★Sub Rosa

Milan Knízak canonical text Aktual University, dating from 1967, contains ten short lectures outlining the university's character -- On Conflict, On Dreams, On Revolutions, On Love, On Belief, On Art, etc. These lectures were to serve as inspirational schemes for lectures, seminars and discussions held at an ideal university. In the first piece, Aktual University, Milan Knízak reads his own text, with Opening Performance Orchestra providing the musical accompaniment. It was performed live in Oct…

"The beauty of all this, as well as its sorrowful brutality, is even more powerful and stupefying since Ghédalia's sudden departure. Because retrospectively, not only is this recording the trace of a rare moment in a Parisian garden, it also summons a ghost, that of a loved one that is gone, and of his voice, which is fully alive here."  Ghedalia Tazartes and Rhys Chatham had met once in 1977 at CBGC's and had not seen each other since then when they were asked by their mutual agent to play a pr…

A work that literally immerses the listener into an acoustical substance. The sound becomes almost like matter, like jelly. Soon, you're swimming in sound, getting lost inside it

Arkham are an early 70's prog band that featured keyboard player Jean-Luc Manderlier who would later join Magma, drummer Daniel Denis who would also move on to Magma as well as Univers Zero, and drummer Patrick Cogneaux. Arkham aren't nearly as dark as those bands, their jazzy overtones placing them a little closer to Soft Machine. The three musicians, who show some maturity, are obviously pouring their hearts out through out the album, which exudes an intensity that can't be ignored.

Following their recent Difference and Repetition, A Musical Evocation Of Gilles Deleuze 2LP/CD this limited 7'' edition features The Tears of Nietszche on side A with Richard Pinhas as guest musician and Vecteur d'abolition on side B with the voice of Gilles Deleuze.  Formed in Paris in 1989, Palo Alto released his first album (a cassette) on the Italian label Old Europa Cafe in 1990. The year 2020 is therefore an opportunity to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this first stone, the founder of …

Sarah Defrise dedicates her first new music album to the American mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian. The disc features exclusively a capella pieces which were written for Cathy by some of the most prominent composers of her time. Berio's Sequenza III, Cage's Aria and Cathy's own Stripsody have become new music "hits", but For Cathy also presents lesser-known repertoire such as Henri Pousseur's Phonème pour Cathy, Bussoti's fragment from Passion selon Sade and Entretien, a piece for electronic tape c…

Tetsuo Furudate has been working on projects including electronic music, films, videos creating time passages between old and new pieces, re-reading the past through re-appropriations. All his recent pieces can be watched or just listened to. it is also a cultural mix embracing all eastern and western cultures (from JS Bach to Merzbow). Here he recreates a borderless and timeless universe, where voices and pianos reach emotional moments of great depth. The whole is driven by Tetsuo who, by a con…

Building on the back of their stunning release of Ensemble 0’s rendering of "Femenine" issued earlier this year, Sub Rosa returns with "Three Extended Pieces for Four Pianos", featuring brand new recording of three seminal works composed by Julius Eastman between 1970 and 1980 - "Evil N*gger" (1979) "Gay Guerilla" (1980) and "Crazy N*gger" (1980) - realised by Nicolas Horvath, Melaine Dalibert, Stephane Ginsburgh, and Wilhem Latchoumia. Released as a beautiful double CD with brand new liner not…

** CD / 4 Pages Digipack + Booklet ** Four Walls Full of Sound is an electronic interpretation of the works of Phill Niblock by the Prague-based group Opening Performance Orchestra. This studio version, recorded at the re-set studio, was preceded by a live performance at the 2017 Ostrava Days Festival of New and Experimental Music. The cover was designed by Jaroslav Buzek and the booklet includes essays by Kurt Gottschalk and Petr Ferenc. Sound designer Stephan Mathieu took part in shaping the r…

Tip! This journey, this slowly drifting sonic meditation, is an 'inner soundscape', a dialogue between the senses, the conscience and the world, inside / outside, interconnected. Like waking up from a long dream, and being stuck into its echo. The April Sessions immerges the listener into a drone-ish universe, full of random acousmatic events, inner monologues and a vast and unwritten subjective map to be drawn.  The April Sessions has been living in a seedy hotel in Brussels for a few months. S…

Sub Rosa presents in their Early Electronic series, the final chapter of music by Beglian key composer of early electronic experiments, André Stordeur (1941-2020). Side A features a previously unreleased, stark and poignant composition from 1979; while the B side is vibrant and almost playful of pieces from the 2000s.  André Stordeur His musical career started in 1973 with a tape composition for the soundtrack to a film on Gordon Matta-Clark titled Office Baroque. Later in the 1970s, he particip…

Winter Family is a duo made up of Ruth Rosenthal and Xavier Klaine. They met in Jaffa, Israel in 2004. Their self-titled debut (Sub Rosa, 2007) offered minimal music played by Xavier on pipe organ, harmoniums and piano backing strict spoken-word texts chanted by Ruth. Their second album, Red Sugar (Sub Rosa, 2011) was highly praised by critics (The Village Voice, Liberation, Haaretz, Pitchfork). Winter Family then composed soundtracks for dance shows, films and advertising (Chanel, EU). They col…

Winter Family is a duo made up of Ruth Rosenthal and Xavier Klaine. They met in Jaffa in 2004. Their dark, saturated and dense music is described as "death swing", "weird wave", or "funeral pop". They recorded new parts of this new album in St Martin church of Maxéville, France. Includes insert. Xavier: "I recorded the pipe organ there, inspired by the Alsatian philanthropist organist Albert Schweitzer whose slow, bombastic performances, limited by faulty technique have always touched me deeply.…

British artist Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) traverses the experimental terrain between sound and space connecting a bewilderingly diverse array of genres. Since 1991 he has been intensely active in sonic art, producing concerts, installations and recordings, the albums Mass Observation (1994), Delivery (1997), and The Garden is Full of Metal (1998) hailed by critics innovative and inspirational works of contemporary electronic music. Committed to working with cutting edge practitioners he has collabo…

** First time released on vinyl ** Recorded in late 1996 and released in early 1997, this first album from the power Brussels based trio Rawfrücht, defies and questions the definition of genres, eras and musical movements. Ranging from minimal meditative dronish soundscapes, perfect for introspective journeys, to more 'groovy' moments, from noise rock to free rock-but-not-postrock unstable patterns - sometimes even within a single track - this album is a ride on undefined roads, no maps allowed,…

Finally and just in time for Christmas 2020 Hastings of Malawi release their third LP - the antithesis of Christmas albums.  In this bleak vinyl mid winter the sleigh bells have been replaced with twelve handsaws, two motors and a dustbin, a duet between a walrus and an autistic child on an aeroplane, a chorus of pigs and Tasmanian devils, sounds from Japan, China, Africa, Italy, India and Hawaii, digital voice synthesis, sound sculptures, randomly generated music, geiger counters, free improvis…

* White vinyl * The Fall is a deconstruction of November by Dennis Johnson. Written for solo piano in 1959, November is the first example of minimalist music composition and was the inspiration for La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano (1964). The 66-minute piece is a collaboration between legendary artist Lustmord and renowned classical pianist Nicolas Horvath, in which they reduce Johnson's original November to its core element and place it in a landscape of complimentary sound. The Fall echoe…

This new album (the tenth in their discography) was born from two ambitions: to pay tribute to Soft Machine's Third on form (4 sides / 4 titles) and to philosopher Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition is the title of his thesis) on the contents. The 4 long pieces of this double concept album were developed over 2 years and each has a different style and climate. Bold and kaleidoscopic, Difference and Repetition perfectly synthesizes the musical and literary obsessions of Palo Alto. Formed i…

The Acid Lands, created by the Prague-based Opening Performance Orchestra, was first heard in public in 2014 at the Movement-Sound-Space festival in Ostrava, to mark the centenary of William S. Burroughs's birth. The piece was performed live by Opening Performance Orchestra and their guests, the theremin player Martina Potucková, and the poet, musician and performer Pavel Z as the narrator. The studio version of The Acid Lands was made in late 2019/early 2020 in collaboration with Bill Laswell a…

* Limited Edition Green vinyls + insert *  Ars Subtilior (14th century) and the Noise: the two inspirations of Christophe Guiraud which are like two rivers which are woven in a writing of great power. The French young composer is the link between the most accomplished scholarly music and some radical aspects of noise. Born in Toulouse mid-seventies, he settles in Brussels - which becomes the crossroads of a continuous creation. Currently works and has been collaborating since several years with …

Brussels-based string quintet BOW celebrates musical freedom. Juggling between their own written music and pure improvisation, the ensemble has worked since its creation on a personal and modern approach, digging into their instruments' capabilities and blending a large scope of influences. Its debut eponym LP, due to be released on Sub Rosa, gathers five instantly-composed pieces that were recorded live by Christine Verschorren in the Echo Collective studio in Brussels. During the day, BOW repe…

CD digipack. From Mille Plateaux to Leaf, Staubgold, and Raster-Noton, ~scape, among others, or on his own label Ripatti, the Finnish artist Sasu Ripatti, aka Vladislav Delay, has been exploring various iterations of the "dub culture vs. electronica", since 1997. His sonic crafts and unique signature sound have been sought after by an eclectic range of bands and artists, ranging from Massive Attack, Hauschka, Black Dice, Autopoieses, Animal Collective, or AGF. Vladislav Delay met Sly Dunbar and …

Through 'Experimental & Parametric Music 1976-2017', more than 40 years of the Joris De Laet's work are unveiled. We discover here for the first time the great coherence of this work: from 'Signalisations' (1976) to 'Mnemosyne pour une acousmaman' (2017). The twelve compositions are annotated and explained in detail by the composer, as well as a kind of wild autobiography. Inspired by the deep control on electronic sonics, he has been defining his work since 1979 as 'Parametric Music,' music whe…

A stunning collection of anecdotes, photographs, articles and sound clips that do not intend to be complete - they form a retrospective of the evolution of Logos since 1968

The composition Radio Music Extended, performed by Opening Performance Orchestra, draws upon the concept John Cage brought to bear in his piece Radio Music from 1956. In collaboration with the Tesla Museum in Trest, whose collections include unique exhibits of radio electronic and audio-visual devices, the 72-minute piece Radio Music Extended came into being during a private live performance in July 2018. The seven members of Opening Performance Orchestra and two alternating guests operated 13 h…

**Third pressing on black vinyl.** Edited and mixed between Montreal and Paris, From Somewhere Invisible summons the fever of experimentation and the powerful sound of the game coming together in the service of a luxuriant and psychedelic drift. Synthetic brass meets hammered rhythms, string electrics with cracked electronics, saxophone cries and laughter at a pulsing and seminal bass. Created in 2012 by multi-instrumentalists Frédéric D. Oberland and Stéphane Pigneul, Oiseaux-Tempëte (Storm Pet…

Since the early 90's, the Belgian duo Silk Saw has pioneered nearly unclassifiable electronic music at the forefront of experimental and avant-garde. Their 12th album is a contiguous expansion of the universe created in 'Imaginary Landscapes', the previous album published on Kotä in 2015, blending sweet and bitter in languorous and enigmatic melodies that float on intriguing polyrhythms. With the release of 'Nothing is Finished' on Sub Rosa, Marc Medea and Gabriel Séverin are back home, since th…

Since the early 90's, the Belgian duo Silk Saw has pioneered nearly unclassifiable electronic music at the forefront of experimental and avant-garde. Their 12th album is a contiguous expansion of the universe created in 'Imaginary Landscapes', the previous album published on Kotä in 2015, blending sweet and bitter in languorous and enigmatic melodies that float on intriguing polyrhythms. With the release of 'Nothing is Finished' on Sub Rosa, Marc Medea and Gabriel Séverin are back home, since th…

For many, the first traces of the Raudive Tapes were in William Burroughs's fictions and articles. The fact is, these mysterious magnetic tapes, which capture the voices of the dead, and were recorded by the Baltic scientist Konstantin Raudive, are not a fiction but a reality (in this case, not judging their scientific objectivity). These tapes, as rare as H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon, are now in Sub Rosa's archives.What you'll find in this record: 1. Two introductions by Konstantin Raudive and…

Oscillatorial Binnage's "Agitations: Post-Electronic Sounds" is an 11-track album of post-digital, post-electronic music. The recordings are deeply acoustic - no electronic processing features anywhere. The sounds are produced by the experimental manipulation of repurposed recycled objects subjected to electromagnetic force fields. The 'infinite world of the real' offers up richly unpredictable effects, with fields of vibration producing psychoacoustic flourishes, along with spontaneous, arbitra…

**Orange vinyl, includes poster** Tlamess (Sortilège) is Oiseaux-Tempête's first original soundtrack composed for the second feature film by critically-acclaimed Tunisian director Ala Eddine Slim (Festival de Cannes' 51st Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, BFI London, ADF Argentina, Geneva GIFF, Rome Medfilm Festival, Marrakech International Film Festival). Combining hypnotic feedbacks and synthesizer orchestral work, drifting ambient with shamanic beats, the Tlamess (Sortilège) original soundtrack was…

25 years ago, David Shea released a crafty piece of complex philosophical and narrative audio collage: The Tower of Mirrors. Composed and produced in New York City, during September-October 1995, it includes 24 tracks, and features guests such as David Morley on analog synthesizer programming, Dave Douglas on trumpet, Zeena Parkins on piano and prepared piano, and Jim Pugliese on percussions.This is what David Shea had to say about it in 1995: "In 1994, I wrote a work based on the Hsi-Yu Chi nov…

Wall of Sound is a music of sonic sensations. It is a physical and sensual approach to the phenomenon of thick sound worlds. Sound waves become physical objects, four-dimensional sonic sculptures to be experienced, bodily and mentally. Ulrich Krieger's Wall Of Sound is a series of CDs about music that invites the listener to indulge themselves in sound. It doesn't guide an audience through a narrative, like a song, but offers the listener slow changing and developing soundscapes, acoustic sculpt…

A fundamental collection devoted to rare and lost recordings from the 1920s to the 1960s. Is it really possible to imagine what modern music would sound like if a few pioneering geniuses had not had the idea of electrifying their instruments, especially guitar and harmonica, between 1945 and 1950? Some purist will regret this evolution, but, in the '50s, the new sound will be heard in all the studios and night clubs of the United States; it will become a staple on the radio, in stores, at weddin…

CD version. Available for the first time outside Japan, and on LP and CD, Phosphorescent Dreams is another epic album of symphonic schizophrenic avant-rock from Univers Zero, originally released in 2014 -- only on CD -- on the Japanese label Arcàngelo. Phosphorescent Dreams presents at the same time, in the same track, even on a single moment, the complex musical schemes and ways of Univers Zero, ranging from maximalism to minimalism, classical avant-garde with a 2020 vibe in a constant flux. In…

Double CD version. Includes color insert. Double LP/CD curated by Alan Dunn in collaboration with the International Anthony Burgess Foundation and Sub Rosa. Anthony Burgess's second wife Liana carried a cassette recorder with her at all times to capture her life with the author and their son Andrew. This extraordinarily intimate audio archive of over 1,000 cassettes now sits with the International Anthony Burgess Foundation and artist Alan Dunn has been granted access to select excerpts from it …

Violin was Milan Knizak's first instrument. He has composed hundred of works of this ilk; the first one DHK, 45 years ago. Next to his destroyed works, Milan took notations of different composers, cut them and put them together (with his own score) into a collage, expressing his feelings and his apprehension of music.Fama Q is a string quartet founded in 2005 in Prague. Its members, being also orchestral musicians with the Prague Philharmonia, were always devoted to chamber and string quartet mu…

Swiss electro-acoustic artist Israel Quellet's fifth opus, Instrumental, is a new work focused on the Church organ. Complex and mysterious, secular and modern - it makes for another challenging listen. Born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1972, Israel Quellet worked in the psychiatric field for several years. At 16, he discovers on his own some different soundworlds, such as Miles Davis's electric era, Sun Ra, Dub, German cosmic music, Magma, Zappa and many more. In 1997, he stepped into the action a…

These two discs reveal Christian Wolff as a composer fully exploring, in different ways, the continuum between music which is highly fragmented, embracing extended silences [composed or indeterminate], to that which is more progressive and seemingly driven, albeit taking in disarming and unconventional routes. As a body of repertoire, these works are remarkable for their freshness of musical thought and energy (John Cage considered Wolff to be the most 'musical' of the experimental composers).Ch…

Cloud Atlas is a collection of ten short pieces composed by Toshi Ichiyanagi between 1985 to 1999. Vertical Study gathers rare pieces composed by Claude Ledoux. Both are performed by Japanese pianist Kaoru Tashiro. "Kaoru produces serene, yet rich sound texture; the fluctuation of beat and the perspective of the motif are ingenious. I hope many more people will taste this joy of finding a grain of gold with your own eyes and ears, from her commercialism-unrelated, sincere and an experimental…