★Alga Marghen
SOUND 1
As the title well underlines, "Sound 1" electronic sonority is a starting point in Charlemagne Palestine researches for the Golden Sonority. Previously unpublished, this radical and foundamental work has now been released on LP record in collaboration with the New Media Dept of Centre Pompidou (National Museum of Modern Art) in Paris for the first "Ouvres sonores" event, December 15th, 2008. Charlemagne Palesitne started to dream of an expressive continuous evermoving everchanging sound form; an…
Mectpyo Bakterium
2014 repress, originally released in 1998. First issued by the Mnemonists' label (Dys in the U.S.) in 1982. M.B.: proto-electronics, compositions, arrangements. Mektpyo Bakterium is a work furnished of implacable plastic exasperation. The icy oppression, the hallucinative electronic wounds, are a precious and singular fact in a technological society brought to the limit. The emotion is pushed into dangerous zones, and unusual zones, and unusual tensions -- free biological groans of extreme e…
Neuro Habitat / Moerder Unter Uns
2014 repress, originally released in 1998. Reissue of a private LP, issued in an edition of 300 copies in 1982 by Maurizio Bianchi ; a skeletal extremist project that will then transform into the "soundtrack" of a movie with the same title, edited and directed by Paul Hurst. It's the setting of the griable pre-apocalyptic fossilization, the supreme lapidation of the meanness which creates the myth. There are actual melodies present -- dense and dark that mutate into harsh electronic outbur…
Menses
2014 repress, originally released in 2000. First issued on the Broken Flag label in the UK in an edition of 500 in 1983. A different style, providing some distance from all his previous works; a more expansive experimentation with multiple layers of synthesizer sounds. Still very intense. M.B.'s recordings come closest to classical electronics, but always with a very personal style. This CD edition also features an interview on Radio Popolare in Milan from 1/1/83. An English translation i…
Symphony For A Genocide
2014 repress of these classic M.B. albums (M.B. = Maurizio Bianchi, for those of you who haven't been saved yet). These were first reissued in 1998 by EEs'T (a division of Alga Marghen) and are now back again. Symphony... was the first M.B. album, issued in 1981, at the gates of the industrial noise revolution (it was also reissued on CD in the U.S. on Hospital Productions). "ArcheoMB" is the title given to the complete reprint of old M.B. records and here is part 1. EEs'T Records and M.B. …
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…
Organic, Playco 1969
The stable Quartetto that pianist Davide Mosconi, saxophonist Enzo Gardenghi, percussionist Marco Cristofolini, and cellist and violinist Gustavo Bonora brought to life beginning in the late '60s constituted the core of what would, in the early years of the next decade, become the larger improvising ensemble NADMA. The group was also an elegant and accomplished expression of the musical objectives of its members. This music expresses the rich yields that Davide Mosconi cultivated from his explor…
Spacecraft / Unified Patchwork Theory
Originally released in 2001. In the fall of 1966 a group of composers that included Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Curran, Allen Bryant, Jon Phetteplace, Giuseppe Chiari and Richard Teitelbaum organized "Avanguardia Musicale I," a festival of several consecutive nights at the Accademia Filarmonica Romana. The program included tape music, Fluxus performance art pieces, and live electronic works. It was also the beginning of the group MEV.
One year later, the group was in Rome, Italy, but also involved i…
Friday
Brand new re-release of this MEV masterpiece. For the realization of "Friday", recorded in London in May 1969, MEV were Frederic Rzewski (piano, electronics, etc.), Alvin Curran (flugelhorn, etc.), Richard Teitelbaum (moog synthesizer), Franco Cataldi (trombone, etc.), Gunther Carius (saxophone, etc.). The main theme around this MEV piece is communication. Communication by means of music can be a very efficient means of reaching quick agreement among large numbers of people, because when you cal…
Continuous Sound Forms (Golden 2)
This CD features two very special moments of the acoustic production of Charlemagne Palestine. A very peculiar strumming for 2 harpsichords and the first piano composition marking the passage from the electronic music period to strumming technique. Elisabeth Freeman and Charlemagne Palestine met in 1971 at Cal Arts near L.A. while she was a student of the international harpsichord virtuoso Fernando Valenti. The sound and clarity of the harpsichord perfectly fitted the sonic approach of Charlemag…
Alloy (Golden 1)
Originally released in 2000. The Golden Research is the name chosen for the complete documentation of previously unpublished works by Charlemagne Palestine starting from the early 1960s to the mid-late 1970s. Such a huge project will include seminal collage and electronic music, Bell Studies, New York and California drones, piano drones as well as more specific compositions. All the recordings will be exclusively available through Alga Marghen. Be ready to change your own opinion about minimalis…
Von Goldabfischer
CD reissue, easily one of the top 5 rarest titles on the NWW list (one just went for over $900 on ebay several months back!), this late 60's debut outing from Swiss madman Anton Bruhin (poles apart from his later tape cut up work) is trafficing in a species of demented fragmentary dadaist songform disembowelment of a very post-Zappa/Beefheart meets Futura Records-sounding sort, though this actually precedes anything from the Futura camp. Nevertheless, it's anarchic spirit is clearly informed by …
Voice Sudies
Tip! The VocSon series presents on limited editions LP records the most advanced international vocal experiments and is mainly dedicated to the documentation of sound poetry. this series includes now the new LP record by Charlemagne Palestine titled "Voice Studies". Charlemagne Palestine introduction to music or sound was first with his own voice. he began at four years old to sing versions of popular songs and operas in his own way. later on, a director of a Jewish sacred music choir auditioned…
Sharing a Sonority
Alga Marghen proudly presents a new chapter in the documentation series of Charlemagne Palestine's historical works. This CD of previously-unavailable recordings not only presents you Charlemagne Palestine activities in 1974, collaborating with some of most important experimental artists and composers from either the New York loft scene and Cal Arts, but also features world premiere recordings of Terry Jennings and The Fundamental D Flat Group. "Short & Sweet" is the title of a breathtaking duo …
Flash!
another beautiful 10" issued in a very limited private pressing picture-disc (330 copies), beautiful tape collage and electronic work
Mutation For A Continuity
Very few are aware of the beginning of Maurizio Bianchi's adventures? Before starting the complex and compelling production of many records and tapes in the early eighties under the M.B. trademark, Maurizio Bianchi was documenting the new music scene writing essays and reviews for independent magazines. It was August 1979 in Milan, Italy and his sound was strengthening when he felt the time had come to prove his desire for something new. So he started his first solo project, under the name Sache…
The Plain Truth
2014 repress, originally released in 2000. First issued on the Broken Flag label in the UK in an edition of 500 in 1983. A different style, providing some distance from all his previous works; a more expansive experimentation with multiple layers of synthesizer sounds. Still very intense. M.B.'s recordings come closest to classical electronics, but always with a very personal style. This CD edition also features an interview on Radio Popolare in Milan from 1/1/83. An English translation i…
Armaghedon
2014 repress, originally released in 2000. Private LP edition of 300 copies in 1984. This record is the soundtrack to a film with the same title, produced and directed by Maurizio Bianchi. For obscure reasons, the original LP remained unavailable for a long time, and was distributed only one year after it was printed. Moreover, most of the copies were destroyed. Less than 100 actually exist. This was M.B.'s last vinyl production, and also the only one featuring recordings of the artist's…
Endometrio
2014 repress. Originally issued as a private LP edition of 400 copies in 1983. De-composition for synthetic sounds and electronically generated noises. Here M.B. distanced himself from the movement of the industrial Bruitists, introducing his "bionic music." Notwithstanding the difficulty of listening, especially upon initial impact, you are facing treated and filtered synthetic sounds that become new organisms -- sound cells analyzed under the microscope. This CD also includes excerpts …
Das Testament
2014 repress. The second batch of the complete M.B. reissue program continues, once again issued by EEs'T (in conjunction with Alga Marghen) as a series of five separate CDs, or altogether as a box set. The CDs have been mastered to digital under the supervision of Maurizio Bianchi himself; each CD features the original artwork, the complete documentation (liner notes, reviews, statements) as well as bonus tracks. Reissue of a private LP edition of 300 copies in 1983. M.B.: electronics, rh…