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Modern Silence

Complete Communion: Live in Stuttgart 1966
The legendary Don Cherry with his great 1966 quintet featuring Gato Barbieri (tenor sax) Karl Berger (piano) Bo Stief (bass) Aldo Romano (drums) which can also be heard on three fine releases on ESP-Disk, and with the New York Total Music Company in 1968. His quintet was on very fine form at this time, it captures a crucial stage of Cherry’s journey from free jazz to yet wilder territories. The recording was made for radio broadcast and is nice and clear: this is the first time it has been is…
Berkeley University Museum - November 7, 1970
Available again! Modern Silence delivers a landmark release in the history of minimalism with a live performance documented from one of the genre's key figures: Steve Reich. Recorded live at Berkeley University in the 1970s (home also to key minimalism figures Terry Riley and La Monte Young), this performance sees Reich deliver some of his now legendary compositions, such as the shifting tape-loop experimentation of "My Name Is", whereby vocals are cut-up, looped, and played at different speeds …
La Musica Futurista Nell'italia E Nel Mondo
The Manifesto Of Futurism by Italian poet Filippo Marinetti, published in 1909, still has an intoxicating force. "We want to glorify war . . . to destroy museums, libraries, and academies of all kinds," wrote Marinetti. "We shall sing to the great crowds excited by work, pleasure or rioting, the multicoloured, many-voiced tides of revolution in modern capitals." Color was as important as force to the movement, and it was a search for new sound colors that fired the ambitions of artist and instru…
The 25-Year Retrospective Concert Of The Music Of John Cage (2Lp
Recorded live at Town Hall, NYC in May of 1958, this historic concert (organized by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg) was a retrospective of Cage’s work from 1934 to the present. The set documents the concert held in the town hall of New York City on May 15, 1958, where 25 years' worth of John Cage's compositions were performed, the largest such event at that point in his career. Presented chronologically, the works increasingly tested the patience of the audience, eventually prompting audib…
Musical Offering
Much-needed reissue of a Melodiya Lp appeared in 1990 - although the recordings date from the 1960s and 1970s - featuring electronic works perfomed at the (legendary) ANS syntheiszer by: Oleg Buloshkin, Sofia Gubaidulina, Eduard Artemiev, Edison Denisov and Alfred Schnittke."Please, try to imagine a score sounding by itself without a conductor, orchestra even without musical instuments. This magic is possible by using musical synthesizer “ANS”. “ANS” is an instrument with which a composer can no…
Musique Concrete
This outstanding LP (originally published in 1969 for the US market) together a selection of music recorded at GRM, mostly during early 60s. Le Groupe de Recherches Musicales (The Group of Musical Research) of the O.R.T.F. (Office of the French Radio-Television) is known in the world principally as the promoter of an original technique of realization as well as reflection : Musique concrète. For more than fifteen years, the Groupe de Recherches Musicales has thus founded its experience, its meth…
Consequences
Modern Silence present a reissue of The New York Contemporary Five's Consequences, originally released in 1966. The New York Contemporary Five barely lasted a year, all told, but they recorded five albums that shaped the jazz to come. They were a super-group after the fact -- the stellar frontline of Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, and John Tchicai all being relative newcomers at the time. Cherry had recently left Ornette Coleman and was only starting to stretch into world music. Shepp was fresh off a…
Sounds Of New Music
Sounds Of New Music gets a reissue as part of the Science Series on Folkway Records. A quirky collection of 18 compositions. Tracks from 1920-1950 are interpreted through ‘new’ methods, techniques and instruments. All interspersed with explanatory narration from a disembodied voice. A rather spooky sounding scientist who gives the release a William Burroughs/Timothy Leary touch. The compositions of this record represent attempts at new means of musical expression. Some utilize conventional musi…
Howl And Other Poems
This is arguably the best-known recording to feature any beat-era poet originally issued in 1959. Although “Howl” is the centerpiece, the peripheral works, especially the mantra-like “Footnote to Howl”, are given empowering presentations that magnify the greatness that’s inextricably inherent in both art and artist. Indeed, the genesis of Allen Ginsberg’s brilliance as both poet and performer has rarely been equalled. The modern listener remains entranced by his vaudevillian sense of prov…
Piano Music Of The Near East
Modern Silence present a reissue of Piano Music Of The Near East, originally released in 1963. This stunning 20th-century piano music was inspired by national traditions but uses the language and form of Western music. Features pieces by: Manolis Kalomiri, Paul Ben-Haim, Ilhan Mimaroglu, Andre Amine Hossein, Anis Fuleihan, and Amiran Rigai. All works played on piano by Amiran Rigai. From the original liner notes: "In the countries of the Near East, as in any other country where occidental cultur…
The Hilversum Sessions
Modern Silence present a reissue of Albert Ayler's The Hilversum Sessions, originally released in 1980. "Recorded in the Dutch city of Hilversum, The Hilversum Sessions presents Albert Ayler in all his blowzy, testifying glory, fronting a quartet that includes trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Sunny Murray. The repertoire includes five Ayler originals, notably his signature tunes 'Angels,' 'Ghosts,' and 'Spirits.' It's easy to forget how starkly original Ayler was, given…
Oeil Vision
Modern Silence present a reissue of Oeil Vision, originally released in 1964. One of the best albums by legendary French pianist Jef Gilson, recorded in 1963 with Jean-Luc Ponty on violin,Daniel Humair on drums, Jean-Louis Chautemps andPierre Caron on tenor sax, Guy Pedersen and Henri Texieron bass. A superb line up for this beautiful album including two splendid versions of "Chant-Inca" (a hidden cover of Pharoah Sanders "Creator Has A Masterplan"). Essential French spirit/avant jazz. Gilson wa…
Enfin!
French pianist Jef Gilson came up in the ‘60s and played in a straight-ahead hard bop style and also made forays into Afro-jazz and free jazz, including a noteworthy version of Pharoah Sanders’ “The Creator Has a Master Plan.” He featured the young violinist Jean Luc Ponty on some early recordings, and also appeared on Magma drummer Christian Vander’s Vander et les Trois Jeffs. The pianist led numerous ensembles ranging from trios to creative big bands during his career, including the Jef Gils…
Metamorphoses
Unusual Russian library LP of electronic interpretations of ‘classical’ pieces by Claude Debussy and Monteverdi among others. Yuri Bogdanov features on every track, on some tracks together with Edward Artemiev, composer for Andrei Tarkovsky and others. Other tracks feature Vladimir Martynov. The record is made on the basis of a kaleidoscope: it interspersed with pieces of various styles, genres and eras. For example, these pieces the authors wanted to show a variety of ways to use a synthesizer,…
Information, Transmission, Modulation And Noise
In stock. During an interview recorded at the KPFA Radio Steve Reich and John Gibson introduced an East Coast performance of Steve Reich masterpiece “Four Organs” as well as an exciting recording of Ghanian drumming which the artist recorded in Ghana. They also introduced the music of Philip Glass, playing a tape of his historical Music in Similar Motion.
San Francisco Museum Of Art, January 16th, 1965
Recorded live by KPFA Radio in the halls of the sculpture court of the San Francisco Museum of Art on January 16, 1965, the day of 39th birthday of fellow pianist and longtime associate David Tudor, this historic concert with John Cage opens with a duet for Cymbal with contact microphones agitated by a wide gamut of objects and concludes with Variations IV in which loudspeakers outside the performance space interacted with speakers next to the audience. First release on vinyl for a very importan…
The 25-Year Retrospective Concert Of The Music Of John Cage
Recorded live at Town Hall, NYC in May of 1958, this historic concert (organized by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg) was a retrospective of Cage’s work from 1934 to the present. The set documents the concert held in the town hall of New York City on May 15, 1958, where 25 years' worth of John Cage's compositions were performed, the largest such event at that point in his career. Presented chronologically, the works increasingly tested the patience of the audience, eventually prompting aud…
Evidence
Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy continued his early exploration of Thelonious Monk’s compositions on this 1961’s Evidence Lacy worked extensively with Monk, absorbing the pianist’s intricate music and adding his individualist soprano saxophone mark to it. On this date, he employs the equally impressive Don Cherry on trumpet, who was playing with the Ornette Coleman quartet at the time, drummer Billy Higgins, who played with both Coleman and Monk, and bassist Carl Brown. Cherry proved capable of p…
Music of Edgar Varese Vol. 2
In the early '60s, Robert Craft's Columbia recordings of Varèse's works  were important contributions to the catalog and hailed for giving this music greater exposure. The album includes Poème Electronique  composed and recorded onto magnetic tape to be played from 400 loudspeakers, complimenting the parabolic and hyperbolic curves of Le Corbusier's pavillion at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958
Live In Koln February 23, 1975
2016 Repress. A legendary recording that pairs Don Cherry’s heavenly trumpet stylings, Terry Riley’s psychedelic/minimalist organ work and the vibes of Bengt Berger in a great live concert recorded in Koln in 1975. Riley is in stunning form playing the kind of endlessly rippling dosed organ drones with a sense of stasis in expansion that is uniquely brain-razzing. Cherry’s playing is heart-stoppingly beautiful, curling slow, melancholy arcs and threading high angel tones through Riley’s e…
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