Empty, Expanding, Collapsing
"Empty, Expanding, Collapsing was recorded in the months after the release of 2021’s No Lasting Form. Whilst No Lasting Form documented a return to the creative process after a long period away, Empty, Expanding, Collapsing comes from a more confident and assured place. At the heart of this record is an upright piano, loaned from a dear friend for safe keeping. Built in the 1898, the piano is heavy, laden with time, a resonant lead sound board and the carefully restored hammers and strings.
Thes…
Dream Less Suite
Tip! Genesis P-Orridge and The Hafler Trio: do these 2 legends still need any introduction? Genesis P-Orridge was the founding person of COUM Transmissions in 1969, Throbbing Gristle in 1975, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth and Psychic TV in 1981. Andrew McKenzie started The Hafler Trio (together with Cabaret Voltaire's Chris Watson) in 1982 and since then released all his work under this moniker and collaborated with William S. Burroughs, Autechre, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Nurse With Wound and Jónsi fr…
The Divine Punishment
On June 30, 1986, the same day that Diamanda Galás's The Divine Punishment was released, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Georgia's so-called sodomy law in Bowers v. Hardwick, criminalizing consensual sex between men. At the time, about 15,000 people were known to have died of AIDS in the U.S. alone, with little government acknowledgement besides suggestions to quarantine homosexuals on island colonies. By the end of 2021, the number of AIDS deaths globally would exceed 36 milli…
Sagittarian Domain
*2023 repress. In process of stocking* "For anyone who still associates Oren Ambarchi exclusively with the clipped, bass-heavy tones of solo electric guitar works such as Suspension, this rhythmically churning one-man-band monster of an album-length piece might seem to come out of nowhere. However, listeners who have followed the breadth of his work for the last few years (solo and in projects with collaborators from Jim O’Rourke to Stephen O’Malley and Keith Rowe to Keiji Haino) will have noted…
Ophidian Vibrations
*333 copies edition* Sound coiled and uncoiling, the (well) spring and trap set and first trilogy concluded with three wordless hymns to the Apep serpent, and the serpent power in general. Skullflower slithers and glides through their third LP for Nashazphone, always revolving like geologic time sufis, conjuring wrinkles and portals in the multiverses stiff unyielding fabric. As Brian Wilson still might sing 'she’s givin' me serpent vibrations.
c'est pourquoi il importe, aux époques d'adversité, de demeure (LP)
No one knows or will ever know who ASTREINTE are and what their story is. If ever told, they’ll be immediately elevated to cult status considering their personal backgrounds and live shows (besides the fact that anything remotely French, sounds wonderful in North America nowadays). ASTREINTE is a five to nine members collective delivering a totally deafening sonic wall assault directly inspired by Japanese legends such as Hijokaidan or CCCC. The group mainly consists of hippies, crust punk…
We’re Depressed
* Edition of 200 * Valerie Smith (who's in fact a hairy man from Paris) presents "We're Depressed". An album - dedicated to Mark Beyer - of intense, drugged and psychotic noise / techno that honors the emotional bleakness and naive beauty of Beyer's world of depression and degradation.
This new LP by Hendrik Hegray's Valerie Smith project celebrates his visual and auditive practices in a way that remains as vibrant as a cut out Matisse piece which a loud wind blew out of the window into the dust…
Exposition of Cloves
*Edition of 300* Exposition of Clove is the new fast electro-acoustic album by the duo of Matteo Castro and Riccardo Mazza. Hailing from the farthest North-East glacial tip of Italy, Lettera 22 utilize elements of musique concrete sound sources, delicately sampled, looped and edited; resulting in 5 very subtle and rich compositions of textured noise and field recordings via analogue tapes and feedback.
Bastet
Collaboration piece between two major players in the contemporary Italian electro-acoustic music scene. Alberto Boccardi has studied composition and music theory at Milan's Music Civic Academy and has frequently collaborated with Lawrence English, Nicola Ratti, or Maurizio Abate among others while Stefano Pilia is a prolific guitarist and electro-acoustic theorist with a massive body of work and compositions. He has collaborated with Mike Watt, Nico Vascellari, David Tibet or Valerio Tricoli to …
No/On
*In process of stocking* Debut album from this London based group whose contemporary take on a guitar-driven post-punk sound equally inspired by early '90s grunge is energised by ferocious melodies and an impulsive charge rarely found right now. With two brothers, Aaron and Hayden Brown, serving as both the main songwriters and lead vocalists, Blue Statue focus on existential malaise, mental health issues and other such concerns in a setting that's accessible and angry yet augmented by an openne…
Bass Duos 2000-2007
*2023 stock* "I met Joëlle Léandre when she was a visiting professor at Mills college in 2002. This was very exciting, as I had been collecting her albums since I started to play the double bass and she was an important influence on my work. I had a bass lesson scheduled with her the day we lost Maestro Kowald. She was very close to him and it was devastating to her. For me, it meant losing a role model; for her, it was losing a close friend and supporter. We had a long phone conversation and sh…
God Made My Soul An Ornament
*2023 stock* "There are some people who are very singular in their conception of improvisation. People whose music embodies them as much as they embody the music. People who take from their life experience and put it into their sonic practice. People who search every crevice of their instrument to find sonic potential. These practices are beyond what may or may not be learned at a conservatory, no matter how deep the teaching goes. Listening to these improvised moments between Sarah Ruth Alexand…
Preserves
"Sights and sounds move from place to place with promiscuous gesture. Ships, airplanes, and churning whirlpools appeal more to mechanical economies than street feet sharing pulse rate interiorities. The people twist on metric rails. Oxygen converters reflect swinging diatonics. Blackouts resound. Triggers blackout pots, pans, tin cans, and appropriate Lydian roots, talking tanks, and time-sliced wildlife. By 1950, modernist cultural curdling sacrificed aesthetic convenience for intuitive product…
Hugo Ball: Six Sound Poems, 1989 & 2013
*2023 stock* "This recording is a modern interpretation of sound poems written and performed by German Dadaist Hugo Ball more than a century ago. Those familiar with Ball know him as the author of these innovative works and founder of the Cabaret Voltaire, Dada’s Zurich birthplace. Despite the sound poems’ artistic legacy, they constitute only a small part of Ball’s creative output. The purpose of these liner notes, then, is to consider the complex life and work of the man behind the sound poems…
Duals
"In this 3-CD set each disc contains one duo session between the three musicians: trombone-bass, piano-bass and piano-trombone. Recorded over the course of Bishop's last year of residency in Boston and soon after Smith had moved to St. Louis, these recordings capture a glimpse of the city's creative music scene at a particularly active time between 2016-22, when, the three musicians interacted frequently in many settings in the Boston area. The Smith/Bishop disc consists of all improvised music,…
The Eternity-Cult
*2023 stock* "A blend of intonation and improvisation, The Eternity-Cult is a harmonies-across-the-seas program featuring the trumpet and objects of Birgit Ulher from Northern Germany with the double bass (Damon Smith) and percussion and electronics (Chris Cogburn) from the southern US. Despite geographical distances the three are equally committed to free-from improvisation. This disc's single 37-minute track finds the trio exploring textures and pitches from minimalist to embellished, while ma…
Heil ○
Tip! A dream industrial work in which sticky corrosion electronic sounds by Amplified voice, drone sound, and electronics develop with a strange rhythm. Hiroshima-based electro/industrial duo, A.P.O.S. collaborates with SY on the electronics and Self Toxication on the amplified voice.
Incanto
*300 copies limited edition* Another collection of music that, instead of offering an escape route, loads you with questions. Music that originates in a grey, intermediate zone: pieces conceived and performed by an informal group of musicians which were not written. They are improvised but, instead of existing only in their own time, they are rooted in deep interpersonal relationships. A perfect balance between freedom and rigour, between visions and penumbra, between long and complex relationsh…
Entre Pliegos
Entre Pliegos embarks on a quest through shared sonic ancestry to explore the immediacy of communication, invoking a mercurial, yet at times uplifting, musical environ. The drones and growls of low strings flow into explosive electronics, while ecstatic vocal spikes morph into rambunctious linear intertwinings that settle into an interminable, grating exhale. Chilean-based double bassist Amanda Irarrázabal and Brooklyn, NY-based pianist Eli Wallace crossed paths in the summer of 2019, where they…
Raspberry Hotel
Tip! *170 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Having lived and worked in numerous musical directions for many years, Semay Wu’s begrudgingly faithful cello still remains at her side: from Merseyside, to Manchester, to The Netherlands, and now to Central Scotland. Always trying to push age-old boundaries of how the instrument is viewed and heard, her focus has led her to explore further collaborative and everyday improvisations, blending electronics with mixed media and a variety of g…