The Music Of Katharina Weber, Jack Callahan, Alex Goretzki & Alfred Zimmerlin
2016 release **
"This release by Edition Wandelweiser Records collects recent compositions by Katharina Weber, Jack Callahan, Alex Goretzki, and Alfred Zimmerlin, performed by Christian Buck on guitar and Christian Wolfarth on percussion. It opens with Callahan’s ‘New Piece’, beginning with quiet feedback and low rumble before moving on to evenly spaced chords, cymbals, and soft beats. There’s an ambiguity or uncertainty to these sounds, or to my hearing of them, in terms of their harmony and ti…
On Foot
2011 release **
"Shepard, in 2005, set himself the task of hiking 250 miles across Switzerland, composing a new piece each day (performing it as well, in some public setting). Six of these works are collected here, performed by various Wandelweiser-involved folk. The music has an aura of folk song to it, however attenuated, heard clearly in Christian Wolff's melodica rendition of "Crêt de la Neuve, le 20 juillet 2005" with it's gentle ups and downs, similarly the second brief track with Katie Po…
On Foot: Brooklyn
2014 release **
"Shepard walks around, often traveling impressive distances, and composes music, generally playing on route. I had previously heard the excellent documentation of his perambulation through Switzerland in 2005, "On Foot", but in 2012, he chose to navigate far more dangerous territory, namely Brooklyn, doing so for thirteen weeks, penning a composition per week and organizing on-site performances of same by varied musicians which are heard here, usually along with the environmental…
Number Pieces (Piano)
2018 release **
"Two versions of Cage's 'One' and one of his 'One5' performed by pianist Guy Vandromme. 'One' was written in 1987, a ten-minute long piece for solo piano. Per the Cage Works page, the commentary is: "This work comprises 10 systems of piano chords, varying in dynamics, selected by chance. Each system is roughly 1 minute long, and all but one is flexible. Each system contains 2 sets of chords. The order of each set is maintained, but the relationship between the two sets of chords …
Grand Chromatic Fantasy (Symphony) For Three Pianos
2016 release **
"In the early days of Wandelweiser records, a disc of music by the forgotten composer Herman Van San extended the label’s scope and helped to cement its aesthetic. He was composing long before there was a Wandelweiser group or label, but his outsider static and innovative music was a perfect fit. This disc of music by the all but unknown Mikheil Shugliashvili achieves a similar purpose. Born in 1941, the composer died in 1996, the year of the label’s first release, but his radi…
Duos
2009 release **
"Two sets of pieces written for the duo Contour (Stephen Altoff-trumpet, Lee Forrest Ferguson-percussion), a potentially unwieldy combination. Frey's "22 sächelchen" (small things) is rather just that, 22 miniatures lasting 32 1/2 minutes that vary from quiet reductionism to outright fanfares. I guess some of the latter sort are a bit...shocking, at least in a Wandelweiser context. But there are also oblique references to jazz (the mute in #11), processional music (the tympani in…
Ivory
*2025 stock* Born in Athens, Greek composer Zinovia Arvanitidi is best known as one half of the duo Pill-Oh in Vanishing Mirror as well as her debut solo The Gift of Affliction. Zinovia returns with her first solo piano album titled Ivory, and like its precursors, further highlights her mastery in crafting piano ambiances of austere beauty and melancholia, led by mesmerizing melodies and evolving cinematic textures. Fully self-produced, the now France-based composer navigates through her own tim…
Not here but somewhere
*75 copies limited edition* On Not here but somewhere, the Japanese ambient guitarist crafts freeform soundscapes that feel less composed than discovered. Each track unfolds like a whispered conversation between emotion and environment — guitar lines ripple like wind over water, subtly shifting direction, as if carried downstream by a current of pure intuition. The result is a quietly enveloping odyssey, where every piece becomes a new place, felt more than defined.
Remarks On Process
Tip! Remarks on Process was recorded in May 2024 at Westbahnstudios Vienna. The project was a week-long performance workshop led by Mark Fell with members of the Austrian ensemble Studio Dan. Throughout the week, procedural systems were developed to explore group behaveiours and emergent musical aesthetics. This led to a performance on the evening of the final day which is excluded here. Each day was recorded in its entirety and this cassette contains edited excerpts from the sessions in chronol…
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…
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.
Piano Studies 337
First-time reissue of Willem Nyland's rare private-press piano improvisations. The Dutch chemist-turned-Gurdjieff disciple recorded these spiritual teachings on specially tuned piano in 1960s upstate New York
Dust
2019 release ** "Dust is a collection of music for solo violin and electronics. Daniel describes the record as 'a full exploration of the sound world a violin allows. The electronics meld with, lift, surpass and dance around the organic rawness of the strings. The piece is all my years of not conceding or diluting myself to the needs of others, compressed into one long musical expression. It is hope and birth and death and melancholy'. Music by: Valgeir Sigurðsson, Edmund Finnis, Heinrich Ignaz …
Luigi Nono Volume 2: Works with Flute
Luigi Nono (1924 –1990) was a great innovator in the use of spatialization of sound and experimentation with performance space, non-linear time and the collapsing between sound and silence. Beginning in 1959, he distanced himself from serial orthodoxy and the Ferienkurse compositional scene. His new works reflected a concern in political and cultural events and introduced the use of tape and electroacoustic technology. His compositional process was increasingly involved with specific performers,…
The In Between
Deluxe 2 LP pressed to HQ-180 gram vinyl, cut at 45 RPM, housed in gatefold tip-on jacket with printed inner sleeves. The In Between is the debut solo album by harpist, composer, and sound artist Shelley Burgon. Burgon is one of the most accomplished and sought-after performers and collaborators in the world of avant-garde and new music. Her interpretations of works by composers such as Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, Morton Subotnick, and Cornelius Cardew, as well as her collaborations with artist…
Lac Noir - La Serpente 1992
Unreleased material composed by Bernard Parmegiani in 1992
Nightclouds + How Do I Know If My Cat Likes Me
From the always remarkable hands of Blank Forms come two new stunning LPs from the Stockholm based composer Ellen Arkbro: “Nightclouds”, comprising five minimalist improvisations for solo organ, and “How do I know if my cat likes me?”, made within a trio comprising Hanne Lippard and Hampus Lindwall, interweaving wry conceptualism and topical humor with poetics, voice, texture, and tone. Each absolutely brilliant and distinct, they stand as some of the most exciting works we've encountered from A…
Watt
Watt’s clarinet-driven soundscapes hypnotize, thicken, and circle endlessly. 2021 collaborations—edited on infinite tapes—blur time and unity in a vinyl collective composition.
Unfall
In an 'ecological' process of recovery and reuse of musical materials and obsolete electronics, 'Unfall' (German for “accident”) lays its research focus on the encounter between improvised music, electroacoustics, free jazz, dixieland, and minimalism, filtered and recomposed through techniques typical of musique concrète. Referencing Burroughs' cut-ups and methods derived from tape music, 'Unfall' experiments with intertextuality, establishing a dialogue between seemingly distant musical languag…