders’ struggles for self determination and economic and political control have continued.
The Outer Hebrides are the most strongly coherent Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) speaking area in the world. Gaelic is a Celtic language related to Welsh, Cornish and Breton. In 2001, 61.1% of the population of the Outer Hebrides spoke Gaelic (compared with 1.2% in the whole of Scotland). A handful of Gaelic speakers can be found in the United States, Canada and Australia most of whom are descended from nineteenth century emigrants. There is a strong Gaelic culture.
Religion is also a significant factor in the life of the inhabitants of the islands. The southern islands of Benbecula, South Uist and Barra are predominantly Roman Catholic. In the northern islands, especially Harris and Lewis, the non-conformist Free Church of Scotland and the still more conservative Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland are very influential. There is a tradition of Sabbath observance and few shops or transport services are available on Sunday although this is increasingly contested.
The emigration still continues, particularly among the young, as the islands offer few employment opportunities. Most present day commercial activities concern tourism, including heritage tourism; crofting; fishing and fish farming and weaving including the manufacture of Harris tweed, a cloth that has been handwoven by the islanders in their homes using pure virgin wool that has been dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides.
Each of the works in The Hebrides Suite uses a mixture of field recordings, interviews and oral history material from existing archives to explore aspects of island life past and present through the medium of composed sound." [label info]
www.gruenrekorder.de
"We cross the Atlantic again but go north, to the Outer Hebrides, a remote '130 mile long archipelago of islands about 40 miles off the north-west coast of Scotland'. Gruenrekorder has the previous two as part of their field recordings series, this one is in the 'soundscape series', so I assume that the material is not presented 'as is', but is used to compose a piece of music with this, with repeating blocks of sounds, mixes of various bits together, but with the overall idea that we stay in one place and we know more of the place. Cathy Lane does that in six pieces, all around nine to twelve minutes and each is about a certain aspect of the Hebrides, the wind, the sheep/the mill, life on the islands and such like. Sometimes, such as in 'Where Once Were Whales', about fishing, we also hear voices, talking about their trade, even when it's not always to understand what they are telling us, partly due to the dialect, partly due to the fact that the voices are layered. It perhaps adds to the mystique of the release? Unlike the other two, which are 'merely' audio travelogues, Lane actually composes with the material and makes some very strong compositions with it. Of the three releases, it's also the one which has the most documentation, explaining in detail what each piece is about. I quite enjoyed all three of these releases, but it was the Cathy Lane release that I especially enjoyed for it's more musical qualities. One to play again and again." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2013 |
€13.00 |
|
| LAU, PAK YAN |
Bakunawa |
LP |
More hands. More possibilities. More ethereal drones. More poly shifting rhythms. More fun.
That was the starting point and the idea of ‘Bakunawa’: the album Pak Yan Lau recorded with her freshly started ensemble, consisting of the marvellous musicians Vera Cavallin, Giovanni Di Domenico, João Lobo and Mathieu Calleja.
On ‘Bakunawa’ Pak Yan and her ensemble are delving and digging deep into the sound spectrum of detuned toy piano’s, second hand gong rods, prepared harp, metal tubes and ring modulators.
Instruments were searched, collected and bought worldwide: on Japanese street markets, in second hand stores in Brussels, from dedicated American Ebay-sellers and the cellar of the Musica centre in Neerpelt.
The result is a record split up in two compositions of 20 minutes: on Part I the Bakunawa ensemble let the overtones of the gong rods, prepared harp and metal tubes slowly resonate into a deep listening ambient state of mind.
Rich harmonic textures of rather unconventional instruments shaping an immersive piece of spellbinding sonic details.
On Part II the quintet craft their own ritual ceremony music with distorted toy piano’s and hypnotic percussion. Echoing the frequencies of a gamelan orchestra. Rhythms shifting in
haunted patterns recalling the Philippine mythology where the moon swallowing sea dragon Bakunawa was scared away by drumming loudly on pots and pans.
Pak Yan Lau: composition, gong rods, toy piano, metal tubes, ring modulators
Vera Cavallin: gong rods, prepared harp
Giovanni Di Domenico: gong rods, toy piano
João Lobo: gong rods, toy piano, tom
Mathieu Calleja: gong rods, toy piano, bass drum, metal tubes
Recorded at STUK in Leuven and Kunstencentrum nona in Mechelen in 2020
Recorded and mixed by Christophe Albertijn
Mastered by Gert Van Hoof & Jimmy Van Rietvelde at Cochlea Mastering
Cut by Dubplates & Mastering Berlin
Cover pictures by Juhyun Choi
Pictures insert by Laurent Orseau
Layout design by Jef Cuypers
Executive production by Philippe Cortens
https://cortizona.bandcamp.com/album/bakunawa
|
2021 |
€23.00 |
|
| LAVELLE, BRIAN |
Supernaturalist |
CD |
Der Ambient-Geheimtip BRIAN LAVELLE schafft behutsame Klangfigurationen, die wie Schatten im Raum liegen; verträumt bis mysteriös schimmern seine akustischen Gebilde aus "electronics, field recordings, synth, piano & bass guitar", alles driftet wie in Trance dahin...
"Exclusive new output from this ambient/electronic artist from Scotland, UK. On ‘Supernaturalist’, Brian Lavelle presents 4 long brilliant compositions (70 minutes), minimal at first hearing, but with full maximum impact: bare to multi-layered drones, gentle to hallucinogating field recordings with natural elements, ambient noises and real instruments (piano, bass…). A classic album with style, hauntingly beautiful!! Full metallised CD housed in the usual 7” folder cover, ‘pâle bleu’ (pale blue), in an edition of 300 copies only. Mastering, photography and design by Brian Lavelle." [label info]
EE Tapes website: www.eetapes.be
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| LEITMOTIV LIMBO |
Superior State |
LP |
Superior State is the second Leitmotiv Limbo album released by Port Adelaide’s De la Catessen Records, after the 2022 CD Spiritual Disturbance. This time, Leitmotiv Limbo’s isolationist studies have been bumped to vinyl, which feels like the perfect format for these twelve miniatures. The project of Adelaide artist Elijah Värttö, Leitmotiv Limbo has, over the past few decades, tracked a history of quietly insistent experimentation, embracing several technologies – invented instruments; analogue filters; drum synth – to sketch desolate, cavernous structures, sometimes performed in reverberant spaces, such as church halls, which gifts the recordings a ritualistic air.
For Superior State, Värttö is more intently focused on rhythms and pulses, resulting in a beautifully sculpted collection of poetic vignettes. You can hear some trace elements, here, of the minimalist techno-not-techno of artists like Pan Sonic, or Studio 1/Freiland, in their reductionist ethos. But also, in the insistence of Värttö’s attention to detail, and his careful focus on a delimited number of elements, the twelve pieces on Superior State recall the work of mysterious German outfits Werkbund and Mechthild Von Leutsch, or the solo explorations of artists like Asmus Tietchens, Achim Wollscheid and Goem.
It's intensely evocative music, recalling all kinds of phenomena, both man-made and natural: electricity pulsing through wires; the humming of the central nervous system; the quiet hiss of deserted computer laboratories; the pulsations of plant life; the molecular vibration of atoms. Värttö has tapped into the poetry of the programmatic on Superior State, and he’s sharp in his grasp of the significant effect that the incremental shifting of a few simple parameters can have on the overarching structures he’s building here. Indeed, that poetry is echoed back in the beautiful liner notes by Adelaide artist Michael Hocking. Alive, flickering with incident, Superior State is energy transmitted, coursing through the collective’s veins.
Music recorded in a room on Nile St, Port Adelaide across six evenings, of one week in January 2023. Instruments of analogue electronics were built, performed and recorded by Elijah Värttö directly to 4-track tape, with two room mics. The instruments form four quarters, as two hemispheres mirrored. Each hemisphere has a symmetry of structure, albeit comprised of differing materials.
Detail of artwork: spray paint on metal by Elijah Värttö
Mastered for vinyl by Giuseppe Ielasi
Design by Sam Songailo
℗ Elijah Värttö 2023
© De la Catessen Records 2023
"While I recognized the Leitmotiv Limbo immediately, I was surprised that I had already reviewed four previous releases by Elijah Värttö's music project (Vital Weekly 951, 1152, 1219 and 1336). All of these were on cassette, but now it's time to do the next step and release an LP. The music is ready for it, I'd say. Värttö sounds like a Finnish name, but he's from Adelaide, just like the label here, who also re-issued the 'Spiritual Disturbance' cassette on CD. The press information talks about "invented instruments, analogue filters, drum synth" and influences of Pan Sonic, Studio 1 (Wolfgang Voigt rather than the dub label), Freiland, but also Werkbund, Asmus Tietchens, Achim Wollscheid and Goem. Some of these names I am very familiar with, and while I can't say these people don't influence him, I also believe that maybe, except for Werkbund and Tietchens, I don't hear these influences to that extent. Rhythm plays an undeniable part in the music here. Still, there is only some of that 'techno that isn't techno' of Pan Sonic or Goem here (more the latter than the first, in 'Parading Brutality', for instance), nor the conceptual edge of somebody such as Wollscheid. In these twelve pieces, I hear more of a nod towards mid-80s industrial music, where you can find albums by Tietchens of similar musical interests. Also, given the more loop-like approach, a group like Dome (in 'Relative Space', for instance). This LP is a giant leap forward compared to the previous cassette works. There was naivety in his older work, which was most enjoyable, but rightfully, it was time to move on. Leitmotiv Limbo now exercises more control, more composition, if you will. There is less of that 'roll the tape and see what happens' approach, but the music here is to the point. There is no endless wailing about, but each of the twelve compositions is just that. Not too industrial, never noisy, but with a studio-as-instrument approach, exploring uncharted territory on the sonic map. I can hardly wait for the next one." [Vital Weekly]
https://leitmotivlimbo.bandcamp.com/album/superior-state |
2023 |
€26.00 |
|
| LES FRAGMENTS DE LA NUIT |
Musique du Crepuscule |
CD |
Dramatic & expressive neoclassic / chamber music from this quintett using mainly strings, lots of minimal & repetitive string-structures are build, all instrumental. Their music has been compared with ARVÖ PÄRT, STEVE REICH, PHILIPP GLASS and GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPOROR, but we also think of WIM MERTENS and RACHELS.
"Musique du Crépuscule" is a vision of night wrapped in mystery: a night haunted by spectral chants, under the spell of epic, poignant strings and sustained by hypnotic piano pulsations. Its nocturnal universe oozes with hybrid ink, enveloping hidden emotions tainted with melancholy and voluptuousness. A neo-classical or post-nocturnal piece, "Musique du Crépuscule" has many different faces. It alternates between violin riffs, dark cello projections and the complaints of a lone piano, highlighted by enigmatic echoing voices. The moonlight slowly reveals a name in the ethereal infinity: Les Fragments de la Nuit." [label info]
"Michel Villar (piano) and Ombeline Chardes (violin) both hailing from France are the talented musicians who set up this project. They’ve been joined by a few more musicians and guest vocalists. While releasing their debut-cd on Equilibrium Music they have already been involved in various soundtrack compositions for independent cinema, animations and documentaries. The soundtrack-influence is easily recognizable while the piano and violin parts also bring us to make a link with neo classical music. Les Fragments De La Nuit sounds like a journey through darkness and the name of the project perfectly fits to this goal. Most of the songs remain instrumental version filled with low piano keys and sad feelings emerging from this melancholia. Mysterious chants emerge to the surface on one of the pieces, but the music remains like encaged in an atmosphere of endless darkness or should I say an endless night. The different fragments of this night have been expressed with a gift for melancholia coming from musicians with talent!" [Side-Line]
|
2008 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Demain, C'etait Hier |
CD |
"Lush nocturnal neo-classical pieces forming an epic soundtrack that runs from quiet, melancholy-driven moments to stirring, violent passages and eerie moods. A unique universe, where compositions that evoke Arvö Part, Philip Glass or Godspeed You! Black Emperor seem haunted by the disturbing evil ghosts of Magma now and again." [label info]
www.equilibriummusic.com
|
2010 |
€15.00 |
|
| LES HALLES |
Zephyr |
LP |
The welcome and wondrous return of Lyon musician Baptiste Martin’s aerial ambient identity, Les Halles, following a year’s sabbatical from recording, Zephyr takes its name from a light westerly wind, which aptly evokes the warm, weightless, whispering spirit of these beguiling ambient designs. Working entirely with a computer for the first time, Martin’s sample bank swelled in both depth and detail, giving his compositions a crisper focus and finer grain. Slovakian fujara flutes shudder and shimmer, offset with rippling PVC panpipes, chimes, and gentle webs of delay.
The tracks are titled according to their sample source, designated with one of three words that are same in French and English: horizon, mirage, and distance. Martin speaks of these pieces as conjuring “landscapes with almost no human traces,” and his criterion for completion is simple: “When I feel like I’m losing the perception of time while listening.” Nine new divinations by one of today’s most attuned waking dreamers.
|
2018 |
€18.00 |
|
| LETHE |
Catastrophe Point #5 |
CD |
"The latest in Kuwayama Kiyoharu's signature series of compositions that explore the charged, mysterious atmosphere of disused industrial sites. For this album, LETHE turns his attention to an abandoned warehouse by a pier in his hometown of Nagoya, Japan, using objects discovered in situ to perform a ritual of sonic resurrection. He brings a dead space back to life, giving it a voice and allowing it to speak. Metal chains, sheet metal, broken machinery, and factory debris are bowed, struck, and dragged across the concrete floors of the massive hall, reverberating and responding as Kuwayama and his microphones scuttle across the desolate terrain. Growling cello and unstable horns underscore the torrents of percussive clatter. Catastrophe Point #5 is a haunting album of volatile, malevolent ambience. For fans of Christoph Heemann, Surface of the Earth, The New Blockaders, Z'ev, or Organum." [label info]
www.intransitiverecordings.com
"Metgumbnerbone is not a reference that pops up all that much, nor is it one that would mean much to anyone who isn't a complete dork
about British esoteric experimental musics. But that's where we'll start for this review because that's the reference that one such dork had to make here at Aquarius (it was Jim if you must know). Metgumbnerbone was a shadowy collection of dour Brits (including Richard Rupenus of The New Blockaders) who took up residence in an abandoned factory somewhere in Newcastle and constructed a bleak ritualist music out of the refuse found within. Scraping metal and atonal horns crafted out of plumbing material abound in the Metgumbnerbone vocabulary. Such is the case for Lethe as well, the found-space project of Japanese improviser Kuwayama Kiyoharu. However, as Metgumbernone's post-electrical scrabblings were the result of a collective effort, Lethe's spatializations emerge from an orchestra of one. It seems impossible that he did not overdub many of these sounds, but the production so fully embraces the cavernous space of his choosing that Lethe's pieces sound as if they were constructed in a single take.
For Catastrophe Point #5, Lethe used an abandoned grain warehouse located on the outskirts of Nagoya, Japan. Much more than an
ambivalent shuffling or wandering scattering of clunky sounds, Lethe amasses sympathetic scrapings from pieces of metal, large and small, as they are dragged, bowed, and beaten throughout the space. Long form drones emerge throughout the performance as if he's triggering a resonant frequency of the space, echoing against itself. It's true that many of these sounds resemble those found on the impossible to find Metgumberbone records, but other references would be Organum's Vacant Lights album, Z'ev's finer moments, the recent John Grzinich constructions, and even Yoshi Wada's bellowing recordings of his Earth
Horns. Excellent!" [Aquarius Records]
|
2009 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Catastrophe Point #7 & #8 |
do-CD |
"* standard edition includes:
* 3-panel letterpress sleeve by ben owen, assembled by invisible birds
* liner notes by giancarlo toniutti, letterpress printing by ben owen
* all compositions by lethe
* photos by kuwayama kiyoharu
* sleeve design by invisible birds & kuwayama kiyoharu
* letterpress printing by ben owen at middle press, brooklyn
* liner notes written and designed by giancarlo toniutti
invisible birds continues lethe's catastrophe point series with a 2cd set which includes 2 recordings in his series, one recorded in switzerland in 2004 and the other recorded in scotland in 2006. lethe's series take place in abandoned industrial sites, using drones, chains, an occasional instrument, objects
found in the space, but most importantly the resonant qualities of the space. the wire magazine explained this series "the music sounds like it's taking place in a vast, pitch black aircraft hangar of the soul".
yannick dauby said "these are kiyoharu's obsessive abstractions dealing with physical substance and volume".
the packaging for this release was done in collaboration with kiyoharu kuwayama and letterpress printer ben owen
with the hope of achieving something that reflects the beauty and intensity of the work.
lethe: [l. lēthē, a use of gr. ληθη forgetfulness, f. ληθ, ablaut-var. of λαθ, root of λανθαυεσθας to forget. in gr. ληθη is not the name of the river, though it occurs
as a personification; the river is ληθης 'water of lethe']. 1. gr. myth. a river in hades, the water of which produced, in those who drank it, forgetfullnes of the past. hence, the 'waters of oblivion', or forgetfullness of the past.
2. [?influenced by l. lēt(h)um.] death. rare.
3. atrib. and comb., as lethe-flood, lake, wharf; lethe-wards adv. (oed definition)" [label info]
http://invisiblebirds.org/
|
2010 |
€16.00 |
|
| LEVANDER, ERIK |
Jökel |
CD |
Swedish musician Erik Levander gained attention as part of the new wave of young DIY laptop experimentalists arising in the early 2000's. His somewhat eclectic early output has since developed into a unique and vibrant blend of digital, analog and acoustic sounds weaved into epic and powerful atmospherics. Levander has performed his work extensively, including shows at Roskilde Festival, Norberg Festival, Nordic Music Days and Forma Nova Festival. With the release of ‘Jökel´, Levander’s seventh full length album, he continues to break new ground, presenting a conceptual album that may be his most minimalistic, lingering and evocative release to date.
As a result of ignorance, negligence, and a lack of immediate responsible profound political action, there are indications that planet Earth is irreversibly about to leave the relative climate stability we have enjoyed during the Holocene for roughly the last 10,000 years. Some of the most apparent signs of ongoing climate change are found in the continuous reports of sea ice, inland ice, shelf ice and glaciers shrinking at an alarming rate. This album is a homage to the still living glaciers. The album title 'Jökel' means 'Glacier' in Swedish, with roots in the Icelandic word 'Jökull'. The compositions are in particular inspired by Levander’s 2009 visit to the glacier Mýrdalsjökull in Iceland, a glacier famous for covering the active volcano Katla. With imaginary field recordings, barren but vigorous soundscapes, Levander invites the listener to experience this desolate glacier 'in sensu'. Perhaps this awareness, and by appreciating the beauty and importance of these natural wonders, we can somehow in the extension help the survival of the glaciers, and contribute to recover the environmental balance of this planet.
https://glacialmovements.bandcamp.com/album/j-kel
|
2021 |
€15.00 |
|
| LIBEREZ |
Way through Vulnerability |
LP |
Southend-on-Sea experimental outfit Liberez deliver the end result of a year and a half long recording process, an amorphous new line up and advanced studies in sound collage. On ‘Way Through Vulnerability’ new members Reay, Saunders and Ugarteburu channel the projects previous outings on Alter and Night School by conveying the same firm grounding in rhythm, though this time via Flamenco time signatures and eerie, repetitive clapping.
At times sounding indebted to the ‘tribal ambient’ of decades gone by, at times sounding fresh in their approach (‘Here is the Proof’ is of note) the trio manage to export motifs from Italian avant-garde circles, UK industrial and dare we say post-rock all at the same time. The sound design on ‘Derelict Intentions’ makes heavy use of background ambience and bleak, world-weary minimalism to lull us into a false sense of calm before harsh and unexpected blurts of noise break the equilibrium. In doing so they swiftly side-step any preconceptions of ‘easy listening’ and opt instead to drag us deeper down into their own dark waters. At times we almost seem to delve into lost theatre soundtrack territory; fragmented neo-classical elements dance with punchy drum machines (‘Cara En La Foto Pt II’) and things draw to a close with the end credit worthy swansong of the album’s title track. The group repeatedly utilise Basque country language, Hungarian dialect and ancient Russian to lend their compositions a cross-cultural underpinning and eschew any clear geographic origin, a decision which all but adds to the perplexities of their unique brand of electro-acoustic purgatory."
|
2018 |
€18.00 |
|
| LICHT, ALAN |
A New York Minute |
do-CD |
Polyphone Drone-Harmonics von ALAN LICHT, der hier sowohl seine Qualitäten als Experimental & Drone-Gitarrist zeigt als auch seine Fähigkeit konzeptuell zu komponieren...“Alan Licht wears many hats. Over the years, he's been a curator of music as well as a tireless performer. And he's as well-known an author as he is a musician. It's one thing to have eclectic tastes; it's another to make a practice of them. While Licht's earlier records have seamlessly melded his improvisational guitar playing with extended plundered sounds, A New York Minute takes things a few steps further. Instead of fusing the many sides of Licht into one monolithic mega-mix, this disc separates them into discreet compositions. There's a lot more at stake here: the guitar pieces are showcased as guitar pieces and the plundered works are just that. The conceptual tendencies in Licht no longer hide behind his talent as a guitarist; likewise, the guitar pieces are no longer propped on hooky concepts that take our attention away from his fretwork. The good news is that both work: Licht is as strong a conceptual artist as he is a composer. (Kenneth Goldsmith, liner note writer) |
2003 |
€16.00 |
|
| LIFE GARDEN |
Plutonian Dub (SOLD OUT) |
7inch |
unbelievable intense and mesmerizing two tracks of yearnful ethereal ambience with mighty rhythmical parts, monumental and melancholic at the same time...
"LIMITED+NUMBERED FIRST EDITION OF 250 COPIES
GREY VINYL; HANDCOLOURED PE-SLEEVES
LIFE GARDEN FROM PHOENIX, ARIZONA, ARE THE REMAINS OF THE LEGENDARY GROUP MAYBE MENTAL, WHO HAVE BEEN AROUND IN THE 80's IN THE EXPERIMENTALLY ORIENTATED GLOBAL CASSETTE-UNDERGROUND AND RELEASED 7 TAPES (THAT ARE HARD TO FIND NOW), AND ONE SPLIT-LP WITH CONTROLLED BLEEDING.
LIFE GARDEN CREATE A UNIQUE STYLE OF THEIR OWN BY COMBINING AMBIENT ATMOSPHERES WITH EASTERN INFLUENCES, MAKING IT INTENSE AND MAGNIFICENT COMPOSITIONS.
DRONE RECORDS HAVE NOW RELEASED THE VERY FIRST PIECE OF VINYL BY THIS GROUP, WHICH CONTAINS THE TRACKS 'PLUTONIAN DUB' AND 'CHAOS LULLABY' - WITH THE YEARNING SINGING OF SU LING, THE SURREAL DRONES AND THE POWERFUL RITUAL DRUMMING THIS APPEARS TO BE A TIMELESS AND WISE AURAL MONUMENT.
AFTER HAVING HAD 4 BAD PRESSINGS WE ARE MOST HAPPY TO PRESENT THIS
UNIQUE 7". FINALLY WE'D LIKE TO SAY 'SORRY' TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAD TO WAIT THAT LONG!
" an exploration into a wide range of sound, emotion, wonderment and intensity "
DRONE RECORDS DR-20/APRIL 1997 |
1997 |
€ |
|
| LILES, ANDREW |
Muldjewangk, Morgawr & other Monsters |
CD |
"Andrew Liles is an incredibly prolific musician working in the same vein as artists like Nurse With Wound and The Hafler Trio, releasing his oblique, idiosyncratic Surrealist sound compositions at a terrific rate to a fanbase who must have a good deal of disposable income. This disc is part of a larger collection of “Monster” themed works by Liles, from more music to wristbands, shirts, guitar picks and so on. This ‘brand’ seems to be presented with a certain sense of humour and a bit of a nod and a wink.
The bestiary to hand on this disc is a curious one, and we scuttle sidelong into it with the excellent digeridoo-drenched tribal oddness of ‘Swamp Thing’, which is surrounded by two more free-form pieces comprising creepy spoken-word stories, children singing and so on. In fact the longer you delve into ‘Muldjewangk, Morgawr & Other Monsters’, the more this becomes an obvious underpinning stylistic theme, the spoken word elements in a dozen languages (all real? I can’t tell) and spooky chanting/singing in children’s voices crops up repeatedly throughout.
Following the slightly helter-skelter opening sequence, things take a murky turn into the spaced-out and strange. ‘Pine Cold Emerald Lights’ is morose and Slavic – lamenting violins lurch around under a male voice imparting something Cyrillic. But then we’re led to meet the monster, more children’s voices intoning ‘followfollowfollow’ over and over, and we’re deep in the jungle.
More and more twists and turns follow, clattering, off kilter drums, sonorous tones and more half-heard narrations, a terrifying diversion into drum & bass, intonations and incantations. It’s all grist to the Andrew Liles mill, a genuine feeling of a confused stagger through a cryptozoological safari park while feeling like it’s all done with a sly grin. Also worth noting is the seeming lack or concealment of overtly electronic sounds or techniques, other than effects. This gives a really organic, earthy feeling, the twists and turns in the composition feeling like a natural shift. The one point where electronics show up – the queasy breakbeat section in ‘Gin Tumbler Landfill’ – it comes in like a radio being tuned to that accidentally and then is abruptly interrupted with a sudden shift to violin and piano, as if switched off in disgust.
I don’t really know much of Andrew Liles’ work away from his collaborations with NWW and Current 93 so this was an interesting listen for me, imagining the crossovers and identifying the stylistic differences. He’s definitely a point on that post-industrial Surrealist continuum, and long may he remain so." [label info]
www.touretterecords.com
|
2011 |
€12.00 |
|
| LINGUA FUNGI & SHRINE |
Strange Growths / Wander |
CD |
"Lingua Fungi’s sound is calm, soft and tasty- enriched with acoustic instruments and brilliant percussions. Long and mature compositions with clear sound drifting in timeless trance.
Shrine’s sound is more ambient/industrial, darker, with more samples and a bit noisy. He is presented by two long compositions dealing with dualism.
The first one –“There” is lighter, dedicated to the human part, light, life, while the second one-“Back” is darker, massive and gloomy. It’s representing machinery, industrial part of our life, the loss of everything human. In other words-Hell.
The collaborative work is released in 3 panel digipack with conceptual design." [label info]
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| LOCRIAN & MAMIFFER |
Bless them that curse you |
do-LP |
"Bless Them That Curse You captures an unprecedented balance of claustrophobia and solace. It's a strange alchemy to render something both inviting and alienating; it requires a special kind of skill to create music that sounds like it's rattling apart at its seams, unraveling in a torturous but compelling fashion. It demands an acknowledgement of the fine line between noise and racket, between tension and tedium. Finding an interpersonal chemistry to pull it off can take years of searching and refinement. Initiated by a history of record swapping and mutual admiration, Chicago's Locrian and Seattle's Mamiffer managed to accomplish such a feat. Since their inception, Locrian's sound has thrived on harnessing emotional resonance through texture and space. Highlighting a specific melody or beat in their music is unnecessary; their ability to trigger unease, fear, despair, and paranoia by playing with dynamics in timbre and timing is the central fixture in their work. While the Chicago trio's approach is certainly unorthodox, they are not without sonic peers. Seattle duo Mamiffer similarly explores new territories in sound by marrying fragmented elements of neoclassical, drone, and proto-industrial dirge into compositions that are beguiling, haunting, and occasionally violent. Originating as a solo project for pianist Faith Coloccia, the project grew to encompass husband Aaron Turner and a rotating cast of guest musicians. Coloccia's work, by nature, is malleable and suited towards the collaborative process. The collaboration between the two groups yielded some of the most beautiful material Locrian has ever recorded, and inversely pushed Mamiffer into the most caustic of new territories. Composed and recorded in Chicago at the renowned Electrical Audio studio, the album is the result of two disparate approaches arriving at one cohesive voice. It's at turns contemplative and reserved, unnerving and unsettling, thunderous and feral. Aided by the engineering prowess of Greg Norman, the mixing skill of Randall Dunn, and the auxiliary instrumentation of Alex Barnett (Oakeater) and Brian Cook (Russian Circles), Bless Them That Curse You is a richly textured study in an unconventional creative process, blending fine-tuned synchronicity with spontaneous brute force. Limited edition of 550, packaged in deluxe LP fold out designed by Faith Coloccia. Double LP on three sides. Clear and grey
brown vinyl." [label info]
www.utechrecords.com
|
2012 |
€29.50 |
|
| LOPEZ, SUSANA (AKA SUSAN DRONE) |
Cronica de un Secuestro |
CD |
"Elevator Bath is well pleased to present "Crónica de un secuestro," the proper debut album from multidisciplinary artist Susana López.
These compositions were created in March 2020, during the lockdown, as the artist understandably experienced feelings of isolation, of being cloistered against her will. Perhaps this explains the album's attention to space. The notions of movement and exploration pervade the early pieces on this epic collection. The expansive drone and panning rhythms of album opener, "Luz Negra," seem to create an infinite landscape, which seamlessly continues through the title track and all the way to the pure field recordings at work in "Ibn Arabi." The walls begin to close in as "Crónica de un secuestro" progresses, however, culminating with the claustrophobia of closing track, "The Last Wave." The sonic openness is still present, yet the unrelenting, ominous tones remind us of our modern predicament: We are still confined; held as if kidnapped.
For the creation of "Crónica de un secuestro," Susana López's primary raw materials were transformed field recordings, humanized synthesizers, synthesized voices, and deconstructed drum machines. This work explores the effects that the combination of these disparate sources can produce in the listener; López's interest lies in the building of immersive experiences. The sounds found within "Crónica de un secuestro" then aim to act as a catalyst for the focusing of consciousness (and the altering of perception). The end result belongs to a kind of magical realism, potentially allowing the listener to escape into a new dimension.
Susana López is an experimental composer, visual artist, and performer based in Murcia, Spain." [label info]
https://susanloop.bandcamp.com/album/cr-nica-de-un-secuestro
|
2020 |
€13.00 |
|
| LOTUS EATERS |
Mind Control for Infants |
CD |
Sehnsüchtig erwartete (nach der tollen 12” und der überaus gefragten 7” auf Drone) erste CD des US-Dronepsychfolk-Trios von Aaron Turner, Stephen O’Malley und James Plotkin. Auf sechs unbetitelten Stücken entwerfen sie fragile tagträumerische Kompositionen mit vielen Akustikgitarrensounds im Vordergrund und diversen verhaltenen Background-Eruptionen.. hat eine ganz eigene hypnotische Note... first CD by this wonderful experimental dronepsych-trio, six daydreaming compositions with many acoustic guitar sounds and more strange background-eruptions.. has a very own hypnotic note..
“..Contemplative as it is calming, Mind Control for Infants nonetheless demands mood-altering interaction and mind-controlling attention. Sparse and spaceless they may be, but much like contemporaries/labelmates Tribes of Neurot, the Lotus Eaters are far from "easy listening." In the LE world, low-end gurgles co-exist with (delicately treated) strums of the guitar and sub-aquatic plunges of reverb, the result mountainous as it is minimal, without genre as it is without boundary.” [from the label description]
label-website: www.neurotrecordings.com
|
2002 |
€13.00 |
|
| LUCIER, ALVIN |
Orpheus Variations |
CD |
"Orpheus Variations is a new composition by Alvin Lucier for solo cello and seven wind instruments. It is based on a particular sonority from the first movement of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score, Orpheus; a sonority that has haunted Lucier for decades.
Orpheus Variations is one of eight large-scale compositions made expressly for Charles Curtis by Alvin Lucier in the last 15 years. This performance was conducted by Petr Kotik, with Charles Curtis playing solo cello alongside members of the SEM Ensemble.
“Lucier speaks first of a sonority, and only then of a chord. He discusses the chord, its notes and their disposition, but what haunts him is a “particular sonority.” A sonority is the product of physical action on physical materials: the instruments, the registers in which they are activated, the breath of the musicians, the waveforms thus produced, their merging and interfering, and finally the moment and place of these actions. An energy field, certain to vanish completely once the musicians put down their instruments. However concrete and real the actions and materials, the sonority they produce is a phantom.”
https://soundcloud.com/importantrecords/alvin-lucier-orpheus-variations
https://imprec.bandcamp.com/album/orpheus-variations
|
2019 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Works for the Ever Present Orchestra |
do-LP |
Black Truffle’s documentation of the prolific recent work of legendary American composer Alvin Lucier continues with Works for the Ever Present Orchestra. This is a very special release for the composer, as it presents pieces written for the thirteen-member Ever Present Orchestra, formed in 2016 exclusively to perform Lucier’s works. At the heart of the ensemble are four electric guitars, an instrument Lucier began composing for in 2013 with Criss-Cross (recorded by two core members of the Ever Present Orchestra, Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O’Malley, for whom it was composed, on Black Truffle 033). Through the use of e-bows, the guitars take on a role akin to the slow sweep pure wave oscillators heard in many of Lucier’s works since the early 1980s, but with added harmonic richness. Like much of Lucier’s instrumental music, the pieces recorded here focus on acoustic phenomena, especially beating patterns, produced by the interference between closely tuned pitches. The work presented here is some of the richest and most inviting that Lucier has composed. Though all of the pieces clearly belong to the same continuing exploration of the behaviour of sound in physical space and make use of related compositional devices, each takes on a strikingly different character. Titled Arc, for the full ensemble of four guitars, four saxophones, four violins, piano and bowed glockenspiel inhabits a world of sliding, uneasy tones, punctuated by a single piano note. Where Double Helix, for four guitars, rests on a pillow of warm, low hum, EPO-5, for two guitars, saxophone, violin, and glockenspiel possess a limpid, crystalline quality. Accompanying the four new compositions are two adaptations of existing pieces for radically different instrumentation, demonstrating Lucier’s excitement about the new possibilities suggested by this dedicated ensemble. Works for the Ever Present Orchestra is an essential document of the current state of Lucier’s continuing exploration, as well as offering a seductive entry-point for anyone who might yet be unacquainted with his singular body of work.
Presented in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with cover artwork and liner notes from Alvin Lucier. Includes a download code featuring hi-res vesions of the LP material. The download code also includes the bonus Adaptions for the Ever Present Orchestra featuring two pieces (“Two Circles” and “Braid”) that are not included on the LP version. Mastered by Rashad Becker. Design by Lasse Marhaug.
https://blacktruffle.bandcamp.com/album/works-for-the-
ever-present-orchestra
|
2020 |
€26.00 |
|
| LUNAR ABYSS / VANUM |
Ulm-Gra / Pelena Sna |
CD |
"This split-release of two Russian projects was delayed almost for two years, which makes it even more interesting. Lunar Abyss presents two tracks of solo immersions of Evgeniy S. in the droning waves, saturated by tube cascades, and the third track is recently found unreleased fragment of a concert from 25.10.1999 in the Experimental Sound Gallety - 21, the remarkable performance for the project which provided material for creating two albums: "Cosmologamma" and "Zeleznaya Voda"... Later come four pieces by Vanum from the city of Tolyatti, which continue the shamanic mood and isolationist discourse. The compositions are based on the sound of Soviet analogue synths with minimal processing which makes them airy, bright and hypnotic at the same time. This is not relax music, it mesmerizes and brings to a pleasant stupor, full of psychedelic vigor, a veil of a dream calling up visions... The CD is packed in a cardboard sleeve with a hand-made stamping, each copy is numbered." [label info]
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
| LUNAR ABYSS DEUS ORGANUM |
Uzor |
CD |
"The third "real" CD by LADO combines tracks recorded in 2002-2004 and due to various circumstances initially spread over various compilations and EPs ("Heilige Feuer III", "Thalamus II", "Holy Mother Russia", "Listopad Vot On", "Brusnika"). Now the circle is closed and this CD represents the pieces almost in the same order as they were created. The album reflects a certain period of creativity and especially author's interest in proto-Eurasian cultures. Sounds like the best album of the project, although it is a kaleidoscope, creating a new pattern for the hearing. The compositions are created from acoustic and electronic structures, drum and noise loops, voice samples, scientific & journalistic recordings and deep wave drones." [label info]
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| LUNDVALL, TOR |
Ghost Years |
CD |
" 'Ghost Years' is my first retrospective CD featuring tracks from various compilations, vinyl-only releases plus some unreleased material. The focus is more on my vocal work, however there are a few instrumental pieces included as well. Although the music spans about a decade, I was surprised at how well the tracks flow together to make a coherent ensemble, evolving from my earlier song-oriented compositions to the more ambient nature of my recent recordings. (Tor Lundvall, November 2009). 13 Ghost Ambiences." [label info]
|
2010 |
€6.50 |
|
| LUSSIER, RENE |
Completement Marteau |
CD |
For René Lussier, this album is an unexpected assembly:
“I gathered four compositions from commissions to which I responded with a maximum of freedom. They all testify to a long process of gossiping and pecking. As a proud patentee of out-of-the-box music, I have grouped them together under the title Complètement marteau, as in crazy stiff, unbridled and surprising, but also as in handcrafted, patiently and laboriously, with my self-taught tools.”
The Burletta series (2009) and the BanQ piece (2015) were recorded for a clown theater show and an architectural projection, respectively. Pour modifier vos options personnelles appuyez sur l’étoile * (quartet for guitars and electric toothbrushes, 2019) and Le clou (double bass quartet, 1999), were performed by the ensembles that commissioned them, but never recorded.
Despite the years between them, these pieces fit together easily, thanks to similar compositional processes. A pointillist approach runs through the album, with motifs divided among several voices, the sum of which draws the rhythmic and melodic phrases. All multi-movement pieces, they are interspersed here between the paintings of the Burletta suite, as if in a playful setting. BanQ and Burletta benefit from a large orchestration, with a whole lot of homemade percussions made of rubbing, mouth noises, cake spatulas, barbecue spits and styrofoam on a wet window. There is also the recurring and inimitable presence of the daxophone, an idiophone invented by the German musician Hans Reichel.
Born in Montreal in 1957, guitarist René Lussier is one of the leading figures in innovative Quebec music. He divides his practice between composition, improvisation, soundtrack, songwriting, directing and producing. He has produced some sixty film scores, the extraordinary soundtrack for Robert Lepage’s Moulin à Images (2008-2012) and some thirty recordings, including Le Trésor de la langue, Grand prix Paul Gilson in 1989, a fresco on speech and history described as a masterpiece by critics. He has initiated or been a member of numerous ensembles that have allowed him to tour throughout the world, including with British musician Fred Frith (Nous autres, Keep the Dog, Fred Frith Guitar Quartet). René Lussier has received the Freddy Stone Award “…for his artistic integrity, innovative spirit and contribution to Canadian new music” and the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award “for outstanding achievement and excellence”. In recent years, he has composed for the stage, sounded installations by filmmaker Pierre Hébert, written for the ensembles Hard Rubber (Vancouver) and Bang on a Can (New York), as well as for his own René Lussier Quintet (festivals and Japanese tour in 2018), with whom he is about to record a second disc. Since 2003, he has been living and working in the countryside, where he has built a working laboratory. His activity is as effervescent as ever, in the tireless pursuit of an eclectic approach guided by experimentation.
https://renelussier.bandcamp.com/album/compl-tement-marteau
"Neues Album des kanadischen Multiinstrumentalisten und Komponisten RENÉ LUSSIER. „Completment Marteau“ erscheint als CD auf RECOMMENDED. 1957 in Montreal geboren, entdeckte LUSSIER schnell sein Interesse für Musik, lernte diverse Instrumente und schloss sich 1973 der Progressive-Rock-Band ARPÈGE als Gitarrist an. Durch seine Zusammenarbeit mit der ihn bis heute prägenden Free-Jazz / Avantgarde-Band CONVENTUM 1976 widmete sich der Künstler in den folgenden Jahren vor allem der Neuen
Improvisationsmusik und spielte bis 1985 bei Gruppen wie QUATOUR DE L‘EMMIEUX AND
LES REINS, NÉBU oder G.U.M. Zwischen 1982 und 1984 begleitete Lussier als Gitarrist auch
die Sängerin PAULINE JULIEN und gründete mit seinem erfolgreich im Improvisationsduo
auftretenden und international tourenden Partner JEAN DEROME das renommierte Label
AMBIANCES MAGNÉTIQUES, wodurch vor allem FRED FRITH auf ihn aufmerksam wurde,
welchen er von 1989 bis 1991 mit dessen Band KEEP THE DOG als Gitarrist begleitete.
In den folgenden Jahren entstanden diverse Alben und Kollaboration mit u.a. MARTIN
TÉTREAULT, CHRIS CUTLER, ROBERT M. LEPAGE und PIERRE HÉBERT. Desweiteren schrieb
er Soundtracks für mehr als 35 Filme und wurde für sein Album „Le trésor de la langue“, das
sich mit der Zweisprachigkeit in Québec beschäftigt, mit dem Grand Prix Paul-Gilson
ausgezeichnet. „Completment Marteau“ ist das neue Werk eines renommierten und
erfahrenden Künstlers, welcher nach wie vor voller Kreativität und Experimentierfreude ist."
|
2021 |
€13.00 |
|
| LUSTMORD & KARIN PARK |
Alter (lim. col. vinyl) |
do-LP |
Limited coloured LPs housed in gatefold w/ special canvas cardboard stock and silver hot foil! Nordic pop diva KARIN PARK of ÂRABROT adds her ethereal, mournful voice and keys to the primordial sound of legendary electronic pioneer LUSTMORD for this sublime and poignant collaboration. ALTER is a ritual of our times. On the pair's frst collaborative work, the nine tracks that make up ALTER are every bit as heart-wrenching as they are terrifying, mining new sonic territory, it is a fascinating study of light and shade that delves deep into vast uncharted darkness. Their ability to create atmosphere on the album opener "Hiraeth" is second to none, perfectly assembling a harrowing backdrop for Park's lilting sound of longing. From there, Park's vocals add all of the emotional depth and power found in names like Kate Bush, Maynard J Keenan and Elizabeth Frasier, perfectly playing against Lustmord's waves of dark drama and creating a wholly unique record that recalls Dead Can Dance, Massive Attack and Portishead at their greatest. Considering Park's credentials, it might be surprising that a collaboration with Lustmord would ft so seamlessly. Utilizing a sound comprised of elements of industrial, synth pop and more, the celebrated Swedish solo artist and member of Norwegian rock band Ârabrot utilizes experimentation in her work, blazing trails and bringing to mind the work of her peers The Knife, Scott Walker, Robyn, Depeche Mode and Burial with her darkly-rich compositions. Multiple winner of Norway's Spellemann award, Park co-wrote the Norwegian entry for the 2013 Eurovision, fnishing fourth overall. But it is the sensibility of the sacred music of her youth that Park adds to ALTER, contributing a powerful vocal that guides the listener through the cavernous, mystical depth of their collaborative work. "Lustmord is the Gustave Doré of music", Karin Park ofers pensively. "Painting magical pictures with a sound that is so vast, it gives space for your own imagination." Brian Williams grew up in North Wales, beginning his musical career as Lustmord in 1980 and becoming a pivotal fgure and pioneer in the early industrial music scene in the UK. A former member of SPK during arguably their most crucial era, Williams went on to work with Throbbing Gristle members Chris & Cosey and appeared on early albums by Current 93 and Nurse With Wound amongst others. After relocating to Los Angeles in 1993, Williams worked on dozens of motion picture soundtracks including The Crow, Underworld and Paul Schrader's First Reformed, as well as on several video game, television scores and solo albums. Williams has also contributed to and collaborated with artists as varied as the Melvins, Clock DVA, Jarboe, John Balance of Coil, Clock DVA, Paul Haslinger (Tangerine Dream), Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit), Puscifer and more, including Grammy Award-winners Tool from their much acclaimed eforts 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum.
TRACKLISTING: 01. HIRAETH 02. THE VOID BETWEEN 03. PERIHELION 04. TWIN FLAMES 05. ENTWINED 06. KINDRED 07. SONG OF SOL 08. SELE |
2021 |
€35.00 |
|
|
Alter |
CD |
Nordic pop diva KARIN PARK of ÅRABROT adds her ethereal, mournful voice and keys to the primordial sound of legendary electronic pioneer LUSTMORD for this sublime and poignant collaboration. ALTER is a ritual of our times.
On the pair’s frst collaborative work, the nine tracks that make up ALTER are every bit as heart-wrenching as they are terrifying, mining new sonic territory, it is a fascinating study of light and shade that delves deep into vast uncharted darkness. Their ability to create atmosphere on the album opener “Hiraeth” is second to none, perfectly assembling a harrowing backdrop for Park’s lilting sound of longing. From there, Park’s vocals add all of the
emotional depth and power found in names like Kate Bush, Maynard J Keenan and Elizabeth Frasier, perfectly playing against Lustmord’s waves of dark drama and creating a wholly unique record that recalls Dead Can Dance, Massive Attack and Portishead at their greatest.
Considering Park’s credentials, it might be surprising that a collaboration with Lustmord would ft so seamlessly. Utilizing a sound comprised of elements of industrial, synth pop and more, the celebrated Swedish solo artist and member of Norwegian rock band Årabrot utilizes experimentation in her work, blazing trails and bringing to mind the work of her peers The Knife, Scott Walker, Robyn, Depeche Mode and Burial with her darkly-rich compositions. Multiple winner of Norway’s Spellemann award, Park co-wrote the Norwegian entry for the 2013 Eurovision, fnishing fourth overall. But it is the sensibility of the sacred music of her youth that Park adds to ALTER, contributing a powerful vocal that guides the listener through the cavernous, mystical depth of their collaborative work.
”Lustmord is the Gustave Doré of music“, Karin Park ofers pensively. “Painting magical pictures with a sound that is so vast, it gives space for your own imagination.” Brian Williams grew up in North Wales, beginning his musical career as Lustmord in 1980 and becoming a pivotal fgure and pioneer in the early industrial music scene in the UK. A former member of SPK during arguably their most crucial era, Williams went on to work with Throbbing Gristle members Chris & Cosey and appeared on early albums by Current 93 and Nurse With Wound amongst others. After relocating to Los Angeles in 1993, Williams worked on dozens of motion picture soundtracks including The Crow, Underworld and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, as well as on several video game, television scores and solo albums. Williams has also contributed to and collaborated with artists as varied as the Melvins, Clock DVA, Jarboe, John Balance of Coil, Clock DVA, Paul Haslinger (Tangerine Dream), Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit), Puscifer and more, including Grammy Award-winners Tool from their much acclaimed eforts 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum.
|
2021 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Alter (black vinyl) |
do-LP |
Limited coloured LPs housed in gatefold w/ special canvas cardboard stock and silver hot foil! Nordic pop diva KARIN PARK of ÂRABROT adds her ethereal, mournful voice and keys to the primordial sound of legendary electronic pioneer LUSTMORD for this sublime and poignant collaboration. ALTER is a ritual of our times. On the pair's frst collaborative work, the nine tracks that make up ALTER are every bit as heart-wrenching as they are terrifying, mining new sonic territory, it is a fascinating study of light and shade that delves deep into vast uncharted darkness. Their ability to create atmosphere on the album opener "Hiraeth" is second to none, perfectly assembling a harrowing backdrop for Park's lilting sound of longing. From there, Park's vocals add all of the emotional depth and power found in names like Kate Bush, Maynard J Keenan and Elizabeth Frasier, perfectly playing against Lustmord's waves of dark drama and creating a wholly unique record that recalls Dead Can Dance, Massive Attack and Portishead at their greatest. Considering Park's credentials, it might be surprising that a collaboration with Lustmord would ft so seamlessly. Utilizing a sound comprised of elements of industrial, synth pop and more, the celebrated Swedish solo artist and member of Norwegian rock band Ârabrot utilizes experimentation in her work, blazing trails and bringing to mind the work of her peers The Knife, Scott Walker, Robyn, Depeche Mode and Burial with her darkly-rich compositions. Multiple winner of Norway's Spellemann award, Park co-wrote the Norwegian entry for the 2013 Eurovision, fnishing fourth overall. But it is the sensibility of the sacred music of her youth that Park adds to ALTER, contributing a powerful vocal that guides the listener through the cavernous, mystical depth of their collaborative work. "Lustmord is the Gustave Doré of music", Karin Park ofers pensively. "Painting magical pictures with a sound that is so vast, it gives space for your own imagination." Brian Williams grew up in North Wales, beginning his musical career as Lustmord in 1980 and becoming a pivotal fgure and pioneer in the early industrial music scene in the UK. A former member of SPK during arguably their most crucial era, Williams went on to work with Throbbing Gristle members Chris & Cosey and appeared on early albums by Current 93 and Nurse With Wound amongst others. After relocating to Los Angeles in 1993, Williams worked on dozens of motion picture soundtracks including The Crow, Underworld and Paul Schrader's First Reformed, as well as on several video game, television scores and solo albums. Williams has also contributed to and collaborated with artists as varied as the Melvins, Clock DVA, Jarboe, John Balance of Coil, Clock DVA, Paul Haslinger (Tangerine Dream), Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit), Puscifer and more, including Grammy Award-winners Tool from their much acclaimed eforts 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum.
TRACKLISTING: 01. HIRAETH 02. THE VOID BETWEEN 03. PERIHELION 04. TWIN FLAMES 05. ENTWINED 06. KINDRED 07. SONG OF SOL 08. SELE
|
2021 |
€28.00 |
|
| LUTZ SCHRIDDE |
Troum Dreams |
consiliis animum fatigas? |
Troum dreams
quid aeternis minorem
consiliis animum fatigas?
Cur non sub alta vel platano, vel hac
pinu iacentes ....
(Horatius, carm. 2,11,13)
Why lying on dying, never we'll be
with eternity,
Hear no evil, no bad under this tree,
Lay, see and be, here, no worry
with me.
About Horatius we read in Nietzsche's "Götzen-Dämmerung" that in his poetry we find 'sound', 'position', 'term', what is with the words (Klang, Ort, Begriff) . This German romantic appreciated the artistry and effectivity, and he considered his own wording equal. Today, I feel free to take 'sound, position, term' to put compositions of Troum into the context of romanisation of German language what informed the romantic metaphor of music as a language. The challenge of translating Horatius into other languages, as Nietzsche had accentuated, is not to fail such artistry and effectivity. What I want to say is that compositions of Troum are more than romantic translations, beyond music as a language. Troum is sound, yes, and then listening is navigating, and listening then is without translation.
The German romantics claimed art to be not of purpose, no, art were autonomous and a value in itself, so were a genius. Does that mean the compositions of Troum – when not dubbing it romantic – have a purpose? Troum's navigations are taking the listener beyond such question. It is not about purpose or autonomy, Troum is two composers together, Stefan Knappe and Martin Gitschel. Their collaborative compositions is band-work, there is no solo. Like technical stereo-navigation of pilots in early airplanes, their navigations are even not communicating questions or answers. Following and listening here is about sharing their state of navigation, their state of mind.
Stefan contacted me in 1997 and told me about the end of Maeror Tri and a new project he had no name for at the time. I had collected most of Maeror Tri and contributed liner notes once. Moreover, Stefan was irritated how I could identify his hidden solo compositions on my own. Actually, after my time as a connoisseur of music I entered the sphere of musique concrete and drones for sort of cultivating my mind. I had already learned about the righthandedness of European music, had even read Wolfgang Scherer's dissertation "Babellogik" on the matter. Maeror Tri always seemed a soundtrack to my search for a new vantage point. Stefan liked my approach to revaluate the implicit morale of music, himself a lefthanded. When he told me Maeror Tri was disbanding and the new project needed a name, that occured right in time to jump to the new vantage point.
Musique concrete and post-punk creativity had affected me, and Maeror Tri all that time reminded me of the restrictions of surreal or psychogeograhic composition some people like to dub the French and British accomplishments. Maeror Tri - cassette by cassette since 1988 - shed some sound on that fashion, sometimes ambient, sometimes industrial, sometimes drone. To me, the fascination came through a sense of game and improvisation, often leaving any boundaries of the genres behind. Some of their early cassettes seemed informed even by the very wish to stay beyond boundaries, an approach to go for a change of any game before. Reading the reviews in Vital Weekly, I find a similar appreciation with the editor. Such exploration of composition may have resulted in new awareness and reflection then in 1997, disbanding Maeror Tri and a new project may explain itself. And as I see it today, the new project went on to explore and navigate beyond any boundaries of genres.
Changing games is a skill of the lefthanded. And again, Stefan was surprised watching me identifying his hidden solo compositions. I am righthanded, touched by surreal music and post-punk creativity, I am not a composer. And I will not out his solo compositions here, no. Nietzsche was a lefthanded, his skills surfaced in writing, and he was seemingly not selfaware of this natural skill and tending to curious vanity. His opinion about Horatius shows that in particular. Nietzsche never learned about the giveness of his skill when running his revaluation of all values. He was with the German romantic tradition all the time. And he had a certain selectivity who he liked to value, all were lefthanded (Goethe, Ceasar, Bismarck, Napoleon), all game changers, very skilled. In romantic music, Beethoven and Mozart were skilled brilliantly as such. In visual art, we may call Paul Klee an example. When Stefan needed a name for the new project, I was ready to try.
I said "Traum". In English, dream. By 1997, my search for a new way of composition beyond the genres of 'improvised', 'free jazz', 'world music', 'industrial', 'ambient', 'noise', 'drone', 'musique concrete' and else had already ended in sort of disappointment. I was sure, that the romantic tradition and its relative surrealism encompassed my search well, but at the time I had little in hand. My short essay "Noise Culture" in Vital Weekly Supplement in 1996 was a result of my search. Then talking with Stefan, and by intuition I avoided consideration of material or procedure what is behind the genre division. During that talk I threw myself out of that and looked for the location in musical anthropology. I looked for the essence of the genres and opened gain. So it became "Traum".
Stefan liked that immediately. He made it "Troum", just as if he knew the game change behind. To be clear, Troum is no music for Nietzscheans. And I am not a Nietzschean, although I have mastered in philosophy and know about him. His approach is restricted to values and valuation, in his case furthermore to the 'game' the values are framed by. That spoke to his nature and his romantic vanity. It happened, that I decided to leave Germany and I am teaching in China for eight years now. Here, musical anthropology is still a vantage point, and I am listening to Troum in Xian at the eastern end of the Silk Road.
Troum had done great things, I like the long-trackers "Sen" and "Mare Idiophonica". The Tjukurrpa-trilogy is also with me here, and allow me to highlight the collaboration with Martyn Bates and raison d'être. My current favorite of Troum is "Acouasme".
And if you know Horatius, yes, then you may be the right one to try Troum. It is sound, navigation and prior to translation. Here is abroad.
Lutz Schridde, Xian, China, April 1st 2018
Horatius in German:
Wozu, da er doch nicht gewachsen ist Ewigkeitsgedanken,
willst du deinen Geist damit plagen?
Warum wollen wir nicht unter der hohen Platane oder
unter dieser Pinie liegen sorgenlos, ....
This German translation is taken from Bernhard Kytzler, Horaz. Eine Einführung, Stuttgart 1996, page 176, on Nietzsche and Horatius see same page.
The English version above is mine.
|
2018 |
€ |
|
| M.B. / FRAG |
Psychation |
CD |
An overwhelming collaboration between the legendary Maurizio Bianchi and FRAG recorded in early 2020.
4ib Records.
MB & FRAG - Psychation ( 4IB Records )
"Any work of architecture that does not express serenity is a mistake."
LUIS BARRAGAN
What is serenity?
To some; serenity is a tranquil, sequestered, fulfilled state of existence. A wilful pause of the modern consumer existence that pollutes and perverts our lives. A cessation of the demands modernity forces so brutally upon our febrile short lives.
To others serenity exists within scripture, tomes and ritualistic expressions of the divine. The devout seek a glimpse of this divinity, through the serenity they seek whilst shackled to the cold clay of this mortal coil.
Stephen Burroughs is FRAG and FRAG is a project that has found serenity in the brutalist architecture of the Midlands of Britain. In seeking to express in sound; the collapse of the industrial heartlands of the United Kingdom he has created through his FRAG project; a collection of audio sculptures that evoke the concrete isolation of his claustrophobic environment.
FRAG is the soundtrack to a mankind that is alienated completely from the natural order of life. His compositions are not warm but cold, angular and granular. Huge slabs of desolate anguish that despite their sterile inhumanity pulse and seethe with submerged longing. The sound of FRAG is that of a lone human hand extending skywards from a collapsed building. That hand pointing accusingly, cursing the heavens for that fate that has befallen it. Beneath that dead mortar is humanity slowly expiring under the cold dead weight.
It is entirely logical that FRAG and Maurizio Bianchi would collaborate together. In his early Archeo years Mr Bianchi explored the themes of isolated consciousness in the industrialised environment. The stark truth of the industrial age was explored by MB as he sought his own solace to the decaying soulless hell that surrounded him. Alienated by the inhumanity of his existence he sought to hold a mirror up to the crushing weight that sought to crush any and all resistance to its dehumanizing nature. Whilst MB sought to escape this brutalism of the soul by seeking an eremite like existence within the works of faith, FRAG became the lone wolf operative working behind enemy lines to fight a rearguard war of attrition against this inhuman leviathan. Both MB & FRAG have and are fighting the same war, against the same foe , using the same weaponry; the medium of sound.
Psychation despite containing three lengthy tracks really needs to be listened to as a whole. Despite the tracks being individual entities with quite different atmosphere they are best appreciated as a thematic progression across the entire album. These tracks are constantly evolving and mutating pieces of angular geometry. A cascade of electronic shapes that fluctuate and shift in a metamorphosis of Musique Concrete tonal expressionism. At times the unrelenting nature of the album is just about to break your endurance before a snatch of melodic ambience breaks through the tumult and disarray.
Where Psychation differs from most 'noise' based albums is that it retains its granite density without descending into chaotic nonsensicality. Despite the at times abrasive incisive attack of sound it retains a sense of weight. Almost as if the sound is being layered as one would layer asphalt, layer after layer added and poured. Over and over again in ceaseless repetition. The sound of humanity as it is drowned beneath the post human neo liberal order. Psychation is the sound of humanity as it thrashes and drowns beneath the technologic order that it has birthed into being.
Psychation is a warning to us all. A warning of the world we will inherit if we forgo our humanity and spirituality. If we throw all caution to the wind and embrace the technologic future.
Psychation is a window into that world. The post serenity, post human world of concrete, zero & ones and mindless consumerism.
MB & FRAG are pointing at the inevitable conclusion of our existence if we as humans choose to venture any further.
[Kristian Carter]
M.B. - PSYCHELECTRONICS, SEGREGATED NOISES, NUCLEAR PICTURES.
FRAG - PSYCHELECTRONIC SURGERISM.
ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY - KRISTIAN R. CARTER.
https://tunnelsofh.bandcamp.com/album/psychation
|
2020 |
€13.00 |
|
| MACHINE LISTENER |
Sentient System |
CD-R |
Machine Listener began with such a name, due to a project that is based on exploring and exploiting inherent characteristics from machines, and making compositions from them. In the beginning, it seems that everything from home printers to huge factory generators were used as sources. Their electromagnetic signals or the frequencies they emitted, or simply the noises they make, were the basis of compositions by sound artist Matthew Gallagher. Eventually, of course, Gallagher moved into sourcing the potential of synthesizers, both as machines and as instruments.
It can be assumed that Machine Listener's pure synth LP ("Endless Coil"), now out on Tusco Embassy, where we can guess that machines were used for their proper intention, came after "Sentient System", released in extremely limited quantities by filth-noise veteran Wyatt Howland (Skin Graft) on his own SK SK label in 2014. It is not up to us to say how "Sentient System" was created, but it is safe to assume that a little of both of these approaches were traversed, and as a result, "Sentient System" could be considered the apex of Machine Listener's adventures with mechanical, aleatoric components of industry.
Whatever the case may be, "Sentient System" is unlike any other recording you'll ever hear. It is both excellent in terms of composition and also permeated with a conceptually sound "hands off" approach, with caterwauling animal behavior, screeching panic signals and pervasive cicada hum. Some segments of these soundscapes could fit perfectly as cerebral, revelatory moments in a particularly head-fucked horror film, hewn with a certain feeling for a desolate science fiction future, or simply in mindscapes where pure noise is the end and the means. The release stands on its own, and apart from the rest, but at the same time is extremely important in adding to the legacy of industrial noise.
Originally limited to a criminally low quantity of copies, we here at NO PART OF IT are extremely excited to bring this release to a wider audience.
https://nopartofit.bandcamp.com/album/sentient-system |
2016 |
€9.00 |
|
| MACHINEFABRIEK |
15/15 |
LP |
"A threesome of coloured vinyl by WORM Records. These records are extraordinary not just because of their appearance (bright yellow, blue and pink vinyl), but also because of their unique origins. The a-sides of the records were recorded for Soundpiece, a soundinstallation under the floor of the Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam. WORM invited the composers Machinefabriek, Pierre Bastien and Dyane Donck/Daisy Bell to compose a piece for this. The results are three soundartworks/tape compositions that are made for public space, but are impressive as an isolated piece of art as well. Towards the end of 2011 the pieces rang out at fixed times during the Soundpiece installation and something that stands out well, are the different approaches taken by the three composers.
Machinefabriek is the project of Rutger Zuydervelt. Machinefabrieks music combines elements of ambient, modern classical, minimalism, drone and field recordings. He already has a massive discography, with many of these titles self-released, but also including albums for well renowned labels and numerous collaborations.
Soundpiece is a soundinstallation in the public space of the Schouwburgsplein in Rotterdam and utilising 32 speakers covers an area of 30 by 30 meters. This enables the compositions to be spread at low volume throughout the entire square." [label info]
|
2012 |
€15.00 |
|
| MAEROR TRI |
Multiple Personality Disorder |
CD |
"... this debut CD by the German trio Maeror Tri is a devastating experience in sonic art. In the realm of Soviet France, Cranioclast or The Hafler Trio, its's hard to call such constructed wedges of noise music, this is something else. In fact I think it just scared four people who entered the Ultima Thule shop, leaving with bewildered and perplexed looks on their faces! Be they atmospheric or intensive, Maeror Tri offer a challenging sound that defies description." [Alan Freeman, AUDIO, 1993]
"Maeror Tri als der J.G. BALLARD der Musik." [Vi-Va-Vogel, Auf Abwegen]
"Some music is related to a period, because of the sound of the amplifiers, recording possibilities, effects and synthesizers. The technic colors the sound during that period and gives is that time limit. I cannot say that about the re-release of the timeless sounds at the CD "Multiple Personality Disorder" (MPD) of the not anymore existing German group Maeror Tri. The groups existed from 1998 - 1996 and has the following members Stefan "Baraka [H]" Knappe, Martin "GLIT[s]CH" Gitschel and Helge Siehl. Stefan Knappe and Martin Gitschel continues to make music with the group Troum and releases music with the vinyllabel Drone Records. From 1998 - 1993 Maeror Tri released a lot of tapes. The music for the first CD Multiply Personality Disorder was recorded in 1991 and released in 1993 by Korm Plastics as a limited edition of 600 in the serial Introductionaire to promote the music of new musical artists. For now the re-release has been done by the Purplesoil from the Czech Republic. During the musical project the group examined the different states of mind and characters by means of music and they want to confront the listener with the totally different states of mind and feeling of people with MPD. The CD exist of five compositions, with different moods, from ambient and atmospheric to aggressive and anxious. And really I was confronted with the different moods some with MPD. The meaning of the album has been successful. During that same period I was working in a psychiatric hospital with people with so-called personality diseases. I worked also with people with MPD and they presented themselves with totally different characters, behaviour, clothing, sexual preference and sound of the voice. I was really very difficult to work with these people because I had to deal with one person, but sometimes during daytime with three or four different persons. Most of these people had very bad childhood experiences and they try to deal with the some treating or stressful reality with different personalities. For now MPD has become more on the background but this release is really a good flashback of that period and a successful experiment of Maeror Tri." [JKH / Vital Weekly]
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| MAES, LAURA & KRISTOF LAUWERS |
Kitch'n Glitch |
CD |
"Cling Film –Mitbetreiberin LAURA MAES hat hier zusammen mit KRISTOF LAUWERS Küchengeräte, die Küchengeräusche von sich geben, akusmatisch verwurstet, und eine hochspannend tönende subtile Soundwelt ins Leben gerufen...zwischen elektronisch anmutenden Drones und ganz trockenden Geräuschen, ein Küchenkontext ist kaum noch zu erahnen... TIP !" [Drone Rec. 2003]
“All kinds of kitchensounds were blended for your exquisite taste. Don't expect loud mixers or banging on kettles, but rather subtle manipulated and cut-up sounds, sometimes creamy and soft, sometimes crispy and cold. caffeine free.” [label info]
“ A first release on her own label by Laura Maes, who runs Cling Film together with Kevin van Volcem (aside from all the organisational work they do in their surroundings). As the title of this disc already suggests, all the raw material was recorded in a kitchen
(Laura's) and later manipulated in the studio. With a total duration of just over 37 minutes, this is a dense work, that requires close
attention from the listener. There is a lot happening here and more often than not, it is pretty subtle. One of the most interesting
phenomena for me is the way Maes and Lauwers move with their sound from sheer electronic to acoustic and back again. From raw material to its manipulation or vice versa. The seven tracks are well placed and spaced, so one can listen to the whole CD as one work without a problem (this has defenitely got my preference). All tracks have strong compositions and very good timing and, most importantly: it's very juicy (and I mean this in the most positive sense!). Another one that is highly recommended. [MR for Vital Weely] Adress: www.clingfilm.org
|
2003 |
€10.00 |
|
| MAKSYMENKO, MICHAEL |
Business Cide |
CD |
"Michael, founder and brain behind the extraordinary Swedish post-Beefheartian group Kraljursastalten, and world-class ice-hockey player, here collects his extraordinary songbook including much of the two celebrated '70s releases by Kraljursastalten (the Reptile Institution: Michael plus the telepathic twins Stefan and Thomas Agaton), with later recordings from his solo record and released and unreleased pieces with Henry Kaiser, John 'Drumbo' French, Sten Standell, Andy West and others. Wild lurching swing complexity, ridiculous tempi, great rhythms, sudden mood changes, fine compositions and music that is always to the point: no fat, just coffee and cigarettes. Classic. Genre: Unpopular. Influences:
Anatolij Tarasov, chief-coach and master-trainer of the Soviet national Ice-hockey team 1958-1972, inventor of "collective telepathy at high speed"." [label info]
|
2008 |
€14.00 |
|
| MALONE, KALI |
Living Torch |
CD |
"Following her critically acclaimed album The Sacrificial Code, Swedish-American composer Kali Malone returns with Living Torch on Portraits GRM.
Living Torch, through its unique structural form and harmonic material, is a bold continuation of Kali Malone’s demanding and exciting body of work, while opening new perspectives and increasing the emotional potential of the music tenfold. As such, Living Torch is a major new piece by the composer and adds a significant milestone to an already fascinating repertoire.
Departing from the pipe organ that Malone’s music is most notable for, Living Torch features a complex electroacoustic ensemble. Leafing through recordings from conventional instruments like the trombone and bass clarinet to more experimental machines like the boîte à bourdon, passing through sinewave generators and Éliane Radigue’s ARP 2500 synthesizer. Living Torch weaves its own history, its own genealogy, and that of its author. It extends her robust structural approach to a liberated palette of timbre.
Living Torch was initially commissioned by GRM for its legendary loudspeaker orchestra, the Acousmonium, and premiered in its complete multichannel form at the Grand Auditorium of Radio France in a concert entirely dedicated to the artist.
Composed at GRM studios in Paris between 2020-2021, Living Torch is a work of great intensity, an œuvre-monde that is singularly placed at the crossroads of instrumental writing and electroacoustic composition. Living Torch proceeds from multiple lineages, including early modern music, American minimalism, and musique concrète. It’s a work as much turned towards exploring justly tuned harmony and canonic structures as towards the polyphony of unique timbres, the scaling of dynamic range, and the revelation of sound qualities.
GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales), the pioneering institution of electroacoustic, acousmatic, and musique concrète, has been a unique laboratory for sonorous research since 1958. Witnessing the extreme vitality of the music championed by GRM, the Portraits GRM record series extends and expands this momentum with Kali Malone’s Living Torch.
Biography:
The compositions of Kali Malone implement specific tuning systems in minimalist form for pipe organ, choir, chamber music ensembles, and electroacoustic formats. Malone’s music is rich with harmonic texture through synthetic and acoustic instrumentation in repetitive motions and extended durations. The music emits distinct emotive, dynamic, and affective hues which bring forth a stunning depth of focus.
Kali Malone has performed extensively in Europe and North America at Musica Festival, Berlin Atonal, Moogfest, Kanal Pompidou, Elbphilharmonie, Paris Philharmonie, and Radio France.
Her commission projects and residencies include the INA GRM, The Richard Thomas Foundation, MACBA, Macadam Ensemble, Orgelpark, Elektronmusikstudion and Tempo Reale. She collaborates and performs with various artists, including Stephen O’Malley, Lucy Railton, Frederikke Hoffmeier, Leila Bordreuil, Drew McDowall, Caterina Barbieri, and Ellen Arkbro. In 2016 she co-founded the record label and concert series XKatedral, together with Maria W Horn, in Stockholm."
https://kalimalone.bandcamp.com/album/living-torch
|
2022 |
€15.00 |
|
|
All Life Long |
do-LP |
Kali Malones mit Spannung erwartetes neues Album »All Life Long« ist eine Sammlung von Musik für Pfeifenorgel, Chor und Blechbläserquintett, komponiert von Kali Malone zwischen 2020 und 2023.
Chormusik, aufgeführt vom Macadam Ensemble unter der Leitung von Etienne Ferschaud in der Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L'Immaculée-Conception in Nantes. Musik für Blechbläserquintett, aufgeführt von Anima Brass im Bunker Studio in New York City. Die Orgelmusik wurde gespielt von Kali Malone und Stephen O'Malley auf den historischen, temperierten Pfeifenorgeln der Église Saint-François in Lausanne, des Orgelparks in Amsterdam und des Malmö Konstmuseums in Schweden.
Kali Malone komponiert mit einer seltenen Klarheit. Ihre Musik ist geduldig und fokussiert und baut auf einem Fundament sich entwickelnder harmonischer Zyklen auf, die verborgene emotionale Resonanzen hervorrufen.
Kali Malone's anticipated new album "All Life Long" is a collection of music for pipe organ, choir, and brass quintet composed by Kali Malone, 2020 - 2023. Choral music performed by Macadam Ensemble and conducted by Etienne Ferschaud at Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L'Immaculée-Conception in Nantes. Brass quintet music performed by Anima Brass at The Bunker Studio in New York City. Organ music performed by Kali Malone and Stephen O’Malley on the historical meantone tempered pipe organs at Église Saint-François in Lausanne, Orgelpark in Amsterdam, and Malmö Konstmuseum in Sweden.
Kali Malone composes with a rare clarity of vision. Her music is patient and focused, built on a foundation of evolving harmonic cycles that draw out latent emotional resonances. Time is a crucial factor: letting go of expectations of duration and breadth offers a chance to find a space of reflection and contemplation. In her hands, experimental reinterpretations of centuries-old polyphonic compositional methods become portals to new ways of perceiving sound, structure, and introspection. Though awe-inspiring in scope, the most remarkable thing about Malone’s music is the intimacy stirred by the close listening it encourages.
Malone’s new album All Life Long, created between 2020 - 2023, presents her first compositions for organ since 2019’s breakthrough album The Sacrificial Code alongside interrelated pieces for voice and brass performed by Macadam Ensemble and Anima Brass. Over the course of twelve pieces, harmonic themes and patterns recur, presented in altered forms and for varied instrumentation. They emerge and reemerge like echoes of their former selves, making the familiar uncanny. Propelled by lungs and breath rather than bellows and oscillators, Malone’s compositions for choir and brass take on expressive qualities that complicate the austerity that has defined her work, introducing lyricism and the beauty of human fallibility into music that has been driven by mechanical processes. At the same time, the works for organ, performed by Malone with additional accompaniment by Stephen O’Malley on four different organs dating from the 15th to 17th centuries, underscore the mighty, spectral power that those rigorous operations can achieve.
All Life Long simmers in an ever-shifting tension between repetition and variation. The pieces for brass, organ, and voice are alternated asymmetrically, providing nearly continuous timbral fluctuation across its 78-minute runtime even as thematic material reiterates. Each composition’s internal framework of fractal pattern permutations has the paradoxical effect of creating anticipated keystone moments of dramatic reverie and lulling the listener into believing in an illusory endlessness. On an even more granular level, the historical meantone tuning systems of each organ used, and the variable intonation of brass and voice, provide further points of emotional excavation within the harmony.
The titular composition “All Life Long” appears twice on the album, first as an extended canon for organ and again in the final quarter, compactly arranged for voice. In the latter, Malone pairs the music with “The Crying Water” by Arthur Symons, a poem steeped in language of mourning and eternity. For organ, “All Life Long” moves with a patient stateliness, the drama concentrated in moments when shifting tonalities generate and release dissonance and ecstasy. For voice, each word is saturated with feeling, the singers swooping gracefully downward to capture the melancholy of the narrator’s relationship to the timeless tears of the sea. “Passage Through The Spheres,” the album’s opening piece, contains lyrics in Italian pulled from Giorgio Agamben’s essay In Praise of Profanation. In it, Agamben defines profanation as, in part, the act of bringing back to communal, secular use that which has been segregated to the realm of the sacred, a process Malone enacts each time she performs on church organs.
This is not music of praise, or of spiritual revelation, but it is an artistic enactment of translating the indescribable. It carries the gravity of liturgical chant, and its fixation on the infinite, but draws its weight from the earthly realm of human experience. A music that draws the listener into the present moment where they can discover themselves within the interwoven musical patterns that can come to resemble the passage of days, weeks, years, a lifetime.
https://kalimalone.bandcamp.com/album/all-life-long
|
2024 |
€32.50 |
|
| |
All Life Long |
CD |
Kali Malones mit Spannung erwartetes neues Album »All Life Long« ist eine Sammlung von Musik für Pfeifenorgel, Chor und Blechbläserquintett, komponiert von Kali Malone zwischen 2020 und 2023.
Chormusik, aufgeführt vom Macadam Ensemble unter der Leitung von Etienne Ferschaud in der Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L'Immaculée-Conception in Nantes. Musik für Blechbläserquintett, aufgeführt von Anima Brass im Bunker Studio in New York City. Die Orgelmusik wurde gespielt von Kali Malone und Stephen O'Malley auf den historischen, temperierten Pfeifenorgeln der Église Saint-François in Lausanne, des Orgelparks in Amsterdam und des Malmö Konstmuseums in Schweden.
Kali Malone komponiert mit einer seltenen Klarheit. Ihre Musik ist geduldig und fokussiert und baut auf einem Fundament sich entwickelnder harmonischer Zyklen auf, die verborgene emotionale Resonanzen hervorrufen.
Kali Malone's anticipated new album "All Life Long" is a collection of music for pipe organ, choir, and brass quintet composed by Kali Malone, 2020 - 2023. Choral music performed by Macadam Ensemble and conducted by Etienne Ferschaud at Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L'Immaculée-Conception in Nantes. Brass quintet music performed by Anima Brass at The Bunker Studio in New York City. Organ music performed by Kali Malone and Stephen O’Malley on the historical meantone tempered pipe organs at Église Saint-François in Lausanne, Orgelpark in Amsterdam, and Malmö Konstmuseum in Sweden.
Kali Malone composes with a rare clarity of vision. Her music is patient and focused, built on a foundation of evolving harmonic cycles that draw out latent emotional resonances. Time is a crucial factor: letting go of expectations of duration and breadth offers a chance to find a space of reflection and contemplation. In her hands, experimental reinterpretations of centuries-old polyphonic compositional methods become portals to new ways of perceiving sound, structure, and introspection. Though awe-inspiring in scope, the most remarkable thing about Malone’s music is the intimacy stirred by the close listening it encourages.
Malone’s new album All Life Long, created between 2020 - 2023, presents her first compositions for organ since 2019’s breakthrough album The Sacrificial Code alongside interrelated pieces for voice and brass performed by Macadam Ensemble and Anima Brass. Over the course of twelve pieces, harmonic themes and patterns recur, presented in altered forms and for varied instrumentation. They emerge and reemerge like echoes of their former selves, making the familiar uncanny. Propelled by lungs and breath rather than bellows and oscillators, Malone’s compositions for choir and brass take on expressive qualities that complicate the austerity that has defined her work, introducing lyricism and the beauty of human fallibility into music that has been driven by mechanical processes. At the same time, the works for organ, performed by Malone with additional accompaniment by Stephen O’Malley on four different organs dating from the 15th to 17th centuries, underscore the mighty, spectral power that those rigorous operations can achieve.
All Life Long simmers in an ever-shifting tension between repetition and variation. The pieces for brass, organ, and voice are alternated asymmetrically, providing nearly continuous timbral fluctuation across its 78-minute runtime even as thematic material reiterates. Each composition’s internal framework of fractal pattern permutations has the paradoxical effect of creating anticipated keystone moments of dramatic reverie and lulling the listener into believing in an illusory endlessness. On an even more granular level, the historical meantone tuning systems of each organ used, and the variable intonation of brass and voice, provide further points of emotional excavation within the harmony.
The titular composition “All Life Long” appears twice on the album, first as an extended canon for organ and again in the final quarter, compactly arranged for voice. In the latter, Malone pairs the music with “The Crying Water” by Arthur Symons, a poem steeped in language of mourning and eternity. For organ, “All Life Long” moves with a patient stateliness, the drama concentrated in moments when shifting tonalities generate and release dissonance and ecstasy. For voice, each word is saturated with feeling, the singers swooping gracefully downward to capture the melancholy of the narrator’s relationship to the timeless tears of the sea. “Passage Through The Spheres,” the album’s opening piece, contains lyrics in Italian pulled from Giorgio Agamben’s essay In Praise of Profanation. In it, Agamben defines profanation as, in part, the act of bringing back to communal, secular use that which has been segregated to the realm of the sacred, a process Malone enacts each time she performs on church organs.
This is not music of praise, or of spiritual revelation, but it is an artistic enactment of translating the indescribable. It carries the gravity of liturgical chant, and its fixation on the infinite, but draws its weight from the earthly realm of human experience. A music that draws the listener into the present moment where they can discover themselves within the interwoven musical patterns that can come to resemble the passage of days, weeks, years, a lifetime.
https://kalimalone.bandcamp.com/album/all-life-long
|
2024 |
€16.00 |
|
| MANINKARI |
Un Phénomène De Reliance |
CD |
After a few years, Maninkari returns to Zoharum with a new, already third studio album for the label. "Un Phenomene De Reliance" is a kind of concept album, it's something like a suite, consisting of four separate compositions. There are no spectacular twists or unexpected musical revolts here. The duo of Charlot brothers continues to follow the path chosen by them, masterfully developing the formula they developed years ago. We are dealing here with illustrative music, extremely vivid, strongly influencing the imagination of the audience.Certainly, it could serve as the soundtrack to an unspecified movie based on a somewhat dreamlike plot. It would be great as a sound for a performance or ballet. The French use classical instruments with quite a lot of freedom, and at the same time with impeccable virtuosity, to create a rather peculiar musical abstract, based on compositions that are characterized by incredible lightness, harmony and melodic beauty, at the same time giving the impression of fleetin, airy miniatures. where each note seems to sound only for a moment before disappearing into a huge space, filled with silence. Trying to properly describe what "Un Phenomene De Reliance" is, we can use the terms "ambient" or "chamber music". However, neither of these expressions will fully represent what is contained in this publication. At the same time, it is worth devoting special time to, somewhere in the privacy of your home, to be able to concentrate on the pleasure of listening and exploring this very intimate, personal and captivating music.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/un-phenomene-de-reliance
######################
"Genre/Influences: Experimental, Ritual, Cinematic.
Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.
Background/Info: Frédéric and Olivier Charlot -who are also involved with other projects like Sphyxion, are back on track unleashing a new opus of Maninkari.They already released several albums but this is their third one on Zoharum.
Content: The work features 4 songs which have been progressively built up by the mix of authentic instruments and electronic treatments. The viola injects a deeply, atmospheric, darkness to the work while the rhythmic make it all sound Ritual.
+ + + : I like Maninkari for their authenticity, the use of acoustic instruments not only adding an artistic touch to the work but also a poignant, atmospheric, touch. The title song is a true masterpiece whereon the Charlot brothers have found a perfect balance between the different instruments. The viola is absolutely terrific here. You also can notice improvised passages but the work remains constantly accessible.
– – – : It needs a few minutes before you totally get into the poignant sonic universe of Maninkari. So you better be a little bit patient.
Conclusion: Subtle improvisation with a styled, acoustic, touch on top." [Side-Line]
|
2022 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Un Phenomene De Reliance |
LP |
After a few years, Maninkari returns to Zoharum with a new, already third studio album for the label. "Un Phenomene De Reliance" is a kind of concept album, it's something like a suite, consisting of four separate compositions. There are no spectacular twists or unexpected musical revolts here. The duo of Charlot brothers continues to follow the path chosen by them, masterfully developing the formula they developed years ago. We are dealing here with illustrative music, extremely vivid, strongly influencing the imagination of the audience.Certainly, it could serve as the soundtrack to an unspecified movie based on a somewhat dreamlike plot. It would be great as a sound for a performance or ballet. The French use classical instruments with quite a lot of freedom, and at the same time with impeccable virtuosity, to create a rather peculiar musical abstract, based on compositions that are characterized by incredible lightness, harmony and melodic beauty, at the same time giving the impression of fleetin, airy miniatures. where each note seems to sound only for a moment before disappearing into a huge space, filled with silence. Trying to properly describe what "Un Phenomene De Reliance" is, we can use the terms "ambient" or "chamber music". However, neither of these expressions will fully represent what is contained in this publication. At the same time, it is worth devoting special time to, somewhere in the privacy of your home, to be able to concentrate on the pleasure of listening and exploring this very intimate, personal and captivating music.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/un-phenomene-de-reliance
######################
"Genre/Influences: Experimental, Ritual, Cinematic.
Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.
Background/Info: Frédéric and Olivier Charlot -who are also involved with other projects like Sphyxion, are back on track unleashing a new opus of Maninkari.They already released several albums but this is their third one on Zoharum.
Content: The work features 4 songs which have been progressively built up by the mix of authentic instruments and electronic treatments. The viola injects a deeply, atmospheric, darkness to the work while the rhythmic make it all sound Ritual.
+ + + : I like Maninkari for their authenticity, the use of acoustic instruments not only adding an artistic touch to the work but also a poignant, atmospheric, touch. The title song is a true masterpiece whereon the Charlot brothers have found a perfect balance between the different instruments. The viola is absolutely terrific here. You also can notice improvised passages but the work remains constantly accessible.
– – – : It needs a few minutes before you totally get into the poignant sonic universe of Maninkari. So you better be a little bit patient.
Conclusion: Subtle improvisation with a styled, acoustic, touch on top." [Side-Line]
|
2022 |
€18.00 |
|
| MARANHA, DAVID & HELENA ESPVALL |
Sombras Incendiadas |
LP |
"Helena Espvall first met David Maranha in 2006 when her band Espers played a show in Lisbon. They played two gigs the following year, and Espvall contributed to Maranha's Marches of the New World. Since then they always had the intention of working together more extensively and once Espvall moved to Lisbon two years ago they had no more excuses. Sombras Incendiadas ('Exploding Shadows') features Espvall on amplified cello and Maranha on electric organ and amplified violin. Espvall has an amazing cello sound, kind of Velvet Underground, while David Maranha is in the vein of La Monte Young or Tony Conrad. As a duo, they create heavy drones with delicate harmonics behind the wall of sound. The textures are raw, the compositions are minimalistic, and the riffs are heady. The repetitive patterns played very loudly create a monolithic, hypnotic, and time stopping album. Sombras Incendiadas is available on LP (with a download coupon) and digitally. David Maranha, violin, electric organ. Helena Espvall, cello. Recorded in Violente do Céu by David Maranha between december 2012 and march 2013."
www.three-four.net
"Over the course of many years I have been enjoying the music from David Maranha a lot. First when he was playing with Osso Exotico, a group with among others his brother Andre, and later on solo or in collaboration with others. One could easily say, with any exaggeration, that Maranha represents minimal music in Portugal, more so than say Rafael Toral who is more the 'drone' master (before he started being interested in jazz). Here he teams up with Helena Espvall from Sweden, who lives in Philadelphia, where she is part of the psychedelic and free-folk scene. In 2006 they met for the first time, when Espvall played in Lisbon and since Espvall lives in that city for two years it's only natural they would work together. There are three instruments on this record: Espvall's amplified cello and Maranha playing electric organ and amplified violin. The music reminds the more informed listener of the drone/noise/minimalism of the sixties; think Tony Conrad (especially him) or a heavily
amplified and drugged out LaMonte Young or maybe The Velvet Underground in their normal habitat, less any drums. It's busy as hell, with these loud, repetitive moves that sound like a menace and it's nowhere mechanical. This is a heavy record, I must say. It's not for the weak of hearth and mind: it goes right into your brain and sticks like thick knitting needle; it goes under your skin and never leaves. This is not the kind of drone aiming to please the listener, but make him sit upright and listens carefully. Play loud is not something I would say easily, but in this case: yes, absolutely play very loud and don't engage yourself in any other activity, other than listening and be fully immersed." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2015 |
€14.00 |
|
| MARCHETTI, LIONEL |
Adele et Hadrien. Le Livre des Vacances |
do-CD |
"Digipack. Limited to 300 copies. 'Adèle et Hadrien (le livre des vacances)'. A new piece of musique concrete in two books and ten notebooks (1999-2006) from French composer Lionel Marchetti. Lionel Marchetti has compositions on differents labels like Metamkine, Selektion, Crouton, Absurd, Auscultare, Ground Fault, Musica Genera… He is also an improvisor playing with Jérôme Noetinger among others. And he's part of the Quintet Avant." [label info]
www.opticalsound.com
|
2008 |
€20.00 |
|
| MARGOLIS, AL / IF, BWANA |
REX XHU PING |
CD |
Mehr Musik aus AL MARGOLIS Genre-losen experimentellen Zwischenreich, hier auf sechs Stücken in verschiedensten Besetzungen solo oder in Interaktion, meist in ruhigen, fast meditativen Sphären, z.B. das wunderbare zweite Stück FROG FIELD, das auf klangvollen Xylophon-Loops basiert. Aber eine gewisse Bizarrheit (Instrumentierung, Sprache) ist immer präsent... vielleicht das bisher ausgereifteste und zugänglichste Werk des legendären Cassetten-Täters (SOUND OF PIG)......
“New Al Margolis release features Margolis¹s compositions for tapes, electronics, voice, drones. Rex Xhu Ping (pronounced rex shoe ping) features Margolis (tapes, electronics, clarinet, and sundries), Laura Biagi (vocals), Dan Andreana (speaker, tapes), Detta Andreana (tapes, bowed cymbals), and Orchestre de Fou.
A recent review of Margolis¹s work says: "Let it be declared that Al Margolis/If, Bwana is some sort of evil genius working with raw materials which are never adapted to a genre or a context, because they create one in that very moment. Those sources are radically altered up to an utterly unrecognizable state, anarchic manifestations moving in compact determination." (Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes)
[label description]
|
2005 |
€12.00 |
|
| MARK SCHAUB |
Damaged Future |
CD |
https://anomala.bandcamp.com/album/damaged-future
"Unlike the electro-acoustic suite “Combustion” which inaugurated the catalog of Anomala Soundscapes in the split album together with Daniele Pecorelli, Mark Schaub’s new work develops on various levels articulating between very dissimilar styles and sounds. The trait d’union between these short compositions is the attempt to recreate the apocalyptic scenarios of BALLARD in music, an author so dear to a certain industrial culture that here once again he returns to the center of speech in a series of sounding rooms that, as in the story narrated in “Condominium” by the English author, they seem to overlap in a complex structure regulated by the forces of evil. To accomplish this paradoxical “ascension into hell”, Schaub therefore relies on disparate means, from the ghostly setting of “Misty Rain” to string instruments that reverberate in the distance in “Old Paths” while a television on seems to be the only sign of life still perceptible, from the liquefied and radioactive lounge music of “A Crossroads Overhead” to the abstract and futuristic electro-jazz of “Collide”, up to the glacial desolation of “Rests of a Damaged Future”, a purifying and definitive showdown.is extinct." [Massimiliano Busti Blow Up Magazine]
|
2019 |
€13.00 |
|
| MARTUSCIELLO, ELIO |
Unoccupied Areas |
CD |
Grossartige neue Experimentalmusik von diesem italienischen Komponisten (auch mit OSSATURA aktiv), die noch am ehesten der Elektro-Akustik zuzurechnen ist. Soundschnipsel z.B. von der „answering machine Solution“ CD (Staalplaat) und von vielen anderen kontemporären Musike(r)n werden von ihm äusserst sorgfältig und so gut wie ohne Wiedererkennungswert der Originalquellen neu bearbeitet und zusammengesetzt, so dass hochdynamische, klanglich perfekt aufeinander abgestimmte Collagen entstehen. Es gibt absolut keine Wiederholungen, jeder auftauchende Klang ist „neu“, jede Sekunde für eine Überraschung gut. Das Zuhören erfordert ein wachsames, aufmerksames Bewusstsein, das Gegenteil von meditativer Musik ! TIP!
"This is a quiet masterpiece. Five tightly focused electroacoustic compositions that are austere, rich, strange and brilliantly executed. Elio has an ear like a bat and a serious antipathy toward cliché, and he never relies on repetition for structure; these pieces seem rather to grow out of themselves in surprising but somehow logical ways like perfect exotic blooms. His is also a music of extremes, never theoretical but always grounded in the grain of the sounds themselves. Working with sounds taken directly from the world -- in 'A@travero', the electronic world: disembodied voices from answering machines, radio, Television, CDs, cinema and the internet; in 'Proiezioni', the cinematic world of machines: cameras, projectors, empty film spools, and so on for each piece which starts with the collection of similarly connected materials. The final track, a hommage to Pierre Schaeffer, draws directly on Schaeffer's own captured recordings, taking, as concrete music does, already cooked materials as just another kind of raw ingredient. The sources may be quotidian, but they are not mundane. And they have been refined and polished and stretched and squashed and buffed and etherised to the point where they are like polished steel, reflecting something in a distorted plane, resembling something as a Brancusi might, but unfamiliar, transfigured." [press release]
|
2005 |
€14.00 |
|
| MARUTTI, ANDREA / CARLO GIORDANI |
Impressioni Organizzate di Ansie Liquide |
CD |
Building on 15 years of friendship, and nearly a decade working together, two fixtures of the Italian experimental music scene, Andrea Marutti and Carlo Giordani, come together with their collaborative debut full length release, "Impressioni Organizzate di Ansie Liquide" (Organized Impressions of Liquid Anxieties) - a rippling body of sonorous abstraction - issued by St.An.Da./Silentes.
The origins of the album date to 2011, when Andrea Marutti was asked by the filmmaker and cultural agitator, Massimo Indellicati, to compose soundtracks for a series of experimental short films - "Aquology - Oceano interiore" - centred around aquatic and science fiction themes. Intent on intervening with his own practice in electronics and synthesis, he asked field recordist, engineer, and software designer, Carlo Giordani, to come on board.
While the film project was never fully realized - only small fragments of Marutti and Giordani's initial collaboration were used - their creative relationship bore fruit, bringing them together regularly over the subsequent years, each pushing and expanding the other's approach toward sound into new territories. The album - the result of an enduring process of reworking of the cumulative material that resulted from their collaborations between December 2013 and January 2020 - melds these two distinct sensibilities into a single, palpable force.
"Impressioni Organizzate di Ansie Liquide" rests at the sublime juncture of shifting materiality and perception; where the organic transforms into the otherworldly and the synthetic bubbles with life. The collision of two highly individualized creative practices - built from a vast pallet of sonority - across its breadth, the locations of source and the intervening hand shift in and out focus, gathering as an expanse ambience and event that gives the impression of being guided by chance occurrences and responses of its own making.
Amplifying the incidental into the mystical and metaphysical, this work challenges the very notions of how we locate the meaning of music and art. Unified by the thematic vision of water that first brought Marutti and Giordani together, the album culminates as a series of evolving, abstract images, alluding to the embryonic fluids that give way to life. Drifting long tones, buzzing electronics, and woven textures of ambiguous sound, rumble and dance between the foreground and distance, penetrated by punctuations drawn intermittently from Marutti's synths and Giordani's deft snapshots of the world.
Like its subject, "Impressioni Organizzate di Ansie Liquide" is an immersive, languid realm, filled with elegant, poetic beauty, that bristle with unknown elements and the lingering potential of danger. A remarkably sensitive reminder of the creative potentialities that rest at the heart of electroacoustic, concrete, and field recording based musics, doubling as a vision of their possible futures, Marutti and Giordani have created an album that simultaneously drowns the ear and fortifies it with breaths of fresh air.
The album is presented on a glass-mastered CD limited to 200 copies which is housed in a deluxe six panel digipack with black finish, and features pictures by Stefano Gentile.
Andrea Marutti was born in 1970 in Savona and currently lives in Milan, Italy. He began his experiments with music in the early '90s using mainly tapes and objects. A few years later he also started to use synthesizers, samplers and other electronic devices, and founded the Lips Vago Digital Studio.
His most well-known projects are Amon and Never Known. During the late '90s and early '00s several of his releases in the field of Ambient / Dark Ambient music have been published by labels such as Eibon Records, Nextera, Amplexus, Silentes, Drone Records, Taâlem, etc. on CD and other formats.
For some time he was also responsible of other projects dealing with different styles of electronic music ranging from Lo-Fi, Weird and Cheap Electronica to IDM (Wolkspurz & Ramirez, Lips Vago) to Dada, Noise and Nonsense (Spiral).
With the turn of the century he started recording and releasing Experimental Ambient tracks under his own name, in duo with Giuseppe Verticchio/Nimh as Hall of Mirrors, with Davide Del Col (Ornament, Echran, Antikatechon) as Molnija Aura, and again in duo with Andrea 'Ics' Ferraris as Sil Muir. Later on he was also involved in two collective projects: Maribor with Giuseppe Verticchio, Maurizio Bianchi, Stefano Gentile, Pierpaolo Zoppo and Gianluca Favaron, and Meerkat with Andrea Ferraris, Davide Valecchi/aal, Fabio Selvafiorita, Luca Bergero/Fhievel, Logoplasm, Luca Sigurtà, Matteo Uggeri/Hue and Adriano Zanni/Punck.
During the years he also had the chance to collaborate with many other friends, musicians and artists: Fausto Balbo, Madame P, Aidan Baker, Femina Faber, a034, Moan, OvO, Sparkle in Grey, Amalia Del Ponte, K11, Subterranean Source, Raffaele Serra, ODRZ...
Between 1995 and 2013 he has ran Afe, a label devoted to experimental electronic music. During its existence, Afe has released dozens of works by many renowned international musicians: Maurizio Bianchi, Bad Sector, Maeror Tri, Telepherique, De Fabriek, Ultra Milkmaids, Aidan Baker, Logoplasm, Bestia Centauri, True Colour of Blood, Dronaement and many more.
After a few years of hiatus, in late 2017/early 2018 he re-built his studio in a new location and began to work on new projects.
Carlo Giordani is an electronic engineer, working in the field of Information and Communications Technology; he is a project manager and consultant, specialized in big data architectures, database consolidation and data warehouse migration. Previously he has worked as a geophysicist, developing data processing software related to electromagnetic fields.
Despite his technical training he has always been interested in photography and sound. One of his passions is to capture sounds, process and stratify them, dissect them with an acoustic microscope and force them to become compositions.
He began his activity of 'sound hunter' in 1981: armed with a Marantz Superscope portable cassette recorder, he used to record rain and thunderstorms. Due to the limits of the technology available to him ar the time, he reluctantly abandoned his project quite soon.
After a break which lasted almost twenty years, in 2001 he successfully resumed his activity of field-recordist, publishing many works on the Internet in a short time (some of which are now available on his personal website) and two audio CDs (namely "Sanglisente" and "La voce degli Alberi", which translates into "The Voice of Trees"); he has given lectures, live performances in selected venues and on the Internet, and has curated transmissions for Framework Radio.
Among the many other projects he has been involved in during the recent years, his contribution to three documentaries deserve a special mention. For these productions he collected and provided sounds which were essential in the narrative process:
- "L'oro bianco e altri racconti" ("White Gold and Other Tales"), a five days expedition to record the dams of Venerocolo and Pantano dell'Avio Lakes in the Brescia district, Italy;
- "Ragazzo" ("Boy"), with sounds recorded at Lagoscuro, above the Mandrone refuge in Trentino, Italy;
- "I compagni sconosciuti" ("The Unknown Companions"), with sounds sourced in an old farmhouse in the lower Brescia area, a house as a musical instrument.
In 2019 he was also present with an installation entitled "È buono e si sente" ("It's Good and You Can Hear It") at the event "Forme" at the Fair of Bergamo , Italy.
store.silentes.it/catalogue/standa2024.htm
|
2020 |
€12.00 |
|
| MATHIEU, STEPHAN & EKKEHARD EHLERS |
Heroin |
LP + 12inch |
"Between Christmas 2000 and New Year 2001 producers Ekkehard Ehlers and Stephan Mathieu recorded an album of warm, soft, delicately crackling electronic music in the space of that week. It was christened with the ambivalent title "Heroin" and was released on CD via the label Brombron in 2001 and later in 2003 re-issued on Kit Clayton's Orthlorng Musork on double-LP with remixes the pair had commissioned as expansions.
17 years later Heroin sees its first vinyl release to include all 13 tracks from the original CD track-list on this LP + 12“ set. The centerpiece "Herz" finally receives its long deserved vinyl treatment (side C, at 45rpm) and on the flip side Thomas Brinkmann contributes a mirror in a magnificent remix of that very piece on side D.
Ehlers and Mathieu were both highly prolific solo artists during the period 2000-2004, and in just two years after the initial release of "Heroin" each had produced over half a dozen new solo recordings: among them the serial masterpiece Ehlers' "Plays" (Cornelius Cardew, Hurbert Fichte, John Cassavetes, Albert Ayler, Robert Johnson) released as 5 stunning LPs in a series on Staubgold, while Mathieu's 'Full Swing Edits' spread over five 10" records plus his album 'FrequencyLib' on Mille Plateaux, 'Die Entdeckung des Wetters' on Lucky Kitchen and ‘The Sad Mac’ on Atsushi Sasaki’s Headz label were greeted to critical acclaim.
Both artists were expanding their conceptual sonic approaches in the glow of developing laptop technologies which would to these times in 2020 seem quite primitive, but these two in that period used the state-of-the-art to aid and abet their conceptual visions, while at times the duo used unorthodox experimentation - yet always had a distinctively melodic and musical form at its heart and soul. Ehlers can be seen as a conceptualist, as a meta-musician who interrogates the mediums and methods of sound production - reflecting on the conditions and possibilities of improvisation (e.g. "Plays Albert Ayler") and exploits ideas of mutation and distortion of popular aesthetics played out within a ghostly form of divine pop beauty in his project März.
Mathieu, originally a drummer and co-founder of what has come to be known as the Berlin 'Echtzeitmusik' scene. His approach could be similarly described as working a critical analyst and researcher: Subtly and precisely working in the realm of processing as a method of intervening in melodious/harmonic analog sound sources.
Ehlers and Mathieu may not think too much about their singular productions and publications outcomes, but instead concentrate on the process and musical personality that characterizes their gesture- style itself stays in the background - and they usher a music from small minimal sound sources coaching a patient music of slow intervention - much like a refraction of light than a concrete painting or a blurred photograph - beatus accident.
And indeed, "Heroin" is an album that embraces the happy accident being made up of reduced, often very catchy and very direct micro hooks which seem laser-guided into a space accepting obvious melodic beauty in what feels like an observation of musics unfolding and revealing it's DNA, embed with for a kind of yearning for innocence and naiveté - as if Satie were on the jukebox in "The Crying of Lot 49". Not to say the music is "reduced", but rather: 'restricted' and born from acceptance of limitations, and the artists allowing the sounds to just "be.." with some incremental degrees of coercion.
The album not only sounds like that of 2 producers who are both dreamers and scientists, but that Ehlers and Mathieu chose to work with these means in a dialogue together to reduce pop music to its musical/tonal core, it is not Pop music anymore, rather a ghostly pointilistic itteration of song. "Heroin" is located at this transition, around that point at which tracks, that were or could have become pop compositions, irrevocably slip into a static harmonic nirvana. We are invited to follow the arch of Heroin in a slow-motion morphine musical haze.
Heroin sounded timeless when originally released and proof is that it remains so, one wishes that Ehlers and Mathieu would convene again for a week, a month or an entire year to continue this process of slow rumination, picking affectionately over the sounds they both love - and then maybe when everything is condensed, evaporated they would write more songs with those sonic refractive elements that remain.
Remastered by Stephan Mathieu, March 2020. Vinyl cut by Lupo @ Loop_O. Design by Caro Mikalef for Cabina."
https://schwebung.bandcamp.com/album/heroin
|
2020 |
€26.00 |
|
| MATTHEWS, KAFFE |
Ann |
CD |
"Erste CD der Experimental-Violonistin aus England, die die erzeugten Klänge in "real time" sampled und effektiert, und so raumfüllende Kompositionen irgendwo im Niemandsland zwischen droning ambient, Industrial, Avantgarde und musique concrete erzeugt. Spannend!" [old Drone Rec info]
First CD of this Experimental-Violinist from England, who processes the created sounds in real time.. thus she builds room-filling compositions in the nomansland between ambient, industrial, avantgarde & musique concrete. |
1997 |
€15.50 |
|
| MAZUREK, ROB / EXPLODING STAR ORCHESTRA |
Dimensional Stardust |
LP |
Marfa TX-based multidisciplinary abstractivist Rob Mazurek has made an indelible impact on creative music over the past 30 years. Emerging from the musical nexus of the 1990s Chicago scene, he’s written more than 400 compositions and is featured on more than 70 recordings (including International Anthem’s very first, IARC0001, "Alternate Moon Cycles"). He’s led or co-led many ensembles – including the Chicago Underground (Duo, Trio, Quartet & Orchestra), Isotope 217 (alongside members of Tortoise), Pharoah and the Underground (feat. Pharoah Sanders), Alien Flower Sutra (with Emmett Kelly), São Paulo Underground (his primary working group across his time in Brazil), and a duo with Jeff Parker – each of which possesses its own distinct musical personality.
While Mazurek’s solo work as a musician expands from cornet, piano, and piccolo trumpet studies to embody musique concrete and electronic experimentation, his composition for large ensemble reveals an intuitive sense of scale. Commissioned by the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute of Chicago in 2005 to assemble a group representing the diversity of the city’s contemporary avant-garde, Mazurek amassed a 14-piece ensemble and began composing music for what became his Exploding Star Orchestra (ESO). Including musicians from the often-segregated communities of Chicago’s North, South, and West sides – from his long-time collaborators in Tortoise’s expansive orbit, to Great Black Music luminaries from the hallowed AACM, to free jazz revivalists from the Umbrella Music group – ESO debuted in the urban epicenter of Chicago’s Millennium Park and, shortly after, went into John McEntire’s Soma Studios to record "We Are All From Somewhere Else" (Thrill Jockey, 2007). By the time of "Galactic Parables Vol. 1," ESO’s 2015 triple LP release on Cuneiform Records, Mazurek reflected to Pop Matters that "Exploding Star Orchestra is the conceptual, compositional and philosophical center of all my work... a life star of musical, visual and conceptual ideas."
In 2018, JazzFest Berlin curator Nadin Deventer invited Mazurek to present a new iteration of ESO with musicians based in Berlin as well as Chicago. Meeting the commission with the boundless ambition characteristic of his artistic approach, he imagined a jubilee of fifteen musicians and improvisers, true to ESO’s ethos in their widely diverse backgrounds and voices, but more tightly arranged around his intricate compositions than ever before. Summoning an array of symphonic studies – from Béla Bartók to Morton Feldman to Gil Evans to Sun Ra to Pedro Santos to Bill Dixon to The Art Ensemble of Chicago – in an ecstatic and wholly original program, Mazurek’s November 2018 debut at Berliner Festspiele marked a new pinnacle in his distinction as a composer and conductor of Contemporary Music. “Mazurek’s arrangements burst in colors, making synesthetes of us all,” wrote Paul Acquaro in a review of the concert for Free Jazz Collective.
When Mazurek returned to Chicago in Summer 2019, International Anthem took the opportunity to capture his new ESO compositions with a cast of collaborators from their collective constellation of artists. Over a handful of studio dates between August 2019 and March 2020, Mazurek channeled his arrangements through 11 musicians – Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Jaimie Branch, Joel Ross, Mikel Patrick Avery, Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Macie Stewart, Angelica Sanchez, and John Herndon – and commissioned his long-time lyrical collaborator Damon Locks to draft original texts for each of the titles and record vocal tracks. After three months of rigorous post-production, editing and assembly work, in June 2020 Mazurek completed his culminating new collection of ESO recordings: "Dimensional Stardust."
"Dimensional Stardust" showcases the intricacy and complexity of Mazurek’s compositions but in their most potent, most compacted forms. Opting to focus on tight ensemble orchestration over passages of open improvisation, Mazurek distills a maximal orchestra of explosive improvisers into a beautifully restrained, graceful group exercise in melodic minimalism. The album features almost no “soloist” moments, excepting Jeff Parker’s other-worldy guitar meltdown on “The Careening Prism Within,” and when Nicole Mitchell’s flute floats to the front of the barrage on “Sun Core Tet.” Mazurek himself is sparsely present as instrumentalist, only occasionally joining the ensemble with his piccolo trumpet (notably on “Parable 3000,” where he shares leads with Mitchell’s flute and Joel Ross’s vibraphone, and his trills and textures haunt ghostly around Jaimie Branch’s trumpet counterpoint). Even Damon Locks’s voice is employed more like an ensemble instrument than a lead vocalist. Locks’ distinctively dry, abstract narrative flow beams in intermittently – sounding almost like fragments of Deltron 3030 through an Orson Wells-style radio transmission – climaxing in the album-closing poetry of “Autumn Pleiades.” And all the way through, the electro-acoustic poly-rhythmic percussion section (Chad Taylor, Mikel Patrick Avery, and John Herndon) churns, thrusting the music forward as the harmonic instruments collectively bow between frenzied, futurist chromaticism and soaring, pan-humanist pentatonic anthems.
Somehow swirling the most adventurous elements of avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical into the most universal attractors of pop music, the cosmic opera of "Dimensional Stardust" is a pure spiritual extension of Exploding Star Orchestra’s unifying ethos, and a new peak in the prolific creative career of Rob Mazurek.
***"Dimensional Stardust" is the second album co-released by the North & South American partnership of International Anthem & Nonesuch Records, following Jeff Parker's early 2020 release, "Suite For Max Brown." International Anthem & Nonesuch Records are slated to co-release at least 6 titles over 3 years, details on future albums TBA. Outside of North and South America, these albums are marketed & distributed by K7 Records.***
Rob Mazurek - director, composer, piccolo trumpet, electronic renderings, modular synth
Damon Locks - voice, electronics, texts
Nicole Mitchell - flutes
Macie Stewart - violins
Tomeka Reid - cellos
Joel Ross - vibraphone
Jeff Parker - guitar
Jaimie Branch - trumpet
Angelica Sanchez - acoustic piano, electric piano
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten - bass
Chad Taylor - drums, percussion
Mikel Patrick Avery - drums, percussion
John Herndon - drum machines
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/dimensional-stardust
|
2020 |
€26.00 |
|
| MC LEAN, STEVE |
Bridges |
do-CD |
"These recordings collect together works spanning two decades of composition and experimentation that balance traditional musical resources (the band, compositional skills, instrumental techniques, acoustic and amplified instruments) and the new technologies (computers, software, processing). The first CD showcases polyrhythmic, careful compositions (like those on his last ReR CD, Opposite of War), which still no-one has tried to emulate. The second is more meditative, abstract and electronic, moving from Koto through electric and acoustic guitars - with and without radical effects processing - to piano and virtual orchestra, putting various softwares through their paces." [label notes]
label-website: www.rermegacorp.com
|
2007 |
€19.00 |
|
| MC PHERSON, DONALD & TETUZI AKIYAMA |
Vinegar & Rum |
CD |
"Originally released in 2006. Recorded in New Zealand in 2004, this is the duo recording of New Zealand guitarist Donald McPherson and Japanese guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama. A beautiful meeting of two virtuoso acoustic guitarists, both thoroughly schooled in the vast world of improvising. Donald McPherson, a native New Zealander, has released a number of extremely limited lathe-cut folk records. Tetuzi Akiyama is often associated with the improvising community in Tokyo generated around Tokyo's Off Site venue. But Tetuzi's sound owes just as much to the country blues guitarists of the '30s. His sound has taken the blues form into a new world of minimalist improvisations. His loose playing side-steps the usual clichés of the guitar in both the free improv and traditional folk scenes. Tetuzi has a varied number of very different projects from free improvisations, working with musicians across the globe, to hard minimalist electric blues boogies. Vinegar & Rum finds Tetuzi and Donald playing melodic folk improvisations that grow and morph into compositions that upon each listening uncover some new layer of beauty. Both playing on acoustic guitar, they have a level of communication and understanding that allows a musical connection to grow and blossom into a full-length recording of delicate melodic mayhem. The CD is limited to 1000 copies, with two extra tracks that do not appear on the vinyl version." [label info]
www.boweavilrecordings.com
|
2007 |
€15.00 |
|
| MCDOWALL, DREW |
Collapse |
LP |
"Drew McDowall’s back story reads like a primer of psychedelic fiction woven into statements of the unbelievable, superhuman and outright insane. Somewhere in the chaotic madness, comes an artist such as McDowall with total control and absolute calm within his songs and artistic method.
Growing up in the gangs of 1970’s Scotland, Drew McDowall started to shy away from the daily violence once punk took hold of the counterculture youth. Drew McDowall quickly scrambled to form his own punk band in 1978 with his then wife, Rose McDowall, called The Poems. Shortly lived, the Poems released a single and various tracks but more importantly, the band allowed McDowall to network with other local musicians in Glasgow, such as Orange Juice, and allowed him to travel down to London thus forming friendships with Genesis P-Orridge, David Tibet and countless others, bringing Drew into the fold of the experimental revolution happening in the UK brought upon by Throbbing Gristle and executed by bands such as Psychic TV and Current 93.
During the 1980’s, McDowall found himself in the ranks of P-Orridge’s Psychic TV and collaborating with the mysterious duo comprised of former Throbbing Gristle creator Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson and the enigmatic John Balance who had been creating esoteric and progressive electronic music under the title of Coil. It was during his formative collaborations with Coil that McDowall saw himself shift from occasional contributor to austere full-time member of the arcane outfit. McDowall’s impact on the band’s sound was apparent as the releases transformed from their previous avant pop signature to a more complex and methodic electronic imprint accompanied by even more abstruse subject matter than previous years. McDowall would continue honing his compositional skills with Coil until the release of the band’s two most broad-minded albums, Astral Disaster and Musick to Play in the Dark.
The past decade, Drew McDowall found himself living in New York City and re-appropriating himself within the local music scenes he found himself contributing to. In 2011, alongside his friend and collaborator, Tres Warren (Psychic Ills), McDowall found himself exploring his passion of meditative drone and abstract sound patterns in their project Compound Eye. In recent times, McDowall’s production work has provided the music world with some of the most outstanding remixes for bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Azar Swan and Long Distance Poison as well as his well-received scores he composed alongside artist Tamaryn for the works of Bret Easton Ellis. Outside of his collaborative duties, McDowall formed an audience as a solo artist, playing countless performances and showcases around New York’s electronic music haunts.
Dais Records approached Drew to solidify his standing as a leading electronic musician with the recording of new material neatly wrapped up in his debut album entitled “Collapse”. Recorded in 2015 in Brooklyn, NY, McDowall’s synonymous modular synthesizer compositions are augmented by obtuse sampling cut-ups and contributions from Nicky Mao (Hiro Kone / Effi Briest) rounding out the lumbering sequential knot work that has become synonymous with McDowall and craft." [label info]
www.daisrecords.com
|
2015 |
€23.00 |
|
|
Agalma (black vinyl) |
LP |
"Veteran NYC based Scottish electronic musician Drew McDowall's latest work is his loftiest, most liturgical, and least industrial outing to date — and potentially the apex of his recent discography. Named after an ancient Greek word for votive offering, Agalma exudes a hooded, devotional aura, creaking and keeling under vast rafters of stone, stained glass, and shredded wires. It's a music of majesty and mystery but also modernity, McDowall's refined modular system shape-shifting strings, piano, pipe organ, and choral masses into disorienting synthetic mirages of the sacred. He cites the intersection of “joy, terror, and the elegiac” as a centering inspiration – or, phrased more bluntly, “that 'what the fuck is going on' feeling.”
As a career collaborator himself, with stints in Coil, Psychic TV, and countless other shorter-lived partnerships, it's telling that McDowall chose this project to gather such an impressive spectrum of peers. Italian synthesist Caterina Barbieri, American drone organist Kali Malone, prolific multi-instrumentalist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, operatic Humanbeast vocalist Maralie Armstrong-Rial, Saudi producer MSYLMA, and warped futurist beat-makers Bashar Suleiman and Elvin Brandhi cameo across the album's 42 minutes, contouring McDowall's nuanced negative spaces with shudders, shadows, and shivering flickers of serenity. Each of them shines in their spotlight, elevating these elusive alchemical states into surreal revelations of texture and transcendence.
McDowall's original working title for the record is revealing: Ritual Music. He speaks of his creative practice in ceremonial terms, negating binaries by seeking the middle path to a numinous equilibrium that erases the distinction between the inner and outer worlds. These compositions feel similarly processional and intuitive, at the crossroads of holiness and hallucination, the sacred vertigo of yawning naves rising into untouchable night skies. It's a vision of industrial music as enigma and invocation, cryptic hymnals of shrouded beauty summoned in catacombs and crumbling cathedrals.
Despite its depths, Agalma is also an album of immediacy and emotion. Celestial laments of and for times of unrest and suffering. McDowall characterizes his initial intention for this music as an to attempt to convey experiences he felt incapable of putting into words: “To try and approach sublimity, or at least acknowledge it in some way.” Agalma more than acknowledges the ineffable – it embodies it.
The album features original photography and design by artist Caroline Schub."
|
2020 |
€22.50 |
|
| |
Lamina |
6 x CD-BOX |
This long-gestating box set of Scottish electronic pioneer Drew McDowall’s solo work takes its title from a technical term meaning ‘plate’ or ‘layer’ most often used in contexts either geological or anatomical: Lamina. He speaks of the compiling process similarly: “Digging into my archives felt like a mix of psychoanalysis and archaeology – uncovering buried things.” The six CD collection includes expanded editions of his four most recent Dais LPs (Collapse, 2015; Unnatural Channel, 2017; The Third Helix, 2018; and Agalma, 2020), alongside a disc of rarities (Undulations and Aberrations) and one of live performances (Entanglement). Taken together, it presents a definitive portrait of McDowall’s cryptic, questing artistry, forever seeking “that sense of stepping over a threshold.”
The bonus material in particular is revelatory, broadening both the context and complexity of its respective full-length. “Palisades,” a Collapse outtake, patiently builds a mantric throb into a rippling cascade of head-nodding cosmic noise, like some glowing shrapnel splintered off the rest of the record. “Tell Me The Name (Alt Version),” a reworking of the eerie opener of Unnatural Channel, embodies McDowall’s goal for the compilation as “a window into the process of iteration.” More emaciated and reptilian than the original mix, the track shivers and shimmers in a reverie of alien melancholy, a corrupted file of some interdimensional hymn. “False Memory Demo,” from The Third Helix sessions, showcases the textural trial-and-error behind these compositions – a wobbly collage of seasick scrapings, sine waves, and tectonic circuitry, tested like source material in a lab. Similarly, an unreleased Agalma vault cut, “Cest,” captures the artist at the brink of breakthrough – a time-stretched drone traced in muffled voices and phasered haze dilates across five lysergic minutes. It’s the sound of a palette being refined, poised for deployment.
The fifth disc spans two decades of stray recordings, from 90’s studio experiments to lost comp tracks to sold-out tapes, modular oddities, and rhythmic sketches. Sequenced chronologically, it demonstrates the zig-zagging evolution of McDowall’s sound, colored by formative years collaborating in Coil but extrapolated into freshly forking paths: industrial dub, icy downtempo, tonal devotionals, hexed gamelan, interstitial murk. The suite of live sets, too, is essential listening. He describes his inclusion criteria as performances that fuse “the sacred and the feral, like you’re in a cathedral but the floor is dirt.” All four recordings are rich and unhinged: a spiraling, seething, somber voyage for Ascetic House and Mount Analog’s’s dark experimental series, Nuit Noire; a jagged, dissonant excerpt from his Collapse release show at New York venue Alphaville; a fractured, psychedelic rendering of “Agalma III” for Root Radio’s Exist Festival live stream; and a delirious, magisterial take of “Agalma I” for the Agalma release party at Strange Editions, produced by Quo Vadis (his ambition for which was “to mirror the pandemic-related ontological feeling of being suspended in mid-air”).
Despite its duration, Lamina is a leanly plotted survey, devoid of dead weight. Few artists as omnivorous as McDowall are also as self-editing – his standards are rigorous, and revealing: “While working, I’m always changing things, hacking them away, abandoning them when they don’t work. When listening back I’m looking for a sense of awe and wonder. Otherworldly magic. If I’m not hearing that, I don’t see the point.”
https://www.daisrecords.com/products/drew-mcdowall-lamina |
2023 |
€38.50 |
|
| MCFALL, CHRISTOPHER |
The Body as I left it |
CD |
"CD edition limited to 500 copies. This collection of works was assembled in 2009 and was composed using piano, a broken phonograph player, field recordings and sampled material. I think that this release embodies a certain diversity in terms of content because at the time I was recording these works I was experimenting with several different approaches to developing new compositions involving the use of a more melodic approach to things. Once the release was completed, I had several thoughts in reference to a title and the title 'The Body As I Left It' seemed the most appropriate to me given the circumstances that had occurred during the time of it's creation. (text by Christopher McFall) On this new series of recordings Christopher McFall enriches his personal urban ethnographic work with a palette of concrete musical materials and the sounds of failing playback equipment. This combination has yielded an album which succeeds in remaining a recognizable development in the work of this composer, while revealing a whole range of sensibilities which were previously not heard in his recordings. Once again Christopher has created a work of great subtlety which contains a sense of narrative while eluding any simple descriptives or conclusive understanding of its contents. (text by Asher Thal Nir)" [label info]
"Not much information on this new release by Christopher McFall. 'composed in Kansas City, MO 2008-9', 'untitled i-vii' and the title. Not even the website of Asher's label Sourdine is mentioned on the package. Let the music speak for itself. McFall has had already a bunch of releases on Gears Of Sand and Entr'acte, and also in the digital domain his work can be found. Up until now I believed his work was mainly based around the extensive use of field recordings and processing thereof. The empty land around Kansas City, the empty warehouses and silos, but here, perhaps for the first time, it seems that McFall also uses musical instruments, primarily, I think, piano sounds. These too are processed, and mingled with the field recordings and voice material. Its an interesting new phase McFall enters here. The overall musical touch brought to the table is gentle, quiet and altogether alters the music of McFall quite a bit. The sound is deepened, without losing its original focus. The musical elements are a great supplement to the field recordings, but perhaps that could also be said vice versa. An excellent work. This music indeed speaks for itself." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| MCGUIRE, JOHN |
Works for Instruments |
do-CD |
Fünf Stücke des US-Komponisten (der Schüler von PENDERECKI und STOCKHAUSEN war) aus verschiedenen Perioden (das älteste, DECAY entstand 1967-1970) in neuen Einspielungen. Klassisch instrumentierte Minimal-Music, die interessante strukturelle Merkmale aufweist (Überlagerungen, Verdichtungen und Wellenbewegungen von Tönen, Akkorden & musikalischen Themen) und entsprechende psychoakustische Wirkungen (mehrdeutiges Hören, unendliche Kreis- und Zirkelbewegungen...). CADENCE MUSIC, EXCHANGES, DECAY, FRIEZE, und MUSIC FOR HORNS, PIANOS & CYMBALS.
" 1. Composer:
John McGuire
2. Title:
Works for Instruments
3. Performers:
Ensemble Modern • Julia Rempe Sopran • Pellegrini-Quartett:
Antonio Pellegrini, Thomas Hofer Violine • Fabio Marano Viola •
Helmut Menzler Violoncello
musikFabrik: Hermann Kretzschmar, Paulo Alvarez, Irmela
Roelcke, Eun-Ju Kim,
Ulrich Löffler, Jürgen Kruse Klaviere • Christine Chapman,
Jodie Lawson, Charles Putnam,
Rohan Richards Hörner • Dirk Rothbrust, Carlos Tarcha Schlagzeug
4. Format:
Audio CD, Digisleeve, Booklet German/English
5. Total time:
CD1 44:33 • CD2 58:46 • T: 103:20
6. Catalogue #:
ed. RZ 20003¬4
7. EAN Code:
4029455200038
8. Release date:
December 4, 2008
9. Information / Press Release:
Jede der Kompositionen des amerikanischen Komponisten John McGuire beschreibt auf ihre Weise einen mehrdimensionalen Klangraum, in dem der Hörer verschiedene Blickwinkel einnehmen,
mithin ein und denselben Klang in verschiedenen Gestalten wahrnehmen kann.
Each of the compositions of American composer John McGuire describes, in its own way,
a multi-dimensional sonic space which the listener can take in from various vantage points and, in so doing, experience the very same sound in different guises." [label info]
www.edition-rz.de
|
2008 |
€21.50 |
|
| MEIRINO, FRANCISCO |
A New Instability |
LP |
"in 2019, the swiss power-acoustic musician francisco meirino presented 'a new instability' a commission for the venerable ina-grm in paris. of course, this institution is the pre-eminent center for the research and study of electro-acoustic music dating back to founding of groupe de recherches musicales in 1958 by pierre schaeffer. to this day, ina-grm continues to be at the vangarde of the electro-acoustic composition, and it is quite an accomplishment and very appropriate for meirino to receive such a commission.
this recording for 'a new instability' condenses the 32-channel original piece down to a still very active stereo version. here, meirino continues to amplify and refine his compositions that walk a fine tightrope between raw expressivity of brutalist noise and conceptual rigor of more academic pursuits. such a work ranks him in with the likes of zbigniew karkowski, dave phillips, puce mary, and illusion of safety.
field recordings from a martial arts dojo in his hometown of lausanne cast a pugilistic, combative arch to these recordings which snap, burst, explode, and erupt with utterances of men and women engaged in hand-to-hand combat. seering frequencies build, swarm, and amass out of these episodes rise to psychologically tense crescendo that rupture at their heights, quickly turning attention towards a violence that originates from within. it is as if the objective observations of those martial arts recordings are sublimated within a subjective experience of psychic unease, disquiet, and imbalance.
'a new instability' is another magnificent chapter in the ongoing body of work for this accomplished composer of electro-acoustic noise."
https://helenscarsdale.bandcamp.com/album/a-new-instability
|
2021 |
€18.50 |
|
| MEISSNER / SLAVIN / SACHS |
Into the Void |
CD |
Eine Art "Hör-Film" dreier Audio & Video-Künstler aus Israel & Österreich basierend auf einer Spurensuche im jüdischen Viertel in Krakau... besonders das 11teilige "Into the Void" von SEBASTIAN MEISSNER ist sehr hörenswert: field recordings & Erzählungen werden verwebt mit dunklen Drones, Piano-tunes, Klezmer-Fragmenten, teils in langen sphärischen Stücken, teils cut-up mässig...
RAN SLAVINS "Segments from the Snow" klingt Electronica-lastiger, aber auch bedrückend atmosphärisch & voller interessanter Sound-Arrangements & stakkatohaft-mechanischer Samples & Volksmusikverfremdungen...
ERAN SACHS (u.a. Mitglied bei LIETTERSCHPICH) schafft mit "Memory Gaps" einen geräuschaft-melancholischen Raum, basierend auf zwei traditionellen jüdischen Klarinetten-Stücken, field recordings & Interviewfetzen...
kommt mit Booklet und ausführlichen Liner-Notes....
"presence/absence:::into the void is a reflection upon the history and the recent changes in the krakovian neighbourhood of Kazimierz. The center of this meditation is the seemingly contradictory development of the last few years, which is showing that the attempts to re-animate jewish culture. The piece is working on the basis of an attempt of reversing the seasons: from summer to winter the 700-year-old Jewish district of Krakow. What struck Meissner at first sight, was the glaring contrast between the rich though often neglected presence of the material culture and the dreadful absence of the community exterminated during the Nazi days.
Four months later, on 26 June 2003, at Krowoderska52 club in Krakow, Sebastian Meissner, Ran Slavin and Eran Sachs offered the final effects of their research in the form of series of pieces. They carefully crafted crunchy steps, freezing wind, cracking ice and conversations into a mesmerising film for ears’. The imaginative power of the music was reinforced by Slavin's video impressions — equally apt in conjuring up desolate though meaningful a digital environment referring
to Nowa Huta —the empty large defunct metal industry zone....
Sebastian Meissner: works as music composer, sound designer and photographer in Vienna. Over the years his audio-visual works has been presented by curators of prestigious festivals and exhibited in international galleries
such as Transmediale, Sonic Square, Podewil, Portikus Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Goethe Institute Buenos Aires, Kulturhuset Stockholm and Forsythe Ballet. His music and sound compositions -
as Random Inc. - are released on music labels Mille Plateaux, Ritornell, Kompakt, Crónica and Beta Bodega.
Ran Slavin: Works as film-maker and as audio-visual artist from Tel Aviv. His last opus in video is one of the most brilliant films that came from Israel during the last years : INSOMNIAC CITY. Premiering with the first part at the Venice Biennial of Architecture in 2004 and continuing with part 3 at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and international venues. Working with experimental cinema, digital and acoustic music, video art and live video/sound performances. Operating between contemporary art and new music, his visual work has been described as intense urban surrealism. His audio visual work is a culmination of balanced relations between sound and video, their interconnections. His work has been shown at the Pompidou, Jeu De Paum, Transmediale, Istanbul Biennial, Cinematheques in Israel and Paris, festivals in Berlin, Slovenia, Amsterdam, Austria, New York, China, Israel, London, Ukraine. His music and videos released on the music-media labels Mille Plateaux, Cronica, Sub Rosa. www.ranslavin.com
Eran Sachs: works as composer, improviser, sound-artist and curator in Jerusalem. He plays this machine regularily in the Doom-Dub-Noise outfit Lietterschpich and John Zorn's "Cobra" improvising ensemble in Israel. His works have been released on Mille Plateaux and various labels in Israel. As a sound-artist his works tend fuse the sonic with the political, as in the case of "Yannun Yannun", which portrays the harrasment of Palestinian villagers by fanatic settlers. He founded and managed the Yad-Vashem bookstore - the only holocaust dedicated bookstore in Israel." [press release]
|
2006 |
€13.50 |
|
| MENCHE, DANIEL |
Soundtrack for the Film HOPE AND PREY |
mCD |
Soundtrack zur Film-Installation “Hope and Prey” von VANESSA RENWICK, nur 250 Stück gibt es über mailorder weltweit, der Rest wird bei den seltenen Aufführungen verkauft !!!!!
“.. As with all of his recordings, “Hope and Prey” offers an intensely powerful and beautiful listening experience. Surprisingly, Daniel Menche’s work has rarely been heard in film or television productions. Although his compositions have been used in short films, this is the first time he was commissioned to create the sound for a new film, in this case, “Hope and Prey” by Vanessa Renwick. The soundtrack, presented here, is a 20 minute composition of powerful and graceful music that richly captures the ferocious nature of Vanessa Renwick’s film. Both artists are based in Portland, Oregon, and are individually very active in the underground art scene. Their collaboration is an engrossing fusion of visceral sonics and powerful ethereal imagery that has been performed in live situations as well as gallery installations. “Hope and Prey” will never be officially released as a film since it is an installation for 3 projectors and can only be experienced in the environment it was designed for. Yet this soundtrack release is available in a limited edition of 500. Half of the pressing will be sold wherever Hope and Prey is presented, and the other half will be offered through normal distribution channels. With an extensive discography and a long record of highly regarded performances nationally and internationally, Daniel Menche’s music has reached a wide spectrum of listeners across many genres.” [press release]
|
2004 |
€7.50 |
|
|
Bleeding Heavens |
CD |
Liest man sich das Konzept von GIANCINTO SCELSI durch mit seiner Herausarbeitung von Klangfarben und Atmosphären, Mikrobewegungen einzelner Tonhöhen, der intuitiven Arbeitsweise, etc., so erscheint ein "Drone-Monumentalist" aus der nicht-akademischen Noise-Szene wie DANIEL MENCHE fast wie ein später Jünger des italienischen Klangmystikers. Auch MENCHE's neuere Stücke basieren gewöhnlich letztlich auf einzelnen Tönen oder Geräusch-Drones, bei denen eine ungeheure Fülle von feinen Details "sichtbar" werden, die sich in einem Klangstrom bewegen in den man komplett eintauchen kann. BLEEDING HEAVENS basiert auf "Orgel- und Trompeten-Destruktion", welche MENCHE in 4 lange 'movements' presst, die oftmals eine vibrierend-vibratohafte, flackernde Form annehmen. Filed under: Süchtigmachende Strudelmusik ! Wer MENCHE noch nicht kennt: Die ultimative Empfehlung und Einstiegsmöglichkeit !
"Brand new studio compositions from Portland's corporal sound purveyor, Daniel Menche. Comprised of deconstructed organ and trumpets. Recorded from 2006 to 2007 at House of Menche." [credits]
www.blossomingnoise.com
|
2007 |
€13.50 |
|
| |
Sleeper |
3 x CD |
"Daniel Menche is best known for his assemblages of visceral, industrial-strength noise. In such head-rinsing recordings as Vilké (2013), Deluge (2003), and Fields of Skin (1997), Menche's compositional directives instigate and exacerbate the physiological properties of anxiety -- increased blood pressure, blurred vision, claustrophobia, panic, disorientation, etc. In the hands of a talented composer such as Menche, noise can be demonstrative, cathartic and even communal. But after three decades of intense relentlessness, Menche posed the internal question: "Why the hell do I gravitate to compositions that stresses people out?" In re-evaluating his own compositional strategies and philosophical stances, Menche worked out the ideas through sound. Out of that research came the makings an ambient record that he could fall asleep to. These recordings seek to amplify the re-imagined traces of light and dark across the inner eyelid of the dreamer caught in that crepuscular moment between wake and sleep.
To peg this album as merely an ambient record is to do Sleeper a gross disservice. This a MENCHE ambient record. Feckless new age drivel, this is not. While seeking a graceful tranquility and placid states of mind, Menche's compositional tools remain the sonic equivalent of a chainsaw. Rough edges and bold gestures are steadfast reminders that Menche is at the helm. In Sleeper, Menche plunges into the harmonic dissonance and glassine minimalism found in the historical works of La Monte Young and Charlemagne Palestine. Never one to be static, Menche drapes his ephemerally half-melodic loops and unfurled sonic tapestries onto a distant, iron-clad thump as a rhythmic spine. The ghostly frequencies that flare out of from his drones almost always evolve into sharp and blinding coronas of sound, embruing the album with an unnerving tension.
Menche's Sleeper is a monumental album of colossal driftwork clocking in well over three hours."
sigerecords.blogspot.de
|
2017 |
€22.00 |
|
| MENS, RADBOUD & MATTHIJS KOUW |
3/4 |
do-CD |
On October 22, 2018, ERS Records released ‘3/4’ – a double CD featuring new work of Radboud Mens and Matthijs Kouw. On their new album, Mens and Kouw use a 12-meter magnetic string instrument and a modular synthesizer to create 6 carefully tuned pieces. With a total playing time of over 2 hours, ‘3/4’ continues the long-form drone explorations first released on the LP ‘1’ on Moving Furniture Records in February 2017. ‘3/4’ was recorded live in the studio in February 2016 and is released in a limited edition of 300 and packaged in a 3-panel carton sleeve.
In its use of specific tunings and the long string instrument to create long-form drone compositions, ‘3/4’ continues and pays homage to the work of American minimalists Ellen Fullman, La Monte Young, and Alvin Lucier. Within the constraint of a tuning in a specific key, each track on ‘3/4’ immerses the listener in frequencies that change very gradually. Starting with a deep hum with warm frequencies, the pieces gradually build up to a collage of textures and frequencies that are carefully moving in and out of the drone. Each track slowly reveals different sides and details of a sonic sculpture and brings about a loss of the awareness of time. In this rich tapestry of drones, nothing much seems to happen to the careless listener. However, an attentive ear will reveal a complex variety of resonances, phase-differences and emergent sonic artefacts.
https://clinamen.bandcamp.com/album/3-4 |
2018 |
€15.00 |
|
| MENTER, WILL |
Always Sound |
BOOK / 3 x CD |
200pp Book with
3 Audio CDs.
ALWAYS SOUND
A 200 page book of photographs, texts and documents, including three CDs, drawn from the soundworks, but recomposed as three related but internally coherent compositions.
WILL MENTER
A contemporary of Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy, Menter is one of a handful of sound artists with strong links to the land art movement. Now best known for installations that explore the untransformed sounds of natural materials, wood, slate, water, ceramics, stone and air, he also collaborates regularly on cross-platform projects with dancers Aurore Gruel and Mure Natale, and ceramicist Jane Norbury - with whom he has developed many of his sound sculptures and performances since 2000.
He came to this work in steps: between 1975 and the early ‘80s, he was a driving force behind the Bristol Musicians’ Co-operative, investigating novel approaches to improvisation and varieties of multimedia collaboration; within a decade, his work had extrapolated to the point at which his music and sculpture had become inextricably entwined. Intermediate projects included Cân Y Graig (Slate Voices) which explored the world of slate, and the quarries of North Wales (also featuring the first extensive use of his slate marimbas); and Strong Winds and Soft Earth Landings for which he worked with a group of Zimbabwean artists, extrapolating the sounds and principles of the mbira.
In 1998 he relocated to France, where he still lives and works.
Between 2000 and 2003 he released a series of four solo CDs, mixing the sounds of his sculptures with environmental recordings and musical performances; his fifth CD, Song Sculptures (2004) was a suite of songs written for Sianed Jones, arranged for eight sculptures, percussion and contrabass; and a sixth accompanied his book, Bits of Wood, published in 2007.
“The book part of Always Sound brings together my work of the last ten years in a way that examines the unifying ideas and motivating forces as well as the nuts and bolts of individual projects and installations. The accompanying CDs have been assembled from in situ recordings of my installations and sculptures, musical performances, studio edits of live recordings and the sounds of nature. Each is realised as an integrated whole in which the sequence of pieces is as important as the content of each individual piece, and each has an elemental theme: CD1 - Land Sea Air; CD2 - Night Day and CD3 - Gravity Breath. Working across different art forms has come naturally to me and I don’t see it as a big thing. Nevertheless, I do sometimes forget how habit- and discipline-based our appreciation of art is. Without thinking about it, we listen to music and natural sounds differently, finding them beautiful in different ways. But sometimes it’s interesting to listen to music as if it were natural sound and natural sound as if it were music. We can find and then feed different areas of ourselves that way, if we have the patience”.
[label info]
www.rermegacorp.com
|
2013 |
€30.00 |
|
| MERZBOW |
Cloud Cock OO Grand |
do-LP |
"Merzbow came roaring onto the Tokyo scene in 1979. To this day, the project remains one of the most prolific and aggressively forward-thinking acts in experimental music. Initially a duo of Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani, before settling as the moniker of Akita alone, the project took its name from German artist Kurt Schwitters' pre-war architectural assemblage, The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau, and quickly set out to challenge entrenched notions of what music could be. Embracing technology and the machine, even in its earliest iterations, Merzbow broke boundaries and pushed toward new territories of the extreme, arriving at an unadulterated manifestation of sonic expression that has continued across the last 40 years, setting the pace for the entire genre of noise along the way. Few projects have pushed boundaries, risen to a more iconic status, or been as influential over the same period of time.
Recorded in Holland during the autumn of 1989 and originally issued as an highly limited edition CD by ZSF Produkt in 1990, “Cloud Cock OO Grand” was the first of a series of albums to indicate a change in creative direction that Merzbow would following over the coming decade. During the European tour during which these recordings were laid to tape, Akita was only able to transport simple, portable gear. Rising to the challenge, these limitations led to the development of a signature form of harsh noise, heavily influenced by death metal and grindcore, that would come to define much of his early '90s sound. “Cloud Cock OO Grand” was the first of this shift to be sent into a wider realm.
Comprising five individual compositions - three being side-long - “Cloud Cock OO Grand” was composed and performed by Akita on synthesizers, metal devices, noise electronics, and string instruments, all recorded at the extreme volumes for which Merzbow has always gained a unique sense of distinction. Despite being enthralling sonic assault, driven by the frenetic presence of electronic sounds, across the length of the album’s four sides it is hard not to be captivated by a greater sense of dynamics and space within the artist’s work, resulting from sparse acoustic interjections played against Akita’s heavily processed strings. The result, while no less intense of demanding than anything before or since, reveals a surprising sense of intimacy and consideration that’s often not easily observed within the field of noise.
Easily among the most captivating gestures within Merbow’s sprawling catalog, pushing endlessly forward while subtly nodding toward historical gestures from the early years of the avant-garde, Urashima beautiful double LP edition of “Cloud Cock OO Grand” marks this seminal and long unavailable album’s first time over on vinyl.
Issued in a very limited pressing of 299 copies, with cover that faithfully reproduces the original CD artwork and an A2 poster with an original 1990 draw by Masami Akita, it’s hard to recommend enough."
https://urashima.bandcamp.com/album/cloud-cock-oo-grand
|
2023 |
€34.00 |
|
| MERZBOW & LAWRENCE ENGLISH |
Eternal Stalker |
LP |
"On their first official collaboration, Japanese noise pioneer Masami Akita aka Merzbow and Australian sound sculptor Lawrence English present a harrowing, surrealist portrait of nocturnal industrial activity, spawned by field recordings made in a sprawling factory complex seven hours north of English’s home in Brisbane. He characterizes the area as “uneasy and unsettling,” awash in the sickly glow of smelters and refinement machinery, somehow not of this world – a liminal quality vividly captured in Andrei Tarkovsky’s sprawling purgatorial opus, Stalker, to which the title alludes. Akita, too, described early drafts of Eternal Stalker as feeling “like the soundtrack to a dystopian science fiction opera.” A mood of mechanical dread and ruined futures permeates each of the album’s seven potent compositions.
Opener “The Long Dream” sets the stage with steady rain on sheet metal, punctured by thunder and metallic echoes, reverberating to the rafters in a collapsing warehouse. Quickly the tempest rises. “A Gate Of Light” and “Magnetic Traps” both convulse in churning furies of electric demolition and rattling chains, roaring and relentless. “The Visit” and “Black Thicket” operate more at a distance, surveying the topography of steam, rust, and liquid metal from above, their flickers of violence like gunfire swallowed by blankets of darkness. This is noise at its most elemental and unknowable: brooding, bristling, and opaque, stalking forbidden peripheries of chaos and creation.
Discussing Akita’s music, English refers to its “intense substrata that is purely psychedelic; it consumes and confounds.” The seasick swells of friction and fracture subsume the listener, forcing an auditory surrender: “this saturation of the senses can be a euphoria.” Proof comes halfway through “The Golden Sphere,” when the howling mayhem subtly recedes, revealing an eerie siren drone hovering in the void, like the resonance of a dead star galaxies away. Slowly a seething, venomous wall of volume returns, shredding the signal until its frequencies fray, whipping away into the eye of the storm. The combined effect merges obliteration and liberation, rapture and ravagement; it’s the sound of dissolution as resolution, uprooted and unmoored, finally freed from form."
https://lawrenceenglish.bandcamp.com/album/eternal-stalker |
2022 |
€24.00 |
|
| META MEAT |
Voices |
7inch |
META MEAT keeps adventuring on its peculiar unique path, pursuing its journey further in its self-invented world. step by step, stone by stone, record after record, meta meat visits some strange imaginary lands which are inhabited by odd rituals and enlivened with vivid dances.
this first 7" vinyl ep for ant-zen is a new chapter built again on mm’s dominant percussive instrumental abilities, using the tones and colours of varied hand drums, elaborating intricate rhythmic combinations which remain the source of their research and the foundation of their compositions.
this time in this ep called 'voices', each one of the four musical pieces is featuring lead vocal samples of different characters, issued from various cultures of our world. some of these voices articulate the clamour of rebellion, some whisper the poetry of nature, other evoke a spiritual quest or chant their ancient tales…
with this new release, META MEAT is giving voice and space to some authentic inspiring voices, no longer muzzled or invisible.
META MEAT. hue [official video]
youtu.be/BfsvXY_lge0
somekilos: hand percussions, drums, electronic
phil von: electronic, sampling, field recordings, production
mixed at skamp studio vilnius
mastered by norscq
photos by thekla winzen
model: jules is jules
artwork by stefan alt
limited to 150 copies, black 7" vinyl, cardboard sleeve with full colour & glossy uv print. incl. 4 art prints. digital download-code
https://ant-zen.bandcamp.com/album/voices
|
2024 |
€18.00 |
|
| MEURSAULT, PALI |
Stridulations |
LP |
For stridulations, Meursault confronts recorded and performed sounds, composition and improvisation: field- recordings of animal communication (insects, birds and bats recorded in France, Japan and South America over almost ten years) mix and dialog with the ‘sonification’ of fluorescents tubes.
Both the environmental sound matter composition and the electromagnetic instrument have evolved with performances between 2014 and 2017. Little by little, new recordings were collected and new electrical and electronic supplies were added to the setup. The record is altogether the outcome of that process and a different take on the project, leaving the synesthetics of the flickering lights but embracing the deepness of ‘blind’ listening.
Pali Meursault is a sound artist, composer and sound designer. His electroacoustic and sound art research takes different shapes: compositions for records, radio works, installations or performances. Environmental sound recording is central in his work, which takes from Musique Concrète and the sonic
exploration of soundscapes.
https://discrepant.bandcamp.com/album/stridulations
|
2018 |
€18.00 |
|
| MICHEL, JOSEPHINE & MIKA VAINIO |
Halfway to White |
BOOK + CD |
"With Folio, Touch introduces a new series of bespoke hardback book and CD publications, produced to the highest specifications. This first release, Halfway to White, is a collaboration between singular photographer Joséphine Michel and acclaimed musician and sound artist Mika Vainio. Joséphine Michel's images reframe our perception of the visual by exploring the notion of "sonic photography," as she exposes her subjects according to the resonance of the noise-fields felt at her chosen locations. Michel subtly brings to light the inflections of sound -- its tones and pulsations -- in a setting that has often been considered one of the most silent visual arts. This work is mirrored by Mika Vainio's five original compositions, his recordings poised between an environmental hold and atmosphere, while suggesting an extra-sensory world and a dream-state in parallel to the 33 haunting photographs that make up this ensemble. Sixty-page hardcover book and 60-minute CD bound in a gray linen cover and printed on heavy hi-white paper in an edition of 500 copies. Designed by Jon Wozencroft. Further Folio publications can be expected throughout 2015-2016, including new work from Chris Watson, the world's leading sound recordist and sonic painter, and other artists from the Touch stable." [label info]
www.touchmusic.org.uk
|
2015 |
€49.50 |
|
| MICROMELANCOLIE & STROM NOIR |
49°05'19,3 |
CD |
"The album of the enigmatic title "49°05'19,3"N22°34'04,0'E" is the result of the collaboration between two artists signed to Zoharum: Emil Mat'ko aka Strom Noir from Slovakia and Robert Skrzyński aka Micromelancolié from Poland. Both have two albums and participated in several compilations released on our label on their account. Their collaborative album is a piece of work suspended between two stylistics penetrated within their own solo projects, and at the same time it is perfectly complementary. On one side we have the guitar/electronic passages so characteristic of Strom Noir, and on the other the sonic structures prepared from defects and scraps that has been explored for several years by Micromelancolié. Two untitled compositions float slowly and are contemplation of places a bit distant to urban civilization. "49°05'19,3"N22°34'04,0'E " is a sound postcard from the mysterious place hidden in the title. Where is it? The answer is in the music itself, and in the coordinates composing the title of this collaborative album." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
|
2016 |
€12.00 |
|
| MINARD, ROBIN |
Silent Music |
CD |
Electro-acoustic composer from Montreal, Canada, with two compositions between sound art and acoustic design, presented as room-installations at two exhibitions in Germany in 1996 / 1999.
Silent, spacey tunes made with vibraphone and delay.....
|
1999 |
€14.00 |
|
| MINIMAL COMPACT |
Deadly Weapons |
CD |
"Wiederveröffentlichung des 1984er-Albums der israelischen Kultband. Angeführt von Sänger Samy Birnbach (alias DJ Morpheus) waren Minimal Compact eine der inspirierendsten Bands der 1980er-Jahre. Sie verbanden funkige Rockrhythmen und prägnante Gitarren mit den musikalischen Aromen des Nahen Ostens. Die aus Israel stammende Band konnte in Europa und den USA auf eine leidenschaftliche Anhängerschaft zurückblicken, einige ihrer Songs, wie das auf "Deadly Weapons" zu findende "Next One Is Real", wurden zu Clubhits. Das Album markierte 1984 den internationalen Durchbruch der Band."
[label info]
"Minimal Compact's 'Deadly Weapons' - a disc of lingering textures- is a confluence where the streams of flair and ideas meet equally. It's an iconoclastic album, a collection of songs which are effortlessly assimilated yet tap normally suppressed emotions. If there is any simple division in music it's between compositions which lubricate the biological instincts -sex and the rest- and those that mine the, uhm, soul. Post Joy Division, I can only think of three rock bands who've successfully penetrated the shadows of existence in their individual ways: Nick Cave, Holy Toy and Minimal Compact. Heavy stuff, eh ? Piss off ! It's as easy as putting a record on a turntable. Though quite why the group should join the shortlist is uncertain: the majority of them are Israeli, so we have no obvious cultural connections on the surface. Compact's approach is harmonically impacted. And even at their most blatantly neo-traditional, like on 'The Howling Hole', the minaret motifs might make for a strange musical geography but the intent is instantly recognisable at some subcutaneous level. (...) Does this make the music 'difficult' ? Not unless you're a paraplegic who can't put a disc on a turntable. So damn well do it now." [Jack Barron / SOUNDS, 1984]
www.crammed.be |
2003 |
€10.00 |
|
| MIYATA, RYOSUKE |
In a Drainage Outlet |
mCDR |
"ryosuke miyata is a japanese composer based in tokyo. previously known under the miche alias, he had a handful of digital releases mainly issued by japanese netreleases.
in addition to sudying the piano since he was a little boy, ryosuke miyata's influences include classical music, video-games soundtracks and healing music.
owing to his childhood years spent mainly creating and otherwise being immersed in reverie, fantasy and fiction, his music creations are steeped in themes such as daydreams come true, lasting impressions and interpretations of childhood memories.
with a signature sound that denotes a sense of nostalgia and illusion, his music creation process combines piano, guitar, bass and other traditional instruments with computer-based elements such as sound processing, sampling and field recordings.
"at a drainage outlet" is a nice collection of four sweet and delicate drone-based compositions..." [label info]
www.taalem.com
"The second release is by Ryosuke Miyata, from Tokyo. He worked Miche before and Japanese net labels as such released his music. As a young man he played the piano and these days cities as inspirations 'classical music, video-games soundtracks and healing music'. I am not sure which video games that might be but it does not translate to some dirty 8bit computer noise. But somehow the computer does play a role in this music, along with indeed the piano. There are four pieces on this release, all inhabiting the world of drone music but in all of these we hear the stretched out sounds from piano or guitars, treated with software, in combination with field recordings. A bit dark, but not as dark as some of his peers, this is all rather gentle music, staying on the 'nicer' side of drone and ambient music." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€5.00 |
|
| MIZUTANI, KIYOSHI & KIYOHARU KUWAYAMA |
Interlude |
CD |
"Kiyoshi Mizutani: feedback. Kiyoharu Kuwayama: handmade electronics, contact mic & mix. and/OAR (via either/OAR) is very pleased to present what is without a doubt among the very best of both artist's electronic-based work. Throughout much of this highly charged release, brooding clouds of swarming tones and drones envelope the listener, either inducing a hypnotic trance or a deep contemplative listening state. This work is the result of a mail exchange. At first, Kiyoshi created the feedback sound in the studio using a suspended microphone, mixer and some effects. Sometimes drum sticks, steel and wooden chair were used to influence the sound. Kiyoshi's recorded sound was sent to Kiyoharu who then processed the materials and edited and mixed the sound with his own materials. Kiyoshi Mizutani started his sound career with the noise project Merzbow until the late 1980s, After leaving Merzbow, Kiyoshi started releasing solo work under his own name - gradually shifting away from noise to mostly recording and releasing straight environmental sound documents. Apart from Kiyoharu Kuwayama and Masami Akita (Merzbow), Kiyoshi has also collaborated with Daniel Menche and Hideaki Shimada. Apart from and/OAR, Kiyoshi has had his work released by such labels as Ground Fault, CMR, Monochrome Vision, Auscultare Research, E(r)ostrate, Artware Production, Engraved Glass, Flenix, among others. Kiyoharu Kuwayama (aka Lethe) is known for creating and recording work in highly resonant spaces or charged atmospheres (abandoned warehouses, Shinto temples, etc). Kiyoharu is also known for his involvement with the duo Kuwayama - Kijima (Kiyoharu Kuwayama : cello, and Rina Kijima : violin) who are formidable players, so well attuned to each other that their improvisations cannot be distinguished from highly complex compositions. With a particular interest in ambient sound and locations that inspire improvisation, they take advantage of the natural reverb of each location (under a bridge at night, an abandoned warehouse), and even change their position while playing to create beautiful and charged performances." [label info]
www.and-oar.org
"There is, like with most releases by Kiyoharu Kuwayama not a lot of information on the cover (or websites) with details about the recording, but more than some other times. Kiyoharu Kuwayama plays "handmade electronics, contact mic & mix" and Kiyoshi Mizutani just gets credit for feedback. Mizutani was in the 80s a member of Merzbow, and after leaving Merzbow he did a couple of releases, ranging from the heavy noise field to field recordings, including collaborations with Daniel Menche and Hideaki Shimada. Kuwayama is perhaps best known as Lethe and has created a bunch of releases that deal with large spaces in which he plays cello, metal objects and electronics. This release with Mizutani is one that was generated through mail, which I think is a rarity in his catalogue. Mizutani recorded feedback using a suspended microphone, mixer and effects, influencing the sound with drum sticks, steel and wooden chair. Kuwayama then processed this material and did further editing. The result is excellent. The feedback produced by Mizutani is never 'loud and dirty' as one could easily think these things would be (think harsh noise walls), but refined and varied. The sustained sounds move through your home space in an excellent way, and Kuwayama treats them with great care. The ten pieces flow into each other and form a great unified wholeness, which reminded me of the best of Arcane Device. A highly varied disc of music, excellent treatments and fine composition." [FdW/Vital Weekly] |
2011 |
€12.00 |
|
| MLEHST |
A cautionary tale |
LP |
Great album of the "returned" british project,
using somehow otherworldy drone-textures in a slow collaged way. Not really describable, but the sounds are outstanding.
If you like it low-fi, strange, surrealistic,
and a bit abrasive, MLEHSTs compositions will excite you!!
www.freewebs.com/mlehst
|
2007 |
€15.00 |
|
| MOLJEBKA PVLSE |
In Love and Death You are Alone |
10inch |
"The Stockholm-based 'electroacoustic drone' & experimental ambient project is active since the beginning of the century (exactly: 1999) and has build an impressive discography of hypnotic sound expansions, while the main member MATHIAS JOSEFSON refined his technical and compositorical skills by finishing a study of sound art at the Royal Institute of Art and the legendary EMS Elektronmusikstudion.
After a longer period of silence MOLJEBKA PVLSE is back with two new compositions on this 10" vinyl with a quite existential title, using amplified objects, analogue synthesizers, guitars and field recordings made in Europe, Africa and the USA => an invitation to explore these unknown audio landscapes. Two dense & emotional drone tracks that form an existential unity!
This is a one time pressing of only 300 copies on transparent vinyl with incredible artwork by THOMAS DOHMEN using a "frozen bronce" metallic colour cover print.
"Moljebka Pvlse search for the place where everything you can imagine is real."
[press release]
"Thick, turbulent, and tearjerking dronemusik from the Swedish project Moljebka Pvlse, making for a pitch perfect contribution to Drone Records' 10" inch series. So many FX and organically accreted layers swirl together in these heavily processed tracks of unrecognizable field recordings, electronics, guitar, and voice. Within these long and drawn out shimmers of truly sad intonations Moljebka Pvlse sets forth waves of subtle melodies caught in deepwater, oceanic tides to arrive at a majestic pairing of sublime ambient tracks. One of the best things we've heard from Moljebka Pvlse, and one of the best from the always superb Drone Records, certainly on par with Troum, Tim Hecker, and Jonathan Coleclough." [Aquarius Records]
|
2015 |
€15.00 |
|
|
Borrowed Scenery: Appearance |
maxi-CD |
During the pandemic, many of the restrictions introduced, in particular, on movement, artists, like most of us, made their journeys mainly in their own rooms or made pilgrimages deep into each other. Mathias from MOLJEBKA PVLSE at that time uses his own studio as a vehicle he traverses through virtual field recordings, composing his own abstract environments and discovering distant lands. The map of these borrowed places is written in 3 long compositions, complementing each other like the topography of neighboring places or overlapping grids showing different properties occurring at the same latitude. It is possible to read them separately, just as it is possible to listen to only one of the three compositions and it gives some idea, allowing you to capture a selected fragment, this listening to the whole gives a deeper insight. The material from the session was divided according to a similar pattern and properly divided into two complementary releases: the album "Borrowed Scenery", which will be released next spring on vinyl, and CDEP "Borrowed Scenery: Appearance", introducing the atmosphere of the longplay, respectively. The CD containing over twenty minutes of composition folded in a 6-inch gatefold with two postcards attached is the next installment of a series of short musical forms, initiated in our catalog by the publication of the material "Klechdy" by Rigor Mortiss.
CD EP folded in 6" gatefold sleeve + 2 postcards limited to 200 copies
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/borrowed-scenery-appearance
|
2021 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Borrowed Scenery |
LP |
Sweden's Moljebka Pvlse (Mathias Josefson) will be known to many for releases on labels such as Cold Meat Industry, Cyclic Law, Drone Records, and Reverse Alignment. During the pandemic, Josefson used his own studio as a vehicle to traverse through virtual field recordings, composing abstract environments and discovering distant lands. The map of these borrowed places is written in three long compositions, complementing each other like the topography of neighbouring places or overlapping grids showing different properties occurring at the same latitude. It is possible to read them separately, just as it is possible to listen to only one of the three compositions and it gives some idea, allowing you to capture a selected fragment, this listening to the whole gives a deeper insight. The material from the session was divided according to a similar pattern and properly divided into two complementary releases: the album "Borrowed Scenery", presented here (41 mins), and "Borrowed Scenery: Appearance" (21 mins), introducing the atmosphere of the longplay, respectively. Special limited edition of 150 copies, with MCD in 5" card sleeve, both editions with slightly different artwork. Comes with digital download code.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/borrowed-scenery |
2022 |
€20.00 |
|
| MONNIER, THIERRY |
Temps Espace |
LP |
Temps Espace consists of two pieces of DIY “musique concrète”.
DIY because it was made outside of any academism and done with the equipment that I own at the time of the recordings, appropriate or not.
Two tracks Inter…, in-between.
One composition (intermezzo) has been done 14 years ago and the other one (interfluve) 2 years ago. The connection between those tracks is the original sound material which has been recorded at about the same time (early two thousand).
Time and/or space are in question in the two compositions.
The first track result from the in-between of a reading of Deleuze and Guattari a thousand plateaus and the second one is taken from the space in-between two talwegs.
One were the sound has been deteriorated through the mixing process of a cassette 4 tracks tape recorder and the other one where the erosion is the central question.
But two tracks so different that they are separated on each side of the LP and with the recommendation to not listen to them one after the other.
Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi
https://doubtful-sounds.bandcamp.com/album/temps-espace
|
2017 |
€17.00 |
|
| MONOPIUM |
The Goat & the Dead Horses Circus |
CD |
" ”The Goat & Dead Horses' Circus” is a new child for MONOPIUM. After a great debut album “Mesmerized.” The surrealist titles hint at the fact that the album is filled with abstract music and slightly degenerated, out of this world sounds. Twelve compositions introduce the listener to the world of magical fairytales. Welcoming you to an adventure based on a soundtrack of deranged improvisations; experiments with cut-ups and exotica. The tracks have been graced by guest appearances by two extraordinary artists: Euski (ROMA AMOR) and EmmA WyrD (CHRONIQUE NOCTURNE) The cover was designed by Robert Schalinski (of Column One fame)." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
"Michal Majcher is the man behind Monopium (great name I thought). Active since 2007, he released his first album, "Mesmerized' on Beast Of Prey in 2009. I don't think I heard that one. The music here on 'The Goat And The Dead Horses' Circus' is easily classified as 'odd'. Zoharum describes this "neo-cabaret, post-industrial electronics, musique concrete, drone and even free jazz, it draws associations with incidental musics for film noir, surrealist cinema and the dadaists" and I couldn't agree more. Not something I necessarily like throughout, I must admit, as it carries some traces of gothic, pathetic undercurrent here and there, the sort of adult stuff about fairytales, but because it sounds quite different from what is usually on our plates, but still could easily be classified as 'experimental' by our own standards, this is certainly something I played with a lot of interest. It's quite heavy on the percussion side of things, but also have tape manipulation, cello, voices and maybe field recordings - more water sounds here. A hotch-potch of instruments, and such perhaps of styles (although of course that's not necessarily per se), this makes up indeed a curious CD, of all those things mentioned, and to which one could also add perhaps ambient and plunderphonics. Nice one for its daringly, different content." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€12.00 |
|
| MOORE, ANTHONY / THERAPEUTISCHE HÖRGRUPPE KÖLN |
Ore Talks |
do-LP |
" 'ore talks' limited edition release, gatefold sleeve with booklet. a double lp of essentially electronic and noise-based pieces paired with astonishing texts spoken by anthony moore. the concept is that objects of value, artifacts or minerals, buried deep in the ground send strange signals through the earth up to the planet's surface. they are detected by the ears and instruments of miners, explorers and archaeologists who are tuned-in to the subterranean frequencies. the album contains a large booklet explaining this idea and featuring many pages of eccentric writing about sound." [label info]
Four sides of vinyl: this has served as a time constraint from the very outset of the project. With around 18 minutes per side giving an overall run time of 72 minutes, these time slots are designed to offer recordings of four sets of historical, technical processes and their devices. Each of the four chapters is conceived in two parts and realised in a number of actual compositions.
A. VALVES / ROEHRE:
1. Their Electrons. The developement of De Forest‘s Audion.
2. Noise as signal and the power of redundancy.
B. PIEZOS:
1. Reversibility; Loudspeakers as Microphones and The Transmitting Ear.
2. Mercury Acoustic Delays Lines.
C. RECORDERS:
1. Wax Cylinders, Hill ’n Dale, Voices of the Dead.
2. Magnetic Oxide and Memory Machines, Storing Time.
D. CRYSTAL SETS:
1. Waves; The Air as One Vast (negentropic) Library.
2. Farewell to AM, Fades to Infinity.
A voice is transmitted through various materials; early microphones, the reproducer of an Edison phonograph, glass phials filled with mercury, piezo crystals, transducers, and piezo discs attached to polystyrene spheres, shortwave radios, old russian valves and the self-built circuitry of condensers and switches. What emerges are speech-driven patterns of noise, electronic music and occasional passages where the voice can be plainly heard in 14 separate pieces of widely differing durations.
ORE THOUGHTS
Galena to Stibnite, starting with lead, ending with lead; the history of soldering, cementing connections for currents of information and noise alike. In the undigital realm, noise is a context for the signal and can be information in itself. For example rotating surface noise is useful for finding the original speed at which early shellacs may have been cut. Redundancy is vital for a proper understanding of the world. So Ore Talks celebrates lead and soldering and making connections and, endotically, noise; noises at the outer ear but also of the inner ear. Perec and the Oulipians employ the term ‚endotic‘ as an antonym to ‚exotic‘ in order to focus attention on the everyday, on what might be dismissed as mere noise. The infraordinaire, as Perec calls it, is very much the subject of a historiographical approach that prefers to explore the lives and times of the distinctly unfamous; a more vivid, sensory history that concerns itself with sights and smells and sounds.
In addition, Ore Talks posits a strange attraction between the discoverer and the yet-to-be discovered; between buried artefacts and the archeologist seeking to disinter them; between prospector and rich, subterranean lodes. The ‚ground‘ in the electrical field is a conductor that reaches into the earth. Simultaneously, metalliferous ores and objects alike call out to be uncovered in an equivalent act of active perception. The only prerequisite? Keep an ear to the ground; the telluric source for chthonic voices.
Murmurings from below the surface: the call of buried things that seek to be disinterred. Anthropomorphism notwithstanding, there is something to be said for giving a voice to inanimate minerals. After all, their constituent elements come from the stars and have also given rise to us humans. Furthermore, when those same elements are alchemically transformed into compounds of metal and fillers of plastics, of quicksilver and piezo crystals, of the very air, water or copper that play host to sound in its various forms, transporting speech, then ORE TALKS emerges as a title with some resonance.
And text too can be a ground from beneath which conceptual objects stem (voices in the grey matter). Here is a list of such objects that have been disinterred in no particular order from the paragraphs above. “Active perception; superluminality in the collapse of the sender/receiver paradigm”
“A History of Simultaneity; how far back does same-timedness go?”
“Noise in History, noise as history”
“The importance of redundancy in human communication”
“Sound and the continuum are products of each other”
“What holds true for time also applies to sound; they both depend on disappearing as they come into existence.”
“The speed of sound is a good rate at which to think about a speed of time” These and related topics are expanded over the following pages. They contain the sources for all readings recorded and subsequently transformed in the ORE TALKS experiments on this double LP.
www.therapeutischehoergruppekoeln.de/ore.html
"Antimonit Bleiglanz Coelestin... Ein erzernes ABC bis hin zu Zinnober.
Verbunden mit 72 Minuten Text + Klang in vier Kapiteln / Vinyl-Seiten: a. Valves / Röhren b. Piezos c. Recorders d. Crystal Sets. Kreisend um Ore [Erz] =
Mineralgemenge, die wegen ihres Metallgehaltes abgebaut werden, um es für Werkzeuge und Ähnliches weiterzuverarbeiten.
Kreisend um L/ore, dt. Lehre -> Folklore = the knowledge and traditions, frequently passed along by word of
mouth. Merke: Transmission is a vital part of the folklore process -> 1. Orality =
Mündlichkeit -> 2. Literacy = Reeling and Writhing / Lesen & Schreiben -> 3.
Technical Devices = Aufschreibesysteme. Es geht um Medientechniken: Alphabet - Grammophon... (Friedrich Kittler), um Recording Angels' Mysteries (Klaus Theweleit), um Dead Letters (Gregory Whitehead). Bevor Moore 1996 (bis 2015) Professor an der KHM wurde, hatte er mit Slapp Happy den Mond vom Himmel gepflückt, mit Pink Floyd gearbeitet und Soundtracks für Werner Nekes kreiert.
Akademisch forschte er dann synchron mit Kittler über die Geschichte und Gesetzmäßigkeiten von Sound, über phonetische und klingende Techniken des Daseins und der Erinnerung. 2004 nahm er teil an Kittlers Sirenenexperiment, das vor Amalfi Odysseus' Affäre mit den Sirenen nachstellte. Zwischen '...and the Gods made love' und Moores 'Dogs of War' spielt sich alles ab, was es zu singen und sagen gibt. Polyphone Erkenntnis über Sound und Zeit, Noise und Information, gefiltert aus den Lebenserfahrungen von der Bronzezeit her. Darüber schreibt und spricht Moore mit medienarchäologischem Knowhow und einem Ohr für die chthonischen Stimmen. Innere Stimmen, wie sie zuerst noch bikameral fluktuierten (Julian Jaynes), dann akusmatisch, mimetisch, alphabetisch, speicherbar, decodierbar, repetierbar wurden. Die Namen Zeiss, Chladni, Tyndell und Helmholtz oszillieren steampunkabenteuerlich an den pythagoräischen Küsten wie Töne und Zahlen zwischen Rauschen und Offenbarung. Schwingquarze geben den Takt an.
Memory Machines verflüssigen Vergangenes und Kommendes, um es zu fixieren, so wie Moores Sätze zu Science Fiction verschwimmen. Er raunt von The Etherial Skin of Interference, er wird poetisch, fasziniert von den Ur-Geräuschen, die Scott de Martinvilles Schweinsborsten-Phonautograph einfing oder Rilke der Kronen- Naht des Schädels zu entlocken gedachte. Klang wurde das mit Hilfe der Therapeuten Beck, Grewenig & Hennes (von The Knob, The Finger & The It), Langguth und Specht (einst bei 40 Sekunden Ohne Gewicht und Kunstkopf). Moores Stimme wispert und fitzelt subliminal unter löchrig-perkussiver Bruitistik,
er reiht Zahlen oder verschwindet hinter sirrenden Spuren, taktilen Geräuschen,
spurenelementaren Impulsen. Silben und Satzfetzen mischen sich mit Hilfe der
Hörgruppe zu Kratzern, Partikelkollisionen, Radiowellen, Zeitrost, Reibung von
Entropie und Negentropie, sprachmelodischem Blaseton, Frequenzpingpong.
Umso überraschender daher die klaren, wenn auch für den Laien kryptischen
Sätze über Interferenz, Simultanität, die Unschärfe des Now-Space, von Senden und Empfangen. Moore meditiert über Turings ACE und die Alchemie von Quecksilber-Laufzeitspeichern, aber die Sprache wird wieder verzerrt, der Noise dafür prickelig und wohltönend. Doch dann umfängt einen wieder im ursuppig, uhrsuppig brodelnden, radiowellenberauschten Äther protologisch wummernde Sonic Fiction, die zuletzt endlosrillenstottrig ausgroovt." [Bad Alchemy] |
2017 |
€25.00 |
|
| MORSANEK / VINKEPEEZER |
same |
LP |
Quasi aus dem "Nichts" erreichte uns diese sehr gute LP von zwei niederländischen "Klangtätern", die beide auf ihre ganz eigene Art ein speziellen Klangkosmos erschaffen... VINKEPEEZER mag einigen noch als WRIKKEN bekannt sein, hatte mal eine 7" auf MIXER !
"Morsanek is an Amsterdam-based guitarist, DJ, and sound editor. In his DJ and editing projects Morsanek attempts to build audio narratives by connecting and disconnecting small timbral and organisational complements. His work as an improvising guitarist uses prepared guitar as a sort of sampler. His first vinyl release is a split LP on the Kazemat label in januari 2009. www.subdist.com/morsanek/
Vinkepeezer: Soundvillain, cut and paste composer, sonic painter. Vinkepeezers' music is built from many tiny sampled fragments that reappear as a swarming flock of birds, falling apart and building up again in ever changing forms. His music is organic, cinematic, warm and thickly layered, full of contrast. The music is performed live with an unique instrument consisting of game controllers such as the Wii remote, and by acoustic instruments played by musicians that reinterpret his compositions. Vinkepeezer is Dutch composer, sound artist and performer Ivo Bol, who works internationally with filmmakers, theatremakers and choreographers. www.ivobol.nl/" [label info]
"After the second world war brought a lot of English words into the Dutch language, and it may hardly be no surprise that German words didn't make it. There is one exception, which is the now fully accepted German word bunker. Before World War Two they were called 'Kazemat', which is a beautiful word, I think. Praise to Rob Vugs and Ivo Bol who just started a label with the same name, and more praise to him for this daring move: a bit of heavy vinyl, gatefold, full color sleeve, in an edition of 500 copies. Let's hope this may last longer than just one release. Ivo Bol was once a member of Wrikken, who released a 7" on Mixer (see Vital Weekly 334), but since time works solo as Vinkepeezer, creating music by using game controllers and acoustic instruments. Much of his work is created for film, theatre and dance. In the first two pieces it seems that Bol loves his Oval, through a jumpy myriad of bouncing sounds. Closely out of phase they make a densely shaped total. Its however not a glitch based as Oval, or many of their followers. Bol creates his own strong world, plus he knows how to cut back in sound and make a quieter moment. Nothing earth shaking new, but executed with great care. Morsanek is an Amsterdam based guitarist, DJ and sound editor, who for his own piece, which spans one side of this record, he uses his guitar, effects and sound editing. Its a bit hard to say how much of this was guitar or 'live', as I hear many different layers, which seems to be hard for one person to deal with and there are some sounds which seem like 'real' percussion. Whereas Vinkepeezer stays on the safe side of things, Morsanek goes for the adventure of sound, offering a wider range of sounds and moods, and makes a more surprising piece of music. But both sides are quite nice, so this is a most promising start for this new label." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
www.kazemat.com
|
2009 |
€15.50 |
|
| MOSS, JESSICA |
Pools of Light |
LP |
180gram vinyl includes 12x24 art print poster + 320kbps MP3 download The debut solo full-length by violinist and sound artist Jessica Moss (Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Black Ox Orkestar, Vic Chesnutt, Carla Bozulich). Recorded by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart, Suuns, Matana Roberts, Eric Chenaux) RIYL: Sibelius, Laurie Anderson, Sarah Davachi, Benoît Pioulard, Loscil. Jessica Moss is known best as the violinist, co-composer, and backing vocalist with the acclaimed chamber-punk band Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (SMZ) and the avant-klezmer group Black Ox Orkestar. As fans of these projects will know, Moss has developed a distinctive and impressive approach to violin that combines a natural technical fluidity, a recombinant command of folk, classical and modern idioms, and an adventurous exploration of signal-bending and analog effects that uniquely expand the spectrum of the violin as sound source. Her solo work is deeply rooted in live performance, where she builds up and breaks down stunning longform compositions in real time with an array of pedals - including octave/harmonizers and samplers/loopers. To hear all of this rallied on her debut full-length solo release is intensely rewarding: comprised of two side-length multi-movement compositions, Pools Of Light unfolds at a stately, inexorable pace, combining sound-art and signal-processed timbres, extended melodic and contrapuntal lines, and the periodic deployment of stark, minimalist vocals. Pools Of Light is elegiac durational music at the intersection of neo-classicism, soundtrack, electronic, art-punk and avant-folk - a decidedly organic, non-academic, profoundly searching and emotive work, guided by Moss's liner note mantra: "FEELING LOVE IN A MELTING WORLD".
|
2017 |
€23.00 |
|
| MOUCHOIR ETANCHE (=BLACK TO COMM) |
Une Fille Petrifiee |
LP |
"I am sitting in a garden, I haven't left the property in weeks, someone is dropping off food once a week. I haven't seen a human being in ages, I feel like a reverse Schroedinger cat -- do I exist when nobody sees me? I must be somewhere in France but I don't remember. I have lost my consciousness again. When I wake up I hear a broken record looping somewhere in the mansion. A washed-out opera. Behind the trees I see the dilapidated hermaphrodite sculpture in a field of verdant nettles and fern. I hear gunshots far afield, aeroplanes in the sky, sirens on the main road. When unconscious I dreamt of sitting on the Concorde observing the scarab blue ocean and iridescent clouds from above, an erstwhile receding memory. Sometimes I hear the organ of the nearby Renaissance Cathedral merging with the Russian Church bells. I am hallucinating again. Someone's humming in the kitchen? Singing? A radio? I overhear two young women talking about art galleries in the neighbour's garden. Bees attack, again? Again and again. The hairspray finally intoxicates them. An amphoric Japanese voice is whispering in my head saying I will die soon. Someone (something?) bangs on the vases. The fountain's water turns dark red. Fleur calls and says mum died. The funeral will be televised on Tuesday. We opt for the synthetic choir for the service. The call is suddenly interrupted. Mold is slowly taking over the house. I go back inside."
Une Fille Pétrifiée is the debut album of new Black To Comm related entity Mouchoir Ètanche. Combining real and fake acoustic instrumentation, sampling, field recordings, and excessive yet inaudible post production this is another sublime and ethereal statement. Influences are ranging from (French) classical and opera to the anecdotical compositions of Luc Ferrari, Chinese opera, chanson, sacred music/church music, JG Ballard, and surrealism. Marc Richter records as Black To Comm for Thrill Jockey, Type, and Dekorder and as Jemh Circs for his own Cellule 75 imprint. He also produces soundtracks and acousmatic multichannel installations for institutions such as INA GRM Paris, ZKM Karlsruhe, and Kunstverein Hamburg. Mouchoir Étanche is a new project by Marc Richter, aka Black To Comm (Thrill Jockey, Type Rec). Includes download code; edition of 300.
https://blacktocomm.bandcamp.com/album/une-fille-p-trifi-e
"Une Fille Pétrifiée is a more unified recording, but it’s just as diverse. We’re not sure if that’s a real cat on the cover or a photoshopped mutant, but we hope it’s the latter. Poor kitty. This image, along with the first two titles (“Enter Mirror Hotel,” “Satyre et Hermaphrodite”) hint at a tug of war between genres and ideas. As the album begins, classical, jazz and opera loops trade places. A surreal piece of shock fiction connects the dots, but its very nature defies categorization. Field recordings add texture, but little context; this is a fever dream. Why is the girl petrified? Mouchoir Ètanche isn’t that scary. Even “Music in the Dark” has a guiding light: sounding brass in the middle of gas and drone. In “Sécheresse” (“Drought”), children play over the sound of church bells, while in “Le temps isolé” (“The isolated time”), birds and organ drown out the sound of sirens, rather than the other way around. The organ returns throughout the album, offering a sense of safety that reverberates in opposition to the agitation of A C of M; and the final track includes a soloist and choir. Seldom has an artist been so impossible to predict, a huge part of Richter’s appeal. At this point, we have no idea what to expect from the artist’s third autumn album: holy or harrowing?" [A Closer Listen]
|
2020 |
€18.00 |
|
| MURCOF |
The Versailles Sessions |
do-LP |
"Vom Barock zur Elektronik: Wassermusik des mexikanischen Elektronikers:
Seinen Titel verdankt das Album dem Ort, wo alljährlich "Les Grandes Eaux Nocturnes" stattfindet: das Sound-, Licht- und Wasser-Festival im wohl berühmtesten Schloss der Welt, dem Château de Versailles bei Paris. Der mexikanische Elektroniker Fernando Corona alias Murcof hat für den großen Fontänenabend im Jardin de Roi extra eine Suite geschrieben, "The Versailles Sessions" dokumentiert das Ereignis. Die sechs Kompositionen für das Projekt stammen alle aus dem 17. Jahrhundert (u. a. von Jean-Baptiste Lully, François Couperin) und wurden für das Projekt von Barockmusikern auf Originalinstrumenten eingespielt. Was wie eine Verabschiedung von elektronischer Musik klingt, ist in Wahrheit eine Fortführung von Techniken, die Corona über die Jahre entwickelt hat: die Verarbeitung bestehenden Materials - nur, dass dies jetzt aus dem 17. Jahrhundert stammt. "The Versailles Sessions" sollen dennoch nicht als Nachfolger des Albums "Cosmos" (2007) gesehen werden, eher als Zwischenprojekt zum 2009er-Werk "Océano". Das Album erscheint auf CD sowie als Doppel-LP in limitierter Edition." [label info / Indigo]
"In the summer of 2007, Fernando Corona completed a site-specific commission for Les Grandes Eaux Nocturnes, an annual festival of sound, light and water at Château de Versailles in France. A suite of music was composed specifically for the grand evening fountain display in the Jardin du Roi. The Versailles Sessions is an aural document of the event, to be released this winter on specially priced CD and limited edition double vinyl.
The six compositions prepared for the project derive entirely from recordings of 17th century baroque instruments (including harpsichord, viola da gamba, flute and violin) and a mezzo soprano. GetSound, who commissioned the project, hired musicians specialized in baroque music in Paris.
“We recorded pieces by Lully, Couperin and others,” says Corona of the sessions. “They were played traditionally, but we also experimented quite a bit with the music and instruments. It was a great learning experience - the musicians were amazing - very open minded and willing to have fun.”
The recording process may appear to be a departure for an artist known primarily as an electronic musician, but in fact it’s a continuation of techniques Corona has perfected over a number of years.
“It’s more or less done in the same fashion as my previous work: processing of previously recorded acoustic material. The only difference is the actual source material being so specific to 17th century baroque music and instruments. And since the recordings are the starting point of the composition process it naturally took me to a different place.”
Corona’s initial interpretations of the source material didn’t quite go according to plan.
“When we did a rehearsal about two weeks before the actual opening, it was pouring with rain so I wasn’t able to make the necessary tests. But being there and seeing the space and the installations (big disco balls and video projections on water fountains), I realised I was going in the wrong direction musically.
“The location demanded a different approach: more openness, more time for the sounds to develop and for them to resonate in that big space, so I went back home and during those remaining two weeks I reworked the whole commission into what it is now.
“The recordings I used as source material are very rich and cover a wide range of timbres, so I had lots of options as to how to approach the music making process.”
The Versailles Sessions should not be considered as the successor to 2007’s monumental Cosmos, rather as a special project while we await Murcof’s next album proper." [label info]
www.theleaflabel.com
|
2008 |
€18.50 |
|
| MURMER |
We share a Shadow |
CD |
MURMER gehört zu jener neuen Generation von Field Recording-Spezialisten, die mit Hilfe von Computerprogrammen eine ungeahnte Detailfülle & Klangdichte in ihren Kompositionen erreichen. Auf "We share a Shadow" (2 Stücke, 46 Minuten) erklingen z.B. wunderbar vielschichtige Metall-Drones, Vibrationen von langgezogene Sirenen-artigen Tönen, rückwärtige akustisch glitzernde Resonanzen, krispelndes Rauschen (Regen?)... etc. - ein einziger Genuss, diese neuartige Drone-Musik in Perfektion, das Selbst scheint sich aufzulösen in diesen Sounds! Die Auflage beträgt leider nur 300 Exemplare, kommt im handgetönen Wasserfarben-Cover.
"Murmer is the pseudonym for Patrick McGinley, a man with several passports which have taken him to many a foreign land in search of found sounds of the unsettled, the forgotten, the mysterious, and the beautiful. His field recordings of activated environments (e.g. resonant industrial spaces, windswept telephone lines, bowed branches, gasping ventilator systems, etc.) originate from all of the locations where he has traveled; yet, the documentation of these sounds is the not the terminus of McGinley's work. He is far more interested in extracting a particular emotional, transcendent, or metaphysical kernel from those sounds, and then recontextualizing that germinated sound into sympathetic compositions of magnificent dronemusik.
We Share A Shadow continues where Murmer left off with the exceptional Husk album (in collaboration with Jonathan Coleclough), in spiraling his manipulated field recordings as a slow revelation of the environmental sonorities that undeservedly go unnoticed each and every day. Singing frequencies of a bowed piece of metal undulate against a grey tapestry of rain and rasping insects. Golden overtones from shimmering drones quell what agitated textures reside in McGinley's active field recordings, rendering the aggregate sound a nocturnal opiate with considerable potency.
As Murmer, Patrick McGinley has produced a handful of releases on ICR, Ground Fault, Drone Records, and Absurd; and he has performed in venues both large and small across North America and Europe. He is also the host the Framework radio show on Resonance FM, dedicated to the consecration of field recordings and their use in composition.
We Share A Shadow is strictly limited to 300 copies, featuring hand water-coloured artwork and letterpress printing." [label description]
www.helenscarsdale.com
"BACK IN PRINT! We thought this gem from the Helen Scarsdale Agency was going to stay out of print forever, but due to a fortuitous pressing plant glitch (when are those ever fortuitous?), a small second pressing has now been made available! Here's what we've said about this album when it first came out in 2007:
Proprietor of the Framework radio show on Resonance FM for many years now, Patrick McGinley has implored his listeners to "open your ears and listen" to the world at large, presenting an impeccable series dedicated to field recordings and its use in composition. So, it goes with out saying that the field recording and the found object are commonplace within McGinley's own sound art constructions which he records under the moniker Murmer (and not Murmur, mind you!). Given his predilection for wandering throughout the European countryside for all that it has to offer (not just limited to environmental sound), his recorded output has been somewhat limited. We Share A Shadow is his first proper solo album in almost three years, although his collaboration with Jonathan Coleclough did stand out as one of the dronemusik highlights of 2006. Consisting of two very long pieces, We Share A Shadow is a notably restrained album whose dark beauty reveals itself with a slow and deliberate pace. The first untitled piece opens with sheets of cold rain scuffing the smooth arcs of bowed metals, whose Feldman-like swell and collapse recalls the late period work of Bernhard Gunter. As the rain gently fades, a composite drone emerges out of those rasps and vibrations from the bowed metals and intensifies through dissonant timbres subtly agitating the shimmer and filigree of the gilted drone. Throughout, windswept debris ricochets across the stereo field casting an ominous cloud onto the sustained tones. The second piece is an even darker affair with a motor grinding against a piece of metal in the distance while a somber, almost doomscape piano plods in the foreground. With plenty of low frequency rumbles and spectral activity lingering in the background, this piece is almost like KTL remixing Xenakis at 16 RPM. Needless to say, this is an incredible album.
Gorgeously packaged in hand water-colored / letterpressed sleeves, SECOND PRESSING ONLY 175 COPIES!!" [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2008 |
€14.00 |
|
| |
Periodic Exercises in (f)utility [homework 2016-2022] |
do-CD |
this is a Kokeshidisk release - kodi 14 - september 2023
"i work slowly, and sometimes i work not at all. so having an open invitation from taâlem to create work at the end of each year, especially as winter is setting in and it is beginning to feel like i’ve done nothing all year (i haven’t, but it can feel that way), comes as an energy boost, a reassurance, and an opportunity to resurrect some confidence, and a sense of worth. so i push myself to take that opportunity - and have done so each year since the project began (aside from the year in which my father died, explaining the 2019 gap) - and i thank jean-marc for providing it. in many, in fact almost all, of the years represented here, my piece for homework was the only work i published. indeed, this collection is sandwiched by my two most recent (physical) releases: songs for forgetting was released in late 2016, just before the docks sing in strange tongues appeared on homework 1, and tether was released in early 2023, several months after thaw and timber was published on homework 7. so this collection could be viewed as my complete sonic journey over those 7 years, digging in archives, showing off newly discovered sounds, and all in all attempting to prove to myself that it is all for something, that the tape should keep rolling, and that i must pay attention, because my homework will soon be due." (patrick/murmer, june 2023)
the docks sing in strange tongues (2016)
objects and situations found in rovaniemi, hamburg, mooste, põlgaste, tallinn, and bordeaux between 2003 and 2016. title found in the poem of the same name by panos panagiotopoulos.
echo surveys: viljandi (reimagined) (2017)
echo surveys is an ongoing series of activities including performances, workshops, installations, and compositions that consist of site-specific sonic interventions; all sounds heard are produced and/or recorded in a chosen space, using only materials found therein. this 'reimagined' work adds a new layer; it is based on a live performance at the noisy november festival at supersonicum in viljandi, estonia on 2017.11.17, and is composed from the initial field recordings made in the space for use in the performance, as well as from the recording of the performance itself. also participating in the performance and therefore in this composition were erik alalooga and taavi suisalu (the event organiser and other performer on the bill that night, respectively) and a number of members of the public.
water, grain, oil (2018)
water, fingers, and nylon string (france, 2008); disturbed ants (finland, 2014); panelia mill grinding wheel (finland, 2009); empty oil tank interventions (latvia, 2008)
nail down your ghosts (2020)
source material recorded in an abandoned and now-demolished house in the estonian town of valga in october 2019. sonic interventions performed, and elements subsequently reworked, by liisa hirsch and patrick tubin mcginley, 2019/2020. composed from those elements in june 2020. originally created for the short film to crumble into clouds above your living room by anna hints, commissioned as the estonian contribution to the 2020 venice biennale of architecture, postponed to 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic.
echo surveys: nuti (reimagined) (2021)
in november, 2020 i participated in an event curated by shawn pinchbeck for BEAMS (the boreal electroacoustic music society) in canada entitled together apart... an evening of audio wonderments. it was to be another online concert in response to the covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, but due to the time differences for artists spread throughout north america and europe, we were given the opportunity to pre-record our performances. this allowed me to create a piece in our half-renovated farmhouse in the estonian countryside, from which a live stream would have been impossible to organise. the piece streamed online on the night of november 21st, and was then briefly archived on BEAMS’ twitch page. i then made this 'sound film' available permanently online (murmerings.com/2021/01/echo-surveys-nuti/). for this release i reimagined this work for sound only, editing a piece together from the original live performance recordings and the sources used therein.
thaw and timber (2022)
dripping woodshed roof (estonia, 2022); railings at the bfm (estonia, 2022); thawing earth (estonia, 2022); water heater (france, 2008); toddler making feedback (estonia, 2020); sodablasting log walls (estonia, 2020); inside kreenholm (estonia, 2017); baltijaam wall (estonia, 2011)
photographies by patrick tubin mcginley
design by désaccord majeur
mastered by flavien gillié
https://taalem.bandcamp.com/album/periodic-exercises-in-f-utility-homework-2016-2022-kodi-14
"As Taalem sees a restart (see elsewhere), so is their sub-division Kokeshidisk. The mothership Taalem releases a yearly Bandcamp digital-only, pay-as-you-want compilation called 'Homework', and for seven years, they have been doing this every year, resulting in a massive album (always announced in Vital Weekly). I am unsure why they selected Murmer to collect his pieces from six (one year he was absent because his father died) and someone else. Other, of course, then they think these are good pieces. Murmer likes to submit relatively long pieces to compilations, hence the double disc. Patrick Tubin McGinley, the man behind Murmer, isn't the most active musician in the releasing CDs (cassettes, vinyl) department. He's a man of words, and for each of the six pieces, there is a list of sound sources and inspirations for titles. For many years, he has lived in Estonia and is very active with field recordings, which he incorporates in music, installations, workshops, etc. His primary interest lies in finding sustaining and minimal sounds. 'The Docks Sing In Strange Tongues', the first piece here, collects sounds from various harbours and in the mix, it all makes a very coherent, minimalist
music piece, which reminded me of Ingram Marshall's 'Fogtropes'. This piece sets the tone for the other five. In each of his works, Murmer uses a limited set of sounds, different sounds, that is, and these are cleverly woven together. Nothing stays for very long in the place, as Murmer uses a variety of lengths, so there is never the same overlap. In that respect, he reminds me of the sadly recently deceased Steve Roden. It bears the same tranquillity, the same effective sparse use of sound sources and working within limitations to a significant effect. His field recordings are usually entirely obscured, which adds to the beauty of it all. In 'Echo Surveys: Nuti', there are wind chimes, and in ''Echo Surveys: Viljandi' birds, perhaps. Water sounds in 'Water. Grain. Oil', maybe, but whatever else? I don't know. Murmer uses quite a bit of filtering (at least, so I believe) and prefers darker sounds. This, too, adds to the ambient quality of the music. It is an excellent release, which begs the question: why isn't there more of Murmer available?" [FdW/Vital Weekly] |
2023 |
€15.00 |
|
| MURRAY, BRENDAN |
Commonwealth |
CD |
Dröhnminimalismus pur! Poly-Drones die sich in endlosen Wellen umeinander legen, regelrecht anfangen zu schlingern. Aufs "erste Hören": Statik. Beim genaueren Hinhören: Eine unendliche Klangfülle, tänzelnde Obertöne, schwingende Frequenzen in multiplen Schichten, stetige Veränderungen und Verschiebungen. Der Drone-Gott steckt in den Details! Eine sehr feine Aufnahme des Bostoner Klangkünstlers BRENDAN MURRAY!
"Nie wurden Sehnen mehr gedehnt als über Murrays 49 Minuten Commonwealth. Nur Phill Niblock, Eliane Radigue oder Jean-Francois Laporte erzeugen solch sture Dronegebilde, in denen schüchterne Obertöne zu gigantischen Kolossen mutieren und Langatmigkeit den klaren Ton angibt. Harmonieansätze tauchen in diesem Wall aus Gitarre und analogen/digitalen Soundmanipulationen nur ganz spärlich auf und entblößen sich rasch als hilflose Wegweiser vergangener Genres. Nostalgie spielt allerdings keine Rolle, Commonnwealth schabt nach vorne, dezentriert Zeit und vermag sogar den Bewegungsapparat zu blockieren. Liest sich eventuell zu statisch, wirkt unter der Oberfläche aber äußerst drastisch. " [Ed Benndorf / DE BUG]
"Brendan Murray has become a central figure in Boston’s sound art vanguard through a reputation of exceptional live performances and a growing catalogue of slow-shifting compositions for rarified drones. A single crescendo terminating at the end of 49 minutes, Commonwealth is an epic investigation into subtle harmonics and overtones expressed through layered slippages of pure sound. Conceived through guitar, analog synthesis, and plenty of digital manipulation, Commonwealth expresses a rare confidence in Murray's finely tuned detailing of sinewy tonalities and sculpted megalithic surfaces. Murray himself has qualified this album as a "sincere bow to 'classic' minimalism," and Commonwealth is a worthy parallel to the work of Phill Niblock, Eliane Radigue, and Iannis Xenakis." [label info]
"We've ballyhooed Brendan Murray's exceptional, yet perennially overlooked drone & din work in the past; but nothing could have prepared us for Commonwealth. Damn, this guy is good. No, wait; he's fucking great! After a handful of cd-r productions, a Twonicorn cassette, and a fine cd release on Intransitive of processed shimmer, shifting frequencies, and some low-end girth rumblings for our bligatory SUNNO))) reference, Brendan Murray has produced his best work to date with Commonwealth. Compositionally, it's incredibly simple: a drone goes up, and it goes down. It lasts a little under 50 minutes. But buried with this single minded composition, there are thick spun rumbles, reflective vibrations, sympathetic sub-harmonics, and rich tonal frequencies. Out of the constant tectonic whir that introduces Commonwealth, shimmering clusters sound like a battery of reed organs or hurdy-gurdies, slowly modulating into heavier, deeper drones. We've been told that the source material for these sounds is guitar, although you'd be hard pressed to hear anything guitar-shaped anywhere on the disc. It's far more like the hallowed minimalist sound of Charlemagne Palestine and La Monte Young. Dare we say, it's better? Yes, Murray's drone hums like a perfectly tuned machine, with multiple pistons purring in a steady progress along Commonwealth's compositional arc. When Murray shifts the focus of the album downward, which begins not even halfway through the piece, the descent is noticeable; but it actually becomes Murray's most fertile work within Commonwealth. Here, low rhythmic thrumbs crawl beneath
the surface of the slowly collapsing drone, precluding its inevitable terminus. Perfect trance-enducing dronemuzik. Fans of Aidan Baker, Andrew Chalk, and Phill Niblock should definitely take note!" [Aquarius Records ]
"... Much louder and less subtle, this is loud drone music, one of the kind that Niblock plays live. Although playing music on headphones is not something I usually recommend, this piece sounds pretty fine on headphones, pressing air against your ears, making a thunderous storm, which shoots right in your brain. Towards the end the volume drops a bit in favor of more heavy weight bass sounds, forming the natural ending to a heavy work. Murray delivers, once again, a mighty fine album that will be another step forward in recognizing him as a true master of the genre. Fans of classical drone music be aware - this is the classic of the future." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
www.23five.org
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| MUSIC OF TRANSPARENT MEANS |
Selected Live Recordings |
LP |
"Selected Live Recordings is the third release De La Catessen Records has divined from the archives of New-York-via-Adelaide minimalist composer Alex Carpenter, and the second in this series for his shape-shifting collective, Music Of Transparent Means. It follows the two side-long fantasias of 2021's self-titled album; this time, we pan out slightly, to grant the listener a varied and yet more complex understanding of the material Carpenter was writing and performing when this music was happening, during the noughties. On this album, you can hear the results of some intensive explorations of the possibilities of minimalism both at its most delicate, and at its most feverish. The heavenly stasis of "Disappearance #1", for massed wine glasses and bowed guitars, feels like being jettisoned in a water tower filled with ether; the wooziness of "Burial Music" captures something of the spirit of Fripp & Eno's (No Pussyfooting), but as though the tape is slowly disintegrating; the music is blurred at the edges, warped and sidereal. Perhaps the centerpiece of Selected Live Recordings, though, is the simple, yet ravishing, "Rose Street Womb". With its performers given a simple set of instructions -- to continually repeat and elongate a series of phrases, while listening and responding to the overall sound of the ensemble -- its pastoral psychedelia recalls the gentle slippages of Arthur Russell's landmark composition, Tower Of Meaning. Elsewhere, "Mountain Piece #2" is a thunderstorm for massed drums, while "Second Presencing" uses delays as a structuring device to paint an "audio canvas" from a clutch of damaged tones. Throughout, you can hear Carpenter's knowledge and deep study of the history of minimalist composition -- he has written extensively on the work of La Monte Young, and there is certainly some aesthetic and ideological crossover with the likes of Phill Niblock, Terry Riley, and Arnold Dreyblatt. But it is also very much his own thing, the result of an intensive period of study and exploration of the possibilities, not just of minimalist composition, but also of Just Intonation. With the material long whispered about in reverent tones, and circulating on CD-R only amongst a small group of like-minded souls, De La Catessen's ongoing series of releases of Carpenter's music is a major development, bringing to light one of minimalism's hidden histories." [press release]
"From Iggy on the cover of Raw Power to Black Sabbath, circa 1980, in Milwaukee, from the ’52 Cleveland riot through to Suicide in Brussels, a healthy dose of chaos and danger is at the heart of all great rock music. So, it comes as no surprise to hear Alex Carpenter, the musician behind Music Of Transparent Means (MOTM), talk about chaos as core to the development of his music: “Even though there was this purity and mathematical elegance throughout some of the thinking and theory, what I remember almost more than that was the chaos and the mess, the forcefulness, the saturation and obliteration. The clear ideal gave way to this kind of loud, intense chaos, which in turn opened a path back to the clear.”
Music Of Transparent Means has always struck me as a particularly rock-reverent kind of minimalism, as though Alex has removed all the excess baggage that rock has picked up over the decades and focused on its most important aspects: noise and intensity, energy and mayhem. There is, of course, a great tradition of rock minimalism, from the Velvet Underground through AC/DC to Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca, on into Band Of Susans, Spacemen 3 and Loop, but Alex’s music is curious for the way it flips the script on those examples and gives us an altogether different take on the intersection of these two forces.
You can hear the ‘elegant chaos’ of Alex’s compositions throughout this second archival release by the ensemble, which is filled with music that’s both seriously beautiful and deliriously serious. If the first MOTM release on De la Catessen gave an extended view into Alex’s work, with one long piece per side, here we have excerpts from performances throughout the years, allowing a more expansive take on both process and outcome. What strikes me, listening to this music, is the way that Alex indeed allows chaos to take its own non-form, to coalesce and congeal into huge, abraded blocks of sound, to allow the meeting of musicians, many from different walks of life, to morph into one throbbing brain at the centre of the sonorous universe.
Hearing “Rose Street Womb” for the first time in over a decade, I am also momentarily surprised by how much it echoes another favourite composition of mine, Arthur Russell’s early ‘80s piece, Tower Of Meaning. In “Rose Street Womb”, musicians are each given one short phrase, or a series of them, “which were continually repeated (either fully or partially) and continually elongated,” Alex recalls. “Performers were encouraged to listen less to their own part and more to the overall ensemble.” Here, you can hear that collective mind flame into being, where a ticker-taping tessellation of tones builds abstract architectures. It’s a collectivity that’s echoed in the brief excerpt from “Mountain Piece 2”, for massed drums, though this concerns itself more with the dynamic of rise and fall, and the collapsing of our distinct sense of rhythm and texture; it’s an exhilarating rush of projected energy.
By contrast, the woozy, sea-sick strands of melody in “Burial Music” obliterate themselves via the delay feedback system that Alex has constructed (shades of Fripp and Eno in the (No Pussyfooting) mirror-verse here), eventually leading to simple phrases collapsing in on each other, “resulting in a sort of ‘burial of melody’,” Alex confides. This focus on delay as a structuring force is also evident in the following “Second Presencing”, where Alex draws out what he terms an “audio canvas” by “increasing the delay time to over five seconds, thus opening a space in which I could react musically and build upon burgeoning patterns and gestures,” with a “slow change of harmonic centre”. If the delay pedal is so often the curse of lazy experimental and post-rock music, an easy route to padding out the tonal spectrum, Alex, on the other hand, uses it with indeed a painterly caress, using the parameters and extremities of this phenomenon to offer different ways of composing and responding to sound as it unfolds in real time, in front of our ears.
The closing excerpt from a 2002 performance of “Disappearance #1”, for wine glasses and bowed guitars, has particular personal resonance for me – attending this show at SEAS Gallery was the first time I’d encountered Music Of Transparent Means, on the recommendation of Alex’s and my mutual friend (and general all-round mensch of Adelaide music) Nigel Koop. I recall being struck by the eloquence of the sound and tested by its duration. For Alex, “Disappearance #1” was a significant piece – “the result of a painful re-entry back into performance after a long period of getting hung up on theory,” he remembers, “in particular the history of Western tuning and the idea of returning to some rarefied (and impossible) ‘perfect sound.’ Writing in just intonation definitely helped with the re-entry, but ultimately I realised I wanted more energy and chaos, even if it was in the service of striving towards some type of perfection.”
When I interviewed Australian musician Oren Ambarchi many years ago, I asked him why he was so moved by minimalist composers like Phill Niblock. His answer was simple: “I like it because it rocks.” Listening, with some intensity, to Alex’s music after some time away from it, I’m struck by the way it also collapses dualities – elegance and chaos; body and mind; heart and head; rock and minimalism. In here, we can experience something that’s fundamental, I think, to what we’re all looking for, perhaps moreso on the level of the unconscious, whether we’re lost in the zone at a heady recital or caught up in the tidal waves of noise rolling off the stage at a gig; deep, identity-dissolving sensory obliteration.
Like being caught in the middle of the holocaust of sound that my bloody valentine erupt into at the end of their gigs, during “You Made Me Realise”, you’re blissfully lost, and not a little concussed and confused. “The goal was to exhaust people first,” Alex concludes. “To get them to a point where these perceptual habits stopped serving them. Like meditating on a word until it loses its referential significance or magnifying an image until its normally recognisable shape becomes unstable. It’s only after these surface layers start breaking away that we can start clearing a path towards a more direct engagement with the material.” [Jon Dale]
https://transparentmeans.bandcamp.com/album/selected-live-recordings-2
|
2022 |
€25.00 |
|
| NADJA / PICASTRO |
Fool, Redeemer |
LP |
"Fool, Redeemer is semi-collaborative split release between Canadian acts Picastroand Nadja. Having toured together and shared a stage many times over the course of the last half-decade, the two bands thought it was time to finally release something together. Nominally a split album, with side A featuring tracks by Picastro and side B a sidelong track by Nadja, members of both groups contributed to each other's songs. And a certain mutual influence seeped into the compositions, Picastro's dark-folk appearing at the beginning of Nadja's track "Venom" and Nadja's trademark drone/dirge tendencies lending a heavier, noisier edge to Picastro's songs. Nadja is a Canadian duo made up of Aidan Baker (guitars, vocals, woodwinds, drum machines) and Leah Buckareff (bass, accordion, vocals), alternately based in Toronto, Canada and Berlin, Germany. The project, originally formed in 2003, creates music which has variously been described as 'Ambient doom,' 'Dreamsludge,' and 'Metal-gaze,' combining the atmospheric textures and elements of shoegaze and experimental/ambient music with the heaviness and volume of metal and noise. Nadja has toured extensively around the world and released numerous recordings on such labels as Alien8 Recordings, Hydrahead Records, Beta-Lactam Ring Records, Blocks Recording Club, and their own fledgling label, Broken Spine Productions. Toronto-based Liz Hysen's (guitars, vocals, piano, violin) Picastro has existed in various forms with various players (including members of Final Fantasy and Rockets Red Glare), since 1997. Currently active as a trio, Hysen is joined by Brandon Miguel Valdivia (drums, percussion), and Nick Storring (cello, guitars, woodwinds, electronics). Picastro creates stark, brooding, discordant song which draw on folk and psych traditions, noise, and post-rock. The band has released four full-length albums on such labels as Pehr Records, Polyvinyl and Blocks Recording Club." [label info]
http://brokenspineprods.wordpress.com
"A split release by Nadja, well-known in the pages (and outside I guess) and Picastro, a Canadian group around Liz Hysen's (guitars, vocals, piano, violin), with a fleeting membership, but here a trio of Hysen with Brandon Miguel Valdivia (drums, percussion) and Nick Storring (cello, guitars, woodwinds, electronics). Nadja of course is a duo Aidan Baker (guitars, vocals, woodwinds, drum machines) and Leah Buckareff (bass, accordion, vocals). There is however an overspill between both bands as they play on each other tracks - semi-split.There is something to say to put both of them on a disc together. Picastro plays music that is also 'heavy', but also with an interest for folk like music, psychedelics and post-rock. The violin and cello wail about, and the band plays on. This CD is cleverly constructed: via two psych rock pieces we arrive at 'Darnia', a more meditative piece of percussion and strings and a mellow song for acoustic guitar and strings in 'A New Souls Benediction'. The tinkling takes over for 'Venom' - the twenty-three minute excursion carried out by Nadja, which starts out with equal low strumming and whispering vocals, before slowly erupting into a wall of sound which is the trademark of Nadja, complete with drum overload towards the end of the piece. It marks a full and complete album." [FdW /Vital Weekly]
|
2011 |
€15.00 |
|
| NEHIL, SETH |
Flock & Tumble |
CD |
Mit diesem Album erweitert der amerikanische Composer das bisher von ihm Gewohnte auf kurioseste Weise! Diverse Objektgeräusche und subtiler Einsatz von Stimmen und Gesängen, so obskur wie nur selten zuvor vernommen, field recordings & kaum Erkennbares, wohl auch elektronisch bearbeitet, vieles bleibt im dunkeln und macht FLOCK & TUMBLE umso geheimnisvoller und wunderbarer, von der Wirkung ungefähr so wie BIOTA, vom "Feeling" hat es was von THUJA, TIP für Leute die was wirklich Neutönendes suchen !
"Seth Nehil is an American artist involved in various projects ranging from compositions for dance, installations, multimedia performances, publications and visual art. Over the years, he has collaborated with other significant sound researchers (John Grzinich, Olivia Block, Michael Northam, Matt Marble and Brendan Murray) and has released many CDs on international labels such as Kaon, Alluvial and ...Edition.
It's not so easy to describe the music of Seth Nehil: like a compound of several substances, obtained by capturing natural and urban sounds, manipulated instruments, as well as by electronic treatments and textured objects.
Flock & Tumble is another fine example of his new direction : shorter tracks with an almost song-like structure and a large sound palette that includes the human voice as material. Flock & Tumble explores haphazard clusters, abrupt shifts, percussive rattles and gentle clouds." [label info]
"Throughout the years we have reviewed much of the work of Seth Nehil, who belongs with people like JGrzinich and MNortham to the main players of the US drone scene, which finds itself largely based in field recordings, but also acoustic instruments and just a little bit of electronics. All of this is collected and played and then put together into pieces of music. Music that is not easy to describe as it simply defies categorization, which is always good (and difficult for such reviewers like me, who like to use them). Partly we could say the music is improvised on the side of the instruments, percussive mainly. Then afterwards, or perhaps before hand, field recordings are put to it, something set in a loop, although not always 'on', and sometimes dropping out of the mix, in order to return later. If a word applies to this music, then 'organic' would, I think, be appropriate. Organic in the way the material is put together: from various sources, but it seems to fit together like it always was. Organic also in the sense of playing the instruments and the use of field recordings. This leads to some pretty strong pieces of music, in which we also recognize someone like Af Ursin or Yannick Dauby. Dense and delicate." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
"An important demonstration of Nehil’s abilities, this is a classic sleeper which deserves immediate exposure, well beyond the small circle of experts to which music like this is usually addressed." [Touching Extremes]
www.sonoris.org
|
2009 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Furl |
CD |
" 'Furl is the sequel to Seth Nehil's critically acclaimed 2009 release Flock & Tumble, also on Sonoris. Continuing his exploration of physically charged, acousmatic sound, these compositions whip, crash, swoop, glide and burble. Clusters of bell-like tones pierce hazy, corroded atmospheres. Animalistic yelps, distant pings, percussive bursts and glassy swells all merge in this unique sound-world. These five pieces are both rigorously-assembled and gracefully sparse. Furl will be a welcome addition to the expanding catalogue in Nehil's futuristic organic paradox. What others had to say about Flock & Tumble : Extraordinary a wonderful sense of confidence in the material, an ability to go somewhere quite new.' - Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear). 'Not too often you come across something that just sounds like little else.' - Brian Olewnick (Just Outside). 'An important demonstration of Nehil's abilities, this is a classic sleeper which deserves immediate exposure, well beyond the small circle of experts to which music like this is usually addressed.' - Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes). Biography : Seth Nehil is an artist, performance-maker, and composer with a practice that crosses between sound, performance-events and the visual arts. In recent years he has created large-scale sound performances, collaborated with choreographers including Liz Gerring (NYC) and Linda Austin (Portland, Ore), and has published music on various international labels, including Sonoris (France) and Senufo Editions (Italy). Seth Nehil has also been an editor of arts publications, an organizer of performance festivals and a curator of exhibitions. He currently teaches sound, video and art theory at WSU Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest College of Art." [label press release]
www.sonoris.org
" 'Furl' is already the follow-up to last years 'Flock & Tumble' (see Vital Weekly 684) and continues his shift away from the field of drone music. Like it says on the press release 'these compositions whip, crash, swoop, glide and burble'. The music of Seth Nehil has moved into the field of acousmatica. More than on the previous it seems to me that Nehil is working with real instruments (played by himself or others), which are transformed, thanks to the computer no doubt, but he cleverly stays away from the regular type processing that the schooled composers use. Instead he creates quite vibrant pieces of music that bounces off into various directions and moods. Even a quiet piece like 'Hiss' has this vibrancy, with slow changes in sound and volume. As said its not easy to recognize the instruments he uses (piano? guitar? percussion?), but he works with them in a great way. He's now entirely away from the field recordings and drones and works in a modern classical approach. A piece
like 'Swarm' sounds a stage piece with various voices from behind and slaps and bangs on the piano and percussion, with the addition of electronics making glissandi. Yet he has sprinkled the thing with his own magic - the sort of obscuring the sounds and that gives his music something of its own. Its hard to say what that is exactly, but it doesn't sound like anything else, which is the best compliment a composer can get, I guess. Its by far the best Nehil CD I heard and a fine career move." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€12.00 |
|
| NEHIL, SETH & MATT MARBLE |
Ecllipses |
CD |
Mysteriöse Geräuschmusik pur! Tolle Zusammenarbeit der beiden Herausgeber des exzellenten FO A RM - Magazins. Materialien und Objekte werden so bearbeitet, das lebendige fliessend-konkrete Klänge entstehen, deren Herkunft man nur erahnen kann. Alles ist in ständiger Bewegung, die Stücke nehmen z.T. dramatische, dronige Formen an, um dann wieder in Mikrosound-artige Fragmentsounds zu fallen, mal klingt es nach schwingenden selbst-gebauten Instrumenten, dann nach rauschenden field recordings... geniales Zeug zum genauen Zuhören & Sich-Versenken !
"First collaboration release between two American 'sound composters', Seth Nehil and Matt Marble. A dynamic whirlwind tour through states of ellipsis and eclipses, abrupt ruptures, reuniting and igniting. Where nothing is static for too long. Through an invigorating admixture of instruments, field recordings and various found matter, a compelling and mysterious world comes alive to spark the imagination." [label notes]
"Naturalist aktionism? Sure, let's call it that. We can't really
say that the Hermann Nitsch and Gunter Brus bloodletting as grand
allegory is applicable to this collaboration between Portland based
sound artists Seth Nehil and Matt Marble; but a rigorous body of work
is definitely at hand. These two are the editors of the sound art
journal FO A RM, and have both generated impressive bodies of
conceptually minded compositions through field recordings, found
objects, the almighty drone, and hand-built instruments. Here, Nehil
and Marble wax poetic about the overlay of tactile sounds to emphasize the ruptures, holes, and negative spaces which may have been present on each layer of sound. So, instead of a gaping piece of unbroken ambience, Ecllipses is a tense and discordant album of rollicking textures which bristle and scrape against each other. Nehil and Marble revel in tumbles and scrabbles of what could be a revolving metal drum filled with various pine cones, twigs, and pebbles. Elsewhere, they focus upon churning bowed steel-strings, which offer buzzing clouds of softly rendered acoustic noise; and then soft pluckings of what sound like softened dulcimers drift into prolonged echo, hinting at avant- folk drones of Jewelled Antler (especially the Ov recordings) and Kemialliset Ystavat. Barring a minimal amount of signal processing and ring modulation, the album flourishes in the sodden palette of natural objects: wood, grass, leaves, soil, and rock."" [Aquarius Records review]
www.and-oar.org
|
2008 |
€12.00 |
|
| NEUFELD, SARAH |
Hero Brother |
CD |
"Sarah Neufeld is a violinist and composer based in Montréal, Canada. Best known as a member of Arcade Fire, she is also a founding member of the acclaimed contemporary instrumental ensemble Bell Orchestre and has performed and recorded with many other groups, including The Luyas, Esmerine and Little Scream.
Neufeld began developing pieces for solo violin in a more formal and focused sense in 2011, though she has made improvisation and solo composition part of her process and practice since first picking up the instrument at a young age. Neufeld counts Bela Bartok, Steve Reich, Iva Bittova and Arthur Russell among the formative influences for her solo work, in tandem with an ear for the textures and sensibilities of contemporary electro-acoustic, avant-folk and indie rock music.
Neufeld's debut solo album Hero Brother indeed channels all of the above, flowing through shifting atmospheres and oscillating between restrained, stately ambience, emotive études, and raw kinetic energy. Small touches of wordless vocalisation, harmonium and piano supplant the violin in a few places. The album was recorded in Berlin by pianist and producer Nils Frahm, with Neufeld's performances captured in a number of locations with site-specific acoustics, including an abandoned geodesic dome, an underground parking garage, and the legendary Studio P4 orchestral recording hall at the broadcast complex of the former GDR. Hero Brother will be released on Constellation Records in August 2013.
Sarah has recently premiered her solo music at BAM (Brooklyn), the WSO New Music Festival (Winnipeg) and Wavelength Festival (Toronto), of which Exclaim magazine wrote "the highlight of the night was most certainly Sarah Neufeld, whose compositions range from Reichian to folksy without skipping a beat; she uses violin squeals, growls, scrapes and slides to express varying emotions and stomps the stage beneath her for percussion.
Packaging notes
CD comes in a custom gatefold jacket printed on thick 24pt. paperboard with a printed CD dust sleeve. LP is pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl at Optimal (Germany) and comes in a heavyweight jacket with black poly-lined audiophile dust sleeve, credit insert, pull-out art poster and download code for 320 kbps MP3 copy of the album. Artwork by Tracy Maurice." [label info] |
2013 |
€14.00 |
|
| NIBLOCK, PHILL |
YPGPN (A young Person's Guide to Phill Niblock) |
do-CD |
Wiederveröffentlichung der do-CD, die 1995 auf Blast First erschien und Material des Drone-Meisters von 1978-1994 versammelte.
"YPGPN (Young Person's Guide to Phill Niblock) is the long-awaited re-release of a 2 CD-set that was a joint production by the UK based Blast First label and The Wire magazine in 1995. It includes the following works: Held Tones (1982-94) Barbara Held, flute; Didjeridoos and Don'ts (1992) Ulrich Krieger, didjeridu; Ten Auras (1994) Ulrich Krieger, tenor saxophone; Ten Auras Live (1994) Ulrich Krieger, tenor saxophone; A Trombone Piece (1978-94) James Fulkerson, trombone; A Third Trombone (1979-94) Jon English, trombone; Unmentionable Piece for Trombone and Sousaphone (1982-94) George Lewis, trombone and sousaphone. Phill Niblock and his music have been with us now for quite some time. In 1972 he guided an audience that had come to the New York venue the Kitchen for a concert of his compositions, to his loft... Now, some thirty years later, Niblock's work continues to draw new audiences. What is extraordinary about this, is that the principles of his music have not changed much over the years; that with the long timespan covered by each piece and the sparseness of the musical material and its elaboration, one could be forgiven to think that it is at odds with contemporary hasty tastes. In fact, just because of that, it has the power to draw attention to itself. The apparently immobile string of tones that is basic to his compositions, has a singular mesmerizing quality." [Rene van Peer]
www.xirecords.org
|
2002 |
€14.00 |
|
|
Niblock for Celli / Celli Plays Niblock |
LP |
Composer, filmmaker and photographer Phill Niblock is a true pillar of the New York avant-garde. In the past 50 years, he has curated over 1,000 performances at his Centre Street loft and steadfastly built a massive, multidisciplinary body of work. While his earliest musical compositions date back to 1968, Niblock waited until the early '80s to release any recordings. Nothin To Look At Just A Record, a powerful debut with densely layered trombones, would be the first to unfurl his unique approach to sound.
The second album and perhaps the most rare in Niblock's vast catalogue, 1984's Niblock For Celli / Celli Plays Niblock is a meeting of two great minds. Working with reed player Joseph Celli (a composer in his own right, who has collaborated with John Cage, Pauline Oliveros and Ornette Coleman), Niblock nimbly removes the breathing pauses from Celli's oboe and English horn to create seamless, enchanting drones.
Niblock insists that his music be played loud: only in this way can one experience the visceral ringing of these long instrumental tones through the speakers and their natural overtones generated by the room. Niblock For Celli remains deeply absorbing.
This first-time reissue is recommended for fans of Alvin Lucier, Yoshi Wada and Dome.
|
2018 |
€21.50 |
|
| |
Nurturing Exhibitions |
BOOK + 2 x CD |
Six musical compositions by Phill Niblock, soil and cutting tree of Amanatsu orange from Masanobu Fukuoka Natural Farm, wooden pedestals, speakers, wooden benches, wooden planter, acrylic case, water, sunlight. An exhibition by Mathieu Copeland.
Nurturing Exhibitions was one of two concomitant exhibitions that formed Exhibition Cuttings at Le Forum / Fondation Hermès in Tokyo, Japan between April 23rd (Fri.) and July 18th (Sun.) 2021, a time of closed borders when lives were mainly mediated through screens amidst various lockdowns.
A rich and fleeting ecosystem of new hybrid organisms nurtured by an environment in constant evolutionary motion, adapting in time, Nurturing Exhibitions consisted of an Amanatsu tree temporarily transplanted to the gallery space. Combined with the music of Phill Niblock that was played continuously, at times to a closed empty gallery, the photographs that compose this book portray the exhibition’s entire lifespan, from a composition being recorded to a ripe fruit being picked.
Herbal Cooled2 (23:07, 2019)
Deborah Walker, cello. The tones were recorded at Marcus Schmickler’s P I E T H O P R A X I S studio in Köln Germany, with Marcus Schmickler engineering and with a Brauner microphone; the construction of the piece was done at Experimental Intermedia in NYC by Phill Niblock, using ProTools software.
Born in 1981 in Italy. Deborah Walker is a cellist, a new music performer and improviser based in Paris.
Noizzze (23:05, 2020)
Ensemble I R E – Kasper Toeplitz, electric bass; Franck Vigroux, electric guitar; Helene Breschard, harp.
All Instruments were played acoustically, not amplified. The tones were recorded at the La Muse Studio, near Paris France; the construction of the piece was done at Experimental Intermedia in NYC by Phill Niblock, using ProTools software.
The Paris based Ensemble IRE is founded by composers Kasper T. Toeplitz and Franck Vigroux, featuring Helene Breschand, Philippe Foch and Christophe Ruetsch.
Poom3 (28:02, 2020)
Stephen O’Malley, electric guitar. The tones were recorded at the Trace.
Elements Studio in NYC, with Robert Poss engineering; the construction of the piece was done at Experimental Intermedia in NYC by Phill Niblock, using ProTools software.
Born in 1974 in USA. Stephen O’Malley is an American guitarist, producer, composer, and visual artist. He has conceptualized and participated in numerous drone doom, death/doom, and experimental music groups, most notably Sunn O))).
ExplMaranhaLisbon (23:05, 2020)
David Maranha, 4 bowed bass, 4 bells, 6 violins, 6 glass harmonicas, 4 double cane flutes, 4 shruti boxes.
The piece was realized by playing from a score by Phill Niblock, realized with assistance by Guy De Bievre; and recorded and mixed in David Maranha’s own studio in Lisbon.
Born in 1969 in Portugal. David Maranha is a Portuguese avant garde musician and artist, known for his work with Osso Exotico and his collaborations with Z’ev, Stephan Mathieu, Phill Niblock, David Grubbs, and Akio Suzuki.
ExplVoxHumana (23:13, 2021)
The Vox Humana Vocal Choir, Soprano: Maiko Inamura, Mikiko Kamiya; Alto: Kiyo Irisawa; Tenor: Seiji Kanazawa, Hatsugai Takashi; Bass: Eitaro Matsui; Founder and Director: Ryuta Nishikawa
The piece was realized by singing from a score by Phill Niblock, realized with assistance by Guy De Bievre; recorded in Tokyo, Japan under the supervision of Nao Nishihara, with Miho Miura as recording engineer and mixer.
An ensemble organized by Ryuta Nishikawa and other vocalists from Tokyo University of the Arts. Started in 1996, Vox humana has been pursuing the possiblity of new creation by human voice. Their repertoire includes the polyphony music before Renaissance and the contemporary music of the 20th century, which we can enjoy at their periodic concert.
Vlada BC (20:01, 2013)
Elisabeth Smalt, viola d’amore. The tones were recorded at Marcus Schmickler’s P I E T H O P R A X I S studio in Köln Germany, with Marcus Schmickler engineering and with a Brauner microphone; the construction of the piece was done at Experimental Intermedia in NYC by Phill Niblock, using ProTools software.
Born in 1964 in the Netherlands. Elisabeth Smalt is a viola player who works exclusively as a chamber musician, in styles varying from period instrument performance to extremely new music.
https://www.matiere-memoire.com/page-d-articles/phill-niblock-stephen-o-malley-deborah-walker-2cd-in-48-pages-book
|
2023 |
€48.00 |
|
| NIEDOWIERZANIE |
same |
LP |
Debut-Album dieses 1-Mann Projekts aus Marseille (currently residing, like everyone else, in Berlin), ein sehr eigener Stil aus harmonischen Instrumental / Drone / Neo-Klassik Elementen, schleppend-rhythmischer Elektronik, Field Recordings und Effektbearbeitungen. Hier kommt etwas zusammen was eigentlich nicht zusammengehört, aber es funktioniert & klingt wie aus einem Guss! Mal ist der Sound schneidend wie Glas, dann verflüssigt sich alles wieder, durchtränkt von einem subtilen melancholischen Fluidum...
Edition: 200 Stück auf weissem Vinyl.
"In spite of all their growing differences, there are still hidden places, elusive dimensions where East and West meet… For instance in the highly introspective music of the Marseille/Berlin based solo project NIEDOWIERZANIE, presenting here its first official album in the shape of five long instrumental pieces of neo-classical sound sculptures. Flirting both with IDM and contemporary music, mixing organic compositions (using a wide range of string, wind and self-made instruments) with electronic cut-ups and field recordings from the artist’s native Marseille and his extensive journeys through India, these intense, complex and luminous crescendos evoke the works of artists as diverse as COIL, MIRROR, MIASTO NIE SPALO and ARVO PÄRT. 12" LP - white vinyl - lim. edition of 200 hand-numbered copies." [label info]
www.tutrur.com
|
2008 |
€16.00 |
|
| |
Attendre |
LP |
"Three years and many live gigs after the self-titled debut, Niedowierzanie’s music has lost nothing of his maestria and exotic flavour. The complex compositions using a variety of acoustic instruments and digital effects still tell us of faraway places, conjuring vivid pictures of south-American landscapes, Mediterranean balconies and eastern harbours. But it has also become more accessible, leaving behind the long experimental pieces and turning instead to shorter, more rhythmic, even danceable songs full of Bohemian romanticism and Mediterranean flair. Dreamy, lazily swaying ballads alternate with somber pieces like funeral marches in the heat and dust of a summer evening, revealing sudden pangs of unease and anguish behind the flowing southern nonchalance. With “Attendre”, Niedowierzanie delivers a masterpiece of Post-Mediterranea worthy of such legends as Novy Svet or Mushroom’s Patience." [label info]
|
2011 |
€16.00 |
|
| NILSEN, BJ & STILLUPPSTEYPA |
Passing Out |
CD |
Dritter Teil der nordischen "Drone & Alkohol-Intoxikation"-Trilogie, die den Zustand des Wegtretens zwischen Wachheit und Dämmerzustand klanglich adäquat wiederspiegelt; im tiefen Drone-Morast erscheinen Traumbilder, -gedanken & akustische Sequenzen der Realität auf. In paradoxer Weise ist man dann in der Lage, sowohl unbewusste wie bewusste Geistes-Inhalte zur gleichen Zeit wahrzunehmen...(sagen die Erzeuger dieses Albums). PASSING OUT ist ein One-Tracker von fast 70 Minuten, tiefgrummelnd-bassig und sonor und von mysteriösen, atmend-ächzenden Sounds durchzogen....
"The first chapter found the drink. The second came after a night of intoxicated shouting. The third chapter is inevitable: Passing Out.
The Nordic sound artists BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa have authored the last component to a trilogy of isolationist compositions for barren field recordings and lumbering electric drones, thematically linked in the psychotropic effects of alcohol. In doing so, they have issued a brief statement in defense of their research: "It's been four years and three studies, Passing Out being the final. Even in its most general, colloquial usage, Passing Out indicates the occurrence of a state that is incompatible with active behavior. It is possible that the individual could experience both consciousness and unconsciousness at the same time while encountering Passing Out."
Yes, Passing Out is a crepuscular recording, with the flickering of twilight further dimmed by the distant Arctic sun in wintertime and the blackened numbness of too much drink. With one singular track that spans 60 minutes, a nearly constant thrum and rumble of monochromatic low frequencies casts a grim pall upon the precisely dialed-in modulations and vibrations. Spectral guitars, maudlin tunes from haunted radios, angrily growling voices, and field recordings of wind-whipped snow and ice bury themselves deep amidst these subharmonic drones. All of these tease at the edge of perception, sculpting the narrative of the drone into a vehicle for unhinged expressionism of varying degrees of horror, melancholy, beauty, and oblivion.
The Swedish born BJ Nilsen defines his work as "focused upon the sound of nature and its effects on humans, and the perception of time and space as experienced through sound." He has numerous recordings on Touch and has collaborated with the likes of Chris Watson, Christian Fennesz, and Z'ev. The Icelandic citizens Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson are Stilluppsteypa, whose electronic abstractions engage absurd theatrics that mar the pristine surface of minimalism..." [label info]
"....The complete and total isolation of the music, the long passages of seemingly no action (there is just one piece, clocking it at 68 minutes), with then a sudden break, a melody filters in, the radio starts humming and field recordings - that backbone of so much in Vital Weekly and certainly here - make this an album of not just pure drones or just processed field recordings, but the strange elements thrown in, give this album a stranger, almost alien feel to it. If it's the equivalent of passing out is a bit hard to say: the act of passing out on alcohol prevents you from remembering anything. This is however their best album to date and makes a strong trilogy." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
"...Deep resonant vibrations abound, with some creepy breathing in your ear whisperings that may be those Leif Elggren vocals that Benny
was talking about. Gradually, all of these deep drones and shadowy overtures glide into a slumbering descent. But the Icelandic weirdoes
in Stilluppsteypa couldn't just let the album drift away without their absurdism forcing through the door, as they blurt with a clinical repetition of blooping electronics smashed and grabbed from Raymond Scott circa Manhattan Research. It's an unsettling climax to the album, but one that works brilliantly through Stilluppsteypa's expert use of electro-acoustic black humor. But it's drone that dominates the album, as angelic wash and devilish rumble collude to end this magnificent album. Oblivion never sounded so good. Passing Out is beautifully packaged with letterpressed and silkscreened artwork. Very nice." [Aquarius Records review]
www.helenscarsdale.com
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| NOGRAY, FREDERIC |
Wuritagu |
mCDR |
"french composer, frédéric nogray pays a particular attention on sounds in their intrinsic qualities and for what they are: vibratory phenomenon. but also for their broadcasting into the listening space, our perceptions on it, and different states of consciousness induced by listening. along his musical works with crystal singing bowls and/or feedbacks, he creates dreamlike sonic compositions from field recordings. his past works were released by various international labels such as kaon or 3leaves.
all sounds used for "wuritagu" were field recorded on the north coast of honduras during may 2012, in and around la ensenada and triunfo de la cruz. wuritagu, el lago negro is a lake between these two garifuna villages. surrounding the lake there are mangroves. at one end the lake is separated from the caribbean sea by a beach. at the other end, a small road connects the two villages. all sounds were recorded at different moments of the day and at night.
"wuritagu" is a powerful field recording-based composition where you can feel the raw energy of the jungle…" [label info]
www.taalem.com
"Of course everybody - me at least - is wondering what Taalem will do next. When Drone Records released their 99th 7" single they stopped. With these new releases on Taalem we also reach number 99 - Frederic Nogray does the honours and here we start. We know his music from releases on Kaon and he seems to be someone whose interest lies in the use of field recordings. Here he uses sounds recorded at the north coast of Honduras in May 2012 close to a lake of the same title. This twenty-one minute work is made from various recorded during various times of day and night. I assume these recordings were layered together as it's all quite full with sound. The lower end of the seashore sounds colliding with the high-end singing of insects makes a particular scary move, I thought, especially if, at one later point, planes or helicopters are part of it. It's all, in general, a bit louder than is usual, a bit cruder and with the constant pressing force of water sounds something you could easily drown in." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€5.00 |
|
| NON TOXIQUE LOST (NTL) |
OGRE-SSE |
LP |
Sehr authentischer, gesellschaftskritischer deutscher 80er Jahre-Industrial dieser vergessenen Band (vor kurzem gab es jedoch schon eine LP auf Wachsender Prozess), zwingende elektronische Rhythmen und Pulsationen, Schreigesang mit zynisch-verzweifelten Texten, Noises & Effekte am richtigen Fleck, eingespielt als richtige „Band“... die Stücke sind meist unveröffentlichte Tracks aus den Jahren 1983 bis 1985 und zeigen die Vielfalt der Band, unser Lieblings-Release bisher auf V.O.D. !
If you like classic 80“s Industrial this is a true must-have !!!
„13 Songs aus dem Zeitstrom herausgerissen (1983-1985). Sie waren bisher nicht auf Schallplatte und wurden auch noch nie im Radio gespielt (einige davon waren jedoch schon auf internationalen "cassetten-samplern" in den 80er Jahren veröffentlicht worden !) Diese "style ist irrelevant" Kompositionen sind jetzt zu einem deutschen (damals noch: "die BRD") Film zusammengeschweisst. Man wird mit wilden Schreien konfrontiert und es gibt heftige Sound-Angriffe, die in den Zustand von "...keine Lösung" einmünden. Man nannte das damals "ursprünglichen industrial Punk". Und das ist NON TOXIQUE LOST. Und es ist auch Musik um einen Traumzustand zu erreichen..“ [label info]
“13 songs pulled out of the stream of time (1983-1985). they have never been on record or on air (nevertheless, some have been released on international. cassette-compilations in the '80s !). these "style is irrelevant" compositions are now molded together into a german (at that time "the frg") movie. you will be confronted with strong shouts and there will be violent (sound) charges, which run into the state of "...no solution". back then they called it "primal industrial-punk". and that's non toxique lost. it's music that will put you into a dream state as well....”
[press release]
“....The most unknown one is possibly the band Non Toxique Lost, even when Achim Wollscheid was a band member. Non Toxique Lost existed in the earlier parts of the 80s and in recent days (having released a 7" on Klangalerie as-well as some CDs on Dossier Records). Back in the old days, they released a now sought after LP, aswell as tracks on compilations, but never gained the fame of Die Tödliche Doris or P16.D4. The line up is pretty 'normal', with Sea Wanton (vocals, electronics, effects), S. Schütze (violin, bass), A. Wollscheid (electronics, guitar, effects), H. Wöhler (live effects) and Jammin' Unit ( live effects). Rhythm-machines play an important role, over which the band-members semi-improvise their sounds. Semi, because I think some of this stuff was pre-planned, and that in some way or the other they rehearsed their songs. Especially when the lyrics can be heard through all the noise and effects, Non Toxique Lost sound like the lost brother of Throbbing Gristle. Quite nice, these orgasmic explosions of rhythm and noise. Definitely one of the nicer bands that got lost, and certainly in demand for more re-issueing.” [Fdw / Vital weekly]
|
2005 |
€15.00 |
|
| NORDERVAL, KRISTIN |
Aural Histories |
CD |
"Kristin Norderval cut her musical teeth touring with Einstein on the Beach in 1992, went on to record works of American composers such as Tania Leon, David Lang, and Anne LeBaron, improvised in the New Circle Five with Pauline Oliveros and Susie Ibarra, and co-founded the electro-acoustic duo Zanana with trombonist Monique Buzzarté. Now she has released a solo CD of her works for voice and laptop.
The composer writes: “Aural Histories is a compilation of works for voice and electronics. None have lyrics, but they all have stories. Some are improvisations recorded in one take with live sampling and audio processing in real-time; others are electronic compositions with varying degrees of vocal improvisation; and still others are through-composed electronic works. Some use the voice alone as sound source, and others contain pre-recorded and processed sounds of machines and electronic equipment, from coffee machines and microwaves to incubators and antique motors.”
Zooming further out, alongside singers and composers including Meredith Monk, Anne LeBaron, Juliana Snapper, and Mendi and Keith Obadike, Norderval’s work fits within […] a contemporary U.S. feminist opera that seeks to denaturalize singing, listening, and sound. This is work that faces rather than masks sound’s dependency on material transduction. Furthermore, it never forgets that sound always sounds in a three-dimensional setting even when played through speakers or headphones, as will be the case with this CD. […] For Kristin Norderval each sound’s specific location in space is a significant compositional parameter. Aural Histories is not a linear sound trajectory; instead it is an invitation to step into any of its ten different scenes. The doors are open to you, the listener: please enter." [label info]
www.deeplistening.org
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| NORDHEIM, ARNE |
Electric |
do-LP |
"Among the most stunning and musical electronic works ever produced, these five compositions represent the complete electronic works of Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim (1931-2010). They have stood the test of time remarkably well and have been embraced by new generations of influential musicians. This audiophile 2LP comes in an edition of only 500 copies in a beautiful gatefold sleeve with updated credits and liner notes. The sound has been mastered by Helge Sten (Deathprod) specifically for this vinyl edition, sourced from the original analogue master tapes and painstakingly restored before being transferred to 24bit/96kHz for the best possible audio results."
www.runegrammofon.com
|
2017 |
€45.00 |
|
| NORTHAM, MICHAEL |
Suhina |
10inch |
Brilliant new recordings by the prolific cosmopolitan (currently residing in Berlin) MICHAEL NORTHAM. "Suhina" is a notion for the sound of the wind moving through the trees. Instead of doing field recordings of wind MICHAEL NORTHAM tried to capture this feeling & the essence of this process through instrumental recordings from Indonesian flute & keyboard. Nature phenomena seen as the true manifestation of the Unknown. Stunning full colour artwork by Indian artist ROHINI DEVASHER. White vinyl, edition of 500 copies, incl. inlay with text by M. NORTHAM.
"Das Thema der Platte hätte auch von der K Foundation stammen können. Michael Northam vertont hier den Wind zwischen den Bäumen, auf finnisch suhina genannt. Was sich als schöngeistiges Ambientexperiment versteigen möchte, ist in der Endsumme erstaunlich unesotherisch geworden. Northam zieht alle Register seines musikalischen Könnens und scheint zu den wenigen zu gehören , die eine Komposition über den Zeitraum mehrerer Jahre gedeihen lassen können ohne der Verlegenheit zu verfallen, nach wenigen Wochen den Abschluss herbeizuzerren.
Beide Vinylseiten wirken dabei sehr transluzent und klar abgegrenzt. Bisweilen hat man das Gefühl, die leisen Zwischentöne der Feedbacks und trudelnden Dronecluster reichern sich mit dem Knistern des Vinyls an, so fragil erscheinen die Zwischenbrücken der jeweiligen Komposition. Wie GAS ohne Beats, wohl aber um das 10fache am Pitchregler hochgeschraubt und mit einer majestätischen Würde, die man sonst nur in den leiseren Backgroundklangarien der frühen Tortoise und ihren »Millions Now…« wieder findet. Orgelähnliche Töne wechseln in malströmartigen Verschiebungen ihren Standort und verwischen auf diese Art und Weise Gefühl für Zeit und Raum, bilden auf diese Art und Weise den Soundtrack für den einsamen Spaziergänger im Wald ohne ein Klischee zu bedienen.
Das Northam sein Stück im Sommer für das Vinyl editierte kommt auch tiefenpsychologisch dem Material zugute. Selten hat eine so ausufernde Komposition eine so hohe Ereignisdichte aufgewiesen, ohne dabei zum Sturm zu mutieren. Auf diese Weise hört man den Wind weniger im Gebälk, dafür mehr im Gemüt." [Thorsten Soltau / AEMAG]
"Every once in a while you bump into a masterpiece, Suhina is one of those times.
The cover has amazing artwork by the Indian artist: Rohini Devasher. Bizarre beautiful flower lifeforms in full color on the front, and in black and white on the back. The vinyl itself is white and nice sturdy and thick.
The 10” is a Drone Records release and is part of the substantia-innominata series.
A concept that deals with concepts like” unknown / unthinkable / unidentifiable / unspeakable etc.
The story behind this record is very interesting. Michael Northam was camping in Finland in 2005 and a friend told him that the sound of the wind moving through the trees was called “suhina” in their language. From that moment Michael wanted to capture that feeling in sound.
Starting with field recordings what was difficult to do, and then moving to blowing on Indian flutes and the use of keyboards. While working on these two tracks Michael has been traveling through Belgium, Slovenia, India and France through 2006 and 2007. The final result was constructed in Berlin in the summer of 2008.
The record has two tracks, called “Through” and “Within”. Both are beautiful very carefully constructed pieces that run over ten minutes of playing time. Side A“Through” is distorted and blissful, full of harmony and truly uplifting and carrying you away with the wind, through forests and plains. It feels like there is lots of wind, gray skies and rain, but also lots of sun rays and rainbows. And total melancholic euphoria. The B side “Within” is a nice continuation. All i can say is that this release is a beautiful, carefully constructed emotional masterpiece." [Nil Pavlov / Hourglass Drops]
"These two tracks of hypnotizing dronemusik from the wandering sound artist Michael Northam originated from a night camping in the Finnish hinterlands, where he became fascinated with the sound of wind whipping through the trees. Field recordings have long been central to
Northam's work dating back to his tactile compositions of corroded ambience and titanic drone arcing; and even the aspects of wind had
featured heavily in work through the Aeolian harps he built in a bunker on a desolate Finnish island. Where those recordings were
attempting to harness to power of wind as something of an intersection between technology and the landscape, these two beautiful recordings of brightly shimmering ambience are more of a poetic response to the dynamics of wind. So those whispings and scatterings of summertime arctic winds introduce the first side of this 10" and quickly subside amidst Northam's billowing drones from his Indonesian flute and an overblown Casio keyboard. The resulting waving tones flicker with the
lingering glow of the sun arching toward the horizon at twilight, with golds, oranges, and reds radiating through each timbre. So striking are the colors that Northam gets through these tones, it can almost distract from his conceptual anchor. No matter, as he's creating one of his finest pieces in a long time. Nice!" [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2009 |
€12.00 |
|
| NOS PHILLIPE |
same |
CD |
"Nos Phillipé is the debut full-length album by the east London duo of the same name.
Nos Phillipé (Jonathan Webb and Robert Hopps) construct highly immersive compositions by combining processed raw material, sound collage and electroacoustic improvisations around a cohesive and focused sonic narrative.
Throughout the three pieces on the album, Nos Phillipé interweave an array of carefully crafted drones, tones, heavily distorted effects and detailed layered textures to create an intensely claustrophobic and tangible aural environment. These three pieces act as the constituent parts of the duo’s definitive sound to date.
Formed in late 2004 the pair’s recorded output consists of one self released limited edition CD-R and a CD (’Shh… Camille’) released on Mark Wastell’s Confront Collector’s Series label in January 2008. They have also shared live billing with the likes of Oren Ambarchi, Evan Parker, Sudden Infant, Henrik Rylander, Max Eastley, Jason Kahn, Eddie Prevost, Charles Hayward and Lol Coxhill amongst others." [label info]
www.blackatlas.org
|
2010 |
€12.00 |
|
| NOVAK, YANN / JAMIE DROUIN |
+ROOM-ROOM |
CD |
JAMIE DROUIN trat im Drone-Mailorder bereits 2004 in Erscheinung, als er in Zusammenarbeit mit LANCE OLSON eine sehr schöne CD-R nur mit Schnee-Klängen veröffentliche ("Snow:Field", Infrequency Rec.); auf +ROOM-ROOM begegnen wir ihm im Verbund mit dem DRAGONS EYE-Betreiber YANN NOVAK wieder, wo sich zwei ähnlich hochminimale Drones für eine Galerie-Installation verdichten. Der erste Drone besteht aus stehenden Wellen von lichtem Klang mit Zeitdehnungseffekt, der zweite ist dunkler & rauschiger und schafft weiten Raum. Zwei identische Räume bekommen damit völlig verschiedene "Gesichter", die Drones verändern auch die Wahrnehmung physischer Umgebung. Minimalste Soundart die vor Schönheit funkelt! 2 tracks, 63 Minuten.
" +ROOM-ROOM is a pair of sound installations for two adjacent galleries at the Henry. Artists Yann Novak and Jamie Drouin will each individually explore how the perception of these familiar places is transformed by sound. Through contrasting sensory experiences, the installations create an experiential divide between the two virtually identical rooms and restructure notions of architectural solidity and singularity in favor of more flexible, intuitive perceptions. The aural compositions, based on actual ambient noises recorded in the galleries, turn attention onto the spaces themselves and encourage us to rethink the ways in which we process physical location, and create assumptions about our surroundings. In collaboration with the artists, the Henry will produce a CD of stereo versions of the works.
+ROOM-ROOM is organized for the Henry by Associate Curator Sara Krajewski." [exhibition info]
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| NURSE WITH WOUND |
Thunder Perfect Mind (special ed.) |
3 x pic-LP |
One of the most essential works from Nurse With Wound, coming in an extended luxury 3x picture LP and 2CD edition, with many unreleased, alternative versions and songs.
This album is the sister album to Current 93’s same titled album and it’s a crownjewel for collectors of avantgarde and experimental music.
The original release of Nurse with Wound’s gargantuan “Thunder Perfect Mind” in 1992 coincided with that of Current 93’s homonymous genre-defining album. Legend has it that the gnostic name initially appeared to Steven Stapleton in a dream as the title of Tibet’s then still nameless upcoming album. Both records feature contributions from David Tibet, Colin Potter, Rose McDowall, John Balance of Coil, Alan Trench of Orchis and Joolie Wood amongst others. The title and the partial overlap of the personnel on both albums isn’t quite where the similarities end, both albums have since become undisputed milestones in their respective artists’ oeuvre. At the core of the definitive 2023 Infinite Fog re-release fully overseen by Steven Stapleton are the two original tracks “Cold” – a classic unsettling rhythmic Nurse collage-fest, significantly closer to jittery psychelia than the oft-cited “industrial feel” and the epic “Colder Still”, easily one of the most mind-bending breathtaking NWW compositions up to this point and well beyond. The track soothes ghostly atmosphere and reveals new surprises with every listen, not least of which is a direct link to its sister release from c93 as well as the first appearance of the signature rhythm loop that would mutate and re-emerge on several later tracks. The album also is the first full-length collaboration with genius sound wizard Colin Potter who has since become a ubiquitous sidekick both on Nurse albums as well as in live performances. As a follow-up to what is widely acknowledged as one of the best-loved exercises in drone of the 20th century “Soliloquy for Lilith”, TPM is a much more varied but at least equally rewarding experience. Infinite Fog are beyond pleased to be able to offer a significantly enhanced, remastered and extended 3 LP version for old and new fans alike.
Songs:
1. Cold
2. Colder Still
3. Zero Neither No (Andrew Liles mix)
4. Crank
5. Steel Dream March Of The Metal Men
6. The Dadda’s Intoxication
7. Dead Cold
8. Cold (Miss Ticker Mix)
9. Spooky Loop
10. Alien
11. Colder Than
12. Colder Than
13. Bad Trip In Berlin
https://infinitefog.bandcamp.com/album/thunder-perfect-mind |
2024 |
€88.00 |
|
| OLD CASTLE |
Artwork 51 |
CD |
Artwork 51" is the second album for Zoharum, a group formed by musicians known from the Rapoon, Pas Musique and Promute projects (also previously released by our label). The intercontinental trio consistently continues and develops its formula of psychedelic electronics, using quite similar instruments and sound objects. Just like on the "Welcome to Graceland" album, you can hear echoes of music close to the achievements of Cluster, Deuter or Neu. Here everything seems to be even more coherent, refined in terms of sound and composition, although at times able to surprise the listener with ingenuity and openness to cross-genre experiments ... The album consists of 7 compositions in total, written for nearly 40 minutes of trip, based on the kraut formula, implemented during improvisation, which, fully resounding, can put the listeners in a kind of trance.
Limited to 300 CDs in digipack.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/artwork-51
|
2022 |
€13.00 |
|
| OLIVEROS, PAULINE |
Lion's Eye for Gamelan |
CD |
"Bang a gong! Or something similar… Our Gamelan loving friends from Berkeley spend 45 minutes striking serenity into the hearts of men. This magnum opus wends its subtle way along, carrying you with it, until you find yourself pretty much back where you started - in other words, it’s great Gamelan music. The synthesizer blends in nicely, using Gamelan sounds, but sometimes at very quick tempos. Lion’s Tale sounds less traditional, but is still a nice piece. A pleasant soundtrack for meditative contemplation." [IOUN for KFJC 89.7 FM]
"Lion's Eye for Gamelan was commissioned in 1985 by Barbara Benary for Gamelan Son of Lion. Lion's Eye for Synthesizer was commissioned concurrently by Neil Rolnick for iEAR Presents at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Both versions were performed in 1985. The intention to combine both pieces in order to expand the tempo range of the Gamelan was first realized in May of 1989 in performances by the Berkeley Gamelan in Oakland and San Francisco, California under the direction of Daniel Schmidt. This version of Lion's Eye is recorded on this disc. The duration of "Lion's Eye" is forty-five minutes. "Lion's Tale" (1989) is composed of layered polymetrical, polyrhythmical patterns. The patterns are played at speeds ranging up to 1800 per minute. The composer designed patterns are generated by the computer program. "Lion's Tale" may be created in a new version every time the program is run. "Lion's Tale" also exists in a MIDI version for a keyboard performer. Both versions are available from Deep Listening Publications. Known internationally as a composer, accordionist and teacher, Pauline Oliveros's work in improvisation, electronic techniques, teaching methods, myth and ritual, and meditative and physical consciousness raising has changed the course of American music. She left the University of California at San Diego in 1981, at the rank of full professor, in order to support her ideas, creative projects and collaborations. All of her work emphasizes attentional strategies, musicianship and improvisational skills. Oliveros' compositions have been performed worldwide." [press release]
|
2006 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970 |
11 x CD BOX |
https://imprec.bandcamp.com/album/pauline-oliveros-reverberations-tape-electronic-music-1960-1970-12cd
This dense 11 disc retrospective of Pauline Oliveros’ early and unreleased electronic work includes her very first piece made for tape in 1959. Organized chronologically, this set not only documents Pauline's earliest electronic music but it also functions as an early history of electronic music itself. Follow as she participates in the establishment of the legendary San Francisco Tape Music Center and then moves to University Of Toronto Electronic Music Studio, Mills Tape Music Center and University of California San Diego Electronic Music Center.
This 10th anniversary edition is packaged in a clamshell-style box containing all the tracks from the 2012 edition spread out over 11 CDs each housed in single pocket sleeves. A 36 page booklet includes extensive liner notes and essays from Pauline Oliveros, Alex Chechile, Ramon Sender, David Bernstein, Corey Arcangel.
Pauline Oliveros was a composer, performer, humanitarian and an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, she forged new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, sonic philosophy, teaching and meditation she created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly affects those who experience it and eludes many who try to write about it.
"On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." John Rockwell
Pauline Oliveros built a loyal following through her concerts, recordings, publications and musical compositions written for soloists and ensembles in music, dance, theater and inter-arts companies. She provided leadership within the music community from her early years as the first Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (formerly the Tape Music Center at Mills), director of the Center for Music Experiment during her 14 year tenure as professor of music at the University of California at San Diego to acting in an advisory capacity for organizations such as The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, and many private foundations. She served as Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Darius Milhaud Composer in Residence at Mills College. Oliveros was vocal about representing the needs of individual artists, about the need for diversity and experimentation in the arts, and promoting cooperation and good will among people.
She was honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros' commitment to interaction with the moment went unchanged.
Oliveros passed away peacefully on November 24, 2016 but her sonic legacy and philosophy continues to grow and inspire.
2022 edition track listing (11 CD set adapted from 12 CD edition. All tracks included):
Disc 1:
1961 Pauline Oliveros Home Studio
Time Perspectives
1964-1966 San Francisco Tape Music Center
Mnemonics I
Mnemonics II
Mnemonics III
Disc 2:
1964-1966 San Francisco Tape Music Center
Mnemonics IV
Mnemonics V
Disc 3:
1966 University Of Toronto Electronic Music Studio
II Of IV
III Of IV
IV Of IV
V OF IV
III
Disc 4:
1966 University Of Toronto Electronic Music Studio
Team And Desecrations Improvisation
The Day I Disconnected The Erase Head And Forgot To Reconnect It
Jar Piece
Disc 5:
1966 University Of Toronto Electronic Music Studio
Another Big Mother
Fed Back 1
Fed Back 2
Disc 6:
1966 University Of Toronto Electronic Music Studio
5000 Miles
Angel Fix
Disc 7:
1966 University Of Toronto Electronic Music Studio
Bottoms Up 1
Nite
Ringing The Mods 1 Heads
Ringing The Mods 2 Tails
Three Pieces I
Three Pieces II
Three Pieces III
Disc 8:
1966-1967 Mills Tape Music Center
Big Slow Bog
Boone Bog
Disc 9:
1966-1967 Mills Tape Music Center
Bog Bog
Mind Bog
Disc 10: 1966-1967 Mills Tape Music Center
Mewsack
1967-1970
University Of California San Diego Electronic Music Studio
50/50 Heads(Buchla Piece head out)
50/50 Tails (Buchla Piece tails out)
Disc 11:
1967-1970 University Of California San Diego Electronic Music Studio
A Little Noise In The System
Red Horse Headache
|
2022 |
€80.00 |
|
| OLIVEROS, PAULINE / FRANCISCO LOPEZ / DOUG VAN NORT / JONAS BRAASCH |
Quartet for the End of Space |
CD |
"This recording consists of 8 electro-acoustic compositions. 2 pieces by each of the 4 composers. The works span a vast sonic terrain, challenging listener and performer alike through a seamless blend of Deep Listening and Absolute Noise, moving between ever-fluid improvisation and carefully controlled sound manipulation.
The quartet convened for two improvisational sessions between February and May of 2010, with López sitting in on a Triple Point (Oliveros-Van Nort-Braasch) recording session and bringing his finely crafted sonic objects-as-instruments, further spanning the electro-acoustic divide that has become Triple Point’s calling. The four later re-formed for their debut concert at the Deep Listening Institute in Kingston, NY in September of 2010. These sessions have since become raw material for the individual artists to construct new visions of this shared sonic body through extensive and thorough evolution of the recordings - personal reflections culled from a collective tapestry.
Pauline Oliveros has influenced American music extensively in her career spanning more than 60 years as a composer, performer, author and philosopher. She pioneered the concept of Deep Listening, her practice based upon principles of improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation, designed to inspire both trained and untrained musicians to practice the art of listening and responding to environmental conditions in solo and ensemble situations.
Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the sound art and experimental music scene. Over the past 30 years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion.
Doug Van Nort is an experimental musician and digital music researcher whose work is dedicated to personal and collective creative expression through noise, free improvisation and generally electro-acoustic means of production, from the lo-fi of broken electronics to the hi-tech of custom signal processing algorithms. Recent projects have spanned telematic music, laptop ensemble compositions,, immersive electro-acoustic works, interactive sonic installations and machine listening systems.
Jonas Braasch is an experimental soprano saxophonist and acoustician with interests in Telematic Music and Intelligent Music Systems. He has performed with Curtis Bahn, Chris Chafe, Michael Century, Mark Dresser, Pauline Oliveros, Doug van Nort and Stuart Dempster among others. His saxophone style expands the traditional repertoire by incorporating various non-western elements and extended techniques." [label info]
www.pogus.com
|
2011 |
€12.50 |
|
| ON (SYLVAIN CHAUVEAU & STEVEN HESS) |
Your naked Ghost comes back at Night |
CD |
"Das renommierte Electro-Duo trifft auf den Dark-Ambient-Meister Helge Sten:
Bei dem Projekt On handelt es sich um die Kollaboration zwischen dem französischen Komponisten und Produzenten Sylvain Chauveau und dem in Chicago lebenden Percussionisten Steven Hess (Haptic, Pan American). Das Duo wählte schon immer recht seltsame Wege, seine Arbeit zu präsentieren. Doch das Prinzip ist einfach: Die beiden nehmen ein Album auf, um es dann einem Dritten zur Überarbeitung zu geben. Der Remix ist dann das fertige Werk. 2003 wurden über drei Stunden Arbeit vom norwegischen Dark-Ambient-Meister Helge Sten alias Deathprod bearbeitet. Stens charakteristischer Schmuddel-Ambient wird ohrenfällig, wenn er Hess und Chauveaus Kompositionen in einen Sumpf aus tiefem Hall und synthetischem Rauch taucht. Hess’ perkussives Dröhnen ist zum entfernten Summen eines Insektenflügels gefiltert und Chauveaus präparierte Gitarre wird zur tektonischen Unterhaltung zweier Kontinente. Man weiß nicht immer, wann On aufhört und wo Deathprod anfängt, aber das ist auch das Geheimnis dieser Produktion." [label info]
"..Those familiar with Deathprod will instantly recognise Helge Sten’s dense atmospheric structures and minimal and haunting soundscapes. It is, indeed, his presence which is felt the most on this record, as he manipulates Chauveau’s guitar textures into vast sonic plains and retains very few recognisable traces of the original sound sources. Hess’s percussions are even more treated and only seem to appear as occasional seismic pulses, sending shockwaves deep within the sound formations, or as distant textural touches. Album opener Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night And Flies Around My Bed is based on a slowly evolving warm and opaque drone upon which are added a few brushes of distortions stretched to the point where they become extremely polished and sleek. Erotique, which follows, opens with the distant rumble of percussions, but darker forms soon roll in and give this piece a stark desolate feel at the opposite end of the scale of what its title suggests.
Later on, on Facade, Sten uses metallic percussions as main element, progressively drawing them out into a much more compact and dense cloud of noise over the twelve minutes of the piece, while retaining the rich hue of the original component. Elsewhere, In The Forest Of The Night appears as dense but it is sign-posted with regular pulses which, while never dragging the piece out of its original torpor, brighten up its path. Too Many Demons Still Haunt This Land and The Lonesome Poetry Of Mark Rothko, which closes this album, are much darker and incredibly vast, as persistent winds blow upon barren landscapes and swallow the most vivid sonic details which attempt to arise, leaving these two pieces in a permanent state of darkness. The latter especially, stretching over seventeen and a half minutes, is an incredibly haunting moment, which, after over twelve minutes of deep-space like noises, begins to open up to a more peaceful and almost melodic sound form.
With Helge Sten applying his touch and aesthetic to the original pieces recorded by Sylvain Chauveau and Steven Hess, it is totally impossible to even envisage what these may have sounded. And while the sound sources were created by the pair, ultimately, this album sounds like the work of Sten. This however never hinders its impact in any way, the resulting compositions working extremely well together to create an intense and moody journey through some of the most stunning atmospheric soundscapes heard since SAWII." [The Milkfactory]
www.typerecords.com
|
2009 |
€16.00 |
|
| |
Your naked Ghost comes back at Night |
do-LP |
"Das renommierte Electro-Duo trifft auf den Dark-Ambient-Meister Helge Sten:
Bei dem Projekt On handelt es sich um die Kollaboration zwischen dem französischen Komponisten und Produzenten Sylvain Chauveau und dem in Chicago lebenden Percussionisten Steven Hess (Haptic, Pan American). Das Duo wählte schon immer recht seltsame Wege, seine Arbeit zu präsentieren. Doch das Prinzip ist einfach: Die beiden nehmen ein Album auf, um es dann einem Dritten zur Überarbeitung zu geben. Der Remix ist dann das fertige Werk. 2003 wurden über drei Stunden Arbeit vom norwegischen Dark-Ambient-Meister Helge Sten alias Deathprod bearbeitet. Stens charakteristischer Schmuddel-Ambient wird ohrenfällig, wenn er Hess und Chauveaus Kompositionen in einen Sumpf aus tiefem Hall und synthetischem Rauch taucht. Hess’ perkussives Dröhnen ist zum entfernten Summen eines Insektenflügels gefiltert und Chauveaus präparierte Gitarre wird zur tektonischen Unterhaltung zweier Kontinente. Man weiß nicht immer, wann On aufhört und wo Deathprod anfängt, aber das ist auch das Geheimnis dieser Produktion." [label info]
"..Those familiar with Deathprod will instantly recognise Helge Sten’s dense atmospheric structures and minimal and haunting soundscapes. It is, indeed, his presence which is felt the most on this record, as he manipulates Chauveau’s guitar textures into vast sonic plains and retains very few recognisable traces of the original sound sources. Hess’s percussions are even more treated and only seem to appear as occasional seismic pulses, sending shockwaves deep within the sound formations, or as distant textural touches. Album opener Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night And Flies Around My Bed is based on a slowly evolving warm and opaque drone upon which are added a few brushes of distortions stretched to the point where they become extremely polished and sleek. Erotique, which follows, opens with the distant rumble of percussions, but darker forms soon roll in and give this piece a stark desolate feel at the opposite end of the scale of what its title suggests.
Later on, on Facade, Sten uses metallic percussions as main element, progressively drawing them out into a much more compact and dense cloud of noise over the twelve minutes of the piece, while retaining the rich hue of the original component. Elsewhere, In The Forest Of The Night appears as dense but it is sign-posted with regular pulses which, while never dragging the piece out of its original torpor, brighten up its path. Too Many Demons Still Haunt This Land and The Lonesome Poetry Of Mark Rothko, which closes this album, are much darker and incredibly vast, as persistent winds blow upon barren landscapes and swallow the most vivid sonic details which attempt to arise, leaving these two pieces in a permanent state of darkness. The latter especially, stretching over seventeen and a half minutes, is an incredibly haunting moment, which, after over twelve minutes of deep-space like noises, begins to open up to a more peaceful and almost melodic sound form.
With Helge Sten applying his touch and aesthetic to the original pieces recorded by Sylvain Chauveau and Steven Hess, it is totally impossible to even envisage what these may have sounded. And while the sound sources were created by the pair, ultimately, this album sounds like the work of Sten. This however never hinders its impact in any way, the resulting compositions working extremely well together to create an intense and moody journey through some of the most stunning atmospheric soundscapes heard since SAWII." [The Milkfactory]
CD-version available too, 16 Euro !
www.typerecords.com
|
2009 |
€20.00 |
|
| ONODERA, YUI & STEPHEN VITIELLO |
Quiver |
CD |
Yui Onodera // electric violin, electric guitar, field recordings, found objects, processing
Stephen Vitiello // acoustic and electric guitar, modular synthesizer, toy piano, field recordings, processing
Kenneth Kirschner // (variant’s materials) on Quiver 1
Quiver” continues our subseries of cerebral abstract electronic minimalism after Triac’s “In A Room” and Hanno Leichtmann’s “Minimal Studies”. The word Quiver can speak to an emotional state – “a slight trembling movement or sound”. A quiver is also the word for a kind of container, used for holding arrows, bolts, or darts. They employed a vast array of sound sources for meticulous processing on their computers from electric violins, acoustic and electric guitars, modular synthesizer to toy piano and field recordings. They built music rich with textures, loops, strange structures blurring the lines between foreground and background sounds thus making a complex and mysterious, generous and surprising music. These compositions by Onodera and Vitiello are layered with possibility and will mean something different to each listener.
Yui Onodera is a musician and composer based in Tokyo, Japan. After studying music and architecture, he founded the Critical Path. In terms of environmental functions and spacial relationships of sound, he employs materials from various sources ranging from field recordings, electronics, and voices, to various musical instruments, for process-based, restrained electro-acoustic, experimental and ambient pieces.Electronic musician and sound artist Stephen Vitiello transforms incidental atmospheric noises into mesmerizing soundscapes that alter our perception of the surrounding environment. He has composed music for independent films, experimental video projects and art installations, collaborating with such artists as Nam June Paik, Tony Oursler and Dara Birnbaum. In 1999 he was awarded a studio for six months on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center’s Tower One, where he recorded the cracking noises of the building swaying under the stress of the winds after Hurricane Floyd. As an installation artist, he is particularly interested in the physical aspect of sound and its potential to define the form and atmosphere of a spatial environment. 300 copies."
"I’ve been a fan of Yui Onodera’s music for some time, but this album surprised me. Rather than his usual stately drones and glacial fluttering, Onodera’s collaboration with New York sound artist Stephen Vitiello is… a pop album? Yes, I think so. The music is tuneful and upbeat, with even the more low-key songs having a melodic element at the forefront. Some of Vitiello’s previous work has moved in this direction, but “Quiver” puts accessibility in the forefront. I enjoyed it very much! Some tracks, such as “Quiver 4” (none of the songs have real titles), feature a skeletal guitar lightly applying Vini Reilly-esque melodic lines over a bedrock of electronic skitter and sometimes a steady (though understated) anchoring pulse. “Quiver 6” is rather lovely, with something sounding like moving water burbling next to a synthetic chorus and dreamlike shoegaze guitar wash that would appeal to fans of Chris Herbert, Cheihei Hatakeyama or even recent 12k releases. After listening through a couple of times, it occurred to me that this collaboration seems as natural and complete as an album by a full-time “band” might be… so I hope these guys pursue the duo
further! I wouldn’t mind more of this to spin as the soundtrack to my pleasantly groggy weekend
mornings." (HS/Vital Weekly)
http://mikroton.net/
mikroton.bandcamp.com/album/quiver
|
2018 |
€13.00 |
|
| OPENING PERFORMANCE ORCHESTRA & HIROSHI HASEGAWA |
Fraction Elements |
CD |
The collective album of the Japanese noise artist Hiroshi Hasegawa (C.C.C.C., Astro, South Saturn Delta, Galax) and the seven-member Czech ensemble Opening Performance Orchestra contains three large compositions and four short pieces inspired by the elements. The first Hiroshi Hasegawa composition is a suite of colourful modulated psychedelic sounds and noises. The second composition is a collective work. Based on sound material from Hiroshi Hasegawa, it is a quasi-remix by Opening Performance Orchestra. The third Opening Performance Orchestra piece is a digital decomposition of an original sound material. The working method is in line with the rules of fraction music, postulated by Opening Performance Orchestra, and the slogan no melody - no rhythm - no harmony. 65 mins. Ltd x 500 copies in a digipak.
www.psych-kg.de |
2016 |
€12.00 |
|
| OPION SOMNIUM |
As they fly into darkness, only black feathers remain to wipe away our tears (SOLD OUT) |
7 |
“OPION SOMNIUM is a one-man project from Santa Fe, New Mexico, being fascinated with birds as “divine creatures” and focusing on themes of eternity and death. The breath-taking drones of OPION SOMNIUM spread a sad, melancholic atmosphere, which is at the same time full of beauty. The compositions are based on in real time played instruments, like viola, accordeon and piano, but also floating electronics are used. Both tracks on this EP sound ethereal and spacey, soft feedbacking & overtunic, and intensively emotional. Maybe this music exists in this small area beneath despair, where you can find beauty and grandeur. Filed under: deep melancholic beauty-drones. VIOLET / BLUE VINYL. HAND EMBOSSED COVERS WITH METALLIC LETTERS AND PAINTED STENCIL MOTIVES ON FRONT & BACK, EACH BACKSIDE ALSO HAS A SEGMENT OF A LARGER, HANDWRITTEN POEM. NUMBERED ED.” [press release] |
2004 |
€6.50 |
|
| ORCHESTRAMAXFIELDPARRISH |
Crossing of Shadows |
CD |
"orchestramaxfieldparrish's Crossing Of Shadows is a dark collection of lamentations originally recorded in 2006 and only released in a small private pressing in 2007 and has now undergone a remix and remastering. This new edition of six improvised electronic compositions is based on field recordings both left unprocessed and severely reprocessed, with added guitar, piano, voices and electronics, creating a musical path beginning from a place of extreme darkness and culminating in a point of light and hope. Recorded and mastered in 96K 24 bit audiophile audio. Included is a reconstructed version of 'Thirst' which first appeared on the Caligari - An Exquisite Corpse dvd release through the Chain Tape Collective.
There are two limited editions of this release, with the first being a hard cover book bound artist edition. This First Edition is 75 copies and will have elegantly handcrafted covers made from the finest papers and photographic printing. The Second Edition is for 225 copies and will be in a Japanese style mini lp sleeve. Total one time press of 300." [label info]
www.faithstrange.com
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| ORGANUM ELECTRONICS |
Organum Electronics |
CD |
In the birth of the universe
Time stands still amidst a wild and untamable energy
Radiant light bathes and purifies solid stone pillars
Both ancient and modern
Wild vibrations touch our most innermost core and perception
Organum Electronics exists in the clear moment of the present
But its mysterious compositions lay hidden in a
timeless past
Modulating oscillations mirror our most fundamental sense of being
As though a living and breathing entity would
Communicating with a life-force and language we have all but forgotten
sirenrecords.blogspot.com/2019/11/organum-electronics-siren-29.html
"David Jackman’s music, both as Organum and under his given name, is typically characterized by repetition, brevity and a deadpan aloofness. He’s made plenty of extremely short (sometimes
one-sided) 7” singles, albums containing multiple slight variations on a single piece, and albums of compositional (if not sonic) minimalism. It’s Jackman’s typical move to provide very little information beyond a word, or sometimes an image. Lately, he’s been predisposed to not even providing an image; just as few words as possible on a white background, nothing more.
Naturally, he does not seem to do interviews and has no web presence. As listeners, we’re left to apprehend the music as itself. No guidance into his hermetic world. I find it refreshing. Whatever your experience of an Organum album is, that’s all you get. Thankfully, each emission is thought- provoking enough to get lost in and monolithic enough to encourage both passive and active engagement.
In the case of the flatly titled Electronics”, the music is as evocative and singular as anything Jackman has produced. The three 15-minute untitled pieces are monoliths of surging drone bathed in mammoth reverberation. The title says everything you need to know and nothing at all.
Same with the cover art, merely the title and name in a black print cross pattern on white background. The design is nearly (or perhaps exactly?) identical to Jackman’s relatively more active and mellow “Herbstsonne” album; is there an implied relationship between the two? I’ve given both albums some deep listen and I cannot tell what the relationship could be. And so again, the sound is all one gets. “Electronics” is dense and huge; a roiling swamp of electric din that would appeal to fans of Jackman’s early collaborations with The New Blockaders (“Salute” and “Wrack”), though this is more atmospheric than aggressive. It’s a slow boil of fierce control, not a chaotic attack. Few actual events happen, and there isn’t much difference between the three tracks… it’s almost as if Jackman set some sounds in motion, then stepped back and allowed the pieces to generate themselves. It’s relentless and heavy, uniform in mood across all 45 minutes. No build-up, no denouement, just a steady mysterious churn to get lost inside of." [HS, Vital Weekly]
|
2019 |
€14.00 |
|
| ORIGAMI REPLIKA |
Kommerz - MERZBOW in the Hands of Origami Replika |
CD |
This CD sees Origami Replika (a now defunct part of the ever changing cultural Origami collective/phenomenon) made up by three of Norway's most diehard noise heads -- Lasse Marhaug, Tore H. Boe, and Mads Staff Jensen. Recorded in 1997, this effort is entirely based on sound sources from the back catalogue of Merzbow. With no back-bending, knee-scraping humility, and with a pure love for all source sounds, Origami Replika have shaped classic Merzbow sound into all-new compositions. These are innovative and highly potent re-workings of the harsh sound waves, recommended to all those who still have a healthy addiction to the Merzbow sounds of yesterday. Thick and meaty, the blasts emanating from the speakers are filled with lusty, fetishized, organic heavy noise and experimental Dadaism, ready to be devoured by the faithful disciples. Originally planned for release on another label, and now finally unleashed on Segerhuva, this is a CD that has been tried and tested over and over again. These recordings, created almost a decade ago, have been remastered by Lasse Marhaug, and it is safe to say that this CD has stood the test of TIME. After nine years, it sounds remarkable - a solid chunk of the classic, living breathing Noise Object that some call religion. Bottom line -- the NOISE FETISH is still very much alive and well. This time it comes from a somewhat unexpected source. Indulge!
|
2005 |
€13.00 |
|
| ORPHANAGE COMMITTEE |
The Seven Sacraments |
CD |
The Orphanage Committee is an ever-changing sound art project. Has Orphan S.C. Wallace now become religious?
Not likely, but you have to admit that 'The Seven Sacraments' is a damn fine topic to expand your mind!
This wonderful soundwork collects two lengthy compositions interpreting the Sacraments and being powered by real organ sounds. A true easy/uneasy listening experience to reach your personal Eargasm! Hell yeah! (Reverend EE)
CD Limited to 100 cps in a jewel-case or DL
Tags: abstract, ambient, field recording, experimental, mental muzick
https://eetapes.bandcamp.com/album/the-seven-sacraments
"Holy cow - sorry - but when I ended my review of the previous release by The Orphanage Committee, only four weeks ago (!), with "made me curious about where the Committee is heading next; I can't wait", I didn't expect the answer so soon. Belgium's Orphan S.C. Wallace releases an album with "two interpretations of the Seven Sacraments, being baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders and matrimony". Of course, this is very Catholic, and I have no idea how seriously we should be looking at this. Maybe it's a parody, or perhaps it's all serious business. Also, on Catholicism, I wrote before; that, "as a good Catholic boy, I don't care [about prayers], repent on my last day and go straight to heaven". I hope that works out one day (not too soon). Each of the two interpretations consists of seven parts, distinctly different, yet each flowing in the next. Unlike the previous LP, The Orphanage Committee returns to his first work (VItal Weekly 1319) and offers some more moody, synthesizer-based music. Not part of the cosmic school, perhaps, but repeating sounds, a bass line here and there, a repeated melodic loop. To top it off, there are field recordings, ranging from the schoolyard, radio and television. It's unclear what the relationship is between the spoken word and the seven sacraments; as far I could see, not a lot, and they were used in a more ornamental way. Face value, the music has very little to do with anything remotely religious, so even for atheists (for people of other faith), this is the most enjoyable mood music. So, if the correct order of the releases is the one in Vital Weekly 1372 as the debut, and in 1319 the follow-up, and then this, we can say that working with the more atmospheric end of synth-based music has his preference. A most enjoyable route to take, and the result is quite good." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
|
2023 |
€13.00 |
|
| ORSI, FABIO |
Von Zeit zu Zeit |
LP |
"In few years of work Fabio Orsi has achieved critique and fans, imposing his name as one of the most important and representative of the whole international experimental and electronic independent scene. Backwards proudly presents his new work titled Von Zeit Zu Zeit.
This composition was recorded live in Berlin (2010) and after edited and mastered by Fabio Orsi in late 2011. Orsi plays synth, guitar and filters and, for once, he just puts aside the warmth of the melodies and the samplings from the endless Alan Lomax archives, so close to the culture of his homeland. This time, he proposes two obscure and - partly - cold tracks, comparable to the kosmische musik - as if Fabio had embraced that "Central European" humus breathed in Berlin.
This cold, this early darkness turns into an oneiric remembrance, a daydream... The hovered sounds of these two compositions make the listener's mind float in the space and, mostly on the second side of the record, the music gets warmer, rarefied and ambient, with a seductive hypnotic power." [label info]
www.backwards.it
|
2012 |
€18.50 |
|
|
Memory of a safe Place / La Forest a non fa pura |
LP + mag |
"issue #1
phonographic record
FABIO ORSI MEMORY OF A SAFE PLACE
photographic work
FABIO ORSI LA FORESTA NON FA PAURA
Born in the province of Taranto, in southern Italy, after many years spent in Naples and now based in Berlin, Fabio Orsi sits among the most interesting names of the European electronic and experimental scene. Following his early output on A Silent Place and Smallvoices, his music works have been published by many other labels worldwide, including Last visible Dog, Porter Records, Boring Machines and Silentes. His talent has become an estabilished reality thanks to his abilities in finding a nice balance between experimentation and melody, sounding intimate and abstract at the same time, using drones of a concrète and electronic nature, acoustic instruments, field recordings, synthesizers and computer treatments for his compositions. In addition to his solo work, we would also like to mention his many collaborations with Italian saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Valerio Cosi and Gianluca Becuzzi a.k.a. Kinetix, and ex-Limbo, that projected their visions into a different perspective. “Memory of a Safe Place” consists of two long drone-based pieces that explore the pictures collected in “La foresta non fa paura” (The Forest Is Not Scary). Both tracks slowly build from a distant low frequence humming: “Part 1” has a dream-like quality and is one of those numbers suspended in eternity that could easily last forever, a truly healing experience; with its rhythmic elements fading in along the road, “Part 2” is more down-to-earth, so to speak, althought if it reminds pretty well the listener of the German Cosmic Couriers of the Seventies. An awesome work for all the Ambient Music fans, Post-Kraut lovers, Hypnagogic dreamers and the Eternal Drone explorers out there.
The standard edition of this issue consists of 250 copies; a limited and hand-numbered edition of 44 copies is also available, it includes a 18x24cm original photograph printed on 310 gr. high quality professional photo-paper." [label info]
www.silentes.net
"Following a small tidal wave of releases, things became quiet for Silent at the end of 2012, it seems. Maybe there is only room for as many CDs? Or maybe there is a need to break away from easy to copy/download CDs and create something that is perhaps more unique, more desirable? Hence, the birth of '13', which takes here the shape of 12" record with 16 A4 page booklet of photography, in an edition of 250 copies. It could have been 50 copies, with different shaped photos or even smaller editions with unique prints. Either way, the photographic aspect is of an equal importance as the music. The series kicks off with Fabio Orsi, doing both music and photography here. Orsi's career started on A Silent Place and Smallvoices, and further developed with releases on labels such as Last Visible Dog, Porter Records, Boring Machines but above all Silentes. Orsi is an ambient composer and uses synthetic and natural sounds to create his music, that fits the black and white photography quite well. Lots of pictures of nature, and with a sound that seems to stem straight from nature this is music that is probably best enjoyed outside - be it that taking a record player into nature is a bit difficult. That's the only downside of such a release I guess, which is otherwise filled with some great music. In 'Part 1', I believe to hear a mass of voice material, cascading freely but seemingly becoming more of a tidal wave, whereas in 'Part 2' it seems to be revolving around a looped guitar of some kind, locked into an eternal hum. Both sides are of course highly minimal with some very slow developments, placed in all the right places, preventing both parts from being just a single minded drone piece, but more a free floating experience in sound. Very sober in execution, both sound and image, but very nice altogether." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2013 |
€18.00 |
|
| |
Qui Vicino |
CD & booklet |
"Born in the province of Taranto, in southern Italy, after many years spent in Naples and now based in Berlin, Fabio Orsi sits among the most interesting names of the European electronic and experimental scene. Following his early output on A Silent Place and Smallvoices, his music works have been published by many other labels worldwide, including Last visible Dog, Porter Records, Boring Machines and Silentes. His talent has become an estabilished reality thanks to his abilities in finding a nice balance between experimentation and melody, sounding intimate and abstract at the same time, using drones of a concrète and electronic nature, acoustic instruments, field recordings, synthesizers and computer treatments for his compositions. In addition to his solo work, we would also like to mention his many collaborations with Italian saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Valerio Cosi and Gianluca Becuzzi a.k.a. Kinetix, and ex-Limbo, that projected their visions into a different perspective.
"Qui vicino " does not contain any note or credit, just a touching dedication from which we deduce the intimate nature of the composition. Ideally divided into two parts of roughly equal duration, the track offers a dark evolving guitar drone that slowly take shape and then dissolve to recreate itself in a more placid and radiant way.
"Qui vicino " is released in a limited edition of 250 copies that comes with 16-pages A4 booklet containing stunning pictures taken by Orsi himself." [label info]
13.silentes.it
"Also on the short size, length-wise, is the release by Fabio Orsi: thirty-three minutes but it comes with a great A4 sized folder (16 pages) of his photography, which is something I really like. Earlier this year his father died and this package is dedicated to him. Orsi is from Italy but now lives in Berlin, for quite some time now, and has had many releases on such labels as A Silent Place, Small Voices, Last Visible Dog, Porter Records, Boring Machines and Silentes. His primary instrument is the guitar, which he uses to create drone sounds, along with field recordings and electronics. Sometimes he also uses synthesizers, acoustic instruments and computer treatments. On this new release there are no credits and we don't know what he does, but my best guess would be that he uses just his guitar and electronics. The piece is divided in two parts, both going from very silent to mildly loud, in one long crescendo per part. This is the kind of music we know Silentes best for, and perhaps also Orsi himself. A damn fine gorgeous drone piece, dark, melancholic, waving, meandering about, over empty deserts, windy plains on part clouded day, or just launched into deep space like a spacecraft onto the destination unknown. This is not a release in which Orsi shows us a new direction in his music, but which further carves out his niche of ambient tunesmith of longitude pieces. No surprises here, but a wonderful release and beautifully packed." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€15.00 |
|
| ORSI, FABIO / TEZ |
Otto |
CD |
13/Silentes presents the fruitful first collaboration between FABIO ORSI and the Italian interdisciplinary artist and independent researcher MAURIZIO MARTINUCCI (aka TeZ), mostly knownfor his collaboration with ADI NEWTON in CLOCK DVA.
Together they have created a work as dense as it is intense, with cosmic traits that are aptly depicted in the images featured on the artwork. A work in which the experience of its two authors reaches a unique climax where you can only let yourself loose without placing any limits on your senses.
“Two liquid minds that meet in a truly surprising creative partnership, devoted to the alchemy of electronic weavings that pulse, dig, transform, dare, reinvent. The artists in question are Fabio Orsi and TeZ, talented musicians who need no introduction other than to point out that we find ourselves in the presence of two veterans of avant-garde experimentation and ambient noise that drives out hidden horizons by intercepting them in the space-time folds of the sound dimension. The plastic breath of OT / TO's 'optophonic' compositions denotes elements of visionary writing out of the ordinary, like prismatic figures in the odour of quantum mechanics, or like chiselled tonal profiles that refer to the synaesthetic idea of a music susceptible to becoming a vehicle for sublimating multi-sensory experiences. If Fabio Orsi shows off his knowledge as an imaginative creator of mental-oneiric atmospheres through the hallucinogenic, deeply immersive registers of his instrumental apparatuses based on electronic patterns, field recordings and variable frequency drones, TeZ is the synthesist of post-science and of the kinematic algorithm that triggers highly pervasive vibrational dynamics, the strategist of the mathematical pulsation that forges cycles of gravitational currents and vortexes of telematic sounds with innovative pronunciation. It is no wonder that Adi Newton wanted him permanently at the court of Clock DVA and that he has also distinguished himself in comparative research into the interrelational potential of sound, light and space. It is from this molecular fusion that the genesis-synergy of a work full of magnetic properties and captivating waveforms is triggered. Eight tracks, each of which is marked by a specific numbering (from one to eight), according to a numerical sequence aimed at the 'philological' purposes of the authors. What comes to life is a phenomenon of tensional factors and sinusoidal events in continuous movement, like atoms of fluid crystals that change shape and volume, perspective angle and tactile sensation, regenerating between one loop-scan and another, while the harmonics float, dart, throb and dance on the mesmeric granular stratifications of the drones. A fine elaboration of phono-particle complexions for a four-handed challenge that we can consider decisively won.” - Aldo Chimenti
CD in 6-panel digisleeve, ltd. 200 copies
13.silentes.it/private_sounds/sps2247_orsi_tez.htm
|
2022 |
€13.00 |
|
| OTZEPENEVSHIYE (Оцепеневшие) |
Razryv Svyazi (Disconnection) |
do-CD |
"At last! The first major solo release from Otzepenevshiye in 11 years of the band's existence! The project was shaped in 2006 by Evgeniy Voronovskiy (Cisfinitum), Dmitriy Zubov (Hypnoz, Zuboff Sex Shop) and Ivan Napreenko (Sal Solaris, Θ16), but after some time transformed into a duo of Ivan and Arnold_pR (Reutoff, Myrrman). Otzepenevshiye have recorded many compositions published on compilations on various occasions by such labels as Heliophagia, Ewers Tonkunst, Old Europa Cafe, etc. The only full-length album "For a Knife" was created in collaboration with the band Vir' (2013, Zhelezobeton Distribution Division): zhbd.bandcamp.com/album/for-a-knife And only now many scattered pieces, like cold drops of condensate, have accomplished their cycle and gathered in two dazzingly freezing snowflakes.
Powerful and catchy guitar riffs, relentlessly sharp industrial rhythmics, minimalistic pads and authentic field recordings – these are the lattice points of the sound of Otzepenevshiye. The need to use understandable terms makes us turn to such tags as industrial doom metal, drone-doom or doomgaze, but anyway we can't avoid the word "doom" here. Yes, this music has darkness inside, there's suffering, there's a feel of real experience, but also a clear conscious gaze towards the other side of the rubicon. Otzepenevshiye know how to get to the very depths and see the blackness that contains the infinite cosmic absolute.
Apart from solo recordings, the second disc features tracks created in collaboration with Circle Of Unexisted and Vir' and remakes of compositions by Banda Chetyryokh and Thergothon. The material of this album was released in small cassette editions by NEN Records, including several bonus tracks. The track-list of this double-CD edition was specially adjusted by the musicians for the sake of maximum immersion."
https://zhelezobeton.bandcamp.com/album/--2
|
2017 |
€15.00 |
|
| OVERTONE ENSEMBLE |
same |
CD |
"Tim Catlin formed the Overtone Ensemble in 2012 in order to perform works using his self-made "Vibrissa" instruments. Each instrument consists of twelve vertically mounted aluminium rods that are longitudinally stroked by hand to produce ethereal "singing" tones. The long sustaining nature of the rods sound and microtonal tunings allow players a sonic palette of complex textures and harmonic complexity. Other instruments include massed hand-bells, quarter-tone bells, e-bowed acoustic guitars, re-tuned glockenspiels and wineglasses.The ensemble's compositions utilise acoustic phenomena arising from microtonal tuning such as phasing, combination tones and sympathetic vibrations, as well the effects of room resonance. All sounds are acoustic in origin without effects or sound processing. The results are works of shimmering intensity and pulsating beauty."
|
2016 |
€15.00 |
|
| PACIONE, ADAM |
Dobranoc |
pic-LP |
"Dobranoc contains more than 40 minutes of new music utilizing field recordings, guitars, shortwave radio, analog keyboards & Moog filters. Haunting and yet serene, overflowing with contemplative and melodic tones, these are mostly long-form pieces: 'Always' builds slowly into a monolithic block of sound, while in the title track, layer after layer of warm atmosphere appears and then unravels into a sea of tranquility. This is three-dimensional music, strikingly elegant, from a modern master of the art. This picture disc LP is adorned with Pacione's lovely full-color macro photography circa 1995. The colorful sounds and images are bound together into a unified abstraction, dreamlike in its beauty. Adam Pacione has been a fixture in the upper echelon of ambient drone for the last five years with releases on Elevator Bath, Infraction, and his own Bee Eater Recordings imprint. Pacione is also a highly skilled photographer with solo exhibitions and nearly a lifetime of experience under his belt. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas. This picture disc LP has been released in an edition of 268 copies." [label info]
"Adam Pacione's blissed ambience has quietly enthralled us over many years now; and he continues his relationship with the exceptional Elevator Bath label, who has issued this wondrous album through an ongoing series of picture discs that previously included work by Rick Reed, our own Jim Haynes, and Dale Lloyd (reviewed elsewhere on this list). Pacione claims a bunch of sources for Dobranoc, including guitar, field recordings, analogue synth, Moog filters, and shortwave radio. He seems intent on extracting particular, harmonious colors from each of those materials and working them into a monochromatic blur of softened dronescaping and hushed ambience. The faintest of half-melodies work through Pacione's stately compositions; and it's
easy to become lost in these extended moments on Dobranoc. Throughout, Pacione streams a series of delicate textures that could be snow
coming through the radio, or it could be a light shower of rain that settles behind much of Pacione's sustained tonal flutterings. No
matter the source, the slight abrasions of these sounds act as a ghostly counterpoint to the purity that Pacione gets out of his drones. The resulting wanderings through his radiant soundfields have much of the sense of mystery that Zoviet France managed on Shadow Thief Of The Sun or that emerged from the more minimal explorations of Stars Of The Lid. The picture disc features two blurred macro-lens images sporting oversaturated colors abstracted through the lens; and these are suitable visuals to accompany Pacione's ethereal work.
Limited to 268 copies." [Aquarius Rec]
www.elevatorbath.com
|
2009 |
€17.50 |
|
| PAIN JERK |
Neurotten |
LP |
Kohei Gomi began experimenting with home recording in the 1980s and got so lost in extreme sonics under the Pain Jerk moniker that his output inevitably spilled out into the wider world. By the mid-90s, he was one of the most prolific and influential noise units operating out of Japan, hurling maelstroms of chaotic chunder and deranged grime at anyone who could handle the extremes. Pain Jerk became one of the leading figures in the "dynamic" style of Japanese noise or Japanoise and is also the owner of the noise tape label AMP that during the 90s releases about fifty cassettes of his amazing noise project.
Among his works released in his most prolific period, Neurotten stands out without a doubt, reaching cult status and instantly becoming a classic of the genre. Recorded in 1996 and published the same year on the legendary Slaughter Productions by Marco Corbelli aka Atrax Morgue, in only 80 hand numbered copies in a special A5 tin-foil sleeve with translucent insert and instead some using a red cardboard insert accompanied by a small curved iron rod, similar to a dentist's tool and now it has become a worship object for the most avid collectors.
The assault here is very high-end heavy: relentlessly aggressive. The sound severs and bleeds more than it beats and bludgeons. Side A is divided into two tracks, Gushcore and Teen-Wreckage, of incredible beauty. Nothing compares to the sounds emitted by vinyl grooves composed with a mysterious configuration of constantly flowing noise - always recorded live without overdubs. Devastating, unfriendly harsh noise: the hardest rock that is pierced by the sharpest diamond! With only one track on side B, which takes 23 minutes, we encounter one of most iconic compositions from his wide discography: Disembowel. Hearing impaired volumes that duel, bouncing sound structures displacing the ego and generating many difficulties in brain processing. There’re a lot of rips and chaos, pulsating pulses of recycled transient sounds and some loops, muffled high tones that twist into spastic shapes capable of breaking the faint speaker cones.
https://urashima.bandcamp.com/album/neurotten
|
2021 |
€21.50 |
|
| PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE |
Relationship Studies |
LP |
"Relationship Studies LP includes 2 seminal electronic music radical realizations by Charlemagne Palestine, or Relationship Study No. 1 (1967) and the generally titled Electronic from the same year. Sounds in motion like race cars, motor cycles, war planes, rocket ships excited Charlemagne sonic imagination when we was still a young teenager. Then came the experience of listening to the electronic music of Tod Dockstader, Alwyn Nikolais, Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaffer, Xenakis and Poème Electronique by Edgar Varese. Immediately fascinated Charlemagne Palestine bought a primitive electronic equipment and started to experiment, creating his original electronicesque language. The two previously unreleased 18 minute masterpieces presented here directly come from this early period of intense experimentations in a fluid ever-changing mix of adding and filtering white noise and simple sine tone generators. Both pieces are late night compositions created at the electronic music studio of the New York N.Y.U. Intermedia Center using Buchla 100 and Buchla 200 systems. Even if dating back from the mid-1960s these intense sonorities might very much recall the best early power electronic scene from the late 1970s, in particular to the first brut music works created by Maurizio Bianchi. For sure they represent a very unique and inspiring approach to electronic creation, sounding more and more actual and surprising nowadays. Edition limited to 350 copies." [label info] |
2010 |
€23.00 |
|
|
Strumming Music |
3 x CD |
"These unpublished pieces are probably his most contemporary music work, build on the same principle with other instruments of what he discovered on piano with Strumming mid-70.
This is an unique variation of the way to compose. A perpetual rise in a continuum of sound.
In the beginning were the Bells
All of the Strumming Music manifestations seem to have originated from Charlemagne's physical relationship with the colossal carillon bells in the tower of St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in New York. I met Charlemagne Palestine in 1968. The intensity of his listening impressed me as the intensity of his playing would later, when I heard him play on the carillon and the bells to "his church". I realized later, when Charlemagne had started to develop his series of piano pieces called Strumming, that he was assaulting that concrete ceiling and literally pushing through its three feet to release the sonic energy in the piano, much as he had with the carillon. Charlemagne's interest and work in electronic music increased in the late 60's and in 1970 he decamped to southern California where he became a graduate student working with Morton Subotnick. It was during this year at CalArts (1970-71) that Charlemagne developed an approach to the piano that was not only extremely repetitive and physical but predicated on the theory that, given the right stimulus, the instrument had a voice of its own and could produce a whole array of high overtones that seem to jump out on their own as if by magic. Over the next few years he developed and polished the music that came to be known simply as "Strumming."
The rapid alternation between single notes and chords and different registers became a technique that he seemed to own, and it really only worked with this magic piano. "Strumming" was the physical technique; the melodies and harmonies that resulted made the music breathe and feel alive. After a while, the ear doesn't distinguish between notes that are sounded by hammers and those which are harmonics, generated by the natural resonance of the piano and just appear because of the acoustical situation. extract from liner notes by Ingram Marshall
Charlemagne Palestine wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against audiences' expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is best known for his intensely performed piano works." [label info]
www.subrosa.net
|
2010 |
€20.00 |
|
| |
GesammttkkunnsttMeshuggahhLaandtttt |
BOOK |
"Edited by Luca Lo Pinto and Samuel Saelemakers. Text by Jay Sanders, interview with Charlemagne Palestine by Luca Lo Pinto. Graphic design: Izet Sheshivari.
Published with Witte de With Publishers, published in June 2016. English edition. 25 x 32,5 cm (hardcover, cloth binding), 80 pages (75 color ill.).
This catalogue documents Charlemagne Palestine's eponymous solo exhibition, including his early video works, sculptures, paintings, installations, and sound scores.
Charlemagne Palestine works form a highly personal universe of rituals, intoxication, and shamanism. In the last four decades, the artist has created an extensive body of experimental musical compositions, bodily performances, and, in later years, visual art works that are inhabited by stuffed animals. To Palestine, teddy bears figure as powerful shamanic totems, which he fondly calls Divinities.
Central to his exhibition are a grand piano, as the sounding heart of the show, and a new large-scale version of the so-called God-Bear Museum Model, a proposal for a new kind of museum where music and performance find a home just as easily as a painting would. Also part of the exhibition are Palestine's extraordinary music or sound annotations, a vast collection of works on paper, which aim to translate sound into image.
This new catalogue documents “GesammttkkunnsttMeshuggahhLaandtttt” and includes an interview between Charlemagne Palestine and Luca Lo Pinto, curator at the Kunsthalle Wien, as well as an essay by Jay Sanders, Curator of Performance at the Whitney Museum of American Art, reflecting on Palestine’s work. The publication is co-published by Witte de With Publishers and Sternberg Press on behalf of Kunsthalle Wien.
Published following the double eponymous exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien, from September 18 to November 8, 2015, and at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, from January 29 to May 8, 2016.
Charlemagne Palestine wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against audiences’ expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is best known for his intensely performed piano works. He also performs as a vocalist. Palestine’s performance style is ritualistic; he generally surrounds himself (and his piano) with stuffed animals, smokes large numbers of kretek (Indonesian clove cigarettes) and drinks cognac."
|
2016 |
€26.00 |
|
| PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE & RHYS CHATHAM |
Youuu - Mee = Weee |
3 x CD |
"166 minutes with Charlemagne Palestine:
piano Bösendorfer, orgue Yamaha and voice
Rhys Chatham: trumpet, loop pedal, electric guitar.
This is the first recorded collaboration between Charlemagne Palestine and Rhys Chatham. And it's precious. After the musical meeting with Tony Conrad (SR204), and with Z'ev (SR340), this new Sub Rosa sessions creates a form of trilogy.
Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham began his musical career as a piano tuner for avant-garde pioneer La Monte Young as well as harpsichord tuner for Gustav Leonhardt, Rosalyn Tureck and Glenn Gould.
He soon studied under electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick and minimalist icon La Monte Young and was a member of Young's group, The Theater of Eternal Music, during the early seventies; Chatham also played with Tony Conrad in an early version of Conrad's group, The Dream Syndicate. In 1971, while still in his teens, Chatham became the first music director at the experimental art space The Kitchen in lower Manhattan. His early works, such as Two Gongs (1971) owed a significant debt to Young and other minimalists.
His concert productions included experimenters Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich, and early alternative rockers such as Fred Frith, Robert Fripp, Arto Lindsay, and John Lurie. He has worked closely with visual artist/musician Robert Longo, particularly in the 1980s, and on an experimental opera called XS: The Opera Opus (1984-6) with the visual artist Joseph Nechvatal.
By 1977, Chatham's music was heavily influenced by punk rock, having seen an early Ramones concert. He was particularly intrigued by and influential upon the group of artists music critics would label No Wave in 1978. Members of the New York City noise rock band Band of Susans began their careers in Chatham's ensembles; they later performed a cover of Chatham's "Guitar Trio" on their 1991 album, The Word And The Flesh. (This parallels the way that members of fellow NYC noise rockers Sonic Youth began their careers in Branca's ensembles; Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth did play with Chatham as well.)
Chatham began playing trumpet in 1983, and his more recent works explore improvisatory trumpet solos; these are performed by Chatham himself, employing much of the same amplification and effects that he acquired with the guitar, over synthesized dance rhythms by the composer Martin Wheeler.
Charlemagne Palestine
Charlemagne Palestine wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against audiences' expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is best known for his intensely performed piano works. He also performs as a vocalist. Palestine's performance style is ritualistic; he generally surrounds himself (and his piano) with stuffed animals, smokes large numbers of kretek (Indonesian clove cigarettes) and drinks cognac.
Works/Selected Discography
Four Manifestations on Six Elements (Barooni, 1974), Strumming Music (Shandar, 1977) was revolutionary in that it turned "strumming" into an avant-garde technique, and minimalism into highly dynamic (and noisy) music. Palestine improvised on a piano emphasizing otherworldly overtones. Schlingen-Blaengen (New World, 1998), Karenina (Durtro, 1997), Jamaica Heinekens In Brooklyn (Barooni, 2000), a symphony of drones and found sounds." [label info]
www.subrosa.net
|
2014 |
€18.50 |
|
| PAN SONIC & CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE |
Mort aux Vaches |
do-LP |
"Vinyl re-issue of the work initially released on CD by Staalplaat in 2000. First time on vinyl, remastered, with new cover design (a 1974 drawing by Charlemagne Palestine).
This is the first release in the 'GodBear' series, a project consisting in the re-issue of existing works and production of unreleased material by Charlemagne. In partnership with the Charlemagne Palestine Foundation." [label info}
"Pan Sonic + Charlemagne Palestine’s 20 year old drone album finally takes a new life on LP with this first pressing via Godbear following Staalplaat’s long sold-out CD
Forming the 2nd meeting on record between Palestine, Vainio and Väisänen after their 1997 hook-up with Pita (Peter Rehberg) on ‘Three Compositions for Machines’, their follow-up is slimmed down to the legendary pianist and Finnish wave shapers for an exceedingly tense, minimal, excursion marrying glacial microtonal chords licked with underlying, rhythmic subbass disturbance and occasional, off-key, distorted moraine that buckles the microtones from below.
Both sides of the equation maintain a tense equilibrium throughout the album, which, while originally divided in five parts, played thru seamlessly, whereas this new vinyl cut dedicates nearly a side per piece. Across its taut body Palestine and Pan Sonic sustain gossamer fine chords and swollen, sometimes unruly bass, appearing to under-do each other and never making any moves, but the tension just gives at point, sinking into subbass mire and slipping trains of thought out of line. It’s perhaps not entirely typical of either of them, and achieves a modest mix of their respective sensibilities." [Boomkat]
|
2019 |
€34.00 |
|
| PARKIN, NICK |
Geomorphic Resonance |
CD |
NICK PARKIN, ehemaliges Miglied von TUU und bekannt auch von der schönen Zusammenarbeit mit ALIO DIE, hier mit einer Arbeit die auf field recordings von geomorphologischen Prozessen beruht – eine Soundwelt voll von mysteriösen Wispern, Grummeln, Rauschen und Zirpen, Stein- , Sand- & Erdgeräuschen, nicht unähnlich einigen Arbeiten von MICHAEL PRIME oder ERIC LA CASA. Sehr sehr schön und stimulierend.
“Nick Parkin's latest release, “Geomorphic Resonance” on Soleilmoon Recordings, is an intense evocation of geological processes, glacial movement and erosion. Parkin realises his unique concept of sonic geology through the use of manipulatied field recordings and treated instrumental textures, conjuring up an imaginary land wrought by ice, wind and water. Densely textured compositions convey the harsh edge of nature's forces. Geomorphic Resonance is being issued simultaneously with Entropolis (Soleilmoon Recordings SOL 112 CD). Both releases are strictly limited to 500 copies.” [press release]
|
2001 |
€13.00 |
|
| PARMEGIANI, BERNARD |
Memoire Magnetique Vol. 1 |
LP |
"Transversales Disques is very glad to announce the release of « Mémoire Magnétique, vol.1 » spanning 1966-1990, revelatory collection of commercial and secret music by electronic music pioneer Bernard Parmegiani.
This series of rare application music compositions are representative of the vast scope explored by Parmegiani. Far from the strict format of concert music, its codes and usages, this music designed to fit with the screen is a work of amazing freshness and spontaneity.
It is pervaded with a singular balance, between minimalist music and a more articulated language. There is a space for melody, for word repetitions. Actually, repetition is a constant feature, blurring the line between his concert work and the rest. More than a border line, it seems to define two worlds, which communicate through it.
With an impressive number of application works, and some time spent at the head of the Sound / Image sector in the research service led by Pierre Schaeffer, the composer has managed to build up a framework designed for research and mutual exchange. Bernard Parmegiani presents us with lights, gestures, lines, various registers. Besides, how could one perceive these pieces of music without the pictures they are supposed to enhance? Each title is suggestive, and the best answer is in the field of imagination.
In the middle of the B-side, there is a true gem dated 1977. In this second extract of “Versailles… peut-être“ Bernard Parmegiani gives us a glimpse of the future. One can feel the pulse of the 80’s and of the first accents of Techno Music. It feels like driving a drop head car at 134 BPM, faster than on Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn”. One can also sense that soon the LFO will be replaced by the drum-machine.
Listening to these pieces of music arouses the same sensation as reading the prose of an author already known for his poetry. If one has never read his poems, here is the record that will open the door on a new world to be discovered / Maxime Barthélemy.
Remastered high-resolution audio transferred directly from the original tapes.
Exclusive Liner Notes + OBI STRIP
https://transversales.bandcamp.com/album/m-moire-magn-tique-vol-1-1966-1990 |
2018 |
€24.00 |
|
| PARTCH, HARRY |
Plectra and Percussion Dances |
LP |
"Born in Oakland, CA, but raised in New Mexico, Partch learned mandolin, violin, piano, reed organ, and cornet as a child. Clearly a unique talent, even that early on, Partch went to USC Music School but was dissatisfied with his teachers, and instead studied music on his own where he learned to reject many of the Western constructs of music and began experimenting with using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first Western composers of the 20th century to use microtonal scales. These recordings were some of the first made after Partch settled in Sausalito and founded his legendary Gate 5 studio. Debuted in 1953 on KPFA radio, these compositions still sound otherworldly and cutting edge today. Essential American 20th Century composer Harry Partch, on Jeanne Dielman" [label info]
"The instruments: Kithara, Surrogate Kithara, three Harmonic Canons, Chromelodeon, Diamond Marimba, Bass Marimba, Cloud-Chamber Bowls, Eroica and Wood-Block, Adapted Viola, Adapted Guitars."
"This group of three pieces, intended by Harry Partch as a single triptych, was performed several times in the 1950s, incompletely and with an incomplete ensemble. Partch himself discusses the work in these terms in an included spoken introduction from 1953, worth the price of admission in itself. This release marks its first complete performance, and the group of performers, simply called Partch, is ideal: they have studied Partch's music in depth, including his often difficult notation system, and they know it well enough to make it fun. Which it should be and is here. The Plectra and Percussion Dances are accurately titled. They were actually intended for dancers, and a performance that included them would be the next stage in the revival of an eminently worthwhile work, but they work without them. They're for varied small ensembles of plucked and percussion instruments that periodically join forces into larger ones, and the rhythms are constantly varied. The most fun is the central section, Ring Around the Moon, where a speaking voice is added and does such surprising things as end one section with the words "Well, bless my soul!" and another with "Shake hands now, boys, and when the bell rings, come out fighting." More even than an important Partch premiere, this is one of those rare releases that presents Partch's music in its proper playful spirit." [Allmusic com]
|
2016 |
€18.00 |
|
| PBK & MODELBAU |
The Dead Time |
CD |
https://oxidation.bandcamp.com/album/the-dead-time
"In music, separating the wheat from the chaff these days is not easy, one has to apply some kind of compulsion and instinct towards interesting releases. “The Dead Time” was made out of processing sonic information in the passing of time, yet what makes this music stand out from the passing and make it “dead”?
"I am interested in the alchemical breakdown of things and the results of pure accidents.” -Phillip B. Klingler
Frans de Waard and Phillip B. Klingler are rooted in the experimental music scene. Both are still at the forefront of pushing the boundaries of underground and formal electroacoustic music. This album was made of collages of recordings De Waard made in 2014, fermenting on Klingler’s shelve until summer 2021. One day that summer, Klingler awoke with a premonition about the work, which started an intensely creative period. He created three collaborations: 'The Dead Time' with De Waard, a PBK & Nocturnal Emissions LP, and the CHAIN LETTER EXHORTATION Series. "It's the same way I like to paint: only when inspired to do so, and without preconception.” as Klingler states.
Both composers are daily concerned with archival matters, so they have a deep intellectual and experiential understanding of the importance of work and detail, no matter how small or few the edition. To my knowledge, this quality translates into the depth of sound, fragility and sensibility, the compositional approach of the unknown by the use of transformed field recordings, digital processed, mixer feedback, synthesizers and sample players, which allows them to enter this abyss of a personal and yet collaborative esoteric space. As Klingler puts it: “I think it was very nice to leave the tracks as "miniatures" with their characteristics, not attempting to be epic in scope, but more like the experiments of the 1950's/60's - Dutch composers of the Phillips Research Laboratory, where all ideas of creativity were embraced, even somewhat incongruous combinations. (..) The compositions are made, but they are abstract, no narrative”.
The “miniatures” sound like deep, personal, little moments of awakening, fermented by time, but then again appearing to be free from it: “We have imposed our own very personal process(es) on the audio to create sounds that belong to something but also subvert that thing.”, as Klinger states.
This is a robust and thoughtful work of two composers always deeply involved in their game and firmly immersed in its execution. Favourite piece: “Knife”." [MC / Vital Weekly]
|
2021 |
€13.50 |
|
| PEAL GRIM |
same |
CD |
Peal Grim is one of the names of Dmitriy Shilov known for the projects Unknown, Neznamo and Magickal Things. Peal Grim explores the theme of dramatic experiences of the human life using acoustic and electric guitars, overdrive, distortion and spatial effects. Their sound creates clouds of guitar drone, noise and ringing, assuming different shapes in the acoustic atmosphere: sometimes floating like an impenetrable fog, sometimes rolling like a gigantic front of thunderclouds, sometimes creeping over a dark pit of overwhelming melancholia…
These five compositions were recorded over the course of three years from 2007 to 2009 and were mastered by Sergey Bulychiov (kshatriy.pro) in 2014.
"This record is not recommended to listening for depressively inclined persons".
[label info]
"So, this album begins with the caveat: "This record is not recommended to listening for depressively inclined persons." Now, that is far more enticing than "may cause drowsiness" (which has been affixed to less than inspiring new age / ambient records in days gone by) or Pulp's reverse psychology of "Please do not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recordings" or any number of unimaginative variations on "play loud or not at all, motherfucker!" There is also something rather charming about this translation about "depressively inclined persons" which may just be an utterly commonplace trigger warning in the Peal Grim's native Russian. What we have behind this is a pretty fucking bleak album of crumbling, corrosive blackened ambience that actually morphs into an ominously tranquil, making for an album that could be rather soothing in a dark, wintery kind of way. Peal Grim is the work of Dmitry N. Shilov, who has orbited in the pagan neofolk and mystical ambient underground of Moscow for a good part of the last two decades. In spite of this background, this album has all of the feel of the ambient passages from the best of the best black metal albums, making us think that he must have been buzzing riff with corpse paint instead. Nonetheless, this is a densely layered album of skeletal guitar figures that are blasted out in blackened fuzz, while spiralling down a soul-sucking maelstrom with a stately minor key lament throughout all the atmospheric depression. A properly replicated cd in an edition of 100 copies." [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2015 |
€12.00 |
|
| PENJAGA INSAF |
Sarna Sadja |
CD |
"For several years Ingo Sauerbrey made extensive travels through Indonesia, always carrying recording equipment to collect sounds as an audio diary. During periodic return trips to Germany, he started to work on the recordings with electronic devices. Some sounds were edited, cut and transformed, while others were kept completely intact. To name a few sound sources only recordings from Water Puppet and Shadow Theatres, Gamelan and various welcoming and fighting dances like Kecak, Jegog and the Tarian Caci were used for this album. Some of those impressive performances were made of 60 to 90 men chanting and dancing while a bamboo orchestra used 4 meter long bamboo sticks playing bass drums on it. SAMA SADJA is waving together the sounds of living traditions, religions and languages with spherical ambient pads and electronically edited drones from the field recordings. This is an contemplative and intimate soundtrack from the deepest heart of South East Asia." [label info]
www.loki-found.de
"Brussels' label Ini.itu specializes in music that deals one way or the other with Indonesia, the land, the people, the nature. They should be paying attention to this release by Ingo Sauerbrey, who plays music as Penjaga Insaf. For years now he has been traveling to Indonesia armed with a recorder to tape original Indonesian music from puppet theatres, gamelan and such like, but also from countries such as Vietnam which he uses in his compositions. I didn't study the booklet very hard when I started to play this and I thought at the beginning this was some kind of ambient act using lots of digital synthesizers and a bit of percussion and some heavily processed voices, but as the album progresses the field recordings become clearer and clearer. Sauerbrey reworks the recordings pretty neatly, not beyond recognition, so you always have a clear picture of what is going on. He mixes these together with a fine blend of digital synthesizers, borrowed from the world of ambient dance music.
The whole thing is pretty densely layered and it seems like is something going on all levels at the same time. Probably just as colorful as traditional puppet play. An excellent release of highly imaginative music." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| PER ASPERA |
Nil Desperandum |
CD |
Drittes Album dieses uns bisher noch unbekannten polnischen dark ambient-Projekts, das auf NIL DESPERANDUM eine ureigenste Vision von dunkler elektronischer Ambience entwirft, wo sehr minimal & bedächtig instrumentierte Synth-Parts of ebenso spärlich eingesetzte Sakral-Gesänge stoßen, es später aber Bezüge zu 9/11 gibt und die Klänge rauher & experimenteller werden. Ingesamt wirkt das alles sehr ausgereift & überlegt komponiert, 7 Stücke die aufeinander aufbauen.
Sehr ambitioniert und fesselnd !
"The third and the most complete release by one of the most talented ambient artists hailing from Poland these days. Unifying vast array of elements, Per Aspera once again achieves remarkably introvert but vibrant style.
Eerie industrial atmosphere seamlessly blends with serene harmonies of almost orchestral form. Cinematic, monstrous drone formations morph into pulsating abyss of dissonant disturbances and uncompromised sonic experiments, overlaid by subtle beauty of human voice and minimalist acoustic instrumentation.
All those skillful, multiformal explorations establish Nil desperandum one of those albums of complex yet stable musical concept—reflecting the incoherencies of human nature and its immanent affection to chaos and order merged together. Per Aspera tends to render tragically compound heritage of the mankind, being constantly shaped by cultural, ethnic and religious or ideologic discrepancies.
Definitely not your average dark–ambient buzz, this album stands out of the dull cliche. The sound may appeal to the admirers of T. Köner, Parca Pace, Nocturnal Emissions or Neubautens to name a few but still, expect no pattern follower.
Complemented with special A5–sized glossy digipak designed by Ibsen studio, this CD is limited to 500 copies only." [label info]
".... Whilst it’s ridiculously difficult to be overly innovative within the dark ambient genres, one of the skills a composer must demonstrate is the ability to keep the listener engaged whilst producing a sound that doesn’t show immediate comparisons to one or another artist from within this genre. Thankfully Per Aspera does a fantastic job at both and has created a set of recordings that smack of originality whilst containing a myriad of well executed compositions, rich textural sounds and a wonderfully imaginative evolving plethora of atmospheres that flow from the album. As a dark ambient release this is as good as it gets and sets an impressively high standard immediately, with a faultless album being produced from start to finish. For those who relish in the shadowy undercurrent of rich dark ambient soundscapes ‘Nil Desperadum’ delivers a fabulous journey into this style of music and is welcomed addition to the genre itself and as such is a near prefect introduction for a relatively unknown artist and a label which promises great things, if this is anything to go by." [Judas Kiss]
www.newnihilism.com
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| PERRET, NICOLAS & SILVIA PLONER |
Nýey |
CD |
In 1963, off the coast of Iceland, an island emerged after an underwater volcanic eruption, a rare event that occurs on average twice a century. It was given the name Surtsey, after Surtr, the fire giant of Norse mythology. The surface of this new land grew after further eruptions until June 1967 when it had reached 2.65 square kilometers in size and poked 175 meters out of the sea. Surtsey has been an object of research as no other territory has been before, since it bares the unique possibility to study in-scale the creation of an ecosystem. Closed to the public since its birth, only a few scientists have access to the island once per year for four days. To this day more than half of the initial territory of Surtsey has disappeared. The violent waves of the winter degrade its coasts and the wind erodes its surface. Scientists estimate that in 2120, two-thirds of the surface will be gone and erosion will have laid bare its heart of palagonite, a rock that might withstand for a few thousand years.
Being the youngest member of the Westman archipelago, Surtsey serves science as a window to the past of the older islands. Reciprocally, those older islands are studied as windows to what Surtsey might become like in the future. Following this approach of the island as sort of “time capsule,” we investigated in Surtsey′s assumed past, present and possible future in exploring the sonic environment of Surtsey as well as the one of its neighboring islands. The resulting sound piece Nýey evolves around the motifs of creation, colonization and metamorphose of a territory.
Nýey is composed of:
Field recordings from Bjarnarey and Elliðaey, two older islands of the Westman archipelago.
Field recordings from the volcano Eldfell and the new territory its eruption created in 1973 on the island Heimaey.
Field recordings from Surtsey, recorded through a sound trap by Borgþór Magnússon (expedition leader on Surtsey).
The piece also contains words by three generations of scientists engaged with the island and samples from the original music of the movie “Surtur fer sunnan” (Ósvaldur Knudsen, Iceland 1964), composed by Magnús Blöndal Jóhannsson.
(Nicolas Perret & Silvia Ploner, March 2015)
++++
Additional Info
The radio version of Nýey was produced by the programme Klangkunst of Deutschlandradio Kultur (broadcast date: April 18th, 2014), with the support of “Du côté des ondes”, GMVL, Phonurgia Nova and the Surtsey Research Society. In 2014 the radio piece was awarded the first prize in the category “Radioarte” at the 10th Bienal Internacional de Radio.
About us
Nicolas Perret and Silvia Ploner – http://www.islandssongs.blogspot.com – work with recording technologies to sound out mysterious environments, remote territories and unknown phenomena. Envisaging the milieus they investigate as laboratories, their interest is drawn to the faint, the imperceptible, the unsuspected, the sonic detail, the inaccessible. Alongside scientists whom they share fields of study and methods of work with, they embark in long term projects. The resulting field recording based compositions and installations shape listening as a method of exploration. Nýey is their first common project. Their second project, ALL DEPENDS ON THE SUN, explores the acoustic phenomena related to northern lights.
www.unfathomless.net
|
2015 |
€14.00 |
|
| PETERS, STEVE |
Three Rooms |
CD |
Exquisites Soundscape-Album mit drei Stücken, die völlig verschiedene Ansatzpunkte haben; ob field recordings, Objekt-Geräusche, der eigene Atem, PETERS entwirft stets sehr subtile und langsam dahingleitende Stücke mit faszinierender Aura...
"We are very proud to present the music of Steve Peters, which Alvin Curran once described as "pure, restrained, and rigorously beautiful."
Originally composed as sound installations, these three delicate pieces - or rooms, as the title states - are the result of very personal investigation regarding the interaction between physical spaces and the experience of listening. The selected compositions on the disc seem to emanate themselves from these spaces to continuously create room(s) for the listener, intensifying quietly and subtly our awareness. In "Delicate Abrasions," all of the sounds are derived from tactile interaction with the interior surfaces and materials of an old warehouse building in Santa Fé, New Mexico: nails, dust, sliding door, concrete, metal, glass, and wood. These seemingly inert materials yield a beautiful music hidden within the walls (and ceiling, and floor) of this otherwise mute and neglected space. "Center of Gravity" was composed for an installation with artist Susan York of one of her "graphite rooms," which evoke the contemplative space of a Japanese rock garden. The sound was made entirely with Steve's own breath and real-time electronic processing. Each individual breath was treated as its own miniature composition. These short pieces are then layered and punctuated by silences of random length. The final piece, "Mountains Hidden in Mountains," is made entirely from one strike of the densho (meditation bell) at a Zen Buddhist temple in New Mexico. The sound of the bell never quite dies away, instead revealing the complex dance of overtones in the air and ever-deepening pure waves. It was adapted as a participatory sound installation in a faux bell tower at the Santa Fé Art Institute in 2004." [label info]
www.sirr-ecords.com
|
2007 |
€15.00 |
|
| PHARMAKON |
Contact |
LP |
"The release date of Contact marks the ten-year anniversary of Margaret Chardiet’s project, Pharmakon. While working on her newest release, she began to evaluate the project as a whole. Though the content of each record has been very different and specific, the pervading question, which has underlined them all, is what is means to be human. Her last album, Bestial Burden, focused on the disconnect between mind and body, looking at the human as an isolated consciousness stuck inside of a rotting vessel. For Contact, she wanted to look at the other side of the spectrum – the moments when our mind can come outside of and transcend our bodies.
Because an album is itself an object, she struggled with how to convey the transcendence of the physical, through a physical medium. She started to study trance states and equate her live performances to them. In trance states, music and the body are used to transcend the physical form and make contact with some outside force. In the live setting, she used sound and her body to create an exchange of energy and make contact with outside forces - humanity, empathy, the audience. This energy/empathy exchange has always been at the heart of a Pharmakon performance, but she felt that on records, it wasn’t translating. They were one-sided and flat – declarations rather than conversations. She decided to structure the compositions of each side of Contact after the four stages of trance: preparation, onset, climax, and resolution. By using these stages as a biorhythm for the album, she animates it, and instills the intention of communion into the music.
Release date: 3/31/2017" [label info]
www.sacredbonesrecords.com
"Each track of the new Pharmakon LP can be heard as a violent scuffle between mind and body. Even when her visceral noise achieves moments of transcendence, it still strikes you in the gut.
Through a decade of performing and recording as Pharmakon, Margaret Chardiet has made music that heaves, throbs, and decays. Harnessing the drilling power of electronics and the elasticity of her screams, she’s concocted visceral noise in New York since she was a teenager—first on small-run tapes and CD-Rs, then on more widely-available albums for her hometown label Sacred Bones. As her profile has grown, her sound has remained physical, the aural equivalent of organs pumping life into a body while nature takes a toll on its flesh. The physicality of each Pharmakon album emerges in Chardiet’s choices of cover art. Her 2013 LP Abandon showed maggots swarming on her lap, suggesting a theme of bodily decomposition. For 2014’s Bestial Burden—influenced by an illness that required emergency surgery—she placed animal organs on her chest and torso, as if her own innards had broken through her skin.
On the cover of the third Pharmakon full-length, Contact, Chardiet is no longer alone. A mesh of greasy fingers cover her face, her hair tangled in between them like a spiderweb catching flies. Perhaps Contact, then, is about reaching out and connecting with others. Alongside the heavier, more claustrophobic Bestial Burden, this new collection sounds spacious. Chardiet has opened her psychic soundscapes to give the outside world more room to enter. And that’s a well-timed goal, given how current political strife has pushed people to work together rather than turn inward.
In press materials, Chardiet says Contact is about “when our mind uses the body in order to transcend or escape it.” (Or, as she recently expanded, it’s “about stepping outside your experiences as a human and looking at humanity in an objective way.”) The ultimate objective, she writes, is “Empathy! EMPATHY, NOW!” Achieving that isn’t easy. The music on Contact is stressful and tense, rife with conflicts that aren’t always resolved. At one point, Chardiet even seems ready to admit defeat, singing that “Despite all our scrambling rejections/We cannot transcend all of our instincts/Just animals, lost in a confused dream.” But she never gives up. Each track can be heard as a violent scuffle between mind and body, and Chardiet compellingly mines that primal contest for drama and catharsis. The music hammers with industrial heft, vibrates with nervous pulse, and envelops with tactile atmosphere. Even when her songs achieve moments of transcendence, they still strike you directly in the gut.
Contact benefits from Chardiet’s agile voice, which feels more prominent than ever. Her howls and screeches are central to four of the album’s six tracks, naturally humanizing the music while standing strong inside the electronic clatter. On “Nakedness of Need,” ominous noise is shifted by her blasting shrieks, while during “Transmission” her screams bounce around the din like wolves surrounding prey. That song’s lyric comprises just five lines, framing communication as paramount: “I had a conversation/It lasted nearly an hour/Held no words/And carried the weight/Of the state of things so held.”
Chardiet’s sounds are in a constant tug of war on Contact, and that clash seems to be the point. Just as there’s often more to learn from a journey than its destination, for Pharmakon the battle outweighs the result. Perhaps that’s why Contact’s closer, “No Natural Order,” actually resembles a battlefield. Crashes and pounds rattle while Chardiet peals out angry breaths, undaunted by the sonic assault. In the end, her chants could pass for political slogans—“No divine law, escape!/No positive law, revolt!/No natural law pertains:/Only empathy, untamed”—and it sounds like a victory." [Marc Masters / Pitchfork]
|
2017 |
€20.00 |
|
| PHILLIPS, DAVE |
? |
CD |
"Assembled between April and June 2009 as part of a therapeutic process during a period dominated by severe disturbances of loss, mental abysses and despair, "?" is the new gospel from Swiss experimentalist Dave Phillips, co-founder of grindcore legend Fear of God, a member of the sense perplexing Schimpfluch-Gruppe and the pulverizing force behind the Rudimentary Peni one-man-doom-drone worship act Dead Peni, among numerous other projects.
"?" offers a 79 minutes album of field recordings oriented compositions that feature murky cello, piano and accordion parts, nocturnal voices, a vast array of concrete snippets and more resonances of existences that give Albert Aylers' "Music is the healing force of the universe" new depths and meanings. "?" sees Phillips observing and carefully dissecting his human psyche into ten intimate and innovative music pieces, confronting them with the bile and degradation of the omnipresent while deconstructing his own ravage with a binding urge to cleanse. And it's a fascinating insight to listen to." [label info]
www.HCBrecords.com, www.topheth.org
"Noise. There are people out there, mainly youngsters devoted to noise, who think that I don't like noise. They are mistaken, and should check their history lessons. But these days, noise doesn't have my full attention anymore. I just heard too much of that, I guess, in those grey forgotten days. However sometimes I see something that is maybe 'noise' live and sometimes it blows me away. Sudden Infant for instance, very recently, and last year Dave Phillips. The former member of Fear Of God, a grindcore band, is connected to the Schimpfluch gang these days and his concert was a carefully constructed set of noise and silence. I may not have cared for the political overtones of his work, his noise went down pretty well. Its therefore with some anticipation that I played his new CD '?'. It was recorded 'during a period dominated by severe disturbances of loss, mental abysses and despair' and yes, we are not in for some fun for the next eighty minutes. Normally I would complain about the
length of such a release, but somehow it all seems to make sense here. The shortest piece is just over one minute, the longest just under sixteen. And it seems to be without the sort of noise those earlier mentioned youngsters care about: Phillips uses loops, piano, concrete sounds, very little sound effects, so all the sounds are as a dry as possible, cello, accordion and voice material (sighing, moaning, crying) and the sounds of torture the human body. Like I said, nothing conservative noise here, but quite a depressing album altogether. Low bass sound here and there, obscured field recordings and such like make up the backbone, and top these repeating sound fragments of instruments and voices. Bleak, dark stuff. Not much information on the cover to go by, but depression has not be made that clear in quite some time. A creepy record, not for the weak of heart and mind. That's true noise for you." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| PILIA, STEFANO |
The Suncrows Fall and Tree |
LP |
Originally released on CD in 2006 on Sedimental 'The Suncrows Fall And Tree' pushed Stefano Pilia to the forefront of the European experimental avant garde scene showcasing his incredible knack for creating beautiful soundscapes, blissful ambience and electroacoustic compositions that speak to the heart.
His sound can aptly be defined ‘ecstatic', in the purest sense of the term, as a result of the exploration of these points of focus, through multi-instrumental practice and investigations into the recording and production process. Pilia is one of the founding members (alongside Valerio Tricoli and Claudio Rocchetti) of the group 3/4HadBeenEliminated. He predominantly plays as a soloist though collaborates extensively. He has played in duo with Massimo Pupillo and with ZU, though his multifaceted practice has also led to an active involvement in a host of other wide-ranging projects. Since 2010 Pilia has been a member of psychedelic quartet In Zaire and has been a focal contributor to the BGP trio, alongside David Grubbs and Andrea Belfi. Since 2009, he has been a member of Il Sogno del Marinaio, a trio made up of legendary Minutemen bassist Mike Watt and the drummer Paolo Mongardi. As well as these projects, he is lead guitarist for celebrated Malian singer Rokia Traorè (since 2012) and for the band Afterhours (since 2015). He has released record on Nonesuch, Die-Schachtel, Presto?!, Drag City, Bluechopstick, Hapna, LastVisibleDog, Sedimental, Soleilmoon, 8mm, Black Truffle.
“Pilia’s subsonic drones are a thing of beauty; pulling in and pushing the listener away simultaneously, keeping him or her in a constant state of limbo.. in all things Stefano Pilia does, there is an understated and simple beauty beneath them. It acts like a silent guide, making sure everything goes off without a hitch”. Brad Rose / Foxy Digitalis
"With The Suncrows Fall And Tree, Pilia has created an electroacoustic work that uses drones as a major compositional tool, but to achieve effects that are striking and unusual. Avoiding sonic gestures associated with one or another school of electroacoustics, and not creating a work entirely of blissful ambience, Pilia has concocted a very impressive electroacoustic debut." Caleb Deupree
https://improvedsequence.bandcamp.com/album/the-suncrows-fall-and-tree-imp014 |
2020 |
€27.50 |
|
| PRINZIP NEMESIS |
My Name is Assumption |
CD-R |
"A trip through India, captured through field recordings, poetry, and songs – this is what this album is about. Instead of relying on the so-called ‘pure’ soundscape of an exotic country like so many practitioners of ‘phonography,’ Prinzip Nemesis recreate their impressions and the moods they experienced on their trip in compositions that carefully interweave the field recordings and ‘found music’ by street musicians with music for electric guitars, pianos, and synthesizers.
This is a great acoustic travelogue that is second to none but the best works in the genre, for example by Luc Ferrari. Prinzip Nemesis are wise enough to know that sounds do not always speak for themselves, so to tell a story with sounds, you still need words - and music, in this case a kind of goth-rock/electro-pop/ambient hybrid style that is always in the service of the overall atmosphere of the whole album, which really feels like one long piece. Prinzip Nemesis manage no small feat: They have created a piece of acoustic art that transcends the boundaries of phonography, poetry, and music in a way usually only found in the most sophisticated radio art compositions while remaining totally accessible and entertaining to all sorts of listeners." [label info]
www.attenuationcircuit.de
"If I tell you that this release deals with sounds recorded traveling through India, you may form already an idea what this will be about. Right? Human interaction, sounds from nature and that's it? That's not the case here, or perhaps only partly. Prinzip Nemesis, of whom I think I didn't hear before, takes these field recordings from India and brings into the context of 'music', by adding guitars, pianos and synthesizers. Not a collage of sounds from an exotic country but pieces that stand by themselves, in which a voice (by Birgit Merk, one half of Prinzip Nemesis) sings, recites and whispers additional lyrics, along with looped voice material. She and her partner Marc Fischer add more or less a pop tune to the field recordings. This is not y'r usual field recording turned music (say in the classical, Luc Ferrari sense), but lushly played and with a fine sense of naivety. I am not sure if it works well in every track, as I seemed to like the more adventurous pieces, such as
'Namaste' best: here we have a collage of fire recordings, a bit of piano and synthesizer and the looped greeting that makes up the title. Not altogether, but spread out over the course of ten minutes. Sometimes I don't seem to get along with it, such as the guitars and singing in 'Mumbai'. It's a most curious release; a daring experiment that works and sometimes it doesn't, which makes it a successful release in my book." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€8.00 |
|
| PÄRT, ARVO |
Tabula Rasa |
do-LP |
"Der in Berlin lebende Este Arvo Pärt gilt als einer der wichtigsten Komponisten der Nachkriegszeit. Sein Post Moderner Stil bedient sich gleichermaßen althergebrachter und neuer Methoden und brachte ihm den Ruf eines Visionärs ein. Tabula Rasa ist eine seiner am weitesten verbreiteten Kompositionen und eine gutes Beispiel für seinen ausgereiften Stil. Andächtig, zeitlos und düster zugleich, mit Harmonien, die aus einer anderen Welt zu kommen scheinen, zeigt sich hier warum Pärt sich als Ausnahme Komponist des späten 20.Jahrhunderts etabliert hat. ARVO PÄRT: TABULA RASA: Concerto for 2 violins,prepared piano and string orchestra (1977) SYMPHONY No. 1 "Poliphonic" (1964) COLLAGE ON A THEME B-A-C-H (1964) PRO ET CONTRA: Concerto for cello and orchestra. (1966) (1) Crtomir Siskovic and Victor Kuleshov - Violinen Petr Laul - Piano (4) Vadim Messermann - Cello Congress Orchestra Conductors: Paolo Gatto (1), Vladimir Norets (2 - 4) Sound engineer: Gerhard Tses Petersburg Recording Studio, November 1995 The Berlin based Estonian Arvo Pärt is one of the most important composers of the post-war era. His postmodern style is equally inspired by traditional as by new methods and has earned him the reputation of being a visionary. Tabula Rasa stands as one of his most widely-performed compositions, as well as a fine example of his mature style. At once reverent, bleak and timeless, rich with otherwordly harmonies, it shows why Pärt has established himself as an exceptional composer of the late 20th century. ARVO PÄRT: TABULA RASA: Concerto for 2 violins,prepared piano and string orchestra (1977) SYMPHONY No. 1 "Poliphonic" (1964) COLLAGE ON A THEME B-A-C-H (1964) PRO ET CONTRA: Concerto for cello and orchestra. (1966) (1) Crtomir Siskovic and Victor Kuleshov - violins Petr Laul - piano (4) Vadim Messermann - cello Congress Orchestra Conductors: Paolo Gatto (1), Vladimir Norets (2 - 4) Sound engineer: Gerhard Tses Petersburg Recording Studio, November 1995
TRACKLISTING: 01. LUDUS 02. SILENTIUM 03. KANONS 04. PRELUDE AND FUGUE 05. TOCCATA 06. SARABANDE 07. RICERCAR 08. MAESTOSO 09. LARGO 10. ALLEGRO" [label info]
|
2012 |
€19.50 |
|
| QUELLET, ISRAEL |
Soni Sclavus |
CD |
Already the second album from this young Swiss composer, and like "Oppressum" its quite a beast on 11 tracks, using sounds going direct into your face, piercing pulsing organ-tunes, rumbling distorted rhythmic excesses, loopy metallic bangs, all kinds of impetuous weird sounds in between, animal sounds, backwards voices & whisphers and something like sound poetry. Very difficult to classify, "experimental" in the truest sense, after this session you maybe simply don't know if you like it or not, but it was NON-ORDINARY music like hell!
"Israël Quellet: a short biography. Born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1972. He worked in the psychiatric field for several years. at 16, he discovers on his own some different soundworlds, such as Miles Davis's electric era, Sun Ra, Dub, German cosmic music, Magma, Zappa and many more. In 1997, he stepped into the action and, following the advice of a sound engineer friend, bought microphones, a digital mixing board, and studio monitors. Basically, he turned part of his basement into a soundsmithing studio. That is when he started to create, out of his immediate surroundings, sound works that have little to do with what is "normally" being done. Appreciated by composer Jorge E. Campos, Quellet is supported by the Centre Pierre Schaeffer in Paris. In 2003, he contacted Sub Rosa. Three years later, he was releasing his first public recording. This present one is the second (probably of a trilogy). It explores the very common object and have a great deal with the problem of saturation and noise." [label info]
"Israel Quellet's 2nd album for Sub Rosa is not the unexpected surprise from an unknown artist that this Swiss sound-maker's debut disc was (for both us, and the label, read our review of it to see what we mean, we started off by saying "who the heck is Israel Quellet?"). But, that's because THIS time 'round, when we saw
Quellet's had a new recording coming out, we were already eager to hear it. Much like its excellent predecessor, it's about compositions
(improvisations? explorations?) limited to specific sound sources, each track featuring the use/abuse of a certain instrument or two, or perhaps a non-instrument, and to Quellet, his methods are his music, this is the focus, to the extent that the tracks are identified
thusly... For example, track 1 is "for organ and percussion". Track 3 is "for fitness rower". Track 7 is "for footsteps and knocks on stairs, and vented carbon dioxide". He makes use of organ on here quite a bit, as well as percussion and less frequently voice,
electronically treated (and in French). Actually much of this seems electronically treated, or in some way distorted, with "saturation" factoring into several of his pieces, occasionally achieving Merzbowian levels of noise (on track 6, "for percussions and saturation" especially!). All in all, this disc can be heard as one man's playful but moody, quasi-industrial homebrewed take on 20th (now 21st) century classical music. With so much somber organ and repetitive thunderous percussion, many of these tracks seem quite
ominous, you can start imagining DIY Nitsch-style "aktions" happening in Quellet's backyard.
As with Quellet's prior album, this is varied and fascinating throughout, and surprisingly listenable. Truly experimental (and
successfully so) music for curious ears made by someone with curious ears too. Recommended!!
Oh, and by the way, on our list this week there IS a cool Sub Rosa disc from a hitherto unknown (to us) artist, look for Pierre Berthet's Extended Loudspeakers, it's also AQ recommended." [Aquarius Records]
www.subrosa.net
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| RABELAIS, AKIRA |
Elongated Pentagonal Pyramid |
CD |
“We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the superhologram” “Seperateness is an illusion”. AKIRA RABELAIS, ein Anhänger der holographischen Theorie (beruft sich auf DAVID BOHM, KARL PRIBRAM und STANISLAV GROF), spiegelt mit seiner Musik das “fundamental something” hinter allen Dingen, das, was alles zusammenhält...
"Rabelais has collected his own electronic compositions on Elongated Pentagonal Pyramid, a self-produced, limited edition CD, where he gingerly teases out the tissues of surface noise in a similar vein to the likes of Terre Thaemlitz, Achim Wollscheid and Mego's Rehberg & Bauer. But simply because he insists on placing individual clarity of vision at the center of the creative process, rather than be enslaved and driven by the technological toys and tools of the day, he will always remain a liberating remove from any definable 'scene'." [Rob Young, The Wire]
|
1999 |
€13.00 |
|
| RADIGUE, ELIANE |
Vice Versa |
do-CD |
“1970 was an important year in ELIANE RADIGUE’s musical life since it was the year just before she acquired her ARP 2500 synthesizer. Since 1967, she had been using the feedback as a material; feedback from two tape recorders reworked through intensive studio techniques: slowing down, alteration, superimposition, montage. Vice-Versa, etc…, which appears to be her very last feedback loop composition was conceived as a sound installation. A single magnetic tape can be played at any speed, a stereo tape of which allows three playings: left channel alone, right channel alone, left and right channels together. These different channels can be overlapped/crossed over as much as possible, at any speed. In its content, the piece is the most minimal that Eliane Radigue has ever composed. Feedback is horizontally sustained, time is suspended, vibrating with organic and subtle pulsations. What is striking about this work, which may arguably be one of Radigue's most important compositions, is the extraordinary quality of the tones obtained from such a rudimentary material. It is hard to believe that the composer was yet to begin working on her ARP, since the sonorities heard on Vice-Versa, etc… are surprisingly similar to those she would go on to produce with her synthesizer.”—Manu Holterbach (translation: Maxime Guitton)
www.importantrecords.com
|
2009 |
€19.50 |
|
|
Transamorem Transmortem |
CD |
\" “Before the greatest achievement
Before the greatest detachment.
At the limit of the frontier space of the unconscious - tuned waves - \"consonant things vibrate together\".
Where does the change happen? In the inner field of perception or the exterior reality of moving things in the course of becoming.
\"And time is no longer an obstacle, but the means by which the possible is achieved\".
Eliane Radigue - June 20, 1973
\"Transamorem - Transmortem\" was premiered on March 9, 1974 at The Kitchen in NYC, where the music programmer at the time was Rhys Chatham - this was right before his guitar phase. During this period, \"Transamorem - Transmortem\" was presented along with other compositions by Eliane Radigue in a linear mode of listening, although the piece had originally been conceived, during its composition, as a sound installation. Of course, both modes of listening are possible, and each works marvelously in its own way.
In their original form, Eliane Radigue\'s works are magnetic tapes. After being played a few times in public, the tape disappears to its case until a release proposal makes it available again through a disc.
During this period Eliane Radigue\'s compositions became fairly long, some lasting over an hour. Because the tracks could not be edited for some obvious reasons, a vinyl release was unthinkable. It was only in the 90\'s, with the advent of the CD format, that the long compositions of Eliane Radigue were made available (with the exception of the \"Song of Milarepa\" LP on Lovely Music, a work already divided into multiple movements and thus able to be fit onto two sides of an LP). For these reasons, the work of Eliane Radigue remained virtually unknown for twenty years - from the 70\'s to the 90\'s.
It was in 2004, when she accepted my aid in digitizing her archives, along with Lionel Marchetti, that I discovered \"Transamoren - Transmortem.\" Immediately, I was awed by the majestic grace of this very long tangle of frequencies, this set of seemingly unchanging tones, whose variations are of a delicate subtlety. \"Transamoren - Transmorten\" is recognizable as one of the most radical of Radigue\'s compositions, comparable to the first \"Adnos,\" the work that follows \"Transamoren - Transmortem\" chronologically. Very few transformations, an apparent formal aridity that is then contradicted by the physical play of the frequencies as the listener turns her head gently from right to left, or better yet as the listener moves slowly throughout the music space. Moving through zones of specific frequencies, the listener\'s body experiences localized zones of low, medium and treble frequencies which vary according to the acoustic properties of the space. As Radigue wrote of \"Adnos\": \"to displace stones in the bed of a river does not affect the course of water, but rather modifies the way the water flows.\" Here, we find the same meditative tension proposing a peaceful movement through the spaces created by the different frequencies that compose \"Transamoren - Transmortem.\"
Very well-organized, Eliane Radigue\'s archives are a pleasure to explore, and \"Transamorem - Transmortem\"\'s case contained a mine of information. What excited me most was the short text entitled \"Inner Space\", which described the ideal conditions under which \"Transamorem - Transmortem\" should be presented. That is to say as a sound installation.
\"Inner Space - This monophonic tape should be played on 4 speakers placed in the four corners of an empty room. Carpet on the floor. The impression of different points of origin of the sound is produced by the localization of the various zones of frequencies, and by the displacements produced by simple movements of the head within the acoustic space of the room. A low point of light on the ceiling, in the center of the room, produced by indirect lighting. Several white light projectors of very weak intensity whose rays, coming from different angles, meet at a single point\".
Eliane Radigue - 1973
I immediately felt that it was necessary to make \"Transamoren-Transmorten\" available once again, and this time in its ideal form, in trying to follow Radigue\'s recommendations word for word. It was with this idea in mind that the Cumulus collective (also responsible for the contemporary music festival Why Note) organized the Continuum festival in Dijon along with the art space Le Consortium (one of the founders of which had persuaded the goup Circle X to record their first, mythic EP in Dijon in 1979 - but that\'s another story!).
The goal was to correctly present some of Eliane Radigue\'s sound installations, an aspect of her work now completely forgotten. And yet, between 1967 and 1971 her work was often exhibited in galleries of contemporary art, mostly in Paris (Lara Vincy, Yvon Lambert ... ), a reflection of the fact that French people have had a harder time than Americans placing the work of Radigue. She herself hesitated for quite a while to use the word \"music\" to describe her work, a complex that is familiar to this very generation of musicians, and which is now no longer really a problem. Who would claim that the work of Eliane Radigue is not musical? That would be strange ...
The 2006 Continuum festival in Dijon saved four sound installations from the dust (an expression that Radigue uses to describe her archives): \"S=a=b=a+b\" (1969), \"Omnht\" (1970), \"Labyrinthe Sonore\" (1970) and \"Transamorem - Transmortem\" (1973). The first two installations are composed with feedbacks, the two others with the sounds of the ARP 2500 synthesizer. Each one is based on a strategy of specific spatial presentation, but that\'s also another story ...
Now it\'s your turn to enjoy this enveloping electronic space ...\" [liner notes]
www.importantrecords.com
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2011 |
€16.50 |
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In Memoriam-Ostinato / Danse des Dakinis |
LP |
"Alga Marghen presents the last chapter from the Feedback Works documentation series, a brand-new LP including "In Memoriam-Ostinato" and "Danse des Dakinis", two previous unreleased tracks by Eliane Radigue. Among the works of fixed duration from the feedback period, "In Memoriam-Ostinato" is the link between "Jouet Electronique" (ALGA 029LP) and "Opus 17" (ALGA 045LP), and allows you to understand the evolution of her approach. "In Memoriam-Ostinato" is a game of mirroring symbols which glide into a non-measured, bent and elastic, temporality. Eliane Radigue's working method and her aesthetic direction are evident in this work from 1969: her very own unique temporal space of sonic experiences. Even though it bears the same name as the third part of "Adnos III", "Danse des Dakinis" is a peculiar work in Eliane's oeuvre. Conceived in a short time, with all kind of tapes from the composer's past work, it fluently shows a kaleidoscopic vision of Radigue's sensibility for sound. In 1998 she put together a curious self-portrait in sound. There is a feedback ostinato conceived around 1969 and which refers to "In Memoriam-Ostinato" and "Opus 17". All through "Danse des Dakinis" you plunge into the sound of a creek recorded at Mills College campus that brings you back to the field-recordings from the beginning of the 1960s, made on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Such elements construct "Elemental1" (ALGA 029LP) as well. There are also some discreet interventions on the ARP 2500 synthesizer. It is indeed a peculiar work, which doesn't have the same features of her other compositions, especially at that time of her compositional path. There is an explanation for the composer producing this kind of sound material in 1998, and not limited to the sound waves of the ARP synthesizer. Invited to a workshop at Mills College in 1998, Eliane Radigue could not load herself down with her bulky instrument on such a trip. So, she left with just a few tapes taken from her own collection, drawn from different periods, and composed "Danse des Dakinis" with those old elements. There is tension in this composition, a certain wildness, an unpredictability of elements, those which are recognized as fundamental elements, which give structure to the universe. "Dance des Dakinis" is an intimate and wild symphony, alive and unpredictable, which is to be the next-to-last gesture of the composer before completely stopping her work with electronics." [label info]
"There is no artist, working in the contemporary field of experimental sound, that is more important than the French composer Éliane Radigue. She is a shining light, who, for more than half a century, has quietly blazed trails with a body of work that is as creatively visionary as it is sublime. Back in the 2010s, Alga Marghen launched a crucial archival series, dedicated to some of Radigue’s earliest and previously unavailable works, many predating her first LP, 1983's “Songs of Milarepa”, by more than a decade. Having already delivered four LP of this material, they return with their fifth and final instalment in the series, “In Memoriam-Ostinato / Danse des Dakinis”. Perhaps the most fascinating of the group, the first work was composed in 1969 in the period between the creation of two of her earlier works comprised within Alga Marghen’s initiative, “Jouet Electronique” and “Opus 17”, while the second draws on material recorded during the 1960s and then further intervened with, “Danse des Dakinis” was conceived and created in 1998 by Radigue as a self-portrait in sound. Absolutely essential on every count, we couldn’t think of a better place for this series to end, further illuminating the remarkable beginnings of one of our greatest living composers in truly eye watering ways.
Born in 1932, Éliane Radigue began her musical endeavours in Paris during the late 1950s and early '60s, working under Pierre Schaffer and Pierre Henry, before quickly outstepping her mentors. Initially working predominantly in tape, during the early 1970s she made the radical switch to modular synthesis, beginning a decades long exploration of the ARP 2500 that drew on her practice as a Buddhist and pushed the notions of musicality endlessly forward, taking the entire landscape of experimental sound with her through a series of sonic mediations that bound life and art.
During the early 2000s, Radigue set aside her synth, embarking upon a hiatus from music, before taking the unexpected step of beginning to compose works with and for acoustic instrumentalists. By the the early 2010s, this new phase in her career had begun to emerge as the sprawling work, “Occam Ocean” series, arguably bringing her more acclaim and adoration than any other point in her long career. Fittingly, it was during roughly this same moment, beginning with “Jouet electronique”, that Alga Marghen embarked upon their archival series dedicated to Radigue’s earliest and previously unavailable works, offering a unprecedented and much needed sense of dimension to the breadth of her career. Followed in rapid succession by “Feedback Works”, “Vice-Versa, etc…”, and “Opus 17” - each mining the period when the composer worked predominantly with magnetic tape - it’s been nearly a decade since the last LP appeared, making the emergence of their final instalment in the series. “In Memoriam-Ostinato / Danse des Dakinis”, that much more sweet.
Comprising two free standing works, the first, “In Memoriam-Ostinato”, foreshadows the pacing that would soon come to define Radigue’s unique approach to composing sound. Measured and slow, it is an immersion into an extending state of contemplation, manifested in organizations of sound; a game of mirroring symbols that bend and elongate time, inviting the ear to get lost. As Radigue recounts: “This piece was commissioned for a Happening, Mémorial. It was a sort of secular procession to the castle of Verderonne, a beautiful place. The pools bordering the edifice were lit, and everyone was dressed or draped in mauve. It terminated in one of the grand salons of the castle where I played “In Memoriam-Ostinato”.”
While considerably more concise than many of the durational works through which Radigue would come to make her name, the 23 minutes that make up “In Memoriam-Ostinato” are not encompassing or lacking in depth. Where it differs is within the presence of slighter darker temperament and mood. Across the work’s length, low rumbles of textural noise form a bedrock - feeling a bit like the death knell of dying electronics - into which strange, warbling tones of feedback pulse and dance with a palpable sense of tension. Like so much Radigue’s work over the years to come, “In Memoriam-Ostinato” actively obscures a consciousness of the artist’s hand. It's so elegant and risk laden, that were it encountered by chance, without context, it might be perceived as the generative form of an abandoned radio station within an alien landscape.
Rounding out the collection and not to be confused with the third part of “Adnos III”, which bears the same name, “Danse des Dakinis” is quite possibly the only work of its kind in Radigue’s remarkable body of work. Drawing on a wealth of tapes she created during the 1960s, the work was created in 1998 as a kind of self-portrait in sound; a kaleidoscopic vision of Radigue's sensibility for sound, a memoir, and a hall of mirrors prismatically reflecting the multiples sides of self. The piece, because of the many phases in her career from which it draws, is a fascinating hybrid that uses field-recordings from the beginning of the 1960s, made on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and capturing the sound of a creek recorded at Mills College campus, feedback elements from 1969, as well as later interventions on her ARP 2500 synthesizer.
Standing outside her larger body of composition, while intrinsically bound to it, “Danse des Dakinis” nods toward the dakini, a female deity in Vajrayana Buddhism or a female demon in Hinduism, establishing a curious bond between wrathful female forms and the elements of nature which double, in Buddhism - a central force in Radigue’s life and work - as the absence of ego or mental obstacles, where nature itself is revealed. Here, once again, we encounter the composer in a darker meditative state, weaving the sounds of nature into those of her Arp and feedback to create a complex internal world that blurs the lines between abstraction and raw emotion, electronics and organic sounds.
It’s hard to not feel a little bitter sweet about the long overdue emergence of Éliane Radigue’s “In Memoriam-Ostinato / Danse des Dakinis”. On one hand, it’s a truly incredible and deeply illuminating body of work. On the other, it signals the end of Alga Marghen’s decade long immersion into the composers crucial, previously unreleased body of feedback works from the 1960s. Still, we couldn’t think of a better way to end than here. It’s one of the most intriguing and engaging of the group. Absolutely fantastic from the first to the last." [Soundohm]
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2022 |
€24.00 |
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Feedback Works 1969-1970 |
LP |
Feedback Works 1969-1970
However mesmerizing they may be, the works of Éliane Radigue which could be found on record were quite rare when I met her in 1998: “Trilogie de la Mort”, “Biogenesis”, impressive pieces composed on the ARP 2500 synthesizer between 1970 and 1990. There was also the very rare double 7" “Σ=a=b=a+b”, edited by the author and then brought out by the Yvon Lambert Gallery in 1969, which seemed to unveil a turbulent side of the composer’s youth. This work was intended to be presented as a sonic environment and had been composed with nothing but feedback effects on magnetic tape… a relatively crude piece compared with those for synthesizer, difficult for me to relate to. I hastily concluded that Éliane had dabbled with feedback for its hot-tempered quality, a bit like her colleagues Robert Ashley or Alvin Lucier, before passing on to something calmer (in her case, the rounded and peaceable harmonics of the synthesizer)… my mistake. “Σ=a=b=a+b” was but a small part of the group of works based on feedback, just one of the more rough nuances from that so-rich period.
When I visited her in her Paris apartment for the first time, what made an impression on me were the immense shelves taking up the entire entryway, filled from floor to ceiling with tapes. All those sounds… the whole life story of an electronic composer. Immediately I became overcome with curiosity as to the beauties hidden within those boxes, no way not to find treasures within. I did not know anything as yet.
Éliane lives in an eternal present, one could almost say. I had never met someone who at her age was not busy digging around in their past. She, on the other hand, simply considered that she always had “her whole life in front of her”.
Éliane, always inhabited by music, usually lives with a new project in mind. Even if not at all stingy in responding to questions about her rich past, one would not say that she tried to evoque times gone by.
I quickly proposed to convert her magnetic tapes to digital. Not only to create an archive but also and especially to search out all the details, the secrets of this unique body of work. For years all I got were polite but firm refusals. She wanted to convince me that there was nothing but never-ending dust, and babbling, risky if not primitive… Things only changed suddenly after a return from Chicago in 2002 for the release of “L'Île re-sonante”. Delighted with the experience, she described the evening of the concert. She had been overwhelmed by the presence of very young people who came up for a signature on the boxset of “Adnos” trilogy (realised between 1974 and 1982 and published in 2002 by Table of the Elements. This time when I said that these works of the past were in effect full of passion and so it might be the time to put in order the archive, she said laconically, but with enthusiasm: “Oh, alright! But you do it, you know where everything is”.
The big job could begin; I was enchanted and am still. I expected to find other works on the rough side, like “Σ=a=b=a+b”, but with surprise quite another thing came forth.
The digital versions were all done in Lyon, at Lionel Marchetti’s. His interest in and knowledge of Éliane’s music, along with his detailed work, made for a most enjoyable activity. I recall the silence in the studio when we uncovered works surely never listened to after their first public performance, not to say ever presented... Sounds older than I was, for sure. Certain of these works had something of the traumatic about them: my goodness, she made these magnificent sounds with only three pieces of string!
Thus were the works of the feedback period of Éliane Radigue revealed, as we gradually got them digitized, extending over five years approximately: “Omnht” with its broad tectonic vibrations, the celestial voices of “Usral”, the dense silences of “Jouet électronique”, “Stress Osaka” massive chant, the horizon moving in “Vice-versa, etc.”, the magnetic bewitchments of “Opus 17”… each one brought its load of surprises and burst a well filled time bubble. So did we rewind the thread of her biography, discovering obvious connections even in the texture of the sounds themselves, which joined that period to the synthesizer one.
There is nothing anecdotal in the feedback period of Éliane Radigue. A good dozen pieces were composed between 1967 and 1970 in which most of the characteristic originality of her works had their beginnings. It is moreover continually amazing that she could build such formidably organic sonic edifices with the primitive machines which were hers: three tape recorders, a mixing board, an amplifier, two loudspeakers and a microphone. A home studio certainly primitive, but there were not any home studios to speak of in the sixties, the cost of materials being too high. To compose electronic music, or “concrete” or “experimental” (what distinctions!) you had to have access to an institutional studio (At the time usually located in the large radio studios, or certain universities). Indeed, a large part of Éliane’s possessions came from Pierre Henry.
She met him at the “Studio d'Essai” of the R.T.F. in the middle of the 50s, after having met Pierre Schaeffer almost by chance (if such a chance does exist) who invited her to learn the techniques of musique concrète. In fact, from 1955 to 1957 she learned all about these techniques there, “in the shadow of the masters” she says. Éliane emphasizes that she could be there as a “quiet little mouse”, because she cast no shadow on the masters of the place. She learned, as she says, that she was only there as a student. During the 50s no avant-garde musician could imagine a woman seriously competing with them… Jokes erupted: “At least when Éliane comes to the studio it smells good!” etc. Nevertheless Pierre Henry liked one of Éliane’s montages and wanted to use it in a piece he was working on, “L'Occident est Bleu” (1957). From 1957 to 1967 she no longer had access to a studio. During these ten years she will be travelling, taking care of her family, and composing a few graphic scores which will never be published, or even played: “Asymptote Versatile” in 1960, or yet “Chess Game” (based on a chess match between Marcel Duchamp and her then husband, Arman). She was biding her time.
She was to once again assist Pierre Henry from 1967 to 1969, and there she made her first tape compositions. During the last stage of mixing “L'Apocalypse de Jean”, in 1968, Pierre Henry brought to her some of the materials which would become her studio, so that she could continue working on some parts of the “Apocalypse” he asked her to work on, while he continued working at Studio Apsome. These things remained in Éliane’s house and she bought what was lacking to work autonomously: one more tape recorder, a microphone, and then, in 1971, the ARP 2500 synthesizer. Even if these first compositions date from the end of the 60s it seems evident the entire creative process in Éliane Radigue’s work had begun in the Studio d’Essai in 1955.
What I always find striking when I listen to the first piece “Jouet électronique” (realized in 1967 at the Apsome Studio and published in 2010 by Alga Marghen) is the maturity and expressive force in this short composition. There is already a tension and poetry proper to her own. Similarly, “Jouet électronique” seems to contain the germ of all which is to come. Or at least it opens all the paths which she will follow indefatigably. It is as if her musical work in some way contained a martial arts discipline on which she meditated for 10 years before striking the first blow, with an impressive precision… Right away her music separates from the explorations of musique concrète, from any academism, or whatever style then in vogue. Her adventure is intuitively going towards flux, towards contemplative stasis. A music of continuous sounds, of apparently simple structures, which permits the revelations and expansion of rich acoustic phenomena. One could say that in one sense it is the very texture of the sounds which leads the form in her compositions. At the same time this approach favors an intense sensuality in the listening. The fluidity of form in Éliane Radigue’s music has more to do with certain world music traditions, composed of drones, resonances, pulsations (although I cannot be sure that this was really the inspiration). A music in which time is suspended, but not stopped, rather unfolding with an intoxicating slowness, engendering fascination rather than boredom.
Between 1969 and 1970 Éliane Radigue gave up measured durations and composed works which flirted with eternity: “Usral” (1969), “Labyrinthe Sonore” (1970). and “Omnht” (1970). They are generally made of several tape loops of clearly different duration read simultaneously. In this arrangement, simple and ingenious (close to the usage of Steve Reich in his youthful pieces), the fixed sounds go slowly out of synch, in a play of perpetual mutation. From this appears a sonic landscape whose temporality, as well as its materiality, could be described by these verses by Paul Verlaine:
“…who, each time, is never quite the same, nor completely another…”
The terms “Sound Art” and “Sound Installation” are in vogue at this moment. There was nothing like it at the time. A way of describing this new approach had to be developed. So she presented her works under the description “Propos Sonores” (Sonic propositions) or sometimes “Music without End”. These works were unveiled to the public both in the places consecrated to music as well as museums and galleries (Yvon Lambert, Lara Vincy, etc.). Nothing surprising in the fact that these “Music without End” at times, like a halo of the infinite, accompanied works of such visual artists as Marc Halpern or Tania Mouraud. For all that, without minimizing the interest of these collaborations, it seems important to add that the sounds she used have in themselves a completely “plastic” quality.
This is the context in which Éliane composed “Omnht” in 1970 for one of the architectonic spaces of the visual artist Tania Mouraud, “One More Night”, presented at the Gallery of the Rive Gauche in Paris. With Jean Heuzé, one of Pierre Henry’s co-workers who helped out on this project, Éliane had the idea of screwing the speakers into the partitions so that they would be invisible with respect to the immaculate exhibition space. Due to this the sounds could vibrate within walls which become resonant surfaces. This description caused me to “leap up to the ceiling” because it is a technique that I used myself in my sound installation work… only twenty years later. I quickly felt it necessary to present this piece anew. In 2006, thanks to an active competition by the Consortium Art Center and the association “Cumulus” in Dijon (organizers of the contemporary music festival “Why Note”), it was possible to do a version among the old industrial buildings of “L'Usine”. Large plaster partitions were already in place and formed an ideal group of surfaces for the installation of loudspeakers. Resounding in these grand rooms, “Omnht” seemed to shake the entire building, thus creating a sonic architecture of time and space… A vast edifice of vibrations, built like a mirror of frequencies in which were reflected our inner worlds. It was admirable to see how much this work had resisted time; the fascinated reception by the public left no doubt as to its poetic force. After this public presentation I set up a stereophonic synthesis of that installation in my studio, by combining the original sounds with those taken at “L'Usine”. I felt a lively need to hear those magnificent sounds again. I realized moreover that the sonorities of “Omnht” survived the reduction quite well, and I found once more with happiness the unique intensity of this spatial composition.
Some time later, Éliane offered me one of the 10 copies of “Vice-versa, etc.”: a small handmade box, signed and numbered, realized as a multiple on the occasion of a show at Lara Vincy’s gallery in 1970, which contained a reel of magnetic tape and the instructions for use. It indicates that all playback speeds are possible, forwards or backwards, as well as any combination of two channels, on several recorders, “ad libitum”… A present which touched me profoundly. I took up the game and rapidly made mixings following the indications to the letter, respecting the composition methods of Éliane Radigue. Need I say that to work with such lovely sounds was a real pleasure?
Then I decided to do the same with all her sound installation works: slices of time from those sonic environments dedicated to space and infinity. There are so few spaces devoted to Sound Art, so the occasions for presenting such work to the public are rare. It seems evident to me that if we waited for that to happen very few people would have access to that part of Éliane’s work. Fundamentally, these stereophonic syntheses should have been made and published a long time ago because this compilation offers a simple way into the home of this passionate time.
Therefore, I proposed that we listen to them together, because of course the idea should seem legitimate to her. Knowing her to be extremely critical towards her past work, and ready to renounce certain aspects of it, I confess to being a bit anxious as to her reaction. Neither did I know how she would react to my taking the initiative in making such syntheses. Contrary to my apprehensions we passed a marvelous day. Éliane had forgotten practically everything of the sonic textures she made then, and discovered evident links with the sounds she realized later on with the synthesizer.
In her compositional work Éliane Radigue developed her own characteristic “footprint”: an art of imperceptible transition from one kind of movement to another. It is very difficult to know at what moment things change, because they are continually changing without one’s really being aware of it… a little like a natural phenomenon in perpetual mutation. This is doubtless one of the magical constituents of her music and it engenders the loss of any temporal reference point. If you look over the whole from her first compositions to the most recent ones for acoustic instruments, passing through the imposing electronic period, it seems evident that this way of gentle transition is a characteristic of her entire work. Not only within the compositions but also from one composition to another. We do not confront a collection of isolated experiences but rather embark on a patient and minute exploration of a vast poetic territory.
At the end of the day it was clear to her, just as it had been for me, that these syntheses had to be complied and published. This certainly does not replace the necessity of in-situ presentations; all of the music of Éliane Radigue is destined to vibrate spatiously and this is all-the-more so for the installations. And in any case, this collection gives a good overview of the intense beauty of these “Propos Sonores” composed so long ago with such reduced means.
By her original approach, Éliane Radigue held herself, as she still does, outside the dogmas of her epoch and therefore had to sometimes face some lack of understanding. Intuition is however her force, and she has known how to continue until today composing in full independence of spirit; her aesthetic gives forth a body of work unique in its genre, honorably recognized and appreciated today.
We are among the many who see her as a pioneer capable of revealing a precious territory of sounds, one that she seems alone to occupy. To us to enjoy this publication of the first remarkable steps of a figure who holds the music of our time in her spell.
Emmanuel Holterbach
https://elianeradigue.bandcamp.com/album/feedback-works-1969-1970
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2022 |
€24.50 |
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Opus 17 |
do-LP |
"alga marghen very proudly presents "opus 17", a major turning-point in the sonic oeuvre of eliane radigue. finished in 1970 it was the last work composed with feedback materials. from that experimental period "opus 17" preserves the plastic character: a music made of rough sonic phenomena, at once harsh and granular, possessing a quality of materiality and tactility. its vibrations structure the air surrounding the listener with densities, thicknesses, indeed with palpable movement. her compositions are frames which let us hear these phenomena, open frameworks from the sonic installations of her endless musics and here reinserted in the five scenes making up "opus 17". in 1970, in her studio of very rudimentary means, she developed a completely unique body of work centered on sounds produced by feedback. "opus 17" has the quality of showing off the sum of the achieved techniques and methods. eliane radigue's music has never been rooted in ideas but in practice, the intimate experience of things in the wild which she has known how to tame. this dialog both intense and poetic which she keeps up with the solid matter of sound finds a remarkable concretization in "opus 17". it is to be underlined that with "opus 17" eliane radigue inaugurates a technique of composition which will be her footprint, her trademark: imperceptible transformations. for that she has developed a technique of meticulous mixings, based on the slow passage from one section to the next. imperceptible, all during the piece, we pass, ceaselessly and without noticing the changes, from one frequency flux to another. time is suspended, smoothed out, stretched. it is this technique which eliane radigue will be essentially using for all the electronic works to come and which she will never cease to refine and render always more subtile. "opus 17" is the great panoramic voyage through material sound, its electronic phenomena detailed as if in a microscope. could feedback really contain such a universe? "yes", the work of eliane radigue answers, but that exploration was not that easy: one had to learn to listen. it required eliane radigue's great demands on listening which led her to the discovery of such treasures. unknown wealth in a material often rejected as trivial. "opus 17" was created at the artistic center of verderonne on may 23, 1970, for the fete en blanc (i.e. white festival) organized by the visual artists antoni miralda, joan rabascall, dorothee selz and jaume xifra. 2021 repress, edition of 300 copies
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2021 |
€36.00 |
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| RADIGUE, ELIANE (FEAT. ENSEMBLE DEDALUS & RYOKO AKAMA) |
Hepta I / Occam XX |
CD |
https://montagnenoire.bandcamp.com/album/eliane-radigue
In Eliane Radigue’s work, one distinguishes or contrasts the electronic works (composed until the early 2000s) with those written for acoustic instruments. From 2002 onwards, the artist began a series of compositions, the Occams, in which, in her own words, she fully realised what she had always sought to achieve in her electronic works.
The disc devoted to her here brings together two pieces written at the same time; one for an instrumental ensemble (Dedalus) and the other for analogue synthesizer (Ryoko Akama). If the means seem to be opposed, this concordance of time lets us glimpse the deep unity that brings them together.
Dans l’oeuvre d’Eliane Radigue, on distingue ou on oppose les oeuvres électroniques (composées jusqu’au début des années 2000) à celles écrites pour instruments acoustiques. A partir de 2002 en effet, l’artiste entame une série de compositions, les Occam, dans lesquelles, selon ses propres mots, elle réalise pleinement ce qu’elle avait toujours cherché à accomplir dans ses oeuvres électroniques.
Le disque qui lui est ici consacré réunit 2 pièces qui ont été écrites à la même période ; L’une pour un ensemble instrumental (Dedalus) et l’autre, pour synthétiseur analogique (Ryoko Akama). Si les moyens semblent opposés, cette concordance de temps laisse entrevoir la profonde unité qui les rassemble.
credits
released April 22, 2023
Occam - Hepta I (2018)
Enregistré à la Cité de la musique-Philharmonie de Paris le 13 octobre 2021
Prise de son : Benjamin Maumus
Mixage : Benjamin Maumus & Didier Aschour
Occam XX (2014)
Enregistré au Dai Hall, Huddersfield (UK) le 10 décembre 2020
Prise de son : Jo Kennedy
Mastering : Giuseppe Ielasi
Presse :
De magnifiques entrelacs de violoncelle-alto-violon et trombone-trompette-saxophone ainsi que de guitare. RYOKO AKAMA joue la contrepartie électronique avec « Occam XX » sur EMS et générateur d’ondes sinusoïdales, où la netteté persistante du premier morceau est remplacée par un tapis sonore doux, mais très stoïque. De cette façon, une méditation intensive sur le silence et le son réussit en un peu moins d’une heure.
Extrait - V.A - WESTZEIT, Jazzjanzkurz - 2021
"Occam Hepta I est un mantra d'une force sidérante, à arracher à tout jamais le voile de la māyā... Interprètes parfaits !"
Extrait - Dionys - Overblog, Inactuelles, musiques singulières - 15/04/23
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2023 |
€15.00 |
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| RAISON D'ETRE |
Apres Nous Le Deluge |
LP |
Dive into the enigmatic world of raison d'être, a mesmerizing music project masterminded by the Swedish composer and sound artist, Peter Andersson. Renowned for his profound ability to conjure immersive auditory landscapes, Andersson's raison d'être has left an indelible mark on the ambient and dark-industrial genres. At the core of "raison d'être" lies a philosophy deeply intertwined with the exploration of existential themes and the mysteries of human consciousness. Andersson's sonic tapestries are intricate and multi-layered, weaving a delicate web of dark ambient, drone, and experimental sounds. The compositions are meticulously crafted, with each note and texture contributing to a greater narrative that evokes a profound sense of immersion and contemplation. The vinyl reissue of Après Nous Le Déluge marks the beginning in the ongoing story of the project. Originally released on Sound Source in 1992, the album's title translates to "After Us, the Deluge," a phrase often attributed to Madame de Pompadour, suggesting an impending catastrophe. This sentiment echoes throughout the album, as it conjures sonic landscapes that are both foreboding and introspective. From the somber tones to the ethereal drone, Après Nous Le Déluge encapsulates raison d'être's ability to evoke emotions that reside in the shadows of our psyche. Après Nous Le Déluge is more than an album; it's a sonic meditation. The gradual evolution of sounds, the interplay of ambient elements, and the delicate nuances create an immersive experience that demands your full attention. Whether experienced through headphones or on a grand stereo system, the vinyl reissue breathes new life into this iconic release, allowing you to discover new dimensions within its familiar depths. Urashima Records' meticulous attention to detail is evident in the pristine audio quality and the exquisite packaging of this reissue. The vinyl itself becomes a portal to another world, inviting you to immerse yourself fully in raison d'être's evocative sonic universe. This reissue captures the essence of the original work while adding a touch of modern refinement, making it a must-have for both dedicated fans and those new to the world of raison d'être.
https://urashima.bandcamp.com/album/apr-s-nous-le-d-luge
|
2023 |
€25.00 |
|
| RAPOON |
A pale blue Door |
BOOK + CD |
"Robin Storey, best known for his musical avatar Rapoon, has written his first book, a 68 page short story about a group of characters navigating an unfamiliar and changing world. “A Pale Blue Door” takes place in the past, the present and the future, and may involve time travel. The people in the story are trying to live their lives as best they can, but a mysterious spaceman floats in and out of view, affecting them in different ways, and never quite touching the ground.
“A Pale Blue Door” is a tightly written, well paced tale that reveals its secrets slowly. Robin Storey’s prose is concise and economical, engaging and seductive. The book begs to be read again and again.
Accompanying the book is a 60 minute Rapoon CD, also titled “A Pale Blue Door”. The compositions utilise recordings of stars, manned space missions, radio signals and emissions made available through NASA’s official website. There are also field recordings made on the marshlands of the Solway Firth in Cumberland.
Extract:
The wind moaned outside the frost rimed windows. It whipped up small eddies of snow and made swirling snow devils in the frigid air.
The landscape took on a surreal, lunar aspect in the moonlight and shadows were deepened in the silvered light.
Something moved in the shadows.
Something not human. It headed for the house with the pale blue door and left no footprints in the snow.
Silently in the sleeping night it drew closer and closer.
Billy woke with the certainty that there was someone else in the room. He sat up and looked towards the end of the bed. In the shadows and gloom he could just about discern the outline of a lumpy squat figure. His eyes grew accustomed to the light and the shadows retreated. He could see that the figure was about five feet tall and had a barrel chest and a thick limbs. The face remained in the shadows but it had a strange luminescence to it. Slowly it seemed to move forward and the face became visible. Billy shuddered. There atop this squat frame was the pale head of a pig. Small dark eyes regarded Billy without emotion.
As silently as it had appeared it vanished again into the shadows. Billy was covered in sweat and shaking. That terrible face was one he had seen before and it left him with a feeling of dread.
He sat staring at the place where the figure had been long after he could no longer see it.
The image burned onto the back of his eyes and some primeval horror clawed at his subconscious. Billy knew intuitively that this horror had existed for as long as man had been alive. It was ancient and mythical and spoke across aeons of time, perhaps even space. He continued to stare into the emptiness until a faint crackling sound brought him back to the present. He listened and tried to understand where the strange noise was coming from. After a long while he realised that the sweat which had poured from him when the dreadful vision had appeared was turning to ice on his body. He leaped from the bed and grabbed clean clothes and pulled them onto his freezing body. He pulled off the soaking bed clothes and tossed them into a far corner of the room and dragged the bed through the doorway into the living room. He went back to the bedroom to get fresh bedclothes and emptied his wardrobe onto the newly located bed, then he got planks and nails and boarded the room shut. He would never set foot in that room again.
The wind blew gently across the marshlands. The short grass rippled like the tide in the sweet smelling breeze. She sat on the turf in her best Sunday dress clutching a small posy of wild flowers she had gathered on the way. Her hair had been cut recently and a few stray strands broke free from the neat bob. She pushed them back in place with her small hands. She wanted to look her best.
Her father fussed around with his photographic equipment. Arranging tripods and lenses and polishing each item in turn with a giant yellow duster, taking great pride in his work and his treasured gadgetry.
She sniffed the air and it smelt sweet and warm. and warm." [label info]
www.soleilmoon.com
|
2015 |
€23.00 |
|
|
Blue Days |
CD |
"After three well-received, new albums ("Time-loop Anomalies" [2012], "To West and Blue" [2013] and "Fall of Drums" [2014]) and a series of reissues and archive collections, Rapoon returns to Zoharum with a brand new album. "Blue Days" is completely different from those previous releases. While on those three albums long, slowly developing compositions dominated, here there are as many as fourteen of them with the longest being less than eight minutes long, and the two shortest only forty seconds long. This is a record of ideas, sketches. The album is dominated with conciseness; however, all the songs compose one bigger piece. They show that Robin Storey is constantly looking for new artistic paths." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
" „Blue Days“ ist eines von ganzen vier neuen Alben, die 2015 von RAPOON veröffentlicht wurden, sodass den Hörer angesichts der Masse des jährlich neuen Materials doch zusehends Bedenken beschleichen könnten, ob man dem allem noch in Gänze folgen soll.
Will man das Album atmosphärisch einordnen, so kommen einem aufgrund der an die dunkle, melancholische Winterzeit gemahnenden Titel wie „Winters Chime Deep“, „On Frozen Air“ oder „Long Time Ago Now“ Gedanken an eben diese. Die Kälte und Tristesse dieser Zeit, auch als Spiegelbild der eigenen Gemütsverfassung, werden dann auch nicht mit luftigen Ethno-Rhythmen und exotischen Gesängen musikalisch ausgekleidet, sondern es dominieren, raue, kantige, auch mal etwas unrund erscheinende Loops, dunkle Chöre und glatte, frostige Synthesizerpads. Natürlich tauchen auch hier und da Samples von exotischen Instrumenten und ethnisch angehauchte Rhythmen auf („In Black“, „With Dance Of Trees“, „Black Shadows“), die das Ganze klanglich etwas auflockern – aber leider auch teilweise eher unpassend zum Rest wirken und die Stimmung brechen. Neben der Instrumentierung bringt sich ROBIN STOREY allerdings auch stimmlich mehr ein als sonst schon einmal. Hier und da wird die Musik mit seinem Raunen unterlegt bzw. beim absolut gelungenen Titelstück „Blue Days“ kann man fast schon von Gesang sprechen, wobei die Tracks mit dem raunenden Sprechgesang wie „Long Time Ago Now“ auch ansonsten positiv auffallen. Angenehm ist außerdem, dass die Stücke maximal 7-8 Minuten lang sind – oft auch kürzer – sodass ein dynamischer Eindruck des Albums verbleibt.
Dem guten Eindruck wirkt lediglich das doch unterkomplexe bis allzu simple Klangkonstrukt „On Frozen Air“ das unglücklicherweise auch noch direkt an zweiter Stelle nach dem Intro platziert ist, entgegen. Davon sollte man sich allerdings nicht abschrecken lassen, auch wenn natürlich nicht alle Tracks durchgehend zünden bzw. manchmal etwas unfertig im Raum stehen („With Dance Of Trees“, „Black Shadows“). Am Ende ist „Blue Days“ ein solides, aus meiner Sicht eher leicht zugängliches, klanglich nicht zu minimales RAPOON-Album geworden, dem es hier und da allerdings an atmosphärischer Geschlossenheit fehlt und an der Person, die schwache Stücke oder sinnfreie Fragmente auch einfach einmal aussortiert. Das scheint gerade im Ambient- und Electronica-Sektor aber manchmal schwer zu sein, wie mir scheint."
[Tony F. für nonpop.de] |
2016 |
€13.00 |
|
|
Downgliding |
CD |
"This is the third release on our Carpe Sonum Novum sublabel.
released September 28, 2015
These recordings began with playing Xpand 2, the software instrument included in Pro Tools.
I was listening to the electric piano instruments and tried out a few different settings until I got the sound that became the inspirational building block for these compositions.
A kind of sonar ping.
Lost, lonesome.
A sound resonant with searching and finding.
A hopeful enquiry sent into the depths awaiting reply.
I was reminded of listening to Pink Floyd's Meddle when I was a youngster and the emotional impact sounds and music had when i was just a listener.
Just listening is an important part of composition. Karlheinz Stockhausen said as much.
So did the guys in Can.
Just listening is sometimes the hardest thing you can do.
Just listening is sometimes the most important and rewarding thing you can do.
In these recordings I tried to just listen.
The sea ebbed and flowed." [label info]
www.carpesonum.com
|
2015 |
€14.00 |
|
|
Waiting by the River |
CD |
"Klanggalerie are very happy to announce a new collaboration with Rapoon after a far too long 12 year break. Waiting By The River is the all-new album by Robin Storey that takes the project into previously uncharted territory. Founded in 1992 after Storey left Zoviet France, Rapoon soon became an outstanding ethno-dark ambient project that has gained a cult following all over the world. More than 50 albums have been released over those 25 years, some more beat driven, others more playful and with ambient sounds and ethnic influences. Rapoon has never stopped evolving - think of Cultural Forgeries, an album full of unplugged acoustic music. Or Downgliding, full of compositions on the piano. In 2016, Rapoon presents you an album full of songs. You will hear guitars, vocals, stories are being told. A very different approach to Rapoon and one you've never heard before. Needless to say, the trademark Rapoon sound is still there. But this time you get a little extra. Another milestone in the band's discography. Low stock. "After the austerity of the 1950’s we entered the 1960’s with huge optimism and the belief that anything was possible. We had a new world opening out in front of us. A world of rapid technological advancement. A world of new foods. A world of new cars, new jobs, new possibilities. We were going to the moon. We were promised holidays on the moon. It was to be a world of plenty. You believe these things when you are five years old. The booming sixties came and went. We landed on the moon. The seventies saw a decline in economy and in hope. First Thatcher, then Blair, then Cameron went on to destroy everything that had been built for the people after the second world war. Now it was all for the privileged The moneyed. The few. An old lady sits by a billabong under a clear blue sky. She talks with her ancestors who wait by the river. As they have waited for millennia. She sings an ancient song. The water trembles." [label info]
www.klanggalerie.com
|
2016 |
€14.00 |
|
|
Seeds in the Tide Vol. 5 |
do-CD |
Here's the fifth instalment in the series entitled 'Seeds in the Tide' featuring rare and unreleased Rapoon recordings. The next part focuses on 2008-2011 compositions from Robin Storey's project history. These seventeen diverse pieces are a great introduction to Rapoon's body of work, and at the same time they will please all the hardcore fans searching for every recording of the project. On this fifth volume you will find collaborative works, remixes for other projects, the full version of 'Human Energy Field' (from the sold-out compilation 'From Earth to Sirius', which was the beginning of Zoharum collaboration with Rapoon), unreleased track from 'Stray' album and other curios. Three twenty-minute compositions seem to be the highlights at first, although there are a lot of interesting bits among shorter tracks as well.
rapoon.bandcamp.com/album/seeds-in-the-tide-vol-5-2xcd
|
2017 |
€16.00 |
|
|
Airstrikes / Easterly Moon |
do-CD |
'Airstrikes' is Robin Storey's brand new album on Zoharum since 'Blue Days' released back in 2015. Unlike the latter, 'Airstrikes' contains longer compositions that combine the different recurring themes from Rapoon repertoire from the past 25 years. These are both inspirations from oriental music and rhythmic structures that derive directly from dance music. The seven compositions on the album are subtle observations of the processes taking place in the modern world.
Airstrikes announced on the news bulletin with the same detachment as announcing a rise in the price of petrol...
A computer game… a dancing crosshairs above a target...
The sound of a dulcimer playing an ancient song careens through the dusty, dry desert air...
Life persists.... we are such stuff as dreams are made on…
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/airstrikes
|
2018 |
€18.00 |
|
|
Airstrikes |
CD |
'Airstrikes' is Robin Storey's brand new album on Zoharum since 'Blue Days' released back in 2015. Unlike the latter, 'Airstrikes' contains longer compositions that combine the different recurring themes from Rapoon repertoire from the past 25 years. These are both inspirations from oriental music and rhythmic structures that derive directly from dance music. The seven compositions on the album are subtle observations of the processes taking place in the modern world.
Airstrikes announced on the news bulletin with the same detachment as announcing a rise in the price of petrol...
A computer game… a dancing crosshairs above a target...
The sound of a dulcimer playing an ancient song careens through the dusty, dry desert air...
Life persists.... we are such stuff as dreams are made on…
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/airstrikes
|
2017 |
€12.00 |
|
|
Hotel Bravo |
CD |
After a longer break Rapoon returns to Zoharum with allbrand new studio recorded album. The eponymous „Hotel Bravo” is a relict of sorts, which lost its splendor with time and water that took away a part of adjacent land. This decaying building is also a symbol. A special place evoking fragile memories, scraps of images and long forgotten conversations. It’s all the movies seen during the time of adolescence. Finally, it’s all the dreams dreamt years ago by guests within its premises…
The above depicts a journey to which Robert Storey invites you on a course of its eight intricately woven sound compositions.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/hotel-bravo
|
2020 |
€12.00 |
|
|
Dust of Souls (re-issue) |
CD |
“Dust of Souls” was previously released by Ultra Mail Prod. Limited to 100 copies release was almost entirely sold out in pre-sale leaving many Rapoon fans empty handed and aurally dissatisfied. Trying to meet the expectations of those who weren’t lucky enough to get this album Zoharum picks up the gauntlet and decides to reissue this important piece of Rapoon’s discography.
Album presents 8 tracks of trance inducing rhythms and sounds. With a use of processed acoustic instruments, electronics and ambient scapes Robin Storey takes us on a journey to the unknown lands and spaces. Near East ethnic influences are served in a form of loop based brain captivating compositions. Think of softer side of Muslimgauze but more ritual and hypnotic.
As usual former member of :zoviet*france: delivers a great piece of listening, where you can fully appreciate his years of experience as musician and independent artist. This is experimental music in its best.
Album comes in 6 panel digipack limited to 500 copies.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/dust-of-souls |
2020 |
€12.00 |
|
|
Seeds in the Tide Vol. 6 |
do-CD |
4 years have passed since the publication of the previous part of "Seeds in the Tide vol. 5". So it's high time to release the next volume in a compilation series containing rare Rapoon tracks scattered across a variety of smaller releases and compilations. The sixth part contains recordings from the years 2013-2016, mainly from the 7th EPs "Moon and Cups Quarter 1-4", "Calling the Rain" and several compositions prepared for the purposes of variety compilations, appearing in the same period of time. The first album "Keepsakes and Oddities from 2013-2016" is complemented by the recording of the Rapoon concert, which took place in the summer of 2013 during the Gorlice Ambient Festival ..
Two-disc album released in six-panel digipack, limited to 500 copies
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/seeds-in-the-tide-volume-6 |
2021 |
€17.00 |
|
| |
Fallen Gods |
do-LP |
‘Fallen Gods’ is the third studio album by Rapoon aka Robin Storey, formerly of :zoviet*france:. Originally released in 1994, ‘Fallen Gods’ emerged amid a prolific early period for the Rapoon project, following in the wake of debut album ‘Dream Circle’ – originally released in 1992 – and second outing ‘Raising Earthly Spirits’, released a year later. Building on the haunting industrial ethers of ‘Dream Circle’ and the esoteric, rhythmic drone of ‘Raising Earthly Spirits’, ‘Fallen Gods’ consolidates many of the sounds and disciplines that had shaped Storey’s work up to this point, while indicating a newfound, concerted focus on classical Indian instrumentation. The results represent a synthesis of myriad ideas, rooted in the duality between modernity and mysticism.
Throughout ‘Fallen Gods’ the reverberant pulse of Tabla-led percussion and the remote tones of what sounds like the Bulbul tarang (aka Indian banjo) resound and repeat in locked instrumental cycles, as vast, atmospheric shadows and echoes are unfurled. On ‘Sanctum’ Storey creates a mesmeric form of ceremonial indigenous music and with ‘Iron Path’ combines ramshackle, automotive percussion and distant zither-like emanations. Intensities are heightened with the title track, as Storey delivers a sidereal melee of barrelling drum sequences, gleaming ambient vapours, and stuttering glossolalia. In these opening exchanges, as with much of ‘Fallen Gods’, archaic modes of musical performance are uniquely reconstructed, as organic elements are subjected to inventive technological processes; primitivism made mechanical.
Presenting a pure vista of celestial drone on ‘Breathing Gold’, the album resumes a hypnotic, scrupulous exploration of perpetual drum cadences, deep modulations of traditional instrumentation and prodigious ripples of spectral, otherworldly resonances on ‘Sataranum’ and ‘Sacrement’. Works of infinite circular rhythms. From here the unadorned ancient tones of ‘Khomat’ and the chasmal nomadic roots music of ‘Dusk Red Walls’ present a shift in momentum, a sense of pause and suspended reflection, before the ascendant finale of ‘Valley’, a coda of undulating keys, expansive FX, and condensed surges of sampled percussion. Altogether these compositions form a deeply arresting body of work that is arguably considered one of Storey’s finest works, a record that still sounds both completely original and remarkably timeless.
An enigmatic landmark in Storey’s early solo output, ‘Fallen Gods’ sees the sound world of the Rapoon project reiterated, expanded and memorably enriched. Across nine tracks Storey weaves together indeterminate, sonorous currents of ambient and experimental electronics with magnetic, sprawling passages of acoustic instrumentation, creating a profound work of entrancing, ritualistic minimalism. Comparisons could be drawn with the panoramic soundscapes of Lustmord, the fourth world ambitions of Jon Hassell, the heavy outernational psychedelia of Psychick Warriors ov Gaia but really ‘Fallen Gods’ illustrates an artist establishing their own trajectory, a distinct indication that Storey had moved way beyond :zoviet*france:. into the flourishing territories and intricate sound environments of the Rapoon project.
Remastered by Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound).
https://abstrakce.bandcamp.com/album/fallen-gods |
2022 |
€27.00 |
|
| RATSIMANDRESY, NADIA / MATTEO RAMON AREVALOS |
Messiaen et autour de Messiaen for Onde Martenot and Piano |
CD |
"A signature collection of exquisite works for onde Martenot and piano by Olivier Messiaen, N'Guyen Thien Dao, Jacques Charpentier and Tristan Murail, exploring the many voices of this extraordinary instrument. The onde (or ondes musicales or le Martenot) was first demonstrated at the Paris Conservatoire in 1928 and immediately attracted the attention of Varese, Milhaud, Koechlin, Jolivet, Honegger and Messiaen, who all wrote for it - cumulatively ensuring its survival. Seven years younger than the theremin, the onde is a far more sophisticated, complex and versatile instrument, not least because of the combination it offers of pitched and glissando tones, and the wide range of filters and different resonating media through which it can sound: loudspeakers, gongs, sympathetic resonating strings and reverberant enclosures. The compositions here exploit every unearthly aspect of the instrument and are beautifully performed: a remarkable and exquisite collection." [label info]
www.rermegacorp.com
|
2009 |
€14.00 |
|
| RE-DRUM |
Eclipse |
CD-R |
"ACR 1030: CD-R in plastic case and transparent paper sleeve
Re-Drum aka Russian artist Pavel Aleshin claims that his music sounds like “a broken AM radio in the heart of a ghost city,” and this album goes a long way to substantiating this claim. The sound quality is not at all broken, but very clear. Yet the slow drift of long, sustained electronic sounds reverberating in what could be imagined as empty passageways, certainly invokes a deserted nocturnal cityscape or, as one title claims, “night in a dead Lunapark.”
Contrary to what might be expected from these statements and also from Re-Drum’s earlier releases of deep drone/noise soundscapes, the music on “eclipse” does not have a particularly scary edge. It may convey a certain sense of yearning and melancholy, but the overall feel is one of warmth and calm contemplation. And there is indeed quite a lot to contemplate in these four compositions, all about 10 to 15 minutes long. While the music makes full use of the psychedelic potential of repetitive microtonal drones, in other layers of the composition there is also a lot of interplay going on between sampled acoustic instruments and undecipherable ambient noises. Great music for a state of wide-awake trance." [label info]
www.attenuationcircuit.de
|
2013 |
€8.00 |
|
| RED FAVORITE |
same |
LP |
"Jeremy Pisani recorded these 11 tracks between 1996 and 2003. As a resident of western Massachusetts, he shared stages with acts like Sunburned Hand of Man (=vaguely focused free folk), P.G.Six (acid folk, reviewed on next page), MV & EE Medicine Show (=avant music), Flaherty & Corsano duo (=avant music), Dredd Foole (=guitarist / s-sw, -havn’t hear him yet-) and Joshua (psych-folk) has maintained a curiously low profile.
The combinations of fingerpicking guitar meanderings with additional textures and some murmering voice (like on “First”) fits well with music like early Tower Recordings, Six Organs Of Admittance, Currituck Co., etc. Jeremy described his music well as “A soundtrack for dreams, chemical endeavours, human afflictions and distant memories”.
Acoustic guitar is the main instrument, often as acoustic guitar meanderings, with textures and fingerpicking improvisations, combined with some additional instruments like amplified guitar and banjo. On several tracks the guitar is combined with mellotron : on “Routine”, “Cistern”, “Wingshot”, and on the slightly loaded “Flight”. There are also touches of collages with other sounds (like with a distant phonograph on “Agrippa”). The production and mixing is well done and in a combination of songs the concept has been made optimal. I heard for instance an original use of changing the environmental echoes or tensions in the recordings on “Stormwatch”. “Pallid” has also a strangely mixed sound, which has some surreal effect, probably benifits from a less perfect recording. And “Flight” which has a somewhat dense tension is mixed as outro into the quieter acoustic fingerpicking solo. In between tracks with more tension are various very moody instrumental tracks like “Routine”, which has also flute and mellotron. A strange track is “Green Hill Beach” which starts with waves, then has guitar improvisations (amplified and acoustic), some voice whispers, and then evolves to more and more electro-acoustic and electric guitars echoes, to a point of saturation with effects, then calms down as if filtered again to amplified guitar meanderings only. In general I can say that those people who liked the experimental approaches from Six Organs of Admittance should check this artist too. But also fans of Joshua / P.G.Six might notice here a wonderful undiscovered talent.
The last hidden 12th track is a beautiful solo fingerpicking instrumental closer in Middle Eastern mode. A release which definitely deserves to be heard with an official publication." [Psychedelic Folk]
"Red Favorite, a cycle of compositions for guitars, electronics and voices created by Jeremy Pisani was first released as a limited edition CD on Spirit of Orr and is now offered, as it was originally conceived to appear, on an LP. He moved closer and looked through the peephole. And he saw: the world stretched out before him, a quiet and gentle space with a broad expanse of grass that practically glistened in its greenness. A sparkling brook ran through the meadow in the middle distance, and now he saw that the grass was dotted with the pale blue and soft yellow of many blooming flowers, which, half hidden in the grass, stared out at him like so many frightened eyes. On a distant hilltop stood a grove of small pink trees, covered and obscured by the astonishing pinkness of their blossoms. The world had a sense of freshness, as if it might only be minutes old -- washed clean by a careful springtime rain, dried and scrubbed by a solicitous breeze, burnished to its brightness by the rays of a gentle sun. It was an uncomplicated place, a very simple place. But what it had was quite enough; it had all it needed." [label notes] |
2008 |
€15.50 |
|
| REED, RICK |
Music for the Rothko Chapel |
10 |
Die zweite in der Beta-Lactam 10”-Serie kommt von dem uns unbekannten Komposer RICK REED, der sich hier von einem Mark Rothko Gemälde hat insprieren lassen... herausgekommen sind dabei extrem schleichend-hochfrequente Drones, deren Textur sich langsam verändert, Musik wie gemalt (?) ... eindringlich und etwas unheimlich...
Nr. 2 in the “Lactamase”-series of 12 records. RICK REEDS compositions are high-pitched, eerie drones that crawl into the room...inspired by a large Rothko-painting located in a chapel in Houston, TX. Highly recommended! “The music like the paintings, is almost totally monochromatic. Starting with a single bit of guitar feedback, recorded, then played back into the room with additional bits of feedback added each time, recorded layer by layer until "all the brush strokes were rendered nearly invisible". The end result is not at all like feedback, but more like a huge dark cloud of electronic sound, like a totally bent orchestra with a way out string and flute section hell bent on exploring the nether regions.
|
2001 |
€12.50 |
|
| |
Dreamz / Blue Polz |
pic-LP |
Rauschig-repetitive Analog- & Mechano-drones, füllig & dicht auf Seite 1, ruhiger & ätherischer auf Seite 2, kreiert mit Analog-Synth, Sinustone-Generator und Kurzwellen-Radio. Das sind quasi die Soundtracks für 2 von RICK REEDS abstrakten Gemälden, die auf dieser picture-disc abgebildet sind. Schöne Arbeit des Texaners mit starkem 70er Jahre Drone & Minimalismus-Touch.
"Beautiful picture disc LP featuring two full-color reproductions of visual works by Rick Reed and two new side-long solo compositions. Reed's fascinating, highly evolved world is represented well by these two new pieces, each of which offers up the kind of droning intensity and unsettling beauty that this veteran noisemaker has come to be known for. Reed's work is very obviously that of an experienced craftsman - one whose sound is a reverent nod to early electronic music underscored by an enduring sensibility for atmosphere and ethereality.
Dreamz began life as the soundtrack for a live visual display by filmmaker Ken Jacobs, which was performed live by Jacobs and Reed at the 2007 New York Film Festival. The record’s flipside, Blue Polz, was also inspired by the work of a filmmaker (originally conceived as a kind of alternate soundtrack to a piece by Fred Worden). All of the music was created using an EMS Synthi A, plus 2 sine wave generators and a shortwave radio. The artwork comes from two original paintings. Reed has been active in the visual arts for more than 20 years; his work is utterly abstract, beautifully enigmatic. These images are the perfect accompaniment to Reed’s otherworldly audio counterparts.
In addition to his solo work, Rick Reed has participated in a number of productive collaborations over the years with Keith Rowe, Jgrzinich (in Frequency Curtain), the Abrasion Ensemble, and SIRSIT. He currently resides in Austin. This picture disc LP has been released in an edition of 260 copies." [label info]
"From the improvisation world of Texas comes Rick Reed, who has been around for quite some time, playing with Keith Rowe (it's this Rick from that AMM title), the Abrasion Ensemble and Sirsit, of whom I never heard. He has had various solo releases on Elevator Bath before. These two pieces here were part of something bigger: one as a 'live visual display by filmmaker Ken Jacobs', and the other one could be an alternative soundtrack to a piece by one Fred Worden. Reed uses a EMS Synthi A, two sine wave generators and a shortwave radio. The first side, if I detected that alright, is a very minimal piece of soft flowing, high pitched tones. Like far away insects chirping whilst the dawn sets in. Over the course of the side dawn gets dark and insects quiet out. The other side start out in the middle of the dark night but it stays night: dark humming organ like drones, which are filtered out over the course of the piece, until some chorus like sounds drop. Of these four sides, this is the most single minded, and for me the least interesting, even when it's not bad either. Two fine to great records, lovely picture disc and highly limited. Yummy." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
www.elevatorbath.com
|
2008 |
€17.50 |
|
| REMOTE VIEWERS |
To the North |
CD |
"With their 9th release The Remote Viewers unveil a radically different sound. Recorded live in one studio session, with the rhythm section of John Edwards & Mark Sanders, this recording is a document of a band coming out of transition and rediscovering a group voice, to interpret the unique compositions of David Petts.
David Petts : tenor sax
Adrian Northover : soprano sax
Sue Lynch : tenor sax
Caroline Kraabel : alto & baritone saxes
John Edwards : double bass
Mark Sanders : drums
Rosa Lynch-Northover : marimba" [label info]
www.theremoteviewers.com
|
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
City of Nets |
CD |
"A new statement by The Remote Viewers, who stole my heart some ago with their ‘Nerve Cure’ album. ‘City of Nets’ is latest effort of this sextet. Again with John Edwards (double bass, cello, drum programming), Caroline Kraabel (baritone sax), Sue Lynch (tenor sax), Rosa Lynch-Northover (keyboards, percussion), Adrian Northover (soprano, sopranino, alto saxes) and David Petts (tenor sax, noise generator). And again they prove themselves to be masters of understatement in 10 well-defined complex compositions. Pieces are divided into rhythm-based pieces, with – no wonder – a role for percussion, all down to earth pieces. Where the other half consists of pieces that are far more atonal and with the beat stripped. Like the extensive ‘The Wiring Party’ that is near to sound-oriented improvisation, or ‘Strange Welcome’ with a spooky mellotron-like tone on the forefront. Everything is composed by David Petts. Fine arrangements as well .Very pronounced playing and musical form. A crystal clear recording that makes it possible to register and enjoy every detail." [DM/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| REUTOFF |
Gute Nacht, Berlin |
CD |
Zweites Album der russischen dark ambient Industrial – Koryphäen, eher ruhig–introvertiert-melancholisch wie auf den frühen Tapes, mit deutlichem WW II - Bezug. Die Musik wirkt wie ein Epitaph, das voller niemals zu überwindender Trauer die Erinnerung an die Schrecken der jüngeren Geschichte wach halten will...
“....Fifth opus from the Russian trio, 'Gute Nacht, Berlin!' as the previous 'The Fourth Face' 10" and 'ReuTRauM III' 7" is also released by the Austrian label HauRuck! This is the 2nd CD in the Reutoff discography. Released just a few months after 'Unseen Rituals', 'Gute Nacht, Berlin!' is musically very close to the previous mentioned album. The ambiances are the ones we expect when listening to this band: sometimes ritual, hidden... sometimes floating, atmospheric... but always with the undescribable 'something' specific to Reutoff that sets them apart from other bands...
No need to give more details, as the whole album is brilliant. Nevertheless I can't prevent myself from underlining the beauty of the second title 'die sunden der vater'. Just let yourself be carried away by the magnificent soundscapes and the drawn out melody... A very long (11 minutes) industrial ambient piece that is certainly one of the very best Reutoff titles I have ever heard!
The album also features two new versions ('Libera me (edit)' and 'Allegoria No. 3') of excellent tracks present on the first tape of the band ('Das Absterben' released in 1998), re-released a few months ago on CD-R by the Italian label By Blade. For those who do not own this tape or the very limited CD-R, this an excellent opportunity to listen to two compositions based on ancient works...
'Die rote fahne' also deserves to be mentioned... Built upon a combination of small, minimalist and repetitive noises with a rather epic Russian song (extracted from or mixed with a film?), this original composition will endlessly intrigue the listeners... The CD comes in a nice full-coloured digipack and is obviously highly recommended, while waiting for the soon to be released fifth part of the ReuTRauM series...” [NathalieF., Heimdallr]
|
2003 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
No One's Lullabies |
CD |
"No One's Lullabies" is the 9th album by Reutoff, one of the best-known Russian projects on the international post-industrial scene. Over the course of one hour they will be performing their "lullabies" which won't let you sleep though... The whole panopticon of borderline mental states will unfold before the eyes of our attention. Every track is a masterfully performed decadent dance of emotions and feelings. Steady industrial rhythms, an unhasting but assertive semi-drunk waltz, circus-like grotesque with wicked medieval shades, comatose jazz swinging in dark tones and epic electronic doom that could also fit well in the repertoire of their brother-project Otzepenevshiye - all imbued with remarkable spirit and slightly inflamed imagination.
The material entitled "No One's Lullabies" was initially produced as a cassette mini-album by the German label Sea State in 2014 in a small edition of 80 copies in unconventional handmade packaging. The extended version with four additional compositions was put out by Reutoff on their bandcamp page as a web-release. Now we're glad to present the CD version of the album for the happy owners of CD-players and optical drives! The CD-edition contains an exclusive bonus track with a live version of one of Reutoff's rare compositions. The disc is packed in a matte 4-panel cardboard digisleeve, artwork features paintings by Fabrice Billard, the chef of Divine Comedy Records.
http://zhb.radionoise.ru/
"If someone were to ask me, which post-industrial artist gives you the biggest pleasure when you listen to their music, I would never mention Reutoff. If somebody else were to ask me which project is in my opinion the most daring in its experiments or simply the most innovative in the scene, Reutoff wouldn’t be my pick either. But if you were to ask me about the musician who combines experimental with so-called “catchiness” the most effectively, well, I’d have to think about mentioning this Russian duo.
They’ve been active for about 18 years, releasing a variety of materials, also in collaboration with other artists in their famous Kreuzung series: a collection of names such as Deutsch Nepal, Troum or Der Blutharsch. “No One’s Lullabies” was originally released on tape, thanks to the Sea State label from Leipzig. Zhelezobeton gives us an extended edition on CD, with five additional tracks and a cover image painted by Fabrice Billard, the owner of the Divine Comedy label.
For many years Reutoff’s line of work and constructing additional sound structures has more or less been the same. They take a nicely crafted industrial background, a mid-tempo rhythm theme, often looped and encrusted with other trinkets and little diamonds, so that most of the tracks possess a slowly yet nicely building tension that leads to a culmination, abundant in sounds and atmospheres. Not all of the tracks though: Reutoff is not a project that always chooses the easy and proven ways – check this splendid dark ambient of a non-obvious feeling in “Nameless Tune With No Fate”.
This is also one of Reutoff’s huge advantages. That you can’t describe their atmosphere in one or two words. You need to build the whole story in your mind, different for each track. It may be dystopian sci-fi straight from Orwell or Bradbury novels; a dark yet epic, sometimes even strangely romantic story, similar to, say, “Blade Runner”. After all, titles like “New World Disorder” or “Requiem for Android” cannot be a coincidence. On the other hand in some track you may notice a somehow optimistic… no, not a good word – a note that breathes with hope. Saying that not everything is lost, that there are still new and mysterious worlds to explore even though our planet is lost.
I feel this modern sci-fi element is pretty solid in Reutoff’s works, which is even more interesting considering the fact that when it comes to technical matters a strong analogue vibe emanates over the whole of “No One’s Lullabies”. This is specific for many post-industrial artists coming from Russia, that while they’re faithful to classic samplers and synths, they’re able to achieve such a fresh effect. Reutoff, Cyclotimia, Sal Solaris, some Cisfinitum efforts. This offering is no different, and once again provides us with a certificate of the uniqueness of the Russian post-industrial scene." [Stark/Santa Sangre mag]
|
2015 |
€13.00 |
|
| REYNOLDS, ROGER |
Process and Passion |
do-CD |
From the liner notes: "...the serpent-snapping eye (1978) was composed for trumpet, percussion, piano and 4-channel tape. The work is twenty minutes long, divided into three roughly equal sections. In the first, the primary aim of the performers is to match, submit to and intensify the taped sounds. The second, in which the synthesized sounds are sparse, introduces a felling of independence as the performers respond, reflecting on models provided by the tape. In the final section, the live performers complement and elaborate upon -- they attempt to augment -- the synthesized sound. Ping and Traces were composed to complement one another. Ping represents a continuing interest in theater and intermedia running through Reynolds' compositions since The Emperor of Ice Cream (1961-62). In live performance the three strands of events occur simultaneously but are not synchronized. As a recorded performance, Ping is a self-sustained composition of instrumental improvisation over taped and electronic music. Traces was written for the composer-pianist Yuji Takahashi. Scored for solo piano, with flute, cello, ring modulator, signal generator, and 6 independent channels of taped sound, this work is concerned not only with events but their residues (traces)." |
2004 |
€14.00 |
|
| REYNOLS |
Minecxio Greatest No Hits |
LP |
A comprehensive compilation documenting the exciting career of the legendary experimental Argentinian cult band Reynols. A career overview through eight of their most mesmerizing compositions. The fact that their drummer and singer Miguel Tomasin has down syndrome not only makes them one of the longest-running and most notable inclusive rock bands of all time, but also allows us to appreciate the importance of Miguel's creative contribution, both for his singular way of singing and for his inimitable verbal inventions. For his work with the band, Miguel stands as one of the most relevant personalities with down's syndrome in the world and his name appears mentioned in diverse books of neuroscience and neurodiversity. Their long list of collaborators includes luminaries such as Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Pauline Oliveiros, Damo Suzuki (Can), The Nihilist Spasm Band, Michael Snow, N U Unruh (Einstürzende Neubauten), Alan Licht, Pajarito Zaguri, Acid Mothers Temple, John Oswald and many more.
https://beatgeneration1.bandcamp.com/album/reynols-minecxio-greatest-no-hits |
2023 |
€26.00 |
|
| RIEDL, JOSEF ANTON |
Klangregionen 1951-2007 |
do-CD |
"Wie kaum ein anderer hat J.A.Riedl sowohl mit seinen zahlreichen Werken als auch
mit seinen kulturpolitischen Aktivitäten das Musikleben der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
nachhaltig geprägt.
As almost no other, with his many works and his cultural activities, J.A.Riedl has left an
indelible mark on musical life in the Federal Republic of Germany.
ed. RZ 1020-21 2CD
Josef Anton Riedl: Klangregionen 1951 - 2007
Neuerscheinung: Siemens-Studio für elektronische Musik, Studio für konkrete Musik (J. A. Riedl)
Cover Design: Ott + Stein, Berlin; Scan: Christine Berkenhoff
CD 1
* Paper Music I 1961/70
* aus Folge von 4 Studien: Studie 59 I 1959
* Zeichnen - Klatschen/Zeichnen - Zeichnen 1979/81
* aus Landschaftsbeschreibung I 1973
* Mix Fontana Mix 1974/76/79
* aus Silphium Metallophonic 1969/70
* aus Lautgedichtfolge g) 1977/79/98
* Ausfluss, Niederschlag, Spur, Nachhall I 2000/02/07
* Douce-Amère 1972/74/81
* Komposition Nr. 2 1963/65
* Polygonum 1968/70
* aus Leonce und Lena 1963/64
* Vielleicht - Duo 1963/68/70
* Musique Concrète - Studie II 1951/59
* Musique Concrète - Studie I 1951/59
* Leonce und Lena b 1963 ·
* aus Folge von 4 Studien: Studie 62 I 1962
* aus Folge von 4 Studien: Studie 62 II 1962
CD 2
* Komposition Nr. 3 1965/67
* Ideir notna fesoj Radiophonisches Porträt von Helmut Rohm 1996
* aus Folge von 4 Studien: Studie 61 I 1961
* Klangsynchronie I Studie 59 1981
* Elektronische Musik - Studie II 1959
* Elektronische Musik - Studie I 1958
Gesamtspielzeit: CD 1 ca. 68:00 | CD 2 ca. 70:00 | insgesamt ca. 138:00"
"Edition RZ presents a 2CD collection of work from German electronic and multimedia composer Josef Anton Riedl. Spanning the diverse breadth of his musical output from 1951-2007, Riedl has left an indelible mark on music history in the Federal Republic of Germany with his many works and cultural activities. A pioneer in early concrète and electronics, Riedl joined Pierre Shaeffer's Groupe de Recherches Musicales from 1953-1955. He worked at various music studios including the NWDR (Northwest German Broadcasting) studio in Cologne, and was the artistic director of the Siemens Studio For Electronic Music from 1959-1966. During the same period he founded the Neue Musik München/Klang-Aktionen concert series, and established the Musik/Film/Dia/Licht-Galerie, which has presented multimedia compositions ("sound/light/scent-games"), audiovisual environments, events, exhibitions ("Paper Music I," "Optische," "Akustische Lautgedichte") and installations at important national and international festivals. This collection samples some of Riedl's most compelling work, including his "Paper Music" and musique concrète experiments." [label info / credits]
www.edition-rz.de
"Eine fulminante Werkschau in gewohnter EdRZ-Qualität, man muss es so sagen. Schickes Design und informatives Booklet; ein Release mit dem man wahrlich in eine andere Klangwelt eintauchen, eben in neue Klangregionen vordringen kann. Das Beste aber ist: Riedl funktioniert auch nackt! Seine verschwurbelten Wagnisse sind forschender Bruitismus, feinste Punzmunster auf unseren Trommelfellen. Montierte und studiobearbeitete Sprachklänge, sirrende Electroacoustics und erweiterte Kammermusikskizzen sind alle auf dieser Doppel-CD zu finden, die um einige Radioarbeiten und Versuche aus dem Siemens Studio München komplettiert wird." [Zipo, Auf Abwegen]
|
2009 |
€23.00 |
|
| RIPARBELLI, PIETRO / K11 |
Three Days of Silence. The Mountain of the Stigmata |
CD |
" “Three days of silence” is conceived as complete phenomenological experience of listening. I have been three days within the Sanctuary of La Verna on the top of a mountain called “the mountain of the Stigmata” in Tuscany. I’ve lived together with the monks recording and attending the ceremonies and the sounds of the place trying to penetrate in a dimension of pure contemplation.
La Verna, in Latin Alvernia and geographically known as Monte Penna, is a locality on Mount Penna, an isolated mountain of 1,283 m situated in the centre of the Tuscan Apennines. The place is known especially for its association with Saint Francis of Assisi (he is said to have received the stigmata here) and for the Sanctuary of La Verna, which grew up in his honour.
Count Orlando of Chiusi gave La Verna to Francis on May 8, 1213 as a retreat specially favourable for contemplation, and in 1218 built him the chapel Santa Maria degli Angeli. In August, 1224, frustrated by the changes in the Order of Friars Minor, Francis withdrew to La Verna to keep a forty days fast in preparation for Michaelmas and while praying on the mountain- side he received (on or about 17 September) the stigmata.
After seeing a vision of a seraphim he began to develop nails of hardened flesh which protruded from his hands and feet. He also began to form a wound in his side like that of Christ. Thus La Verna came to be seen as sacred ground. Pope Alexander IV took it under his protection.
In 1260 a church was consecrated there in presence of St. Bonaventure and several bishops. A few years later the Chapel of the Stigmata was erected, paid for by Count Simone of Battifole, near the spot where the miracle took place. The Chiesa Maggiore was begun in 1348, although not finished until 1459." [label info]
www.gruenrekorder.de
"When buried with a lot of releases to review for Vital Weekly, I sometimes wish to retreat to a monastery and not be interrupted by such mundane things as e-mail, telephone, shopping and just blend in with the tranquility of monastery life. Pietro Riparbelli did visit a sanctuary, Sanctuary of La Verna on top of a mountain in Tuscany, where Saint Francis of Assisi supposed to have gotten his stigmata and recorded life over there during three days. Here he has six pieces, three of them I believe are pure field recordings and three are compositions he created out of these basic sounds. Not that is easy to tell the difference, certainly if you don't play close attention to when the track ends and moves to the next. For the busy western man, non believer at that, perhaps the closest I can get to monstary life, I guess. Riparbelli captured the sounds and the atmospheres of the sanctuary pretty well - the overall idea of this release is 'silence' without being silent. The large empty spaces with a minimum of sound information, the garden and rain in it, the vaguely humming of what could be the church organ, its all there. Music that slowly unfolds and that could invoke a religious experience (government health warning not included here). In the 'Third Day' piece we have the most musical experience, with crackles and what seems to be some sort of stringed instrument, but for all I know it could be the repeated sound of the bucket in the well to get water. A very contemplative release altogether. Excellent soundscaping." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€15.00 |
|
| RLW |
Views |
CD |
Dronig-verwirrende Soundscapes, konkrete Geräusch-improvisationen, feedbackende Kakophonien... Material von 2003, das RLW eher von der verspielt-improvisatorischen Seite zeigt..
"In the 25th year of Ralf Wehowsky's recording career, Anomalous Records presents his first truly solo release featuring four new compositions based on instrumental improvisations. Using simple devices (tone-generators, percussion toys, music boxes, an electric toothbrush and an electric guitar) played in unusual ways, he builds up layers of each sound to create a suite of textural pieces. Each of the four tracks takes on an identity unique from the others, as the first three each focus on one of the sound sources while the last combines elements from the previous three to make something else. The disc opens with a 20-minute piece of mysterious and drifting electronic tones. Other tracks highlight very tactile sounds and bring a much more 'live' element to his work, while retaining his skillful use of dynamics and placement of silence which have gained him so many fans. Previous releases by RLW have seen him collaborate with such diverse artists as Achim Wollscheid, Bernhard Günter, Andrew Chalk, David Grubbs, Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, and Bruce Russell. He is the founder of the now defunct group P16.D4 and the label Selektion."
[label info]
www.pogus.com/anomalous
“There was a time when RLW, which stands for Ralf Wehowsky, was a buzz name. From his previous band P16.D4, he developes since the mid nineties a strong solo career aswell as many collaborations with people like Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, Bernard Gunter,
Duimelinks/Meelkop. But in more recent years his release schedule was less hectic and now we have 'Views'. Everything on this CD is made by RLW with no input from anybody else. His source material includes tone-generators, music boxes, toys, electric guitar and toothbrush. Each of the four pieces here consist of RLW improvising three or four times his sounds on to the computer, and creating a mix afterwards. In the opening piece, '#1' he only uses tone generators, by which he creates quite densely layered patterns, that come in quite a chaotic way at one point - unlike much other RLW material. In '#2' he uses the Orff instrumentarium (percussive instruments for children), which he jams around and this is much more his territory: carefully hoovering on the edge of silence. Something similar goes in '#3', but here it deals with the hallucinating simplicity of music boxes. These two quieter pieces are the total contrast of '#4', which uses various feedback recordings of the two previous tracks and some added guitar sounds - a fiery noise piece, which is again an unlike RLW piece. Quite a strong CD, with some surprises for the RLW devotee. Moving inside aswell as outside of his usual music, this is quite a step forward. [FdW, Vital weekly]
|
2004 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
Satanic Inventions |
CD |
!!! Limited to 200 copies only !!! 51+ min. playtime
October 2022 PRESS RELEASE
Artist: rlw (Ralf Wehowsky)
Title: Satanic Inventions
Track Titles:
1. Early Symptoms
2. Normality, Lost # 1
3. Overworn With Watching # 1
4. Fever Glazed Thine Ears # 1
5. Fever Glazed Thine Ears # 2
6. Normality, Lost # 2
7. Fever Glazed Thine Ears # 3
8. Overworn With Watching # 2
9. Normality, Lost # 3
10. Overworn With Watching # 3
11. Overworn With Watching # 4
12. Normality, Lost # 4
13. Fever Glazed Thine Ears # 4
14. Overworn With Watching # 5
15. Out Of Joint
Format: CD
Cat no: BRCD 22-1021
Release Date: October 2022
Black Rose Recordings are proud to present the stunning new solo release by Ralf Wehowsky. He is currently one of the most respected electronic composers of our day. With this release his starting point is the comparison of the black plague and covid-19 as there are some astonishing similarities of how people dealt with the diseases. Denial of reality, conspiracy theories, searching for scapegoats, etc: Surely satanic inventions are the source of all calamities? Extracts from documentary recordings and a few fragments of ars nova/subtilior compositions have been transformed, extended, fragmented and re-contextualised, from which the 15 pieces of this release are built.
Ralf Wehowsky was one of the founder members of the seminal German group P16.D4 and the label Selektion whose ground-breaking releases influenced many working in today’s experimental music scene. Previous releases have seen him collaborate with such well known and diverse artists such as Merzbow, Bernhard Guenter, Jim O’Rourke, Achim Wollscheid and Lionel Marchetti. His music is impossible to pigeonhole into one simple bracket. It is neither industrial or musique concrete, nor computer music nor improvisation.
“RLW's work moves on the edge of musique concrete, but never looses it's touch with industrial music on the one hand and with microsound on the other. But it defies these categories and can perhaps only be classified as RLWmusic. Great work!” – [Vital 584, The Netherlands]
“…truly outstanding” – [www.chaindlk.com]
"There have been many documentations on differences and similarities of the pandemics, which plagued mankind over the last centuries and millennia. Comparing the black plague and covid-19 there are - besides the obvious differences (more victims in absolute numbers
because of increasing overpopulation, decreasing number of victims in relative numbers because of the evolution of scientific knowledge) - astonishing similarities how people dealt with the diseases. Denial of reality, conspiracy theories, searching for scapegoats: Surely satanic inventions, spread by elites, papists, jews, communists, etc, are the source of all calamities? Human stupidity never should be underestimated. For tunately, history teaches that the misery ends
someday, even if the pandemic meets with war, famine etc. Amidst similarities new powers do grow. In the late 14th century ars subtilior must be pointed out. Liberation from religious themes, breaking open
rhythm, introducing bizarre chromatic passages, odd dissonances, etc.
Therefore, it seemed natural to combine documentations of actual madness with songs from that past. Some short extracts from documentary recordings and a few fragments of ars nova/subtilior compositions have been transfor med, extended, fragmented and recontextualised, from which the 15 pieces of this release are built.
Recorded from April 2021 to March 2022, Eggenstein, Germany" [liner notes]
"Seeing such a political statement on an RLW CD is something I don't recall seeing before. It is about the pandemic and the conspiracy theories that spawned, which I (too) believe is the true disease of our times. "I can read", usually means, "I like to cherry-pick popular notions", and "science is an opinion" is usually said by someone who has no clue as to what science is. Or, as I challenged someone: "How do you prove that all swans are white" to which I got the answer ", by killing all black ones", which seemed proof that not all swans are white. RLW says that all misery end one day, and something will grow. In the 14th century, Ars subtiloir (subtler art) became a musical style. It was rhythmic and notional, more complex. The end of the plague (well..) ended in something new. RLW uses music recordings from that time and short extracts from documentary recordings. Not that you easily recognize any of this in the fifteen pieces of music. Sure, some of this finds origins in voice material, and a word here or there is recognized, but who or what remains a mystery. The abstraction level is very high, as with much of RLW's music. He applies a collage-like approach to his music. A surprising element is the use of turntable/vinyl, which I haven't heard from him in some time. RLW's music is of a different complexity than the original Ars subtiloir, so I assume (not being an expert here), that he applies his musique concrète techniques to the music. Editing, stretching, granular synthesis and whatever else there is are as strong as any other RLW record. One thought I had with hearing these voices bending and twisting; maybe they sound like shapeshifting alien reptiles? Having read most of David Icke's books (to be found in a folder on my hard drive labelled 'humour'), there must be a place here for the sounds of reptiles. Throughout, there is some excellent, imaginative music here. I would say that even without the backstory, this is still a great release; it can be enjoyed equally."[FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2022 |
€13.00 |
|
| RLW & DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE |
Die Eisenbüglerin |
do-CD |
"The idea for this project was in the air since the late 1980´s. There was an intense, though short-lived, (snail) mail contact between DSM and P16.D4, RLW´s group in those days, which fell into sleep for reasons unknown today.
20 years later the contact lived up again. After getting themselves informed about the actual respective state of work, methods and techniques and sounds, the recordings for the project started.
RLW cd: The basic recordings were done by rlw from early to mid 2009, sound sources are instrumental (piano, trombone) and household objects. First detailed sketches of the compositions (autumn 2009) include heavily treated versions of these recordings, cross-modulations with sounds supplied by DSM and with DSM-variations of the RLW sounds sent to Caen. Fine-tuning of the compositions took until fall 2010.
DSM cd: With very few exceptions I used only the original sound recordings of RLW, discarding most of his own processing that he provided me with as I wished for treatments only what would be conceived to be already into the realm of the compositional strategies I fancied for these works. So up to which degree a processing of a sound turns it into an autonomous new one is a question without answer. In consequence resulted a collaboration starting with extremely few basic recordings. However as they had been particularly distinctive by their material character as well as the audible space of the recordings and the variation of their physical intensity as they all resulted from manual efforts they provided me with what was needed. Besides dynamical treatments and cleaning up, my sound processing is not only mostly analogue or equivalent too, but mostly even mechanic. Playing back recordings through 'no-fi equipment' and recording them again, while manipulating mechanically reproduction and recording devices is what I employ most." [label info]
www.aufabwegen.com
"Now here's two guys whose history goes back at least thirty years. Both from Germany and both from the world of cassettes and industrial music, but both having grown into something else, the world of academic music, musique concrete. Ralf Wehowsky was the main man behind P16.D4, but left that name behind to become RLW, while Guido Hubner always remained Das Synthetische Mischgewebe. Especially that is perhaps a bit odd. Hubner's work is more than Wehowsky's connected to the world of serious composing, yet he maintains his old 'band' name. Both of these men also know each other for a long period and there has always been talk of doing something together, so after much discussion, this double CD 'Die Eisenbuglerin' is the result of an extensive 'music by mail' collaboration. They both use conceptual angles to work from. 'Ah, DSM is always very fragmented, maybe I should work opposite', 'let's use mainly analogue, mechanical techniques to transform this material'. Also in the final execution the results are not widely apart, which is fine. It would be hard to say whose CD is who, if you didn't look at the label. Lots of microscopic detailed sounds - sometimes isolated, sometimes like mass - are the very foundation of this music. A fascinating ride, this is. Some close to fifty minutes by RLW and close to sixty by DSM. As said differences are in the details with this. Maybe DSM is at times a bit more fragmented and RLW a bit more 'full' at times. None of the sound sources mentioned on the cover (piano, trombone by RLW) can be easily traced, if at all, in these pieces. Excellent electro-acoustic music in the best tradition of both microsound and serious academia." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€17.50 |
|
| ROSENFELD, MARINA |
Teenage Lontano |
LP |
Teenage Lontano and roygbiv&b, from 2008 and 2011 respectively, comprise two key works by composer and artist Marina Rosenfeld. Both works are choral compositions imagined for and enacted by teenagers.
Premiered in New York’s immense Park Avenue Armory, Teenage Lontano is Rosenfeld’s groundbreaking "cover version" of Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s 1960s classic for orchestra. Teenage Lontano is reimagined as an immersive sound environment bisected by a column of teenagers in headphones. Beneath a loudspeaker rotating at the phonographic speed of 33 1/3 rpm, the teens' collective voices produce a hauntingly vulnerable account of Ligeti’s dissonant polychords. Teenage Lontano has been performed on three continents, including a French premiere in 2020 as part of Musica Strasbourg.
In roygbiv&b, asynchronous, sometimes raucous incantations of song fragments swell and dissipate, loosely organized around a purposeful mis-hearing of the acronym ROYGBIV: in Rosenfeld’s version, “r” evokes ‘are' (as in, "Are you that somebody...”);, o is 'oh' (“Oh, oh, oh…”); y becomes 'why' (“Why should my heart...); g is 'je (sus)', and so on. The extra 'b' in the work’s title pays homage to the ‘blue(s)’ of r&b.
Rosenfeld’s punning, spectral composition had its debut performance at the Museum of Modern Art in 2011. The recording featured on this edition took place at the South London Gallery in 2014 realised by local south Londoners, the recording highlighting their style and genre affiliations. Both works have remained unpublished until now.
Side A
Teenage Lontano, 2008
Recorded on March 8, 2008 at the Park Avenue Armory by Arup Acoustics for the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Special thanks to Art Production Fund, Bob Bielecki, Raj Patel and all of the NYC performers
Side B
roygbiv&b (Version for South London), 2014
Recorded on June 11, 2014 at South London Gallery, London by Mick Ritchie. Special thanks to Simon Parris, Avid Williams and the talented vocal stylists of Peckham and Brooklyn
Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space
https://room40.bandcamp.com/album/teenage-lontano
|
2021 |
€26.00 |
|
| ROSTAMI, ARIA & DANIEL BLOMQUIST |
Still |
CD |
Five years have passed since Glacial Movements published the wonderful "Wandering Eye" album by the duo Aria Rostami and Daniel Blomquist, whose themes focused on a description of the best places to observe space from the Antarctic Plateau. A further step forward is represented by "Still", whose purpose is to describe how time can change its motion in case of cold weather.
" "Still" consists of a few recordings done within our first year of collaborating (2015-2016) - the opening track was our first studio recording, everything we had done prior to that was strictly live. Throughout this project, we've tried a lot of different approaches and made a special effort for each record and each live show to make it feel different from the last. In that first year, we primarily aimed to make songs that were built over long periods of time - usually getting noisier and/or more intense - and this was how we had envisioned "our sound" at the time. This also means that songs that were more on the traditional ambient side didn't make the cut of our first record, "Wandering Eye". When Glacial Movements approached us about a second release, we went with a different direction and the songs we chose for "Still" captured a new spirit in our work that was originally left on the cutting room floor. As time went on, we started venturing into new ideas like experimental techno, noise, and more traditional compositions while the songs on "Still" sat like a time capsule. We released more music, expanding our sound, and "Still", which was originally slated for a 2018 release, got pushed back further as conflicts on release schedules came up. We could never have predicted what the world would have looked like in 2021 when this record will finally be released. Somehow, through elements of chance, "Still" is finally being released in a world that feels like it is on pause in so many ways. Most of the songs on "Still" change over time. They do not sound the same when they end as they did when they started. This change is subtle rather than grand and over time the songs become completely new. For the song and album titles, we were thinking about time slowing or stopping in cold weather - how life is on pause and how movement is difficult. The stillness feels more like a cocoon rather than a hibernation - there is something changing over time - and although we had no idea what a global pandemic or politics of today would look like when making this work, the world today completely recontextualizes the music and the delay in the release now feels appropriate. "
https://glacialmovements.bandcamp.com/album/still
"When I was little I used to go on holiday to Austria with my parents. Sometimes we’d go in the winter and other times in the summer. One thing we always did was take a cable car to the top of one of the Tyrolean mountains. It was a weird feeling being carried up a mountain in a tinbox by metal cables. When we got to the top the views were incredible. Even as a child I knew that the views were impressive. One holiday in the winter we went up to a glacier. I didn’t know what it was but was excited to see one. Little did I know that the glacier was just a load of ice. At the time I was disappointed as I wanted to see something impressive. Like a stadium, church, another massive mountain on top of a massive mountain, but it was just a load of ice. As I listen to Still by Aria Rostami and Daniel Blomquist I’m reminded of this trip.
The album opens with ‘-2 °C’. Airy synths swirl out of the speakers while a deep drone slowly grinds its way towards me. This opening salvo works not only as an introduction to the track but to the album itself. Everything that follows is of the small ilk. ‘Undercooled’ is a bit busier but generally it’s the same thing. Here, though, the melodies are crisper, giving the ‘Uncooled’ an edge that the opener was missing. The standout track is ‘Hoarfrost’. Here Rostami and Blomquist add some sounds of birds and running water to the mix. These elements take us out of the serene drones and plant us in the real world. The field recordings also give the song a sense of urgency that is missing from the rest of the album.
Still lives up to its name. Rostami and Blomquist aren’t rushing anything here. They are taking their time and delivering some exquisite drones that do enough to keep your attention whilst keeping it, well, still. Mostly the album works. A lot of the heavy lifting is done by the huge, slab like, synths. As they move forward, one drone at a time, you do get the impression of glaciers. Gradually turning mountains to rumble and cutting out valleys where there wasn’t one before. The downside to the album is that the slightly light, faster, melodies aren’t quite as engaging as I hoped, so my attention was lost from time to time. It always came back to the music, but after a few moments it was lost again. This is an album to play while concentrating on another task. That sounds harsh, and slightly belittles the richness of the music, but there wasn’t enough variation to keep me engaged for the full 55-minutes.
While listen to Still, I’m back up the mountain looking down at the valleys and gorges, the glacier violently cut through the landscape. Despite the tourists everything is quiet and still. It might snow later, but it probably won’t. Ultimately it doesn’t matter as the glacier will still be here tomorrow. As will the album. Perhaps then I’ll find its inner secrets, but if I don’t, I know it’ll be an enjoyable experience finding out." [God is in the TV]
|
2021 |
€15.00 |
|
| |
Wandering Eye |
CD |
"Aria Rostami and Daniel Blomquist's debut album "Wandering Eye" was recorded over the span of a year and a half. "Dome A" and "Dome B" were recorded inside of a planetarium dome to no audience and it was the second time Rostami and Blomquist played together. "Ridge A" is the latest song recorded and it was performed live in Blomquist's basement. These live tracks use source material ranging from samples from the internet, to live field recordings, to synthesizers. "Dome C" and "Dome F" were compiled by sending material back and forth over and over again and then rearranged into coherent songs. These studio recordings mostly consist of processed piano originally recorded by Rostami. "Ridge B" originated as a cover of the Persian pop song "Do Panjereh" by Googoosh that Rostami had created but was manipulated and distorted in the process of sending the material back and forth. The song titles come from a paper published by Saunders et al. titled "Where is the best site on Earth?" which highlights the best places to observe space from the Antarctic Plateau. Antarctica is the coldest, driest and calmest place on earth. The astronomical sights there yield images of the heavens that are sharper and have more clarity than any other sight on earth. It is a gateway to observe other worlds.
Aria Rostami and Daniel Blomquist are from San Francisco, CA. Rostami and Blomquist's work occurs at two stages, the gathering/preparation of source material and the live performance. Primarily, Rostami and Blomquist's source material focuses on, digital information and the exchange of that information, repetition and decay, and non-involvement or surrendering aspects of creative control. Some of the piano recordings were created by answering a simple questionnaire Rostami made that uses letters, colors, numbers, major verse minor, and picking between flat, natural and sharp to create a framework for a composition. After the framework is created, Rostami creates a song on the piano, records and sends it to Blomquist who in turn manipulates it. In some cases, Rostami recorded the material using the audio recording option for the app Viber. Rostami used Viber to communicate with a friend who was visiting Iran. Since he had asked her to fill out the survey through the app, he also recorded the material through the low quality recording interface. Sometimes this material is thrown back and forth and sometimes it's processed only once or barely touched. The recording is then turned into a loop and recorded to tape. This system was developed to surrender control and allow the origin of the composition to come from somewhere else much like field recordings or sampling does (two other ways Rostami and Blomquist gather source material.).Time, entropy, and decay are central factors in Rostami and Blomquist's work. For live performances Blomquist works with samples gathered and manipulated digitally and then dubbed to analog tape, reconstituting the quality and predictability of the digital source material. By using loops, Blomquist can take a short audio clip and concentrate on processing it live and allow for improvised changes to that recording over long periods of time. Rostami adds in an extra layer of drones, fuzz, melodic ambience and crescendos with his synthesizer. Their compositions explore dynamic relations between digital and analog sound creating quiet transitions and soaring peaks."
https://glacialmovements.bandcamp.com/album/wandering-eye
|
2016 |
€15.00 |
|
| ROZENHALL, DANIEL |
Forecusst |
CD |
"Auch für Forecusst nutzte Rozenhall wieder das EMS in Stockholm als Klanglabor. Weißes Rauschen prasselt wie Sturzregen. Die Luft brodelt und zischt, dass man reumütig ein Königreich für eine Arche bieten möchte, wenn man nicht wie gelähmt sich ducken müsste unter einem himmlischen Zorneswolkenbruch, wie ihn Bußprediger nicht ‚göttlicher‘ sich wünschen könnten. Man meint schon das Geheul der Verdammten zu hören. Die hellen Jauler und Triller eines kurzen Zwischenspiels geben nur unzureichend Entwarnung und noch weniger Beruhigung. Track 3 setzt dann auch wieder den Presslufthammer an der verstockten Seele an, zumindest an dem vermeintlich sicheren
Boden unter den Füßen. Soll man sich so eine neuzeitliche Version des Fegefeuers vorstellen, als Werkhallen der Läuterung, mit Gehämmer, Schweißbrennern und Fräsen? Pulsierendes Sirren nimmt im vierten Abschnitt wiederum bald bedrohliche Dimensionen an, auch eine ungute Schärfe. Diskantes Georgel in schneidenden Registern, ein Brausen, das Geheul mit sich führt und endlich doch abflaut, um in ein zweiminütiges Loch abzutauchen.." [Bad Alchemy]
"...Here his various interests blend together nicely: there is a fine balance between ambient sounds and noise bits into compositions that sound as compositions, and not a bunch of sounds let loose in the computer, running around on end. Quite cinematic music in approach, I could imagine this would work well as a soundtrack to science fiction movies of spaceships in pitch black skies and enemies firing laser guns, before landing on a radio active waste dump - an empty planet was used for this - and geiger counters running amok. Rozenhall's ambient industrial sound has certainly matured over the years, and will no doubt continue to grow. 'Forecusst' is the start of that growth." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
www.kningdisk.com
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| RUHR HUNTER |
Torn of This |
CD |
Ungewöhnliches neues Album von RUHR HUNTER aka Chet W. Scott, der auch das GLASS THROAT-Label betreibt. Viel weniger noisig als zuvor, bewegt sich „torn of this“ in eher meditativ-ambienten Sphären, mit so bemerkenswerter Instrumentierung wie „Antique Autoharp“, „War Drum“, „Energy Chimes“ und „Hammered Dulcimer“.
[Drone Rec. info 2002]
“Isolationist composer Chet W. Scott, has blossomed with his most passionate and personal collection of melancholia to date. "Torn of This" RUHR HUNTER'S sophomore solo release, brings a whole new set of dynamics to the soundscape table...Featuring nine beautifully flowing and timeless compositions, with a minimalist sound design, traditional folk elements and contemporary acoustical instrumentation. RUHR HUNTER'S "Torn of This" provides not only another audible journey for the listener to experience, but an absolute look into the composer's personal history, inspired through childhood emotions and experiences, geographical relations and the simple spirit of being. An evocative, sonic portrait of an essence, it's past and it's future...” [label press release]
|
2002 |
€12.00 |
|
| RV PAINTINGS |
Samoa Highway |
LP |
"RV Paintings were born in California. Humboldt County, to be exact. It is nearly impossible to imagine their origins being elsewhere since the brothers Brian and Jon Pyle, who currently pilot RV Paintings, constantly mine the metaphysical properties of their homeland through a heavy-lidded psychedelia. The redwood trees that majestically rise from the rugged terrain may have been one of the endemic objects that inspired RV Paintings to "jam nature;" but Humboldt County's other major cash crop -- marijuana -- cannot be far behind. As much as the Pyle brothers channel a psychotropic animism through sound, their diaphanous drones and foggy ambient tangles spring from a schematic intelligence that belies any method acting of getting stoned and jamming in a room.
Samoa Highway is the second full album for RV Paintings, following the nature jam transmissions of Trinity Rivers published by Root Strata in 2007 and a well-suited split LP with Taiga Remains from Blackest Rainbow. Just as the debut payed homage to the rugged river system that cuts through forests and mountains of the region, Samoa Highway refers to the lengthy bridge that runs between two coastal communities in Humboldt County, one of which houses a municipal airport. A swarm of drone guitars announces the opening of the record on "Millions," with a shoegaze wash collapsing into rarified tone purity and bulging through a metallic buzz. Field recordings of airplane take-off and firework explosions punctuate the undulating bleary smear of the Pyle brothers' guitars. The result is one of levitation, even as RV Paintings seem to be plugging their guitars and electronics directly into the moss, soil, and mycelia of the Humboldt forest. Echo-soaked flutes, maudlin strings, scabrous noises unearthed from the bottom of the Pacific, and a cinematic arcs of guitar shimmer complete the beautiful and haunted miasma of Samoa Highway that falls somewhere between Taj Mahal Travellers, Organum, and The Caretaker.
Brian Pyle may be best known as one of the founders of the Starving Weirdos and records his solo work as Ensemble Economique. Samoa Highway stands the first piece of vinyl published by Helen Scarsdale Agency and includes a code for a digital download. Pressed in an edition of 500 copies." [label info]
www.helenscarsdale.com
"Two brothers, Brian and Jon Pyle are behind RV Paintings and hail from Hunbold County, California, home of redwood trees and marijuana. Bryan Pyle is also a member of Starving Weirdos and solo known as Ensemble Economique. The brothers jam about about to start with and then edit these out into fixed compositions. They use guitars and effects, I believe, and if I am to believe the press text, also flutes and strings. The recording quality doesn't seem to be something that they care about that much, or perhaps its just the pressing that is not that great? It moves into slight distortion which doesn't justify the music. Unlike many of the previous releases by The Helen Scarsdale Agency, this is drone music of a somewhat different branding. More improvised, more loosely played also, these drone based textures are a bit crude and bending the idea of static drone music, with its metallic scraping and reverb effects in the background. A bit like a toned down 'In Extremis' by Organum, with the addition of field recordings, buzzing effects and other obscured sonic debris. A bit more raw than is usual, and that surely marks a fine difference. Because its not top perfect, all the more nice." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
"Two brothers from Humboldt County are RV Paintings - one is Brian Pyle, whose name should probably strike a chord as one of the principals in Starving Weirdos and recently has been generating some impressive work under his solo Ensemble Economique moniker; the other is Jon Pyle, who occasionally makes a guest appearance in the Weirdos but also operates in Nudge with Honey Owens, Paul Dickow, and Brian Foote. For all of the method acting from the brothers Pyle in getting stoned and jamming, they have been remarkably consistent and consistently good in all of their ruminations, with RV Paintings probably the best that they've mustered. The RV Paintings debut on Root Strata is three years out but is still a timeless, gorgeous dronesmear of bowed metals and elongated guitar; this was followed by a well-suited split with Taiga Remains on Blackest Rainbow, and now, they've got this stunner on Helen Scarsdale.
RV Paintings speak about, to, and from their own immediate surroundings: the moss, mushrooms, and mycelium of the awe-inspiring redwood forests, the heavy fog that hangs at the coast and from their bongs, and the weightiness of the Pacific Ocean just off to the west. The title Samoa Highway gives the impression that the two brothers were on their own trip during a cold, wintery day, gazing off to the southwest and pondering the warmer climate of American Samoa. But no, the Samoa Highway is located in Humboldt County, connecting Eureka with the small community of Samoa on the other side of the bay which was thought to resemble that of Pago Pago in the mid-19th Century. It's also the bridge that would get you to the Arcata/Eureka Airport.
So, the album begins with field recordings of airplanes lifting off on the jawdropping track "Millions," as sitar-like harmonics and ghostly, levitating drones emanate from the distance. It's a perfectly narcotized smear of echo and drift, hanging in space as the remnants of a particularly lucid dream or the foggy headspace from an afternoon of smoking pot and staring at the sun. This is a track that could spiral onward forever. So nice! Samoa Highway continues with "Mirrors" driven by melancholy looped melody from a cello that dissolves into a flurry of shimmered guitar fuzz, whose shoegazed mantra has been submerged under centuries of felled trees and lichens. Cyclical patterns of samples from dark yet pastoral orchestral passages rounds out the album. If it weren't for the delicate freeform clamor of the drumkit, tracks such as this wouldn't be that far removed from the 'pop ambient' cuts by Gas. Citations of Taj Mahal Travellers, Organum, Grouper, Barn Owl, and The Caretaker certainly hit the mark. Music for airports? More like Music for California airports! Fuck yeah!
And a download coupon is tucked within the sleeve as well!" [Aquarius Records] |
2010 |
€10.00 |
|
| SAARIAHO, KAIJA |
New Gates |
CD |
Vier Stücke der finnischen Komponistin, uns bekannt von der fantastischen INA GRM–economique maxiCD „Six Japanese Gardens“ ! Spannungsgeladene, eindringliche, transzendierend-unheimliche Neue Musik-Kompositionen für Streicher, Gesang, Flöten, Harfe, mit ausführlichen Liner Notes auf Englisch, Deutsch und Französisch.
“Kaija Saariaho is the most successful of contemporary Finnish composers. She has won a number of international composition prizes, among them the Prix Italia in 1988. Her compositions have been recorded by, among others, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dawn Upshaw and the Kronos Quartet. She studied in Freiburg, and finally settled in Paris, at IRCAM, the centre for computer music. Saariaho continues to live in Paris.
"In Cendres, musical tension is created by sometimes bringing the instruments as close together as possible in all compositional aspects (such as pitch, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, color), sometimes letting each of them express the music in their own most idiomatic way. In between these extremes one can find an unlimited number of possibilities to create more or less homogenic musical situations. The awareness of this variety was the rope on which I was balancing when working on the piece." (K.S.)
"Grammar of Dreams was born from my curiosity of the relation of human voice to instruments, a subject which I had put aside for many years. As the title of the piece proposes, another source of interest here was the structural life of dreams." The major part of the text is a collage from the texts of Paul Eluard.
"Solar was written for Champ d'Action. Solar is based on the idea of a permanent harmonic structure, which spreads its own image all around and continually brings the harmony back to its original form, as if obeying the laws of gravity. This idea gave the work its title."
New Gates is based on a ballet with no story line: the general theme is passing from one state to another, opening doors, gates, falling, crossing the water, etc.- themes often found in mythologies. As the title suggests, the music moves towards gates, opens them showing us new landscapes, and continues then again towards new gates.
The above quotes are taken from the liner notes, written by the composer.
The Belgian ensemble Champ d'Action takes its name from Umberto Eco's influential book Opera Aperta, which refers to new ways in which to understand the relationships between science and the arts. After more than a decade of intense activity, the ensemble still owes its relevance in the musical world to this meaningful term. Champ d'Action realizes high quality performances and recordings of such music by working directly with the composer. Conductors are carefully selected on the grounds of their working relationship with the composer. This is the first of a series of CDs for Mode, which will also include portrait-CDs of Luc Ferrari and Iannis Xenakis, among others.” [label info]
|
2001 |
€15.00 |
|
| SABLE MOUVANT |
Bridge that leads nowhere |
CD |
Mysterious sounds & atmospheres from this Lithuanian project, repetitive metallic overtune-structures, impressionistic oracle-sounds as coming from a different dimension...
"SABLE MOUVANT is a music project coming from Lithuanian artist GyS. The project may be classified as hypnotic drone ambient. The first album titled Bridge That Leads Nowhere perfectly conveys gloomy, melancholic world where the prevailing trends include reduction, extinction and impalpability. Compositions of Bridge That Leads Nowhere are very slow and solid, their monotonic vibes are the source of a weird hypnotic feeling. Here we have live and pulsatile drone ambient where the track names precisely represent their mood best described as solitude and isolation. SABLE MOUVANT music offers a full dose of Gnostic unknowability, cryptic atmosphere. It is best suited for listening in derelict wastelands, while meditating invisible, elemental and indeed pervading supernatural reality that uncompromisingly regulates the evolution of all worlds known and unknown. The album will please anyone who’s not indifferent to the music of Jarl, Moljebka Pvlse, NWW, Kammarheit." [label info]
www.autarkeia.org
|
2006 |
€13.00 |
|
| SAINT PETERS CROSS / KRABATH / JOAN MIRO |
The Wrath / Arum Rapasopis / Artist |
CD-R |
"6th release of Metarealist Records presents 3 projects from Ukraine. The split is opened by Saint Peters Cross - orthodox death-industrial / ambient project of label owner - K. Saint Peters Cross continues the path of Mental Destruction who started in early 90s, but makes it in his own way, only taking the overall ideological attack vector from the Swedes. Next comes Krabath - with renewed sound and ideas. Now the connection with the same-named Czech animation film is lost, and Krabath tries to develop the idea of descructive discrepancy between educational programmes of modern society and natural impulse of childhood. Musically all compositions are woven from the sounds of various toys and voices of children of various age. Fans of dark experimental ambient should definitely appreciate "Arum Rapasopis". And the closing act is Joan Miro - noisy power electronics, insane brainchild of Pt74 also standing behind Krabath. "Artist" has already been released as a split with Moscow based project Fungoreia. Blind fury, insane atrocity with industrial sounds of a broken meat grinder - all this will bring pleasure to the lovers of formalistic art." [label info] |
2013 |
€10.00 |
|
| SAL SOLARIS |
Die Scherben 2004-2010 |
CD |
"kultFRONT and ZHELEZOBETON labels are glad to announce the new CD by one of the most outstanding Russian post-industrial projects - Sal Solaris. This release follows the logic of the "Der Ruf" compilation CD (2006, Der Angriff) and collects the tracks recorded at different times on various occasions. Among other tracks the disc contains compositions from the compilations "The Black Square" (2006, kultFRONT), "Iznutri" (2007, Ewers Tonkunst), "Rush for Black Celebration" (2008, kultFRONT), "Heliophagia III" (2009, Heliophagia), "Art of Caring the Dead" (2009, Dodozavr), "Heliolatria" (2010, Heliophagia), also tracks from the split 10" record with Stahlwerk 9 (2004, Der Angriff) and several previously unreleased compositions.
When describing the sound of Sal Solaris reviewers often mention the neologism "power ambient" and we can't but agree with this term. The music of this duet coming from Rostov-on-Don and Moscow combines the elements of dark, often space ambient, post-industrial and power electronics, a collage approach and a dense saturated atmosphere, not relaxing but rather stimulating the listener. A collection of works created during various years allows to trace the live dynamics of the project - from the austere ideological persistence of the "early National-Bolshevist period" to the more sculpturesque and psychedelic compositions, including some naive but remarkable exercises.
The works feature contributions from many band friends, including Russian cosmist writer Ivan Polikarov, lead artist of "Crazy Pierrot Cabaret" Sergey Vasilyev, piano player & composer Anna Antropova, decadent cynic and erudite DJ Deutschmark, master of noises Nikolay Lepesa, trombone player Seung-hui Cho and even Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskiy.
The artwork is done by the famous visual artist and media philosopher Oleg 'cmart' Paschenko (http://holesk.in | http://www.conclave.ru).
With this CD kultFRONT & Zhelezobeton labels open the series named "Die Zeichen" aiming to publish the archival works of Russian post-industrial projects." [label info]
|
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
| SALOMAN, GABRIEL |
Movement Building Vol. 3 |
LP |
Shelter Press has made good on its promise to deliver the third and final volume of its series featuring Gabriel Saloman, released both on vinyl and collected with Movement Building Vol. I (2014) and Vol. II (2015) as a double CD. For fans of Saloman’s post-Yellow Swans work – an already dense catalog of darkly cinematic compositions mostly conceived as accompaniment to some of Vancouver’s edgier contemporary dance companies, Movement Building Vol. III is not only a much anticipated conclusion to this trilogy, it is the most fully realized album in years. Where as Movement Building Vol. I & II acted primarily as documentation of time-based artworks, Movement Building Vol. III offers a more coherent and narratively rich album that will appeal to admirers of Soldier’s Requiem (Miasmah, 2013).
Listeners will recognize the emotive bowed strings, militant percussion and searing guitar eruptions that evoked memory and trauma in that previous album. Joining this pallet are other familiar Saloman sounds: shoegaze washes of distorted guitar, minimalist piano attacks, melancholic appregiated melodies, and a patina of harsh noise. Added to this is a more 21st Century approach to drums and bass, perhaps an effect of his collaborations with producer Michael Red in their dub-ambient project Chambers.
Saloman’s music has never sat comfortably in any genre, sharing with a select cohort of other artists (Stephen O’Malley, Lawrence English, Grouper, Kreng, Tim Hecker, among others) an ambiguous position between “modern classical”, “electronic music”, and the more outer limits of metal. Movement Building Vol. III doesn’t clarify as much as it expands Saloman’s oeuvre further into an idiosyncratic musical no-man’s land that fails to be faithful to any popular musical trend – contemporary, retro or futurist.
Movement Building Vol. III’s themes are taken from the dance it was composed for, 2015’s What Belongs To You, created by longtime collaborator Vanessa Goodman (Adhere, Soldier’s Requiem). That work sent its dancers through a physical journey exploring the needs of the body, for shelter, for love and for self-actualization, roughly aligned to Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs”. The resulting album seems to achingly soundtrack the struggle for survival, not simply for bare life but for something greater and more transcendent that would make survival have meaning. It holds dread and hope in equal parts, never quite giving away the end of the story. Though this record was recorded two years ago Movement Building Vol. III could be the perfect album for our current era of civilizational near-collapse, whether at the hands of maniacal politicians, the slow burn of the Anthropocene or the constant enclosure of the corporate driven, social media enabled surveillance state.
Movement Building Vol. III arrives both as a stand alone vinyl release, and as part of a collection of all three volumes packaged in one double CD. The collection of these works allows one to see clearly Saloman’s techniques and approaches to a relatively limited number of instruments – guitar, percussion, occasional piano and tape. Movement Building Vol. I is presented as one continuous piece, moving through an extended set of drone and loping drum play before climaxing in the kind of glorious guitar chording most often associated with My Bloody Valentine, GSYBE or Mono. Movement Building Vol. II explores various combinations of drum and drone, ASMR inducing high end clatter and the now infamous take on Miles Davis’ classic My Funny Valentine. The digital versions of these albums, mastered by Helmut Erler at Berlin’s Dubplates & Mastering, restore to them their full range of frequency and dynamics, providing a deeper glimpse into the theatrical origins of their composition.
Movement Building Vol. III is not only the final installment in Shelter Press’ series but also represents the culmination of a prolific period of creation for Saloman that began with 2012’s Adhere. From 2011-2016, Saloman produced dozens of recordings in collaboration with various dance artists. Currently living in Santa Cruz, California, and working on a PhD concerning noise and protest, it’s unclear how a new home and a new political reality will shape the music he makes next. One thing is for certain: it’s unlikely that Saloman will be silent for long.
shelter-press.org/gabriel-salomanmovement-building-vol-3/
|
2017 |
€20.00 |
|
| SAND |
His first Steps |
LP |
"The present album is a forerunner of GOLEM, the legendary album from the cosmic and psychedelic genius that is Sand. After the split of POT the early SAND submerged as a threesome in the basement of Claudiusstrasse and built up an alchemical assembling shop, where they resurrected the archetypical GOLEM. SAND considered themselves as an exile community in a fascinating area - full of distinctly bizarre energy.
There is something magical and inexplicable in creation, and Sand manifest absolutely these mysterious phenomena. Story-tellers, musicians, shamans, geniuses, Sand were known, at the end of the 60s, as P.O.T. (Part of Time). The music they created at that time has remained unreleased until now.
Two different approaches are evident within this band. The first—which is shown in the compositions of the trio Ludwig Papenberg, his brother Ullrich Papenberg and Johannes Vester—is avant-gardist, experimental and proto-industrial. The second, when this same trio is augmented with a few extra members, reveals a more emphatically “rock” side, somewhat in the vein of Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, perhaps making it somewhat less personal than the visionary and experimental positions characteristic of Sand, a truly unique entity in the history of music.
At that time Klaus Schulze was developing, with engineer Manfred Schunke, a specialised recording process called “Artificial Head Stereo Sound”, which, like “Surround Sound”, created the illusion of the music coming from 360º around the listener. Schulze chose Sand to record in his studio one of a series of records to demonstrate this new technique. Sand’s album Golem was recorded and released on the Delta-Acustic label in 1974.
Sand acknowledge that Manfred Schunke and Klaus Schulze were Sand’s most important mentors.
Although classed as “Krautrock”, Sand are not really in the Krautrock style, despite being part of this movement of German cosmic/psychedelic bands. Instead they take us on a cerebral/cosmic/strange/dark trip all of their own, with a highly original subtlety, elegance and strength. Trapped in the trip, swallowed up by the quicksands, seduced by the unique and innovative combination of acoustic guitars, synthesisers, sound generators, short-wave radios, factory noises, hammers from the shipyards, agricultural machines, whirls of sand and eerie atmospheres, the listener discovers and lives the story of Sand and his Golem.
Julian Cope wrote of Golem in his HeadHeritage’s website’s “Album of the Month” column, “Dig this fucking weird Saxony sound and fill your heart”.
Rotorelief releases, in 2010, a series of unreleased albums by Sand as well as a reissue of Sand’s only album, the obscure and rare Golem, first released by Delta Acustic in 1974, along with related releases by Nurse with Wound and Current 93.
This series of albums from Sand is called “INXOM”, the series title having one letter for each album, explained by Johannes Vester as follows:
“Incoming, Inspiration, (...) In X is OM (Odem) which could mean ‘There is Om/Odem/Atman in the Unknown (X)’ ; this also corresponds to "shem" which is in XOM,—the meaning in the Golem Myth. Last, but not least, for me it sounds like the electronic attitude in symbiosis with Sand's spirit....”
And also called '' INXODEM '' with 5x Sand album (INXOM) from 70's + 1 album of Nurse With Wound (2013) and 1 45RMP twelve inch of Current 93 (1992) :
"His First Steps" (I) / is a previous, unreleased and variety album (1972 & 1973) of "Golem"
"Golem" (N) / legendary album composed in 1972 and 1973 (released in 1974)
"Desert Navigation" (X) / unreleased album, titles composed in 1973, 1975 and one track from 1982
"Sylph Ballet" (O) / unreleased album, titles composed in 1969, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1976
"North Atlantic Raven" (M) / unreleased album, titles composed in 1973, 1975 & 1976
(+ bonus 1982)
"Chromanatron" (E), by Nurse With Wound composed in 2013 with sounds and extracts from Sand
"When the May Rain Comes" (D), 2 varieties of the reprise title "May Rain" of Sand by Current 93 in 1992
Today, 40 years later, here the cool sound jugglers, founders and new members, go again (Ludwig and Ulrich Papenberg, Johannes Vester, Christian von der Schulenburg and Richard Pappik) then Sand is active in a creative frenzy timeless...
www.rotorelief.com
|
2016 |
€25.00 |
|
| |
His first Steps |
CD |
"The present album is a forerunner of GOLEM, the legendary album from the cosmic and psychedelic genius that is Sand. After the split of POT the early SAND submerged as a threesome in the basement of Claudiusstrasse and built up an alchemical assembling shop, where they resurrected the archetypical GOLEM. SAND considered themselves as an exile community in a fascinating area - full of distinctly bizarre energy.
There is something magical and inexplicable in creation, and Sand manifest absolutely these mysterious phenomena. Story-tellers, musicians, shamans, geniuses, Sand were known, at the end of the 60s, as P.O.T. (Part of Time). The music they created at that time has remained unreleased until now.
Two different approaches are evident within this band. The first—which is shown in the compositions of the trio Ludwig Papenberg, his brother Ullrich Papenberg and Johannes Vester—is avant-gardist, experimental and proto-industrial. The second, when this same trio is augmented with a few extra members, reveals a more emphatically “rock” side, somewhat in the vein of Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, perhaps making it somewhat less personal than the visionary and experimental positions characteristic of Sand, a truly unique entity in the history of music.
At that time Klaus Schulze was developing, with engineer Manfred Schunke, a specialised recording process called “Artificial Head Stereo Sound”, which, like “Surround Sound”, created the illusion of the music coming from 360º around the listener. Schulze chose Sand to record in his studio one of a series of records to demonstrate this new technique. Sand’s album Golem was recorded and released on the Delta-Acustic label in 1974.
Sand acknowledge that Manfred Schunke and Klaus Schulze were Sand’s most important mentors.
Although classed as “Krautrock”, Sand are not really in the Krautrock style, despite being part of this movement of German cosmic/psychedelic bands. Instead they take us on a cerebral/cosmic/strange/dark trip all of their own, with a highly original subtlety, elegance and strength. Trapped in the trip, swallowed up by the quicksands, seduced by the unique and innovative combination of acoustic guitars, synthesisers, sound generators, short-wave radios, factory noises, hammers from the shipyards, agricultural machines, whirls of sand and eerie atmospheres, the listener discovers and lives the story of Sand and his Golem.
Julian Cope wrote of Golem in his HeadHeritage’s website’s “Album of the Month” column, “Dig this fucking weird Saxony sound and fill your heart”.
Rotorelief releases, in 2010, a series of unreleased albums by Sand as well as a reissue of Sand’s only album, the obscure and rare Golem, first released by Delta Acustic in 1974, along with related releases by Nurse with Wound and Current 93.
This series of albums from Sand is called “INXOM”, the series title having one letter for each album, explained by Johannes Vester as follows:
“Incoming, Inspiration, (...) In X is OM (Odem) which could mean ‘There is Om/Odem/Atman in the Unknown (X)’ ; this also corresponds to "shem" which is in XOM,—the meaning in the Golem Myth. Last, but not least, for me it sounds like the electronic attitude in symbiosis with Sand's spirit....”
And also called '' INXODEM '' with 5x Sand album (INXOM) from 70's + 1 album of Nurse With Wound (2013) and 1 45RMP twelve inch of Current 93 (1992) :
"His First Steps" (I) / is a previous, unreleased and variety album (1972 & 1973) of "Golem"
"Golem" (N) / legendary album composed in 1972 and 1973 (released in 1974)
"Desert Navigation" (X) / unreleased album, titles composed in 1973, 1975 and one track from 1982
"Sylph Ballet" (O) / unreleased album, titles composed in 1969, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1976
"North Atlantic Raven" (M) / unreleased album, titles composed in 1973, 1975 & 1976
(+ bonus 1982)
"Chromanatron" (E), by Nurse With Wound composed in 2013 with sounds and extracts from Sand
"When the May Rain Comes" (D), 2 varieties of the reprise title "May Rain" of Sand by Current 93 in 1992
Today, 40 years later, here the cool sound jugglers, founders and new members, go again (Ludwig and Ulrich Papenberg, Johannes Vester, Christian von der Schulenburg and Richard Pappik) then Sand is active in a creative frenzy timeless...
www.rotorelief.com
www.rotorelief.com
|
2016 |
€14.00 |
|
| SANTAAGOSTINO |
Mokaraba Constellation |
CD |
"Greytone is proud to present the second album from the enigmatic act santAAgostino. Definitively the best expression of their multifaceted way of visual-audio compositions. Seven tracks of pure melodic ambient noise will bring the listener into a cathartic mind introspection above the abyss.
Mokaraba Constellation is an album of songs and just because those songs have been slapped with layer upon layer of filthy concrete and lead doesn't mean they were never songs at all. Fantastic, crucial tunes yet again from the mind of the Italy's most hard working dark ambient / noise alchemists
Without a doubt this is one of the finest experimental records we’ve had cross our label in years, and one nobody in their right mind should pass up." [label info]
www.greytone.eu
|
2013 |
€13.00 |
|
| SASHASH ULZ |
Chtenie |
CD |
"Following two now impossible-to-get cassette album releases, Chtenie, meaning ‘reading’ in English, is set to be Russian artist Alexander Shevchenko’s debut on CD. Comprising improvised organ and guitar pieces with field recordings and a warm, natural and earthy feel that falls somewhere between a soundtrack to a lost ’60s mystery film and the notion of the lone busker playing mildly jaunty, yet generally disturbed, melodies to the mostly bemused townsfolk. Packaged in a fold-over card cover and limited to 300. Released in December 2013." [label info]
www.fourth-dimension.net
"And here we go... improvisations on organ, bass and guitar. Twelve pieces of fresh music with influences of blues, jazz, folk and minimal music. The sound of the organ will take you back to the sixties and seventies and the combination with field-recordings create a psychedelic atmosphere. Sashash Ulz lives and works in Karelia – Russia and invites the listener to his intimate music. He is an very active musician and last year he released 10 tapes and digital releases at several labels. This album is released by the Polish label Fourth Dimension Records, which releases music since 1983. The recordings are pure and as if you are in his own living-room. He uses not a lot of layers in his music, mostly only organ or guitar and sometimes other sounds are added. The album “Chtenie” consists tracks with titles as “Y”, “Y,” and “,,,” I really don’t know what this will mean, but the titles fit well to the music. The compositions are coming up and will pass away, they will catch you or suit well as a sweet background. The melodies are recognizable, but do not refer to a special song or composition. It is just music for a sunny day, sitting around and doing something or doing something casual. Great fun!" [JKH/Vital Weekly] |
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
| SATO, MINORU (M/S, SASW) + ASUNA |
Texture in glass tubes and reed organ |
CD |
"Die Kollaboration von MINORU SATO (m/s, SASW) + ASUNA für Texture In Glass Tubes and Reed Organ (KK012) folgte akribisch phonologischen
Konzepten, die in den Titeln auch schon angesprochen sind: ‚Superimposing five harmonic states‘ und ‚Weaving seven resonances: with
raw stereo material‘. Eine musikalische Phänomenologie, für die das Wort ‚experimentell‘ tatsächlich mal zutrifft. Die beiden dabei minutiös geschichteten oder verwebten Klangquellen, Glasröhren und Saugwindharmonium, sich klassische Dröhner. Sie erzeugen wunderbar harmonische Schwingungen,
die als Wellen im Raum ‚stehen‘ und wabern. Die ebenso raffinierten wie minimalistischen Anordnungen zeitigen idealtypische Resultate - Deep Listening à la Pauline Oliveros, Phill Niblock, Osso Exótico & Verres Enharmoniques.
Obwohl nichts anderes als Nüchternheit und Präzision am Werk sind, quellen klangwolkig und sanft schwingend alle nur denk- und fühlbaren
Konnotationen von Sphärenharmonie, Nada Brahma, Meditation und Immersion auf." [Bad Alchemy]
"We have been performing “music” focusing on the materialistic nature (physical phenomena) of sounds by utilizing the reed organ and glass tubes. Our music is composed and constructed in such a way that however the phenomena we use reacts with the circumstances of the space – the situation of the site including the audience – our live performance involves and uses these conditions. Since these compositions are studio recordings however, we decided to exclude acoustic spatial matters and the ‘one-time-ness’ of live performances and instead composed the structure of resonances within certain divisions of time. This is similar to textiles – weaving “resonances”, rather than thread, in certain patterns.
"Superposing five harmonic states" was developed by recording five harmonic states separately. Each of the harmonies was obtained by finding the characteristic sound effects made by the relationship of the chords of the organ and resonances of the glass tube. It was constructed by layering the recordings regularly in certain passages of time. The resonances of the organ and the tubes are left as they were originally recorded and the result is five separate recordings woven into a single piece.
"Weaving seven resonances: with raw stereo material" was developed by recording a state where the resonances keep a subtle balance between the relationship of the organ and the glass tubes. From the originally recorded material we found seven characteristic frequencies and reconstructed them into a piece, by giving each individual volume a transition using optionally assigned periodic variations. Thus this composition, made of a single recording, is like a piece woven by one string.
If our live performances were to be evaluated as music where we are presented with one-time incidents – i.e. reflecting the real time phenomena as ‘now and there’ in the music – this CD could be evaluated as music to analyze the sound structure of these phenomena and to make those aspects audible. It is intended to create a narrative about the phenomena which resonate through constructed sounds." [Minoru Sato]
www.spekk.net
|
2007 |
€15.50 |
|
| SCHAEFER, JANEK |
Unfolding Luxury beyond the City of Dreams |
LP |
"Dekorder presents two new vinyl editions composed and designed by UK sound artist Janek Schaefer, who is known around the world for his wide variety of engaging and unpredictable works for installation, concert and composition. Following his highly acclaimed ‘Lay-by Lullaby’ album on 12k [which Pitchfork listed in the ‘Top 10 under-the-radar releases for 2014’], Janek has created and collated a collection of tracks that showcase both his more ambient works [077], and his highly charged sonorities [078]. A beautiful pair of LP’s that ideally should be experienced together for your home listening pleasure. The tracks were mastered by Stephan Mathieu and cut by Lupo at Calyx Mastering.
A1 White Lights of Divine Darkness
By chance I composed this for my brother-in-law the day he passed away. In recent years he had seen the white lights of heavens gate, but returned, and became fascinated by what he called God’s divine darkness in this lifetime.
A2 Unfolding Honey 6:06
A track from my exhibition soundtrack 'Future Beauty, 30 years of Japanese fashion' held at The Barbican Gallery, London. The exhibition featured some amazing folded garments by Issey Miyake, that inspired the unfurling fabric feeling of the composition.
A3 Luxury 3:00
An orchestral drone piece featuring an old French lady singing to her cats with an extra celestial chorus.
A4 Skyline Ascending 3:28
A Carpenters LP piano loop is layered again and again over a high sky recording, which was recorded using a helium balloon floating in the clouds over the city, with raindrops.
B1 Coda (for Sir John Dankworth) 5:00
In my early teens, I used to attend week long music camps, in tents, within the grounds of Sir John Dankworth's home with Cleo Laine. I used to know them, and composed this piece with one of their vinyl's on the day I heard he died. The installation premiered at the Sydney Cooper Gallery in Canterbury, broadcasting a 3 channel version to six 50's radios.
B2 The City of Dreams 8:28
Theme tune for the opening of “The Mill: City of Dreams” a site specific theatre production in a deserted mill in Bradford. Piano motif recorded live with my twin-arm turntable, additional overlays recorded with Mark Robinson on his old family piano.
B3 Beyond 6:30
The Carpenter’s return, sliding piano loops through recordings made in Grand Central Station at closing time when the vast hall was deserted, and the full majesty of the acoustic space could be appreciated. Stilettos pass by forming polyrhythm's, as the last train announces it’s departure...
credits
released 19 November 2014
Biography
Janek Schaefer has exhibited, lectured, and performed widely throughout Europe [Sonar, Tate Modern, ICA, Strasbourg Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art], USA/Canada, [Walker Art Center, Mutek, Princeton, XI], Japan, and Australia [Sydney Opera House 2003]. His foundsound concerts and installations explore the spatial, social and celestial qualities that sound can communicate, through the twisting of old and new technology. The context of each idea is central to its development and resolution, often exploring themes of appropriation, accident, & alteration.
Janek studied Architecture at the Royal College of Art where he worked with Brian Eno, creating “Recorded Delivery” in 1995, and discovered how important sound is in perceiving space, and place. In 2008 he won the British Composer of the Year Award in Sonic Art, and a Paul Hamlyn Award. The Bluecoat Gallery in Liverpool exhibited a Retrospective of his career to date in 2009. He is represented by the Agency gallery, London, and is a Visiting Professor at Oxford Brookes Sonic Art Research Unit. He lives and works in Walton-on-Thames." [label info]
www.dekorder.com
"The other LP has seven pieces, shorter pieces of course and it's a pity that there are no clarifications printed on the cover. They are in the press text, so we know why there were created, so we know, for instance that 'Luxury' is 'an orchestral drone piece featuring an old French lady singing to her cats with an extra celestial chorus', or that 'Skyline Ascending' is 'a Carpenters LP piano loop is layered again and again over a high sky recording, which was recorded using a helium balloon floating in the clouds over the city, with raindrops'. Shorter these pieces may seem, they essentially are not unlike his longer pieces: multi-layered sound events that create a beautiful dense, atmospheric field of sound. Careful crackles, computer processed sustaining loops (from instruments, vinyl, field recordings, nothing is sacred in the hands of Schaefer), and carefully placed field recordings in their raw state. There is obviously no reason to pick one over the other, but I think I prefer the second LP to the first, great as that one is. The second LP had more variation and the compositions were better worked out, unlike the more endless stream of sounds approach of the first. The differences are small I know, and it's probably best if you get both at the same time. This is Janek Schaefer at what he does, and what he does best. No surprises here, pleasant or otherwise." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2014 |
€14.00 |
|
| SCHLIENZ, GÜNTER |
Book of Dreams |
CD |
"Günter Schlienz, one of the leading creators of modular electronica placed at the intersection of ambient and new age, gained positive reviews with his last album, "Autumn", the first one released on Zoharum. Now he comes back with a reissue of "Book of Dreams". First released in a small amount of 100 copies on vinyl, it was sold out in just a few weeks. Now this excellent album is back in expanded form, complemented with two additional tracks. It is a surprising release, because it is completely different from "Autumn", consisting of shorter recordings with much more dynamic.
Original sleeve notes for the album: "Book of Dreams" was inspired by notes about dreams I wrote down shortly after I woke up from my sleep. In those strange moments between fantasy and reality, when you can still remember the images and feelings of the dream before they are rubbed off by daytime thoughts and troubles. The compositions which can be heard on this album trying to recapture those images and feelings mixed with a second thought, kind of a sober interpretation of the sometimes wild and furious adventures with somnia.
The album "Book of Dreams" is released in a 3-panel ecopak in a strictly limited edition of 250 copies. The cover was designed Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek). It is mastered by Niko. The whole production process was overseen by Michał Porwet."
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/book-of-dreams |
2017 |
€12.00 |
|
| SCHMICKLER, MARCUS |
Param |
do-LP |
...ein “drone”-album par excellence auf Seite 1, 3 & 4 die himmlisch-höllischen, vielschichtigen dunklen und mitunter disharmonisch-noisigen Drones erinnern an ROLAND KAYN oder andere „classical“ composer und graben sich wie tiefe Furchen ins Gemüt... unheimlich und doch wunderschön ! Andere Stücke (v.a. Seite 2) sind eher klassisch abstrakt gehalten und brechen mitunter aus, aber der düstere Unterton ist stets vorhanden...sehr sehr intensiv !!
“The new release on Cologne based label A-Musik contains compositions by Marcus Schmickler that were performed and recorded over the last four years with many various musicians and ensembles. These recordings document Schmickler's interest in a confrontation with modern classical composers, they are a return of "the livingd dead." According to Schmickler innovations
are only possible by including the old.Schmickler has been known also for his different approaches with Pluramon, MIMEO, his collaborations with Thomas Brinkmann or the improviser Thomas Lehn. "Param" continues his series of releases on A-Musik although it presents itself less electronic and less bulky than "Wabi Sabi" or "Sator Rotas". The original recordings of the compositions are newly edited for this release..” [press-release]
|
2001 |
€17.00 |
|
| SCHUMACHER, MICHAEL J. |
Four Stills |
CD |
Eine faszinierende Klangwelt entwirft MICHAEL J. SCHUMACER auf „four stills“. Hochfrequent-undurchdringliche Geräusche erinnern an organisches, unbekanntes Leben, Anklänge an JOHN HUDAK, LOPEZ, CHARTIER...
“Sedimental’s first release for 2002, Four Stills, is from New York composer/guitarist Michael J. Schumacher. Schumacher has a strong presence on the experimental scene with his refined guitar “drone” compositions but parallel to this activity he has been working with number system applications of sampled material through electronics, a direct extension of his audio installations. Schumacher is also internationally recognized along with his wife and artist Ursula Scherrer, who designed the artwork for this release, for the outstanding Studio 5 Beekman space (now Diapason on 6th Ave.) that provides a sympathetic environment for audio artists to execute installations. The participants in this project read like a who’s who of leading-edge composers and experimental musicians.
Our reaction to material originally considered for Four Stills was nothing short of breathtaking. Where as much digitally generated material succumbs to a hermetically closed world of glitches and electronic landscape Schumacher’s work opens up this environment, despite the density of the material, into a breathing, organic spaciousness while still maintaining the intimacy inherent in the form.
”The Four Stills are expressions of the number system that I have used since 1989 in my electronic compositions. These numbers form the basis for dozens of rhythmic processes executed by the computer, from playing a midi grand piano, to deciding a range within a sample buffer to play, to determining larger structural aspects such as the alternation of sound and silence within a particular part. The fact that they are prime numbers prevents predictable patterns from emerging. The limit of six maintains structural coherence. The Four Stills were recorded direct to stereo in real time. Though the sounds used in a given piece are predetermined, their interaction with each other over time is left to chance.
These pieces are extensions of my installation pieces, which evolve over long time periods, and are also created in real time by generative algorithms. However, in contrast to the installations, which utilize distance as an important perceptual feature and employ as many as 16 independent channels of sound, allowing for meaningful variations in texture, these recordings, being limited to two channels, are more compact in their presentation of the sonic material. They therefore remind me of certain styles of painting, which present the spectator with a static field of color that is experienced in no particular order. Though the music obviously unfolds over time, the analogy seems appropriate to me, since the dense textures (sometimes as many as 27 simultaneous parts) invite a contemplation of the many layers of sound and their relation, not in time, but in space.” Sedimental is honored to make available the rarely heard digital works of Schumacher to a wider international audience-a dynamic composer who has provided a unique aesthetic forum for some many like-minded composers as well.” [press release]
|
2002 |
€13.00 |
|
| SCHWARZ, ROBERT |
The Scale of Things |
LP |
"Distantly rooted in musique concrète, ”The Scale Of Things” discloses an uncanny, multilayered sonic universe of its own.
The seven compositions are based on the exploration of nature recordings for unheard details and hidden layers, focused on patterns of stochastic order and unique chaos created without musical intention. The harmony we hear is the harmony of overwhelming and collective uncertainty, because this nature is chaos.
Audio transformations that remain hidden, accompanied by modular synthesizers purposely blur most links to the “real” world, in favor of a strange and poetic realm, following the erratic patterns of nature.
Mesmerizing and disturbing at the same time, an ambivalent dualism emerges of a strange world that is dissolving and not dissolving. A world that can only be described by it’s surface. Expulsed from nature, as our brain is expulsed from nature.
Die Natur ist das einzige immerwährende Menschenunmögliche.
Track list:
01 Drift Following The Seam
02 In The Flat Field
03 Frost
04 Self-Propelled-Sound-Particles
05 With The Witch
06 Mabalel
07 From Surface Downwards
7 Tracks (35′42″)
Vinyl (300 copies)
recorded, composed and produced by Robert Schwarz
field recordings from Bale, La Gomera, Mmabolela(*), Naxos, Vienna and Yangshuo
(*) ‘Sonic Mmabolela’ residency/workshop, organized by Francisco López and James Webb
produced in Vienna 2013-2014
r-schwarz.tumblr.com
soundcloud.com/schwarz
mastered by SELF"
www.gruenrekorder.de
|
2015 |
€16.00 |
|
| SCOTT, SIMON (SIMON SCOTT) |
Navigare |
LP |
"This is the debut full-length release by the UK's Simon Scott. Scott has had a notable musical past: in the early '90s he was the drummer for the renowned shoegaze band Slowdive. Upon leaving Slowdive, he formed the more electronic-based group Televise. He also set up his own label, Kesh Recordings, and has so far released titles by the likes of Hannu, Sebastian Roux, Aus and Mark Templeton. More recently, Scott has been involved in several diverse projects, including his work as a member of Seavault (with Antony Ryan from Isan), and collaborations with Machinefabriek, Jasper TX and Emmanuele Errante. With Navigare, there are shades of Scott's previous output and musical interests, but as a whole, the album marks a bold new direction. Navigare opens with "Introduction Of Cambridge," a shimmering wall of sound, its ethereal tones and slow-burning drones gradually drawing closer and closer, creating gorgeous uplifting melodies and textures. The processed guitar combined with gentle swathes of interference and underlying rhythms echoes the processes of Chain Reaction's productions as much as it does the screeching, arcing feedback lines of Kevin Shield's guitar work. Navigare shares an affinity with the melodic content of Fennesz's work, the dark beauty of Tim Hecker's sound, and houses elements of the restraint found in Andrew Chalk's drone compositions. What really devastates here is Scott's ability to merge ambient passages with such memorable melodic cycles, taking the simplest of ideas and building on them, generating murky hooks and submerged "riffs." Scott explores textures using a variety of instruments including sitar, violin, cello, and flute, merging them with excerpts from field recordings; it all sounds so effortless. The looping rhythms and slow guitars rise and grow, at times approaching something oppressive; select pieces such as "Flood Inn" house an underlying weight, comparable to Justin K. Broderick's Jesu and Final projects. Perhaps the hazy drums, bass and guitar drift of "The ACC" presents the most recognizable of stylistic qualities from Scott's back catalog; a groove that recalls the Souvlaki-era sound in all its glory, re-imagined in a new, darker and more expansive form. Additionally, a guest appearance from label mate Jasper TX, a vocal contribution from Moskitoo, and a track co-written with Rafael Anton Irisarri, adds even more depth to Scott's already ambitious vision." [label info]
www.myspace.com/o3o3o
"Ah, Miasmah! After the likes of Elegi, Jacazek, and Kreng, we're pretty much automatically interested in any new release on
Norway's Miasmah label. Like this one. Add in some bits of trivia, like that Scott was once the drummer for shoegazers Slowdive, and that
this disc features a guest cameo from another Miasmah artist we love, Jasper TX, and we're already pretty intrigued. We also weren't at all surprised, but certainly pleased, by the gentle swells of ambient sonics that seep sleepily from the speakers when one hits play. The first two tracks, "Introduction Of Cambridge" and "Under Crumbling Skies", are blissfully replete with quiet hum and shimmering textures, forming into and out of drifting diaphanous melodies, blurry and
melancholic. Some sparse, slowed down drum skitter adds a touch of Bohren to the proceedings in the first track, while the second employs a glorious chorus of angelic drones, that graces one's ears again and
again throughout the disc.
Then, suddenly upping the volume, the third track "Flood Inn" seemingly enters into a subterranean realm full of soft fuzzy distortion. Quasi-industrially rhythmic, with a distant tolling bell heard amidst the crackle, this is ambience of the heavier (but not
harsh) variety, almost like something from a Nadja or Jesu album.
Having given warning of a more sinister side, the disc continues on, with seven tracks more, being a beautiful blend of dreaminess, drone and distortion. There are almost pop songs hidden here, with buried rhythms and barely-there vocals (in one instance
contributed by 12K's Sanae Yamasaki, aka Moskitoo), electronic treatments rendering the sound sources (guitar, sitar, violin, cello,
flute, field recordings, voice, ???) all one lush, hushed, beautifully bleary, gorgeous warm bath of song-like drone...
It's a moodier, shoegazier take on Pop Ambient perhaps, certainly something that fans of Tim Hecker, Fennesz, Final, Jasper
TX, and of course those other Miasmah wonders should check out!" [Aquarius Records]
|
2009 |
€18.00 |
|
| SEASONS (PRE-DIN) |
Your Eyes The Stars and Your Hands The Sea |
LP |
"You might not be familiar with the work of Seasons (pre-din), but the shadowy northerner has been honing his craft for some time now, covertly issuing a slew of stunning albums while the world ticked on. He cut his teeth performing and collaborating with Richard Skelton and Xela, but over the last couple of years has busied himself prepping a range of hand-made releases on his own label. Often gone in a matter of hours, these lovingly crafted curios caught the attention of astute listeners worldwide and it is now our pleasure to announce the first widely available album from Seasons (pre-din).
‘Your Eyes The Stars and Your Hands The Sea’ is a collection of tracks crafted from hours of field recordings and instrumental takes. Using a small hand held recorder and a collection of string instruments, Seasons set about using ‘spaces’ – recording sounds in different areas to create a certain sound or mood. These rooms, fields and abandoned buildings form the backbone of the sound and give a curious cinematic quality to the record. You can almost place yourself in each space, and while it isn’t always obvious beneath the chatter and manipulated radio static, there are always skeletons of real life just around the corner. It is eventually the artist’s humanity that sets these compositions apart from those of his peers; rather than simply dry recordings, they are merely starting points for layering and sculpting. The result is thick, detailed pieces which, while subtle, pack a clout more readily associated with the contemporary noise scene.
Restrained and totally enveloping, this is an album which resides somewhere in the undergrowth, emerging slowly before drifting gently out to sea. Turn down the lights, lower the needle and let it pull you away. You might not want to come back." [label info]
www.typerecords.com
|
2009 |
€16.50 |
|
| SEIROM |
Mesmerized |
CD |
'Mesmerized' is a collection of ambient and synth works recorded in 2014. Once again the aim of the material was pure emotion, pure atmosphere. Limited Edition 500 copies, 6 panel digipack
www.ksenzarecords.ru
"When one submerges themselves in as much darkness as black metal/noise maven Mories tends to, it is only natural to need a break every now and then. The need to come up from the murky depths and bask in the sunlight now and again is only human, and despite the otherworldly sounds he produces, the man is only human. Seirom is this breath of fresh air, this ray of sunlight, for Gnaw Their Tongues mastermind Maurice De Jong.
Ofttimes overlooked in favor of his more shocking material like Aderlating or Gnaw Their Tongues, Mories’s ambient synth project Seirom is just as satisfying a listen as any of his other material, and uses many of the same methods of attack, albeit to very different effect. Despite the fact that the project doesn’t seem to garner quite as much critical attention, the intrinsic value of the music contained within is undeniable, and the back-uncatalog is surprisingly extensive with multiple releases dating back since 2011, many of which are available of the artist’s bandcamp page for a ‘pay-what-you-want’ download. The newest Seirom release, the seven song EP ‘Mesmerized‘, is a beautiful and fascinating work which is a perfect place for newcomers to Mories’s lighter world to start immersing themselves.
As I stated in my review of the latest Gnaw Their Tongue’s full length Abyss of Longing Throats, Maurice De Jong is a master of creating moods and forcing you to feel; he understands how to draw certain emotions out of people with sound. Usually, these talents are utilized to terrify and repulse, but on Seirom he creates an atmosphere of contentment and peace, at times intruded upon by a sad, quiet longing. An edge of longing and mournfulness for times past, but one that is at peace with that past. A feeling that conveys the all-encompassing emotions of wistfully looking at days past and remembering beautiful times and contentedly moving forward, despite the passage of those times. Even the album art and track names seem to convey this wistful reminiscence. In this way, Mesmerized is a fitting title for this EP, for it truly does leave one mesmerized upon losing yourself to the beautiful sound and the atmosphere it creates. The base structure of the songs is not terribly different from some of Mories other more ambient releases in bands like Aderlating; however, the tone of the music and the execution is completely different. Still present are synth-laden ambient soundscapes and grand orchestral compositions, at times interrupted by washed-out samples and more conventional instrumentation, but this base formula is turned on its head by the stark change in execution and framing.
Standout tracks include the opener and titular track “Mesmerized,” and the lovely “Desensitized,” which is a beautiful example of everything Seirom does perfectly. The track begins with rhythmic strains of floating synth between washed-out, subtle electronic crunch and a programmed drum beat, and slowly builds in presence and insistence until a crashing finale of emotion, which slowly gives way to ambient nothings before rebuilding itself and then rapidly dying off again. Closer “Something New” is a perfect cap to the album, building upon the themes touched on earlier of wistful remembrance as the beauty of youth gives way to something new – not necessarily something bad, but something that is different than the things you once loved. Hypnotic piano amid light-drenched synth lead you towards the final ambient finale, slowly fading into obscurity and nothing as you leave behind the old and find the way to something new.
Another of Seirom’s releases is entitled and the light swallowed everything, and if there were ever a perfect title to describe a band’s overall sound, I think that would be it. Seirom deals in light, but it is an all-consuming light. Something that washes over you and makes you a part of it. You don’t know whether or not it is a good thing or a bad thing to be swallowed so wholly by this light, but it is certainly a beautiful thing. And as you are being swallowed, that is really all you care about." [Kira / Cvltnation] |
2015 |
€13.00 |
|
| SEKTOR 304 |
Soul Cleansing |
CD |
"In three decades, Industrial music, due to its tangible form, has given birth to numerous interpretations and splintered factions.
What’s indisputable, is that most of what is actually defined as “industrial” has ultimately become more about entertainment than
confrontation and far removed from the original intent. This is the context in which Sektor 304 has appeared. Equipped with a frightening
and impressive array of primitive instrumentation pulled from junkyards and scrap metal heaps, this Portuguese outfit has delivered an astounding formal debut ¬ a heady mixture of truly old school industrial in the vein of Einsturzende Neubauten, Test Dept , and S.P.K, and the grinding, bass heavy dirge of vintage Swans and Godflesh. These are anthems to the past, but geared towards an apocalyptic and bleak future… a form of counter-culture using what is most evident in modern western society: the debris, the abandoned objects, the waste, the noise, and the interference.
With a solid foundation of rusty, oil drenched percussion, Sektor 304 adds layer upon layer of squalling industrial clangor, hammering metallic noise, grimy atmospheres, heaving masses of haunted factory drones, and threatening tribal batter, with a strong and commanding vocal presence. The sound here is almost physical in nature - provocative, persistent, and demanding. An organic impulse filled with shamanic drifts in which the noise barrage allies itself with metallic rhythmics and the use of concrete elements in the compositions. Junk, plastics, amplified objects. A change of scale. A manipulation of
non-musical sounds in search of visual inductions trying to bring forward
the sequences of Tsukamoto or situations invoked by J.G. Ballard. The conflict between man and machine as a metaphor of the struggle of man against himself. A mix and weight of three decades of sonic subversion.
It can be said that to find the future of music, one must look to the past, drawing influence from prior achievements, yet forging a new identity, and sculpting something completely unique and distinct. With Sektor 304, the future is now, and it’s not entertaining. In 6 panel digipak, mastered by Steel Hook Audio." [Malignant Records]
"Epic crushing metallic industrial heaviness, the kind of thing
we thought they just didn't make anymore, but this is total Swans /
Godflesh / Cop Shoot Cop worship, pounding metallic percussion,
soundscapes of whirring drills, blown out low slung bass, howled
distorted vox, the whole thing so repetitive and mantric, thick slabs
of distorted rumble wrapped around tons of damaged electronics,
bleating horns buried beneath reverb drenched beats, some songs are
full on walls of twisted electronic crunch, others are brooding,
droning skeletal sprawls, laid over deep blurred basslines, and tribal
rhythms, some are dense whorls of deeeeeep sinister black ambience,
all darkly drifting layers, and distant bits of clang and shimmer. For
a few moments here and there, the sound gets downright poppy, like
some sort of washed out post industrial deathrock, but even then, it's
shot through with a seriously menacing sonic undercurrent that seeps
into every beat, and every note. Filthy, crusty, heavy, haunting,
crushing and brutal, the perfect mix of old school industrial pound,
and more modern bleak blackness. Fucking fierce and frightening, grim
and punishing, and we're digging it like crazy." [Aquarius Records]
|
2009 |
€13.00 |
|
| SERRIES, DIRK |
Microphonics XXI-XXV |
do-10inch & CD |
"with the conclusion of other remaining projects and collaborations, there’s no focus other than dirk serries’ ongoing exploration of minimalism. four years in the making and undoubtly fuelled by his 2009 debut and previous mainstays vidnaObmana and fear falls burning, this second microphonics studio album is a heartbreaking symphony of echoing themes, wailing overtones and beautiful desolation. microphonics xxi-xxv, subtitled ‘mounting among the waves, there’s a light in vein. the burden of hope across thousands of rivers’ does hint towards an emotional statement, one that boldly goes beyond what previously achieved.
microphonics xxi-xxv will be out on march 16, as a limited edition double 10inch in a numbered gatefold sleeve (150 copies on white vinyl, 300 copies on black vinyl), complete with a cd copy of the album, and a cd in a deluxe mini album gatefold sleeve." [label info]
www.tonefloat.com
"At the end of 2008 microphonics I - V saw the daylight. Time has come for Dirk Serries to play music under his own name and say good-bye to his alter-egos vidnaObmana and Fear Falls Burning. The design of that album was minimalist in structure. Quiet guitar patterns built up and flowed away and a calm, meditative ambient atmosphere with adventurous harmony was created. Five live albums and a 10 " were released at Tonefloat. Meanwhile appeared the last album of Fear Falls Burning, what can be called a stunning album, which led to an acoustic aftershock of an era ended. For more than four years later arrived the second studio album by the musical project microphonics, microphonics XXI - XXV with the subtitles Mounting among the waves, There's a light in vein, The burden of hope and Across thousands of rivers, which are the titles of the four tracks on the album. Elements of Fear Falls Burning, vidnaObmana and of course microphonics can be found in the compositions. The sound of
the guitar is dirtier, unpolished, seeking feedback and underneath the many layers of repeating sounds in which Serries is a master. The discrepancy between the heavy bass lines, distorted guitars, layered chords and delicate strumming seek each other, collide and blend together. Cheerfulness is hard to find in this album. It is true quest in which somewhere hope flickers. In this way the album ends with open chords and a rolling drone. The album is a pleasant surprise twist in the microphonics project, in which the ambient atmosphere reigned supreme. The double 10?is coming out with a book of city photography of Martina Verhoeven, the partner Dirk Serries. She plays bass in 3 Seconds or Air (a side project of Dirk Serries) and is responsible for the cover photography of Serries. The photography of the book, I haven?t view it yet, but given the pictures I've seen her before, it will be aesthetically pleasing and appropriate to the album. Often there is a desolate atmosphere in carefully composed black and white photos. Tonefloat knows to release another wonderful compilation of image and sound, which is a delight for the eyes and ears."(JKH/Vital Weekly]
|
2013 |
€27.50 |
|
| SET FIRE TO FLAMES |
Telegraphs in Negative / Mouths trapped in Static |
do-CD |
Zweites Album der hochkarätig besetzten Montrealer Grupppe...geräuschhaft-konkretes Material und Improvisationen, field recordings, dann wieder hochmelancholische Streicher-Gitarren-Kompositionen, die jedes Herz erweichen...
"Following the critical success of set fire to flames' 2001 album, 'sings reign rebuilder', the 13-piece Montreal-based collective return with an eagerly anticipated follow-up. Forming a double album, 'telegraphs in negative / mouths trapped in static' is a haunted, intense and highly diverse collection of material. Continuously shifting off at tangents, its slow sprawl creeps from heartbreaking guitar melodies to sparse string compositions; concrete flickerings and modified machine-crunch to tranced-out kraut-ish rhythm-pieces; cyclical minimalism to awe-filled drone-spaces; free-flowing improvised skitter and spark to raw location / life recordings. Beautifully played and composed, and far more than merely a follow-up, 'telegraphs...' sees set fire to flames pushing beyond the gains made on that previous effort and forging an increasingly autonomous space for the group..." [from the label description]
|
2003 |
€16.00 |
|
| SHADOW MAGNET |
Source and Purity |
CD-R |
“the female side of COMBATIVE ALIGNMENT presents the first full-length recordings devoted to the two-sided face of mankind. martial structures and drums meet the meditative side of the brain and create a great spectre of martial meditation. very complex compositions of massive sounds and powerful drums in a great art niveau style and artwork lead you to the source and purity...” [label description]
New Avatar release, and as always guaranteed quality. Carefully constructed ritual/martial atmospherics. SM always remind me of Contrastate in some vague ways (though in this case, some Turbund Sturmwerk as well) ; dark, brooding, and compelling, with a subtle, refined power. Grows stronger as it progresses, becoming more majestic and archaic, ancient voices filtering in through a rippling fog of mesmerizing and at times poignantly nostalgic atmospheres.” [Malignant Records info]
|
2006 |
€9.50 |
|
| SHAKHNES, GRISHA |
Leave / Trace |
LP |
"Formerly operating under the name of Mites, Shakhnes has been recording and performing in Tel Avi, Israel since 2008. His work has been issued both privately in limited handmade CD-R editions, and internationally though Alamut Records (Jerusalem), Mystery Sea (Belgium), and Copy For Your Records (NYC). Consider 'leave/trace' a graduation ceremony, as Shakhnes steps away from pseudonymity and into the bright lights of his own exceptional music.'leave/trace' offers a compelling display of musical abstraction, blending field recordings from peculiar and mundane origins into sumptuously detailed and surreally original new forms. Shakhnes is deftly able to capture and juxtapose otherwise overlooked details of commonplace events, placing his work at the fulcrum of contemporary tape music. Never overly literal, 'leave/trace' instead allows the listener to find their own way through its compositions, granting rich reward for those willing to make the journey." [label info]
glisteningexamples.com
|
2013 |
€19.00 |
|
| |
The Heaver |
MC |
https://moremars.bandcamp.com/album/the-heaver
“I was going to be a neo-deconstructivist but mom wouldn't let me”
Writing about Grisha Shakhnes’s music is quite a difficult task. Grisha is involved with the independent music scene since 2008, at first under the name Mites and then with his real name. All these years, he is practicing on music composition, using mainly field recording, tapes and lo-fi electronics, keeping a beautiful balance between real time composition and experimentation. Grisha's sound work has a very personal character and sometimes it's like the listener following in real time his creative process. He is recording at home, with his presence being notable on the recordings and with the sounds of the environment being welcome on his compositions.
On “The Heaver”, Grisha Shakhnes works with structure, textures and length, giving space to transformative qualities of sound and repetitive inaudible ones, to shape of his musical work. He improvises and manipulate sounds very gently, creating foggy soundscapes of broken sounds, electronic hums and noises, mixed with pre-recorded material from urban life.
“The Heaver” includes four new long compositions by Grisha Shakhnes, recorded on Tel Aviv during June of 2021. Released on a limited edition of 100 cassettes, including download code.
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"Music from Grisha Shakhnes, from tel Aviv, made it to these pages a couple of times (Vital Weekly 1208, 985, 939, 880), but already some time ago. I am unsure why it took some time to have a new release, but maybe I missed out on some. His music is usually quite conceptual, even when the concept isn't always that clear. There is quite a bit at work regarding field recording but without much action. Shakhness captures a situation and maybe adds a wee bit of processing, and that's it. In 'About To Collapse', the recorder sits in a car, and it rains, so the window scrapers are on. Maybe a delay pedal rides along? 'Street Life' does that, capturing street life. At night, I think, with minimal action going (or maybe Shakhness lives in a tranquil area). In 'Winding Down', the tap leaks, and there is some highly obscured indoor action; again, we have no idea about the source. In that respect, is the title piece the winner here; I have no idea what's going on there. We have four pieces here, four situations, if you will, or four textures. Each of these textures is mysterious and vague in equal portions. But, perhaps, strangely enough, I found all these highly fascinating music pieces. Is there development or even change? That question I found hard to answer. There are points in all of these pieces in which something changes but is that the result of Shakhness intervening (or composing with sounds), or simply because there is a shift in the sound. Scientists are still thinking about this answer. For me, the answer is not as interesting as the question." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
|
2023 |
€9.50 |
|
| SHASTA CULTS |
Shasta Cults |
LP |
"Shasta Cults is the musical project of Canadian electronics technician Richard Smith. For almost two decades, Smith was the official Buchla & Associates go-to repair person for studios, collectors, and musicians around the world, having worked with artists like Aphex Twin, Suzanne Ciani, Mort Subotnick and institutions like NYU, The Library of Congress and Mills College in Oakland, Ca.
Recording demonstrations of the rare equipment that found its way on to his workbench is how Smith describes the origins of Shasta Cults. Although sounds have been trickling out for decades via Soundcloud and other outlets, it wasn’t until 2017 that Smith recorded his first album using one of these rare instruments – the Buchla 700. Configurations, released this past September by Important Records, features eight tracks of heavily-modulated, wave-shaped explorations drenched in effects, and was the catalyst for his latest releases.
Recorded over the span of 3 months in the fall of 2018, this album was programmed solely on the only fully-functional Buchla Touché. Developed in the early 1980s with hardware by Don Buchla and software programmed by musician David Rosenboom, the Touché features waveforms generated internally by twenty-four digital oscillators using frequency modulation and sophisticated digital and analog signal processing for timbre and output assignment, all of this controlled via a six-octave black and white keyboard, unusual for a Buchla instrument.
This LP is a continuation on themes first heard on Configurations, with more consideration given to the generation and capturing of the pieces. This album is less dark than previous releases, showcasing the incredible fidelity of the hardware used and Smiths evolution as an audio engineer. Put on some headphones, find a comfortable chair, and let this LP transport you to the mystifying southern cascades of Siskiyou County." [label info]
"To the uninitiated, the complexities of electronic synthesis can seem daunting and foreign. Even for those well versed, complete mastery over those systems seems like a lifelong task given the seemingly infinite nature of their design. Richard Smith, the synthesist behind Shasta Cults, has worked as an official technician for Buchla gear for nearly 20 years, and has an intimate mechanical knowledge of the company's many machines, which have achieved near-fetishistic status over the past decade. On Shasta Cults' self-titled album, Smith demonstrates a rare virtuosity of the Buchla Touché (of which there were only four made) that illustrates not only the power of the machine to sculpt uncanny textures but also Smith's singular compositional style.
Smith's work is compact and economical, a contrast to the protracted compositions that define the remaining core of Important Records' contemporary synth roster, including Eleh, Caterina Barbieri, Alessandro Cortini and Jessica Ekomane. Drones and arhythmic swells comprise the basis of most of the six pieces on Shasta Cults, but rather than letting them marinate he focuses on dynamic layering and timbral juxtapositions. Shasta Cults originated from Smith's desire to demonstrate the range and abilities of the various Buchla models he was repairing and restoring, and this approach seems directly derived from those roots. Within each track, he's able to cover a surprising amount of ground. If you didn't know the music was created all on one machine, you'd be forgiven for assuming these tracks were realized using a much more diverse arsenal.
The album begins peacefully, and with restraint. "Prologue" hovers with a sense of placid melancholy, bass tones cycling in and out of the mix. Its clean tones sound glass-like, smooth and nearly transparent as they fade in and out of the audible field. Other moments have more bite. "DA3" features coarse waves of sound that resemble aural quicksand, gulping the listener up in successive, oozing surges. This buzzing intensity is overlaid with dramatic, organ-like stabs that appear triumphant in the face of the pulsing chaos below. On the drone track "Incline," Terry Riley-esque tones swirl back and forth over an increasingly resonant bass hum. The closer, "Chinook," with its apprehensive melodic fragments that open up into a yawning, fuzzed-out climax, leaves the album feeling unresolved in a way that feels entirely purposeful.
Gear worship for its own sake can be tiring, but the music on Shasta Cults is too expressive to be pigeonholed simply as exercises in technological know-how. The recent Buchla boom has led to many different approaches over the past few years, but Smith's Shasta Cults project stands apart not just because he has access to the rarest models or has such an intimate knowledge of their notoriously unpredictable, generative circuitry. He uses this knowledge to create music that is richly textured without becoming dense, and like all masters of their instrument he knows how to dance elegantly between complexity and simplicity. It is that dance that makes Shasta Cults feel special." [Resident Advisor]
|
2019 |
€26.50 |
|
| |
Configurations |
CD |
"A ship sinks beneath the silver mirror of the sea-top, temple gongs ring through an empty valley, industrial machinery sputters, heaves, lurches forward, stops, falls apart… These sound events may be the most acute musical referents of Shasta Cults, the music project of Canadian synthesizer technician Richard Smith. Using obsolete electronics, Shasta Cults pursues the true sound of the instrument, freed from the tyranny of emulation, no strings/woodwinds/piano presets. Shasta Cults’ compositions seek out unchartered territories where sustained drones may swell, build, or evaporate; where timbres collide, amplitudes fluctuate, sounds emerge, raw, primeval, new hybrids form from the collisions of electricity and frequency. There may be stretches of silence punctuated by bell-ish tones from futures unheard; a sequence of notes may verge upon melody before mutating into ugly moans, the sonic equivalent of funhouse mirrors. But the end result is far more than chance operation, sporadic sound fields, or indeterminate academic exercise. Instead, Shasta Cults brings us back to nature, back to the possibilities inherent in nature, to the truth of evolution, stitching both musical tones, and the sounds of 21st century living into a form which is as real, as imponderable, and as ungovernable as our own memories.
Recorded in 2017, employing the processes of non-linear waveshaping, frequency modulation and feedback, Configurations consists of eight programs captured live to multitrack using a rare, fully functional Buchla 700 digital-hybrid instrument designed in the late 1980s. Whereas previously released works made with the 700 almost always consist in simple manipulations of the single factory preset, this album delves deep into the instrument’s rich sonic vocabulary to offer the listener a more elaborate demonstration of the system’s capabilities.
Presented here in limited quantities this release is intended as a high fidelity audio archive of this obscure musical artifact."
https://shastacults.bandcamp.com/album/configurations |
2019 |
€15.00 |
|
| SHEFFIELD, COLIN ANDREW / JAMES ECK RIPPIE |
Variations |
LP |
"Variations is a selection of works from the duo of Colin Andrew Sheffield (samples, processing) and James Eck Rippie (turntables, guitar). The three pieces comprising this album were recorded "live" with no additional production and were wholly improvised. Each of the album's pieces utilizes sounds from a single acoustic instrument as its sole source material. Here, the duo's examinations of the harp, guitar, and flute result in three unique components of a unified whole: a textured ambience that is rich and subtle, simple and complex.
On black 180g vinyl with lovely full-color jackets, in an edition of 400 copies." [label info]
www.elevatorbath.com
"Interessante Zusammenarbeit von C. SHEFFIELD mit JAMES RIPPIE... zu hören gibt es drei atmosphärische, dronige Kompositionen mit sowas wie verfremdeten Harfen oder Gitarren-Sounds, vielen digitalen Brüchen und eigenartigen Texturen, die eine ganz eigene Harmonik entwickeln..
nice collaboration presenting atmospheric,droney compositions using effected harps and strange textures that develop their very own harmonics.. " [Drone Records info]
|
2001 |
€15.00 |
|
| |
Essential Anomalies |
do-LP |
Colin Andrew Sheffield (sampler) and James Eck Rippie (turntables) began playing music together in Dallas, Texas in 2000 and released their debut LP, "Variations," a year later. They separated soon afterwards, relocating to cities 2,600 miles apart; and though they continued with solo work, they remained inactive as a duo until recently. During this hiatus, Sheffield stayed busy dealing antiquarian books and running his Elevator Bath label; Rippie became an accomplished sound mixer for major motion pictures and television shows. And yet the collaboration between these two friends of a quarter century has always held a special significance (as Francois Couture of AllMusic stated: "The level of understanding between [these two artists] ... commands respect"). So, in 2015, when the two found themselves both living in Austin, a reactivation of their improvising duo was a happy inevitability.
"Essential Anatomies" is the fruit of the pair's renewed efforts. Comprising four pieces originally issued on limited edition cassettes and now widely available for the first time, the double LP is an experiment in audio collage and instant narrative composition. The main tools are sounds from the past: commercially available recordings manipulated and sculpted into a medium with inherent potential. Unlike their plunderphonic ancestors and contemporaries, however, Sheffield and Rippie place a heavy emphasis on atmosphere and a kind of musicality. Their work is surprising and challenging, but it is infused with their keen sense of structure and listenability.
Elements of sound art, drone, glitch, and noise emerge from their altered samples. These sounds have been stripped of any extraneous cumbrances, leaving just the crucial components. The parts that remain, the essential anatomies, form the basis for an ongoing abstract dialogue between two artists with a remarkably developed affinity. The results capture dual streams of consciousness, coursing with a description of nonrepresentational beauty.
"[B]est described as abstract plunderphonics. Sheffield and Rippie use samplers and turntables to sculpt the past into new forms that defy instant categorization; suffice it to say that the old has never sounded so new."
- Richard Allen, A Closer Listen
"Essential Anatomies" has been released by Elevator Bath as a limited edition double LP, copies of which are also available here: www.elevatorbath.com
Mastered for vinyl by James Plotkin
Cover art by Eugenia Loli
credits
released July 7, 2017
Colin Andrew Sheffield (b. 1976, El Paso TX) is the founder of the Elevator Bath recording label. He has released a number of solo recordings on labels such as Invisible Birds, Mystery Sea, Quiet World, and 23five.
James Eck Rippie (b. 1977) is a visual/sound artist originally from outside Nashville TN. His recorded work has been as a turntablist, but he has also worked extensively with other instruments and mediums. He has released his work with the Crónica Electronica and Sirr labels, among others, and has collaborated with sound artists Simon Whetham, Paulo Raposo, and eRikm.
Sheffield and Rippie will tour the US this summer.
elevatorbath.bandcamp.com/album/essential-
anatomies-3
"Compiling recent small-run cassette works into a luxurious double record set, Essential Anatomies represents a reunion for the duo of Colin Andrew Sheffield and James Eck Rippie. Collaborators since 2000 and friends for even longer, the four lengthy recordings here capture their Texas reunion in 2015, and with its undeniable sense of complexity and cohesion, makes it clear that they have not missed a step from their time apart.
On paper, what Sheffield and Rippie do is well-trod ground: processing and recontexualization of samples and other forms of pre-recorded music. But rather than being another pair of John Oswald wannabes, they do so with distinct expertise and precision. To use a slightly abstract metaphor, they are much closer to Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad production, taking bits here and there and using them as elements in a much different whole, than they are Puff Daddy’s wholesale plagiarism and lack of innovation.
The first of the four lengthy pieces (each around 22 to 23 minutes long) is an instant launch into the gloom that is Essential Anatomies. Chilling, piano like scrapes cut through a blackened, churning abyss of sound. Some shrill, sharp bits pierce through the darkness here and there, but the piece largely stays pleasant, even though it is rather bleak and covered in a nicely noisy sheen of fuzz. Tortured, almost melodic tones occasionally shine through a wall of ghostly drifts and heavy rumbles, at times heading toward a bit of harsh crunch, but stays in check. The melodies appear here and there again, acting as a slightly less oppressive counterpoint to the sound of decay that surrounds it. Finally, the duo end the piece on a lighter note, like sun shining through menacing gray skies.
What is abundantly clear right from this start is that Sheffield and Rippie are not only extremely proficient at creating moods and space with their samplers and turntables (respectively), but also a creating dynamic compositions that are quite expansive and varied, changing often but returning to reoccurring motifs that results in a more composed, rather than improvised sound. The second piece allows a bit more of their source material to shine through, mostly in the form of piano notes and what sounds like frozen reverberations of chimes far in the distance. There is the same sense of space, but erratic loops and mangled notes result in a composition that builds in tension, eventually transitioning into haunting church organ like walls that dominate the latter half of the piece.
Comparably, the second record comes across a bit less melodic and a bit more textural in the composition and structure. Part three begins with an almost percussive, crunching machinery like opening that is eventually melded with a batch of wet, almost organic like noises and radio static. Bits of recognizable music still sneak through here and there, but it is less the focus. Instead, metallic sweeps and unnatural field recording like sounds fill out the mix, though it ends on a slightly more ambient note. The final composition first is free and spacious, with some crackling tactile like elements at first, but soon it takes on a decaying sound. More organ and mangled string fanfares give a more conventional signpost here and there, but by the end the duo has already transitioned the sound to one of tension and fright, slowly evolving into an uncomfortable silence to end the record.
While I do not believe I could ever manage to place the source of the sounds Colin Andrew Sheffield and James Eck Rippie utilized in making Essential Anatomies, never does it feel like the two overly processed or from their source. Meaning that, there is some of the original character left from the source material, however subtle it may be. Instead these audio building blocks are obscured but tastefully utilized to construct these atmosphere heavy works. Rippie’s day job is a sound mixer for films and television shows, which surely aided the two in creating the cinematic mood that these two records conjure up. It is that combination of sonic nuance and compositional strength and diversity that make Essential Anatomies so good." [Creaig Dunton/Brainwashed] |
2017 |
€25.00 |
|
| SHRINE |
Harmony, Bliss, Rust |
MC |
"Harmony, Bliss, Rust" was originally released on the now defunct Swedish net label Mirakel Music in March, 2006. It was the first Shrine release ever. Twelve years later it is reborn on this tape and available in a physical format for the first time. This re-issue of "Harmony, Bliss, Rust" features a brand new artwork.
All music is composed and arranged by Shrine in 2005.
Graphic design and prepress: Shrine.
Shrine is Hristo Gospodinov.
"Harmony, Bliss, Rust" is a passage from tranquility to disharmony. Three lengthy compositions will take you to uncharted desolate places with their slowly evolving sounds. The beginning is very soft and laid back and the end is harsh and distorted... but this doesn't keep the album from being soothing. It works great both as usual background ambience and for active listening." [website infos]
shrine-ambient.bandcamp.com/album/harmony-bliss-rust
|
2018 |
€7.00 |
|
| SIDHARTA, OTTO |
Four Indonesian Electronic Pieces 1979-1984 |
LP |
Fascinating and unreleased before music by Otto Sidharta, pionneer of Indonesian electronic music. Electronic compositions that integrated natural sounds and urban sounds to this extent were extremely rare at the time, which gives them a unique form of intensity.
Released in our Early Electronic series.
Otto Sidharta is born in Bandung, Indonesia November 6, 1955. In 1978 he studied music composition in Jakarta Institute of Arts under guidance of Slamet Abdul Sjukur, in 1984 he continue his post graduate study for composition and electronic music with Prof. Ton de Leeuw in Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam.
In 2015 acomplished his doctoral study at Institute Seni Indonesia Surakarta and finished in 2016. Sidharta's interest using environmental sounds and synthetics sounds as well to express his musical ideas developed when he was a student at the Jakarta Institute of Arts. He performed his first electronic music piece, Kemelut, based on water sounds in the First Indonesian Young Composer Festival (Pekan Komponis Muda) in 1979. In 1979 he begin to collect some nature and animal sounds on Nias Island, Borneo (Kalimantan) jungle, Riau islands, and some other remote places. These sounds were used as material for some of his works such as Ngendau, Hutan Plastik and East wind. And some others. Otto Sidharta is still alive and performing around the world.
https://subrosalabel.bandcamp.com/album/indonesian-electronic-music-1979-92 |
2017 |
€16.00 |
|
| |
Kajang |
LP |
Unreleased before music by Otto Sidharta, pionneer of Indonesian electronic music. Inspired by Indonesia's multifarious styles of traditional music, that he tries to preserve, the four pieces on Kajang express a contemplation of the self :
Otto Sidharta loves to travel, everywhere within Indonesia, in order to collect almost any environmental tones and harmonies he can gather, as an endless source of composition. He is also deeply inspired by Indonesia's multifarious styles of traditional music, that he tries to preserve, as in some remote places, they keep their own tradition very strongly.
What really interests Sidharta is musicians not interacting with other kinds of music, as in those deep villages, where one might find sounds that feel like very 'natural'. It results in works expressing Sidharta's personal impression from their music: 'I just use my own feeling, with no calculation', not using the tribals motif or style.
Kajang is the name of a tribal people living in the south of Sulawesi, a giant island in eastern Indonesia, a closed community, that Sidharta visited twice: 'They cut off their communication with the outside world. They live in a very traditional way and try to avoid any new development in culture that might impact their way of life.'
Sidharta's previous album collected early pieces under the title Indonesian Electronic Music 1979-92, released on Sub Rosa in 2017. Kajang gathers a quartet of compositions from 2015 to 2020.
credits
released April 24, 2017
Otto Sidharta is born in Bandung, Indonesia November 6, 1955. In the late 1970' he studied first in Jakarta, under guidance of Slamet Abdul Sjukur, later at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Holland. In 2015 he accomplished his doctoral study at Institute Seni Indonesia Surakarta and finished in 2016. For years he felt isolated as a composer, not only because of living in Indonesia, but because the nature of his music lay outside the mainstream of electronic composition. Until 2019 he taught for many years in the music departments of several Indonesian universities. He also managed an Indonesian symphony orchestra for five years, a job that included setting up a tour of Japan.
https://ottosidharta.bandcamp.com/album/kajang |
2022 |
€17.00 |
|
| SIGUR ROS |
Ny Batteri |
mCD |
“Following the near unprecedented reception for their debut EP, ‘Svefn-G-Englar’, Iceland’s Sigur Rós deliver an equally extraordinary second record in the shape of ‘Ný Batterí’. As with its sold-out predecessor, ‘Ný Batterí’ comes as a four track EP with three otherwise unavailable new compositions. First track ‘Rafmagnið Búið’ (trans. ‘Electricity Over’) is a remix based around the brass section from ‘Ný Batterí’ (‘New Battery’), which follows (and is taken from the group’s forthcoming debut album, ‘Ágaetis Byrjun’. Third track ‘Bíum Bíum Bambaló’ is a breathtaking rendition of an old Icelandic lullaby, which research reveals has never been recorded before, being handed down instead by oral tradition. The last track is ‘Dánarfregnir Og Jarðarfarir’, which translates as something like ‘Death Announcement and Funerals’. This is based on the Iceland radio service which each day announces to the nation who has died and what their funeral arrangements are. This is “theme” music, as interpreted by Sigur Rós.
The last two tracks have been chosen for the soundtrack of ‘Angels Of The Universe’, a forthcoming movie from Oscar-nominated Icelandic film director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, which is based on a book by winner of the Karen Blixen prize for literature, Einar Mar Gudmundsson. Following their inclusion on this limited edition EP, both ‘Bíum Bíum Bambaló’ and ‘Dánarfregnir Og Jarðarfarir’ will be available only on the ‘Angels Of The Universe’ soundtrack.” [label info]
www.fat-cat.co.uk |
2006 |
€9.00 |
|
| SISTER LOOLOMIE |
Signals |
CD-R |
"Sister Loolomie is one of the offspring of [S]ergey (or just [S]), a musician from Moscow region, known for his projects Exit In Grey, Five Elements Music and some others, as well as for his labels Still*Sleep and Semperflorens. The musical style of [S] is notable for its delicate and gentle approach to sound, the keywords for its definition are: ambient / drone / experimental / electroacoustic. In Sister Loolomie [S] utilizes deliberate sonic "digitalizing" and at the same time manages to keep the warmth and cosiness of sound in his own way, resembling tape drone music.
[S]ergey uses guitar, electronics, radio and computer processing in creating his soundscapes, both abstract and sensuous at the same time. The compositions move calmly and slowly, sound loops draw in attention like spirals and dissolve it in their textures. Shivery signal waves and soft generated rasp form an aerial atmosphere, in which crackle the discharges of digital interference, and bright yet slightly melancholic melodies bring serenity and tender contemplative sadness." [label info]
http://zhb.radionoise.ru/
|
2009 |
€8.00 |
|
| SKY BURIAL |
Chapel Image |
CD |
Sky Burial’s fourteenth full-length recording marks a return to ‘epic’ length compositions fea-turing a single track spanning the length of the release. Firmly rooted in the kosmische ethos, ‘Chapel Image’ is a constantly shifting journey through the nebulous depths of drone and dark ambience with full-immersion being just held at bay by the uneasy dichotomy of low and high frequencies and punctuation of rhythmic and industrial elements.
Comes in digipack limited to 300 copies.
Note from the mastering studio: “Based in drone, Chapel Image encompasses the listener in abroad stereo field, engulfing you in so-und while elements play back and forth in the stereo mix. You can mention haunting or ethereal but this doesn't serve to define the full range or feel of the entire 45 minute piece. The mood changes throughout shifting from beautiful bell tones and diving into industrial dirges. It's not a recording that sits still for any time. It does repeat some themes eventually revisiting to the bell tones and reverb soaked synth tones or occasional rhythm, but the variation is paced and it paves the way for the liste-ner moving them along with the track.” –Chris Goudreau, Ninth Circle Studios
Sky Burial is Michael Page, a visual and sound artist living on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. After several years recording and touring in the power electronics/industrial/noise genre as Fire in the Head, Michael formed Sky Burial in 2006 as an outlet to explore the ambient side of industrial music, often citing esoteric, literary, esoteric, metaphysical and mythological subject matter as a muse. Much like the Tibetan ritual from which the project takes its name, Michael chose to work under the Sky Burial moniker as an act of freeing himself from artistic confines, providing an unfettered route for sonic expression and experimentation. Although initially inspired by early industrial music projects and electronic/ambient/kosmische acts of the 70's & 80's, the music of Sky Burial continues to evolve and blur genre boundaries.
Michael has released over 50 recordings since 2004 under various monikers and has collaborated on his releases with Mark Spybey (Download/Dead Voice on Air/Zoviet France), Nik Turner (Hawkwind), Jarboe (ex-Swans), Anni Hogan (ex-Marc Almond), Troum, Danny Hyde (Coil), Nigel Ayers (Nocturnal Emissions), Bridget Wishart (Hawkwind), Johann Eiriksson (Reptilicus, Gjöll), Nick Blinko (Rudimentary Peni), Gee Vaucher (Crass) as well as production assistance from James Plotkin (Khanate) and Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu).
www.wrotycz.com
|
2017 |
€12.00 |
|
| SLOWDIVE |
Everything is Alive (Crystal Clear vinyl) |
LP |
Sechs Jahre nach dem monumentalen Comeback mit dem selbstbetitelten Album, finden slowdive - bestehend aus Rachel Goswell und Neil Halstead (beide Vocs und Git.), Christian Savill (Git.), Nick Chaplin (Bass) und Drummer Simon Scott - auf "everything is alive" immer mehr Konturen ihres eindringlichen, elementaren Sounds. Das fünfte Album der Shoegaze-Giganten enthält die Dualität einer vertrauten inneren Sprache, gemischt mit der Exaltiertheit von Neuanfängen. "everything is alive" ist transportierend, suchend und leuchtend, das Werk einer klassischen Band, die ihre unverwechselbare Stimme weiter in die Zukunft richtet. Das neue Album begann mit Halstead in der Rolle des Autors und Produzenten, der zu Hause an Demos arbeitete. Halstead experimentierte mit modularen Synthesizern und stellte sich "everything is alive" ursprünglich als ein "minimaleres elektronisches Album" vor. Die kollektive Entscheidungsfindung von slowdive führte die Band schließlich zurück zu ihren charakteristischen, mit Hall durchtränkten Gitarren, aber dieses erste Konzept sickerte in die Kompositionen ein. "Wenn wir als Band alle damit zufrieden sind, ist das tendenziell das stärkere Material. Wir sind immer aus leicht unterschiedlichen Richtungen gekommen, und die besten Stücke sind dort, wo wir uns alle in der Mitte treffen", sagt Halstead. "slowdive ist vor allem die Summe seiner Teile", fügt Goswell hinzu. "Wenn wir fünf in einem Raum zusammenkommen, passiert etwas Undefinierbares." Der mehrjährige Aufnahmeprozess begann im Herbst 2020 im Courtyard Studio, wo die Band schon immer aufgenommen hat, setzte sich dann in Oxfordshire und in der umliegenden Heide von Lincolnshire fort, um dann wieder zurück in Neils eigenes Studio in Cornwall zu gelangen. Anfang 2022 holte die Band Shawn Everett (The War On Drugs, Alvvays, SZA) ins Studio, um sechs der acht Tracks des Albums abzumischen. "everything is alive" ist genau das, was der Titel andeutet: eine Erkundung der schillernden Natur des Lebens und der universellen Berührungspunkte darin. Mit seinen psychedelischen Klanglandschaften, pulsierenden 80er-Jahre-Elektronik-Elementen und John Cale-inspirierten Reisen wirkt das Album sofort wie etwas, das für die Zukunft gemacht ist; das passt, denn die Fangemeinde der Band ist im Laufe der Zeit immer jünger geworden, und ihr Einfluss auf vorwärts denkende Musik-Künstler*innen ist ungebrochen. Für ein Genre, das oft als spalterisch angesehen wird und oft Introspektion rechtfertigt, zeigen slowdive hier, dass sie ihr Handwerk beherrschen, indem sie es über das Singuläre hinaus vorantreiben; das Endergebnis ist eine Platte, die sich ebenso emotional und kathartisch wie optimistisch anfühlt.
The fifth album from shoegaze giants Slowdive contains the duality of a familiar internal language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings. everything is alive is transportive, searching and aglow, the work of a classic band continuing to pitch its unmistakable voice to the future. Six years after the group’s monumental self-titled album, everything is alive finds Slowdive—vocalists and guitarists Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, guitarist Christian Savill, bassist Nick Chaplin, and drummer Simon Scott—locating evermore contours of its immersive, elemental sound.
The new record began with Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived of everything is alive as a “more minimal electronic record.” Slowdive’s collective decision-making ultimately drew the group back towards their signature reverb-drenched guitars, but that first concept seeped into the compositions. “As a band, when we’re all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material,” Halstead says. “We’ve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle.” The convergence of five unique characters has made the sound. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.”
The group’s projected studio sessions for everything is alive, in April 2020, were naturally scrapped, and when the group finally did meet up, six months later, at Courtyard Studio, where they’ve historically recorded, the mood was jubilant. (Finally, they had a proper reason to leave the house.) That was the beginning of a multi-year recording process, which moved from Oxfordshire and into the Wolds of Lincolnshire and back to Neil’s own Cornish studio before extending into February 2022, when the band brought in mixer Shawn Everett (The War On Drugs, SZA, Alvvays) to mix six of the record’s eight tracks.
Owing to their deep history, there’s a palpable familial energy to Slowdive in 2023. everything is alive is dedicated to Goswell’s mother and Scott’s father, who both died in 2020. “There were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Those crossroads are reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of Slowdive’s music; everything is alive is heavy with experience, but each note is poised, wise, and necessarily pitched to hope. Its unique alchemy subtly embodies both sadness and gratitude, groundedness and uplift. Reflecting on “kisses,” which may be Slowdive’s surest pop moment yet, Halstead said, “It wouldn’t feel right to make a really dark record right now. The album is quite eclectic emotionally, but it does feel hopeful.”
everything is alive, is exactly what the title suggests: an exploration into the shimmering nature of life and the universal touch points within it. Spanning psychedelic soundscapes, pulsating 80’s electronic elements and John Cale inspired journeys, the album lands immediately as something made for the future; which figures, as their fanbase has grown younger and younger as time has gone on, and their influence on forward thinking musical artists continues to prevail.
For a genre that is often thought of as divisive, and often warrants introspection, here Slowdive show their craft as the masters of it by pushing it outwards, beyond the singular; the end result being a record which feels as emotional and cathartic as it is optimistic.
https://slowdive.bandcamp.com/album/everything-is-alive
|
2023 |
€26.50 |
|
| |
Everything is Alive |
MC |
Sechs Jahre nach dem monumentalen Comeback mit dem selbstbetitelten Album, finden slowdive - bestehend aus Rachel Goswell und Neil Halstead (beide Vocs und Git.), Christian Savill (Git.), Nick Chaplin (Bass) und Drummer Simon Scott - auf "everything is alive" immer mehr Konturen ihres eindringlichen, elementaren Sounds. Das fünfte Album der Shoegaze-Giganten enthält die Dualität einer vertrauten inneren Sprache, gemischt mit der Exaltiertheit von Neuanfängen. "everything is alive" ist transportierend, suchend und leuchtend, das Werk einer klassischen Band, die ihre unverwechselbare Stimme weiter in die Zukunft richtet. Das neue Album begann mit Halstead in der Rolle des Autors und Produzenten, der zu Hause an Demos arbeitete. Halstead experimentierte mit modularen Synthesizern und stellte sich "everything is alive" ursprünglich als ein "minimaleres elektronisches Album" vor. Die kollektive Entscheidungsfindung von slowdive führte die Band schließlich zurück zu ihren charakteristischen, mit Hall durchtränkten Gitarren, aber dieses erste Konzept sickerte in die Kompositionen ein. "Wenn wir als Band alle damit zufrieden sind, ist das tendenziell das stärkere Material. Wir sind immer aus leicht unterschiedlichen Richtungen gekommen, und die besten Stücke sind dort, wo wir uns alle in der Mitte treffen", sagt Halstead. "slowdive ist vor allem die Summe seiner Teile", fügt Goswell hinzu. "Wenn wir fünf in einem Raum zusammenkommen, passiert etwas Undefinierbares." Der mehrjährige Aufnahmeprozess begann im Herbst 2020 im Courtyard Studio, wo die Band schon immer aufgenommen hat, setzte sich dann in Oxfordshire und in der umliegenden Heide von Lincolnshire fort, um dann wieder zurück in Neils eigenes Studio in Cornwall zu gelangen. Anfang 2022 holte die Band Shawn Everett (The War On Drugs, Alvvays, SZA) ins Studio, um sechs der acht Tracks des Albums abzumischen. "everything is alive" ist genau das, was der Titel andeutet: eine Erkundung der schillernden Natur des Lebens und der universellen Berührungspunkte darin. Mit seinen psychedelischen Klanglandschaften, pulsierenden 80er-Jahre-Elektronik-Elementen und John Cale-inspirierten Reisen wirkt das Album sofort wie etwas, das für die Zukunft gemacht ist; das passt, denn die Fangemeinde der Band ist im Laufe der Zeit immer jünger geworden, und ihr Einfluss auf vorwärts denkende Musik-Künstler*innen ist ungebrochen. Für ein Genre, das oft als spalterisch angesehen wird und oft Introspektion rechtfertigt, zeigen slowdive hier, dass sie ihr Handwerk beherrschen, indem sie es über das Singuläre hinaus vorantreiben; das Endergebnis ist eine Platte, die sich ebenso emotional und kathartisch wie optimistisch anfühlt.
The fifth album from shoegaze giants Slowdive contains the duality of a familiar internal language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings. everything is alive is transportive, searching and aglow, the work of a classic band continuing to pitch its unmistakable voice to the future. Six years after the group’s monumental self-titled album, everything is alive finds Slowdive—vocalists and guitarists Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, guitarist Christian Savill, bassist Nick Chaplin, and drummer Simon Scott—locating evermore contours of its immersive, elemental sound.
The new record began with Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived of everything is alive as a “more minimal electronic record.” Slowdive’s collective decision-making ultimately drew the group back towards their signature reverb-drenched guitars, but that first concept seeped into the compositions. “As a band, when we’re all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material,” Halstead says. “We’ve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle.” The convergence of five unique characters has made the sound. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.”
The group’s projected studio sessions for everything is alive, in April 2020, were naturally scrapped, and when the group finally did meet up, six months later, at Courtyard Studio, where they’ve historically recorded, the mood was jubilant. (Finally, they had a proper reason to leave the house.) That was the beginning of a multi-year recording process, which moved from Oxfordshire and into the Wolds of Lincolnshire and back to Neil’s own Cornish studio before extending into February 2022, when the band brought in mixer Shawn Everett (The War On Drugs, SZA, Alvvays) to mix six of the record’s eight tracks.
Owing to their deep history, there’s a palpable familial energy to Slowdive in 2023. everything is alive is dedicated to Goswell’s mother and Scott’s father, who both died in 2020. “There were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Those crossroads are reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of Slowdive’s music; everything is alive is heavy with experience, but each note is poised, wise, and necessarily pitched to hope. Its unique alchemy subtly embodies both sadness and gratitude, groundedness and uplift. Reflecting on “kisses,” which may be Slowdive’s surest pop moment yet, Halstead said, “It wouldn’t feel right to make a really dark record right now. The album is quite eclectic emotionally, but it does feel hopeful.”
everything is alive, is exactly what the title suggests: an exploration into the shimmering nature of life and the universal touch points within it. Spanning psychedelic soundscapes, pulsating 80’s electronic elements and John Cale inspired journeys, the album lands immediately as something made for the future; which figures, as their fanbase has grown younger and younger as time has gone on, and their influence on forward thinking musical artists continues to prevail.
For a genre that is often thought of as divisive, and often warrants introspection, here Slowdive show their craft as the masters of it by pushing it outwards, beyond the singular; the end result being a record which feels as emotional and cathartic as it is optimistic.
https://slowdive.bandcamp.com/album/everything-is-alive
|
2023 |
€11.50 |
|
| SMALLWOOD, SCOTT |
Desert Winds: Six windblown sound pieces and other works |
CD |
Wind-Stücke! Wie auch auf dem genialem HAZARDschen Wind-Album benutzt SCOTT SMALLWOOD größtenteils field-recordings von Winden – für (mich als) Wind-Sound-Fanatiker die reinste Wonne! SMALLWOOD hat sich dabei auf Wüsten-Winde spezialisiert (nicht unbedingt offensichtlich hörbar, aber gut vorstellbar), die sich mit Resonanzkörpern verbinden...
“ Desert Winds is a series of six compositions based on the field recordings made in the Wendover/Great Salt Lake Desert Region on the Utah/Nevada border. As a sound artist who utilizes field recordings, Smallwood initially was concerned about the high desert winds causing technical difficulties. However, he soon discovered that the desert wind was one of the most interesting assets in his quest for finding interesting objects/sites to record. The sounds recorded were all produced by the wind. Scott Smallwood is a sound artist, composer, and performer whose work spans a wide range of music interests. He currently teaches computer music on the faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he serves as the Technical Director of the iEAR Studios.” [label press release]
|
2002 |
€13.00 |
|
| SMITH, STEVEN R. |
Old Skete |
LP |
"Eleven stark performances on hand-made electric guitar by the man also known as ULAAN KHOL, HALA STRANA and ULAAN MARKHOR, and for work with THUJA, MIRZA and Amsterdam-based clarinetist GARETH DAVIS. Absence of overdubs, loops, samples and delay pedals leaves Old Skete open and unadorned, a spare work akin to Smith's 'Kohl' (Jewelled Antler 2002). Edition of 500." [label info]
www.worstward.com
"Multi-instrumentalist, musician, and printmaker Steven R. Smith's fifteenth solo album (from a staggeringly extensive discography of almost 40 releases) presents the artist at his most raw and vital: an album comprised entirely of solo guitar, with no edits, overdubs, loops, or studio trickery. The result is a haunting minimal record that retains the common thread of modal, droney, Eastern European folk-inspired chord progressions and movements that Smith is known for, while simultaneously giving his compositions appropriate room to breathe. Since the artist himself recorded the album live, there is an intrinsic candid and intimate nature to this release that is both intangible and captivating. Old Skete could very well be considered Smith's sketchbook; the intuitive nature of the pieces provide a glimpse into Smith's process. The works presented are not perfect in terms of performance or duration, but they are immediate, emotive, and vibrant. There are few times where more instrumentation is missed, but towards the end, when Smith starts banging out chords and allowing the pieces to crescendo (especially on the final track), you can't help but think how a killer rhythm section could close this record out perfectly." [James Woodard] |
2011 |
€14.50 |
|
| SONDE |
En Ondes |
CD |
Weitere Aufnahmen der Montrealer Performance / SoundArt-Gruppe, diese stammen aus dem Archiv von 1980-1988, viele field recordings und Objekt-Noises, Klänge von Sound-Sculptures, meditativ-konkrete Improvisationen...
"This CD is the second release ever of Sonde, the previous one being Sonde en concert edited in 1978 by Music Gallery Editions. This CD is thus quite important, bringing to light part of the group's archives. Optimized with today's sound tools, all these recordings deal with waves of different kinds, sound waves of course but also organic and brain waves. The live concert recordings of these pieces, with the exception of L'acier bien trempé (électronique), were broadcast by CBC-Montreal approximately in 1984 at the request of the producer Gilles Poirier, hence another of the meanings of the expression 'en ondes'. 'Sonde is a group of Montreal electroacoustic composers and performers. Their compositions were generally conceived for live performance on original sound sculptures. Through meditative improvisation, the group's aim was to produce new music with sounds revealed by electroacoustic amplification and transformation. Very active from 1976 to 1986, the members of the group included Andrew Culver, Charles de Mestral, Pierre Dostie, Chris Howard, Robin Minard, Michael O'Neill and Linda Pavelka. Since the beginning, Keith Daniel provided Sonde's technical support.'" [Charles de Mestral]
|
2007 |
€15.00 |
|
| SONS OF GOD |
The Sons of God perform a Miracle |
DVD |
" 'For each and every person, we now want to reestablish the direct link with the devine within ourselves... the driving force behind everything... which, through its limitless openness, allows our dreams and fantasies to be realized in that part of life which is shared with others.' So lautet die simple Botschaft von Gods Söner, THE SONS OF GOD, auf The Power Is Yours. Diese, wie alles bei Leif Elggren & Kent Tankred, hintersinnige Frohe Botschaft ist Teil der DVD The Sons of God (FYDVD1001), die einem die Augen aufgehen lässt über die Magie der beiden schwedischen Prätendenten auf den Himmelsthron auf Erden. Ihr zentraler Zauber ist ein ritueller Tanz, den sie bei Dance aufführen in einem achteckigen panoptischen alten Anatomiesaal, mit spastischen, zeitlupigen Verrenkung, bis zur Erschöpfung, bis das Telefon klingelt. Dieser seltsame Totentanz zweier älterer Männer im Sonntagsanzug kehrt wieder in Before the Miracle, einfach in einem leeren Raum, und in Transients, in einer Rohbauruine. Seine quasi Beckett‘sche Endform findet dieser Tanz in The ons of God Perform a Miracle, der in einer Duo- und einer Quartettversion zu sehen ist. Sieche Grauhemden, Kandidaten für ein Lourdes-Wunder, winden sich in extremer Zeitlupe aus ihren Stühlen und sinken wieder zusammen. Dazu gibt es Tänze mit eisernen Besen (New Way), besonders sakral und erhaben als Version im Grand Theater in Bourges und, genial simpel, The Sons of God Drive Chairs. Besonders mysteriös jedoch ist The Arm, ein, anders als die von Noise gepeitschten Tänze, lautlos ausgeführter Schnitt an Tankreds Oberarm, im Chiaroscuro alter Meister visualisiert. Unerklärliches, Traumhaftes, wird körperlich, Absurdes wird spielerisch, Spielerisches zum heiligen Ernst, zu Lebens-Werk." [Bad Alchemy]
"The Sons of God work in the borderland between performance, installation and music; everything contributes to the whole and provides the basic structure for that inquisitive and expansive spirit which is apparent in The Sons of God´s working method. Sound objects, pre-recorded compositions, physically demanding movements, the voice, the staged meetings and conditions, the objects: all of this constitutes the foundation for an attempt to achieve those obscure moments where daily life unites itself with the heroic nature of our inner lives."
This DVD includes a selection of works by the group The Sons of God (Leif Elggren and Kent Tankred) from the years 1988-2007 - video documentations of performances as well as films and slideshows, in all over two hours of material. The DVD also includes a full colour 24 page booklet with texts by Daniel Rozenhall.
[label info]
www.fylkingen.se
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
| SORRY FOR LAUGHING |
See It Alone |
CD |
"Sorry For Laughing is a project by Gordon H. Whitlow who is also a member of legendary US avantgarde collective Biota, formerly Mnemonists or Mnemonist Orchestra. Their music is a mixture of modern classical, experimental sounds, noise, industrial, avant-garde, songwriting and free jazz. Their releases were published by their own self-produced label Dys between 1981 and 1986. By 1985 the group had split off into separate groups for visual and audio work. From that time, Mnemonists operated only as a visual arts collective while the musical activity was taken over by a new group called Biota that featured a few of the musicians involved with Mnemonists as well as many new members. In 1986, Gordon H. Whitlow released a cassette under the name Sorry For Laughing: 'The compositions stem from my beginning days with the avant-garde recording ensemble Biota, shortly after completion of the Bellowing Room LP.' The album was re-issued on CD by Klanggalerie in 2018 and is still available. Now, Gordon reactivated the project and changed it from a solo effort into a new supergroup: he is joined on See It Alone by Edward Ka-Spel of Legendary Pink Dots fame, and Martyn Bates of Eyeless In Gaza. Also contributing is Denver guitarist Janet Feder and Patrick Q. Wright, Kiyoharu Kuwayama and Nigel Whitlow. Together, these musicians created an exceptional album of tender music where stunningly beautiful vocals float around ambient soundscapes and minimal classical music."
"This is Gordon H. Whitlow’s project, who has a long discography in his more than 30 years of musical career, he is also a member of the legendary American avant-garde collective Biota.
For “See It Alone”, two renowned artists such as Edward Ka-Spel from Legendary Pink Dots and Martyn Bates from Eyeless In Gaza join forces, two fundamental groups of psychedelic, post-punk and avant-garde music.
In this intimate album with bucolic passages that flirts with folk, along with violin, organ and field recordings arrangements. The interpretation of the songs is in a melancholic and sober tone. When Bates sings like a crooner I can't help but remember the beautiful songs from Eyeless In Gaza that alternate with Ka-Spel's velvety voice.
This album is a gift that moves for its simplicity and intimacy that are found in gems such as “Obsolesce”, “Seven Stormy Oceans”, “Anti-Hymn” and “Fate Stars”.
[Guillermo Escudero / LOOP]
|
2021 |
€15.00 |
|
| |
same |
CD |
The Sorry For Laughing album was released in 1986 on cassette only. It is a project by Gordon H. Whitlow who is also a member of legendary US avantgarde collective Biota, formerly Mnemonists or Mnemonist Orchestra. Whitlow composed and recorded the album all by himself.The accompanying artwork for the original cassette release was made by several members of Mnemonists, the visual department of Biota. Sorry For Laughing has a different sound though. It is more varied, there are elements of post punk as well as elements of contemporary classical music. Somehow though you can hear Biota in there as well. Les Disques du Crepuscule is in the air. After all, the idea was to make a Christmas album. Whitlow says that when he lived in Colorado and worked in a bakery a homeless drifter used to come to the shop and buy the same stuff every day. With Christmas approaching, he interviewed the guy and got his Biota mates involved. Piano parts were recorded at a wealthy house-sit in Denver, others at Mulberry Street Studio, home of Biota's Bill Sharp who also co-produced the album. A most interesting album that's been lost for a long time. We are glad to bring it back into the world, remastered by Martin Bowes of Attrition. Gordon Whitlow says about it: "This is a solo musical project recorded in the winter of 1985-86 and self-released on cassette in a very small edition in 1986; this was followed by a modest limited edition cassette release on the ADN label in Italy in 1989. It has never been released to the public on any medium other than cassette. The compositions stem from my beginning days with the avant-garde recording ensemble Biota, shortly after completion of the Bellowing Room LP. The recordings feature a handful of Biota players contributing to compositions that fall outside the group’s activities. Vienna-based label KlangGalerie has expressed interest in reissuing the project as a CD. As you will hear from the initial spoken word (interview) passages, the project has a quasi-Christmas theme, but it is not overt in that sense. Rather, it is a collection of instrumentals whose moods and atmosphere are founded on largely repetitive melodic passages accompanied by “found” atonal elements. It is intended to be minimalistic with sparse arrangement (and on one track, some distant vocalization), aiming for a sense of nostalgia, isolation/loneliness, and childlike muse
https://www.klanggalerie.com/gg289
|
2019 |
€15.00 |
|
| SPIRACLE |
Ananta |
do-CD |
"Hitoshi Kojo (aks Spiracle) professes to have some difficulties in falling asleep. When sleep comes to him, it can often arrive at dawn, when the colors of the sun begin to break through the darkness of night and when some are just rising after their own good night's sleep. Ananta is a twin set of compositions that urge the listener toward a dreamless sleep-state, while reflecting the glowing warmth of a blossoming sunrise. In constructing the two variations of Ananta, Kojo began with finely tuned drones extracted from a Dilruba and a Sarangi, and applied a process of merging sympathetic field recordings and other tonal interferences alongside those instrumental sounds. The resulting pieces are elliptically static drone compositions that brightly shimmer with hues of gold, crimson, and aquamarine.
One of the two variations of Ananta was published back in 2006 as a micro-edition CDR through Mystery Sea. In composing the Mystery Sea version, Kojo purposefully eschewed the representational sounds of the "Night Ocean Drones" espoused by the label, opting for these aforementioned concepts. On this piece of tiny churning textures streaming along a linear path, Kojo's piece nearly achieves infinity, which happens to be the translation from Sanskrit of "ananta." While other works from Kojo enjoy the darkly elegant arches found in select recordings from Organum and Lawrence English, the Mystery Sea Version of Ananta fits more of the tradition of the Roland Kayn, Yoshi Wada, and Charlemagne Palestine in constructing pieces which require endurance, lest you succumb to Kojo's audio hypnosis. The Strato Version of Ananta is a previously unreleased composition, that bends and undulates around a fundamental drone, all the while still maintaining the sun-flecked glints magnified in the Mystery Sea version. Limited to 300 copies."[label info]
www.helenscarsdale.com
"We missed out completely on the Ananta cd-r that Spiracle first released through the Mystery Sea label a few years back. It was limited to 100 copies and quickly disappeared, much to our chagrin. Fortunately, Helen Scarsdale in her sage wisdom has just reissued that static drone opus with a second disc that reworks the original material while keeping the same intent.
Hitoshi Kojo is man behind Spiracle, having wandered from his native Japan to Central Europe where he's been collaborating with the likes of Michael Northam, Maurizio Bianchi, John Grzinich, and Murmer. Much of his work deals with acoustic drone construction, with some of his records taking up the mantle of beautiful tactile noises like those generated by Organum, Jonathan Coleclough, and Andrew Chalk. Ananta, now presented as a double disc, is an album with a purpose; or at least it has a purpose for Kojo as he's one who has trouble falling asleep. So he composed this album as a narcotizing agent to lull him into a deep sleep. But this is also a man who is a night owl, so the time when he's usually falling asleep is when the sun is just beginning to rise. So for this composition, Kojo tuned his drones to match the ruby reds and golden yellows of daybreak. The Mystery Sea Version of Ananta is a linear construct of softened static with wisps of sustained tones spiralling in and out of the mix. The composition shimmers along this focused path with few variations, reflecting a rigor of process much like the champions of minimalism (e.g. Charlemagne Palestine, Roland Kayn, Yoshi Wada) but with a delicate approach found in the likes of Stars Of The Lid. The Strato Version found on the other disc smoothes out the static into a rich undulating surface of warm golden tones, that could easily be an ambient lullaby to accompany a daydream whilst napping at the beach. So, so beautiful!
The Helen Scarsdale reissue does increase the distribution of this disc, although not by much... there's only 300 of these beauties kicking around!" [Aquarius Records]
|
2009 |
€15.00 |
|
| STELZER, HOWARD / JASON TALBOT |
Four Sides |
do-7 |
Verrückte, fordernde, konkrete Noise-Collaborations auf dieser schön gestalteten Doppel-Single, von dem Bostoner Duo HOWARD STELZER und JASON TALBOT. Kommt im Klappcover, auf dem Chicagoer Label C.I.P. !
“The Boston-based duo of Howard Stelzer (tapes) and Jason Talbot (turntable) has been performing together since 1999. With a honed proficiency on their designated instruments, Stelzer and Talbot create an audio dialogue that relies more on playing the equipment as opposed to using either as traditional playback devices. A rich array of whirs, chirps, sputters, skitters, squeals, scrapes, and other bursts of sonic activity you wouldn't think a turntable or cassette machine capable of (or, at times, even surviving) are the foundation of Stelzer and Talbot's sound palette as they build and shift their compositions. A vortex of crunching and feedback from a needle grinding into the turntable body while three cassette players sputter rapid-fire through elaborate pausing and fast forwarding rituals can collapse into a squirming sine-wave like whine from a single paused cassette motor a moment later. And although it's hard for me to listen to this and not envision the physicality of their live performances, these recordings definitely capture the equally dynamic results. Edition of 400.“ [label info]
|
2003 |
€10.00 |
|
| STIEBLER, ERNSTALBRECHT / VARIOUS ARTISTS |
Reworks |
LP |
Frank Bretschneider, Bérangère Maximin, Jasmine Guffond, Phonosphere, and Kammerflimmer Kollektief celebrate Ernstalbrecht Stiebler's 85th birthday with exclusive reworks of compositions by the German minimalist composer. Ernstalbrecht Stiebler (born March 29th, 1934) is one of the first German composers involved with minimalism and ranks among the pioneers of reductive, repetitive, sound-oriented music. Although honored with several prizes (e.g. the "Bach-Preis der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg"), up to the current day only true connoisseurs of contemporary music are familiar with his oeuvre. On the occasion of his 85th anniversary this year, Karlrecords launches a series of albums with original pieces by Stiebler who besides his compositional work served as director for new music at Hessischer Rundfunk for over 25 years (where he supervised recordings of Morton Feldman, John Cage, Alvin Lucier, Giacinto Scelsi, amongst others) and published numerous essays in Musik-Konzepte, MusikTexte, and other music journals. The new Stiebler series, however, kicks off with Reworks -- five artists from different musical backgrounds present their approach to and understanding of Stiebler's minimalist aesthetics for which he cites "sonority, rhythm, and duration" as his three principal compositional concerns. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code.
|
2019 |
€18.00 |
|
| STOCKHAUSEN, KARLHEINZ |
Mantra |
CD |
"With its exotic, gamelan like timbres (the result of electronic processing) and its deft balance of meditative stasis and kinetic repetition, Mantra is one 60's piece that has survived its era." [The New York Times]
"From its headwaters in the small, southern German town of Donaueschingen, the river Donau runs through Bavaria, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Rumania, into the Black Sea. There is one thing that probably no one who was present at the world premiere of "Mantra" in Donaueschingen on Sunday evening, October 18, 1970, was aware of: "Mantra" is a key work in the development of Karlheinz Stockhausen's music.
More than twenty years after its premiere, "Mantra" occurs as Stockhausen's first "Formelkomposition," and therefore as a keywork to almost all of his following pieces, such as "Inori," "Tierkreis," and "Sirius," as well as his music-theater cyle, "Licht." The basis of the piece is twelve-tone motive, where every note has a specific duration, rhythmic value and intensity. In connection with this, Stockhausen mentions that he has quite free images or sounds, just as in "Aus den Sieben Tagen," a meditation piece based on verbal notation which was created in California in 1968, and also in the piece "Fur kommende Zeiten" that was written at the same time as "Mantra." Although in interviews Stockhausen talks about how he uses rigid and free forms in mixed ways, all the works following "Mantra" are nevertheless "Formula" compositions, or even -- as in "Licht" -- "Superformula" compositions." [label notes]
www.newalbion.com
|
1990 |
€15.00 |
|
| SUDDEN INFANT |
My Life's a Gunshot |
4 x LP |
"Top shelf all the way - we're all amateurs when he hits the stage!" - Ron Lessard / RRRecords
" Limited edition of 500
Paintings by Joke Lanz
Essay by G.X. Jupitter-Larsen
Mastered by Rashad Becker
Design by Bill Kouligas
Compiled & selected by Joke Lanz & Ed Benndorf
These two double LP's combine 49 rare and unreleased tracks as well as some of Sudden Infant's most essential and radical work from the last twenty years. Beautifully housed in two fold-out double LP's with original cover paintings by Joke Lanz and an exclusive 4-page essay by GX Jupitter-Larsen. No CD or download releases planned.
"Born in Switzerland, now based in Berlin, Joke Lanz (aka Sudden Infant) is one of the most prolific and profound artists working in the border zones where performance and body art meet improvisation and Noise. In his Sudden Infant guise, Lanz creates a unique blend of physical sound poetry and epileptic noise bursts, using contact microphones, loops, tapes, etc. The result is an extreme form of musique concrète that juxtaposes spasmodic gibbering with a battery of disorienting electronics." - The Wire
Recent selected activities:
Artist residencies in Berlin (1999) and London (2004)
Composition assignment by Pro Helvetia - Arts Council of Switzerland (2006)
Lectures and workshops at:
Musicacademy Lucerne Switzerland 2003/05
University of Stellenbosch South Africa 2008
University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna Austria 2009
Noise for kids workshops and presentation at:
Avanto Festival Helsinki Finland 2005
Henie Onstad Art Center Oslo Norway 2009
Several compositions for Contemporary Dance, Films, Radioplays and Soundinstallations
Innumerable releases on international labels e.g. Schimpfluch, Entr'acte, RRR, Tochnit Aleph, Blossoming Noise, SSSM, Artware, Klanggalerie, MSBR, Some Bizarre, iDeal."
[full label info]
"Joke Lanz Is Back! - Mit einem großen Knall,
viel Krawall und Krach stürzt diese 8-seitige
und Vinyl-Only-Mammut-Werkschau von SUDDEN
INFANT auf einen ein. Er schlägt mehr als einmal einen unvorhersehbaren Haken und läßt den Hörer eigentlich immer erwartungsvoll zurück auf das was denn da als nächstes kommen wird. Natürlich könnte man sich die Titelliste zur Hand nehmen, aber das bedeutet man verdirbt sich seinen eigenen Spaß. Es tun sich tausend von Eindrücken auf. Man wird förmlich von der Schwere des Vinyls und der Intensität der Darbietung in diese, seine Welt hinabgezogen. Verschiedenste Spielarten der freien Muzak werden in unterschiedlichster Charakteristik und Aufnahmemedien zum Verzerr angeboten. Manches wird den einen oder anderen stören, was wiederum andere in Entzückung versetzt. Vom Erzeuger selber wurde an dieser Zusammenstellung bis zum Ende gefeilt, gearbeite und gestaltet. Diese Liebe zum Detail ist umwerfend, gnadenlos und vollgestopft mit naiver Spielfreude und entwaffnender Offenheit. Ein Essay zu SUDDEN INFANT vom G.X. Jupitter-Larsen höchstpersönlich rundet diese außergewöhnliche und beispielhafte
Veröffentlichung ab. Essentiell für alle, die
das Wort "Industrial" auch weiterhin gedenken im richtigen Kontext in den Mund zu nehmen! Zubeißen! (10)" [Carsten Vollmer, ELEKTRISCHE ZONE]
|
2010 |
€49.00 |
|
|
Holes of Glory |
MC |
"the holes of glory are dark and deep: sudden infant plays with our minds by the means of 45 minutes full of so much more than plain entertainment. sudden infant is art, the compositions complex and multi-dimensional with classical noise parts, dark synth licks or complete sample-based tracks. holes of glory leaves room for your own interpretations and imagination, makes you reach for what lies underneath. willingly or not, you become part of these creations, making this record an absolute personal and individual experience. the unmatched history of sudden infant releases is continued on raubbau: inspired by a fictional serial killer in the s&m scene of new york city, this masterpiece is the musical site of crime, made for you to discover."
www.raubbau.org
|
2014 |
€9.00 |
|
| |
Buddhist Nihilism |
LP |
Swiss Industrial-Dada-Noise-Rock band based in Berlin. Their 2014 album "Wölfli's Nightmare" on Voodoo Rhythm Records was produced by Roli Mosimann (Swans, The Young Gods, Wiseblood) and was very well received by critics and audiences. "Buddhist Nihilism" will consolidate the bands ability for bizarre and intense compositions full of left field humour, powerful rhythms and twisted structures. Brilliantly mixed and mastered by Martin Siewert (Radian) in his Vienna studio. "Buddhist Nihilism is a real fistful of sturm und drang, a real departure for the band. The new record leaves some of the noise and industrial elements behind and sees the band streamlining its approach. "Sudden Infant go all the way. Nothing is held back." - Keith Moline / The Wire "One of Europe's finest Noise provocateurs!" - Matthew Kosloff / Skyscraper Magazine
https://suddeninfant.bandcamp.com/album/buddhist-nihilism
|
2018 |
€20.00 |
|
| SUDDEN INFANT / CARLOS GIFFONI |
Oslo Oscillation Orgy |
LP |
"This collaborative release has its origins in a joint performance which took place in ‘a shady pub in London’, according to Carlos. Recordings have since been exchanged and reworked, and finalised when the two played together again in Oslo last year. Based in Berlin and London, Joke Lanz toils ceaselessly to create new sounds. He crafts an abrupt musique concrète, a bewildering edifice of no-fi electronics, turntables, and unexpected and disorientating sound sources. Since 1986 he has appeared under a variety of guises, including Schimpfluch-Gruppe, Schnäbi Gaggi Pissi Gaggi, WAL, Catholic Boys in Heavy Leather, Opposite Opponents, and the ubiquitous Sudden Infant.
Carlos Giffoni is a Venezuelan artist based in New York. His compositions utilise analogue and digital synthesis, modular
manipulation, feedback systems, and rewired electronic instruments.
He is a prolific performer, appearing with Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, Kid 606, Merzbow and Smegma, amongst many others. Carlos is the curator of the annual experimental music No Fun Fest in Brooklyn, and also a member of no wave/noise/rock trio Monotract.
First edition of 200 copies" [label info]
"Two masters of noise team up. The old master from Switzerland is Joke Lanz, also known as Sudden Infant since about twenty years and Carlos Giffoni from Venezuala but since some time in New York. They met four or five years ago and have played together a number of times. The record now released by Entr'acte was recorded in last two years in London and New York. For some reason I expected the full forty minute noise blast, but not so. Of course this record is not the softest discussed this week, but it turned out to be one interesting slab of sound collating through skipping vinyl, looping of sounds (which could be from reel to reel recorders) and manipulations through computers. Occasionally these things explode into noise, but throughout everything sounded more through out than I anticipated. After the recent release by Sudden Infant on Absurd which I didn't enjoy very well, this is a real blow in the face. Intelligent noise, well crafted." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
www.entracte.co.uk
|
2007 |
€15.00 |
|
| SUN RA & HIS MYTH SCIENCE SOLAR ARKESTRA |
The Antique Blacks |
CD |
"Another much sought after and long unavailable title recorded in 1974 with a smallish ensemble consisting (probably) of stalwarts Marshall Allen, John Gilmore, Danny David, James Jacson, Akh Tal Ebah, Clifford Jarvis, Artakatune, and new electric guitarist, Sly, that was released on Saturn in the same year. This sounds like a studio recording, carefully thought out - most of the compositions appear only on this record (apart from versions of Nature's God and Space is the Place), and include a chain of very interesting accompanied /interpolated) spoken texts: There is a Change in the Air, The Antique Blacks, The ridiculous "I" and the Cosmos "Me" - as well as a very long and scary coda to Space is the Place. Ra plays Rocksichord and Moog throughout (solo on track 7 and at the end of track 8). Theatrical and political; this is a fascinating release." [label info]
www.rermegacorp.com
|
2009 |
€14.00 |
|
| SUNN O))) |
ØØ VOID |
CD |
"OO Void was originally released in 2000 by Hydra Head in the USA and Rise Above in the UK and Europe. They have been out of print for approximately 8 years now. *In 2008, OO Void was reissued in Japan only through Daymare Recordings. That release featured a second disc of remixes from the experimental/industrial group Nurse with Wound. *The record has now come back home to its proper resting place via Southern Lord. Beautiful artwork from Stephen Kasner and package execution via Stephen O'Malley. -Petra Haden (Queens of the Stoneage, Foo Fighters, The Decemberists) contributed Violin and vocals to the album -Pete Stahl (Scream, Wool, Goatsnake, The Earthings?, QOTSA) contributed vocals to the album -Rabid, fiendish following. This will be hunted down and devoured. *OO Void (also known as Double-O Void) was the second album recorded by sunn O))) circa 2000. At that time the guitarist & core members: Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson were joined by guest bassist collaborator Stuart Dahlquist (Burning Witch, Goatsnake). OO Void also features some incredible contributions from both Petra Haden (Violinist/Vocalist) and Pete Stahl (vocals). Their melodic evocations are seamlessly woven within this thick sonic tapestry. The group approached the compositions of this album in a different way than their previous recordings. Each member focused intently on one composition/song and brought it into the recording session. Then each of those songs that were brought in were translated to the other members and nuances were worked out on the spot in the studio. Greg Anderson aka The Duke brought in: NN0))), Stephen O'Malley aka Mk Ultra Blizzard brought in: RA at Dusk, Stuart Dahlquist aka G.Subharmonia brought in: Richard *The exception to all this was the inclusion of a rendition of a obscure Melvins song called: "Rabbits' Revenge". This song was actually never recorded in the studio by the Melvins and the riffs were salvaged from a live tape that Anderson had of the band playing in Seattle from March of 1985! *This album was recorded to 24 track 2" tape at Grandmaster studios in Hollywood, California. A large step forward in production values from the band's debut recording The Grimmrobe Demos. Fellow sub-sonic entusiast Scott Reeder (the Obsessed, Kyuss, Goatsnake) captured that particular incantation of sunn 0))) on huge reels of tape." [label info]
www.southernlord.com
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
|
METTA, BENEVOLENCE. BBC 6MUSIC |
do-LP |
In late October 2019, following a successful UK tour ending in a sold-out concert at the mythical Roundhouse in London, SUNN O))) entered studio 4 of the BBC Maida Vale. On invitation to record a live session for Mary Anne Hobbs to be broadcast on Samhain via her excellent radio show on BBC6. To enter the legendary John Peel studios was to enter a temple of music and experimentation, liberty in ideas and sound. The band was nearing the end of a long touring year around the 'Life Metal' and 'Pyroclast' albums. SUNN O))) had developed the compositions extensively, embracing the formative concepts of the 'Life Metal' album conceptually and emotionally, but actualised and evolved into vast, open and bright hypersaturated arrangements. Particularly the pieces the band chose to perform on this recording: 'Troubled Air' and 'Pyroclasts'. The former enriched into a total aspect of the band's ethos and form in many ways, and 'Pyroclasts' had evolved to become all-inclusive radiation of O))). The radiation embraces collaboration and freedom of interpretation by each player, within a structural format of the massive monuments of sound and distortion which define SUNN O))). Anna Von Hausswolf and her band had accompanied SUNN O))) on the UK leg, and Anna joined SUNN O))) in the studio on synths and with her tremendous voice on the 'Pyroclasts' pieces. TRACKS: A. Pyroclasts F B. Pyroclasts C# C. Troubled Air D. Troubled Air (continued)
https://sunn.bandcamp.com/album/metta-benevolence-bbc-6music-live-on-the-invitation-of-mary-anne-hobbs
|
2022 |
€30.00 |
|
|
METTA, BENEVOLENCE, BBC6 MUSIC (coloured vinyl) |
do-LP |
In late October 2019, following a successful UK tour ending in a sold-out concert at the mythical Roundhouse in London, SUNN O))) entered studio 4 of the BBC Maida Vale. On invitation to record a live session for Mary Anne Hobbs to be broadcast on Samhain via her excellent radio show on BBC6. To enter the legendary John Peel studios was to enter a temple of music and experimentation, liberty in ideas and sound. The band was nearing the end of a long touring year around the 'Life Metal' and 'Pyroclast' albums. SUNN O))) had developed the compositions extensively, embracing the formative concepts of the 'Life Metal' album conceptually and emotionally, but actualised and evolved into vast, open and bright hypersaturated arrangements. Particularly the pieces the band chose to perform on this recording: 'Troubled Air' and 'Pyroclasts'. The former enriched into a total aspect of the band's ethos and form in many ways, and 'Pyroclasts' had evolved to become all-inclusive radiation of O))). The radiation embraces collaboration and freedom of interpretation by each player, within a structural format of the massive monuments of sound and distortion which define SUNN O))). Anna Von Hausswolf and her band had accompanied SUNN O))) on the UK leg, and Anna joined SUNN O))) in the studio on synths and with her tremendous voice on the 'Pyroclasts' pieces. TRACKS: A. Pyroclasts F B. Pyroclasts C# C. Troubled Air D. Troubled Air (continued)
https://sunn.bandcamp.com/album/metta-benevolence-bbc-6music-live-on-the-invitation-of-mary-anne-hobbs
|
2022 |
€36.00 |
|
| |
METTA, BENEVOLENCE, BBC6 MUSIC |
CD |
In late October 2019, following a successful UK tour ending in a sold-out concert at the mythical Roundhouse in London, SUNN O))) entered studio 4 of the BBC Maida Vale. On invitation to record a live session for Mary Anne Hobbs to be broadcast on Samhain via her excellent radio show on BBC6. To enter the legendary John Peel studios was to enter a temple of music and experimentation, liberty in ideas and sound. The band was nearing the end of a long touring year around the 'Life Metal' and 'Pyroclast' albums. SUNN O))) had developed the compositions extensively, embracing the formative concepts of the 'Life Metal' album conceptually and emotionally, but actualised and evolved into vast, open and bright hypersaturated arrangements. Particularly the pieces the band chose to perform on this recording: 'Troubled Air' and 'Pyroclasts'. The former enriched into a total aspect of the band's ethos and form in many ways, and 'Pyroclasts' had evolved to become all-inclusive radiation of O))). The radiation embraces collaboration and freedom of interpretation by each player, within a structural format of the massive monuments of sound and distortion which define SUNN O))). Anna Von Hausswolf and her band had accompanied SUNN O))) on the UK leg, and Anna joined SUNN O))) in the studio on synths and with her tremendous voice on the 'Pyroclasts' pieces. TRACKS: A. Pyroclasts F B. Pyroclasts C# C. Troubled Air D. Troubled Air (continued)
https://sunn.bandcamp.com/album/metta-benevolence-bbc-6music-live-on-the-invitation-of-mary-anne-hobbs |
2021 |
€13.00 |
|
| SYNCHRE |
Requiem |
CD |
All instruments and compositions _ Luca Canciello & Lorenzo Brusci
Vocals _ Movement 2, The Zimbabwebird; Movement 1 and 3, Sosta Palmizi
Text, Movement 2 (by Zimbabwebird, in Zulu and Shona, 2015): "Thuma mina, mweya mutsvene.
Unditumeo" [Send me, pure spirit. And then send me.]
Lorenzo Brusci, 1966, co-founder of MUSSTDESIGN.com, managing partner at the music robot start up MUSICFIT (musicfit.ch).
He launched over the last 20 years prestigious adventures in the audio and sound space design field as the sound and interactive design studio GIARDINO SONORO (giardinosonoro.com) and the architectural speakers manufacturer ARCHITETTURA SONORA. He has been composing music for various ensembles, theatre, television and radio since the early ’90s (He founded TIMET.org in 1993).
Lives between Berlin, Tuscany and Krakow.
www.lorenzobrusci.com
www.soundcloud.com/lorenzo-brusci
Luca Canciello, Italian born, Berlin based.
Multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound designer, he performs experimenting with live electronics, instruments and sounds.
www.soundcloud.com/climnoizer
His musical journey and inspiration have brought him into various fields and art disciplines, working solo or collaborating with other artists and bands.
His interest for other art forms, in particular dancing, leads him composing musical pieces for theatre, dance companies, experimenting the various natures of rhythm in music .
On sound design, he’s been involved on projects linked to international cultural heritage and architectural media mapping.
The mechanism of individual and collective memory and its rituals, are the central inspiration of our Requiem. It’s not a formal Mass; our intention was to harvest and express the community’s need of sharing and binding its ties while facing the experience of death.
A deep sense of community - religo in latin, binding in english - inspired our structural research. Requiem becomes then the concerting moment that asks for “holding back”, a desperate request of time suspension, the ultimate demand for re-living, re-experiencing, re-loading, re-gaining, now, in this very ritual and public moment what will be lost forever.
Through a free attitude in music composition and expression - our syncretism - we designed a process of electroacoustic layering, consolidating in 3 compositional areas the process and destiny of organic life.
- Living Elegy - the enchantment for life and its many endangering gates: the movement is subdivided in (living) Articulation, (ritual)Transition and (pathological) Abandon;
- Nostalgia - the seeking for the integral time suspension and life preservation;
- Transfiguration - where we depict the organic reaction to danger and biological faith, subdivided in (furious and ultrabiological) detachment, (regenerating) intimate power, (coding the) extended mind, (persuing a new form of) immanency.
https://emerge.bandcamp.com/album/requiem
"Lorenzo Brusci (Timet, Climnoizer, Giardino Sonoro) & Luca Canciello gestalten als SYNCHRE mit ihrem Requiem (ACU 1009, CD) aus Drones, Breakbeats und dunkel grollenden Blechbläsern (oder Orgelpfeifen) einen Dreisatz aus 'Living Energy', 'Nostalgia' und 'Transfiguration'. Als einen Übergangsritus, mit einer zart flehenden Gesangseinlage von Tozim Madzima aka Zimbabwe Bird, zu plonkenden Lauten aus dem Innenklavier. Danach wieder rauschend sich wälzende, zittrig verzerrte und knarrende Synthie- und Gitarrensounds, mit Vogelgezwitscher durchsetzt und erst zeitlupig gedehnten, dann wieder zuckenden Beats. Und zuletzt auch wieder der dunklen Bläserpracht, zu der sich diese grandiose Musik der brausenden Verwandlung entgegen stürzt. Wer braucht noch eine Leitkultur, nach so einem Durchgang ins weiße Licht?" [Bad Alchemy] |
2016 |
€10.00 |
|
| SZKIEVE |
Ekranoplanes |
mCD |
Fast schon “elektro-akustisch” nennen kann man diese komplexen synth / elektronischen / konkreten sieben Miniaturen des HUSHUSH-Labelbetreibers aus Kanada.... zum genauen Zuhören, für das aurale Kino im Kopf bestens geeignet!
“szkieve is dimitri della faille who founded the project in 1998. besides several szkieve releases, dimitri has also collaborated with martiens go home and vromb, and made a split-vinyl with ammo. szkieve's music is made of intense and complex compositions that assemble rich textures and expansive sounds. this is then combined with chords, string melodies and high-pitched synthetic tones. szkieve's sound explorations could be described as 'scientific', comparable to the works of modern electronic composers. but instead of 'dry, academic experiments', szkieve transforms moods into music and the result is quite unusual for this genre. 'ékranoplanes' is a concept work: because they require huge amount of resources and money, science and technologies have always been at the mercy of politics. this mini cd is a study of a lost technology of the former soviet union. that is, the futuristic vision of one man confronted by the needs of a country engaged in a battle for the world. ékranoplanes are the platypus of transportation, they are both planes and boats or something entirely else. these incredible monsters of steel and oil broke the waves of the caspian sea while intelligence around the world were still trying to figure out what they were. made of tons of rivets, motors and grey matter - those having the chance to spot such a special animal never forgot the sound of its metal bouncing on water or its wings cutting the air. with this release, szkieve renders the grandeur of this forgotten technology and pays a tribute to the developments of modern science.” [press release]
|
2005 |
€8.50 |
|
| SZYMCZUK, MACIEK |
Clouds |
CD |
"The next Maciek Szymczuk album Clouds sees the light of the day on 28th February and it is a logical and perfect continuation of contemplative motives from its predecessor called Ways. Although the cover shows only Maciek's name, the album is filled with guest appearances which add energy and ideas to the 14 compositions gathered here.
The music on Clouds is changeable, just like the nature of this weather phenomenon. At one point it is delicate and ethereal, when at the other it is stormy and dark (as signified on the cover.) With all its diversity, all the tracks form one coherent whole which helps to relax and meditate a bit. With more focus on atmosphere than bouncy rhythms, Clouds is more of a soothing experience.
The release date is not insignificant - it is the birthday of Maciek. But it is the listeners we are having presents for. The first 100 copies of Clouds will include a special bonus CDR called Rare Species Vol. 1 which will contain renditions of Clouds tracks (prepared by Andrew Lagowski, Blare For A, Dead Factory, Michael Hoffmann and Xenoton), remixes by Maciek Szymczuk (done for kIRk and Echoes of Yul among the others) and, apart from those, compilation and unreleased tracks.
All together gathered on one disc, so it is quite a treat." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
|
2013 |
€12.00 |
|
| TAMING POWER |
Selected Works 2001 |
CD-R |
"There was a time when Vital Weekly reviewed a lot of vinyl and cassette releases by Taming Power, the musical project of Askild Haugland. That's what I wrote back in Vital Weekly 711 too, when he released a double LP of his work following an extensive gap before and, as we know now, after that. He never released many CDRs, but he did so in 2001, when he released this CDR which is now re-issued, which was to promote his music to concert organizers, as back then he was interested in playing studio pieces in between bands, rather than having a DJ on. It was intended to have this released on vinyl and maybe some day it will. Apparently I call Haugland a 'liar' as he wrote me 'please DO NOT once again call me a liar', but that seems a bit of a harsh word for me to use. I don't recall exactly but maybe I had some doubts about how he generated some of his drone like pieces. He writes also that the 'music was made entirely and exclusively from tape recorder feedback. Sounds and sequences
were generated on a reel-to-reel tape recorder and then edited to a 4 track recorder'. I am not going to argue with that, he's the creator, he's right. I must admit I didn't hear much of his music again, but these ten shortish pieces (lasting thirty minutes) are quite nice works for multiple layers of feedback, creating moody and occasional harsher textures and defies the easy goin' drone music. I like the fact that these are almost pop-like length pieces and each piece is a rounded set of improvisations, disguising themselves as compositions. I am not sure if these should be re-released again on vinyl, but this is perhaps a fine reminder that Taming Power should do some new music." [FdW/Vital Weekly] |
2013 |
€6.00 |
|
| TARAB |
Strata |
CD |
"Strata has been constructed from recording made in a series of vacant lots and their immediate surrounds in the north-west of Melbourne. These vacant lots are backed onto by various factories and warehouses on one side and a train line and Moonee Ponds creek (perhaps more aptly described as a concrete storm water drain) on the other. Running some 20 meters above all this is a large multi-lane highway overpass. This area has interested me for some time, the creeks and their walking paths act as a thoroughfare of sorts somewhat removed from the rest of the city. Somewhere to move through but not to stop and spend any real time. This collection of empty lots in particular has become an overlooked pocket, acting as a trap and dumping ground for rubbish or as a safe out of the way location for homeless people to live. It is a place where the industrial meets nature to create a zone which is strangely neither. It has a odd feeling of emptiness while being both sonically and physically dense with traffic noise, over grown weeds, hidden dwellings and rubbish.
As discussed in the introduction to Francesco Careri’s book Walkscapes: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice (Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2002) there is a common held view of the urban landscape as full with small pockets of emptiness (be it parks or demolition sites), as opposed to the rural landscape which is seen as empty with small areas of density. A view which holds within it much of the associated baggage regarding centres, peripheries and social marginalisation. What is thought of as empty is often simply that which is not seen or heard, the majority of people wilfully choosing to ignore. As for many others, these areas of cities hold great fascination for me, acting as a sort of hidden zone, full of the traces and debris of various past and present human activity, whether commercial, domestic or nefarious. All the while being slowly eroded by weather and reclaimed by the now unrestrained plant and animal life.
Rather than attempting to document this location I set out to construct a sound piece from the place itself through my direct interaction with it. Somehow collecting together all the existent traces I could unearth to form the work. Not only through walking, observing and recording the various areas and sounds but also by crawling and scratching around in the dirt; sifting through the piles of discarded objects; listening to the solid vibrations of the concrete pylons and traffic noise from inside the creek; by burying microphones and dragging them through the dirt and rubble. Strata attempts to respond to ideas of urban density and emptiness, and to show how these states blur and overlap each other. I have tried to highlight the small hidden details and with them create a condensed hyper-real version of my many wanderings through this area. But perhaps more simply put, Strata is the result of a process of attempting to, if only fleetingly, inhabit somewhere. To see, hear, smell and touch it." ]Eamon Sprod, September 2013]
www.unfathomless.net
"Vacant store fronts, abandoned buildings, and empty lots are increasingly harder to find in San Francisco these days. Even the former wastelands well to the east of our Mission location are filling in with all manner of development, from modern office spaces to sleek steel & glass apartments. Complaints of gentrification can hardly be made when such buildings are constructed on purportedly mitigated toxic sludge or the settled landfill of crumbled highways from the '89 earthquake. These dead zones in the urban landscape nevertheless are thriving ecosystems of feral plants and animals that can exist sprouting through broken asphalt and plumping themselves on the scraps of whatever can be pulled from nearby garbage cans. Few would pine over the loss of such spaces, and the Australian sound artist Eamon Sprod (aka Tarab) is one who would actively explore vacant lots instead of ignoring them. Over the years, Sprod has released a small catalogue of brilliant, if understated albums that reflect these dead spaces in the urban landscape, often with apocalyptic foreshadowings through his compositions. He patiently builds this work through layers of sparsely processed field recordings and found object manipulation often recorded directly in such environments - empty warehouses, military bunkers, dry sewer ducts and the like. For Strata, Sprod has documented something of a concrete island on the outskirts of Melbourne, bordered by train tracks, highways, and drainage ditches. In collecting his recordings, he would dig and claw through the broken concrete, construction refuse, bum trash, and aggregated debris, amassing a whole array of crumbled textures and noises that would also echo with the distant din of cars and trains roaring by, many miles away. What is always impressive about Sprod's albums is the incredible clarity of detail which pops into focus, as the bright frequencies of found metal debris take the shape of obsidian shards with possible diabolically mystical qualities. The compositions coalesce into churning swarms of texture that snap into expansive rumbles paralleling the desolation of Thomas Koner's polar treks, giving way to doppler-effected field recordings of trains with the grinding of brakes and the pulsing thunder of the engines. It's that rich attention to detail that warrants comparisons to Chris Watson's impeccable phonography, but the compositional approach strikes a balance between the psychological implications of Luc Ferrari and those damn-near perfect collages by Small Cruel Party. As with all of Tarab's work, this is very highly recommended! Limited to just 200 copies!" [Aquarius Records]
"Not the most active when it comes to releases by Eamon Sprod always gets around with his music, and has been releasing music on 23Five Incorporated, Naturestrip and most recently on Semper Florens (see Vital Weekly 866). Here he has a thirty-four minute piece based on a recording in a 'series of vacant lots and their surrounds which back on the Macaulay Station and Moonee Ponds Creek, North Melbourne, Australia', so train sounds are part and parcel of this. Although it's not entirely clear what he does, I'd say Tarab uses an excellent balance between pure, untreated sounds - here's where the trains drive right through your living room - and the treated versions there of, but it's never really that clear what is what indeed. Maybe Tarab stuck some contact microphones of the tracks as to pick up some far away signals, or rummages through the dirt along the tracks, which makes a very dynamic piece of music. Sometimes very loud and present but then as abruptly switching off and staying
is this low audible audio rumble of amplified gravel. Sometimes, as say around eight minutes, there is a deep end bass sound which must be something the computer coughed up, but then, I might be entirely wrong here. This is a great release of music that comes to us a soundscape and not as a pure documentation of sounds; exactly the kind of thing I like. Much enjoyable release from down under." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2013 |
€14.00 |
|
| TARAB + ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE |
Obex |
MC |
"To start AMT and Tarab exchanged materials and objects. AMT exchanged a single sound sculpture for Tarab’s collection of small objects. This material exchange led to activity. AMT manually manipulated, Tarab also, but more often than not he placed the sculpture in situations and let them work on it. Once again exchanges took place, this time of audio material. Elements where then selected and arranged and further rearranged; some left untouched and some where transformed.
Tarab explores re-contextualised collected sounds and tactile gestures formed into dynamic, psycho-geographical compositions inspired by discarded things, found things, crawling around in the dirt, junk, the ground, rocks, dust, wind, walking aimlessly, scratchy things, decay and most if not all the things he hears and sees. More than simply documenting a given site, Tarab is interested in a direct engagement with our surrounds, teasing out half narratives, visceral sensation, false leads and heightened awareness.
Artificial Memory Trace is a project by Slavek Kwi, a sound-artist, composer and researcher interested in the phenomena of perception as the fundamental determinant of relations with reality. He has a longstanding fascination with sound-environments, developing what he terms “electroacoustic sound-paintings”, that oscillate between sound-only works and interdisciplinary works exploring social, spatial and temporal processes." [label info]
"The other new Cronica Electronica release is a collaboration between Tarab from Australia and
Artificial Memory Trace from Ireland. From both of them we reviewed quite some work, even when
Tarab is not as active as Artificial Memory Trace. Both of them use a lot of field recordings. The latter reworks these extensively on his computer, while retaining some of the original and Tarab “explores re-contextualised collected sounds and tactile gestures formed into dynamic, psycho-geographical compositions inspired by discarded things, found things, crawling around in the dirt, junk, the ground,
rocks, dust, wind, walking aimlessly, scratchy things, decay and most if not all the things he hears and sees” (I couldn’t have said it better). Together they exchanged “materials and objects’, rather than a bunch of sounds. Artificial Memory Trace sends a sound sculpture down while Tarab send up a collection of small objects. Things were manually manipulated, recorded and transformed, all noted on the cover, but maybe also adding to the mystery of it. And mysterious it surely is. I quickly lost my way here, already on the first side of this cassette. I had no clue which piece I was hearing, or who did what. The Bandcamp version only shows a limited amount of pieces, so hardly any help. There is lots of obscure rumble of objects, and equally a lot of processing without any telling what these objects are.
It could as easily be one piece per side anyway and for some obscure fun it is listed as a bunch of pieces. It is a fascinating listening experience, and unlike Delplanque’s work, it is clearer defined as a composition. I would think there are strings attached to these objects, that they are used in a percussive way and sometimes it sounds like they are destroyed. It is very acoustic yet also electrical. Sometimes
small drone sounds are formed and then sometimes it builds, but as easily seems to be falling apart making this quite odd but thoroughly captivating stuff." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2018 |
€10.50 |
|
| TAZARTES, GHEDALIA |
Jeanne |
CD |
"Jeanne (Vand‘Oeuvre 0732) ist nur ein Kleinod von 30 Minuten, die Musik für ein Theaterstück nach dem Roman Jeanne la Pudeur von Nicolas Genka, das die Compagnie Pardès Rimonim 2006 aufführte. Aber wenn Tazartès Zeilen von
Genka in seiner unnachahmlichen Manier intoniert, singen wäre dafür viel zu wenig gesagt, dann stellt sich unwillkürlich das Tazartès-Feeling ein, ein Schauer, ausgelöst von
einem Timbre, das wie aus uralter Zeit und wie von weither klingt, mystisch, mythisch fast. Urtümliche Weltmusik ist das, aber völlig eigen gemischt aus rauen Streicherklängen,repetitiven Minimalmotiven, seltsamer Keyboardharmonik in Moll und ziemlicher Schräglage. Klassisch wenn man so will, Kammermusik, wie man sie sich als Soundtrack von Michael Nyman vorstellen könnte, der eine Stimmung von Wehmut unterstreicht. Von
Tazartès stammt übrigens die Musik zu Yolande Zaubermans preisgekröntem Film Moi Ivan, toi Abraham (1993) und zu Catherine Corsinis TV-Version von Ödon von Horvaths Jeunesse sans Dieu (1996). Seine Form von Proto-Freakfolk, er taufte es Mitte der 70er ‚Impromuz‘, erhält einen wesentlichen Teil seiner Bizarrerie durch einen Zug ins Urbane, speziell durch seine Adaption von Musique concrète in der Freundschaft mit Michel Chion. Wobei das zittrige, pathetische arabisch-jüdische Ziegenhirtentimbre die Verbindung zu einem Zustand oder einer Bewusstheit von Fremde herstellt, einen Kontakt zum Jude-, Frau-, Tier- und Quasimodo-Pol. Zu ‚Les femelles‘ blubbert nur eine Tuba. Dann klackert ein Schlagzeug zu den dunkel webenden Streichern und Tazartès stimmt einen Chazzán-Blues an, während im Hintergrund Fußballfans vorbei ziehen. ‚TA‘ rockt einigermaßen autistisch gegen die Wand und da singsangt er dazu nur ein entsprechend debiles „tatatatita“. ‚Mother‘ ist dann purer Freakrock, der auf der Zeile „(What do you mean with) I want to fuck your Mother tonight“ herum kaut und mehrstimmig „Mamme-
Mama“ stammelt, bis Tazartès mit ‚Lamento/Jeanne‘ noch einmal einen archaischen und herzzerrissenen Klagegesang anstimmt und ein Rezitativ, als ob der Geist von Artaud in
ihn gefahren wäre. Umgekehrt ist sein Geist längst übergesprungen auf DDAA und STPOs Pascal Godjikian. Aber hier hört man das Original in seiner irritierenden, fast erschreckenden,
ergreifenden Einzigartigkeit." [Bad Alchemy]
"Recreating the idioms of some ethnic musics, Ghédalia Tazartès invents himself an imaginary world which seems to be inspired by differents forgotten traditions. Musician, genious handyman, singer to the improbable accents, Ghédalia Tazartès pours a flood of sounds and atmospheres, voices and strange melodies, weaving the screen of an hallucinatory soundtrack which accounts for the universe of the show 'Jeanne' (Co Pardès rimonim) for which it carried out the majority of those compositions. Artist out of time, Ghédalia Tazartès shared incredible collaborations in particular with Alain Gigout, Michel Chion, Philippe Adrien or François Verret." [credit notes]
www.centremalraux.com/disques
|
2007 |
€15.00 |
|
| TBC_CZEPOKS + JETZMANN |
Live bei Radio Gagarin |
CD |
Live colobaration between TBC_Czepoks and Jetzmann on the Hamburg based Radio Station FSK. All titles are spontaneous compositions, broadcastet on 2016-03-11.
https://tbc-czepoks.bandcamp.com/album/live-bei-radio-gagarin
|
2018 |
€10.00 |
|
| TEICHER, ELSE |
Whored |
CD |
"Ed. of 300 numbered copies with the first 40 including very special art inserts by the band. Bitter/sweet Else (both E’s pronounced) appears to have been spat a tuberculin progeria princess from Der Himmel Uber Berlin. She has been fiendishly haunting sonic neithers for the past 20 years with a number of small run cassette and CDR releases and, for a time, as half of Romulus & Remus. “Whored” weds composerly and DIY elements into an experimentally corroded pastiche of pseudo-noise and sub-psychedelia. Her oddly wrought opuses are musical, yet remain damaged enough that they occupy a space that is not quite “tuneful.” The smaller Rainy Day Women pieces sew blown out loops into exquisite corpses of overdriven drone and pulse. The seething, long form “Horde” forms up slowly and steadily like an ever massing din of doom cascading over a distant horizon, eventually filling it. The mournful yet rising Kathode rumbles through like a requiem mass of organ and decaying electronics. Else’s beautiful noise resides somewhere betwixt the primitivism of early Zoviet France and shameless weirdness of early Severed Heads. Even in her reign of misappropriated instrumentation she avoids an improvisational sound. Her compositions have shape and direction. The wrongs sound strong. So click your heels and raise a baeren-jaeger Prost for the mysterious she-teuton and the Pferd she rode in on. In these hinterlands, broken is spoken." [label info]
|
2011 |
€13.00 |
|
| TENNEY, JAMES |
Melody, Ergodicity and Indeterminacy |
CD |
Für Freunde früher elektronischer Musik sind auf dieser CD v.a. die beiden Computermusik-Stücke ERGODOS I & II interessant (1963 + 1964), die mit unglaublichen Sounds gefüttert sind und als Vorläufer späterer Minimal & Drone-Musik gelten. Daneben sind hier 4 Solo-Instrumentalstücke für Flöte & Klarinette enthalten (darunter seine frühesten Werke POEM (1955) und MONODY (1959). Äusserst obskur wird es, wenn moderne Kompositionstechniken Computerklänge & Instrumente verbinden, was auf drei längeren Stücken von 1964 passiert. Eine schöne Zusammenstellung, welche die Vielseitigkeit dieses US-amerikanischen Komponisten demonstriert, inkl. Booklet mit Begleittext auf Englisch, Deutsch, Französisch!
"Poem" (1955). Jos Zwaanenburg, flute. "Ergodos I" (1963) computer music. "Monody" (1959). John Anderson, clarinet. "Ergodos II" (1964) computer music. "Seegersong #1" (1999). John Anderson, clarinet. "String Complement (with Ergodos II)" (1964) computer music with violin, viola, cello, bass. "Seegersong #2" (1999). Jos Zwaanenburg, flute. "Instrumental Responses (with Ergodos I)" (1964) computer music with flute, bass clarinet, trombone, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, bass, percussion, baritone. "Ergodos III" (1994). Frank Denyer and Nora Mulder, pianos. "Percussion Response" (with Ergodos I) (1964) computer music with Tobias Liebezeit, percussion.
Barton Workshop. James Fulkerson & Frank Denyer, directors. First Recordings. “James Tenney (1934-2006) was probably the first composer to develop an aesthetic for computer music, realizing that electronic music almost forced the composer to accept noise as music and to abandon the idea of absolute control over a composition. He came to accept Cage’s passion for randomness, but from a different angle: computer music can be “unpredictable” (rather than “random”). This CD looks at how Tenney persistently asked two questions: “What if?” and “How does it work?” Entitled Melody, Ergodicity and Indeterminacy, it brings an understanding of Tenney's exploration of the act of listening and the factors of composition, of how materials can be assembled, how a composer creates musical continuity. It contains four solos for flute and clarinet which are taken both from some of his earliest works, Poem (1955) and Monody (1959) and from relatively late in his career, Seegersong #1 & 2 (1999). The cd features Tenney’s Ergodos compositions (forerunners of minimal music or drones) - instead of a fixed object, the listener hears a process and assembles his own experience from the sounds which have enveloped him. The reel-to-reel source tapes for Ergodos I and II are unique in that they may be played in either direction, beginning and ending at any point and-or with any number of super-impositions of parts (channels). On this cd, both Ergodos tape pieces are presented along with the tape and its String complement, Instrumental responses (10 performers) and also with a percussion soloist (Percussion responses). Like so many of Tenney’s pieces, these works walk a line between the composers input and the choices of the performers in order to come to fruition. Tenney’s conscious inclusion of the performer's input is a consistent characteristic of his music and remains a factor which distinguishes him from many other composers.”
www.moderecords.com
|
2007 |
€15.00 |
|
| TERVAHÄÄT |
same |
CD |
"The fifth release from Finnish underground label Anima Arctica is this self-titled debut work by Tervahäät, a duo consisting of Antero Väätäjä and Ilmari Akkanen. This shortish but interesting album builds bridges between raw post-industrial ritual tracks and frosty Finnish folklore.
From the start of the album on, we are presented with the successful instrumental base of this project that returns in most of the tracks: banjo and bass melodies overlaying rumbling industrial soundscapes, varied organic percussion and some seething electric guitar work. Longer tracks like “Otava” forge these elements into extended ritual journeys, accompanied by pathos-filled vocals in Finnish. The accompanying sheet of English text (a translation of the lyrics?) speaks of animals, spirits, and mystic poetry. In general, the music of this album is not easy to get into; while there are accessible tracks like the Nordic neofolk of the instrumental “Joulukuu”, the greater part of the album is rather esoteric and demands a receptive mood, one that resonates with the cold and oppressive visual imagery. It is perhaps typically Finnish in the sense that it doesn’t open up at the first listen.
However, despite this closedness and lack of very direct compositions that immediately grab you by the throat, Tervahäät manages to deliver an album that has a compelling mysticism about it, as well as an original sound that blends organic, industrial, and folkloric elements. The foundations for an interesting musical oeuvre have been laid here, and lovers of experimental post-industrial music should definitely check this album out. It will be especially appealing if you have an ear for Finnish underground music of the past decade." [O.S. / Evening of Light]
www.animaarctica.fi
|
2009 |
€10.00 |
|
| THE ONE ENSEMBLE OF DANIEL PADDEN |
Wayward the Fourth |
LP |
"Now also available on vinyl –very limited edition of 300 copies!-, thanks to Clear Spot's very own Daffodelic label! The One Ensemble from Scotland (led by highly regarded musician Daniel Padden) blend European folk, narrative, popular and chamber forms to create modern compositions that provide attention-grabbing hooks and thought-provoking challenges. At times formal and at others improvisational, it is difficult to pin down the One Ensemble's sound. Influences range from the classic pop-psychedelia of Robert Wyatt to the deep experimental drone of Third Ear Band. Blissful free jazz, delicate acoustic out-folk, tape collages, Eastern raga and mystical modern minimalism all peacefully coexist in the One Ensemble's unique and beautiful universe. (The CD version of this unbelievable album was released earlier this year by Secret Eye Records.)" [label info]
"... As with the recent Live at VPRO CD-R (Brainwashed), Wayward the Fourth is the work of a genuine ensemble, quartet to be exact, captured in a studio. The songs are gorgeous, twisted amalgams of European and American ethnic musics, free jazz, chamber music, minimalism and experimental plateaus rarely glimpsed in the western world, dispersed with just the right emotional — ranging from giddy to somber — intensity. There’s vocals on a few tracks, a few bizarre deconstructions on some others, but what strikes me most about this is the sheer musicality, the deliberate attention to space, detail and compositional structure. One Ensemble albums have always sounded like this, but just as with Volcano the Bear’s brilliant Classic Erasmus Fusion (Beta-Lactam Ring), the ensemble approach has reached new depths of cinematic, multi-hued brilliance. Easily one of the best ‘07 has coughed up so far.” [Womblife]
www.clearspot.nl
|
2007 |
€10.00 |
|
| THE SWIFTER |
Wall Sailor |
LP |
"For some this could sound like a supergroup: Simon James Phillips' vivid piano playing with Andrea Belfi's precise percussion and drum patterns make the perfect companions for BJ Nilsen's electronics, welding together a driving energy.
It is a rare treat to come across a record that imparts music as spacious as Wall Sailor. The album's ability to capture the listener with a mixture of acoustic instruments, field recordings and digital processing, with constant movement and relentless tension, is nothing but astonishing. Just like an actual murmuration in the sky, the trio's music refuses to keep steady and allows us to perceive its structures and formations from afar. These pieces could go everywhere; and yet they remain as pleasant as they are fascinating and never fail to impress. The Swifter's compositions breath an urgency for expression that never gives in to their controlled and skilled performance.
Listening closely, you can imagine following the beating of wings, as if these tracks have been waiting to be released to cherish their freedom.
Vinyl comes in a reversed cardboard jacket, printed in- and outside with Full Tone Colours, Lasercut-Artwork and Printed Inner Sleeve, ltd. to 500 copies."
sonicpieces.com
|
2016 |
€24.00 |
|
| THE TREE PEOPLE |
same |
CD |
Japanische Re-Edition einer Acid-Folk Ausgrabung aus dem Jahre 1979 !!
"Tiliqua Records is psyched about being able to present a whole new audience and generation with the lysergic beauty of the Tree People's sole recorded artifact, a privately released acid folk gem out of 1979. In times when people are all getting excited about media-created scenes like “New Weird America” and “Freak Folk”, they seem to overlook the fact that such music was already being created decades ago. The Tree People is evidence of such a splash of creativity that sadly enough was doomed to disappear within the cracks of obscurity. Until now. Tiliqua was granted the opportunity to restore this gem and with the kind collaboration of Mr. Cohen of the Tree People, who provided me with the master tapes and a seemingly unlimited support, Tiliqua was able to prepare this reissue. To me, this album is one of the singular most beautiful gems to have crossed my path and words always fall short in an attempt to describe the aural sensation it unleashes. “Upon listening today this hushed and intimate feeling still resonates through the music – the record possesses an extraordinarily potent atmosphere that still intoxicates the senses after so many years. Over a combustible backing dominated by shimmering strings, bone-shaking hand percussion rhythms, and quivering sensuous threads of eastern-toned flute playing, the group succeeded in concocting up a syncretic combination of meditative Indian raga, western folk stylings and idiosyncratic melodic ideas. The music breathes out intimacy and communicates with a rare directness - hooking you instantly with sheer aural bliss derived from the melody, from the flowing beat, from the sound of the words and syllables and of all those separate elements interacting with each other, rendered into a concentrated, gracious flow of lunar notes. The album's compositions have so many hidden qualities, all breathing out deep and affectionate sentiments that reveal, just like a lotus flower centered on the axis with its petals unfolding towards the circumference, a streamlined adhesion towards the group's' own singular creed. Listen to it and you may feel like awakening from a deep slumber, your unconsciousness leaking away as aspects of reality slowly mix in with the rest of your already blurred mindset.” First time ever official reissue, housed in a sturdy mini-LP styled gatefold sleeve." [Beta Lactam]
|
2006 |
€19.50 |
|
| THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA |
Fuck off get free we pour Light on everything |
LP |
"THEE SILVER MT. ZION haben über sieben Alben seit 1999 hinweg einen stacheldrahtbewehrten Bogen der Protest Music gespannt. Erst kürzlich haben sich THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA auf nur fünf Musiker zurückgestutzt. Menucks massive E-Gitarre fungiert hier als Rückgrat, um das zwei Geigen, ein Bass (dieser Tage öfter elektrisch als akustisch) und das Schlagzeug rotieren. "Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything" ist das erste definitive Dokument des neuen Sounds und Stils der Band als Quintett. Das Kernstück des Album, ,Austerity Blues" mit seiner Abschlusszeile "Lord let my son live long enough to see that mountain torn down" gesungen in verschiedenen Spielarten über die zweite Hälfte des 14-minütigen Epos, personifiziert den unerschrockenen Blick Menucks auf eine Welt voller Erbärmlichkeit, Gier und Ungerechtigkeit, betrachtet durch die Linse von Elternschaft, Sterblichkeit, Durchhaltevermögen und Trotz. Dies ist keine fröhliche Musik, aber sie kann auch nicht einfach so als apokalyptisch und weltmüde abgestempelt werden. ,Fuck Off Get Free" wütet voller Zorn und Hoffnung und ist zugleich absolut leidenschaftlich und bewusst unromantisch. THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA zeigen einmal mehr, das es so viel gibt, gegen das sich kämpfen lässt. Im Unterschied zu anderen Bands haben THEE SILVER MT. ZION die passenden Kampfsongs im Gepäck. //
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (SMZ) has traced a barbed-wire arc of genre-defying protest music since its inception in 1999. Formed by Efrim Menuck, with Thierry Amar and Sophie Trudeau, the initial iteration of the band was a predominantly instrumental trio that forged a more intimate and ragged chamber-punk than Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the other group in which all three founding SMZ members also played (and continue to play). Through seven albums from 2000-2010, SMZ expanded its line-up and shifted towards an increasing use of lead and group vocals, with Menuck penning politically-charged lyrics to anchor long-form multi-movement compositions that juxtaposed electrified guitars against a 4-piece string section of violins, cello and contrabass.
Most recently, SMZ has pared back to five players, with Menuck's massive spectrum-spanning electric guitar sound emerging as the spine around which two violins, bass (now more often electric than acoustic) and drums are deployed. SMZ have managed a handful of short tours in the past couple of years (in the gaps between GYBE commitments) and as anyone who has seen the band in its recent incarnation can attest, their current sound is more honed, laser-guided and bone-rattling than ever, melding hardcore, blues, garage and dark metal influences that have nothing to do with anything so quaint as “post-rock” (a tag the group has always and rightly rejected).
Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything is the first definitive document of the band's newfound sound and style as a quintet. It’s also their first single LP-length work since the band’s debut record as a trio almost 15 years ago, and features road-tested pummeling rock-outs “Fuck Off Get Free (For The Island Of Montréal)”, “Take Away These Early Grave Blues” and “What We Loved Was Not Enough” alongside the previously unheard lullabyes/minuets “Little Ones Run” and “Rains Thru The Roof At Thee Grande Ballroom (For Capital Steez)” and the album centerpiece “Austerity Blues” with its closing lyric “Lord let my son live long enough to see that mountain torn down” sung in varying incarnations throughout the second half of this 14-minute epic.
This lyric in many ways encapsulates Menuck's unflinching take on a world replete with shabbiness, greed and injustice, seen through the lens of parenthood, mortality, endurance and defiance. There are few other musicians who deliver social critique with the courage and honesty of lines like “All our cities gonna burn / All our bridges gonna snap / All our pennies gonna rot / Lightning roll across our tracks / All our children gonna die”. Feel-good music this is not; but neither can it reductively be tagged apocalyptic or world-weary. Fuck Off Get Free rages with scorn and with hope, utterly passionate but pointedly unromantic. Thee Silver Mt. Zion once again demonstrates, like few other bands working today, that there is much to fight for and against, and plenty more fight songs to sing." [label info]
www.cstrecords.com
|
2014 |
€21.00 |
|
| |
Fuck off get free we pour Light on everything |
CD |
"THEE SILVER MT. ZION haben über sieben Alben seit 1999 hinweg einen stacheldrahtbewehrten Bogen der Protest Music gespannt. Erst kürzlich haben sich THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA auf nur fünf Musiker zurückgestutzt. Menucks massive E-Gitarre fungiert hier als Rückgrat, um das zwei Geigen, ein Bass (dieser Tage öfter elektrisch als akustisch) und das Schlagzeug rotieren. "Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything" ist das erste definitive Dokument des neuen Sounds und Stils der Band als Quintett. Das Kernstück des Album, ,Austerity Blues" mit seiner Abschlusszeile "Lord let my son live long enough to see that mountain torn down" gesungen in verschiedenen Spielarten über die zweite Hälfte des 14-minütigen Epos, personifiziert den unerschrockenen Blick Menucks auf eine Welt voller Erbärmlichkeit, Gier und Ungerechtigkeit, betrachtet durch die Linse von Elternschaft, Sterblichkeit, Durchhaltevermögen und Trotz. Dies ist keine fröhliche Musik, aber sie kann auch nicht einfach so als apokalyptisch und weltmüde abgestempelt werden. ,Fuck Off Get Free" wütet voller Zorn und Hoffnung und ist zugleich absolut leidenschaftlich und bewusst unromantisch. THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA zeigen einmal mehr, das es so viel gibt, gegen das sich kämpfen lässt. Im Unterschied zu anderen Bands haben THEE SILVER MT. ZION die passenden Kampfsongs im Gepäck.//
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (SMZ) has traced a barbed-wire arc of genre-defying protest music since its inception in 1999. Formed by Efrim Menuck, with Thierry Amar and Sophie Trudeau, the initial iteration of the band was a predominantly instrumental trio that forged a more intimate and ragged chamber-punk than Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the other group in which all three founding SMZ members also played (and continue to play). Through seven albums from 2000-2010, SMZ expanded its line-up and shifted towards an increasing use of lead and group vocals, with Menuck penning politically-charged lyrics to anchor long-form multi-movement compositions that juxtaposed electrified guitars against a 4-piece string section of violins, cello and contrabass.
Most recently, SMZ has pared back to five players, with Menuck's massive spectrum-spanning electric guitar sound emerging as the spine around which two violins, bass (now more often electric than acoustic) and drums are deployed. SMZ have managed a handful of short tours in the past couple of years (in the gaps between GYBE commitments) and as anyone who has seen the band in its recent incarnation can attest, their current sound is more honed, laser-guided and bone-rattling than ever, melding hardcore, blues, garage and dark metal influences that have nothing to do with anything so quaint as “post-rock” (a tag the group has always and rightly rejected).
Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything is the first definitive document of the band's newfound sound and style as a quintet. It’s also their first single LP-length work since the band’s debut record as a trio almost 15 years ago, and features road-tested pummeling rock-outs “Fuck Off Get Free (For The Island Of Montréal)”, “Take Away These Early Grave Blues” and “What We Loved Was Not Enough” alongside the previously unheard lullabyes/minuets “Little Ones Run” and “Rains Thru The Roof At Thee Grande Ballroom (For Capital Steez)” and the album centerpiece “Austerity Blues” with its closing lyric “Lord let my son live long enough to see that mountain torn down” sung in varying incarnations throughout the second half of this 14-minute epic.
This lyric in many ways encapsulates Menuck's unflinching take on a world replete with shabbiness, greed and injustice, seen through the lens of parenthood, mortality, endurance and defiance. There are few other musicians who deliver social critique with the courage and honesty of lines like “All our cities gonna burn / All our bridges gonna snap / All our pennies gonna rot / Lightning roll across our tracks / All our children gonna die”. Feel-good music this is not; but neither can it reductively be tagged apocalyptic or world-weary. Fuck Off Get Free rages with scorn and with hope, utterly passionate but pointedly unromantic. Thee Silver Mt. Zion once again demonstrates, like few other bands working today, that there is much to fight for and against, and plenty more fight songs to sing." [label info]
www.cstrecords.com |
2014 |
€14.50 |
|
| THUJA |
Pine Cone Temples |
do-CD |
Episches neues Werk dieses 4-köpfigen kreativen Geräusch-Improvisations-Kollektivs, deren Klangquellen keine Begrenzungen zu kennen scheinen. Neben gewöhnlichen Instrumenten werden field recordings aber auch konkretes Material eingesetzt. Die Improvisationen klingen so sensibel & fein verwoben als seien sie „gewollt“ komponiert. Jedes neue Stück offenbart überraschende Sounds, und doch wirkt das Werk wie aus einem Guss. Entspannter „Abstrakt-Geräuschambient“, der niemals langweilig wird. Bei THUJA wirkt LOREN CHASSE von ID BATTERY mit, die auch eine Single auf Drone hatten – nicht nur deswegen sei dieses Werk hiermit in höchstem Maße empfohlen !
“By incorporating real-time recordings of natural sounds from their particular surroundings, the four members of Thuja play off each other and the space they inhabit with impeccable instinct, succeeding in creating eerie yet strikingly melodic compositions. The end result is a total immersion of the senses, for both the player and the listener. Across the grand expanse of Pine Cone Temple's two discs, implements such as piano, guitars, percussion, and well-placed contact mics are blended like pigments to conjure the subtlest of sonics, pulling every lost drop of their immediate universe into floating and buzzing cinematics. Minimalist hues are brush-stroked into being and slowly unfurl into the atmosphere. Improvised clouds of sound softly erupt to form compositions of such immense and precise detail, it would seem the music was written out rather than spontaneously developed. Such is the magic of Thuja and their uncanny ability to sculpt microscopic psychedelia from their immediate environment and collective consciousness.” [label info]
“....and all of them loosely based in one way or another on nature, or natural sounds, or the way music and found sounds interact with the spaces they are performed in. There are instruments like guitars, drums, bass, but more often than not, you'll find sticks and stones, found objects, junk, all sorts of industrial and natural detritus, recorded, re-broadcast, and recorded again. Utilizing natural reverb, the sounds of certain spaces, ambient sounds as well as making the act of making music, music in itself. Wow. So what does Pine Cone Temples sound like? It's wide open and expansive. Ambient perhaps, but there's too much going on for it to be strictly ambient. It's more a sort of abstract soundscape, the sort of soundscape the requires close listening, active listening, in order to understand, and feel the sounds, not just hear them. The rustle of leaves, crickets maybe, running water, or are those sounds manufactured by the band in an attempt to pay homage to the music of nature? Does it matter. Maybe its both, the sound of running water accompanied by Thuja emulating the sound of running water. Clicks and creaks, and little bits of clatter, a simple melody played on a recorder, warm organ warble, whipsering wind, toy xylophone notes released and left to drift in the slowly shifting breeze, distant bird calls, reverbed piano, dark cavernous rumbles, shimmering single notes stretched perilously across a sound field dotted with the echo of dripping water and the buzz of vibrating guitar strings. This isn't so much music as it is simply sound, sound that has been lovingly shaped and guided, observed and interacted with, recorded in its element. As if Thuja were just recordists, who use their own sounds to lure the sounds of nature to come just a little closer, in order to capture them raw and natural, and incorporate them into the sun dappled cloak of their jewelled nature-folk. The sounds of music can be smooth and soothing, or raw and primitive, as can the music of sound, and thus Thuja, whose music of sound is pure, and organic, lush and lustrous, and breathtakingly beautiful.” [Aquarius Records]
www.strange-attractors.com |
2005 |
€15.00 |
|
| TICKMAYER, STEVAN KOVACS |
Cold Peace Counterpoints |
CD |
"A suite of fiendishly complex compositions for mixed real and virtual resources. Bob Drake, Djorge Delibasic, Pegja Milosavljevic and Chris Cutler make appearances - playing electric guitar, bass, drums and virtuoso violin between them, but mainly it is Stevan who plays all kinds of keyboards, strings, double bass, zither, samples and software. Three thoroughly through-composed and finely articulated pieces make up this very concentrated suite: Concerto Grosso (for keyboards, string instruments and CPU), The Cold Peace Counterpoints and Five Bagatelles for a Polyhsitor. Those familiar with Tickmayer's earlier recordings, or the Science Group, will have some idea of what to expect - a rare commingling of high European art music (Tickmayer studied with both Gyšrgy Kurtˆg and Louis Andriessen), various East European folk musics, experimental rock, post rock and computer assisted electronic composition. These are intense, emotionally and philosophically driven pieces that demand attention, and reward it when given." [label notes] |
2008 |
€14.00 |
|
| TIETCHENS, ASMUS |
Soiree |
CD |
"LINE is proud to present a new full length solo recording by German electronic music pioneer Asmus Tietchens.
Soirée is the result of extended recycling. Beginning from the investigation of: what will happen if I recycle (not remix) some of my older compositions and then recycle the recyclings and then recycle the recycled recyclings… ad infinitum? Quite quickly the initial pieces vanished totally. New structures and sounds emerged depending on the methods and tools I used.
Each of the pieces on Soirée is based on a distinct composition of my musical past. In each case the listener is presented with the 10th “generation” of this recycling process.
Confronted with the variety of the results I ask myself: Is it really necessary to create further new electronic music if only one piece as a nucleus is sufficient to derive hundreds and hundreds of different distinct individual variants?" [label info]
www.lineimprint.com
|
2011 |
€12.00 |
|
|
Humoresken und Vektoren |
CD |
"CD in full colour digipak with photos by Okko Bekker and Asmus Tietchens. Production: Okko Bekker. Recorded at Audiplex Studios Hamburg in 2012. 16 tracks of new material. 500 copies.
On „Humoresken und Vektoren“
„Humoresken und Vekotren“ takes up a work that was started upon the invitation of Francisco Lopez for the spanish Störung label. The task was to deliver thirteen 2-minute original compositions for a compilation release. “Humoresken und Vektoren” recycles these miniatures from 2010 and unfolds it into eight new works having no resemblance with the original sourcings whatsoever. These eight tracks are bound together by eight short pieces entitled “Tristia” that function as bridges between the longer pieces. “Humoresken und Vektoren” is a combination of very dynamic and detailed sounds and a range of delicate layers and abstract textures. The CD features very surprising artwork unlike most recent Tietchens releases.
Asmus Tietchens writes:
Vier Humoresken, vier Vektoren und alle Stücke getrennt durch jeweils eine kleine Traurigkeit: Tristia, Die allerdings in gleich acht Varianten. Im 19. Jahrhundert wurden ohne Ende Humoresken komponiert.
Ich habe nie begriffen, was an diesen Stücken lustig sein sollte. Im 20. Jahrhundert gab es eh nichts mehr zu lachen, also wurden auch keine Humoresken mehr komponiert. Das 21. Jahrhundert scheint zum Schreien komisch zu werden, also habe ich vier Humoresken komponiert.
Wahrscheinlich wird kaum jemand heraushören, was an ihnen lustig ist.
Vier Vektoren geben zwar definierte Richtungen an, aber solange die Koordinaten nicht bekannt sind, zielen sie ins Nichts. Solche Vektoren zu betrachten, ist ebenso ergiebig, wie den Bereich zwischen Null und Eins zu untersuchen. Und vielleicht sind die acht kurzen Tristia- Stücke ja die eigentlichen Humoresken? Und die Vektoren ein wenig traurig? Und die Humoresken führen nirgendwohin?" [label info]
www.aufabwegen.com
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
|
Parergon |
CD |
" “Parergon” (Greek ‘collection of small texts’) is the sequel of the idea to continue to recycle recyclings of recyclings. That does not mean remixes or deconstructions but much more genuine compositions derived from already repeatedly recycled structures. In the future the new compositions, too, will be transformed by recycling into totally new music. This approach is in no case hermetic because no circular course happens: There is no way back to the beginning. With digital tools – but w i t h o u t chance operations – one can achieve treatments and processings which lead to a nearly endless multitude of esthetic relevant compositions derived from once defined basic structures. In this connection ‘sampling’ is not of importance. -
The pieces of “Parergon” do not intend to provoke pictures or moods, but will give the listener simply something to listen to – it is up to him how he handles this offer. In consequece the pieces have no titles. Instead they have index data which point to certain series. -
“Parergon” has been composed in dark times, but at the best only the artwork reflects this conditions. The sounds themselves come from the vacuum." [Asmus Tietchens, 2016]
|
2016 |
€13.00 |
|
|
Dämmerattacke |
CD |
Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self taught or learnign by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. The album Dämmerattacke was originally released on Dutch Korm Plastics label in 1997 as a limited edition vinyl LP only. It was later reissued as a double CD with Eisgang. For this latest edition, we have added another bonus track making the CD 20 minutes longer than the LP. Full track list: 1. Zweite Dämmerattacke 2. Erster Nachtschatten 3. Zweiter Nachtschatten 4. Dritter Nachtschatten 5, Schlagschatten 6. Franz-Joseph-Land.
www.klanggalerie.com/gg251
|
2017 |
€15.00 |
|
|
Linea + |
CD |
"Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self taught or learnign by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. Linea was originally released on cassette on Dutch Korm Plastics label, later re-issued as a CDR in 1999. It is one of Tietchens's most minimal compositions, and has a special place in our music hearts here at Klanggalerie. For our new edition, Asmus Tietchens has dug deep into his archive and unearthed two further Linea pieces that have so far never seen the light of day. Full running time now 75 minutes. Remastered and repackaged. Full tracklist: 1 Linea 1 2. Linea 3 3. Linea 12 4. Linea 13." [label info]
"Linea+ represents some of the composers most minimal works. The opener, Linea 1, offers a taut repetitive beat/rhythm that slightly blurs and bounces over time. It is a circular, hypnotic rhythm that is drawn into a bit of an oblong shape as it crosses from the left to the right channel ever so slightly. Musique Concrete at its finest, Tietchens takes sweet time to add minor electronic effects which throw the steady beat off some, making the listener pay closer attention to the conversation between the up and down layers. (...) The original release was a diamond in the rough, and this reissue has expanded its karat size two-fold and given this excavated classic the full restoration it deserves. Now Linea+ can be re-presented to new audiences looking for a futuristic sound that was way before its time, here reserving its timeless place." (Toneshift, September 2018)
"This is not a review at all; this is a personal observation. About thirty years ago I started to
meet Dolf Mulder, who was slightly older than me and about every once in 2 weeks we would meet up and he would play me weird records. Or I'd play some weird cassettes, as this I was I already much into. These days Dolf still writes for Vital Weekly about weird music, just as I do. I'm sure at one of those occasions he played me a record by Asmus Tietchens, I'd like to think one of the Sky Records or 'Formen Letzter Hausmusik' and Dolf told me he was in contact with Tietchens and that there was unpublished work, refused by Ladd-Frith on the basis it was too monotonous. For the small cassette label I had this seemed to me like sure-fire hit, selling more than the usual thirty copies. I wrote to Tietchens, got the master tape, liked it, and had a very professional cover printed, unlike all the Xerox business so far. A decade later, when CDRs became household, I re-issued all of the cassettes I did on Korm Plastics on that format and gave 'Linea' a second life. Not bad for a boring piece of music, indeed. Now it gets a third life, including two lengthy bonus pieces, both from the same series, but with 'Linea 12' and 'Linea 13' a bit further down the line. If Tietchens doesn't release a particular composition it is probably not good enough. On the original we have 'Linea 1' and 'Linea 3'. The fist is a very straightforward rhythm machine and sequence along with a repeating loop. It is very much at the tail end of Tietchens' Sky Records phase; very electronic,
nothing concrete and yet also very minimal indeed. 'Linea 3' is also minimal yet with a stranger attack on the keyboard and rhythm machine pushed a little to the background. In both pieces there is very little development but it slowly shifts around. 'Im Atelier Zu Hören' is the tip Tietchens gives us, 'listen in your workspace' and that's where this works well indeed. In the two bonus pieces, Tietchens gives something away from the working methods behind 'Linea', which I didn't hear to the same extent as before. In these pieces the rhythm machine has disappeared and it's only arpeggio synthesizers, playing repeating lines and feeding through various delay lines, so
sometimes we only hear the residue of the delay of the original line, chasing each other on end.
Again this is all very minimal and again it works very well. 'Linea 12' has a darker touch and 'Linea 13' is the lighter side of things. Excellent re-issue." (FdW/Vital Weekly) |
2018 |
€14.00 |
|
|
Raum 318 |
CD |
"Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio program when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self-taught or learning by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. Raum 318 was originally released on cassette only in 1991 on the E'ostrate label in France, in an edition of only 138 hand-numbered copies. It is a part of Tietchens' more Industrial sounding body of work and was remastered for this edition. In addition, a long previously unreelased bonus track has been added."
|
2020 |
€15.00 |
|
|
Seuchengebiete 4 |
CD |
"Seuchengebiete 4, the continuation of Asmus Tietchens' almost legendary series of treated water sounds, consists of six Hydrophonies. The sonic palette ranges from deep gurgling bass pulses to fragile movements of showering bright particles. The overall mood is ernest, contemplative and dark. Seuchengebiete 4 is perhaps the ultimate soundtrack for our crises-ridden times." [press release]
https://aufabwegen.bandcamp.com/album/seuchengebiete-4
"Der Hamburger Asmus Tietchens schätzt Serien, man denke etwa an die auf inzwischen sieben Teile angewachsene Mengenreihe. Auf den Alben der “Seuchengebiete”-Serie finden sich sogenannte Hydrophonien, Stücke, deren Basis das Geräusch von tropfendem Wasser ist. Der erste Teil erschien 1985, sechs Jahre später folgte Nummer zwei, 1997 auf Donna Klemms Label Artware Nummer drei. Schon in einem Interview im Jahre 2007 sprach Tietchens davon, an neuen Hydrophonien für einen vierten Teil zu arbeiten, jetzt erscheinen sechs neue Aufnahmen auf Auf Abwegen.
Auf„Hydrophonie 21“ scheint Wasser in einer Höhle zu tropfen und zu (ver)hallen, im Vordergrund blubbert es, während im Hintergrund seltsam-melodische Flächen zu hören sind. Dann scheint Wasser ausgeschüttet zu werden und zu fließen. Dem Track wohnt eine leichte Unruhe inne. Die nicht nur numerisch, sondern auch auf dem Album darauf folgende Hydrophonie nimmt diese Bewegung zurück, ist tastender, reduzierter, minimalistischer. Zum Teil klingt das Fallen der Tropfen so, als zupfe jemand einen akustischen Bass. “Hydrophonie 24″ hat einen leicht metallischen Klang, ist vielleicht- etwas verkürzt gesagt- mit durchaus dissonanten Momenten das industriellste Stück auf diesem Album. Dagegen scheint “Hydrophonie 26″ zurückhaltender und weniger unruhig zu sein. “Hydrophonie” 32 hat einen leicht ambient-sakralen Charakter und ist der vielleicht atmosphärischste Track auf diesem Album. “Hydrophonie 27″ beginnt fast kaum wahrnehmbar, dann hört man entfernte, kristalline Momente, als würden Vögel zwitschern.Was klar gewoden sein sollte, ist, wie unterschiedlich trotz gleichen Ausgangsmaterials die einzelnen Stücke sind.
Über die Jahre ist Tietchens immer sehr konsistent darin gewesen, wenn er über die (nicht vorhandene) “Botschaft” seiner Musik gesprochen hat. Schon 1991 meinte er: „I don’t try to create moods with my music, and I don’t try to tell stories, and my music doesn’t carry any message except an aesthetic one (now and then). Mostly my pieces are formalistic exercises, or better, the results of formalistic exercises. Music shall be no more than itself. Absolute Music.“ In einem jüngst erschienen Interview wird diese Haltung noch einmal klar artikuliert: “’Absolute Music’ is not connected with any political, spiritual, ideological or educational intention. The listener is totally free for his own impressions, feelings, possible pictures and thoughts when listening to ‘Absolute Music’. To me that is total freedom of perception. I am no teacher, no philosopher, no scientist – why should I intrude my thoughts on any other human being? I always try to let the music speak for itself. That should be enough.“ Dennoch darf auch auf diesem Album das obligatorische Cioran-Zitat natürlich nicht fehlen: “Der zügellose Optimismus hält der geringsten und bedeutungslosesten Offenbarung der menschlichen Natur nicht stand.” [MG / African Paper]
"In the 80s, there was a small list of very hard to obtain records, records of the kind that everybody wanted. Among them was Seuchengebiete' by Asmus Tietchens, released by A-Mission Records. That label vanished quickly, and the records too. I am sure I traded some obscure Gerogerigegege LP for it, but it was worth the trade. I may have told this story when I reviewed the CD re-issue back in Vital Weekly 504. On 'Seuchengebiete', Tietchens explores the sound of water dripping in his studio sink. It was the first record on which Tietchens explored the quieter side of music. Later on, there were more volumes of this approach (although never called 'volume 2' etc.). The second volume was in 1991 (reviewed in Vital 23, when it was a paper fanzine; see advertisement elsewhere), and '3' was in Vital Weekly 121. I mentioned for the latter that I didn't get the design of the release, which is, maybe oddly, also the case here. As this CD arrived on Saturday, I took a whole Sunday off to play all four 'Seuchengebiete' instalments. Over the years, some things have changed in the music of Tietchens. It was the first 'Seuchengebiete', one of his first quiet works; these days, his music is soft. Many of his musical compositions contain sounds beyond recognition, but in this case, it is pretty clear what the source material is. The dripping of water can be recognized, but it is transformed in various ways, from delightful high-end splashes to low-end bass sounds; some of this sounds like it is changed with granular synthesis, but no doubt there is also another technology at work here. There is something profound about the music, slow, contemplative; maybe the music is a sign of the sorry state of our times. Perhaps it is the association I have with the water sounds here; that of leaky pipes in an abandoned industrial landscape. The soundtrack for a worse tomorrow? I am sure that is not what Tietchens put into his music, as I would think there is very little meaning put in by him, but it is all about the listener's associations. This time, Tietchens applies his current composing techniques to an older idea, working wonderfully well." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
|
2021 |
€13.50 |
|
|
Ptomaine 1 |
CD |
\"Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (Seuchengebiete), human voices (Von Mund zu Mund), paper (Papier ist geduldig). He is associated with the Industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self taught or learnign by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. Ptomaine was originally released on RRRecords in 1996 as a 3 LP set. This is the first volume of the first ever CD re-issue\"
https://www.klanggalerie.com/gg388
|
2021 |
€15.00 |
|
| |
Ptomaine 2 |
CD |
\\\"Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio program when he was ten years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added. In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky label, home of many Krautrock bands. Tietchens often uses special source materials for his compositions such as water (\\\'Seuchengebiete\\\'), human voices (\\\'Von Mund zu Mund\\\'), paper (\\\'Papier ist geduldig\\\'). He is associated with the industrial music scene through his collaborations and releases on labels such as United Dairies, Esplendor Geometrico or Dom Records. Tietchens never studied composition, he has no academic background, everything he does is self-taught or learning by doing. Nevertheless, he was professor for sound design in Hamburg in recent years. Ptomaine was originally released on RRRecords in 1996 as a 3 LP set. This is the second volume of the first ever CD re-issue.\\\"
https://www.klanggalerie.com/gg415
|
2023 |
€15.00 |
|
| TIETCHENS, ASMUS / FRIEDER BUTZMANN |
NNOI#02 |
LP |
"Second in this series of recordings and documents of artists of the NNOI Festival. The design of the entire series is based on drawings by Frank Diersch, made for this project. This record unites two German greats of the electronic avant-garde of the last 40 years and brings together two worlds that exist like the sides of a coin facing away from each other and yet are firmly connected at the core. 'NNOI#2' can be described as a kind of miraculous "Göffel" - a mixture of fork and spoon.
Asmus Tietchens, the glass fork, reduces his 9 compositions 'Stenograms' to abstract structures that force a space that transforms its floating hardness and beauty into the clear outlines of a sculpture. The Tietchens-Monolith is being straightened out further. Frieder Butzmann developed a 'SinusToneSuite' for the 'NNOI'. As a collector of strange objects and apparitions, Frieder went in search of sinustones that could be found between generators, vocal cords and wooden tubes. The 'SinusToneSuite' is an opulent electronic composition, a dance with the golden spoon of unreason and love!"
|
2020 |
€19.50 |
|
| TO / THOMAS TILLY |
Script Geometry |
do-LP & CD |
\"Approaching the forest as if were a city, a construct, an ensemble of strata and vertical heights where signals answer, contrast and ignore each other. Variations occur, fullness and emptiness are created according to the weather and the peak and off-preak hours. This density that language can\'t define presents a challenge for the ear, and from this density surfaces, frm time to time, certain analogies to a modern sound environment. Cultural leads fraw our experience of these natural acoustic phenomenin towards the domain of technology : \'it sounds like... it\'s like\'. The timbres ? The sound structures ? There exists something in a tropical forest that sounds like and plays within the realms of electronics, music and electronics noise ; something characteristic of an era long before the birth of biotopes that form this forest and create this sound. Script geometry comes from this idea and the desire to work with density, in an attempt to extract forms that characterize these analogies. Taking these sounds out of their context and rearranging them as we would patch cables on a synthesizer ; weaving these strata and vertica heights into a different pattern by using the signals from the forest as if they were synthetic sounds : dissecting this spectrum and looking for something that can only be revealed through listening, this is the essence of the project\'. Thomas Tilly - Winter 2012\'In March 2013, I traveled to the Nourages scientific research station in French Guiana. Situated in the heart of a tropical rainforest, this station welcomes international scientific research progams dealing with tropical forests and their biodiversity. For the 30 days and nights of my stay, i listened to and captured the sound environment with an emphasis on animal communications : those wich are perceptible to the huan ear, but also the inaudible spectrum. The result is a collection of compositions and phonography characteristic of the zone. No electronic treatement has been added to these recordings other than a low cut filter and a light EQ mix. Script Geometry was conducted as an artist-in-residency programme at the Confort Moderne, Jazz à Potiers, the Lieu Multiple and the Nouragues Station in French Guiana between February and June 2013. A series of concerts, conférences, broadcasts and a creative workshop took place in accompaniment to the project\'. Double LP mastered by James Plotkin. CD mastered by Thomas Tilly. Cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates and Mastering, Berlin.\" [label info]
www.aposiopese.com
\"A double LP and a CDR of the source material. For this work he went to the Nourages scientific research station in French Guiana, in the middle of the rain forest. For thirty days he recorded sounds with an emphasis on animal communications, some of these using ultra sonic translators. \'No electronic treatment has been added to these recordings other than a low cut filter and a light EQ mix\' it says on the cover and we have to believe that, sometimes hard as it is. However some of the recordings are overlaying each other so a more dense pattern arises, and the chirping of insects that is already a bit electronically sounding are emphasized, such as in the opening piece, \'At Night, Mass\'. The pieces on
this record shift back and forth between untreated - as \'no mixing, no editing\' - and \'composition, classic and ultrasonic recordings. Mixing and editing\', and especially those pieces, say \'Crossroad, nodes\' have a highly electronic feel to them. A very minimal piece of electronic music, almost like a modular synthesizer piece, but maybe a bit less organised, following the more chaotic patterns of the nature sounds. I thought this was a great record. Very much originating in the world of field recordings, but then, the result, from an entirely different kind of planet. \'Unidentified Insects Colony\' is almost like The Haters ripping paper and doesn\'t sound like an unidentifiedd insects colony at all. A truly fascinating work of which the hour long CDR is a nice bonus. Maybe something for the die-hards I guess, but it makes the package all the more complete.\" [FdW/Vital Weekly 05.2014]
|
2014 |
€24.00 |
|
| |
Codex Amphibia (Phonotaxis) |
CD+booklet |
THOMAS TILLY
CODEX AMPHIBIA (PHONOTAXIS)
Cd Digipack | APO 15
Booklet 24 pages + Leporello 5 pages.
Digital version | FLAC | MP3 :
thomastilly.bandcamp.com/album/codex-amphibia-phonotaxis
Codex amphibia (Phonotaxis) has been recorded, composed and mixed between 2016 and 2020 in French Guiana and France by Thomas Tilly.
credits
released June 29, 2021
Teaser : www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1FH_8YPknk
-
Video teaser of the sound art and herpetology project realized by Thomas Tilly (composer) and Antoine Fouquet (Research associate at The French National Center for Scientific Research) during the frogs explosive breeding phenomenon, french Guiana 2016-2018. Pictures by Antoine Fouquet, Thomas Tilly and Audric Broux.
This Pieces are part of a both scientific and artistic collaborative project conducted with Herpetologist Antoine Fouquet, research associate at French National Center for Scienctific Research Cnrs. These compositions follow Codex amphibia (an interpretation of the explosive breeding), released in 2018 on Glistening Examples.
This work has benefited from an "Investissement d'Avenir" grant managed by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA, ref. ANR-10-LABX-25-01), and has been supported by Le Lieur Multiple, Jazz à Poitiers, Césaré, Studio d'en Haut, and has benefited of the grand "Brouillon d'un rêve, Pierre Schaeffer", by SCAM.
https://label-aposiopese.bandcamp.com/album/codex-amphibia-phonotaxis |
2021 |
€16.50 |
|
| TONIUTTI, GIANCARLO |
The Sound-Placing Land Bridge |
CD |
During a research in his archive Giancarlo Toniutti found two unfinished compositions recorded with Tiziano Dominighini in 1981-1982. Those compositions were mostly made of improvisation sessions using synthesizers and a guitar.
Giancarlo Toniutti decided in 2013 to complete the compostions and recorded new material througout 2013 and 2014. The new compositions were made of several field recordings made in the countryside nearby a highway road.
All the compostions were then mixed together in 2014-2015.
"The focus of this work is on the real relationship of the sonic phenomena when they meet our personal environment, how they mold our perception and are molded by it, in its cognitive affirmation. Music, in other words." Giancarlo Toniutti
Limited edition of 300 copies in digipack with a 20 pages booklet with extensive liner notes written by Giancarlo Toniutti.
www.menstrualrecordings.org
|
2016 |
€14.50 |
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| TONIUTTI, GIANCARLO / JAMES WYNESS |
Batlahatli |
CD |
Batlahatli starts where Drookitarlùp left off. Giancarlo Toniutti and James Wyness developed two electroacoustic compositions out of sound materials collected during their European travels in search for drookitarlùp. Exploring different relational morphologies, opening their systems to timbrally charged forms, from two points of the universe, it is true that, albeit the "archaic" descriptor was not entirely apt, they extended their theoretical investigations in music.
"Clustering on the geometry of conclusion" - Irto Afanas'evich Trumlin |
2021 |
€15.00 |
|
| TONIUTTI, MASSIMO |
Cava XI.XI.86 |
CD |
https://fernsrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/cava-xi-xi-86
CD reissue of a cassette released in 1987 edited by Massimo Toniutti.
An unique, beautiful and mysterious work in which sounds are produced somewhere, under the earth, in a cave or cellar. Organic, out of time.
Remastered from the original tapes, including two unreleased tracks created from records of the same period.
Cava xi.xi.86 was a concept album split into two parts, side 1 formerly called gravi tracks 1-4 and side 2 le ghiaie tracks 5-7.
Mixed at the stanza delle uova (1987) using a (4+4) multi-track system.
Two more compositions have been added to this reissue:
Track 8 (cube version of gravi) and track 9 (with a little help from l\'orchestra dei becchi di Fuji), both of them using \'86/\'87 archive sessions, re-worked and digitally mixed at my ground floor studio (2019).
Re-mastered from the original tapes.
All material recorded from November 1986 to April 1987 at the laboratory and its surroundings.
sound sources : clothes horse, metal ladders, pipes, welded wire mesh, railing, metal cans, occluders, muffles, clamps, springs, mandrels, drill bits, wrenches, hacksaws and unidentified objects; processed field recordings, via sistiana\'s hammers ad venetian blinds, and trains; hi & lo-fi speakers and microphones, handheld cassette players and recorders.
Thanks to Ron Lessard since 1988 and Sébastien for his hospitality.
#######################################
\"These refurbished sounds originally recorded in-between 1986-87 are from Italian experimenter Massimo Toniutti (we covered his Il Museo Selvatico here last year). His use of metallic objects and everyday instruments, fused in mysterious ways, is one of multilayered distinctions. A special thanks to Ferns and to other curatorial imprints who preserve these sounds for first-time observers. Though you’d never know it, this came out in that ‘growing-pains’ era when glitzy acts like Sigue Sigue Sputnik ruled certain airwaves, and you’d catch faded latter-day Eurythmics on your car radio as well as Deborah Harry gone solo and so many other novelties of the time. This is far from a response to that sonic Siberia, and likely was far too gray for the neon street life.
Instead, Cava xi.xi.86 serves a vintage more akin to what The Legendary Pink Dots or Controlled Bleeding were doing at the same time, just a little more introspective in terms of construction. At times this sounds like a windstorm passing through a kitchen pantry, and at others its more a series of aural sculpture – brittle man-made contortions. There are passive moments too, and here the quiet contemplation the relative freeform nature finds its way of exorcising its own ghosts.
Cling, klang the echoes slam and achromatize in gestures that are definitive but never inferring a beat structure, instead more similar to opening and closing the doors of a horse stable. If you listened to this and heard ‘chimes’ while sitting close to a vast body of water you may not be too far off either. In other words Toniutti (working vertically) has created a lubricious sound that is bespoke in the most underground of sensibilities.
The new re-worked tracks have a methodical atmosphere, like a nightmare involving a rickety rollercoaster. At some point herein the artist did, in fact, incorporate hammers and venetian blinds but instead of something kinetic you might expect from Einstürzende Neubauten here the listener is much closer to the inversion of surfaces and gadgets being deployed. At more than one juncture in the closer, cava recovery, an open circuit seems to be present as well as a nice balance of drone – and this is couched in such a way as to hear not only echoes from objects being struck, but this inert feeling as if you are lurking around the space. As the listener surveils the temperature of shifting tonalities things quiet down to a pivotal numbing murmur.\" [Toneshift]
|
2019 |
€13.00 |
|
| TOTSTELLEN |
Mein Licht beleuchtet nur Abgruende |
CD-R |
"processed fieldrecordings of a journey through the baltic states, finland + lapland. reflections on constructed nature + disruption as utopia.
01 - anorexie im bauch eines wals (12:42)
02 - faules blut in molochs adern (19:38)
03 - keinen traum mehr zu haben (01:24)
04 - fuer die noch lenenden toten (17:32)
05 - vermehrt zu gast im laeukemiecluster (23:38)" [label info]
http://telenautik.de/grimm/totstellen
"Der Alptraum kommt in lautleisegefälligen Schritten, die baltischen Länder bieten neben der touristisch entlegenen Industrieromantik auch etwas wie ein dreckig-verschlafenes Lokalkolorit, welchem mit Mikrophon und Sampler zu Leibe gegangen werden kann. Wann beginnt der Alptraum wirklich? Dann wenn man aufwacht und feststellt, dass die Realität sich bei aller Authentizität doch beliebig verformen lässt. Totstellen hat in 5 Kompositionen seine einjährige Reise durch die baltischen Länder festgehalten, streng feldrekorderistisch, wie ein audiophiles Tagebuch welches die jeweiligen Reisemomente auf ehrlichste und naheliegendste Art zu skizzieren vermag. Mal rauschen die Bäche, dann wiederum dräunt und hallt der industrielle Alltag der Straßen und öffentlichen Plätze durch die Aufnahmen, werden Funkstimmen und Wassertropfen zu grotesken Klangmonstern, die ihre Formwandlung auf unerklärlich hässlich-faszinierende Weise exhibitionistisch zur Schau stellen. Wenngleich Totstellen’s Abgründe sich ihrer Funktion wohl nur im Gedächtnis seiner eigenen Reiseerinnerungen öffnen, atmet »Mein Licht Beleuchtet Nur Abgründe« eine ganz eigene Sprache, das verworren-gutturale Geflecht aus Erinnerung und Lücke. Die archaische Umverpackung, handgenäht und mit Siebdruck versehen, macht aus diesem Release eine besonders intime Angelegenheit. Chapeau." [Thorsten Soltau / AEMAG]
"...Totstellen uses both field recordings, but plays music, sound material creates what he encounters, like the rustle of plastic and metal buckets on ticking. In one way or another, the atmosphere is nostalgic and melancholic compositions and are true sound paintings. These beautiful CDR's packaged in a self-sewn cover with a picture book where the emptiness of the city and nature plays a central role. Highly recommended!" [JKH/Vital
Weekly]
|
2010 |
€12.00 |
|
| TOY BIZARRE |
kdi dctb 257 [A] |
mCD |
"On “kdi dctb 257 [A]”: In 2010-2011 I was invited to work with 2 groups of students within the frame of « Territoires sonores, portée art'ur, réseau d'action culturelle
deslycées agricoles publics des Pays de La Loire », in the cities of Saint-Herblain and La Roche-sur-Yon. We worked for a few months listening, recording, and composing with their
sound environment. I was particularly interested by one the recording session they made in the Conservatoire de Musique: hearing instruments through walls, stairs and corridors... It sounded really great... a basis for a a real maze. So it became my basis to what I call "my first ever pop music piece", which is a real maze, a glance through the building at first, and then it goes deeper
and deeper."
Biography
Cédric Peyronnet (aka toy.bizarre / ingeos) is a sound artist working since the ’90 around phonography (Field recordings, “sound hunting”…), soundscapes, using the principles of concrete, acousmatic, electroacoustic
music. His work, whose main theme is the exploration of places by sound recording,
listening and sound sculpting, take form of compositions and sound pieces (CD, Vinyl … more than fifty references published since the ‘90), concerts, sound screenings and sound installations." [label info]
www.aufabwegen.com
|
2015 |
€8.50 |
|
| |
kdi dctb 278 |
CD |
" “kdi dctb 278” is what I call a sound film. Its shape entirely and solely based on the sound recording of places – as in all of my pieces – fits my refusal to make a choice of abstraction or narration and willingness to stay in an in-between, to maintain a dialogue between abstraction / narrative, which would be close to the daydream.
“kdi dctb 278” was recorded 1994~2013 @ various locations; sequences built for various projects.
Some parts appeared first in the kdi dct 216 “garden / square meter” series (Melbourne), thanks to Jude Anderson, Jacques Soddell.
Tested live (parts) @ Instants Chavirés, L’Audible Festival, Paris, 2012/09, thanks to Jérôme Noetinger.
Tested live (fully) @ Sonikas, Madrid, 2013/12 – thanks to Juan Carlos Blancas, Alfonso Pomeda & the man-who-saw-codex-but-lost-the-way.
This version, mixed 2015/06 @ TBS
Release date: 09.2015
Label : Semperflorens
Time: 41:43 mins
Format: CD in DVDBOX
Limited to 500 copies" [toy bizarre info]
www.ingeos.org/en/kdi-dctb-278/
"After all these years, we are still not all that clear what the acronym that Cedric Peyronnet (aka Toy Bizarre) has used for the bulk of his album titles. It's definitely some sort of cataloging system as his titles are in sequential fashion, now reaching 278, though there are some sizable jumps between the various numbers. Peyronnet may have explained what this may mean somewhere and at sometime, but enlightenment eludes us. So, we'll collectively shrug and move onto this vivid collection of manipulated field recordings and phonographic compositions that are found on this impressive album. Since the late '80s or thereabouts, Peyronnet has used natural sounds as his primary source material, working in parallel to Eric La Casa, Small Cruel Party, Tarab, and some of the more obtuse practitioners of contemporary musique concrete. Peyronnet's uneasy dislocations never settle on the notions of purely objective / narrative descriptions of sound, nor could they be defined as abstraction. So one can hear jolting splashes of water and mud along with Luc Ferrari like snippets of human voice well-removed from context alongside filter-heavy drones of liquid miasma and mercurial drones dappled with found object texture and splattered detritus. Peyronnet has quite a knack for rendering all of the components of his compositions with an incredible sharpness of detail - the purity of his dilated frequencies and an exactness to environmental elements work into his slippery compositions punctured with bursts of energy that Peyronnet allows to wane into solemn pools of contemplation." [Aquarius Rec.]
|
2015 |
€13.00 |
|
| TOY BIZARRE / EMERGE |
untitled |
LP |
Since the 1990s, French sound artist Cédric Peyronnet has established himself as one of the most prolific and original composers working with field recordings. After numerous CD releases under his own name and as ingeos and toy.bizarre, this is his first ever vinyl. It was made commissioned by composer and label head EMERGE. A long-standing fan of Peyronnet, he contributes a piece to the split release that is based on Peyronnet’s recordings.
The theme running through the whole split album is the acoustics of mines. All material is based on field recordings made by Peyronnet in (partially disused) French mines in the mid-1990s. Scratching, gravelly, cavernous sounds dominate the soundscape, evoking a world of subterranean gloom that seems familiar to listeners of EMERGE’s bass-heavy drone compositions. In Peyronnet’s piece, the field recordings are simply arranged in a collage-like manner, but the atmosphere created by this editing is strikingly similar to the one dominating the album side processed by EMERGE. This turns the album into a subtle play with the expectations of the audience. What just a second ago seemed to be mere random ambient sound suddenly turns into a musical structure through rhythmic repetition, and an apparently documentary audio snapshot might actually be digitally treated. Through this intriguing interplay, the two artists make us reflect on the role of the recording medium which, through the very fact that it is a medium, turns every ‘natural’ sound into a ‘cultural’ artefact.
toy.bizarre - kdi dctb 018
Original recordings were made in Puy-Les-Vignes disused mine, April and May 1995.
Some parts were used on the M.SL tape published by kaon.
Composed / Mixed @ TBS, Tlse, 2014. SACEM 2014.
www.ingeos.org
EMERGE - msl
all sounds recorded by Cédric Peyronnet with analog device (tape) around 1995 in the MSL mine, reworked on site & replayed with speakers inside the place then re-recorded by Cédric Peyronnet treatment and composition by EMERGE in 2014 photography by Cyril Herry design by EMERGE
label info
www.attenuationcircuit.de
|
2015 |
€16.00 |
|
| TREPANERINGSRITUALEN |
Algir; Eller Algir I Merkstave |
CD |
Trepaneringsritualen return to Cold Spring with an album-long ritual working entitled ᛉᛦ — Algir; eller Algir i Merkstave. On this record — constructed from a series of rituals designated to guide the last ceasing of ᛏᛇᚱᚫ ᚾ ∴ ᚾ ∴ ᚾ — T × R × P is manifest in its most obscure form. Sonically minimal yet devastating in emotional impact, this working lets the listener grasp the last vestiges of Nifl and Múspell, and with them as weapon and beacon traverse the Night. ᛉᛦ reveals a barren landscape where crooked paths lead onward, through soot black veils to a point of radiant light where all that is is Union & Dissolution.
Dedicated to our sister, ᛏᛇᚱᚫ ᚾ ∴ ᚾ ∴ ᚾ.
T × R × P channelled through the forms of ᚦᛟᚦ ᚷᛁᚷ, ᚾᛟᚺ ⩝⚭⩝, and ᛏᛇᚱᚫ ᚾ ∴ ᚾ ∴ ᚾ at the 63rd Link, 4 & Rising, and Zone Rouge December 2017 e.v. — July 2018 e.v. Mastered by Martin Bowes. Artwork by Nullvoid.
___
I tordön rister marken och i ett enda andetag rämnar alla världar. Den arma kropp som en gång med knapphet höll samman faller nu itu, och itu, och itu. Tills varje beståndsdel blir till Ingenting. Likt en vålnad utan hud och blod och anda — utan köttets förtvivlan — kastar jag mig — handlöst och av vanvett vredgad — i ditt vidunderliga gap.
Här, i gudars sotsvarta skymning, där natt och dag förgås, hörs alla ord och stäv för första gången tydligt. Här tar alla vaga förnimmelser sin sanna form och stiger ur ett disigt skimmer.
Här, i alla solars gyllne gryning, strålar tusen — åter tusen, pilar av det mest förblindande ljus, mot en enda punkt. Skapandet, och varandet, och blivandet löses upp där prisman splittrar ljuset. Framför mig syns vägen klar och uppenbar.
Vi Vandrar Vidare
V ∴ V ∴ V
CD in 6-panel digipak
LP - Limited first edition of 500 copies on 180g black vinyl. Printed inner sleeve with reverse board outer sleeve.
Official teaser: youtu.be/8bTlXaUPpzI
https://coldspring.bandcamp.com/album/algir-eller-algir-i-merkstave-csr275cd-lp
"After a run of strong albums framed around vocal driven, rhythmic death industrial compositions, Trepaneringsritualen (TxRxP) has chosen to take an abrupt left-hand turn (onto the left hand path?) to deliver an extremely minimalist ritual dark ambient album, thus harks back to an earlier phase of the project. In fact this new instrumental album is so minimal and ritualized in style, it would not at all be out of place on the Aural Hypnox label.
Compositionally this album consists of two lengthy nineteen-minute tracks, each titled with the algiz rune, but noting for the second track the algiz rune has been inverted. To glean meaning from this, in its upturned position, the algiz rune can be interpreted as a human with upraised arms to received the protection, guidance and wisdom from the Universe. But in its inverted position can be interpreted as meaning hidden dangers for the self and the need to reflect and look within as part of the process of gaining strength and connecting with higher self. Yet even with the cover image of the algiz rune formed by tree branches, based on the spartan artwork and text in Swedish, how the algiz runes should be interpreted in context of this album remains unclear.
Sonically speaking the atmosphere is one of bass driven tonal depth and catacombic echo, where blackened washes of archaic drones blend with reverb drenched ritual percussive sounds, including: deep catatonic drum hits; sparse gongs; wailing horns; ritual chimes; singing bowls, low atonal piano notes etc. Yet for all of its apparent minimalism, this album is one that immediately draws you into its sinister clutches and does not loosen its grip for the entire album duration, particularly given the ample tensile sonic elements which keep interest and engagement throughout. Although cut into two separate tracks, the sound effectively plays out at an album length track as the sound between the two pieces bridges the same pace and articulates visions in the mind’s eye of a ritual ceremony being conducted in the falling twilight on the damp forest floor, while tree limbs creak and sway in response to the winds gusting through treetops far above. Also of note is the deep shuddering thud featuring at the start and end of the album album, as if sonically representing the opening and subsequent closing of a ritual cycle.
Prior to the release of this album, perhaps I had assumed that TxRxP would continue to forge ahead with a song-based approach. That impression has been proven to be completed incorrect, but at the same time, ᛉᛦ – Algir; Eller Algir I Merkstave is an exceptional example of minimalist and strongly meditative ritual dark ambient music, and completely takes me back to the earliest days of when I started listening to this type of music. Recommended." [Noise Receptor]
|
2019 |
€13.00 |
|
| TROUM |
AIWS |
CD |
"AIWS is the first full-length cd release from Troum since 2003. It covers studio-recordings composed from 2002-2005. These musicians have compiled some of their most favorable pieces through the years to be placed on this release. Presenting nine analogue (4&8 track) recorded compositions that lead the listener through vast feelings of beautifully deep melancholic and hypnotic states of mind. Composed with guitar-drones and harmonic phrases that are processed in various ways creating an atmosphere of the sublime and emotional meditative states that transcend listener to immerse within themselves.
Ingredients: Sufi-songs, old vinyl-crackles, acoustic & e-guitars, e-bow, e-bass, voice & whisperings, accordion & flute. Stunning photography & design work by Alan McClelland(Eye.lyft). One of the most emotional and profound Troum releases to date now available on Transgredient Records. Dedicated to Eternity.
TRACK LISTING of AIWS [* and meaning of titles & phrases]
1. AHMATEINS
2. AGGILUS
3. SPIRARE
4. PER SONUM
5. PANTAH
6. [GA] PLAIAN
7. PENTHOS
8. NEHEH
9. PELETÄ
total length: 49:30 min
[* AIWS=Eternity (gothic language), also shortcut for "Alice-In-Wonderland-Syndrome". 1. "Inspiration" (gothic) 2. "Angel - Carrier" (gothic) 3. "breathing - aspirating - sighing - smelling " (latin) 4. "through sound" (latin) 5. "way - path - line" (old indian) 6. "supplication" (persian) 7. "the sorrow of mourning - lament" (greek - also a greek god), 8. "Eternity" (egypt) 9. "escape - flight, also: rescue - salvation" (hebrew) " [label info]
"... nach einigen 12“s und Kollaborationen die 7. CD des TROUM-Duos. GLIT[S]CH & BARAKA[H]
sind dafür bekannt, dass sie sich zu Nietzsches „Die Welt ist tief, viel tiefer als der Tag gedacht“ tief in die Augen blicken und dann ihren Fliegenden Teppich starten. ‚Ahmateins‘ ist, bewusst analog und lo-fi, gewebt aus engen Gitarrenwellen und sämigen Drones von E-Bow und E-Bass. Flug und Flucht, Atmen und Seufzen sind dabei eins. Sound ist der Weg und das Ziel. AIWS ist nicht nur das gotische Wort für Ewigkeit, es steht auch für das Alice in Wonderland Syndrom. Prosaisch ist das eine mit Kopfschmerzen verbundene Sehstörung, metaphorisch aber heißt das doch: Die Welt mit Alicens Augen als Wunderland sehen können.
Troums Zauberteppich schwebt auf harmonischen Strömen durch Rauch und Licht dahin, auf einem spiraligen Kurs ins Sublime. ‚Pantah‘ lässt den Saitenklang deutlicher erkennen, in [Ga]plaian‘ ist Sufigesang verdichtet, in ‚Penthos‘ scheint ein Akkordeon zu pumpen, in ‚Neheh‘ Licht nicht bloß zu schimmern, sondern zu singen. Tiefenmusic Reaching Our Unconscious Minds."
[Bad Alchemy]
"....The pieces on this new CD were recorded from 2002-2005 on Troum's own analogue equipment, all live to four-eight track recorders, without the involvement of computers. Troum, a duo (be it hard to believe), is best a live band, even when working in the studio. Their instruments are guitars, e-bow, bass, voices, accordion & flute, old vinyl. And oh, sound effects. Lots of those are involved in the music of Troum, but they never stand in the way of the end result. Spacious head music. Loud at times, quiet when necessary, but there is a certain roughness about the band, which is an element I really like. Even when things are quiet, they never really are quiet. 'Neheh' is just an example of some sparse organ like loops, feeding through some delay and bouncing gentle forward, but with a certain grittiness. Highly atmospheric even when experienced without the help of any chemicals or other illegal substances and the best but perhaps more frightful experience when played in the dark and with the headphones tied to your head. You are bound to play it again, if not only because it might be too scary to leave the room... Of all things experimental, ambient and industrial (Menche, Zoviet*France, Lustmord), Troum can easily stand the test and be the best of the lot." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
|
2007 |
€12.00 |
|
|
Dreaming Muzak |
CD |
" 'Dreaming Muzak' is the first full-length material of TROUM duo originally released on tape in 1998 and later re-released on a limited CDR (100 copies only) in 2005. This edition is the first one on a regular CD. The material was thoroughly remastered by Łukasz Miernik (who is also responsible for the sound of the previous MAEROR TRI reissues on Zoharum.)
"Dreaming Muzak" is composed of 2 drone ambient compositions so characteristic for the TROUM style. They were created as a muzak tuning our brainwaves into the proper dreaming stadium. The following prerequisites have been accompanying the duo for many years, hence they have become their credo executed on many excellent records and gigs. It is "Dreaming Muzak" that constitutes an excellent introduction to the adventures with TROUM and their music.
The cover design is based on the artwork of Wiktor Jackowski.
This edition is released in a 3-panel digipak strictly limited to 350." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
"Dreaming Muzak was the very first release from Troum, not long after the two members of Troum had disbanded their previous project Maeror Tri in 1998. Originally released as a cassette housed in a tiny pillow in an edition numbering a scant 100 copies, then as an equally small pressing on cd-r a few years later. That said, Dreaming Muzak does what Troum and Maeror Tri have always done so very well: drone-on with gritty, psychological undercurrents. If the intent of Troum was to put the listener to sleep, the lulling vibrating patterns certainly have the capacity; but the overall darkness of these sounds will never inspire the most pleasant of dreams. These are shadowy, bleak, and cold sounds which permeate the album, and lend themselves to images of desolate factories spewing a constant stream of black soot in some wintery post-Soviet country. A very nice document from one of our favorite drone acts." [Aquarius Records]
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
AIWS |
LP |
"Backwards is very happy to presents the vinyl version of TROUM classic album from 2007.
Re-mastered by Thomas Dimuzio. New amazing artwork by Pierre-Ives Girard.
AIWS covers studio-recordings composed from 2002-2005. These musicians have compiled some of their most favorable pieces through the years to be placed on this release. Presenting nine analogue (4&8 track) recorded compositions that lead the listener through vast feelings of beautifully deep melancholic and hypnotic states of mind. Composed with guitar-drones and harmonic phrases that are processed in various ways creating an atmosphere of the sublime and emotional meditative states that transcend listener to immerse within themselves. Ingredients: Sufi-songs, old vinyl-crackles, acoustic & e-guitars, e-bow, e-bass, voice & whisperings, accordion & flute. One of the most emotional and profound Troum releases! Dedicated to Eternity.
Edition of 400 copies. 100 on purple vinyl and 300 on black vinyl.
|
2017 |
€18.00 |
|
| TSCHELJABINSK65 |
Titan woods / Ancient forest |
maxi-CD-R |
Ganz anders als auf ihrer industriellen VÖ “Industrielle Zertrümmerung“ geht es hier wesentlich verträumter & melancholischer zu (folky guitars, synths), mit ethno- und dark ambient-Elementen.. well done.
“ 4 TRACKS WITH 26 MINUTES RUNNING TIME.
LIMITED AND NUMBERED EDITION OF 200 COPIES,
IN CARDBOARD FOLDER SLEEVE. 'tscheljabinsk65', a german project, in the area of Dark Ambient. The 4 tracks on "titan woods/ancient forest" shows the new way and the new ideas of
'tscheljabinsk65". The project combines on this release very well, Soundscapes with elements from Neo Folk and fill the compositions with different atmospheres, like spiritual/ethno influences, with very melancholic and melodic moments.
This release is supposed to be understood as the musical expression of human's natural roots still to be found in modern individual's unconsciousness.” [press-release]
|
2002 |
€5.00 |
|
| TSUNODA, TOSHIYA / JUSTIN BENNETT |
Cleavage of Acoustics / Cacerolada |
LP |
Nr. 3 in der Mixer Split LP Reihe ! JUSTIN BENNETT hat einem Protestmarsch in Barcelona gegen den Irak-Krieg im März 2003 beigewohnt, eine unglaubliche detailreicher Soundkulissensumpf aus Sirenen, Autohupen, Perkussion, Pfeifen & Gegröhl. T. TSUNODA arbeitet diesmal nicht mit reinen field recordings, sondern lässt Sinuswellen auf konkretes Material treffen, was zu knisternd-resonanzbildenden Effekten und merkwürdigen „small sounds“ führt.
Tolle Geräuschmusikplatte !
“Both Justin Bennett and Toshiya Tsunoda have gained a reputation when it comes to fieldrecording-based soundworks. Using their sonic surroundings as the startingpoint for their work, both are unique in approach and result. "Cacerolada" is based on a noise-protest against the Iraq-war, recorded in Barcelona. It wakes up and dies out as any day does, gradually moving along all kinds of sonic occurrences in between. Compared to Tsunoda's, Bennett's work comes from a more contemplative approach, outlining to his listener the beauty, absurdness or musicality of the everyday soundtrack he's living in. Originally these protests served a highly political goal, to record them and treat these recordings as a piece, is what made "Cacerolada" into a sound-object, to be listened to with different ears. This is the core of Bennett's work. Using hardly any processing-tools (Bennett composes with the raw building-blocks he records), these environmental-pieces are very much like documents, with specific artistic or aesthetical qualities. He hunts for certain scenes or situations and captures moments in time that contain a specific type of gesture he is looking for. The reference to daily life might be very much upfront, though Bennett's work is much more than a highly associative collection of recorded sounds. His recordings easily keep up as complete compositions with a strong musical form, taking the listener beyond what is heard at first sight and this is exactly where the strength in Bennett's work as a composer and sound-artist lies. These works show a delicate timespam, organically interpolating from scene to scene. The so familiar sounding material constructs and underlines compositional shape and development, adding a rare compositional richness to environmental-soundworks.
Tsunoda's "Cleavage of Acoustics" stands in close relation to previous works in which he tries to integrate somewhat technical concepts into the everyday beauty of singing birds and chirping crickets. Tsunoda adds to the body of these compositions of the public domain, as Justin Bennett does, but takes a different route to get there. He experiments to find out the musical relevance of technicality for natural sounds and forces a symbiosis between the two. The results still contain the associative character and organic development so typical for environmental recordings, but have a new, more abstract, mimicry. The sometime subtle, sometimes clashing, but always interesting interference between these two worlds, is what gives Tsunoda's work a very unique twist. It can exist as a completely autonomous entity while grafted upon the soundmaterial we all know so well. Tsunoda, like Bennett, makes us hear our surrounding acoustic reality in a different way. Not by fencing off certain parts of it, as Bennett does, but through simple yet very effective technical interventions, making it's appearance shift a bit or two.
"When listening to field recordings, I am always surprised by the richness of it's acoustics. Vibrations echoe from various places, in mixed complexity, changing constantly over time. In some way, it looks like stratum. I would like to sharply cleave the stratum to see the surface of the crevice. This work shows the audibility of sound vibrations through an uncommon process. I tried to cut off the source (field recording) material using a gate device and sine-waves. In each track, specific sine-waves have been mixed with the source-material.
In this work, I regard the sine-wave as the standard speed signal for the source. This has made any alternation within the audio signal detectable for the gate device. The linear audio signal (monoral) is cut horizontally into the advance direction, turning it into two signals. The amplitude of the alternating current has a separated + and - side, with 0 volt as base for the gate device. This split signal is simultaneously reproduced through the right- and left- channel of stereophonic audio equipment. Try mixing these 2 channels. The waveform is almost restored to it's original form, giving a peculiar result compared to the separated signal playback." [press release]
|
2004 |
€12.00 |
|
| TUNDRA |
Tajnie i Glebie |
CD |
"Tundra - an electroacoustic project of Dawid Adrjanczyk and Krzysiek Joczyn - is a duo, whose inspiration is, first and foremost, space, both in its physical manifestation and the spiritual meaning. Beside samples, field recordings and sound manipulation, they use acoustic instruments. After 2 self-released EPs and 2 collaborative albums with Karpaty Magiczne (The Magic Carpathians), they recorded a full-length album, which is a manifestation of their journeys into places where peace and chill reign simultaneously. These are akin to more ethereal songs from the World Serpent realm, but also academic compositions or free improv. The sounds on "Tajnie i G³êbie" lose tracks and inspirations luring the listeners with an ambiguous atmosphere at the same time.
This 3-panel ecopak release is strictly limited to 350 copies." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
|
2014 |
€12.00 |
|
| TUNNELS OF ĀH (TUNNELS OF AH) |
The Smeared Cloth |
do-CD |
"The Smeared Cloth" is a double CD compilation containing the TUNNELS OF ĀH recordings from 2012-2018, which have not yet been published on any medium. The first disc is filled with compositions from the period before the debut in Cold Spring and outtakes from the sessions for "Thus Avici", the next album for the British label.
The second disc contains tracks recorded during and between the sessions for "Surgical Fires" and "Charnel Transmissions". Although they were created as loose compositions, out of the concepts clearly outlined on each of the mentioned albums, they sound incredibly coherent, giving impression of being part of a concept release, this makes them a pleasure to listen to; especially when we get carried away in the world created by Stephen Ah Burroughs with the sounds characteristic of his work. Sometimes they evoke associations with ancient rituals, intensifying the impression of Egyptian darkness, the feeling of coldness and emptiness coming as if from a deep dungeon, and with them an echo. All this is a superstructure for the 21 tracks filling both discs, outlined and maintained, in a convention that allows them to be stylistically located somewhere between isolating dark ambient and death industrial, where the gloom aura and dense, mechanical structures coexist as if in symbiosis, thanks to which the balance between building the atmosphere and reflecting the true nature of the industrial collision. This release is undoubtedly a must-have for TOĀH fans, but it can also delight those who appreciate death industrial at a high level. The album's released on two CDs folded in a six-panel ecopack.
Tracks 1-11 taken from "The Smeared Cloth" CD1
Tracks 12-21 taken from "The Smeared Cloth" CD2
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/the-smeared-cloth-2012-2018-unearthed
"In den frühen 80ern gründete Stephen R. Borroughs zusammen mit Justin Broadrick und Dave Cochrane das Trio HEAD of David, das einen der noisigsten Grundsteine dessen legte, das später Industrial Metal genannt werden sollte. Im Lauf der Jahre konzentrierte er sich mehr und mehr auf Soloprojekte, und neben Frag war dies seit etwas über zehn Jahren Tunnels of Āh, mit dem er einen Ritualkosmos von fast räudiger Abgründigkeit entstehen ließ.
Dass Tunnels of Ah trotz der starken Abstraktion seiner ästhetischen Konzepte ein konsequent verfolgtes atmosphärisches Thema hat, wird bereits deutlich, wenn man die mittlerweile sechs Alben, die seit 2013 auf Cold Spring und zuletzt Hypershape erschienen sind, im Vergleich hört, denn da fallen die verbindenden Elemente sehr deutlich ins Auge. Mehr noch beeindruckt einen die musikalisches Stringenz angesichts der jüngst auf Tape und Doppel-CD erschienenen Compilation “The Smeared Cloth 2012 – 2018 Unearthed”, denn hier lassen frühe Stücke und Outtakes aus verschiedenen Albumsessions ein überraschend zusammenhängendes Bild entstehen.
“The Smeared Cloth” ist nichts für Hörer, die Probleme mit Beklemmung, Dunkelheit und niederdrückender Schwere haben. Eine finstere, bedrohliche Stimmung zieht sich durch die oft kreisenden Soundgebilde, lassen durch ambiente Dröhnung, Saitenrasseln oder sirrende Streichersounds filmreife Phasen der Spannung und durch paukende und prasselnde Takte und plötzliche Schuttlawinen aufwühlende Momente entstehen, steigern sich vom subtilen Hauch eines – nur oberflächlich sanft wirkenden, in Wirklichkeit höllischen – Windes zu infernalischen Szenen von hochtönendem, schleifenden Lärm. Klangfarben von Stein und noch stärker Metall prägt das Gesamtbild, doch ist in gewissen Abständen auch immer die Illusion des Organischen spürbar, als würde das harte und kalte Material mit dürren Reiserbesen und ähnlichem traktiert. Auch die entmenschlichte menschliche Stimme ist gelegentlich zu hören, mal in Rezitation, mal als finsteres Growlen und Keifen, mal in Form eines sakralen Gesangs.
Wenn man in den 20 Stücken die Kohärenz betont, sollte man hinzufügen, dass in ihnen natürlich auch Raum für Variation ist. Sollte ich einige herausragende Stücke betonen, dann wären es wahrscheinlich “Keys King At Womb Door Again”, in welchem sich ein anfangs kaum spürbares lykanthropisches Hecheln langsam zu etwas (noch) Monströse(re)m steigert – eine Entwicklung, die vielleicht etwas vorhersehbar ist, doch die urige Soundgestaltung, die durchweg an etwas Altes, seit Urzeiten Verschüttetes denken lässt, fällt weitaus stärker ins Gewicht. Ferner “Fountain of Life”, das nach gängigem Verständnis wohl eher wie das Gegenteil seines Titels klingt und an einen zerbrochenen Brunnen erinnert, dessen Wasser ein paar Erdklumpen mit sich reißt und am Ende im Schlamm versiegt. Nicht zuletzt auch der Titeltrack, dessen Spoken Word-Passage wie das Monument eines sinnlosen Aufwands vor infernalischer Kulisse am Ende von einer Schuttlawine geschluckt wird.
Nach den über zwei dystopischen Stunden scheiden sich wahrscheinlich die Geister: Während die einen fürs erste genug gelitten haben, sind die anderen nun gewappnet für die regulären Alben des Projektes, und “The Smeared Cloth” gibt da tatsächlich einen großartigen Einblick in einen Kosmos, den ich allen empfehlen kann, die frühe Coil, alte Broken Flag-Releases und ausgewählte Death Industrial-Platten nebeneinander im Regal stehen haben."
[African Paper]
"Eager to get back into the Tunnels. Not long ago, I gave 'Deathless Mind' another spin, and I had been looking forward to some new material from Burroughs. Still.. two whole CDs, dearie me. I'm curious if I can make it through in one go. Also, it is not exactly 'new' material, but rather excerpts and unused tracks from two distinct periods: the first CD collects all discards from the Lost Corridors and Thus Avici era; the second contains material from the period between Surgical
Fires and Charnel Transmissions - compiled into this 2,5-hour lasting tour de force. Me, oh my.
Though branded as 'dark ambient' on Discogs, we've come to know Tunnels of Āh for industrial ambient landscapes and complex saturated loops and textures that range timbrally from (seemingly) acoustic in origin to overtly synthetic. Also, the 'loops' here should mostly be taken less literally; there are elements that seem to repeat, but for the most part, the chopped-up complexity of the textures ensures we won't have the typical 'looper' kind of experience in which repetition is often an easy way of tricking our brain into believing it is listening to something musical.
On CD 1, many sounds seem to have acoustic sources, which is much more noticeable than on the more recent albums. We also seem to get a lot more vocal delivery than usual, making tracks like 'Brute World' and 'To the Pschal Victim' almost have an early Current 93 or 'ambient Test Dept kind' of ring to them.
It is also completely dissimilar in many ways, e.g., production-wise, but for fans of those bands, these tracks may be the right point of entry into the Tunnels. The vocals are often mixed in quite deeply, so you won't be listening to poetry with a noisy background.
With the choppy granulated ambient of 'Lost Corridors', a track that did not feature on the eponymous 2013 album, there seems to be somewhat of a 'natural' ending to the first part of the first CD. The subsequent ambient track 'Fountain Of Life' ramps the intensity again with its swirling vortex of delayed grit. Both 'Great Darkness' and 'The Cloth is Smeared' really stand out as two of the more memorable pieces.
Disc 2 starts with the interesting combination of 'To the Paschal Victim' and 'Circumcision', which seem to be variations on the same bass riff/loop - though the latter track slides off into a murky bass swamp about halfway through. 'Red Distribution' and 'White Distribution' wrap this disc up in a
manner that reminded me of Charnel Transmissions. There is a certain kind of dense lo-fi elegance to them, which also made me fall for that album when it first came out.
I've said this before, and I'll repeat it: What I love about Tunnels Of Āh is that though it is clearly tarnished with the brush of industrial and perhaps even reminiscent of some noise - due to its complex textures, it never becomes too harsh or punishing, which given the length of most tracks may be a very deliberate choice either during mastering or in the composition process. Moreover, a wise one, since especially with a leviathan of this length, balance is a thing to aim for.
Does it work as an album, though, or is this merely a release for us to be complete? Tough question. The first CD is consistent, albeit on the long side. With 77 minutes, it is about half an hour longer than any Tunnels release on average, and I definitely had to listen to the whole release in phases. That said, when it
comes to textures and intensity, there seems to have been some thought put into the dynamic distribution of the tracks and though longer than usual, I would say both these discs work as stand-alone albums. Another keeper in a long line of excellent works from the Tunnels." [LdW / Vital Weekly]
|
2023 |
€16.50 |
|
| TURRA, LUIGI |
Enso |
CD |
"Three long electro-acoustic pieces, circular and emotional. With his Small Voices debut, Luigi Turra confirms his peculiar minimal-reductionist aesthetic which has always distinguished his artistic production, opting this time for radically organic and complex compositions, perfectly focused by the elegant production of Gianluca Becuzzi (KINETIX), one of the prominent figures in the contemporary avantgarde scene." [label info]
|
2007 |
€6.66 |
|
| TWELVE THOUSAND DAYS |
The Boatman on the Downs |
CD |
Martyn Bates & Alan Trench return to the ghost-haunted Downs of Southern England for their new album, their fourth in five years to be released by Italy’s Final Muzik label.
Twelve Thousand Days are without a doubt producing some of the finest music in their twenty-five years of existence, abstract and evocative songs that seem to be from the folk canon, so rooted in tradition are they – and the band always give more than a nod to past glories with arrangements of “Arthur McBride” and a song which all children in England once learnt in primary school, “Early One Morning”, which is found here dis-assembled and fed through the haze of more than half a century of lives lived.
The two traditional songs sit comfortably alongside eight new compositions; “Comely” sets the tone, full of yearning and loss, and yet basking in hope, full of haunted voices and distant bells; the journey continues through tales of Wayland the Smith and the Silver City inspired by the verse of John Masefield, magickal tales of djinns and other spirits, an elegy to a departed friend, and more.
The soaring voice of Martyn Bates is underpinned by exquisite instrumentation – acoustic guitars, flute organs, bodhrans and bells, mellotrons and analogue synthesisers, taking the listener on a trip through the forgotten highways and byways of a drowned land.
Available as a limited edition CD Digipak, 500 copies.
https://finalmuzik.bandcamp.com/album/the-boatman-on-the-downs
|
2023 |
€13.00 |
|
| ULTRA UNITED |
Research 1 (SOLD OUT) |
7 |
"This is the very first release of a new composer from Basle, Switzerland, who has created an amazing 6-track-disc of captivating, organic and strengthful sounds. After a strange effected chanson-entry we find ourselves in a world of long bassy drones, squeezing effects, earthquake- and siren-like sounds, and synthetic tunes. The whole holds an extreme tension during the tracks, and ends up with rather spacey and relaxing track a la BAD SECTOR.This is a real physical- & psycho-acoustical journey from the first to the last second! ULTRA UNITED means "Music that combines extreme opposite and ambiguous emotions in every respect". GOLDEN VINYL, BLACK ON BLACK PRINTED COVERS." [press release]
"THESE THREE EPs ARE PERFECT EXAMPLES THAT "DRONES" ARE NOT JUST "DRONES", BUT THAT THEY CAN BE USED TO CREATE INTENSE AND EXCITING COMPOSITIONS TO EFFECT DIFFERENTLY ON OUR MIND AND EMOTIONS. ALL 7"es APPEAR IN A LIMITED & NUMBERED EDITION OF 250 COPIES." [additional info on DR-38-40]
|
1999 |
€ |
|
| UNDERJORDISKA / SPECTRAL LORE |
split |
CD-R |
Zweimal qualitativ hochwertige "dark harmonic ambience" von Projekten aus dem Black Metal-Bereich...
"Two experimental black metal one-man bands venturing into new and undiscovered territories: this split is a collaboration far different from your typical "let's throw some left-outs from our previous records, make a intro or two and off to the printing plant" mentality, instead being a concept split album which should be heard as one, rather than two albums on the same cd. It is a journey from the surface of the sea to the very depths of the ocean, and then back towards the surface again. Each musician undertakes one part of the journey; two compositions over 30 minutes, featuring actual underwater recordings, aquatic drones, unique instruments (from a mandolin to a duduk) and even melodic post rockish moments. There is a continual flow of movement to the music, as the listener, embodied within this audial environment, descents and ascends through the ocean, towards a deepest point that seems to bear a particular significance: but is it the goal, or the journey itself that matters more?" [label info]
"... Hailing from the small but gradually growing group of Ambient Black Metal projects, Spectral Lore's Ayloss and Underjordiska's Dawid Dahl place consumptive Guitar- and Mandolin patterns alongside the foreboding electronic tapestry, integrating field recordings of lazy days at the beach into angelically ringing drones. And whenever they return into the oblivious void, the aforementioned bipolarity shines through even clearer. The overall impression of these two independently realised but astoundingly complimentary thirty-something-minute tracks is therefore timbrally rich and thematically diverse. While Dahl builds his piece modularly, taking it through a string of musical passages, the Spectral Lore contribution is rather shaped like a curve, slowly oscillating between anthemic noise and vaporous darkness. The stoic refusal of many genre-related releases to take their ostrich-like head from the sands of sadness is counterpointed by an approach which never rests on its laurels while placing seminal importance on ambient coherency: Diversity and darkness, they teach us, need not be a contradiction." [Tokafi] |
2008 |
€12.00 |
|
| UNIVERS ZERO |
Ceux du Dehors |
LP |
"Third album (1981) by the Belgian band Univers Zero. The title alludes to the short story of the same name by H.P. Lovecraft; the players read the story in studio, then proceeded to record the piece. A key release for the band. Ceux du Dehors sometimes suggests a darker and more complex version of the motorik minimalism of classical music contemporaries Philip Glass and Steve Reich.
This album finds the group continuing to evolve and return to the more general and varied chamber music sound of their first release, except with more precision and skill. The tricky charts of percussionist Daniel Denis and new keyboardist Andy Kirk are executed with great panache. The labyrinth-like compositions are typically filled with unexpected twists and turns, and angular repetitions of jagged riffs that accelerate, decelerate and mutate in passages of acute tension or quiet but ominous dread." [label info]
|
2018 |
€16.00 |
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| USENBENZ, ANDREAS |
Bells Breath |
LP |
“Bells Breath” transforms the tolling of the bells in the Ulm Minster into a work of sound art. This project by Andreas Usenbenz and Dorothee Köhl was created for the 125th anniversary of the minster spire’s completion and was presented in the form of an audio installation inside the minster in the fall of 2015.
There are 13 bells in the bell tower, ten of which are in use. Each bell has its own size and pitch, and each has its own function.
“Bells Breath” strips away that function, creating a new form of auditory experience. The moment of the bell tolling has been recorded, the tone stretched and the individual tones are layered on top of each other. The sound installation was situated on the ground floor inside the minster, beneath the bell frame. A platform for people to step or sit on created a spacial frame of reference, the sound was triggered by the listeners by pressing a button.
When dealing with this work, it is helpful to have a brief look at Minimal Art. In the early 1960ies, a new understanding of art was being developed in contrast to abstract painting. Part of it was an abandonment of categories that had been considered essential until then, like the aesthetic experience or the artists signature style. Industrially produced materials were now being used, every day objects were stripped bare of their function. Experiencing art turned into an experience of self-awareness on behalf of the audience.
Sculptor Tony Smith was aware of the importance of this type of experience as early as the mid-fifties. He took his students on a nocturnal journey on the still uncompleted New Jersey Turnpike. Driving down the road lacking crash barriers and road markings didn’t serve any functional purpose. Instead, the dark and the passing industrial complexes appeared in a different state of perception. It’s this experience that Smith regarded as having an artistic quality.
This kind of quality can be described further using the “Mirrored Cubes” by Robert Morris. The installation consists of four mirrored cubes. They are positioned in a square, one edge length apart from each other, therefore eliminating the element of composition. The surface, as perceived by the audience, is only a reflection of the surroundings and of itself. Artwork and location become an inseparable one. What the audience experiences is an amplified perception of itself and of the spacial situation here and now.
The here and now are two elements that appear on different levels in “Bell’s Breath”. The work strongly relates to the location, the tower hall right beneath the bell frame. At the same time, the sounds’ original function is being eliminated by prolonging and layering the different sounds. This, together with the audience’s presence in the space creates a new experience of perception.
releases February 17, 2017
All field recordings, sound design & compositions by Andreas Usenbenz, between march 2015 and may 2016
The music is based on field recordings of 10 different church bells installed in the Minster of Ulm. Usenbenz recorded the bells using a wide spaced A – B pair with omni directional DPA microphones,
a Sennheiser ORTF setup and contact microphones mounted directly to the bells or their direct environment.
The Bells where rung by the Sacristan. Additionally, Usenbenz played them with different props to tease very specific sounds out of the bells. No additional sounds were used in these compositions.
Produced at Klangmanufaktur
Artwork by Chris Corrado
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Cut by CGB at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin
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2017 |
€16.50 |
|
| |
Bells Breath |
CD |
All field recordings, sound design & compositions by Andreas Usenbenz, between march 2015 and may 2016
The music is based on field recordings of 10 different church bells installed in the Minster of Ulm. Usenbenz recorded the bells using a wide spaced A - B pair with omni directional DPA microphones,
a Sennheiser ORTF setup and contact microphones mounted directly to the bells or their direct environment.
The Bells where rung by the Sacristan. Additionally, Usenbenz played them with different props to tease very specific sounds out of the bells. No additional sounds were used in these compositions.
https://klanggold.bandcamp.com/album/bells-breath-lp
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2017 |
€10.00 |
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| USENBENZ, ANDREAS & PETER SCHUBERT |
Plaque |
CD |
Sound art. In an essay for the Goethe Institute dated 2009, Carsten Seiffarth (of Singuhr gallery, Berlin), called sound art a “new art form”. An art form that is now established but still only plays a marginal role in the art world and in exhibitions. Everybody who visits galleries and art fairs regularly will concur.
Why is that?
For one, many sound artworks are intricately connected with the locations they are presented in, which is usually not where art fairs and exhibitions take place, but locations whose atmosphere and history are to be amplified or to be communicated. Or the locations have been specifically constructed, like the Philips pavilion at the world expo in Brussels in 1958, for which Edgard Varese created his Poème électronique.
So, works of sound art are often tied to a specific event as well, like “Plaqué”, which has spacial as well as historic roots. When the event is over, the relevance of many sound artworks may fade away to a certain degree. In addition, the presentation of sound art often proves difficult in traditional galleries or art fairs. These are usually not designed to adequately present live performances or sound art in general, because of sound art’s predominant element, sound, is usually not part of the art presented there. In fact, there are only very few galleries that specifically deal with sound art.
While sound installations and more classically laid out compositions may come with a certain potential for longevity (or repeated resurrection), a lot of artists are producing works that are very ephemeral, except for archival recordings, of course. Performed works are often placed on the side stages of music festivals, or they may emerge within a tightly set frame of time and context, outside of which only a documentary shadow remains.
Collectors are struggling with sound art as well. Like with video art, it is not easy to get used to the idea that you may be purchasing a work which can be copied in unlimited numbers at no costs. That’s precisely what a recorded piece of sound art is. This parameter, as well as the performance aspect of sound art, seems to put it on a level with music. But is that appropriate?
A question that could be asked in the case of “Plaqué”. Is it “just” an archival recording of a long gone performance? Like Varese’s Poème électronique, “Plaqué” was created for a specific event, the 200th birthday of Daniel Straub, whose endeavors in Geislingen shaped the small German town for decades to come. He was involved in the construction of the railroad line and founded a company called WMF, which produces kitchenware and cutlery to this date.
Usenbenz and Schubert traced Straub’s history in the Geislingen of our present. The collected field recordings were presented as a live performance, which served as a preliminary work and a basis for the work now published. “Plaqué” is not just a recorded performance, it is an advanced work, a new composition containing additionally recorded material. It gently loosens its spacial and temporal roots without losing its contextual base. The result is strangely fascinating and universally relevant. It is an independent piece of sound art, which deserves the same form of attention and appreciation as a painting or a sculpture. Even if it’s not a unique piece, entering one art collection, but an edition that will be enjoyed by 200 collectors.
peter schubert • field recordings • electronics • microgranny analog fx • ableton live • fieldscaper • no-input mixer
andreas usenbenz • field recordings • borderlands • samplr • ableton live
dubplates • cassettes • microkorg • patchblocks
recording • editing • mastering • klangmanufaktur ulm
photography • artwork • andreas usenbenz
www.klanggold.net
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2017 |
€10.00 |
|
| UTON |
The Source has its rare Beauty |
MC |
UTON is the experimental project of Jani Hirvonen, a key contributor to the thriving underground music scene in Finland. Over 20 prolific years, Hirvonen has formed a distinct sound world with UTON that is often distinguished by a beautifully maximal approach to instrumental psychedelia; playful compositions involving seemingly endless layers of colourful ambience, woven like a tapestry.
Part of what makes UTON's staggering discography so wonderful is a willingness to veer away from any predictable trajectory, and continue to surprise listeners. With The Source has its Raw Beauty, UTON has taken a full departure and bravely struck an immersive mainline into heavy minimal drone. As Hirvonen explains, “UTON has always been an experimental project, and it expands to experiment with whatever just comes into the flow – but, of course, there needs to be that Source which makes it feel inspiring and exciting.”
Outlier Communications is thrilled to present this unique work from a vibrant musical visionary. During its creation, Hirvonen's visual artwork for the cassette morphed into an homage of sorts to the distinct CD packaging popularized by Corpus Hermeticum, the legendary label curated by Bruce Russell of The Dead C from about 1993 - 2004. We tried our best to honour that vision, and believe these sessions – which resulted from an acoustic guitar being mounted with an electric massager – would have fit nicely in that esteemed catalogue.
“The sound and idea is very simple, and the result raw and noisy,” admits Jani. “That noise penetrates from and into the depths; from and into The Source – to our life and form – and continues this loop eternally. It's an esoteric energy bank, a power charger for the inner batteries.” Hirvonen recalls from the sessions, “The whole guitar was trembling, not just the strings. Playing and improvising with very minimal movement was relaxing and meditative, I could just melt deeper into this raw beauty.”
https://outliercommunications.bandcamp.com/album/the-source-has-its-raw-beauty
|
2022 |
€9.00 |
|
| V.A. (VARIOUS ARTISTS) |
INVENTIONEN 98: 50 Jahre Musique Concrete |
do-CD |
Nice compilation with New Music-compositions released for the occasion of the INVENTIONEN ’98-Festival in Berlin, all based on concrete material. UNSUK CHIN, PATRICK KOSK, WERNER CEE, FRANCIS DONATO, ROBIN MINARD, WOLFGANG MITTERER, FRANCIS DHOMONT, ERIK MIKAEL KARLSSON, TREVOR WISHART. Incl. Booklet wit extensive linernotes about the composers.
www.edition-rz.de |
1999 |
€21.00 |
|
| V.A. (VARIOUS ARTISTS) (COMPILATIONS) |
33 rpm : Ten Hours of Sound from France |
CD |
23FIVE INCORPORATED ist nicht nur seit Jahren der wichtigste Konzertveranstalter für experimentelle Musik in San Francisco, sondern inzwischen auch als Label tätig. In Zusammenarbeit mit dem San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ist eine Compilation-Reihe entstanden, die pro Ausgabe Projekte eines einzigen Landes vorstellt. Hier also Frankreich, das vom 6.-14.09.2003 im San Francisco Museum of Modern Art vorgestellt wurde. Zu hören gibt es hier eine Auswahl mit 12, sehr elektro-akustisch & musique-concrete - ausgerichteten tracks von KASPER T. TOEPLITZ, KRISTOF K.ROLL, JEAN-CLAUDE RISSET, LIONEL MARCHETTI, CHRISTOPHE HAVEL, LAURENT DAILLEAU, MATHIEU CHAMAGE, pizMO, JEAN-PHILIPPE GROSS, und MIMETIC. Mit ausführlichem Beiheft (24 Seiten) zum Konzept der Ausstellung und zur französischen Tradition der Musique Concrete.
“ 24 Page Book + CD curated by Laurent Dailleau. The CD compendium of 33 RPM-a co-presentation between 23five Incorporated and SFMOMA-celebrates the contemporary models that French composers have built in response to the historical influences of musique concrete and computer music. Featuring compositions from Kasper T.Toeplitz, Kristoff K. Roll, Jean-Claude Risset, Lionel Marchetti, Christophe Havel, Laurent Dailleau, Mathieu Chamagne, pizMO, Jean-Philippe Gross, and Mimetic. In contrast to the encyclopaedic catalogue to the 10 hour program, the
selection within the 33 RPM CD emphasizes an acousmatic approach towards electro-acoustic construction. Kasper T. Toeplitz offers a tumultous wash from churing electric generators, while Lionel Marchetti presents a queasy demonstration for sinusodial currents matched against a lonesome accordion and Jean-Claude Risset investigates the microtonal resonances from a handful of found instruments.” [press release]
|
2003 |
€12.00 |
|
|
This Place is Dreaming |
CD |
Psychogeographical Compilation that comes in DVD-case with large full-colour booklet, produced for the festival of the same name that happened in October 2004. Field Recordings & interviews from Brussels archives as well as instrumental pieces & recordings from other cities were used for 18 compositions from the likes of AKI ONDA, TMRX, MARTIENS GO HOME, FRANCISCO LOPEZ, HILDEGARD WESTERKAMP, JUSTIN BENNETT, STILLUPPSTEYPA, etc. – a great variety of different approaches for the “Rethinking and Transfiguring the Sites and Sounds of Brussels”. |
2004 |
€13.50 |
|
|
Yokomono 03 |
LP |
Neue Loops für das STAALPLAAT SOUND SYSTEM (SSS) Projekt YOKOMONO mit imposantem Aufbau, wo rote japanische Spielzeugautos auf Vinyl kreisen und Sound erzeugen.....
White Vinyl. One side with 55 loops featuring BLIXA BARGELD, MERZBOW, KARKOWSKI, HATERS, MAIN, A. BORISOW, etc (each one 5 loops), other side tracks by MIKA VAINIO & PETRI KULJUNTAUSTA !
“This is the third Staalplaat Soundsystem LP made for Yokomono in white Vinyl! One side of this record the Staalplaat Soundsystem has made 55 loopSSS decided to compile a thematic Yokomono vinyl release. The theme: Helsinki and its environmental sounds. The other half of Pan Sonic, Mika Vainio, a resident of Berlin like SSS, was commissioned to produce a seven-minute composition. Petri Kuljuntausta from Helsinki was, in turn, asked to provide a composition of an equal length responding to Vainio’s piece. The sound material to be used for the compositions, field recordings from the turn of the 1960s and 1970s made at the Hietalahti shipyard in Helsinki, was discovered in the special effects archive of YLE Finnish Broadcasting Company. These sounds have a personal dimension for both composers: Vainio spent a part of his childhood living near the dockyard, while Kuljuntausta has used sounds recorded from inside ships’ hulls as material for his earlier works. Yokomono 03 will be pressed using an exotic method. The grooves holding the two compositions by Vainio and Kuljuntausta will be paralel cut. The other side of the record features the traditional loops of 1.8 seconds, commissioned from Blixa Bargeld, Merzbow, Main, Alexei Borisov, Donna Summer, G.X. Jupitter-Larsen, Andrey Kiritchenko, Zbigniew Karkowski, staalplaat soundsystem, Un Caddie RenverseDans l'Herbe and Ditterich von Euler-Donnersperg, with five loops from each featured artist and their own sound environments.
SSS's most popular piece has been, a series of performances entitled Yokomono, whose technical realisation is complex enough to warrant a lengthy elaboration. Its basic idea is to use a performance setup consisting of so many unpredictable technical components that it is, in practical terms, impossible to control the whole system. Avanto is now staging the premiere of the latest incarnation in the series, Yokomono 03. The yokomono are Japanese electronic toys, battery-powered miniature cars, with a record players needle on the underside and a small speaker inside. SSS employs a fleet of ten yokomono cars retrofitted with small FM radio transmitters inside them and with antennas on their roofs. The sounds transmitted by the tiny cars are received by ten battery radios in flaming red, like the cars. The vinyl records are placed on a table, and the miniature cars are set to drive in a circle on them. One of the uncertainty factors is that the cars are battery-powered: the batteries don’t last for very long, and, eventually, the speed of the cars as well as the frequencies of the radio transmitters begin to fluctuate, resulting in the transmitters skipping from one frequency to another. Another factor is the shoddiness of the cars' cheap styluses; SSS calls them "vinyl killers". The confusion is confounded by the nature of the records the vinyl killers are playing. For DJ gigs like this.” [press release]
|
2006 |
€12.50 |
|
|
Avanto 2006 |
CD |
"Nur drei Künstler des ewig langen und großartigen Lineups der letztjährigen Avanto-Ausgabe sind vertreten: Tony Conrad (13 min), Ralf Wehowsky (22 min) und Jim O'Rourke (26 min). Conrads epische Solo-Violine (für La Monte) wird auf ganz untypische Art gestrichen, erklimmt zaghaft niedrige Gebirgsketten und verlischt in seichten Untiefen. Wehowsky kommt äußerst stark: Aufnahmen von Topias Tiheäsalo an der Gitarre und der Rogalli Revival Band werden um sich selbst gestülpt und nach außen geschnallt. Fein elaboriert gerinnt die Musik vom konkret Unhörbaren zum zentriert Kaputten, vom lyrisch Verstörenden zur Unordnung im Lauten. O'Rourke reanimiert eine Drone-Arbeit aus den 1990ern; äußerst langsam entfalten sich Geschmack und Tiefe, bis jede alte Idee sich zu Tode vergegenwärtigt hat und Schweigen den Ton angeben muß. Top Comp!" [Erik Benndorf]
“avanto is annual festival of experimental music and film. Since 2000, avanto has introduced contemporary and historical works of experimental music and film to enthusiastic audiences. avanto 2006 CD includes previously unreleased compositions by Tony Conrad, Ralf Wehowsky and Jim O'Rourke. Wehowsky’s and O’Rourke’s pieces premiered at avanto in the tape music concert on Saturday 18 November.” [press release]
"Tony Conrad (violin): DAGADAG for La Monte. Ralf Wehowsky: Würgengels Lachende Hand. Composed by Ralf Wehosky between April and September 2006. The sound material for the piece has been supplied by Topias Tiheäsalo (guitar) and The Rogalli Revival Band, MK II (Sonja & Sören: vocals, Ch. Rogalli: oud; recorded in April 2006 by RLW), transformed and morphed by Ralf Wehowsky. Jim O’Rourke: Out with the Old. Recorded in 1990-1991-1994-2006." [liner notes]
|
2006 |
€13.00 |
|
|
MUZYKA VOLN |
CD |
Hochklassige Bestandsaufnahme der sehr aktiven russischen Experimental Drone-Szene, alle Aufnahmen stammen von 2005-2007. 12 Projekte stellen sich hier vor, wobei einige dem geneigten Drone Rec.-Hörer bereits bekannt sein dürften. Ein paar Eindrücke:
KSHATRIY: das Eröffnungsstück, kaum zu durchschauender "mysterious drone", neuer Name für uns, Entdeckung!
CLOSING THE ETERNITY: Bemerkenswert der Einsatz von Instrumenten & field recordings. Ein Hyper-Resonanzraum öffnet sich..
HUM: schöner Titel "Halo Magnetica"; metallisch - magnetisch - sirrend - minimal, ein einziges auf- und abschwellen von extremst amorphen Klangwolken, die doch voller Details sind.
NECROPOLIS: superdunkel & tief dröhnend, irgendwo sind Harmonien, sehr surreal, ausserweltlich, sehr schön. Wer sich dem rauschig-tieffrequenten Sphären-Drone annähern will, findet mit MUZYKA VOLN einen idealen Einstiegspunkt. Für Fans der russischen Szene sollte sie eh obligatorisch sein, wurden doch alle Stücke exklusiv aufgenommen.
Allen hier Beteiligten scheint gemeinsam zu sein, dass die Welt wie wir sie kennen als viel zu eng empfunden wird. Das "Ausserweltliche" repräsentiert hier möglicherweise einen 'innerweltlichen', psychischen Innenraum, der nach Auflösung der Begrenzungen des Ichs zu streben scheint, eine Überwindung des Selbst im Zuge der Verschmelzung mit Raum & Zeit, wie in fötaler Seinsweise... Der "Drone" ist wie ein Sog des Unbewussten in Richtung Präsymbolik & dem Reich des Vorsprachlichen.
"The first release of a new sublabel of ZHELEZOBETON - Muzyka Voln - is a compilation of the same name, containing compositions from twelve Russian projects playing ambient / drone music. A selection of audio-tales in which each project introduces the listener to its own sound world he's living in: mystical stories, isolationism, altered states of consciousness, space landscapes, monotonous technogenic rumble, guitar passages and much more... Specially for this compilation exclusive tracks were provided by: Anthesteria feat. Kaj?, Bardoseneticcube, Cisfinitum, Closing The Eternity, Exit In Grey, Hum, Instant Movie Combinations, Kshatriy, Lunar^Abyss^Deus^Organum, Necropolis, Polaris and RemoteBand. This compilation may be useful for those interested in the Russian experimental scene and just for lovers of beautiful contemplative music. The CD is housed in a six-panel digipak decorated with photos of Baltic Sea made by Pavel "fljõt" Pevnitsky." [label info]
label: http://zhb.radionoise.ru/
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
|
ESCAPING FROM COLOR: RAPOON RECOMPOSED & REMIXED |
CD |
Eine der schönsten Compilations des abgelaufenen Jahres kommt vom ukrainischen QUASI POP-Label: eine Remix-Zusammenstellung von RAPOONschen Basis-Sounds. Das "Source"-Material von RAPOON war so variabel und vielseitig dass es zu einer grossen Bandbreite gekommen ist, es fängt mit einem atemberaubend guten Stück von FRANCISCO LOPEZ an und wird zum Ende hin immer experimenteller und noisiger; weitere Highlights sind die Stücke von JORGE CASTRO und TV POW, aber es gibt eine Menge guter bis sehr guter Tracks hier!
"The conception, the idea, realisation and sound sources of this CD are all based on original sound material (loops and sounds) from Rapoon's “Tribal Sci Fi” CD-ROM (courtesy of Sony/Sonic Foundry). Not the entire original Rapoon's tracks have been re-mixed or re-composed, but the general “sound” (or the sound aesthetic of Rapoon's music) instead. All the artists have provided their own original compositions, that less or more based on the audio-sources from Rapoon. Thank you very much for all contributors!
File under: drone/dark ambient/electroacoustic/industrial/noise."
1. Francisco Lopez “Untitled #193”
2. TV Pow “Ladder Friends Remix”
3. Machinefabriek “Drijfzand”
4. Troum “Farawer”
5. Steve Roden “Colorscape Forming”
6. Jorge Castro “Depths”
7. Paulo Raposo “Tidal Winds”
8. Aidan Baker “Percussive Drone”
9. Anla Courtis “Rapooned Rapunga”
10. Gert-Jan Prins “Raponsje”
11. Heimir Bjorgulfsson “Obmam Ognom”
12. Mike Shiflet “Version Belize”
13. Family Underground “Tube”
14. Ronnie Sundin “Distant Demons”
15. Cisfinitum & Rapoon “Live in Ikra, Moscow 2006”
[label notes]
"Again Quasi Pop Label hits the target, with one of the most interesting compilation Cds coming lately to my hands. so, this is at my eyes a kind of tribute to British ethnic ambient industrial solo project known as RAPOON, which has been developing all its talent through the years. Through “escaping from color: Rapoon recomposed & remixed” album. We swim in an experimental sea of creativity, originality and dynamism. This time Quasi Pop Label in the shape of Edward.S has gathered a selection of one of the most representative projects inside experimental/ambient scene to escape from reality and to enter in a no colors world, when Rapoon is the only tangible reality. A reality based in 15 compositions, all of them bringing the necessary essence to represent in a concrete way the nature of an act such as Rapoon.
FRANCISCO LOPEZ, with more a high quantity of releases, and having traveled the world developing electro acoustic performances, is opening this album with a minimalistic ambient composition, floating slowly from start to finish. TV POW, surprises this time with an excellent track, full of dense percussive sounds and effects surrounding the whole track. Really one of the best tracks here. The german duo of Baraka (H) and Glit(S)ch known as TROUM,one of the most representative acts nowadays comes with a tribal ethnic composition with impressive percussive elements which moulds perfectly with the structure of the track in general.
The sound & Media explorer from Portugal, PABLO RAPOSO, makes its presence in this album with an interesting track, in the hands of drone sounds mutating into dense ambient atmospheres, creating architectural spaces through such musical vortex, as only Mr. Raposo could create. AIDAN BAKER, devour us with a magnificent convergence of drone elements, mixed with dense eerie percussive sounds floating between each atmosphere, to create an hypnotic voyage to the most hidden realms of Rapoon. FAMILY UNDERGROUND is a Danish trio, adapting its track into psychedelic drone/noise invasion full of madness. Another artist to mention is Swedish RONNIE SUDIN, creating hypnologic states, covering a wide range of styles as experimental and electronics. This time he develops a provocative ambient piece with vibrating elements, abrasive atmospheres and subliminal vociferations at the core of this track.
CISFINITUM, the Russian ambient act, develops a perfect emotive live track which was recorded 29.10.2006 at “Lkra” Club in Moscow, together with RAPOON, in which the percussive elements and atmospheres are the predominant patterns marked here. Limited to 500 copies, and coming in a kind of digipack with abstract drawings and general art, which reflects in part the material included on this excellent release." [Edgar Kerval / HEATHEN HARVEST]
|
2008 |
€13.00 |
|
|
FREQ_OUT 2 |
CD |
"Freq_out is a sound installation of twelve individual audio works which are presented as a single piece. Each artist is assigned a frequency range with which to work. This process is carried out in situ, each using a workstation consisting of a mixing desk and a PA system. All the resulting compositions are then amplified together in the space to create a sound installation or performance. The project reveals how space-specific certain frequencies can be, but also how other sounds can be separated from their source and "thrown" around the space. The final mix not only reveals the innate properties of the frequencies, but also the possibilities when they are combined. The second freq_out CD after Ash 5.8 (2004) features the usual suspects; curated and conducted by Carl Michael von Hausswolff, freq_out 2 was recorded and performed for Ultima the Oslo Music Festival 2004, by: BJ Nilsen, J. G. Thirlwell, Jacob Kirkegaard, Jana Winderen, Maia Urstad, Kent Tankred, Finnbogi Pétursson, Per Magnus Lindborg, Brandon LaBelle, Franz Pommasl, Mike Harding and Tommi Grönlund & Petteri Nisunen. The recording was made by NOTAM, mixed by BJ Nilsen at The Embassy and mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering. Much more "ambient" than the spiky, threatening sonic conflict of the first freq_out CD, this second piece is evocative of an utterly still landscape." [label info]
www.ashinternational.com
|
2005 |
€13.00 |
|
|
Musics in the Margin Vol. 2: Musik Oblik |
CD |
"Decompartmentalization:
Like the 'Musics in the margin volume 1' CD co-produced by Art en Marge and Sub Rosa in 2006, this new production comes from a project mixing visual arts with music. Since the first CD, 'Art en Marge' has obtained its museum status and changed its name. These changes point out the fact the new 'art & marges museum' focuses on the affinities existing between three visual art fields considered on equal terms: modern art, contemporary art, and outsider art. Proceeding from how obviously compartmentalization is not only arbitrary but simplistic, this new production entitled "Musik Oblik" explores the world of sounds and silence through the multidisciplinary works of artists unfolding stunning soundworlds and visual universes. Decompartmentalization is the key word, and this record offers unique approaches transcending the simple question of the insider/outsider classification. The purpose of this project is to outgrow the social-cultural dimension of the works while respecting their creators' integrity, whoever they might be.
Carine Fol (art & marges museum)
Featuring:
Based in Berlin, Klaus Beyer is mostly known for his unusual performances of Beatles songs, but this musician's talent is larger than that, as he also writes his own songs, makes short films and animated films, and works as an actor.
Normand Cournoyer launched his music career around the age of 70. He says he was inspired by the Lord, and therefore adopted the slightly religious alias Normand L'Amour. Self-taught, he has since written an incredible number of songs (more than 1,500, in over 75 languages) using a piece of random composition software.
Installation artist, performer, illustrator, sculptor, sound collector, and globe-trotter Baudouin Oosterlynck is thriving to expand our listening capabilities by creating prostheses and musical objects to multiply and increase our ears. Silence also plays a key part in his work, and he has traveled a lot to pinpoint geographical locations where one can enjoy complete silence.
The Wild Classical Music Ensemble, a music project started in 2007, on the day musician/audio artist/experimentalist Damien Magnette met Lynh, Johan, Rudy, and Kim, four artists with learning disabilities. From then on, their musical research has been based on free improvisation and experimentation. Lately, The Wild Classical Music Ensemble has been integrating punk/rock riffs composed by the group's guitarist Kim Verbeke.
In March 2005, drummer Teun Verbruggen (Jef Neve Trio, Flat Earth Society, ...) invited maverick guitarist Mauro Pawlowski (dEUS, Club Moral, Somnambula) and Rhodes piano magician Jozef Dumoulin (Mäâk Spirit, Magic Malik, Octurn...) to a one-shot improvisation gig. The meeting intitled Othin Spake was so conclusive that they are still playing together five years later.
A major representative of the Italian madrigal style of the Renaissance, alongside Luca Marenzio and Monteverdi. Gesualdo's position in music history has been largely reassessed in the 20th Century. Once seen as a marginal, unbalanced composer whose music was gradually falling into oblivion, Gesualdo is hailed by some as a visionary, the first composer, 300 years before Wagner and the Post-Romantics, to make significant use of chromatism and dissonance, and a precursor of the Moderns in his use of extreme contrasts and unusual rhythmical breaks.
A composer, violinist, and teacher, Baudouin de Jaer trained in Belgium and Canada with Henri Pousseur, Frederic Rzewski, and Philip Boesmans, among others. His concerts and compositions took him to Mexico, Peru, Korea, Palestine, and Morocco. Many of his works are multidisciplinary or adapted to a complete space.
A major artist of the 20th century, Adolf Wölfli was commited to the Waldau Mental Asylum, near Bern, in 1899. He remained there until he died. Wölfli started drawing, writing, and composing music at the age of 35, working all day long on what amounts to a colossal body of work. It comprises 25,000 pages of graphic compositions, collages, literary works, and music scores.
Jacques Brodier, artist and researcher, is the inventor of the Filtre de Réalité (Reality Filter), whose antennae, using the ionosphere's reflection, receive the electromagnetic noise broadcasted by Earth civilization and deep space. This airwave noise consists of radio signals from everywhere, music and voices in multiple languages drifting away, lost in a sea of cosmic noise, occasionally mistreated, butchered, distorted by untraceable causes or the mishaps of dissemination." [label info]
www.subrosa.net
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2010 |
€13.00 |
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Magnetic Traces |
CD |
"Only sound installations, presented during august 2009, in West Space gallery and Project Space gallery, Melbourne, Australia. Stereo versions from multichannel compositions. Artists: Marc Baron, Loïc Blairon, Anthea Caddy, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Camilla Hannan, Eric La Casa, Cédric Peyronnet, Geoff Robinson, Philip Samartzis, Thembi Soddel, Eamon Sprod, Thomas Tilly. Cover by Marcia Jane." [label info]
http://ascendre.free.fr/
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2009 |
€13.00 |
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DRONE-MIND // MIND-DRONE Vol. 2 (SOLD OUT) |
LP |
DRONE-MIND // MIND DRONE - Volume 2 -
This LP-series from Drone Records is dedicated to the Drones of the World, and the Drones of our Minds. A kind of continuation of the Drone 7"-series but on a more user-friendly format. Each LP features four artists from the international drone-scene and is limited to 500 copies and pressed on four different vinyl-colours. Each LP artwork will feature paintings by British painter PETE GREENING. This series shows the various sides of todays experimental drone-music. The title symbolizes the interaction between sound of the Eternal and our psyche and raises questions: Can Drones (or sound per se) be regarded as "intelligent"? Does every mind produce a Drone? Isn't it possible that any organic or non-organic entity produces a Drone? Drone Music is seen as more than a mere 'music style', it expresses an approach to perceive & understand the world. DRONE-MIND and MIND-DRONE build a circle of diverse inter-relations. The Drone as a metaphor for everything that vibrates, that releases energy - from atoms and elementary particles to the hum of the earth and the universe. The Drone as an entity that connects everthing that exists within our own "mind-space", perception and self. Four "Drones" on one record! The second Volume (MIND-02) ist OUT NOW ! (December 2012) and features:
YANN NOVAK / STROM NOIR / EMMA YA / KARL BÖSMANN
YANN NOVAK (U.S.A.): minimal transcension drones
The records starts with a fabulous - silent but dense - drone piece by Californian sound & installation artist YANN NOVAK (coming from L.A.), the first in a series of compositions using the 'silence" of vinyl endgrooves, indeed a perfectly sublime start for a a vinyl release dedicated to drones.
STROM NOIR (SLOVAKIA): shimmering elation drones
STROM NOIR encharms with two stunning 'elation" drones based on guitar harmonics, beautifully shimmering like light radiances - this Slovakian artist is also active with his true DIY-label Black Orchid Productions.
EMME YA (COLOMBIA): sigil dissolution drones
EMME YA is, after the EPs by REYNOLS (DR-42) and C.D. (DR-63) the third ever artist from South America on Drone Records. These 'esoteric' suction sounds are created as 'sigil dissolutions', meaning the unification of sonic sigils with our deeper minds. Mysterious, intense, haunting...
KARL BÖSMANN (GERMANY): post industrial / electronic drones
Behind this project with the odd name we find a german sculptor who attracted lots of attention with some remarkable releases of very unusual & daring drone-based collages - his track for MIND-02 named 'Die Verwandlung' is inspired by Kafkas short story of the same name and stands out as a powerful & threatening & even rhythmic tour de force undergoing dramatic changes from the beginning to the end.
= four projects that differ considerably from each other, but united through the idea of the power of the Drone.
~ ~ The drones of their minds "materialized" ~ ~ The "intelligence" of drones materialized ~ ~
4 Vinyl-colours: RED & BLACK MIXED // SOLID SILVER MIXED WITH BLACK // WHITE, SOLID BLUE & TRANSPARENT GREEN MIXED // CHRYSTAL CLEAR WITH BLUE AND BLACK
Mastered by Sergey Uak-Kib http://kshatriy.pro/
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2012 |
€15.00 |
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Now it's dark: DAVID LYNCH tribute |
CD |
"Now It's Dark: David Lynch Tribute" is an album made by Russian experimental sound artists dedicated to the famous film director and musician David Lynch, and produced by the kultFRONT label with the support of Zhelezobeton Distribution Division... The idea of a tribute to Lynch first appeared when Sal Solaris recorded the track "With Me" for "The Black Square" compilation (KF-VI, 2006), using samples from the movie "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me". The digital EP "Lynch" featuring compositions by Tsaraas, DMT and Bardoseneticcube (KF-XVII, 2012) followed several years later but only now the time has come for a full-length album... Eleven projects from the Russian dark underground scene have presented their own visions of the mysterious and meditative atmospheres pervading the works of the American tenebrous genius: Reutoff, Light Collapse, Dvory, Skripp, Wunderblock, Relic Radiation, Kryptogen Rundfunk, Sal Solaris, Arcuation, Povarovo and DMT... Overall sound mastering was done by Arnold_pR (Reutoff). Artwork of the 6-panel digipak features a fragment of the painting "Special Agent Gorgon Cole" by Chris Mars. The edition is limited to two hundred copies.
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2016 |
€13.00 |
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Magnetic Traces 2 |
CD |
[sound art in Australia and France] 72:00
limited edition to 100 copies
Only sound compositions presented during june 2011 in Les Instants Chavirés, Montreuil, during Parisonic.
Stereo versions from multichannel compositions
Artists :
Marc Baron | Loïc Blairon | Anthea Caddy & Thembi Soddell | Yannick Dauby | Camilla Hannan & Tarab/Eamon Sprod | Rosaling Hall & Alice Hui-Sheng Chang | Jean-Luc Guionnet | Eric La Casa & Philip Samartzis | Pali Meursault | Lizzie Pogson | Cédric Peyronnet | Kristian Roberts | Geoff Robinson | Thomas Tilly | Rainier
Lericolais
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2013 |
€13.00 |
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TROUM TRANSFORMATION TAPES: The 20th Anniversary Celebration (1997-2017) |
do-CD |
with: ALLSEITS, CONTRASTATE, V.O.S.(YEN POX), VANCE ORCHESTRA, TARKATAK, RAISON D'ETRE, NADJA, MARTYN BATES w. TROUM, MULTER, QST (Frans de Waard/KAPOTTE MUZIEK), URE THRALL, MYRRMAN (SAL SOLARIS), INADE, DUAL, BAD SECTOR, CISFINITUM, REUTOFF, MOLJEBKA PVLSE, and MARKOW C.
ORIGINAL INVITATION:
"Dear Friends and Dreamers,
Troum did the very first performance under this name (after the demise of Maeror Tri) in March 1997, so this year we reach our 20th anniversary. We have never done any anniversary "celebration" or "remix" projects of Troum material before, so we thought maybe it's the time now!
You can choose any existing Troum material (also taken from multiple tracks) to cover, re-interpretate, re-work/process/arrange or collage it. You can also add your own sounds, create a new track-title, watever comes to your mind! (We are certainly NOT looking for a standard "remix", so we don't send out any specific material to everyone!).
This invitation goes out to various musicians that have worked with us over the 20 years, which became friends or important for our evolution as a band." TROUM, March 2017
2. TRACKLIST:
CD 1
1. ALLSEITS - Times
2. CONTRASTATE - The Silent Fish
3. INADE - The innermost Sun
4. VANCE ORCHESTRA - Giascei
5. TARKATAK - vs. Brinnan
6. RAISON D'ETRE - Ananke
7. NADJA - Mirrored in You
8. MARTYN BATES w. TROUM - An Untitled Protest
9. [MULTER] - Sela Saiwala MNX
CD 2
1. QST - Kapotte Muziek by Troum (QST remix 2017)
2. URE THRALL - Krypte
3. 016 vs. MYRRMAN - Sen №350 (Psychic Automaton Rework)
4. V.O.S. (Steve Hall/YEN POX) - Breath Again
5. DUAL - TTN (Ursprung)
6. BAD SECTOR - Signedumiroir
7. MARKOW C. - Chaneism
8. CISFINITUM - Skaun[ei]s
9. REUTOFF - Hypoxia (Troum Spirare Cover)
10. MOLJEBKA PVLSE - Ennoia
Liner Notes from JIM HAYNES:
It was 1996 when the German industrial project Maeror Tri disbanded, and I recall being deeply saddened by the news. A few years earlier, I had discovered the project while working at a now-defunct distribution company in San Francisco. Fittingly released through Korm Plastics 'Introductions' series, Maeror Tri's Multiple Personality Disorder reflected an interested in psychological pathology as channeled through raw sound. Industrial culture has long used the metaphors of disease as a mirror to shine a light on any number of ills in contemporary society. This particular album addresses four aspects of the titular disorder, itself the most extreme form of schizophrenia which fractures the discrete personalities, which Maeror Tri identified in the general dissociative characteristics: The Administrator, The Anaesthetizer, The Revenger, The Protector. With each of these tracks, Maeror Tri orchestrated dense layers of heavily effected, sustained noise, back-masked growlings, and shimmering drones as emotionally resonant portraits to those four personality traits. With Industrial culture's penchant for sensationalized horror of autopsy and abbatoir footage, Maeror Tri's constructs were uniquely sympathetic to those who suffered from this debilitating disease.
With the posthumous release of Emotional Engramm in 1997, Maeror Tri's compositional complexity began to blossom, relying less on the hypnogogic dislocation of time-lag effects and more on the poetics and the portent of the underlying melodies that rippled through their ghostly accretions for drone and noise. Right as they called it quits, the ideas of Maeror Tri had expressed a maturity that had much more to say through the collapse of sound into an crushed, all-encompassing, cathartic tsunami.
What was to emerge in the wake of Maeror Tri's dissolution did not immediately seem clear. Founding member Stefan Knappe had already established his impeccably curated Drone Records, which initially focused on the improbable medium of the 7" single to release long-form works of dark ambient, heavy drone, and industrial din. Many of these artists that landed on Drone were unknown or under-appreciated projects, but without fail, these proved to be impressive documents and demanded that they be acquired upon sight with or without any idea of who exactly was behind the project. In this series, Knappe did commisson work from a number of highly acclaimed musicians including Inade, Francisco Lopez, Cranioclast, Aidan Baker, The Lotus Eaters, etc. but there were the lesser known acts such as the Hungarian experimental project Hideg Roncs, Holland's esoteric ambient outfit Indra Karmuka, and the hermetic tape machinist Abner Malaty. Drone released exactly 100 singles between 1993 and 2010, at which time the format switched to a four-way split LP format under the Drone-Mind // Mind-Drone banner, in addition to the 10" Substantia Innominata series, both of which maintain high calibre curation to this day.
In 1998, Knappe reconvened with fellow Maeror Tri member Martin Gitschel to form Troum. The name for this new project was taken from an archaic German word for dream and provides clear insight into their investigations manifesting universal archetypes and symbols from a collective unconsciousness into an overwhelming flood of sound. The first recordings for Troum were published on a small cassette housed in a small pillow, ascribed with the title Dreaming Muzak. As with Maeror Tri, Troum sculpt their dronescapes mostly through heavily processed guitars along with an assortment of other instruments. If the intent of Troum was to put the listener to sleep, the lulling vibrating patterns certainly have the capacity; but the overall darkness of these sounds will never inspire the most pleasant of dreams. These are shadowy, bleak, and cold sounds which permeate the album, and lend themselves to images of desolate factories spewing a constant stream of black soot in some wintery post-Soviet country.
At the turn of the millennium, Troum embarked on their ambitious Tjukurrpa trilogy, the title of which has its origin in the physical, spiritual, and psychological state of dreamtime for the Australian Aboriginals, symbolizing Troum's intention to divine transcendence through their hypnogogic compositions. They applied these ideas to the three compositional foundations to their music, in Harmonies, Drones, and Rhythms & Pulsations each of which are highlighted on the trilogies component albums. Harmonies for Troum relate to the cold ambient swirls of resonant timbres from Troum's interlocked guitars that cycle through minor-key chords bathed in a resplendent wash of effects and melancholy atmospheres. Troum's signature drones are heavy, lumbering propositions of earth-shaking rumbles and subterranean minimalism. The use of rhythm appears in Troum's work as percussive mantras with a ritualist approach to metal-bashed patterns and looped sequences.
These fundamental tools - harmonies, drones, and rhythms - represent a set of pre-linguistic symbols that Troum employs to articulate to the primal emotional responses of various psychological states. More often than not, Troum turn towards ashen, sublime, nocturnal, and grim metaphors through their work, even though rapturously golden crescendos flourish on the rare occasion in their body of work. Sigqan (2003) is a harrowing album that plunges deep into an overwhelming gloom through sustained tones and drones. Like the project's name, the title harkens to a pre-medieval dialect of the Goths that roughly translates as the setting or sinking of the sun. Here, Troum addresses the Dark Ages fear that the sun might not rise again, leaving the world in permanent darkness. The Power Romantic trilogy (which include the albums Mare Idiophonika, Grote Mandrenke, Mare Morphosis released from 2010 - 2013) finds the duo embracing the oceanic metaphors that undulate upon the cycles of the tides through billowing shadows of mournful melody and subharmonic rumble. These too are drawn towards hostile metaphors, with Grote Mandrenke referring directly to a massive storm surge that devastated Northern Europe and the Britsh Isles in 1362, sweeping some 25,000 people out to sea and to their deaths.
Through the Drone Records productions and ancillary distribution company, Troum have maintained a very healthy network of connections all across the globe. In doing so, they have also engaged in a select number of ongoing collaborations. Their first was with the occult American project Yen Pox whose collective low-frequency thumming stand at the pinnacle of the dark ambient genre. An enduring presence from the once mighty Cold Meat Industries, Raison D'etre has worked with Troum in transforming raw material through the existential lens of a vacant cathedral. Architectural reverberation and ghostly chorales flutter with a solemn, ethereal impressionism. The baroque post-punk singer-songwriter Martyn Bates of Eyeless In Gaza had long been an inspiration for Knappe and Gitschel in both Troum and Maeror Tri. In fact a dedication to Bates was ascribed to a track from the Tjukurrpa series. In 2006, Bates joined Troum for their collaborative album To a Child Dancing in the Wind, which girds Bates' beatific, lyrical vocalizations to a luminous, shimmering facet to Troum's aesthetic.
This compilation with its remixes, deconstructions, and reconstitutions of Troum's back catalogue and raw material is a celebration not only to Troum's impressive body of work but also to their ongoing and active participation in the broader communities of the avant-garde, minimalism, drone-rock, and industrial culture with unflagging dedication. These propositions respectfully build upon the fluid dynamics of Troum's sound as well as the wordless symbolism of pre-lingusitic conditions that are fundamental to Troum's work. It should be noted that both Dual and Vance Orchestra reunited specifically for this project.
Sibilant. Subaquatic. Serpentine. Ominous. Thunderous. Billowing. Haunted. Hypnogogic. Blossomed with sadness. Best Drones.
JIM HAYNES
|
2018 |
€12.00 |
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Anthology of Electroacoustic Lebanese Music |
CD |
Following the Second World War (1945-1949), Beirut established itself as the cultural capital of the Middle East, with the Lebanese music scene leading the way. Lebanese music has a distinct sound due to the country’s unique fusion of Western and Eastern influences. Even Lebanese folk compositions often reference Western contemporary music. After 15 years of civil war and a decade of post war rehabilitation, the situation of alternative art and especially music was very poor in Lebanon. Things began to change around 2000 with the arrival of a new generation of musicians, born at the beginning and during the war, more interested in experimental art forms than in fame or glory. The experimental music scene in Beirut, may exist in relative geographic isolation from other global movements of a similar ilk, but over the past fifteen years it has become a dynamic hub for a dense concentration of fiercely independent musical voices. From humble beginnings and tiny numbers, the close-knit community has grown and thrived.
Unexplained Sounds Group is proud to release an anthology of the contemporary electroacoustic music from Lebanon. As always the compilation doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive of the whole Lebanese experimental scene, being the main goal, simply to turn on a spotlight on it. Another chapter of the "experimental surveys" series to map the best upcoming music from the international underground scene.
Special thanks to Joseph Doumet for his support, and to all artists involved in the project for their kind and much appreciated collaboration.
https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/anthology-of-electroacoustic-lebanese-music |
2019 |
€13.00 |
|
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The Harmonic Series Volume 2 |
3 x LP |
"A collection of long-form works in just intonation by Kali Malone, Duane Pitre, Catherine Lamb, Tashi Wada, Byron Westbrook, and Caterina Barbieri. Each artist occupies an entire side of the collection's three LPs. Curated by Duane Pitre, Important Records returns with its second volume of compiled works in just intonation. The Harmonic Series Volume 2, issued as a triple-LP collection, features a series of long-form compositions by six of the most important emerging voices of contemporary experimental music. Unlike equal temperament, which equally divides an octave into 12 fixed notes, just intonation utilizes intervals of whole number ratios to determine tonal positions. It results in a highly individualized tonal language and holds the potential for more nuanced relationships and striking, sympathetic resonances. Rooted in ideas that trace their way across the last 2500 years, just intonation lays at the foundation for numerous Indian, Persian, and East Asian musical traditions. It was reintroduced into western music during the 20th century by composers like Harry Partch, Ben Johnston, Lou Harrison, James Tenney, Terry Riley, and La Monte Young. An interest in just intonation has continued to swell following the appearance of The Harmonic Series in 2009 inspiring Pitre to curate a second compilation. Kali Malone's "Pipe Inversions" -- played by Malone on a small pipe organ, joined by Isak Hedtjärn on bass clarinet -- belongs to a larger body of microtonal organ works that have increasingly placed the composer at the forefront of contemporary minimalism and drone music. Across the length of Duane Pitre's "Three for Rhodes" -- a chamber piece for "unknown instrumentation" - deconstructed rhythms and melodic fragments swell in a dance of harmonic interplay, rising and falling within the work's engrossing architectural complexity. Catherine Lamb's "inter sum" -- one of a tiny number of available works to encounter the composer and renowned violist working on synthesizer -- endeavors to break the visualization of harmony as a vertical reality, rendering it multidimensionally in space. A canon for eight-violins played by Marc Sabat, Tashi Wada's "Midheaven (Alignment Mix)" -- guided by the internal logic of its tuning system -- shape-shifts into an elegantly poetic form of musical conceptualism. Byron Westbrook's "Memory Phasings" -- composed and recorded on a combination of computer controlled modular synthesizers and a Yamaha TX802 -- employs the ratios of just intonation as harmonic building blocks for texture. Deploying just intonation as a means for psycho-physiological exploration, Caterina Barbieri's "Firmamento" -- composed for synthesizer -- deftly intervenes with the expectations of minimalism, durational music, and drone. Cut at Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity." [press release]
"Emerging during the early years of the new millennium, over the last two decades Important Records has slowly grown into one of the most important imprints in the landscape of experimental sound; a vehicle for historically important works by artists like Arnold Dreyblatt, Christina Kubisch, Ellen Fullman, Eliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros, Catherine Christer Hennix, Phill Niblock, and numerous others, as much as a platform for a constantly evolving cast of emerging artists at the forefront of the contemporary scene.
Their latest, The Harmonic Series Volume 2, is a crystalline vision of the monumental ambition and artistry that lays at the label’s heart. Curated by Duane Pitre and stretching across an astounding 3 LPs, it looks toward the future of just intonation - the ancient tuning system that lays at the foundation for numerous Indian, Persian, and East Asian traditions - collecting long-form compositions by six of the most important voices in contemporary experimental music: Kali Malone, Catherine Lamb, Tashi Wada, Byron Westbrook, Caterina Barbieri, and Pitre. Vast in scope, immersive, and overwhelmingly beautiful from start to finish, if there’s a compilation to grab this year, this is the one. Words fail to describe how good it is.
Dating back millennia, since its reintroduction into Western music by composers like Harry Partch, Ben Johnston, Lou Harrison, James Tenney, Terry Riley, and La Monte Young, just intonation has maintained a devoted following within the context of experimental music. Utilizing intervals of whole number ratios to determine tonal positions, chosen by a composer, its origins rest in an attempt to mirror the natural behavior of sound within music.
Often resulting in highly individualized modal scales with nuanced relationships and striking, sympathetic resonances, just intonation offers the potential for a radically expanded range of creative possibilities that are largely unavailable within equal temperament, the tuning system most commonly encountered within music today.
Back in 2009, this led the composer, Duane Pitre, to curate the first Harmonic Series compilation, presenting a multi-generational suite of works by Ellen Fullman & Theresa Wong, Michael Harrison, Pauline Oliveros, Charles Curtis, and numerous others.
Over the years since, interest in the system has continued to swell, witnessing numerous younger artists deploying it in diverse ways, offering Pitre a new chance to explore the subject on even more ambitious terms.
The Harmonic Series Volume 2 comprises brand new works by six of the most important emerging voices of contemporary experimental music - Kali Malone, Catherine Lamb, Tashi Wada, Byron Westbrook, Caterina Barbieri, and Pitre - offering each artist a full side of the collection’s 3 LPs, carefully curated to activate intertwining sequences and relationships between the works.
Beginning with Kali Malone’s Pipe Inversions - played by the author on a small pipe organ, joined by Isak Hedtjärn on bass clarinet - blankets of long tones unfold within shimmering harmonics and rich rhythmic and melodic sequence, before settling into Duane Pitre’s sublime Three Simples for Rhodes - a chamber piece for ”unknown instrumentation” - built from deconstructed rhythms and melodic fragments that swell in a dance of harmonic interplay within the work’s engrossing architectural complexity.
From here we depart into the singular world of Catherine Lamb’s Inter Sum, a rare instance of the renowned violist working on synthesizer, that channels its materiality from her own environmental field, filtered by the synth, to highlight the subtle tonalities and harmonics that often lay unnoticed in the natural world, setting the stage for the deep, enveloping tension that unfurls across the length of Tashi Wada’s Midheaven (Alignment Mix), a canon for eight-violins played by Marc Sabat, where two mirroring, overlain realizations of the composition - one moving forward as the other simultaneously moves backward - slowly converge toward a crescendo of dissonance, with striking harmonic interplay and delicate overtones guiding the way.
The final LP in the collection is graced by a work Byron Westbrook, before concluding with a psycho-physiological exploration by Caterina Barbieri. Westbrook’s Memory Phasings, composed and recorded on a combination of computer controlled modular synthesizers and a Yamaha TX802, stunningly deploys harmonic blocks of texture and long-tones within structures of rapid appreciations and carefully balanced punctuations, that culminates as a shimmer vision of abstraction in sound.
Barbieri’s Firmamento then brings us full circle, concluding the second instalment of the Harmonic series with graceful subtlety introduced by Kali Malone, with a striking effort of durational drone composed for synth.
Resting on the shoulders of an ancient tradition, Important’s The Harmonic Series Volume 2 - through truly visionary works by Malone, Lamb, Wada, Westbrook, Barbieri, and Pitre - paints a wondrously optimistic image of the future of the approach, not to mention experimental music at large.
Issued as a triple LP, cut at Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity, housed in a heavy duty, single pocket sleeve with printed inner sleeves, it’s impossible to recommend enough. Easily one of the most exciting releases of the year and not to be missed." [Soundohm]
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2021 |
€45.00 |
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44 x 44 - Orphax Reworked |
4 x CD BOX |
4 CDs with compositions created using 44 sounds of 44 seconds by Orphax as source material, by TVO / Ruaridh Law, Modelbau, Fani Konstantinidou, Machinefabriek, Jos Smolders, Elif Yalvaç, Siavash Amini and Orphax.
When I started working on my 44 sketches of 44 seconds already quickly came the idea to ask friends to create music with these 44 sketches. The idea is to take musicians from their comfort zone, and have them experiment and think in different ways about composing music. The result is beyond my imaginations, with the 7 other musicians creating something completely new, different from their regular work, but also each with their own fingerprint. I am proud of what my friends made out of this.
Over 4 hours of new daring music.
https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/album/44-x-44-orphax-reworked
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2021 |
€25.00 |
|
|
Anthology of Exploratory Music from India |
CD |
The new Unexplained Sounds Group’s compilation of exploratory music and sound works from India intends to present a comprehensive collection of sonic practices that have emerged from the desire to break away from India’s traditional sounds, e.g. classical music and folk tunes, while simultaneously drawing on ideas and inspirations from these lineages and auditory heritages in the form of recurring motifs and sonorities as well as textures and open-ended compositions. The fragile but complex connection between tradition and modernity is the crucial point of entry in this body of works contributed by Indian-born sound artists and experimental musicians. What is ‘sound art’ and what is ‘experimental’ can be debated at length, but sound art is a Western construct, and experiment is something Indian musicians have long been engaged in whilst keeping their traditions alive and transformative. What is new in this compilation is locating the tension between historical trajectories of sound thinking and the intervention of modernist technologies like recording and mixing that the artists continue to negotiate through their interpretations and reconfigurations of temporality and spatiality. That is why the western invention of CD as a form of sonic object-hood can be a constraint for Indian sound practitioners. This compilation therefore asks its listener to consider the CD just a trace of the sound experience, while the actual listening is ephemeral. This spatiotemporal tension uncovers a few questions around (de)coloniality and its shadows on emerging sonic practices in South Asia with new perspectives. The release, co-curated by Raffaele Pezzella and Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, contributes to the ongoing research Connecting Resonances that encourages critically listening to the sound practices and auditory cultures in the Global South with an interest in sonic confluences and decoloniality, to stand on the right side of music history.
[Budhaditya Chattopadhyay]
https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album
/anthology-of-exploratory-music-from-india
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2021 |
€13.00 |
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FLUXUS & NEOFLUXUS: STOLEN SYMPHONY |
do-CD |
https://subrosalabel.bandcamp.com/album/fluxus-neofluxus-stolen-symphony-vol-1
This album features pieces by (in alphabetical order): Eric Andersen, John Cage, Henning Christiansen, Bengt af Klintberg, Milan Knízák, Opening Performance Orchestra, Terry Riley, Mieko Shiomi, Yoshi Wada and La Monte Young. The musicians and performers Anna Clementi, Agnese Toniutti, Deborah Walker, Werner Durand, Luciano Chessa, Miroslav Beinhauer, Petr Bakla, Nicolas Horvath, Petr Ferenc and Premysl Ondra have played, performed and declaimed the Fluxus pieces, Arditti Quartet and S.E.M. Ensemble provided one piece from their archives. Milan Knízák, Petr Rezek, Petr Kotík, Olaf Hanel, Eric Andersen, Per Brunskog, Peter van der Meijden, Pavlína Morganová, Natasha Lushetich, Joseph Nechvatal, Natilee Harren, Martin Patrick, Diedrich Diederichsen, Christopher M. Reeves and Hubertus von Amelunxen have written Fluxus-themed texts. Archivio Conz in Berlin provided access to their extensive Fluxus archives and Edizioni Conz provided co-production. Ursula and René Block made possible the realisation of John Cage's historical composition 'Rozart Mix' from the Edition Block archive. The photographic material comes from Marie Knízáková and Milan Knízák's private archive, the German photographer Wolfgang Träger, Archivio Conz's Fluxus archive and Opening Performance Orchestra's digital archive. The cover themes are paintings by Milan Knízák, while the graphic design is the work of Jaroslav Buzek. The whole release is produced by re-set production. The LP edition contains 18 pieces, new and old, live and studio, finished pieces and scores to be performed, acoustic and classical, solos and pieces for ensemble, using classical and special instruments. SIDE 1: 0. John Cage - 0'00'' (1962) (solo to be performed in any way by anyone) 0:00 1. La Monte Young - Compositions 1960 #15 to Richard Huelsenbeck (1960) 4:39 (Agnese Toniutti, piano) 2. Milan Knízák - DKH Quartet (edit) (1973) 4:40 (Arditti Quartet) 3. Henning Christiansen - Wolfsflöte (1986) 4:00 (Werner Durand, wind) 4. Giuseppe Chiari - Metodo Teorico E Pratico Per Suonare Il Violoncello (1962) 7:43 (Deborah Walker, cello) 5. Milan Knízák - White Process (from the cycle 'Processes Mainly For The Space Of Mind) (1978) 0:46 (Petr Ferenc, voice) SIDE 2: 1. Dick Higgins - Emmett William's Ear (1977) 9:40 (Agnese Toniutti, piano) 2. Henning Christiansen - Sturmsax (1986) 3:34 (Werner Durand, wind) 3. Milan Knízák - A Chromatic Scale In Countermovement (1971) 2:04 (Miroslav Beinhauer, broken piano) 4. Giuseppe Chiari - Gesti Sul Piano (1962) 4:40 (Luciano Chessa, piano) 5. Yoshi Wada - Lip Vibrator (1973) 2:24 (Ostravská Banda & Audience) 6. La Monte Young - Composition 1960 #7 (1960) 1:19 (Nicolas Horvath, piano) SIDE 3: 1. Eric Andersen - It Isn't Bad (2021) 1:05 (Eric Andersen) 2. Eric Andersen - Opus 1961 (1961) 5:29 (Miroslav Beinhauer & Petr Bakla, piano) 3. Bengt af Klintberg - Triad No.1 (2021) 5:10 (Werner Durand, bottles) 4. Mieko Shiomi - Imaginary Garden No.3 (2009) 7:38 (Miroslav Beinhauer, piano) 5. Terry Riley - Shoganigidi #1 (2021) 3:18 (Miroslav Beinhauer, broken piano) 6. Milan Knízák - Material Events (from the cycle 'Processes Mainly For The Space Of Mind') (1978) 1:28 (Premek Ondra, voice) SIDE 4: 1. Opening Performance Orchestra - Stolen Symphony (2021) 21:25 (Opening Performance Orchestra, electronics)
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2023 |
€20.00 |
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Territorio del Eco : Experimentalismos y Visiones de Lo Ancestral En El Perú (1975-1989) |
LP |
Territorio del eco: experimentalismos y visiones de lo ancestral en el Perú (1975-1989)
The Land of Echo: Experimentalisms and Visions of the Ancestral in Peru (1975-1989)
First compilation brings together the Peruvian experimental scene from 1975 to 1989, a period was the most prolific for a generation of Peruvian artists who, based on musical conceptions derived from modern jazz and techniques inherited from avant-garde music, sought to integrate the sounds of Andean, Afro-Peruvian and Amazonian cultures in search of a new musical universe. Native instruments and folk melodies were used in compositions that demanded modern recording techniques and electronic sounds. This generation was articulated in Lima and was made up of musicians such as Omar Aramayo, Manongo Mujica, Arturo Ruiz del Pozo, Miguel Flores (Ave Acústica), Douglas Tarnawiecki (Espíritus), Luis David Aguilar, Chocolate Algendones and Corina Bartra.
But more than a movement, it was a set of individuals from dissimilar origins, who came from rock, jazz, contemporary classical and popular music, but also from the visual arts and poetry, and who had in common the cultural climate of the late seventies and early eighties in a country marked by a series of social and economic transformations, as well as the emergence of new visions and insertions of Andean culture and folklore in the city. The appearance of a mythical substrate connected the work of these musicians and defined an aesthetic, based on the deconstruction of folklore and the exploration of the possibilities that indigenous instruments offered. And from there they could go towards abstract, symbolic and conceptual forms, but also towards more melodic forms, with a strong influence of jazz, while also taking advantage of electronics and the possibilities of the recording studio.
Territorio del eco: experimentalismos y visiones de lo ancestral en el Perú (1975-1989) - The Land of Echo: Experimentalisms and Visions of the Ancestral in Peru (1975-1989) - is a compilation that offers an overview of what was one of the moments of greatest creative intensity for experimental music in Peru in its encounter with indigenous sounds. Rescued from private archives and limited editions on cassette, these pieces are reissued for the first time in vinyl LP format. The album includes extensive notes written by Luis Alvarado, author of the compilation, as well as much visual documentation. Cover art by Paloma Pizarro.
Beneficiary project of the Economic Stimuli for Culture 2020 of the Ministry of Culture of Peru.
--------------------
Primera compilación reúne la escena experimental peruana desde 1975 a 1989, período que fue el más prolífico para una generación de artistas peruanos que a partir de concepciones musicales derivadas del jazz moderno y de las técnicas heredadas de la música de vanguardia, buscaron integrar los sonidos de la tradición andina, afroperuana y amazónica en búsqueda de un nuevo universo musical. Instrumentos nativos y melodías del folclore fueron empleadas en composiciones que demandaron de novedosas técnicas de grabación y de sonidos electrónicos. Esta generación que se articuló en Lima, la conformaron músicos como Omar Aramayo, Manongo Mujica, Arturo Ruiz del Pozo, Miguel Flores (Ave Acústica), Douglas Tarnawiecki (Espíritus), Luis David Aguilar, Chocolate Algendones y Corina Bartra.
Pero más que un movimiento se trató de un conjunto de individualidades de procedencias disimiles, que venían tanto del rock, como del jazz, de la música clásica contemporánea, y popular, pero también de las artes visuales y la poesía, y que tuvieron en común un clima cultural como fue el de ese tránsito de los 70s a los 80s en un Perú marcado por una serie de transformaciones sociales y económicas, y de la aparición de nuevas visiones e inserciones de lo andino y el folclore en la urbe. La aparición de un sustrato mítico emparentó el trabajo de estos músicos y definió una estética, basada en la deconstrucción de lo folclórico y en la exploración de las posibilidades que los instrumentos nativos ofrecían para a partir de allí ir hacia formas abstractas, simbólicas y conceptuales, pero también hacia formas más melódicas, de marcada influencia jazzística y con un aprovechamiento de la electrónica y del estudio de grabación.
“Territorio del eco: Experimentalismos y visiones de lo ancestral en el Perú (1975-1989)” es una compilación que ofrece un panorama de lo que fue uno de los momentos de mayor intensidad creativa para la música experimental en Perú en su encuentro con las sonoridades nativas. Rescatadas de archivos privados y tirajes limitados en casete, por primera vez se reeditan en formato de vinilo LP. El álbum incluye amplias notas escritas por Luis Alvarado, autor de la compilación, así como mucha documentación visual. Arte de tapa por Paloma Pizarro.
Proyecto beneficiario de los Estímulos Económicos para la Cultura 2020 del Ministerio de Cultura del Perú.
https://buhrecords.bandcamp.com/album/territorio-del-eco-experimentalismos-y-visiones-de-lo-ancestral-en-el-per-1975-1989-essential-sounds-collection
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2021 |
€23.00 |
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| |
\'Музыкальное Приношение\' (Musical Offering) - |
CD |
listen:
https://coldspring.bandcamp.com/album/musical-offering-csr326cd
Available on CD (or any other format) for the first time outside USSR, five Soviet composers perform their works on the legendary ANS synthesizer.
Recorded in 1971, "MUSICAL OFFERING" is 6 tracks (42 mins) of experiments on the unique machine by: Eduard Artemiev (2 tracks), Oleg Buloshkin, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov, and Alfred Schnittke.
"MUSICAL OFFERING" demonstrates a 'musical' machine unlike any other and has long fascinated cutting edge, modern electronic composers, notably COIL and THE ANTI GROUP COMMUNICATIONS (TAGC) / CLOCK DVA, that have both released recordings utilising the ANS.
Try to imagine a score sounding by itself without a conductor; an orchestra without musical instruments. This magic is possible by using the musical ANS synthesizer. Created by Soviet scientist Evgeny Murzin over the course of 20 years, ANS is an instrument with which a composer can not only create but also draw their music without notes. You can see the twinkling of different lamps, the rotation of grooved glass discs... The drawings on the glass are 'sounding notes'. To listen to the drawn picture, press the button and a wonderful transformation will begin.
Inside the ANS are five rotating glass discs with 144 tones printed (by hand) on each one. Light is projected through the discs and onto photovoltaic cellbank which converts the light into electricity and sends signals to the ANS's amplifiers and bandpass filters. The ANS can generate 720 tones this way and, unlike a human musician, play them all at the same time.
Murzin dedicated his photoelectronic apparatus to Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, hence the name ANS. Scriabin, the creator of the 'Poem of Ecstasy', and a famous explorer of synesthesia, used in his works a highly chromatic, new type of harmonic style designed to express his beliefs, views and wishes. Soviet music lovers will already know recordings made on ANS from Tarkovsky's films Solaris, The Mirror, and Stalker, Konchalovsky's film Siberiade, and others.
Presented in a digipak with the new artwork by Abby Helasdottir (who also created the compelling promo video), complimenting the ANS process perfectly.
Officially licensed from Russian state label Melodiya.
Watch promo video (YouTube): bit.ly/Musical-Offering
Copyright © – ВТПО "Фирма Мелодия" (Melodiya)
All-Union Recording Studio. Recorded in 1971.
Recording supervised by Юрий Богданов
Mastered by Martin Bowes at The Cage
Track listing:
1. OLEG BULOSHKIN - \'Sacrament\' (3:32)
2. SOFIA GUBAIDULINA - \'Vivente-Non Vivente (Alive And Dead)\' (10:44)
3. EDUARD ARTEMIEV - \'Mosaic\' (4:05)
4. EDUARD ARTEMIEV - \'Twelve Looks At The World Of Sound\' (12:53)
5. EDISON DENISOV - \'Birds\' Singing\' (5:04)
6. ALFRED SCHNITTKE - \'Stream\' (5:57)
######################
"A new batch of Cold Spring CDs, and I must say... At least with one of them, they stole my mathematic sound nerdish heart. "Musical Offering" is a sampler with Russian composers using the ANS, probably entirely up to its limits. Two tracks by Eduard Artemiev and one track each by Oleg Buloshkin, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov and Alfred Schnittke. I only knew about Artemiev on this list because of his movie soundtracks. So to hear his work without a movie and, of course, images of empty landscapes, a brutalist-themed forgotten society and demise and a void enter my head, but fair is fair: all images were in colour. Nothing bleak or grey but the richness of the ANS is all over the place.
So for those who don't know what an ANS is all about, it's a Russian synthesizer designed over 20 years by Evgeny Murzin, and there is only one. It works with drawings on glass plates and devices that transform light into voltages, and those voltages create sounds. The glass discs spin, and well ... Wiki / YouTube is your friend here. Many artists have worked with the ANS, including Coil, The Anti Group Communications. Yes, [law-rah] also used original sounds from the ANS on their split with Cisfinitum (released on Fario). Maybe working on that release is the reason why I have a personal
weakness for this machine. I just couldn't get over how rich the sounds were that we got to use. Sure: A completely different thing than Coil being in the museum and drawing on the discs and us 'just' working with some recordings one of the museum guys did for us. Yet still ... I was impressed then, and I'm still impressed now.
For this disc, I am keeping the review smallish. Why? Because you already know if you are a) interested in neo-classical compositions by Russian composers. If you are, you will get this release and not be disappointed. It's as simple as that. If you are b) a nerd who loves different forms of synthesis like me, this album is one to consider. Because it's very varied and shows a lot of the ANS in 'its original environment': Russian composers on a Russian synth, and if you are c) curious about composition techniques, this will break your mind. Because from the ritualistic rhythmic parts in "Sacrament" (by Buloshkin), the 'voices' in "Vivente-Non Vivente" (by Artemiev) and the birds and frogs in "Birds Singing" (by Denisov), can you tell what is the origin of the sound? Is it a bird? Is it a recording? Or is it super ANS?
For me, it's not one of those reasons to love this album, and it's d) all of the above." [BW / Vital Weekly]
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2023 |
€15.00 |
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| VALERA HIP |
Mountain of Fugitives |
do-CD |
"In June 2013, our friends brought us an album by the man named Valery. More than 30 years ago (after 15 years of wandering), he settled in the distant Altai village - Zamulta and did not leave these places anymore. You cannot get there either by plane or by train, and you can only drive by car in summer and autumn. Valery is engaged in homemaking musical instruments like pipes, harps, flutes; he breeds bees and leads the household, which forms the basis of his life. With his minimal resources, he recorded an album that fell into our hands. The recordings united under the name " Mountain of fugitives" turned out to be hypnotic ambient compositions built on drawing lo-fi drones, pipes, harps, nature breathing, field recordings, sounds of the surrounding life and the author's voice, occasionally filling the space with references to ancient Chinese and Japanese poetry like Mèng Hàorán and Matsuo Bashō, as well as quotes from the Norwegian writer Hans Burley, or his own verses.
Valerych discovered "ambient" for himself as the most suitable form for self-expression without regard to any standards. The serenity of nature, the simple tranquility of a secluded lifestyle, the purity of a self-contained existence and the tension of daily physical labor, all here in these sounds, in the originality, naturalness, and softness of the sounds, which literally disarm and necessitate to play the record over and over again.
It took 5 years to prepare all the material for publication. In the meantime, the album has grown to a dilogy with a total duration of more than 150 minutes. Now its 2CD and eight long nameless tracks instead of four.
Enjoy by pure rural ambient music."
https://infinitefog.bandcamp.com/album/valera-hip-mountain-of-fugitives |
2020 |
€17.50 |
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| VAN HOEN, MARK |
The Revenant Diary |
CD |
" "Don't look back," repeats one of several voices within Mark Van Hoen's The Revenant Diary, his fifth solo album and first release on Editions Mego. Surrounded by weighted beats, analog synthesizer drones and granular dirt, the unidentified, siren-like female voice's advice is as much seduction as warning. Tellingly so, for as well as being both Van Hoen's most ambitious and his most accessible work, The Revenant Diary is an eloquent meditation on the allures and dangers of memory, regret and nostalgia. The album's foundation was shaped by a memory and a chance encounter. While remastering some of his early '90s releases and Peel Session tracks, Van Hoen -- a founding member of Seefeel, who also worked as Locust and in Seefeel offshoot Scala and has collaborated with Slowdive, Robert Fripp, Edison Woods and Esben And The Witch, amongst others -- happened upon a track he had recorded in 1982. Attracted by its simplicity, he was inspired to record the basis of The Revenant Diary on 4-track tape, using a minimal set-up, reminiscent of his first early '80s musical adventures as a young teenager. The recollection of one of these -- a 13 year-old Van Hoen's experiment in reel-to-reel tape recording of an ineffectual pop song playing on the radio, which spuriously transformed it into a spooky amalgam of backwards church organ and unintelligible voices -- provided an evocative inspiration. The Revenant Diary pivots on this combination of complex reflection and simplified technology. A determinedly analog affair, it brims over with Van Hoen's signature sounds: immersively-decayed drones, almost broken ambient surfaces and lulling rhythms, with granular crackle providing spectral grit. Fragments of female vocals pepper the album, and notably dominate the 10-minute epic "Holy Me," one of Van Hoen's most complex compositions, in which non-verbal sounds rub delicately against each other in an otherworldly choral composition. Less song-based than his last solo work, the well-received Where Is The Truth (CCO 046CD/LP), its palette and structure are more descendants of the 1995 album Truth Is Born Of Arguments, which utilized a similar combination of decayed atmosphere against a granular/glitch rhythmic structure. Tracks like "Laughing Stars At Night" and "Unknown Host" exude a powerful emotional undertow, as alluringly woozy as they are intensely contemplative. But this is no exercise in Instagram-style disposable nostalgia. Van Hoen's adroit juxtapositions of gauzy textures evoke the blurred luminescence of 16mm film and the rich, color-saturated hues of rediscovered Polaroid photos, as the cover artwork, designed by Stephen O'Malley, acknowledges. The Revenant Diary expertly renders displaced memory daze in lushly melodic, gently delirious electronic sound. All titles composed by Mark Van Hoen. Recorded in Brooklyn & Woodstock, NY, 2011. All instruments & processing by Mark Van Hoen with additional vocals by Georgia Belmont." [label info]
www.editionsmego.com
"Over the years I didn't keep up with Mark van Hoen's solo work. I remember Aurobindo to be a nice work but haven't heard that in a long time, and also 'The Last Flowers From The Darkness' has faded from my memory, but then no less than fifteen years have passed. Van Hoen, once a member of of Seefeel, Scala and collaborator with Slowdive, discovered some old tracks which brought him in the a teenage mood again: why not use that old four track tape machine again with a minimal set up? When hearing this, I reminded of his older works again. Van Hoen plays, at least for me, pop like music, with rhythm, broken down guitar sounds, samples and occasionally a female voice dropping into the music. Grainy, down-sampled voices going back to the 2-bit sampling mood add a certain raw texture to the album. Hazy stuff, a bit blurry. Its a clash of the modern versus the old, new and ancient technology meet up in a very nice way. A well entertaining record, filled with melancholy, ambience, choir
like sounds and glitched up rhythms. I am told this is all a bit more abstract than his previous work, but I think this is some very nice alternative popmusic. Certainly the kind of popmusic I like." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
"The Revenant Diary (eMEGO 136) bringt ein Wiederhören mit MARK VAN HOEN, den ich seit den Tagen mit Seefeel und Scala oder als Locust lange nicht mehr auf dem Radar hatte. Maßgebend für die 11 neuen Tracks war, so heißt es hier,
die Erinnerung an sein jüngeres Selbst als tonbandelnder Teenager Anfang der 80er. 'Don't Look Back' und 'I Remember' halten das Motiv der Rückkehr fest, das ihn dazu bewegte, sich diesmal doch wieder althergebrachter technischer
Mittel zu bedienen. Entscheidender ist jedoch das emotionale Moment, ein Schwanken zwischen Nostalgie und Trauer. Da herrschen anziehende und abstoßende Kräfte, die auch in 'Why Hide From Me' und 'No Distance (Except the
one between you and me)' reflektiert werden. Downtempo-Triphopbeats transportieren orchestrale Samples und eine verwehte Frauenstimme (die vokalisierende Georgia Belmont). Orchestral? Vielleicht sind es schimmernde Gitarren, Klanggewölk aus Streichern? Van Hoen inszeniert da eine mehrspurige Unschärfe aus flackernden, kaskadierenden Klangfetzen. Auch Belmonts Gesang
wird dabei zu einem phantastischen Folklorechor. 'Ambient' ist wohl auch ein irreführendes Wort, Van Hoen macht phantastische Musik, durchsetzt mit tierischen Lauten ('Garabndl x'). Das poppige 'Don't Look Back' ist insofern eine schwache Nummer. 'I Remember' hat danach mit seinem verschleppten Beat einen Steampunk-Touch, der Gesang ist nur ein Schatten seiner selbst. 'No Distance' tickert wie ein elektronisches Spinett, über Synthienebelstreifen schimmert ein Knabensopran auf ü. Wieder mädchenhaft, schliert die zerhackte Stimme über das motorische Tuckern und Synthiegeflöte von '37/3d'. Die 80er und 90er im Reißwolf der Erinnerung? "Wo warst Du?" lautet die wehmütige Frage, die Van Hoen aber über krumme Beats stolpern lässt. 'Unknown Host' überbrückt als halbe Samba die Zeit bis zu 'Laughing Stars At Night' mit seinem Baritongitarrenloop über Breakbeats und Lyrics, die hier mehr sind als nur eine Catchphrase. 'Holy Me' multipliziert Belmont für ein verzerrtes Replikantenmadrigal a capella in der Kirche der verlorenen Zeit. Da darf man dann schon mal Einkehr halten." [Bad Alchemy]
|
2012 |
€14.00 |
|
| VIDNA OBMANA |
Soundtrack for the Aquarium |
CD |
"The next installment of VIDNA OBMANA in the Zoharum catalogue is the third album of the Dirk Serries' project, reissued here in a remastered form. It is a kind of continuation of the informal series bringing back to life long-forgotten albums of this Belgian artist.
This is also a continuation of the releases created specifically for the needs of the Antwerp Zoo, the second after Hybryds' "Soundtrack for Antwerp Zoo Aquarium" CD.
The album features a total of 7 ambient compositions made between 1992-1993, mastered again by the musician himself in 2019. The artwork is composed of the photographs by Martina Verhoeven. The album is released in a limited edition of 400 copies."
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/soundtrack-for-the-aquarium
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2019 |
€12.00 |
|
| |
The Surreal Sanctuary / The Contemporary Nocturne |
do-CD |
"By releasing "The Trilogy" not so long ago, we have opened a new series in which we are trying to bring closer the VIDNA OBMANA albums, which have long been unavailable in regular distribution and which reach exorbitant prices on auction portals.
This time we took two regular albums to work on. "The Surreal Sanctuary", like "The Contemporary Nocturne", recorded with the guest appearance of Steve Roach, Jim Cole and Joris De Backer, originally appeared in 2000 on Hypnos as separate publications. However, their character, the time in which the compositions were created and the participation of the same guests combine them into an extremely poignant and musically rich entity. Therefore, together with the artist, we decided to publish a two-disc album, closing this chapter in the discography of Vidna Obmana.
All the material was remastered by Dirk Serries in 2018. Photos for this album were made by Martina Verhoeven.
The 2CD album is released in an 8-panel digipak, strictly limited to 400 copies."
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/the-surreal-sanctuary-the-contemporary-nocturne
|
2018 |
€16.00 |
|
| VIKTOR, KNUD |
Ambiances / Images |
do-LP |
Re-issue of rare releases by Danish sound artist Knud Viktor. The Institute for Danish Sound Archaeology is re-issuing the Danish sound artist Knud Viktor’s only two releases. Ambiances and Images – both released in 1972 – are longtime sought-after rare collector’s items.
These are now re-issued as a double LP from the original master tapes with liner notes by poet and sound artist Morten Søndergaard.
Overlooked and unheard Danish sound art Knud Viktor (1924-2013) graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen as a painter. In the 1960’s he moved to the Luberon valley in southern France to paint the Provençal light and nature. However, Viktor left the painting and gradually moved towards filming and recording the sounds of nature. He used the field recordings as raw material for a series of abstract electronic compositions, which also served as soundtracks for his filmworks. A selection of these compositions were released in 1972 on the two records Images and Ambiances on the French label L’Oiseau Musicien. The records came in very limited editions, and therefore Knud Viktor’s works have remained largely unknown. With the re-issue of these records The Institute for Danish Sound Archaeology wishes to revitalize Knud Viktor and his contribution to the history of sound art.
The small sounds of nature Knud Viktor is recognized as an important figure in the field of sound art in France and he is regarded as a pioneer within field recording and acoustic ecology. During the 1970’s he turned his house in Provence into one large mixing desk with a myriad of homebuilt microphones and cables spiralling into the surrounding landscape. From here he would carefully record the sounds of snoring rabbits in their holes, the rhythmic songs of cicadas in the night – even termites gnawing through an old cupboard in the bedroom As the Danish poet Morten Søndergaard writes in the essay A Sonic Seismograph, which accompanies the release: “Light became sound. The most fascinating aspect of Knud Viktor’s world is perhaps that there is a universal coalescence of all things: of artistic expressions and natural science, of painting, sculpture and installation. A paintbrush becomes a microphone. Music becomes sound.”
By re-issuing Ambiances and Images, The Institute for Danish Sound Archaeology hopes to contribute to a revitalization of Knud Viktor’s important work, and that more listeners will engage and lend the deserved attention to these works.
The Institute for Danish Sound Archaeology is an independent association with the overall purpose of uncovering and releasing historical Danish electronic music and sound art.
www.lydarkaeologi.dk
|
2017 |
€32.00 |
|
| VOLCANO THE BEAR |
Planetary Betlehem |
LP |
"New planetary compositions by the always genre defying cosmic collective that is Volcano the Bear. For this journey, The Bear present reworkings / collages of material originally recorded in 1995/1996 performed by Nick Mott, Aaron Moore, and Clarence Manuelo. Electro-acoustique doom? To be issued early Dec. 2010 as an edition of a one time press of 300 numbered copies on 220 gram vinyl and book bound sleeve. No CD edition will be made available."
[label info]
www.blrrecords.com
|
2010 |
€20.00 |
|
| VOLCANO THE BEAR / LA STPO |
The Shy Volcanic Society at the Beat and Bird Parade |
CD |
"A split CD containing five tracks from Volcano the Bear and four by STPO. The French group STPO is a long existing and very underestimated group with limited releases over the years. Their history of dadaist and experimental music started in 1984. Beta-lactam Ring released and re-released some of their older material. For this release they choose four tracks that were recorded in 2003 and were not included on earlier releases. These tracks again illustrate their very odd musical universe. I admire them for staying close to their unique musical vision and language. For Volcano the Bear things are opposite in at least one aspect. Namely, they released already a bulk of records in the past. Less bizarre then STPO Volcano the Bear refer in their experimental music to folkmusic. Their compositions stay somewhere in the middle between song-structure and soundcollage. Also they are one dimensional compared to the compositions of STPO that are structured along the inimitable logic of their musical fantasies. The same for their carefully worked out arrangements. The over the top and very expressive vocal work by Pascal Godjikian is the heart of most of the tracks on this CD. Can't get enough from them." [DM, Vital Weekly]
"CD issued early May 2009 as an edition of 500 copies in a full color gatefold sleeve. A split album with Volcano the Bear and La STPO. VTB tracks 1-5 and STPO tracks 6-9. Bears and Birds, oh my! One side keeps the hot hot. And the other keeps the weird weird. VTB’s typically atypical entomological set scratches like a hive that has evolved just to the point of thumping out tribal fealties to its giant insect God-Thing. Environmentally ritualized sub-rhythms mix musique-concrete with actual concrete, forming freakishly minimal foundations for the hive of whatevers to swarm within. Noise, once again, for heroes. All this, of course, juxtaposed against France’s hidden reverse: La STPO, who absolutely let it blurt. Their pounding system of post-post-punk-neo-Zeuhl cracks the mantle, with bass lines thicker than Sequoias. And louder than screaming Sequoias. La STPO vacillates between two extreme extremes: something approximating a kind of industrial strength nouveaux bâtiments s'effondrants (German buildings are not the only ones susceptible to collapse), and crushing riffs ala SunnO))). Pascal Godjikian’s fierce grunts and barks keep the hive on the other side believing he is their God-thing. He is someone’s God-thing, that’s for sure." [label info]
www.blrrecords.com
"Diese Split-CD vereint Stücke zweier experimenteller Bands, Volcano the Bear aus England und La Société des Timides à la Parade des Oiseaux aus Frankreich. Beide bieten, so viel vorweg, alles andere als leichte Kost.
Volcano the Bear zeigen sich bereits reichlich unkonventionell. Die bis auf einige textlose Lautäußerungen instrumentale Musik wälzt sich wie ein zeitlupenartiger Klangstrom aus den Boxen, ohne dabei eine rechte Form anzunehmen. Streich- und Blasinstrumente mäandern entlang, allerlei Schlagwerk rumpelt vor sich hin, dazu knurrt oder brummt ab und zu jemand, was letztlich wie ein weiteres Instrument klingt. Einige undefinierbare Geräusche vervollkommnen das Ganze. Da hört man gelegentlich schrilles Kreischen wie von einer Kreissäge, oder wurde da ein Instrument malträtiert? Wer weiß. Ein andermal spielt eine einsame Flöte (oder ähnliches) eine seltsam schiefe Melodie, nur von sporadischen Beckenschlägen begleitet, oder Blechbläser stimmen eine Art ländliche Weise an. Äußerst kurios.
So strukturlos diese Klänge sich über weite Strecken zunächst präsentieren, herrscht doch nicht völlige Planlosigkeit, es scheint doch irgendein System dahinterzustecken. Auf jeden Fall entwickelt diese Musik nach anfänglicher Skepsis eine starke Faszination.
LaSTPO agieren hier noch ein ganzes Stück avantgardistischer als auf ihren mir bisher bekannten Alben. Vor allem die Stimme von Sänger Pascal Godjikian schlägt hier noch wildere Kapriolen, es ist kaum möglich, dieses permanente Knurren, Bellen, Heulen, Brüllen, Würgen mit Worten adäquat zu beschreiben. Da glaubt man, der selige Demetrios Stratos von Area sei wieder auferstanden! Dazu liefern seine Mitstreiter Klänge, die mit dem üblichen Verständnis von Rockmusik, auch von progressiver, kaum noch etwas gemein haben. Das ist zu großen Teilen schon radikale Anti-Musik! Da knarzen Streicher in Zeitlupe, als würde ein alter Holzschrank quälend langsam über einen Dielenboden gezerrt, Bläser schnarren, Schlagwerk rasselt, bis unvermittelt eine gigantische Lärmeruption einsetzt, in der die einzelnen Instrumente nur noch durcheinander purzeln. Les Oreilles Internationales treibt es in dieser Hinsicht auf die Spitze, es wirkt wie ein einziges Konglomerat unterschiedlichster Arten von Lärm. Und immer wieder die brutalen Lautäußerungen, als deren Urheber man kein menschliches Wesen annehmen möchte.
Diese Lärmorgien sind wirklich so ziemlich das krasseste, das ich je gehört habe. In Worten lässt sich kaum beschreiben, was hier auf den Hörer einprasselt. Grandios! Mehr davon! Warum gibt es nur so wenige CDs von LaSTPO? Tipp für alle abenteuerlustige Hörer! Und wer die Gelegenheit hat, die Band live zu sehen: Hingehen! Es lohnt sich!" [Jochen Rindfrey / Babyblaue Seiten]
|
2009 |
€14.00 |
|
| VOLLMER, CARSTEN |
Arbeit Nr. 23 - Ich arbeite mit Frequenzen Teil 1 - 3 (ansteigend / abfallend / 2600 Hertz / Phreaking) |
3 x CDR set |
The last part of the trilogy Ich arbeite mit Frequenzen forms a trilogy in itself: it is made up of three tracks while its two predecessors only contain one long track each. And while parts 1 and 2 work through a frequency grid of apparently mathematical rigour, this one focuses on the particularly distortion-rich frequency band around 2600 hertz. The two 2600 Hertz tracks are live recordings of a performance by Carsten Vollmer. Here, and on the opening track Phreaking, the first non-electronic sounds of the whole trilogy can be heard: the performer's screams put into relief the expressive quality of noise that was consciously underexposed on the 'antihumanist' parts 1 and 2.
The fact that all of Carsten Vollmer's releases come as numbered Arbeiten (works), but in particular the verb arbeiten (to work) in the title of this release, emphasise the (physical) labour of building up his walls of sound. Thus, part 3 of Ich arbeite mit Frequenzen once more enacts the drama of 'man vs machine' or 'body vs bodily harmful frequencies and volumes' through which the noise genre time and again confronts existential and social alienation with an ecstatic, but 'parole-less protest' against it (to borrow a phrase from Carsten Vollmer's fellow noisician Anton Kaun aka Rumpeln).
The first track of the album, Phreaking, also features a list, but not one of frequencies, but a list of textual references to Ron Rosenbaum's classic 1971 feature story The Secrets of the Little Blue Box about the hardware-hacking network of the Phone Phreaks, who built a counter-network within the official telephone network of the U.S.A. From the vantage point of the officially sanctioned telephone signals, these subversive actions were undoubtedly noise, and it is plain to see that Carsten Vollmer's Phreaking is a sympathetic homage. In a 'communication guerilla' practice such as this, Michel Foucault's basic tenet 'Where there's power, there's also resistance' meets the axiom of information theory: 'Where there's a signal, there's also noise'. The fact that this third and final album comes not as one monolithic track, but as an object fragmented within itself, is programmatic for ways in which noise can stand for the freeing of spaces in political contexts: instead of the monologue of an author(itarian) voice – 'I, and only I, work with frequencies' –, this album signals within itself the clamourous debate of different, dissenting voices, which in the political field is always preferable to the undisputed monologue of an absolute power. At the end of the live recordings, one eventually hears the voices of the audience; the author is no longer alone within his work, and someone says: 'It continues here, in the next room.' Thus the album ends with an invitation to claim new spaces of possibility.
File under: Noise
https://emerge.bandcamp.com/album/arbeit-nummer-23-ich-arbeite-mit-frequenzen-teil-1-ansteigend
https://emerge.bandcamp.com/album/arbeit-nummer-23-ich-arbeite-mit-frequenzen-teil-2-abfallend
https://emerge.bandcamp.com/album/arbeit-nummer-23-ich-arbeite-mit-frequenzen-teil-3-2600-hertz-phreaking
***
Der letzte Teil der Trilogie “Ich arbeite mit Frequenzen” bildet selbst eine Trilogie in sich – anders als die beiden Vorgänger, die jeweils nur aus einem langen Track bestehen, umfasst er drei Stücke. Statt ein mathematisch-kalkuliert wirkendes Frequenzschema durchzuarbeiten wie Teil 1 und Teil 2, wird hier auf 2600 Hertz in einem in Sachen Verzerrung besonders effektiven Frequenzbereich gearbeitet. Die beiden “2600 Hertz”-Tracks sind Livemitschnitte von einer Performance von Carsten Vollmer. Hier, aber auch auf dem Opener “Phreaking”, sind erstmals auch nicht-elektronische Klänge zu hören: Schreie des Performers rücken jene expressive Qualität von Noise in den Fokus, die auf den beiden “antihumanistischen” Teilen 1 und 2 betont ausgespart blieb.
Nicht nur die Titulierung von allen Veröffentlichungen Carsten Vollmers als durchnummerierte “Arbeiten”, sondern speziell das Verb im Titel dieser Veröffentlichung betont die (physische) Anstrengung, die in die Errichtung seiner Klangwände einfließt. So führt auch Teil 3 von “Ich arbeite mit Frequenzen” das Drama “Mensch vs. Maschine” bzw. “Körper vs. körperfeindliche Frequenzen und Lautstärken” auf, mit dem das Genre Noise immer wieder existenzielle und gesellschaftliche Entfremdung sowie den ekstatischen, aber “parolenlosen Protest” dagegen (eine Formulierung von Carsten Vollmers Noise-Kollegen Anton Kaun aka Rumpeln) inszeniert.
Das erste Stück des Albums, “Phreaking”, führt ebenfalls eine Liste auf, allerdings keine mit Frequenzen, sondern eine mit textlichen Anspielungen auf Ron Rosenbaums klassische Reportage “The Secrets of the Little Blue Box” von 1971 über das Hardware-Hacker-Netzwerk der “Phone Phreaks”, die im offiziellen Telefonnetzwerk der USA ein Gegen-Netzwerk aufbauten. Aus Sicht der offiziell im Telefonnetz vorgesehenen Signale waren diese subversiven Aktionen zweifellos “Noise”, und es ist unschwer zu erkennen, dass Carsten Vollmers “Phreaking” eine von Sympathie geprägte Hommage ist. In einer “Kommunikationsguerilla”-Praxis wie dieser trifft sich Michel Foucaults Grundsatz “Wo Macht ist, ist immer auch Widerstand” mit dem Axiom der Informationstheorie: “Wo Signale sind, da ist immer auch Rauschen”. Dass dieses dritte und letzte Album nicht als ein monolithischer Track, sondern in sich fragmentiert daherkommt, kann dabei programmatisch dafür gelesen werden, wie Noise auch im politischen Raum für das Schaffen von Freiräumen stehen kann: Statt des Monologs der Autor(itäts)stimme – “Ich, und nur ich arbeite mit Frequenzen” – wird hier innerhalb des Albums der lautstarke Widerstreit von verschiedenen Stimmen angedeutet, der im politischen Feld allemal wünschenswerter ist als der unumstrittene Monolog einer absoluten Herrschaft. Auf den Liveaufnahmen hört man dann am Ende auch die Stimmen des Publikums, der Autor ist nicht mehr allein in seiner Arbeit, und jemand sagt: “Hier im nächsten Raum geht es weiter.” So endet das Album ausdrücklich mit der Eröffnung von Möglichkeitsräumen, die es zu nutzen gilt.
File under: Noise
-----
VITAL WEEKLY
Origami derives from ori, meaning "folding", and kami meaning "paper". The mathematics of the fold is relevant, is analogical to 'the fold'. This can be understood as the new mathematics of the curve, of changing quantities which is often difficult for non-mathematicians, of which I am one. Put simply in simple geometry of a flat surface, say a chessboard, a piece, pawn, knight etc. can be located by two coordinates. These are static set properties, which Deleuze via Leibniz relates to Descartes. Complex curves, changing velocities, cannot be precisely modelled using such a method. This was accomplished by using mathematics to model dynamically changing events, the Calculus. If modernism in its linear development fixes and finalizes itself in a Cartesian / Euclidean fixed point, a null event, the Baroque does not. The metaphor of calculus is useful, for around it are mathematical objects such as the limit. In simple non-mathematical terms, a series of calculations can approach a limit but never reach it, and in getting closer, to a potential infinity of numbers. For non-mathematicians, this is best seen in the obvious Baroque of The Mandelbrot Set. Folding can produce an infinite variation. Associated with 'folding' in Deleuze derives the aesthetic, especially the visual aesthetic in the Baroque, one of the dynamic curves and dramatic events. “Leibniz is endlessly drawing up linear and numerical tables. With them he denotes the inner walls of the monad. Folds replace holes...” (The Fold). Elsewhere (in The Logic of Sense) Tenth series of the ideal game -”of which we speak cannot be played by either man or God. It can only be thought as nonsense. But precisely for this reason, it is the reality of thought itself and the unconscious of pure thought. This game is reserved then for thought and art.” Baroque music of the 'classical period' - (late 17thC- 18thC) used accomplished improvisation, complex polyphony, multiple independent melody lines, the fugue and ricercar (which explore the permutations of a given motif). The 'metaphysics' that the Baroque produced was significant in music. Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Purcell, Telemann... such that with Bach there is the deployment of a pure abstract formalism which could be regarded as a metaphysics of the free play of the potentialities of the abstract (windowless) structures of music. And in thinking the Baroque we also arrive at Leibniz and German Idealism, but also the more recent 'idealism' of Deleuze and the Speculative Realists and Object Oriented Ontologists. To judge these metaphysics in 'scientific', empirical terms, would then be to miss the point. They are not in all cases Monads, as they are not closed off to ourselves. They are like Monads in that they seem closed in on themselves. The point is that 'Baroque Folding' is an internal programme. Thus it typically appears when genres become exhausted or fully mature. A very early classical example is the development of Corinthian Architecture from that of the Doric & Ionic, or the much more recent, post-modernism, especially noticeable in Architecture. A certain playfulness which can and does in Po-Mo reduce, at times, to mere sensation and irony. Within contemporary music, 'noise music' and 'harsh noise' was to lead to a reductionist, 'analytics' of the extreme minimalism of Harsh Noise Wall's monolithic unchanging noise. This cul-de-sac has an obvious problem, and various methodologies have evolved in order to circumvent its effective closure of the noise genre, from abandoning noise altogether (Wolf Eyes), to alternatives, such as shit folk and ultra shit folk (Romain Perrot). The process of 'folding' is synthetic, not analytic (reductionist, minimalist walls). Both processes are to be found in Metaphysics and Art. In The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant sets out to establish an a priori basis for his transcendental metaphysics and makes two distinctions, that of the analytic a priori and the synthetic a priori. The philosophy of this needn't concern us. What is useful is concerning the idea of The Fold. The epistemological, philosophical implications disputed by some also need not bother us here. For us, what is significant in Kant is that Kant maintains that the Synthetic can produce (a priori) new objects without recourse to finding them in the outside world. In Analysis, something is broken down or examined to find its fundamental form or origin (The Wall of Noise). This is normally regarded as a task that will arrive at something fundamental. In early philosophy – the Atom – in Jungian analysis the archetype. It may well be that such a final analysis is not possible, that analysis is potentially infinite, or results in a void. Synthesis is the reverse. Given some fundamental objects, we can create new objects and structures – out of what is already given. A triangle can be analyzed into its basic three sides of straight lines, but we can synthesize new objects given a triangle. We can make a quadrilateral with two triangles and continue – pentagons, hexagons, and no limit – and no recourse to anything external to our basic element. And whereas Analysis is contained by the analysis of 'what is there' synthesis creates new objects that are not 'already there'. The Baroque is this distinction between the Analytic A Priori and Kant's idea of a Synthetic A Priori. An example in the arts is that of Analytic Cubism and Synthetic Cubism. Whereas Analytical Cubism broke up the picture plane into its elements, Synthetic Cubism used these basic 'elements' to synthesize new compositions. The tendency in modernism was analytical. “What is painting?” “What is music?” “What is Art?”, the analytical desire of what is “essential”. In Cubism, the 'Analytical' phase was relatively short-lived, the Synthetic move allowing Picasso and others an alternative continuous productive methodology. The (Baroque) fold is a synthetic methodology. At the most pedantic Origami – (from ori "folding", and kami "paper"). An origami Swan is a synthesis of a flat sheet of paper. All creations of Origami are in the last analysis, flat sheets of paper. The methodology of Origami, of 'folding', is Synthetic and offers an infinity of productions. Which is occasioned in Noise – here! which is not the abandonment of noise or a retrograde movement back into music. The baroque fold, abstractly using the tropes, forms etc., of noise music not as an external expression but as internal work exploring the permutations and improvisational possibilities of a given motif. The tropes of Harsh Noise, the motifs of feedback, oscillator sweeps, distortion, white noise etc. Abstract sounds, found in Harsh Noise before its collapse into a minimal wall. What is removed is the idea of a linear 'progress' (modernism) replaced by that of infinite synthesis. Ansteigend, Abfallend and 2600 Hertz_Phreaking are 3 parts of Arbeit Nummer 23 - Ich Arbeite Mit Frequenzen.
www.vitalweekly.net/1316.html
"Steht 'Frequenzarbeiter' schon im Duden? CARSTEN VOLLMER arbeitet jedenfalls daran, mit seiner Arbeit Nr. 23: Ich arbeite mit Frequenzen (3xCDr, jeweils in DVD-Schuber). Dieser nächste Arbeitsschritt nach der bad alchemystischen „Arbeit Nr. 22“ (BA 103) ist ein in strenger Schwarzweiß-Optik vereinter Triptychon, den drei Labels stemmen: Teil 1 – Ansteigend (ACU 1027), Teil 2 – Abfallend (Cat Killer), Teil 3 – 2600 Hertz / Phreaking (Krater Recordings, KR05-010). Das oft genug unangebracht verwendete 'experimentell' ist dabei halbwegs gerechtfertigt durch die demonstrativen 'Versuchs'-Reihen mit 55 – 77 - 160 – 300 – 666 – 800 – 1000 – 2000 – 4400 – 5000 – 9000 Hz rauf und runter ('Ansteigend'/ 'Abfallend') sowie drei Episoden mit 2600 Hz. Darunter, neben zwei Live-Exzerpten vom Schrei/Ende/Ohren-Festival, eine Hommage an das in den 70ern popularisierte und bis in die 90er mögliche Phone-Freaking in den USA, wo die von Hackern entdeckte, von den Yippies popularisierte Freischaltung auf eben der 2600 Hz-Frequenz als Akt des zivilen Widerstands aufgefasst wurde. Aber diese Frequenz-Folklore erscheint wie ein narratives Surplus in Vollmers bildlos purer Darbietung eines Blizzard-Kontinuums, in dem McLuhans 'kalte' und 'heiße' Medialität verwischt. Indem ein schrillendes, zerrendes Zuviel mit myriodophonem Rausch überwältigt und lähmt, doch in seinem informatorischen Überschuss zugleich nach Kryptologen schreit. Für einen auch merkwürdig flötenden Code. Aber vor allem für ein Unsagbares, das sich als kataklysmische Schallmauer zeigt wie bei Wittgenstein das Mystische. Dass in allem, was der Fall ist, atomare Niagarafälle toben, die jedes menschliche Maß übersteigen. Der infernalische 'Gesang' der Neuronen, das heulende Elend der Elektronen, das universale Alpha, Vollmer hat es zwischen Infra und Ultra brachial orchestriert als kakophon schillernde Metapher für das Mega-, Giga-, Tera-Chaos im elektromagnetischen Radio- und Mikrowellendschungel. Als Sturz der Erkenntnis über die Marmorklippen durch die Stahlgewitter ins Spektrum der Strahlungen, als total mo-bilgemachter Black Metal vor einem Schwarzlicht-Horizont. Das von Ernst Jünger immer wieder gebrauchte Tat Tvam Asi [Das bist du] zeigt dazu seinen technologisch fitten 'Ar-beiter', der als 'organische Konstruktion' mit der technoiden Mobilmachung heißläuft. Und einige wenige, die, obwohl gleichermaßen involviert, in kühler Desinvoltura dazu Distanz halten. Vollmers akribische Abbildungen, 48 + 48 + 50 Minuten intensive Immersion, können als stoischer Härtetest erscheinen. Als stockholm-syndromatische Affirmation eines Factum brutum. Oder sogar als akzelerationistisches Vorwärts (Nick Land), das die transhumane Umgestaltung des Menschen (durch die aggressiven Metastasen des Kapitalismus) ins Auge fasst. Mit der Utopie einer KI-generierten 'technologischen Singularität' würde Jüngers 'organische Konstruktion' zum Pionier der transhumanen Erlösung. Jede durchgestandene Noisattacke wäre, gerade indem sie das hinfällige Fleisch von den Knochen schabt, ein Evolutionsschritt dorthin. Der Geist, schon bei Hegel ein harter Knochen, steckt seinen Kopf, wie sein Renaissance-Vorgänger durch die Käseglocke seiner Scheibenwelt, unter die Bremsscheiben eines endlosen Güterzuges, in einen brausenden Bienenstock, der Züge von StanisławLems Partikelschwarm auf Regis III trägt. Steht Hz auch für neuen Horizont, für abenteuerliches Herz? Vollmer gibt sich, wenn er 'ich arbeite...' sagt, beeindruckend cool und souverän. Oder verdolmetscht er so bloß die Mutter der Teilchen und Wellen? Alan Moores Parent of suns and substance, she! Womb of all possibility! Als menschliche Spur im Dauertrommelfeuer der Klangpartikelstrahlung bleiben dann nur die Schreie, die Vollmer zuletzt, von 2600 Hz-Stacheln an die Wand gespießt, ausstößt. Kein 'Banzai!', aber doch wie mit geballter Faust und mehr als nur Schmerz und Angst. Noise als Waffe der Kritik an Betonköpfen, verkrusteten Strukturen, Kalk, Rost, marmornen Popanzen. Als, o Killer-Kaninchen von Caerbannog, o schwarze Bestie von Aaa, als Speer, der die Wunde heilt, die von ihm herrührt?" [Bad Alchemy]
|
2021 |
€20.00 |
|
| VON BIEL, MICHAEL |
Streichquartett No. 1, etc |
CD |
Unglaubliche Klänge auf dieser beeindruckenden Zusammenstellung mit Kompositionen von MICHAEL VON BIEL, aufgenommen 1962 – 1966 (!), z.T. auf klassische Instrumenten eingespielt, z.T. aber auch elektronische Quellen einsetzend....
"Quartet No. 1" (1962) and even more, "Quartet No. 2" (1963) are noise compositions whose expressiveness rests essentially on the discovery of new sonic possibilities and performance techniques. On "Fassung" (1964) Michael von Biel using only noise, sinus and impulse generators, he created sound particles and formed them into sensually comprehensible structures. The compositions "Quartet with Accompaniment for string quartet and cello" (1965) and "Jagdstück (Hunting Piece) for 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, 2 horns, 2 tenor tubas, contrabass, tape, e-guitars and electronically amplified barbecue grills" (1966) are based on the contrast of divergent sound worlds.
1. Streichquartett Nr. 1 (1962; WDR 2003)
[Pellegrini-Quartett: Antonio Pellegrini, 1. Violine; Thomas Hofer, 2. Violine; Fabio Maarano, Viola; Helmut Menzler, Violoncello]
2. Streichquartett Nr. 2 (Urfassung, 1963; WDR 2003)
[Pellegrini-Quartett]
3. Quartett mit Begleitung (Quartett Nr. 3, 1965; WDR 1967)
12:05 [Egon Mayer, Violine; Dagmar Apel, Violine; Johannes Fritsch, Viola; Magdalene Bröckel, Violoncello; Michael von Biel, Violoncello]
4. Jagdstück für Bläserinstrumentalisten und Live-Elektronik (1966; WDR 1968)
28:05 [Franz-Willy Neugebauer, Trompete; Kurt Schmidt, Trompete; Gerhard Burdack, Horn und Tenortuba; Konrad Alfing, Horn und Tenortuba; Willy Walther, Posaune; Josef Feck, Posaune; Emil Morneweg, Kontrabaß; Wilhelm Bruck und Michael von Biel, Begleitung; Ltg. Bernhard Kontarsky]
5. Fassung (elektronische Tonbandmusik, 1964; WDR 1964)
13:34 [Studio für elektronische Musik des WDR]“ [label info]
www.edition-rz.de
|
2004 |
€15.50 |
|
| VOWINCKEL, ANTJE |
Terra Prosodia |
CD |
"Sound composition with dialects and disappearing languages from Europe
With: George Cadéac, Nesa Engler, Don Eoil, Remy Graillon, Ingvar Larsson, Peter Meyer und Ingrid Wahlgren
1. Rumansch
2. Gutamal
3. Provencal
4. Wallis-Deutsch
5. Provencal
6. Gascon
8. Scottish-Gaelic
8 Tracks (33′46″)
CD (500 copies)
Currently about 6000 languages are spoken on the world. Most of them will disappear soon – and together with them a meldodic richness of human expressivness. However, the fact, that dialects and disappearing languages are only spoken by a few people has one advantage: only if one does not understand the contents it is possible to really listen tot he sound, saying far away from their homeland these languages unfold their musical enchantment (charme?). What you find are melodies that nobody invented (conceived of?). They arise in the process of impulsive speaking, on the grounds of oral tradition. Landscapes seem to continue there with melodic heights and valleys. Often single sentences remain in our heads as catchy tunes.
In Terra Prosodia people tell a short spontanuous story based on a personal experience. Stories about storms, excursions, accidents and so on. Particularly speakers who have spent their lifes in remote valleys or islands often speak with much more distinct modulation. This expressiveness gets lost quickly one cou live in a big city.
In the compositions the contents of these stories do not matter any longer. The pieces focus on the melodies in the dialects and add second instrumental or humed melodic voice. By this also the melody of the speaking voice is underlined. In the beginning the second voice will imitate the speaking voice, later becomes indpendent and follows own directions. As soon as the focus of perception is on the melody, you can listen to both lines as independent voices.
During my work I found out, that an even more exact decoding and mapping oft he intervalls (which would be possible technically) on no account lead to better results. Quite the contraray the effect of a catchy tune that occurs when you remember the melodies is based on the fact the our brain is already during hearing looking for characteristic figures and intervalls. Our ear behaves like the eye in a stalagtite cave. In a vast array of stalagtites and stalagmites we always remember nothing then typical single shapes. „Look, that looks like….“. Only this mechanism allows us to remember something of huge amount of shapes.
(Antje Vowinckel, translation: Chris Heenan)
Text by Christina Kubisch:
Many things disappear and only then gets attention. Images, texts, sounds appear in archives in audio-visual documentations in the net.
But archiving the no more living existence is partial maybe even sometimes absurd or naiv. Language only can remain vivid and interesting, if it is spoken everyday. When it is staying in a process of change, articulated by different persons, when it is depicting facts, information, thoughts, emotions and so on.
Antje Vowinckel’s Terra Prosodia makes happy and sad at the same time. The musicality of the spoken word sinks in even more by the melodical adaption as in case of pure listening of an unknown lanugage. You admire the beautiness and complexity. You instantly wish to speak one of these languages yourself for not leaving them to archivars and linguists but forward them to people who would use them in future.
In Terra Prosodia Antje Vowinckel succeeds in a wonderful mixture of a political important theme, a formally convincing process and a subtle and profound humour, that is hard to find. Once you have listened to the voices you will listen differently to spoken language in every day life." [label info]
www.gruenrekorder.de
www.gruenrekorder.de
|
2014 |
€13.00 |
|
| WAKHEVITCH, IGOR |
Nagual |
LP |
"Originally released in 1977, this was (once again) a product of the fruitful association between Wakhevitch and american dancer/choreographer Carolyn Carlson. Compiling some of the pieces specially written for Carlson's "This, that and the other" (created for the Groupe de recherche Théâtrale de l'Opéra de Paris), the album follows the otherwordly steps of it's predecessor ("Les Fous D'or") in a more calm, relaxed, almost nocturnal way. Inspired by Carlos Castaneda's writings, Nagual is another mysterious and intriguing statement of musical esoterica: a collection of twelve musical vignettes covering a whole range of styles, from majestic electronic pieces to echo-drenched concrete-like sketches via impressionistic piano compositions. A bewitching musical journey, built around Wakhevitch's keys where electronics give way to more acoustic sonorities (piano, harp) for a highly-charged magical sound. A very special record!!! Strictly limited to 500 copies. Single cover reproducing the original 1977 artwork. Includes insert with liner notes reproduction of the original Nagual insert." [label info]
www.wah-wahsupersonic.com
|
2013 |
€23.00 |
|
| WATKINS, CLINTON |
Raaswater |
CD |
“In 1871, Thomas Baines, on his way back from visiting Lobengula and the Tati Goldfields, crossed the Limpopo on Mmabolela, and camped near the “Raaswater” where the Limpopo tumbles over granite rocks polished smooth by the passage of water over thousands of years.”
www.mmabolela.co.za/history
Raaswater is a seamless album of compositions using sound recordings made whilst participating on the 2018 Sonic Mmabolela residency for sound artists and composers in the Limpopo province of South Africa. With a small group of likeminded people led by Francisco López & Barbara Ellison, I spent countless hours exploring the dynamic environments of the Mmabolela reserve by walking, resting, listening, interacting, experiencing and recording a plethora of environments, objects, phemonema, structures, fauna and phyla unique to the area. Raaswater is a personal aural reflection depicting a rare, isolated and complex sonic environment rich with life, death and enlightenment.
(Clinton Watkins, 27 November 2019)
LOCATION : Mmabolela reserve, Limpopo, South Africa.
Written and produced by Clinton Watkins 2020 @ small window studios,Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.
~
Special thanks to :
Francisco López, Barbara Ellison, Neil Lowe, Mark and Lesley Berry, Roché van Tiddens, Andy Martin, Jun Mizumachi, Luke Pearson, Kim Foscato, Steve Norton, Jim Speers, Tim Checkley, Starkwhite Gallery, Auckland University of Technology (NZ), my wife and children AD, Moss & Winter, and the environment of Mmabolela.
https://unfathomless.bandcamp.com/album/raaswater
|
2021 |
€14.00 |
|
| WE LIKE WE & JACOB KIRKEGAARD |
Time is Local |
LP |
Time is Local is a project by Danish collective We like We and sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard built around a 12-hour live sound installation and performance at Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen.
The piece was initiated and performed by the artists during the G((o))ng Tomorrow Festival in 2017. As they slowly wandered the halls and rooms of the museum for a whole day, they performed extended sound compositions for a visiting audience at each of the 12 chambers for a longer session - a haunting experience as the outside world disappeared and the focus was on quiet sonic moments unfolding in midst of the grand, reverberous space. For this album they have collected 12 fragments revolving around the chambers in the museum. Each chamber is being represented by its own handful of tones, instruments and voice. The statues within, depicted by neo-classicist sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen get their own soundtrack of quiet emanating gusts. Barely heard frequencies reflect through the walls. The marble carved busts of Greek gods that line the museum hallways gaze eternally with a blank stare as decades pass and new audience arrives.
Although We like We should need no introduction to followers of the Sonic Pieces label, the Danish all female sound quartet consists of Katrine Grarup Elbo (violin), Josefine Opsahl (cello), Sara Nigard Rosendal (percussion) and Katinka Fogh Vindelev (voice). Together they have forged a dynamic and intuitional sound beyond genres through the last decade. Only two years ago they released the nordic neo-classical opus Next to the entire All. This time they emerge in collaboration with sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard. Jacob’s works are sonic reflections on complex aspects of the human civilisation, treating themes such as radioactivity, melting ice, border walls and tones emitted by the ears. Through the last decades he has released records and sound documents through labels such as Touch, Important Records and more. As a document of their 12h performance, Time is Local is a beautiful sonic evocation that shines as a bright line of sun through the cracks of a tomb.
https://welikewe.bandcamp.com/album/time-is-local
|
2019 |
€29.00 |
|
| WEGLOWSKI, STEFAN |
Smooth Inertia |
CD |
Glacial Movements celebrates the fiftieth record release with "Smooth Inertia", the new album by Polish artist Stefan Węgłowski. He's a composer, producer, live performer. His works include mostly compositions for small ensembles and solo instruments. In his works he uses minimalist and spectral techniques, combining them with broadly defined area of electronic music. He teaches at the Faculty of Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He lives and works in Warsaw.
" Smooth inertia is an album that was created in solitude, after the end of a certain period in which stagnated. I could call it a blank sheet that I had to fill in. For years I had been trying to create an ambient album that I would be happy with, which would transcend me somehow beyond my full understanding. I tried to use only the old tools that were known to me, relying on them while following the path of my idols, ambient classics of the 80s and 90s such as Fennesz, Ethan Rose and Apex Twin. I used classic methods such as field recording, spoken voice (Anna Figurska) virtually unrecognizable by its deformation - a voice mosaic, an out of tune piano (Adam Kośmieja). In two pieces I play the guitar, after 9 years of not touching the instrument, returning to my classical roots. I remember; I shed light on what I have experienced; I do my best to bring myself relief. How to commit myself to do things that demand to be done."
Smooth Interia is dedicated to Paweł Węgłowski, with all my love. Stefan Węgłowski, February 2023.
Production / composition : Stefan Węgłowski
Recording Engineer : Kamil Kęska
Mix : Stefan Węgłowski, Michał Wolski
Mastering : Michał Wolski
Piano : Adam Kośmieja
Voice : Anna Figurska
Guitar: Stefan Węgłowski
Cover Photo by Bjarne Riesto
Sleeve design by Oleg Galay
Glacial Movements, April 2023
https://glacialmovements.bandcamp.com/album/smooth-inertia
|
2023 |
€16.00 |
|
| WEHOWSKY, RALF / JOHANNES FRISCH |
Tränende Würger |
CD |
RLW COLLAB(or)IERT wieder ! Diesmal mit dem uns unbekannten JOHANNES FRISCH, der aus der Impro-Szene stammt.... Vier Stücke voller Überraschungen !
“ 1) Johannes Frisch: works since the late 1970s as a performer, composer and improviser of contemporary music between experimental rock, free jazz and other openminded styles. on his main instrument, the double bass, he works for more than three decades consequently on an individual expressive language. he played with lot of musicians of the international scene of free improvisation and all experimental fields - among others Lol Coxhill, Maggie Nicols, Johannes Bauer, Le Quan Ninh, Paul Hubweber, Michael Vorfeld, Misha Feigin. Compositions for theatre, film and dance theater actual projects: Kammerflimmer Kollektief; Home of the beast, with Peter Hollinger und Helmut Bieler-Wendt; Ensemble Sondarc, music for six double basses; rat'n'X; trio with Paul Wirkus & Mikolaj Trzaska; concerts & festivals all over europe.
2) Ralf Wehowsky: founded the group P.D. (in 1981 renamed P16.D4) and the label Wahrnehmungen (in 1982 renamed Selektion) in 1980. P16.D4 were one of the most influential groups of experimental industrial music. They developed concepts of materialaustausch long before the term remix was even coined. for their live appearances they were equally at home at punk and no wave festivals as at the holy grails of academic avantgarde like the Ferientage Neuer Musik, Darmstadt. since the early 90s Wehowsky worked under his own name (rlw). the quiet, highly complex style of composition, based on artifacts of instrumental and electronic lateral noises, evolving out of his collaboration with bernhard günter was influential for numerous artists in the fields of electronic and improvised music. some reflections on his work can be found on TULPAS, a 5CD-box-set, featuring more than 50 artists performing their versions of rlw pieces (incl. Jim O´Rourke, Brume, Achim Wollscheid, Toshiya Tsunoda, John Duncan, Antanas Jasenka, Ryoji Ikeda, John Watermann a.o.). the new decennium started with a surprise for many as first releases showed a new approach of integrating improvised music and composition (as can be found on the CDs VIEWS and SIGHTS, the latter w/ long-time collaborator Bruce Russell).
3) Tränende Würger: is based on free improvisations by the Frisch/Wehowsky duo, reworked with electro-acoustic means. the compositional process did not intend to mask the nonlinear nature of the improvisations. quite on the contrary their organic character has been emphasized by crystal-clear sharpening of details. you´ll find complex structures and dark atmospheres, not unlike those on some P16.D4-, This Heat- or Mnemonists- releases, though absolutely rooted in the 21st century. beauty and posoning are not far from each other.
'Tränende Würger' comes in a plastic bag, 15x15cm with the artwork on six seperate sheets, dealing with poisenious plants. Design by Meeuw.” [label description]
|
2005 |
€13.00 |
|
| |
Which Head are you dancing in? |
CD |
"An album 'Which head you're dancing in?' is full of weird rhythms and glitches but the most amazing thing here is the main inspiration. All of the pieces from this release wouldn't have been created without Ornette Coleman. Both Frisch and Wehowsky found many inspiring moments in music played by the father of free jazz. Their own work is full of glitches and noisy ornaments. In some parts one can find rhythmical structures reminiscing discotheque for spoilt laptops, other compositions show beautiness of contrasts between silence and prolonged, dark and wiry bass phrases.
Johannes Frisch works since the late 1970s as a performer, composer and improviser of contemporary music between experimental rock, free jazz and other openminded styles. on his main instrument, the double bass, he works for more than three decades consequently on an individual expressive language. he played with lot of musicians of the international scene of free improvisation and all experimental fields - among others Lol Coxhill, Maggie Nicols, Johannes Bauer, Lê Quan Ninh, Paul Hubweber, Michael Vorfeld, Misha Feigin compositions for theatre, film and dance theater actual projects include Kammerflimmer Kollektief; and collaborations with Helmut Bieler-Wendt.
Ralf Wehowsky founded the group P.D. (in 1981 renamed P16.D4) and the label Wahrnehmungen (in 1982 renamed Selektion) in 1980. P16.D4 were one of the most influential groups of experimental industrial music. They developed concepts of materialaustausch long before the term remix was even coined. For their live appearances they were equally at home, at punk and no wave festivals and at the holy grails of academic avantgarde like the Ferientage Neuer Musik or Darmstadt. Since the early 90s Wehowsky works under his own name (rlw). The quiet, highly complex style of composition based on artifacts of instrumental and electronic lateral noises, evolving out of his collaboration with bernhard günter was influential for numerous artists in the fields of electronic and improvised music. Some reflections on his work can be found on TULPAS, a 5CD-box-set, featuring more than 50 artists performing their versions of rlw pieces (incl. Jim O«Rourke Brume, Achim Wollscheid, Toshiya Tsunoda, John Duncan, Antanas Jasenka, Ryoji Ikeda, John Watermann a.o.). The new millennium showed a new approach of integrating improvised music and composition (as can be found on the CDs 'VIEWS' and 'SIGHTS', the latter w/long-time collaborators Bruce Russell and Johannes Frisch)."
|
2014 |
€12.00 |
|
| WENZEL, BETTINA |
Mumbai Diary |
CD |
VOICE as Instrument of Affection
Sound diaries have their seductive appeal. Unlike written memoirs, sketches, cartoons and photo journals they share a common feature with film documentaries – the temporal sound-image. Deprived of visual information (and of predominance of sight), sound-image attracts listeners’ ears, penetrates their bodies, permeates through their minds, initiating the process of imagination and articulating lived as well as imagined experiences. No escape; intrusive meanings are always present. In contrast to moving images that reduce space and vision to the surface and depth of a screen, sound-images are capable of not only extending the listeners’ universe but also making them aware of and signifying the impulses within their bodies. If combined with appropriate musical expression, as in the case of Bettina Wenzel’s Mumbai Diary, the ambition to represent the unique artistic intention in correlation with genius loci and intimacy of a place where one finds oneself in a particular moment succeeds in producing interaction.
Wenzel’s abstract voice finds proper structural support in the concrete soundscapes (of urban origin) she created from the field recordings during her artist residency in Mumbai; it bodily spaces the intervals and foldings that house voice as their natural constituent. Although we do not see her, we feel that she is singing with her entire body; it is the body which paints the vocal lines and pointillistic textures onto the surface of a sound time-crystal. The resulting form was neither composed nor improvised; it was created by affection. As we know (from Bergson and Deleuze), the affection is coupled with the body that offers the internal space for the act of affection.
Mumbai Diary is therefore not an itinerary, it does not provide listeners with any space-time coordinates or information from the life of its author. Rather it is a sound album, a collection of sound-images, thoroughly arranged by the memory as well as by the taste and style preferences of its compiler, composer and adapter in one person. She compiles out of the obsessive need to give a new meaning to the recorded fragments of her memory. She composes because she desires to manifest her relationships with the world and other people through a new meaning that is no longer dependent on the old codes and conventions of art communication and music making. And finally, she adapts the compiled and composed result to her instrument of affection – VOICE. It is the VOICE that brings into the memories of Mumbai, now embodied in the sound-images, the affection from outside – from the body of their originator. And the same VOICE generates later the affective response in the listeners, whose memories are not bound to the above mentioned genius loci. The VOICE becomes the guide through the unknown soundscape, thanks to the VOICE the soundscape becomes familiar to the listeners.
So, what can listeners hear (and feel) during the affective sound walk Bettina Wenzel invites them to? Unconventional, extended vocal performance used as a means to define herself against a foreign culture. Pleasure of the immediate need to vocalize. Barthesian grain of the voice in full effect. Expressive voice escapades against sound patterns alienated from their original environment. Improvised vocal comment to an appropriated religious song disturbed by traffic noise. Suggestive percussive textures woven from metallic sounds and breathing noises. Unidentifiable sound objects versus clear vocal intention. Unexpected juxtapositions of ambitious onomatopoeias and indeterminist formalisms. Potential stimuli to fictive narratives…
As the chronology and causal-consequent relations are no the focus of in this sound album, you can listen to its impressive sound-images-affections in random order. M.D. could stand for Mumbai Diary as well as for membra disjecta in this case.
Jozef Cseres, aesthetician of arts
September 2010
www.wenzelvoice.de
www.wenzelvoice.de/mumbai
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=553258571
mail: bettina@wenzelvoice.de
All COMPOSITIONS BY BETTINA WENZEL
FIELD RECORDINGS/ VOICE/ AKAPPAIKINNARI BY BETTINA WENZEL,
APRIL–SEPTEMBER 2009, MUMBAI
MIXED BY BETTINA WENZEL, MAI 2010, COLOGNE
MASTERED BY JOKER NIES, JULY 2010, COLOGNE
PRODUCED BY BETTINA WENZEL
PHOTOS/ DRAWINGS BY BETTINA WENZEL
Artwork BY CHRISTA MAREK
TEXT BY JOZEF CSERES
© Bettina Wenzel 2010
www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=3722 |
2010 |
€13.00 |
|
| WESOLOWSKI, STEFAN |
Kompleta |
LP |
"This record is the reissue of Stefan Wesolowski's first album, Kompleta, which was composed in 2006 and released on Gusstaff Records in 2008. Given that he was only 21 at the time, a record which was considered a first attempt now seems something of a master work. It portrays a universe deeply influenced by sacred music and offers clear, direct compositions and liturgical chants which are powerful vectors for emotion. These songs are interpreted by Stefan Wesolowski himself accompanied by Maja Siemińska and their work fits together wonderfully. The record also marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship with the composer Michal Jacaszek who did the electronic arrangements. This worked so well that they have collaborated on several other projects since. A tangible spirituality emanates from these 9 tracks, providing a contemplative, introspective experience for listeners.
Kompleta is mainly based on strings (violins, viola, cello) but also manages to distance itself from traditional compositional methods by including subtle electronic touches to help anchor the work in a resolutely progressive dynamic. It is also interesting to note how Wesolowski decides not to choose between the spheres of heritage and modernity - on the contrary he seeks a balance between the two without ever deforming or betraying his sources of inspiration.
In around 30 minutes, Stefan Wesolowski marks the start of a remarkable career. The Mind Travels Series is under the spell of this record and happy to be able to offer Kompleta a new lease of life, fittingly illustrated by a fine new serie of photographs by Françis Meslet. The album has been re-mastered and will be released on CD and for the first time as a vinyl LP. It is a record for all lovers of Modern-classical and contemporary music looking for new sounds to go with their albums by Greg Haines, Arvo Pärt, Nils Frahm, Steve Reich, Hildur Gudnadottir, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Jóhann Jóhannsson... For other listeners, it is an ideal gateway to these universes where elegance and intensity are key."
stefanwesolowski.bandcamp.com/album/kompleta |
2015 |
€18.00 |
|
| WHALESONG |
Leaving A Dream |
do-CD |
"Leaving A Dream" is the third studio album in WHALESONG's discography released by Zoharum in coopertion with Old Temple. Two CDs contain over 120 minutes of music combining various genres into one coherent whole. A sonic feast composed of blinding light, hopes, dreams. A kind of endless stream of consciousness, sonic cinema for everyone who loves to lose themselves while listening. Many distinguished guests took part in the recordings, including Attila Csihar (SUNN O))), MAYHEM), Steve Blanco (IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT), Wukir Suryadi (SENYAWA) and many other excellent musicians, such as vibraphonist Tomasz Herisz, saxophonist Aleksader Papierz or pianist Miro Snejrd from HERR LOUNGE CORPS.
Whalesong is an experimental collective from Tarnowskie Góry and for years the main band of Michał Kiełbasa (Grave of Love, Lugola, Harmony of Struggle, NHC). Although the group's work defies all possible definitions and unambiguous pigeonholing, in their work one can find references to such genres as industrial, noise rock, no wave, drone, jazz and post rock. In their compositions, often lasting several minutes, they attack with weight, dynamics and hypnotic phrases, crushing with the powerful, sometimes even overwhelming sound of guitars, which is constantly accompanied by a tribal, mechanically hammered rhythm. For this purpose, the musicians use both classic "rock" and more unconventional instruments, from various types of percussion, such as: gong, cymbals, tubular bells, mellotron, and even everyday objects, elements from scrap metal, some pieces of sheet metal or circular saws . So far, the group has had the opportunity to collaborate with, among others: with such artists as Thor Harris (Swans, Wrekmeister Harmonies), Wacław Kiełtyka (Decapitated, Machine Head) or Aleksander Papierz (Sigihl).
The 2CD edition and the digital version will be released on July 14 and will be combined with a special premiere concert during the Castle Party festival. Shipping of orders collected from our store and other platforms will start on July 18, after our return from the festival.
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/leaving-a-dream |
2023 |
€16.50 |
|
| WHARTON, DONATO |
A white Rainbow spanning the Dark |
10inch |
"Donato Wharton is a composer based in London, UK. He has previously released three records for the Manchester and Berlin record label, City Centre Offices. The most recent of these was the 2006 release, 'Body Isolations'. 'A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark' therefore marks his first publicly released work in five years and his first for Serein.
Born in Cardiff and raised in Germany, Donato continues to travel extensively with his work as sound designer for stage and theatre productions. The influence of these journeys can be read in his chosen track titles; together, they evoke a sense of great distance and expanse.
These are not wistful tales of missing home, however, neither of new faces nor unfamiliar cities. The inspiration stems directly from the act of travelling, of being in transit thousands of feet above land. 'A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark' mirrors the changing landscapes of our planet, 'A Vast White Solitude', 'Ink Mountains', 'A Thousand Miles Of Grass'.
By pushing the limits of his tools of creation, primarily guitar and field recordings, Donato introduces swathes of noise into his compositions, shaping it as a sculptor chisels stone to form topographies of often rugged terrains, blustery, cold and unforgiving. The startling opening to 'In A Mute Scape' has you standing in the middle of a vast plain, your voice long lost to the wind, ringing in your ears.
There is something inherent to these pieces, though, which stops them from becoming too unforgiving or desolate. At times it is as if we observe these elemental environments from some safe haven or shelter, perhaps looking down from a window seat far above the land.
This record marks a sure-footed step forward for Donato on his quest for refinement, reduction and concentration. Artistically, one of his greatest triumphs is having crafted a style which is uniquely his own - 'A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark' couldn't have been written by anyone else, and that is surely a compliment of the highest order." [label info]
www.serein.co.uk
|
2011 |
€10.00 |
|
| WHETHAM, SIMON |
Hydrostatic |
CD |
" ‘Hydrostatic’ was commissioned by the McNeill Street Pumping Station New Music Festival, Shreveport, Louisiana, USA in November 2011, and presented as a multi-channel performance.
Simon Whetham spent more than a week exploring the site, capturing the sounds of the space, the vibrations of the buildings, the spirit of the community and perhaps the echoes of past activity…
Mastered by Miguel Carvalhais..
Simon Whetham – Biography 2013
Over the past eight years Simon Whetham has developed a practice of working with sound recordings as a raw material for composition. These are often environmental sounds he has captured employing a variety of methods and techniques, in order to obtain discreet or obscured sonic phenomena.
In removing sound from it’s source, sometimes amplifying it significantly, it becomes abstract – familiar yet otherworldly. More recently, when presenting work in a performance or installation, for him the space and the objects within become instruments to be played.
Simon has a large number of works published through many specialist organisations, including Touch Music, Cronica, Dragon’s Eye, Monochrome Vision and Entr’acte; has performed extensively internationally; collaborated with artists from musicians to performance artists, painters to video artists, dancers to poets; has run listening and field recording workshops in UK, Colombia, Chile and Australia; and received a large number of commissions and awards for projects and installations – notably ‘Active Crossover’. Supported by the Arts Council England and PRS for Music Foundation, the project comprises sound installation, performance, collaboration and workshops. ‘Active Crossover’ has toured six cities in the UK, and also been hosted in Estonia, Argentina, Australia, Chile and Colombia, with future residencies in Germany and Norway in 2013." [label info]
www.aufabwegen.com
"SIMON WHETHAM, dem wir zuletzt als Eyjafjallajökull-Gestrandeten im April 2010 in Lissabon begegnet sind, treffen wir wieder im November 2011 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Das dort stattfindende McNeill Street Pumping Station New Music Festival hatte ihn mit einem Beitrag beauftragt. Er verbrachte eine ganze Woche in dem einstigen Pumpwerk, um den hydrophonen und postindustrialen Genius loci oder Hausgeist zu begegnen. Das Rauschen von Wasser, der Geschmack von Eisen, Rost und Patina wurden zu Ingredienzen seines Dröhnscapes Hydrostatic (aatp39), den nicht zuletzt der Fluss der Zeit durchströmt. Pfeifende Laute und geisterhaft summende evozieren dabei etwas Älteres als das Industriezeitalter. Hölzernes und metallisches Gestöber suggeriert eine verlassene Geisterstätte, eine Ruine, die nach noch Brauchbarem durchsucht wird. Organum hat schon auf Vacant Lights solche Klänge eingefangen, Ephraim Wegner hat kürzlich ähnliche in verlassenen Hotelruinen gefunden. Immer ist damit ein ‘Danach’ verbunden, ein ‘Vorbei’. Latten scharren über den Boden, der Wind faucht, als wollte er noch den letzten Eindringling verjagen. 1887 in Betrieb gegangen, wurde bis 1980 dampfbetrieben, heute ist das McNeill-Pumpwerk ein National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Whetham erschafft mit droneüberwölbtem Getröpfel und Geplätscher die Illusion einer Quelle, des verborgenen Anfangs einer Lebensader, die hier mit nahezu kultischer Aura widerhallt und wieder als pumpende Mechanik zu ‘atmen’ beginnt. Das Elementare, das das vermeintlich so rationale und funktionale Maschinenzeitalter ignoriert und verdrängt hat, kommt wieder im Denkmal zum Vorschein, nachdem die Funktionalität modernisiert und inzwischen noch unbewusster geworden ist. Ich glaube, es war Ernst Jünger, der zuletzt Zweifel an einer Freiheit hatte, die davon abhängt, dass Wasser, Strom und Gas in unsichtbarer guter Hand sind." [Rigobert Dittmann, Bad Alchemy]
"The ever so busy bee Simon Whetham and his multiple travels around the world. Here we find him guest of the McNeill Street Pumping Station New Music Festival in Shreveport, Louisiana in November 2011 where Whetham spend a week going about this pumping installation to create a multi-channel performance of his music. It's not only the pumps, but the complete site, the buildings and the people around it that have been captured by him and collages into five pieces of music, totaling around 53 minutes. With Whetham, I must admit, I am never sure what it is that he does. Obviously he picks up sounds from the environment, that's hardly a secret, but then what does he do? Is he playing them one at a time (which I doubt), is he layering them together, or is there any sort of electronic treatment going on? I assume the latter is the case, but I might be wrong altogether. Whetham does apply 'musical' techniques to create his music, like using loops in the fifth part of a jackhammer, the
melodic drone touch in the third part and such like. He creates all these little touches which stretches it far beyond the mere documentation of a certain area. Spooky and mysterious at times, this is another fine addition to what mounts to a vast amount of releases by now. It's almost on par with his recent 'Never So Alone' (see Vital Weekly 870), which I thought was his best so far. This one is almost as refined I am to say. It's only in the smaller, somewhat untouchable details that I think this is just a bit less. Just a bit, I may add. If the name Whetham is new to you, then 'Hydrostatic' is an equal fine starting point." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
"The globe-trotting British sound artist Simon Whetham found himself in Shreveport, Louisiana in 2011 where he was commissioned to develop a body of work based on the defunct MacNeill Street Pumping Station. This artifact of the 19th Century was the last known steampowered water plant in the United States and has been a historical site for several decades now. He was one of many acclaimed artists asked to contribute to the seemingly inactive MacNeill Street Pumping Station New Music Festival, alongside Tim Hecker, Lawrence English, Mark Fell, Eli Kezler, and about a dozen other denizens of avant-garde soundcraft. It was a great idea to have all of these artists develop compositions, installations, and performances within such an interesting space; and we can hope that the festival is merely on temporary hiatus. Needless to say, here we have the stereo mix of Whetham's multichannel installation that he presented at the festival. His source material consists of drones from the huge metal pools and the network of pipes from that space, focusing mostly on the resonant frequencies of the ghostly drones and watery tones. Overlapping, sinewy electric vibrations tumble into a pool of isolationist dank at the beginning of the album before a reverberant flute utters a solitary bellow amidst the metallic klang reverb articulating two of the techniques of Whetham's sound-hunting - that of the contact microphone on sonorous objects and the open-air recordings of those reflective surfaces. Deep, low-end rattlings gird the bulk of Hydrotasic with wind-swept thrumming, agitated found objects, and plenty of nocturnal clutter being moved around by the ghosts that lurk in the sticky humidity of a Louisiana swamp, or at least that's what it sounds like. Brilliantly akin to the processed field recording work of Jonathan Coleclough, Thomas Koner, and BJ Nilsen." [Aquarius Records]
|
2013 |
€13.00 |
|
| WHITE STAINS |
Singleminded Dualisms |
CD |
WHITE STAINS came into the minds of many listeners thanks to the regular debut album, recorded together with Psychic TV "Live At Stockholm". However, the history of this band and its metamorphoses goes back much further. Founded by Carl Abrahamsson, from the beginning it served as a tool for proclaiming manifestos inspired by the works of, among others, Aleister Crowley (White Stains is the title of one of the most important texts of the British magician) and other proponents of free thought. While the issues they raised were invariably focused around the subject of occultism and secret knowledge, in the musical layer the band underwent many metamorphoses: from occult/gothic rock through ambient to experimental electronics. As their style crystallized, Carl and Thomas Tibert renamed White Stains to Cotton Ferox. This publication opens the series of reissues of the Swedish group. It is a collection of all short publications that preceded their debut, recorded in the years 1987-1989 and released in the same time only on vinyl 7" and 12" EPs. So far, they have not been available on any other medium. The whole thing was provided with a proper commentary by Carl Abrahamsson, which is a great introduction to listening to the material, pointing to the context in which the compositions contained therein were created.
On the occasion of this publication, we have prepared a special collector's edition in a wooden box, limited to only 50 pieces, which, apart from the regular CD, contains various extras: cards with replicas of the original covers, a sticker, pins and a backpack (bag) with the characteristic logo of the Swedish band.
credits
released June 15, 2023
Previously released / tracks taken from:
1. Sweet Jayne*
2. Here to Do*
(1988, AOIT 001, 12” 400 copies w 40 in purple vinyl)
3. It’s Yours If You Want It*
(1988, TOPYSCAN 002 PETS, track on the compilation LP “Swedish Exotica Vol 1”, 1000 copies)
4. Express Your Desire*
5. Death At Hand*
(1989, TOPYSCAN 004, 7”, 500 copies)
6. The Energy**
7. Phase of Madness**
(1988, TOPYSCAN 001, 7”, 93 copies, with 23 copies in red vinyl)
8. The Awareness***
9. My Hallucination***
(1989, TOPYSCAN 003, 7”, 93 copies, with 23 copies in blue vinyl)
10. The Result***
11. Ov Like Mind***
(1989, TOPYSCAN 007, 7”, 93 copies, with 23 copies in green vinyl)
* Carl Abrahamsson: vocals, Jan Ekman: lead guitar, Tomas Sandell: guitar, Johan Sandell: bass guitar, Nicklas Hansen: drums
** Carl Abrahamsson: vocals, bass guitar, Jan Ekman: guitar
*** Carl Abrahamsson: vocals, Peter Bergstrandh: bass guitar, Jan Ekman: guitar, Thomas Tibert: synthesizers
https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/album/singleminded-dualisms
|
2023 |
€13.00 |
|
| WHITE, FRANCES |
In the Library of Dreams |
CD |
"I was going to write about how this is an absolutely beautiful and disturbing record, but I think quoting from the liner notes of James Pritchett really does sum it up. 'Frances White invites us to take a walk through her Resonant Landscape. Where are we going? We are walking through the woods, marshes, and streams of New Jersey. She points out the birds and frogs that make their home there, the water that flows through it and the wind that shakes the trees. But then we turn and there is that other sound world, the one in which these woodland sounds are transformed, or in which we find sounds altogether new: spectral birds singing to us through a sparkly haze; distant colored winds, like the breath of giants; the air around us, alive, charged with long, low drones and sudden electric crashes. There is something magical about this other world, and (like most magic) there is something disturbing here as well. We move between the two worlds almost at random, bumping into one sound after another. We find ourselves rising off the path and floating, then falling abruptly into silence, reappearing in a marsh full of geese and blackbirds. This is more than a sonic postcard from Princeton: it is a journey into the inner world of Frances White. We could call it an electroacoustic dream drawn from her memories of hikes in the woods. As in a dream, real experience is placed in a surreal context, a play of inner and outer. We fill in the gaps, supplying connections among the random fragments of reality, memory, and imagination. This gets to the heart of White's music. She has made a body of work in which she takes the real, brings it into her being, transforms it there, and then brings it out again in her compositions. Technically, she works by using the computer to manipulate recorded sounds and to synthesize wholly new ones. She mixes her timbres by hand as a painter would mix colors, and she applies them lovingly and painstakingly to her canvas of silence. But the power of her work comes from her ability to take listeners on journeys through her inner sense of sound, finding something luminous, exalted, dramatic, and at times frightening there. Her music is like the work of dreams, both the pleasant ones and the nightmares. It is not by accident that Gus Van Sant set the calmly-executed bloodbath of his film Elephant to one of White's Walks through 'Resonant Landscape'. White's unsettling juxtapositions of real and imagined sound work well with Van Sant's matter-of-fact treatment of almost unwatchable violence. Frances White studied composition at the University of Maryland, Brooklyn College, and Princeton University. She has received awards, grants, commissions, and fellowships from organizations such as the Guggenheim Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Prix Ars Electronica, the International Computer Music Association, ASCAP, the Bang On A Can Festival, and the Other Minds Festival. Ms. White's music can be heard on CD on the Wergo, Centaur, Nonsequitur, Harmonia Mundi, and Bridge Records labels. A CD devoted to her chamber works, Centre Bridge, was released in August of 2007 on the Mode label. Ms. White's music was featured as part of the soundtrack of three of Gus Van Sant movies." [label info]
www.pogus.com
"This new Pogus release is a work of a composer who is completely new to me. White studied composition at the University of Maryland, Brooklyn College, and Princeton University. Some of her work has been released by labels like Mode, Bridge, Harmonia Mundi, etc. This new release gathers six compositions for very different line ups. The first one, ‘Chosi’ is for solo shakuhachi, beautifully played by Ralph Samuelson. White studied Shakuhachi herself and feels inspired by traditional music that has shakuhachi in a main role. Also she feels inspired by nature. No wonder that she often uses natural field recordings in her electronic work. Just like Jonas Braasch, White has a comparable fascination for space and environment in her musical output, like titles as ‘Walk through Resonant Landscape 5.1’and ‘Walk through Resonant Landscape 5.2’ indicate. Both titles provide a picture or metaphor that describes how one can experience these pieces: it feels like a travel through different parts of a jungle. Here birdcalls dominate, there sounds from insects. The works are built up as a series of waves of manipulated environmental sounds. The works have a fine balance of acoustical natural sounds and electronics. White builds successful imaginary landscapes and surroundings. Also I would say she is searching for some spiritual quality in sound. The title piece ‘In the Library of Dreams’ is written for viola d’amore played here by David Cerutti, against a background of electronic sounds. Only one piece is for an ensemble, ‘The Ocean Inside’ played by Eight Blackbird, an ensemble of six musicians. It is a romantic piece of work of slowly moving patterns that disappear in a background of fragile sounds. The closing piece ‘The Book of Roses and Memory’ has very sensible playing by Liuh Wen Ting on viola and Thomas Buckner as narrator. The electroacoustic music of White takes you into dreamy atmospheres, with compositions that are not extremely complicated. In fact her work is very accessible. It is also very solid work and far from some easy romantic pastiche." [DM/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€13.00 |
|
| WHITELODGE |
same |
CD |
Nach der noch etwas spröden “Stream of Dreams” 10” hier das erste Album des US-Trios, mit tief-melancholischen, folk- & wave- & elektronik-beeinflussten Stücken, der Stil lässt sich schwer kategorisieren, aber von der WIRKUNG her erinnert das an die magischen Momente bei den LEGENDARY PINK DOTS....
“Like a palpable ghostly presence that phases in and out vision; at once translucent and illusory; simultaneously rattling silverware, sending chills through the flesh. That strange unseen grip in the hand; that vaporous and unexplained cloud of breath in the middle of the hallway. A great billowy poltergeist, Whitelodge is a musical revelation. The Lodge skirt borderlands between the mysticism of seething "post rock" and the dark textures of latter day "apocalyptic folk," managing in the end to sovereign a musical nation of their own. Somber musical expressions exude surprisingly powerful punch and often carve modest stones into towering columns of sound, which, while not actually loud, seem to IMPLY loud. Constructed somewhat like a This Mortal Coil record, the quietly crafted combination of acoustic guitars, electric piano, bass and electronics effuse scents of Sol Invictus ("Against The Modern World"), Gastr Del Sol, Sea And Cake, Insides, late late period Swans, Roseclouds era Death In June with a little "Another Green World" style Eno plastering the cracks...but none of these really captures the true essence of the Lodge what is White. Where apocalyptic folk often drowns in its own cheesiness, Whitelodge rise above and avoid trying to force any sort of posturing or false celticisms into their music. Whispered vocals reincarnate a host of spirits from Red House Painters to Coil, driving the compositions home by inference rather than the obvious. This music is unbelievably tangible in its etherealness. A deep beauty resides within and repeated listens open endless blossoms. This album is also guilty of having at least a couple downright infectious tracks that are so brilliantly cooked as to be virtual tonal crack. The Grand Poobah beckons: become one with the Whitelodge!“ [press release]
|
2005 |
€13.00 |
|
| WHITMAN, KEITH FULLERTON |
Lisbon |
CD |
„KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN ist nicht nur irgend ein umtriebiger Musiker der seiner Zeit voraus scheint, er ist einer der Wenigen, die denjenigen, die da noch kommen mögen, neue Straßen pflastern. "Lisbon" ist bereits seine fünfte Veröffentlichung in den letzten drei Jahren und entstand auf seiner letzten Europatour im Galeria Ze Dos Bois in, genau, Lissabon. In den 41 Minuten Spielzeit vermittelt "Lisbon" einen sehr guten Einblick in die Whitmansche Herangehensweise der Live-Umsetzung seiner Idee von Musik. Aus diese Zusammenführung synthetischer als auch organischer Elemente lässt WHITMAN mit "Lisbon" einen atonalen, düster, dynamischen Monolithen erwachsen. WHITMAN war nach langer Tour ausgebrannt und mit Tinitusproblemen in Lissabon angekommen und wand sich frisch inspiriert vom Zauber der portugiesischen Hauptstadt neueren Klangforschungen zu, bei denen er neue Aufnahmetechniken entwickelte und erprobte. Eine Zeit, in der sich auch seine Herangehensweise, weg vom ausgefeilten, perfektionistischen hin zum Fehler und Natürlichkeit zulassenden wandelte.//
Those of you who have been lucky enough to get a copy of the recent "22 Minutes for Electric Guitar" tour-only mini-cd on Entschuldigen may have an idea of just where my head's been at over the past year or so regarding the evolution of the "Playthroughs" system of live/real-time guitar/computer synthesis; the piece I often play in concert has gradually been getting much darker, more dynamic, and in general; monolithic. I've started to embrace traditional "loud guitar" concepts (via a collection of bizarre, home-made/boutique guitar pedals) along with the sine-tone throb and "slow aerosol dispersion" of the classic "Playthroughs" material. More recently, I've augmented the pure-guitar sound(s) with a collection of small, battery-powered sound-devices and several tapes of "automatic synthesizer compositions" (recorded this past summer on the same Serge Modular Protoype and Buchla Music Box 100 systems used on Multiples) and field recordings from all over god's green earth. Finally, on top of all that I've re-kindled my love of Alvin Lucier-lineage process music by placing microphones and small speakers / fm receivers / speakers around the space, capturing the sounds as they occur at various points in the room, feeding them back through the central artery that is the max-msp-based playthroughs patch, then out again to any number of locations... This recording, captured to hard disk on stage at Galeria Ze Dos Bois on October 4th 2005, is in my mind the perfect encapsulation of all of these elements into a single lilting piece of static sine-tone harmonics, squared-off electric guitar haze, clangorous roomtone eruptions, and high-end synth freakouts...” [Cargo / press release]
www.brainwashed.com/kranky
|
2006 |
€13.00 |
|
| WICKED MESSENGER |
The River disappeared sidewards |
CD |
"The first glance is often deceiving. What at first appears simple often turns out to be surprisingly complex and detailed. So too in the case of German Dark Ambient-project Wicked Messengers' first CD-release. At first one could be mistaken into thinking it's a minimalistic, monotonous and simple thing we've got on our hands here, but on the second listen (at the latest!) the depth and complexity of "The River" starts to become apparent. Even after several listens you discover something new in the rich layers of sound.
When it comes to (Dark) Ambient, too complex structures might potentially detract from the coherence and continuity of a composition, making it sound more like a collage of vastly different entities. Wicked Messenger manage to unite the coherence and continuity with surprisingly multi-faceted layers and compositions, with an integral core that is often quite monotonous yet never without some evolution, adding several layers of a very varied nature that lend diversity and complexity to the composition. There is a great and pleasing variety in the layers: human voices, bassy rumblings, more high-pitched metallic sounds, sparsely used percussions, et cetera. Percussion is not in a large role here, but when used, it is used to great effect.
Between the tracks, the common denominator is not only the full and clear sound but also the atmosphere; there is a strange warmth here, in spite of the more metallic-sounding layers... I cannot fully explain it, but it is a warm presence of sorts, very different from the usual detached inhuman nature of so many Dark Ambient-projects. It is as if the coldness of space around the astral traveller is removed by the warmth of gently shining distant suns, a tranquil drowsiness invading the mind of the traveller. "Sinister", "malevolent" and all the other usual words to describe Dark Ambient are words I would never use to describe "The River"... Hell, even "Dark" feels out of place. Mysterious, ominous, astral, haunting, beautiful, any of these words... but dark? Sinister? No. The listener is gently swept away (sidewards of course) by harmonious waves of sound, to a place somewhere far away where a gentle light shines upon the Aniara as she slowly drifts away from the known universe, and there is only peace and calm. A silver tear in the eye of the universe.
I admit. I'm a fan. No release of Wicked Messenger has so far let me down; not always outstanding, but never disappointing. "The River Disappeared Sidewards" is, without a speck of doubt, the finest release so far. I don't really have any complaints about it, and I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to get this CD and judge for themselves... I think few of you will be disappointed. I am 100% sure Wicked Messenger have the potential to evolve into something even better in the future, but this is a strong achievement and a fine first CD-release." [Kaniba, Finland, Plague Haus] |
2007 |
€13.00 |
|
| WINDEREN, JANA |
The Blue Beyond |
LP |
Jana Winderen's practice focuses on sound and knowledge production as she seeks to raise awareness of the environmental issues we face as a society. Audemars Piguet Contemporary collaborated with Winderen on two new sound installations compositions. The first, "Du Petit Risoud aux Profondeurs du Lac de Joux", was developed during two field trips to Le Brassus in the Vallée de Joux, at the heart of the Swiss Jura, where Audemars Piguet has been based since 1875. On these trips, Winderen captured sounds in the waters of the Lac de Joux and in the Risoud forest. When Audemars Piguet Contemporary invited the artist to present a second composition for exhibition in Miami Beach, Winderen proposed a site-specific sound environment. For \"The Art of Listening: Under Water\", Winderen used sounds recorded in the Atlantic Ocean in the Miami area, as well as sounds from the Barents Sea around the North Pole and the Tropical Oceans to expose the constant underwater presence of human-created sound today. In both pieces, the artist offers a unique opportunity to listen closely to the underwater inhabitants of a specific region and to reflect on how human activity interacts and interferes with aquatic and also terrestrial life in a seemingly beautiful and visually calm environment. Jana Winderen often draws the fish, amphibians and plankton she meets. This release also consists of a drawing of two fish that probably would never meet; the pike from the freshwater Lac de Joux in the Jura Mountains and the snapper from the saltwater environment by Miami.
https://janawinderen.bandcamp.com/album/the-blue-beyond
|
2023 |
€26.50 |
|
| WOLLSCHEID, ACHIM |
Moves |
CD |
“A CD of lovely, resonating installation sound from Selektion founder Wollscheid. "Once I had the idea to play a house. This happened when the city of Frankfurt, in charge of an investment company and intending to raise the acceptance of a deserted industrial complex, planned to perform a vernissage (make over) in this place. Therefore they needed an artist and an artwork. When I was asked, I thought that it would be apt to the situation to leave the huge space empty of artworks and instead attach a compute-generated clapper to each of the 1400 windows to transform the space into a poly-rhythm box. I liked the plan, but the investors didn't. Nevertheless, I pursued the idea to activate the resonance frequencies of given objects in a space in order to arrive at site- and space-specific compositions which would change with every place and given situation.” Wollscheid."[label info]
|
1996 |
€13.00 |
|
| X-NAVI:ET |
Dead City Voice |
LP |
"Dead City Voice" is the second vinyl album by Rafał Iwański aka X-Navi:Et(of HATI, Voices of the Cosmos, KAPITAL, Innercity Ensemble fame). It's the follow-up to acclaimed "Soundtracks for the Dying Moments" LP released on Instant Classic last year. It contains 6 new electroacoustic compositions recorded from 2010 to 2013.
The theme of the city has appeared in the modern art territory quite a few times before. Wim Wenders, a cult German director, once said that "thecity shapes people, leaves its stigma on them and deforms them to its own likeness." Murray Schafer, a Canadian composer, while working on the concept of "soundscape", claimed that many of the surrounding sonic incidents infiltrates the music of our times. Following the footsteps of Charles Baudelaire among others, urban artists, Rafał Iwański and Ewa Bińczyk, replayed the city, penetrated its spirit and echoed it in their activities. Telling the city by means of sound and vision is becoming an inward journey as well.
Inside the cover one can also find the literary text by Dariusz Brzostek (Ph.D. at the University of Toruń, Poland) - a literari, anthropologist and music journalist who has collaborated with many magazines, such as Glissando, Trans/Wizje, Antena Krzyku, Teksty Drugie, Magazyn Fragile.
Visually the album is of the highest value. The gatefold cover is adorned with works by Ewa Bińczyk. Additionally, a special edition of 33 copies will include genuine intaglio prints signed by the author making it a true collector's item.
The album was released by Zoharum in collaboration with Eter Records, a label set up by Rafał Iwański to release music by his projects X-Navi:Et, HATI, Voices of the Cosmos in digital and analogue formats.
The album is released in a gatefold cover in a strictly limited edition of 250 copies." [label info]
www.zoharum.com
"On vinyl, in a fine fold out cover, we find Hati's Rafal Iwanski's solo project X-Navi:et. Both this and his Hati project are quite active when it comes to releasing music, so you could wonder: do they ever sleep? The main concept behind the six pieces on his new LP is the 'city', but not in a very strict sense I would think. This is not twice 20 minutes of city sounds, or something like that set to music, but pieces that depict the sounds of city through musical means. He uses analog filter machine, analog synthesizer, sampling pad, loop system, hulusi, bells, rattles, metal objects, field and found recordings and effects. Me think that a lot of the acoustic sources here have been sampled and treated extensively before finding their place inside a composition. Take for instance 'Tinnitus Auris': the tinkling of bells are the sounds that a lorry makes when trying to park. Next to that we hear a conveyer belt like sound - the other cars on the same street. Below that is a fiery drone-ventilation shafts on the side walk. That's what I heard. In the other pieces there is a similar liveliness, which we find a big cities - not in the street where I live, and not many cars or people pass on an ordinary working day. But of course all of this is easily said, when you look at the title(s), the picture, the text and such like and make these connections with a big city. I wonder what someone would imagine playing this music as it is, without knowing these references; it might not be the city. But who cares about that? We know what it is about and it's the gesamtkunstwerk that counts. This is a beautiful record of some fine, dark ambient music, with a nice industrial touch to it, very occasionally. Great release!" [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2013 |
€16.00 |
|
| XEDH & CARLOS SUAREZ |
Cuculacanto |
CD |
"About: This album shows a series of improvisations that I realized with the Galician composer Carlos Suárez. His work, heir of a certain electroacustic tradition but subverted to a more visceral and private plane, is interesting for the reality that it reflects: his music is a result of an intense personal vision about the world, a music that it's real in essence.
For our live collaboration I didn't try to adjust me to the particularities of his sound, it has gradually growing in unconscious forms of working that I abandoned long ago, but without falling in the imitation or the falsifications, using techniques and perspectives that I currently use. Our meeting, I want to believe, was so real as Carlos´s music. This CD serves as a small tribute to its work into the filed of electoacoustic, ethnomusicology and fieldrecording that he captured and developed away from the moder civilisation for many years. (M.A.G. / Xedh)
German translation: Dieses Album zeigt eine Reihe von Improvisationen, dass ich mit der galizischen Komponist Carlos Suárez erstellt hatte. Seine Arbeit, die Erben eines bestimmten Elektroakustik Tradition, sondern unterwandert zu einer viszeralen und privater Ebene, ist interessant für die Realität, dass es reflektiert: Seine Musik ist ein Ergebnis einer intensiven persönlichen Vision von der Welt, eine Musik, dass es 'wirklich' im Kern ist.
Für unsere Live-Zusammenarbeit habe ich nicht versuchen, mich auf die Besonderheiten seines Sounds einzustellen, wurde es allmählich in unbewussten Formen des Arbeitens, die ich vor langer Zeit aufgegeben, aber ohne zu fallen oder in der Nachahmung der Fälschungen, mit Hilfe von Techniken und Perspektiven, die ich derzeit verwenden. Unser Treffen, Ich möchte glauben, war so real, als Carlos Musik. Diese CD dient als kleine Hommage an seine Arbeit in den von Electoacoustic, Ethnomusicology und Fieldrecording, dass er genommen und entwickelt hat seit vielen Jahren aber entfernt vom 'Moderne Zivilisation.' "(M.A.G. / Xedh)
"This is a sonorous eclectic offering. Collaboration album, abstract dark ambient, highly inspiring sound art work from two dedicated electro-acoustic and ethnomusicologists.
Tracks:
01. Regresión afín
02. Varios errores
03. Sacrá nemesis
04. Juntos hacia la gran reverberación de los tiempos
05. Una última bienvenida
Total run: ~ 42 min.
Recorded live at Larraskito, Bilbao-Basque country. Edition by Miguel A. García." [label info]
www.essentiamundi.com
"Miguel A. Garcia sometimes works under his own name and sometimes as Xedh, and I am never sure when one comes into play and when the other. Maybe there is no separation? Here he works with one Carlos Suarez, of whom I think I never heard. He is from Galicia in Spain and works inside the field of electro-acoustic music. If I am well informed the pieces here were recorded through live improvisation in the studio which was then edited by Garcia. Garcia is at his best, at least for me, when he too works with electro-acoustic music, and stays away from overtly noise based excursions which he sometimes also does. Here he does stay away and together with Suarez he created five excellent pieces of electro-acoustic music which suggest lots of space between the cracks, sometimes artificially enhanced by the use of reverb. There is computer processing, analogue knob turning, field recordings of water and metallic rumble, looped and toyed around with. The overall mood of the pieces is more ambient and atmospheric than is perhaps usually the case with this kind of electro-acoustic sounds. More ambient than microsound I would say. Garcia has reconstructed the live recordings accordingly and without losing the aspect of a live recording, these five pieces are very good, well done and reshaped into the form of compositions, with heads and tails and fine structure. This is the Garcia I like and this CD is a fine addition to his rapidly expanding discography." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2012 |
€12.00 |
|
| YELLOW SWANS |
Drowner |
do-LP |
Finally! The first broadly available edition of Drowner Yellow Swans lands after a slew of hiccups. So this was originally a tape cobbled together in that space between At All Ends and Going Places. Can't remember if we had decided to wrap up the band at this point, but it was about that time where we were fried from touring, Gabe was thinking about moving to Canada, things were IN MOTION. We had this whole string of shows lined up with Sissy Spacek in the PNW, Wiese had a stack of blank takes and a new imprint. HEY, sounds like it's time for a new tape. Because of the historically ridiculous lag between making an album and it being available to the public, the timeline is a bit weird, but this was essentially following up our last tour tape, Deterioration, which was also just sort of an assembly of basement recordings. We had ditched the idea of compositions at this point and were just JAMMING. and jamming often. Basically, we had a dedicated practice studio and were rehearsing and recording several days a week. Just banging it out and dedicating it all to tape. Both Deterioration and Drowner have this sort of snapshot character of our process, sifting through a state of the band when we were thinking more about one thing than another. If Deterioration is our most kosmiche, I would say that Drowner is our most gonzo psych rock record. still as noisy and fried as ever, but pulling from Loveless, Rallizes, Main.. but also just like... our own insular process of playing and listening and touring and repeating that for years. Drowner was basically recorded months before Going Places and Being There but projects a different focus on dynamics, drama and NOISE. This could be because we were gearing up to play shows with Spacek and knew we'd be playing with The Rita and Iron Lung on this jaunt. Gotta be up to crust you know? - Pete
https://yellowswans.bandcamp.com/album/drowner-yellow-swans
|
2021 |
€32.50 |
|
| ÜL |
III |
CD-R |
Das St. Petersburger Label ZHELEZOBETON gehört z.Zt. mit MONOCHROME VISION sicher zu den interessanten russischen Labels. Inzwischen wird hier nicht nur die lokale Szene Russland veröffentlicht, sondern auch spannende Musik von anderen Kontinenten. ÜL ist ein Projekt mit dem altbekannten ex-REYNOLS ALAN COURTIS, der hier mit zwei Landsleuten schwelend-feedbackende Drone-Sphären mit Gitarren erzeugt - dabei allerdings kaum harmonisch oder tonal operierend, sondern mit Effekten & Feedbacks, low-fi und rauh und sehr variabel auf 8 Stücken..
"ÜL was formed in 2006 by Argentinians Alan Courtis (Reynols), Fernando Perales and Charly Zaragoza. They have performed live many times in Argentina and released two albums: "Astropecuario" on the Scottish label Pjorn Records and "II" on the Argentinian Facon Records. This is their third disk containing material recorded in 2007. The goal of ÜL is the exploration of timbric possibilities of electric guitars in their own way, combining elements of noise, drone music and free atonal improvisation. Their compositions immerse the listener into an abstract world of electromagnetic interaction between acoustic and electronic medium. A world glutted with raw sounds of string vibrations, droney feedback resonances, acute work of limiting amplifiers and layering echoes of effects." [label info]
http://zhb.radionoise.ru/
|
2008 |
€8.00 |
|
| ZEALLEY, ANDREW |
Themes & Variations |
LP |
"ANDREW ZEALLEY: THEMES & VARIATIONS is the third installment in Zealley's "How To Explain Silence To A Dead Hare" series of vinyl project editions. The album showcases selected film, video, installation and performance music by Zealley, commissioned by visual artists - including Luis Jacob, Joey Medaglia, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, and Scott Treleaven. Produced by PSBEUYS, THEMES & VARIATIONS is released on Tourette Records (USA). This vinyl-only edition of 300 numbered LP's launches at Art Metropole on Saturday April 25, 1-3 PM.
On THEMES & VARIATIONS, Zealley intersects various aspects of his sound practise: field recordings, audio art, existential house, tonal mantra, and musical form/composition. At the center of THEMES & VARIATIONS are the scores for Scott Treleaven's trilogy of short films: GOLD, SILVER and LUSTRE. Composed and produced in 2005-2006, this group of instrumental compositions is punctuated, for the album, by four thematically-related works: APOTHEOSIS II, HABITAT THEME 2, SIGNAL, and ARENA.
TRACK NOTES:
The score to Treleaven's film on pandrogyny (starring Genesis P'Orridge and the late Lady Jaye Breyer), GOLD's cycling vortex of digital and acoustic sounds is followed by two variations on the same melodic and tonal themes: APOTHEOSIS II (an early audio sketch for GOLD), and HABITAT THEME 2 (developed for Luis Jacob's HABITAT installation at AGO). The plaintive love-pop electronics of SIGNAL, originally produced for Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay's CONSTELLATION performance piece, is newly remixed by PSBEUYS for the album. The swirling dream-scape of SILVER, the score to Treleaven's homage to John Dee (starring AA Bronson), is a seemingly endless sustain of electronics, violin and bell tones. ARENA, featuring the "beatbox" vocals of Luis Jacob, is the audio score to Joey Medaglia's video RE: FORM (BECOMING VISIBLE). An alternate version of ARENA's motifs can be heard on Zealley's exhibition soundtrack, AA Bronson School For Young Shamans. THEMES & VARIATIONS concludes with the 3-part score for LUSTRE, Treleaven's super8 tryptich starring Massimo & Pierce (Black Sun Productions). Here Zealley turns to a more classical interpretation of "themes and variations," literally voicing the score's tender melodic main theme (written for a local violin busker), through a series of pastoral string and oscillating electronic deconstructions.
ANDREW ZEALLEY: THEMES & VARIATIONS is mastered for vinyl at The E Room, by Peter J. Moore, and features performances by Luis Jacob, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, violinist Adm Shedden, and the PSBEUYS-directed Prospect Cottage Strings.
THEMES & VARIATIONS is released on Tourette Records (USA), catalogue number TOURETTE009, and is available online at www.artmetropole.com and directly from the artist's site.
more info : www.andrewzealley.com"
[website info]
www.touretterecords.com
|
2009 |
€25.00 |
|
| ZEITKRATZER |
(Old School) John Cage |
CD |
" 'Four' (1992), 'Five' (1988), 'Hymnkus' (1986). Zeitkratzer directed by Reinhold Friedl: Frank Gratkowski (bassclarinet, clarinet), Hayden Chisholm (clarinet), Franz Hautzinger (trumpet), Reinhold Friedl (piano), Maurice de Martin (percussion), Burkhard Schlothauer (violin), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello), Uli Phillipp (doublebass), Ralf Meinz (sound). Recorded live at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, UK, November 26, 2006. Recorded and mixed by Ralf Meinz and Reinhold Friedl, produced by Burkhard Schlothauer, executive producer: Reinhold Friedl.' 'The internationally acclaimed 'hilarious releases' [vital weekly] of Zeitkratzer records will continue with the new series [old school]. The first two CDs, dedicated to the music of John Cage [zkr0009] and James Tenney [zkr0010] are now released together. The collaboration of Zeitkratzer with William Bennett (Whitehouse) [zkr0007], recorded live in 2009 in Marseille, France and Den Haag, Netherlands, will follow this summer. Later in 2010, the [old school] series will continue with two more releases, dedicated to the music of Alvin Lucier [zkr0011] and Morton Feldman [zkr0012] respectively. John Cage's compositions have been part of Zeitkratzer's repertoire since the very first day. The pieces presented here justify Zeitkratzer's reputation as sound specialists. Avant-garde composer Cage is played in a conservative, precise and sensual way, apart from all philosophical ambitions, and hopefully as seductive as a Schubert quintet! The 'Wire Magazine' acclaimed: Zeitkratzer convinced us that CageÔs music can still live with all its complexities, stripped of the debris of its iconic-ironic status, if we only give ourselves time, space and ears to hear !" [label info]
www.zeitkratzer.de
"So far we learned that Zeitkratzer played new scores by current artists, such as Alva Noto, Francisco Lopez and John Duncan (to name just three) or interpretations of works by Lou Reed and Throbbing Gristle (to name another two). Perhaps its merely a logical next step that they start playing modern classical music from the 'old' school. Coming up are works by Alvin Lucier and Morton Feldman, but the new series '[Old School]' start off with John Cage and James Tenney. From Cage they performed three pieces, all composed in the last years of Cage's life, a highly productive era. It would have been nice to see them play say 'Cartridge Music' or 'Variations', but here they go for the pieces 'Four', 'Five' and 'Hymnkus'. The first and the third last thirty minutes and 'Five' only five minutes. All of these pieces are rather 'open' for interpretation. It would be a bit far out to explain the way they work, with time frames and how to play them, but its exactly the sort of material that Zeitkratzer is happy with. The ensemble's instruments (bass clarinet, clarinet, melodica, piano, trumpet, percussion, violin, violincello and double bass), played by those who have a background in improvised music, are well cut to play music that leaves much room for the players to choose their own sound material within given time frames. In 'Hymkus' they stay close to the ensemble feeling with repeating notes on the wind instruments, but in 'Four' they go all out. Wildly scraping of instruments, improvised playing of wind instruments and all of that making a great piece. The short 'Five' is along similar lines, but perhaps a bit more structured - as per Cage's instructions." [FdW / Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€14.00 |
|
|
[old School] Alvin Lucier |
CD |
"1| Alvin Lucier Fideliotrio [1987] 12:10
for viola, cello and piano
2| Alvin Lucier Music For Piano With Magnetic Strings [1995] 13:21
for grand piano and as many as five e-bows
3| Alvin Lucier Silver Streetcar For The Orchestra [1988] 10:03 for amplified triangle
4| Alvin Lucier Violynn [2001] 09:38
for violin and tape
5| Alvin Lucier Opera With Objects [1997] 10:59 for performers with resonant objects
zeitkratzer
directed by Reinhold Friedl
|| Burkhard Schlothauer < violin, viola, objects || Anton Lukoszevieze < violoncello, objects || Uli Phillipp < objects || Reinhold Friedl < piano, objects || Maurice de Martin < triangle, objects || Frank Gratkowski < objects || Hayden Chisholm < objects|| Matt Davis < objects || Hilary Jeffery < objects || Ralf Meinz < sound ||
[1-5] recorded live at Philharmonie Luxembourg, Luxembourg, October 3, 2009
[4] recorded at GreenHouseStudios Schwielowsee, Germany, June 4, 2010
recorded and mixed by Ralf Meinz and Reinhold Friedl, produced by Reinhold Friedl
Beautyfull Lucier compositions, recorded at the Philharmonie Luxembourg. Including: Silver Streetcar, Fideliotrio, Music for Piano with Metal Strings, Violynn, Opera with Objects.
And the thirs release in the series [old school] now !
“zeitkratzer are creating a New Music, worthy of the name!”
[Rob Young, The Wire Magazine]
The internationally acclaimed “hilarious releases” [vital weekly] of zeitkratzer records go on. This is the third release in the new series [old school]. The first two CDs, dedicated to the music of John Cage [zkr0009] and James Tenney [zkr0010] have been highly acclaimed. London’s Wire Magazine wrote: “The rigour and discipline they collectively bring to this compositions make both discs utterly enthralling, from start to finish.” The new release is dedicated to the music of Alvin Lucier.
In 2011, the [old school] series will continue with two more releases, dedicated to the music of Morton Feldman [zkr0012] and Karlheinz Stockhausen [zkr0014] respectively.
Alvin Lucier is one of the most outstanding American minimalists. He could be called a sound physician and his compositions regarded as acoustic research settings. Often his pieces turn inside-out the inner properties of the room they are played in and the instrument that they are played on. zeitkratzer had the chance to work with the composer in Dijon, France in 2008, and continued to work on and to program his music in different places. The Philharmonie in Luxembourg turned out to be the ideal space for recording.
On this CD you can hear how Lucier enables zeitkratzer to create sounds, most people have never heard before. Ringing overtones, a singing piano, a thrilling concert triangle, pencils on little objects, and how irritating a violoncello, a viola and a piano can sound together creating sonic interferences. This music is not only a physical phenomenology, but becomes inherently a sensual listening experience." [full press release info]
www.zeitkratzer.de
"In der Reihe [old school] arbeitete ZEITKRATZER dieses mal mit dem amerikanischen Minimalkomponisten Alvin Lucier im Auftrag der luxenburgischen Philharmonie zusammen. Herausgekommen sind 5 Stücke die sich alle mit Obertönen und dem akustischen Phänomenen der gegenseitigen Klang-/Tonaufhebung, bzw. Beeinflußung befassen. Das Prinzip kennt jeder: Ein durchgehender Ton trifft auf einen schwingenden Ton und man meint, dass auf einmal beide Töne schwingen würden, was aber nachweislich nicht der Fall ist und eben ein solches akustisches Phänomen ist. Treibt man die Sache nun bewußt voran und lotet diese Grenzen klangtechnisch und kompositorisch aus, kann man wirklich sehr interressante Effekte im Raum und für eine Aufnahme erzeugen.Klänge verschmelzen und erzeugen dabei neue Musik! Großartig und spannend zugleich und gar nicht kopflastig, sondern wirklich sehr seltsam, wunderbar und auch noch schön anzuhören!" [Carsten Vollmer / Ox-Fanzine]
"Old School is a series of works performed by Zeitkratzer Records dealing with one composer, although they are not always 'old' (as in 'still alive'). Following James Tenney and John Cage (see Vital Weekly 724), the ten piece ensemble performs here works by Alvin Lucier, another particular hero of mine. Lucier doesn't just compose pieces of music, he explores sound, and the way they move around in space. Zeitkratzer keeps to the scores, most of the times, such as in 'Silver Streetcar For The Orchestra', in which the triangle plays an important role or in 'Opera With Objects', where the orchestra plays with small objects indeed. These are the compositions by Lucier which are 'free' in a way: a set of instructions to be performed and Zeitkratzer is, as we know, good at that. The more fixed pieces here, 'Violynn' and 'Fideliotrio' (which I must admit have never heard performed anywhere else) seem to be following the score more careful, i.e. playing the right notes at the right time. Zeitkratzer does an absolute great job at that. Lucier's originals are expanded here into small ensemble pieces and each instrument gets his own place in the composition. Five excellent executions thereof. Old master pieces." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2010 |
€15.00 |
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|
(Old School) KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN |
CD |
"The internationally acclaimed 'hilarious releases' [vital weekly] of zeitkratzer records go on. This is the fourth release in the series [old school]. The first three CDs, dedicated to the music of John Cage [zkr0009], James Tenney [zkr0010] and Alvin Lucier [zkr0011] have been highly acclaimed. London's Wire Magazine wrote: 'The rigour and discipline they collectively bring to this compositions make both discs utterly enthralling, from start to finish.' The new release is dedicated to the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen.' 'I do not want a spiritualistic session. I want music.' Karlheinz Stockhausen is one of the most outstanding composers of the 20th century. After his early super organised compositions as Gesang der Jünglinge, Kontakte or Studien 1 and 2, he realised 'Aus den Sieben Tagen' ('From the Seven Days') as a precisely organised text composition. Not one single note is written, but it is exactly defined, what kind of material the musicians should choose, - and how they shall play it. Length, tempi, etc are not given. zeitkratzer had the chance to work on this pieces in Ljubljana in spring 2011, and tried to develop the approach to interpret the texts as precisely as possible, what means in a traditional way of score-reading. As Stockhausen pointed out: 'musical meditation is not sentimentality, but ultra alertness and - in the lightest moments - creative ecstasy.' Set Sail for the sun!' Zeitkratzer under the direction of Reinhold Friedl with Burkhard Schlothauer (violin), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello), Ulrich Phillipp (doublebass), Reinhold Friedl (piano), Marc Weiser (electric guitar), Christian Lillinger (percussion), Frank Gratkowski (clarinet), Hild Sofie Tafjord (French horn), Hilary Jeffery (trombone) and Martin Wurmnest (sound). 5 pieces taken from Stockhausen's intuitive music cycle 'Aus den Sieben Tagen' (1968) : 'Unbegrentz', 'Verbindung', 'Nachtmusik', 'Intensitt', 'Setz die Segel zur Sonne'." [label info]
www.zeitkratzer.com
"Apart from some of his fifties electronic works, I have never been a great fan of the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Perhaps I didn't hear enough or perhaps I simply don't understand a lot of it. In the sixties he composed a piece 'From The Seven Days', which consisted of open ended instructions for the players, such as 'play a vibration in the rhythm of the universe/play a vibration in the rhythm of dreaming//play a vibration in the rhythm of dreaming/and slowly transform it/into the rhythm of the universe/repeat this as often as you can'. A very fluxus way of composing music, but his ensemble would in return ask for partial authorship of the piece for this composition and quickly Stockhausen returned to notating his pieces accurately. For 'From The Seven Days' stands as a bit of an odd-ball in his oeuvre, but its not difficult to see why its so attractive for the musicians of Zeitkratzer to perform this piece. They love performing such open ended pieces on their extended instruments (violin, violoncello, double bass, piano, electric guitar, percussion, clarinets, french horn, trombone), since many of the players have a background in improvised music, and this sort of score leaves enough space for them to play with the notes. Its highly irrelevant to say whether these five pieces, are 'accurately' played, its 'just' an interpretation of whatever is possible and I think Zeitkratzer deliver and outstanding job, especially in 'Setz Die Segele Zur Sonne', a long, dense piece of glissandi played with a sinister undercurrent. The other pieces are shorter, and offer a variety of insights: moody, loud, fierce, introspective. An excellent performance all around." [FdW/Vital Weekly]
|
2011 |
€14.00 |
|
|
Zeitkratzer performs Songs from 'Kraftwerk' and 'Kraftwerk 2' |
LP |
Format: 180gr LP incl. DL code + insert, 500 items
Release date: march 24th 2017
#DOUBLE BIRTHDAY RELEASE !! KARLRECORDS celebrates its 10th birthday, ZEITKRATZER even its 20th! And the party starts with the necessary re-interpretations of early compositions by electronic pioneers KRAFTWERK.
Founded in 1997 by REINHOLD FRIEDL, ZEITKRATZER have since been creating an impressive catalogue of recordings that embraces 20th century avant-garde composers (CAGE, STOCKHAUSEN, LUCIER) as well as electronic artists (CARSTEN NICOLAI, TERRE THAEMLITZ) or underground experimentalists like THROBBING GRISTLE or COLUMN ONE. In their 20th anniversary year, the critically acclaimed ensemble will release a series of diverse albums that will explore new grounds in the typical, adventurous zeitkratzer way – the first of these albums is dedicated to KRAFTWERK and their early, kraut-esque albums “Kraftwerk” and “Kraftwerk 2”. As KRAFTWERK never re-released these albums, ZEITKRATZER gave its best to cover the first tranche of the songs (second tranche to come…).
Recorded in Marseille / France in May 2016, the six tracks reveal a bucolic and even psychedelic aspect of the ensemble that’s mostly known (or feared) for its interpretatory and aesthetic acerbity. And yet there’s no doubt that “Songs From The Albums „Kraftwerk“ And „Kraftwerk 2“ turned out a true ZEITKRATZER recording in the best and full meaning!
zeitkratzer directed by Reinhold Friedl
Frank Gratkowski / flute, clarinets, Elena Kakaliagou / french horn, Hilary Jeffery / trombone, Reinhold Friedl / harmonium, piano, Didier Ascour / guitar, Maurice de Martin / drums, Lisa Marie Landgraf / violin, Burkhard Schlothauer / violin, Elisabeth Coudoux, violoncello, Ulrich Phillipp / double bass
Recorded and mixed by Martin Wurmnest
Mastered & cut by Mike Grinser at D&M, Berlin
www.karlrecords.net
|
2017 |
€18.00 |
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| |
Zeitkratzer performs Songs from the Albums 'Kraftwerk 2' And 'Kraftwerk' |
LP |
2nd volume of „modern composition supergroup“ (The Wire) ZEITKRATZER's re-interpretations of early compositions by electronic pioneers KRAFTWERK.
In more than two decades ZEITKRATZER has created an astonishing broad catalogue from the obligatory (20th century avant-garde composers like CAGE or STOCKHAUSEN) to the unexpected (electronic artists such as CARSTEN NICOLAI, TERRE THAEMLITZ or underground experimentalists like THROBBING GRISTLE and KEIJI HAINO) – but hardly anyone was prepared for the ensemble’s choice of early KRAFTWERK pieces! When volume 1 was released in 2017, ZEITKRATZER founder and director REINHOLD FRIEDL announced that there'll be a volume 2 of course – and here it is::
from the opening drony horns of „Harmonika“ to the subtle guitar of the album closer „Wellenlänge“, the 4 tracks own all the interpretatory and aesthetic acerbity the ensemble is known and praised for.
The first album made it immediately into “The Wire office ambience” playlist and to the
“Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical Releases”: “ZEITKRATZER’s interpretations are bouncy, horn-driven motorik grooves, static explorations of pointillistic overtones, breathy Zen-like meditations, and rollicking rhythms.” The Spanish Rockdelux concluded: “Keep close and be happy to get more!” Sonic Seducer attested ZEITKRATZER to “uncover unexpected potential. It’s a blessing that the next KRAFTWERK is already announced!”
And here it is! Now you can listen to all the music of the first two KRAFTWERK albums “as gloriously played as one could ever desire” (Vital Weekly).
Recorded live at HELLERAU - European Centre for the Arts, Dresden in january 2019, „zeitkratzer performs songs from the albums „Kraftwerk 2“ and „Kraftwerk“ “ delivers the compositions that were still missing to complete zeitkratzer's stunning take on the early, hybrid kraut-esque electronic avantgarde albums “Kraftwerk” and “Kraftwerk 2”. Mission accomplished! A must-have. As German radio SWR agreed: “ZEITKRATZER is serious music turned from stiff to joy!”
https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/zeitkratzer-performs-songs-from-kraftwerk-2-and-kraftwerk
|
2019 |
€18.00 |
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| ZEITKRATZER & CARSTEN NICOLAI |
Electronics |
CD |
"This cd documents the cooperation between Zeitkratzer and Carsten Nicolai, started nearly a decade ago; a cooperation between an avantgarde ensemble and a non-academic electronic musician. The electronic music of Carsten Nicolai - partly being of even aseptic clearness and quality suddenly becomes sensual and physical through Zeitkratzer's instrumental sounds. Inversely, Zeitkratzer sounds different too: in '5 min' the musicians play only electric sound generators: humming of plugs, the peeping of the synchronised Zeitkratzer-clocks, white noise, TV cheeping at 10 kHz. 'Synchron Bitwave', the latest piece is the most sensual and warmest; no other sounds than a small third and its electric derivates, finally leading to high, dabbed string spiccati. While 'c1' transfers electronically conceived asymmetrical loops into a 19-16th rhythm. A strange undertow results, partly because of the pieces' grounding with merging split sounds. Here, Carsten Nicolai virtually becomes metaphysical, perhaps even romantic...'
[label info]
".. So, when taking on a collaboration with Carsten Nicolai, who is best known for his swaggering rhythms for pure tone and minuscule glitches as Alva Noto, we had to ask how this would work. Well, essentially, Nicolai has adapted his sound for Zeitkratzer, not the other way around, which might have been a real challenge for Zeitkratzer to attempt to adopt the thud and rumble of something like the Transall series. Instead, Nicolai and Zeitkratzer pursue long-form compositions, mostly for electronics, but occasionally with the assistance of a particular instrumental coloring from say a clarinet, a cello, or a piano. Each of the three pieces here were performed live, commissioned for this sound art festival or that in Europe. The first of which swarms around static-laden drones and crackling hiss which spirals around a Niblockian drone from a sustained clarinet, eventually a rhythmic undercarriage from a softly tapped piano ebbs against the slow- building arc of sound. The second piece seems to be staged from prepared piano, amplified televisions, and tone generators, offering another skeletal rhythm to the clinical frequencies. The third piece returns to the ideas of the first with the reprise of that piano, but here a semblance of a melody encroaches the slow-motion raga drone from low-thumbing electronics and rasping sustained strings. It's not all that far from another of Nicolai's storied collaborations, with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Both Zeitkratzer and Nicolai are guilty of playing it safe on these three pieces, but the results are striking and lovely nonetheless." [Aquarius Records review]
|
2008 |
€15.00 |
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| [LAW-RAH] COLLECTIVE, THE |
Innovation |
CD |
the latest output by the [law-rah] collective is called 'innovation'. on this release the utrecht based duo consisting of martijn pieck and bauke van der wal chose to explore new methods within each of the steps it takes to create an album.
the experiments have led to an album with seven coherent yet diverse tracks with a total playing time of just under an hour. from this perspective, the story that is being told never gets boring in any way. it grabs your attention from the first tones of 'the theory of co-evolution' and it doesn't let you go until the final moments of 'diffusion of innovation'.
while they were working on 'innovation' pieck and van der wal stayed close to the sonic palette for which the collective is known and appreciated; it's still those massive drones - or if you prefer noisey soundscapes - which at moments hurt either your ears or your emotions. but the album is called 'innovation' for a reason, so how the album was created has changed in all possible ways: sound sculpting, composing, mixing, mastering and even collaborating ...
the sound sculpting part was done all with modular synthesis. all sounds have been created from scratch, which was long trajectory of pulling and patching cables and intensive listening until the sound was what it needed to be.
as for the collaborating part, with 25 years of working together it was hard for pieck and van der wal to try something new. for 'innovation' the workflow of creation was considerably different than any other album by the [law-rah] collective. the outcome could have gone two ways: either all the tracks had no relationship to each other, or the tracks would form a coherent story with matching production.
with 'innovation' the [law-rah] collective asked themselves whether it pays off to leave the beaten track; to take a step back and question yourself and your ways.
it's a proven fact: 'innovation' has become a very intense and consistent album with a clear message. it's not for your average background listing sessions. the sounds are all over the frequency spectrum and the compositions are quite demanding to the listener.
it's intense ... it's dynamic ... it's innovative ...
https://soundcloud.com/raubbau/sets/the-law-rah-collective-innovation
|
2018 |
€13.00 |
|
| [SIC] |
Gorilla Masking Tape |
CD-R |
Hinter [SIC] verbirgt sich die junge Nachwuchs-Elektronikern Jen Morris aus Montreal, die hier auf sechs Stücken analog-elektronischen dark ambient entwirft, der aber sehr UN-minimal ist, d.h. sich ständig verändert & neue Sounds & Färbungen aufnimmt.
Sehr subliminal & z.T. mechanisch-maschinell, sehr zu empfehlen !
“Having listened to and zoned out on this release at least half a dozen times, it should be obvious what it is that is so compelling about [sic]'s compositions of dusty long drones, deep ambient spaces and bump-in-the-night tension, but it's not. On the one hand, this is difficult listening: all uneasy sounds and dischordant timbres rubbing up against one another to create an ambiguous feeling of dread. On the other hand, for those familiar with the work of like-minded artists like those featured on the quasi-legendary "Isolationism" compilation, [sic] fits perfectly into a already-defined niche of dark, brooding ambient characterized more by its claustrophobia than by its use reflection of space as an expanse. I could tell you that Gorilla Masking Tape is a beautiful, haunting record, or that it's alpha-wave inducing at the right volume, or that it's a perfectly quiet record for people who lead unquiet lives, but none of that really captures the force that these tracks embody. Perhaps the record's most defining characteristic is that it is indeed so malleable that it can be both loud and quiet, both serene and disturbed, both beautiful and terrifying and that it does all of this effortlessly. I often wonder what more can be said about music like this that is both barely there and a force of nature all at once, depending on your volume knob. I always think that it will be impossible for someone to release yet another essential dark ambient disc in a world where artists who do this sort of thing tend to have voluminous discographies of equally affecting work already. I think that, and then I hear a record like Gorilla Masking Tape and it suddenly all sounds fresh and important and essential again and I'm left wanting more. It doesn't get much better than that.”
[Matthew Jeanes - Brainwashed Brain]
|
2004 |
€11.50 |
|
|
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