★Another Timbre
Roananax 1999 / Obliq 2014
Roananax 1999 (Axel Dörner, Robin Hayward, Annette Krebs, Andrea Neumann) and Obliq 2014 (Hannes Lingens, Pierre Borel, Derek Shirley). Powerful archive recordings from the legendary group Roananax at the very start of 'Berlin reductionism'. Combined on a split disc with a beautiful example of reductionism 15 years on played by Obliq, a group of younger Berlin-based musicians.
Luv / Kopfuberwelle
Sabine Vogel 'luv', and Chris Abrahams + Sabine Vogel 'kopfüberwelle'. Another split disc, presenting two aspects of the music of Berlin-based flautist - composer - improviser Sabine Vogel. The first half of the disc contains a solo composition created from recordings made by Sabine with Landscape Quartet, a group committed to improvisation in and with natural environments. The second half of the disc features an extended improvised performance by Sabine on flutes in duo with The Necks' Chris Ab…
Chamber Works 1992 - 2009
Double CD of composer-supervised recordings of 14 chamber pieces by a truly unique and individual voice in contemporary composition. Performed by the UK's leading experimental music ensemble Apartment House, who have championed Crane's music since the mid-90's. 'This is not minimalism. It does not take justification in 'less is more' or 'only what is necessary'. It takes us beyond those points: it is less than necessary. It says, basically, nothing is necessary. And perhaps, also, 'let's be hap…
F23M-12: Field With Figures No. 1 - 4 / Rush!
Christian Kesten & Mark Trayle duo: F23M-12: Field with Figures No.1-4'. Annette Krebs solo 'rush!'. This is the second split disc in the Berlin series of CD's. The first half of the CD is a meeting of long-time Berliner Christian Kesten (voice) with Californian Mark Trayle on electronics. The second half of the disc is a typically engaged solo from Annette Krebs, one of the key figures in Berlin's music scene for the past 20 years. Using electric guitar, electronics and taped voices, Annette cr…
Pneuma
First CD featuring five mysterious works by a young English composer whose music gives voice to the secrets in sounds. 'Martin Iddon's music asks a lot of us. This disc, pneuma, asks even more, because it conceals the 'real, physical human bod[ies]' that are so important to this music. Iddon asks musicians to play instruments they do not play, articulate notes they will not hear, and perform independently of partners they cannot ignore. The music depends wholly on the relationships those bodies …
LL
Three strange and wonderful pieces from the Chicago-based duo, making music from objects found in the basement of a local thrift store. Sleevenotes by Noé Cuéllar and Joseph Clayton Mills : In 2010 we were invited to participate in an exhibition of site-specific installations and performances at Pilsen Vintage and Thrift, a local second-hand store in Pilsen, a predominantly Hispanic neighbourhood in Chicago. The owner had agreed to make the store's warehouse and basement available for art shows…
Logical harmonies
Seven recent pieces by the UK-based composer Richard Glover, whose music is a process music based on the exposition of simple harmonic patterns. 'I enjoy the nuanced transformation attainable through dealing with harmony: alterations from within the sound which cannot be identified as emanating from one particular element, or line, but gradually alter the nature of the overall sonority each time. The focus upon the global, the whole, allows deeper inspection of everything else.' Performers inclu…
Radi d'or
A composed piece for small ensemble of instruments and live electronics. ÔRadi d'Or' uses shifting sinetones alongside sustained sounds from the acoustic instruments to create a shimmering music that unfolds slowly with gracefully. Composed in 2010, this recording is of the first public performance by the Ferran Fages Ensemble, which took place in Barcelona in February 2011: Olga Abalos (flute and alto saxophone), Lali Barrière (sinetones), Tom Chant (soprano and tenor saxophones), Ferran Fages …
Variable formations
Johnny Chang (viola), Angharad Davies (violin), Jamie Drouin (electronics), Phil Durrant (electronics), Lee Patterson (amplified objects), John Tilbury (piano).In February 2013 the Berlin-based musician Johnny Chang, who is a member of the Wandelweiser collective, visited London as part of a short tour along with his some-time playing partner Jamie Drouin, the Canadian musician and artist who had recently moved to Berlin. The duo constructed an installation at the Soundfjord gallery in Tottenham…
Rows
The return of the Swedish-based ensemble Skogen, after the success of their previous CD 'Ist gefallen in den Schnee'. This time the ensemble interpret a piece by Anders Dahl to produce what is, in the composer's words, 'the simplest twelve tone music possible'. With Magnus Granberg, Angharad Davies, Toshimaru Nakamura, Ko Ishikawa, Anna Lindal, Henrik Olsson, Petter wastberg and Erik Carlsson
Variations
First solo work from Christoph Schiller for spinet, amplified objects and piano. Christoph uses a simple but brilliant structure which combines improvised pieces in a unique chain-like pattern of repetition and development
Inframince / Immensity
Michael Thieke (clarinet) and Olivier Toulemonde (acoustic objects) : 'Inframince'. Lucio Capece (bass clarinet & preparations) & Jamie Drouin (analogue synthesizer & radio) : 'Immensity'. The Inframince / Immensity split CD is the first in a series of discs exploring the work of musicians based in Berlin, a city which has been one of the most vibrant centres for improvised and contemporary music since the 1960's. The alternative music scene there is now huge, and musicians from all aroun…
Temperament as Waveform
Long-awaited duo, assembled over a period of two years as a result of file exchanges between Manchester UK and Austin Texas between 2010 an 2012. Four tracks of powerful electro-acoustic composition from two like-minded musicians who have never met in person. 'This fascinating album manifests both the frustration and invention that can emerge from inter-continental collaboration. It is an album of sacrifice one that subsumes existent tendencies into the creation of a whole beyond individual ide…
Oltreorme
Four beautiful pieces for acoustic objects, performed, recorded and assembled by an Italian composer whose reputation has soared in recent years after previous CD releases on Col Legno, Neos and Another Timbre . Oltreorme is Coluccion's second work for acoustic objects (no musical instruments, electronic devices or post-production treatments) and suggests a new direction in Coluccino's music, engaging with notions of silence more closely and explicitly than in his previous compositions. M…
Public private
Atolón : Ruth Barberán, Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Ferran Fages. Chip shop music : Erik Carlsson, Martin Küchen, David Lacey, Paul Vogel. Recorded by Simon Reynell, February 2012. Mixed and mastered by Ferran Fages. A collaboration between two established and highly-regarded improvising ensembles, Atolon from Barcelona and the Irish-Swedish group Chip Shop Music. The disc consists of the whole of a wonderful concert performance from February 2012 in which the two groups attempted to play tog…
Kolk
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.
Outwash
Angharad Davies (violin), Tisha Mukarji (inside piano) & Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga (zither). Three great trio improvisations recorded in December 2011 at a church in the City of London. Beautiful, spacious, yet at times tense music.
Chantier 1
An extraordinary document of an experiment in which three improvisers - Pascal Battus (rotating surfaces and found objects), Bertrand Gauguet (saxophones) and Eric La Casa (microphones) - played at a working building site in Paris, adapting their playing to integrate the sounds and gestures of the workers at the site.
Thread
'We all met in Berlin at different times. Anthea and I had been playing as a duo since about 2006. Anthea also developed a performance/installation project with Annette I think around 2008. About a year later, I organised a house concert and we decided to play as a trio, which seemed very organic and easy immediately. We recorded parts of the album shortly after that. [] There was not much editing involved in either of the recordings, just minor changes. As for the general style - we act…
Pinna
Our first release 'The Organ of Corti' was a digital studio recording. We spent a few days at Kleylehof, Klaus's atelier - farmhouse on the border between Austria and Hungary, playing and recording every night. The sound is very clean, because everything is digitally generated and recorded. 'Pinna' was a recording of a concert that we played in a small church in Vienna. It is a microphone recording of a 'real' sonic space : we used 5 or 6 speakers distributed in the space, e.g. one speak…