Music from France

* Edition of 500 * French psych-experimental-rock genius Richard Pinhas in collaboration with Sax Ruins drummer, Tatsuya Yoshida, and saxophonist, Ryoko Ono. Recorded live at Tusk Festival, at Gateshead Old Town Hall, on October 10, 2015. Richard Pinhas, the founder of '70s legends Heldon, is one of France's best known experimental musicians and is a key figure in development of rock music fusing with electronic music. Yoshida Tatsuya is one of the most innovative musicians of the Japanese exper…

An exercise in musique concrète in the Luc Ferrari sense: not soundscape, not reportage, but the deliberate assemblage by montage and superposition of recorded sequences drawn from disparate origins, composed into a continuity that functions as sonic narrative. Meirino and Duplant arrange and contradict their sources so that the listener has to construct the story: recognition of materials and interpretation of their succession become themselves part of the compositional event.

Black Truffle present Meith, a new composition in two parts from prolific composer/theorist François Bonnet. Usually operating under his Kassel Jaeger moniker, Bonnet is a major figure in contemporary electronics and electro-acoustic music, collaborating with artists such as Lucy Railton, Jim O'Rourke, and Stephen O'Malley, and releasing his work on labels including Editions Mego, Senufo, and Shelter Press. Always meticulously detailed yet immediately affecting, Bonnet's work situates itself at …

Jac Berrocal is a 1946-born musician (trumpet player), poet and sometime film actor who came of age in the ‘70s Paris improv scene, where the boundaries between music, art and theatre were porous and begging to be breached. Inspired by bebop, chanson, free jazz, beat poetry, early rock ‘n roll and myriad Eastern influences, and with an iconoclastic, anything-goes approach to instrumentation and technique that would later align him with post-punk sensibilities, Berrocal blazed an eccentric and un…

Pascal Comelade was born in Montpellier, France. After living in Barcelona for several years, he made his first album, under the name of Fluence, influenced by electronic music and by the group Heldon. Since 1980 Comelade releases music under his own name. Ever since, his music has become more acoustic and is often characterised by the sounds of toy instruments, used as solo-instruments or as an integral part of the sound of his group, the Bel Canto Orchestra. Marc Hurtado is one half of the exp…

**Edition of 300 copies, 180g Vinyl in Heavy Cardboard Sleeve** When Phill Niblock collaborates, the results are invariably fascinating, the master of sustained tone entering into dialogue with artists whose approaches may differ from his own yet share some fundamental commitment to the exploration of sound. On Bestia Ire, Niblock joins forces with two formidable figures in French experimental music: Franck Vigroux, a composer and performer whose work spans electronic music, contemporary classic…

**2020 Repress. In process of stocking** Sensational reissue!!! In 1969, a French chanteuse, an Algerian multi-instrumentalist, and a Chicago jazz quartet undertook an experimental, exploratory, revolutionary musical voyage; a redrawing of musical parameters that, to this day, stands as a glittering beacon, glowing in the dark abyss of 'out' music. Featuring Areski Belkacem and Art Ensemble of Chicago, Comme a la Radio is the sophomore album in Brigitte Fontaine's prolific career. Four decades o…

“I will say: I have given this flame to these eyes; I have drawn from the ambiguous smile of the moon […] these two naïve stars open to the infinite”, wrote the poetess Cécile Sauvage in 1908 to her unborn son, Olivier Messiaen. It is amazing that the poem in a sense expresses in a prophetic manner Messiaen’s interest in and passion for themes that were to accompany him throughout his life: the cosmos, infinity. It goes without saying that the poetic lifestyle of his mother was to have a strong …

**In process of stocking** The last show by this particular "Richard Pinhas Heldon" line up, in London in 1982 , featuring among others Magma members (Patrick Gauthier, Bernard Paganotti, Clement Bailly) as well as Jean-Philippe Goude ( Weidorje ). This is a historical document recorded live from the audience which captures an exceptional evening and a great concert. Heldon is undoubtedly one of the most innovative and influential bands in French electronic rock music. "Heldon live 82" was produ…

**In process of stocking** Recorded live at the Stadtgarten -2008. Composed and played by Merzbow and Richard Pinhas. In 2008, guitarist and rock electronics innovator Richard Pinhas performed in Koln a duo concert with notorious 'noise' artist Merzbow. Merzbow’s collaboration with French pioneer Richard Pinhas features some of his best music and gleefully amplifies the psychedelic tendencies of both composers.It is fascinating to hear these two imposing figures interact.

Louange à l'éternité de Jésus is the fifth movement for cello and piano from Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time), adapted here for cello and organ. It was composed while Messiaen was a prisoner of war in Stalag VIII-A, Görlitz, Germany, and first performed with other detained musicians inside the Nazi camp in January 1941. Inspired by the Book of Revelation, this music invokes the composers vision of "immutable peace", in its infinitely slow, ecstatic pa…

Over the last decade, Kassel Jaeger, the moniker of the Paris-based composer, writer / theorist, producer, and director of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), François Bonnet, has meticulously sculpted a body of multidisciplinary work that rests at the forefront contemporary electronic and electroacoustic practice. He will release his new album ‘Swamp/Things’ on Shelter-Press. Rigorously experimental without sacrificing the intimacies of self, his efforts as a composer and musician extend …

LP version. Nantes-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie returns to Black Truffle with Nist-Nah. Like his previous solo record on the label, the abrasive hip-hop concrète of People Pleaser (BT 027LP, 2017), Nist-Nah finds Guthrie branching out in a new direction, this time in a suite of six percussion pieces primarily using the metallaphones, hand drums, and gongs of the Gamelan ensembles of Indonesia. The music presented here is grounded in Guthrie's travels in Indonesia a…

Third volume of "The Encyclopedia of Civilizations", a collection of split LP's where selected artists offer their own insight into fascinating ancient cultures. This time we bring you a cosmic and spiritual ambient journey inspired by one of the greatest ancient civilizations: India. The LP is presented in a special limited edition (500 copies) with an extensive booklet including liner notes about the origins of India to help you to immerse yourself in this fascinating civilization while you li…

**70 copies** Mappa editions presents a special duo project by Bruno Duplant and Pedro Chambel which connects field recordings and Duplant's photographic project emerging from the same concept.Bruno Duplant is sound enthusiast, composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist living in the north of France. In his work he is creating new fictional universes and uncharted territories using many field recordings collected in different parts of world. Architecture and culture of these sonic environmen…

"This really makes for an excellent companion record with their live BBC 1974 - Londres album. The London sessions were recorded about a month after this Radio Bremen recording from Germany and feature the exact same lineup. Nice thing too is that only one track is featured on both albums, that being Theusz Hamtaahk. The lineup here features Vander on drums, Top on bass, Blasquiz on vocals, Olmos on guitar and Graillier and Bikialo on keyboards. Sort of a stripped down line-up I suppose with Ste…

Second outing from Jaeger and O’Rourke following the release Wakes on Cerulean on Editions Mego in 2017.

**Limited Edition of 300** We are both pleased and proud to be releasing a new album by Mayerling, “Roche”. More than five years have gone by since we collaborated with the talented musician behind the project, Sylvain Bombled - who, like HITD itself, hails from Besançon, France - and put out his first brilliant album “Cut up”.  It’s more electronic and bold than the first album... less traditional, more adventurous. The guitar has given way to synths and other analogue sequencers. As for the vo…

Olivier Messiaen's Harawi (1945), a cycle of twelve songs for soprano and piano on the composer's own text, sung by Sarah Maria Sun with Stefka Perifanova, on a deluxe 2LP set with a 12-page book.

Traditional experimental hypnotic endless medieval r'n'b. La Tène collect, listen and probe folk melodies and motifs of large territories, from the Jura to the mountains of Auvergne, weaving them to repetition and continuous sounds, electronics and frenzy until exhaustion. Their music, drones played with traditional and acoustic instruments is an invitation to the dance frantically, leading to euphoria or trance. Cyril Bondi and d'incise are well-known swiss experimental musicians. They have a h…