★Important Records
Benzaiten
Another smoker from Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., in typically fine form. Benzaiten is an In C-style homage to the classic Osamu Kitajima record Benzaiten (1973). Acid Mothers Temple covers the title-track and reprise using Kitajima's original composition as a departure point to explore the outer realms of AMT territory. Further instrumental explorations reveal textures of the original composition while launching out further into the cosmic domain. Numerous Acid Mothers origi…
Mara
* Picture disc edition of 300 copies * Maja S. K. Ratkje is at the forefront of the musical avant-garde. Her music is bold, original and it is meant for sharing. At its heart lies Ratkje’s own voice, an open door to her individual musicianship and a constant tool for realigning her work with natural expressions and human truths.
On Mara, layers of vocals overlap and layer their way through the reverberant woodwork of an early baroque parish in Austria. At times slow and beautiful, other times fr…
The Consummation of Right and Wrong
David First likes to use the phrase "the virtuosity of slowness" to describe his musical philosophy. In The Consummation of Right and Wrong, he and his eight-piece ensemble, The Western Enisphere, practice this virtuosity to great effect in closely examining the universes that fall between the cracks of convention, reflecting a wide continuum of complex relationships, all the while creating music that is simply ravishing to listen to. This is "drone music" as dynamic organism, moving from compac…
Function
‘Function’ is an aesthetic exploration of digital audio at an elemental level: a sequence of quantized amplitude values. The entire sonic material in this series are generated through a custom-designed program that takes a mathematical function as input, and based on a set of pre-defined criteria, outputs the function as a digital waveform. Accordingly, each track in this series is named after one mathematical function, where the function itself is used as the only sound-generating engine. These…
Ex Patris
The title Ex Patris (from the fathers) plays on the idiomatic baroque lute compositions presented here which emulate the classical repertoire. It also refers to this almost forgotten instrument, which was passed on by the fathers. The Jozef Van Wissem's aim is to bring back and liberate the lute. The four compositions on Ex Patris form a circular narrative of interlocking repetitive melodic series. The follow up to Important release “ It is all that is made” kicks off with the pro apocalyptic tr…
'Split'
Split release between ELEH and NYZ (David Burraston). Released alongside a full-length from NYZ via Important Records (IMPREC 453LP).ELEH: This side is possibly the artist's most complicated electronic composition. It navigates myriad timbral, tuning, and temporal processes while winding itself to completion. It was composed / constructed over a period of months in early 2019. NYZ: Two crunchy microtonal drone meditations in mono, using techniques of digital FM and hybrid analog / digital modula…
Millz Medz
Lose yourself in the circuitry of the original 1965 Buchla 100 with NYZ (Dave Burraston) as he utilizes Barbara Hero's Lambdoma tuning theories to create two slow, deeply layered, subconscious, organic and meditative compositions. NYZ's split 12" with ELEH (IMPREC 477LP) will be released at the same time as Millz Medz. David Burraston is an award-winning artist / scientist working in the areas of technology and electronic music, operating Noyzelab as an independent art / science music studio sin…
Golden Tree
Duo collaboration between the Japanese female accordionist à qui avec Gabriel, who previously released a solo album on John Zorn's Tzadik label, and Acid Mothers Temple guitarist and guitar-drone soundscape artist Kawabata Makoto. Kawabata's guitar traces heretical designs through the stoically beautiful illuminated manuscripts of à qui avec Gabriel's accordion and voice. The combination is deeply phantasmal.
Shasta Cults
Shasta Cults is the musical project of Canadian electronics technician Richard Smith. For almost two decades, Smith was the official Buchla & Associates go-to repair person for studios, collectors, and musicians around the world, having worked with artists such as Aphex Twin, Suzanne Ciani, Mort Subotnick, and institutions such as The Library of Congress and Mills College, Smith has had the unique experience of restoring and interacting with nearly every model of Buchla instrument constructed ov…
Vibe
Important Records announces Vibe, the new LP from Extended Organ, the Los Angeles-based quintet associated with the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS). Vibe, Extended Organ's first full-length studio LP since 2000's XOXO was recorded in April 2016 by members Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, Paul McCarthy, Tom Recchion, and Alex Stevens. The album consists of two side-long tracks, Hate and Vibe, recorded live at LACM Studio in Pasadena, California by acclaimed engineer André Knecht. On Vibe, the gr…
Home Age 2
One-time edition of 480. Eleh's Home Age series was composed and recorded over a period of five years and it reflects a search for color, form, connection, and growth. The handmade artwork contained in each package was created during the same period of time the music was composed and is an integral part of the meaning of Home Age. For this release, Eleh plays modular and analog synthesizers, piano, organ, bass, and symphonic chimes. Although Home Age is a two-part set, Eleh's upcoming Living Spa…
Bayou Electric
CD edition. "Bayou Electric" is the final installment in an unplanned trilogy, with "Feel Free " and "Bridges" making up the first and second installments in the series, respectfully. All three works share similar characteristics, compositional processes, alternate tuning schemes, instrumentation and a certain ethos that the composer views as cohesive whole. There is a progression toward refinement over the course of this trilogy, in the overall "sound" of the albums and in their dependence on o…
Alessandro Cortini and Merzbow
Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails) and Japanese noise legend Massami Akita (Merzbow) bask in their mutual love for the EMS Synthi, a British synthesizer from the early 70's notorious for it's patch matrix, portability and distinct tone. Astonishingly, these two disparate artists meld into a single sound as they flex the analog circuitry of the EMS Synthi in new ways; giving this classic synth a modern workout and proving that, in capable hands, a 40 year old analog synthesizer is a tool for th…
Live At The Stone
Live At The Stone was intended to be Pauline Oliveros’ tribute to the life and work of pianist Connie Crothers who passed away on August 13, 2016. Sadly, Pauline Oliveros passed away on November 25, 2016. This CD, Pauline’s memorial for Connie, is now a memorial for both women. Pauline’s original dedication: “This recording resulted from my one and only performance with Connie Crothers at her invitation during her amazing residency at The Stone in August 2014. I was honored to play with Connie a…
Overtone Ensemble
Tim Catlin formed the Overtone Ensemble in 2012 in order to perform works using his self-made "vibrissa" instruments. Each instrument consists of 12 vertically mounted aluminum rods that are longitudinally stroked by hand to produce ethereal singing tones. The long sustaining nature of the rods' sound and microtonal tunings allow players a sonic palette of complex textures and harmonic complexity. Other instruments used include massed hand-bells, quarter-tone bells, EBowed acoustic guitars, re-t…
Further West Quad Cult LP
Prefigured by the inclusion of a secret extra pocket in the original packaging of Far West (IMPREC 386CD/LP, 2013), this painstakingly crafted complimentary LP is intended for synced playback with that release. With two turntables or other playback devices, the listener can experience fully unique quad playback. Further West Quad Cult LP offers deeper journeys into the cave where the self dissolves. It also stands alone as an inverted Far West universe, and the listener is invited to enjoy it…
Stop Time
Robin Hayward plays microtonal tuba in Catherine Christer Hennix's ensemble and Stop Time is his first composition to be released on Important Records. Stop Time was commissioned for a festival of the same name taking place in Leuven in 2013. It is the first piece to use a subset of the three-dimensional physical version of the Hayward Tuning Vine, invented in 2012, as a musical score. The harmonic space implied within the four cubes contained within the subset, based on prime numbers two (octav…
New Songs Of The Humpback Whale
Packaged in a deluxe, heavy duty 6 panel digipak and insert containing an essay from David Rothenberg and Michael Deal designed whale song visualizations. What record album was so important that ten million copies of it needed to be pressed at once? You guessed it. Songs of the Humpback Whale. In 1979 National Geographic Magazine inserted a flexible "sound page" inside the back cover of all of its editions in twenty-five languages, and that is supposedly how many they printed. No human pop star …
Live At Issue Project Room
BLUES ALIF LAM MIM IN THE MODE OF RAG INFINITY/RAG COSMOSIS is a new composition from Catherine Christer Hennix's expanded just-intonation ensemble, the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage. This expanded ensemble includes vocalists Imam Ahmet Muhsin Tüzer, Amir Elsaffan and Amirtha Kidambi, an expanded brass section with the addition of Paul Schwingesnschlögl and Elena Kakaliagou as well as the additon of Marcus Pal and Stefan Tiedje on electronics.Packaged in a lavish, oversized letterpressed jacket …
Anoxia
LP version in combination offset/screenprinted jacket. Edition of 500. The second L A N D album, Anoxia, sees Daniel Lea return alone with an outing that marks a shift from the industrial-inflected jazz-noir of 2012's Night Within into distinctly new terrain. Mixed by Ben Frost at Greenhouse Studios, Reykjavík; mastered by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin. CD packaged in a combination offset/screenprinted jacket. "Anoxia" means "total absence of oxygen," and in Lea's hands the term heralds aural e…