Cage was in his late twenties, a Californian, who had served an unlikely apprenticeship under two of the century’s great opposites: Arnold Schoenberg, who thought him gifted but harmonically hopeless, is said to have called him “not a composer, but an inventor of genius”, and Henry Cowell whom he had watched reach inside a grand piano to pluck and sweep its strings by hand. The music on this recording follows Cage through this early decade of his life, his twenties. But this is not the music bef…
The works on this CD were realized in collaboration between the composer Germán Toro Pérez and the musicians of PHACE – Petra Ackermann, Mathilde Hoursiangou, Ivana Pristašová-Zaugg and Roland Schueler – over a period of 15 years. They reflect two aspects of composition that have shaped Toro Pérez’s music from the outset: on the one hand, the question of how musical form emerges from the interplay between construction and perception; and on the other, an exploration of language as a means of con…
The album Works for Organ documents and brings to life Bernhard Lang’s engagement with this instrument – which dates back to his youth – in its most diverse forms. The musical roots lie in his own improvisational practice as part of a band, in his ongoing interest in microtonally composed music, and in his long-standing exploration of loops, a technique that can relate to various musical parameters. Furthermore, the exceptional skills of Lang’s performers and their artistic interests play a sign…
“The role of the composer is to act as a filter between reality and the listener, transforming real life into something different from what the listener is accustomed to,” summarizes composer Mioko Yokoyama, reflecting her personal view on her profession. She wants to show that contemporary music is not difficult or hard to listen to. In order to compose, she must first open up new realms of experience, not only through writing, but also through study and analysis. Her aim is to enable people to…
Bionic Environments by Qba Janicki is an illustrative sonic work in which organic matter and mechanical intelligence merge into a single, continuously evolving organism. Composed for amplified soundboard, electronics, electromechanics, extended voice, and string orchestra, the piece unfolds as a cinematic yet deeply material journey through hybrid environments suspended between biological mutation and synthetic architecture. The composition is based on controlled aleatorism and open improvisatio…
This 32CD bundle includes the following items: Denis Dufour "Complete Acousmatic Works — Vol 1" (16CD Box, 2021). and Denis Dufour "Complete Acousmatic Works — Vol 2" (16CD Box, 2026)Denis Dufour "Complete Acousmatic Works — Vol 1" (16CD Box, 2021)Epic box set containing 16 CDs, presenting more than 40 works and 18 hours of listening, including never released before music by Denis Dufour and texts in a detailed booklet. There is a title buried in this collection that serves as its unspoken manif…
Second monumental box set of Denis Dufour's complete acousmatic works: 16 CDs, 17 hours of listening. Direct heir to Pierre Schaeffer at the GRM, Dufour redefined acousmatic art by reintroducing theatricality, voice and narrative into a sonic universe of unprecedented rigor and freedom.
The album Mômo comprises a collection of Adam de la Cour’s concert pieces – more specifically, his most important solo keyboard-based compositions. De la Cour draws his inspiration from languages where abrupt tonal shifts and grotesque exaggeration are simply how things function. His influences come as much from psychotronic cinema, rubber-mask practical effects, vaudeville, genre tropes, and forms of satire as from contemporary classical music. De la Cour shares a particularly close artistic pa…
Huck Hodge, an American composer and multi-talented artist, writes, as the New York Times puts it, “harmonically fresh works […] full of splendour and thunder”. Both intellectually and immediately poetic, his music explores the many invisible connections between the most diverse artistic and philosophical traditions of East and West. His passion for learning both ancient and modern languages, his own poetic output and his original choice of texts are reflected in the interplay of colour, light a…
Rand Steiger’s Introspective Trilogy is a series of string quartets with electronics composed over a period of eight years for the JACK Quartet. Reflecting on emotional states through musical expression, the quartets explore intense feelings of anger, frustration, and despair in response to alarming political developments in the U.S. and globally, from 2016 when the project began, to catastrophic recent developments. Steiger relates the resurgence of xenophobia and well-known elements of authori…
The pianistic writing of Giorgos Koumendakis represents a rare encounter of delicacy, intellectual concentration, and profound compositional coherence. It belongs to a free post-modernity, rooted in the continuity of certain Eastern European composers who developed an independent and original modernity. The cycle Mediterranean Desert, which forms the central axis of this album, is a work for piano consisting of 22 pieces inspired by Mediterranean flora and fauna. It offers a distinctive sound ma…
This album is intended to be a retrospective view of Luigi Manfrin’s compositional journey. Rather than following a chronological order, it identifies loops that run through his musical production: recurrences, foldings and returns that never replicate the same pattern, but instead reactivate structural tensions in different contexts. At the core is the idea of sound as an immanent experience. The unity of the album lies not in the identity of its materials, but in the constant questioning of th…
Davor Vincze is a composer of contemporary music who immerses himself in phenomena and experiences and conveys them musically through a powerful narrativity. Whether it is technology in his use of machine learning, or philosophy, mathematics, or the experience of visiting a Taoist temple or a gallery, Vincze hears music and searches for hidden acoustic spaces. The six compositions featured on Ashes unmistakably convey (and confirm) the composer’s aesthetic and expression, his identifying signatu…
Madli Marje Gildemann’s Dream Sequence of an Ancient Forest brings together works from 2017 to 2023 in a dramaturgical arc shaped by precise observation and a freely flowing imagination. Her atmospheric, finely detailed sound world moves between scientific accuracy, natural phenomena, and mythological transformation. The album leads listeners from the secret processes of plants and the nocturnal journeys of birds to a primeval forest’s dreamlike consciousness and the animated presence of a human…
Hermetika IX – Vox Angeli II pushes Bernhard Lang’s obsession with loops, fracture and stylistic collision into explicitly metaphysical territory. Centring the female voice, the piece takes its texts from the Nag Hammadi scriptures, a body of early Christian and Gnostic writings in which the tension between spirit and flesh, transcendence and fall, is particularly charged. Across four sharply contrasted movements, Lang treats those texts less as doctrine than as volatile material: sensual biblic…
Across … in grief and detail presents Michael Hersch at his most concentrated and exposed. Composed between two shattering personal crises, these three compact works push his already uncompromising idiom into a realm where every sound feels physically paid for. Writing for soprano, violin and bassoon in shifting combinations, Hersch strips away any sense of orchestral distance; what remains is a chamber theatre of proximity, in which the smallest inflection of the voice, the slightest change in …
In Star Trail, José Luis Hurtado sculpts a luminous universe of sound—music that resembles light itself: expanding, reflecting, distorting. Through multilayered “parametric counterpoint,” space triumphs over time, revealing textures that shimmer between structure and spontaneity. Each work—Electric Dust, The Untitled 3S, In the Space of Time, Mutual Gravity, and the title piece Star Trail—unfolds as a sound installation of infinite possibilities, where every gesture refracts into new meaning. Bo…
Sounds, Archaeologies brings together works by Isabel Mundry that understand listening as an active, participatory process. Arising from the experience of a transformed acoustic environment, the composer opens her music to a dialogue with history, material, and cultural grounding. In the title piece for basset horn, violoncello, and piano, Mundry excavates the “sediments of our musical history” – sound becomes an archaeological find linking past and present. Balancing reflection and intuition, s…
In Naturstudium III, Luis Tabuenca, together with Les Percussions de Strasbourg, explores the sonic worlds of the Baschet sound sculptures—resonant bodies of metal, glass, and wood that oscillate between instrument and architecture. From their dialogue emerges a new musical grammar and hybrid notation that seeks to capture the fleeting nature of these resonances. Recorded by Neu Records in immersive sound, Naturstudium III is more than documentation: it is a spatial experience of vibration, reve…
Joanna Woźny’s music resists certainty. Fragmented, elusive, and ever-transforming, it listens into the noise of the everyday and distills from it something fiercely alive. Her works trace perception’s fault lines – between sound and noise, sense and abstraction – constantly unmaking and remaking form. In this sonic terrain, repetition never means stasis; structure dissolves into process. Each piece is a beginning: a seismographic record of emergent thought, a refusal to conclude. For Woźny, com…
Felipe Lara’s music is driven by a visceral sense of presence and process. Beneath its notated clarity lies a deep trust in the performers: a shared language built over years of collaboration, where every sound becomes a negotiation between gesture, breath, and form. Lara’s work moves between the intimate and the monumental, but always seeks what lies behind the surface – where structure becomes porous, expression is embodied, and music emerges as a living tension between instability and control…
An Index of Metals, Fausto Romitelli’s final work, is an ecstatic ritual of sound, light, and image—a multimedia opera that fuses electronic music, psychedelic ecstasy, and brutal-poetic texts into an intoxicating sensory flood. Blending techno, pop art, noise, and spectralism, Romitelli propels music theatre into a hallucinatory present: metallic, eruptive, rebellious. The voice is distorted, the image disintegrates, sound becomes palpable material. In this uncompromising fusion of composition,…
The album Nagual by Matt Choboter is a sonic ritual that dissolves the boundaries between composition and improvisation, tradition and innovation. Drawing on just intonation, Balinese tuning systems, and South Indian rhythmic theory, Choboter and his ensemble craft a vivid, shape-shifting musical world—at once ancient and otherworldly. Nagual resists the comforts of familiar forms, embracing ambiguity, sensory multiplicity, and intuitive collective listening. This music does not follow a path—it…
Veiled Erosion, the debut album by Anqi Liu, invites listeners into a world of spectral nuance, cultural memory, and fragile connection. Her music breathes through thresholds—between noise and tone, breath and bow, self and other. In the closing Etude for Friends, Liu renders friendship as a sonic practice: intimate, unstable, and quietly transformative. Drawing from Mongolian long song and microtonal chamber traditions, she composes sound as a site of listening, learning, and being-together. Ve…
Rispecchiato in quarzo, Dal nero immenso, lèvita, and Traspare assente albore unfold as structured sequences of transformation—transparent, hypnotic, fairy. Each solo instrument (piano, contrabass clarinet, bass flute) interacts with multi-layered electroacoustic textures built entirely from acoustic sources. These “electronics” remain sensitive and natural, shaped through breath, resonance, and subtle manipulations. An 1876 Steinway, spectral clarinet multiphonics, and whispered flute tones for…
A Bridge Between Spaces traces a decade of Andrew Greenwald’s singular compositional journey—across rigorously constructed sonic terrains and into freer, more intuitive musical dialogues. Drawing from two major violin cycles and culminating in the expansive title work, this album captures a shift from analytical exploration to expressive openness. With sound worlds that feel both extraterrestrial and deeply human, Greenwald’s music invites us into a landscape where metaphors fail and sound speak…
Clarinetist Michele Marelli channels Stockhausen’s visionary spirit in this album of works for clarinet, basset horn, and bass clarinet—joined by pianist Gianluca Cascioli in Tierkreis—merging cosmic intensity with masterful interpretation and devotion.
Olivier Messiaen saw birds as his greatest teachers, capturing their songs with passion and precision. His piano works, especially Catalogue d’oiseaux and Petites esquisses d’oiseaux, translate birdsong into rich, colorful music. Messiaen’s fascination with rhythm, color, and nature shaped his compositions, blending ornithology with spirituality. Pianist Alfonso Gómez delivers an astonishing interpretation on this recording, adding to his acclaimed discography for this label. As Messiaen himself…
Evis Sammoutis’ music is a dynamic fusion of physicality, virtuosity, and cultural depth. Drawing on his Cypriot roots and diverse training, his compositions explore tactile soundscapes, poetic contrasts, and neurological aesthetics. Works like Echopraxia and In Darkness challenge conventions of imitation and vulnerability, while Rhymes and Engravings evoke intricate structures and materiality. Inspired by literature, visual art, and the expressive potential of sound, Sammoutis crafts music that…
In his album Tarió, Manuel Contreras Vázquez presents a profound engagement with Latin American history, sound exploration, and experimental notation. Through intricate timbral textures and an architectural approach to composition, his works navigate themes of memory, resistance, and human experience. From intimate solo pieces to collective vocal and instrumental forces, Contreras Vázquez challenges conventional musical boundaries, blending silence, phonetics, and social narratives. This album o…
This compelling album presents works by Israeli composer Chaya Czernowin, exploring the fragile balance between destruction and communication, control and surrender. Seltene Erde transforms the double bass and ensemble into a shifting landscape of illusion and resonance, evoking the invisible forces shaping our world. Atara, born from the isolation of 2020, is a powerful orchestral lament, where vast sonic masses collide with the delicate voices of two singers, lost yet luminous. Through these w…
The music of Fabien Lévy thrives on ambiguity, paradox and sonic illusion. With a deep interest in cognitive perception, he creates complex textures where clarity meets mystery, virtuosity blends with playfulness, and every composition becomes a daring exploration. Influenced by spectralism and his mentors Grisey and Risset, Lévy embraces musical allusions – from visual arts to world traditions – creating pieces that challenge and transform the listener’s perception. Whether through kaleidophoni…
Noriko Baba’s music transforms fleeting details into profound artistic expressions, weaving nostalgia, nature, and her Japanese heritage into evocative soundscapes. From the intimate, lantern-lit glow of Bonbori to the tumultuous echoes of the 2011 tsunami in Shiosai, her works balance delicacy and intensity. 9600 romanticizes the age of steam locomotives, while Au pavillon de (Monsieur) Porcelaine offers a deeply personal meditation on joy and loss through Mahlerian inspiration. With Avant le c…
In tönendes licht., Klaus Lang imagines the Gothic cathedral as a resonating body shaped by the architectural principles of hierarchy and proportion. Performed by Wolfgang Kogert and the Wiener Symphoniker conducted by Peter Rundel, the work creates a unique interplay between the physical structure of the cathedral and the ephemeral presence of the music, evoking the medieval understanding of light and sound as pathways to the divine. Inspired by the ideals of Gothic art, Lang explores the conce…
Didier Rotella’s "Zone Grise" unfolds in a space of perpetual transformation, where sound navigates between density and purity, acoustic and electronic, structure and fluidity. Catharsis combines hybrid instruments and spatialized textures to evoke a dramatic journey of evolution and renewal, while Fragrances draws inspiration from perfume composition, blending musical elements into a rich, multi-layered tapestry. Mogari reflects on ritual and humanity through augmented instruments and poetic ge…
Oriol Saladrigues Brunet’s music crafts intricate interactions between time and communication, turning moments into rich artistic expressions. His compositions treat time as a flexible and multi-layered concept, balancing precision with unpredictability. Musical textures emerge and transform, revealing patterns that are both structured and fluid, creating a space where a dialogue between instruments and ideas unfolds. Through thoughtful exploration of irregularity and balance, Saladrigues create…
Felipe Lara’s Chamber Works for Strings redefines the ensemble as a resonating body, where strings become vocal cords and bows breathe sound into existence. In Corde Vocale and Tran(slate), the quartet is not a polite conversation but a raw, elemental force – organic, urgent, and monstrous. Sonare unfolds in processional waves, while Archi elastici stretches time to its breaking point, embodying breath itself. With Postcard and Prisma, Lara explores dialogue and divergence. Across these works, t…
Ying Wang’s RE:Wilding presents five works shaped by sonic precision, cultural awareness, and political urgency. Acoustic instruments and electronics coexist without hierarchy, exposing noise, fragility, and quotation as structural elements. Rather than fixed messages, the music offers a field of tensions—between gesture and abstraction, control and collapse, presence and disappearance. References to social injustice, ecological crisis, and cultural memory are articulated through sharply drawn c…
Johannes Kalitzke’s opera Captain Nemo’s Library weaves themes of identity, childhood and fantasy into a powerful poetic narrative. Inspired by Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Per Olov Enquist’s novel, it explores the intertwined fates of two boys in a Swedish village, their imaginary refuge aboard the Nautilus and the trials of their friendship. With a mixture of singing, puppetry and the integration of musical motifs by Bach as well as impressive electronics, Kalitzke creates a …