s/t
Sanhedolin are a ludicrously amped-up and heavy new power trio, featuring Keiji Haino, Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins) and Mitsuru Nasuno (Ruins). Haino brings aggressive anguish and all-consuming black fire, Yoshida and Nasuno supply a sack-full of convulsive time-shifting and complex kinetic acceleration. Haino and Yoshida have been working together on and off for the past three or four years in a number of duo and trio contexts, including a tour of China and Taiwan. They have built up the kind of ins…
The expanding sea
Georgia natives San Agustin (David Daniell, guitar; Andrew Burnes, guitar; Bryan Fielden, drums) have performed with a multitude of notables from the improvised community, including Ken Vandermark, Thurston Moore, Loren MazzaCane and others, but this boxed set is the first truly representative document of their live presence. Haunting moments of introspection are enveloped in clouds of bluesy guitar notes, then swept away by great electric gales; drones rumble and shimmer in the aftermath. The E…
Moooohieee!
A dead voice gathers on this Musical Saw and Hawaiian Guitar Soli Recorded in Early 1920s. Innovator of the octo-chorda (an open-alternate-tuned eight-string steel guitar), banjo, singing saw, inflated rubber balloon, and various other 'household instruments', Floridian samuel Pasco moore (1887-1959) was a darling both in NYC and on the vaudeville circuit during his 1920s heyday. While novelty acts suffered the pitfalls of most soft-soapers, moore's sound is of startling, heavenly haunted southe…
Undistilled
Sakada is: Mattin (computer feedback), Rosy Parlane (computers and radio) and Eddie Prevost (percussion). "Undistilled was recorded at live performances in London and Rotterdam in 2002. Components are a restricted range of percussion (Eddie Prevost), electronic sounds confected earlier for intuitive, tweaked release (Rosy Parlane), and nervous hyper-attention to every noise present, allowing spontaneous digital transfiguration of some (Mattin). The product is a formidably dense mesh of textures …
Good Morning / Good Night
Well, 'Holy Good Night!' seems an appropriate reaction when faced with a substantial double-disc offering from the 'holy triumvirate' of Japanese reduced improvisation and minimal electronics, ie Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko Matsubara and Toshimaru Nakamura. In August 2003, they quietly entered a studio in Tokyo and laid down the basis for this music in only two days. The following month saw a final mixdown issue from their hands. Amazingly, the roof did not fall in on the musical world as a result.…
Filament 2
Recorded at GOK Sound, Tokyo, July 1998. Mixed at GOK Sound, Tokyo, March 1999. Mastered at Transonic Studio, Tokyo, March 1999.
Djungelmusik med sang
This is a CD of field recordings by the Japanese artist Toshiya Tsunoda. Microphones were placed inside small objects (e.g. bottles and drain hoses) located outdoors - either in an urban or rural sound environment. The work of Toshiya Tsunoda is concerned with the relation between sound space and cognition space, and often investigates stationary waves formed by fixed conditions in closed systems. He has previously released CDs on the WrK (Japan) and Selektion (Germany) labels. He also works wit…
Jessamine
This is New Zealand-based (and former Thela member) Rosy Parlane's second full-length release on touch. With Jessamine, Rosy develops these themes, and continues to incorporate new musical elements from unconventional as well as orchestral instrumentation. To him, everything is an instrument: from household objects to nature sounds. But it is the human element which gives his work such a distinctive sound. Ranging from ambient to noise, he gives full rein to textures of living; to start, languid…
Iris
Rosy Parlane lives in New Zealand; he began playing music with the avant-garde rock trio Thela. Thela released two cds, 'Eponymous' and 'Argentina' on the label Ecstatic Peace! He subsequently began working with abstract electronic based music, both as a solo artist and as Parmentier with fellow Thela collaborator, Dion Workman. His full and intricate soundscapes are comprised of of sample-loops, pianos, guitars, and field recordings manipulated via digital means. Parlane has released two solo a…
Blown bone
Previously only available on a very rare 1979 Japanese LP, these two jazz sessions feature Rudd as a fine composer/arranger and organiser of unlikely-looking line-ups, as well as an exceptional trombonist. The CD opens with Rudd, ENRICO RAVA (trumpet), STEVE LACY (soprano sax), WILBUR LITTLE (bass) and PAUL MOTIAN (drums) all showing themselves to be in good form. Then SHEILA JORDAN (voice) joins them for some timely environmental protest. The other session (from the previous day) has KENNY DAVE…
Crow Country
Australian Ross Bolleter's new disc features five compositions. Four of them are solo works: "Unfinished Business" for ruined piano; "Under Rookwood" for double bass; "Labyrinth Tango" for accordion; and "Piano Dreaming" for ruined pianola. "That Time (Simulplay II)" is for a duo of prepared piano and double bass. Of course, with Ross, this thumbnail description tells not much of the story. So we'll let Ross say a few words. Step on down.
"During the drought that never ended at Nallan Sheep Stat…
Secret sandhills and satellites
Pieces for ruined pianos and pianos on the edge of ruin. For several years now, Ross Bolleter has been scouring around Western Australia and beyond looking for ruined pianos. He has found the right music for each instrument, and performed and recorded it. This collection contains some recent choice items recorded around Perth and Alice Springs. The main work, inspired by an Aborigine painting, is the 28-minute 'Secret Sandhills,' a generally slow-moving work spliced together from performances on…
Morphei
Morphei is a soundtrack to a dream. A nighty-night record designed to make you WAKE UP and listen! Inspired by that in between state of wake and dreaming, when you’re not quite sure whether you’re asleep or not, this record presents a stream of realities seamlessly floating into each other, layers of events of acoustic and digital nature mingle; hear the Light-switch singing a duet with the Feedback-mixer, traces of Scandinavian wildlife intertwine with a tropical forest of digital insects, or h…
Caesura
This second CD is looser and veers more towards Free Improvisation than the first SHAKEN. Once again, trumpeter Ramanan (who doubles on wooden flutes) is with MARCIO MATTOS (cello & electronics), SIMON H FELL (double bass) and MARK SANDERS (percussion). One of the eight tracks is a bass solo, and another a string duet. 62 minutes.
Passades - Volume 2
A new work from Roger Doyle ( for electronics & transformed voices). Produced and composed by Roger Doyle. "I began Passades in early 2002 working with the creative possibilities of music software which captures sounds like a freeze-time video, making sound movement stop, or go forwards or backwards slowly. For raw material I used extracts (four seconds at a time) from previous compositions of mine which were fed into the software which would freeze them, and by mouse manipulation I would slowly…
Valve division
LAST COPIES, NOW DELETED - special priced first solo release by the Berlin-based tuba player. 'Though not specifically about the tuba, the three pieces presented here reflect particular ways of regarding the instrument. Whereas in the first two pieces, Dial and Coil, it is viewed as a labyrinth of tubing within which air may be trapped and redirected, in the final piece, Valve Division, it is seen as a collection of individual tube lengths, tuned to one another by positioning the valve slides in…
String Quartet
"'String Quartet Describing The Motions of Large Real Bodies' was composed as the potential orchestra for a Robert Ashley opera based on the text of 'In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men And Women'. When the work was composed, in 1972, it was clear that a huge change in electronic instrumentation was just beginning, a change that would involve computers and sound producing devices as yet undreamed of. The piece consists of an electronic orchestra of 42 sound producing modules. T…
Music for shattered light box and 7 posters
Getting a grip on the chaos that surrounds us: for American artist and trumpet/cornet player Rob Mazurek the time has come to make a statement. Every right-minded lover of modern music knows his jazz and post-rock explorations with bands such as Chicago underground duo Isotope 217 and Tortoise. Nevertheless, inside this vintage improviser there also lurks a passionate multimedia artist who likes to speak his mind, especially in a time when his home country is starting to reveal the darkest and m…
Natural Selection
Following the reissue of the Beyond the Black Crack LP, Paradigm delivers a second installment of outsider art from this American experimental showman. Collecting the offcuts of his numerous deranged sessions, this Kansas City tape collage artist turned electronic composer has an entirely unique vision, which is presented here as an overview of 25 years of work. A wide range of musical background informs the varied works on this collection, from Sun Ra-inspired space jazz to multi-channel electr…
passt
Peter Rehberg (aka Pita) and Ramon Bauer completed their trilogy for the label Touch with the 2001 CD Passt. This album, short at 33 minutes, maintains an uncomfortable relationship with glitch electronica. Rehberg & Bauer's first CDs pioneered the genre, which quickly went through an ossification process. Closing their series, the artists try to distance themselves from the glitch culture, bringing a humorous and critical touch to the music. But meta-music this is not; we remain in glitch terri…