Music in Continuous Motion
Bill Orcutt is back with what might be the most beautiful record in his 21st-century guitar quartet series. Music in Continuous Motion (Palilalia, LP/CD) pointedly steps away from the cut-and-paste constructivism of Music for Four Guitars into a sonic stratum that's - as Tom Carter writes - "yearningly melodic, resolutely human, and built for performance." Four guitars, twelve tracks, most hovering around two-and-a-half minutes each. No waste. No fat. Pure music.
Where Music for Four Guitars ope…
Buenos Antwerp
On Buenos Antwerp, Elko Blijweert and Anla Courtis turn a chance Borgerhout encounter into a two‑part psychedelic correspondence, one acoustic, one electric, a cross‑Atlantic guitar séance wrapped in Dennis Tyfus’ cut‑and‑paste visual delirium.
Paris Public Spaces 2
On Paris Public Spaces 2, Éric La Casa and Seijiro Murayama stage brief, focused vocal interventions across Parisian sites, letting microphone placement and urban acoustics turn spoken sound into a moving portrait of how voice and city continuously re‑shape one another.
Nachleben
Nachleben is a limited-edition cassette release by Italian pianist and composer Giovanni Di Domenico, issued by Dasa Tapes, a Greek label specializing in experimental music. The album features two long-form tracks: "Parts I & II" (19:34) and "Part III" (18:06), showcasing Di Domenico's signature minimalist piano style marked by repetition, subtle nuance, and contemplative atmospheres.
Di Domenico's work on Nachleben embodies his personal approach to contemporary minimalism, emphasizing concentr…
Act Against War
This album emerged from a chance encounter at Casa del Popolo in Montreal during the Suoni per il Popolo festival. Over the years Tim Daisy and Stefan Christoff kept in touch and in 2023 started exchanging more seriously about working on some music together. The conversations and exchanges over the years had revolved around trying to find pathways for collective action in the arts to support movements against war.
Particularly the two discussed and collaborated on a global radio broadcast to cri…
Live at Klankhaven
"Live at Klankhaven" captures a dynamic live performance by Atsuko Hatano and Pak Yan Lau. Recorded on October 24th, 2024, at Klankhaven in Antwerp by Diego Faes and mastered by Yves De Mey, this cassette features two extended improvisational pieces: Part 1 (16:32) and Part 2 (15:44). Released by Dasa Tapes, a Greek limited-edition label focused on experimental music, it showcases the duo's innovative string explorations in a raw, site-specific setting. Atsuko Hatano, a Japanese violist known fo…
Lampo
Coherent States is excited to announce the release of Will Guthrie’s new album “Lampo”, containing brand new material recorded during his 2024 performance at the Lampo event series in Chicago. In his third session for the series, Will presented a fresh concept based on brief and recurring modules generated solely by acoustic drums and percussion, without any use of electronics. The experimental structures that together form the 32 minutes of the performance deliberately deviate and reintegrate a…
Mux
*In process of stocking* Since his Beat Diary debut (a 12xLP box set comprising 365 beats recorded daily over the course of a year), Julian Sartorius has immersed himself in unique and ambitious projects - trekking the path not travelled to arrive at rhythmic life forms through found objects and prepared instruments. Equally as mighty are his two other escapades, the most recent being Locked Grooves - 112 beats cut as endless loops on vinyl spanning 56 dense 1.8 second compositions per side. Pre…
Black Tape II
Black Tape II is only the second widely available release by Ohkami No Jikan (The Time of the Wolf), one of the more esoteric groups of the 1990’s Tokyo underground. Recorded in 1992, it illuminates a largely undocumented facet of Nanjo Asahito’s psychedelic cosmology, distinct form his better known work with High Rise, Musica Transonic and Toho Sara. Aside from a handful of limited, handmade cassettes and CD-Rs on his La Musica label, there’s only been one Ohkami No Jikan album, Mort Nuit, that…
Dalbergia Retusa
Extraordinary double LP of solo guitar music by Hans Reichel (1949-2011), curated by Oren Ambarchi. Twenty-three pieces from 1973-1988 documenting Reichel's radical instrumental rethinking: custom-built guitars with additional strings, moveable pickups, special capos. Sounds simultaneously strange and beautiful, from romantic lyricism to alien sonorities. Essential.
Wunderkammer
On Wunderkammer, Jan Bang, Michael Francis Duch, Erik Honoré, David Toop and Mark Wastell assemble a single 38‑minute live trance of electroacoustic chamber‑drift, where Moe‑Repstad’s disembodied voice moves through gongs, bass and quietly uncanny objects like a ghost cataloguing its own reliquary.
Contra Madre
The late pedal-steel guitarist Susan Alcorn leaves a final surprise hinting at new directions left underexplored on her collaboration with Nomad War Machine, the improvising metal duo of drummer Julius Masri and guitarist James Reichard. Their death-metal-influenced pummel adds new fire to her molten flow across a suite of improvised tracks that show off the vast range and simpatico of the trio. Julius Masri and James Reichard of Nomad War Machine: An unexpected opportunity arose out of a catchi…
The Schmetterling Variations
Since 1983 Dan Burke and his conspirators have dug through almost every facet of the avant sound plane, from early industrial pop deconstruction to blindingly minimal sound art to densely surreal found-sound collage, each unique approach bending and reconstituting the expectations and possibilities of each realm.
Plowing through layered field recordings, deeply rumbling tones, and eerie electroacoustic sounds with seamless transitions between cut-and-paste collages and manufactured drones, it’…
Repercussions
On Repercussions, Kakuhan and Adam Golebiewski tangle sampler, cello and hyper-physical percussion into a 10-part suite of splintered rhythm and scraped resonance, a hallucinatory electroacoustic organism that keeps mutating between dance impulse, free improv and liquefied drone.
Pra'
Tommaso and Jean have been a duo for several years, touring extensively throughout Italy, France, and Quebec. Their second release was recorded in a new and inspiring environment: a cabin nestled in the hills surrounding the Genova Prà neighborhood. Perched atop the hill, the cabin offers breathtaking views of the seaside and the bustling commercial port of Genoa. This space, typically used as a storage room, captured the sounds and noises generated during a two-day residency hosted by Davide Ce…
Orassion
“Orassion,” halfway between improvisation and composition, is born from the timbral and contemplative union of percussion and positive organ. Recorded in September 2023, the album is the result of a shared prayer created from silence and sounds deeply amplified by the precious acoustics of the Church of St. Martin in Bondo, a small village in Switzerland. The white walls of the church, the precious embroidery of the paintings, the immaculate colors, and the golden atmosphere surrounding the soun…
Grani d'Impacts
"Silence. Presence. Breath. It was 1999 when I first met Michel Doneda, with Tetsu Saitoh, leading a free improvisation workshop in Genoa, my hometown. Looking back, it's remarkable how much that workshop influenced my life and led to many subsequent encounters with Michel, thanks to Cepi and Barre Phillips. When Michele Anelli asked me if I was interested in releasing this album, there was no doubt that the answer would have been positive. I find Michel's breath and gasps still uncompromised an…
Flutterings
Jeffrey Alexander is one of those guys whose brain and hands are constantly in motion whether working with bands, doing solo stuff, installations, paintings, label shit…whatever. Anyway, he’s always a pleasure to work with, and we have done so on many occasions. That said, I sorta feel as though this new CD might be closer to taking a walk through Jeffrey’s head than anything else I’ve heard.
Flutterings was done using guitars, keys, percussion, electronics and gimcracks of all descriptions. The…
Good Night
On January 11, 2010, I received a message from a woman who introduced herself as a friend of my good buddy Aki Onda. She was going to be part of a music night at a space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, called Death by Audio. She asked if I’d be willing to do a solo set there as well. That’s how I came to be leaning against a doorframe, after having played my own set, listening to Margarida Garcia on her electric double bass. Her music was original, soulful, thoughtful, and laden with mystery. Upon …