★Important Records
Two Days In Dreamland
Tip! These stunning recordings combine the great strengths of Pauline Oliveros on her Roland V-Accordion, Issui Minegishi; Ichigenkin master and great-great granddaughter of the founder of the Seikyodo Ichigenkin tradition and Miya Masaoka on her 21 string Japanese Koto. Together, these masterful improvisors create a beautiful and fascinating world of instrumental communication. This trio of legendary artists establish a sonic zone so compelling that you'll never want to leave.
This double CD pr…
Triple Point
Tip! Triple Point, featuring Pauline Oliveros, Doug Van Nort and Jonas Braasch, was an improvising trio with a core instrumentation of soprano saxophone, greis/electronics, and V-accordion. The name refers to the point of equilibrium on a phase plot, which acts as a metaphor for the group's improvisational dialogue. Triple Point's musical interaction was centered around an interplay between acoustics, physically-modeled acoustics (v-accordion), and electronics. Van Nort captured the sound of the…
Life of the Mother
Analog Tara’s Life of the Mother is a sonic meditation on the depth, expansiveness, complexity, and power that this phrase holds. This album is made from layers of generative processes and interactions with them. Analog Tara uses a Zillion sequencer and Xone mixer as system guides, and sounds of the ARP 2500, Jealous Heart, Access Virus, Oberheim OB-6, Jomox XBase, Moog DFAM, and more to create a compelling electronic narrative.
Stria
Dr. John Chowning (b. 1934) is a pioneering computer musician, composer and professor who, in 1967, discovered the FM synthesis algorithm. This breakthrough in electronic music allowed for simple, yet rich timbres described as sounding "real." With this discovery, Chowning composed singular, dramatic electronic music and changed the timbre of music forever.
Chowning utilized the potential of computers to synthesize sounds according to programmed instructions. The composer's use of his own FM al…
Lime
2010 release ** "Mugstar's third album (and second on Important Records) maintains the power and heaviness of the sonic assaults laid out in their previous releases while extending musical maneuvers and textures into new territories. Sunburnt Impedance Machine moves through driving riff passages with soaring guitars and a voice recalling touches of early Pink Floyd before locking into a repetitive keyboard and drum driven outro. Serra is an extended voyage through a shimmering Krautrock landscap…
My Only Warm Coals
2025 stock ** "My Only Warm Coals neatly sums up a fifteen year span of Emil Amos' (Grails/Om) basement home-recording in nineteen songs. Using the 4-track like a mirror in LSD therapy sessions, Amos disassembles himself and leaves the puddle on the floor for the listener to contemplate without easy resolution. The record also arcs a period of "lo-fi" recording technique and sonic experimentation that has largely gone undocumented in the larger underground culture, while epitomizing a supremely…
Berlin 07
Berlin 2007 was a monumental performance for Cluster, marking their first live performance in Berlin since their 12-hour concert in the Galerie Hammer in the Europacenter in 1969. The performance was a massive success as a sold out crowd cheered loudly for Cluster to return to the stage. Fortunately, the concert was preserved for posterity and is proudly presented here on Important Records.
Packaged in a deluxe digipack.
Cluster was formed around 1971 when Roedelius and Moebius left Conrad Schni…
Zurich
Zurich began as a 1994 musical partnership between Neil Halstead then of Slowdive and Tony F Wilson. The two recorded a handful of tracks together at a time when Wilson was co-promoting and DJing at the club/live night Quirky in South London where he booked acts including Pan Sonic, Hafler Trio and Autechre. Halstead was shortly to begin work on Slowdive’s final and most experimental album Pygmalion. Recorded at a time when the popularity of ambient techno was at its peak, these recordings are r…
Mechanization I & II
On this new LP Harry Bertoia shows why he may have been the first industrial musician. Bertoia often referred to his sound sculptures as a "collaboration with industry" and on this new LP Bertoia is intentionally creating heavy, rhythmic music he described as "mechanized," "mechanical" and "factory like." This first edition is packaged in a full color sleeve with metallic inks. Mastered by Tom Eaton at Sounds & Substance.
Recorded in 1971, percussion and repetition emulate the pounding rhythms …
Transits: Volume 1
Big tip! American percussionist and composer Michael Ranta is a legendary figure who has worked with some of the most significant names of 20th century music but despite this and impressive body of work of his own, he has remained an obscure figure....
Important Records and is pleased to present Transits: Volume 1 the first in a series of releases by composer/percussionist Sarah Hennies documenting never before heard chamber works mostly composed in the 1970s while Ranta was living in Taiwan.
B…
Agartha: Personal Meditation Music
Building on their long-standing efforts to illuminate the historical Ambient and New Age movement’s connections to minimalism and experimental electronic music, the venerable Important Records returns with the astoundingly ambitious “Agartha: Personal Meditation Music”, gathering an incredible body of music produced by Meredith L. Young-Sowers during the mid-1980s to aid meditation and spiritual healing. Resonating deeply with the work of Eliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Brian …
Trust Masked Replicants
Japan's long running masters of psych/kosmische jamming return to Important Records for a vinyl outing featuring beloved original member Cotton Casino.
Lee Ranaldo/Rob Menard
Lee Ranaldo and Rob Menard have been friends and collaborators for years and this split cassette release on Important Records' Cassauna label amplifies their unique musical personalities and sonic compatibility. Both artists contributed over 30 minutes of music making this a pair of mini-albums on one tape. Ranaldo plays Farfisa, electric guitar, tres, marimba, bass and bells, taking the listener on a lyrical, hazy, ride full of life, time and echoing riff shimmer. Massive vibes from author, art…
Tsubame: 13 Japanese Birds Pt. 12
This is December 2009's Bird CD from Merzbow. Tsubame is the 12th and 2nd to last in the series. Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux
The Generous Law
“The Generous Law,” a new album by organist Jack Langdon and guitarist Anthony Vine, presents a glimpse of the inner voices and acoustical splendor of the Fisk Organ at Wellesley College, enlivened by the intuition of two improvisers. At the keyboards, Langdon crafts geometries of patiently braided lines and incisions, configuring the hues and shades of organ stops with an ear to the materiality of sound. Vine seizes on this, tuning his guitar to the organ and bringing his strings into alignment…
Tropismi
Gabriele Gasparotti’s second full length album, Tropismi, is a collection of mesmerizing compositions with masterful polyrhythmical textures and harmonies, strings, prepared piano, magnetic tape and field recordings. Gasparotti's unique style uses classical composition techniques such as counterpoint, canone inverso and serialism to create morphing expanding harmonies continuously. Tropismi features stunning cellotronics by Benedetta Dazzi, cellist and sound designer with which Gasparotti establ…
Murals For Immersion
‘Murals For Immersion’ is Kenneth James Gibson’s 6th ambient outing under his given name, this time around collaborating with saxophonist Paul Carman who played and recorded with Frank Zappa in what Zappa called The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life. In late 2022, Gibson and Carman started getting together at Gibson’s Idyllwild studio, laying down tons of Saxophone sounds - layers of drones, melody lines, and off kilter noises. Gibson processed, sculpted, and arranged these sounds into full…
Stromsänger
Christina Kubisch’s Stromsänger finds this legendary sound artist at the top of her game mixing electromagnetic wave recordings with a score for six voices, creating powerful results.
Strange Times
Strange Times is a virtuosic realization of contemporary electroacoustic soundscapes composed and performed by Stephen Ruppenthal and Gary R. Weisberg. With masterful employment of electro-acoustic techniques and tools, including the original 70's Buchla Music Easel Ruppenthal used in the Electric Weasel Ensemble, these two artist create an essential, psychedelic, electro-acoustic experience. Strange Times is a hallucinatory journey into our epidemic-ridden times through a collection of startli…
Colliding Bubbles
Colliding Bubbles (surface tension and release) is a composition for string quartet and harmonica quartet, meaning that Quatuor Bozzini is playing string instruments while playing harmonicas. "The title refers to different kinds of bubbly matter which are set to collide within the composition, leading to different ruptures and possible release of surface tension. The collision of bubbles unfolds partly in relation to sound, where small fluctuations appear in the encounters between harmonicas and…