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Cortical Foundation

The City Wears A Slouch Hat
Long out of print, original copies on the legendary Cortical label, this is the never-before-released radio play collaboration between John Cage and writer/artist Kenneth Patchen performed in 1942. In what has to be one of the oddest Cage pieces ever, professional radio voice talents unravel a truly surreal story in straight '40s radio drama style. Replacing the usual radio drama sound effects is a percussion ensemble led by John Cage which punctuates the dialog throughout. Along with mute…
The Poetics: Remixes of Recordings 1977 to 1983
Restocked - long out of print, few copies available of this three CD box set with booklet chronicling the music and sound experiments of Mike Kelley and Tony Oursler in the late Seventies and early Eighties. Includes pieces composed for video soundtracks, dance performances, etc. Moody, twisted, soundtracks of the mind. Over 90 tracks. If you like the early noise version of Destroy All Monsters, you'll like this. Features musicians: John Miller, Bill Stobaugh, John …
Unboxed
Unboxed, a collection of dissected from the Lowest Form of Life 10CD box set (on RRR) (including tracks not available in the box set) is a splash introduction to a newcomer of the L.A.F.M.S. The Lowest Form of Music is an utterly devastating set of the works of the Los Angeles Free Music Society. This tremendously obscure collective -- a loose assemblage of artists and with shared subversive musical interests (John Cage, The Mothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, The Residents, Derek B…
Das 6-Tage-Spiel Des Orgien Mysterien Theaters
Very rare Hermann Nitsch Picture LP album, qith the recordings of the 5th day (7th of august 1998) of this 6 day event. Limited to 400 numbered copies with letterpress insert, long out of print
Olson III
A piece of unrelenting intensity, Olson III may be one of the most powerful compositions from minimalist composer Terry Riley. Based on the same phasing principals of In C, Olson III is filled with short motives that each ensemble member must play and repeat before moving onto the next. A chorus singing "To begin" joins into the droning fray of string instruments, sawing away à la In C. For 53 minutes here, Riley (on soprano saxophone) and a teenage student orchestra at the Nacka School of Music…
Incus tap
long deleted, very few availabe...Many if not most of Derek Bailey's fans (I was going to write "hardcore fans," but aren't we all?) will be surprised at the existence of these extremely early solo recordings, originally issued by Incus back in 1973. Even for a label as unorthodox as Incus, the TAPS represented a unique but very short-lived experiment in "marketing"; basically, Derek decided that it would be interesting, cheaper, and "less formal" to issue some of his favorite recent solo improv…
Das 6-Tage-Spiel Des Orgien Mysterien Theaters: 5-Tag
long deleted, last copy of this outstanding box: Hermann Nitsch is perhaps the best known of the notorious Vienna Actionists. His carefully choreographed performance art frequently involves cacophonous noise, buckets of blood and animal dismemberment, turning gory excess into ritualistic spectacle. Nitsch's undoubted Gesamtkunstwerk is his Des Orgien Mysterien Theaters, a six-day 'play' that was first performed in its entirety in 1998 at the artist's Prinzendorf Castle, in his native Austria.The…
number one
awesome reissue of the rare 1967 psycho-electronic wonder, with psychedelic comic book, in deluxe gatefold sleeve. drug induced wild electronics by john mills-cockell and trippy outsider narrative by blake parker. the package offers a glimpse into the installations and psychedelic environments that intersystems created (for example, the mind excursion center) during the 1960's, with the time-capsule effect as reported by the media including the toronto telegraph and time magazine. (the mind excu…
no record
very rare nowadays, this is the awesome Nihilist Spasm Band debut album, released in heavy vinyl pressing, 700 copies only - it comes with printed insert from 1968 (Arts Canada). A companion release to the Intersystems Number One LP; both originally on Allied records, and both of these groups representing extremes in art bands in Canada 1960's. A proto-dada assault, 'No Record' heralds a do it yourself punk aesthetic with unrestrained humor and noise performed on largely home-made instruments. E…
Island: Eine Sinfonie In 10 Sätzen
Four cds of intense, grinding drones. Beautiful, but intense and cacophonous. "Like a musical bloodletting" says Andee. Hermann Nitsch is perhaps the most renowned artist spawned from the Austrian Wiener Aktionismus movement producing some of the most brutal and violent art and performance ever. Nitsch always accompanied his Orgien-Mysterien-Theatre performances with walls off orchestral drones--and here they are. Beautiful packaging with performance photos and liner notes by Günter Brus.
The great learning
Long out of print, very rare nowadays - The Great Learning was one of British composer Cornelius Cardew's most important works, a series of seven "paragraphs" with text from the writings of Confucius and scored for generally large numbers of both trained and untrained performers. The original productions of this piece, in fact, served as the genesis of the legendary pro-amateur Scratch Orchestra. This 2000 release includes three of the paragraphs, two from the 1971 Deutsche Grammophon album that…
Shlongo!!! DaLUVdrone
CDr edition by the Cortical label itself, budget reissue: long out of print, pure drone nektar by the early Minimalist Charlemagne Palestine who created his composition Shlongo!!!daLUVdrone by inserting pieces of folded paper between the organ keys in order to create sustained resonant over-tones. Palestine's notes from the Beyond the Pink festival program further elucidate this technique, "a continuous vibrating herd of organ pipes in big resonant cathedral was the basic premise for meditative …
Think Space
Group improvisations intended to accompany a film on the Viking space probe in 1975. Includes the original Doo-Dooettes lineup; Dennis Duck, Juan Gomez, Fredrik Nilsen, Tom Recchion, Harold Schroeder. The 7" includes a Doo-Dooette version of Faust's 'Picnic On A Frozen River' recorded in 1978. Packaged in 7" gatefold jacket. Limited edition. First time available. The release includes: The Doo-Dooettes performing Faust's 'Picnic On A Frozen River' 7", CD of Think Space. Hand numbered edition of 7…
Boris The Spider/Priceless
This edit of Le-Forte Four is wedged between their former incarnation as The Patients and their debut LP that was put together in the electronic music studio at Cal Arts in 1974. Edited by Rick Potts in 1973. All the references made in their debut Bikini Tennis Shoes LP, from Speed Racer to Zappa to Looneytoons to the Moog, is very clearly foretold in the 'Boris The Spider/Priceless' edit. Includes Extended Grunge and Arguments From The Patients reworking of The Who's 'Boris The Spider' that was…
Reed Streams
This CD represents the first album by Terry Riley, originally released in 1966, as well as the first recordings Riley made using his two personal Revox reel-to-reel tape machines (or 'Time Lag Accumulators') later heard on his groundbreaking Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band All Night Flight. In 1966, Terry Riley was performing hypnotic keyboard studies in his loft, and later, such venues as the Electric Circus. Reed Streams, Riley's debut record, offers a rare glimpse into his early trance musi…
Beyond The Pink Live
Airway started in 1977 as a plot by Joe Potts to subliminally program audiences behind the cover of a chaotic wall of sound. To create the wash of ear-splitting noise, all of the instruments, Vetza's vocals, and the subliminal implants are mixed together and processed through a daisy-chain of flangers, phase-shifters, delays and distortions. Then the super-charged signal is blasted through guitar amps carefully placed to maximize the ricochet of sound from wall to wall. Airway kicks the notion o…
Eighth Symphony
Two LPS in 180 Gram Vinyl High Quality Pressing. "'I have one Sinfonie' professed Hermann Nitsch identifying with Bruckner who made a similar claim of his symphonic output. For comparison, La Monte Young has a similar concept, for example, The Tortoise, His Dreams, and Journey's from 1964 -- eternity, with each realization, the piece never ends; it's a continuation. Professionally recorded in 1990 in Vienna and realized by a professional orchestra, the 8th Sinfonie by Hermann Nitsch is a triumph…
Day 3: Day of Dionysus 6-Tage-Spiel O.M. Theater
Packaged in the same elaborate LP-jacket as it's companion volume (CORTI 18.2), this features 2 exclusive CDs of music from Day 3 of the 6-Tage-Spiel des Orgies Mystries Theater; the 2 releases are stickered to differentiate. The third disc is the same CD-ROM as found in 18.1. "Packaged in 12" deluxe gatefold sleeve with 12" full-color printed inner-sleeves. Limited Edition: 500 copies. Day 3 of Vienna Aktionist Hermann Nitch's magnum opus total experience in a 6 Day excess, a Baccanalian rite t…
The Lowest Form Of Music
Long out of print huge box, The Los Angeles Free Music Society was a complete screwball fringe music collective that peaked in the true heart of darkness -- America in the mid 70s. They self-released LPs, 7"s and cassettes in the dawn before real independent distribution and the myth that surrounds those sacred pressings has in recent years become feverish. Mixing pure sonic weirdness, musique concrete, free improv blare, fringe-noise-nonsense and much more, the musicians involved with LAFMS cre…
s/t
Recorded live at Verity's 1972, this CD represents possibly the finest duo performance of Derek Bailey and Han Bennink. Reissue of the rare LP on Incus
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