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Nice Guys
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* Nice Guys is an album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, recorded in May 1978 and released on ECM the following year—their debut for the label. The quintet features trumpeter Lester Bowie, saxophinists Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell and rhythm section Malachi Favors Maghostut and Famoudou Don Moye.
Miserere
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* For reasons perhaps too numerous to list here in full, Arvo Pärt’s Miserere remains my most cherished of the Estonian composer’s ever-growing book of masterworks. Suffice it to say that its magic lies in its stillness. For such an expansive piece—scored as it is for choir, soloists, organ, and ensemble—it is remarkably introspective. Its opening invocation of Psalm 51 fleshes out a corpus of spoken language made melody. A statement from the clarinet follows every w…
Alina
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* There have been other recordings of "Für Alina" and "Spiegel im Spiegel" but none like those on this disc, realized with the participation of the composer. Here Pärt, aided by exceptional interpreters, revisits those seminally important compositions which marked the birth of a new, "prismatic" period in his work, establishing a link between compositions embodying the fundamental traits of the "tintinnabuli style." Three interpretations of the duet ‘Spiegel im Spieg…
Litany
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* The starting point for Litany was a commission received from the Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene, US. For this reason, Pärt selected an English text as the basis for his composition.
Arvo Pärt: “The English language lacks plasticity which is brought to music with long words. Working with a text in English, I had to make new discoveries and use melodic constructions that I normally don’t use in my music, to extract material from words and sentences. The text for Lita…
...de la piedras
2008 release ** Six very varied pieces by a fine trio of Spanish-based musicians, beautifully recorded in the stone-built Eremita de la Anunciada in Urueña. A music that appears to be located halfway between chamber-improv and contemporary classical music, and which is like no other.
L'Ultimo Ricatto
2012 release ** "L'Ultimo Ricatto (title in Italian, songs in English) is the work of a singer-songwriter devoted to the sacred word of folk in all its noblest forms, from English to American, from the 1970s to today. This began with the choice to achieve that warm, personal sound from the recordings, entrusted to the expert hands of the album's co-producer and recording engineer Raffaele Abbate, in his studio in the hills of Genoa, far from the city and its noise. He then decided to test his so…
Cosmic Debris V. 4
2008 release ** CD re-issue of the fourth volume in the ongoing "Cosmic Debris" series of split ART-LP releases set up by the Opalio brothers, aka My Cat Is An Alien (MCIAA), on their own Opax Records. This time the space improv duo from Torino, Italy, shares one side of the vinyl with Swedish radical saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, whose twenty-year career boasts collaborations that range widely over the contemporary improvised music world, from masters of the free jazz such as Peter Brotzmann, De…
The Cry Of A Dove Announcing Rain
"In 2022, Eddie Prévost celebrated his 80 th birthday with the series Towards a Bright Nowhere, a series of July concerts at Café Oto that appeared as both a series of four CDs and a documentary. These two CDs document later duo performances from October 2022 to June 2023 with French pianist Marjolaine Charbin, apparently a recent association, and saxophonist John Butcher, a longtime creative partner. Each emphasizes a different dimension of Prévost’s creativity. He’s credited with percussion on…
Painted Shadows
2009 release ** "The latest Plastic Crimewave Sound album 'Painted Shadows' (the title inspired by a practice used in german expressionist films) has a more cosmically devotional vibe than past LPs, touching on eastern folk-blues and elongated kraut-like soundscapes, with new elements of banjo, violin and female voice added to the stew. However, there is still some trademark PCWS rocking, as they still deliver blasts of motor city-type acid-punk, japanese-style skree, and waves of tension and re…
Happy Hands
2007 release (RARE) ** "The trio's first collective improvisation on Alexandre Pasquino's film "Walkin' LA" at Ramuntcho Matta's. The vibe is right, the playing is there, the atmosphere relaxed. Recordings of improvisation sessions with Simon's visits to Paris as an excuse. Making music for the pleasure of drifting on the edge of styles and forms. All recordings come from acoustic and electro-acoustic instruments (guitar, bass, sax, flute, spoon, vocals, traditional instruments, etc.). The group…
Astral Death
2008 release ** "What the acronym means is a mystery, I do know that R.Y.N. is from the UK and consists of Pete Burn (Marzuraan) and Lee Glaister (Romance). Astral Death is the first full album after a 7" on Drone Records. I also know that Astral Death is a collection of murky ambient drones. A metallic reverberating drone and an organ chord make up opening track Conscious Patient. The constant soundpressure is dazing. The Cleansing echoes ominously but is less numbing, it's surrounding you with…
Three Circuitous Paths
2002 release (RARE) ** Transfigured Wind III (1984) for flute, ensemble, and tape / Ambages (1965) for flute / Mistral (1985) for chamber ensemble. "Pierre Boulez was widely praised as an innovator for his Rèpons when he premiered it at IRCAM in 1981. This is a piece where a computer samples the live sound of a chamber ensemble, recalculates it to a programmed algorhythm and then scatters the sounds back out into the hall. Not to knock Boulez, but American composer Roger Reynolds had been workin…
La Proprietà Non è Più un Furto
Quartet Records, in collaboration with GDM and Universal Music Publishing Italia, presents the definitive, remastered reissue of Ennio Morricone’s complete score for Elio Petri’s 1973 film La proprietà non è più un furto (“Property Is No Longer a Theft”). This darkly satirical drama—starring Ugo Tognazzi, Flavio Bucci, and Daria Nicolodi—marks the final chapter in Petri’s celebrated “trilogy of neurosis,” following Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto and La classe operaia va in…
A Rainbow In My Mirror
2011 release ** Custom deluxe cardboard package. Hand-numbered limited edition of 474. "Simon Balestrazzi, an eclectic figure on the Italian experimental scene, has been associated with bands that have made history here over the past 35 years, including Tomografia Assiale Computerizzata (T.A.C.), Kino Glaz, Dream Weapon Ritual, and Candor Chasma. He has also collaborated with artists such as Z'EV, Ikue Mori, Elio Martusciello, Gianluca Becuzzi, Kirlian Camera, and many others. “A Rainbow In My …
F(our) Ward
*300 copies limited edition* Describing his ideas behind "F(our) Ward", Edley ODowd notices that the combination of sound and visuals were “essential to delivering a message”- points out Edley talking about his foray into new territory. “I wanted to create something of nightmares and bliss” explains EdleyODowd when asked to discuss the combination of visuals and sound presented on his latest solo release "F(our) Ward". ODowd, a long-time veteran of various musical scenes, has collaborated and pe…
Abendland. Erstes Stundenbuch
1996 release (light storage wear) ** Gianfranco Pernaiachi’s Abendland is a solitary and profound piano solo meditation on sound and silence. The piano hints, rings out and whispers. The sound is crystal clear; essential and like a prism that divides sound into mysterious harmonics and distant resonances. "Abendland“ is a work of great musical poetry, a musical meditation by a composer warranting close attention.
Songs
"This is a good introduction to John Greaves' solo career and also stands up as an extremely strong album in its own right. It's almost entirely acoustic, and consists of reworkings of songs from earlier albums interspersed with some new material, with the assistance of an impressive roster of guest stars from the Canterbury scene. Greaves himself takes more of a back seat than usual - the core band for the sessions consisted of double bass, piano and acoustic guitar, the pianist and bassist pla…
Rêverie
Limited edition first press 300 copies only in audiophile gold cd. "Luca Formentini and Markus Stockhausen began playing together in 2005, when Markus formed an international ensemble to play at the Suoni delle Dolomiti festival. One year later they performed as a quintet in St. Maternus in Cologne, Germany, where they recorded a live album, which initiated the project called “Flowers of Now”. (Intuitive Music in Cologne, Horus Label, 2008). Later on Markus played on two tracks of Luca’s Tacet (…
Issue 121: Grassroots Electronica 2025
We're kicking off 2025 with a special issue to celebrate UK Grassroots Electronica – the ever-growing number of bedroom producers and independent record labels across the country – and we're bundling the magazine with an exclusive double CD featuring 30 killer tracks from some of the most exciting underground artists on our radar.
Issue 102
With her debut solo album rocketing into the UK Top 10 on the week of its release, we are delighted to have Alison Goldfrapp on the cover of the new Electronic Sound. We have a fantastic red vinyl seven-inch by the always stylish and often elusive singer to accompany the issue too.