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When Oscar Peterson moved from Montreal to New York in 1949, the 17-year-old Paul Bley took over his residency at the Alberta Lounge on Oscar's recommendation; in his twenties, he played withCharlie Parker. Bley started incorporating maverick pianist Lennie Tristano's approach to improvisation and collaborating with Charles Mingus, and in 1958 in Los Angeles Bley famously put together a band with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. His move into free improvisation in t…

Tip! Presenting the third thematic volume on the “Aquapelagos" series - a collection of split LPs where selected artists offer their own take into water surrounded cultures and communities. After the initial release of the Anthology compilation Aquapelago in 2022 (Discrepant ,CREP91) and the split LP Atlantico by Lagoss & Banha da Cobra (Keroxen, KRXN027) as well as the direct collaboration LP Índico by Mike Cooper & Pierre Bastien we proudly introduce an the third volume in the series in the sh…

*150 copies limited edition* Brandon Tani is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Diego, CA. He is drawn to the varied intersections of minimalist, concrète, and found sounds. Mixing narrative and abstraction. Since 2022, Brandon has released music under the moniker "Daily Rituals" and has recorded 5 releases to date. This new album represents the first release under his own name.

*200 copies limited wedition. In process of stocking* "Backwards is really pleased to present the new Fabio Orsi release. This time Fabio offered a monumental work: eight long tracks contained in a huge box set with four compact discs. Musically it stands on the new course of the artist: together with the classic ambient and drone atmospheres that we know well, the work has more dynamic parts with rhythms and pulsations, and more melodic parts. A perfect meeting between ambient music and berlin-…

"The meaning of "cadenza del crepuscolo" ("dusk cadenza") can be interpreted in a variety of ways. The most profound is the one corresponding with the implicitly slow flux of thoughts and reflections that emerge as we sense the day fading away, possibly in a moment of somewhat regretful oscillation between an unknown tomorrow, what we have already experienced and now miss, and the unexpressed potential of what we long for, but have not yet achieved (and perhaps never will). The sympathetic music…

Following his critically acclaimed collections Electronic Music from the Seventies and Eighties and Electronic Music from the Eighties and Nineties, Carl Stone quickly follows-up Baroo with a double-LP album of recent works, including the final section of Fujiken, his epic journey through southeast Asian field recordings and street cassette culture.On all six tracks, composed between 2013 and 2019, Stone’s pan-global playground of looping synths and Asian pop culture remains as fertile as ever, …

Pica Disk is proud to present the debut album of UK-born/Norway-based artist Greg Pope, documenting three of his audio works.

20 Years of Sound Art is a new release that covers the past 20 years of Lars Lundehave Hansen's work as a sound artist. 48p book with 180 gr double vinyl in exclusive handbound foil stamped linen wrapped box.

For Anyone That Knows You, an album of mostly piano solos by Josiah Steinbrick, was recorded not for smoothness or posterity but to emphasize the piano as object, the person playing it, and the moment it sounds. On three of the pieces, the saxophone of Sam Gendel hovers over the piano like a faint change in the light, adding resonance and gentle reinforcement rather than counterpoint. Three others are delicate renditions: “Green Glass” interprets an untitled recording by Quechuan folk musicians …

Tip! *LP ltd to 415, black vinyl, 2 color (blue and black) silkscreened jacket with obi (black or light grey), 2 inserts and a postcard. Printed by Alan Sherry* Chita, the third album proper by Japanese guitar pop trio Usurabi, is their most elegant, stylish confection yet. Over the past four years, Toshimitsu Akiko (vocals, guitar), Kawaguchi Masami (bass) and Morohashi Shigeki (drums) have been recording, playing live, and releasing songs of rare melodic warmth, centring Toshimitsu’s unique mu…

Brown Wardle Hill stands as an imposing yet noble hill on the South Pennine Moors of Whitworth, Rossendale, Lancashire. Regarded as a site of prehistoric importance due to the overwhelming amount of mesolithic flint scatterings discovered during the early 20th century, the hill also boasts an incredible amount of lore and legend. In 2019 David Chatton Barker spent a year walking and researching into the hill and its surrounding moors, the material gathered formed a series of performances, culmin…

Michele Mercure often dreams of music, and in her waking life, reclaims fragments of these fleeting, floating melodies in her compositions and sound art. Beside Herself, an anthology of Mercure’s self-produced and distributed cassettes released between 1983 and 1990, collects these dreamlike passages and lo-fi nocturnes, preserving the qualities of discovery and intimacy surrounding their genesis. Mercure’s sound is a porous electronic art that overlaps ambient, abstract, and industrial se…

NYC’s 75 Dollar Bill began its prolific career in 2012, after percussionist Rick Brown – a veteran of the indie underground (Fish & Roses, Run On, V-Effect) – and noise scene guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Che Chen – connected via MySpace. Since that initial jam session, when Brown began experimenting with his signature plywood crate drum rhythms, they have released 3 LPs and a clutch of self-released cassette and digital releases. Last year’s 2xLP I Was Real received serious critical accla…

2CD version, including two CD bonus tracks. Pseudocode was a Belgian electronic improvised music band, active from 1980 to 1982, featuring Xavier S (Thrills), Guy-Marc Hinant (Sub Rosa co-founder) and Alain Neffe (Insane Music, Bene Geserit). While Xavier S contributed most of the lyrics and vocals, it was Guy-Marc Hinant who often played the core melody on his Pianet electric piano. Neffe's contributions are particularly noteworthy throughout, as he weaves together the bulk of the sonic clo…

...Female Blues Singers - Rarities 1923-1930. The Sub Rosa label presents a collection of works from obscure and forgotten female blues singers, exploring the question: what can be said about a singer whose entire work fits on a single-sided 78rpm record? What circumstances led to this recording? Who decided to do it? For whom was it intended? Why wasn't it followed by more recordings? Hypotheses get lost in places and moments themselves forgotten. What remains are these miraculous voices that h…

** CD / 4 Pages Digipack + Poster Booklet ** Second long awaited album by Winter Family, the duo composed of Ruth Rosenthal and Xavier Klaine, actually based in Brooklyn. A rare and unique audio worldview expressed by the singular approach of Ruth Rosenthal (voice) and Xavier Klaine (harmonium, organ etc..). From the first bares of Searching Donkeys this new album creates a glowering and intense atmospheric...part nightmare, part uplifting dreamscape. It permeates and builds into a compelling wh…

An Overview of Experimental and Electronic Music in Turkey: this anthology features 29 turkish artists: from the electronic music of the '60s to all forms of experimental music of the '10s. This is the second volume of an exploration by zone or sphere of influence. The constellation built between 2000 and 2012 with the seven-part series An Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music continues to expand through the Early Electronic collection (consisting mostly of tracks composed between the 50's an…

Zdenek Liska's orchestral and electronic score for Karel Kachyna's 1976 Czech film of Andersen's The Little Mermaid, first released by Finders Keepers in 2011, here with updated notes and photographs from Barrandov Studios.

Temporary Super Offer! As one of the three inaugural 1976 releases to ignite the mythical Mustevic Music catalogue, David Wertman's elusive Kara Suite LP was the first record to turn jazz drummer Steve Reid's vanity imprint into an bona fide cooperative record label with a multi-artist repertoire. Entrusting his own bass player with the limelight, Reid's unlikely A&R decision would typify his oblique strategies and challenge the common perception of a soloist within jazz's shifting landscape. Dr…

*2022 stock.* Adrien Kessler, former bass player and singer of the band "Goz of Kermeur" who toured their three albums between 1992 and 2000, comes back full of fantastic strenght with this new super-power band and their first CD release. Darling is what you need ! A rabid pop mood, hypnotic, violent and grinding, somewhere between the young Bowie's glam rock, the obscure violence of Birthday Party, the craziness of Pere Ubu or Beefheart and this unique little touch, free and indescribable that …

An over-stimulating immersive auditive dive with exceptional depth. Uruk carries the listener away within a phenomenal landscape of dark ambient and subterranean drones with constant rich textures generating an atmosphere of extraordinary intensity.This remarkable new musical endeavor is a joint effort by Massimo Pupillo (Zu) and Thighpaulsandra (Coil). Echoes of Coil music and Zu music appear here and there but the duo maps an uncharted territory. This is organic electronic music. A journey int…

Drawing from her compositions for Helena Wittmann's film Drift (2017), Nika Son creates a sonic journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Following a weekend at the North Sea, one of Wittmann's two protagonists embarks on a journey across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, during which unpredictable waves and deep sleep foster a transformative experience. Capturing the essence of this cinematic encounter through sound, Nika Son's compositions allow the water itself to become a storyteller, immersing listen…

The international quintet Glück combines percussionists of diverse stripes and their individual pronounced ways of playing. The five musicians are internationally renowned as soloists and with various musical outfits. An extremely sound orientated, fragile and transparent approach to their idiosyncratic percussion sets is what they all have in common. From diverse conjoint long-term projects (Vorwolf, Malatesta/Wolfarth, Misiiki) arose the shared wish to put the musical experiences made within t…

Performed and recorded by Enrico Malatesta, August 2013. Skin instruments and metal objects. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Enrico Malatesta (1985) is a percussionist active in the field of contemporary music and his personal research is aimed to extend the sonic and multi material possibilities of percussion instruments through simple gestural techniques, able to realize complex polyrhythmic thicknesses and multiple information that exist between performer, space and instrument. Regularly works a…

Three CDs and a 144-page book of Walter Zimmermann's vocal music from 1979-2016, on texts by Eckhart, Hadewijch, Mandelstam, Jabès, Creeley and others, with a 1982 rock and new music band recording, Freunde.

Chamber works by Walter Zimmermann from 1986-89 for piano, cello and piano, bass flute and piano, and violin and piano, played by the HCD Ensemble with cellist Michael Bach and violinist Peter Rundel.

Four chamber works by Walter Zimmermann, Schatten der Ideen, Ursache und Vorwitz, Distentio and Shadows of Cold Mountain 3, played by Ensemble Recherche. The music reflects the influence of John Cage and Morton Feldman.

Luigi Gaggero, a native of Genoa, has graced the stages of Europe’s most prestigious venues. He is currently Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra as well as musical director and co-founder of the Ukho Ensemble Kyiv, with which he has recorded acclaimed CDs of con- temporary music repertoire. Before launching his conducting career, Gaggero performed for 25 years as a cimbalom player and percussionist, collaborating with the finest European orchestras and ensembles …

**English/German edition. Hardcover**  With Watching with my Ears, the Wuppertal artist Jorgo Schäfer presents the works he has made over 20 years during the Vision Festival in New York. The Vision Festival is an annual world festival of free jazz (free improvised music, avant-garde jazz, etc.), where other arts such as dance, poetry, spoken word and visual arts also play an important role.  „When the Wuppertal bassist Peter Kowald invited me to the Vision Festival in New York in the summer of 2…

KiSS – Kinetics in Sound & Space: This acronym stands for the research project established in 2019 by the partner universities HfMT Hamburg and HAW Hamburg.

Museum directors, scholars, journalists and editors explore the variety of relations between sound as an object of investigation. Issues of sound as a medium of art and culture and possibilities and conditions of exhibiting sound art will be discussed. Sound art has become an integral part of art and music festivals for several decades, and is shown in museums, experimental venues and public spaces. Sound art requires a special approach in the way it is curated, conceived, produced and reenacted…

Sounding Fragilities enacts a polyphony of writing on contemporary composition, music and performing arts in relation to music theatre. Co-edited by a theatre and performance scholar and by a composer and artistic researcher, this anthology considers its field of investigation through the lens of positionalities. Irene Lehmann and Pia Palme invite readers into intimate encounters with an artist’s practice, feminist and queer perspectives, and personal explorations into aspects of musicology, the…

The phenomenon of “graphic” scores has been a subject of fascination, controversy, and a flourishing of artistic talent since its inception in the aftermath of the Second World War. The scores of that age, despite their compelling visual presence, nevertheless remain elusive: the means of performance are obscure, and they resist conventional analysis. This study reconsiders graphic scores from the perspective of Information Theory, derived from studies of “ergodic” texts: the ergodic score requi…

Introducing a new project by Discrepant label boss Gonccalo F. Cardoso (Gonzo, Visions Congo, Papillon) and Tenerife electronic stalwarts Tupperwear (Mladen Kurajica and Dani Tupper). Diving deep into various phantom island mythologies (the elusive St. Brendan's island being a recurring motif) Lagoss borrow from the exotica playbook of ideas and twist it inside out into a bubbling melting pot of sounds, shapes and patterns that eventually confuse, wonder and (occasionally) scare the inattentive …

Four years after their Discrepant debut - 'OOOO' -, Lisbon-based travellers Jibóia return to the fold with another offering of globetrotting psychedelia with 'Salar'. With the core trio of Óscar Silva, Ricardo Martins and Mestre André augmented by a stellar parade of collaborators on various roles, 'Salar' further expands on the transglobal visions by now pretty trademarked by the band. Intersped among shorter vignettes for drums, saxophone and bass, each of the more fully fleshed tracks casts a…

This album marks a new direction and development of Higgins' acclaimed work as a guitarist and composer, drawing on electronic music, free improvisation, and avant-garde modern composition, Versus is a highly emotional and expressive work that pushes Higgins' own instrumental virtuosity into new territories. He performs guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, drums and laptop programming across a 9-track record that traverses and transforms many aspects of Higgins' earlier work. The title track "Versus"…

Decibels of Gratitude is the eighth full-length studio album by this long running Massachusetts ensemble. The roots of Major Stars go back to the 1979 formation of Crystalized Movements, through to their early 90s successor, Magic Hour. Upon that band's breakup, guitarists Wayne Rogers and Kate Village formed Major Stars, which kept Magic Hour's tendency toward songs spiked with lengthy instrumental excursions, but added a hard rock angle not usually present in the Hour's hazier sound. Major Sta…

With Mirage on Important Records, Smegma again does the impossible. 38 years after reinventing the musical wheel, they have recorded a stunning masterpiece. With four of the original members working together again for the first time in many years, together with many new collaborators , they have kept alive their unique brand of old school primitive, Avant/Garage music. Running the gamut from the Musique Concrete inspired subtilely bombastic mood of the Title track to World of my Own's frenzied n…

Liebestod, by Polish composer Stefan Wesolowski, consists of repetitive compositions written for piano, brass instruments, strings, and electronics. The title itself is derived from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, which says a lot about Wesolowski's primary inspirations. Liebestod shows a tremendous amount of respect for classical music but Wesolowski is far from making literal references to it. He shows his own unique musical language; rough and radical at some points, yet full of intense nos…

Alina Kalancea's Impedance is an entirely instrumental album spanning four sides, contains powerful rhythmic sequences, heart-beating frequencies and hypnotic loops that are paradoxically encapsulated in carefully crafted compositions which are full of secret passages and hidden doors. Kalancea's work creates ungraspable sonic experiences, which overtakes you, immersing its listeners in powerful and mind-altering soundscapes. There's no quick payoff on Impedance. This is the sound of new, patien…