We use cookies on our website to provide you with the best experience. Most of these are essential and already present.
We do require your explicit consent to save your cart and browsing history between visits. Read about cookies we use here.
Your cart and preferences will not be saved if you leave the site.

Charlemagne Palestine

Charlemagne Palestine is an American minimalist composer, performer, and visual artist. A contemporary of Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Phill Niblock, and Steve Reich, Palestine wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against Western audiences’ expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer originally trained to be a cantor, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is perhaps best known for his intensely performed piano works. He also performs as a vocalist.

Charlemagne Palestine is an American minimalist composer, performer, and visual artist. A contemporary of Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Phill Niblock, and Steve Reich, Palestine wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against Western audiences’ expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer originally trained to be a cantor, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is perhaps best known for his intensely performed piano works. He also performs as a vocalist.

The God Bear Archives II
*90 copies limited edition* During the year 2021, Charlemagne Palestine entrusted us with numerous archives recently found on audio cassettes dating from the 70s and 80s. After a long process of listening and selection, we are pleased to present the second volume of these archives to you.
CHARRRLLEEMMMA GGGNEELANDDDDDS SS​”​”​”​”​”​” CCCRREATTO RRSSSSSCCCARILLON NNN​”​”​”​”​”​”​”​” DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz ferrrr SSSOFTTT DIVINI TIESSSSS​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​! with STTT THOMASSS ‘​’​’​’​”​‘​”​DINGG GDONGGGDINGGGzzz zzzz ferrrr TONYYY​’​’​’​’​’​’​’​’
DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz!!!!!!! In the newest record by the iconoclastic Brooklyn-born composer Charlemagne Palestine (b. 1947), find two mesmerizing works for carillon, the keyboard-controlled bell tower derived in the 16th century. On side A, a new piece recorded at the artist’s studio in Belgium—a high-ceiling, stuffed-animal-packed paradise he calls Charleworld—among friends and “divinities,” his name for the thousands of plush toys he’s amassed since the ’60s. On the flip side, Blank Forms…
Illuminations
** 365 copies, remastered edition ** Awesome Alga Marghen re-release presenting "Illuminations", or Charlemagne Palestine and Simone Forti duo interactions, illuminated with dim red lights. In early 1970 Morton Subotnick asked Charlemagne Palestine to join his soon to be created Media Department at the new “Dream School of the Future” endowed by the Disneys to be called the California Institute of the Arts. Charlemagne and Simone Forti met there in 1970, when La Monte Young asked them to arrange…
October 24, 1975
**CD Limited Edition to 300 copies ** A few months after the release of the legendary Strumming in 1974, Charlemagne Palestine gave a masterful and powerful 56 minutes performance in Antwerp in an exciting concert series. With the work and the precious help of M KHA and Lotte Beckwé, we were able to find this recording. We are pleased to offer you this unreleased performance on cassette and CD
MMXX-06
Matière Mémoire presents the MMXX Series. In anticipation of the year 2020, Matière Mémoire asked 20 great artists to create an original 20 minutes piece and an artwork. Throughout this year, each quarter will see the release of 5 new vinyls, available individually or as a bundle. Each record is limited at 500 copies and comes as a crystal clear vinyl featuring an original track of 20 minutes on one side, and a laser engraved artwork on the other. Each contained in a transparent sleeve printed w…
P V T
**Edition of 500 copies on clear vinyl.** In October 2013, Charlemagne Palestine, Mika Vainio and Eric Thielemans got together for the first time, meeting each other at Les Ateliers Claus in Brussels, for a 4 day residency and 2 live performances. The music of the residency takes, edited by Thielemans, mixed and mastered by Frederic Allstadt, is now released on Godbear, Charlemagne Palestine’s archival music label.Charlemagne Palestine: piano, voice and organMika Vainio: electronics and live pro…
Aaangelicaaa May 10th 2015
Strummmmminggg for Stringggggsss N Thingggggsss is a reworking of Charlemagne Palestine’s venerable Strumming Music from the early 70s. If you’re familiar with the string ensemble version of the piece included on the Sub Rosa reissue Strumming Music then you will not be fully prepared for this. Palestine begins solo, keening in falsetto over rubbed glasses; the strings come in lower pitched, with cellos and basses augmenting the violins. The heavier texture, with Palestine’s singing, creates a r…
Dinggg Donggg Dinggg Vs Singgg Songg Singgg
Last copies**Deluxe Art Edition of 240 copies, the LP comes with a extra 7", engraved with an exclusive track on one side and etched with a Charlemagne drawing on the other** Singing songs while playing ding dongs, Charlemagne Palestine’s solo voice over the bells of his studio carillon is a premiere in his recorded works, and possibly the first voice/carillon record in musical history. All the little shamanic stuffed deities inhabiting the carillon added their souls to the spirit of the reverbe…
Palestine, first name Charlemagne – Meshugga Land
A biographical essay which explores the origins and influences of Charlemagne Palestine, as well as themes related to his life and artistic practice—spirituality, music, performance, avant-gardism—together with an acute analysis of his main works. The study is followed by an interview with the artist, which provides a clever balance between personal anecdotes and reflection.Born Chaïm Moshe Palestine in Brooklyn, 1947, Charlemagne Palestine joined as a child the Stanley Sapir Jewish choir to low…
Charlemagne at Sonnabend
Special limited edition of 300 signed and numbered copies, packaged in large oversized gatefold cover. Privately issued by the composer in collaboration with Sonnabend Gallery and issued in an edition of 300 signed copies in large silkscreened gatefold folio in 2002. This art edition was never officially distributed and after 10 years a limited amount of copies is now exclusively available for the first time from Alga Marghen. The first contact between Charlemagne Palestine and the Sonnabend…
GesammttkkunnsttMeshuggahhLaandtttt
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 figu…
CharleBelllzzz at Saint Thomas (Golden 666)
Presented in tri-fold digipak sleeve. Alga Marghen presents the "sixSIXsix"th installment of its Golden Research Charlemagne Palestine archive series: CharleBelllzzz at Saint Thomas. These previously unreleased recordings of Palestine's "Bells Studies" are both some of his earliest recordings and some of his darkest and most accomplished works. In 1963, while attending The High School of Music & Art in New York, the 15-year-old Palestine was asked if he'd be interested in playing a 26-bell caril…
Avant Marghen Vol. 4
New volume of the Avant Marghen series, an ultra-limited splendid set in a numbered edition of 80 copies. This luxury black boxset edition actually includes the forth group of 7 LPs previously issued for the VocSon series and now sold out. Each individual LP record includes a numbered Avant Marghen inner-sleeves.    LP 1 to 4) François Dufrene Oeuvre desintegrale 4 LP set. First 80 copies from the original pressing of 345 copies issued in 2007, presented here with minimal hand-elaboration on eac…
Relationship Studies
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 "Poeme El…
Alloy (Golden 1)
Originally released in 2000. The Golden Research is the name chosen for the complete documentation of previously unpublished works by Charlemagne Palestine starting from the early 1960s to the mid-late 1970s. Such a huge project will include seminal collage and electronic music, Bell Studies, New York and California drones, piano drones as well as more specific compositions. All the recordings will be exclusively available through Alga Marghen. Be ready to change your own opinion about minimalis…
Schlingen Blängen
Schlingen Blängen is an invaluable addition to the slender but precious discography of Charlemagne Palestine, one of the legendary figures of the amazingly fertile New York and West Coast experimental music/art scene of the sixties and seventies. He is considered to be a seminal figure of early minimalism—as important as his better-documented contemporaries. His performances on the giant bells at St. Thomas Church and his evening-length Bösendorfer shows are still spoken of with awe by those who…
Sharing a Sonority
Alga Marghen proudly presents a new chapter in the documentation series of Charlemagne Palestine's historical works. This CD of previously-unavailable recordings not only presents you Charlemagne Palestine activities in 1974, collaborating with some of most important experimental artists and composers from either the New York loft scene and Cal Arts, but also features world premiere recordings of Terry Jennings and The Fundamental D Flat Group. "Short & Sweet" is the title of a breathtaking duo …
Sacred Bordello
2004 release. Special edition of Sacred Bordello (originally published by Black Dog Publishing) bundled with a limited edition CD released by Alga Marghen. As one of the most influential figures of experimental music and performance, Charlemagne Palestine has remained an enigma. Unlike his illustrious contemporaries Terry Riley, John Cale, Steve Reich, and Phillip Glass, little has been written on Palestine and his continuing influence. In his own right, he was and remains today a pivotal person…
1