★Sub Rosa
Five Spanish Pioneers of Electronic and Experimental Music: 1953-1969
This LP reveals the extraordinary diversity of research - almost all hidden - by Spanish musicians in the '50s and '60s. Those pieces were composed while the country was under the tyranny of Francisco Franco. It is truly the ultimate grail, developed by musicologist Miguel Álvarez-Fernández, he is its curator, editor and commentator. This undoubtedly marks a major step in the approach and understanding of this music which had to fight to exist before the death of Franco in 1975.
Miguel Álvarez-F…
It's Not Quite That Inventive (Sixty Years with Broken Music)
The album, featuring Milan Knížák, Petr Ferenc and Opening Performance Orchestra, includes Knížák's 1973 private recording Broken Music, released as a multiple of forty copies by Armin Hundertmark in 1983 on Edition Hundertmark, and a live version of Broken Rebroken, performed in January 2020 at the Museum of Czech Music in Prague by Milan Knížák, Petr Ferenc (aka Phaerentz) and Opening Performance Orchestra. The album comes with a comprehensive booklet that includes an interview with Milan Kníž…
Spectra Ex Machina / A Sound Anthology of Occult Phenomena 1920-2017 Vol.2
The Anthology Spectra Ex Machina brings together rare documents pertaining to so-called occult phenomena, most of them taken from little-known archives. In the course of three volumes, this series traces an audio history of parapsychology through the exploration of spiritualism and haunted houses (vol. 1); musician mediums (vol. 2); experiences of extrasensory perceptions (clairvoyance, psychokinesis, etc.) and electronic voice phenomena (vol. 3). The link between music, sound and the paranormal…
Musik Für Animierten Tonspurfilm
‘Musik für animierte Tonspurfilm’, the twelfth album by Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung (or DAAU, as they are commonly known), is the soundtrack to a series of short, abstract animation films by Rudy Trouvé, who also acted as a creative director during the recording process. The music originates from acoustic improvisation sessions by accordionist Roel Van Camp, clarinetist Han Stubbe, double bass player Hannes d'Hoine and percussionist Jeroen Stevens. These took place according to concep…
Lueur
Univers Zero's new album (since 10 years) follows the lineage of 'Phosphorescent Dreams', originally released only on CD in Japan in 2014, and reissued as an LP on the Sub Rosa label in 2019. Lueur is the fruit of two years' work and reflection, the foundations of which were laid by Daniel Denis (keyboards, drums, percussion...), then enriched by the contributions of Nicolas Dechêne (guitars), Kurt Budé (clarinet / bass clarinet) and Nicolas Denis (bass, percussion, vocals), all three present on…
Moonshine
One of the most gifted, prolific and adventurous figures on Egypt's thriving experimental arts scene, Louca has in recent years garnered a global reputation through three previous solo albums and an expanding, evolving lineup of genre-defying collaborations. The Wire called his 2014 sophomore solo effort, Salute the Parrot, "remarkable music-dense, driven and splashed with colour. For Louca, Elephantine serves as both the pinnacle of his wide-ranging experience and a bold next step in his develo…
Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung!
In 1995 the self-titled full-length debut of Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung (DAAU) was released. The band consisted of four young, 'classically derailed' musicians who played their own compositions exclusively their with acoustic instruments such as violin, cello, clarinet and accordion. Their work contained influences from Roma music, Eastern European folk, klezmer and jazz, but was performed with the energy, rebellious spirit and Sturm und Drang of a bona fide punk band. DAAU was part of…
Something About This Landscape For Ensemble
From his early days with Henry Cow, Fred Frith was seen as a brilliant instrumentalist and improviser, but what has been overlooked is what a first-rate composer he is. This recording offers both aspects. His most complex orchestral composition and two selected improvisations with the Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles. Fred Frith, as an infusion of energy and inspiration. 'Something about this Landscape was commissioned by Ars Musica in 2018. I composed the piece during a residency at Lou Harrison's s…
Late Night Show
All my music is night music, says the composer Petr Bakla. Three pieces featured on the new album Late Night Show span almost a decade and provide varied examples of his style, 'so specific and personal, so allergic to fashion or aesthetic trend', as Eric Wubbels puts it in the insightful liner note. The central instrument is the piano, operated by Bakla´s longtime collaborator Miroslav Beinhauer, accompanied by the musicians of Brno Contemporary Orchestra.
High Tide In The Lowlands
Born in 2012 when the three were living in the same apartment building in Cairo's Agouza district, the trio's instrumental improvisation-based explorations are propelled by Louca's North African percussion loops and shimmering keys, Shalabi's West African tinged free jazz guitar and grounded by Bishop's driving Krautrock-style acoustic bass.
High Tide in the Lowlands was recorded in Brussels at Les Ateliers Claus on September 5, 2017 and is quite an intense experience. Most performances and reco…
Stolen Symphony (Volume 1)
*Comes with a 72 page booklet including texts and pictures* All in all, there are more than 50 pieces, new and old, live and studio, finished pieces and scores to be performed, acoustic and classical, solos and pieces for ensemble, using classical and special instruments. Archivio Conz in Berlin provided access to their extensive Fluxus archives and Edizioni Conz provided coproduction. Ursula and René Block made possible the realisation of John Cage's historical composition Rozart Mix from the E…
Epic Ellipses
Puce Moment is part of the French contemporary music scene. Their music is climatic, often inhabited by a strong emotional power. A procession of harmonic structures organized in a ritual way, sometimes close to trance. It can be written or improvised, vocal or instrumental. The electronic and electroacoustic arrangements summon new spaces and abstract landscapes, which can go from the purest sound to the most raw distortions. Vast, slower, deeper - distant echoes of half-faded things - and when…
Bear Traces: Nuggets From Bobs Barn. Second Paw
*2023 stock* Sub Rosa presents part two in a two-part vinyl version of the Bear Traces compilation culled from the legendary collection of Bob Hite, founding member and singer of Canned Heat. Compiled by DJ Dr. Boogie. "Although it stems from the same artistic process as Volume One in the Dr. Boogie Presents series, this is not Volume Two of a series devoted to Bob Hite. The process was different in that here I focused on much more obscure tracks taken from the very small portion of what remains…
Tarab
CD Digipack. In a handful of improvised albums circumnavigating the troubled waters of the contemporary Mediterranean -Greece, with the eponymous Oiseaux-Tempête (2013), Turkey and Sicily for Ütopiya? (2015), Lebanon with Al-'An! (2017) - the collective Oiseaux-Tempête has stretched its electric arc over musical genres and borders, imposing itself in a river of tours and releases like a wild UFO within the hexagonal indie scene. Navigating instinct, as attracted by disorder, the music of Oiseaux…
Kajang
*In process of stocking* Previously unreleased music by Otto Sidharta, pioneer of Indonesian electronic music. Inspired by Indonesia's multifarious styles of traditional music, that he tries to preserve, the four pieces on Kajang express a contemplation of the self. Otto Sidharta loves to travel, everywhere within Indonesia, in order to collect almost any environmental tones and harmonies he can gather, as an endless source of composition. He is also deeply inspired by Indonesia's multifarious s…
Alterations
Never released before recordings from Logos Foundation live sessions at Logos Foundation, Gent, Belgium on January 3, 1981. "The music is free-improvisation -- that is we make our music co-operatively while playing: by listening, reacting, throwing in new ideas, not by following preplanned schemes. At its simplest the group's intention can be said to be to play together as well as possible and to enjoy ourselves while doing so. We are very interested in the result and intend that the audience is…
L'Effet Rebond (Version Iridium / Version Silicium)
*In process of stocking* 'L'effet rebond' is not one album but two. Two parallel albums sharing the same title. One by Pierre-Yves Macé, the other by Sylvain Chauveau - two friends and regular collaborators for nearly twenty years.
Both works come from the same original material:a few tracks of guitar, piano, harmonium and vocals, initially recorded by Chauveau. The lyrics (in French, English, Japanese) are very short poems by or quotations from e.e. cummings, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, Basho, …
Electronic Works & Voices 1977-87
Perfect follow-up to Sub Rosa's precedent double-LP Electronic Works & Voices 1961-1979, this release highlights Leo Kupper's earliest compositions with his GAME machine
Another State of Stagnation / Piano Pieces (1991-2021)
"My piano compositions are a mixture of musical reminiscences and a confession of my love for disharmonic chords on the one hand, and lascivious melodies on the other. As in the case of almost all my pieces, I wrote them 'dry', at a desk, without using any musical instruments. I only worked with memory and a little bit of imagination. The compositions often come across as randomly taken out of a pot, which contains a blend of fragments of works of a variety of periods, styles and creators." --Mi…
A New Score For Koyaanisqatsi
** White vinyl ** Dark-folk songwriter Chantal Acda and beyond drums-percussion musician extraordinaire Eric Thielemans propose a new score for Koyaanisqatsi, re-actualizing the incredibly beautiful, raw, rhythmic, and touching images of this '80s cinematographic masterpiece. Slow deep electric waves, lonely synths in sonic desert landscapes, rhythmic pulses, transporting drums and bells, and deeply longing sounds and voices make up the audible fundamentals of this imagined, neo shamanic, ritual…