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On the Other Ocean
On the Other Ocean is an improvisation by Maggi Payne and Arthur Stidfole centered around six pitches which, when they are played, activate electronic pitch-sensing circuits connected to the "interrupt" line and input ports of a microcomputer, Kim-1. The microcomputer can sense the order and timing in which the six pitches are played and can react by sending harmony-changing messages to two handmade music synthesizers. The relationship between the two musicians and the computer is an interactive…
Jetsun Mila
Beautiful extended ambient work from Eliane Radigue, a composer known for her work with magnetic tape and Arp Synthesizer, and who studied under Pierre Schaeefer and Pierre Henry in the late 50's. Her compositions are often drone-like, impeccably crafted electronic sounds which seem to move in a continual flow around the listener. She has created many meditative works since the late 1970s, mostly based on Tibetan Buddhist subject matter.Jetsun Mila is inspired by the life of Milarepa, a great yo…
Songs of Milarepa
Originally released on Lovely Music in 1998. Double CD of all five of Elaine Radigue's songs in tribute to the Tibetan saint and poet from the 11th century. Two of the tracks dates from Radigue's first release in 1983, two are previously unreleased and the final 62-minute track was previously issued as a sole CD in 1987. The material is performed by Radigue (synthesizer and recording), Robert Ashley (English voice), and Lama Kunga Rinpoche (Tibetan voice). Radigue was born in France and has stud…
Violin Improvisations
Originally released in 1989 as Violin Solo. Sept. 3-4, '89. Takehisa Kosugi's improvisations, both with violin and miscellaneous sounding objects, have a sense of emerging from the bottom of a spiritual unconscious. From this place comes a music based more on the feeling of sounds than conscious arrangement. Memory, physical action, tactile perceptions, environmental conditions, and awareness of subconscious microcosmic and macrocosmic extremes inform his work as much as the intention to assembl…
Neural synthesis n. 6-9
1995 release. Neural Synthesis Nos. 6-9 combines the art of music, the engineering of electronics, and the inspiration of biology. In it, David Tudor orchestrates electronic sound in ways analogous to our biological bodies' orchestration of consciousness. The performance originates from a neural-network synthesizer conceived and built especially for Tudor. He surrounds this synthesizer with his own unique collection of electronic devices, and in the recording on this CD made for headphone playba…
Automatic Writing
A 1996 CD compiling three early Ashley works from the years 1967-79 -- some of his most experimental and out-there works. A classic electronic music collection and an ideal intro into the somewhat foreboding oeuvre of Robert Ashley's recorded works. The title piece is a 46-minute classic from 1979, which rather famously formed the basis for Nurse With Wound's A Missing Sense. Steven Stapleton's commentary upon this summarizes the intense vibe of this recording: "A Missing Sense was originally co…
Bospaadje Konijnehol I
1992 release ** Misha Mengelberg's large ensemble, the ICP Orchestra, wends its way here through a program in three parts. Following the brief, whimsical title piece (helpfully translated as "Forest Path Rabbithole I"), the band launches into a series of loose, decidedly off-liter takes on Ellington, generally tackling the real war-horses. Mengelberg's approach is always oblique at best, however, so even as the band sounds semi-traditional in one respect, the harmonies and written elaborations o…
The Sea Between
1993 release ** "In October 1987, keyboardist/computer wiz Richard Teitelbaum and violinist Carlos Zingaro performed at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. The next year the label Disques Victo released The Sea Between, comprised of three improvisations from that show. For the CD reissue in 1993, the label added 18 minutes of material in the form of three excerpts from a performance in Lisbon during November 1992. Playing with electronics -- especially with computers…
Obliquity
2007 release ** "Obliquity is a free jazz record, if you'll forgive the use of such a hoary, old-fashioned phrase. Its scorching, heads-down momentum, rhythm and drive, places it in direct line of descent from the fierce originators of the genre: Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Milford Graves, and Frank Wright. It also swings. At times it dances. Obliquity is a free jazz record through the prism of the improvisational movement in Europe, though. This is no attempt at polite revivalism or looking …
Acini
2018 release ** "In this new album, Saporiti chooses a register that resembles a caress on a defeated face, a balm for past wounds that still hurt, reflected in the incisive yet never overbearing arrangements, with a balance that ends up appearing completely natural when in fact it is an extremely difficult goal to achieve. In Acini (from the title of his father's unpublished novel), an overall delicate quality prevails that resembles a state of mind more than the actual product of artistic choi…
Bisognava Dirlo A Tuo Padre Che A Fare Un Figlio Con Uno Schizofrenico Avremmo Creato Tutta Questa Sofferenza
2014 release ** "A few months after his self-titled album, he returns with another great work. The 2014 album was the one of full manifestation, this one, the one of explosion. Faced with such a "hunger to express," there's never a lack of substance and intensity, at most a few flaws in the aesthetic organization of a project, which is more evident here than in his previous work, but it's something that makes both works, in different ways, perfectible in each individual's mind and therefore all …
Paolo Saporiti
2014 release ** "Fifth studio album and year zero for Paolo Saporiti. An absolute masterpiece, a near-perfect album, the epitome of the most cultured Italian independent rock, but also, and above all, something new and focused. The lyrics, for the first time, are in Italian, exposing veins, nerves, and blood. On the cover, Paolo, a mere child, stands with his father. From the opening of "Come Venire al Mondo" to the absolute perfection of "Io non ho pietà," which seems to evoke the best of Alice…
Akustisches Abreaktionsspiel
2020 release ** CD version limited to 200 copies. Reissue of Hermann Nitsch’s very first release, originally published 48 years ago by Edition Galerie Klewan in a limited edition of 100 copies. Produced and recorded at the WDR Radio in Cologne, Germany, the Akustisches Abreaktionsspiel (Aktion 38b) is "neither a radioplay nor a work of music. it merely portrays the acoustic part of an "abreaktionsspiel“ (a play of abreaction). the special and specific usage of the acoustic possibilities are in t…
Atolón
2004 release ** "Atolón, whose four tracks are further proof that the barriers that once existed between free improvisation and noise are coming down fast. And in the sunshine of Barcelona at that. Alfredo Costa Monteiro and Ferran Fages have released several albums as Cremaster (though not using the same instrumentation), and trumpeter Ruth Barberán previously teamed up with Costa Monteiro and Matt Davis in I Treni Inerti (now sadly disbanded, but not before leaving us the splendid Ura album on…
Al voltant d'un para.lel
2008 release ** Ferran Fages: electric guitar. Recorded live by Pablo Rega, january 19th 2007 at Almazen, Barcelona. Some tracks are versions or new approaches of pieces released before in the album 'a cavall entre dos cavalls'. 'Al voltant d«un paral.lel ' brings to light a tension, which matches that of the previous two guitar albums of Ferran Fages. It's probably because a parallel could also be thought of as the lanes of a horse race, as a permanent conflict, or as a trait of one's character…
Choice-Chase
1995 release ** "Choice-Chase dives into abstract guitar textures, looping soundscapes, and noise-based improvisation. A must-hear for those who appreciate avant-garde music that defies easy categorization."
Assassin Reverie
2005 release ** Arte Quartett: Beat Hofstetter, soprano saxophone; Sascha Armbruster, alto saxophone; Andrea Formenti, tenor saxophone; Beat Kappeler, baritone saxophone Terry Riley, vocals, piano and harpsichord (Uncle Jard) A free spirit, maverick par excellence, creator of a personal compositional style that has spawned entire generations of epigones, Terry Riley (b 1935) embodies the best aspects of the American pioneer spirit, the positive and uncorrupted image of America (and California in…
The Suite Unraveling
2014 release ** "Brooklyn based Lily Maase is a guitarist and composer of powerful originality. Influenced equally by Ornette Coleman, Morbid Angel and electronic music, she has created a modern jazz-rock fusion that captures the funky edge of Blood Ulmer with minimalism, indie rock and a touch of psychedelics. Powerful riffs, spontaneous conducting techniques, searing solos and a unique lyricism from this exciting New York based trio!"
5 Years
2006 release ** ""5 Years" is the venerable duo's first release since "Lammergeier" (vhf#58) in 2000. After recording and releasing nearly 20 albums between 1990 and 2000, Richard Youngs and Simon Wickham-Smith decided to try a novel and opposite approach to music making - they met once each year to record a solitary 10 minute track. The results show the duo remarkably unaffected by the half decade that elapsed - the tracks on "5 Years" reflect their long established signature mix of "real human…