Inversions
Latest from Albany guitar duo whose six string damaging has often shred the guitar beyond recognition. For this outing, however, Century Plants plug in, and allow their guitars to be guitars. Psych raga, melting icebergs of roaring drone, metallic strum and clang, oceanic melody and even a helping of pastoral song melody separate this from previous smash ups. Hardiman and Hare create these hypnotic states from the ground up, building their sound out of pure improvisation. Oh yeah, the guitars do…
Bowl Ceremony
Gigging with a varying and often an extensive group, Kheta Hotem has visited the studio with a somewhat stripped basic essence. This release is a collection of sense-filling presentations starting with a ritual-like bowl ceremony, which leads into results closely related with free jazz and ethnomusic. In their gig brochure the group claims they continue the more than 1000 years old musical tradition of Komutia, where the musician acts as a mediator between the world of sounds and everyday existe…
Hassu Pelle
Hassu Pelle (Funny Clown) from Tampere, Finland was active only a couple of years at the first part of 2000s. This hilarious quintet was formed by Pelle Eloton, Pelle Svanslös, Ulkomaan Pelle, Pelle Jätkä, and Apupelle who was involved with the recording session. Hassu Pelle’s self-titled first and only record was originally released by the band members themselves with the edition of approximately only 30 copies. Hassu Pelle played some mind-boggling live shows for the handful of people mostly j…
Hasardi
For their second official CD release (after a handful of cassettes and CD-Rs) this Helsinki quintet of horns, guitars, drums, and vocals forsake any sense of live atmosphere by mashing four years of recordings into a disorienting, rude collage of over the top takes on multiple forms of extreme music. More early 90s, Bad Vugum-damaged rock than 00s Fonal psych-folk, Hasardi is a tangent of the punk/hardcore continuum that veers wildly and often into free jazz, noise and just general weirdness. Ha…
777
The band was formed in 1999 when ST 37 founder Carlton Crutcher and his wife Sharon began seeking a magical, improvisational musical outlet. The band has stayed true to this vision for 9 years of live shows, studio recordings and numerous musicians. All of the recordings on 777 were recorded in 2007 and represent a peak for Book of Shadows as a live band as well as a studio band. For this CD, Sharon on vocals and Carlton on keys, are joined by Eric Archer (Numbers on the Mast) on guitar/electron…
J’accuse Ted Hughes
Another great installment in Sonic Youth's SYR series, this one features two engrossing, lengthy pieces : 'J'Accuse Ted Hughes' and 'Agnes B Musique'. The former was recorded at All Tomorrow's Parties 2001, when the band were premiering material from their NYC Ghosts & Flowers album, and takes the form of a ragged twenty-two minute noise jam featuring free association lyrics by Kim Gordon ("I sent my poem to Good Housekeeping. They paid me ten dollars" she imparts). Meanwhile, the more composed,…
Boss
From the clatter of the White Stripes to the dream-pop of Beach House, there have been plenty of duos to please divergent tastes. Perhaps the appeal of the twofer is that it requires a minimalism that mothers interesting combinations, and the Magik Markers are no different. “Axis Mundi” tears Boss open with a tea kettle-hiss of feedback, affirming the group’s noise pedigree. The shifting rhythm of drummer Pete Nolan and Elisa Ambrogio’s barbed guitar reveal a newfound ease with free-flowing groo…
Will Make You Ill
Alga Marghen presents Modern Shit, a very singular chapter in the Amos/It's War Boys / Milk From Cheltenham / Homosexuals history. Directly taken from the original It's War Boys catalog, here is one of the most obscure sonic works of the early 1980s, Modern Shit! First "issued" on tape, this work circulated only privately among the close friends of the label and was never officially distributed. Actually, it represents one of the most intense and experimental outputs of this creative London…
Das Wunden
Not only a collaborator with various producers on a Wales/Bavaria/Catalonia axis, but also member of Hardcore band Mass, Robert Merdzo is also seem to be a bit of a musical magpie, dipping into various genres for source material, ideas and a few lifted manouvres.
Lingua II: Maledetto / Antiphony VIII
The work and thought of the American composer Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993) exhibited many striking changes during his lifetime. In fact, while the world of commercial endeavor still insists that artists develop a recognizable personal "style," Gaburo's life-work can be seen as one of continual change and exploration, rather than one of codification and promotion. Some of these changes are beautifully illustrated by the two works on this CD, Maledetto, for seven speaking voices, from 1967-68, and A…
World of Strings
Stephan Wittwer Intakt solo album, World of Strings has him all over the guitar. Live recordings.
Electro-Acoustic Solo Works 1984-95
Electro-Acoustic Solo Works (1984-95) collected assorted compositions of musique concrete and interactive computer music (Chatterlings of april 1995 for sampler and drums, and an excerpt from Aivilik Rays of may 1990, originally more than one hour long).
Asymmetrical Music
The new cd with Norwegian composer Eivind Buene and his composition, asymmetrical music. This is Sofa first release with a written score, but it doesn't mean that improvisation is abandoned. On the contrary, asymmetrical music focuses on the meeting point between composition and improvisation. The two soloists, Ivar Grydeland guitar and Ingar Zach Ð percussion, are improvising as a duo but also on another level, with the written score. The members of the Ensemble featured on this disc are also v…
Kraanerg
Kraanerg (1968) for 23 instruments and 4-channel tape. Callithumpian Consort. Stephen Drury, conductor. First recording with restored analog tape. Kraanerg is one of Xenakis' most popular - and infamous - works. A visceral and highly charged score for woodwinds, brass, and strings along with quadrophonic tape. The title, Kraanerg, is a composite of two Greek words: 'kraan', meaning to perfect, to accomplish; and erg, signifying energy. Commissioned for the gala opening of the National Arts Centr…
Dun
Trio improvisations recorded at the Church of St. James the Great, Friern Barnet, north London, November 2007. Matt Davis (trumpet & field recordings), Matt Milton (violin) and Bechir Saade (bass clarinet & flute) - three improvisers following that strain of British improv interested in amplifying the quiet and concentrating on minute gestural nuance. An entirely acoustic affair meets electronics in reverberant sacred space.
The music opens with "a spectrum of Saade's bass clarinet multiphon…
Voice Coil
2008 release ** "Pauline Oliveros (accordion with Expanded Instrument System); Peer Bode (live text with Bode vocoder); Andrew Deutsch (live mixing, archival recordings, samples, loops and electronics). Voice Coil was performed by the Carrier Band in the fall of 2003 at the Deep Listening Space in Kingston, New York. Pauline Oliveros performed on accordion and computer-based Expanded Instrument System, Peer Bode performed live text with his Bode Vocoder, and Andrew Deutsch performed live mixing,…
Huffin Rag Blues
Nurse With Wound is the main recording vehicle for British musician Steven Stapleton. Since 1978, with collaborators such as David Tibet (Current 93), John Balance (Coil), Colin Potter and Matt Waldron (Irr. App [Ext]), Nurse With Wound has released dozens of albums that draw on nearly every genre of music. The only constant is that one never knows what the next album will sound like.Stapleton and Andrew Liles form the core of the band on Huffin' Rag Blues, and the direction to which they are he…
Klavierhelm
Conrad Schnitzler is a genuine legend in the krautrock and electronic music worlds. Schnitzler studied under Joseph Beuys before joining an early Tangerine Dream. Their first album Electronic Meditation shows a band highly influenced by Schnitzler's unique, singular approach. Schnitzler left Tangerine Dream to form Kluster with friends Dieter Moebius and Hans Joachim Roedelius. When Schnitzler left Kluster they changed their name to Cluster, eventually merging with Michael Rother (of Neu!) to fo…
Admira
Previously unreleased recordings from 1971. Admira is sourced from original master recordings discovered by Kluster member and Tangerine Dream engineer Klaus Freudigmann. Along with Vulcano, also being released at the same time on Important, Admira is presented here for the first time in this deluxe package. These intense sessions were made with Schnitzler at the helm, as always, after the departure of Mobius and Roedelius from the group. Conrad Schnitzler founded Kluster in 1969 along with Roed…
Cicatrici
2004 release ** OvO is a project of music and life. OvO are Stefania Pedretti (also singer and guitar player of Allun) and Bruno Dorella (ex Wolfango, Bugo, Lava, now involved in many bands and boss of Bar La Muerte records), often joined by friends that belong to many different musical scenes. Bruno and Stefania basically started this project to stay together: they were used to follow their partner's different bands on tour, but they were also sick of the problems that every band has connected …