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Chamber Music Vol. 1
It is the eternal questions that Nikolaus Brass mainly concerns himself with in his compositional work: the question of existence, of being, and first and foremost of all possible intermediate stages at the edge of what is conceivable, of what can just be grasped. In VOID (1999) he investigates the feeling left by loss, "structural empty spaces that bear the construction of sound while challenging it at the same time." For a due (2003), Brass has borrowed short captions from Yashushi Inoue's nov…
Red Morocco
Someday someone will write a history of modern music that will free us of the false dichotomies such as high vs. low, improviser vs. composer, classical vs. everything else… …The written materials Joe passed out to the musicians for Red Morocco was minimal, sometimes more visual than musical, but always modest. Everyone was seated in the same room, in a circle. The music heard on this recording occurred late in the day, when Joe felt a certain clarity was occurring……The results are an elegant,…
Army Arrangement
Fela Anikulapo Kuti, inventor of Afrobeat, is one of the greatest musicians ever to have lived. He was an innovator, musically gifted, and more important, he was the people's musician.
Music for a Summer Evening / A Little Suite for Christmas / Five
Music for a Summer Evening (1974) is the third part of the "cosmic drama" Macrocosmos, which investigates the relations between the innermost human soul and the vastness of the cosmos; relations that also determine the temporal, dynamic and tonal dimensions of the composition. Its immense material extravagance is reflected by a range of some 70 percussion instruments; in addition, the two pianists are required to perform a variety of different techniques, such as pizzicatos, flageolets, etc. A s…
Piano and Orchestra, Palais de Mari, Piano
In the early 1970s, Feldman increasingly turned his attention to works for orchestra, in most cases combined with a solo instrument. The compositions dating from this period include, among many others, Cello and Orchestra (1972) or Oboe and Orchestra (1976). One aspect that was important to him in all of these works was a research into sound, an "unceasing effort to create, by way of exclusion and integration, by operating with colored projection surfaces and various spatial levels, a kind of se…
Klaviermusik
The sovereign and immediate approach Lachenmann takes in his Fünf Variationen über ein Thema von F. Schubert (1956) lends Schubert's slight Deutsche Tanz D 643a special and almost heroic flavor. But only five years later, Lachenmann had already travelled a considerable distance since those days as his Echo Andante of 1961 shows. Like Wiegenmusik (1963), the piece has been shaped by Lachenmann's studies with Luigi Nono whose influence and inspiration are clearly audible. A perfect example of the …
Musica Viva 02
Musica Viva 02: Space and sound, modernism and pluralism, "perfect harmony" and, finally, the fascination of collectively organized fireflies.
Radio Java
Java is the center of Indonesian culture. Three out of every four Indonesians live on Java. It is the home of some of the most elegant musical styles to be found anywhere. To the veteran international sound collector, Javanese music is no secret. For the uninitiated, rather than going through an introductory outline of Javanese music history, I will wish you away to the internet, a library, or bookstore where you can find plenty of information on the subject. The selections on this CD are a comb…
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…
Santi
In Śānti, Jan Beran unites meditative-expressive means of articulation with avant-garde techniques, and Western attitudes with those of the Far East. This multicultural approach is founded not least on Beran's extraordinary personal and musical background and development, which took the mathematician and composer from his native town Prague to Switzerland, the USA, and as far as India. This explains, among other things, his efforts to reconcile the time patterns of Indian music with Western seri…
Vertical Time Study I / Sen V / In die Tiefe der Zeit / Melodia
In his series Vertical Time Study, Hosokawa seeks to „integrate Noh’s vertical structure of time into my own music. It is about how temporal elements, like wedges, disrupt the vertical, horizontal timeline at irregular intervals. These disruptions produce elements of tension … creating visible fissures in the structure of time and visible cracks in space. My aim is to examine the complexity and the depth of these sounds hidden in the moment.” In his piece Sen V, Hosokawa tries to combine the “ea…
Anthology Of Dutch Electronic Tape Music: Volume 2 (1966-1977)
Reissue of a double LP edited in 1978. Recordings realized by the Institute of Sonology, Utrecht State University and the Electronic Music Studio of the Royal Conservatory at the Hague. Program notes by Dick Raaijmakers translated by Keith Freeman, and program notes by the composers. With Jacob Cats: 'Cadence 1'. Tera De Marez Oyens: 'Safed'. Jos Kunst: 'Extérieur'. Gilius Van Bergeijk: 'D.E.S'. Frans Van Doorn: 'Minnuet'. Thomas Arras: 'A.B.C.' Simeon Ten Holt: 'I Am Sylvia Victor Wentink: Disc…
No Birds Do Sing
Everyone's belle de jour Diana Rogerson and Andrew Liles got together to create what we regard as one of the most considered and well conceived albums Liles has been part of. 'No Birds do Sing' can only be described as a hallucinogenic voyage of disconcerting mysticism and cosmic pandemonium and is a recording he's very proud of. This disc is a completely black and comes in a stunning super high gloss digipack with wonderful artwork by Babs Santini.
IIron
4 panel CD digipack: it would be too easy to simply call IIRON the COH metal album, as it goes way beyond that. True, this album of classic Pavlov stompers contains more than its fair share of guitars both acoustic and electric, yet it still maintains that sense of power and purpose through electronic music which stands out as the COH ‘raison d’être’. Coming 11 years after IRON, which also tackled the sound of rock with alarming results, the new album features not only recent guitar tracks recor…
Les Maledictus Sound
(Originally released in 1968) this is one of the most bizarre records ever released and one of the most sought after titles on the collectors' market. The Maledictus Sound are to instrumental rock what Frankenstein was to science... a laboratory monster... a strange creature assembled from a mish-mash of diverse musical sounds. Psychedelic pop, romantic ballads, musical tongue-in-cheek, drugged out chipmunks, near-delirium sound effects, horror movie screamadelia and a mega-twisted '60s vibe. Ec…
Je Ne Connais Pas Cet Homme
Beautiful duets between Brigitte Fontaine and Areski -- and an album that's filled with loads of short little tracks that stand with some of their greatest work ever! Instrumentation is spare, but incredibly haunting -- a bit jazzy at times, slightly experimental at others -- but always quiet enough to allow the slightly-whispered vocals of the pair dominate the record. There's a strong sense of poetry here -- but without any of the stiffness or pretension that might imply -- and the re…
Three Voices
This piece is sung by the Swiss “deep voice”, Marianne Schuppe in trio with herself, a feat made possible by playing back recordings of her own voice. This is not minimal music; melodic lines arise, sensual, beautiful, and undoctored, swaying like a lullaby, yet boosting the overall rhythmic intensity. There cannot be many works which demand of the soloist such careful timing, intense concentration and voice control.
14 Récitations
A songbird that stops singing must die. Georges Aperghis demands a similar degree of self-sacrifice of the performer of his 14 Récitation.
Kokotsu/ Ecstasy
Long deleted, originally released by Columbia Records on March 1970, “ Kokotsu / Ecstasy” is here re-released for the first time. Sonic-wise, the disc unleashes a whirlpool of Latin styled mondo -sexploitation sounds that get spiced up with feminine breathing and respiration sounds, moaning and hissing, igniting a maelstrom of assorted eroticism and sexual depravity. In all, it resembles a caged vixen engaged in sexual intercourse, hatching out cries, moans, sighs, words and other sounds such as…
Arbete Och Fritid
Much needed reissue of this long-lived Swedish band's fourth album, from 1973, with an excellent 20' bonus track from 1974 tagged on. Terry Riley's 1967 visit to Sweden and his work with these musicians when they were still just young ones in High School resonates here, and you get a weird and vibrant mixture of Riley, the Third Ear Band, bits of free improvisation and ancient Swedish folk music all blended into an excellent, droney whole.