September
This was the much anticipated final set of Keith Rowe's week in NYC, following five duo sets with various collaborators. It took place on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and the Manhattan atmosphere was uniquely charged. As he almost always does, Rowe rose to the challenge of the occasion, creating a moving, dense, and virtuosic set in the lineage of his 2004 set with Burkhard Beins in Berlin (ErstLive 001) and his 2008 solo set in Tokyo (ErstLive 007). The recording quality is remarkable, b…
Mile High Volcano
2011 release ** "Ultra-heavy bass from the depths by our friends Lee “Culver” Stokoe (also with Skullflower these days) and Karst (nothing else but Mutant Ape and Turgid Animal boss). Deep matter."
Document
Corrado Altieri (CANDOR CHASMA, TH26, MONOSONIK) gives us an extraordinary synthesis of electronic noise music playing only analog and digital equipment without computer assistance. From power electronics to drone music with a master impro touch.
Eternally now
More music by Gianluca Becuzzi (see Vital Weekly 810 for his previous release), and another one that doesn't reveal much in terms of information. Just a titles and the year it was produced. Its however some kind of concept album. The opening and closing tracks are 2:33 each, while the three tracks in the middle last 12:48. Also from the titles there are similarities: 'Culture vs Nature', 'Nature vs Culture', two parts of 'The Essential Nowhere' and 'Rings Of Time'. Probably that should give the …
Kolk
Christoph Schiller (spinet & preparations), Birgit Ulher (trumpet, speaker, radio & objects). Five tight, close, and immaculate improvisations from the leading exponents - abusers of improvised trumpet and spinet. Recorded in Hamburg in October 2010, and sounding like nothing else.
Taroom
My first complete electronica CD which contains electronic music I performed live over the last couple of years, edited to form a complete work that can be played from beginning to end. The title comes from John Lloyd's and Douglas Adams' dictionary The Deeper Meaning of Liff where it in brief means loud and informative (it is also an Australian town). The music is a combination of harmonic noise music and multi-layered rhythmical electronica'. Mattias was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1976…
Mole
2010 release ** "The Low Frequency Orchestra is a small ensemble of 'paetzold' recorders, electronic devices, voice, double bass and drums and they team up here with one Wolfgang Mitterer who plays organ. The starting point of this CD is a live recording which has been 'repeatedly revised, de- and re-composed'. Taking into account this and the fact that this is a small ensemble, I was reminded of Mnemonists and Biota, who used similar group playing and extensive studio techniques to define thei…
Bis als letzter der Zeugen das Ged�chtnis verstummt.
Sebastian Elikowski-Winkler studied composition with Friedrich Goldmann in Berlin, Marek Kopelent in Prague and Vladimir Tarnopolski in Moscow, and musicology, art history and architecture in Berlin. He is the recipient of several composition scholarships from institutions in Moscow, Paris and Venice. Berlin-based Ensemble Adapter interprets primarily new compositions across a wide range of contemporary music in a progressive, authentic and powerful style. Shelley Parker is a London-based artis…
Stasis
Zbeen is an electro-acoustic project by Gianluca Favaron and Ennio Mazzon. Zbeen’s improvisational approach is developed from the human-machine paradigm which is represented by the interaction with digital instruments specifically designed and developed for this project. K-Frame, Zbeen's debut EP, was released by Ripples in January 2012. Unlike K-Frame, which was developed as a sonic counter-part to the linear algebra concept of an ordered set of ‘k’ linearly-independent vectors, Stasis elabo…
Eight Lost Tracks
In the landscape of early electronic music, few projects operated with the conceptual rigor and interdisciplinary ambition of Monoton. Founded in 1979 by hypermedia pioneer Konrad Becker, this Vienna-based collective emerged not as a band in any conventional sense but as an ongoing investigation into what they termed "bionic psycho-active automat music"—compositions derived from mathematical structures and natural constants rather than traditional melodic intuition.
Eight Lost Tracks documents M…
Slaughter In A Tiny Place
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…
A Strange Functional System
More than 30 years ago ‘Bizarre Unit’ released their timeless and highly collected classic single ‘Dancing/Away from the Screaming Car’. Now for the first time ever, Bizarre Unit and VOD-Records have uncovered the lost treasure trove of their surviving recordings. These unique recordings have been digitally transferred, edited and carefully restored from the ¼-Reel-Recordings and Cassettes. Embedded crackling and background noise from the original surviving Acetates have been careful…
Ambient
Ambient describes something that imperceptibly pervades the environment to the point of barely existing. It affects us, but we might not know it. It controls what we regard as the most basic qualities of our lives, so basic that we consider them inconsequential, everyday, and normal. The earliest ambient music was likened to furniture. This is not ambient music. But there are the qualities of ambient music here. The sounds surround and envelop. Groundwork is laid for assumptions and choices to b…
Lassithi/Elysium
2012 repress. "The first full length release by the UK based Aeolian String Ensemble. Although originally set to be issued on the legendary United Dairies label, this material has now been remastered, includes a new piece, and is instead available in the US. The work was produced by David Kenny, a long time collaborator and engineer on many Nurse With Wound and Current 93 projects. Consisting of two evolving compositions, Lassithi (1992) and Elysium (a specially commissioned new work), this CD o…
Burnt Offerings
The Preservation label presents Burnt Offerings, the fourth album from Brooklyn's Padna. As Padna, Nat Hawks initially made his name in the cassette underground on the revered Stunned label with two works of pop experimentalism displaying a bustling -- often boggling -- and vivid imagination. Veritable joyrides in sound and style, these releases were in line with the DIY aesthetic, primitive songcraft and eclectic sonic stew pioneered by the likes of Tall Dwarfs and forwarded by Olivia Tremo…
Sick / Cunt
7" EP. Primitive Calculators release their first new studio efforts since 1979. Thirty-three years after their classic first single I Can't Stop It, Melbourne's hilarious synth-punk snarlers are working on a new studio album to be released in 2013. They reformed in 2009 at the invitation of the Nick Cave-curated All Tomorrow's Parties festival. For many years, Primitive Calculators’ sizeable legend thrived on their self-released 1979 single, a posthumous live album released in the early 80s, and…
Realiser
*150 copies limited edition* The Kansas post-hypnagogia psych enigma CVLTS create a strange distillation of improvisation, keyboards, loops and field recordings. Song length carpets of sound with the occasional attempt at dream pop. CVLTS are the Kings of Haze and they will make all your dreams come true.
High & Upon
Reissue of this long sold-out cassette on Gift Tapes. Mind Over Mirrors is Jaime Fennelly, harmonium player and electronics builder, whose unique approach to sound manipulation has established him as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary experimental music. Before launching his solo project, Fennelly was a member of the junkfolk band Peeesseye and the psychedelic free jazz trio Acid Birds, experiences that inform his multifaceted approach to electronic sound sculpture. Fennelly creat…
Ou du Monde
Upgrade of the original cassette release on Sweat Lodge Guru. Moscow multi-instrumentalist Ivan Karib who also plays in Kon Tiki Gemini makes wondrous spaced-out and multi-layered electronics that float somewhere between Ducktails and Sean McCann. The tropics invade Russia and clatter to the floor. ghost guitars ring hollow, looping around endlessly searching for synthetic embrase. Sweat Lodge Guru described the recordings as "Music crafted for the sunny and tropical paradises of our min…
Spiritual Noises
Historical collaboration between two of the fathers of Italian (and not only Italian) Old-School Industrial, Maurizio Bianchi and Mauthausen Orchestra."Creating noise is determined by the presence of an original particle to which randomly apply an alteration to convey a voltage-activated disturbing that determinates the electrophonic perturbation. As a result we obtain the spiritual noisesMO_disturbo"
Sounds by M.B.: ancient loops, modern metals and futuristic waves and M.O. :synthesizer, loops,…