New Arrivals
Faint
12k mastermind Taylor Deupree presents his sole solo output for 2012. His lushly realised 'Faint' is themed around those blissful, fleeting moments between waking and sleep, and vice versa, that point where the sub-conscious kicks in after a couple of hypnagogic jerks and we begin to seep between one reality and another. It break down to five extended and beautiful pieces: from the cottony friction of 'Negative Snow', melting to the ringing resonance of air cushioned keys and acousmatic crackle …
Sempervirent
I spent two months in protected areas of Costa Rica making multichannel field recordings of the different forest ecosystems of Central America. Armed with a quadraphonic setup (IRT cross), a parabolic microphone, a hydrophone, and a scientist's passport, I went to nine main sites to record: the coastal evergreen forest, the tropical dry and deciduous forest, the mangroves, the wooded riverbanks and floodplains, and the forests altered in cultivated areas. The recordings were made at the S…
Everything's A Love Letter
Saddleback is the solo project for producer Tony Dupé. In many ways, with its warm and exploratory craft, Everything’s A Love Letter is the culmination of the varying strands in Tony’s musical life.Tony first came to notice in Glovebox, who put an ethereal, ambient twist on the indie-pop scene as far back as the early ‘90s. Glovebox’s swirling sound has been as unhurried as its release schedule, though no matter how spare their output, each album has always found a warm reception. The group were…
Regine Flory
Zak Boerger's combination of fuzz, acoustic guitar & extended downer ballads most immediately aligns him with the New Zealand scene centered around Peter Jefferies & Alastair Galbraith as well as associated international satellites like Flying Saucer Attack & the Twisted Village roster, but there's a lonesome edge to the music that would situate it ouside of any particular historical tradition & closer to the mystery school of regional private press obscurities. The acoustic tracks skirt the fri…
Tummaa
Marks a significant shift in emphasis in this acclaimed musician's work, reflecting a renewed interest in jazz & acoustic performance - this is far more organic than anything he's done before.
Bufo Alvarius (2010 Reissue)
Deluxe remastered version, this was Bardo Pond's 1995 debut album, taking its name from the official Latin for a hallucinogenic toad indigenous to the Western United States. That's a fairly appropriate association to make with the band's severely zoned-out stoner-psych sound, something pioneered on this album, a record that brought the band to the attention of Matador Records who snapped them up for their next album. Amongst all the fuzz-soaked weirdness of the instrumentation on these ear…
Spiritual Jazz 3: Europe
Esoteric, modal and deep jazz from the European underground, 1963-1972. At the end of the '50s, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue heralded the revelatory arrival of modal jazz. As the vibrations of these giant steps resonated across the world, European jazz musicians reassessed their bearings and began to steer a new course. Across the continent, they sent roots down into the rich soil of the European folk and Christian liturgical traditions, extended their music along ancient routes of communicat…
In light
Four years after the release of their debut album Outflow, Japan’s Small Color, a duo comprised of Rie Yoshihara (aka Trico!) (accordion, voice, vintage keyboard instruments) and Yusuke Onishi (guitar, banjo, bass, programming and production) are back with the beautifully polished In Light. This album marks what some may consider a departure for 12k: sublime and gentle, minimal, acoustic J-pop, which once may have been destined for the now-defunct Happy label, but can now sit comfortably beside …
Unter den linden / Und transit
The 'Grundton' of this 30-minute composition is the recording of the concert given at SND Studios Sheffield (UK) in March 2009, entitled 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' by Mark Fell and powered with d&b speakers by Tony Myatt (MRC, University of York). The sounds of planes have been recorded in Mallorca (Spain) in 1987, and in Pilat (France) in 2009. This music comes after HCDC, composed in November 2008 after the death of Daniel Charles Ð his last days were darkened by brea…
Llum moll
Llum Moll is a multilayered composition made with a manipulated AM radio receiver subjected to interference by LED lamps. The combination of the lamps in tandem with the radio tuned to certain frequencies creates a phantom organ' sound, turning the receiver into an instrument with a peculiar timbre and pitch. The composition was made in two parts. The first was to record and then select fragments with different lengths, pitches and textures. The second was to readjust the pitch of the chosen fra…
Transmissions From Sinai
There's clearly a great deal of care and thought gone into the sequencing of this ace new mixtape on Arthur Magazine's record label, and that's down to the estimable taste and selection skills of Al Cisneros (known for his work in the bands Om , Sleep and Shrinebuilder). Opening with the introductory cosmic ambience of Lichens' 'Kopernik Trip Note', the playlist takes a left turn towards Linval Thompson's classic 'Wicked Babylon' before stopping by the sublime 'Everyone In Turn' by Grouper (the …
Nazoranai
Keiji Haino (guitar, vocals & synth), Stephen O'Malley (bass guitar) & Oren Ambarchi (battery). Recorded by Chris Fullard at Gaîté Lyrique, Paris 8th November 2011. Edited by Oren Ambarchi in Sydney January 2012. Mixed by Joe Talia & Oren Ambarchi at Chinatown, Melbourne 8th February 2012. Mastered by Joe Talia at Chinatown, Melbourne 17th April 2012. Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin April 2012. Artwork: Lars Teichmann 'Bathing Girls' & 'Nymphos' (detail, 2010, …
Clivages
"Clivages is Univers Zero's first new studio album in over five years. They have spent the last five years performing at prestigious rock and new music festivals throughout Europe and North America and ever-widening their audience. Founding members of the original "Rock In Opposition" [R.I.O.] movement and the inventors of "chamber rock", Univers Zero have continued to change and grow and develop over their entire career, while still keeping a ensemble sound and spirit that is easily recognizabl…
Archive #1
The IMO is a very large improvisors ensemble, founded in september 2010, that usually gather about 35 musicians per concert, from all switzerland and beyond. From the, expected, mess of the first concerts emerged a collective consciousness and involvement from the impressive number of musicians included in this ambitious projet. After a year - and 7 concerts - 40 of them met during 3 day during the 2011 summer, marking a sensitive step in the orchestra progression. Working deeply a certai…
Another Thought
"During his lifetime, classically trained composer, cellist and disco legend Arthur Russell studied and performed with a wide variety of musicians and artists including The Flying Lizards, David Byrne, Rhys Chatham, Ali Akbar Khan, Allen Ginsberg, John Hammond, Peter Gordon, Jon Gibson, Jerry Harrison, Garret List, Frank Pagano, Andy Paley, Leni Pickett and Peter Zummo. In 1979, Russell, working under the name Dinosaur, wrote and produced Kiss Me Again -- the first disco single to be released by…
_, and Vice Versa
Vice-Versa is an album with 2 process. Originally was gathering some works which produced between 2005 - 2009, with a lose concept of exploring the digital composition by using analog source, as a general guideline. Once the concept become much clearer, more works which share the similar concept were dig out from the hard drive for a better overview and consideration to create an album; on the second process, some of the works has been carry forward with more focus on the development of t…
City of Straw
On their seventh studio album, Sightings don’t make any radical breaks from their past. Instead, Richard Hoffman, Jonathan Lockie and Mark Morgan continue the slow evolution of their vision, a sort of "industrialization" of rock. On 2007’s Through the Panama, the trio achieved their best amalgamation yet. City of Straw doesn’t really up the ante, but it stays right there. These 39 minutes run the gamut from chittering electronics to punk chaos. When saying "industrial" in reference to …
Can't Stop It! (Australian Post-Punk 1978-82)
Originally released in 2001. A long overdue compilation of Australia's incredible post-punk history, featuring the finest selection of bands from the period 1978-82, with many previously-unreleased tracks. This is a fantastically inventive and dynamic time in Australian music history, a time when Australia stepped out of the shadow of overseas influence and asserted its own musical identity for the first time. All of the bands on Can't Stop It! released their music independently, either t…
Spiritual Jazz 2: Europe
As the '60s progressed, cultural and political revolutions occurred both in the U.S. and in Europe. Jazz was both a victim and a savior, with radical developments in the music occurring on both continents. In the U.S., artists took control of their own musical destiny as small labels broke away from the mainstream, expressing new and creative visions of freedom and peace against a backdrop of civil unrest, repression and war. In '60s Europe, the jazz community forged ahead with a different…
s3d (Ear & Eye)
s3d presents a world of fresh sounds from invented and unconventional instruments with names as curious and evocative as the sounds they produce: mothics, shimsaw, kyurukyuttsu, gloopdrum, corrugahorn, sprong, sundrum and many more. An international collaboration. Twelve experimental instrument builders/improvisors in an inspirational world-first.