Electronic / All styles

Video From the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Archives 1968-2011. Artists: John Cage, Kjartan Slettemark, KILLL, Arne Nordheim, Stephen O`Malley, Mauricio Kagel, MoHa!, Christopher Nielsen/Masselys, Stian Skagen & Monica Winther. This DVD presents seminal works of music, performance, dance, theater and installation art from the nearly 50-year history of Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (HOK). When HOK founder Sonja Henie exclaimed that she wanted the Beatles to play at her art center, in essence she expresse…

Pisaro's fascinating composition created with guitar, bass, percussion, radio, electronics, and field recordings, using long gaps of silence resolved through a dynamic set of rich audio sections."The most convincing way to avoid reality is to lose yourself in the prickle of the field recording, as if it were bubble wrap. Here, technology chafes against a world of waves, pulses, and impacts, leaving to the ear and the imagination the task of estimating reality from scratch (at 12:35, a storm defi…

Pisaro's fascinating composition created with guitar, bass, percussion, radio, electronics, and field recordings, using long gaps of silence resolved through a dynamic set of rich audio sections."The most convincing way to avoid reality is to lose yourself in the prickle of the field recording, as if it were bubble wrap. Here, technology chafes against a world of waves, pulses, and impacts, leaving to the ear and the imagination the task of estimating reality from scratch (at 12:35, a storm defi…

Valedictorian/Exoskeleton, Dan Friel’s first release for Thrill Jockey, contains two brand new songs, as well as the first ever remixes of his music. “Valedictorian” opens the EP with a burst of adreneline, pure pop filtered through a layer of noise. “Exoskeleton” is more mysterious, with bursts of Friel’s overdriven synths coming in and out of focus over a steady pulse. The first remix is a dancefloor ready take on “Exoskeleton” courtesy of Moss of Aura, the solo project of Gerrit Welmers, one …

'Listening': Qluster distil their art to its essence. Soft analogue tones and slow, deliberate motion invite deep attention, chamber electronics of great tenderness from Roedelius and Onnen Bock.

"A beautiful solo album by experimental electronician/multiinstrumentalist Jean-Marc Foussat. The album is clearly dedicated to his son Victor Foussat, a young poet and painter who died this year. One of his paintings his reproduced on the inner sleeve, and Jean-Marc recites a poem of his in-between the two 20-minute tracks that make up the album. I rarely cross paths with Foussat’s music, but each opportunity is a delight. The two pieces here are powerful amalgams of synths and objects. Foussat…

The Phonos ek Mechanes trio was founded in 2007 by three composers and electro-acoustic performers from Wroc aw: Cezary Duchnowski, Pawe Hendrich and S awomir Kupczak. The name of the group comes from Greek and means 'the sound of the machine' which reflects specific methods of artistic creation applied by the three musicians. They play typical instruments such as the piano, electric guitar or electric violin, often prepared and tuned for microtonal music. Sounds that are created this way do not…

You've been carrying this suicide for the twentieth year and for the twentieth year in a row you still don't know what to do about this suicide you've been nestling in yourself for twenty years - and, after twenty years now, you still don't know what to do about the suicide you've been carrying for forty years. You go to the kitchen, you make coffee, you forget where you are, your thoughts concentrate only on the defeat you've been living with for sixty years, that after sixty years you still ha…

Etude IV: points-lines-landscapes' (1979). This work is designed as an all-electronic piece without considering any configuration with soloist parts for later use (unlike the two following pieces featured on this CD).It was realized by Jean-Claude Eloy in 1979 on the CEMAMu's UPIC upon Iannis Xenakis's invitation to whom this work is dedicated as a friend. The UPIC (Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu) is an electronic tool invented by Iannis Xenakis in the 1970s. It is a graphic interfac…

This new Pogus 2CD compilation, curated by Luis Alvarado (writer, journalist, sound poet), presents some of the most important pieces of the Peruvian musical vanguard of the 1960s and '70s, offering a representative sample of works and composers from this important period in Peruvian music. This release also includes a 24-page booklet in both Spanish and English with an essay giving an overview of the works, the composers, and a brief musical and social history of Peru during this time. T…

Backwards proudly presents a new Aidan Baker vinyl LP, issued in a edition of 450 copies. For this releaseAidan Baker, co-founder of Nadja and member of Arc, is aided by his brother, Richard Baker, at drums. Recorded variously in Toronto and Berlin, 'Smudging' includes six songs comprised in two long epic tracks, with guitar textures and hypnotic rhythm structures to create a beautiful and dreamy listening experience. In the wake of his most experimental and characterized by dilated atmospheres …

Oltrelanebbiailmare presents a double CD that collects the particular proposal of the never forgotten Engel Der Vernichtung from Rieti, Central Italy. Born in 1985 as a project by Federico Festuccia and Roberto Feliciangeli - soon joined by Daniele Arisi and Paolo Campanelli - the group took its disturbing name of "Angel of Destruction" from an Einstürzende Neubauten song. After several performances in deconsecrated churches and abandoned factories, Engel Vernichtung Der debut in 1986 with the c…

When, years ago, I read Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf" I was struck by a part of the novel... Harry Haller, the main character, is walking through a passage with endless doors. As he opens each door he is thrown into a new, unknown, mysterious dimension; a life between the real and the virtual world."Login" is an imaginary journey through the web, where one can explore new realities - or different views of well known stuff - on a thin line between truth and fiction.For this sound project I've used…

Part 14th in the ongoing re-release series of all early Asmus TietchensVinyl albums between 1980-1991. 'Stupor Mundi' (Discos Esplendor GeometricoEGD 018) was originally released in 1990. This re-release comes with another poster booklet and feat. 4 Bonus tracks of unreleased material from the same period. Joint release with Auf Abwegen. 600 copies. Asmus Tietchens about the album: 'The opener of the album cites: 'Gitarren spielen kann ich leider noch nicht...' ('Unfortunately I can't play any…

Tracks 1 & 2 originally released on Marches Funebres LP (Multimood, 1989). Track 3 is a bonus track. Released as a joint release by German labels Die Stadt and Aufabwegen. Limited to 600 copies.

Edition of 300 copies LP for this incredible electro-acoustic psychedelic album from this Italian band, stunningly beautiful package! "RNBW is both a stunning debut album, and a unique trip to the dreamy land of Bongolandia, a mythical place evoked through 8bits loops, psychedelic visions and lysergic explorations.Rainbow Island is the four-men band that will guide you to the heart of this Island: PikkioMania (MFB Synth Lite 2, Loops, FX), Dj Kimchi (Sampler, Kaoss Pad, Nintendo DS), Lou Q. Dam…

Ghost Time is Ken Hyder, Z'EV, Andy Knight. Ghost Time is a unique trio, fusing tastes of ambient and drone with spices of neo-folk and jazz into Dead Jazz. A true witch's stew where everything is of the moment. Recorded live and direct from the Ghost Time. The lineup is unusual too. English pocket trumpeter Andy Knight is flanked by two drummer-percussionists, Z'EV from the USA and Ken Hyder from Scotland. As a group they allude to traces of greatly diverse influences and traditions. Bas…

Beautiful new work from Machinefabriek. Secret Photographs was composed as a soundtrack to accompany a film made by Mike Hoolboom using photographs taken by notorious bank robber Alvin Karpis. Filmmaker Mike Hoolboom discovered a batch of Karpis' photos for auction on eBay. He was the lucky winning bidder. With his newly found treasure, Hoolboom began working on a film consisting of still images, slowly dissolving one into another. Intensifying the slow, hypnotic pace and transitions, the musica…

Songs for the other half of the sky. With 'Erkos' (1990-91) and 'Galaxies' (1986-1996). Performed by Junko Ueda (satsuma biwa and voice) and Jean-Claude Eloy (sound projection).  Erkos is a word from the Indo-European language and means song, praise. It is close to the Sanskrit word Arkas (hymn, chant, radiance) and to the Tokharien term Yarke (reverence, homage). The texts consist of extracts from the Devî-Upanishad and Devî-Mâhâtmya writings, in Sanskrit. In those texts, an homage is paid to t…

J.C. Eloy book (English text) around the cycle 'Songs for the other half of the sky' with the following pieces 'Butsumyoê', 'Sappho hikètis', 'Erkos', 'Galaxies', 'Gaia-songs'. Interview, documents, technicazl specification, photos. A CD with 'Butsumyoê' and 'Sappho hikètis'.'Butsumyôe' (1989). For voices, percussions and electroacoustic. With Yumi Nara and Fatima Miranda, voice and percussions. In 'Butsumyôe' ('The ceremony of Repentance') the singer Yumi Nara (soprano) occupies the function of…

Spiracle" has flown to the stratosphere in "Ananta" and has swallowed the milky way in "Lumen". Now it opens the gate to the parallel worlds through the astral body.Side A: Evestrum is formed by membranous layers of drones, which slowly shift by the interference between glass harps and moderate electronic sounds.It is a sonographical report of the process: a subtle spiritual existence merges into a physical body and becomes tangible through the senses.Side B: Exusiai is formed by the resonance o…

This was the 10 PM set on 9/11/11, and makes for a perfect pair with the Rowe solo - two very different extremes. Where the Rowe set is in your face visceral, Unami and Malfatti created a gentle atmosphere within the pitch-black room (lit solely by Unami's visuals) and an overarching cumulative feeling in the listener. The too-perfect-to-be-scripted intro and outro frame a set that's almost not there, a radical recording even by ultra-minimal standards

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…

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."

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 …

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.

Original LP from 1982. "Since 1979, the Swedish Radio Company and the Stockholm Electronic Music Studio (EMS) have arranged an annual 3-day Stockholm Electonic Musik Festival. It's purpose is to present a sample of the electronic music being composed in different parts of the world. This record contains four works from the 1980 festival - two are Swedish and two are international; two are for tape and two combine tape with live performance." Lars-Gunnar Bodin: Epilogue; rhapsodie de la seconde r…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

David Rosenboom is a composer/performer of unprecedented range and experience. He performed at the Electric Circus in 1969, on the original recording of In C with Terry Riley, with La Monte Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music as well as with Anthony Braxton, Jim Tenney, Richard Teitelbaum and countless others. This exciting CD showcases four decades of compositional activity, embracing minimalism, electronics, indeterminacy, improvisation and more. Life Field is an essential document of one …

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…

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…

*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.

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…

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…