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Works for Soprano
Kurtág's attachment to speech is also to be sensed in the works from this first period of maturity, something which emerged more concretely in this CD maily cenetered around the Russian language, which he learned especially in order to read Dostoevsky, and which is almost "sacred" for him, in the way that Latin was for Stravinsky. In his Russian works, opp 16 to 19, Kurtág's response to Russian prosody transforms his musical dialect with a poignant lyricism; this is to be heard both in the works…
Stroma-Konkret
Extra heavy fusion of industrial noise and musique concrète, this exclusive collaboration unites forces of two legendary musicians who were witnessed the roots of industrial music movement. It consists of three long tracks of mechanical aggression, clinical obsession and uncompromizing psychic attack. Dedicated to the memory of Pierre Schaeffer, this is the second part of ongoing series, started by Tibprod label CDR-release.
Pre-zoic cellways
Jaap Blonk: voice, powerbook, effects. Cor Fuhler: EMS synthi-AKS, turntable. Nice meeting in the electronic series of Kontrans.
Solitudes
Hirschfeld deliberately distinguished solitude, or loneliness, from a state that leads to depression or despair. For him, the contemplation of one’s self leads to the “dialogue with one self and with nature”, as is the case, e.g., in his Chant of the Night, which is based on poems by Walt Whitman. Hirschfeld chose Whitman’s Leaves of Grass with its portrayal of human solitude in the plains as a starting point in order to develop the music from a simple melodic cell, “which, like human consciousn…
Percupulsions Gymnorythmies 1
Remastered from the original Neuilly/UniDisc/Mondiodis/SM mastertapes 2012. 46 track CD. All original recordings. First Ever Official Reissue. 20 page full colour booklet with exclusive liner notes and rare photos. Ultra-rare French production music workouts that bare comparison to Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith and Ennio Morricone at their best. Tracks from 'Percupulsions' Neuilly Ð MC 8002 (1970), 'Gymnorythmies 1' UniDisc (1975), 'Le Vitrail Eparpillé' Mondiodis (1976), 'Imaginations…
String Quartets Vol. 2 (Nos. 5 & 6)
That the two single-movement string quartets No. 5 (“Ohne Titel”) and No. 6 (“Blaubuch”), composed in 1981/83 and 1984, belong to the most passionate of Rihm’s quartets is due to their restless vigor. This impulsive approach is of course always present in his music. But even the tempo indications “fast, restless” and “fast und free” suggest a certain stringency - which is fully realized in the pieces. A sense of inner disquiet pulls the listener like a maelstrom into a sea of commotion, of stru…
Musica Viva 02
Musica Viva 02: Space and sound, modernism and pluralism, "perfect harmony" and, finally, the fascination of collectively organized fireflies.
Resonant Spaces
****THE WIRE 2008 TOP 50 RECORDS OF THE YEAR WINNER****"A couple of years ago the promoters Arika invited John Butcher to tour a number of out-of-the-way spaces in Scotland. The venues, selected for their extreme acoustic properties, included a mausoleum, a wartime fuel-storage tank and a cave. This album grows out of Butcher’s evident interest in escaping the acoustic confines of conventional venues (work with resonant spaces is documented on the earlier Geometry of Sentiment and Cavern with Ni…
Live At Blå
First live document and fourth album overall from a band that mixes free jazz ecstasy with garage rock intensity. Even with no electricity, they make a hell of a noise and the album is an explosion of energy. Recorded at the Bla in Oslo.
Siete Cantos De Espana
The three cultures at the center of the songs on this recording make a joint appearance in the finale of the Siete cantos de España. They are formed into a unified whole in Ensalada, as the soprano and the baritone begin singing together texts of Castilian, Sephardic and Arabic origin. The poems’ subjects are love, agony and death; and in order to bring them to life Halffter requires a large orchestra of about 100 musicians and two soloists with the baritone singing Spanish texts and the soprano…
s/t
Françoise Barrière was born on june 12th, 1944. classical training: piano at the conservatoire de versailles; harmony and counterpoint at the conservatoire national supérieur de musique, paris. less classical training: service de la recherche, ortf; ethnomusicology at the ecole pratique de hautes etudes. in 1970, she founded in collaboration with christian clozier, the groupe de musique expérimentale de bourges (now called the international institute of electroacoustic music of bourges) that the…
Suitable For Framing
Reissue of this obscure Canadian album from 1975, originally issued on the A.R.C. Record label, with extended mixes and bonus material from the same period. Performed by David Rosenboom and J. B. Floyd (pianos, one in each channel) & Trichy Sankaran on South Indian percussion (mrdangam and kanjira). On April 19th, 1975, at Northern Illinois University, three musicians met in a milestone event from which emerged a unique, improvising trio with two pianos and South Indian percussion. Fortunately, …
Gnomic Variations / Processional / Ancient Voices of Children
On reading the title Gnomic Variations, lovers of piano music might fancy themselves to be in a kind of "Grieg's World," but the truth is far from it: the title of the piano solo, completed in 1981, does not refer to any thieving Irish gnomes but solely to the conciseness of the structure of the work. "Gnomic" here means expressing an idea in brief words, or, simply, describing a maxim as accurately as possible. The Gnomic Variations consist of three parts, comprising a total of 18 variations. A…
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.'
Las Orillas
“It seems most important to me not to stop being a connoisseur; I freely confess that I would rather be considered a hedonist than an analyst.” This statement by Luis de Pablo is reflected in his music; not in violent yet superficial currents of sound but in finely differentiated sound as de Pablo’s Las Orillas (1990) demonstrates: “The composition is very linear, particularly in the slower parts. The orchestration has therefore been planned especially thoroughly such that each voice has a meani…
Pencil Music
Originally released under the title "Bleistiftmusik" as a C30 cassette in a signed and numbered edition of 80 copies by Edition Hundertmark as 74. Karton. "I was surprised that it was possible to read the acoustic event from the object drawn, and some insecurity about the association of visual signs and sound phenomena (caused by the directional openness of the reading process) appears to increase even more the attraction of seeing them combined. The pencil-sound piece did not always remain th…
Chamber Works
One of the mysteries surrounding Jesús Rueda is the question how he was able to find a voice of his own, the various influences to which he was exposed during his development as a composer notwithstanding. He bid farewell to the constructivist rigor of Francisco Guerrero, and his pieces to do not immediately betray influences by Luis de Pablo, Giacomo Manzoni and Luigi Nono. Characteristic of his compositions are fast tempos, present in “slower” parts as brisk figurations, his sense of harmony a…
Cipher
It has been Chicago, not New York, that has been the confluence of music of Europe, jazz of the Americas, and improvised music. Whereas NYC claims all things to be "New York" (sort of like Al Gore inventing the internet), music makers in Chicago identify and defer to varying regional influences.Such is the case on Cipher, where seemingly disparate forces come together to create heady and engaging music. But then leader Josh Abrams has made a career of such things. He began with the Philadelphia …
Ribbons Of Dust
In La Monte Young's formulation, drone music is built on the idea of vertical composition, moving away from developmental form towards "Vertical Hearing". The danger, of course, is that layers will be substituted for composition, resulting in dissonant monolithic roars. These have their place, but tread an easy route to some ambiguous transcendence. On the four extended meditations for guitar and electronics here, Alex Cobb chooses no such route. Instead, patience and focus help him build up vas…
Étude sur les Mouvements rotatoires / 24 Préludes
The master of partial tones: Ivan Wyschnegradsky continued Scriabin's harmonic principles and (successfully) searched for new tone colors.