★Sub Rosa

This record should be seen not so much as a tribute to Zbigniew Karkowski than as an ongoing concern to further his work and thinking as they were when he was alive, reacting, and questioning, uncompromisingly. Nevertheless, these are his final recordings, which he made- a homecoming of sorts - in Sweden, at EMS Studios in Stockholm, with his friends Jean-Louis Huhta and Lars Akerlund. Late november 2013. a reminiscence from the 1980s, the creation of the label Radium 226.05 by Carl Mich…

2CD version, including two CD bonus tracks. Pseudocode was a Belgian electronic improvised music band, active from 1980 to 1982, featuring Xavier S (Thrills), Guy-Marc Hinant (Sub Rosa co-founder) and Alain Neffe (Insane Music, Bene Geserit). While Xavier S contributed most of the lyrics and vocals, it was Guy-Marc Hinant who often played the core melody on his Pianet electric piano. Neffe's contributions are particularly noteworthy throughout, as he weaves together the bulk of the sonic clo…

LP version (initalia copies are coloured). Rare recordings by pioneers of industrial noise music, 1979-1983, never released before on CD or LP. Etat Brut was an industrial/noise band from Brussels that operated from 1979 until 1983. The duo (Phillippe x and Philippe X, today academic scientists) released dozens of cassettes, various flyers and Xeroxed booklets. Some collective concerts were organized at that time with Club Moral and Pseudocode. Cassettes like Emissions 1 (1981) or Géomé…

Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Christopher Chaplin first met in 2010 at the "Gugginger Irritationen 2" festival near Vienna, dedicated to Art Brut. In 2011, Roedelius was invited to play a live piano set for the BBC, which would be recorded and remixed by a musician of his choice, but with whom he had never worked before. Roedelius chose Christopher Chaplin for the task. The result was broadcast on BBC Radio 3's "Late Junction Sessions" program in June 2011. Roedelius then asked Christopher t…

"This work is not music in a conventional sense, it does inhabit that world, but in a new way. The cello is treated fundamentally, as a resonating body, transmitting sounds elementally. The bow on a string, the flux of weight, pressure, speed and angularity releases a myriad of complex sound phenomena. The juxtaposition of multiple sounds on adjacent strings creates fluctuating and rhythmical beatings. The detuning of the instrument increases its pitch potential and basso profundity. In combinat…

Sub Rosa presents a release by composer/violinist Baudouin de Jaer. Gayageum Sanjo: compositions for 12-string gayagrum, Prelude, 5 sanjo and 10 studies. According to legend and to recent archeological digs, the gayageum is a millennial zither-like instrument featured in all Korean traditional repertoires. "Sanjo" is usually translated as "scattered melodies." This style of music was informed by southwestern shamanic music (Sinawi) and the great epic songs (Pansori) from the same regi…

Lovely 2xCD digipack + 16 page booklet: CD1 features Luigi Nono's La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura (1992), an original title, a unique aesthetic metaphor even: one could say that the past reflected in the present [nostalgica] brings about a creative utopia [utopica]; the desire for what is known becomes a vehicle for what will be possible [futura] through the medium of distance. Performed by Tiziana Pintus /violin and Hans Van Eck /sound projection (The Schreck Ensemble).- CD2 features Ha…

Works for voices & electronics, performed by Lore Lixenberg, Gregory Rose, and Robert Worby. Recorded in 2012. "This year, 2012, the maverick American experimental composer John Cage would have been 100 years old. He defined experimental music in the 1930s and, since that time, his ideas, his music and his work have been copied by hundreds of other composers and musicians time and time and time again. Anybody who claims to make experimental music today has to acknowledge their debt to John …

a Snare is a Bell is a solo piece for snare drum, voice and the room in which it is played.Inspired by some close encounters I had with African shamanic/trance musicians and my personal experiences with meditation and music, it also relates to a known-to-many-of-us acoustical wonder of sitting on the toilet and picking up the tone of that little room (often by accident while coughing or talking out loud to oneself) and enjoying to sing that tone and let the toilet become filled with an eno…

Ecce Homo: A Portrait Of Célestin Deliège is a deep, strong and raw portrait of one of the greatest musical thinkers in Europe, who passed away in 2010. Célestin Deliège was the last representative (with Pierre Boulez) of post-War modernism. Prestigious musicologist (passing his encyclopedic knowledge through violent polemic), teacher at the Conservatory of Liege, Brussels and La Sorbonne, he impressed many students -- students who have since become important composers today, not the least…

Fuck You: Fucking Noise In China Now is a film made by Dominique Lohlé and Guy-Marc Hinant from Sub Rosa -- 100 minutes of electronic noise music and harsh speeches -- a road movie between Beijing and Shanghai. Featuring artists Torturing Nurse, Wang Changcun, Wang Fan, Li Jian Hung/Dickson Dee, the poet Sun Meng Jin and Zbigniew Karkowski. 100 minutes. In English with French subtitles. Double-sided DVD in both NTSC & PAL formats, region free. "We went on a trip, with a vision that may …

Belgian composer and pianist Jean-Luc Fafchamps initially devoted himself to writing for small groups in which the piano plays a central role (Dynamiques, for two pianos; Melancholia Si..., for two pianos and two percussionists; Neurosuite, for a keyboard trio), before his interest in non-tempered harmonies and polyphonies of timbres led him towards other sound combinations (a garden, for wind quintet; Bryce, for clarinet quintet, etc.). He is currently moving towards working for larger formatio…

Vinyl version: since 1999, DAT Politics is by far one of the most ecstatic electro party bands on the planet. Their remarkably energetic live shows explain the cult-like enthusiasm that surrounds the French electronic combo as they've been touring the world extensively over the years. DAT Politics channel a rough-edged turbo-pop mood through their laptops to create some of the most unexpectedly catchy and lively music ever assembled. The possibility of mistakes and chaos in their hot-wired…

Erdem Helvacıoğlu is one of the most renowned "contemporary electronic music" composers of his generation in Turkey. His music has been broadcast on national radios such as BBC, ABC, WDR and Radio France, among others. He has received commissions from the 2006 World Soccer Championship, T-B A21 The Morning Line, Borusan Center For Culture & Arts, Arter "Space For Art," The Association For The Art Of The Harp, Novelum Contemporary Music Festival, International Istanbul Biennial (IKSV) and …

Featuring Rhys Chatham, Christian Fennesz, Frédéric D. Oberland and Richard Pinhas. Bérangère Maximin was born on the remote French colonial island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and moved to France at the age of fifteen. Performing first as a singer, she later studied electroacoustic music with the composer Denis Dufour at the Perpignan Conservatoire. Her first professional experiences occurred in Paris, and in 2002, she moved there permanently. From 2002 to 2007, while running the organiza…

Previously-unreleased electronic music from original The Mothers Of Invention keyboardist, Don Preston. "We're coming to the beginning of a new era wherein the development of the inner-self is the most important thing. We have to train ourselves so that we can improvise on anything: a bird, a sock, a fuming beaker. This, too, can be music. Anything can be music." --Don Preston, extracts from Uncle Meat, 1969, The Mothers Of Invention One could hardly not see in Don Preston a key musician w…

Telephone terrorism tactics and voyeuristic ambience from the Scanner archive 1991-1994. Exclusive unreleased material. An eavesdropper's delight. "In the summer of 2010, I worked through my extensive archive of DAT tapes, cassettes and mini-discs, which had accumulated since 1977, and with the help of my ever-capable and patient interns, began the process of digitizing these materials. The result -- over 600 hours of largely unreleased material -- was overwhelming to say the least, and …

Rogelio Sosa was born in Mexico City in 1977. His work explores a wide range of aspects that deal with sound morphology, structures of auditory reference, intensification of the acoustic space and performativity. His projects include solo and collective improvisations, music compositions, sound actions and sound installations. All of these are produced using electronic media. He started studying musical composition with Julio Estrada and then electroacoustic music at the Ateliers UPIC and IRCAM …

Jamka is a music project set up by Monika Subrtova and Daniel Kordik, who first met as philosophy students in Slovakia. After playing in various hardcore and punk bands, Kordik had gradually become more interested in the idea of making musicwith electronic devices, and when Subrtova began to share his enthusiasm for synthetic sounds and misleading compositions, they decided to explore this territory together.Jamka played their first gig in autumn 2001 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. U…

CD version. Sub Rosa presents this cult album that has not been available in years. Re-released with new artwork, this is the 1980 version of Symphonie Pour Le Jour Où Brûleront Les Cités (the original version was released in 1976 and was later re-recorded). Pioneering Rock In Opposition filled with clashing percussion, frenetic orchestral motifs and apocalyptic brass. Not for the squeamish. It features the line-up of Thierry Zaboïtzeff (cello), Alain Eckert (guitar), Gilles Renard (saxoph…

In March 2005, drummer Teun Vergruggen (Jef Neve Trio, Flat Earth Society) invited the eccentric guitar player Mauro Pawlowski (dEUS, Somnambula) and Rhodes/piano wizard Jozef Dumoulin (Määk Spirit, Magic Malik, Octurn) to play a single session based on pure improvisation. The result left most people wondering how to categorize this music, and brought Othin Spake on the stage for many concerts. Six years later, the band has played in many jazz and alternative venues in Europe, released three …

2003 release ** "Xenofonia combines choir, harpsichord, percussion, glitch and environmental recordings. Migrating bird-calls and human voices play a central role heard a cappella or accompanied. Singing often ventures beyond the limits of language. The formidable choral force of ex-miners Snowdown Colliery Male Voice Choir, the intimate voice of Matthias Grübel from German duo Phonºnoir, British vocal trio Juice Vocal Ensemble, and background vocals by Elaine Mitchener and Jade Pybus are heard …

A totally original and disturbing sound world mixing acoustic and electro-acoustic pieces by the Young Belgian Musician of the Year. Fremdkörper contains 10 brand-new recordings of acoustic and electro-acoustic compositions written between 2004 and 2010. Featured artists are Nadar Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, Champ d'Action, Nikel Ensemble, Agartha, Zwerm electric guitar quartet, Matthias Koole, Pieter Matthynssens and Stefan Prins. Comes with a 20 page booklet containing a.o. a text by Michael Re…

One opera singer teams with one experimental musician! La Diva Christina Van Peteghem on voices and Pierre-Jean Vranken everywhere. They are Quasi Una Fantasia! Noise, classical guitars, exquisite melodic songs, minimalism, neoclassical, avant-garde are the medium and the message.

Superdisque is the first album from the French trio formed by David Fenech (electric guitar) with Jac Berrocal (trumpet) and Ghédalia Tazartès (vocals). Somewhere beyond the borders of rock, jazz, punk and sound poetry -- the vocals seem to come from another planet, with lyrics in an improvised language. The winds are blown from Tibetan human bones and conch seashells. Guitars sound like rubber and steel. Expect the unexpected. Special guest Zap Pascal (accordion) appears on one track. Dav…

John Wynne's untitled installation for 300 speakers, pianola and vacuum cleaner is at once monumental, minimal and immersive. It uses sound and sculptural assemblage to explore and define architectural space and to investigate the borders between sound and music. There are three interwoven sonic elements: the ambient sound of the space in which it is installed, the notes played by the piano, and a computer-controlled soundtrack of synthetic sounds and gently manipulated notes from the piano itse…

Pieces by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Hanns Eisler, Giacinto Scelsi, György Kurtag, Frederic Rzewski, Henri Pousseur, Théodore Botrel, Rudolf Siecynski, and Sephardic songs. Performed/interpreted by vocalist Marianne Pousseur. "I like to listen to music in places that haven't been designed for it. I like when music mixes in with noise. Only came from a very personal desire to open the doors of my musical world to the concreteness of daily life, to tear down the fictional barriers between places a…

** CD / 4 Pages Digipack + Poster Booklet ** Second long awaited album by Winter Family, the duo composed of Ruth Rosenthal and Xavier Klaine, actually based in Brooklyn. A rare and unique audio worldview expressed by the singular approach of Ruth Rosenthal (voice) and Xavier Klaine (harmonium, organ etc..). From the first bares of Searching Donkeys this new album creates a glowering and intense atmospheric...part nightmare, part uplifting dreamscape. It permeates and builds into a compelling wh…

Awesome hardcover book containing an in-depth analysis (plus an actual performance on the accompanying cd) of Adof Wölfli’s music by Baudouin de Jaer. Subtitled: Analysis Of The Musical Cryptograms. Belgian composer Baudouin de Jaer was completely moved by the artistic and human dimensions of the mystery surrounding the gigantic and universal body of work created by Adolf Wölfli within the Waldau hospital in the early 20th century. He managed what none other had accomplished before: to decode …

NEW SERIES FRAMEWORKAn extension of our CONCRETE ELECTRONICS NOISE,a brand new mix-up of unusual conceptions of sound material by young unknown composers, well known not-so-young composers and old but clever composers.Benjamin Thigpen, nomad, born in the United States, immigrated to Paris at the age of 31. He studied music, literature, philosophy and esthetics. He now composes in European studios such as GRM, EMS, Visby and STEIM, as well as in his bedroom and in the train. After six years as a …

Daniel Menche has established himself as a musician with a sense of focus and determination uncharacteristic in a genre known for its randomness and chaotic structure.Rather than creating 'noise,' he strives for order and cohesiveness. His presentation of sonic structures is similar to the way a writer depicts a story, an allegory seems to arise, which uses confusion as a symbol for the imaginative process of total sound purity; aural intensity is not a representation of confusion or the chaotic…

This real masterpiece of Concrète and Synthesized music was no more available since its original manufacture in 1973. Dub Taylor is an US composer, producer, engineer and designer born June 22, 1948 in Burbank, California. He has many creative facets: recording and mastering engineer, record producer as well as composer, graphic designer and visual artist. He has studied with pianist Richard Bunger and composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Not long after the release of Lumière, Taylor established Varg…

This recording will be Sub Rosa's first posthumous recording of Henri Pousseur. It is the sixth release (out of eight) in their catalog devoted to this composer's experimental and electronic works. It also marks the end of the trilogy of the Parabolic works (following the 1972 unreleased recordings and the 2001 collective performance). This time around, we have a piece built through another major Pousseur work: Leçon d'Enfer (composed in 1990-1991 around Arthur Rimbaud). This previously-unreleas…

Israel Martinez (Guadalajara, Mexico 1979) scope of work goes from sound to multidisciplinary art, including experimental and non-academic electroacoustic music, actions, video, installation and site-specific projects, mainly focused on sound as source and theme. He got the Distinction Award at Prix Ars Electronica 2007 in the Digital Musics Category for his sound piece 'Mi Vida'. Since 2003 he has performed and exhibited in several countries throughout America and Europe. He's co-founder…

Philippe Petit is interested in soundtracks; even if he creates original music he'd rather be introduced as a "musical travel agent" than a composer. Petit uses a Cymbalum, an Electric Psalterion, computer and synths to build up electronic layers, process acoustic and field recordings.
To second the machines he likes to move various glasses, 
or percussive objects, and take advantage of vinyl material to fondle released sounds. A journalist for various magazines and radio as well as a musical ac…

Charlemagne Palestine: (voice/organs), X Joachim Montessuis: (voice/computer). After two massive works, From Etudes To Cataclysms (SR 272CD) - for the Doppio Borgato and Strumming Music (SR 297CD) for piano, harpsichord and strings ensemble, Charlemagne's work is now rooted in Sub Rosa for good. But next to his solo records, the label wants to continue to publish collaborative works: they started with An Aural Symbiotic Mystery (SR 204CD) featuring Tony Conrad. This time, Joachim Montessuis…

Saxophonist and composer Ulrich Krieger is already widely respected for having been a part of the incredible Zeitkratzer and having collaborated with Merzbow. However this fifty-minute composition is possibly his most striking to date. A collaborative effort with Alan Licht, Tim Barnes and Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, 'Fathom' is a deep, doomy exercise in patience and subtlety. With stark, minimal percussion and a bleak, haunted soundscape punctuated by Krieger's blackened woodwind tones th…

In the summer of 1990, i released on Sub Rosa a recording of Triadic Memories by Morton Feldman (1926-1987). It was one of the first recordings of this long work for solo piano completed on July 23, 1981.The score i used had been published by Universal edition as number UE17326 in 1987. Shortly after my CD came out, Universal published a new edition. At the bottom of page 2, under a dedication to Aki Takahashi and RogerWoodward is a small-print mention: 'corrected edition: 14.2.1991. I disr…

Novi_sad is the guise for Thanasis Kaproulias (b. 1980) who holds a degree from the Economic University of Piraues. He lives and works in Athens, Greece. Influenced by the pioneers of audio assault, he began generating sounds in 2005. No studies, no academic education, no scholarships, just pure learning by doing. Amplified environmental recordings, drone manipulations, structured ambient soundscapes, microtones vs overtones, all come together in a hyper structure of iconoclastic form. Novi_s…

Lovely field-recording album, created from evolution of original environmental recordings done at multiple underwater and abovewater locations in the Paraná and Paraguay rivers