Electronic / All styles

Just as 2014's widely lauded Hidden Tapes marked a turn from saxophone improvisation to an embrace of what the Potlatch label referred to as "music for speakers" or, more elegantly, "sound diffusion,"Carnets is not only another leap forward, but could easily be considered Marc Baron's masterpiece.Carnets is a dynamic interplay of degraded magnetic tape and unsettlingly normal everyday recordings dating back to Baron's childhood, showcasing Baron's deftness in crafting compositions that leave the…

Limited edition of 500. Don Slepian is a true pioneer of electronic music. He started composing in 1969 and released his first compilation cassette in September of 1978. He left Hawaii and came to Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ, where he was "Artist in Residence" in computer music for the next two years. In 1980 he released three more cassette tapes on the Hawaiian record label Plumeria Productions: The Sea of Bliss, New Dawn, and Open Spaces. In 1981 he self-released his first LP, Co…

Limited edition of 500. Marc Barreca is an American synthesist and multi-instrumentalist and one of the pioneers of American cassette culture. Inspired by Brian Eno and the ambient school, he began recording his own music in the mid-'70s. By 1980 he already recorded three tapes: In a Foreign Land (1977), Raw Fish and Green Tea (1979/'80), and Currents (1979/'80) -- all three only released and distributed via Eurock in an extremely low quantity. In 1980 he released his first LP, Twilight, on K. …

Limited edition of 500. Galen Herod is one of the pioneering synthesis artists of American cassette culture. From 1979 to 1982 he produced several outstanding and creative electronic tape releases which he distributed either via Eurock or by himself in the Phoenix, Arizona area. His very early tape works are dominated by abstract, austere, experimental electronics in the vein of Conrad Schnitzler, using tape loops and completely homemade synth-equipment includes oscillators, filters, and …

Limited edition of 500. Anode has been the professional alias of Robert Carlberg since 1972. The Seattle-based musician has dabbled in musique concrète, minimalist tape music, drones, manipulations, and other non-keyboard-based electronics. Through founding a newsletter for electronic musicians in 1979 called SYNEX (together with Charles Larrieu), establishing one of the first DIY tape labels (Anode Productions, which released works by Anode and Kerry Leimer), and writing a monthly column fo…

Limited edition of 500. Multi-talented autodidact musician and devoted painter Leon Lowman became interested in synthesizers when he heard ELP's "Lucky Man" in 1970. At that time Lowman was working for various recording studios and sound companies in California and with his first paycheck he made a down-payment on an ARP 2600-Synthesizer (as well as a Mediamix Joystick for pitch bending), which he still uses at the time of this release. From that point on he used whatever money he could sp…

Sub Rosa presents the fifth volume of the highly-acclaimed and successful Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music series. This installment highlights pieces illustrating a technique (Claude Ballif's "Points, Mouvements"), a country ("Shur, Op. 15" by Alireza Mashayekhi), a studio (Helmut Lachenmann at the IPEM), and historic (François Bernard Mâche's "Prélude"), and radical ("Spectrum Ripper" by Masonna/Yamazaki "Maso" Takushi) works that have ripped apart ancient definitions. All this organized …

A "classic" from the Sub Rosa catalog, never released on vinyl before. An astonishing piano-player drifts on beats and soundscapes. Recorded during a magical night in the courtyard of a Siena Renaissance Italian Palazzio where the lightness of Harold Budd meets Eraldo Bernocchi's deep electronics. Beats and bass, drones and soundscapes tie together harmonically to meet one of the most emotionally-involving piano players/composers.

A milestone!! Sub Rosa presents another installment in its Early Electronic series, a silver vinyl reissue of Trevor Wishart's Red Bird: A Political Prisoner's Dream, composed between 1973 and 1977 using the studio of the University of York, and originally released in 1978 by York Electronic Studios. Wishart's compositional interests deal mainly with the interpolation by technological means between the human voice and natural sounds. He has been very active since the early 1970s in the area…

Palais des Bauzards pursued an industrial and electronic variant of the sound that swept into vogue during the first half of the '80s. This compilation digs into the original material provided by the band and offers an amazing selection from start to finish. The sometimes rudimentary though gripping tracks on the first side are emblematic of their early period; for example, "Money" is driven by a screeching rhythm box, distant guitar lines, and a nonchalant voice. Cabaret Voltaire comes to mind.…

"Living on Superstition" is the debut LP from New York native Phil Tortoroli a.k.a. James Place. After his initial cassette release "An Entire Matchbook A Night" (Opal Tapes) in 2014, James Place returns with a harrowing, meditative record of candle-lit rhythms and frost-laden ambience. The album was composed using an intricate collection of analog equipment, including the TR-606, Casio SK-1, SP1200, and a multitude of vinyl and tape-based samples, and mastered by M. Geddes Gengras.  James Plac…

** restocked, last copies around ** Multi-talented, autodidact musician and devoted painter Leon Lowman became interested in synthesizers when he heard ELP’s Lucky Man in 1970. At that time Leon was working for various recording studios and sound companies in California and with his first paycheck he took a down-payment for the ARP 2600-Sythesizer (as well as a Mediamix Joystick for pitch bending) which he still uses until today. Ever since he used whatever money he could spare towar…

** restocked, last copies around ** The new VOD American Cassette Culture box set documents American artists who were pioneers and protagonists of the late 70’s/earlry 80’s cassette-culture. It includes composers such as Steve Roach, Don Slepian, K.Leimer, Galen, Ken Moore, Young Scientist, Marc Barreca, Anode While rock-music of the 70’s and 80’s became a worldwide mainstream corporate business the creation of the cassette format and a network in the late 70’s opened music production up to ev…

LP version. Synthesizers and the human voice. Hawaii. The 1970s. Haku, aka Frank Tavares, a writer and musician, had a deep respect for the multiethnic character of his native Hawaii, and composed a number of theater pieces and songs to highlight this culture. However, he avoided many of the standard musical tropes, choosing to build his own studio and make all the music on synthesizers, a first for Hawaii. New age musical elements, traditional Hawaiian music, and unclassifiable madness, all pla…

**study exCD box edition** After melting minds since the mid-'90s with his beat-based productions, renowned techno producer Anthony Child aka Surgeon now brings the fundamental components of electronic sound production to the fore with Electronic Recordings from Maui Jungle Vol. 1. Focusing on the development of timbre and texture, Child creates exquisite drones that offer insight into his improvisatory sensibility and dig deep into the potential of modular synthesis, largely inspired by the …

Seattle producer and songwriter Benoît Pioulard (aka Thomas Meluch) has been following his very own path through the calm scenery of ambient, shoegaze and electronica for over ten years now. Following the release of "Sonnet", his fifth LP for Portland’s Kranky label just a few months ago, Meluch returns to Morr Music with four shimmeringly beautiful Ambient tracks. Together with Rafael Anton Irisarri (aka The Sight Below) under the name ORCAS, he already contributed two albums filled with brilli…

Stop Suffering is first music to emerge from Camella Lobo's Tropic of Cancer project since her 2013 debut album, Restless Idylls (BLACKEST 005CD/LP). The towering, time-stopping title-track is the culmination of Tropic of Cancer's work to date; rarely does an arrangement so sparse exhibit such grandeur. Written and recorded by Camella Lobo in LA. Additional recording, production, and mixing by Joshua Eustis (Sons of Magdalene, Telefon Tel Aviv). Cover photograph by Jasmine Deporta. Layout by Oli…

Another indispensable glimpse into the GRM archive courtesy of the mighty Editions Mego, 2014 repress. Beatriz Ferreyra's "L' Orvietan" (1970) is a work composed of two separate movements, the first drawing from electronic sounds, the second from concrète ones. These two sources do not meet, but tend equally towards sound antagonism and a complementarity of spirit. Philippe Carson Turmac's (1961) was created from machine-sounds from the Stuyvesant factories (Holland). Three movements foll…

One of the rarest & most legendary electronic privately pressed album from Italy has been finally reissued. If only its existence were known, this would be the so-called holy-grail of obscure electronic / experimental / musique concrete albums!! Issued in 1979 in an extremely limited private release - with (clumsily) hand-written titles on plain white hand-numbered sleeves and a xeroxed sheet with notes pasted on the back cover -  by italian composer Corrado Canepa of superb pieces of tightly co…

Robin Fox follows his 2010 solo album A Handful of Automation (DEMEGO 012LP) with A Small Prometheus, a significant work that exposes a very different audio-world to that previously encountered. In time since A Handful of Automation, Fox has been highly active with his widely acclaimed RGB (red green blue) laser show along with a collaboration with Atom TM (Double Vision), which premiered at Unsound Festival in 2014. A Small Prometheus was developed as a soundtrack to a dance work of the same na…

2013 marked the 25th anniversary of Idea Fire Company, the duo of Scott Foust and Karla Borecky based in Amherst, Massachusetts. Right before the end of the year The Laboratory EP was recorded. Two tracks of icy synth work, at times sort of reminiscent of parts of the Anti-Natural LP from 1999, but this probably being the most stripped down and monotonous material you will be able to find in the splendid discography of Idea Fire Company.   

Squared Squared consists of two longer pieces. a) is a recording of a live performance executed at ZKM in Karlsruhe. It is an abstract piece of music that has evolved during the time the composer has performed live – since 1980. For the composer, generally, a live performance is always the “same thing”, but listening to the early recordings it occurs that the music has changed drastically – only the format is still there. This is analogue to life in general – Earth looks the same like alwa…

This single by New Zealand's most overly-prolific trio is taken from the sessions for their upcoming double LP on Ba Da Bing. Forthcoming non-selections recorded live in an empty bar in Port Chalmers, and produced by the band as all their records are. Nothing much changes in the Dead C's world, it just all happens again and again in the same way. Who could ask for more?

2LP version. After their respective releases on Spectrum Spools, Italian techno masterminds Donato Dozzy (Sintetizzatrice (SP 038CD/LP, 2015)) and Neel (Phobos (SP 037CD, 2014)) return as the duo Voices from the Lake with Live at MAXXI on the motherlabel Editions Mego. A marvelous, organic live set of hypnotic, ambient techno that proves the outstanding and elegant craftsmanship of the pair's renowned sonic sculpture work. As expected, they stay true to their polyphonic topography of liquid s…

freq_out has been a musical project since 2003, when Carl Michael von Hausswolff was invited to Copenhagen to invent and install a sound-art installation. He divided up the audible sonic register into 12 parts and asked 12 artists, musicians, composers, and architects to each accept one of the 12 parts and compose a sonic piece from it. The result became 12 compositions/artworks that were simultaneously played on 12 different sound systems in the art space of Charlottenborg, thus becoming …

**sold out at source** A former globetrotting DJ, Further Records founder Chloe Harris shelved that lifestyle and aesthetic for a more stable family life in the Seattle area and a more cerebral approach in the studio. With this collection of exploratory compositions, originally released as a limited cassette in 2012, she decided to experiment with an array of synthesizers, mainly the Waldorf Q. Working on the eight tracks here in her home setup, Harris would "layer as much as I could or som…

Two prime cuts of intense noise bliss from Rodger Stella, sort of in the vein of some One Dark Eye stuff with a psychedelic twist slightly reminiscent of C.C.C.C. Stuff flies out of everywhere. 200 copies. Black vinyl, white cardboard sleeve with postcard attached, stamped white labels, insert. Plays at 33 1/3rpm.

Kostis Kilymis is a sound artist based in London, UK. This 7" contains new material following two cassette releases for Mazurka Editions and Hideous Replica. Two tracks recorded at home and outside in 2014 using circuits, pulses and wind noise - one a bit rhythmic, the other less so. Mastered by A.F. Jones at Laminal Audio. 200 copies. Black vinyl, white cardboard sleeve with postcard attached, stamped white labels, insert. Plays at 33 1/3rpm.

Lea Bertucci - Light Silence, Dark Speech 7" €7.00 Lea Bertucci's debut album Resonance Shapes LP from 2013 is an overlooked gem that caused a small stir at the IDDB office. On this much more stripped down affair the New York-based artist changed her bass clarinet for an old alto sax and the two cuts delivered here are somewhat different, but just as intimate and perplexing. 10 mesmerizing minutes that owes just as much to free jazz skronk as it does to contemporary sound art. "L…

**restocked** Kawabata Makoto emerges from a period of relative quiet with his first widely available solo release in several years, the blockbuster Krautrock-flavored Astro Love & Infinite Kisses. This lovely and impressionistic record showcases the other side of Makoto's outrageous works with Acid Mothers Temple. Taking cues from classics of the genre like Tangerine Dream's Phaedra and Steve Hillage's Rainbow Dome Musick, 'Dos Nurages' is the album's centerpiece, a 41-minute hypnotic epic, wit…

Beautiful new release from Italian soundscape artist, Giulio Aldinucci. Entitled “Spazio Sacro”, it is an absorbing blend of moody electronics and liturgical field recordings, or as the artist himself puts it…”The seven tracks that compose Spazio Sacro (“sacred space” in English) are characterized by field recordings taken in places that are related to the idea of “sacred” in different ways. The starting point is a reflection on how human rites define new soundscapes (e.g. processions, architect…

For our 55th release we at TRS are very pleased to be bringing you this soundtrack to the film, “Mirror Lands”, by Mark Lyken and Emma Dove. Working in sound, music and film, these two regular collaborators are Scotland-based artists with a mutual interest in relationships to place and the complex interactions between humans, nature and industry. In their work they are drawn to revealing beauty within the ordinary and the musicality of the environment. This soundtrack is a lovely combinat…

"The mighty 'classic' lineup of the Vibracathedral Orchestra returns with their first new music in many years. Here the quintet of Michael Flower, Neil Campbell, Bridget Hayden, Adam Davenport and Julian Bradley (joined by raconteur John Godbert) feature in a set of upbeat tracks that put the group's radical instrumental strategies into a package of full-on rock action. Recorded live using a binaural head system, the sound is nicely ragged in a you-are-there way, with scouring guitars and …

“Music For Private Ensemble” is Sean McCann’s first new solo album since 2011′s “The Capital”. Demonstrating a more serious study of orchestration and timbre than his previous work; it is a big step forward. The four arrangements presented here shy away from the use of synthesizers and effects processing – instead relying on voicing and movement to actuate the album’s sentiments. Inspired by the grandiosity of John Adams, the concerned somberness of Gavin Bryars, and the guttural tape work of Fl…

Nr. 3 from the most famous ambient series, now reissued. Laraaji’s glistening album “Ambient 3: Day of Radiance” has from the beginning been considered an outlier. Though widely celebrated at the time of its release in 1980 -- as the third installment of Brian Eno’s emerging ambient music series (Ambient 1-4) -- the album also brought with it an aura of mystification. Where did it fit in? An uncharted synthesis of resonating zither textures, interlocking, hammered rhythms and 3-D sound tre…

*shipping on Tuesday* At long last, the posthumous reissues of Coil's near-sacrosanct catalogue gets underway with the first batch of eight CDs including some seriously remarkable finds. On each disc original releases are featured in their entirety alongside stacks of formerly unreleased material - remixes, demos, edits and instrumentals - amounting to one of the most gobsmacking archive retrievals of this decade. For the many who are understandably bewildered or even scared by Coil's sizeable…

Lorenzo Senni's inspired Presto!? imprint presents one of 2015's most singular electronic albums with the solo debut proper from Theo Burt. Originally written circa 2009/2010, it's an album that was never really intended for public consumption but, thanks to Senni's efforts, is now presented here in all it's hugely individual glory. Perhaps best thought of as avant electro-pop or even some sort of Compute/R&Baroque composition, the Casio phase synth-sculpted arrangements of 'Gloss' elicit…

after two years of abstinence, Senking takes us again into the depths of his musical creativity with his new record »closing ice«.  The nine tracks of the album are intently dedicated to his distinctively bass-heavy and atmospheric compositions and the trips into the dark recesses of the human psyche.the mid-tempo grooves leave plenty of room for his sawing, war-declaring sounds that are unfolding expressive and gloomy but nevertheless warm soundscapes. every now and then, like a distant e…

**Few copies back in stock, sold out at source** A milestone originally released in 1985 on the legendary Broken Flag label, Giancarlo Toniutti's La Mutazione is renowned in certain circles as a classic and with good reason. The album comprises two subtle and haunting side-long explorations of dark cosmic electronics akin to Klaus Schulze, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, and Conrad Schnitzler filtered through the lens of Maurizio Bianchi, Whitehouse, Nurse With Wound, and The New Blockaders. At the …

"Sand/Layna is the first full-length solo release by Canadian sound artist crys cole. While cole is known to many through her collaborative work with a host of Canadian artists and internationals such as Oren Ambarchi, Keith Rowe, and James Rushford, this LP presents the first opportunity for an extended appreciation of her singular approach to amplified sound. Using contact and other microphones to amplify her interactions with small objects and the surfaces on which they rest, cole's work …