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Picture a Frame
"Picture a Frame" the debut album by the Belgian composer Elisabeth Klinck, was born out of strict isolation and is nonetheless a result of a collaborative process that saw her working closely with artist Oscar Claus. Enriching her compositions for violin with electronic soundscapes and field recordings from their surroundings, the two entered an artistic dialogue that took place inside its own idiosyncratic space outside of conventional time. It is an intimate record in which Klinck’s expressiv…
Sagittarian Domain
*2023 repress. In process of stocking* "For anyone who still associates Oren Ambarchi exclusively with the clipped, bass-heavy tones of solo electric guitar works such as Suspension, this rhythmically churning one-man-band monster of an album-length piece might seem to come out of nowhere. However, listeners who have followed the breadth of his work for the last few years (solo and in projects with collaborators from Jim O’Rourke to Stephen O’Malley and Keith Rowe to Keiji Haino) will have noted…
Pech
Pech is the latest duo recording from inside pianist Reinhold Friedl and avant- percussionist Michael Vorfeld. Over the past five years, this pair of German musicians have created some of the most engaging and imaginative electro-acoustic music, exploring the potentials of subtle performance techniques and refined compositional approaches. On Pech, the duo seek to uncover the hidden and masked character of their instruments - the piano is altered via various preparations and unconventional ways …
Ku
The act of conjuring remarkable sound from found objects is at the very heart of this recording from American musicians Greg Davis and Jeph Jerman. Having met in Arizona some years back, Davis and Jerman commenced working together on a series of recording projects. Improvising with a range of implements and devices ranging from sticks, stones and lo-fi electronics to prepared instruments, gongs and broken percussion, the pair sought to develop a personal language that reflected their individual …
11 Easy Pieces
Since 1995, Brisbane resident Leighton Craig has etched out a varied musical existence, from solo keyboard studies to an extensive body of collaborative work. His solo works, which span delicate ambient keyboard excursions through to site specific live documents and most recently song based explorations, have mapped out a focus of tone, duration and 'situations' for sound. On 11 Easy Pieces, his first widely available solo LP, Craig offers an intimate yet robust collection of works recorded on a…
A field for mixing
'Richard Chartier's monochromatic aesthetic has come to define an audio culture surrounding minimalism. His craftsmanship, working predominately with sounds that exist at the edges of perception is a powerful, albeit subtle statement about notions of space and sound density. With A Field For Mixing', chartier brings the physicality of space directly into his compositional practise. Recording a variety of small and large spaces in Australia, Japan and the USA (amongst other locations), chartier …
Narrow
Steinbrüchel’s Narrow is an album of reduction and transformation. Like much of Steinbrüchel’s recorded work, the genesis of Narrow stems from a singular idea concerned with the notion of ‘static development’. Working with a limited palette of source material Narrow’s elegance is in its varying perspectives on related sonic materials. The title track is the nexus here - a somewhat more organic sound palette than heard previously in Steinbrüchel’s work - Narrow is a subharmonic oceanic-like compo…
Niente Più Canzoni
100 copies limited edition* Daksina presents Niente Piu Canzoni by The No Neck Blues Band. Recorded in Marseille 2009
MRI
Room40 continues the publication of a series of editions from American guitarist and composer Norman Westberg with a remastered and expanded edition of the previously self-released MRI. Best known for his work with the seminal outfit Swans, Westberg's output beyond that group is sprawling and restless. His name recurs and ripples through many interconnected micro-histories surrounding New York City's music and art scenes. From appearances in film works associated with the Cinema of Transgression…
The Oansome Orbit
The Oansome Orbit is the latest work from Australia’s electronic godfather Pimmon (known to friends as Paul Gough). Over the past decade and a half, Pimmon has carved out a unique space for himself amidst through producing a series of masterfully executed excursions into abstract electronic sound. With this new edition, he strikes out at some of his most harmonic territory to date, merging washes of rich tone against irregular grids of texture. The results are wholly individual and utte…
Substation
Apart from being recognised as two of Australia's leading improvising musical forces, Clayton Thomas and Robin Fox are also acknowledged for their unrelenting experiments and divergent acoustic approaches in relation to their instrument of choice. Over the past 3 years, Robin Fox has developed some of the most powerful live processing tools in Australia through his research with MAXMSP. Clayton Thomas on the other hand has expanded his performance styles, moving between blistering free jazz expl…
Approach
In 1985, Mangaka Yoshihisa Tagami penned Grey. Now, seemingly all but forgotten, it remains historic as it led the vanguard of manga translated and serialized in the west. Approach is Lawrence English's homage to the lasting impression the manga left on him as a 13-year-old. After rediscovering it in 2021, he was struck by how internalized some of the manga's themes had become and was compelled to create a soundtrack as a form of distorted mirror to its pages. What results is an intensely episod…
Memory Fragments
Pierce Warnecke presents a chasmic solo debut LP with Memory Fragments for Room40 offering his most expansive, personalised vision of electro-acoustic abstraction. Nine tracks cover a broad spectrum of tones within his chosen subset, from doomy keys and cinematic drone panoramas thru curdling dissonance and prickling glitch textures subtly playing with notions of deferred gratification and unpredictability. One to check if you’re into Tim Hecker or KTL. “Based in Spain, composer and visualist Pi…
Current
Richard Chartier’s sound installation and recorded pieces evoke a state of aural awareness. Working with a variety of minimal structures and refined sound sources, Chartier has been responsible for some of the most austere audio works of recent years. Aesthetically refined and creatively provocative much of his work has focused on the edges of perception, both in frequency range and amplitude. On Current, his latest work to be released in conjunction with his performances in Australia and Japan …
Wakool
Recorded over a series of four Sunday afternoons, Wakool is an interrogation into an expanded range of techniques and gestures applied to instruments including banjo, electroacoustic guitar, bandura, and eukolin. In part an antidote to laborious studio process, this project privileges live stereo recordings without additional overdubs, processing or equalization. The varied and spontaneous nature of David's effortless playing across an eclectic range of instruments was recorded transparently to …
A Trail of Laughters
Room40 presents A Trail of Laughters by Siavash Amini. A series of distressing dreams started this whole thing. A few years ago someone pointed out that my repeating dreams of being lost in what seemed to be a maze of pits, reminded them of stories about wonders of wells and pits in the Book of Marvels. More than a year ago I started having those dreams again, so I read the book. There were similarities with a few of the stories but nothing more. One of the stories made an impression on me more …
Classical Mechanics
Observing visual and auditory patterns of slowly moving objects, induces a comforting sense. Whether random or organised, complex or simple, intentional or incidental, seen, felt or listened to, most physical movements carry a reassuring message; the receiver is alive, earth is in orbit exerting a gravitational force upon all matter and time has a constant flow which can be measured through the periodic succession of physical phenomena.
It was upon these fundamental principles that visual artist…
Psyco Analysis
Super Tip! *400 copies** Originally released in the late 70s, Vittoria Corona aka Corviria's 'Psyco Analysis' remains today one of the most obscure and mysterious titles inside the vast catalogue of Edizioni Leonardi, from the points of view both of its musical content and of its realization.Musically, in fact, we are facing a collection of short dark-tinged and gloomy compositions for piano and synthesizers, characterized by a slow and unrelenting pace, a perfect soundtrack for a thriller/noir …
The Collection
From Nicola Ratti... "These recordings were made during a relatively long period of time, not continuously, over several months in my studio. Nothing was been planned in advance, not any idea of album or approach. Nevertheless I easily recognize myself in this material, moreover I recognize my working space itself. It's like taking a picture, or make a painting, of your personal room where all your stuff is well placed and, among them, their identities as sound sources and acoustic possib…
Pain Avoidance Machine
In late 2014, feeling stifled by the negativity of the Australian political discourse, the narcissistic excess of social media, and facing a long summer of migraine-inducing heat, I turned to the prepared piano as a refuge. I was coming out of an intense two-year period of composing for every conceivable instrumental combination, and not sure where to go next. I felt the need to get back to basics, and create something essential, elemental. These pieces are meditations, each with its own …