Back in stock
23/20
the long awaited SIGILLUM S 20th anniversary album: this is the digipack CD and a limited edition gatefold double vinyl , with different track lists and sequences for each format (some tracks are on both formats, while others can only be found either on CD or vinyl).
Vita di San Francesco
When, in the summer of 1992, Lutz-Werner Hesse visited St. Francis’s hometown in Umbria, he was deeply moved by Giotto’s frescos in the Basilica. Using prints of the frescos, Hesse later developed a dramatic sequence, which was meant to serve as the basis for a composition revolving around the life of the saint. Gongs had always held a special fascination for Hesse. So, for this piece, he pitted 13 gongs against one organ: “The organ, I thought, is a particularly suitable partner for the gongs s…
Sonatas & Inteludes
The sonata originated in the Baroque as a small, one-movement form, which nevertheless already contained the core of the sonata to be later developed and composed in elaborate detail by the Viennese Classics. In his Sonatas and Interludes John Cage stuck to the concise, one-movement form, thus establishing a link to Scarlatti and Bach's preludes as well as to Chopin's Préludes and Satie's piano pieces. Other than many of his later, freer works, these small but complex gems are fixed and noted do…
Trac(k)_t
his is the final work in the series of works-encompassing ataraxia, bradycard, trans~, and back_forward – using the cymbalon as source material. The process of working with this hammered stringed instrument for this series has been a “discussion” between the instrument and myself, an exploration of traditional playing, digital processing, and mixtures of both. I feel that trac[k]_t should convey the scope of using an instrument without losing both its intrinsic nature of engagement as …
Silmät Sulkaset
On the second full-length release by Kiila, the band gently conjures up mildly otherworldly tunes with a peaceful air and feathered eyes. What was once free-pop played by two is now free-folk played by seven. The language of the songs has reverted back to Finnish, and the human voices rest on a warm texture of sounds from an array of acoustic and electronic instruments. Carefully-arranged songs alternate with those improvised on the spot, all bearing the mark of a handcrafted article.
Certainty of Swarms
'The fusion of metal, noise rock, free jazz, industrial, and harsh electronics that makes up The certainty of swarms is the rare kind of heterogeneous concoction that is carefully matured, but never lost in pedestrian calculation. A blistering onslaught of metallic-fused noise-murk, swarms is considered by the band to be one of their most complete statements to date, an aptly blindsiding and developed work drawing from all quarters of their craft.'
Yesterday night you were sleeping at my place
Flute, harp and percussion are the principal instruments on this recording, though you’d be hard pressed to identify them during the opening measures of “Hamida”, the longest track on the CD. But the buzzing, pulsing drone with which it begins gradually opens out into flute articulations that sound like jets of steam, a barrage of muffled percussion, and various harp-generated supplementary drones. The MUTA soundworld gets richer, louder and more pressurised as the track progresses, and…
ktl 2
This is the second full-length release by KTL, the formidable collaboration between Stephen O'Malley (SunnO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita, etc.). Devastatingly beautiful four-part follow up to the highly acclaimed debut CD, recorded in a former abattoir in Angers, as well as a 16th century manor in the extreme west of France. Taking the blueprint that was laid out on the first record even further, with the ecstatic build up of "Theme," the near-psychedelic "Abattoir," and closing wi…
Works for Piano and Cembalo
The pieces for piano/cembalo on this CD include the first two Capriccios by the 24-year-old Ligeti, the Musica ricercata, and the first volume of the legendary Études, in brilliant interpretations by the German pianist Erika Haase. Ligeti was a master in how to make tricky compositional systems appear as more than just that by inspiring them with sensual substance: that's what distinguishes the artist from the artisan. Throughout his life Ligeti kept his ears pricked up and his senses sharpened …
Welcome Abroad
Vicki Bennett, under the People Like Us moniker, returns from several collaborations for her first solo album in several years. Stranded in the United States for an extended period after the Icelandic volcano eruption blocked her British homeland's airspace, Bennett derived thematic material of displacement, travel, and a longing forelsewhere, from the natural disaster that caused her own predicament. Volcanically marooned in Baltimore and NYC, Bennett utilized some of her "free" time to…
D.o.A. The Third And Final Report
1991 CD reissue of the 2nd TG album, originally issued in 1978; digitally remastered by Chris Carter. Adds 2 bonus tracks from the legendary Sordide Sentimental 7" ("We Hate You (Little Girls)" & "Five Knuckle Shuffle". Breaking from the live sound of the previous Second Annual Report, D.O.A. finds the group assembling collages of computer noise, cassette tapes on fast forward, looped feedback and tape hiss, surreptitiously recorded conversation, threatening phone calls, and much more, all to a …
Three days of silence. The mountain of the stigmata
restocked ""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…
Carliol
'John Butcher: tenor or soprano saxophones - plus feedback, motors, embedded harp speaker. Rhodri Davies: pedal harp, lever harp with embedded speaker and electric harp, aeolian electric harp. John Butcher is one of the leading sax players on the free improvisation scene. Rhodri Davies transcends conventional ideas about the harp--an instrument rarely associated with improvised music--in his wide-ranging projects. The two British musicians have worked together in a variety of contexts sin…
AURORA / THRENOS IV / PIRKEI TEHILLIM / MEMORARE
Titles often occur to Reinhard David Flender only after he has completed a composition. When listening to Aurora, for example, "a visual association is evoked. The piece starts with a long double bass tone. Then a high pitched tone played by oboe and harp comes in, briefly at first, repeated at intervals; as the piece proceeds it is joined by other tones, until a short melody emerges. Thus the title Aurora, the first rays of sun at the crack of dawn, which then give way to a shape: the dome of t…
There are no crows flying around the hancock building
In August 2003, Lampo invited Swedish artist CM von Hausswolff to do a project specific to Chicago. Intrepid traveler that he is, Hausswolff ascended to the top of the 100-story John Hancock Building and collected sounds from the open-air observation deck. While taking in the sights, he recorded building vibrations, passing breezes and overheard speech from tourists. Later, in his Stockholm studio, he added a series of feedback rotations to suggest crows (guardians or enemies?) encircling the co…
Integrale de la musique de chambre
Long deleted, this is a must have cd collecting all the Scelsi pieces for string orchestra. "An internal struggle, stemming from the introductory tremolo, all through its serene yet chaotic means of lumonisity"
The Disintegration Loops IV
And then, the man remained alone with more doubts than ever before. Music had flown through the years, the tapes definitively gone. IV draws the final line in this groundbreaking 'disintegration' cycle and it does it with a high grade of acute intensity and a totally developed loop aesthetic...moreover, the final track is sort of a reprise of the first segment in I, like putting an end to a whole giant texture. Basinski's repetitions are truly addictive; I could listen for days, each repe…
Aerial # 2
This release is the second (Volume 2) in the three-part Aerial series. Tod Dockstader is one of the all-time great figures in the world of musique concréte composition, with his "organized sound" works from the 1960s being amongst the most radical ever conceived -- in league with Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, and Varese. Aerial is a rare new work in the realm of shortwave radio, from one of America's most experimental composers. Volume 1 was released in March 2005 inside a slipcase. Volu…
Turning Dreams & Shifting Harbours
The Kidnapping Europe project was initialized by the artists Christina Clar (Paris, France) and Peter Jap Lim (Berlin, Germany) in 2001. Based on the "Europa Myth" (Zeus kidnapped the phoenician princess Europa and brought her to a continent which now has her name), the project aims to approach the topic of migration and the dreams, hopes and visions of migrants, in particular, from a contemporary perspective. In addition to their own work, which resulted in an installation that made its debut a…
Pléiades
Featured works: "Pléiades" and Psappha." Performed by Kroumata Percussion Ensemble; Gert Mortensen, percussion. "Xenakis has been very interested in percussion music -- ever since his orchestral piece 'Terretektorh (1966) in which the instrumental forces are spread throughout the hall, by way of 'Psappha' (1975) for a lone percussion virtuoso all the way to 'Pléiades' (1979) for six percussionists -- perhaps the largest composition in the entire percussion repertoire, and the most daring …