Various
Plastic Dance 2: Domestic Synth Pop & Patchbay Punk
... Let's talk about the dangerous counterrevolutionaries who went out
and bought a cheap synth and a rudimentary drum machine. The ones that
got what 'punk' was really about. The democratization of art . . . Sniffing Glue said learn three chords and form a band, Throbbing Gristle said why learn any chords at all... I am an artist because I say I am. More Marcel Duchamp than Malcolm McLaren.
So, sisters and brothers, who do you think led the counter-revolution?
Well I'll tell you. It was the…
Option 1
Since 2015, Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio has been the host of Option, a series of intimate concerts of improvised music. Featuring an uncommonly wide range of players representing virtually all haunts of free music, the series has fostered not only an important exchange of ideas in musical form, but it has also promoted literal conversation about the music, usually substituting a dialogue with the musician or musicians for the requisite second set. In 2018, the series was funded by a cons…
Antipodean Anomalies
For musicians inhabiting the Antipodean countries of Australia and New Zealand during the 70’s and 80’s, it was a geographically and culturally isolating environment. Boutique shops, community radio and mail order exchanges championed independent and contemporary music from across the globe. It was, however, this isolation that caused a number of small community-focused scenes to evolve, creating their own unique interpretation and reappropriation of outside influences. Through both these scenes…
Buntús Rince Explorations in Irish Jazz Fusion Folk 69-81
Buntús Rince translates from Irish as 'basic rhythms', and this new compilation explores how Irish musicians were influenced by strands of different genres of music from around the world, merging them to create their own unique sounds. The compilation features some of the most innovative and talented figures in the history of Irish music and includes rare Irish jazz, fusion and folk outliers from the 1970s and early 1980s from musicians relatively unknown outside of Ireland. Often regarded as a …
Test Pressing II
**300 copies** Ukrainian label Muscut celebrates its anniversary with "Test Pressing II", its tenth record. The first release, "Test Pressing", was published in 2012 on 7". Like six years ago, the current title is a compilation of Muscut's resident producers, as well as new friends of the label. "Test Pressing II" is a 12" on which there are exactly ten tracks; both sides are significantly different in the color of their mood. The compilation starts with dub-drone sketches from key figures in th…
Cleopatra Jones (Soundtrack) LP
One of the best of the blacksploitation scores of the early 70s – a masterpiece of music that we rate every bit as high as Shaft or Superfly – maybe even higher! The music here is incredible – a surprising funky turn for JJ Johnson, who most folks know for his straighter jazz work – and like Marvin Gaye, Barry White, and others who were surprising the world with their ability to score music for a full film during the early 70s, JJ really knocks it out of the park with this one – coming up with a…
Outro Tempo II: Electronic and Contemporary Music from Brazil, 1984-1996
"Outro Tempo II: Electronic and Contemporary Music from Brazil, 1984-1996" is the second installment of Music From Memory’s Brazilian series. This volume picks up where the first Outro Tempo left off, shedding light on a new wave of experimentalism that emerged in Brazil in the late 1980s and 1990s. The twenty tracks collected uncover another area of Brazilian music that looked to the future for inspiration. This time it drifts beyond the rainforest and into the pulsating heart of Brazil’s great…
Musica Per L'Immagine II (2LP) Lost Italian Library Music
Handily compiled selection of lost Italian soundtrack recordings from the 1970s and '80s. Massive props to Fly By Night Music for doing the groundwork and digging up this selection of impossible to find or verging on priceless gems... Highly recommended for fans of Trunk, Finders Keepers and Soundway
Making Sense of Sound
In 2016, elnicho and Buró-Buró curated a panel as part of the "SOMA Wednesday" program in the context of the elnicho#5 festival. The theme revolved around the relevance of sound in art and the relationship between them. From a socio-cultural point of view, sound is around us and has historically been a vast territory of exploration. How have anthropological, folkloric and vernacular elements influenced our current listening experiences? Music not assimilated in the past is now revisited through …
Making Room for Sound
Sound and music seem to have been underwhelmingly part of contemporary museums. However, they are shyly making their way in the area of contemporary art, often via visual artists keen on using sound in their work or inviting musicians or sound-focused artists to collaborate. But how are visual arts curators situated both within and outside the boundaries of institutions, and how do galleries and museums deal with the increasing importance of sound? Does its lack of tangible value make it a less …
Milano After Punk: Rare And Unreleased Tracks
Milan, 1979, only two years had passed since the explosion of punk but it seemed like ten years had passed, 1977 had inexorably changed the destiny of a generation of musicians. Milan in those years felt a bit like Manchester, a city in black and white, with monuments grayed by smog, busy and still far from becoming the "Milan to drink" of the mid-80s. The music scene was totally disconnected from the rest of the Italian underground, the bands were born and imploded within a few months. The inpu…
Small Town Country, vol. 1
killer collection of archival tunes from around Texas compiled by compiled by Austin-based musician and record collector Jason Chronis. Liner notes by Jack D. Fleischer and vinyl mastering by John Golden, pressed at RTI. The collection is a bunch of obscure tunes from private pressings and they truly achieve what the best of country music strives for; they’re personal songs of people’s honest emotion and experience and the collection delivers a wide range of moods. A lovely little collection, wo…
Turn On, Tune In
Charming first instalment in a series of compilations exploring the ambient sound and vision of Melbourne, Australia’s Lullabies For Insomniacs radio show-turned-label: containing sweet treats in Georgia’s lilting polyrhythmic daydream, Mist ∞ Skat, and the avant-classical elegance of The Magic Carpathians’ Thalassa.
Offstrings: Inventions for guitar
"Around the turn of the century there seemed to be a wave of guitarists versed in experimental and electronic musics who sought out ways of drawing new sounds from their instrument of choice; the likes of Fennesz, Tim Hecker, Keith Fullerton Whitman (on his still-superb Playthroughs album), Sebastien Roux and Christopher Willits were among the most notable artists in this movement, and now, at the start of a new decade, this excellent album strives to highlight the work of five emerging guitaris…
Menagerie # 3
Jake Blanchard's third volume of Menagerie finally
shows up just over a year after #2... The concept this time is slightly
different, not only do the artists create imagery based on the musicians
music, but this time the musicians also create a track based on an
image created by the artist. Two exclusive new tracks from each of these
artists: Ben Nash, Isengrind, C Joynes and Twinsistermoon.
And exclusive new artwork by Jim Stoten, Simon Fowler, Adrianne Neil
and Jake Blanchard. The sleev…
Minimal Milan
Lovely compilation selected by Xiu (Oksana Rodionova) consisting of contemporary minimal electronic and deviant-techno artists based in Milan, Italy. Here's the label's mission statement as you could say: "The musical aesthetism defended by the label admits connections with post-modern qualities and challenges conventions for an innovative musical conversation between analogue instrumentation and technologies." The label will host various types of electronic music always seen throught a dark and…
Live at the Jolt Festival Basel
- 2014 release - JOLT-Festival Basel is an interdisciplinary art and music festival that took place November 7.-13. 2011 at Galerie Stampa und Gare Du Nord in Basel, Switzerland. The festival was curated by Daniel Buess and James Hullick in the spirit of JOLT Sonic Arts Inc. The non profit organisation JOLT Sonic Arts was founded by James Hullik with the aim to develop and implement soundart-projects in the form of concerts, performances, installations, etc. After its establishment in its home …
The Black Book
Epic, brilliantly curated two hour collection of new and exclusive material celebrating iDEAL Recordings' (1998-2018) 20th anniversary featuring JASSS, Stephen O’Malley, Jim O’Rourke (an epic 17 minute trance-enducer - honestly worthy of its own LP), Ectoplasm Girls, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Prurient, Puce Mary and many others...We always say this - we hate comps - they’re almost always shite - but this one’s a bit of a mindmelter, featuring 20 new and exclusive tracks commissioned by label boss…
Interdimensional Folklore Vol. I
All the artists taking part in this collection come from the italian land and entered the label network thanks to the mind-altering Communion happenings in the freed spaces of Macao, Milan. In this happenings lot of ideas where shown and some new others came to life, both in musical production and life organization processes. A new kind of way of looking at the world seemed to emerge in this gatherings, we can say that it is based on a renewed version of what we usually call "psychedelia". “Psyc…
Arthur Boto Conley's Music Workshop Presents "280913_1 / 280913_
Zweikommasieben: "Your installation Hot Knobbing at Oslo 10, Basel, explores the “live” aspect of performances. What does “live” mean to you in this age of holograms, “live streaming,” and prefabricated Ableton sets?" Thomas Baldischwyler: "The last thing I want to do is strike a blow for authenticity. I refuse to take part in this extremely petit-bourgeois mainstream ritual of getting all heated up over “fake” performances in which the Internet public scrutinizes everything down to the smalles…