New Arrivals
Tender Exploration
“Tender Exploration” reminds me of Hayao Miyazaki’s “Howl’s Moving Castle”, it’s an enormous metallic machine on spindly legs, walking like a toddler, but also steaming, mumbling, panting, a creature full of energy, and inhabited by a fire demon. “Drake”, the first track”, starts seeking for a structure almost clumsily, the band members seem to have to find each other. But soon they have a good chemistry and Bauer, who dominates this piece in spite of its name, adds his huge repertoire of tech…
Say God
The 2xLP version comes in an old-style tip-on gatefold jacket with 8” x 10” insert and MP3 download coupon. In recent years, Higgs has released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the ultimate in isolation, worlds away from the hypnotic, communal rock of his band, Lungfish. Higgs follows up the 2007 album/book release Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot with his new double album Say God. Say God is an album of gospel songs and poems as presently received by this Daniel Higgs. Recorded …
Chiapaneca
A great, vivid recording of some wild playing, using the entire kit, rolling about on the various skins and cymbals. Recorded at Festival El Nicho Aural by Daniel Goldaracena at Centro Cultural España Mexico D.F 12 mayo 2012Mastering and cover design by Lasse Marhaug
Convulsive Threshold
Two heavyweight explorers of sound and technology, Russell Haswell and Yasunao Tone, both undertaking separate rigorous experiments into the synthesis of sound and all its remits, converge for one helluva collaborative work. ‘Convulsive Threshold’ is the result of years of research and experimentation, Haswell’s systems of hybrid analogue/digital audio generation acting as one of the starting points for this relentess piece of material, which are then subjected to Tone’s MP3 Deviation tec…
The Stargate Tapes
"Sharing social circles and spiritual ideologies with artists such as Iasos, Connie Demby and Deuter, whilst splitting label release schedules with Laraaji, Laurie Spiegel and Wendy Carlos, the unique Florida raised soul mate duo known as Emerald Web released their privately pressed debut LP at an axis where post-prog rock met proto-new age and ambient electronic music. At the turn of the 1980s Bob Stohl and Kat Epple embarked on a ten-year spiritual journey playing at planetariums and laser sho…
2nd Movement
Continue reprints of the amazing tapes by Pierpaolo Zoppo aka Mauthausen Orchestra released on Aquilifer Sodality in the early eighties. Tape after tape Mauthausen Orchestra constitute, in a few years, the backbone of what we will know as an alienating and extremist style, made of metal nightmares and sonic torture , often dilated, dissected and extended up to the limit of endurance. 2nd Movement carry us, once again, as real rituals of a civilization without gods, in a pure world of suffering. …
French Antarctica
probably the most anticipated record of the year for this household. the clip below has been on repeat for a couple months. Kye is proud to present 'French Antarctica', the debut LP by Good Area. Drawing from a palette of guitar, rhythm box, cornet, shortwave radio and room activity Good Area have crafted the ultimate stand-alone testament to instantaneous expression. Bypassing such obsolete concepts as dexterity and restraint 'French Antarctica' cuts loose with a raw unbridled rush of creative …
In emptiness there is truth (Call no man happy until he is dead)
A soundwork commissioned for the 2010 edition of the Ravello Festival, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Stefania Miscetti and Gianluca Ranzi. Voice: Seijiro Murayama. Voice recording engineer and EQ: Stefano Pilia Original stereo mix: John Duncan. All other sounds, recording, editing and mixing by ALH.
“In relation to this soundwork, the extended overtones created by the clashing frequencies of the ‘ghost chorus’ could indeed be read as faint glimmerings of a sublime imperative. This imperative,…
A big circle drawn with little hands
A big circle drawn with little hands was created from a box of things sent to Steve Roden by label owner Sylvian, who runs the ini itu label. the box contained everything from newspapers, coins, wooden toys, pamphlets, plastic objects, plastic bags, broken airline headphones, notes, a bottle opener, a noise maker of wood, a small electronic toy shaped like a butterfly that offered tones and animal noises, cardboard, a fan, and other things. i also used a banjo in the first track, and my voice in…
End Line
Ottaven new LP issued in a tiny run of 100 copies only, a strong and puzzling mixture of tapes, electronics, varispeeding, and multiple exposures, carefully executed, with much precision and clarity. Flipping between noisily bristling electronic frequencies and blustery washes of oscillating tones, Ottaven sounds carefully programmed even in its most frentic moments, and offers several blasts abrasive enough to unclog the dirtiest pore.
Natural causes
Two new tracks from LA based duo Pedestrian Deposit. Side A is a little more noisy than last works, starting from jon's harsh-noise origins and the use of multiple layers of sound, they created a piece of musique concrète, near of what they did in Austere.Side B is dominated by shannon's cello and behind it, the sound of manipulated electronics and minimal textures to build the perfect background.
Nepenthe
Julianna Barwick returns with the successor to 2011's charming The Magic Place. Given how successful that self-recorded LP was, it’s surprising to see that the Louisiana-born singer has looked to an external producer to document and frame her work this time around, namely Sigur Ros associate Alex Somers. Barwick once again uses delay-pedals to build heaven-scraping towers of chorused plainsong out of her earnestly, achingly pretty soprano, placing them in what John Foxx - whose 90s’ ambient reco…
Jedwabnik
More music involving the seemingly always-at-work Wojciech Kucharczyk (does the man ever sleep?), this time in a quartet alongside B a ej Król, Jerzy Mazzoll and Radek Dziubek. The project's title Dwutysi czny translates as 'two thousand' - referring, according to a brief recent interview with Easterndaze, to the year when Król first came across the music of the other three players, a discovery that eventually led him to write to them to ask if they'd donate him some of their recorded sounds to …
Shut In
'Shut In' is a "Beautiful piece of Easy Listening for Cabin Fever courtesy of Kevin Drumm" says Editions Mego, and who are we to argue? It yields some of the inimitable artist's most beautiful, oneiric sounds since his immense 'Imperial Distortion' album for Hospital Productions; in fact, we wouldn't be surprised if we were told it came from those same sessions. One singular piece unfolds for just over 30 minutes across two sides, slowly radiating a sort of soothing harmonic balm with an …
Live At Sant'Anna Arresi Jazz Festival
Saturn calls, Istanbul responds! After releasing a handful of beautiful releases last year that brought them to the attention of the free jazz scene, Konstrukt come back with a fantastic album recorded in collaboration with Mr. Marshall Allen, the legendary saxophonist of the Sun Ra Arkestra (aka the best band ever landed on Earth). Cosmic, cathartic, spiritual free jazz in its purest form! When music can make you travel with your imagination like this, building bridges between different…
Amulet
Oren Ambarchi live recordings assembled on Cheryl Cole's iPhone at her house in Winnipeg. Not really, but it's that's how I first misread the description. Amulet actually presents two iPhone recordings assembled at Chez Cole, Winnipeg, July 2013 by the inestimable Oren Ambarchi. We've no further info but from what we can hear these are rudimentary iPhone recordings excerpted and crudely edited from a live performance (a shard of applause possibly gives the game away) between rippling, dynamicall…
Rehearsal tapes and alt. Takes NYC 1976-1978
"Connie Burg and I met Sumner Crane and Nancy Arlen in late 1975 and quickly decided to start a band. Sumner had been playing piano since he was a kid and I trumpet, guitar and more recently bass, but we were for the most part self taught. Connie decided to pick up a guitar and we started jamming in Nancy’s loft on Broadway and Duane St. where Sumner lived downstairs. For the first few months it was just piano, bass and acoustic guitar, with some paper bag percussion from Nancy. Our biggest rock…
A vacant lot to be in
Jason Zeh is a hands-down master of cassette tape and cassette playback devices. Using magnets, metal, plastic, car stereo tape adapters, cassette players without tape, cassette tape loops, modified tape decks, and sand paper (among other devices), Zeh creates two tracks that swim through hiss, grit, and wavering, fractured soundwaves to create some of the most engaging audio I've had the pleasure to hear. This recording reflects not only Zeh's dedication to mastering and refining his source mat…
Patagonian Field Recordings
Carlos Casas is a filmmaker and visual artist from Barcelona. His work is a cross between documentary film, cinema, and contemporary visual and sound arts. In 2001 he started a trilogy of works dedicated to the most extreme environments on the planet, Patagonia, Aral sea, and Siberia, with a particular interest on how humans relate with the territory they occupy. These tracks comes fro…
Tram Vibration
Date : December 28, 2006. Place : Inside a tram on a round trip from Ebisu-cho to Hamadera Ekimae on the Hankai Line (12:03- 13:46) in Osaka, Japan. Tsunoda captured solid vibrations using a piezo-ceramic sensor and a stethoscope, and Haco used her 'stereo bugscope' (two inductive microphones) system to catch electromagnetic sounds.