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Music For Mandolin And Guitar
The minor forms represented on the present recording range from the principles of the ars nova in the Sonata piccola to the weird waltzes in the Movimenti per chitarra. With the exception of the Préludes, the pieces are to be performed as cycles. The Sonata Piccola, composed in 1986 and revised in 1996, is really based on medieval compositional principles. The names of the movements of the Movimenti per chitarra and of the Partita then suggest Baroque forms of the suite. At the same time, a logi…
Nipples
Long awaited reissue of this historic pre-FMP album by Peter Brotzmann. Known to many for it's placement on "The List" (T. Moore's Top Ten list of free jazz artifacts as published in Grand Royal of course), this is one of the most desirable and completely unseen albums in the genre of modern improvisation. Recorded April 18/24, 1969 and released on the Calig-Verlag label. Simply put, Nipples is one of the rarest and most influential European energy jazz recordings of all time. The incendiary Sex…
Garage
Smalltown Supersound's "Superjazz" offshoot delivers this much-discussed darkcore jazz fusion album led by sometime sonic youth collaborator Mats Gustafsson, here rummaging through improvs and cover versions like a garage band picking up trumpets, double bass and drums for their heavily skewed but massively charming workouts. Sticking a hairy a tongue out at the polished slickness of the Bad Plus, The Thing offer up cover versions of tracks by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The White Stripes and Peter Bro…
missa beati pauperes spiritu
In cooperation with IEM Graz and musikprotokoll 2005 (steirischer herbst, ORF). Excursion into the Middle Ages: Klaus Lang’s latest composition breathes new life into Gregorian chant more than a thousand years old. One hears the traditional sequence of the mass movements, but newly composed material gives it a new interpretation. Klaus Lang does not wish to evoke images in his listeners but rather empty and impoverish their minds.
Nachtgesänge / Konzert für Violoncello und Orchester / Intrada /
Young Müller (b. 1964, Switzerland) writes in a consistently romantic style — unexpected col legno fare! Perhaps Sterling should have released this. The warm Hesse settings, Nachtgesänge, could be mistaken for Szymanowski or Zemlinsky; indeed, Ernman sounds as though she’d be ideal in a Strauss opera. Darkly emotional, the single-movement cello concerto taps Shostakovich and Lutoslawski’s pathos; the idée fixe’s colorful unfolding reminds the listener of Dutilleux. Müller maintains his anachroni…
Metamorphose
“Once you focus your will and mind on a particular thought or sentiment, and screen out the external world, you’re being transported into a state of contemplation, which fully takes effect in solitude: relaxation in a unity of subjective and objective experience which has come to rest.” (Robert M. Helmschrott) In the best case scenario, this basic, contemplative frame of mind helps sharpen consciousness, which, in turn, further deepens the understanding of music,” “reaching deep into the all-enc…
Der Tod und das Mädchen II
The tale of the Sleeping Beauty set somewhere between science fiction and biting social criticism. In her texts Elfriede Jelinek explores the states of sleep, of apparent death, of semi-consciousness, or of being barely awake – and in doing so investigates Austrian everyday life in all its uniqueness, including all the petty power games and battles of the sexes. Jelinek's grim texts, recited by Anne Bennent, Hanna Schygulla and an artificially generated voice, are combined with Olga Neuwirth's t…
Tau
Main is back in grand form... After finalising his Firmanent CD's it's been a bit quiet around Robert Hampson. Although very busy with other projects as Comae (with Janek Schaefer), Chasm (Fatcat), his main output has been a bit low. Tau shows the first full album in years from a talent whom showed us the way to turn guitars into ambient. His unique way of concrete sounds and manipulating these into something of his own has always been his identity. Tau is no more or less a classic mover for qui…
Girls Beware!
JanuarY 2004. Two years after the highly acclaimed album “Rose-garden", the portables come up with their second full length. “Girls Beware!" starts where their previous album ended. De Portables developed a cult reputation during the years, mainly because of their many intense and always different performances. Against all recent trends, standards and expectations they do their thing; they play because they like playing. The quartet twists themselves during 11 songs a way between pop, post-rock …
Intimate rituals
This Romanian-born composer is noted for having developed the technique of 'spectral composition' during the 1960s. According to the man himself, this is defined as a "variable distribution of the spectral energy, synthesis of the global sound sources, micro- and macro-form as sound-process, four simultaneous layers of perception and of speed, and spectral scordaturae, i.e. rows of unequal intervals corresponding to harmonic scales." If you're any the wiser as to what he's on about do drop us a …
Fanfare For The Warriors
Fans of the A.E.C. and cutting-edge-music rejoice! Long unavailable in this country, the Art Ensemble of Chicago's landmark album recorded in 1974 for the Atlantic label is back in print. Though not "easy listening" to be sure, the A.E.C. present challenging music that's worth the effort. Witness the relentless, Louis Jordan/Louis Prima-rooted swing of "Barnyard Scuffel Shuffel" and the sublime African/Japanese/Javanese-influenced rhythmic soundscape of "What's To Say." The eerie, pensive, breat…
Ode / Clarinet Quintet / Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra
Like Brahms in his later years, Edison Denisov, the European-oriented composer firmly rooted in Russian-Siberian soil, developed a certain partiality to the tonal qualities of the clarinet. Eduard Brunner, clarinet virtuoso and former soloist of the Symhonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, got acquainted with Denisov's music in the mid 1960s, and has been playing Denisov's works regularly ever since. Brunner's performance of the Ode, a composition revealing an original "Russian" element but …
Seal Of The Blue Lotus
Seal of the Blue Lotus is the 1965 debut from the extraordinary folk guitarist Robbie Basho, who released numerous albums for John Fahey's Takoma label during the '60s. His mystical approach to six- and 12-string guitar improvisation shares many similarities to John Fahey in that Basho, too, was inspired by Eastern modalities -- his six-string melodies recalling the Indian ragas of Ravi Shankar's "Dhun in Musra Mund." "Mountain Man's Farewell" is an outstanding piece that displays the early seed…
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…
Ausklang / Tableau
The title Ausklang (Final Notes, or Fading Away) is intended to be understood literally. Lachenmann's Musik für Klavier und Or-chester is centrally concerned with final notes and sounds fading away. In particular, it is concerned with piano sounds created with certain techniques (playing silently at the keyboard, special ways of operating the piano pedals, etc.). It is also concerned with the fading away of sound as the sounds of the piano are being picked up by the orchestra just as they are ab…
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…
American Landscapes 1
American Landscapes 1 and 2 are live dates from 2006. While there have been a few personnel changes since the original line-up—trombonist Hannes Bauer replacing Jeb Bishop and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love replacing Hamid Drake—the core Tentet has remained intact. Both discs are comprised of a single track, clocking in at respectively about 44 and 52 minutes. Both discs are difficult to digest as single entities: attacking them as longer composed/improvised pieces linked by changes allows you better…
3 Compositions Of New Jazz
The mid-'60s formation of Chicago's musician collective, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), proved a watershed event for jazz, providing a springboard for some of the next few decades' most influential performers, including the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Anthony Braxton. In many ways, Braxton's Three Compositions of New Jazz is that movement's manifesto. Seeking a new degree of abstraction and purity, Braxton opted to eschew drums or bass on…
What Was Music?
Harry Pussy was a noise rock band from Miami, active from 1992 to 1997. The main members were Bill Orcutt on guitar and vocals and Adris Hoyos on drums and vocals. Other members included briefly Ian Steinberg on accordion, and later either Mark Feehan or Dan Hosker on second guitar. They recorded primarily for the Siltbreeze label. The often violent and sexually charged music of Harry Pussy is still well-regarded and highly influential in the noise and noise rock scenes.
Steve Reich: Tehillim The Desert Music
Two Reich masterpieces, definitively recorded, featuring a crystalline, high-energy Tehillim with the ONLY RECORDING of the newly revised version of The Desert Music. A must for Reich fans. For freshness and focus, the new recording of Tehillim surpasses the 1981 recording by Mr. Reich & his own ensemble.